Hold Fast

Paul Krugman, responding to the stream of lies coming from Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl and other leading Republicans that the Bush tax cuts didn’t cost the US government anything, asks: How am I supposed to pretend that these are serious people? Well, frankly, I don’t think you do. Pretending only makes the matter worse. Actual [...]

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Last month I mentioned a brilliant cartoon by Tom Tomorrow that effectively lampooned how the American right as bizarrely warped perceptions of the positions held by President Obama. In it, Tom pointed out the irony of the right portraying Obama as a crazed liberal, when in fact most of his actions show he is a [...]

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Steve Benen asks: What did the unemployed ever do to offend the Republican Party this much? They lost their jobs.

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Well, shock of shocks, it turns out that not only is walking away from properties that are underwater something that businesses do all the time, but rich people are doing it with their homes. The New York Times has a long, detailed analysis of people who are underwater and just walking away from their homes [...]

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At the end of a long, thoughtful and dare I say, Must Read piece in The Nation on the structural hurdles in American politics and the media that prevent a truly progressive presidency from being realized, Eric Alterman writes: What’s more, one hypothesis—one I’m tempted to share—for the Obama administration’s willingness to compromise so extensively [...]

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Tim Geithner and a dubious talking point: “We have a pro-growth agenda. Part of the agenda is growing exports. They’re central to our future. … [W]e’re going to be committed to making sure we’re that we’re expanding opportunities for American business everywhere. Now, this president understands deeply that governments don’t create jobs, businesses create jobs. [...]

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Markos, in looking at polling that shows while Democrats are very unpopular in Ohio, Republicans are even worse, writes: By all rights, Democrats should get crushed in November. They took office promising change, and their actions have been, at best, weak tea. Hostile corporatist interests have successfully watered down every bit of legislation passed. The [...]

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Reading Glenn Greenwald’s latest posts on the war in Afghanistan and the bizarre place the rule of law currently stands in America (viz. no longer existing in a meaningful form), I can’t help but think that Hunter S. Thompson was 100% right and utterly prescient when he wrote this on the morning of September 12th, [...]

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Ryan Grim’s piece yesterday on the role the political team in the White House has played in shaping the administration’s policy agenda over the objection of policy experts is pretty startling. It puts together a narrative that explains why the White House continues to eschew emphasizing job creation and stimulus spending, while favoring talk of [...]

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