Robert Reich: More than anyone else running for president, Mitt Romney personifies the top 1 percent in America — actually, the top one-tenth of one percent.
Stop Picking on Poor Plutocrats
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David Swanson: After 10 months of election obsession and lesser-evilism, this place could look more or less the way it would have had Occupy never arisen.
A Vote for Newt, Willard, and Chums Is a Vote Against the Unemployed
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Julie Driscoll: In their zeal to see that President Obama is a one-term president, it does not behoove Republicans to roll out anything that would actually improve the economic outlook for the unemployed. They barely pay lip service to it.
Why the Republican Crackup Is Bad for America
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Robert Reich: Two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican crackup threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any time since the GOP’s eclipse in 1932. That’s bad for America.
GOP Payroll Tax Disaster
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Brent Budowsky: As President Obama and Democrats battle during this holiday season to enact a tax cut for the 99 percent of Americans who constitute the heart of the nation, House Republicans are making a seismic political blunder reminiscent of the self-destructive overreaching of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) that rejuvenated the Clinton presidency during the 1990s.
The Top 10 Best and Worst of U.S. Politics in 2011
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Randy Shaw: Occupy Wall Street’s emergence in September raised progressive spirits, as has the unexpected rise of Newt Gingrich as the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. Here’s my list of the top ten best and worst political events that occurred across the nation in 2011.
Tim Tebow and the Politics of Whiteness
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Mark Naison: Best of all, Tebow doesn’t confirm racial stereotypes. He is strong, tough, athletic, dominating the game because defensive players can’t tackle him. And he has clearly won the respect of his black teammates. I like that.
Newt’s Tax Plan, and Why His Polls Rise the More Outrageous He Becomes
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Robert Reich: The more irresponsible his bomb-throwing, the more attractive Gringrich becomes to a sizable portion of Americans so fed up they feel like throwing bombs.
Confessions of a Child Janitor
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Tina Dupuy: Gingrich has a dark vision for a Shining City Upon a Hill: where poor children work in place of union labor. It’s basically the 20th century played in reverse.
Are Mitt and Newt Channeling their Inner Progressives?
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Robert Reich: Gingrich has tried to defend himself by saying Freddy paid him as a “historian,” but anyone with half a brain knows Freddy wasn’t interested in history.
EU ‘Shocked and Awed’ by GOP Primary Reality TV Show
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Denis Campbell: Yet the entire GOP is deluded into thinking they will regain all three branches of government with a policy of tax cuts for the rich and ignoring the 99%?
Faith Pimps, Secular Conspiracies
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Sikivu Hutchinson: This political season militant GOP appeals to white Christian evangelicals have veered into neo-Cold War hysteria.
Pennsylvania: The Kidneystone State
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John Peeler: Joining the conservative chorus against Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the federally sponsored mortgage giants, Gingrich has had trouble explaining his receipt of $1.8 million over several years as a consultant to Freddie Mac.
Newt? NEWT???
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Tom Degan: It’s oodles of fun these days to watch a moderately intelligent guy like Romney stumbling around the country saying all sorts of mind-jarringly stupid things.
‘Tis the Season for GOP Exit Strategies
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Michael Sigman: Congressman Ron Paul will pull out of politics entirely. Since his son Rand is also a member of Congress, Ron will become the first politician ever to leave public life so he can spend less time with his family.
Occupy Movement’s New Threat: Media Election Coverage
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Randy Shaw: The voters 2012 have heard it all before. Only Occupy offers something new, which is why its agenda of inequality and democracy for the 99% could become the key election issues next year.
Newt’s Nasty Narcissism
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Michael Sigman: When the Newt boomlet fades, there may yet be a role for Gingrich in public life. Given his obsession with such words as “fundamentally,” “profoundly,” “desperately” and “dramatically,” how about Ambassador of Adverb Abuse?
The ‘New Nixon’
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Berry Craig: Will religious rightists forgive Gingrich for his serial adultery? He is on his third marriage. Gingrich cheated on wives one and two and ditched them for his paramours.
From Teachers to Truck Drivers, We’re All the Working Class
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Berry Craig: Historically, labor-haters like Gingrich have tried to divide workers by skill, race, gender, religion, ethnicity and nationality. Today, the wedge issues include abortion, school prayer, guns and gay marriage.
The GOP Campaign: It Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Serious
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John Peeler: So now they’re left with, of all people, Newt Gingrich! This man has so much baggage he needs a train to haul it.
A Passionless Presidential Race?
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Robert Reich: Occupiers and others have had enough.
Yet paradoxically the presidential race that officially begins a few months from now is likely to be as passionless as they come.
GOP’s Finest in Fierce Battle to Become 2012 Jester-in-Chief
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Michael Sigman: When Tea Partiers warned the Feds to stay away from their Medicare, little did we know they were foreshadowing the all-out battle now raging among Republicans for the role of Jester-In-Chief.
Flat Tax a Flat-Out Fraud
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Robert Reich: All flat-tax proposals benefit the rich more than the poor for one simple reason: Today’s tax code is still at least moderately progressive. The rich usually pay a higher percent of their incomes in income taxes than do the poor. A flat tax would eliminate that slight progressivity.
Dysfunction in Congress a National Crisis
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Ray Smock: The current Congress has become largely dysfunctional because extreme partisanship and ideological differences are preventing the deliberative process from completing its most important function, which is to be one of the two governing branches of government.
Gays, Nazis, and the GOP
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Jonathan Zimmerman: It’s one thing to oppose same-sex marriage; it is quite another to claim that gay people launched the Nazi Party in Germany. The former is a policy opinion, while the latter is a factual lie. Republican presidential candidates to distinguish between opinions and lies and to denounce those supporters who have made the gay-Nazi claim.
Congratulations Republicans!
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Steve Hochstadt: In 2011, the Republican strategy has been crowned with total success. They have managed to make the US government into a laughing stock, a global symbol of incompetence. Public confidence in government is at an all-time low.
Can Obama Pull a Clinton on the GOP?
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Robert Reich: It’s no accident that President Obama appears to be following the Clinton script. After all, it worked.
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Ron Paul Should Apologize for Racist Comments, Rick Perry for Misusing Christianity
Brent Budowsky: I do not believe that Paul has a racist bone in his body, but I do believe he should apologize for what was written in a newsletter bearing his name and advancing his interests.