President Obama launched his jobs offensive with a fine speech Thursday night. He seemed to have reasonable ideas, and the Republicans are going to have to be very careful about not seeming to look obstructionist if they are going to turn him down. There was one note that I wish the president had struck harder: …
I don’t know if people still give Labor Day speeches about the working men and women who built this great land, but there were two articles written about labor today that ought to boil the blood of every working stiff, whether blue collar, white collar, pink collar, no collar, or whatever. First, Paul Krugman continued …
Writing on redstate.com, Erik Erikson says “[Rick] Perry is rapidly becoming the front running and consolidating the lead.” Just speculating, I assume this has to do with his leaderly Texas macho swagger (“He’s a good lookin’ rascal,” said Bill Clinton, with what I detect is just a bit of mischief in his choice of words), …
Two sentences have resulted in more damage to American democracy than any other. The sentences are simple, but have had profound effects. Both sentences are false on their face, and yet both have been decreed true by the Supreme Court, and are therefore the law of the land. One sentence is that a corporation is …
Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, hit the nail on the head in a piece that he wrote for the Times last week, in which he bemoaned President Obama‘s failure to seize the narrative of the political issues of our times. Imagine, says Westen, how things would have been different if Obama …
From The New York Times, July 26, 2011. “This chart should accompany all discussions of the Debt Ceiling,” says Jim Fallows of The Atlantic. Amen to that.
In one of the most perceptive articles I have read in a long time, pollster par excellance Stan Greenberg wonders why Democrats are not finding better traction with the voters. “With high unemployment and the rich getting richer,” writes Greenberg in the New York Times, “you would think that voters of average means would flock …
In The New York Times last Sunday, John F. Burns wrote a lamentation for the state of his native Britain, and the recognition of the overall depressing complexity of the hacking scandal, the corruption of the three major institutions of the media, the police, and Parliament, really left one with the sinking, sickening feeling that …
In my freshman year of college my friend Bob Crumlish and I were sitting in the college cafeteria doing what 18 year olds were doing in cafeterias the length and breadth of America, namely, screwing around. In our case, we were using teaspoons to catapult elements of a fruit cocktail through the air and onto …
Brinksmanship is a pretty effective tactic; the disciplined refusal to compromise until the very last minute often panics a less steadfast opponent into making desperate concessions. Currently Congressional Republicans are engaging in brinksmanship with the debt ceiling, refusing to approve raising the ceiling by the deadline of August 2nd unless there is an effective budget …