This is a fascinating account of how the Grand Bargain came to be the tired conventional wisdom among the Village wonk crowd. (I'm characterizing it that way, not the author, the esteemed Larry Mishel. ) It's required reading for anyone who has been following this story for the past few years.
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It's still a fact that the Democratic Party strategists are afraid to embrace populist issues, believing their future coalition lies with "identity politics". Whether it's because they are answering to the donor class or are trying to hang on to the vestige of the white middle class that is still leery of "redistributional" policies after 30 years of right wing propaganda (or both) is the question.
But let's just say that if anyone can transcend those cultural boundaries and possibly make a breakthrough, it's Baldwin. She is the first openly gay Senator, a woman and a populist. Let's see where that takes us.
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When I read this piece in the Daily Caller yesterday, I have to admit I thought "oh hell." I assumed there was a good explanation for why the IRS commissioner had spent so much time in the White House (they aren't so dumb that they would openly plan an IRS jihad against the Tea Party right in the oval office) but I also knew this story would feed the scandal.
Garance Franke-Ruta of The Atlantic cleared it all up this morning.
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The New York Times has published an article about what some of the groups the IRS subjected to scrutiny actually did. And it is very informative. It would appear that many of these people were lying about their activities or "understood" their political activities to not be political. Seriously.
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The following chart measures the growth of hunger over the past few years in Europe and the US:.
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Yes, they're already on it. I wrote about this building pseudo-scandal the other day, and it appears it's gaining steam. I noticed that on Fox yesterday it came up several times as "yet another case of the Obama administration shaking down private industry." When I first read about it, the suggestion was that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was appealing to insurance companies rather than trying to find corporate sponsors for the purpose of educating the public about Obamacare, which is slightly different, but still not particularly scandalous.
After all, if the congress would agree to fund the outreach as any sane government would do for a big new government program, this wouldn't be necessary. But naturally, they are trying to make it fail so they don't want the public to be informed of what the new benefits are and what they need to do to get enrolled in insurance and obtain the subsidies.
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This report by the Kaiser Family Foundation about elder poverty is shocking. I don't think people realize just how many millions of people are barely subsisting in their old age, but it's many more than the government likes to admit to. Just as with the Chained-CPI, we're dealing with how they are accounted for rather than the actual numbers these people are forced to live on.
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David does a nice job unpacking the dreadful Politico gossip item in his post below. But as a long time Village observer from afar, I thought I might add a little more context. The first observation is that apparently Sally Quinn has officially passed the baton to Vandehei and Allen. How do I know this? Well, take the first sentence.
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I had the privilege of hearing Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot speak about austerity the other night and it was as fascinating as you might imagine. I think most people who read this blog wouldn't be surprised by what they said, but I think many in the audience were people who may be depending upon more mainstream sources and were very surprised --- and alarmed --- by what they heard. It's hard to wrap your mind around. The CEPR does yoeman's work in providing the data and analysis that informs all of us and I'm very grateful for them. And Chris Hayes is also doing something on his show that's very important --- telling stories about how austerity affects real people.
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President Obama’s nomination of Hyatt heiress Penny Pritzker to be Commerce secretary gives me the perfect excuse to write about a fascinating conversation I had recently with Cathy Youngblood, a union activist and Hyatt employee who is on a campaign to get her employer to put one worker on its board of directors. She’s written [...]
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