HomeTagged ‘Obama’
Kansas Tea Party convention CANCELLED
In the wake of the Iowa Republican Straw Poll, we’ve learned that “Freedomfest 2011,” the Tea Party Straw Poll planned for Kansas City, Kansas in October 2011 has been cancelled.
The organizers cited financial difficulties, and an alarming lack of interest from those who should have been the backbone of the event – Tea Party groups [...]
How Obama could win over the public in 30 seconds
What will Obama say in tonight’s State of the Union speech?
If history is any guide, nothing particularly surprising or interesting.
Nothing that will change the public’s very low opinion of government, according a recent Gallup Poll.
Thomas Frank and his colleagues at Harpers have an idea: can the long speeches, stick to a 30-second spot, and run [...]
Gabrielle Giffords shooting and political violence
When Jared Loughner shot and very nearly killed Arizona Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the U.S. media had an overwhelming, immediate response: fiery right-wing anti-government rhetoric has finally prompted a political murder. Paul Krugman stated it most succinctly in the New York Times, two days after the shooting:
When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were [...]
Thomas Frank: One cheer for the Tea Party
In his regular “Easy Chair” column for Harper’s, Thomas Frank says liberals should appreciate at least one thing about the Tea Party movement:
It has been three years now since the statistical beginning of the recession, and the tide of unemployment is still near full flood. Business investors have taken shelter on higher ground. The housing [...]
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Tea Partiers crash the party
Fall has officially begun, and the Tea Party has proven it’s here to stay, winning big victories in last week’s primaries.
That is, if we can decide exactly what the Tea Party is, points out the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn. Is it a decentralized, grass-roots organization, comparable to liberal and leftist groups like Moveon.org or even [...]
How the 1970s killed the Working Class
Jefferson Cowie, an associate professor of labor history at Cornell, has written a book on the pivotal events of the 1970s as the New Deal coalition shattered and Thomas Frank’s “Great Backlash” took hold : Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class.
Today he writes a Labor Day Op-Ed for the [...]
Billionaire Koch Brothers: “out to destroy progressivism”
Do you suspect that the Tea Party movement isn’t quite the spontaneous, grass-roots popular uprising its followers would have you believe? Then this is the read for you:
This week’s issue of the New Yorker has a comprehensive expose on the secretive right-wing political activism of the billionaire Koch brothers, whose Wichita-based energy company has made [...]
FiveThirtyEight: Is Obama losing his cool?
Nate Silver, the political forecaster who famously called Obama’s 2008 victory six months before election day, reacts to Robert Gibb’s rant against “the professional left” in an interview with The Hill:
The euphoric feeling among liberals in the days between the election and the inauguration seems so quaint now — like something that happened decades ago [...]
NYC: Thomas Frank & Barbara Ehrenreich at Borders Park Ave. 7/28/10
UPDATED 7/24/10 – Barbara Ehrenreich will join Thomas Frank for this special event!
Barbara Ehrenreich and Thomas Frank will speak and sign books (including copies of Franks recently-revived Baffler magazine) on Wednesday, July 28, at Borders Park Avenue, 461 Park Avenue (at 57th Street) in New York City.
The title of the forum is: “What’s the Matter with [...]
Robert Reich: Guilded Age-level inequality threatens us all
Robert Reich, economist and former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, contributes an opinion piece in The Nation which is a particularly eloquent statement of the liberal case for sweeping economic reform.
Reich begins with the familiar outlines of the situation we face: for a variety of reasons, since the 1970s, a tiny share of the [...]