Opinion

WASHINGTON, DC - As the job market and housing sector continue to suffer, the White House is seeking initiatives meant to re-stimulate the economy, following the first stimulus efforts of 2009. According to Time magazine, "most nonpartisan economists agree" that the first stimulus was successful in the short-term but did not go far enough. The "second stimulus" proposals are a $100 billion tax credit for businesses and $50 billion on infrastructure spending. Any such measures must still be improved by an increasingly partisan Congress that is expected to shift heavily Republican in November. Full Story »

On Friday, at a town hall in small town Oklahoma, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn said Newt Gingrich is "the last person I'd vote for, for president." Gingrich is "a super-smart man but he doesn't know anything about commitment to marriage." Gingrich lacks, in Coburn's view, "the character traits necessary to be a great president." Full Story »

Stimulus: Buy US goodsRegarding the article "The intricate task of recovery" (Aug. 16 double issue): A congressional budget analyst is quoted as saying, "[I]t's a choice between putting people back to work and cutting the deficit. You cannot do both." This implies that we need more government stimulus to create jobs, thereby increasing the deficit. Full Story »

The Nation -- "Transformational politics is the work we do today to ensure that the deal we can get on gun control or immigration reform in a year—or five years, or twenty years—will be better than the deal we can get today. Transformational politics requires us to challenge the way people think about issues, opening their minds to better possibilities." Full Story »

WASHINGTON, DC - In a biting work of satire, the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog has a new video out depicting Google CEO Eric Schmidt in an unflattering light. In the CGI video, a malevolent-looking Schmidt attracts little children with free ice cream while secretly giving them full-body scans. As they clamor for his ice cream, a green-eyed Schmidt snickers: Full Story »

WASHINGTON, DC - The 'Brutal' Dem Plan for November  The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse write, "As Democrats brace for a November wave that threatens their control of the House, party leaders are preparing a brutal triage of their own members in hopes of saving enough seats to keep a slim grip on the majority. In the next two weeks, Democratic leaders will review new polls and other data that show whether vulnerable incumbents have a path to victory. If not, the party is poised to redirect money to concentrate on trying to protect up to two dozen lawmakers who appear to be in the strongest position to fend off their challengers." In other words, Democrats whose odds look unlikely are getting left behind. Full Story »

Plenty of people are driving cars they don't want or, worse still, living in homes they can't afford. That's a natural part of a consumer society, especially during a recession. But this fall we may witness a mass example of buyers' remorse in the political world. Full Story »

WASHINGTON -- What a weird summer! Full Story »

LOS ANGELES -- In the early 1980s, in a book called "American Journey," I calculated that American corporate chief executive officers were making 30 to 40 times as much as they paid average production workers. Looking back at that, I see that I was surprised to learn that that ratio had increased from 25-to-1 in 1970 -- and that in other developed countries the ratio was closer to 10-to-1. Full Story »

Read Sen. Tom Carper's other articles on HuffingtonPost.com Full Story »

This Labor Day weekend, the jobs outlook appears about as inviting as leftover potato salad. But President Obama found encouragement Friday in the jobs report for August. Full Story »

New York - All signs point to big Republican gains in November, enabling the GOP to implement its agenda. But what agenda is that? Full Story »

WASHINGTON, DC - "I have thought a lot about why people get so hostile online, and I have come to believe it is primarily because we live in a society with a hypertrophied sense of justice and an atrophied sense of humility and charity, to put the matter in terms of the classic virtues. ... In our online debates, we not only fail to cultivate charity and humility, we come to think of them as vices: forms of weakness that compromise our advocacy. And so we go forth to war with one another."--Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College, writing at Big Questions Online. (Via ArtsJournal.) Full Story »

Gettysburg, Pa. - In June, a Charleston businessman named Tim Scott won the Republican nomination for South Carolina's First Congressional District, defeating Paul Thurmond, the son of state political legend Strom Thurmond, with nearly 70 percent of the primary vote. Full Story »

WASHINGTON, DC - A Friday op-ed from labor secretary Hilda Solis tries to strike a delicate balance. At USA Today, Solis attempts to acknowledge the bad unemployment rate, point to how far we have come, encourage workers to retrain, and assert that "there are jobs out there." That's a tough set of points to make while hitting the right tone, particularly on a day when a terrible July jobs report is released. Did she pull it off? Over at National Review, Jonah Goldberg summarizes the piece as "maybe you're not looking hard enough," which probably isn't the message the administration wants to send. Here's the breakdown so you can see for yourself: Full Story »

WASHINGTON, DC - Just in time for the long weekend, Rachel Maddow stopped by Late Night to teach Jimmy Fallon the proper way to mix a sazerac, that most beloved of New Orleans blackout specials. Maddow's ideal version of the drink? One that tastes "like liquorice and I'm-not-hung-over-anymore." That sounds reasonable to us. Very reasonable. Full Story »

No: Tax relief for the wealthy is bad stimulus The Bush tax cuts, which cost $1.7 trillion between 2001 and 2008, are set to expire at year’s end, posing several critical questions: Which tax cuts should be extended and for whom? Will permanent cuts boost the economy? Full Story »

WASHINGTON, DC - Citing a Pew Research Poll, The New York Times' Kirk Johnson surmises that college students, who once swooned for President Obama, are now beginning to distance themselves from the Democratic Party. The "college vote," which traditionally skews Democratic, may be marginalized this year as young adults become disillusioned with the administration. The trend comes at a particularly poor time for Democratic candidates, as Republicans and Tea Party "insurgents" have been building momentum toward significant congressional gains this November. Pundits parse the numbers, explaining the implications of the latest electoral wrinkle. Full Story »