Presidential campaign slogans: we’ve come to know them, love them, loathe them, and in some cases, completely forget them. Some slogans, like Warren G. Harding’s "Cox and Cocktails," sound perplexing in hindsight. And then there’s President Obama’s new slogan, simply “Forward.” Kathleen Hall Jamieson specializes in political language and rhetoric.

Today is the third day of the federal corruption trial of former Senator John Edwards, who is charged with violating campaign finance law. Edwards allegedly used money given to him by wealthy supporters to hide his affair with Rielle Hunter and their subsequent love child while running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Yesterday, the defense cross-examined Edwards' former aide Andrew Young – who had testified that Edwards directed him to use funds from donors to take care of Ms. Hunter. Kim Severson, Atlanta bureau chief for our partner The New York Times, was in the courtroom yesterday.

Public broadcasting doesn't have commercials. It has underwriting announcements — and few of them at that. But that's about to change, now that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the FCC violated the First Amendment when it blocked public broadcasters from airing political advertisements. Jeffrey Rosen, professor of Law at George Washington University, describes how the ruling could change the face of public radio and TV.

A new report by Germany's central bank says women at the top of the banking industry spur their male colleagues to take bigger risks. Based on an analysis of German bank executive teams from 1994 to 2010, the Bundesbank study undermines the widely held view of the "calming influence" female staff have on a male-driven industry. The report – which also says the presence of women in senior roles was a contributing factor to the banking crash – has provoked a furious response. Mary Ellen Iskenderian is the President and CEO of Women's World Banking.

Twenty-five years ago, in 1987, a novel called “The Bonfire of the Vanities” was published. Written by Tom Wolfe, the book touched on issues of class privilege, racism, greed, and politics, and came to define an era in New York City and in America. A quarter century later, the BBC is looking back on “The Bonfire of the Vanities” with journalist and personal finance expert Alvin Hall. How much has changed in New York in the years since it was published, and how much is the same?

The biographical campaign film has a long and proud place in U.S. political theater: from 1952's "The Man from Abilene," about Eisenhower, to 1992's "The Man from Hope," about Bill Clinton, these films have become an essential part of the campaign season. They not only try to appeal to voters' political concerns, they also try to cement in their minds an impression of the candidates' personalities.

The Obama campaign released a 17-minute documentary-style film last night called "The Road We've Traveled." It's narrated by Tom Hanks and directed by David Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of "An Inconvenient Truth." What does it have to offer, politically and cinematically?

It was a case of crime and punishment in the digital age when Cincinnati-based mechanical engineer Mark Miller took to Twitter with a series of politically heated missives about a local municipal project. Upset that the city of Cincinnati, Ohio would be spending money on a new streetcar, Miller sent tweet after tweet about how those efforts were browning out large percentages of fire departments in the city limits. Miller's tweets didn't just incite local debate, they got Miller slapped with a lawsuit, because under an Ohio law, it's illegal to make false statements in political campaigns. There are 17 states with similar laws -- but do those laws still reflect the reality we are living in?

The Journal of Consumer Research recently published a study called "Overestimating Others' Willingness to Pay" which outlines the "overvaluing bias": the tendency to overvalue what another person would pay by nearly 40 percent. While this phenomenon is not new to social psychologists, it clearly influenced the years of easy credit and has more broadly moved Americans away from cash to credit cards.

European leaders have drawn up a new fiscal accord. In the new agreement, the European nations agreed on tighter budget regulations as part of an effort to reassure investors that the euro is a stable currency. "The most important question from our citizens, from our financial markets, our investors, are we 17 in the euro zone or are we one?" said Jerzy Buzek, the president of the European Parliament, on Friday. "Now is the answer. We are one."

Remember the $5 monthly fee Bank of America planned to roll out for all its debit card customers? In a complete reversal, the bank now — one month later — says it's dropping plans to introduce that fee. It’s a big victory for the 200,000 customers who signed a petition on Change.org calling for Bank of America to drop this fee.

The markets responded positively to the news last week of a euro zone deal to try and turn around their two-year financial crisis. Marcus Mabry, editor-at-large of the International Herald Tribune, which is the international edition of The New York Times, tells us how he expects the markets to continue to go this week and to be on the lookout at Italy, which could be the next euro zone country to be in financial trouble. Charlie Herman, business and economics editor for WNYC and The Takeaway, looks at the upcoming G20 Summit in France this week, and if they can come up with a framework to deal with Europe's economic troubles.

European leaders reached a deal crucial to resolving the euro zone debt crisis after all-night meetings on Thursday. Under the accord, banks have agreed to take a 50 percent loss on Greek debt. European markets were up after news of the deal broke. Leaders also agreed to grow euro zone's bailout fund to $1.4 trillion dollars. European banks will also need to raise more capital to protect against future government defaults.

Banks were in dire trouble back in 2008, when the financial crisis hit. Stalwarts like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers kicked the bucket and other banks like Citigroup still haven't fully recovered. It appears though that banks may have a new problem: too much money. Many people, with no safe alternatives, are depositing their money into banks, but the banks have no where to invest it, so they are trying to deter consumers from giving them their money.

A great deal of anger has been directed at the profits of the banking industry since the onset of the recession. One of the focal points of Occupy Wall Street, and of the like-minded protests that have emerged throughout the country, is precisely this discontent with the earnings of banks, particularly during a period of such economic duress for the rest of the country. But the quarterly reports from the banks have been showing that they've taken considerable losses over the past three months.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs has a new book, "The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity," and the heart of it is a single argument: all of the nation’s current economic, political and productive woes share a similar root cause: that America’s financial and political leaders are failing to take the moral steps necessary to restrain a society of markets, and policies run amok, and that we need to become a "mindful society."

In testimony before a Congressional committee on Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned lawmakers that the economic recovery U.S. "is close to faltering." Bernanke said the central bank was prepared to do more to bolster the economy, but that Congress needed to do more to encourage growth. In June, Bernanke had said, "growth seems likely to pick up in the second half of the year." Bernanke's grim assessment comes after the economy barely grew in the first half of the year, and there were no new jobs in August. Consumer confidence fell this summer to the lowest point since the recession.

The Occupy Wall Street protests continue in lower Manhattan today. Demonstrators are protesting perceived excessive greed by the super-wealthy and economic inequality as epitomized by Wall Street. The protests have grown in popularity over the last three weeks, and similar events are happening all over the country, including cities like Boston and Miami. On Monday, The Takeaway spoke with J.A. Myerson, from the media team for the Occupy Wall Street movement, about why he's protesting and what future he sees for the movement.

In advance of tomorrow night's Republican presidential debate — the second for GOP candidates hoping to run in the 2012 election, and first for Texas Gov. Rick Perry — former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney unveiled a plan to boost economic growth, in a speech yesterday in Las Vegas, Nevada. It hasn't seemed to boost his standing yet — a new poll shows Perry in the lead over Romney and other GOP candidates.

As the financial crisis in the euro zone has continued to spiral in recent months, Europe may be moving closer centralizing coordination of debt and spending policies. Some global financial officials are endorsing a central European financial authority, with powers to tax, issue bonds, and approve budgets, as a way to combat inefficiencies in dealing with economic strife. Such a change could make Europe's 17-nation economic union into a sort of United States of Europe.

Our partner, The New York Times, reported yesterday that Nevada's attorney general is asking a federal judge to throw out a settlement made between the state and Bank of America, claiming the bank violated the broad loan modification agreement it made with Nevada in 2008. If the judge throws the settlement out, Nevada would likely sue Bank of America.