I’m afraid that, at this point, I’m quite confused about where the Republicans stand on deficits. Both President Reagan and President Bush grew massive deficits during their time in office, but ever since President Obama took office the Republicans seem to have finally discovered the need for a balanced budget.…
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Here’s the latest communication from the Democratic Party team. It’s a message from Mitch Stewart, Director of Organizing for America, a Project of the Democratic National Committee: “Paul — “The Senate just passed Wall Street reform. The bill will become law the moment President Obama signs it. “This reform represents the…
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Rick Newman on U. S. News & World Report.com has looked at the funding “crunch” across the fifty states and devised what he calls the “Pain Index.” The recession might technically be over, but the funding crunch in state and local governments could actually get worse. The stimulus act passed in…
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Yesterday morning seven local bloggers accepted an invitation to go on John McDonough’s “City Life” program. The show runs live daily on LTC – the local access channel – with George Anthes as the regular host. Blogging has been a regular topic for quite awhile – with George and John…
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From www.truth-out.org, there’s an interesting op-ed essay by Henry A. Giroux titled “The Disappearing Intellectual in the Age of Economic Darwinism.” He assesses the impact of this trend on public conversation and policy-making in our democratic republic. Giroux really smacks “academics,” whom he says are not as a group responding to the…
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Last fall I took a class with Niall Ferguson, the historian who is easily the most prominent proponent of the use of counterfactual history. Counterfactuals are “what if”s: what if the British had spent the same amount of money fighting the American Revolution as the French (never mind Napoleon), what…
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National columnist E. J. Dionne in his latest essay charts a route out of the political thicket for the Obama-led Democrats, but he senses a nagging lack of passion among the “D’s” and sees “I’s” trending toward the GOP for the fall. Read Dionne’s essay here, which I picked up from…
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Bob Dylan said you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind’s blowing. Bob Forrant says we shouldn’t wait for the economists to tell us which way the economy went, but should seed the clouds ourselves to make some money rain. Read his latest take on the regional economy in…
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Really. Op-ed columnist Ross Douthat says the US needs a better targeted class fight that should pit “savers v. speculators, outsiders v. insiders, the industrious middle class v. the reckless, unproductive rich.” Read Douthat here, and consider subscribing to the NTY if you appreciate the writing.
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NYTimes columnist Bob Herbert weighs in today with thoughts about the role of organized labor in the national conversation, when the rich-poor gap keeps widening. Read him here, and consider subscribing to the NYT if you appreciate the writing.
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