All Life Is Problem Solving

At Huffington Post a few days ago, Michael Brenner, lamenting the current display of plutocracy in Congress, had this to say: ”We vaunt American democracy as a stellar model for the world. The bizarre spectacle now on display in Washington as the White House and the Congress tussle over health care “reform” is hardly an […]

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If Progressives and Democrats are going to be successful in the future, they have to solve important problems of middle and working class people, such as stagnant real income, declining wealth, terrible and high risk (i.e. easily disappearing) health insurance, high quality education for all, including opportunities for everyone to get a college education, a […]

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Previously, I’ve written about the great cost of the filibuster to the American body politic, and specifically criticized it as one of the primary barriers to successful adaptation to the various challenges faced by American Society. Norman Ornstein in an article entitled “Our Broken Senate” covers the evolution of immobilist Senate practices including the filibuster […]

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Well, the chorus has now started singing “too small, too small” about the stimulus. What was obvious to Paul Krugman, Joe Stieglitz, Dean Baker, Jamie Galbraith, Robert Reich. Robert Kuttner, and a host of other economists is now becoming so clear that the MSM, which not very long ago, wouldn’t even cover the opinion that […]

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Today, I have a quickie comment on US politics. Ryan Lizza had a striking profile on Rahm Emanuel in the New Yorker, which among other things recorded Rahm’s reactions to some critics of the Administration’s efforts on the stimulus package. Lizza puts things this way: ““They have never worked the legislative process,” Emanuel said of […]

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In a recent blog called “Keep the Filibuster, Say Dem Senators,” Ryan Grim writes about the pushback from Democratic Senators against current calls from Progressives to get rid of the filibuster. Since this pushback was coming from four of my favorite Democratic Senators: Claire McCaskill, Amy Klobuchar, Barbara Boxer, and Patrick Leahy, I thought I […]

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When the Senate cut Education Funding, Aid to the States, Aid to Low Income Families, Renewable Energy Investments, Health Information Technology, and Science Funding, all of which would have produced $.57 for each dollar invested, and, instead, increased wasteful tax cuts which will produce an additional $.02 gain on each dollar invested, I began to […]

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The Republican Tax Cut wingnut, Steve Forbes, once said of the IRS: “The only thing we can do with this hideous beast is kill it, drive a stake through its heart, bury it, and hope it never rises again to terrorize the American people!” While I don’t share this view in relation to the IRS, […]

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