The triumph of progressiveism
Many of you soon-to-be college graduates are determined to make the world a better place. Some of you are choosing careers in public service or joining nonprofits or volunteering in your communities.
But many of you are cynical about politics. You see the system as inherently corrupt. You doubt real progress is possible.
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The Downton-ing of America
With the recent popularity of the British TV show "Downton Abbey," Steelworkers President Leo Gerard reflects on the "Downtoning" of our nation & economy...
President Obama went to Austin, Texas, last week in pursuit of an industrial and employment revival. He wants to launch manufacturing institutes to foster American innovation and job creation.
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Krugman - The Chutzpah Caucus
At this point the economic case for austerity — for slashing government spending even in the face of a weak economy — has collapsed. Claims that spending cuts would actually boost employment by promoting confidence have fallen apart.
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Robert Reich: The Dis-Uniting of America
We come together as Americans when confronting common disasters and common threats, such as occurred in Boston on Monday, but we continue to split apart economically.
Anyone who wants to understand the dis-uniting of America needs to see how dramatically we’re segregating geographically by income and wealth.
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The Stealth Sequester
So far, the much-dreaded "sequester" - some $85 billion in federal spending cuts between March and September 30 - hasn't been evident to most Americans.
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Obama: Fox News makes up dysfunctional
Barack Obama's pre-presidential manifesto, The Audacity of Hope, has only one extended riff on gun control - not a homily on behalf of the cause or even a meditation on the deep divisions opened by the debate, but a story of crummy luck.
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Reagan's welfare queen found
Good news everyone, after more than thirty years of searching by the news media, Ronald Reagan’s infamous “Welfare Queen” has finally been found. She lives in Bentonville, Arkansas.
“She has eighty names, thirty addresses,” Reagan warned during his 1976 run for President about a nameless, Cadillac-driving woman who’s conning the social safety net.
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The President & the grand bargain
When he meets with Congressional leaders this Friday to begin discussions about avoiding the upcoming "fiscal cliff," the President should make crystal clear that America faces two big economic challenges ahead: getting the economy back on track, and getting the budget deficit under control. But the two require opposite strategies.
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President Obama: Real Progress, but we're not done
For the past few days, we've all been properly focused on one of the worst storms of our lifetimes. We mourn those who were lost. And we pledge to stand with those whose lives have been turned upside down for as long as it takes to recover and rebuild—better than before.
Because when hardship hits, America is at its best.
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What Democrats learned in 2012
It's not too early to draw some lessons. Regardless of what happens Tuesday, Democrats should have three big takeaways from the 2012 election.
Lesson One: Democrats Can Own the Future.
Latinos, African-Americans, young people, and women have become the major Democratic voting blocs.
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Obama signs
We have received our last order of Obama signs; we are asking a donation if you'd like one, come by Democratic HQ, 426 N. Main St., Downtown Bloomington.
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Bruce Springsteen: Why I support President Obama
Dear Friends:
The election is coming up on all of us and we all have strong feelings about it. I've been getting asked a lot about where I stand, so for those who are interested, here goes.
This presidential election is different than the last one because President Obama has a four year record to run on.
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Obama is Back!
He's back.
Tonight our president was articulate and forceful - in sharp contrast to his performance in the first presidential debate. He stated his beliefs. He defended his record. He told America where he wanted to take the nation in his second term.
And he explained where Romney wanted to take us.
For example: "Romney says he's got a five-point plan.
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Why I, a former Republican Senator, am supporting Obama
As a combat veteran of two tours in Vietnam with twenty-two years of service as a Republican member of the U.S. House and Senate, I endorse President Barack Obama for a second term as our Commander-in-Chief. Candidates publicly praise our service members, veterans and their families, but President Obama supports them in word and deed, anywhere and every time.
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Greed & Debt: The true story of Mitt Romney & Bain Capital
From the latest edition of Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi:
Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill
http://www.rollingstone.
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The fanatical GOP
We're witnessing the capture by fanatics of what was once a great and important American political party.
The Republican Party platform committee now includes a provision calling for a constitutional amendment banning all abortions, without an exception for rape or incest. This is basically Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin's position.
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Robert Reich: The Ryan Choice
Paul Ryan is the reverse of Sarah Palin. She was all right-wing flash without much substance. He's all right-wing substance without much flash.
Ryan is not a firebrand. He's not smarmy. He doesn't ooze contempt for opponents or ridicule those who disagree with him. In style and tone, he doesn't even sound like an ideologue - until you listen to what he has to say.
