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John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.
Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas's "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.
Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."
With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.
Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 'Anybody But Romney' Wins Everywhere, as GOP Turnout Tanks
Rick Santorum may have won beauty contests Tuesday in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, but he won't even be on the ballot for delegate-rich contests in states such as Indiana and Virginia. He's still running for vice president, or maybe a cabinet post.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 Tom Paine Would Not Have Approved of Mitt Romney
If Toryism has a contemporary face, it is that of Mitt Romney. Everything about this millionaire son of privilege says he would have chosen the security of King George III and the British Empire over a dangerous alliance with the radicals who rejected the divine right of kings and declared "all men are created equal."
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 Romney's 50 Percent Hurdle
What Romney does have is money. Lots of it. More money in campaign accounts and Super PAC cash flows than the rest of the candidates combined. And he is spending it, wildly.
Thursday, January 26, 2012 Wisconsin 'John Doe' Probe: What Did Walker Know? When Did He Know It? (4 comments)
The investigation is still in the early stages of sorting through mountains of information obtained in FBI raids and related investigations of Walker aides and donors. That means that the steady flow of charges and complaints could extend the recall campaign that Walker is all but certain to face, after one million Wisconsinites petitioned for his ouster.
Friday, January 20, 2012 Forget Romney, Gingrich Is Running Against 'Liberal Media'--and It Might Work
It's no secret that running against the media can work, especially in an era when so-called "legacy media" -- traditional networks and newspapers -- have become so dysfunctional that they make for the easiest of targets. And no GOP contender has made the bashing of "liberal media" so central a campaign theme as has Gingrich.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 Victorious Romney Rallies GOP for Bain Capitalism (1 comments)
Republicans don't have much taste for Romney. But they nurture a dramatic distaste for Obama. If Romney can suggest that attacks on his record as a rapacious capitalist help Obama, that might do what he has not been able to do on his own: energize a Republican Party that has not to this point been inclined to settle on his candidacy.
Monday, January 2, 2012 Iowa's $200-Per-Vote Caucuses Reward Negatives, Nastiness, Narrow Thinking (1 comments)
Huge amounts of money are spent to influence a very small percentage of the electorate -- less than 20 percent of Iowans who are likely to vote Republican in November will participate in Tuesday's caucuses, and most of them will leave after the balloting finishes.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 Gingrich's Iowa Crash Has GOP Base Hunting for Next Anti-Romney
The real story of the last week in Iowa may be not of Gingrich's campaigning but of where the anti-Romney sentiment that briefly rested with his candidacy will shift next. If it goes, for instance, toward Santorum, this race could yet see another twist. And Gingrich will be watching from the sidelines.
Sunday, December 18, 2011 Wisconsin Recall Calculus: $5 Million Dirty Dollars Versus 500,000 Angry Citizens (4 comments)
Walker is more of a fool than even his most consistent critics imagine if he thinks that money, especially money raise in substantial portions from out-of-state interests that see his governorship as an investment in anti-labor, anti-public education and anti-democratic policies, will be sufficient to trump a popular movement that has already attracted the support of half a million Wisconsinites.
Monday, December 12, 2011 The Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy (4 comments)
For the Koch brothers and their kind, less democracy is better. They fund campaigns with millions of dollars in checks that have helped elect the likes of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Thursday, November 24, 2011 Newt's Cruelest Campaign: Replace School Janitors With Child Labor (1 comments)
With his assault on child labor laws -- and, make no mistake, he is specifically referring to provisions that protect children as young as 9 as "truly stupid" and speaking of eliminating them -- Gingrich is assaulting the underpinnings of the Progressive Era reform movement that sought to end the worst abuses of the robber barons.
Friday, November 11, 2011 Occupy the Home Front: Why Veterans Are Deploying With the 99 Percent
The United States has not learned much about avoiding unwarranted wars.
And it has not learned much about respecting the veterans of wars. Just as in the aftermath of World War I veterans were abused when they made reasonable demands for economic justice at home, so veterans are today abused when they make the same sort of demands.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 Labor Rights, Abortion Rights, Immigrant Rights, Voting Rights Prevail
The lesson from 2011 is clear: The Republican/Tea Party moment of 2010 was just that: a moment. The new politics of 2011 is progressive. Progressive ideas are winning: in Ohio, in Maine and, yes, in Mississippi.
