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By Karen Malpede (Editor); Michael Messina (Editor); Bob Shuman (Editor); Chris Hedges (Foreword)
By Wellford Wilms
$39.95
$18
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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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By William Pfaff — The impending end of the Bush administration and the inauguration of Barack Obama pose the enormous and explosive question of what to do about those responsible for what are regarded by a significant part of the world as war crimes.
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By Joe Conason — As the government contemplates spending very large sums of money, it is reassuring to know that somebody still worries about waste. Or it would be reassuring, if only that somebody were not Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader.
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By Marie Cocco — Much of the business-tax package Obama contemplates fails his own test of cutting business taxes “where it makes sense and is going to work.”
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By Marie Cocco — I am supposed to be typing out words that articulate a highly audible and terribly alarmed tsk tsk. Instead, I am laughing with unrestrained amusement at the farce that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has engineered. Honestly, I haven’t had this much fun since New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s implosion.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — While Republicans are looking inward and focusing on appeals to the party’s activist base, Obama wants Democrats to concentrate their energies on recently acquired political terrain and the new converts who were central to his party’s sweep last year.
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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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Flickr / FaceMePLS
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President-elect Obama is still working out the nuts and bolts of his recovery (fingers crossed) package, but Obama advisers have disclosed that at least one proposal would expand benefits and compensation to the unemployed. With the economic meltdown vaporizing more and more jobs, here’s hoping Congress gets it done before February.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The governor is playing Chicago-style hardball at the highest level. His opponents need to reply in kind.
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By Ellen Goodman — The 43rd president is going home with less remorse and fewer regrets than my grandchildren express for spilling their cereal.
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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 E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The troubles of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich have endangered one of the Democratic Party’s safest U.S. Senate seats.
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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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Frank Langella as Nixon in the new Ron Howard movie does his best, but no one did Nixon like Nixon.
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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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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — In naming retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki as veterans affairs secretary, President-elect Barack Obama made what may be the most politically and morally significant choice of his transition.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — No, the federal government isn’t going to discover new billions under some rock in a national park. But with the economic downturn, the new president’s imperative will be to spend as fast as he can, to the tune of perhaps $500 billion, to keep the economy from going belly up.
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Flickr / sskennel
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As Sen. Saxby Chambliss squares off Tuesday against challenger Jim Martin in Georgia’s runoff election, a certain Alaska governor has managed to work her way back into the spotlight. Stumping for Chambliss, Sarah Palin continues to draw throngs of Republicans while others wish she would simply go away.
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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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USAF / Staff Sgt. Samuel Rogers
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By William Pfaff — Barack Obama has no choice but to accept responsibility for America’s foreign policy crises. But why should he accept them on the distorted and even hysterical terms by which the Bush administration has defined world affairs since 2001?
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By David Sirota — If you’re having trouble remembering what the recent election was all about, rest easy: You’re probably not going senile – you’re likely experiencing the momentary effects of brainwashing.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — While the nation’s capital obsesses over who will be the next pick for Barack Obama’s Cabinet, the president-elect’s lieutenants are engaged with what may be a more important long-term issue: What will become of Obama’s vast grass-roots network?
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washingtonpost.com
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Republican Sen. Richard Shelby seems to be one of the only real capitalists left on Capitol Hill. The Alabaman argued Wednesday that U.S. auto firms should be left to the realities of the market, letting companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler go bankrupt and forcing the failing industry to carry out what Shelby believes are much-needed reforms.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — There is a second transition under way over which President-elect Barack Obama has no control—the transition of conservatives to minority status. How they do this will have a powerful impact on the new presidency.
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AP photo / Morry Gash
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By Chris Hedges — War is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate.
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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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By Joe Conason — Is there enough muscle behind the GOP filibuster threat to block Obama’s mandate? The short answer is no—and the new president’s own political arsenal should enable him to call the Republican bluff.
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By Ellen Goodman — Have you ever seen a transformation this fast? Think of it as evolution on steroids. But don’t think Sarah Palin will go quietly into that good Arctic night.
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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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Flickr / Jennie R.F.
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Why is Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens, a felon, leading in his race for re-election after pollsters predicted a decisive loss? It could have something to do with the fact that roughly one-third of the ballots have yet to be counted, and thousands more were just discovered.
