Zachary Roth has an article for The Lookout that gives us the other side of the story of poverty. As it turns out, poverty doesn’t actually mean one is poor because: …that measure, developed over 40 years ago, is inexact at best. It doesn’t include non-cash benefits–things such as food and housing subsidies–that can play [...]
I think it probably says something about where I stand on 9/11 as a generational and national moment that I completely forgot that Sunday was the tenth anniversary. I got up, got dressed, got my boys up and dressed, we had breakfast, and we headed out to try on a new church. We walked right [...]
I haven’t had much to say about the “debt ceiling crisis” (or much of anything else) because there really isn’t that much to say. Dan Balz says it about as good as anyone: Boehner was just as clear in casting the president as the obstacle. Obama, he said, came to office and led the country [...]
The Washington Post has an excellent article today concerning the evolution of the Republican Party into a no-tax party. As a political and rhetorical tool, the “no new taxes” pledge has been probably the single most effective meme in modern politics. It has also become one of the most immoral. In states like New Jersey, [...]
The New York Times has an op-ed offering today from David Stockman, who brings up the inability of Washington to talk truthfully about the budget. As I’ve said before, the two parties tend to be flip-sides of the coin of fiscal irresponsibility. Neither side is actually serious about what they are saying. Stockman concludes: So [...]
But probably not the way he wants to. After spending $787 billion to bail out the financial industry and stimulate the economy via infratstructure projects, the President is now talking about spending another $50 billion on…more infrastructure. That would be wonderful if the problem with the economy was not being able to get goods from [...]
It’s worth remembering that “Labor Day” – the holiday weekend we are in the midst of – is supposed to be a solemn commemoration of the death of working people by the combined hand of government and business: The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York [...]
Chris Bowers, at Open Left, offered a supposed “Serious Question” today: Does anyone here think that working to stop GOP from destroying the filibuster in 2005 was still a good idea? Wasn’t that a mistake? Shouldn’t we have helped them instead? Discuss. It was also sent out on Twitter, and I responded thusly: Yes. If [...]
The White House at least has the decency to try to make amends to Shirley Sherrod. The problem is that they never should have put themselves in a position to do so. The “story” was “broken” (i.e., fabricated) by an activist who was upset that the Tea Party has been called to task for failure [...]
