More bang for less bucks

The Big (Military) Taboo - The New York Times

Well, it used to be the happiest place on Earth

Who Killed the Disneyland Dream? - The New York Times

More magical thinking

The New Voodoo - The New York Times

Catapulting the propaganda

The Humbug Express - The New York Times

Maybe it was a Jesus sweater

75 years of wrong

Opposition to Health Law Is Steeped in Tradition - The New York Times

Zombie economics has eaten conservatives' brains

When Zombies Win - The New York Times

Labels aren't the problem

The Trouble With 'No Labelers' - Washington Post

The Bipartisanship Racket - The New York Times

When power confronts the facts, the facts lose

Wall Street Whitewash - The New York Times

What will happen to an America in which optimism becomes nostalgia?

Reading America's Tea Leaves - The American Interest

LATE ADDITION: The Data and the Reality - The New York Times

Jesus said we only have to love those who deserve it

"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it."

The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

It doesn't matter if you have the money

Class and Social Security - The New York Times

No news here

Study Finds Fox News Viewers Are The Most Misinformed - TPM

The word "principles" means something different in Rightworld

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Lame-as-F@#k Congress www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog< The Daily Show on Facebook

LATE ADDITION: What do you know -- sometimes shame works. Senate Passes 9/11 Health Bill as Republicans Back Down - The New York Times

With the eyes of oxen: irrationality is the new American zeitgeist

When we hear about an alleged culture war, we tend to think of it in political terms like gay marriage or abortion. The truth goes deeper. ...[O]ur real battle is for a critical thinking. It is about our fundamental approach to the universe, and is nothing less than a line in the sand between the logical and delusional.

America's Addiction to Belief - The Humanist

A tale of two Christmases

Economic Recovery Leaving Some Behind This Christmas - Washington Post

The state has been restructured for the benefit of non-human entities with non-human goals

Invaders from Mars - Charlie's Diary

Buffett: Hopefully Americans have caught on -- trickle-down doesn't work

Warren Buffett: Read My Lips, Raise My Taxes - ABC This Week

The case for utopian thinking

Utopia - Charlie's Blog

Obama: unrolling a condom for the conscience-free, self-serving goons who indifferently fuck America

Freezing Out Hope - The New York Times

Republicans deploy the "yay team" gabble that makes Americans happy

American Exceptionalism: An Old Idea and A New Political Battle - Washington Post

Too big for fraud

Matt Taibbi: Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners - Rolling Stone

"When you meet people who are losing their homes in this foreclosure crisis, they almost all have the same look of deep shame and anguish. Nowhere else on the planet is it such a crime to be down on your luck, even if you were put there by some of the world's richest banks, which continue to rake in record profits purely because they got a big fat handout from the government. That's why one banker CEO after another keeps going on TV to explain that despite their own deceptive loans and fraudulent paperwork, the real problem is these deadbeat homeowners who won't pay their fucking bills. And that's why most people in this country are so ready to buy that explanation. Because in America, it's far more shameful to owe money than it is to steal it."

The only ones who can afford to smile

Winning the Class War - The New York Times

A tale of tempered individualism

On Thanksgiving, Remembering Our Common Bonds - Washington Post

Making the invisible visible: the "self-made" myth

The Myth of the Self-Made American: Why Progressives Get No Respect - Campaign for Anerica's Future

Americans' unrealistic economic hopes show conservatives' mastery of propaganda

Self-Made American Myth #2: Who Makes $250K? - Campaign For America's Future

That was another country

There Will Be Blood - The New York Times

My God! That explains everything!

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Building a bridge to the 19th century

Who Will Stand Up to the Superrich? - The New York Times

Warren Buffett: Thanks, Uncle Sam

Pretty Good for Government Work - The New York Times

What Would Hegel Do?

Hegel on Wall Street - The New York Times

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true?

This piece has a lot to say, I think, about the fundamental disconnect between our humanity and what the System too often demands of us.

The Promise - Joe Blogs

Obama has a huge opening — should he take it

Barack Obama, Phone Home - The New York Time

Speaking of who's wrong...

Government Motors No More - The Economist

The problem is that democracy requires an informed electorate

Americans Against Themselves - The New York Review of Books

In their determination to punish the undeserving, voters are punishing themselves

Mugged by the Moralizers - The New York Times

What the right gets wrong

Every American (fuzzy-thinking Tea Partiers in particular) should read this. Twice.

When Tea Party Wants to Go Back, Where Is It To? - Washington Post

In all fairness, here's what the Dems AND the right get wrong:
What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - The New York Times

Maybe the party's new motto should be "Democrats: The Lesser Evil."

