The many challenges of banning assault weapons

In 1994, a bipartisan group of lawmakers successfully approved a measure popularly known as the "assault weapons ban," which President Clinton signed into law. When it came to reauthorize the law in 2004, the Bush/Cheney administration was content to see the law die, and Congress took no action.

The many challenges of banning assault weapons

Christmas Angels In NewTown

Christmas Angels The Innocent Taken, Christmas is Near, Hearts are Broken, The Innocent Taken, Christmas Angels All, They tell us to Hush, Now is not the Time, If not Now, Then When? The Innocent Taken, Christmas Angels All, Hush is the Command, No Action is Needed, If not Now, Then When? The Innocent Taken, Christmas is Near, Hearts are Broken, The Innocent Taken, Christmas Angels all, They tell us to Hush, Now is not the Time, If not Now, Then When? There’s Tears for the Angels, There’s Tears for the Families, There’s Tears for our Nation, There’s Tears for Us. ~SusanThur

Fox News Ignores Rupert Murdoch's Call For Gun Control - Business Insider

Fox has imposed a blackout on the debate about gun control and potential new legislation against automatic arms and assault weapons, according to New York magazine.


Fox News Ignores Rupert Murdoch's Call For Gun Control - Business Insider

Gun Control Momentum Is Real, Just Don’t Ask The House | TPMDC

Gun Control Momentum Is Real, Just Don’t Ask The House | TPMDC

Five Assault Weapons You Can Pick up at Walmart [PHOTOS] | The Nation

Five Assault Weapons You Can Pick up at Walmart [PHOTOS] | The Nation

Eugene Scalia, Justice Antonin Scalia's Son, Hired By Wall Street To Fight Dodd-Frank Rule

Eugene Scalia, Justice Antonin Scalia's Son, Hired By Wall Street To Fight Dodd-Frank Rule

The Twinkie Manifesto - NYTimes.com

Which brings us back to the nostalgia thing.

There are, let’s face it, some people in our political life who pine for the days when minorities and women knew their place, gays stayed firmly in the closet and congressmen asked, “Are you now or have you ever been?” The rest of us, however, are very glad those days are gone. We are, morally, a much better nation than we were. Oh, and the food has improved a lot, too.

Along the way, however, we’ve forgotten something important — namely, that economic justice and economic growth aren’t incompatible. America in the 1950s made the rich pay their fair share; it gave workers the power to bargain for decent wages and benefits; yet contrary to right-wing propaganda then and now, it prospered. And we can do that again.

The Twinkie Manifesto - NYTimes.com

How Deficit Hawks Took Over The Country - Business Insider

But more jobs and growth will help reduce the deficit. With more jobs and faster growth, the deficit will shrink as a proportion of the overall economy. Recall the 1990s when the Clinton administration balanced the budget ahead of the schedule it had set with Congress because of faster job growth than anyone expected — bringing in more tax revenues than anyone had forecast. Europe offers the same lesson in reverse: Their deficits are ballooning because their austerity policies have caused their economies to sink.



How Deficit Hawks Took Over The Country - Business Insider

Women Power: A record-breaking moment for women in the U.S. Senate - The Washington Post

Women Power: A record-breaking moment for women in the U.S. Senate - The Washington Post

Winners and losers from Election 2012

Winners and losers from Election 2012

The President's Done a Lot! Here Are More Than 200 Obama First Term Accomplishments, With Citations! (The PCTC Blog )

The President's Done a Lot! Here Are More Than 200 Obama First Term Accomplishments, With Citations! (The PCTC Blog )

A Case Study of Republicans vs. Democrats on FEMA | Mother Jones

Mitt Romney apparently still thinks that downsizing and privatizing the functions of FEMA is a good idea. After all, everyone knows that federal bureaucracies are cesspools of incompetence.
Except....it turns out that they're only cesspools of incompetence during certain eras. See if you can spot the trend here:

A Case Study of Republicans vs. Democrats on FEMA | Mother Jones

Eugene Robinson: What America will we pick? - The Washington Post

The intensity of the opposition to Obama has less to do with who he is than with the changes in U.S. society he not only represents but incarnates. Citing his race as a factor in the way some of his opponents have bitterly resisted his policies immediately draws an outraged cry: “You’re saying that just because I oppose Obama, I’m a racist.” No, I’m not saying that at all.

What I’m saying is that Obama’s racial identity is a constant reminder of how much the nation has changed in a relatively short time. In my lifetime, we’ve experienced the civil rights movement, the countercultural explosion of the 1960s, the sexual revolution, the women’s movement and an unprecedented wave of Latino immigration. Within a few decades, there will be no white majority in this country — no majority of any kind, in fact. We will be a nation of racial and ethnic minorities, and we will only prosper if everyone learns to give and take.

Our place in the world has changed as well. The United States remains the dominant economic and military power; our ideals remain a beacon for those around the globe still yearning to breathe free. But our capacity for unilateral action is diminished; we can assert but not dictate, and we must learn to persuade.
Eugene Robinson: What America will we pick? - The Washington Post

How Wall Street Is Still Rigging the Game - TIME

There is a misconception that Wall Street is composed of rich people gambling with other rich people's money. This couldn't be further from the truth. The secret that Wall Street doesn't want anyone to know is that hedge funds comprise less than 5% of assets in the stock market. The real big players in the market are individual households and the pension funds, mutual funds, university endowments, charities and foundations that are entrusted with your savings, donations, retirement funds and 401(k)s--trillions and trillions of dollars that are invested with Wall Street banks. In effect, you are the big player in the market, and when a bank overcharges a teacher's retirement fund or a charity on a complex product; misprices the Facebook IPO, causing billions of dollars of wealth destruction; helps the governments of Greece and Italy cover up their debt; or rigs interest rates, affecting trillions of dollars of loans, it ultimately comes out of your pocket.~Greg Smith-Time Magazine

How Wall Street Is Still Rigging the Game http://ti.me/TCuXcO via @TIME

How Wall Street Is Still Rigging the Game - TIME

‘Everything people think they know about the stimulus is wrong’

Michael Grunwald: Everything people think they know about the stimulus is wrong. It was called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and it did produce a short-term recovery. We dropped 8.9 percent of GDP in Q4 2008. We lost 800,000 jobs in January 2009. We passed the stimulus. And then the next quarter we saw the biggest jobs improvement in 30 years.

The long-term reinvestment part is working. It spent $90 billion for clean energy when we were spending just a few billion a year. It’s doubled renewable energy. It’s started an electric battery industry from scratch. It jump-started the smart grid. It’s bringing our pen-and-paper medical system into the digital age. It’s got Race to the Top which is the biggest education program in decades. It’s got the biggest middle-class tax cuts since the Reagan era. It prevented seven million people from falling behind the poverty line.





‘Everything people think they know about the stimulus is wrong’

Plan to streamline solar development in West OK'd - US News and World Report

The government is establishing 17 new "solar energy zones" on 285,000 acres in six states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Most of the land — 153,627 acres — is in Southern California.

The Obama administration has authorized 10,000 megawatts of solar, wind and geothermal projects that, when built, would provide enough energy to power more than 3.5 million homes, Salazar said.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said the effort will help the U.S. stay competitive.
Plan to streamline solar development in West OK'd - US News and World Report

Was Mitt Romney a Good Governor? - The Atlantic

"I think there's really a Romney One and a Romney Two," said Marty Linsky, a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School and former Republican state legislator. "Romney One really worked very hard to try to do what he thought was in the best interests of the commonwealth; Romney Two worked very hard to position himself to run for president of the United States."
By the end, Linsky said, "People felt they didn't know who he was. The only way to make sense of his trajectory was that he was only about himself."


