WASHINGTON (AP) — When Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney decried the "prairie fire" of U.S. debt Tuesday, he ignored some of the sparks that set it ablaze.

One was the Great Recession that took hold before Barack Obama became president. That landmark event went unmentioned in Romney's speech. Another was a series of Bush-era tax cuts that Romney wants to follow with even lower rates.

Instead he laid the blame on Obama, a president who has certainly increased the nation's eye-popping debt — but not, as Romney claimed, by nearly as much as all other presidents combined.

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Mitt Romney hammered President Obama over the federal deficit, as House Speaker John Boehner warned of another battle brewing over the debt ceiling.

As one of the only banks that remained profitable during the financial crisis of 2008, JPMorgan was considered by many to be the sturdiest bank in the world.

But in the wake of news that the bank had lost $2 billion due to a trading mistake, it now appears that CEO Jamie Dimon was over-confident when he pointed to the strength of his institution as an argument for limited regulation. Over the past few years, Dimon has railed against new rules aimed at protecting the American economy from another meltdown, saying they constitute an excessive regulatory response.

Dimon, who has earned a reputation for brash talk, once called international bank rules "anti-American" and said public criticism of bankers is "a form of discrimination." Dimon has referred to the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act as "Dodd Frankenstein."

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DES MOINES – Returning to the state that launched Barack Obama’s path to the presidency, Mitt Romney went on offense Tuesday, accusing his rival of carelessly driving the country into "a financial crisis of both debt and spending that threaten what it means to be an American."

Mitt Romney accused President Obama of supporting increased federal debt, putting the economy on a disastrous course, in a speech in Iowa on Tuesday.

Hours after François Hollande was sworn in as France's new president, his plane was hit by lightning as he flew to Germany for debt talks. No one was hurt.

PARIS — Francois Hollande became president of France on Tuesday in a ceremony steeped in tradition, taking over a country with deep debts and worried about Europe's future and pledging to make it a fairer place.

Hollande is only the second Socialist president of modern France, after Francois Mitterrand's 1981-1995 tenure, and rode to the presidency on a wave of resurgent leftist sentiment amid Europe's debt crisis and anti-free-market protests around the world.

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The bailouts only helped the banks, buried Americans further in debt they will never payoff, and froze economic growth.
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President Obama established a National Women's Health Week and delivered a commencement address at Barnard, underscoring how much he's relying on the working class white male vote. Allen West probably didn't gain any female support when he compared his wife to his favorite possession. And Ron Paul effectively dropped out of the Republican primary, a fate he could've avoided had he taken our advice and changed his campaign slogan to "Ron Paul: America's Gold Standard." This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, May 14th, 2012:

DOES STABILIZING CREDIT RISK TICKLE YOUR FANCY? THEN DO WE HAVE A STORY FOR YOU! - AP: "The Senate is nearing a final vote on legislation to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank for three years and raise its lending cap from the current $100 billion to $140 billion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate would take up five Republican amendments before taking a final vote on Tuesday. If, as expected, the Senate passes the bill after defeating the amendments, the bill goes to the president. The House easily passed the measure last week despite opposition from some conservative groups that argued that the government should not have a role in the market place." [AP]

WHERE'S THE RE(LOVE)UTION, MAN? - Running in tomorrow's Roll Call from Jonathan Strong: "A libertarian organization that paid for plane tickets and other expenses for Rep. Ron Paul says after an audit that the Texas Republican defrauded the group for around $20,000. The group and is pushing Paul for repayment and is exploring legal remedies. The Liberty Committee, a nonprofit group headed by former Paul aide David James, said in an April 16 letter that around two thirds of the 63 airline tickets the group reimbursed Paul for were also paid for by taxpayers. 'In short, this practice of double or duplicate billing enriched you while draining funds intended for legitimate projects,' the letter read. Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said James, who worked for Paul for 18 years and says he still supports the lawmaker's political message, is 'pursuing a personal grudge' against the Texas Republican. Benton said Paul will be 'happy' to review the allegations."

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To Brooksley Born, JPMorgan Chase's trading blowup looks a lot like the Long-Term Capital Management debacle of 14 years ago.

It's "happening all over again," Born told The Huffington Post on Monday. "We have to learn from these experiences, and we don't seem to be doing it yet."

Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1996 to 1999, was one of the earliest observers to warn about the dangers of unregulated derivatives. She was thwarted in her efforts to impose regulation in the late 90s despite the cautionary tale of LTCM, a hedge fund that needed a government bailout in 1998 after making risky bets on credit derivatives and government bonds. As a Public Citizens report released Monday, "Forgotten Lessons of Deregulation: Rolling Back Dodd-Frank's Derivatives Rules Would Repeat a Mistake that Led to the Financial Crisis," points out, Born and other regulation advocates at the time cited LTCM as a prime example of the need for regulation and the risks of the market's opacity.

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