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Bain Capital's impact in Illinois
by Paul Harris, Guardian UK
12 August 12
The Sensata plant in Freeport is profitable and competitive, but its majority owner, Bain Capital, has decided to ship jobs to China - and forced workers to train their overseas replacements.
he shock of losing a precious job in a town afflicted by high unemployment is always hard.
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Fussbudget: How Paul Ryan captured the GOP
One day in March, 2009, two months after the Inauguration of President Obama, Representative Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, sat behind a small table in a cramped meeting space in his Capitol Hill office. Hunched forward in his chair, he rattled off well-rehearsed critiques of the new President’s policies and America’s lurch toward a “European” style of government.
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A Nation is not a business
President Obama gets this exactly right: "When some people question why I would challenge [Mitt Romney's] Bain record," he told CBS News on July 13, "the point I've made there in the past is, if you're a head of a large private equity firm or hedge fund, your job is to make money. It's not to create jobs.
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GOP the "VIP Party"
“Is there a V.I.P. entrance? We are V.I.P.” That remark, by a donor waiting to get in to one of Mitt Romney’s recent fund-raisers in the Hamptons, pretty much sums up the attitude of America’s wealthy elite. Mr. Romney’s base — never mind the top 1 percent, we’re talking about the top 0.
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Mitt's gray area
Once upon a time a rich man named Romney ran for president. He could claim, with considerable justice, that his wealth was well-earned, that he had in fact done a lot to create good jobs for American workers.
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Mitt Romney & the new Gilded Age
The election of 2012 raises two perplexing questions. The first is how the GOP could put up someone for president who so brazenly epitomizes the excesses of casino capitalism that have nearly destroyed the economy and overwhelmed our democracy. The second is why the Democrats have failed to point this out.
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Koch Brothers: $400M to unseat Obama
harles and David Koch, the secretive oil barons who are attempting to sway the 2012 presidential contest by injecting vast sums of private cash into the electoral process, have moved one step closer to achieving their goal by staging a gathering of right-wing donors in San Diego.
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What would America be like without unions?
Are American unions history?
In the wake of labor’s defeated effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) last week, both pro- and anti-union pundits have opined that unions are in an all-but-irreversible decline. Privately, a number of my friends and acquaintances in the labor movement have voiced similar sentiments.
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Let's just say it: Republicans are the problem
Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it's not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous.
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The GOP's death wish
What are the three demographic groups whose electoral impact is growing fastest? Hispanics, women, and young people. Who are Republicans pissing off the most? Latinos, women, and young people.
It’s almost as if the GOP can’t help itself.
Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they comprise an ever-larger portion of the electorate.
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Poor "facts" is dead
A quick review of the long and illustrious career of Facts reveals some of the world's most cherished absolutes: Gravity makes things fall down; 2 + 2 = 4; the sky is blue.
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Romney: so much money, so little taxes
ow Did Mitt Make So Much Money And Pay So Little in Taxes?
Now that Mitt Romney is the presumed Republican candidate, it's fair to ask how he made so much money ($21 million in 2010 alone) and paid such a low rate of taxes (only 13.9 percent).
Not only fair to ask, but instructive to know.
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Who in God's name is Mitt Romney?
Back in the thick of the 2008 Republican presidential race, I asked a captain of American finance what he had made of Mitt Romney when they were young colleagues at Bain & Company. “Mitt was a nice guy, a smart businessman, and an excellent team player,” he responded without missing a beat.
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Severe Conservative Syndrome
Mitt Romney has a gift for words — self-destructive words. On Friday he did it again, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was a “severely conservative governor.”
As Molly Ball of The Atlantic pointed out, Mr. Romney “described conservatism as if it were a disease.” Indeed.
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How serious is Stephen Colbert?
Ball writes: "It is not every day on the campaign trail that one gets to see a onetime Republican presidential frontrunner recite the lyrics to a children's cartoon theme, then burst into song, then submit himself and his party to vicious mockery by a liberal satirist."
Stephen Colbert rallies with Herman Cain in South Carolina, 01/19/12.
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The Romney tax loophole
After refusing for weeks to release his taxes, Mitt Romney now says he'll do so - by tax day, April 15. But the real news is what Romney has now admitted about his taxes.
It's not how much Romney earns. Everyone knows he's comfortably in the top one-tenth of one percent.
It's how much he pays of it in taxes. Romney says he pays a tax rate of "about 15 percent.
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5
The Annual "Honoring the Roosevelts" dinner is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, January 29, 2012.
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