I know a lot of people have already discussed this New York Times article but this one passage truly scared me. From the NYT: The issue is being framed by the 2012 election. Administration officials, frustrated by the intransigence of House Republicans, have increasingly concluded that the best thing Mr. Obama can do for the [...]

So the two jobs plans under consideration are put on a show and score a “win” by paying off the Chamber, arming the North Koreans and offshoring 160,000 jobs with another NAFTA deal, or put on a show and pretend to care about passing legislation that will never happen.

You know at some point people might get wise to the fact that Obama is the most powerful political figure in the world, and he does have options beyond being a corporate tool who lets his campaign manager rearrange the national lawn furniture.

Transpartisan alliances certainly won’t work on every issue. But when it comes to matters of transparency, accountability and the rule of law they can. Those are things we desperately need right now as we watch a corrupt system fall apart at the seams.

The Appeals Court of the 11th Circuit just ruled that the individual mandate in the new Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. The ruling does, though, leave the rest of the law intact. From Politico: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that the health care reform law’s requirement that nearly all Americans buy [...]

Firedoglake Campaign Briefing Callwith Lt. Dan Choi & Yetta Kurland Wed. August 17th, 7:00PM EDT On Wednesday, August 17, Firedoglake.com will hold a tele-news conference call with Lt. Dan Choi and his attorney Yetta Kurland  to discuss his upcoming trial in DC federal court on August 29 for protesting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in front of the [...]

The Obama Administration has finally started to do something relatively serious about the housing crisis by using the tool of executive authority it has over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, the plan seems to depend heavily on enriching large corporate middlemen. The Wall Street Journal explains: One proposal would sell packages of hundreds or [...]

James Clyburn has just been appointed to the Super Congress Catfood II Commission,  and will now have powers above those or an ordinary member of Congress when it comes to determining the future of Social Security and Medicare.  So I thought it would be a good time to re-run Mike Stark’s interview with Clyburn from May of 2010 regarding Clyburn’s support for cutting Social Security benefits.

The only thing worse than Washington being foolishly swept up in unnecessary deficit hysteria when our political leaders should be focused on jobs, is that all these so called “deficit hawks” entirely ignore the actual best solutions to shrink our long term deficit. That is why it is encouraging to see more regular exposure of [...]

In the past month the American people’s confidence in the state of the economy has plummeted according to recent Gallup polling. The scariest part of the poll is that in only one month there has been a 14 percent increase in the number of people who think the American economy is getting worse and a [...]

Ratigan’s rant did not pander to his audience with cheap talking points that reinforce tribalist divisions — as well as the status quo. Instead he made everyone profoundly agitated by speaking the hard truths that throw the whole game board up in the air and scatter the playing pieces on the ground.