CAF In The News

huffingtonpost.com — On top of last week's bad news on unemployment, with 85,000 more jobs lost in December, today's initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits report was 444,000, an increase of 11,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 433,000.

huffingtonpost.com — Everyone seems to be treating the new faces of the conservative movement as wildly successful and influential. But the real story of the conservative movement in 2009 is that it has been a colossal failure where it counts: affecting policy.

huffingtonpost.com — The New York Times reported today on the Fiscal Times scandal that has the Washington Post on the defensive. And the NYT framed the controversy in exactly the right way (emphasis added):

[The Fiscal Times'] financing was provided by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire investment banker who advocates deficit reduction and restrictions on entitlement programs.

huffingtonpost.com — Whatever happened to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)? Is it dead?

I remember sitting in a meeting last May with Senate staff who said that after Al Franken was sworn in, EFCA would be an eight-week fight and then a vote in the Senate. It has been nearly eight months and there still has been no vote, not even in committee.

alternet.org — Don't expect media coverage of the big Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville next month. Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann have nixed the press.

truthout.org — The centrist natives of Washington are banding together to defend their faith-based totem: the wildly unpopular excise tax on high-cost health plans.

huffingtonpost.com — At the end of the year the Washington Post published as "news" a story, "Support grows for tackling nation's debt" that pushed the idea of "a special commission to make the tough decisions that will be required to dig the nation out of debt" and "rein in skyrocketing spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security" before the "unsustainable entitlement spending" before it can "undermine the nation's economy."

huffingtonpost.com — The Supreme Court could rule as early as today that corporate executives are free to use huge amounts of corporate resources to directly influence elections. The vote will probably be 5-4, and we know which 5 and which 4 and why.

huffingtonpost.com — I have made friends with a lot of people in my life. But as working-class kid from Pittsburgh, perhaps my most unusual friendship was with a Goldman Sachs executive, Pedro Henrique Fragoso Pires Garcia.

huffingtonpost.com — Are you concerned about the country's large budget deficits? Are you wondering how we are going to pay for two wars, bank bailouts and economic recovery projects while continuing to maintain our roads and bridges and pay for our schools and police and firefighters? Are you wondering what we can do about the great concentration of wealth and income into the hands of a very few at the top?