Was Mitt Romney a Good Governor? - The Atlantic

Campaign 2008: Romney's vetoes seldom stood - Page 2 | Concord Monitor

Romney never had a smooth relationship with the Massachusetts legislature. He campaigned for the governor's office promising to "clean up the mess" in the State House and often criticized the bureaucracy on Beacon Hill. But as Romney's dealings with lawmakers grew frostier, the veto pen quickly became his primary tool.
Massachusetts State Rep. Jim Marzilli, a Democrat from Arlington, said the frequency with which Romney's vetoes were rejected showed "his inability to communicate with members of the legislature from either party."
Marzilli continued: "In the first year, he was willing to talk to us a bit. And the legislature wanted to show deference to the newly elected governor. . . . But it became clear after a few months that he was willing to sacrifice the interests of Massachusetts residents to serve his ego to run for president."
Campaign 2008: Romney's vetoes seldom stood - Page 2 | Concord Monitor

Romney oversaw millions in fee hikes as Massachusetts governor - Boston.com

But others said the fee hikes were simply an attempt by Romney to protect his political reputation as a tax foe for a possible future campaign for president.

"It's a shell game," said Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. "He can still say he didn't raise taxes, but fees are taxes by another name. It's a trick."

Two proposed fees that drew some of the most criticism would have imposed a new $10 charge on those seeking a certification of blindness from the state and another $15 fee for photo identification cards for the blind. They were approved by lawmakers, but later repealed.
Bob Hachey, president of Bay State Council of the Blind, said that while the fees were relatively modest, they could have made life harder on blind individuals on fixed incomes. He said Romney's penchant for fees even earned him a nickname.
"We renamed him 'Fee-Fee.' He was so unwilling to raise taxes that he was wanting to put all these fees in place instead," Hachey said.
Romney oversaw millions in fee hikes as Massachusetts governor - Boston.com

The Daily BanterMitt Romney's Secret Plan to Fix the Economy » The Daily Banter

The number of jobs Romney promised to create would’ve been created anyway, according to Moody’s Analytics and the Macroeconomic Advisors, irrespective of Romney’s secret plan. In other words, those jobs will be created even if Romney isn’t president. So his secret plan is basically pointless. 2) Romney’s tax cuts alone would increase the deficit by $5 trillion over ten years, thus obliterating any savings from increased revenue from all of those jobs (that would’ve been created anyway).

The Daily BanterMitt Romney's Secret Plan to Fix the Economy » The Daily Banter

The Daily BanterMatt Taibbi on why Joe Biden was Right to Laugh at Paul Ryan » The Daily Banter

The Romney/Ryan platform makes sense, and is not laughable, in only one context: if you’re a multi-millionaire and you recognize that this is the only way to sell your agenda to mass audiences. But if you’re not one of those rooting gazillionaires, you should laugh, you should roll your eyes, and it doesn’t matter if you’re the Vice President or an ABC reporter or a toll operator. You should laugh, because this stuff is a joke, and we shouldn’t take it seriously.

The idea that you could run for President on a platform of cutting taxes without actually showing how you pay for it really is contemptible. Biden laughed his way through the debate because his opponent is laughable. How Romney and Ryan can run around the country selling a plan that makes absolutely


The Daily BanterMatt Taibbi on why Joe Biden was Right to Laugh at Paul Ryan » The Daily Banter

Political Animal - Nothing To Say On the Economy

Ezra goes on to discuss Romney’s lurch to the right during the primaries on taxes and the budget, positioning him far beyond the pale in terms of promoting fiscal policies that are both plausible and potentially popular. I’d add that Mitt’s ideological shift is all the more remarkable when you recall he was the preferred candidate of movement conservatives in 2008, before he repudiated much of his own record.


Political Animal - Nothing To Say On the Economy

Frank Rich on Right-Wing Media -- New York Magazine

What did I learn in my week imbibing the current installment of the Reagan revolution? I came away with empathy for those in the right’s base, who are often sold out by the GOP Establishment, and admiration for a number of writers, particularly the youngish conservative commentators at sites like the American Conservative and National Review Online whose writing is as sharp as any on the left (and sometimes as unforgiving of Republican follies) but who are mostly unknown beyond their own ideological circles. What many of the right’s foot soldiers and pundits have in common is their keen awareness that they got a bum deal in Tampa, a convention that didn’t much represent either their fiercely held ideology or their contempt for the incumbent. They know, too, that their presidential candidate is the Republican counterpart to Al Gore—not only in robotic personality but in his cautious hesitance to give full voice to the message of his troops. Even Paul Ryan, the right’s No. 1 living hero, let many of his fans down with his convention speech—not because he fudged facts but because he soft-pedaled his “big ideas” about small government once in the national spotlight. Ryan left some conservatives wondering if the only thing they gained from having him on the ticket was his name on a lousy T-shirt.


Frank Rich on Right-Wing Media -- New York Magazine

Romney's tax-avoiding trust fund earned 1,000%

By Jesse Drucker

Bloomberg News staff

Fri, 09/28/2012 - 5:57am

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

In January 1999, a trust set up by Mitt Romney for his children and grandchildren reaped a 1,000 percent return on the sale of shares in Internet advertising firm DoubleClick Inc.

If Romney had given the cash directly, he could have owed a gift tax at a rate as high as 55 percent. He avoided gift and estate taxes by using a type of generation-skipping trust known to tax planners by the nickname: "I Dig It."

The sale of DoubleClick shares received before the company went public, detailed in previously unreported securities filings reviewed by Bloomberg News, sheds new light on Romney’s estate planning - the art of leaving assets for heirs while avoiding taxes. The Republican presidential candidate used a trust considered one of the most effective techniques for the wealthy to bypass estate and gift taxes. The Obama administration proposed cracking down on the tax benefits in February.

While Romney’s tax avoidance is both legal and common among high-net-worth individuals, it has become increasingly awkward for his candidacy since the disclosure of his remarks at a May fundraiser. He said that the nearly one-half of Americans who pay no income taxes are "dependent upon government" and "believe that they are victims."

Romney's tax-avoiding trust fund earned 1,000%

Mitt Romney Drops His 3 a.m. Phone Call - The Atlantic

In short, when faced with a 3 a.m. test, he reacted immediately, rather than having the instinct to wait. And after he waited, he mistook this as a moment for partisanship rather than for at least the appearance of statesmanlike national unity. The irony, of course, is that resisting the partisan impulse today would have been the greatest possible boost to his horse-race prospects two months from now.

Think of this temperament and these instincts in a command role, and with stakes much higher than they were today.


Mitt Romney Drops His 3 a.m. Phone Call - The Atlantic

Mitt Romney's Comments on Embassy Attacks Backfire Badly - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

Mitt Romney's attack on President Obama for the "disgraceful" decision to "sympathize" with the murderers -- and his decision to stick with the political attack in a press conference Wednesday -- "is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign," Time's Mark Halperin says. The "campaign faces a near consensus in Republican foreign policy circles that, whatever the sentiment, Romney faltered badly," BuzzFeed's Ben Smith writes. "I've been inundated with emails and calls from elected GOP leaders who think Romney's response was a mistake. Not today," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough tweeted. Peggy Noonan said on Fox, "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors, say in the past few hours, perhaps since last night... Sometimes when really bad things happen, when hot things happen, cool words or no words is the way to go." Former George W. Bush pollster Matthew Dowd tweeted, "Romney react feels a lot like ready, fire, aim."


