14 November 2010

from The Real News, "Austerity: Road to 19th Century"
James Crotty: Right-wing billionaires use crisis to weaken social safety net

Matt Taibbi and the 'Rocket docket': Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners

Robert Gardner, National Post (via Diane.):

While the rate at which incumbents were re-elected was relatively low, it was still, in absolute terms, astonishingly high: 85.6%. And it was only a little lower than the mid-terms of 1994 and 1982: in both those years, the rate of re-election was 90%. And notice what hasn’t been mentioned so far: the Senate. Incumbents were re-elected in 84.4% of Senate races, which is actually a little higher than the rate of return for incumbents in the last midterm in 2006. What’s remarkable about these results, and the results of every congressional election in modern American history, isn’t how much changes. It’s how much doesn’t.

Gates: US open to request from Iraq to stay
U.S. doctors still too cozy with drug industry: survey
Bush on post-presidency: 'I miss being pampered'(also here)

And, for when you are feeling counterpunchy:

Slavoj Žižek, What is the Left to Do?

Paul Craig Roberts, Phantom Jobs

Uri Avnery, Obama's Defeat

Ralph Nader, When Betrayed Voters Go to the Polls