NewsTrust - Republicans - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

President Obama Should Seize the High Ground

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas Friedman - May. 27 (Opinion) - President Obama has quite a record of accomplishment to run on for re-election if he would only run on it. During a recent discussion in Seattle with a group of educators, one of them surprised me when she pointed out that even though their state did not win President Obama’s education “Race to the Top,” that program was critical in spurring education reform in Washington State. As I listened to her analysis, the thought occurred to me: I wonder how Barack Obama would do if he ran for president as himself. ... How he would do if he ran for re-election on all the things he’s accomplished but rarely speaks about.

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Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Thomas E. Mann, Norman J. Ornstein - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates. It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

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Individual mandate is Ryan tax credit by other name

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Tax credits : Under various health-care proposals — including the plan of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) — the tax code is changed to give families a tax credit for buying private health insurance. Families that choose to go without insurance

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The Outsourced Party

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Kevin Baker - Mar. 25 (Opinion) - Who speaks for the Republican party? The answer is that everyone does — and therefore, no one does. Much air time and many trees have been wasted trying to explain the division, rancor and lethargy that have beset the Republican nominating campaign, now into its second year and threatening to run all the way to the party’s national convention in late August. But it’s no great mystery. Republicans have fallen prey to one of the favorite tactics of just the sort of heedless, improvident, twenty-first century capitalism they revere. Their party has been outsourced.

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GOP Releases Plan to Save America From the Poor

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Magazine - By Jonathan Chait - Mar. 20 (Opinion) - The House Republicans unveiled their new budget today, complete with a spooky video pressing home the point that only the House Republicans and their leader Paul Ryan stand between us and CIVILIZATIONAL COLLAPSE. Yes, the peril of rising debt is that bad. No, it’s not so bad that it’s worth restoring Clinton-era tax rates to prevent. But so bad that it’s worth throwing tens of millions of people off health insurance? Oh, yeah.

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GOP War on Voting Targets Swing States

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Ari Berman, Rolling Stone - Mar. 10 (Opinion) - 'Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012.' Ari Berman, Rolling Stone

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Has Limbaugh Identified the G.O.P.’s Woman Problem?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Amy Davidson - Mar. 04 (Opinion) - Hint: it's got something to do with money. On Friday, President Obama called a law student at Georgetown to tell her not to take it to heart that Rush Limbaugh had called her a prostitute. “What was really personal for me was that he said to tell my parents that they should be proud,” the student, Sandra Fluke, who, needless to say, is not a prostitute, told Andrea Mitchell, of MSNBC. Is anyone proud of Rush Limbaugh—even anyone in his own party? Before answering, one should read his full remarks about Fluke, who had been a potential witness in a hearing, convened by Republicans, on health-care coverage for contraception at institutions with religious connections. (Georgetown is Jesuit.) On Wednesday, Limbaugh called her “a slut”

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Arizona Debate: Conservative Chickens Come Home to Roost

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - What we have here are chickens coming home to roost. It's as if all of the American public's bad habits and perverse obsessions are all coming back to haunt Republican voters in this race: The lack of attention span, the constant demand for instant gratification, the abject hunger for negativity, the utter lack of backbone or constancy (we change our loyalties at the drop of a hat, all it takes is a clever TV ad): these things are all major factors in the spiraling Republican disaster. Most importantly, though, the conservative passion for divisive, partisan, bomb-tossing politics is threatening to permanently cripple the Republican party. They long ago became more about pointing fingers than about ideology, and it's finally ruining them.

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Focus on Social Issues Could Shape Battle for Women

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Richard W. Stevenson - Feb. 24 (Opinion) - There are any number of ways in which the politics of culture wars might play out, but perhaps the biggest question is the degree to which the new attention on social issues might shape the battle for one of the most important electoral swing groups: moderate and independent women voters.

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Santorum living in stone-age

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By Stephanie Coontz - Feb. 14 (Opinion) - Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is unhappy with last week's compromise over whether Catholic institutions should be required to cover contraception for their employees, arguing that birth control "shouldn't be covered by insurance at all."

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LZ: Michigan to Romney: Go away

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By LZ Garnderson - Feb. 14 (Opinion) - That's why the characterization of Rick Santorum polling well in Romney's backyard is a bit misguided. The truth is, many of us disowned that two-faced liar years ago. We remember how, back in 2008, Romney came home promising to do all he could to save the auto industry. And we believed him and voted for him and he won the primary here. Then, after he dropped out of the race, he wrote a New York Times op-ed that carried the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." The opening sentence: "If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye."

