Open Thread for Night Owls: Views of ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ polled

A new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicates that Americans have not much changed their minds  in the past year regarding the terms “socialism” and “capitalism”: The American public’s take on capitalism remains mixed, with just slightly more saying they have a positive (50%) than a negative (40%) [...]

Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: Iowa on the horizon

The sure sign that you are a hopeless Daily Kos Elections political addict: if your New Year’s Eve plans revolve around the 7 PM (ET) release of the Selzer/Des Moines Register poll in Iowa, you have a problem. But, trust me, you have lots and lots of company, including presumably the eight candidates still trying [...]

Mark Fiore – Aggregating Arianna

Another 10 charts peer into the economy

A number of bloggers and others have posted what they consider the more valuable economic charts for 2011. I posted six examples last week in hopes of spurring readers to present some they have seen or created on their own. A few people obliged. The year-end wrap up itch has spurred some more posting of [...]

New York City office cleaners may strike if no contract agreement is reached

New York City office cleaners represented by SEIU local 32BJ may go on strike this weekend if a contract agreement is not reached. A strike could affect more than 1,500 buildings; however, the New York Times reports that: Despite the tough talk over the past two months, the city’s office cleaners and building owners still [...]

Verizon announces, then cancels, $2 ‘convenience fee’ for paying your Verizon bill

Yesterday, it looked like yet another company was deciding that screwing their customers for a few more bucks would make fine business sense. From CNN: Verizon Wireless will soon make some customers pay for the privilege of paying their bills. The nation’s largest wireless company is instituting a $2 “convenience charge” for those customers who [...]

White House will postpone debt ceiling hike request

The White House has released this statement from Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest regarding the administration’s planned submission of certification to Congress for a debt ceiling hike: The Budget Control Act (BCA) provides that the President may submit a written certification to Congress when the debt subject to limit is within $100 billion of the [...]

AP Writer Marvels at Omnipresence of Kim Jong Il Images, Never Notes Country’s Communist Tyranny

Jean H. Lee’s Friday afternoon report at the Associated Press on the omnipresence of images of the late Kim Jong Il throughout North Korea reads more like an audition to be the communist nation’s next propaganda minister than a wire service report. Not once does she call the late tyrant a tyrant, or for that [...]

AP’s Pace Perpetuates Pathetic Claim That National Debt’s Rise Is Due to Wars and Bush Tax Cuts

There are press memes which won’t go away no matter what, and no matter how often disproven. One, repeated in an Associated Press report a

So Much Material, So Little Time, Part 2: Mitt Romney’s Prolife Charade

When you vote for a candidate, you vote for all of his or her positions. You accept the moral responsibility for the working out of their platform in practice. – Talk radio host and serial Mitt Romney apologist Hugh Hewitt; December 23, 2011 Fortuitously, given the tightness of time, others posts have sprung up to [...]