Blog Archive: December, 2010

Bankers. The red carpet's still being rolled out for them in Washington, but if there's a stain on it they'll pout for days. Jason Linkins documents the latest set of cheap white whines from very wealthy white men. (Discrimination lawsuits are a routine part of their legal troubles, too.) This time they're upset because nobody from the six largest banks in America was invited to the President's CEO Roundtable.

They're offended because they didn't meet with the President? From the looks of things they're lucky not to be meeting with the warden. Their collective rap sheet includes fraud, sex discrimination, collusion to bribe public officials ... even laundering drug money for Mexican drug cartels. One bank's even accused of ripping off some nuns! None of this criminal behavior has stopped them from sulking over a Presidential slight. Let's review the record for these corporate malefactors, and then decide:

Which of these six banks was "America's Most Shameless Corporate Outlaw" in 2010? (I mean, really: Nuns?) more »

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The right's propaganda machine begins with a simple narrative, repeats it endlessly, and then ties current events to the narrative to drive the point home. more »

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If you haven't already noticed, there is a corporate/conservative campaign underway to convince the public that public employees are living high on the taxpayer's dime and should have their pay and pensions cut back. Even during the holidays this attack does not let up. more »

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Beware of conservatives bearing gifts. more »

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Historians of the future will look back on this year as a turning point in the drive to dismantle a popular, self-funded program by convincing people that it's a "big government" initiative that "costs too much." Ours will be remembered as a time when superstition ruled the land, just as it did in ancient Europe - except that today we make sacrifices on the altar of tax magic, not black magic.

Whenever that day arrives, Robert J. Samuelson's latest Washington Post editorial will be a useful artifact for students of this demon-haunted time. more »

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Conservatives have a legislative agenda for 2011 that will hurt your ability to get or keep a job, your neighborhood's ability to recover from the recession and this country's ability to regain its footing in the global economy.

To keep conservatives from enacting policies that will kill a nascent economic recovery, progressives will have to organize against these top 10 economy killers. more »

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Peter J. Wallison has a bright future ... as a surrealist author.. He and the other Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission tried to undermine that group's work by attempting to ban phrases like "Wall Street" from its final report. Now he's trying to rebut news reports about their behavior. His response is a brilliant example of what might be called "uninentional literature," a hallucinogenic mashup of Lewis Carroll and George Orwell that belongs on everyone's shelf.

News reports said that Wallison and his fellow Republicans on the Commission also wanted to ban the words "shadow banking," "interconnection," and "deregulation" from a report on the Great Recession and its causes. That's like banning the phrase "plastic surgery" from a story about the Kardashians.

Not true, insists Wallison. "Only in the fever-swamps of the left could anyone believe that," he writes. For example, Wallison says he and his colleagues merely objected to the Commission's use of "Wall Street" as "a general term for the financial system." Wallison says it's unacceptable, politically motivated, and imprecise to use the phrase "Wall Street" as if it referred to the controlling financial interests of the United States.

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I’ve just read the “preport” issued by the Republican gang of four minority on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC). The preport was a publicity stunt designed to embarrass the Commission, and discredit its report before it is issued. more »

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On the menu this morning:

• Education For We, the People Or For Private Profit?
• The Not-So-Lame Duck Congress
• Is Obama Back?
• What's Next?
• Breakfast Sides

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In his press conference today President Obama said the economic focus is no longer saving the economy from crisis, but "jumpstarting" it to make a dent in unemployment. He listed education as one of the pillars of that effort. Later in the press conference he talked about making colleges and universities being open not just to people who are well-to-do, but to all of us. more »

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