Obama Economic Team Weighs New Stimulus Heavy On Business Tax Breaks
The Obamas' redecoration of the Oval Office is very cautious, neutral, inoffensive, neither one thing nor the other -- the Audacity of Taupe. But I applaud the switch from flowers to a bowl of fruit on the new coffee table. In times of great economic hardship, it makes a world of sense to be able to eat the centerpiece if necessary. However, the decision to festoon the new carpet with quotes from Lincoln, F.D.R., J.F.K., Teddy Roosevelt and Martin Luther King seems a tad Hallmark-y, and a little prepubescent -- something Sasha's fellow fourth graders might suggest (Malia's seventh-grade friends would probably find it "lame"). What's next, adding the doodle of a heart with "Barack + Michelle"?
Pay no attention to the stock market. The real economy is jobs and paychecks, what people buy and what they sell. And the real economy -- even viewed from a worldwide perspective -- is as precarious as ever, perhaps more so.
Before, I thought you were just another cable news talk show host. Now, you are using the language of a spiritual and even a religious leader. But to invoke the name of God and the vocation of a spiritual leader has consequences.
What Barack Obama described in the 2008 campaign is what we are seeing unfold in the country. Guns and religion -- or, in other words, fear and intolerance.
With his commitment to war in Afghanistan, President Obama is propagating an exculpatory view of any and all U.S. war efforts -- as if the immoral can become the magnificent by virtue of patriotic alchemy.
Economists, historians, and, as we move into the present, journalists and pundits, offer a mixed multitude of reasons for each American recession. But now that we've had four of them (including the crash of 2,000), we can see a pattern emerging.
You're either for net neutrality, or you're against it. The problem with the middle ground is that it doesn't exist; the search is futile. But that doesn't mean you can't go on searching for it forever.
Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are smart and talented performers, no less committed in their beliefs and values than Beck, but, hypothetically, their ability to attract a similar size crowd to Beck's, doubtful.
Currently, the "scab" workers running the plant are unfamiliar with the system they are using. This is a uranium enrichment facility from which even the slightest leak of UF6 could wipe out the entire town.
Social Security is performing just as it was designed to: expand benefit payout when the economy weakens and building on the biblical principle of laying up reserves during years of plenty to meet needs in leaner years.
The reality is that Obama's current standing -- and the rush to blame it on tactical failures -- could be predicted months ago based on structural factors. His approval ratings largely reflect a poor economy.
The Democrats cannot take their base for granted. Only moral leadership backed by actions and communicated effectively can excite the Obama base once more. Without that excitement, the Democrats will lose big.
While everyone is focused on the crowd sizes or Glenn Beck's tall tale about holding in his bare hands George Washington's inaugural address at the National Archives, the more important questions ought to be about the money.
A push for job creation would bring work for many people now simmering in the toxic right-wing media bubble instead. The conditions fueling the Obama backlash may lift -- if we can somehow lift the conditions holding back America as a whole.
The issue of sustainability is no longer a luxury item or an add-on to those factors routinely addressed by management; it has moved to the apex of management concerns.
This Labor Day, I propose we think less about the material gains that working Americans have secured. Instead, we should consider the values that organized labor embodies that we might hope to pass along to our children.
After hitting on a brilliant new life plan, our first instinct is to tell someone, but Derek Sivers says it's better to keep goals secret.
In our era of deflated discourse, the good humor and cynicism of political comedy makes the ideal tonic.
When progressives are given the opportunity to put one of our own into an obscure-but-powerful position, it is critical to carpe diem. In New York, one of those opportunities has emerged in the form of Eric Schneiderman.
As a deregulation romance novel, hedge-fund manager Daniel Loeb's "investor letter" is a bodice-ripper. It's the latest salvo in an ongoing war against real financial regulations that protect the American people.
When candidates have to raise millions of dollars just to run a competitive campaign, they're going to turn to wealthy donors, and the voice of the everyday American isn't going to be heard.
The hostage situation at the Discovery Channel Wednesday, which ended with the death of the offender, shows the extent some people will go to complain about cable programming.
By focusing all of its attention on illness and on what's not working, psychology has missed the fact that the brain's ability to obsess can also amount to a real treasure.
A new U.S. plan for capturing individuals outside Afghanistan and transferring them to Bagram as a way to avoid the requirements of the U.S. constitution raises legitimate and sincere legal concerns.
The battle against terrorism requires that we understand its ideational roots, not all of which are intrinsically evil or irrational.
The deep scandal of government contracting goes far beyond the actions of a handful of bad actors and products that can seen and touched. It is systemic, insidious, potentially damaging to national security -- and perfectly legal.
Tamar Abrams, 2010.09.02
