The New Republic

This is from the front page of Friday's Financial Times: "New fears over subprime fallout."  Well, that was in the morning; and by the 4 o'clock close the three FT exemplars of very troubled financial institutions had gone down some more.  Citigroup by 7% on Thursday and another 2% on Friday to $37, down from a year high of $57.  But the real damage was in the two main insurers of municipal bonds, Ambac, which was down 20% for the day, has virtually collapsed over the year from $96 to $23, with READ MORE >>

My November 2 Spine on the Mukasey hearings was unduly pessimistic about how Democrats would behave regarding the president's attorney general appointment.  At least two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote to confirm him, and two very significant members at that.  Both of them are reasonable in that they don't want there not to be an attorney general, especially when the designee is a moderate person whose honesty is palpable and whose concern for the Const READ MORE >>

Judging tenure battles from the outside is a dangerous business. READ MORE >>

If the Democrats think that waterboarding and other tactics against terrorism is constitutionally verboten, let them pass a law against it.  This is their option, and if the President vetoes it, the political fight, even the moral fight, would be crystal clear.I'm always slightly embarrassed agreeing with the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.  But that's its wisdom this morning and I am afraid to say I agree.  A confirmation hearing is a grotesque stage for a battle over constitutional e READ MORE >>

Robert Rubin is a very accomplished person.  He is smart, he is honorable and he thinks for the long haul.  That's certainly how he behaved as Secretary of the Treasury (and how he also behaved during the ugly fracas over Larry Summers at the Harvard Corporation).  Certainly people have been wondering what he thinks about the disaster that is now unfolding in the credit crisis and about how dishonestly the rating business has been pursued.  It's not an abstract curiosity.  Citigroup has been dragged down by these events, and Robert Rubin is a big player in Citigroup, which the Wall Street J READ MORE >>

...to Buddy Cianci, former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island whose comeback after a four-and-a-half year federal prison sentence for racketeering conspiracy I wrote about this week. READ MORE >>

"Fruitless Conversations" was what I dubbed the round of talks Condi Rice was having -- pre-Annapolis -- with various folk who'd had experience navigating the shoals between Israel and the Palestinians.  It was not an impressive calendar.  Bill Clinton talked to her on the phone.  Henry Kissinger, James Baker and Mrs. READ MORE >>

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Providence, Rhode Island READ MORE >>

In my other postings on Dubai and its intimate neighbors, the other principalities of the United Arab Emirates, I focused on the inhuman treatment of the foreign workers "without whose brain and muscle" not a brick would be laid or a drink served.  These foreigners are roughly 90% of the population.  The New York Times had another take on Dubai.  To its columnists, news reporters and the travel section, Dubai was a fantasy in sand, seven star hotels, the tallest building in the world, culture, yes, real culture imported like caviar, celebrities, even a ski slope.Now comes the grim truth...i READ MORE >>