By KAREEM FAHIM (NYT)

In a defiant speech to supporters, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi also seemed to leave open a door to negotiations.

By MARK LANDLER and JENNIFER STEINHAUER (NYT)

Expressing hopefulness, Democrats see hints of Republican flexibility on ways to generate more revenue.

By TRIP GABRIEL (NYT)

Mitt Romney made a campaign stop outside a shuttered steel plant in Allentown, Pa., blaming its closing on the president’s economic policies.

Washington Gives Green Light for Attack on Unarmed Flotilla, Including Ship with 50 Americans on Board

The Obama admin appears to have given a green light to an Israeli attack on an unarmed flotilla carrying peace and human rights activists.

Sick: AZ Man Makes $12 Too Much to Get Coverage for Heart Surgery

Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court announced that it will not be taking action to stop planned Medicaid cuts or an enrollment freeze.

Debris Gives Space Station Crew Members a 29,000-M.P.H. Close Call

By KENNETH CHANG

Six crew members on the International Space Station took refuge in two capsules they would use to escape in case the station needed to be abandoned.

Egyptian Security Forces Clash With Protesters

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Egyptian security forces firing tear gas clashed with around 3,000 rock-throwing protesters in central Cairo late Tuesday, leaving dozens injured in the latest unrest to rattle the country.

(NYT)

The list of crises in Europe is frightening, as is the lack of vision of its leaders.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (NYT)

Investors were also keeping an eye on Greece, where the prime minister was trying to muster votes to pass a new austerity bill in Parliament.

The Democrats, in particular Joe Biden and Barack Obama, are out to make the moral case for tax increases. They claim the Republican position is immoral.

This is what happens when we debase morality in our American political culture.

For perspective, when Barack Obama was a state senator in Illinois, he was the only state senator to speak in opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. He stood up and made the case that if an infant is born alive in the process of an abortion, the doctor who botched the abortion should be able to finish off the kid, even though the child had exited the womb alive.

That, my friends, that is immoral.

Patterns: After Heart Attack, Delays in Critical Care

The resolution will send 4,200 Ethiopian soldiers to the disputed Abyei region, a move diplomats said was aimed at defusing tensions in the run-up to southern Sudan’s independence.

The Painful Collapse of Empire: How the "American Dream" and American Exceptionalism Wreck Havoc on the World

We must tell the truth about the domination that is at the heart of the American Dream so that we may face the brokenness of our world.

Dirty Spending Secrets

I am sure you know that the hallways of Congress are often dark alleys of wasteful spending and pork-laden deal-making. But, do you know how bad really is? They threaten to bankrupt our country as our national debt soars out of control. The victims often don’t even know it’s happening. Many don’t realize how bad it is.

Below are some of the dirty spending secrets that you should know!

·       Federal employees cost taxpayers $146 million each year when they upgrade to business class flights. The Government Accountability Office found that more than half of these upgrades were not properly authorized.

·       The government has spent $3 billion to re-sand our nation’s beaches. Advocates claim this prevents erosion and keeps the beaches attractive to tourists. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the sand does nothing to prevent erosion—and this sand gets swept out to sea just as easily as existing sand! 

·       Members of Congress have spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars supplying their offices and staff with the following items—popcorn machines, plasma televisions, DVD equipment, ionic air fresheners, camcorders, and signature machines. 

·       Washington is spending $2.6 million training foreign prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job. This is the kind of wasteful spending that Congress has stubbornly refused to cut. Instead, they planned to raise taxes on families and entrepreneurs by trillions of dollars!

The next dirty spending secret is that many in the Congress are determined to keep spending more, raising the federal debt (already more than $14 trillion and nearly 100% of our Gross Domestic Product), and increasing taxes.

Economic reports, corporate earnings and hearings this week in Washington.

By ROBERT F. WORTH (NYT)

The port city of Aden is now surrounded by roving gangs who have captured at least two towns, stormed prisons and looted banks and military depots.

Egyptian Leader Assures McCain and Kerry on Transition

By DINA SALAH AMER

Senators John McCain and John Kerry said that Egypt's interim military rulers wanted to transfer powers to an elected government "as soon as possible."

Chaos in Yemen Creates Opening for Islamist Gangs

By ROBERT F. WORTH

The port city of Aden is now surrounded by roving gangs who have captured at least two towns, stormed prisons and looted banks and military depots.

Several States Forbid Abortion After 20 Weeks

By ERIK ECKHOLM

On the theory that fetuses can feel pain after 20 weeks (an idea disputed by mainstream medicine), several states have banned abortions later than this.

Europe Stifles Drivers in Favor of Alternatives

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Cities in Europe want to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

On Thursday, the Department of Energy announced a release of thirty million barrels of crude oil over the next 60 days from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the nation’s stockpile supposedly set aside for emergency supply disruptions.

Upon hearing the news, my first question was “What’s the emergency?” Crude oil prices have been falling recently. The market abruptly fell 5%, which will affect gasoline prices in the short term, but the futures market is less convinced that the impact is permanent. (We noted last week, before the release, that the futures premium 6-12 months out was $2 to $3; now it is $4 to $5, all the better for the Koch Brothers.)

I concluded that the President’s goal is a bump in the polls, but that the effect would be short-lived. Most in the media concluded the same.

But then I reread the DOE press release: “… the U.S. and its partners in the International Energy Agency have decided … .” Ach so. Our International President strikes again. Ceding control of a uniquely American asset to an international body is troubling, but par for the course in the Obama Administration.

Europe helps itself by helping Greece

Researched by Gabriel Kazakias 6/26/20011

If Greece defaults on its debt, it would mean that those who (banks, governments and private investors) purchased any bonds would have to readjust their balance sheets. Other troubled countries such as Spain and Portugal could also follow leading to a wave of defaults that would severely affect the European zone and send shockwaves all the way to Wall Street.

Richard Bove’s conclusion, an analyst at Rochdale Research, is that Greece has defaulted already. We are arguing, he says, how to handle this situation in a way that is least destructive to the balance sheets. Ultimately an economy can generate so much debt that no matter what outsiders do, there is no solution.

It didn't work in Argentina. It didn't work in Brazil. It didn't work in Mexico. It didn't work in the whole Latin America during the crisis in the 1987 to 1991 period because Latin America had no accumulated savings. Europe, however, has massive amounts of accumulated savings and therefore European countries can blunt the blow by tapping the accumulated savings. But if the country is not generating the money, it simply can't pay the debt.

Although U.S. businesses are not severely exposed to Greece's economy, investors worry that if Greece defaults on its debt and leaves investors such as Greek bond holders out in the cold, financial trouble would spread to other troubled European economies, such as Spain's, Portugal's and Ireland's. If the European economy were to implode in a wave of defaults and associated bank failures, it could pull the U.S. economy down as well, since there is a lot of trade between the U.S. and Europe.

Europe has far more money as a whole than Latin America, so perhaps it can really help themselves and U.S. by helping Greece to avoid an economic disaster.

By HANNAH SELIGSON (NYT)

Out of necessity or choice, many people are weaving together a smattering of part-time positions to pay the bills.

By ROBERT H. FRANK (NYT)

How a payroll tax holiday, along with other measures, could quickly attack the nation’s unemployment problem.

(NYT)

Giving multinationals a big tax break on foreign profits won’t create more jobs.

Atop TV Sets, a Power Drain Runs Nonstop

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

The little boxes that usher cable signals and digital recording capacity into televisions have become the single-largest electricity drain in many American homes.