Mitt Romney's Comments on Embassy Attacks Backfire Badly - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

Chris Hayes highlights the jaw dropping obstructionism from Republicans as a “spectacle of dysfunction”

Chris Hayes highlights the jaw dropping obstructionism from Republicans as a “spectacle of dysfunction”

Even if Governor Romney's Tax Plan Could be Made to Add Up, It Wouldn't Make Any Sense - Forbes

Harvard Professor Martin Feldstein weighed in on the mathematical feasibility of Governor Romney’s tax plan in today’s Wall Street Journal. His bottom line: using his assumptions and his preferred dataset, the plan could raise revenue without raising taxes on the middle class.

Mitt Romney’s plan to cut taxes and offset the resulting revenue loss by limiting tax breaks has been attacked as “mathematically impossible.” He would reduce all individual income-tax rates by 20%, eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax and the estate tax, and limit tax deductions and loopholes that allow high-income taxpayers to reduce their tax payments. All this, say critics, would require a large tax increase on the middle-class to avoid raising the deficit.
Careful analysis shows this is not the case.

Even if Governor Romney's Tax Plan Could be Made to Add Up, It Wouldn't Make Any Sense - Forbes

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital | Politics News | Rolling Stone

And this is where we get to the hypocrisy at the heart of Mitt Romney. Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, having scored great success, the legend goes, as a "turnaround specialist," a shrewd financial operator who revived moribund companies as a high-priced consultant for a storied Wall Street private equity firm. But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz253O5I100

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Matt Miller: The real Medicare villain - The Washington Post

Republicans cry that President Obama is raiding Medicare to fund a socialist health-care nightmare. Democrats blast the GOP for sticking grandma with vouchers to wreck a program they’ve secretly loathed for decades. Far be it from me to put the kibosh on all this drama, but when it comes to the policy stakes, such breathless charges are beside the point.
The real Medicare villain is not Barack Obama, and it’s not even “evil” Paul Ryan. The real villain is America’s medical-industrial complex — and once you grasp this, everything changes.

Matt Miller: The real Medicare villain - The Washington Post

Fear of a Black President - The Atlantic

As a candidate, Barack Obama said we needed to reckon with race and with America’s original sin, slavery. But as our first black president, he has avoided mention of race almost entirely. In having to be “twice as good” and “half as black,” Obama reveals the false promise and double standard of integration.


Fear of a Black President - The Atlantic

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

Paul Ryan's budget: 4 ways it proves he's not a fiscal mastermind - The Week

Mitt Romney's running mate has a reputation as a serious policy intellectual, but critics say his budget is just fuzzy math and magical thinking

posted on August 20, 2012

Paul Ryan's budget: 4 ways it proves he's not a fiscal mastermind - The Week

PoliGraph: GOP claim on Obama Medicare cuts misleads | Capitol View | Minnesota Public Radio

The law doesn't cut Medicare benefits.
Rather, the law slows the future growth of the program by reducing payments to Medicare Advantage, a private insurance alternative to the traditional Medicare program, and ties reimbursement to performance. Additionally, the law slows future growth in payments to hospitals and other providers, according to a joint reporting project by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation's Kaiser Health News.
The savings are used to help pay for other parts of the health law.
Up until recently, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the law would save about $500 billion over 10 years. But in July, the CBO increased its savings estimate to more than $700 billion over 10 years.
Finally, there's an important twist buried in all the rhetoric: Ryan's budget overturns Obama's health care law, but it preserves the Medicare savings.


PoliGraph: GOP claim on Obama Medicare cuts misleads | Capitol View | Minnesota Public Radio

Jonathan Cohn: If Somebody Is Raiding Medicare, It’s Not Obama. It’s Romney And Ryan. | The New Republic

Medicare Fix-Compare it to what Ryan and Romney have in mind. Ryan, again, has the same cuts in his budget. But he would rescind both the prescription drug assistance and the free preventative care. In other words, unlike Obama, Ryan would take benefits away from current retirees. And where would the money go? Ryan would it to offset other priorities in his budget, priorities that happen to include a very large tax cut for the rich.

So just to review: Obama takes money away from the health care industry and uses it to help people pay their medical bills. Some of those people include seniors already getting help with their drug bills and free preventative care. Ryan and, by implication, Romney takes the same money from the health care industry. But they also take away those new benefits for seniors, even as they find room in their tight budgets to cut taxes for the wealthy. ~ Jonathan Cohn




Jonathan Cohn: If Somebody Is Raiding Medicare, It’s Not Obama. It’s Romney And Ryan. | The New Republic

Kevin Hassett, world’s worst economist, works for Romney - Salon.com

Kevin Hassett, world’s worst economist, works for Romney - Salon.com

Hassett in the spin room is a familiar sight. He was an economic adviser to John McCain in 2000, George W. Bush in 2004, and then McCain again in 2008. One could well argue that his purpose in life is to manipulate reporters on the merits of the economic plans of Republican presidential candidates. After they are elected (or fail to be elected), he returns to his cushy think tank sinecure. He hasn’t actually been involved in making economic policy since the Clinton administration, when he served as a “policy consultant” to the Treasury Department.

MSNBC's Morning Joe: Tax Plans and Loopholes

July 17, 2012

In light of the current debate on President Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the rich and Romney’s proposed low tax rate, Steven Rattner presented these charts on today’s Morning Joe to highlight the major differences in their respective tax plans, their revenue impact on the budget, and major tax loopholes in the current tax code

MSNBC's Morning Joe: Tax Plans and Loopholes

The GOP vs. the Fed | Swampland | TIME.com

In one of the most important and under-appreciated developments in American politics, then, a longstanding consensus about the role of the Fed has been broken. There was a time when it was almost solely the fringy likes of Paul and his acoltyes who believed the Fed was one of America’s most dangerous institutions. But thanks to the rise of Paul–and of the libertarian, anti-institutional Tea Party he helped to create, today it’s simply mainstream Republican dogma.


Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/22/the-gop-vs-the-fed/#ixzz1z1KuxeQN


The GOP vs. the Fed | Swampland | TIME.com

No, the Fed Does NOT ‘Print Money’: Just Explain It | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance

The Federal Reserve does not print money--the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing along with the U.S. Mint are responsible for that. The Federal Reserve, however, is responsible for putting these notes into circulation. This can be accomplished through open-market operations, which is basically the Fed buying and selling government bonds to the public. When it buys bonds, it puts more currency into the economy, thereby increasing the money supply. When it sells bonds, it takes currency away from circulation, and, consequently, decreases money supply.

Money supply manipulation is an important mission of the Federal Reserve, which acts as a central bank for the United States. You're right in indirectly pointing out that an increase in money supply leads to an increase in price levels (inflation), a decrease in the value of money, and a decrease in the interest rates (interest rates must fall to induce people to hold the additional money). When people have more money to spend, in the short run, they can use it to purchase more goods, thereby increasing the aggregate demand and helping avert a recession. 


