News & Comment

President Obama has endured much criticism of his legislative skills from his fellow progressives. His conciliatory approach has been compared unfavorably with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s gleeful pugnacity and Lyndon B. Johnson’s relentless arm-twisting. read more »

On the menu this morning MORNING MESSAGE: The Tea Party's 1776 Shtick Health Reform Support, Conservative Angst Both On Rise Austerity Worsens Euro Zone Unemployment Infrastructure Through The Political Storms Breakfast Sides read more »

As much as conservatives want to pretend otherwise, you can't have strong, healthy, prospering businesses without a big, strong government. The kinds of businesses that don't want a big, strong government are exactly the kinds of businesses that We, the People don't want. read more »

A pro-labor column in a major newspaper? I'd better look out my window and see if pigs are flying down the street. Nope, they're not! Hell hasn't frozen over. And hey, monkeys aren't even coming out of my butt! In today's NY Times Joe Nocera writes, in Turning Our Backs on Unions, read more »

PART III: The Search for Community in the 1930’s. read more »

Congress opened debate Wednesday afternoon on legislation that would outlaw sex-selective abortions. The bill, introduced this year by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), could subject an abortion provider to jail time for neglecting to determine whether gender was a motivating factor in a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy. There’s a lot of debate over what this bill would mean for women’s health. Reproductive health advocates have called it “a sneak attack” on abortion access, arguing that the consequences could deter doctors from performing a legal, medical procedure. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which instructs its members not to perform sex-selective abortions, opposes this specific bill because it could deter access. Underlying this fight, however, is a more basic question: Are sex-selective abortions actually happening in the United States? If so, to what extent? read more »

The gauntlet has been thrown down in the tax fairness fight. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor earlier today announced that House Republicans will schedule a vote before the August recess on making the Bush tax cuts permanent for everyone, including the rich and super-rich. The question now is will Democrats continue to give away the high ground in this fight before the battle even begins. read more »

The following was drafted for delivery at the Protest The Fiscal Summit demonstration outside the Peter G. Peterson Fiscal Summit in Washington on May 15. Thank you, Sen. Sanders. And welcome to all of you to Andrew Mellon Auditorium, named after one of the wealthiest Americans of the 1920s and 1930s. read more »

Corporations, 1 percenters and Republicans want to take America back. And by that they mean all the way to the 1780s when wealthy white men controlled the nation. Because only they could vote. read more »

Depending on your point of view, the results on austerity are in. The roll call European countries with shrunken economies, mired in recession, is identical to the list of European countries yoked to austerity economics — Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Greece (of course), and now the UK. Those countries are experiencing varying degrees of public reaction against austerity policies. In Prague, Czechs staged the biggest demonstrations their country has seen since the fall of communism, in protest of the austerity measures and corruption in Czech Republic's center-right government. In France, president Sarkozy now faces a runoff, after elections that were a reaction against austerity. In the Netherlands, the prime minister resigned after EU austerity demands caused the government to collapse. In Romania, the government has collapsed in a no-confidence vote after violent protests against austerity toppled its prime minister in February. Does the latest wave of uprisings finally sound the death knell for austerity? Not if austerians stay the course, and don't get spooked by protests in the streets and at the ballot box. If their protests have no impact, and austerity happened anyway, people will go home. They'll forget about solidarity, worry more about survival, and arrive at the next phase of austerity's impact on their lives. read more »