David Dayen

It is with a heavy heart that I wrap up these eight-plus years of writing things on the Internet. The concurrence between my last day and the end of the Mayan calendar, by the way, is purely coincidental; I do think there will be news after today, and most likely people covering it (anyway, the [...]

I was racking my brain for one final story that sums up this era in politics, the state of our world circa 2012, and I have to give it to this one from a few days ago. William Bryan Jennings, whose parents obviously hoped for a Progressive populist reformer as a child, grew up to [...]

If there’s going to be reform to the Senate’s rules, it’s going to have to come from the Senate itself. That’s the implication of a ruling in federal court today throwing out a Constitutional challenge to the filibuster. Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the plaintiffs in the case, who claimed that the Senate used an [...]

So Democrats have reached the bargaining phase of the fiscal slope debacle. It’s hard to say whether they’re pushing this because they think they have an opportunity to avoid the austerity bomb or because they know they have no partner on the other side, but either way, the result is the Democratic leadership, at least [...]

In a bizarre press conference, NRA Chairman Wayne LaPierre called for the immediate placement of armed guards in all public schools. This is classic “fighting the last war” thinking, along with a dash of “think of the children” policymaking. Just quickly, because you shouldn’t even dignify this with much of a response. One, it would [...]

Let’s just stipulate something for the record. If the Congressional Budget Office were asked to step in and score John Boehner’s “Plan B,” it would score as an increase to the deficit by about $4.9 trillion over ten yeas. If CBO scored the Obama plan, it would score as an increase to the deficit by [...]

Former Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will become the next nominee for Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Clinton and creating another Senate vacancy. President Obama will formally announce the nomination today at the White House, according to sources. He is not expected to face much resistance in the Senate for confirmation. Kerry will likely recuse [...]

This seems like a great time for banks to start loosening their lending standards. After all, household balance sheets are strengthening, and with mortgage rates so low, they can better afford the loans. Oh wait, you’re not talking about banks loosening their lending standards to individual homeowners? Only to corporations? Never mind. Regulators are concerned [...]

General business has kept me from reading the deposition Matt Taibbi writes about here, but it sounds amazing. Anyone who’s seen the movie Inside Job will recall the stupendously angering scene in which (Mitt Romney advisor Glenn) Hubbard pissily snaps at his interviewer for asking about his outside relationships with financial services industry [...] “This [...]

Say what you will about the 2010 deal to extend the Bush tax cuts, which helped to set up what we’re seeing this month. But there was definitely a virtue in getting it done by early December, allowing for a productive lame duck session that repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, passed the New START arms [...]

I couldn’t think of a more fitting story on my last day of blogging to symbolize the nature of our government than the aborting of Plan B, wherein House Republicans couldn’t even pass a messaging bill with no chance of advancing. Sometimes we’ve seen Speaker Boehner miscount the votes – the most notable time I [...]