What has Congress done for you lately? Quite a bit, actually.
And that list, if anything, understates the 111th Congress’s productivity, as some of the larger bills included secondary provisions that would’ve been massive achievements if they’d passed on their own: Think calorie labeling at chain restaurants in the health-care bill, or the consumer financial protection agency in the financial-regulation bill, or any of a half-dozen infrastructure and technological-investment projects passed in the stimulus. – Ezra Klein
Go linky, go now.
- What The 111th Congress Has Done – Ezra Klein starts pushing back against the “paralyzed Congress” false narrative in this great fact-based column about the accomplishments of this Congress. I published something similar in March. Special bonus link to Joe Klein in Time, who examines the politics of this moment.
- Constitution of the Confederate States of America – If you want to know where the Tea Party gets its ideas, it’s here. No internal improvements, no general welfare clause, and state supremacy over the central government. These ideas aren’t new, and they aren’t good. We fought a war on that basis, and these ideas lost. It’s useful to remind ourselves of origins sometimes, as understanding origins can help us understand goals.
- What Hath Reagan Wrought, Part 1 – A historical perspective on the ideology of the great communicator and its results.
- Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) Introduces The “War Is Making You Poor Act” – It’s about time.
- Why Rand Paul Matters Pandagon on the connection between racism and sexism, and the oil spill and mining disasters.
- More Than Just an Oil Spill. Bob Herbert looks at what the oil spill is doing to the folks who fish for oysters.
- Chip Berlet On The Tea Party – Tristero writes a wonderful paen to liberal values in an era of compromise. Hullabaloo provides the progressive movement, once again, with a north star.
- Families’ Every Fuss, Archived and Analyzed – Researchers in UCLA have just completed a remarkable study of two-income, middle class families.