There are many explanations for why America is more right-wing than other countries in the developed world; an individualistic and unsympathetic political culture, the use of religion for reactionary causes, racial antagonism and division in the working class, a governmental structure designed to defend a commercial oligarchy – take your pick. But just because the [...]

In the aftermath of a horribly bruising debt limit deal and the Occupy movement, the focus in Washington shifted away from deficits and back to the economy, jobs and income inequality. But as a reminder that social movements must be constant and vigilant, one powerful Democrat, in association with a DC lobbying group, wants to [...]

Via Greg Sargent, apparently the corporate titans who provide feed and caring for Democrats are none too happy with the party’s cautious embrace of the Occupy Wall Street protests: After the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a recent email urging supporters to sign a petition backing the wave of Occupy Wall Street protests, phones at [...]

The perfectly logical idea that Republicans are resisting any effort to aid the economy because they would rather things be worse in November 2012 so they can help themselves to winning the elections has been around Democratic circles for a while. Some Democrats used this line of attack in 2010 to criticize Republican obstruction when [...]

Here’s an issue where leading progressive economists and even Third Way agree: spending caps are a miserable policy idea. With respect to the former, MoveOn.org has assembled a list of over 75 economists who have written a letter to Congress detailing why spending caps would be so disastrous. The signatories include such luminaries as Dean [...]

The Washington Post has decided that there’s a split among Democrats on Social Security because groups like Third Way are pushing for benefit cuts while the Senate leadership is holding rallies against that. I think it’s a bit more nuanced. While some Democratic leaders have been playing footsie with benefit cuts for years now, it’s [...]

Given the people who run things in America at this stage, I’m not convinced that any kind of catastrophe coming out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will force a rethink about the wisdom of nuclear power generation. Listen to this tool from Third Way spinning like a top about the situation in Japan, with [...]

For all the talk of how liberals picked up the “progressive” brand to evade the long history of demonization that conservatives associated with that word, the centrist wing of the party has pulled off a pretty impressive bit of brand management over the past several years. In the beginning (OK, the 1990s) there was the [...]

At a press event in North Portland in front of the home of a family struggling to avoid foreclosure, Senator Jeff Merkley unveiled a six-part plan to fix the housing market and rebalance the relationship between borrower and lender. The plan includes what Merkley calls “lifeline bankruptcy,” which is basically the cramdown proposal to allow [...]

It wasn’t so long ago that Third Way, which has gained renewed confidence and influence on Capitol Hill in recent weeks, opposed any moratorium on foreclosure operations, sticking their head in the sand and denying the existence of the growing foreclosure fraud crisis beyond a few “technical errors.” The fact that Third Way’s Board of [...]

I know the world-weary journalist pose is to huff that the catfood commission will go nowhere, that the recommendations released today are politically impossible, and that it’s not worth getting worked up about. Indeed, any proposal that both Grover Norquist and Paul Krugman can take time beating about the face and mouth doesn’t appear to [...]