tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14532302422219643062012-02-26T09:10:27.087-06:00"The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right or left, are in the gutters." Dwight D. EisenhowerBallard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.comBlogger6131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-40211279325864548502012-02-26T08:53:00.002-06:002012-02-26T09:10:27.134-06:00

John Heilemann contemplates the consequences of an increasingly likely loss for the GOP in the 2012 Presidential election in New York magazine.With such precedents in mind, many Republicans are already looking past 2012. If either Romney or Santorum gains the nomination and then falls before Obama, flubbing an election that just months ago seemed eminently winnable, it will unleash a GOP

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-84086188981566421442012-02-22T21:43:00.002-06:002012-02-22T21:47:17.774-06:00

Conservative blogger David Frum asks one more question that his party has yet to answer in The Daily Beast.Whatever the Obama program's faults, however, it is a positive program. A Republican program that emphasizes "repeal" and "undo" is not a positive program. It's not a future-oriented program either: it's a program to refight the battles of the past four years, hoping this time to win the

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-10842342277684459622012-02-21T06:40:00.003-06:002012-02-21T06:58:52.370-06:00

Daniel Klaidman describes the benefits and risks of President Obama's increased use of Special Forces in dealing with security threats in Newsweek.Obama has come to rely more and more on “special operators” for many types of missions. In an era of dwindling budgets and dispersed, hidden enemies, when Americans have become fatigued by disastrous military occupations, the value of pinprick

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-52978686021018247872012-02-18T09:04:00.002-06:002012-02-18T10:12:42.159-06:00

Bill King spells out the Republicans' problem in this Houston Chronicle column.Memo to Republicans: There are not enough old, angry white people to win a national election.The modest inroads the Republicans had made with African-Americans in the Bush years have pretty much dissolved with their relentless personal attacks on President Obama. Latinos, who Bush had very effectively wooed, are

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-88923158752404882562012-02-15T06:33:00.003-06:002012-02-15T06:40:06.164-06:00

Paul Krugman notes GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's description of himself as a "severe conservative" as evidence of severe problems with the party in The New York Times.How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-42598489249514288942012-02-12T12:44:00.002-06:002012-02-12T12:49:35.562-06:00

Thomas Friedman nails it in today's New York Times column.But when all the Republican candidates last year said they would not accept a deal with Democrats that involved even $1 in tax increases in return for $10 in spending cuts, the G.O.P. cut itself off from reality. It became a radical party, not a conservative one. And for the candidates to wrap themselves in a cartoon version of Ronald

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-67071228967843119342012-02-02T07:44:00.002-06:002012-02-02T07:49:11.925-06:00

Rod Dreher makes a key point about the policy proposals of the 2012 GOP Presidential candidates in The American Conservative.Can you find a single significant point on which Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum differ substantially from George W. Bush? It’s amazing. If Bush were considered a successful president, they would be bringing him up all the time. That they do not, even as they have an

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-85673861102962443872012-01-29T08:25:00.005-06:002012-01-31T07:49:33.263-06:00

Non-partisan fact-check website Politifact.com checks the accuracy of claims made by President Obama in his State of the Union speech last week as well as those made in the GOP response by Republican governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels.Politifact rated four statements by Obama resulting in a True, two Mostly True and one Half-True rulings. It rated two statements by Daniels resulting in a False

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-80826276550356677692012-01-24T17:55:00.003-06:002012-01-24T18:22:49.008-06:00

Howard Schweber attributes Newt Gingrich's win in the South Carolina GOP primary to his giving voice to the resentments of the Tea Party and evangelical voters in The Huffington Post.Gingrich and his supporters do not oppose Obama, they resent the fact of his existence. He will speak for his constituents by articulating their resentments in more strident, more combative, more articulate terms

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-6221929784652415482012-01-21T08:53:00.002-06:002012-01-21T09:00:08.915-06:00

Stripping away the Obama-bashing, what are the Republican candidates promising to do if they win the White House? Hendrik Hertzberg answers in The New Yorker.All this is kind of fun to watch—or would be, if it weren’t for what it says about the deeply alarming degeneracy of one of our country’s two great political parties, a party that already controls half of Congress, paralyzes the other half,

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-41980048162594742562012-01-19T07:35:00.002-06:002012-01-19T07:42:06.837-06:00

Ezra Klein responds to Andrew Sullivan's essay on President Obama's record in his Washington Post blog.In some ways, the difference between various presidents, at least during a period of crisis, is probably less salient than the difference between various congresses. After all, it’s Congress that actually writes and passes the bills. The president, at best, is an agenda setter, and a persuader.

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-73190629198017244622012-01-17T06:58:00.002-06:002012-01-17T07:02:14.627-06:00

Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan provides an eloquent defense of the President in Newsweek and The Daily Beast.If I sound biased, that’s because I am. Biased toward the actual record, not the spin; biased toward a president who has conducted himself with grace and calm under incredible pressure, who has had to manage crises not seen since the Second World War and the Depression, and who as

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-76902374160854225972011-12-27T07:16:00.004-06:002011-12-27T08:04:59.923-06:00

Right-wing media, led by Fox News, has made a big deal in recent years of a so-called secular "War on Christmas." The latest installment from this camp was a recent column from conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg.I think conservatives have the better of the argument, of course. Every year there are enough “war on Christmas” horror stories to lend validity to the complaints...Incapable of

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-64005503237315319962011-12-22T07:34:00.002-06:002011-12-22T07:43:44.315-06:00

The Wall Street Journal editorial page and Karl Rove are dependable Republican advocates. It is therefore news when they publicly criticize the GOP as they each have done over the House Republicans' handling of the payroll tax debate.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.

