Citizens are taking extreme measures to ensure that they do not bring children into the stinking heap of decaying credit default swaps and sudden mortgage death that used to be called “America.” They are getting abortions and vasectomies all over the place, constantly, and tying tubes of every sort, even useless ones, like the ones in your ears. What does this mean for our next generation of leaders? They will grow up in uncrowded schools, with plenty to eat, provided they survive the current apocalypse. [Reuters]

North Carolinians, did you know your only national senator besides godless Kay Hagan is some guy who wanted his wife to withdraw his family’s entire savings from his local bank one ATM transaction at a time? If everyone had done this back in September, maybe we really could have had a good old-fashioned Depressiony bank run like in olden times. MORE »

Back in the day when people printed out the Internet every morning and handed the “House & Garden” section to their wives while they perused the latest news from Cuba, life was fine. Then the BlackBerry Machine came slithering out of Hell’s bowels and ruined everything, the end. This is the premise from which every Richard Cohen column proceeds. But hark, what about the days before the Internet, when Europe was riven by two World Wars and Jews had to flee horrible genocide and American citizens could expect to live out their “golden years” (age 35 onward) in abject poverty? Those times were truly great, because people were self-reliant. MORE »

Hey you squawking dingleberries on the cable teevee news? Are you aware there was a Stock Market Rally today? The S&P shot up 4%, which is … about a 10% “recovery.com” from the October collapse? Still! Anyway, obviously, this presidency is in dire shape, what with a very popular new president and all, so let’s watch this speech CLOSELY for signs of WEAKNESS. If you see any such sign, SELL OFF YOUR INVESTMENTS, and abandon your mortgage. It’s his fault! Let’s liveblog, with the best political liveblogging team in History. MORE »

Oh heavens, Madame Peggy Noonan, princess of the Wall Street Journal banking pamphlet, has journeyed outside her loft again: “A moment last Monday, just after noon, in Manhattan. It’s slightly overcast, not cold, a good day for walking. I’m in the 90s on Fifth heading south, enjoying the broad avenue, the trees, the wide cobblestone walkway that rings Central Park. Suddenly I realize: Something’s odd here.” MORE »

• House Republican Eric Cantor responded to some of his critics with the most verboten of language, a sinful technical foul of our Constitution that just last month forced beloved Rod Blagoveich to perform for mercy on the David Letterman program. [HuffPost]
• Another reprehensible instance of GOTCHA!-prepared-statement-giving-to-the-editorial-board-of-a-newspaper from the so-called “MSM”: Steve Austria, the Republican Kaiser of Ohio, blames America’s original great depression (”The Great Depression”) on FDR, despite FDR taking office four years after its start. [Matthew Yglesias]
• Barack Obama has now taken to ambiguously insulting Joe Biden — incidentally and in an off-puttingly earnest way — in public. All this is to avenge Justice Roberts’ honor. [Los Angeles Times]
• About half of America believes that a bunch of possible random names selected from the phone book — a group that in all likelihood would consist solely local mid-priced Italian restaurants — could do a better job in Congress than actual Congress. [Hit & Run]
• George W. Bush: kind of hot in high school. Andrew Sullivan prefers Dick Cheney though, which, ew. [Daily Dish]

• WE HEAR TACO BELL IS HIRING??: More lovely news from the American automotive industry, formerly a shining light of this rich nation’s manufacturing sector, and now simply a bunch of commies: “NEW YORK – General Motors Corp. will offer buyouts to all of its hourly employees, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday, as the troubled automaker continues to slash costs… A union official told The Associated Press then that GM would offer $20,000 in cash and a $25,000 car voucher for workers who retire early and those who simply leave the company.” Oooh, we’d take that. $25,000 cars! You can just drive around forever in one of those things. [AP]

Hey people cheer up! Your Nate Silver, that mathbot you all loved so much until the election was over, has persisted with his math and numbers to this very day. Most of the time he just worries about that whole boring sordid Franken/Coleman mess in Wasilla. But maybe because Depression reporting is such a “hot trend,” he has written about what the chances are we will actually enter one of these depression thingums in the near future. MORE »

• UGH: “DETROIT — Chrysler says it will close all 30 of its manufacturing plants for a month starting Friday.” It’ll be like a vacation for auto workers, except they won’t travel anywhere and will enter poverty. We just couldn’t afford that $14 billion loan! [AP]

The New York Times‘ Nobel laureate beardclown Paul Krugman has quite a Keynes Boner in this morning’s column. He wants the Obama administration to flood as much money as possible into the government and not to be dandies about Debt. You know that famous socialist president FDR? Well he was a pussy: “One of these prejudices is the fear of red ink. In normal times, it’s good to worry about the budget deficit — and fiscal responsibility is a virtue we’ll need to relearn as soon as this crisis is past. When depression economics prevails, however, this virtue becomes a vice. F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget in 1937 almost destroyed the New Deal.” Sure! If the Chinese will pay for Obama’s non-lame New Deal, then hey, why not, rock ‘n’ roll, where’s my refundable tax credit already? [NYT]

Not that you’d know it from the collapse of real estate, manufacturing, finance, retail and basic employment, but America is now officially in a Recession! In the third quarter of this wretched year of Our Lord — which doesn’t even include the 1929-style stock market collapse this month — the economy shrunk by .03%. Not outrageously terrible, as the never-ever-correct people known as economists predicted a half-percent contraction, but it’s still the worse since Our Terrorized Quarter of 9/11. Never forget! MORE »