A Washington Post poll in September 2003 found that nearly 70 percent of all Americans were convinced that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks — even though he was not. Bush, Cheney and others consistently linked al Qaeda to Hussein in speeches they gave in the run-up to war, and the…
Category: News & Opinion
Great Recession Doubled Wealth Gap Between Whites And African-Americans
The Great Recession took its toll on millions of Americans, but its effects hit minorities hardest. The housing crisis was especially brutal for minorities, many of whom were pushed into bad mortgages by the nation’s biggest banks. The loss of 600,000 public sector jobs also hit hard, since black and Latino workers are more likely…
Health insurance plans owe $1.1 billion in rebates
In a new report, the Obama administration found that 12.8 million Americans will receive rebates this year, with an average value of $151 per household. “The big improvement here is a better value for the premium dollar,” said Mike Hash, interim director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. “What this standard encourages…
Austerity Is Hammering State Economies
Public spending cuts, while on the rise worldwide, are bad for the U.S. economy. U.S. states provide a good illustration of this principle. Since the start of the Great Recession 20 states have cut public spending while 30 states expanded spending. Those that cut spending have fared worse economically than those that expanded spending. The…
The price of a do-nothing Congress
The latest employment data indicate that the U.S. job market is in a holding pattern — the price we pay for a do-nothing Congress focused more on austerity than job creation. Our economy added 69,000 new jobs in May, for an average of 96,000 over the past three months, with a downward revision of 49,000…
Heritage Foundation ‘Expert’ Cannot Cite Voter Fraud
The one example of the sort of fraud these strict voter ID laws allegedly aim to stop that Darling could site was conservative filmmaker and convicted law-breaker James O’Keefe. O’Keefe’s approach was to break a law intentionally to prove how easy it is to break a law and to then claim that the law is…
Big Money And The Ballot Box
You wouldn’t think politicians would have any trouble raising enough money these days. The presidential race is expected to be a billion-dollar affair, and spending records have been shattered at the congressional level. But many candidates are being outgunned by superPACs and other outside groups with nearly unlimited funds at their disposal. Those dollars have…
Climate models ignored by media (except for their critics)
The group also examined media sources favored by “high-political-knowledge audiences”. These included Time Magazine, The New Yorker, PBS NewsHour, Newsweek, NPR, The Nation, The National Review, and The Rush Limbaugh Show. In 2007, contrarian viewpoints expressed in The Nation, The National Review, and The Rush Limbaugh Show accounted for one third of the stories mentioning…
In Florida, Scott Administration Vows To Accelerate Voter Purge: ‘There Will Be More Names’
The massive voter purge order by Governor Rick Scott in Florida has been plagued with errors, resulting in election officials notifying hundreds of eligible U.S. citizens that they are ineligible to vote. In response, the Scott administration has vowed to intensify their efforts to remove registered voters from the rolls. Initially, the state created a…
Report: US Has One Of The Highest Child Poverty Rates In The Developed World
According to a new report from the Office of Research at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world. Of the 35 wealthy countries studied by UNICEF, only Romania has a child poverty rate higher than the 23 percent rate in the…
10 Reasons Why Public Policies Rescued the U.S. Economy
The Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 successively helped the U.S. economy turn itself around. These three measures came at crucial times when the economy was facing the prospect of experiencing serious damage unless…
Economic Snapshot for May 2012
Families’ economic security is slowly improving: The labor market is adding jobs and household wealth is gradually increasing. But families continue to struggle given the depth of the past recession and the slow pace of improvements during the economic recovery. Policymakers acted decisively in the past with extended unemployment insurance benefits, payroll tax cuts, and…
GOP’s problem with Latinos — as big as Texas
I remember the reader who, sweet as you please, wrote to tell me: “I think most people who read your columns understand that you’re pro-Mexican invasion because you’re Mexican.” U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz is not Mexican. Nor is he Mexican-American. He is Cuban-American. And a funny thing happened to him on his way to…
How Americans use energy, in three simple charts
Donald Marron passes along a very handy chart from the Congressional Budget Office looking at what sources of energy the United States relies on — and for what purpose: SOURCE How Americans use energy, in three simple charts – The Washington Post.
Obama Fires Back On Spending Accusations : NPR [transcript]
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Lets stay with money and politics. On the campaign trail, President Obama and Mitt Romney have been feuding recently over the deficit. At issue is just how to characterize the Obama administrations record on spending. Depending on who you listen to, the president is either an out of control spender or hes…
After protest, Amazon workers finally get AC
When protesters at Amazon.coms AMZN annual meeting blasted the e-commerce giant for subjecting warehouse workers to triple-digit temperatures, company executives were the ones feeling the heat. CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the company will spend $52 million adding air-conditioning to its network of warehouses, the Seattle Times reported and Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako confirmed via email. The…
Obama calls Romney speech a cow pie of distortion
Speaking directly to Iowans, Obama used local lingo to slam Romney: “Governor Romney came to Des Moines last week and warned of a prairie fire of debt,” he said. “But he left out some facts. His speech was more like a cow pie of distortion.” Then he quipped, “I don’t know whose record he twisted…
Obama Campaign Launching ‘Dashboard’ Online, ‘Directly Tied’ To Field Operations
“The immediacy of Dashboard really sets it apart from 2008,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Katie Hogan. “It provides a good volunteer experience online that is directly tied to our field-operation goals.” As previously reported by the Guardian last week, the goal for Dashboard is to allow volunteers and staffers across different states to immediately work…
Health Insurance Cutbacks Squeeze The Insured
“Every year my company changes the insurance. And instead of giving us three different choices for insurance plans they were changing to one, which was a high-deductible plan with no prescription coverage,” she said. Cooper was stunned. Her anti-rejection medicine costs way more than she could afford on her own — more than $1,000 a…
Young Voters, Once Buoyed By Obama, Turn Away [audio]
In 2004, then-candidate Barack Obama campaigned on a message of hope and gained overwhelming support from young voters. In an op-ed in the Los Angles Times, Neal Gabler writes that many of those young voters are disappointed with his tenure, and they’ve turned to “DIY politics” instead. SOURCE Young Voters, Once Buoyed By Obama, Turn…