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-57055744161980205512011-12-13T07:43:00.004-06:002011-12-13T08:30:59.447-06:00

Ryan J. Reilly reports for Talking Points Memo that Attorney General Eric Holder testified to the House Judiciary Committee on the lack of evidence for the sort of voter fraud targeted by voter ID laws. Holder's testimony is consistent with the inability of the Bush administration to find evidence for widespread voter fraud. The nationwide push for voter ID laws is often criticized as a

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-90343672944060749482011-11-23T21:00:00.002-06:002011-11-23T21:21:43.811-06:00

Conservative blogger David Frum sums it up on his party in New York Magazine.In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one:

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-58583169914117054042011-11-18T21:19:00.003-06:002011-11-18T21:28:55.832-06:00

Conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru writes that the Republican Party has lost its way in Bloomberg News. Ponnuru thinks the GOP wrongly concluded that its 2006 and 2008 losses were due to losing touch with conservative values (e.g. expanding government spending) rather than incompetent governance and rampant corruption.That mythology influences the Republican presidential primaries, too. It’s

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-19276185627940577872011-11-15T06:52:00.001-06:002011-11-15T06:54:01.488-06:00

E. J. Dionne sums up the state of the GOP in the Washington Post....that’s the (current) problem for conservatives. Their movement has been overtaken by a quite literally mindless opposition to government. Perry, correctly, thought he had a winning sound bite, had he managed to blurt it out, because if you just say you want to scrap government departments (and three is a nice, round number), many

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-66131533112577240122011-11-13T08:00:00.002-06:002011-11-13T08:08:38.575-06:00

Jacob Heilbrunn exposes the nutty foreign policy proposals of the GOP Presidential candidates after the South Carolina debate on The Daily Beast.The only candidates who came across as sensible and cogent were Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum—in that order. Paul actually brought some genuine emotion to the debate, a deep sense of offended honor at the notion that America would sanction

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-45873415757006935302011-11-01T18:14:00.002-05:002011-11-01T18:16:25.518-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum offers a fresh take on GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's changes of policy positions on Frum Forum.It’s not Romney who is the flip-flopper. It’s the conservative movement. It was only three years ago that Jim DeMint was praising the Massachusetts healthcare plan. Post-2009, conservatives have flip-flopped on individual mandates, they have flip-flopped on

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-45039477439525254092011-10-28T06:57:00.003-05:002011-10-28T07:00:05.200-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum sums it up on Frum Forum.The identification of the GOP as mouthpiece for the selfish interests of the wealthy is a stubborn image, difficult to overcome at the best of times. For three years, however, Republican leaders have been doing their utmost to confirm the stereotype – and to quash and quell any attempt to counter that stereotype. Did we really spend months

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-32909131097334303372011-10-22T08:29:00.003-05:002011-10-22T09:08:50.880-05:00

Greg Sargent outlines the Republican strategy of blocking President Obama's jobs initiative to undermine public confidence in government in his Washington Post blog, The Plum Line.Voters either don’t understand, or they don’t care, that the GOP has employed an unprecedented level of filibustering in order to block all of Obama’s policies, even ones that have majority public support from Dems,

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-75650629203180073962011-10-17T19:11:00.003-05:002011-10-17T19:14:41.808-05:00

Nicholas Kristof says so in The New York Times.Three factoids underscore that inequality: ¶The 400 wealthiest Americans have a greater combined net worth than the bottom 150 million Americans. ¶The top 1 percent of Americans possess more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent. ¶In the Bush expansion from 2002 to 2007, 65 percent of economic gains went to the richest 1 percent. --Ballard Burgher

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-18020798095320393152011-10-14T06:44:00.002-05:002011-10-14T06:55:06.121-05:00

Former Reagan and Bush (senior) budget official Bruce Bartlett slices and dices GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax plan on his New York Times blog.At a minimum, the Cain plan is a distributional monstrosity. The poor would pay more while the rich would have their taxes cut, with no guarantee that economic growth will increase and good reason to believe that the budget deficit

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-63543683797220365132011-10-13T22:00:00.003-05:002011-10-13T22:08:48.519-05:00

Ross Douthat argues in The New York Times that the Democrats in Congress would have been just as unanimously opposed to initiatives from President McCain had he won the 2008 Presidential election as were Republicans to Obama's proposals. A reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog The Daily Dish says not so fast.Ross Douthat apparently has a bad case of amnesia. We actually have empirical evidence on the

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-40145150971726914522011-10-11T15:06:00.002-05:002011-10-11T15:10:33.595-05:00

The New York Times offers their editorial take on the meaning of the Occupy Wall Street protests.At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-58332624744764992011-09-28T23:11:00.004-05:002011-09-28T23:16:04.283-05:00

