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By Orville Schell
By Francis Robinson
$29.95
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By Eugene Robinson — Unbeknown to the House Republicans who voted unanimously against President Obama’s stimulus package, we are in the midst of a rare fundamental shift in American politics.
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By Joe Conason — How fortunate for Barack Obama that Rush Limbaugh, big radio personality and leader of the instinctual far right, has yet to retire to a sunny island with his bottles of pills.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — President Obama’s visit with House and Senate Republicans this week was useful for setting a new tone and a refreshing break from the Bush administration’s habit of consulting almost no one. But it was a sideshow to the main battle over how to improve the economy, which is among Democrats.
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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President Barack Obama visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday to angle for support for his proposed stimulus plan ... from Republicans. Though he wasn’t likely to win them all over, Obama huddled with members of the House and Senate. He emerged in one piece and “optimistic” after the exchanges.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Beneath the warm pledges of bipartisanship and the earnest calls for cooperation lurks an unpleasant fact: From the moment it loses power, the opposition party turns to the task of getting it back.
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By Eugene Robinson — Rarely has a new presidency been greeted with such a consensus of good will—and rarely has a new president so needed it.
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By Marie Cocco — George W. Bush promised to restore “honor and dignity” to the White House, but he leaves with less honor and with lower public approval than any other president since Richard Nixon.
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By David Sirota — Somehow, immediately releasing more bailout funds is being portrayed as a self-evident necessity. Amid Barack Obama’s paeans to “new politics,” we’re watching old-school paybacks from a politician who raised more Wall Street dough than any other.
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Flickr / jphilipg
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There will be negotiation, revision and capitulation, but the basic guts of the Democrats’ $825 billion stimulus package are out in the open. There’s billions for infrastructure, billions for schools and billions for you and me. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) responded by saying “Oh. My. God,” which we’ll take to mean, “Praise Jesus! The Democrats have done it again.”
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By William Pfaff — The military is far too accustomed to getting its way, so it was refreshing to see Barack Obama reject the Pentagon’s sluggish withdrawal plan. But will he stand up to Israel, whose Prime Minister Olmert recently bragged about pulling the American president’s puppet strings?
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Flickr / exfordy
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By Joe Conason — Would it be rude to ask whether the Republicans have any new proposals to save the country from this worsening recession? If not, they should halt their reactionary opposition to Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.
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By Amy Goodman — Fifty million Americans are without health insurance, and 25 million are “underinsured.” Millions being laid off will soon be added to those rolls. At this perilous moment, we need sweeping New Deal-caliber changes, not the impotent tinkering that has been proposed.
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By Marie Cocco — Hilda Solis does not have star power. What the nominee for labor secretary does have is a record of loyalty to those who work and want to work, and who wish to receive in exchange a decent wage and a measure of dignity.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — One of the clearest signals President-elect Barack Obama has sent is his determination to learn from the Clinton years, and particularly from the former president’s failures on health care.
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The Economist
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The Illinois House has voted to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich on charges of corruption—like, for example, trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. The road to impeachment now leads to the Illinois state Senate, where a two-thirds majority is needed to boot Blagojevich.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The substantive issues surrounding an economic stimulus are clearer than the politics of getting it passed fast. Here’s how Obama is trying to weave the politics and the substance together.
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AP photo / M. Spencer Green
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By Stanley Kutler — Some have argued that the Senate does not have the right to reject embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s pick to replace Barack Obama. However, history clearly disagrees.
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By Amy Goodman — Strong voices for peace have left us this year, people who used their art for social change, often at a high personal price.
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By Amy Goodman — Bernard Madoff’s criminal pyramid scheme, in which losses are expected to be $50 billion, paints a grim picture—unless you are a corporate executive. Read the fine print. Of the TARP bailout funds, only those that were technically spent “in an auction” carry limits on executive pay.
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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When he selected Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, Barack Obama acknowledged that he was looking for a bad cop, but Nancy Pelosi refuses to be bullied. A former mentor of sorts to Emanuel, the House speaker is “laying down the law,” according to the Politico.
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By Marie Cocco — I must admit that when the danger of a global financial implosion became apparent in March, I did not understand how all those worthless Wall Street credit swaps really could be the fault of an overpaid union welder at an auto plant somewhere in Michigan.
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By Eugene Robinson — Despite the popular myth, lemmings don’t really hurl themselves off a cliff to reduce their numbers. That sort of behavior is seen only among Republicans in the Senate, who gave us a demonstration when they torpedoed legislation to bail out the auto industry.
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Flickr / jburwen
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How many Illinois state House members voted Monday to begin impeachment proceedings against Gov. Rod Blagojevich? 113. How many Illinois state House members are there? 113. But in a twist, the governor retains the power to name Barack Obama’s successor, although the U.S. Senate has no intention of recognizing a Blagojevich appointee.
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Truthdig / Peter Scheer
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By Jeremiah Levine — A little-noticed California proposition could limit the kind of partisan gerrymandering that Republicans and Democrats have used to influence elections around America for decades. But is that a good thing?
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Flickr / SteelCityHobbies
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White House and congressional leaders have agreed to bail out the auto industry. Detroit will get $15 billion in loans and, to make sure the Big Three keep running after their warranties expire, a so-called car czar will oversee long-term restructuring. And because we’re really serious about getting this right, George W. Bush gets to pick the car czar. D’oh!
