The Big Con
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Governing on Empty
December 21st, 2011
The Senate, having struck its compromise, has gone home. The House, controlled by delusional Republicans, has gone home. Payroll taxes are slated to rise, and unemployment insurance is set to expire before they return in January. The compromise wasn’t just between the two parties in the Senate, apparently. According to Wednesday’s Washington Post, House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor met with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell on Friday and told him they’d get the votes to pass the two-month extension deal he’d worked out with Harry Reid. But Boehner, who is turning out to be the weakest speaker since the House was first gaveled to order in 1789, couldn’t hold his troops, whose caucus meetings, by numerous accounts, increasingly resemble the pep rallies of cults that have lost all feel for how other humans think.
Featured Issues
The GOP Payroll Tax Plan Does So Stink
December 1st, 2011
No doubt Republicans know the fight over extending the payroll tax is one they could lose. Thus, they've pivoted away from opposing the extension, and have presented a plan of their own — one that Timothy Noah says the Democrats should be willing to work with because it "doesn't stink."
Well, in my experience, just because you can't smell something doesn't mean it doesn't sink. Some things "pass the smell test" because of a faulty sniffer; not because they don't stink. And the GOP's payroll tax plan does so stink.
... more »
GOP’S Dirty Air Hit List Sacrifices Americans’ Health
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) recently announced his legislative priorities for the upcoming months, and they consist of the same old reckless attacks on health and environmental safeguards for all Americans. Creating an apocalyptically titled hit list of his "Top 10 Job-Destroying Regulations," Cantor takes aim at an astonishing 12 clean air safeguards, and five other labor, environmental, and health care standards. But problems with basic arithmetic are the least of the concerns with this "top 10" list. The House Republican dirty air hit list reflects a baseless and ideological tirade against clean air protections that would put Americans' lives at risk, while doing nothing to create jobs. American families cannot afford to see these clean air standards rolled back.... more »
Pay Teachers More
From the debates in Wisconsin and elsewhere about public sector unions, you might get the impression that we’re going bust because teachers are overpaid. That’s a pernicious fallacy. A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession.... more »
The Case
Why We Call It "The Big Con"
Conservative government during the past few years has failed—even some conservatives acknowledge that. But the problem is not just that conservatism has failed to live up to its promise; it is that conservatism cannot live up to its promisemore »
Conservatism: Flawed By Design
Inherent ideological flaws cripple the ability of conservatives to govern:
The Facts
Why We Reject The Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Plan
There are a lot of myths about “Simpson-Bowles,” the plan being circulated by former Republican senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton administration official Erskine Bowles that is being touted as a balanced, reasonable way to reduce the federal deficit. In reality, it is neither balanced nor reasonable. Here is what you should know about the Simpson-Bowles plan.
The News
Joe Manchin's oddly inspiring debate performance
October 19th, 2010
Florida Republican: Put Immigrants in "Camps"
August 13th, 2010
The Case
Obama Realigns, the GOP Declines: The New Political Paradigm
It’s a word seldom heard since Karl Rove brandished it after the 2004 election. On the basis of an Electoral College win secured by the precarious margin of one state, an Ohio rife with voter suppression, “Bush’s brain”—is that a compliment to Rove?—proclaimed an era of Republican realignment. Rove’s fantasy was demolished in 2012, when the GOP waged a backward-looking campaign directed to the American electorate of a decade and more ago—two white, too old, too rural, too Southern. Instead, the crabbed, plutocratic, intolerant Republican appeal did succeed—in mobilizing the new America, which convincingly voted for a second Obama term. But something more has happened here than the reelection of one president, as consequential as that is. We are witnessing a Rove in reverse—but this time, an authentic and accelerating realignment in the demography, ideology, and political identity of the American mainstream.
more »
The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: Out of Gas?
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is departing from the State Department on her own terms and with a formidable legacy intact. Given that Clinton, no matter what she decides about 2016, will undoubtedly remain an influential figure in American public life for years to come, one might have expected her long-time detractors, who have been trying for more than 20 years to trip her up, to land some solid blows to her widely admired reputation for leadership on the global stage. Instead, we've been treated to salvos that were silly, at best; and on the one potentially serious issue raised, the Fox News-initiated and Mitt Romney-fortified Benghazi craze, all the attacks fell flat.
more »
Latest from our Bloggers
nov
19
2012
9:53 pm
9:53 pm
As the election results sink in, partisans are busy debating what 2012 voting patterns mean for Republican and Democratic prospects in the next election cycle. But what lessons do this year’s results hold for those of us who are committed to expanding opportunity and protecting human rights in ways that transcend party and outlast individual elections or candidates? more »
nov
19
2012
1:27 pm
1:27 pm
I joined Campaign for America's Future's Richard Eskow to talk about the "fiscal cliff" scare, austerity, Social Security, Medicare and how we WON the election so we really should be talking about jobs instead. more »
nov
12
2012
12:15 pm
12:15 pm
Anyone who has read The Shock Doctrine understands exactly what this "Fiscal Cliff" scare is. more »
nov
6
2012
3:31 pm
3:31 pm
Take the conversation related at the beginning of this article with a grain of salt since it's a "my sister's best friend's brother told me" sort of thing, but I think it's a fair representation of the way the conservatives are gaming out their strategy in case it's close and Obama wins the electoral col more »
nov
5
2012
11:12 am
11:12 am
Wow, an entire campaign based on lies... Often they were simply ridiculous lies. (Remember when Romney said Obama will take God off our coins"?) The campaign even used doctored audio and video in ads to make people think Obama had said things he never said. So MANY lies! more »
nov
5
2012
10:30 am
10:30 am
FINAL UPDATE 11/5/12: The final days wouldn't be complete without a final excuse: Hurricane Sandy.
UPDATE 10/5/12: This post when originally published on Oct. 3 was a "Top 10" list. It has been expanded to include the new excuse: "Chicago" Rigged The Jobs Numbers. more »
nov
1
2012
2:10 pm
2:10 pm
Austerity is back in the news, and the news about austerity is never good. We've only had de facto austerity on this side of the pond. So as usual, the news is from Europe, where the austerians are going full-tilt boogie. Our homegrown austerians, like their European counterparts, tell us that the kind of severe austerity underway in Europe is necessary to reduce the deficit. Everything from food stamps to Medicaid and Medicare — everything except defense spending — must be cut in order to reduce the deficit.
The thing is, it hasn't worked. In Greece, Europe's austerity poster child, austerity has shrunk the economy and increased the national debt.
nov
1
2012
12:40 pm
12:40 pm
As I wrote yesterday, I have some sympathy for any presidential challenger in a situation like this. An epic natural disaster automatically makes them look irrelevant and small and there's not a lot they can do about it. more »
