(Source: @FixTheDebt) Austerity has always been a political choice, not a practical one. That point was underscored yet again when the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) released a report on the pensions enjoyed by backers of Fix The Debt, a corporate-funded austerity advocacy. The tax that funds Social Security stops at $113,700 of annual income. […]

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(Source: Reuters via Business Insider) It didn’t take long for one prominent neocon to figure out that the Iran deal—and the prospect of ending the stalemate with Iran without recourse to war—has put the Democrats in a box. In the normal course of affairs, Democrats would be ecstatic about the agreement that Secretary of State […]

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First, the bad news. Democrats will lose the Senate in 2014 if they can’t figure out a strategy to support the Affordable Care Act. Poll data backs this up and Democrats in competitive races like Mary Landrieu and Jeff Merkley look nervous. To mollify conservatives, they recently proposed a bill to let people keep their […]

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These days, the courts are striking down campaign finance rules so fast that conservatives are positively giddy at the prospect that someday we could return to the good old days of 1900 when benevolent overlords, such as Ohio boss Mark Hanna, charged America’s largest corporations a percent of profits (known as the “GOP tax”) before […]

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  Sometimes you don’t have to say anything “new” to make news. Consider the “apostolic exhortation” the Vatican released last week. Pope Francis didn’t break any bold new theological ground. But what makes his statement significant is the likelhood that no global religious figure has ever before denounced economic inequality with as wide-ranging—and accessible—an assault. […]

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