Wisconsin recall votes may impact 2012 election | Reuters
Daily Kos: The debt ceiling, the White House and the damage of 'compromise':
"The more we hear reaction from both parties, the more convinced I am that my original take on the debt ceiling deal was correct, and that this 'compromise' is in fact an unambiguous and abominable failure by the administration. There's simply not enough lipstick for this pig: it is a failure, pure and simple, and one which is going to have serious long-term negative repercussions for the economy, the markets, and the political environment in general."
What Happened to Obama’s Passion? - NYTimes.com
But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.
Jeff Madrick: Obama: The President Who Wouldn't Make the Louisiana Purchase:
"He might even have pulled the Constitution card and said Congress had no right to set a debt ceiling in the first place, according to the 14th amendment. He said his lawyers told him that was a weak argument. But Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territories in 1803 knowing full well that it was probably unconstitutional for him to do so. There were also concerns back then about whether America could afford it. But that's what great presidents do in the big moments. They do what's right rather than abiding by minor niceties. Jefferson's is but one example.
Consider Obama the president who would not have made the Louisiana Purchase."
The history lesson Obama has ignored - History - Salon.com
Just under three quarters of a century ago, a group of conservative economic advisers close to Franklin Roosevelt informed the President that they were worried about the rapid rate of growth in the US economy. Since 1933, when FDR took over at the height of the Great Depression, the economy had been expanding steadily, at an average rate of 14 percent per year. Schooled as most of these advisors were in the tenets of economic orthodoxy (which called for cuts in spending during an economic downturn), and unsure of the effects of the Keynesian-style deficit spending that the administration had been engaged in under the terms of the early New Deal, the President was advised to cut the budget, reduce deficit spending and tighten the money supply as a means to stave off inflation. Heeding their word (and no economist himself), FDR did just that.The results were an unmitigated disaster.
Thanks to the Administration’s decision to move away from the increasingly Keynesian policies it had been following — policies that saw the unemployment rate fall from a high of 25 percent in 1933 to 14 percent by 1937 -- FDR launched one of the sharpest economic downturns in American history-the so-called "Roosevelt Recession" of 1937-38. In just a few short months, the GDP declined by 13 percent; industrial production by 33 percent; wages by 35 percent and an estimated four million people lost their jobs. No fool, FDR quickly reversed himself and went back to Congress to seek a massive stimulus bill to put people back to work and repair the damage to the Depression-era economy. Within three months growth had returned and the economy was back on track.
Mar 11, 2011: Japanese tsunami from the point of view of a car. [VIDEO]
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