Your generous
donations help keep
this site running.
Visa/MC/PayPal accepted.
Last week (as with this week) the subject de semaine was "class warfare." The comment which inspired this week's mini-rants contained a simple, repetitive concept: "When [something outrageous pushed by Republicans happens], nobody calls it 'class warfare'. Maybe we should."
A satellite is falling out of the sky, but it probably won't hit anybody. Probably. I personally got over this fear by listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "It Came Out Of The Sky" (which I heartily recommend, just on general principles).
Elizabeth Warren is a polarizing figure. Liberals love her with a fierce passion. Republicans hate her with a fiery passion. What this means is that lots and lots of money from outside the state will be pumped into this race. The reason why Democrats are going to be watching this race closer than any other Senate race next year is easy to see: this may be the only state Democrats have a good chance to pick up a seat from the Republicans. The math isn't good for Democrats this time around in the Senate, and they are in danger of losing control of the chamber next year. Warren may be the sole bright spot in this environment for Democrats.
"Populism" is a word that gets thrown around with abandon by folks masquerading as journalists on television these days. Sarah Palin had the word used to describe her, and later, the entire Tea Party movement was labeled "populist" by the chattering classes. Today, President Obama unveiled a truly populist agenda, by proposing to tax millionaires at the same tax rate that middle-class Americans pay. By doing so, Obama will (hopefully) redefine the term "populism" in the political conversation. Or, to be technical, he will re-redefine the word back to what it originally meant.
Since the president is not facing a primary challenger, and since the president has raised a whopping big pile of money already, and (most importantly) since the president has rediscovered the joys of speaking directly to the American people about his agenda -- why not buy some political ads, now?
Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has just proposed a stunningly good idea: for all legislation which emerges from the joint committee charged with lowering the deficit, direct the congressional "scoring" referee not only to provide the numbers for the impact on the federal budget, but also to provide data on the impact on the unemployment rate and the jobs situation. This is such an excellent idea, both on its merits and politically, that it should immediately be supported by all Democrats. Because it would force the public debate to cover the entire scope of the proposals being offered up, and it would do so by providing the data the public most cares about right now: how will this create or destroy jobs?
"What will Sarah do?" has been a question on the minds of many in the run-up to the Republican primary season next year. Definitively figuring out the answer to this question is a fool's game, however, because Sarah Palin continually shows the ability to surprise the punditocracy, the public, and the Republican establishment. Only Palin herself is ever confident of knowing what Sarah will do next, in other words.
President Barack Obama opened his re-election campaign last night with a wowzer of a speech to a joint session of Congress. But we'll get to that in detail in a minute. First, we must mark an important anniversary this week.
The nation is waiting to hear what President Obama is going to say tomorrow night, when he gives an address to a joint session of Congress on the subject of jobs. Plenty of people have already been offering advice to the White House, but instead we thought it'd be interesting to ask some of the people who are going to be sitting in the audience tomorrow what they'd advise the president to include in his speech.
It surpasses all irony and actually enters into the realm of bitter humor that we're about to celebrate Labor Day when the unemployment rate remains at the sky-high level of 9.1 percent. There are millions of Americans who are not laboring for a paycheck this year, and they have nothing at all to celebrate.