Rich Yeselson: Not With A Bang, But A Whimper: The Long, Slow Death Spiral Of America’s Labor Movement. Many commentators have correctly observed that the reelection of Governor Scott Walker is a grave blow to unions, especially public sector unions. They went all in to defeat Walker and, despite the great outpouring of protest last year against his collective bargaining bill, he won by a greater margin this time than he did in 2010. But something else was exemplified by the Wisconsin results. It’s not that unions can’t win a defensive fight. Ohio proved otherwise—a resounding 23 percent rollback of an anti-collective bargaining measure for public employees similar to that enacted in Wisconsin. (Alec MacGillis has discussed some of the reasons why Ohio’s results differed from those in Wisconsin.) No, the real underlying story is that unions are losing their institutional legitimacy in modern America. SURE, CONSERVATIVE activists and plutocrats do think about unions.
Most important, they knew, for better or worse, that unions had power. Rich Yeselson lives and writes in Washington, DC. The most expensive election ever. 10 Ways the CIA Tried to Kill Castro. In February of 1959 Fidel Castro became the Prime Minister of Cuba. Since then, according to the man who was charged with protecting him for most of his regime, he's survived over 600 assassination attempts. Fabian Escalante, the former head of the Cuban Secret Service, claims that the assassination endeavors break down like this: the Eisenhower administration tried to kill Castro 38 times; Kennedy, 42; Johnson, 72; Nixon, 184; Carter, 64; Reagan, 197; Bush Sr., 16; Clinton, 21. (The accuracy of Escalante's statistics, especially attempts since the Nixon administration, is in dispute.) There are only so many different ways you can ambush someone with a sharpshooter, so some of the ways the CIA plotted to kill Castro were pretty wild. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Which was the most important U.S. election ever? Was it considered especially important at the time? This is the stuff of immediate context. Were voters energized? Did they expect a close vote? Were the stakes deemed especially high? And immediately afterward, did the national verdict seem particularly significant? On this score, the 2012 contest seems to be ranking fairly high, though it may seem so precisely because we’re in the middle of it. From the available historical accounts, it might be hard to beat 1860, when a nation facing the prospect of secession and civil war put Abraham Lincoln in the White House. After World War II, the measurement and analysis get better. Was the election associated with major, long-lasting policy shifts? Here we switch to the kind of hindsight that historians deal in: What follows from an election is what counts. But others are worth special mention.
Was the election associated with major, long-lasting change in voter coalitions? Since 1952, no election seems to truly qualify on this score. David R. Obama and Reagan: A tale of two recoveries - Feb. 6. Will President Obama get a second term? Reagan did. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Faced with a strong jobs report Friday, Republicans tried out a new rhetorical message: This isn't a disaster, but Ronald Reagan could have done better. "It didn't have to be this way," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington. "There is a different approach that we could've taken. President Reagan took a very different approach. " On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have been careful not to compare the recovery to anything like Reagan's fabled "Morning in America. " Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, said that while the jobs report "provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal," it is "important not to read too much into any one monthly report.
" So the parties are in agreement: The recovery of today is not like the recovery of 1983 and 1984. And that's true. Just take a look at the numbers: Obama can claim job growth of 1.8 million in 2011. CHART: How The Debt Limit Fight Hurt The Economy, Delayed Recovery. Last week's surprisingly positive jobs report overshadowed another bit of good news for the economy: last November showed the biggest growth in consumer credit in 10 years. Typically that's a sign that consumer confidence is up, banks are willing to lend, and demand is on the rise. If you look back at recent monthly data, though, you'll see that this particular green shoot should have poked through the ground months ago, but was stymied by the GOP's debt ceiling hostage drama. Take a look at the evidence: That's a year's worth of data.
Charts by Clayton Ashley. Five founders who were skeptical of organized Christianity and couldnt be... - StumbleUpon. Five founders who were skeptical of organized Christianity and couldn't be elected today Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Paine wouldn't pass the modern-day religious test for high office, argues policy analyst ROB BOSTON T o hear the religious right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike many of today's candidates, the founders didn't find it necessary to constantly wear religion on their sleeves. They considered faith a private affair. Contrast them to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (who says he wouldn't vote for an atheist for president because nonbelievers lack the proper moral grounding to guide the American ship of state), Texas Gov. There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth. Real Time Economics. As per usual I am going to co-sign something that Matt Yglesias wrote. I don’t exactly want to "defend" the Federal Reserve from the scorn that’s been heaped on it after the release of the 2006 FOMC transcripts, but it is worth paying attention to the timing. . . .
[Residential Construction] enters negative territory in the last quarter of 2005. Then it stays negative all four quarters of 2006, and during all this time the FOMC members are makign statements about how the economy should survive the housing bust. Then it’s negative for four more quarters throughout 2007. And then for the first two quarters of 2008. And all that time from the latter part of 2005 through all of 2006 and 2007 and through the beginning part of 2008, the Federal Reserve is basically doing its job correctly. Watching at the time it was clear that the US Housing Bubble Burst, the 2008 recession and the Global Financial Crisis three related but definitely distinct things. Like this: Like Loading... Mitt Romney's RINO Austerity Economics Make Him Least Electable. In 1980, George H.W. Bush was making much the same argument against Ronald Reagan that Mitt Romney is making this year.
Bush argued that he was the most electable against hapless Jimmy Carter. The big money Republican establishment was behind Bush because they feared that Reagan was too radical to win, and would carry the entire party down to historic defeat, like Goldwater did. Reagan even lost Iowa to Bush on that argument. But Reagan carried forward the pro-growth economic message that ultimately swept him to the nomination, and then to landslide victory in the fall, his coattails handing the Republicans control of the Senate, and effective control of the House.
After two Reagan landslide wins, it took George Bush just one term to trash the Reagan coalition, crawling out of town in 1992 with just 38% of the vote, barely better than Alf Landon in 1936. Romney assured Massachusetts voters running for the Senate in 1994 that he did not want to go back Reaganomics. How to Pay for What We Need - Richard Striner. Article - Winter 2012 Print Congress could create money, as it did during the Civil War, funding public projects that shock the economy back to life (Photo by Pen Waggener) By Richard Striner Just after the election of 2008, the Nobel laureate liberal economist Paul Krugman made a prophecy: we will not restore prosperity, he warned in The New York Review of Books, “unless we are willing to think clearly about our problems and to follow those thoughts wherever they lead.”
If you’re skeptical about this assertion, ask Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke: “It’s not tax money. Pelley: “You’ve been printing money?” Bernanke: “Well, effectively.” If the Federal Reserve can create new money, couldn’t Congress do the very same thing? The U.S. The most spectacular American example of “printing-press money” and a resulting hyperinflation was Confederate currency during the Civil War, which became worthless, or very nearly so.
Three main factors explain the success of the Legal Tender Act. John R. 'Court Order Cant Make the Races Mix by Zora Neale Hurston. By Zora Neale Hurston Letter to the Editor, Orlando Sentinel, August, 1955 After writing about Zora Neale Hurston's politics for LRC in February of 2002 and later for The American Conservative, I have gotten a great deal of correspondence asking where her political writings were available. Several articles are available in her book Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings; and she discusses politics a bit in Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters. Unfortunately, little of her political writings have been published on the Web, so in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Brown Decision, we reprint her famous letter to the editor denouncing the decision. ~ Marcus Epstein Editor: I promised God and some other responsible characters, including a bench of bishops that I was not going to part my lips concerning the U.S.
Supreme Court decision on ending segregation in public schools of the South. The whole matter revolves around the self-respect of my people. Meanwhile, personally, I am not delighted.