No, the Fed Does NOT ‘Print Money’: Just Explain It | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance

Strengthen Social Security

Bob Herbert on "Maddow Show": Gun Control Debate Is Held Hostage

Distinguished Senior Fellow Bob Herbert appeared on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show" to discuss the conservative partisan uproar over Attorney General Holder's "Fast and Furious" program. Herbert explained that discussing gun issues in America is a frustrating, absurd process dominated by conspiracy theorists and gun proponents.


Bob Herbert on "Maddow Show": Gun Control Debate Is Held Hostage

welfare for the wealthy

When conservatives rail against redistribution, it’s important to understand what they mean by the term. It’s not that they are opposed to removing resources from one sector of the economy and moving them to another, but that they’re opposed to taxing funds from rich people, and directing them toward the poor. If you go from the other direction, taxing money from ordinary Americans and giving it to the rich, then there isn’t a problem.
To wit, the budget of GOP wunderkind Paul Ryan—which calls for big tax cuts, small deductions, and severe spending cuts—would raise middle-class taxes, and give a huge break to the wealthiest Americans. The Washington Post reports:

http://prospect.org/article/welfare-wealthy

Corporations are People, My Friend--Election 2012

FactCheck.org : Obama’s Spending: ‘Inferno’ or Not?

FactCheck.org : Obama’s Spending: ‘Inferno’ or Not?

Is President Obama’s spending an “inferno,” as Mitt Romney claims, or a binge that “never happened” as an analysis touted by the White House concluded? We judge that both of those claims are wrong on the facts.

The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 — for which the president is sometimes blamed entirely — was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office.
That includes spending for the bank bailout legislation approved by President Bush. Annual increases in amounts actually spent since fiscal 2009 have been relatively modest. In fact, spending for the first seven months of the current fiscal year is running slightly below the same period last year, and below projections.

Bruce Bartlett: The Fiscal Legacy of George W. Bush - NYTimes.com

Republicans assert that Barack Obama assumed sole responsibility for the budget on Jan. 20, 2009. From that date, all increases in the debt or deficit are his responsibility and no one else’s, they say.

This is, of course, nonsense – and the American people know it. As I documented in a previous post, even today 43 percent of them hold George W. Bush responsible for the current budget deficit versus only 14 percent who blame Mr. Obama.

The American people are right; Mr. Bush is more responsible, as a new report from the Congressional Budget Office documents



Bruce Bartlett: The Fiscal Legacy of George W. Bush - NYTimes.com

Eric Boehlert: Why Ignoring Limbaugh and Fox News Isn't An Option

Eric Boehlert: Why Ignoring Limbaugh and Fox News Isn't An Option

The truth is, the far-right media in this country is waging a war. It's a war they're fighting while connected at the hip with the Republican Party, and with deep-pocketed support inside the conservative movement. And it's a media industry that often pushes Republican politicians around on important public policy issues.
Faced with that daunting revolution, the answer for the political left is to ignore Fox News while it recruits candidates, allows them to fundraise on-air, and turns over hundreds of hours of free airtime to GOP politicians? The answer is to ignore Fox News, which is now in the business of producing and airing four-minute anti-Obama attack ads
If liberals are going to pay no attention Fox News, they may as well ignore the entire Republican Party because there's no functional daylight between the two.
Fact: Today's conservative movement in America is first and foremost a media one. Therefore, ignoring the media isn't an option.

Obamacare Regulations Will Lead To More Comprehensive Insurance For Students

Obamacare Regulations Will Lead To More Comprehensive Insurance For Students: pThe Affordable Care Act expands health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and creates minimum requirements of what insurance plans must cover. And enforcing the basic standards is causing the end of limited-benefit plans that capped benefits and don’t meet ACA guidelines, leaving consumers with better health care options. But according to the Wall Street [...]/p

Five Tax Fallacies Invented by the 1% | Common Dreams

Five Tax Fallacies Invented by the 1% | Common Dreams

The Misinformed Tea Party Movement - Forbes.com

According to the JCT, last year's $787 billion stimulus bill, enacted with no Republican support, reduced federal taxes by almost $100 billion in 2009 and another $222 billion this year. The Tax Policy Center, a private research group, estimates that close to 90% of all taxpayers got a tax cut last year and almost 100% of those in the $50,000 income range. For those making between $40,000 and $50,000, the average tax cut was $472; for those making between $50,000 and $75,000, the tax cut averaged $522. No taxpayer anywhere in the country had his or her taxes increased as a consequence of Obama's policies.



The Misinformed Tea Party Movement - Forbes.com

Forbes: Tea partiers confused, taxes ‘lower by every measure’ under Obama | The Colorado Independent

Bruce Bartlett, a fiscal conservative and columnist for Forbes who worked in the George W Bush and Reagan administrations is shocked by what he sees happening on the right these days. He became a conservative, he says, because he saw liberalism as driven by lofty unachievable or unreal motives whereas conservativism he believed was pegged primarily to concern with consequences and so based on cold hard reality. He reports that the Tea Parties have turned the world around. Tea Partiers yelling about taxes are delusional, he writes. They know nothing about taxes.  



Forbes: Tea partiers confused, taxes ‘lower by every measure’ under Obama | The Colorado Independent

The Importance of Eurobonds | FDL News Desk

The way the Eurozone crisis has gone is that a peripheral country will announce a growing budget deficit and debt. The markets, concerned about the risk of default and the lack of economic growth given the foolish solution of austerity imposed on those countries, then gradually raise borrowing costs. This makes it impossible for those countries to afford to borrow, and they seek bailouts from their Eurozone partners.
If there were a way to smooth out these borrowing costs, it would remove the negative shocks to the system. One excellent suggestion is to pool the risk, to create a bond to pay off debt in the Eurozone guaranteed by all the member countries. This “Eurobond” would make it so Greece or Spain or Italy wasn’t fighting the bond markets all by themselves. It would allow those countries to benefit from Germany’s stronger economy and low borrowing costs, and reduce the spikes in weaker economies that have caused so much trouble. To analogize from our experience, it’s obviously cheaper for the federal government to borrow than it is for, say, Mississippi. It’s a question of leverage.
Perhaps because a big stimulus package isn’t in the offing, France’s new President Francois Hollande has honed in on Eurobonds as one of the key solutions to the crisis.


The Importance of Eurobonds | FDL News Desk

Volcker Rule Tightening Just the Beginning of a Financial Reform Strategy | FDL News Desk

The Fail Whale trades showed that massive, as-yet unregulated risk still exists in our financial system, with the potential to bring down the economy once again and trigger massive taxpayer bailouts. Since the Administration already passed a law that was supposed to deal with that, they’re scrambling to restore what little of value existed in those laws.


Volcker Rule Tightening Just the Beginning of a Financial Reform Strategy | FDL News Desk

Justice Watch: A Turning Point at the White House

The deep sense of urgency conveyed by the participants is motivated by the fact that the Senate has confirmed far fewer nominees at this point in President Obama’s first term than it had for his two predecessors, and that current vacancies on the federal bench have actually risen by 43% since he took office. Participants relayed the frustration growing in communities around the nation as understaffed courts face enormous backlogs and justice is frequently delayed for individuals and businesses whose lives and livelihoods often hang in the balance.


Justice Watch: A Turning Point at the White House: Community leaders met with key White House staff, including Attorney General Eric Holder May 7 marked an important milestone in the figh...