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Flickr / Franco Folini
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As congressional leaders, the White House and President-elect Obama came to terms with a $15-billion loan package for the auto industry, Sen. Chris Dodd suggested Sunday that not all executives should stick around to spend that money. GM CEO Rick Wagoner “has to move on,” the senator declared on “Face the Nation.”
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thesmokinggun.com
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The Smoking Gun has the scuttlebutt on the president’s new $2 million home in Dallas. Should he need to borrow a cup of sugar, Bush can call on billionaire neighbor Tom Hicks, who succeeded him as owner of the Texas Rangers.
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Flickr / SteelCityHobbies
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The auto industry bailout would have no chance of passing without the muscle of the Big Three’s unionized work force. Yet you can’t turn around without hearing someone trash autoworkers for the terrible crime of trying to earn a decent living.
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By Marie Cocco — At the earliest, it is likely to be at least February or March before the first dollar of an Obama recovery plan is felt. This is a national disgrace.
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Flickr / Center for American Progress Action Fund
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House Democrats are serious about going green. To prove it, they just ousted auto hawk John Dingell from his perch as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. Henry Waxman, a California liberal and occasional Dingell foe, supplied the boot.
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Flickr / SteelCityHobbies
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The chief executives of the Big Three American car companies head to Washington Tuesday along with the head of the United Auto Workers to beg Congress for a bailout that seems less and less probable.
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An unabashed triumph, Morrison’s new novel is a gloriously poetic and incantatory retelling of America’s tragic and redemptive story.
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By David Sirota — Bush reportedly suggested to Obama he might support an economic stimulus package and aid to struggling automakers if Democrats drop their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia. Strange behavior? Yes and no.
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speaker.gov
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Nancy Pelosi isn’t as showy as some of her predecessors, but according to a profile in the Politico, the most powerful woman in American political history is firmly in control of her domain. Tom “the Hammer” DeLay says she is “the most powerful speaker in a generation—she will be able to do anything she wants.” As one anonymous lawmaker put it, “Whatever Nancy wants, Nancy gets.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — If Reagan had the voters’ permission to move away from strategies associated with liberalism, Obama has sanction to move away from conservative policies. And Reagan offers another lesson: His first moves were bold, and Obama should not fear following his example.
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By David Sirota — Obama and the rest of the party should retire the Innocent Bystander Fable—the myth about being powerless onlookers.
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By Marie Cocco — Republicans will try to tie memories of Jimmy Carter to the new Democratic president by conjuring up disturbing visions of policy failure and “malaise.”
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house.gov
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Just a day after winning the presidency, Barack Obama has started hiring. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, one of the architects of the Democrats’ congressional majority, is in line to be chief of staff. Sen. Chuck Hagel, the anti-war Republican, could be named to a Cabinet post, while Sen. John Kerry is said to be after the secretary of state job. Updated yet again.
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AP photo / Al Grillo
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By G.W. Schulz, Center for Investigative Reporting —
When Sarah Palin brags about the self-reliance of her state, she doesn’t mention the mobile command communications vehicle, bought with federal dollars to help keep her home town of 7,028 safe from terrorism. Thanks in part to an anti-terrorism bonanza, Alaska is one of the greatest per-capita beneficiaries of federal funding among the 50 states.
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Flickr / Svadilfari
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Not everyone is feeling the credit crunch: The DNC is borrowing $10 million to spend on Senate and House races. Encouraged by polls, the party wants to win as many seats as possible before the public stops hating on the GOP.
Posted on Oct 28, 2008
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White House / Shealah Craighead
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The former Fed chair told angry lawmakers on Thursday that after 40 years of buying into free-market ideology he had “found a flaw.” Rep. Henry Waxman told Greenspan “our whole economy is paying the price” because he ignored advice and resisted regulation.
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msnbc.com
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Rep. Michelle Bachmann was cakewalking to re-election in her Republican-leaning Minnesota district until she told Chris Matthews the media should investigate anti-Americanism in Congress. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee calls that a “$1 million mistake.”
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By Marie Cocco — The last thing we need is another “economic stimulus” package. What we need is a jobs package. And we ought to start calling it that.
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By Joe Conason — For anyone who followed the story of how and why Sarah Palin fired her state’s public safety commissioner, last week’s release of a legislative investigation that found she had violated state ethics statutes was anticlimactic.
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By Eugene Robinson — Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?
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dailykos.com
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First Dude Todd Palin has said he and some “buddies” built his lakefront home in Wasilla, Alaska, but an investigation by the Village Voice connects the home’s construction, if circumstantially, to the beneficiaries of a local boondoggle championed by his wife.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Each campaign has given voters ample notice about the inclinations, temperaments, habits, philosophical leanings and advisers they would bring to the White House. That’s enough.
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starwoodhotels.com
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What’s $85 billion if you don’t get to spend it? Just days after taxpayers saved AIG from ruin, executives of the insurance giant spent $440,000 pampering themselves at the exclusive St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach, Calif.
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World Economic Forum / Remy Steinegger
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On Monday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee took a look into the collapse of Lehman Brothers as part of a larger review of the factors leading to the current economic crisis, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Judging by the committee’s account, leaders at Lehman Bros. disregarded key warnings of impending trouble and cut hefty checks for their fellow executives even as the firm teetered on the brink of disaster.
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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By Chris Hedges — The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was murdered by the Democratic Party.
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