Broadcast

washingtonindependent.com — Amid the clamor over the crisis on Wall Street, the U.S. Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Rescue Program, or “TARP,” bill and the evolving collapse of the global banking system, little attention has been paid to the extraordinary credit extensions at the Federal Reserve. But these are now without parallel in Fed history, including during the Great Depression.

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thenation.com — The most important glue binding conservatism together is a shared sense that someone, somewhere is looking down their noses at them with a condescending sneer. And to conservatives, McCain has been too often one of the sneerers. That helps explain the strange McCain contortions Republicans have been forcing themselves into in recent weeks.

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prospect.org — Democrats in Congress should focus on enacting job measures and health reforms that show voters immediate progress.

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ampedstatus.com — The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let's look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.

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news.newamericamedia.org — The health care debate has been like a tennis match, bouncing from the Senate to the House and back again. Now it's back in the Senate, as the United States tries to end its status as the only advanced economy without universal health care for its people. One hundred Senators from 50 states will decide what lives and what dies, health-care wise. With so much at stake, it makes sense to ask: Who are these 100 Senators? Might that give us a clue as to what to expect from America's upper chamber?

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dailykos.com — Parties, bluntly, exist to win elections — and that usually means the next election. They form as parties around ideologies or policies, but the impulse to win elections is always primary. Movements, on the other hand, come together around issues, and, to be maximally effective, have to always remember that their interests are not identical to those of parties.

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openleft.com — Bush's tax cuts and "free market/free trade" policies were supposed to turbo-charge America's economy, while the neo-conservative foreign policy was supposed to be a blueprint for extending American hegemony across the globe, indefinitely, with the containment and subordination of China as a key strategic goal. Conveniently, those lofty promises of yesteryear have been entirely forgotten. Otherwise it would have been impossible to cover Obama's recent visit to China without starkly confronting the utter failure of conservative ideology.

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washingtonpost.com — When there is no good solution to a problem, a president has three options: to avoid the problem, to pick the least bad of the available options, or to mix and match among the proposed solutions and minimize the long-term damage any decision will cause. President Obama is soon likely to settle on something closest to the third approach regarding Afghanistan. This will make no one very happy. Yet it might be the least dangerous choice.

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nytimes.com — A funny thing happened on the way to a new New Deal. A year ago, the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; today, the reigning doctrine in Washington appears to be "Be afraid. Be very afraid." What happened? To be sure, "centrists" in the Senate have hobbled efforts to rescue the economy. But the evidence suggests that in addition to facing political opposition, President Obama and his inner circle have been intimidated by scare stories from Wall Street.

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alternet.org — Harry Reid may have gotten the Senate to move his health-care bill forward, but a handful of conservative Democrats could still keep the bill from getting a final vote.

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airamerica.com — From desperation and irrelevance, the GOP beckoned for a bold, fresh piece of something. They got the governor of Alaska. So November came; McCain and Palin went. Their landslide defeat was an embarrassment if only because Palin managed to draw so many admiring onlookers. But now the only thing that matters to them is that — among a GOP leadership that has devolved into a free-for-all of personalities shouting across a (narrow) spectrum — Sarah Palin still stands tallest in a crowd.

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blog.locustfork.net — The people who are showing up with those signs in the park, protesting a plan for real progress in this country, do not represent freedom. They don’t represent heaven. They are the devil in cheap blue jeans with bad hair cuts. Maybe I will show up for one of those protests one day soon and tell them that myself. Or maybe I will just sit here and laugh at them from a distance for being so ignorant, and take pleasure in knowing their day is almost done.

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tomdispatch.com — During the 2008 presidential race, some Republican Party elders warned of Palin's destructive influence. They insisted she was a polarizing figure whose extremism would accelerate the Party's slide toward the political and cultural margins. New polling data appears to support such doomsday prophecies.

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huffingtonpost.com — While the concerns of many white, middle-class people are worthy causes and should be addressed by liberals (and are), it is not elitism to treat this roving band of conspiracy nuts for the cretins they are or associate with. This would be akin to President Johnson in 1964 undertaking a federal committee to study the mind control powers of fluoridated water. That would be asinine.

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prospect.org — Will the GOP be sufficiently rebuilt to challenge Obama and the Democrats in 2010? Probably not.

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smirkingchimp.com — The GOP's agenda, if fully implemented, would prove catastrophic. Here's what an unfettered Republican Party would do "for" America.

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salon.com — After the disastrous Bush presidency the GOP had the option to go crazy or rethink. Guess which one they chose.

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washingtonpost.com — Here's a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose. This is what happened in two statewide referendums last week that got buried under all of the attention paid to the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey

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nytimes.com — Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we've grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption "National Socialist Healthcare." It was grotesque — and it was also ominous. The key thing to understand about that rally is that it wasn't a fringe event. It was sponsored by the House Republican leadership — in fact, it was officially billed as a G.O.P. press conference. Senior lawmakers were in attendance, and apparently had no problem with the tone of the proceedings.

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washingtonpost.com — Democrats have some thinking to do after Tuesday's elections, but Republicans don't have time to think. They're too busy trying to survive the party's internal purge and avoid being shipped off to political Siberia.

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motherjones.com — The anti-health care reform rally in Washington indicates the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement are increasingly one and the same.

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