Become a fan of the Political Gabfest on Facebook. We post to the Facebook page throughout the week, so keep the conversation going by joining us there.

To listen to the discussion, use the player below or by opening this player in another tab:

You can download the program here or you can subscribe to the weekly Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes or directly with our RSS feed.

On this week's Slate Political Gabfest, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the national economy, Mitt Romney entering the presidential race, and Rep. Anthony Weiner's tweets.

Here are some of the links and references mentioned during this week's show:

The latest episode of Slate's Audio Book Club, in which David, Emily, and Yale Professor David Blight discuss The Killer Angels.
A Washington Post piece on the current fight over raising the debt limit.
A Wall Street Journal piece on the impact of this week's gloomy economic numbers on financial markets.
A New York Times piece pointing out that no American president since FDR has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent.
A Politico piece on Mitt Romney's announcement that he's running for president in 2012.
Ryan Lizza's New Yorker piece on the health care reform Mitt Romney passed when he was Governor of Massachusetts, and how it has become his biggest liability.
A New York Times piece on the controversy over a racy picture allegedly tweeted by Rep. Anthony Weiner.
A Slate piece laying out the evidence for and against whether Rep. Weiner's Twitter account was hacked.
Monica Hesse's Washington Post piece in which she polls women on what kind of seductive photos they'd like to see from men. The answer? Pictures of made beds and folded laundry.

John chatters on The Making of the President, a documentary about the 1960 presidential race.

Emily chatters on Felix Salmon's piece on the relationship between good restaurant reviews and menu prices in New York. (Apparently there isn't one.)

David has two chatters this week. His first is an event on teacher quality he's moderating next week at the 92^nd Street Y in Manhattan. His second is the standard inscription of Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II, which he would put on every statue of him.

The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Posted on June 3 by John Griffith at 12:43 p.m.

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow the Gabfest on Twitter.