Home foreclosures are up, unemployment is up, food stamp usage is up, and bankruptcy filings – well, they’re up, too.

So what does The Oklahoman, the Sooner State’s largest daily newspaper (which recently had to lay off nearly sixty employees) choose to fixate upon: “Self-funded political races often turn out poorly.”

No kidding – as do races that PACs and lobbyists heavily finance.

In a house editorial, brimming with a grumpy attitude, The Oklahoman scornfully wrote that self-funding is all the rage, with candidates loaning their campaigns their own bucks to “jump start” the process, and that the end goal of such investments is winning (duh!) coupled with the hope that donors will “cover the loans.”

The paper especially singled out Grand Old Party members who are running for statewide office in Oklahoma and are heavy donors to their own campaigns, namely Mark Costello (commissioner for labor candidate who is a businessman) and Dr. Janet Barresi (state superintendent of public instruction candidate who is a dentist). (more…)

It has been fascinating to observe how a multinational corporation that is so popular and trusted can be so flatfooted and incapable of responding to a crisis.

Like many of these crises it started small. The corporation seemed invincible and underwent major growth. Some worried the growth was too fast and retained doubts about the science and the technology. However, these warnings were on the fringe and were easily ignored…

… until three months ago, when the corporation suddenly found itself at the center of crisis after crisis, its science and technology revealed to be hopelessly flawed, shoddy even.

Inside the corporation denial took over, but eventually it became clear the problem was structural.  In a rush for profits and market dominance, executives had ignored procedures, falsified data, and then covered up or tried to minimize their falsifications.

Compounding the problem — the head of the corporation remained silent until he was forced to respond to the concerns of the American people: (more…)