The Great Sequester Hoo-Hah is upon us! A quick rundown of stories I collected today reads like a dipstick plunged into the perpetual engine of wealth reallocation, which is exactly what the defense budget is, has been and will be so long as the Two-Party collaboration drapes its political fortunes

Once again this year, the Westminster Dog Show attracted millions of viewers eager to see which dog will garner the bluest of ribbons. Also once again this year, millions of discarded and unwanted dogs will be executed in overcrowded shelters, far away from the glaring lights of cable television. Yes,

Just when you were afraid to go back into the murky waters of HLN, the channel formerly known as Headline News comes through with an important story about the abusive practices of industrial farming and the bogus censorship laws corporations have secured from compliant state legislatures. Take a look at

This media spin on the “drop” in defense spending is bogus. And it reveals how most “reporters” don’t look beyond the press release they are handed. Except for the irrepressible Brad Plumer, who wrote this in the WonkBlog: Was this big plunge in defense spending unusual? Yes and no. To

Today, CNBC debuted a new Wall Street soap opera — “As The Markets Turn.” The show’s primary love triangle features mega-billionaire Carl Icahn, wannabe mega-billionaire and Vitalis hair model Bill Ackman, and a recently embattled “global nutrition and weight management company” — Herbalife. The epic battle between Icahn and Ackman,

The marketing mavens at Coca-Cola must long for those halcyon days of yore when the simple act of drinking an ice-cold Coke occupied a spot in the Great American Pantheon—right next to mom, her apple pie and the Chevy in which you may have been conceived. In 1980, the slogan

What is happening in northern Africa? Suddenly, we’ve got a war in Mali, “terrorist-jihadist-militant-one-eyed-something-or-others” in Algeria and the dreaded Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb threatening the entire region! Question: When Leon Panetta talks, does anyone listen? Why? Because Panetta knows exactly what is happening, according to an overlooked story

  The Economy, Stupid. Homebuilder Confidence in U.S. Held in January at Six-Year High Florida Defies Housing Rebound as Foreclosures Soar As manufacturing bounces back from recession, unions are left behind Number of U.S. “Working Poor” Is on the Increase Whole Foods CEO says Obama healthcare law is ‘more like

Insurance companies make a simple wager with you each time you sign a policy. They are betting that, over the life of the policy, they will pay out less to you and your beneficiaries than you will pay them. Insurance companies of all kinds make tidy profits on this simple

Few things in American life are as reliable as the perpetual “crisis” facing Social Security. Although it has been artfully re-branded as “the problem of entitlements”—a change that couples it with spiraling Medicare costs and implies that the “entitled” get something they want, but do not deserve—the basic idea that