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As President Obama begins the second half of his term with a campaign for "jobs and competitiveness," we would do well to consider how he might achieve these worthy goals. It is jobs that matter most to the vast majority of Americans, and unemployment remains at 9.4 percent - about double its pre-recession level. This is a terrible punishment to inflict on millions of Americans who did nothing to deserve it. It will cause long-term and even permanent damage to many of the unemployed and their children.

The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned - and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.

David Brooks, in an op / ed piece to the New York times, discovers that participation in the market does not magically transform human beings into the rational beings that one could easily see that they aren't by ... oh, say, talking to them.

OBAMAS BLACK OPS TO PROMOTE GUN CONTROL LEAVES CLUES

"How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy. Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, 'Four Deformations of the Apocalypse.'

Welcome to my new blog, The Palin Express. This blog seeks the goal of support of Sarah Palin, Governor Sarah Palin in any of her endeavors. Also op-eds on relevant news.

"Structural" unemployment is a fake problem, which mainly serves as an excuse for not pursuing real solutions.

AMONG the top items left on the Senate's to-do list before the November elections is a "paycheck fairness" bill, which would make it easier for women to file class-action, punitive-damages suits against employers they accuse of sex-based pay discrimination.

Political rage is coming not from the jobless, but from the very privileged, who are furious at the thought of their tax cuts expiring.

There's a revolution brewing in the country. Could a third party be coming to challenge the Democrats and Republicans in 2012?

Media moguls have often promoted politicians who would serve their interests. But at Fox News, it isn't stopping there.

John Boehner is the quintessential example of shameless government figures guiding the fortunes of the rich and powerful.

I've written before about the crisis of inequality in the United States and about the quasi-religious abhorrence of "wealth redistribution" that causes many Americans to oppose tax increases, even on the ultra rich. The conviction that taxation is intrinsically evil has achieved a sadomasochistic fervor in conservative circles-producing the Tea Party, their Republican zombies, and increasingly terrifying failures of governance. Happily, not all billionaires are content to hoard their money in silence. Earlier this week, Warren Buffett published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he criticized our current approach to raising revenue. As he has lamented many times before, he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary is. Many conservatives pretend not to find this embarrassing. Conservatives view taxation as a species of theft-and to raise taxes, on anyone for any reason, is simply to steal more. Conservatives also believe that people become rich by creating value for others. Once rich, they cannot help but create more value by investing their wealth and spawning new jobs in the process. We should not punish our best and brightest for their success, and stealing their money is a form of punishment. Of course, this is just an economic cartoon. We don't have perfectly efficient markets, and many wealthy people don't create much in the way of value for others. In fact, as our recent financial crisis has shown, it is possible for a few people to become extraordinarily rich by wrecking the global economy. Nevertheless, the basic argument often holds: Many people have amassed fortunes because they (or their parent's, parent's, parents) created value. Steve Jobs resurrected Apple Computer and has since produced one gorgeous product after another. It isn't an accident that millions of us are happy to give him our money. But even in the ideal case, where obvious value has been created, how much wealth can one person be allowed to keep? A trillion doll