Former Reagan budget official Bruce Bartlett supports the Buffett tax in The Financial Times.There is no evidence whatsoever that lower rates on the wealthy stimulated growth in the 2000s. Indeed when the Congressional Research Service examined the economic consequences of allowing all the Bush era tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010, it concluded that the impact was likely to be slight because

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-25118251494396501542011-09-26T17:13:00.007-05:002011-09-26T17:51:21.320-05:00

Steve Benen exposes GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's big lie on his Political Animal blog in Washington Monthly.Here's the line from last night’s debate that Mitt Romney simply loves to tell: “The president went about this all wrong. He went around the world and apologized for America.” If someone makes a bogus claim, he or she is merely wrong. When someone repeats the bogus claim after

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-41409719640410669492011-09-20T06:53:00.002-05:002011-09-20T07:03:13.928-05:00

Ezra Klein describes President Obama's change in political strategy in rolling out his new deficit plan in his Washington Post blog.Since the election, the Obama administration’s working theory has been that the first-best outcome is striking a deal with Speaker John Boehner and, if that fails, the second-best outcome is showing that they genuinely, honestly wanted to strike a deal with Speaker

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-58243283587350901932011-09-15T06:34:00.002-05:002011-09-15T06:38:10.725-05:00

Ezra Klein traces the current jobs crisis back to 2001 in his Washington Post blog.“Two less obvious factors predated the recession. The first is the steepness of the rise in job scarcity during the previous recession in 2001, which rivaled that during the deep downturn of the early 1980s. The second is the failure between 2003 and 2007 of jobs per jobseeker to recover from the 2001 recession...

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-52708777001355942602011-09-14T17:33:00.003-05:002011-09-14T17:41:17.025-05:00

Columnist Thomas Friedman nails recent denials of climate change by GOP Presidential candidates Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann in The New York Times.Every time I listen to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota talk about how climate change is some fraud perpetrated by scientists trying to gin up money for research, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-58329095801173584442011-09-09T08:21:00.002-05:002011-09-09T08:25:29.204-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum comments on President Obama's jobs speech on Frum Forum.The core concept – stressing past Republican approval of the major elements of the proposal – ingeniously put Republicans into an awkward spot. And in fact, the maneuver has had some immediate effect. Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor told Politico tonight that they would approve important elements of the bill

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-13497745645446198382011-08-21T14:11:00.002-05:002011-08-21T14:19:03.891-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum, a former writer for the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, advocates a downgrade of the conservative bellweather on Frum Forum. I’m uncomfortably aware that critiquing the Wall Street Journal’s editorial column is a job reserved for himself by The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait – and that Chait does not take kindly to interlopers on his territory. But it’s

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-54338996230141749262011-08-21T12:13:00.002-05:002011-08-21T12:22:00.905-05:00

Kyle Leighton reports in Talking Points Memo that Jon Huntsman single-handedly takes on the crazies in the GOP Presidential race. He criticized Mitt Romney for flip-flopping, Rick Perry as unserious for accusing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke of treason and reserved a unique category for Michele Bachman. And when it came to Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) contention that she would get gas prices

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-23834417681962724012011-08-18T21:59:00.002-05:002011-08-18T22:05:51.704-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum laments the vanishing role of intelligence and competence in Republican Presidential candidates in The Week. But it remains true even now that Republicans do not take intelligence or expertise very seriously as qualifications for the presidency. Mitt Romney's smarts do him surprisingly little good; Rick Perry's non-smarts do him disturbingly little harm; and

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-36853975778311159022011-08-08T22:52:00.002-05:002011-08-08T22:55:26.443-05:00

Andrew Sullivan calls 'em like he sees 'em on The Daily Dish. The S&P downgrade was not a comment on America's economy; it was a comment on America's polity. The attempt by some on the far right (which is now, alas, synonymous with the right) to blame Obama is preposterous. Does anyone believe that if the GOP hadn't flirted with default, the markets would have been so spooked? The reference to

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-70690358710251508912011-08-08T19:32:00.001-05:002011-08-08T19:35:35.762-05:00

Paul Krugman offers an elegant and sensible definition of the debt problem and its solution in The New York Times. The truth is that as far as the straight economics goes, America’s long-run fiscal problems shouldn’t be all that hard to fix. It’s true that an aging population and rising health care costs will, under current policies, push spending up faster than tax receipts. But the United

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-61422661523000574462011-08-06T19:10:00.004-05:002011-08-06T19:26:20.870-05:00

Fred Bauer writes on the conservative blog Frum Forum that GOP intransigence on revenues is a big culprit.The statement hammers away at what it views as political gridlock. The battle over the debt-ceiling has exacted a considerable toll, in S&P’s eyes...Many wanted a “battle” over the debt-ceiling and hoped for more “battles” in the future; S&P suggests that this might not be a good idea for the

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-34438119752148642812011-08-06T08:43:00.002-05:002011-08-06T08:49:38.588-05:00

While acknowledging that White House criticism of Standard and Poor's is valid, Ezra Klein says the ratings agency is right to downgrade US Government securities on his Washington Post blog.In Washington, it’s almost trite to say that the political system is broken. It’s been clear for some time that things really are different, that norms and procedures that once kept fractious congresses