Monday, October 31, 2011 'Idolizer Of The Market': Paul Ryan Can't Quite Hear The Catholic Church's Call For Economic Justice (1 comments)
If you're Paul Ryan, you don't decry the church for engaging in class warfare. Instead, you spin an interpretation of the church's latest pronouncements that bears scant resemblance to what's been written -- but that just happens to favor your political interests.
Saturday, October 29, 2011 How The Wounding Of A Vet Who Dared To Dissent Has Stirred More Dissent (6 comments)
The video footage appears to show Olsen lying wounded when a police officer is seen throwing what looks to be a tear gas canister at protesters who are trying to help the former Marine.
Friday, October 7, 2011 Should Obama Face a Challenge in the Democratic Primary? (14 comments)
It is not just unmet expectations that lead roughly a third of Democratic voters to tell pollsters Obama should face a primary challenge; it is also a sense that the president cannot energize the Democratic base and win in 2012 unless he is forced to define himself as a dramatically more progressive candidate.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 To Win in 2012 'Democrats Are Going to Have to Distinguish Themselves From the President' (5 comments)
Progressives and populists have begun to argue that Democratic congressional candidates can and should run on issues that work for them -- including tougher-than-the-president positions in support of job investments, taxes on financial speculators and the defense of Medicare.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 'Save the Post Office' Movement Defends 'the Human Side of Government' (1 comments)
Democrats and Republicans in Washington are entertaining proposals that would, in the words of the American Postal Workers Union, "end the postal service as we know it." There are proposals to break union contracts, layoff tens of thousands of postal workers and gut the service. This is not a "financial" crisis; it is a "political" crisis.
Sunday, September 25, 2011 Why Nader, Cornel West, Jonathan Kozol Seek Primary Challenges to Obama (9 comments)
Some of the talkers have begun to walk the walk. They're outlining a plan to run a slate of six primary "challengers" to the president, with each focusing on issues of ideological concern. The point of this initiative is not so much to displace the president as it is to move Obama and the party toward the left.
Friday, September 16, 2011 Supreme Court Blocks Rick Perry's Texecution of Inmate 'Based on the Color of His Skin' (4 comments)
Despite appeals to Perry -- and to the state's notorious Board of Pardons and Paroles -- Buck got no reprieve. Perry's "very thoughtful, very clear process" was about to kill a man sentenced to death at least in part because of his race. Perry could have granted the stay, but he refused.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 A Top Democrat Actually Gets It: Biden Makes a Stand With Labor (4 comments)
Condemning Republicans for launching what he described as an anti-worker "onslaught," the vice president shouted: "The middle class is under attack, but labor is under the most direct assault in a generation!" Without organized labor, Biden said, the fight for working America is lost.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 Cheney's Alternative History of Hurricane Katrina Response Concludes: 'Heck of a Job, Bushie!' (3 comments)
The only problem for Cheney is that there are still a lot of people in New Orleans, Gulfport and the rest of American who remember what really happened when a self-absorbed president failed to recognize the urgency of a crisis on the home front, and a supposedly more competent vice president couldn't be bothered to care.
Sunday, August 28, 2011 The Chapter That Went Missing From Dick Cheney's Book (2 comments)
Where's the chapter on Cheney's heroic service in Vietnam? Of, that's right, he had "other priorities" than responding to draft notices. Cheney has always positioned himself as an arch militarist. But when he had a chance to get on the front lines, he instead got deferments. A lot of them.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 Mitt Romney, Dark Prince of Oligarchy, Battles the Demons of Democracy (3 comments)
Romney has, with his "corporations are people" comment, disqualified himself from serious consideration as a contender for any position of public trust. Romney's statement has clarified the urgent need for a constitutional amendment that renews the supremacy of "We the People."
Friday, August 19, 2011 Bernie Sanders: America Needs a Bold Jobs Plan (3 comments)
Sanders used the convention address to outline a bold, progressive agenda for addressing it. That agenda begins with a commitment to "rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure, transforming our energy system, and rewriting our trade policy so that American products -- not jobs -- are our number-one export."
