Why are Democrats dissatisfied?
Here’s a simple answer: unemployment remains incredibly high across the country.
Continue reading →Tag Archives: politics
Opposition to health care reform
I was always puzzled when right-wing activists pointed out that a majority of the population was against the health care reform act, without noting that much of the opposition came from people who wanted HCR to go much further in a leftward way. When a poll shows that a majority is against something, you can’t simply assume that means they all agree with each other. And so it was with health care reform. So I was not surprised to read this Salon report on a new AP poll that showed that, by a two to one margin, people wanted health … Continue reading →
Disappointment in the Senate, again
By now you’ve heard that the Senate refused to allow debate on the Defense Appropriation Bill in order to scuttle the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. Once again Republicans, aided by a couple of ConservaDems, refused to even discuss a bill in the Senate. This has been their consistent pattern since the Democrats took control. Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow had an excellent discussion of this dynamic in this segment from the Rachel Maddow show last night. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Keep in mind that a majority of the American public … Continue reading →
More on income inequality
Annie Lowrey at the Washington Independent points us to a report on income inequality from the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee. She highlights several graphs and conclusions that show the remarkable way that the wealthy have become even more so over the past decade, while middle class and working incomes have stagnated or declined. The charts are interesting in part because they break out income and tax rates according to the various modern-day Presidential administrations. Here is one example: Even under Clinton you can see that the wealthy increased their share of total income. And in fact, Lowrey notes that according … Continue reading →
Budget deficit has declined over the past year
After all the constant hand-wringing about the deficit from many feckless politicians, you might be surprised to learn that the deficit declined 13% over the past year. We face a lot of economic problems, but I remain unconvinced that the deficit is, at this moment, one of them. Edit to add: That said, it seems perfectly legitimate to me to use the deficit as a cudgel against Republicans who demagogue about the deficit when it comes to spending, only to ignore it completely when it comes to tax cuts. Pointing out that kind of hypocrisy is always good.
Continue reading →Eugene Robinson on Barbour’s history errors
Recently Haley Barbour attempted to claim that he had attended integrated schools and had grown up in a Republican party where there really was no racial divide. This is pretty clearly an attempt to erase the real history of Republicans in the South, in preparation for Barbour’s own run for President in later years. Last night, Rachel Maddow did a thorough fact-check on Barbour’s twisted version of history. Then she turned to Eugene Robinson, who was not at all happy with the attempt to lie about what happened between blacks and whites in the South, and with the Republican Party’s … Continue reading →
Iraq
For me, at least, the winding down of this war demands a great scream of outrage, a reflection of the scream that has pounded through my own head from the night I sat up and watched the “shock and awe” bombings that began the thing . Wrapped in every form of death, degradation, and corruption, the War in Iraq is and always will be a a stain on our national history, an emblem of hubris and greed. The President can’t say any of that, and probably wouldn’t even if he felt he could. He’s a milder person than I am. … Continue reading →