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goodguide.com
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You may have knocked on doors for Barack Obama, but it’s possible you gave money to John McCain. GoodGuide has a tool that sorts donations by party, logo and industry. Tech companies seem to prefer Democrats while food companies love Republicans. The banks, of course, throw money at everybody.
Posted on Nov 7, 2008
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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 William Pfaff — The president-elect is a foreign policy novice and will find himself under great pressure to follow Middle Eastern and China and Russia policies inherited from George Bush, even though these are what Barack Obama was elected to change or terminate.
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By Joe Conason — Obama can be expected to behave as Bush ought to have acted in a time of national crisis. That means drawing on goodwill wherever he can find it, drawing on talent regardless of party and drawing on the powerful desire of most Americans to live again in one nation.
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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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By Marie Cocco — The line for early voting wound up one side of a corridor in the Loudoun County voter registration office and down the other. Those in line were, collectively, the face of change in Virginia that could tip the state into the Democratic column for the first time since the LBJ landslide of 1964.
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AP photo / Jose Luis Magana
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By Chris Hedges — Tomorrow I will go to a polling station in Princeton, N.J., and vote for Ralph Nader. I know the tired arguments against a Nader vote. But there is little disagreement among liberals and progressives about the Nader and Obama campaign issues. Nader would win among us in a landslide if this was based on issues.
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AP photo / LM Otero
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — A good politician triumphs by adapting to the times and taking advantage of opportunities as they come. A great politician anticipates openings others don’t see and creates possibilities that were not there before.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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Nixon’s former counsel has written a scathing review of conservative Republican politics and says the McCain-Palin ticket, which “scares the hell out of me,” fits the mold. How’s this for an endorsement?: “If Obama is rejected on November 4th for another authoritarian conservative like McCain, I must ask if Americans are sufficiently intelligent to competently govern themselves.”
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us.penguingroup.com
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An insightful book discloses how a confidence game combined pride and cunning and stupidity to bring America to the brink of catastrophe.
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By David Sirota — John McCain and Barack Obama have made the race’s final weeks an ideological proxy war between two presidential icons who still loom larger than them: Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt.
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By Marie Cocco — For a steel sculpture of migrating salmon, amongst other goodies, Ted Stevens—one of the lions of the Senate—was willing to forfeit the kingdom.
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By Joe Conason — Writing a postmortem for John McCain’s presidential candidacy would be premature. But if and when that moment comes next week, toxic staff infection will be listed as a primary cause of death.
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By Ellen Goodman — Have you noticed that the spookiest colors of the season are not orange and black but red and blue? As Halloween slips into Election Day, the race for the White House has scared more grown-ups than any trip to the haunted house.
Posted on Oct 30, 2008
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By Marie Cocco — My computer will allow a letter to be displayed at a maximum 500 percent of its normal size. That isn’t big enough for a capital “H” that conveys the towering hypocrisies of the Sarah Palin political wardrobe malfunction.
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Wikimedia Commons / edited for effect
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By Chris Hedges — The old assumptions and paradigms about capitalism and free markets are dead. A new, virulent populism, still inchoate, is slowly and painfully rising to take their place. This populism will determine the future of the country. It is as likely to be right-wing as left-wing.
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By David Sirota — Is John McCain stupid, or does he believe we are? That’s the question as he criticizes Barack Obama for allegedly trying to “redistribute the wealth” with a plan to lower taxes on the middle class and raise them on the super-rich.
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By Eugene Robinson — Opinion surveys, voter registration totals and cable television ratings indicate that Americans have been engrossed by the marathon presidential campaign. In a week and a half, it’ll be over. What will we do to fill the void in our lives?
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By Joe Conason — Wherever John McCain appears on the stump in these waning days of the presidential campaign, he is always accompanied by his imaginary friend “Joe the Plumber,” but it is the specter of Karl Marx that lurks just offstage.
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By Marie Cocco — After the eye-popping fundraising revelations of the past couple of days, the need that’s far more pronounced is the imperative of acting quickly after November’s election to restore some common sense to the presidential campaign finance system—before we don’t have any system at all.
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Does Anything Change in Los Angeles With Election of New Mayor?
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