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 Wisconsin Democrats Score Two More Recall Wins as Voters Reject a GOP Governor's Anti-Labor Agenda
For all the talk of Republican "wins" this year, the reality is that the Democrats have the far better record of winning competitive races. That's a significant shift from 2010, when the Republicans had the advantage. And it has Democrats in Wisconsin and across the country celebrating.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 Recall FAQ: Everything you need to know about Tuesday's elections
Democrats have no real ability to check and balance Walker at this point. If Democrats win three seats in the state Senate, they will shift control of the chamber and loosen the governor's iron grip on state government that extends to the judicial branch, where Walker's allies have used their narrow control of the state's seven-member Supreme Court to support legally dubious gubernatorial and legislative moves.
Saturday, July 9, 2011 As Unemployment Spikes, Obama's Got a Bigger Problem Than the Debt Ceiling (5 comments)
The issue that Americans have been following closely, and will continue to follow straight through the 2012 election cycle, the issue that tops the polls on the list of concerns, is the jobs crisis. Americans are worried about unemployment and underemployment.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 Supreme Court Removes Another Barrier to Corporate Ownership of Elections (3 comments)
After the Court's McComish ruling, citizens might ask: "And do you support the opinion that those corporations should always and in every instance be allowed to shout down citizens and candidates with whom they disagree?"
Friday, June 17, 2011 Feingold to Netroots Nation: Call Out Corporate Democrats (4 comments)
If it is wrong for Republicans to fuel their campaigns with corporate cash, then it is wrong for Democrats to do so. That was the no-hold-barred message that Russ Feingold brought to Netroots Nation. If Democrats fuel their campaigns with corporate cash, the senator said, "we'll lose our souls."
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 GOP Debate: Michele Bachmann and Six Guys (1 comments)
Indeed, if there is anyone who can remind Republicans that they have an enthusiasm gap to fill, it is Bachmann. Unfortunately for her -- though fortunately for her party and the country -- she is not going to be the candidate who fills it.
Saturday, June 11, 2011 AFL's Trumka on Pols Selling Out Workers: 'I've Had a Snootful of This S**t!' (9 comments)
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent his strongest signal yet about the labor movement's frustration with the dysfunctional politics of the moment -- where Republicans go to extremes on behalf of big banks and multinational corporations, Democrats compromise and working families are left out of the equation.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 Patriot Act Extension Scheme Sells Out the Constitution (6 comments)
US House and Senate leaders have reached a bipartisan backroom deal to push for approval of a four-year extension of the the most controversial components of the USA Patriot Act, in a move that rejects calls for responsible reform of the law by civil libertarians on the right and the left.
Thursday, May 12, 2011 House Republicans Shred Constitution With Backdoor Proposal of Permanent War (5 comments)
The Madisonian impulse is kept alive today not by House leaders who claim to revere the Constitution while adandoning its principles but by those members of Congress who object to permanent war for the same reasons that the wisest of the founders did.
Thursday, May 5, 2011 Cheney Refuses to Admit He Was Wrong on Obama's Approach to War on Terror
The Obama administration changed course, and Cheney was a critic of the new approaches. Now that Obama's approach has achieved what the Cheney approach could not, the former vice president is playing his favorite game: rewriting history in his favor.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 With Osama Found, a Congresswoman Asks: Where's the Afghanistan Exit Strategy? (2 comments)
Wasn't the point of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden? And if that was the point then, isn't it time -- with the news that Osama has been tracked down not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan -- to bring the troops and the war dollars home?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 Paul Ryan's 'Spinal Tap' Tour
Ryan's a rock star in Washington. But he's not playing so well at home, in southeast Wisconsin's 1st district. His spring recess tour on the towns was supposed to be a triumphal return of a hometown hero turned sudden celebrity. Instead, the tour has the feel of those dismal dates played by the aging rockers in the movie Spinal Tap.
Thursday, April 21, 2011 A War Powers Challenge to Obama's Libya Project (4 comments)
Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, swear to defend and abide by a Constitution that gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare wars. That oath demands that they reassert the role of the House and Senate in maintaining the system of checks and balances that the founders outlined "to chain the dogs of war."
Saturday, April 16, 2011 How Socialists Built America (2 comments)
Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy were not socialists. But the nation benefited from their borrowing of socialist and social democratic ideas. Barack Obama is certainly not a socialist. But he, and the nation he leads, would be well served by a similar borrowing from the people who once imagined Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the War on Poverty.
