By Robert Reich – Giant Wall Street banks continue to threaten the wellbeing of millions of Americans, but what to do? Bernie Sanders says break them up and resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act that once separated investment from commercial banking. Hillary Clinton says charge them a bit more and oversee them more carefully. Most Republicans say…
A Day That Will Live in Infamy – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – I woke up this morning with a fitful start. It promised to be a depressing day. But it was a beautiful morning in the campground thanks to a cool front that passed through the region with…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala – The temptation was too great for New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz. Photos of Donald Trump’s August 21 campaign rally at the football stadium here showed a throng so white it might have been a convention of albinos. Perhaps a spy agency’s scanning technology could pick out a few…
By Glynn Wilson – While Vice President Joe Biden has only hinted that he might run for president against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows Biden might fare better against any of the Republicans in the general election than Clinton, who until…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. A cool front passed through the nation’s capital overnight, making it extremely comfortable in the campground. It is easy to be lazy and not want to care about the ridiculously shallow coverage of the presidential election of…
By Andrew Dugan WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the 2016 presidential race increasingly dominates political news, Gallup is now reporting that the Democratic Party has regained it historical edge over the Republican Party in favorability ratings, a fact which may have implications for the White House race. As of the latest public opinion poll on the…
By Nicholas Sheppard – If Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency is successful, would it make her the most powerful woman in history? The proposition is a tricky one, because of all the historical relativism. Making sense of it involves looking at power both in absolute, and global terms. Unlike other powerful women in history,…
So Why Do They Keep Geting Reelected? – By Jeffrey M. Jones – PRINCETON, N.J. — Americans’ confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains well below the historical average, especially the Republican Congress, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject. “Congress is the institution in which Americans express the least confidence this year,”…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – Who knew Herbert Hoover was such a great guy? About the only thing most Americans know about former President Hoover is that he was in office when the stock market crashed in 1929, leading to the worst Great Depression in U.S. history. He was defeated when seeking reelection…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency issued a mixed report Thursday on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” for methane gas on drinking water. The agency’s draft assessment, put together at the behest of Congress, shows that while hydraulic fracturing activities in the U.S. are carried out…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – The conservative Republican base is shrinking, as old racists die off. According to the latest Gallup Poll data on the subject, the percentage of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are conservative on both social and economic issues rises steadily with age. “An analysis of aggregated surveys conducted since…
By Carrie Louise Nutt – The America I grew up in is not the America of today. This is always true. Life is constantly changing. The world is constantly changing. Nothing stays the same. It’s one big ball of organic aliveness. But the difference is that the America of today is not an improvement over…
Education Matters — By Larry Lee — Debbie Deavours has spent 33 years in the Fayette County school system, the last eight as principal at Berry Elementary in the little town of Berry with its 1,250 people. Debbie has 300 students in pre-K-6. Some 65 percent of whom get free or reduced price lunches. And…
By Glynn Wilson – PATAPSCO VALLEY STATE PARK, Md. — It may not be as monumental a fight as Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite, but the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is in the process of planning the removal of Bloede’s Dam on the Patapsco River in the Avalon Area of Patapsco Valley State Park to…
By Robert Reich – Have we learned nothing from thirty years of failed trickle-down economics? By now we should know that when big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy get special goodies, the rest of us get shafted. The Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts of 1981, 2001, and 2003, respectively, were sold to…
Education Matters – By Larry Lee – It was just a little snippet of news. Just a few hundred words. And while few Alabamians probably saw it, it should have made headlines on the front page of every state newspaper and been the lead story on every TV news cast. Because it was another glaring…
By Pippa Abston – Well. I heard from a very credible source yesterday that our state legislators are not playing chicken with the budget this time. You know, it seems like every year they expect us to display panic and beg them to fund essential programs — it is so predictable it is almost like…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Five years ago this month, I was peacefully photographing birds in Birmingham Alabama when I heard the news that British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig had exploded and was on fire and leaking tons of raw crude into my favorite sea. By the time I got my…
By Frank Newport – PRINCETON, N.J. — Most Americans believe that managing government effectively is an important requirement for a good president, and in recent years, sitting presidents’ ratings on this trait have closely matched their overall job approval ratings. For example, 44 percent of Americans say that President Barack Obama is an effective manager…
By Jeffrey M. Jones – At the outset of the 2016 campaign for president of the United States, the potential Republican candidates identified so far lack the star power of previous campaigns, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject. The Republican nomination contest is shaping up to be a lot like 2012, with…
