Broadcast

washingtonindependent.com — Amid the clamor over the crisis on Wall Street, the U.S. Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Rescue Program, or “TARP,” bill and the evolving collapse of the global banking system, little attention has been paid to the extraordinary credit extensions at the Federal Reserve. But these are now without parallel in Fed history, including during the Great Depression.

more »

thenation.com — The most important glue binding conservatism together is a shared sense that someone, somewhere is looking down their noses at them with a condescending sneer. And to conservatives, McCain has been too often one of the sneerers. That helps explain the strange McCain contortions Republicans have been forcing themselves into in recent weeks.

more »

openleft.com — Here is my blunt answer: 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance. The Senate bill reduces the number of people uninsured in this country by roughly two-thirds, thus potentially saving 30,000 lives a year. The House bill will reduce the number of uninsured by roughly 75%, thus potentially saving 36,000 lives a year. By no means does this solve the health care problems we face in America, but this is still a real achievement.

more »

tomdispatch.com — It's common knowledge that a president — but above all a Democratic president — who tried to de-escalate a war like the one now expanding in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, and withdraw American troops, would be so much domestic political dead meat. This everyday bit of ingrained Washington wisdom is, in fact, based on not a shred of evidence in the historical record. We do, however, know something about what could happen to a president who escalated a counterinsurgency war.

more »

nytimes.com — Here’s the real tragedy of the botched bailout: Government officials, perhaps influenced by spending too much time with bankers, forgot that if you want to govern effectively you have retain the trust of the people. And by treating the financial industry — which got us into this mess in the first place — with kid gloves, they have squandered that trust.

more »

robertreich.blogspot.com — Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to ... our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us.

more »

thenation.com — Washington is experiencing a rare and disorienting moment. Big ideas for financial reform that have languished for years are suddenly gaining momentum. Instead of taxing folks to clean up after reckless Wall Street bankers, why not tax Wall Street? Instead of tolerating behemoths regarded as "too big to fail," why not break them up before they do more damage to the country? The fact that these and other unsanctioned propositions are in play and even proposed by respectable figures indicates how deeply the established order has been rattled by the financial crisis. It also demonstrates that members of Congress who bailed out the bankers with public money are quite terrified of voter retribution in the next election.

more »

truthdig.com — In the parlance of our times, the term idiocracy means a nation run by idiots — and the term idiot is defined by the dictionary as “an utterly foolish or senseless person” who exhibits “a mental age of less than three years old.” If there remained any flicker of hope that we aren’t turning into a full-on slobbering idiocracy, that hope was snuffed out last week by two of the Washington intelligentsia’s most respected voices.

more »

washingtonpost.com — The nation stands on the verge of achieving fundamental health-care reform. For the first time in history, the House of Representatives has enacted comprehensive health-reform legislation, and the Senate has begun its own debate. These bills will provide a bedrock sense of security and stability for Americans who have health insurance, and quality, affordable options for Americans without it.

more »

huffingtonpost.com — While financial markets believe the great recession is over, millions of Americans continue to struggle. Unemployment is 10.2 percent and the more inclusive measure, underemployment, is at 17.5 percent. America's jobs crisis is both a short-term and long-term problem. Therefore, the Obama Administration faces both a tactical problem and a strategic challenge. Citizens need to have jobs as soon as possible but a sustainable recovery requires restructuring of the economy.

more »

prospect.org — Forget making everyone healthy and saving the polar bears. If Democrats can't solve the jobs problem, next year's elections will be an uphill battle.

more »

blog.locustfork.net — The people who are showing up with those signs in the park, protesting a plan for real progress in this country, do not represent freedom. They don’t represent heaven. They are the devil in cheap blue jeans with bad hair cuts. Maybe I will show up for one of those protests one day soon and tell them that myself. Or maybe I will just sit here and laugh at them from a distance for being so ignorant, and take pleasure in knowing their day is almost done.

more »

tomdispatch.com — During the 2008 presidential race, some Republican Party elders warned of Palin's destructive influence. They insisted she was a polarizing figure whose extremism would accelerate the Party's slide toward the political and cultural margins. New polling data appears to support such doomsday prophecies.

more »

huffingtonpost.com — While the concerns of many white, middle-class people are worthy causes and should be addressed by liberals (and are), it is not elitism to treat this roving band of conspiracy nuts for the cretins they are or associate with. This would be akin to President Johnson in 1964 undertaking a federal committee to study the mind control powers of fluoridated water. That would be asinine.

more »

prospect.org — Will the GOP be sufficiently rebuilt to challenge Obama and the Democrats in 2010? Probably not.

more »

smirkingchimp.com — The GOP's agenda, if fully implemented, would prove catastrophic. Here's what an unfettered Republican Party would do "for" America.

more »

salon.com — After the disastrous Bush presidency the GOP had the option to go crazy or rethink. Guess which one they chose.

more »

washingtonpost.com — Here's a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose. This is what happened in two statewide referendums last week that got buried under all of the attention paid to the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey

more »

nytimes.com — Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we've grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption "National Socialist Healthcare." It was grotesque — and it was also ominous. The key thing to understand about that rally is that it wasn't a fringe event. It was sponsored by the House Republican leadership — in fact, it was officially billed as a G.O.P. press conference. Senior lawmakers were in attendance, and apparently had no problem with the tone of the proceedings.

more »

washingtonpost.com — Democrats have some thinking to do after Tuesday's elections, but Republicans don't have time to think. They're too busy trying to survive the party's internal purge and avoid being shipped off to political Siberia.

more »

motherjones.com — The anti-health care reform rally in Washington indicates the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement are increasingly one and the same.

more »