by Bill Scher | Nov 14, 2008 | Blog
Looking at the same data I did when diagnosing the conservative "secular problem," Karl Rove concludes: Then there were those who didn't show up. There were 4.1 million fewer Republicans voting this year than in 2004. Some missing Republicans had turned independent or...
by Bill Scher | Nov 13, 2008 | Blog
While many see the automotive industry crisis as an opportunity to help address our clean energy needs, conservatives see an opportunity to make workers earn less. The Examiner editorial page claims: The basic reason why Asian automakers make money on their U.S....
by Leo Gerard | Nov 13, 2008 | Blog
Within hours of Barack Obama’s election, naysayers chastened caution. Don’t go too far, they inveighed. Build trust slowly with restrained, moderate, and gradual actions, they admonished. In other words: Start with piddling plans. Basically, they want to abort hope --...
by Bill Scher | Nov 12, 2008 | Blog, Minimum Wage
After the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) was a bit of a buzzkill, watering down progressive legislation regarding the minimum wage and prescription drug costs. And in the next Congress, as Ezra Klein suggested...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 12, 2008 | Blog
Conservatives started spinning even before the dancing stopped on election night. Obama's victory is impressive, but "this is still a center right nation," went the mantra. "This was a good Democratic year, says Bill Kristol, "but this is still a center-right country....
by Bill Scher | Nov 11, 2008 | Blog
On Fox News Sunday, leading House conservative Mike Pence looked at the success of ballot initiatives that deny equal marriage rights as evidence that conservatism remains healthy in America. Discussing how the Republican Party should move forward, Pence told host...
by Bill Scher | Nov 10, 2008 | Blog, Making it in America
So another irresponsible industry is in deep trouble and wants a government bailout. This time, it's the auto industry. General Motors is literally worth nothing, according to Deutsche Bank, and needs "external government intervention" to survive. Ford and Chrysler...
by Sara Robinson | Nov 10, 2008 | Blog
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day in Canada. In many ways, it is the most Canadian of all the statutory holidays we have here -- more heartfelt than Thanksgiving, more widely observed than Canada Day, more essential to the deep strain of honor in the Canadian character than...
by Bill Scher | Nov 8, 2008 | Blog
Check this second paragraph from an Associated Press story about the House battle to head the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would play a critical role in any global warming legislation: Obama has said he wants to act quickly on climate change. But crucial...
by Bill Scher | Nov 7, 2008 | Blog
In the latest edition of The Week In Blog over at Bloggingheads.tv features Blog P.I.'s William Beutler and myself discussing Obama's mandate. Fascinating to me is the length conservatives will go to pretend Obama does not have a progressive mandate. Beutler's attempt...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 7, 2008 | Blog
Sometimes the most pointed — or preposterous — comes from unexpected sources. This time, it's The Onion providing the former and the Wall Street Journal serving up the latter. The best satire comes wrapped around a grain of discomforting truth. Daniel De Groot...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 7, 2008 | Blog
Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008 spearheaded not only a change election, but a sea-change election. It marks the end of the conservative era that has dominated our politics since 1980, and the beginning of a new era of progressive reform, driven by an emerging...
by Bill Scher | Nov 6, 2008 | Blog
Here's a little news that probably won't dominate the post-election punditry. More than 60% of voters considered Sen. Barack Obama a "liberal." And he won. Politico interviewed Sen. John McCain's long-time close aide Mark Salter, who revealed the result from the...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 5, 2008 | Blog
It's been a long, long time coming But I know, a change is gonna come. Oh, yes it will. Sam Cooke, "A Change is Gonna Come" At 11:01 p.m. last night, after the polls closed in California, I just had to call someone. I'd spent the night at the National Public Radio...
by Alan Jenkins | Nov 5, 2008 | Blog
It’s hard to overstate the transformative moment that we’re in as a nation and, particularly, as progressives. In just a few years, we’ve gone from the high point of conservative power to a stunning rejection of conservative federal leadership and the historic...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 5, 2008 | Blog
Americans wake today to a new dawn, a new possibility. You don't have to drink the Kool-Aid to appreciate how extraordinary this is. We will look at one another with new eyes. We are a better, bigger, more generous, more optimistic people than many—particularly Karl...
by Bill Scher | Nov 5, 2008 | Blog
It's not the style. It's the substance that dictated the outcome of the election, which gave Sen. Barack Obama a larger share of the popular vote than either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton ever received. The backdrop of this election has long been the comprehensive...
by Sara Robinson | Nov 4, 2008 | Blog
All good movements turn into organizations turn into businesses turn into rackets. —Old organizers' saying I don't think any of us expected to get so far so soon. Back in 2003, when Bush was southern-frying the Dixie Chicks and the Iraq War was propelling millions...
by Bill Scher | Nov 4, 2008 | Blog
After Paris Hilton, pigs and moose, there was a time when it seemed this consequential election was going to be diverted once again into the trivial. But then the financial crisis hit, and there was no way the public would be distracted. Some tried, flogging tenuous...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 3, 2008 | Blog
It looks like another 0-for-3 weekend for the watchdog, as it looks like any questions that are going to be asked — and answered — before election day already have been. With election day around the corner and the candidates (all but one having appeared on...