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-59686595448499522832011-08-04T07:11:00.002-05:002011-08-04T07:25:31.162-05:00

Ezra Klein's takeaway from the recent debt ceiling debate appears on his Washington Post blog.Just as Republicans planted a trigger for 2011 that ensures spending cuts, Democrats should use the Bush tax cuts as a trigger in 2012 to force revenue. Which is not to say they should campaign for raising taxes. They should campaign against an outdated, inefficient, unfair tax code as well as the

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-9586946022145832572011-07-29T08:28:00.003-05:002011-07-30T20:33:15.837-05:00

Joe Klein nails the false equivalence attributed to the two parties over the debt debacle in Time's Swampland blog.And so, here we are. Our nation’s economy and international reputation as the world’s presiding grownup has already been badly damaged. It is a self-inflicted wound of monumental stupidity. I am usually willing to acknowledge that Democrats can be as silly, and hidebound, as

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-23731698766633271622011-07-28T10:21:00.003-05:002011-07-30T20:30:39.743-05:00

Conytinuing the trend of the sharpest criticism of the GOP and its media defenders coming from conservative writers, blogger David Frum nails the defiance of fiscal reality on the Wall Street Journal editorial page on Frum Forum.I used to write editorials for the Wall Street Journal myself, 20 years ago now. So I’m well aware of the challenge faced by those assigned to compose these documents.

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-35118975237956856402011-07-26T22:00:00.003-05:002011-07-30T20:29:28.986-05:00

Josh Marshall nails CNN for falsely portraying the debt ceiling standoff as both parties refusing to compromise on Talking Points Memo.It's been said many times. But it's never enough: the conventions of journalistic 'objectivity', as currently defined, frequently make journalists violate their biggest duty, which is honesty with readers. The top headline running now on CNN reads: "They're all

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-61155725903258339182011-07-25T22:26:00.004-05:002011-07-30T20:28:47.784-05:00

Former Reagan budget official Bruce Bartlett challenges Republican dogma on Capital Gains and Games.In short, there is no evidence whatsoever supporting Gov. Pawlenty’s view of the Reagan tax cuts or Sen. McConnell’s view of the Bush tax cuts. They didn’t pay for themselves and there is no reason to think that further tax cuts will, either. Esteemed Republican economist Alan Greenspan confirmed

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-91567081213003448762011-07-19T08:31:00.004-05:002011-07-19T08:52:40.768-05:00

Conservative columnist David Brooks continues the trend of writers from the right as the sharpest critics of the present Republican party in The New York Times.It could be that this has been a glorious moment in Republican history. It could be that having persuaded independents that they are a prudent party, Republicans will sweep the next election. Controlling the White House and Congress,

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-66531833602944268652011-07-18T22:52:00.002-05:002011-07-18T23:05:52.815-05:00

Veteran political commentator Charlie Cook writes in The National Journal that we will not see a debt ceiling deal that will meaningfully impact the deficit and that Republicans are to blame.Washington will not succeed in bending the deficit and debt curve, and Obama will be able to blame Republicans for their unwillingness to meet Democrats halfway. What has happened is that the New Republican

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-10743017739513755932011-07-13T21:30:00.002-05:002011-07-13T21:35:51.730-05:00

Nate Silver notes on his Five Thirty-Eight blog for The New York Times that even GOP voters favor at least some revenue increases to lower the deficit.The average Republican voter, based on this data, wants a mix of 26 percent tax increases to 74 percent spending cuts. The average independent voter prefers a 34-to-66 mix, while the average Democratic voter wants a 46-to-54 mix.Consider that,

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-42940916246772405702011-07-10T17:41:00.003-05:002011-07-10T17:49:54.166-05:00

Former Reagan Budget official Bruce Bartlett debunks Republican dogma that spending cuts will stimulate growth while revenue increases will slow it on Capital Gains and Games.But the Republican position that spending cuts are expansionary while tax increases are depressing is not logically consistent. Both spending cuts and tax increases affect the economy in roughly the same way in the short run

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-52159686520862891992011-07-07T17:24:00.002-05:002011-07-07T17:37:46.072-05:00

Josh Marshall takes a step back to guess what the current moment will look like years from now in Talking Points Memo.I think we will look back at this moment as the chaotic time that the old order turned to the new. In my opinion, we are seeing the remants of the soon-to-be old power structure see their grip on power slip with the predictable response of ever greater efforts to hold power

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-57197403572864157252011-07-05T22:17:00.002-05:002011-07-05T22:22:24.555-05:00

Conservative columnist David Brooks of The New York Times nails GOP fanaticism in today's column.The members of this movement have no economic theory worthy of the name. Economists have identified many factors that contribute to economic growth, ranging from the productivity of the work force to the share of private savings that is available for private investment. Tax levels matter, but they are

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-58782678857898078112011-07-02T09:55:00.002-05:002011-07-02T09:58:53.030-05:00

Andrew Sullivan nails the tactics of Congressional Republicans in threatening default unless all of their budget demands are met on The Daily Dish.For the GOP to use the debt ceiling to put a gun to the head of the US and global economy until they get only massive spending cuts and no revenue enhancement is therefore the clearest sign yet of their abandonment of the last shreds of a conservative