The Fox Effect by David Brock, Ari Rabin-Havt, and Media Matters for America - Random House

The Fox Effect by David Brock, Ari Rabin-Havt, and Media Matters for America - Random House

Obama’s winning strategy on foreign policy - The Washington Post

For the first time since the early 1960s, the Republican Party enters a presidential campaign at a decided disadvantage on foreign policy. Republicans find it hard to get accustomed to the fact that when they pull their favorite political levers — accusations that Democrats are “weak” or Romney’s persistent and false claims that Obama “apologizes” for America — nothing happens.


Obama’s winning strategy on foreign policy - The Washington Post

Bin Laden documents at a glance - The Washington Post

ON THE U.S. MEDIA: Like any public figures, bin Laden and his advisers were mindful of the media. Adam Gadahn, one of bin Laden’s spokesmen, provided a summary of his view of U.S. TV cable news.
“From the professional point of view, they are all on one level except (Fox News) channel which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks neutrality too,” he wrote.
CNN seemed to be closely collaborating with the U.S. government, but its Arabic version was better, Gadahn wrote.
“I used to think that MSNBC channel may be good and neutral a bit, but it has lately fired two of the most famous journalists — Keith Olbermann and Octavia Nasser the Lebanese — because they released some statements that were open for argument,” wrote Gadahn, an American citizen.



Bin Laden documents at a glance - The Washington Post

A Very Pricey Pineapple - NYTimes.com School Testing for Profit

The Obama administration has been trying to tackle the astronomical costs of 50 different sets of standardized tests by funding efforts by states to develop shared models — a process you will be stunned to hear is being denounced by conservatives like Gov. Rick Perry of Texas as “a federal takeover of public schools.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has also begun giving out waivers from the requirement that children in failing public schools be given after-school tutoring. Idea sounded great. Hardly helped the kids at all. But no for-profit tutoring company was left behind.       

 A Very Pricey Pineapple - NYTimes.com

Mission Accomplished—At Last? - Michael Hirsh - NationalJournal.com

As the president himself acknowledged, the conflict may never be completely over. The new agreement with Karzai makes clear that U.S. funds and U.S. trainers and counter-terrorism forces will be deployed in Afghanistan for at least another decade to come. And many experts on the ground say the readiness of Afghan forces has been overestimated, just as the corruption of Karzai’s government and its lack of support inside the country tend to be underestimated.
But Obama’s closing peroration may still be one of his best campaign lines in 2012: “My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon.”
It’s not “Mission Accomplished,” not yet. But it’s not bad. And it may help him to get re-elected.

Mission Accomplished—At Last? - Michael Hirsh - NationalJournal.com

Why I Identify as a Skeptic | Daylight Atheism | Big Think

Being a skeptic is not a hard and fast definition-- no one is ever 100% skeptical all the time. I know lots of people who identify as skeptics who don't behave in a skeptical manner most of the time. And I know lots of people who don't identify as skeptics who question and critically think about things. It isn't like the term 'atheist,' which is something you either are or are not. You can't be both a theist and an atheist at the same time-- but you can act skeptically in one situation and not in another.


Why I Identify as a Skeptic | Daylight Atheism | Big Think

Boyet Jr. High principal offers apology for 'anger, outrage' caused by Obama images | NOLA.com

He said he sought guidance outside the school system, including that of a former professor who opened his eyes to the fact that "when it comes to the school system, we have a very detailed plan on bullying, we have a very detailed plan when it comes to things like sexual harassment. But she said these issues of race, nobody ever talks about it."

Boyet Jr. High principal offers apology for 'anger, outrage' caused by Obama images | NOLA.com

How Congress Helps Republicans, But Not Democrats, Weather Bad Economies (Charts) | TPMDC

How Congress Helps Republicans, But Not Democrats, Weather Bad Economies (Charts) | TPMDC

Full Show: Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com

Big money and big media have coupled to create a ‘Disney World’ of democracy in which TV shows, televised debates, even news coverage is being dumbed down, resulting in a public less informed than it should be, says Marty Kaplan, director of USC’s Norman Lear Center and an entertainment industry veteran. Bill Moyers talks with Kaplan about how taking news out of the journalism box and placing it in the entertainment box is hurting democracy and allowing special interest groups to manipulate the system.
Later on the show, Bill talks about Florida Rep. Allen West and shocking modern-day McCarthyism. Wasn’t this lesson already learned?


Full Show: Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com

Full Show: Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble | BillMoyers.com

We start stupid. The brain is wired to be entertained. We don't pay attention to the words. We pay attention to the pictures and the drama and the story. If it's pretty, if it's exciting, if it's violent, if it's fast, that's where we are. So the fact that these mini dramas are being used to get us to vote for one person or another is just like what we all learned propaganda was used for and thought we learned our lessons from in World War II. They are propaganda. And propaganda is irresistible. If it were resistible, people wouldn't do it.


Full Show: Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble | BillMoyers.com

The Ghost of Joe McCarthy Slithers Again

We’ve talked at times about George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, and the amnesia that sets in when we flush events down the memory hole, leaving us at the mercy of only what we know today. Sometimes, though, the past comes back to haunt, like a ghost. It happened recently when we saw Congressman Allen West of Florida on the news.

A Republican and Tea Party favorite, he was asked at a local gathering how many of his fellow members of Congress are "card-carrying Marxists or International Socialists."

He replied, "I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus."

So beware, Congressman West, beware: In the flammable pool of toxic paranoia that passes these days as patriotism in America, a single careless match can light an inferno. You would serve your country well to withdraw your remarks and apologize for them. But if not, perhaps there are members of your own party, as possessed of conscience and as courageous as that handful of Republicans who took on Joseph McCarthy, who will now abandon fear and throw cold water on your incendiary remarks.

The Ghost of Joe McCarthy Slithers Again

Ready for the Fight: Rolling Stone Interview with Barack Obama | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Ready for the Fight: Rolling Stone Interview with Barack Obama | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Social Security and Medicare: Behind the Numbers and the Spin | Crooks and Liars

The simplest, and by far the most popular, solution to Social Security's future revenue gap is to lift the payroll tax cap. Such a move would end any future doubts about its ability to pay benefits, would be politically popular, and would harmonize with the wealth inequity that is the source of that future shortfall.
Yet this solution goes unmentioned until the end of the article, and then only as the position taken by "advocates": "Kingson and other advocates say Social Security could be shored up by simply increasing the amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes—an idea that most Republicans in Congress flatly oppose."
That makes it sound as if this were a matter of opinion, rather than one of fact, but it's not. Experts ranging from Ronald Reagan's Chief Actuary to economists with expertise in this area have confirmed that this would fully solve Social Security's long-term shortfall.

Social Security and Medicare: Behind the Numbers and the Spin | Crooks and Liars

Experts: Contrary to Mainstream Myth, 'Social Security is Strong' and Could Be Made Stronger | Common Dreams

“The most effective way to strengthen Social Security for the next 75 years is to eliminate the cap on the payroll tax on income above $250,000. Right now, someone who earns $110,100 pays the same amount of money into Social Security as a billionaire. That makes no sense,” said Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Defending Social Security Caucus. He also chairs the Senate aging subcommittee.


