Blog Archive: March, 2012

In 2010, Christopher Beam reported that Rep. Paul Ryan (WI, R) required his congressional staff to read Ayn Rand's Objectivist tome, Atlas Shrugged (now a major motion picture). Ryan has made no secret of his admiration for Rand's philosophy, and has cited her as "the reason I got into public policy." (He's not the only one. Kentucky's aptly-name, big-oil-glorifying Senator Rand Paul is another.) Whether Ryan still makes his staff slog through Rand's work, is anybody's guess. But his latest budget proposal — unanimously approved by House Republicans, and embraced by all-but-inevitable Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney — makes it clear that he and the rest of the GOP want very much to make the rest of us slog through a world redesigned according to Rand's worldview.

What exactly is that worldview? And what would a world designed according to its dictates look like? I'm glad you asked.

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Economic radical Paul Ryan has endorsed Mitt Romney, Romney's embraced the Ryan budget, and the House Republicans have voted to enact the Romney/Ryan vision of the future into law. Yet an eerie silence has settled over the vision itself: How would it affect our daily lives? more »

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The "independent" audit of working conditions at Apple's Chinese manufacturing supply chain is out, and it is not good. Workers are being exploited in ways that violate human rights standards and laws, and letting them get away with this is costing us our own jobs. Apple's suppliers promise to improve conditions, make workplaces safer, stop forcing such long hours and lift wages. more »

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• MORNING MESSAGE: Who Voted For The Most Radical Right-Wing Budget In American History?
• House Budget May Shape Election, Spark Shutdown
• "Rebuild America Act" To Restore Middle Class Unveiled
• Conservative Case Against Health Reform Falls Apart
• Breakfast Sides

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Today, 228 House representatives -- all Republicans -- voted for a budget that would give every millionaire a brand new $265,000 tax handout, cut funding for the poor by $3.3 trillion, privatize Medicare, and more »

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Behind this week’s record-smashing $2 billion-plus sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a global economy that’s enriching only the world’s super rich

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Coming in over the transom this week, the ever-vigilant bloggers at Education Week's Politics K-12 who were camped out at hearings for the House Education and the Workfor more »

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When millions of dollars are being pumped into Washington by anti-government and anti-tax ideologues, you're bound to find Democrats willing to play along. And when your Washington press corps can't be bothered to get even the smallest details right - well, that must mean the Bowles/Simpson Medicine Show is back in town.

It's here, folks. Journalists are still cooing over a failed proposal they're calling "moderate" and "centrist," based on the radical and unpopular plan put forward by two individuals named Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.

Another budget, one that's both economically sound and more politically popular, was summarily dismissed by the same media as 'partisan' and extreme. more »

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The Progressive Caucus Budget for All, the embodiment of the progressive vision for rebuilding the economy, was voted down overwhelmingly on the House floor Thursday. more »

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You can sit on your couch and tweet things out there all day, but Twitter doesn't knock on doors, and Twitter really doesn't get in people's faces. The Should Be Made In America campaign shows how to get that done. more »

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