In a superb front-page article in today's New York Times, "Taking a Hard Look at a Greenspan Legacy," Peter S. Goodman treats his readers to a banquet of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's oracular pronouncements in favor of deregulating derivative markets -- Yes, those unregulated, absurdly inflated "swaps"...

First, let me just say that the format of tonight's debate was a disservice to American democracy because NBC and Gallup went out of their way to fill their ersatz "town hall" with the most checked-out, uninformed and disengaged "citizens" who remain "undecided" after eight years of George W. Bush,...

After seeing the collapse of some of America's most highly esteemed financial services corporations and the federal government's subsequent attempt at bailing them out, I thought it would be a good idea to once again view the 2004 documentary about the bankruptcy of Enron, "The Smartest Guys in the Room."...

The Hill reported today: "Unlike the three-hour vote on the 2003 Medicare drug bill, House Republican leaders did not put much pressure on their rank-and-file members to back the rescue package." John Boehner, Roy Blunt and other "leaders" of the House Republicans thought they could strike a public pose as...

I do not want to be just another voice from the Democratic base "spinning" the performances we saw tonight to the benefit of my favored candidate, Barack Obama, regardless of my true perception. The aspect of the debate that most concerned me about Obama's strategy tonight was his allowing John...

During hearings before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown asked Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke if they believed that Wall Street owed the American people an apology for the financial meltdown. Neither man answered the question choosing instead to bob and...

The most offensive part of yesterday's spectacle of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke hemming and hawing in front of the Senate Banking Committee was hearing them constantly use the word "we." "We" need to pass the $700 billion bail-out quickly, they said, because "we" really need...

There'll be plenty of superfluous commentary and "analysis" leading up to and following the first presidential debate this Friday between Barack Obama and John McCain. The candidates will be cautious and armed with a few zingers for purposes of the five-second sound bite. The outcome will be inconclusive. And even...

In a Sunday New York Times article entitled, "Let's Call a Lie a Lie . . . Finally," Patrick Healy ponders the reasons behind Barack Obama's hesitancy to call John McCain on his spate of lies that fill both his and his running mate's stump speeches and his campaign's television...

The worst financial collapse since the Great Depression is somehow a fitting end to eight miserable years under the worst presidential administration in United States history. Franklin D. Roosevelt told the nation that the economic collapse he inherited after twelve years of Republican Party dominance proved that unbridled greed is...

For twenty-eight years, since the beginning of Ronald Reagan's first term, we have been subjected to a steady stream of Republican propaganda claiming that if we just got government out of the way and "off our backs," deregulate the economy, and let the market work its magic, prosperity would "trickle...

In The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby writes: "If Bush's election was not a measure of conscious anti-intellectualism on the part of voters, it was certainly a measure of the public's indifference to demonstrable mental acuity and knowledge as standards for the presidency." (p. 285)

In recent years,...

In the late 19th century, in Chicago, a grassroots organization founded by Jane Addams gave rise to Hull House where educated women worked to alleviate the suffering of the city's impoverished victims of laissez-faire capitalism. Addams' colleague, Florence Kelley, described Hull House as a "colony of efficient and intelligent women."...

I'm sure you've heard by now that Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, who represents Georgia's 3rd district, when asked to comment on John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for vice president and contrast her with Michelle Obama said: "Just from what little I've seen of her and Mr. Obama, Senator Obama, they're...

Tonight during the evening news the Republican National Committee ran an attack ad (multiple times) that featured menacing black-and-white images of Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Patrick Leahy and other leading Democrats with the captions: "Ready to Tax" and "Ready to Spend." I was hoping the DNC or the Obama Campaign...

In any other democracy in the world the Republican Party would be toast, its prime minister tossed out, its years of governance repudiated. But not in our exceptional American form of democracy. A Republican stalwart who played a key role in implementing the agenda of George W. Bush over these...

For eight long debilitating years we have had a vice president who reminds us every time he opens his mouth that we all should quake in fear because we live in such a dangerous world with Islamic terrorists ready to devour our young the moment we let our guards down....

With his wet-blanket op-ed in today's New York Times cutely titled "The Audacity of Hype," William Safire -- who is yet to apologize to the American people for lying about the false story of Saddam Hussein's henchmen meeting in Prague with Al Qaeda operatives -- tries to deflect the acclaim...

I've always believed that George Herbert Walker Bush's appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court was an example of white supremacy. Here's my reasoning: the venerable Thurgood Marshall had dedicated his life to advancing the cause of African-American civil rights in this country, (serving as the lead attorney for...

The corporate media built up the expectations for Barack Obama's speech tonight to a point at which the mainstream pundits were sharpening their scalping knives to proclaim that he didn't meet those expectations. But once again the media blowhards underestimated Barack Obama's talent, his oratorical skills, and his heart.