Experts: Contrary to Mainstream Myth, 'Social Security is Strong' and Could Be Made Stronger | Common Dreams

The Washington Monthly - The Magazine - The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama

He’s gotten more done in three years than any president in decades. Too bad the American public still thinks he hasn’t accomplished anything


The Washington Monthly - The Magazine - The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama

Sunday Talk Shows Still Skew Right and White, but There's Light at the End of the Week | The Nation

Let's hear it for Sunday talk shows that are as diverse in gender and race as they are in parts of the brain utilized! How Up with Chris Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC are revolutionizing TV, one weekend at a time:


Sunday Talk Shows Still Skew Right and White, but There's Light at the End of the Week | The Nation

Social Security In US Less Generous Than Similar Countries | Crooks and Liars

When compared to other similar countries, retirement benefits in the United States are relatively modest. A report from CNBC took a closer look at retirement systems in numerous countries and found the U.S. to be performing lower than the average. Retirees in the U.S. generally receive about 47 percent of their pre-retirement income on Social Security. Similar programs in Europe and elsewhere generally pay about 68 percent of pre-retirement income.
In the 2011 Melbourne Mercer Global Pensions Index, the U.S. was given a middling grade of "C," along with France, Singapore, Brazil, Poland and Germany.



Social Security In US Less Generous Than Similar Countries | Crooks and Liars

Welfare gives mothers an economic incentive to have more children

Myth: Welfare gives mothers an economic incentive to have more children.

Fact: Studies have not found a correlation between size of welfare benefits and families.


Welfare gives mothers an economic incentive to have more children

5 myths about Social Security - 1 - retirement savings - MSN Money

5 myths about Social Security - 1 - retirement savings - MSN Money

Social Security and the federal deficit (Part 1) | Economic Policy Institute

But didn’t Congress spend the money in the trust fund?
Yes, but it would have spent it anyway. Congress spent way more than what it borrowed from the trust fund, which holds roughly one-fifth of federal debt outstanding. There’s a global market for U.S. Treasury securities, which are especially popular during times of economic turmoil. So even if Social Security had no money in the trust fund or the trust fund were invested in other securities, this would have had little impact on the federal government’s borrowing costs or access to funds. In any case, Social Security has always invested the trust fund in U.S. Treasuries and is required by law to do so. So to make this seem like news, as Montgomery does (“the government has borrowed every cent”), is strange to say the least.
Does this mean there’s no connection between the federal deficit and Social Security?
Unfortunately, no. While Social Security has had little influence on Washington’s spendthrift ways, the converse isn’t true. Social Security benefits are on the chopping block as Congress suddenly finds deficit-cutting religion. In this sense, the retiree at an Occupy Palm Beach protest who waved a sign saying “my Social Security paid for these yachts” is on to something, though his verb tense may be off. But it’s probably better to avoid saying politicians looted Social Security because this implies there’s nothing in the piggy bank. The trust fund may be full of “IOUs,” but that’s just a pejorative way to describe government bonds. If they’re worthless, the real chumps are the hedge funds, investment banks, rich individuals and sovereign governments around the world that have ploughed money into Treasuries – and increased their demand in recent years.




Social Security and the federal deficit (Part 1) | Economic Policy Institute

House Republicans Oppose Bill That Would Help Low-Income Moms Stay Home Like Ann Romney

House Republicans emphatically agree with Mitt Romney that stay-at-home moms work just as hard as anybody in the workforce. But when it comes to applying that standard to mothers on welfare, they draw the line.



House Republicans Oppose Bill That Would Help Low-Income Moms Stay Home Like Ann Romney

Social Security and the federal deficit (Part 1) | Economic Policy Institute

To help the genuinely perplexed, here’s a primer on Social Security and the federal deficit (for a more in-depth discussion, go here). A follow-up blog post will look at the impact of the recession and explain the meaning of Social Security’s primary (or “cash-flow”) deficit.


Social Security and the federal deficit (Part 1) | Economic Policy Institute

Among GOP, anti-tax orthodoxy runs deep - The Washington Post

The rise of the anti-tax tea party movement in 2008 further hardened the party’s stance against taxes. How is the pledge enforced? Typically, Republican candidates sign the pledge to avoid attack in the primary. Once in office, violators might find that Norquist has contacted Republican voters in their state or district to inform them that their senator or representative is having “impure thoughts,” as he put it.


Among GOP, anti-tax orthodoxy runs deep - The Washington Post

The Recovery Act: Evidence of success three years out | Economic Policy Institute

In the second quarter of 2009—the first full quarter after the stimulus was passed—GDP declined at a much slower pace (0.7 percent), and growth resumed in the third quarter;

Job losses slowed dramatically throughout 2009 and the economy started adding jobs in early 2010; and

Private sector layoffs, which had peaked in Feb. 2009, began a rapid decline and returned to pre-recession levels by early Feb. 2010.

Now don’t get me wrong, ARRA wasn’t a cure-all (nor was it designed to be). The $831 billion 10-year cost of ARRA was smaller than the 2009 output gap and nowhere near the $3.0 trillion cumulative output gap since the start of the recession (which would be even bigger without ARRA). Unemployment remains unacceptably high, long after the official end of the recession. The economy needs 11 million more jobs to return to its pre-recession unemployment rate and the job seekers ratio has been higher for the last three years than it was at any point during the downturn of the early 2000s. Still, the stimulus prevented the situation from arguably being much worse than it otherwise would have been. Critics of the stimulus fail to recognize just how big of a hole ARRA was up against. As my colleague Josh Bivens explains in Failure by Design:

“The unemployment rate without the Recovery Act would have reached nearly 12%, not the 9% foreseen by the Obama administration. A good metaphor for this controversy is the temperature in a log cabin on a cold winter’s night. Say that the weather forecast is for the temperature to reach 30 degrees Fahrenheit. To stay warm, you decide to burn three logs in the fireplace. You do the math (and chemistry) and calculate that burning these three logs will generate enough heat to bring the inside of the cabin to 50 degrees, or 20 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature.
But the forecast is wrong—and instead temperatures plummet to 10 degrees outside and burning the logs only results in a cabin temperature of 30 degrees. Has log burning failed as a strategy to generate heat? Of course not. Has your estimate of the effectiveness of log burning been wildly wrong? Nope—it was exactly right—it added 20 degrees to the ambient temperature. The only lesson from this one is a simple one: since the weather turned out worse than expected, you need more logs.” http://www.epi.org/blog/recovery-act-evidence-success-three-year-anniversary/

America's Greatest Presidents All Used Government to Increase Prosperity | Care2 Causes

History teaches us that the true story of America is one of enlightened leadership in the creative use of government to unleash the creative energies of the American people. History also reminds us that the free market, left unchecked, can bring the country to financial ruin. Mr. Romney refuses to acknowledge this. Instead, he claims that President Obama is wrong to focus so much of his attention on finding government-led solutions to our current problems. Meanwhile, he mocks him for even attempting to aspire to the greatness of a Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Johnson — the three of our presidents who, perhaps more than any others, understood that there are times when, as FDR put it, the American citizen, in seeking to rectify economic inequality and injustice, “could only appeal to the organized power of government.”

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/memo-to-romney-americas-greatest-presidents-all-used-government-to-increase-prosperity.html#ixzz1sVChCRaT

America's Greatest Presidents All Used Government to Increase Prosperity | Care2 Causes

Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer. - NYTimes.com

 So a much greater share of income is now concentrated at the top of distribution, while each dollar there is taxed less than it once was. It’s true that raising taxes on the rich alone can’t come close to solving the long-term budget problem. The deficit is simply too big. But if taxes are not increased for the wealthy, the country will be left with two options.
It will have to raise taxes even more than it otherwise would on everybody else. Or it will have to find deep cuts in Medicare, Social Security, military spending and the other large (generally popular) federal programs.
All the attention being showered on “47 percent” is ultimately a distraction from that reality.

Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer. - NYTimes.com

Romney offers policy details at closed-door fundraiser

"I'm going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I'm probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go," Romney said. "Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that might not be around later. But I'm not going to actually go through these one by one. What I can tell you is, we've got far too many bureaucrats. I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to the states."
Asked about the fate of the Department of Education in a potential Romney administration, the former governor suggested it would also face a dramatic restructuring.
"The Department of Education: I will either consolidate with another agency, or perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller. I'm not going to get rid of it entirely," Romney said, explaining that part of his reasoning behind preserving the agency was to maintain a federal role in pushing back against teachers' unions. Romney added that he learned in his 1994 campaign for Senate that proposing to eliminate the agency was politically volatile.




Romney offers policy details at closed-door fundraiser

Contrary to "Entitlement Society" Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work. A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs[1] spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households — not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work. (See Figure 1.) This figure has changed little in the past few years.


Contrary to "Entitlement Society" Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Chart Book: The Legacy of the Great Recession — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The United States went through its longest, and by most measures worst economic recession since the Great Depression between December 2007 and June 2009. This chartbook will document the course of the economy following that recession against the background of how deep a hole the recession created – and how much deeper that hole would have been without the financial stabilization and fiscal stimulus policies enacted in late 2008 and early 2009.

Chart Book: The Legacy of the Great Recession — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

New Tax Cuts in Ryan Budget Would Give Millionaires $265,000 on Top of Bush Tax Cuts — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

By combining large budget cuts (and tax increases) that disproportionately harm lower-income Americans with big tax cuts that disproportionately help those at the top of the income scale, the Ryan budget would significantly worsen inequality and increase poverty and hardship (and reduce opportunity as well, through deep cuts in programs such as Pell Grants to help low-income students afford college).

New Tax Cuts in Ryan Budget Would Give Millionaires $265,000 on Top of Bush Tax Cuts — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

ALEC Corporations - SourceWatch

ALEC Corporations - SourceWatch

Learn more about corporations VOTING to rewrite our laws.

ALEC Corporations
ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.
This article contains the names of for-profit corporations, law firms and governmental groups that are known to be, or have been, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) members or supporters. For corporate trade groups involved with ALEC, see the list here. For think tanks and other non-profit groups involved with ALEC, see the list here.
This is a partial list. You can add to it, if you cite your source.

The OLC "Torture Memos": Thoughts from a dissenter By Philip Zelikow | Shadow Government

The OLC "Torture Memos": Thoughts from a dissenter By Philip Zelikow | Shadow Government

At the time, in 2005, I circulated an opposing view of the legal reasoning. My bureaucratic position, as counselor to the secretary of state, didn't entitle me to offer a legal opinion. But I felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable. My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views. They did more than that: The White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo. I expect that one or two are still at least in the State Department's archives

Simon Johnson: Is There a Fiscal Crisis in the United States?

Simon Johnson: Is There a Fiscal Crisis in the United States? - NYTimes.com

But much more of the increase in the deficit was because of tax cuts under George W. Bush, Medicare Part D (which expanded coverage for prescription medicines) and – most of all – the financial crisis that brought down the economy and sharply reduced tax revenue starting in September 2008.
Our modern debt surge is much more about declining federal government revenue than it is about runaway spending. If you believe strongly that our fiscal issues are primarily about “runaway spending,” please read our book.
The smart approach is to begin the long and not-so-nice work of controlling deficits while allowing the economy to grow.

Paul Ryan budget seeks Ayn Rand’s America | Jay Bookman

Paul Ryan budget seeks Ayn Rand’s America | Jay Bookman

The praise GOP and other conservative leaders have for Ayn Rand:
• Paul Ryan says Ayn Rand is the reason he entered politics and he requires all staff and interns to read her books. Says Ryan: “Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.”
• Clarence Thomas requires his law clerks to watch The Fountainhead, and has sa...id “I tend really to be partial to Ayn Rand.”
• Sen. Ron Johnson, Ryan’s GOP colleague from Wisconsin, calls Atlas Shrugged his “foundational book.”
• Rush Limbaugh calls Ayn Rand “the brilliant writer and novelist.”
• Fox News repeatedly promoted the recently released movie version of Atlas Shrugged, airing the trailer on several shows and interviewing cast members.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/13/the-gops-godless-philosopher/#ixzz1r6NfQEGC

Is The South Too Republican For Republicans? | The New Republic

Understanding the South---Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi reside in a universe where virtually all white voters vote Republican. And no, this isn't just an Obama thing—Obama only got 11 percent of the white vote in Mississsippi in 2008, but that was barely worse than the 14 percent John Kerry got four years earlier. Increasingly, being a Democrat in the Deep South—a Democrat when it comes to national politics—means being African-American. This means that political polarization in the Deep South is of a different sort than it is elsewhere. @AlecMacGillis





Alec MacGillis: Is The South Too Republican For Republicans? | The New Republic

Taibbi Talks Bank of America on Current TV | Julian Brookes | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Taibbi Talks Bank of America on Current TV | Julian Brookes | Politics News | Rolling Stone

The Shadow Bailout: How Big Banks Bilk US Towns and Taxpayers | Common Dreams

The “toxic culture of greed” on Wall Street was highlighted again last week, when Greg Smith went public with his resignation from Goldman Sachs in a scathing oped published in the New York Times. In other recent eyebrow-raisers, LIBOR rates—the benchmark interest rates involved in interest rate swaps—were shown to be manipulated by the banks that would have to pay up; and the objectivity of the ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association) was called into question, when a 50% haircut for creditors was not declared a “default” requiring counterparties to pay on credit default swaps on Greek sovereign debt.


The Shadow Bailout: How Big Banks Bilk US Towns and Taxpayers | Common Dreams

Paranoia Strikes Deeper - NYTimes.com Gas Prices

And it’s a lie wrapped in an absurdity, because the president of the United States doesn’t control gasoline prices, or even have much influence over those prices. Oil prices are set in a world market, and America, which accounts for only about a tenth of world production, can’t move those prices much. Indeed, the recent rise in gas prices has taken place despite rising U.S. oil production and falling imports.       

Paranoia Strikes Deeper - NYTimes.com

Watch live: “The Road We’ve Traveled” — Blog — Barack Obama

Watch live: “The Road We’ve Traveled” — Blog — Barack Obama

"A Woman's Voice" - OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO - YouTube

Uploaded by BarbaraBoxer on Mar 13, 2012
I thank three Oscar-winning song writers -- Marvin Hamlisch and Alan & Marilyn Bergman -- for allowing me to play their moving song, "A Woman's Voice," with iconic images that speak to my heart and I hope to yours. It is so crucial to elect more women who will stand up for our rights and for the respect we deserve. Help us make history by electing the most women to the U.S. Senate ever: Get involved at http://www.WinWithWomen2012.com

(Make sure to look for the special guest cameo from Rush Limbaugh in this video!)

"A Woman's Voice" - OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO - YouTube

Rush Limbaugh Should Be Off American Forces Radio. Sign petition @VoteVets.org

Rush Limbaugh Should Be Off American Forces Radio. Sign petition @VoteVets.org: Rush Limbaugh Should Be Off American Forces Radio. Sign petition @VoteVets.org

FLASHBACK: Fox News On Gas Prices In 2008

Following GOP strategy, Fox News is again blaming the Obama administration for rising gasoline prices -- a claim that has been repeatedly debunked by energy analysts. But back in the summer of 2008, when the average U.S. gasoline price hit a record high of $4.11, Fox said that "no President has the power to increase or to lower gas prices."
In 2008, Fox's coverage occasionally even mirrored the facts: expanding domestic oil drilling willnotsignificantlylowerprices, and the only way to reduce our vulnerability to gas price spikes is to use less oil. Perhaps there was more room for reality-based coverage at Fox when there wasn't an incumbent president to defeat?



