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There is compelling new evidence that Republicans will rue the day that they allowed their virulent anti-immigrant wing to grab the controls of the Republican Party.

Missing from almost all discussion of America's dizzying rate of unemployment is the brute fact that hourly wages of people with jobs have been dropping, adjusted for inflation. Average weekly earnings rose a bit this spring only because the typical worker put in more hours, but June's decline in average hours pushed weekly paychecks down at an annualized rate of 4.5 percent.

We're falling into a double-dip recession. The Labor Department reports this morning that the private sector added a measly 41,000 net new jobs in May. (The vast bulk of new jobs in May were temporary government Census workers.) But at least 100,000 new jobs are needed every month just to keep up with population growth. In other words, the labor market continues to deteriorate. The average length of unemployment continues to rise - now up to 34.4 weeks (up from 33 weeks in April). That's another record. More Americans are too discouraged to look for a job than last year at this time (1.1 million in May, an increase of 291,000 from a year earlier.)

The President's Press Secretary is half Nixonian self-pity and half Hannity/Palin caricature of the Left

It's a perfect storm. And I'm not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I'm talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

Reactions to World Bank president Robert Zoellick's suggestion that gold might be used as part of a package of measures to reconstruct the international system ranged from the lukewarm to the bewildered.

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Pentagon reporters on Tuesday that existing policies such as housing and spousal benefits for military service members "can and should be applied equally to homosexuals as well as heterosexuals."

This is not a recovery. It's a continuing jobs emergency and it demands action.

Apart from its extraordinary cost and regressive tilt, the tax deal negotiated between the President and the Republicans has another fatal flaw. It confirms the Republican worldview.

The deal the President struck with Republican leaders is an abomination.

"It's a hoax," said coal company CEO Don Blankenship, "because clearly anyone that says that they know what the temperature of the Earth is going to be in 2020 or 2030 needs to be put in an asylum because they don't." On the other side of the debate was environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. "Ninety-eight percent of the research climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impacts are going to be catastrophic," he argued. "There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice of believing the 98 percent or the 2 percent." To social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, it's not surprising that two people can disagree so strongly over science. Braman is on the faculty at George Washington University and part of The Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars who study how cultural values shape public perceptions and policy

Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner.[2] The film examines large-scale agricultural food production in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by this type of economic enterprise have many hidden costs and are unhealthy and environmentally-harmful. The film is narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, two long-time critics of the industrial production of food.[3][4] The documentary generated extensive controversy in that it was heavily criticized by large American corporations engaged in industrial food production.[2]

Warring against waste, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday he is ordering a top-to-bottom paring of the military bureaucracy in search of at least $10 billion in annual savings needed to prevent an erosion of U.S. combat power.

Economist, author and commentator Robert Kuttner contrasts U.S. economic policies with those found in most Scandinavian countries.

After eating a bowl of oatmeal and drafting ten talking points, Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) spoke for nine hours in opposition to the tax-cut deal struck between President Obama and congressional Republicans. "We should be embarrassed," he said, "that we are for one second talking about a proposal that gives tax breaks to billionaires while we are ignoring the needs of working families, low-income people and the middle class."1 2 3 Mark Madoff, son of Bernard L. Madoff, hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment while his toddler slept in a nearby bedroom; court documents filed last year suggest that Mark Madoff made almost $67 million through his father's Ponzi scheme.4 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London on charges of sexual assault. "That sounds like good news to me," said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.5 State Department cables leaked this week revealed that Saudi media executives, over coffee in a Jeddah Starbucks, extolled the power of American television in the fight against Islamic extremism, while Saudi diplomats expressed their admiration for the movies Insomnia and Michael Clayton.6 Taymour Abdelwahab, a Swedish citizen, set off a car bomb and then blew himself up in Stockholm on Saturday, injuring two in what authorities believe was a botched attempt at a larger attack, and imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Online discussion of the chair symbolizing his absence from the ceremony in Oslo prompted authorities in China to censor the phrases "empty chair," "empty seat," "empty stool" and "empty table" from the country's major social networking sites.7 8 9

The Big Money economy is booming. According to a new Commerce Department report, third-quarter profits of American businesses rose at an annual record-breaking $1.659 trillion - besting even the boom year of 2006 (in nominal dollars). Profits have soared for seven consecutive quarters now, matching or beating their fastest pace in history.