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-36389942283159081242011-06-27T16:51:00.002-05:002011-06-27T16:59:10.305-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum writes for CNN.com that he has changed his mind about same-sex marriage.I was a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. Fourteen years ago, Andrew Sullivan and I forcefully debated the issue at length online (at a time when online debate was a brand new thing). Yet I find myself strangely untroubled by New York state's vote to authorize same-sex marriage -- a vote

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-81096966506889159012011-06-25T09:11:00.005-05:002011-06-25T09:45:55.291-05:00

Thomas Friedman's column this week in The New York Times makes the valid point that neither party's ideology will fix our economic woes.The truth is, we need to do four things at once if we have any hope of maintaining American greatness: We need more stimulus to keep the economy from slipping back into recession. But we need to combine that stimulus with a credible, legislated, long-term plan

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-85319139893496630752011-06-21T13:46:00.001-05:002011-06-21T13:54:38.548-05:00

Several states have recently passed laws requiring more extensive voter identification ostensibly to prevent voter fraud. However, there is little to no evidence that such fraud actually exists on anything near the scale to justify the legislation. Kevin Drum comments on Mother Jones.Still, let's walk through the evidence:1. Research showing that actual voter fraud is minuscule — perhaps

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-6387187400001834892011-06-16T21:41:00.003-05:002011-06-16T22:03:50.650-05:00

Andrew Sullivan offers up a terrific summation of the takeover of the Republican Party by the radical right that calls itself conservative (but isn't) in The Daily Dish.So on taxes today, a conservative would ask: what have we learned about the impact of lower rates over the last two decades - now the lowest as a percentage of GDP since the 1950s? In healthcare, what have we learned about the

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-19137357406105945442011-06-14T07:39:00.002-05:002011-06-14T07:51:22.570-05:00

Former Reagan budget official and conservative blogger Bruce Bartlett offers a recipe for economic growth in The Fiscal Times.The bottom line is that neither taxes nor spending by themselves are the most important government contribution to the investment climate; it’s the budget deficit. Consequently, a reduction in tax revenue which raises the deficit is unlikely to stimulate domestic

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-74521067998209470352011-06-10T07:02:00.002-05:002011-06-10T07:16:06.380-05:00

Reaction to GOP Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty's completely unserious economic proposal has been swift and from all sides. He proposes cutting taxes on the top bracket to 25% and all other brackets to 10% while eliminating capital gains taxes.Andrew Sullivan:But Pawlenty's economic plan, presented yesterday, is to enact tax cuts three times larger than Bush's. When one realizes that he is

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-33655977563027706322011-06-02T17:40:00.004-05:002011-06-02T17:49:32.034-05:00

That would be Mitt Romney's pants on fire according to fact-check website Politifact.com for his statement that the US is "inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy" as part of his announcement of his Presidential candidacy for 2012. It’s true that the government’s footprint on spending has grown over the past few years, due in large part to the recession. But while the statistics

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-39025008752936776492011-05-31T16:40:00.002-05:002011-05-31T17:28:30.541-05:00

Bruce Bartlett asks and answers this question in historic terms.Historically, the term “tax rate” has meant the average or effective tax rate — that is, taxes as a share of income. The broadest measure of the tax rate is total federal revenues divided by the gross domestic product. By this measure, federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-59711627130287208442011-05-28T21:10:00.003-05:002011-05-28T21:26:00.162-05:00

Surgeon Atul Gawande gave this weekend's commencement address to new graduates of Harvard Medical School. The address appears in The New Yorker where Gawande writes about health care and is worth a read (h/t Ezra Klein).The core structure of medicine—how health care is organized and practiced—emerged in an era when doctors could hold all the key information patients needed in their heads and

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-48637818777757728482011-05-26T08:09:00.002-05:002011-05-26T08:31:38.083-05:00

E.J. Dionne writes in The Washington Post that the outcome of the special Congressional election in New York's traditionally Republican 26th district suggests that the influence of the Tea Party may be both over-stated and waning.How closed are Republicans to dissent from the sacred scripture of Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan? When David Gregory asked Newt Gingrich on “Meet the Press” what voters

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-34151011154700937412011-05-25T07:55:00.002-05:002011-05-25T08:06:14.044-05:00

Raymond Hernandez describes the win by Democrat Kathy Hochul in the special Congressional election in New york's 26th district as a rebuke of Paul Ryan's GOP Medicare overhaul proposal in The New York Times.Democrats scored an upset in one of New York’s most conservative Congressional districts on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the national Republican Party in a race that largely turned on the party’

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-75448923096940946762011-05-23T20:36:00.002-05:002011-05-23T20:46:20.319-05:00

Benjy Sarlin reports for Talking Points Memo that Republican Candidate Jane Corwin has backed away from Rep. Paul Ryan's proposal to remake Medicare as we know it in the New York 26th District Congressional race."The Republican vote plus the Tea Party vote will equal a majority," University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato told TPM in an e-mail. "On the other hand, this is

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-57123809050027396112011-05-21T09:04:00.002-05:002011-05-21T09:14:00.369-05:00

