Right-wing media have attacked Michelle Obama for going shopping at Target, claiming she went ” ‘incognito,’ Lady Gaga-style” and asking, “Who does she think she’s fooling?” Right-wing media have previously attacked the first lady for everything from promoting health initiaitves to wearing a red dress at a state dinner. via Latest Attack On…
Category: News & Opinion
NYT: Forests dying off as worlds climate warms
From the mountainous Southwest deep into Texas, wildfires raced across parched landscapes this summer, burning millions more acres. In Colorado, at least 15 percent of that state’s spectacular aspen forests have gone into decline because of a lack of water.The devastation extends worldwide. The great euphorbia trees of southern Africa are succumbing to…
Boehner’s District Suffers From E. Coli Outbreak As House Republicans Try To Gut Food Safety
As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, despite yet another outbreak of food-borne illness — this time stemming from listeria infected cantaloupes — congressional Republicans are still trying to cut back on the nation’s food safety regulations. The tainted melons have caused 16 deaths so far, making this the deadliest outbreak in more than a decade,…
Russell Simmons: All My Employees Paid Less Taxes Than I Did
Russell Simmons: All My Employees Paid Less Taxes Than I Did
NASA’s Hansen: “If We Stay on With Business as Usual, the Southern U.S. Will Become Almost Uninhabitable.”
Climatologist Slams Media for “Silent Summer”: Poor Coverage of Link Between Extreme Weather and Human-Caused Climate Change The nation’s top climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, has a new paper out — and he has been speaking out. At 350.org’s Moving Planet event in New York on Saturday, he said: “Climate change — human-made global…
Occupy Wall Street Protests Poised to Grow Rapidly With Union Support
The “Occupy Wall Street” protests, now entering their third week, are poised to get a whole lot bigger than its core of 200 to 300 people, potentially even exceeding the protesters original goals of 20,000 demonstrators, thanks to recent pledges of support from some of New York City’s largest labor unions and community…
GAO Cuts: Tom Coburn Hammers Senate For Money-Losing Proposal
The Huffington Post reported recently that the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for the Legislative Branch has drawn up plans to reduce the GAO budget by more than 7 percent, cutting more than $40 million even as it also proposed rules requiring the agency to do more paperwork. And yet the GAO saved the federal…
Regulatory uncertainty: A phony explanation for our jobs problem
An examination of current economic trends, and especially what employers are doing in terms of hiring and investment, debunks this story about regulatory uncertainty as the cause of our dismal job growth. An examination of what employers and their economists are saying again and again in private surveys (cited later in this paper) makes it…
Ron Pauls Charity: Libertarian Views Fail Reality Test
In Pauls opinion, high taxes and inflation deprive Americans of money that they would otherwise give to charity. Programs like Medicare, he says, brought about the demise of “voluntary charities and organizations, such as friendly societies, that devoted themselves to helping those in need” during the early 20th century. These civic groups, he claims, “flourished…
REPORT: How The Right-Wing Uses Misleading Numbers To Claim The Rich Are Unfairly Taxed
First of all, these numbers apply only to federal income taxes — which Wallace, to his credit, acknowledged. But the distinction is often elided, allowing the impression that this applies to all taxes to slide by uncontested. Rove, for instance, never mentioned it. It’s just in the fine print of the charts. And…
Stupid voters enable broken government
We have to move away from easy-to-repeat campaign slogans and promises of easy solutions, because we’re a country with more than 300 million people, a complicated racial and religious history and the world’s largest GDP. There are no easy solutions. So if you’re the kind of person who likes to say “I don’t follow politics,”…
CHART: Obama Economic Plan Raises Less Revenue Than Plans Conservatives Support
“If we’re just going to do class warfare and get tax increases out of this, then I don’t think much will come of it,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). The press, meanwhile, described Obama’s plan as “[giving] his liberal critics exactly what they wanted,” and “a direct appeal to his…
73 Percent Of Americans Support The ‘Buffett Rule,’ Including Two-Thirds Of Republicans
Overall, the Buffett Rule receives 73 percent approval, according to a new Daily Kos/SEIU “State of the Nation” poll conducted by Public Policy Polling and released today. Republicans have labeled the increase as “class warfare,” despite the fact that the richest Americans continue to see their incomes rise and their tax rates plummet. via 73…
Senators pass bill to avert government shutdown
The agreement ensured there would be no interruption in assistance to areas battered by disasters such as Hurricane Irene and last summer’s tornados in Joplin, Mo., and also that the government would be able to run normally when the new budget year begins on Saturday. The Senate approved the resolution after a day…
Facebook to form its own PAC to back political candidates
Facebook confirmed it filed paperwork on Monday to start its own political action committee. “FB PAC will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and…
Obama: I’ll Veto A ‘One-Sided Deal,’ It’s Time ‘To Do What’s Right’
Saying that “Washington has to live within its means” and that lawmakers must “cut what we can’t afford to pay for what really matters,” President Obama just introduced what he says is a plan to cut an additional $3 trillion from budget deficits over the next decade. And he vowed to veto any…
Spreading Freedom: Google And The War For The Web
You can’t swing a dead cat video in Washington lately without hitting a lobbyist, consultant, attorney or adviser on retainer to Google or one of its tech rivals. Google, whose top executives have long been a bottomless cup of campaign coffee for Democrats, is finally entering its bipartisan phase, theatrically hiring Republican operatives…
Obama Says GOP Would ‘Cripple’ America : NPR
President Obama charged Sunday that the GOP vision of government would “fundamentally cripple America” as he tried out his newly combative message on the liberal West Coast. Aiming to renew the ardor of Democratic loyalists who have grown increasingly disenchanted with him, the president mixed frontal attacks on Republicans with words of encouragement…
August Unemployment Rates Fall in All of Michigan’s Regional Labor Markets
From August 2010 to August 2011, unemployment rates fell in all of the state’s 17 regions. Rate drops ranged from a half percentage point to 1.8 percentage points and were significant in a number of regions over the year. The median reduction since August 2010 was 1.2 percentage points. The largest declines over this period were posted in…
Badly-needed water funding dries up for Texas
On paper, at least, Texas is well-prepared to meet the water needs of its rapidly expanding population — even when Mother Nature lays down a harsh and lengthy drought. The price tag on the plan: $53 billion. State money allocated: $1.4 billion. If there were funds, Texas would be able to build the dams, reservoirs,…