Monday, March 21, 2011 Wars Should Be Declared by Congress, Not Merely Launched by Presidents (11 comments)
Unless the United States is immediately threatened, presidents aren't supposed to declare wars or launch them on their own. Of all the checks and balances outlined in the Constitution, none is more significant than the power to declare war. Yet, since World War II, presidents have launched attacks, interventions and wars without declarations. And now that has happened again.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Greetings From Fitzwalkerstan: Wisconsin GOP Denies Legislative Democrats Voting Rights
The fourteen Democrats who refused to go along with legislative moves that have sparked multiple lawsuits and raised serious constitutional questions will now be denied their ability to represent 2.2. million Wisconsinites who live in their districts.
Friday, March 11, 2011 Pro-Worker Movement Power in Wisconsin: What's Next? (2 comments)
Ultimately, the movement politics that has developed since February 12 will seek to replace three Republican senators, and in so doing to restore the system of checks and balances that is so sorely needed in a state that is now being battered by the worst excesses of one-party rule.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 The Only Constitutional Crisis In Wisconsin Is the One the Governor's Consigliere Is Creating (1 comments)
Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald would have Wisconsinites -- and Americans who continue to watch developments in the Midwestern state where an uprising against Walker's bill has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets -- believe legislative rules give him the authority to override the constitution.
Thursday, March 3, 2011 Why a Wisconsin Sheriff Refuses to Serve as Governor Walker's 'Palace Guard' (1 comments)
As the governor and his aides have attempted to limit access to the state Capitol -- which the Wisconsin constitution says must remain open to all citizens -- Sheriff Mahoney has steadily argued that he and his deputies are present both to maintain public safety and to defend the right of citizens to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances.
Sunday, February 27, 2011 Upwards of 125,000 March in Madison, as Activists Rally Nationwide to Back Wisconsin Workers (1 comments)
Energized by the images of Wisconsinites night after winter night -- and filling the state Capitol with chants of "What's disgusting? Union busting!" -- unions across the country are beginning to outline clear and uncompromising agendas for defending public services and the rights of public workers.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 Wisconsin's Political Crisis Is a Good Deal More Serious Than Its Fiscal Crisis (1 comments)
Bottom line: this is not about the money. This is not a fiscal crisis. This is a political crisis. And Governor Walker has the power to resolve it by refocusing on fiscal issues, as opposed to pursuing the political goal of breaking state-employee and teacher unions.
Monday, February 14, 2011 A 'Dictator' Governor Sets Out to Cut Wages, Slash Benefits and Destroy Public Unions (3 comments)
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposal to strip public employees of most collective bargaining rights, cut pay and gut benefits without any negotiation the most radical assault yet by the current crop of Republican governors on the rights of workers has inspired outrage in a historically progressive and pro-labor state.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011 An Answer to 2011's Austerity Arguments: 'We Won't Pay For Their Crisis' (2 comments)
Republicans in Congress and even some Democrats were all saying that the country was broke and that it was going to be necessary to put Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs at risk to balance the books.
That's right. They want working Americans to sacrifice in order to pay off the debts they ran up on their wars and bailouts?
What's the proper response?
"We Won't Pay For Their Crisis."
Tuesday, December 28, 2010 Dick Cheney's $250-Million 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card
The revelation that Halliburton and KBR paid tens of millions of dollars directly, and hundreds of millions indirectly, to get Cheney and his associates off the hook, has not set well with Nigerians who have campaigned for transparency and accountability.
Saturday, December 25, 2010 Christmas, Congress and the Times That Try Men's Souls
Republican senators did not react by declaring their pride at being able to further the mission of the Prince of Peace by limiting the likelihood of nuclear war. Instead, they grumbled that any Senate Majority Leader who messed with their Holiday shopping schedules must be a very poor Christian indeed.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 War Opposition Grows As 102 House Dems, 12 Republicans Oppose Obama's Afghan Surge (1 comments)
More than 100 Democratic House members and a dozen Republicans voted against funding the Obama administration's Afghan war surge Tuesday, offering one of the strongest shows of opposition to presidential warmaking since the Vietnam War era.
Thursday, February 18, 2010 Senator Mellencamp?
ould Mellencamp perform in the U.S. Senate?