Jill Lawrence notes the policy flips of most of the 2012 GOP candidates in The Daily Beast.All of the plausible Republican hopefuls have major flips on their resumes. Like Romney, most of them have jettisoned inconveniently moderate parts of their pasts as they prepare to face a very conservative primary electorate. Gingrich is in a different category—on pace to set a record for the most and

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-67097654251395982712011-05-17T11:23:00.002-05:002011-05-17T11:38:13.365-05:00

Benjy Sarlin reports for Talking Points Memo on the hornet's nest kicked by Newt Gingrich's criticism of Rep. Paul Ryan's Budget proposal.The melee ignited by Newt Gingrich's condemnation of the House GOP budget as "right-wing social engineering" is intensifying as Republican leaders, conservative editorial pages, and right-leaning pundits join together to condemn his remarks. The budget's plan

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-50962373135538636322011-05-04T20:02:00.006-05:002011-05-17T11:11:12.022-05:00

With the torture debate resurfacing after the killing of Osama bin Laden this week there has been a lot of hysterical talk on both sides of the issue. Some of the more thoughtful and least hysterical commentary on the question has come from Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission and Deputy Secretary of State under Condi Rice in W.'s second term (see his Foreign Policy

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-90776505412273086462011-05-03T18:33:00.005-05:002011-05-03T20:28:19.080-05:00

Here are some responses to the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo:Initial polls show a substantial bump for the president. But the glow will fade and whatever bump there is will almost certainly subside, at least in part. Neither of those points though really go to the heart of the matter. The Republican critique of the president has been that he's a

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-14147398808113692822011-05-01T08:39:00.002-05:002011-05-01T08:43:46.628-05:00

Kate Zernike writes about the persistence of conspiracy theories in America in The New York Times.To many, those who doubt Mr. Obama’s citizenship are driven simply by racial prejudice; they are unwilling to allow that America’s first black president could hold the office legitimately. Many scholars of conspiracy theory agree. But they also note that such theories are hardly unique to Mr. Obama;

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-64139172675979346372011-04-29T16:54:00.002-05:002011-04-29T17:06:47.128-05:00

Ezra Klein of The Washington Post and Kevin Drum of Mother Jones agree that the Ryan budget plan passed by the Republican majority House is misleading in important ways.Klein:It’s odd to say this, but I would really, really, really like for there to be, as Ross Douthat suggests, equivalence between the two parties on fiscal issues right now. Professionally, it’s much better for me to be able to

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-81474965060119195702011-04-27T07:38:00.002-05:002011-04-27T07:41:20.396-05:00

Harold Meyerson captures the widening reality gap between the GOP base and the rest of the electorate in The Washington Post.Increasingly, though, the rift between the Tea Partyized Republicans and everyone else comes on the question of empiricism. Watch Fox News or listen to right-wing talk radio long and credulously enough, and you’ll end up believing that Americans found weapons of mass

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-64737988284432557812011-04-23T08:30:00.006-05:002011-04-27T07:25:22.723-05:00

Josh Marshall reports for Talking Points Memo that Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) got booed at a town hall meeting in his district over his refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy to reduce the federal deficit.Conservative blogger David Frum is right. The GOP has badly miscalculated the public's support for its pet policies of slashing entitlements and tax cuts for the wealthy. The right-wing

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-16769929105133930262011-04-17T08:16:00.004-05:002011-04-17T08:27:47.556-05:00

Jackie Calmes reports for The New York Times on the "Gang of Six" senators seeking a compromise on deficit reduction. This group includes Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mark Warner (D-VA), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Michael Crapo (R-ID).For Republicans, that means accepting higher taxes and lower military spending. For Democrats, it would mean agreeing to curbs on the

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-49431487024244450552011-04-16T13:59:00.003-05:002011-04-16T14:18:38.644-05:00

Charles M. Blow of The New York Times calls the Republican budget proposal piracy.Under the guise of deficit reduction, the Republicans are proposing to not only make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, but to reduce their taxes even more — cutting the top individual rate from 35 percent to 25 percent to “promote growth and job creation.” And they plan to pay for this by taking a buzz

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-40740252405060850632011-04-15T06:44:00.002-05:002011-04-15T06:50:44.760-05:00

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), a member of the "gang of six" senators reportedly working on a bipartisan deficit reduction plan, makes a realistic critique of the Ryan proposal in Dana Milbank's Washington Post column.But even mainstream conservatives such as Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), part of the Gang of Six, say the no-new-taxes Ryan plan is a nonstarter. “What he seeks to do is to, number

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-18262106204301285752011-04-14T17:50:00.002-05:002011-04-14T18:16:18.303-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum fears the Republican push for the Ryan plan plays right into Obama's hands on Frum Forum.Here’s a basic fact of American politics. The American people like Medicare. They are not so enthusiastic about tax cuts for the rich. Those of us on the political right have different preferences. We believe that low rates for high earners accelerate economic growth. We

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-58620293954255793992011-04-14T08:38:00.002-05:002011-04-14T11:09:49.925-05:00

Andrew Sullivan collects reactions to the President's budget speech on The Daily Dish.Ezra Klein:My initial impression is that this looks a lot like the Simpson-Bowles report, but in a good way. It doesn’t go quite as far on defense cuts, but it also doesn’t implement a cap on tax or spending. It goes a lot further than Ryan’s budget does in terms of actually figuring out ways to save money

