Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Shorter Mitch McConnell: “Zero Social Security COLA Too Generous”

Way to rally the base Turtle Neck! NY Times: No Social Security Raises Even if Medicare Soars WASHINGTON — The 60 million people on Social Security will not receive any cost-of-living increase in their benefits in 2016, the government said Thursday, but because of a quirk in federal law, nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries could […]

A final post for me (for now; I’m out of breath) on last night’s debate and mainstream journalists’ coverage of it

  E.J. Dionne just posted a column online that will be published in tomorrow’s Washington Post.  Here are its last three paragraphs: But the debate’s most substantive contribution was to the larger philosophical argument the country needs to have in 2016. Republicans plainly still believe their central mission is cutting taxes, shredding regulations and shrinking […]

Why does Paul Waldman think only URBAN young people are interested in the issue of tuition-free college?

I read Paul Waldman’s posts on the Washington Post Plum Line blog regularly and agree with most of what he says, but his claim today that rural young people who can’t afford college aren’t interested in attending college anyway, and those who do attend are fine with borrowing large amounts of money to do so if […]

Some lesser-known pundits are not falling in line, it now appears

[Sanders’s] most newsworthy moment, of course, came when he declined Cooper’s invitation to attack Clinton for using a private email server. “[L]et me say something that may not be great politics,” he said. “But I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.” […]

Greg Sargent gets it right: Clinton tried last night to return the definition of ‘progressive’ to the traditional ‘women’s-and-children’s’ issues that have been her calling card for decades. The pundits’ kudos notwithstanding, I doubt it will work, because ACTUAL progressives these days have a different idea.

Until last night, the Democratic presidential primary had largely been viewed through a simple frame: Bernie Sanders represents the full-throatedly populist and progressive wing of the party on economic issues, and Hillary Clinton occupies a more moderate, less populist, less-overtly redistributive zone, while edging in Sanders’ direction in order to obscure economic differences between them […]

Denmark isn’t a middle-class, capitalist, entrepreneurial country? Because it has universal healthcare, free college, subsidized day care, and guaranteed family and medical leave? Really, Secretary Clinton? Really?

We are not Denmark — I love Denmark — we are the United States of America.  We would be making a grave mistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class in the history of the world. — Hillary Clinton, last night Okay.  When I heard that, I said, “Wow.  Did she […]

Why Does Hillary Clinton Think We Want Elizabeth Warren to Be Vulnerable?

Hillary Clinton says women are “held to a totally different standard” in politics — and that it’s been that way since she first ran for office. “You’re expected to be both strong and vulnerable at the same time,” Clinton said in BuzzFeed’s “Another Round” podcast that was published online Sunday. “That’s not easy to do.” The Democratic […]

What I Want Bernie Sanders to Know Before Tuesday’s Debate

A few weeks ago Mike Huckabee made minor news by telling an interviewer that slavery has never been made unconstitutional.  Or, to be precise, he told radio interviewer Michael Medved that “the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human.”  […]

Inequality for All, the film

If you do not know, Prof Reich’s film is currently up on youtube.  I just watched it.  For most readers it is nothing new.  But for the masses this is a great film.  Plus, I did not know that he literally went over on the same boat as Bill Clinton when they were going to […]

No COLA for Social Security Recipients in 2016

Or that is what is being thought by the Social Security Administration as we round out 2015 and head into 2016. And the culprit? “Persistently Low Inflation.” How could that be, didn’t the Fed just meet and there were concerns of looming inflation? Apparently not enough inflation to rock the CPI-W. The SS COLAs are […]