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by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge $18.45
By Denise Kiernan $19.34
$22
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 AP/Evan Vucci
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By Peter Z. Scheer — President Obama defended the government’s massive surveillance programs Friday, saying they “help us prevent terrorist attacks.”
Posted on Jun 8, 2013
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 Shutterstock graphic of a crowd.
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By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law —
Paying someone else to secure you a seat at committee hearings is a for-profit concern on Capitol Hill, but some people are worried it has weakened the influence of the public.
Posted on Jun 5, 2013
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Journalist Robert Kaiser has written a case study of the passage of Dodd-Frank, the legislation that kind of sort of took a shot at maybe re-regulating Wall Street (but not really). He tells Judy Woodruff, “It was upsetting to me as a citizen to realize how few members understood the issues they were dealing with.”
Posted on May 29, 2013
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 AP
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By Robert Scheer — The big banks’ influence in Washington has only grown in direct proportion to the harm they have caused to the nation’s economy.
Posted on May 27, 2013
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 AP/Don Ryan
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By Joe Conason — Having served in Congress for more than three decades—and in the upper chamber since 1996—Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden has established a reputation as one of the Senate’s more serious and diligent members.
Posted on May 16, 2013
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 State Department
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By Eugene Robinson — Those who are trying to make the Benghazi tragedy into a scandal for the Obama administration really ought to decide what story line they want to sell.
Posted on May 10, 2013
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 White House/Pete Souza
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By Eugene Robinson — President Obama had the opportunity this week to make an irresponsible Congress face the consequences of its own dumb actions. For reasons I cannot fathom, he took a pass.
Posted on May 2, 2013
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 Illustration by Mr. Fish
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By Chris Hedges — Exploitation of bus drivers is just one part of the corporate disemboweling of the U.S. public transportation system. As the destruction of city and state bus and subway services enters its final phase, their unions have either disappeared or lost clout.
Posted on Apr 15, 2013
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 Shutterstock drawing of a gun.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The heroic and inspiring role played by the families of the Sandy Hook massacre’s victims should not be used to create what would be a dangerously misleading narrative about how they changed the politics of guns.
Posted on Apr 14, 2013
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By David Sirota — The Republican budget endorses an economic war waged by the upper class against everyone else.
Posted on Mar 22, 2013
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 AP/Aleppo Media Center
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By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law —
Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the American war machine might be revving up for another strike, this time in Syria.
Posted on Mar 22, 2013
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 Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA)
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By Joe Conason — Someone needs to tell Paul Ryan that his party—and the economic platform of austerity and plutocracy he crafted for it—lost a national election last year.
Posted on Mar 13, 2013
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By Joe Conason — Indebted America is in danger of turning into destitute Greece, or so congressional Republicans and conservative commentators have been warning us for years now. For many reasons, this is an absurd comparison—but it may not always be quite so ridiculous if Washington’s advocates of austerity get their way.
Posted on Feb 28, 2013
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By David Sirota — Despite its success in recent elections, and despite the image of unity it projects, the Democratic Party is in the throes of an epic identity crisis pitting its corporate money against its stated principles.
Posted on Feb 22, 2013
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The deficit that should concern us most right now has to do with time, not money. Money can be recouped. Time just disappears.
Posted on Feb 20, 2013
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 White House/Pete Souza
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On Friday, journalist and historian Jon Meacham said on HBO’s “Real Time” that President Obama should, like FDR and Ronald Reagan, ignore Congress and campaign directly to the American people. It appears that is what Obama intends to do.
Posted on Feb 19, 2013
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By Eugene Robinson — In his bid to be remembered as a transformational leader, President Obama is following the playbook of an ideological opposite, Margaret Thatcher. First you win the argument, she used to say, then you win the vote.
Posted on Feb 15, 2013
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 White House/Pete Souza
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — On immigration, the parties are now competing to share credit for doing something big. It’s wonderful to behold.
Posted on Jan 30, 2013
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By Eugene Robinson — Republicans shouldn’t worry that President Obama is trying to destroy the GOP. Why would he bother? The party’s leaders are doing a pretty good job of it themselves.
Posted on Jan 29, 2013
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 Office of the Speaker of the House/Bryant Avondoglio
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By Eugene Robinson — President Obama is set to begin his second term at a moment when the question is not what great things our nation can achieve but whether our government, in Obama’s words, can “stop lurching from crisis to crisis to crisis.”