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-9087705856938143852011-04-10T12:14:00.002-05:002011-04-10T12:35:38.745-05:00

Nicholas Kristof gets after both parties in Congress for reckless partisanship in his New York Times column.This isn’t government we’re watching; this is junior high. It’s unclear where the adults are, but they don’t seem to be in Washington. Beyond the malice of the threat to shut down the federal government, averted only at the last minute on Friday night, it’s painful how vapid the discourse

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-56546359600073990462011-04-09T07:46:00.008-05:002011-04-10T12:38:51.181-05:00

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget committee, has put forth a 2012 federal budget proposal that initially got favorable reviews as the first to take a serious crack at addressing the federal deficit. Paul Krugman of The New York Times begs to differ.How ridiculous is it? Let me count the ways — or rather a few of the ways, because there are more howlers in the plan

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-69097582025954592952011-04-02T20:18:00.003-05:002011-04-02T20:23:11.294-05:00

Andrew Sullivan mourns the evils of dueling fundamentalisms on The Daily Dish.On March 20th, Pastor Terry Jones held a Koran burning in Florida. On Thursday Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, condemned the burning and called for the arrest of Jones. Yesterday, Afghans protested the Koran burning by killing UN workers. And today the deadly protests have spread to Kandahar.The interaction

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-75189598114527164042011-03-31T17:17:00.007-05:002011-03-31T17:35:21.268-05:00

Bill King argues that moderates are poorly represented in the two major political parties in his Houston Chronicle editorial. Let me say at the outset that I am extremely reluctant to even use the words "conservative" or "liberal." Both words have been so bastardized that they have almost no meaning. It used to be that if you were conservative you believed that traditional political and social

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-15401614690512679832011-03-26T08:37:00.004-05:002011-03-26T08:52:56.633-05:00

Conservative blogger David Frum highlights the problem with fighting a very mobile terrorist organization like Al Qaeda with conventional military tactics (e.g. invading/occupying Muslim countries with large ground forces) in Frum Forum.Q: Wait a minute. You just mentioned Somalia as a place where al Qaeda operates. If Libya breaks apart, could al Qaeda find a home there?A: Yes indeed. When Iraq

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-10408131870759506992011-03-19T20:17:00.002-05:002011-03-19T20:34:59.015-05:00

Ezra Klein reveals Republican incoherence in pushing for cuts in state spending in the name of closing budget gaps then giving away to savings in the form of corporate tax breaks in his Washington Post blog.The trade-off between the benefits of social spending and the drawbacks of taxes is, of course, among the longest-running debates in American politics. But that’s not actually the debate being

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-72739054758385972712011-03-07T06:43:00.002-06:002011-03-07T06:53:33.549-06:00

The most damning indictments of the current state of the Republican party come from fellow conservatives. George Will offers up the latest in The Washington Post.If pessimism is not creeping on little cat's feet into Republicans' thinking about their 2012 presidential prospects, that is another reason for pessimism. This is because it indicates they do not understand that sensible Americans, who

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-60262685504737632872011-03-06T07:49:00.002-06:002011-03-06T07:57:09.594-06:00

Andrew Sullivan leaves no one unscathed in voicing his displeasure over the budget debate on The Daily Dish.We all know what the Congress should be doing about the debt right now, don't we? It should be debating which mix of long-term entitlement and defense cuts and the least economically damaging tax increases would lower the long-term debt, restore global confidence in the long-term solvency

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-49602742886115780792011-02-28T08:18:00.002-06:002011-02-28T08:29:50.911-06:00

John Avalon notes the drop in ratings of right-wing radio shows with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck in The Daily Beast.“There are a lot of program directors whose radio ‘spider-sense’ is tingling,” says Randall Bloomquist, a long-time radio executive and president of Talk Frontier Media. “They're thinking ‘this conservative thing is kind of running its course. We're saying the same

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-91371414381219868962011-02-27T12:40:00.002-06:002011-02-27T12:44:08.928-06:00

Frank Rich sketches out the real aim of the House Republicans' proposed budget in The New York Times.The 2011 rebels are to the right of their 1995 antecedents in any case. That’s why this battle, ostensibly over the deficit, is so much larger than the sum of its line-item parts. The highest priority of America’s current political radicals is not to balance government budgets but to wage

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-91763097933808458162011-02-21T12:59:00.003-06:002011-02-21T13:17:43.932-06:00

George Soros responds to Glenn Beck's depiction of him as a "puppet-master" trying to bring down the US government on Fareed Zakaria's GPS talk show on CNN. Soros maintains that Beck is expressing the opinion of Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and accuses both Beck and Fox News of employing George Orwell's "newspeak" in using falsehoods to mislead their audience.Non-partisan fact-check website

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-28076151286360607472011-02-20T18:27:00.003-06:002011-02-20T18:33:29.151-06:00

Josh Marshall writes about the real issue behind the Wisconsin public employee controversy on Talking Points Memo.In all the swirl and drama of events in Wisconsin and all the competing fiscal accounts, one thing is pretty undeniable: the crux of the fight isn't about reductions in benefits, it's about the future of collective bargaining for public sector employees. Killing collective bargaining

