Some recent Essays I found insightful:

• Gretchen Morgenson, How the Thundering Herd Faltered and Fell, The New York Times, 08 November 2008.
  
  The Reckoning series at The New York Times.


• ** Michael Lewis, The End of Wall Street's Boom, Portfolio.com, 11 November 2008.
  Lewis is the author of Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage of Wall Street, 1989 (Amazon.com) and other books on the failings of the U.S. financial industry.
  This is one of the more useful essays I have read for understanding the financial industry's problems.


• Leslie Thatcher, Herve Kempf: Taking Responsibility for a Historic Crisis, TruthOut.org, 13 November 2008.
  Kempf is the author of How the Rich are Destroying the Earth, 2008 (Amazon.com).


• Lisa Bennett, Are Human Beings Hard-Wired to Ignore the Threat of Catastrophic Climate Change?, AlterNet.org, 14 November 2008.


• Frances Fox Piven, Obama Needs a Protest Movement, The Nation, 15 November 2008.
  Frances Fox Piven is the author of Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, 1977 (Amazon.com).


• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer, Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009, Project Censored.


• Paul B. Farrell, 30 reasons for Great Depression 2 by 2011, MarketWatch.com, 19 November 2008.


• Tom Engelhardt, Tomgram: A Consumer's Paradise of War; Stuff Happens: The Pentagon's Argument of Last Resort on Iraq, TomDispatch.com, 20 November 2008.


• Henry A. Giroux, Against the Militarized Academy, TruthOut.org, 20 November 2008.
  Giroux is the author of The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex, 2007 (Amazon.com).


• Jeremy Scahill, This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House, AlterNet.org, 20 November 2008.


• Joshua Holland, Dingell Loses to Waxman, and Auto Stocks Dive -- Call It What It Is: Corruption, AlterNet.org, 21 November 2008.


• Bernard Avishai, Why Detroit Can't Keep Up, The Washington Post, 23 November 2008.


• Paul Rosenberg, New Deal Denialism--Conservative Liars On The Rampage, OpenLeft.com, 23 November 2008.


• Neil Irwin, Fed's Role in Crisis Is Giant, if Opaque, The Washington Post, 24 November 2008.

Cheat Sheet at The Daily Beast: a very good source of "Must Reads."

Some recent Essays I found insightful:

• Rich Gibson and E. Wayne Ross, No Child Left Behind and the Imperial Project, Counterpunch, 02 February 2007.


• David Frum, Why Bother?, National Review Online, 05 September 2008.
  (I think of this article as: Nicole Wallace, "Communications," and how anti-intellectualism undermined the Republican Party. As Frum describes it, the Republican disdain for intellectuals leaves Republicans incapable of formulating and arguing public policy, so they (Bush admin, McCain campaign) revert to crude and ineffective slogans and tactics. Nicole Wallace is just a symptom and consequence of the Republicans' inclinations; she majored in "Communications" in college (see Wikipedia). I say "Communications" is a current euphemism for propaganda.)
  
  Frum's observations are echoed in:
  
  E.J. Dionne, Conservatives in Crisis, TruthDig.com, 23 October 2008.


• PZ Myers, Sarah Palin: Ignorant and anti-science, Pharyngula, 24 October 2008.
  
  tristero, Republicans vs. Science, Hullabaloo, 25 October 2008.
  
  Christopher Hitchens, Sarah Palin's War on Science; The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for knowledge and learning, Slate.com, 27 October 2008.


• * Glenn Greenwald, The Russia/Georgia conflict and the tactics of 2002, Salon.com, 25 October 2008.


• Paul Craig Roberts, The End of the American Road; The New Neo-Con Reality, CounterPunch.org, 28 October 2008.


• Arno J. Mayer, The US Empire will Survive Bush; Two Parties, One Imperial Mission, CounterPunch.org, 29 October 2008.


• Eric, Greenspan, Einstein, and Reich, RealClimate.org, 29 October 2008.
  (Theory, evidence, scientific method, science, non-science.)


• Michael Lind, Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic, Salon.com, 07 November 2008.
  
  See also Lind's essay from April 2003: How neoconservatives conquered Washington -- and launched a war.


• Katharine Mieszkowski, Bush's seven deadly environmental sins, Salon.com, 08 November 2008.


• Frank Rich, It Still Felt Good the Morning After, The New York Times, 09 November 2008.
  (One of the best post-election summaries.)


• * Glenn Greenwald, Orin Kerr and the responsibility of elites for the last eight years, Salon.com, 09 November 2008.


• Joseph Stiglitz, More Pain to Come, Even if He's Perfect, The Washington Post, 09 November 2008.


• Amit R. Paley, A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks; With Attention on Bailout Debate, Treasury Made Change to Tax Policy, The Washington Post, 10 November 2008.
  Comments on this news at The Big Picture.


• Joseph B. White, America's Two Auto Industries, , 10 November 2008.
  Comments on this essay at The Big Picture.


• Naomi Klein, The New Trough, Rolling Stone, 13 November 2008.
  ("The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq — a "free-fraud zone" where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create."
  
  Naomi Klein (her website, Wikipedia) is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, September 2007 (publisher, Amazon.com) and No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs, Picador, 2000, 2002 (publisher, Amazon.com).
  
  View an excellent 6 minute film on the Shock Doctrine idea directed by Alfonso Cuarón at YouTube.)


• Chris Hedges, America the Illiterate, TruthDig.com, 10 November 2008.


• Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, PBS Frontline, 11 November 2008.
  (Not just about Atwater: the Republican Party, Bush I, Bush II, Karl Rove, U.S. Politics of 1980-2008.)