Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz, Robert Reich and other major economists have pointed out that the deficit is not an urgent economic problem and that, to the contrary, the economy would be helped by an increase in public investment and harmed by drastic cuts. The Sequester would hurt the economy, millions of people, and the country [...]
Another State of the Union address by President Obama — and another chance for his critics to say that he is merely a talented speaker, that there is more to leadership than giving good speeches, that the business of governing means you must tackle our most difficult challenges, not just talk about them.
Yes, there [...]
Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom? — Barack Obama, Newtown Address, December 16, 2012
That sentence, uttered by President Obama in his Newtown Address, may turn out to be a turning point in American history. The [...]
Michigan has just passed a corporate servitude law. It is designed to take away many of the worker rights that unions have conferred throughout their history: The right to a living wage. The right to equal pay for women. The right to deferred payments in the form of pensions. The right to negotiate workplace standards and working conditions. The right to [...]
Yes, global warming systemically caused Hurricane Sandy — and the Midwest droughts and the fires in Colorado and Texas, as well as other extreme weather disasters around the world. Let’s say it out loud, it was causation, systemic causation.
Systemic causation is familiar. Smoking is a systemic cause of lung cancer. HIV is a systemic [...]
As Nate Silver, NY Times polling expert put it, “Instant polls conducted after the debate are suggestive of something between a tie and a modest win for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.”
Biden held his own and maybe a bit more. That was important. But President Obama has to do a lot better than [...]
You don’t win a presidential debate by being a policy wonk. Obama violated all the basics of presidential debating. The best defense is a good offense. You have to set the terms of the debate and press those terms. Obama failed. Here are those basics:
State your moral values. Contrast them with your opponent’s. [...]
I’ve been applying cognitive linguistics and neuroscience to politics in six books over the past two decades. The ideas in those books were on display in many of the speeches at the Democratic National Convention. Look for them in the debates. They include:
All politics is based on moral values, with strict conservatives and progressives [...]
Mitt Romney responded to the recent Cairo events with an apology frame. America, he said, must never apologize for its values, and he claimed that the Obama administration was apologizing when it pointed out a moral constraint on free speech.
One of the things Americans are taught in grammar school about free speech [...]
Do you believe in freedom of religion? President Obama does, and he is defending Americans’ freedom of religion against Mitt Romney and Fox News in the administration of his health care bill.
The president allows each woman to decide for herself whether or not to ask her insurance company to cover contraception. If this violates [...]
