Image: blog.timesunion.com,  

The May 13 New York Times feature “Sunday Dialogue: Making Taxation Fairer” included some intelligent suggestions on the topic, but what struck me was a deeper current of pessimism that girded the entire discussion.  The pessimism perco/… Read full post »

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson stands up for patients at their most vulnerable.

Image: minnesotapublicradio.org 

Benjamin Braddock, the clueless graduate of The Graduate, had it better than kids today.  When the smarmy Mr. McGuire leaned to say, “Just one word&h/… Read full post »

Image: newparadiselaboratories.org 

Facebook, it seems, has a privacy issue. Enfant-CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently instructed the investment banks handling its IPO to shut their faces when it comes to news leaks about the company.  Turns out juicy details leaked all over the web/… Read full post »

“Money, Power & Wall Street” Episode 3 plumbs the inner workings of the Timothy Geithner–Barack Obama dynamic. 

Frontline’s “Money, Power & Wall Street” Episodes 3 &4 aired on PBS affiliates nationwide last night.  Episode 3 cove/… Read full post »

winningprogressive.com 

The public interest group Common Cause filed a long overdue complaint challenging the charitable nonprofit status of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) last week.  The complaint seeks to strip ALEC of its 501(c)3 status, a status that connotes b/… Read full post »

Mitt Romney:  most himself when on the attack.

csmonitor.com 

Mitt Romney’s options, now that his pesky sideshow sidekicks are out of the way, include the opportunity to redefine himself, Etch-a-Sketch style, for general consumption.  Instead, in the days since th/… Read full post »

Here’s hoping Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin will launch a new petition to call for the repeal of Stand Your Ground Laws nationwide.

examiner.com

The most absurd moment in the Travyon Martin Stand Your Ground killing came on March 13, when Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee stated… Read full post »

Ki Gulbranson:  Man bites hand that feeds him.

(That’s harsh, I know, but Ki, yer killin’ us.)

nytimes.com 

As the social sciences lay claim to examining ever-broader areas of public behavior, longstanding assumptions about voting behavior are being called into q… Read full post »

Wednesday's universal lead: “If the government can force people to buy health insurance, justices wanted to know, can it require people to buy burial insurance? Cellphones? Broccoli?”

Illustration: ABCNews.com 

One of the most useful and trenchant bits of commentary concernin… Read full post »

Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman.

ABCNews.com

It was getting dark in Sanford, Florida as 17-year old Trayvon Martin hurried back to his dad’s girlfriend’s home, Skittles and iced tea in hand, in the light rain.  He was in a hurry to reclaim his seat in front of the/… Read full post »

Rick Santorum, children’s advocate.

media.knoxnews.com.com 

March is Rick Santorum’s moment to strut the stage like a minor Shakespearean buffoon, who mortifies but entertains the crowd before he is yanked behind the curtain.  Much of his message is old news, but he al/… Read full post »

Minnesota gun law author Gretchen Hoffman prefers to shoot first, admonish later.

startriibune.com 

The just-passed Minnesota bill to expand “Castle Doctrine” gun rights should be called the Shoot First law. The Minnesota law—and bills like it pending… Read full post »

cultofmac.com 

Chinese manufacturing behemoth Foxconn Technology announced Sunday that it is raising wages up to 25 percent for its 1.2 million-member workforce.  The world’s largest manufacturing company also promised to reduce overtime for workers who are routinely compelled/… Read full post »

Hey, is anybody home?

www.nanowerk.com 

President Obama was in Wisconsin yesterday celebrating the "onshoring" of 100 manufacturing jobs that returned to Milwaukee-based Master Lock.  That’s nice.  But it hardly matters. The Master Lock move is a slight counter-cyclical/… Read full post »

It’s time for Nancy Brinker to speak plainly.

www.nationalledger.com 

As long as Susan G. Komen for the Cure has funded Planned Parenthood, it has walked a tightrope between pro-choice and anti-abortion donors.  For years, according to Komen insiders, faith-based chall/… Read full post »

escapistcomics.com 

Jonathan Gruber is a policy wonk after my own heart. Detailed, relentless, fact-based, and possessed of a sly sense of humor as evidenced by his new oeuvre:  Health Care Reform:  the comic book.  Gruber, an MIT economist, was a chief architect of/… Read full post »

State of the Union:  “The U.S. manufacturing sector is about this big.”

Image: nytimes.com

 Last year President Obama was out in Silicon Valley for a fund raiser with leaders from the technology sector.  At a meet and greet with Steve Jobs, President Oba/… Read full post »

Image: deadline.com

Wikipedia’s White-Out is probably one of the most effective PR moves we have witnessed in a long time.  It’s Hollywood versus Silicon Valley writ large, with a side order of Homeland Security and First Amendment concerns.  Intellectual property has h/… Read full post »

Image: urbancomfort.de 

I saw it in L.A., during a holiday vacation in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago, just a fleeting verbal image: “Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock.” Hanging out with some members of the twentysomething artistic community out… Read full post »

Two facts should have guided political activity in 2011.  Both stem from our recession of a lifetime, the Great Economic Meltdown.  They are:

• The economy cannot recover without demand.

and

• Our shrunken, beaten-up, beaten-down middle/
… Read full post »

Romney to world: “We will we will cut you.”

Image: Boston Globe 

Who is Mitt Romney?  He’s a cost-cutter—and a cheapskate.  He never met a cost he didn’t want to cut—unless it involved real estate for his wife Ann.  When he talked this/… Read full post »

Clay Mullins in West Virginia:

“It was an act of murder. They murdered 29 men...”

Image: www.newstimes.com

 Two hundred ten million dollars. It sounds like a lot of money.  It’s blood money of course, and on one level it represents business as usual/… Read full post »

Image: www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com 

Quietly and with little fanfare, health insurance exchanges are in development under the Affordable Care Act.  Barring a Supreme Court fiasco they are scheduled to debut in 2014.  On Tuesday, 12 more states completed their fi/… Read full post »

The Supercommittee:  candidates for the dustbin of history

Image: somewhereinthemiddle.blogspot.com 

One point two over ten.  It’s that simple.  One point two trillion dollars over 10 years was the goal they faced, the goal at which they failed. The failure was a s/… Read full post »

Like the unicorn, the “free market” is an animal that exists only in the imagination.  In the case of “free markets,” that would be the imagination of economists.  Strange as that may seem—that economists have imaginations—we should note t/… Read full post »