LATE ADDITION: Our Banana Republic - The New York Times

Elections are not commodities

Voters Are in the Dark on Campaign Spending - Washington Post

It's the Republicans, stupid

Recession Election - The New Yorker

In your guts, you know they're nuts

Surprise! Beck's "history teachers" were also, shall we say, sanity- challenged.

Confounding Fathers - The New Yorker

The truth about health care

Health Care and the Campaign - The New York Times

All politicians vow to defend the average American -- until it actually comes to doing it

One-Note Tax Debate - The New York Times

Finally, a guy who says what people who aren’t thinking are thinking

Tears of a Clown - Christian Science Monitor

Glenn Beck Is Obsessed with Hitler and Woodrow Wilson. (I'm Just Saying.) - Washington Post

Conspiracy Theorists Find Validation from Glenn Beck - Washington Post

Being Glenn Beck - The New York Times Magazine

The key word is 'true'

America's True History of Religious Tolerance - The Smithsonian

What do Americans think of government? Apparently, they have no idea

Beyond the Tea Party: What Americans Really Think of Government - Washington Post

What do they really want?

Shadowy Players in a New Class War - Washington Post

Obama's big "spending spree"? Never happened

Hey, Small Spender - The New York Times

The most effective antipoverty program may need to begin before birth

At Risk From the Womb - The New York Times

The joke is on them -- and us

The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell - The New York Times

Tea and Crackers - Rolling Stone

Yes, but which Founders?

The Founding Fathers Versus the Tea Party - The New York Times

The Republicans' Pledge: we will win the war on math

Downhill With the G.O.P. - The New York Times

LATE ADDITION: The G.O.P.'s 'Pledge' - The New York Times

Further evidence that, as a species, conservatives tend to be clueless, brutal, and smug

Jobless Workers Dispute Claim that Unemployment Benefits Foster Complacency - LA Times

Look them in the eye

For Many, Health Care Relief Begins Today - The New York Times

Sacrifice is for the little people

The Angry Rich - The New York Times

Why Not Extend Obama's Stimulus Tax Cuts? - Washington Post

For the Good of Democracy, Tax Cuts for the Rich Must Expire - LA Times

Tax cuts don't count in the land of make believe

Senate Republicans Unveil a Plan to Make Bush Tax Cuts Permanent - Washington Post

LATE ADDITION: The Tax Cut Racket - The New York Times

People are the problem (and the solution)

The Meaning of the Koran - The New York Times

The Loony Party's newest recruit

Who’s the Con Man? - The New York Times

Meet the new jobs

New Job Means Lower Wages for Many - The New York Times

America on $195 a Week - Mother Jones

"Supply side" is econ-speak for "doesn't work"

We Need Customers - The New York Times

The dog that didn't bark

Second Helpings - The New Yorker

LATE ADDITION: Report Gives Stimulus Package High Marks - Washington Post

The only game in town

The Limits of Science - Intelligent Life

Sweep Economists Off Their Throne - Financial Times

The choice: a plan that could work vs. one that didn't

Debating the Economy - The New York Times

Obama Raises Stakes and Redefines Debate for the Midterm Election - Washington Post

LATE ADDITION: Time for This Big Dog to Bite Back - The New York Times

The greater evil

Things Could Be Worse - The New York Times

The kind of big government you should worry about

What America Has Lost - Newsweek

The song remains the same

That '70s Feeling - The New York Times

Hard Times for Workers on Labor Day 2010 - Washington Post

1938 in 2010 - The New York Times

LATE ADDITION: How to End the Great Recession - The New York Times

Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth

The Real Story - The New York Times

Pushed beyond reason

Take This Job and Shove It - Slate

A Deserted Feeling in Workng-Class America - Washington Post

What politicking really means

Obama Needs to Relearn the Art of Politicking - Washington Post

The right's sugar daddies

The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party - The New York Times

Covert Operations - The New Yorker

Poll: nearly 50% of Republicans can't distingush facts from bullshit

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings - The New York Times

Betraying Petraeus

How Fox Betrayed Petraeus - The New York Times

The congregants must be crazy

Appeasing the Bond Gods - The New York Times

A Missouri Compromise for our times

Why the GOP Really Wants to Alter the 14th Amendment - Washington Post

When conservatives were sane

Gates's Lonely Battle to Rationalize the Pentagon - Washington Post

Never mind the arithmetic

Attacking Social Security - The New York Times

LATE ADDITION: Making Social Security Less Generous Isn't the Answer - Washington Post

Blame it on Reagan

The Jobs Crisis: What Hit Us? - Huffington Post

LATE ADDITION: Disincentivizing Greed - LA Times

Why they fight

Some insightful and largely balanced observations from a Cato Institute (!) VP.

