The Decline and Fall of the American Republic - Bruce Ackerman. Strangling the Republic. For several decades, Corporate America has been squeezing the life out of what’s left of the democratic Republic, applying steady pressure from well-funded right-wing media and political groups. This year, under the cloak of Citizens United, the deed might finally be completed, observes Beverly Bandler. By Beverly Bandler “The Hostile Takeover” of the United States by Corporate America and the plutocrats is now well advanced and brazen. Corporations and their CEOs have achieved unprecedented power. U.S. Intellectual History: Historicizing the Conservative Think Tank by Jason Stahl. Think Tanks & Politics. Think Tanks: What's the point?
Resources / data. Neoconservatism - perspectives... Under construction... Michele Bachmann's Holy War. iEHi0.jpg (JPEG Image, 819x1024 pixels) - Scaled (24. Pity The Billionaire: the hard times swindle and the comeback of the right - 02 - 2012. How the Austerity Class Rules Washington. In September the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a bipartisan deficit-hawk group based at the New America Foundation, held a high-profile symposium urging the Congressional “supercommittee” to “go big” and approve a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan over the next decade, which is well beyond its $1.2 trillion mandate.
Thomas Frank - Pity the Billionaire, Jan. 20, 2012. The GOP’s new push to defang the CFPB. Republicans couldn’t stop President Obama from installing Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
But they hope they can rein the bureau in by passing legislation. The House GOP is now moving forward with bills that would remove the CFPB director from overseeing the Federal Deposit Insurance Company and allow Congress to directly control its funding every year. The bills are DOA in the Democrat-controlled Senate. But the GOP’s new bills provide a clear guide to what is likely to happen to the CFPB if Republicans take full control of Congress and/or the White House.
Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Corey Robin - The Politics of Fear. Issue #21, Summer 2011 Corey Robin To read the other essays in our symposium on the 9/11 decade, click here . I n my 2004 book Fear: The History of a Political Idea , I argued that “one day, the war on terrorism will come to an end. All wars do. Engelhardt, The United States of Fear. [Special Offer for TomDispatch Readers: We’re heading into the holiday season, a time when, traditionally, people open their pockets (or pocketbooks or wallets), sometimes to give directly and sometimes to buy presents.
So here’s a TomDispatch combo offer that involves giving (to this website) and getting a present in return for yourself or someone else. Two TomDispatch authors, both great favorites of mine, Andrew Bacevich and Adam Hochschild, have agreed to sign their books either for you, or for you to give as a holiday gift to anyone else of your choice. Bacevich will sign his recent bestselling book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. It’s been reviewed smashingly and many of you have read its introductory chapter at this site. Hochschild is offering any one of three of his classic books. To get a book signed by either Bacevich or Hochschild, you need to contribute a minimum of $125 to this site.
Failed Bombs Do the Job. Obama Wins for whom? As published in Counterpunch The Democrats could not have won so handily without the Citizens United ruling.
That is what enabled the Koch Brothers to spend their billions to support right-wing candidates that barked and growled like sheep dogs to give voters little civilized option but to vote for “the lesser evil.” This will be President Obama’s epitaph for future historians. Orchestrating the election like a World Wrestling Federation melodrama, the Tea Party’s sponsors threw billions of dollars into the campaign to cast the President’s party in the role of “good cop” against stereotyped opponents attacking women’s rights, Hispanics and nearly every other hyphenated-American interest group. In Connecticut, Senate candidate Linda McMahon spent a reported $97 million (including her earlier ego trip) to make her Democratic challenger look good.
Having been elected with an enormous voter mandate, Mr.
Reaganite Delusions. Bruce Bartlett: The Origin of Modern Republican Fiscal Policy. Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W.
Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform — Why We Need It and What It Will Take.” He also talks with Catherine Rampell about this post on today’s Business Day Live video. In 1976, the journalist Jude Wanniski wrote an essay, “Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory,” little noticed at the time and virtually unknown today, that put forward a theory that has had extraordinary influence on the Republican Party.
Indeed, virtually everything Republicans say about taxes and spending today echoes that theory. In 1974, Mr. In his conference paper, Professor Mundell first articulated what came to be called “supply-side economics.” Tracking the Forward March of Human Liberty... From my perspective the nadir of human liberty in the twentieth century comes in the first half of the 1930s.
Thereafter we have a long march--a march that was fastest in the North Atlantic from 1942 to 1975 or so, and that has continued (albeit at a slower pace) since then. But Milton Friedman thought not. And now it turns out that a surprisingly large number of people think not, even today. With Friedman I think I understand. He was curiously blind to racism, sexism, etc. With people today I don't understand. A standard Republican narrative of history. When Populism Is Sound"