Latest articles by Jon Frandsen
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Buying a Place at the Health Care Table
spending It's doubtful that any industry was held in lower regard than health insurance and pharmaceutical companies until Wall Street did them a favor by taking corporate greed and negligence to undreamed of heights.
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Will the GOP Hear the Wake-up Call? Not Likely
Politics For the second time in eight years, Republican insistence on ideological purity has cost in a big way. They lost control of the Senate in 2001 when GOP Sen.
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The Spinless View of McCain's Campaign
Politics Political junkie alert!Anyone with an interest in politics should get a kick out of a column by The Washington Post's Dana Milbank today.
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In Defense of Goldman Sachs
Politics Floyd Norris, a respected New York Times financial columnist, wrote a thoughtful defense of Goldman Sachs today that addresses many of the questions that I raised Thursday. He acknowledges that much of the consternation is of Goldman's own making, but also suggests that suspicions the company is somehow benefiting unfairly from help in Washington is fueled by the fact the firm is smart and adept at what it does -- such as getting in and out of various high-risk mortgage investments at the right time.Norris takes issue with the op-ed piece in his own paper that said allowing Goldman to pay back TARP funds and get out from under tough TARP regulations, including limits on bonuses, could give the company an unfair advantage.
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Big Bailout Questions Go Unanswered
Politics Americans are really a pretty forgiving bunch, it seems.
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Momentum on Side of Gay Marriage?
Politics A predictable dispute is breaking out over whether the legalization of gay marriage in Iowa and Vermont portends a dramatic shift in the battle.
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A Health Care Temptation to Avoid
spending It's understandable that the Obama administration and some Democrats find the idea of using a parliamentary tactic to try to push a health care reform bill through Congress nearly irresistible.
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AIG Bonuses Aren't the Real Problem
Politics OK, can we all breathe deeply into a paper bag and settle down a little? Yes, the bonuses paid to AIG employees -- many of whom helped drive our economy into a ditch -- are distressing.
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Carbon Plan is Juicy But Problematic GOP Target
Business Costs & Regulation Republicans have been harshly critical of the tax hikes President Obama is proposing to reduce the deficit and pay for a broad variety of programs, but his proposal for raising revenue with a cap and trade program for carbon fuels is being singled out for special scorn.
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Memo to GOP: Stop Talking to Yourselves
Politics We pointed out yesterday that while Americans overwhelmingly approve of President Obama's efforts to be bipartisan, they don't feel that Republicans are meeting him halfway. The GOP reaction to Obama's first address to Congress shows why -- and actually gives them a roadmap to rebuilding their party. Republican's aren't talking to the public at large -- they're speaking to their base.
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A Changing Congress?
Politics The Wall Street Journal has an intriguing story today about the close relationship between President Obama's White House and the Democratic-led Congress that marked the evolution of the stimulus package signed into law today.
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Senate Democrats Headed to Magic 60?
Politics The decision by Sen.
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Christian Right Has Its Own Gay Marriage Dust-up
Politics While Democrats, liberals and gay rights advocates savage one another over the propriety of Barack Obama inviting pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, Christian conservatives are waging their own heated but less high-profile battle as well.
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Obama's European Honeymoon
Politics Europeans appear ready to give Barack Obama a great big Christmas present and inaugural gift rolled into one: A place to send most of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.
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A Cabinet Profile
Politics A Cabinet that looks like America? Seems so.
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Tough Love for the GOP
Politics I'd been thinking that Republicans would be doing themselves a disservice if they convinced themselves that getting drubbed in the elections was due mostly to the wretched economy and the extreme unpopularity of President Bush.
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The Turning Point -- and the No Turning Back Point
Politics The often tedious conversations on the Sunday political talk shows were especially tedious and predictable yesterday as each panel visited and revisited what each yacker saw as the key turning point of the presidential campaign.
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The Shadows of '68
Politics Two couldn't-be-more-different views of the campaign as seen through the lens of the far more tumultuous and ugly presidential race of 40 years ago popped up recently...Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson uses Barack Obama's plan to address an Election Night crowd in Chicago's Grant Park -- the epicenter of much of the violence that wracked the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 --as an opportunity to compare the dismal state of the party then versus the far more unified and vital one now that is looking at the possibility of a huge and historic victory.Longtime Republican activist, consultant and troublemaker Roger Stone gives advice to John McCain -- telling him what Richard Nixon would have done differently up to now and what he'd do if he were in the same type of hole (I won't spoil the suspense but think of Ayers, Farrakhan and Rezko as the opening act).
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Who's Buying Your Congressman?
Politics The amount of money poured into campaigns these days is so massive that the numbers are nearly meaningless.
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A Very Tired Republican Playbook
Politics Does this sound familiar? "Level with the American people." If it sounds like John McCain demanding that Barack Obama come clean about his supposed close ties to Weather Underground leader and bomber turned education professor Bill Ayers, you're right.
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Biden's Latest Slip Is a Doozy
Politics Well, we've all been waiting for Joe Biden to make a huge gaffe and he appears to have done it.
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Media Attacks Are Smoke Screen
Politics For good reasons and bad, the news media is highly unpopular.
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Gas Ad Makes Head Hurt
Politics OK, we all know that political ads play fast and loose with facts and logic.
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Obama Needs to Rap Rangel -- Hard
Politics No one likes piling on, but if Barack Obama doesn't join with those who are criticizing House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel for questionable financial arrangements, he may as well give up any pretense about being the candidate of change.Rangel is a Washington fixture, a charming and beloved one in many Democratic circles, and a respected leader of the Congressional Black Caucus who has served his Harlem district for nearly four decades.He's also making himself the near stereotype of the entitled politician.
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