Jim Fuller: It’s impossible to think of another situation so utterly bathed in irony as the battle in and about the attack on unions by Wisconsin’s Tea Party millionaire governor, Scott Walker, and other Republicans of his ilk.
D-Day For Public Employees
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Joseph Palermo: With the aggressive onslaught aimed at public employees and their unions that Republican governors have unleashed in recent weeks, it’s long past time for politicians calling themselves “Democrats” to push aside the anti-labor elements inside their party and stand up for basic worker protections.
The Republican Strategy
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Robert Reich: The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class – pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don’t believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
Bush Concerned Nation ‘Going Through Period’ of Nativism
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Andrea Nill: The Bush brothers don’t appear ready to fully acknowledge the role their party has played in stoking nativism and killing the chances for sensible immigration reform in the near future.
Saving Social Security and the Poisonous Chalice
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Carl Bloice: Social Security is not, to any significant extent, a contributing factor in the burgeoning deficit. Defenders of the system, including some leading economists, have successfully advanced that argument. Yet, a growing number of conservatives have begun to advance other specious arguments for “entitlement reform” that may threaten Social Security.
Winner-Take-All
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John Peeler: “Winner-Take-All Politics” provides a well-documented analysis of how the United States government, since the 1970s, has systematically enriched the top one percent of the country at the expense of everyone else. Written by distinguished political scientists, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, the book shows how big business interests ratcheted up their national organizations to defend their interests in national policy debates. In addition to employing far stronger lobbying, these interests created think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, designed to challenge the liberal conventional wisdom of the New Deal and Great Society and replace it with an explicitly conservative, free-market-oriented way of thinking.
Why Obama Wins on Foreign Policy and Gays but Loses on Economics and Taxes
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Robert Reich: When it comes to protecting the fortunes of America’s rich (mostly top corporate executives and Wall Street) and maintaining their strangle-hold on the political process, Senate Republicans, along with some Senate Democrats, don’t budge.
Tax Deal Will Normalize Bush Era
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Joseph Palermo: Whatever President Obama accomplished during his first two years in office, with most of the heavy lifting thrown on Nancy Pelosi’s shoulders, his decision to normalize the sweeping changes in American governance of the George W. Bush period will likely neutralize any lasting positive effects for Democrats.
The Real Deficits
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Lydia Howell: A brutal reality is undeniable in the fight over the Bush-era tax cuts and expiring unemployment benefits: American democracy isn’t working for everyday people — that is, the non-wealthy.
Will Local Lawmakers Take the Immigration Enforcement Bait?
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Seth Hoy: As local lawmakers begin to lay the groundwork for next year’s legislative agenda, some conservative legislators are attempting to prioritize immigration enforcement ahead of efforts to jump-start flagging economies.
The Lessons of Harry Reid
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Brent Budowsky: President Obama can rejuvenate his presidency by mobilizing every weapon against the aggressive war being waged against him, while seizing the high ground by offering Republicans a genuine role in a national unity program that the majority of voters want.
The Big Economic Story; Why Obama Isn’t Telling It
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Robert Reich: In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand – the result of the nation’s almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top.
Seeking Republican Patriots
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Paul Loeb: Do Senators like Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown, Susan Collins, and Mark Kirk really want to open themselves up to unlimited anonymous attack ads, where they can’t even turn the mud potential primary opponents will be slinging into a potential electoral liability?
The New War Congress: An Obama-Republican War Alliance?
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David Swanson: The most silvery of possible silver linings here may lie in the possibility of a reborn peace movement. George W. Bush’s new memoir actually reveals the surprising strength the peace movement had achieved by 2006.
Obama Wooing Economic Royalists
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Norman Solomon: The best way to defeat right-wing xenophobic “populism” is to build genuine progressive populism. In the process, we can draw on the spirit of the New Deal.
Let’s Rebuild America Now
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Brent Budowsky: The voters want jobs. They do not want Washington to descend further into a Dark Age of vindictive partisan gridlock. We need a Rebuild America Bond to raise private capital to build roads, bridges, schools, military hospitals, vets centers and other shared priorities.
What’s the Matter with America? The Big Disconnect
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Charles Hayes: If America is going to have a better future, we need to put our Stone Age feelings of exceptional identity aside and intellectually guard ourselves against emotional manipulation while reasoning our way forward.
Needed: A Competency Test for Elected Officials
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David Love: Where do they find these people? I’m talking about those crazy-talking Tea Party types, ultra-conservative Republicans posing as legitimate lawmakers and politicians, some of them even passing themselves off as senators, members of Congress and governors.
Do We Have Common Ground?
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Steve Hochstadt: If we tune out the shouting, we might find that we American voters are not at war with each other. Tuesday’s results included several messages about national policy that most Americans agree on.
What Center?
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Joseph Palermo: The political “center” of American politics is a moving target. And for the last thirty years it has moved in only one direction: Rightward.
Rand Paul and Rebel Flag Republicans
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Berry Craig: Paul, who beat moderate Democrat Jack Conway, ran unabashedly as a tea party Republican. In Kentucky and elsewhere, a lot of latter day Johnny Rebs seem to be tea party Republicans.
Out of the Ashes, We Can Build a Strong Progressive Movement
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Tracy Emblem: The lesson from Tuesday is simple. Democrats must be unified and elect real progressive democratic leaders that stand up for the people on the nation’s issues.
Buenos Dias Democrats!
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Mario Solis-Marich: The power of Latino voters has increased dramatically and for the first time in history the Democrats are in catch up mode with the nation’s newest voting bloc.
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