NewsTrust - U.S. Congress - 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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Gay marriage: Judge overturns DOMA, stepping up pressure on Supreme Court

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - May. 26 - A federal judge struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which precludes gay couples from receiving federal marriage benefits. She is the third federal judge to do so, suggesting that the Supreme Court might need to step in soon to clarify its position. ...

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The Most Powerful Special Interest in Washington: The Acronym

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Micah Cohen - May. 20 (Opinion) - A linguistic plague is creeping through the nation's capital - the "bacronym," where a PAC or bill name is chosen so that the initial letters of each word form a desired word.

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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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Fair Game: W.T.O. and Barriers to Financial Change

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gretchen Morgenson - Mar. 17 (Opinion) - The battle to remake the financial markets faces new obstacles in — of all places — the World Trade Organization. Even now, after all we’ve been through, something is still wrong with Wall Street. That’s the takeaway from the extraordinary — and extraordinarily public — resignation of Greg Smith from Goldman Sachs last week. His criticism of Goldman, made in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times, suggested that some of the business practices and inherent conflicts in the financial industry are as troubling today as they were before all of those taxpayer bailouts.

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Administration names official advocate for illegal immigrants

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:16:00 -0800

Washington Times - Feb. 07 - The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a new "public advocate" charged with listening to immigrants' concerns about its law enforcement policies — but Republicans said the position amounts to an official mouthpiece for illegal immigrants being dep

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Keynes Was Right

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Dec. 30 (Opinion) - Once again, when politicians and policy makers decided to focus on deficits, not jobs, they proved Keynes right about a slump being the wrong time for austerity.

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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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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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When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Magazine - By HASH(0x131256b0) - Nov. 21 (Opinion) - "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" It’s a very strange experience to have your friends think you’ve gone crazy. Some will tell you

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Failure Is Good

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 18 (Opinion) - In Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue, and cutting spending while the economy is still depressed reduces employment. But in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and slashing government spending is a job-creation strategy.

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Boehner: Relations With Obama 'a Little Frosty'

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:15:25 -0800

ABC News - Nov. 06 - As the White House and Congress battle over competing jobs bills, House Speaker John Boehner said that his relationship with President Obama has grown "frosty" in recent weeks. But he maintains that they still have a "pretty good relationship" and they can work together on job creation measures and to reach a long-term deficit reduction plan in Congress this month.

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In This Rape Center, the Patient Was 3

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:51:32 -0700

New York Times - Oct. 08 (Opinion) -

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Transcript – Fox News-Google GOP Presidential debate

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By Bret Baier - Sep. 22 (Speech) - This is a rush transcript from the Fox News-Google GOP Presidential debate on September 22, 2011 at the Orlando Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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Editorial: Our man in Damascus

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Editorial - Sep. 17 (Opinion) - Why Ambassador Robert S. Ford deserves confirmation.

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Of Dystopias and Alphas

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Maureen Dowd - Aug. 21 (Opinion) - Why can’t the president who promised revolution set the Washington schedule rather than bow to it?

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Fight for a Jobs Agenda

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Aug. 18 (Editorial) - Come September, President Obama’s aides say he will roll out more programs to put Americans back to work. What we are hearing so far doesn’t go nearly far enough. The gist: Continue the payroll tax cut for employees into next year. Reform the patent system. Pass trade legislation. At a stop in Decorah, Iowa, on Monday, he called for employing jobless construction workers to rebuild roads, bridges and schools across America. Those are all sensible ideas, but most are not up to the urgency or scale of the problem: 25 million Americans — 16.1 percent of the work force — are out of work or working part time, and the economy is weakening anew.

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Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Warren E. Buffett - Aug. 14 (Opinion) - for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate. My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.

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DNC chair blames Tea Party ‘tyrants’ for S&P credit rating downgrade

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Hill - By Alicia M. Cohn - Aug. 08 (Opinion) - Alicia M. Cohn / The Hill: DNC chair blames Tea Party ‘tyrants’ for S&P credit rating downgrade — The head of the Democratic National Committee joined Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Monday in casting blame for the U.S. credit downgrade on the Tea Party movement. — Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) …

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Fear of the tea party

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Aug. 08 - Published Aug 7, 2011 09:20PM MDT Shame on the Utah Republican members of Congress who voted against the bill to raise the nation’s debt limit. Contrast that to Rep. Jim Matheson and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who put their country first above petty politics. Giffords, recovering from an assassin’s bullet, said she voted for the measure because “I could not take the chance that my absence could crash our economy.” Conservative-loving Utahns have been sold out by their so-called leaders in Washington who would not support ... ...

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What Happened to Obama?

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Drew Westen - Aug. 07 (Opinion) - The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

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How the GOP lost on the debt deal

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Daniel Markovits - Aug. 03 (Opinion) - The deal reached by Congress eliminates the leverage that would have been created by another imminent default until after the next election, where it will be exercised by new and possibly differently constituted players.

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For lesson in shared sacrifice, send Congress to boot camp

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Russel L Honore - Aug. 02 (Editorial) - Like most veterans, the men and women who have worn our nation's uniform to defend this country, I am furious with and disappointed in the state of indecision that plagued Washington these past few weeks. Whether or not to raise the debt ceiling so our country can continue to pay our bills and maintain our global credit rating didn't seem like such a difficult decision.

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Reporter Makes Case For Ditching Debt Ceiling : NPR

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

All Things Considered - By Mary Louise Kelly - Jul. 27 (Interview) - In the latest issue of The New Yorker, James Surowiecki argues that the United States doesn't need and shouldn't have a debt ceiling. Mary Louise Kelly talks with Surowiecki about his reasoning.

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