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The Big Lie: “Rich People Create Jobs”

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Yahoo! News - By Nick Hanauer - Feb. 03 (Opinion) - One of the most commonly repeated theories about job-creation is that "rich people create jobs"--specifically, rich investors and entrepreneurs who build companies that eventually employ hundreds or thousands of Americans. This theory is often used to justify very low taxes on investors and high-income earners, under the theory that such folks have to be given an incentive to "create jobs." But the trouble with the theory, says Nick Hanauer, is that it's just wrong.

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Editorial: The Republican Contest

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Editorial - Jan. 10 (Opinion) - From Iowa’s social conservative fight to New Hampshire’s economic fantasies, the presidential hopefuls are deluding themselves and trying to delude the voters.

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Obama-GOP battle turns ruthless

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By David Frum - Jan. 09 (Opinion) - Watch the Republican primaries, and you can feel: the American political system is working. The GOP is discarding the unqualified and irresponsible candidates and rapidly converging on the person in the race who could actually do the job of president. But the week's second biggest political story shows a very different reality: a political system careening toward crisis. This is the story of the battle over President Barack Obama's nomination of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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Indecision 2012 - Romspringa

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Jan. 04 (Comedy News) - Republican voters go through a rite of passage wherein they desperately explore every possible option before ultimately and unhappily voting for Mitt Romney.

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Op-Ed Columnist: Waiting for Mitt the Moderate

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Jan. 04 (Opinion) - If Mitt Romney ends up winning the Republican presidential nomination, let’s hope that he reverts to the moderate pragmatist he was for most of his career.

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Iowa: The Meaningless Sideshow Begins

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Jan. 03 (Opinion) - The 2012 presidential race officially begins today with the caucuses in Iowa, and we all know what that means … Nothing. The race for the White House is normally an event suffused with drama, sucking eyeballs to the page all over the globe. Just as even the non-British were at least temporarily engaged by last year’s royal wedding, people all over the world are normally fascinated by the presidential race: both dramas arouse the popular imagination as real-life versions of universal children’s fairy tales. Instead of a tale about which maiden gets to marry the handsome prince, the campaign is an epic story, complete with a gleaming white castle at the end, about the battle to succeed to the king’s throne. Since the presidency is the most powerful office in the world, the tale has appeal for people all over the planet, from jungles to Siberian villages.

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The Big Lie

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By By JOE NOCERA - Dec. 25 (Opinion) - So this is how the Big Lie works. You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he’s an “expert”; out of thin air, he devises “data.” You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.

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The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By WSJ Editorial Board - Dec. 21 (Opinion) - GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest. The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play. Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

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Gingrich has it wrong about the poor

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By LZ Granderson - Dec. 13 (Opinion) - This country isn't great in spite of the poor. It is great because of the poor.

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Op-Ed Columnist: All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Dec. 08 (Opinion) - In getting to the truth about those wealthy “job creators” the Republicans aim to protect, the ’80s film “Wall Street” seems more relevant than ever.

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Fixing America's jobless problem

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Peter Dreier - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - Thousands of long-term unemployed Americans from across the country have converged on Washington this week to dramatize their plight and to urge Congress to extend federal unemployment insurance benefits and the payroll tax cut, and to pass President Obama's jobs bill.

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Obama’s luck holds with GOP contenders

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Richard Cohen - Dec. 06 (Opinion) - It is said that, when Napoleon was asked what qualities he looked for in his generals, he responded, “Just one — that they be lucky.” This is a quality President Obama has in abundance — just look at the mess Republicans have made of their presidential race. Things turn out for Barack Obama. They always have, and it seems they always will.

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Cracks in the GOP dam?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Greg Sargent - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - Buried in this big New York Times piece on the continuing war over the payroll tax cut extension is a telling detail: Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said Tuesday that she had suggested a tax increase on high earners that protected employers from that burden. “I don’t think we should be imposing additional taxes on working families at a time when the economy is so fragile,” she said. Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said his party’s plan could involve a small increase in taxes for some high-income people who meet certain criteria. In other words, senators Collins and Roberts are looking for a way to support the millionaire surtax, or something like it.

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Indecision 2012 - After Dark, Oooh Yeah

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - Another woman steps forward in the Herman Cain scandal, claiming a 13-year affair with him, but Cain insists he never sealed the deal.

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