Could he be the right replacement for retiring Senator Evan Bayh, D-Indiana?
Forget the blah-blah-blah about celebrities in politics. We crossed that bridge decades ago.
The question is whether this celebrity makes the right connections with this state.
Monday, February 8, 2010 Sarah Says It's "Absurd Not to Consider" A Palin Presidency (2 comments)
While anyone who is familiar with Palin's track record might be amused by the notion that a woman who quit her executive position as governor to write a fine Alaskan whine of a book would dare accuse someone else of falling short in the leadership department, the delegates to the National Tea Party Convention cheered on cue.
Thursday, December 31, 2009 Good Riddance to Decade That Began With Theft of the Presidency (2 comments)
It was the U.S. Supreme Court's unprecedented meddling in the presidential election process -" an intervention that would have horrified the founders of a republic that was supposed to enjoy a separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers -" made the Bush-Cheney interregnum possible.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 Democrats to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan (2 comments)
In place of a continuing U.S. military presence, the California Democrats are urging Obama "to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid."
Friday, September 11, 2009 Afghanistan Election Fraud and the High Price of Empire
US officials are finding it increasingly difficult to construct a rationale for allowing the man they put in charge of Afghanistan to remain in charge of Afghanistan. The United States, a country founded with the purpose of breaking the chains of empire, has gotten into the dirty business of constructing and maintaining them.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009 Why Single Payer Advocacy Matters Now More Than Ever (23 comments)
The worst mistake that progressives could make in August would be to put their time and energy into getting members of Congress to agree to back a barely-acceptable compromise that could end up being unacceptable by the time the lobbyists and their political handmaidens finish with it.
Better to get representatives and senators to commit to back single-payer bills.
Thursday, July 16, 2009 Klobuchar's Contribution: Talking Law With Sotomayor
"I was influenced so greatly by a television show in igniting the passion that I had as being a prosecutor, and it was 'Perry Mason'," Judge Sotomayor acknowledged in response to a question from Klobuchar, adding a human note to the routine give-and-take of the past several days.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Will Revelations About Dick Cheney's Secret Programs Spell His Downfall? (3 comments)
So serious are the charges against Cheney that Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who for too long worked too closely with the Bush-Cheney administration on so many issues, appears finally to be accepting that an inquiry is going to be required.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 GOP Senator Says Attacks on Sotomayor "Mainly About Politics" (4 comments)
...the signal from Graham at Monday's session suggested there is a good chance key elements within the "party of no" will say yes to Sotomayor. That should allow her nomination to be sent from the Judiciary Committee to the full Senate with a strong recommendation that it be approved.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 McNamara Was "Wrong, Terribly Wrong" About Vietnam
Almost a decade later, in the documentary Fog of War McNamara would admit to a many more failures. Most importantly, he expanded on his earlier acknowledgment that, "We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose."
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 Double-Digit Unemployment Poses Political Danger for Obama (2 comments)
But there comes a time when a president "owns" his recession.
If the country is socked with a double-digit unemployment rate, and if the actions of the administration that is in charge are seen as feeding the increase in joblessness, that's the political point of no return.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 The 'New GM': Layoffs, Factory Closings, Offshoring (1 comments)
Nothing about the old way of doing business made sense, and it made a wreck of GM. After decades of closing factories, laying off workers and shifting production overseas, the company now finds itself with $172.8 billion in debt. This massive de-industrialization plan -- with its rapid offshoring of work once done in the United States -- will be paid for by the federal government.
Thursday, May 28, 2009 Judge Sotomayor's Diabetes: Not a Weakness But a Strength
Sotomayor's most important service as a role model may be as a Type 1 diabetic -- someone who has, since the age of eight, had to deal with what has variously been referred to as "childhood", "juvenile" or "insulin-dependent" diabetes.This is another piece of the diversity puzzle, an essential piece that ought not be underestimated.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 Obama Pick Sonia Sotomayor Reflects America (3 comments)
Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the high court, was made at the White House this morning, with the president hailing her as "an inspiring woman who I think will make a great justice."
Monday, May 18, 2009 Auto Bailout Blues: Spin, Lies and Layoffs (3 comments)
Instead of spending billions to steer America toward fewer jobs, fewer factories and fewer dealerships, the Obama administration should stop spinning and start investing in the workers, the small businesses and the communities that have always been the heart and soul of America's auto industry.
