Chaos and rivalries in the White House and the cabinet Washington veterans agree that no president has ever attacked his own Attorney General the way Donald Trump has gone after Jeff Sessions.  One former Senate colleague predicts "holy hell to pay" if Trump fires the nation's top law enforcement officer. Meantime, the new communications director says he and the chief of staff are "brothers"… like Cain and Abel, suggesting one won't survive. Early in the President's term, is he heading for a "constitutional crisis?"

A Cascade of Secret Intelligence Leaks Reporters for Newsweek, the Daily Beast and the New York Times have recently revealed that President Obama chooses the "kill lists" for unmanned drones and that the US conspired with Israel to disable Iran's nuclear program with the Stuxnet computer virus. Has the Obama White House leaked too much classified information to enhance his re-election campaign?  Are leaks threatening national security? Does the public have a right to know?

It's Labor Day, Where's Organized Labor? The first Labor Day was in 1894, but in 2010, union membership in the private sector is 7.2% and declining. Two years into the Great Recession, 15 million Americans are unemployed. Recovery is underway and companies are making money.  But they're not hiring. If the labor movement were stronger, could it turn things around, or do the benefits unions won for their members discourage business from creating new jobs? Do public sector unions put taxpayers on the hook? Would everybody be better off if middle class America could afford American products?

Stimulus or Austerity?: That Is the Question The consensus is that federal stimulus spending helped to prevent recession from becoming depression and got recovery under way. President Obama is committed to pumping up the recovery with continued spending and to his campaign promise not to raise taxes on households earning less than $250,000 a year. Deficit hawks say it’s time to raise taxes and get spending under control. But would premature austerity measures stop the recovery in its tracks? From the G-20 conference to Capitol Hill, and even within the Obama White House, policy makers are sharply divided. White House budget director Peter Orszag has announced his resignation , and insiders say it’s due to frustration with the lack of aggressive action against the growing fiscal deficit. What are the lessons of history? Are states like New Jersey and countries like Ireland unwilling participants in what could be a dangerous experiment?

Banks Still Pose a Significant Headache for Obama The Obama Administration does not want to nationalize banks that appear to be failing, and Congress is not likely to come up with more bailout money. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner brushed aside concerns , saying that there's enough bank bailout money left so he won't have to ask Congress for more. But what about those "stress tests" now being conducted on the nineteen biggest banks? If the economic crisis gets worse, will they have enough money to lend? If the stress tests are set up so that nobody fails, will they have credibility? If they reveal basic problems, will result be panic rather than reassurance?