by Tula Connell | Nov 3, 2008 | Blog, Minimum Wage
What bitter irony. Studs Terkel, who gave voice to working people throughout his life, passed away yesterday, just days before a potentially historic presidential election. Should Sen. Barack Obama win on Tuesday, his victory would be a sweet vindication for Terkel,...
by Bill Scher | Nov 3, 2008 | Blog
As David Sirota observed earlier, there are right-leaning forces within the Democratic Party looking to throw cold water on bold progressive ideas. And I also noted the possibility of averting such debilitating intra-party strife by building on a growing consensus...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 31, 2008 | Blog
A funny thing happened on the way to the bailout. A number of the members of the bucket brigade — that's us, taxpayers — realized that for all the billions of dollars worth of bailing we're doing, we still appear to be sinking. Our task seems to be keeping things...
by Bill Scher | Oct 31, 2008 | Blog
David Sirota astutely analyzed the tensions within the Democratic party yesterday, keying off of a Wall Street Journal piece. Rightly critical of counterproductive public infighting, he concludes: ...what that inappropriately anticipatory behavior suggests is 1) that...
by Bill Scher | Oct 30, 2008 | Blog
Amity Shlaes clearly doesn't like that my recent post called out that her revisionist history of the New Deal is based on misleading numbers. She responded on the National Review blog The Corner: (emphasis added) Scher says that The Forgotten Man has been “found to...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Oct 30, 2008 | Blog
The health care plan advocated by presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is hazardous to your health. That is the point of this 30-second video by Health Care for America Now that succinctly hits its key flaws: It taxes the health benefits people get from their jobs,...
by Eric Lotke | Oct 30, 2008 | Blog
The email came from GOPUSA, whose mission is to “spread the conservative message throughout America.” The editorial, “Barack Obama’s Dream Cabinet”, caught my attention. I’m curious and thought they might have insight to offer. So I indulged a click. Here then are the...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Oct 30, 2008 | Blog
Today's news that the economy is sinking further into recession—gross domestic product growth decreased at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the third quarter—is making it clearer that there is only one correct response to the current economic crisis: A robust...
by Bill Scher | Oct 29, 2008 | Blog
For almost the entire history of the environment movement, its opponents framed the debate as "Environment vs. Jobs." Now, Robert Borosage optimistically asks if we'll soon see "a 21st-century Green New Deal" effectively connecting the environment and job growth as...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 29, 2008 | Blog
Last week I ventured into the "spreading the wealth" discussion with a post attempting to unpack one aspect of why even some people who might be helped by the kind of economic policies Obama is proposing are against them anyway. It was a rather long post, so...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 29, 2008 | Blog
An Institute for America's Future op-a
by Bill Scher | Oct 29, 2008 | Blog
As we are facing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression as a result of conservative deregulation, it's only logical that we would look to how we successfully dealt with the last major economic crisis -- the progressive principles that shaped President...
by Bill Scher | Oct 28, 2008 | Blog
The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wrote yesterday: ...it might be dangerous for the Republican Party to elevate the stakes for this election to a death match between competing ideologies. If Barack Obama's victory is as decisive as it is shaping up to be, the Democrats can...
by Sara Robinson | Oct 28, 2008 | Blog
With one fell stroke, giving Americans universal access to health care will undermine some of the deepest and most persi
by Isaiah J. Poole | Oct 27, 2008 | Blog
A federal spending program that only yielded 37 cents of benefit for every dollar spent, or even less, would generate sustained demands from the conservative chattering class that it be shut down. So why does the right keep selling extending President Bush's tax cuts...
by Bill Scher | Oct 27, 2008 | Blog
The Sunday shows go 0-for-3 for the Watchdog, but the softball questioning produced some notable information. Obama economic adviser Robert Rubin was not challenged on his past support for deregulation. Sen. John McCain and his economic adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin were...
by Leo Gerard | Oct 25, 2008 | Blog
Protestors disrupted a convention of mortgage financers in San Francisco this week, storming the stage as former Bush advisor Karl Rove spoke, heckling bankers with bullhorns and badgering a panel with demands for a foreclosure moratorium. Fear and frustration...
by Bill Scher | Oct 24, 2008 | Blog
Every Friday in our Weekend Watchdog feature, we post suggested questions for scheduled Sunday guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. We'll also include contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked....
by Bill Scher | Oct 24, 2008 | Blog
On Wednesday I lamented the conservative addiction to misinformation, citing the example of the false attacks on Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan, and specifically criticizing my regular bloggingheads.tv sparring partner Conn Carroll of the Heritage Foundation. The...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 24, 2008 | Blog
It was 79 years ago today that the 1929 Wall Street Crash marked the beginning of America's slide into the Great Depression. As we find ourselves in the middle of an economic crisis — during which the Great Depression has been referenced by just about everyone...