Friday, May 15, 2009 The Case for Kenosha (1 comments)
Historians say it was in Kenosha, not Detroit, that cars began "to look like cars."
"Very few Obama appointees have ties to the country's core productive sectors: manufacturing, agriculture, energy. Veterans of investment banking, academia or the public sector, they seem to see the economy more in terms of making media, images and trades--as opposed to actually making things."
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 David Simon, Arianna Huffington and the Future of Journalism (2 comments)
Nation Editor's Note: John Nichols testified before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy at its April 21 hearing on "A New Age for Newspapers: Diversity of Voices, Competition and the Internet."
Sunday, May 10, 2009 The Year of Same-Sex Marriage! (7 comments)
Iowa, Vermont, D.C., New Hampshire, Maine. Likely up next will be New York and New Jersey. Equal treatment for all our citizens is warming up in the East.
Sunday, May 10, 2009 A Democrat Calls for Executive Accountability
Essential to the American struggle from the start was an understanding of the necessity of constraining the executive branch so that no president -- be he (or she) good or bad -- could serve as what Jefferson referred to as an "elected despot".
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 A Liberal Democrat Returns to the Fold (3 comments)
Major unions, pro-choice, pro-gay rights and environmental groups, as well as supporters of scientific research have backed him over the years. It was not just that Specter voted right now and again, he maintained amiable relations with these groups, as well as with civil liberties organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union.
Monday, April 27, 2009 GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness (1 comments)
Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: "Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not."
Friday, April 24, 2009 Feingold on Torture Judge: "Grounds for Impeachment" (2 comments)
"The idea that one of the architects of this perversion of the law is now sitting on the federal bench is very troubling," Feingold argues. "The memos offer some of the most explicit evidence yet that Mr. Bybee and others authorized torture and they suggest that grounds for impeachment can be made," says the senator.
Thursday, April 2, 2009 House Members to Obama: Rethink Afghanistan Surge
Congressional Democrats and Republicans are signing on to a letter urging President Obama to reconsider his plan to surge tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 Auto Gets Tough Love, While Wall Street Feels the Love
Will this president ever tell brokers and bankers that they are going to feel more pain than just the paper cuts from opening their bailout checks and bonuses?
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Thomas Geoghegan Campaign. An Idea. A New Political Paradigm (2 comments)
Has support of Dr. Quentin Young, the Chicago physician who has led the charge for national health care; former Chicago Councilman Leon Depres, the "liberal conscience of Chicago" who took a young Tom Geoghegan on as a law partner decades ago; brilliant Chicago political strategist and activist Don Rose, who with Geoghegan recognized the promise of Harold Washington's transformative Chicago mayoral campaigns.
Thursday, February 19, 2009 What Took So Long? Finally, Some Help For Homeowners
The president proposes to take administrative actions to spend $75 billion of the Financial Stabilization Fund on facilitating modifications in existing loans and he wants to require lenders that are accepting tax dollars to adopt foreclosure prevention protocols to prevent unnecessary foreclosures.
Monday, February 9, 2009 Save the Solis Nomination (1 comments)
Barack Obama made the right pick when he chose Hilda Solis to serve as his Secretary of Labor. The president should not be dissuaded by the silly spin that would equate the circumstances of a Tom Daschle with those of Hilda Solis. Obama and his allies in the Senate need to inject a measure of perspective....
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 Don't Mourn for Daschle (5 comments)
No one -- or, at least, no one who is invested either in securing real health care reform or seeing an Obama presidency succeed -- should mourn Daschle's departure.
Monday, January 19, 2009 Most Valuable Progressives: Code Pink's Transition (4 comments)
Those of us who watched Code Pink evolve into the Most Valuable Progressive organization of the Bush years would expect no less of this amazing group in the Obama years.
Sunday, January 18, 2009 Lowery's Preaching, Not Warren's, Will Illuminate Inaugural Day (1 comments)
On Inauguration Day, it is a sound bet that the pastor who challenged George Wallace's bigotry and George Bush's war-making will challenge the backward thinking of Rick Warren and all those who would presume that the storehouses of God's justice run low when it comes to the rights of gays and lesbians.