Traditional and Liberal Conservatism - FiveBooks

This explains a lot

The Power Trip - The Wall Street Journal

On the road to nowhere

America Goes Dark - The New York Times

Guess who

Who Rules America? - Ucsc.edu

A classic article, just updated.

The wrong argument

Another Culture War? No Thanks - The American Prospect

Ideology vs. truth

The Auto Industry Lives. Can We Admit that Government Intervention Worked? - Washington Post

The usual suspects

Who Cooked the Planet? - The New York Times

Stupid is as stupid does

In American Politics, Stupidity Is the Name of the Game - Washington Post

The recovery is being devoured by corporate snouts

A Sin and a Shame - The New York Times

LATE ADDITIONS: Jobs in the Cards? - Washington Post

The Job Machine Grinds to a Halt - Washington Post

The new normal

Long-Term Economic Pain - The New York Times

Defining Prosperity Down - The New York Times

For them, they were the golden years

Addicted to Bush - The New York Times

Be very afraid

Redo that Voodoo - The New York Times

Whose freedom?

Limits of Libertarianism - The New York Times

To wield a big stick, Obama must tell the big story

Don’t Get Mad, Mr. President. Get Even. - The New York Times

LATE ADDITION: Obama’s Katrina? Maybe Worse - The New York Times

Funny

The Only Politics Article You'll Ever Have To Read - Slate

It takes a deficit

Deficit Hawks Ignore the R-Word - Washington Post

The market is not enough

Toilets and Cellphones - The New York Times

Gulf Oil Spill Offers A Lesson in Capitalism vs. Socialism - Washington Post

Pro-corporate populism? It's only a contradiction if you think about it

The Old Enemies - The New York Times

The Gambler

Review of 'The Promise: President Obama, Year One' by Jonathan Alter - Washington Post

Breaking news: sleepy media stops hitting snooze button

Going to Extreme - The New York Times

More moronic misdirection

We're Not Greece - The New York Times

Well worth the irritation

Bailout: Best Program Evaaah? - TPMMuckraker

A people without rules

Now an angry group of Americans wants to be freer still—free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don’t talk or look like they do (and Barack Obama certainly doesn’t). They want to say what they have to say without fear of contradiction, and then hear someone on television tell them they’re right. They don’t want the rule of the people, though that’s what they say. They want to be people without rules—and, who knows, they may succeed. This is America, where wishes come true. And where no one remembers the adage “Beware what you wish for.”

The Tea Party Jacobins - The New York Review of Books

Did you hear the one about the guy who hated government?

Can We Reverse the Tide on Government Distrust? - Washington Post

As their fortunes diverge, blue and red families drift further apart

Do 'Family Values' Weaken Families? - National Journal

Suddenly government doesn't look so bad

Through Oil-Fouled Water, Big Government Looks Better and Better - Washington Post

Their bitter pill

The Mad Tea Party - The Nation

The cross is not a meaningless piece of geometry

Cross in the Desert - The New York Times

The true elitists

The Right Court Fight - Washington Post

Reasons for optimism

The Comeback Country - Newsweek

A real which-side-are-you-on moment

Hope Rises for Real Financial Reform - Washington Post

Head Lock - The New Republic

Collateral damage

A National Deficit of Trust - Washington Post

So much for the "little guy"

Crashing the 'Tea Party' - LA Times

Free the Forbes 400! - Washington Post

Guess what? The poor do pay taxes

As Jon Stewart notes, the important point here is that if you know the real facts, it won't make you as mad.

Do the Poor Really Pay No Taxes? - Washington Post

Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer. - The New York Times

The real job of judges

Our Fill-in-the-Blank Constitution - The New York Times

Do they really believe this ****?

Obama: A Pragmatic Moderate Faces the 'Socialist' Smear - Washington Post

Inequality is a sickness

Want the Good Life? Your Neighbors Need It, Too - Yes! Magazine

There's already a law on the books that holds Wall Street to account. It just needs to be enforced

Don't Wait for Reform - The American Prospect

Don't wait for it, but don't doubt it's needed:
Punks and Plutocrats - The New York Times

Socialists: "Obama is not one of us. He may not even be a liberal"

Obama's No Socialist. I Should Know. - The Washington Post

These are the people they want to take the country back from

The Rage Is Not About Health Care - The New York Times

Going to Extreme - The New York Times

Of course the good guys are for it; of course the bad guys hate it

In Health Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality - The New York Times

