News & Comment

John McCain and Mitt Romney share a secret. It’s 23 years of Mitt’s tax returns. Mitt gave them to McCain in 2008 when McCain, then the GOP presidential nominee, was vetting VP candidates. read more »

Our economy doesn't function well without strong government oversight, regulation and demand-creating "stimulus." We also need strong government to empower and protect us from those (foreign and domestic) who would keep us down and under their control. But the ones making big money from things that hurt our economy -- and us -- use that money to weaken our government, keeping us from stopping them. read more »

Conservatives are taking a big risk throwing a hissy fit over the new HHS state waiver initiative to experiment with welfare-to-work methods. read more »

Note -- see the update at end of post, in which the Romney campaign uses astonishingly doctored audio, to make it seem as if Obama said something he never said. read more »

I have an exercise for you. Don't worry: You can do it at your computer. Think about all the reasons why a multinational corporation would choose to move jobs to another country. Lower labor costs? More efficient and better educated workers? Potential to contribute to the positive net effect of globalization and free trade? read more »

Did President Obama tell business owners they didn't build their businesses. That's what the entire right-wing media machine is saying he said. What did he really say? Drudge Report headline: "Obama Goes Wild: 'If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen'..." read more »

In a Sunday op-ed Arthur Laffer provides one of the funniest lines of the week, "Right-to-work laws provide individual workers with greater freedom to negotiate the terms of their employment." I almost spat out my coffee, thinking about what would happen to the worker who goes alone to management, demanding a raise and more vacation time. read more »

The Heritage Foundation today spread a falsehood about a change the Obama administration is instituting in the 1996 welfare reform law that has rapidly spread through the right-wing blogosphere. Letting Heritage and the right wing get away with this lie would do serious harm to people trying to pull themselves out of poverty. read more »

We have a jobs emergency that is hollowing out the middle class. Some say automation is the cause of our high unemployment and that it will get worse. Others say there are other structural problems and that our high unemployment is a "new normal." Perhaps these are contributing to the problems. read more »

MORNING MESSAGE: The Phony "Generational War": It's Like the Hunger Games, But With Old People read more »