FLASHBACK: Fox News On Gas Prices In 2008

Dear Patricia Heaton, Your tweets to Miss Sandra Fluke - SusanThur - Open Salon

Attacking a young woman that is not a public figure but a private person concerned about Health Insurance Companies covering basic women’s healthcare is unacceptable. And that is the lesson learned in the Rush Limbaugh incident.





If private Americans are attacked, expressing their concerns to congress, we are on our way to lose much in our society and our Democracy. These unacceptable actions from a few put us all in danger.







Dear Patricia Heaton, Your tweets to Miss Sandra Fluke - SusanThur - Open Salon

A Civil Right to Unionize - NYTimes.com

FROM the 1940s to the 1970s, organized labor helped build a middle-class democracy in the United States. The postwar period was as successful as it was because of unions, which helped enact progressive social legislation from the Civil Rights Act to Medicare. Since then, union representation of American workers has fallen, in tandem with the percentage of income going to the middle class. Broadly shared prosperity has been replaced by winner-take-all plutocracy.


A Civil Right to Unionize - NYTimes.com

Delusions About the Detroit Bailout - NYTimes.com

Delusions About the Detroit Bailout - NYTimes.com

Speculation - not demand or regulation - behind dramatic gas price increases- Kingsport Times-News

Speculation - not demand or regulation - behind dramatic gas price increases- Kingsport Times-News

Conehead Romney

On Hardball Howard Fineman suggested that Mitt Romney reminds him of a Conehead.

Romney's movements are so mechanical. Much like a robot and yes, like a conehead. I noticed that too when I watched him speak at his rallies. Anyone else noticed this too? Poor guy, he is trying so hard to look like one of us. And of course he is not. Just like the coneheads from another planet trying to blend in on planet Earth.


(37) Susan Thur

Climate change denial’s new offensive - Salon.com

It’s no secret where this denialism comes from: The fossil fuel industry pays for it. (Of the 16 authors of the Journal article, for instance, five had had ties to Exxon.)Writers from Ross Gelbspan to Naomi Oreskes have made this case with such overwhelming power that no one even really tries denying it any more. The open question is why the industry persists in denial in the face of an endless body of fact showing climate change is the greatest danger we’ve ever faced.



Climate change denial’s new offensive - Salon.com

Nation's Largest Catholic University: We Offer 'A Prescription Contraceptive Benefit' | ThinkProgress

The largest Catholic university in the nation has admitted to providing contraception coverage as part of its health care benefit package, further undermining the GOP’s claims that Obama’s regulation requiring insurers and employers to offer reproductive health benefits represents and “unprecedented” war against religion. The rule — which exempts houses of worship and nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of faith from providing contraception coverage — mirrors existing requirements in six states.



Nation's Largest Catholic University: We Offer 'A Prescription Contraceptive Benefit' | ThinkProgress

WP: Fareed Zakaria-The world has changed, Mr. Romney

The world has changed, Mr. Romney

This is a new world, very different from the America-centric one we got used to over the last generation. Obama has succeeded in preserving and even enhancing U.S. influence in this world precisely because he has recognized these new forces at work. He has traveled to the emerging nations and spoken admiringly of their rise. He replaced the old Western club and made the Group of 20 the central decision-making forum for global economic affairs. By emphasizing multilateral organizations, alliance structures and international legitimacy, he got results. It was Chinese and Russian cooperation that produced tougher sanctions against Iran. It was the Arab League’s formal request last year that made Western intervention in Libya uncontroversial.





By and large, you have ridiculed this approach to foreign policy, arguing that you would instead expand the military, act unilaterally and talk unapologetically. That might appeal to Republican primary voters, but chest-thumping triumphalism won’t help you secure America’s interests or ideals in a world populated by powerful new players.


You can call this new century whatever you like, but it won’t change reality. After all, just because we call it the World Series doesn’t make it one.




WP: Fareed Zakaria

TIME: Fareed Zakaria The Case for Making It in the USA

In theory, I am deeply skeptical of government industrial policy. Government doesn’t know how to pick winners and losers, it will make mistakes, and the process will get politicized. All this is true. And yet when I look at China and South Korea and also Germany and Japan, I see governments playing a crucial role. They do make mistakes— their versions of Solyndra— but they seem to view them the way venture capitalists would. Their role is to seed many companies, only a few of which will succeed. Once these companies are identified, government helps them compete against big U.S. multi nationals. There used to be a joke about Marxist economists who would say of a deviation from pure communist economics: “It might work in practice, comrade, but it doesn’t work in theory.” That’s what industrial policy looks like these days. The theory doesn’t make sense, but it’s hard to argue with the result.










TIME: Fareed Zakaria

The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care - NYTimes.com

Why does an appendectomy in Germany cost roughly a quarter what it costs in the United States? Or an M.R.I. scan cost less than a third as much, on average, in Canada?



The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care - NYTimes.com

The Obama Memos: How Washington Remade the President : The New Yorker

In the past four decades, the two political parties have become more internally homogeneous and ideologically distant. In “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama wrote longingly about American politics in the mid-twentieth century, when both parties had liberal and conservative wings that allowed centrist coalitions to form. Today, almost all liberals are Democrats and almost all conservatives are Republicans. In Washington, the center has virtually vanished. According to the political scientists Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who have devised a widely used system to measure the ideology of members of Congress, when Obama took office there was no ideological overlap between the two parties. In the House, the most conservative Democrat, Bobby Bright, of Alabama, was farther to the left than the most liberal Republican, Joseph Cao, of Louisiana. The same was true in the Senate, where the most conservative Democrat, Ben Nelson, of Nebraska, was farther to the left than the most liberal Republican, Olympia Snowe, of Maine. According to Poole and Rosenthal’s data, both the House and the Senate are more polarized today than at any time since the eighteen-nineties.



The Obama Memos: How Washington Remade the President : The New Yorker

Fact check: Factual flubs in GOP's Florida debate – USATODAY.com

Fact check: Factual flubs in GOP's Florida debate – USATODAY.com

5 Founding Fathers Whose Skepticism About Christianity Would Make Them Unelectable Today

5 Founding Fathers Whose Skepticism About Christianity Would Make Them Unelectable Today

Opinion: Crazy never wins GOP sweepstakes - Joe Scarborough - POLITICO.com

Crazy never wins GOP sweepstakes

You heard right, my Upper West Side friend. Crazy. Never. Wins.

Despite the crop of nutty right-wing candidates that sprout up in GOP presidential fields every four years, despite the gasps and growls that regularly rise from Manhattan cocktail parties aimed at extremists who are hijacking the Republican Party (in ways that past GOP extremists would never have dreamed of hijacking the party), despite the cries from right-wing radio hosts predicting the rise of Ronald Reagan’s ghost and the nomination of an unelectable candidate, in the end this political chatter always proves to be sound and fury signifying nothing.



Opinion: Crazy never wins GOP sweepstakes - Joe Scarborough - POLITICO.com

FactChecking Health Insurance Premiums

FactChecking Health Insurance Premiums