Politicus USA has the article Obama Drops The Hammer On Republicans, ‘Nobody Gets To Hold The American Economy Hostage.’.

During a speech in New Orleans, LA, President Obama strongly told Republicans that he will not allow them to hold the economy hostage with another government shutdown.

Obama has so little credibility in being a tough negotiator that the following Freudian slip in the article was almost inevitable:

President Obama dropped the hammer on Republican dreams of causing chaos in September. If Republicans cause a crisis, it is clear that the President is going to get roped into their dysfunctional drama.

I think they meant to say that “the President is NOT going to get roped into their dysfunctional drama.” As I said, with his level of credibility about getting roped in, I can’t be sure if they meant what they published or it was the error that I thought it was.

The New York Times has the column Crash-Test Dummies as Republican Candidates for President by Paul Krugman.

And you can see why. “Obama is endangering America by borrowing from China” is a perfect political line, playing into deficit fetishism, xenophobia and the perennial claim that Democrats don’t stand up for America! America! America! It’s also complete nonsense, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

The phrase “deficit fetishism” comes dangerously close to Krugman’s telling the American public the truth about “deficits” in a country that creates its own money with the push of a few keystrokes. Also this is country where all government debt is denominated in the currency we freely create. And also “debt” instruments which other countries are glad to keep to the tune of trillions of dollars. What part of this picture fits any Republicans fantasies about how money works? None, that I can see.

Next thing you know Paul Krugman will actually state that he knows what Modern Money Theory is all about, and in large part it explains how money works. That’s going to be a tough one for him, though, after how dismissive of MMT he has been in the past.

iafrica.com has the article Kim credits nukes for deal with South.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said nuclear weapons – not negotiating skills – secured this week’s “landmark” agreement with South Korea,…

I have contended for a while now that the situation with North Korea proves to the rest of the world that the only way to get respect from the USA and its allies is to have nuclear weapons. This becomes an important lesson when we think about the Iranian nuclear deal. Do we want to reject the deal and prove to Iran that they can only get our respect if they have nuclear weapons? Or do we want to prove to Iran that we can negotiate fair compromises without their need to have nuclear weapons? What lesson do we want to teach others about what it takes to deal with the USA?

See my previous post The Iran Nuclear Deal – Answer to Propaganda From Dennis Prager.