Joseph Palermo: Wall Street banks should be pouring money into Obama’s reelection since he’s been so good to them, and the neocons should be rejoicing in his establishing precedent for more unchecked executive power.
Black Ministers Follow Obama on Same-Sex Marriage Stance
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Rev. Irene Monroe: For African-American ministers, the liability of Obama losing his 2012 re-election bid is far greater than being publicly outed for not being in lockstep with their homophobic brethren.
Fuel Prices: How Much Blame Does Obama Merit?
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John Peeler: The Republican attack on Obama over gas prices at the pump is quite a strange line of attack from people who are incessantly demanding a return to untrammeled free markets. Do they really want Obama to impose price controls?
Are Republicans Smoking Too Much Pot?
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Rob Tossberg: I am no fan of Clinton – a child of poverty who forsook the poor and gave us deregulation – but our country seemed to prosper with his policy of, as Republicans call it, ‘Tax and spend’ government.
Nobody Really Cares About What You Write Except Other Nuts Like You
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Berry Craig: This old reporter turned history teacher finds anonymous bloggers of any political persuasion eminently ignorable. In my book, no name equals no credibility.
Does Barack Obama Have True Political Wisdom?
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Walter Moss: The primary question is not whether President Obama has always acted wisely (or unwisely) during his first three years in office, but the extent to which he possesses the values necessary for political wisdom and has displayed it.
Will the GOP’s Base Strategy Work Yet Again?
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Joseph Palermo: The Republicans think they believe that with enough SuperPAC money and stoking up the base, along with relatively high unemployment and gas prices and millions of underwater mortgage holders, they can win a close election.
Top 10 Most Read Led by “Blaming Schools and Teachers”
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Topping this week’s list is, once again, Mark Naison, the Fordham University professor and editor of With a Brooklyn Accent, who writes so passionately on issues of education and race..
American Schools: When “The Best and The Brightest” Don’t Have the Answers
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Mark Naison: President and his chief education adviser, Arne Duncan, believed that a key problem in America’s schools was the low quality of the people working in them, they felt no need to include principals and teachers.
Obama’s No FDR, But He’s Made the Case for a “New” New Deal
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Ira Chernus: No matter who the Republicans nominate to run against Barack Obama, it seems clear that we’ll have a kind of presidential contest we haven’t seen in more than seventy-five years: a referendum on the government’s proper role in economic life.
The Sad Spectacle of Obama’s Super PAC
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Robert Reich: The sad truth is Obama has never really occupied the high ground on campaign finance. He refused public financing in 2008. Once president, he didn’t go to bat for a system of public financing.
Democratic Caucuses Support Move to End Afghanistan War
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The chairs of the Veterans Caucus and Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party today praised the Obama Administration’s announcement that the U.S. would end combat operations in the war in Afghanistan in 2013.
10 Most Read This Week Led by Reich’s “Obama-Clinton Ticket”
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As he often does, Robert Reich topped our weekly chart during this vacation week with his article discussing the advantages of a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton for November’s election, with Joe Biden moving to State.
6 Things Obama Must Do to Bring Back Disillusioned Activists
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Mark Naison: It’s time that liberals stop trying to scare disillusioned activists with the prospect of a Republican presidency and start trying to scare the White House and the Democratic leadership into doing something to show they are worthy of activists votes.
5 Right-Wing Obstacles That Must Be Overcome
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Joseph Palermo: These powerful right-wing political obstacles that must be sidelined if progressive change can have any chance of success, whether Obama is at the helm or any number of the string of future presidents he now tells us we’ll probably need.
President Obama: A Radical Liberal Moderate Conservative Socialist Corporate Stooge?
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Julie Driscoll: What the left views as weakness and the right views as radicalism, I view as brilliance. Anyone who thinks he’s weak hasn’t been paying attention.
Iraq: Out Like a Lamb
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Dick Price: I can now honor the service of the military men and women who have fought so long in Iraq—the great majority of whom who have acted honorably under fire—just as I hold fast to the notion that the Iraq invasion was undertaken for disreputable ends.
What Will the Democratic Left Do in 2012?
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Lawrence Wittner: Contrasting the administration’s all-out effort to save Wall Street with its indifference to Main Street, many progressives wonder if they have gained anything worthwhile with Obama’s election.
My Barack Obama Problem
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Mark Naison: The straw that broke the camel’s back, after many disappointments, was the image of the President regaling a $2,500 a plate dinner in San Francisco while Occupy Oakland was being attacked by an army of police.
What If Obama Taxed the Rich but Never Told Anyone?
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Paul Loeb: Did you know Obama’s health care bill contained a $20 billion a year tax on the richest Americans? I didn’t until I stumbled onto a mention of this the other day.
A Billionaire Comes A’Whinin’
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Joseph Palermo: Apparently for the captains of industry and high finance it’s not enough for Obama to be a faithful servant of their narrow class interests, they also want him to bend down and kiss their rings.
Will Occupy Fade Away?
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Mark Naison: If the Occupy movement’s showed us, in words and deeds, “This Is What Democracy Looks Like” those attacking the Occupations showed the world, albeit unintentionally “This Is What a Police State Looks Like.”
Obama Continues Alienating Onetime Core Supporters
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Randy Shaw: I expect many Occupy supporters to spend time from Labor Day to Election Day in 2012 on statewide initiatives seeking to raise taxes on the 1% in order to fund schools and other vital needs.
Survey Saturday: Occupy Your Mama
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Survey Saturday: With upwards of ten thousand Occupy protesters flooding through downtown Oakland yesterday to close shipping facilities there and organizers here in Los Angeles planning a full teach-in weekend with the likes of Robert Reich and Robert Scheer, the Occupy Movement has the world’s attention.
Occupy Movement, Labor on Collision Course with Obama
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Randy Shaw: If President Obama and fellow Democrats agree to a deficit reduction deal that cuts Medicare, Social Security, and other programs serving the 99%, expect an electoral calamity for Democrats in 2012.
Time to Get Moving
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It would seem to me in recent weeks that President Obama’s week-kneed moderation is starting to give way to a bit of moxie. This has been welcome news indeed. This guy needs to engage in some serious political ass whupping.
Shock and Awe versus Aw Shucks: Taking Out the Bad Guys
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John Peeler: Obama has set a major contrast in style and strategy with George W. Bush: he does not grandstand, he does not order massive military interventions. He doesn’t question Bush’s commitments, but he set up the rules of engagement and the negotiating positions to allow him to dial them back.
In Search of “The Great White Hope” (Again)
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Anthony Samad: If the President is the solution to the nation’s problems, then the Tea Party doesn’t want those problems solved. They’ll collapse the country and start over rather than let Obama rebuild it.
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Top 10 Most Read: The Coming Revolt
This week, Fordham professor Mark Naison’s article “The Coming Revolt: When Will the Sleeping Giant Awake?” took top honors as the week’s most read piece.