Posted on Jan 14, 2013
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 Photo by Taber Andrew Bain (CC-BY)
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Homeowner advocates and some lawmakers are upset that an $8.5 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other banks over improper foreclosures would let lenders off the hook both financially and legally.
Posted on Jan 7, 2013
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 Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey (CC-BY)
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This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The fiscal cliff is delayed, the 113th Congress is sworn in, the NDAA is signed, the Violence Against Women Act is killed and the LA Times is reborn.
Posted on Jan 4, 2013
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This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The fiscal cliff is delayed, the 113th Congress is sworn in, the NDAA is signed, the Violence Against Women Act is killed and the L.A. Times is reborn.
Posted on Jan 4, 2013
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By Joe Conason — The House of Representatives has increasingly been dominated over the past two decades by a coterie of tantrum-prone extremists who lack the probity and steadiness required for democratic self-government.
Posted on Jan 3, 2013
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including a new warning on the debt ceiling from Timothy Geithner and why it’s probably not the most wonderful time of the year for President Obama and Congress.
Posted on Dec 26, 2012
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 AP/Narciso Contreras
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By Bill Boyarsky — Politicians are still terrified of the NRA, even though analysis shows that the organization’s power is greatly exaggerated.
Posted on Dec 19, 2012
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 Rob Bixby (CC-BY)
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By Eugene Robinson — Politicians who are too craven or stupid or ideologically rigid to finally move forward on gun control will have the blood of future victims on their hands.
Posted on Dec 17, 2012
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The potential of a renaissance in conservative thought is enormous, if the right can overcome a certain intellectual laziness and inflexibility that, in fairness, have at other times afflicted the progressive side of politics.
Posted on Dec 12, 2012
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By Eugene Robinson — The biggest problem the Republican Party faces is not uninspiring candidates or unsound tactics. It is unpopular ideas.
Posted on Dec 10, 2012
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By Joe Conason — If President Obama honestly wants to negotiate an agreement with Republicans before the year-end fiscal deadline, he must be deeply frustrated. And if he doesn’t really want to negotiate with them, then he should be delighted, for the same reason.
Posted on Dec 5, 2012
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Over the long run, the most important impact of an election is not on the winning party but on the loser.
Posted on Dec 5, 2012
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including a major backer of Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign lashing out at voters and what a new poll on gay marriage shows.
Posted on Dec 5, 2012
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 Office of the Speaker of the House/Bryant Avondoglio
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By Eugene Robinson — How dare he? President Obama, I mean: How dare he do what he promised during the campaign? How dare he insist on a “balanced approach” to fiscal policy that includes a teensy-weensy tax increase for the rich? Oh, the humanity.
Posted on Dec 3, 2012
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 White House/Pete Souza
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By Joe Conason — The opposition to Susan Rice is cobbled together from the remnants of a failed “October Surprise” election gambit, and has left President Obama little choice but to move ahead with her nomination.
Posted on Nov 29, 2012
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including the entitlement program top Senate Democrats say is not on the “fiscal cliff” chopping block, and a former Republican senator has some harsh words for anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist.
Posted on Nov 27, 2012
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including a Democratic congressman’s resignation and why Joe Scarborough is apologizing to Nate Silver.
Posted on Nov 21, 2012
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 Vox Efx (CC-BY)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Human nature and politics being what they are, Republicans will underestimate the trouble they’re in, and Democrats will be eager to overestimate the strength of their post-2012 position.
Posted on Nov 15, 2012
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 Associated Press
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Kyrsten Sinema will represent the good people of Phoenix in the House after emerging victorious from an election-night squeaker. And thanks to the 36-year-old former state senator, the next Congress will feature its first openly bisexual member, as well as its first lesbian senator and first openly LGBT person of color.
Posted on Nov 13, 2012
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including the unofficial winner of the state of Florida and the question being asked about Diane Sawyer after election night.
Posted on Nov 8, 2012
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 White House/Pete Souza
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Barack Obama will serve a second term in office, winning the desperately contested battleground state of Ohio, with Florida still too close to call as of this posting.
Posted on Nov 6, 2012
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 AP/Steve Miller
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By Chris Hedges — A disturbing pattern of gross infringements on basic civil liberties, put in place in the name of national security, has poisoned our legal system.
Posted on Oct 1, 2012
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By Eugene Robinson — Has there ever been a more dishonest presidential campaign than the one Republicans are waging right now?
Posted on Aug 31, 2012
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