At 10:25 a.m. this morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, began a lengthy speech on the Senate floor to block President Obama’s $858 billion tax bill. “You can call what I am doing today whatever you want, you it call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech,” Sanders said. [...]
In January, outgoing Minnesota governor and proto-presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has a (familiar-looking) book coming out, a publicity swing through first-in-the-nation Iowa and New Hampshire (as well as DC, Florida, Ohio and Texas), and above all, an opportunity. As Richard Land recently pointed out to Newsweek, the Republican field for 2012 is weak, each potential [...]
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) –Jackie Calmes reports the White House is seriously considering pursuing base-broadening, rate-lowering tax reform in the new year. –The Obama tax proposal gets an official price tag: $858 billion over 10 years. –Paul Krugman is very, very convinced the deal would dim Obama’s re-election prospects by front-loading economic [...]
President Obama will probably get his budget deal with Republicans through the Congress, though not without considerable protestation from the Democratic left. But it’s worth remembering that the idea of Congressional liberals being outraged over a Democratic president’s fiscal footsie with the GOP is far from unprecedented. This week’s storyline bears a similar resemblance to [...]
This week I have a cover story on Sarah Palin: is she running for President or to become a right wing Oprah? Certainly, celebrity is a major part of her persona – much as it was with Barack Obama early on. Time was politicians ran for higher office to get famous. Now, fame is a [...]
It’s official: Ron Paul, libertarian standard bearer, will chair the House Financial Services subcommittee on monetary policy that oversees the Federal Reserve. It’s a big step for the Texas congressman who’s spent much of his career leveling harsh criticism at the central banking system and, in its own way, a sign of the times. Populist [...]
Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon is under fire today for instructing his newsroom – during the height of the health care debate – not to use the term “public option.” Here’s the supposed smoking gun: an e-mail obtained by Media Matters: From: Sammon, Bill Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM To: 054 [...]
Despite what the public might think, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Obama stimulus 1.0) had a lot of tax cuts and credits in it, many of which are set to expire at the end of this year. In this week’s dead tree edition of TIME, our stimulus-loving colleague Michael Grunwald considers a few green [...]
