You still have until midnight to get those taxes in. • Politico confirms that the White House meddled in the affairs of the EPA in order to roll back any greenhouse gas emissions restrictions on existing power plants. • This long Barney Frank interview is getting attention for one sentence on health care that Frank [...]

Have some last-minute pre-travel business to take care of, so checking out a bit early. Can’t wait for Tuesday’s Wanker of the Decade from Atrios! • Mark Schmitt calls the campaign against ALEC “surprisingly effective, but agrees that it will probably not lead to a complete dissolution of ALEC itself. In case you missed it, [...]

I passed over 9,000 posts at FDL over the weekend. So that was fun. • The first round of talks with Iran on their nuclear program showed enough progress that the two sides scheduled a new round of talks for late May in Baghdad. • The World Bank Presidency outcome will probably be known on [...]

Let’s wrap up on a rainy day here in LA, with thunderstorms to boot. • The Administration has been talking about the Buffett rule because it polls well. That’s where this begins and ends. • Didn’t have time to go into this paper on the “causes of the foreclosure crisis,” from economists at the Boston [...]

Need to get some things done this afternoon. I’m going to be on RT’s The Alyona Show later today talking about that SIGTARP report on the Hardest Hit Fund. • I’m going to go with big miscalculation on the Administration’s nixing of an LGBT protection executive order. • Don’t look now, but the first-time jobless [...]

I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that I’m going to be going on vacation for two weeks, starting April 20, returning May 4. Don’t fret, I have a great group of writers lined up to fill in over that period. More details as they develop. • Former Congressman Joe [...]

The beat goes on… • Great piece from Lambert Strether on how the banks have made code into law. • The twists in the Trayvon Martin case today are profoundly bizarre. George Zimmerman set up a Geocities page for his legal defense. A family member accuses Eric Holder of racism. Then Zimmerman’s lawyers hold a [...]

I had thought I would be traveling this week to Pittsburgh to report from one of the first in a series of spring shareholder activism events, this one against Bank of New York Mellon. However, they changed the dates of the meeting and I can no longer attend. But expect some coverage of that event [...]

Saw Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress, and I would call it simultaneously Stillman’s worst movie and one of the better movies you’re going to see all year. He is an acquired taste, however. Best movie I’ve seen this year is Jiro Dreams of Sushi. • The US and Western powers delivered preconditions for the beginning [...]

Happy Passover, Happy Easter, Happy every other religious holiday that falls within a two-month window. • First, the housing stuff. The Fed gave its blessing for banks to rent out foreclosed properties, which will hopefully create more “right to rent” programs and not just create a whole new mass of absentee landlords. • Just as [...]

Opening Day in baseball! Where hope springs eternal, only to be crushed slowly and inexorably over the next six months, until the team with the most money wins. It’s very American. • Jamie Dimon describes the mortgage crisis in a letter to shareholders as a “collective brain freeze.” Well, that’s one piece of testimony I’d [...]