At what point do stubborn blindness, knee-jerk resistance and blanket refusal to negotiate cross the line from ideological opposition to subversion of government? In what has now become coded language for “The Tea party won’t let me,” House Speaker John Boehner, after lauding tax cuts and less regulation as the answers to job creation he learned working in his grandfather’s tavern, concludes that solutions...

Has the United States been in the midst of a national neurotic episode since the 9-11 attacks? According to this editorial from Japan’s Ibaraki Shimbun, going around the world and “brandishing an ideal” is just as foolish for the United States as it is for al-Qaeda. The Ibaraki Shimbun editorial says in part: Ten years have passed since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States...

Type in “Solyndra” and “Bush” at Google and you’ll get pages of media references (Fox, too, but not exclusively) to “Obama trying to blame Bush for Solyndra.” In the page I looked at, there was only one “Bush role in Solyndra…” From CNN to ABC to dozens more, the story is Obama Blaming. Facts? What emerges is that a bunch of Republican donors and...

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What is truly remarkable about the politics of the early 21st century is how the difference between a cost and an investment has been undermined. This week, the Institute on Research for Public Policy released a report which estimated that it would take $200 billion to repair Canada’s crumbling infrastructure. And, in Newsweek, Michael Tomasky reports that — in the United States — the need...

The European debt crisis has moved several stops closer to hitting the balance sheets of already fragile US banks. The contagion is spreading quickly and may soon make inevitable the double dip recession in America predicted by many. The only way to slow down the pace is for President Obama to sharpen the warnings he gave today to force Europeans to show more mettle. For that, he will have to put much more pressure...

Is it just a myth that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks badly damaged the American economy? According to columnist Thomas Fricke of the Financial Times Deutschland, the wars of vengeance launched by George W. Bush and the nearly catastrophic economic crash at the end of his term caused far more damage than Osama bin Laden ever dreamed of.` For the Financial Times Deutschland, Thomas Fricke writes in...

Why the Rush To Pass the American Jobs Act? by Susan Stamper Brown As the Democratic National Committee (DNC) launches an ad campaign in battleground states to promote rapid passage of President Barack Obama’s “American Jobs Act,” I cannot help but to ask, “Why the rush, Mr. President?” While proposed payroll tax cuts would be useful to hard-working coupon-clipping Americans, common...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Since I learned what a blog WAS in 2003 and started TMV in December 2003 (the original site was on Blogger) Ezra Klein has been one of my favorite must-read bloggers. I first started reading him when he was doing a blog from college. He was always one of the more solid Internet analysts who didn’t sound like a tiresome, wannabe polarizing radio talk show host or someone puking up the most negative talking...

WASHINGTON — Our political system is not accustomed to the kind of battle that is going on now. President Obama has been slow to adjust to it. The voters are understandably mystified and frustrated by it. In the meantime, the economy sits on the edge between stagnation and something worse. The president’s speech to Congress and the Republican presidential debate last week should have taught...

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What have we sacrificed in the process of pursuing the ‘War on Terror’? Continuing with our global coverage of the 9-11 anniversary, in this moving article from Sweden’s Sydsvenskan, columnist Heidi Avellan writes that no matter how hard it may be, hatred must be met with love, and our principles mustn’t be sacrificed in the pursuit of vengeance. For Sweden’s Sydsvenskan, Heidi...

Today we continue our coverage of the global outpouring in regard to the September 11 anniversary. This article is one of the dozens of stories posted on Worldmeets.US since yesterday. The funk the United States is currently in is of great concern to U.S. allies like Japan, who depend on American influence for their own security and prosperity. This editorial from Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun illustrates the...

After quoting Doug Mataconis and citing the LATimes and Brad Plumer on Michele Bachmann and other conservatives skeptical about the payroll tax cut, Steven L. Taylor at Outside the Beltway concludes: First, opposing cuts to payroll taxes undercuts several key Republican claims in regards to fiscal policy, including the notion that it’s “the people’s money, not the governments” and therefore any time...

At a time when America appears lost, and its leadership continues its reckless bid for global supremacy, it is interesting to recall the story of the only American who participated in India’s freedom struggle and was imprisoned by the British-Indian government. He gave up Western clothes and donned home-spun Khadi dress. A highly impressed Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his Young India: “No Indian is giving...

For anyone coming out of a two-year coma, Barack Obama’s jobs speech to Congress may have looked like the familiar sight of an American President exhorting lawmakers to legislate solutions to a crisis. For the rest of who have had the misfortune to be wide awake, what was striking was Obama’s discovery of the imperative mood in his address. “Pass this jobs bill,” he kept repeating like the mantra of...

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the need for us, Americans, on this 10th anniversary of 9/11, to recommit ourselves to strengthening and bonding our nation from within… An Army chaplain, Major James Key, conducted his final funeral at Arlington National Cemetery a few weeks ago for an active duty soldier who died in combat while serving in Afghanistan. As his eyes “scanned the hallowed stones and...

Moody’s chief economist says President Barack Obama’s plan would put 1.9 million people back to work. But that misses the point of what is going on now: ideology, the “we want our political sports team to win this one” attitude, preventing the other sports team from scoring a point, and upcoming elections make it highly unlikely Obama will get enough of this in place to provide relief...

This morning,Paul Krugman finally has some words of praise for President Obama : I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It’s not nearly as bold as the plan I’d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment. Krugman finds much to like about Obama’s plan; but...

Here’s another greatly timely video animation from Taiwan’s Next Media Animation — this time on President Obama’s big jobs speech and reaction to it.

Our political Quote of the Day comes from Ezra Klein, who was always one a must-read blogger when he wrote on a smaller blog and is even moreso as a blogger for the Washington Post. His subject: what was in President Barack Obama’s jobs speech last night and what comes next? Two sections from it: The proposal itself is called “The American Jobs Act” and amounts to about $450 billion worth of ideas...

Obama is the Best Republican President Since Lincoln by Tina Dupuy There was a 90 percent top marginal tax rate under President Dwight Eisenhower. Ronald Reagan raised taxes nearly every year he was in office and still managed to quadruple the national debt. Teddy Roosevelt was an anti-business “trust buster” who snatched Yosemite away from private profits. Gerald Ford ended a long pointless war...

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