It’s been a tumultuous first month in office for the Trump administration, to say the least. Just a partial list of flubs, scandals and failures includes the firing of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (and the rejection of the position by Harward and Petraeus), a legal ...read more
Bit of insidery information for our readers - I spoke to a friend late last night who is working closely with Obama's campaign, and I was informed that internally, the Democrats are very confident of an Obama victory tonight, particularly in Ohio. Their own numbers (that always ...read more
I feel pretty much the same way about choosing Obama over Romney this election. From Vice's interview with the irrepressible Cornel West:We have to prevent a Romney takeover of the White House. No doubt about that. It would be very dangerous in terms of actual lives and actual ...read more
It still makes me uncomfortable to write about politics in terms of ethnic, socio economic and gender based terms, but I guess that's the reality of how campaigns are planned and executed. Having said that, maybe Obama's recent bump in the polls from a demographic he has had ...read more
The latest ad from the Obama camp: I hate taking these things seriously - political ads, particularly in America are incredibly obnoxious, misleading and damaging to the political process in my opinion - but this one is actually pretty honest. This isn't to give the Obama camp ...read more
11.03pm Ok, he's getting passionate now and maybe the hopey changey thing is working better. He's fiercely defending the philosophy behind liberalism and the notion that we are 'in it together', and this is no bad thing. It's a bit flowery, but this is in stark contrast to the ...read more
James Kwak laments the ever rightwards shifting debate on economics in America:The fact that Simpson-Bowles—which uses its mandate of deficit reduction to call for . . . lower tax rates?—has become widely perceived as a centrist starting-point for discussion is clear evidence of ...read more
Welcome to this weeks edition of The Daily Banter Mail Bag, where Bob, Ben and Chez answer readers questions! Today, we discuss filibusters, good recipes for roast pork, Bush vs Obama on spending, and which politicians we'd like to see have a good old fashioned scrap. The ...read more
California Gov. Jerry Brown called on state lawmakers to embrace austere cuts and urged voters to approve tax hikes in outlining a revised budget Monday. Brown proposed $8.3 billion in cuts across education, health care and welfare programs in laying out a plan to address the ...read more
Senate Republicans defied President Barack Obama on one of his top election-year issues on Monday, derailing a Democratic bill forcing the top US earners to pay at least 30% of their income in taxes. The vote came the day before Americans' annual taxes are due. The 51-45 count ...read more
Andrew Sullivan believes Obama may be able to use the anti Wall St protests that have now gone global to his advantage:The question hanging in the air will be the president's response to the movement. So far, he's been as vague as the movement itself. But if Obama can reframe ...read more
Bob Cesca on the alternate universe created by the Republican Party:Their ability to shape their own reality -- to blame the president for the entire recession while simultaneously rigging the game against the recovery is unprecedented in American political history. It's ...read more
The big lie in modern politics is that tax cuts for the rich creates jobs. This lie has been repeated over and over again for the past 30 years and has led to one of the most unequal societies in history. Republicans (and many Democrats) cynically describe tax cutting legislation ...read more
I haven't been focusing on the debt ceiling deal going on in Washington, mostly due to the epic phone hacking scandal in the UK. However, the deal is incredibly important for the future fiscal health of the US (and therefore the world), so I figured it's about time I started ...read more
Andrew Sullivan points out the glaring flaw in the 'private markets are most efficient' argument coming from the Right:Private healthcare costs way, way more than public healthcare. The goals of financial sanity and promoting the free market and, in this case, contradictory. Or ...read more