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-5550015817242441012011-02-16T06:15:00.003-06:002011-02-17T06:57:57.868-06:00

As Jackie Calmes reports in The New York Times, President Obama and a bipartisan group of Senators are taking a more sensible approach to deficit reduction than the reckless cuts proposed by Congressional Republicans.The White House has already opened back-channel conversations to test Republicans’ willingness to negotiate about the soaring costs of Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security’s

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-75750806763412863082011-02-14T20:41:00.004-06:002011-02-16T06:13:19.400-06:00

Conservative blogger and former Reagan budget official Bruce Bartlett comments on federal budget cuts proposed by Republicans in Congress in Fiscal Times.One of the biggest problems we have in dealing with the budget is the gross level of budgetary ignorance on the part of the public that I detailed last week. But an even bigger problem is that Republicans in Congress appear to be just as

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-44311222763790107772011-02-14T06:37:00.002-06:002011-02-14T06:51:34.838-06:00

Two Sunday columns in The Washington Post say a lot about the coming federal budget battle. George Will comments on Republican rhetoric about the deficit while the GOP largely leaves defense spending untouched. To their credit, several GOP figures rightly criticize the Pentagon's opaque budget offerings.Tall, affable Buck McKeon sits, gavel in hand, at the turbulent intersection of two

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-78087972351479576702011-01-30T09:40:00.002-06:002011-01-30T09:51:06.067-06:00

New York Times columnist Frank Rich weighs in on the SOTU speech by President Obama and responses by Representatives Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN).There was no drama to Obama’s address — just a unifying theme, at long last, as he reasserted the role of government in rebooting and rebuilding the country for a new century and putting Americans back to work. The president wisely left

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-51434256446446497882011-01-29T09:27:00.005-06:002011-01-30T10:10:21.101-06:00

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) offered the Republican response to President Obama's state of the union speech last week and stretched the facts according to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.President Obama’s State of the Union address was a ho-hum affair. But the official Republican response, from Representative Paul Ryan, was really interesting. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Mr.

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-57462090984307795932011-01-25T06:47:00.002-06:002011-01-25T06:50:39.902-06:00

Conservative blogger and former Bush speech-writer David Frum offers a mock SOTU speech before President Obama's real one tonight in Esquire.When my administration arrived in office in January 2009, we confronted the worst economic collapse since the 1930s. We did our best to estimate the depth of the crisis ahead. We got it wrong. As bad as we thought the recession would be, it was worse. We

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-24867448544678911442011-01-22T14:47:00.003-06:002011-01-22T15:06:49.490-06:00

Non-partisan fact-check website Politifact.com lists the greatest falsehoods by both sides in the health care debate.False statements by opponents of HRC:1) HRC means a "government takeover of health care." This was named Politifact's "Lie of the Year" for 2010 "because it was so pervasive in the debate over the bill last winter and it played an important role in the fall campaign."Yet the facts

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-5862756960942662332011-01-22T10:01:00.002-06:002011-01-22T10:08:07.648-06:00

So says blogger Andrew Sullivan on The Daily Dish.This is a first step - at least the GOP is getting specific about how they would reduce the deficit, and many of the items seem ripe for pruning or removal. But it's also insane in many ways. In order to get a little more than half of Bowles-Simpson's savings, while leaving the real growth areas, entitlements and defense, alone, the GOP has to lay

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-4447263830253408612011-01-12T06:41:00.003-06:002011-01-12T06:53:41.606-06:00

Andrew Sullivan makes an important point on The Daily Dish in response to right-wing criticism of commentary on the role of violent rhetoric in the Arizona shootings.I am not horrified by the rhetoric and love of violence on the far right because I have some attachment to the Democrats. I am horrified because it is horrifying, because for years now, this kind of thing has become commonplace at

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-90110758525409594452011-01-09T14:02:00.003-06:002011-01-09T14:10:19.989-06:00

Andrew Sullivan comments on The Daily Dish on the role of overheated rhetoric in events such as this weekend's shootings in Arizona.But the level of animus toward the new president and anyone supporting him reached preposterous proportions at the beginning of this presidency; the gracelessness from the Congressional leadership on down, from "You lie!" to "death panels" and "palling around with

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-34462769814514686242011-01-05T17:16:00.008-06:002011-01-06T07:41:53.382-06:00

Normally conservative-leaning USA Today had several choice recommendations for the new Congress taking office in today's editorial.On health care:Republicans talk about their "repeal and replace" campaign, but so far they've been long on "repeal" and short on "replace." What's important to remember, though, is that whatever flaws the new law has, repeal would return the nation to an unacceptable

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1453230242221964306.post-63592543680261344302010-12-22T08:09:00.002-06:002010-12-22T08:21:07.174-06:00

Despite an approval rating in the teens, this Congress has accomplished quite a bit according to Mark Murray's account on NBC's First Read blog.But lost in the poll numbers and the voters' message in November is this one unmistakable fact: This Congress, which likely will come to a close this week, accomplished more, legislatively, than any other Congress since the 1960s (the Great Society) or

Ballard Burgherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14815928621775599001noreply@blogger.com0