Mori Dinauer

To whom the president is trying to appeal, post-midterms, grows more mysterious by the day. The organization that helped elect him, OFA, is writing letters to the editor informing them how awesome a federal pay freeze is. In a meeting with congressional Republicans, the president made sure he communicated to the opposition that hates him […]

Jeffrey Toobin “commemorates” the 10th anniversary of Bush v. Gore, pointing out the obvious shallowness of “strict constructionism” and “states’ rights” when narrow partisan politics gets in the way. There isn’t much point in pondering the what-ifs of this horrible court decision, or whether the John Paul Stevens of 2010 would have thought a little […]

The rapid turnaround in conservative economic circles from “Ireland is a free-market miracle!” to “Ireland is proof that Obama‘s policies are an economic disaster!” is yet another piece of evidence that free-market ideology is total nonsense. I’ve made this point before, but pure free markets are a fantasy, state-run economies are a disaster, and thus […]

Regarding this notion that Republicans are deliberately attempting to sabotage an economic recovery, I don’t disagree, but I think it’s more accurate to say Republicans want to deny Democrats — and Obama in particular — success, rather than a poli-sci calculation that presidents win re-election presiding over strong economies. Really, my reaction to the last […]

I didn’t intend to blog about political independents all week, but via Matt Yglesias, Third Way reads way too much into the importance of Obama voters who either sat out or switched sides in the midterms. This isn’t a sample of the electorate at large; it is a predetermined subgroup. What percentage of the voting […]

Fareed Zakaria, who usually offers more trenchant political analysis, succumbs to the conventional wisdom on the budget deficit, arguing that “the fate of the U.S. is going to be decided over the next year.” In other words, it is the most immediate, important policy decision facing the United States right now. I mean, why bother […]

It’s astonishing that the recession has crippled our ability to think clearly about dealing with the recession. Consider this: David Leonhardt writes a column making the obvious point that economic growth is a great way to deal with deficits. No one should have to make this point in late 2010. Yet here we are, “tightening […]

I don’t know why it took an 11th-hour plea from the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka to get Democrats to coalesce around only extending tax cuts for the middle class, but this appears to be the plan. There are limits to how much substance pols can get out of “optics,” but being the party that is clearly […]

Looking at the improvement of human development in Muslim countries, Kevin Drum correctly observes that “as near as I can tell, the single most important thing that developing countries can do to ensure themselves a brighter future is to educate and empower women. I’m not sure there’s even a close second.” And since we talk […]

Jonathan Chait defends Simpson-Bowles from liberal assault but in the process, makes a strange claim about the politics of deficit reduction: “But I do think that his [Obama] signing a major package of legislative reforms that has bipartisan support and would all but solve the medium-term deficit problem would be a political boon. Furthermore, it […]