The Week In Blog: A Bipartisan Chat About The Bipartisan Summit

The partisan gulf was not just present in the summit room yesterday, but liberal and conservative bloggers also had completely different takes on what transpired. Liberals slammed the inability of Republicans to engage in serious discussion, while conservatives tried to tag President Obama as “arrogant” and condescending. The latest edition of “The Week In Blog” […]

“Grand Obstructionist Oppressive Party” Makes The Case For Simple Majority Health Care Vote

During the lunch break of today’s health care summit, C-Span 3 took two calls from Republican voters appalled at what they saw from their own party’s congressional leaders. One praised President Obama for trying to tackle a serious problem, while lamenting the congresspeople in his own party who clearly would not “meet the President halfway.” […]

Ready For Their Close-Up? GOP To Bring The Crazy Into Health Care Summit Spotlight

All week long, conservatives have been whining that President Obama’s offer for a televised bipartisan health care summit was a trap. As Jon Stewart said, it’s only a trap if you “got nothing.” If you come prepared with compelling ideas, it’s not a trap, it’s an opportunity. So how are Republicans planning to use this […]

Big Push Needed To Win 60 Votes For State Aid … And More Private Sector Jobs

On a blogger conference call earlier today, representatives from AFSCME, Economic Policy Institute and Progressive States called for a major grassroots push to secure critical aid for fiscally distressed state governments and help tackle the jobs crisis. While aid to state and local governments was included in the House jobs bill that passed in December, […]

Behold The (Extremely Tiny) Wonders Of Bipartisanship

Five Republican Senators joined most of the Democratic caucus to forge the necessary 60-vote supermajority allowing the Senate’s first jobs bill of the year to advance. Is this a cause for celebration? Is this proof that a 59-seat Democratic caucus can actually function despite Republican obstructionism? Well, let’s look at what was actually accomplished. How […]

Dropping Public Option For Bipartisanship = More Partisan Attacks

The White House’s health care proposal takes the Senate path and excludes a public health insurance option. The apparent logic, as indicated by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, was that a public option couldn’t get even 50 Senate votes today. This may be true, only 20 have signed this month’s letter urging its inclusion. […]

Will the Public Option Surge Hit The Bipartisan Summit?

The Huffington Post headline states “Public Option Support Surging In Senate” after 18 Senators, with more possible to come, signed a letter calling for the choice of a public health insurance plan to be included in the final health care bill. Now, a surge is not a victory. It takes far more than 18 Senators […]

Is The Answer To The Jobs Crisis In Cleveland?

The Nation published this week a fascinating report of a new model of worker cooperative that could attack the jobs crisis and the climate crisis, called “The Cleveland Model.” Cleveland’s “Evergreen” network of large-scale co-ops, backed with a multi-million dollar development fund and a sister organization providing management assistance, employees are also owners with equity […]

Message From NYT/CBS Poll: Public Wants Government That Delivers

The ideologically conflicted American people is starkly depicted in the latest NYT/CBS poll. While conservatives can cling to the 56% of the public that says they want “smaller government providing fewer services” in theory, liberals can point to reluctance to put that into practice, as 62% are “not willing” to “decrease spending in areas such […]