Let the GOP be the "Mad Money" party

Obama, Lehman and ‘The Dragon Tattoo’ - The New York Times

One small step toward decency

The Health-Care Vote: One More Step on a Long, Slow Journey - Washington Post

It’s Really Quite Simple: Do We Value Each Life in America? - CommonDreams

What to expect

For Consumers, Clarity on Health Care Changes - The New York Times

Opponents of reform didn’t even pretend to engage with reality

Fear Strikes Out - The New York Times

Yes, They Made History - Washington Post

The poor work as hard as you

Good stuff:
Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short: New Findings on the Challenges Confronting America’s Working Families (2008) - The Working Poor Families Project

One highlight:

Myths and Facts about Low-Income Working Families
MYTH - Low-income families do not work.
FACT - 72% of low-income families work.
MYTH - Low-income families do not work hard.
FACT - The average annual work effort for low-
income working families is 2,552 hours,
roughly one and one-quarter full-time jobs.
MYTH - Low-income working families are headed
by single parents.
FACT - 52% of low-income working families are
headed by married couples.
MYTH - Low-income working families are headed
by immigrants.
FACT - 69% of low-income working families have
only American-born parents.
MYTH - Low-income working families have very
young parents.
FACT - 89% of low-income working families have parents between the ages of 25 and 54.
MYTH - Low-income working families are overwhelmingly minority.
FACT - 43% of low-income working families have
white, non-Hispanic parents.
MYTH - Low-income working families are dependent on public assistance.
FACT - 25% of low-income working families receive food stamp assistance.

Failure here will break us

The Cost of Doing Nothing on Health Care - The New York Times

The GOP: Working to boost the number of dead Americans

Access, Access, Access - The New York Times

Reasoning without knowledge

Why Do Conservatives Think They Own the Constitution? - AlterNet

This observation lies at the heart of the piece (and of the larger problem -- the seeming futility of trying to reason with so many on the right today):

[I]t is difficult to engage the Right and its populist wing [on any issue] because in keeping with the meme that all opinions are created equal (regardless of fact, documentation, or scholarly consensus), there is a deep hostility towards expertise and/or expert knowledge.
Consequently, the truth is what the Right wing populist “intellectual,” blogosphere, talking heads say it is on any given day because the know-nothing foot soldiers feel it to be true, and the phrases “I think,” “I believe,” or “I feel” are held as empirical realities. Thus, these “truths” are immune from rebuttal or critical engagement by conventional standards. Most pointedly in the rhetoric of the moment, those “experts” are cast out as “elitists” or “liberals” who dare to insert fact, history, or precedent into our political discourse. How arrogant those experts must appear with all their fancy book learning and reading when viewed through the lens of the Tea Party populists.

How Tea Partiers are tricked by the rich

Santelli on Predatory Lending: ‘You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man’ - True/Slant

The ugliest Americans

Disgusting: Tea Party Protesters Heckle Man With Parkinsons - AlterNet

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
– John Kenneth Galbraith

The gospel according to Beck: skipping over all those preachy Jesus parts

Why do I think Beck's verbal SAT score was in the single digits?

Glenn Beck Thinks Jesus Was a Nazi Communist? - AlterNet

LATE ADDITION:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Glenn Beck Attacks Social Justice - James Martin
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care reform

The do-the-opposite mandate

Sorry if this is a little old, but I just ran into it; it's worth noting.

Is The Public Demanding To Keep The Upper-Income Bush Tax Cuts? - The New Republic

How little they understand. Or tell the truth

What "Government Takeover"? - Slate

Health Reform Myths - The New York Times

The roadmap to reality

Smart Debt, Dumb Debt -- There Is A Difference - Washington Post

When public knowledge is only skin deep

Seeking A Public Opinion of Substance - LA Times

One caveat: informational "fact presentations" as described by the author would seem hard to pull off given our present-day epistemic crisis, in which everyone lays claim to their own "facts," and in which there seems to be no agreed-upon rules to establish what counts as fact.

The Bizarro party: more blather, less decency

Senator Bunning’s Universe - The New York Times

Who put the LSD in the tea?

Or, how a financial crisis caused largely by an anti-regulatory and pro-greed philosophy, combined with the poor evaluative skills, gullibility, and low information levels possessed by the unreflective, have been half-baked into a noxious mix of paranoia and misdirected anti-government rage. (Hint: what they really should oppose is the prevalence and effect of money in the political system -- proposals to limit which are usually birthed by Democrats and killed by conservative Supreme Court justices. A blind No-Government-At-All stance is a formula for chaos and the product of stupidity -- or at least a product of the "I haven't given the consequences of my position even a half-second's thought" approach, which is essentially the same.)

Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged - The New York Times

Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right - The New York Times

LATE ADDITION: An Irish Mirror - The New York Times

Subdue these sociopaths. Now

Wall Street's Financial Aftershocks - Washington Post

We are governed by nature, not economics

The Earth Has Its Own Set of Rules - LA Times

The anti-stimulus argument: wrong in theory, wrong in practice

Happy Birthday, Dear Stimulus! - Slate

A healthy fear

Health Summit: The Fear Deficit - Slate

Maybe it has to do with all the hot gas they emit

Bartels = Alfred Wegener? - The New York Times

Steering businesses toward the high road

Plan to Seek Use of U.S. Contracts as a Wage Lever - The New York Times

The takeaway? Republican arrogance

Afflicting the Afflicted - The New York Times

Climate-science deniers play the ignorance card

The O.J. Tactic - LA Times

Republicans don't have a plan, except to regain power

The Bankruptcy Boys - The New York Times

Offering the pundits a clue

The Elephant at the Health-Care Summit - Washington Post

Surprise: the stimulus was a good thing

Truth and Fiction on the Stimulus Bill - The New York Times

It’s kind of a big deal, not something you forget to mention

Did the Founding Fathers Want America to be a Christian Nation? Is the Pope Hindu? - Grossblogger

Conservative ideas don't work, example 3,694

California Death Spiral - The New York Times

A generation slowly sinking

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America - The Atlantic

A breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy

Republicans and Medicare - The New York Times

How (and how not) to neuter the GOP propaganda weasels

Apostles of Nihilism - Slate

LATE ADDITION: Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand - The New York Times

The public's ignorance and illogic locks the status quo in place

Down With the People - Slate

If the banks want us out of their business, they need to stay out of ours

The Gang of Five, and How They Nearly Ruined Us - Slate

The real Adam Smith: proof Republicans can't read

Selling Short a Humanistic Economist - The New York Times

Despite the disproof, the hysteria remains constant

The Rise of Republican Nihilism - The New Republic

Critical thinking skills FAIL

Poll: Fox Is The Most Trusted Name In TV News - Talking Points Memo

A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news," said Public Policy Polling president Dean Debnam, in the polling memo. "But the media landscape has really changed and now they're turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.

Bingo.

Reports like these make me glad the audience for all the news channels is so small. Framing it a little differently, one might argue that Fox is the top news station for those who watch the most TV -- a demographic about which you may draw your own conclusions.

No surrender

Don't Waste the Crisis! - Slate

On the other hand, the rich will always need lampshades

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Andre Bauer Is Not Against Animals
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Thank You, South Carolina - Andre Bauer
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Moving us away from the obvious truth

...for the benefit of guess who?

Money Isn't Speech and Corporations Aren't People - Slate

In a few days, a year's worth of nonsense

Abandoning Health Care After the Brown Election, and Other Washington Nonsense - Washington Post

Massachusetts to Washington: "I got mine"

How Romneycare Killed Obamacare - Slate

Republicans rejoice: it's a plutocracy!

The Pinocchio Project - Slate

Money Grubbers - Slate

LATE ADDITION: Conservatives Embrace Judicial Activism in Campaign Finance Ruling - LA Times

Lobbyists Get Potent Weapon in Campaign Ruling - The New York Times

Nothing constructive, nothing coherent, nothing concrete: yep, Brown's a Republican

Con Artists - Slate

It's a centrist plan, people. C-E-N-T-R-I-S-T

Centrist, and Yet Not Unified - The New York Times

Aiming at the wrong target

The Lesson of Massachusetts? Anger - LA Times

The question-mark president

Obama's First Year: A Good Start If Only A Start - LA Times

Don't know much reality

Bankers Without a Clue - The New York Times

Time to call some bluffs

Obama Needs to Cut His Wall Street Tag - Washington Post

What a shock: social democracy works

Learning From Europe - The New York Times

The test for reform

Bubbles and the Banks - The New York Times

LATE ADDITION: The Other Plot to Wreck America - The New York Times

Longing for an earlier, simpler, prepubescent time

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Even Better Than the Real Thing
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Adam Smith was right: power, not productivity, determines pay

Bringing Overpaid Executives to Heel - LA Times

Talk to us, Frinkie

On Issues Like Global Warming and Evolution, Scientists Need to Speak Up - Washington Post

Why has so little changed? Because what has caused most of our troubles has caused the elite to thrive

America's Decade of Dread - Washington Post