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Then appear on MSNBC's Rachel Madcow. I find it ironic that one of the PRIMARY ARCHITECTS of the Financial Meltdown is going to lecture these mush-filled skulls on the evilness of banks, when he made 100's of millions of dollars writing the legislation that enabled this mess. (Remember Clinton's 'Finance Reform"?) Stumbled across this on Twitter.

Late last month, as America was ignoring the 24th anniversary of the Senate's rejection of conservative jurist Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, something extraordinary happened: New York Times columnist Joe Nocera admitted the borking of Judge Bork spawned today's toxic political culture. "(R)arely has a failed nominee had the pedigree — and intellectual firepower — of Bork," Mr. Nocera wrote. Judge Bork held conservative opinions, but none could be "fairly characterized as extreme." That didn't deter then-Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who denounced "'Robert Bork's America' as a place 'in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks...

Keith and Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary and author of “Aftershock,” discuss the Occupy movement’s latest steps – Occupy McConnell and Bank Transfer Day preparations – and consider whether there will be more politically charged and focused activities. Although Reich notes that much of the success of Occupy so far has been through not being affiliated with a political party and not being “enormously hierarchically organized,” he calls on all the Occupy groups to exercise their economic power to affect legislation: “A general strike that basically said, ‘Stop spending for a day’ would definitely have an impact.”

Herman Cain’s bizarre 9-9-9 plan would replace much of the current tax code with a 9 percent individual income tax and a 9 percent sales tax. He calls it a “flat tax.” Next week Rick Perry is set to announce his own version of a flat tax. Former House majority leader Dick Armey – now chairman of Freedom Works, a major backer of the Tea Party funded by the Koch Brothers and other portly felines (I didn’t say “fat cats”) says that will give Perry “a big boost.” Steve Forbes, one of America’s richest billionaires, who’s on the board of...

ROBERT REICH: The Republican Economic Plan Is An Austerity Death-Trap Robert Reich Oct. 19, 2011, 6:25 PM Ron Paul’s newly-unveiled economic plan – promising to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget in year one (presumably that means 2013) – is only slightly more ambitious than what we’re hearing from other Republican candidates. They’re all calling for major spending cuts starting fifteen months from now. What are they smoking? Can we just put ideology aside for a moment and be clear about the facts? Consumer spending (70 percent of the economy) is flat or dropping because consumers are losing their...

The Seven Biggest Economic Lies (Freepers, Please rebut!) Author: Robert Reich · October 12th, 2011 Source: http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2011/10/the-seven-biggest-economic-lies/ The President’s Jobs Bill doesn’t have a chance in Congress — and the Occupiers on Wall Street and elsewhere can’t become a national movement for a more equitable society – unless more Americans know the truth about the economy. Here’s a short (2 minute 30 second) effort to rebut the seven biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take America backwards. The major points: 1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else. Baloney. Ronald Reagan and George...

Ummmm. I’m not really sure what to say here. Is Chris suggesting that today’s CEOs should be jumping out of windows in shame for what he thinks they ‘ve done to the economy? Or, is he just getting misty eyed for the good old days? Help me out here my little mobsters. The conversation between him and noted lefty, seniors will just have to die, economist Robert Reich, concerned the debt ceiling battle and the Republican refusal to raise taxes on the rich. Chris lays the blame of this current recession directly at the feet of the “wealthy” … who...

The intelligentsia of the Democratic Party is growing increasingly enthusiastic about raising the highest federal income tax rates to 70% or more. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich took the lead in February, proposing on his blog "a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the rich." After all, he noted, "between the late 1940s and 1980 America's highest marginal rate averaged above 70 percent. Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Not until the 1980s did Ronald Reagan slash it to 28 percent."

Why Mitt Romney still poses the greatest challenge to Obama in 2012 One of my regrets in life is losing the chance to debate Mitt Romney and whip his ass. It was the fall of 2002. Mitt Romney had thundered into Massachusetts with enough money to grab the Republican nomination for governor. Meanwhile, I was doing my best to secure the Democratic nomination. One week before the Democratic primary, I was tied in the polls with the state treasurer, well ahead of four other candidates. But my campaign ran out of cash. Despite pleas from my campaign manager, I didn't...

I hope the president decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning -- the equivalent of my cupcake. Last night he gave away more than half the sandwich -- $39 billion less than was budgeted for 2010, $79 billion less than he originally requested. Non-defense discretionary spending -- basically, everything from roads and bridges to schools and innumerable programs for the...

Why aren’t Americans being told the truth about the economy? We’re heading in the direction of a double dip – but you’d never know it if you listened to the upbeat messages coming out of Wall Street and Washington. Consumers are 70 percent of the American economy, and consumer confidence is plummeting. It’s weaker today on average than at the low point of the Great Recession. The Reuters/University of Michigan survey shows a 10 point decline in March – the tenth largest drop on record. Part of that drop is attributable to rising fuel and food prices. A separate Conference...

How Democrats Can Become Relevant Again (And Rescue the Nation While They’re At It) TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2011 Republicans offered Democrats two more weeks before the doomsday shut-down. Democrats countered with four. Republicans held their ground. Democrats agreed to two. This is what passes for compromise in our nation’s capital. Democrats have become irrelevant. If they want to be relevant again they have to connect the dots: The explosion of income and wealth among America’s super-rich, the dramatic drop in their tax rates, the consequential devastating budget squeezes in Washington and in state capitals, and the slashing of public services...

Has there ever been a statement more clearly demonstrating the liberal and union sense of entitlement than “Governor Walker’s Coup D’Etat,” the headline of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's latest whine at Talking Points Memo? By describing the vote in Wisconsin as a coup, Reich expresses more perfectly and more completely his side's elitist mentality than any words yet written or spoken. The tone of his rant is a combination of outrage and condescension — like he can’t believe anyone could have the nerve to challenge big labor and get away with it. And it appears Reich really can’t...

RUSH: Robert B. Reichhhh, you've got to hear this. Robert B. Reichhhh was on NBC live last night with the anchor Cenk Uygur, and he spoke with Reich, and Cenk Uygur said, "This isn't just about let's get the money from the rich because that's where it is and they've accumulated all the wealth up at the top. It also makes sense for the rich if we had more equal distribution of income because of the effect it would have on the middle class. Tell us about that, why do you think [it's better to redistribute the wealth?] Now if...

Quiz: Which of the 2012 presidential aspirants delivered the following words at the Conservative Political Action Convention, now underway in Washington? We have seen tax-and-tax spend-and-spend reach a fantastic total greater than in all the previous 170 years of our Republic. Behind this plush curtain of tax and spend, three sinister spooks or ghosts are mixing poison for the American people. They are the shades of Mussolini, with his bureaucratic fascism; of Karl Marx, and his socialism; and of Lord Keynes, with his perpetual government spending, deficits, and inflation. And we added a new ideology of our own. That is...

The Tax Deal Is Nothing Short Of Ronald Reagan's Notorious "Starve The Beast" Strategy Robert Reich | Dec. 16, 2010, 2:46 PM | 1,659 | comment 50 More than thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan came to Washington intent on reducing taxes on the wealthy and shrinking every aspect of government except defense. The new tax deal embodies the essence of Reaganomics. It will not stimulate the economy. A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are...

The biggest battle in the lame duck session of Congress may well be over whether or not to extend the Bush administration's tax cuts, scheduled to expire in January. The fact that this decision has been left until late in the eleventh hour, even though the expiration date has been known for years, tells us a lot about the utter irresponsibility of Congress... Theoretically, the Democrats could win, hands down, since they have the votes. But Congressional Democrats are well aware of how they lost big in the recent election, and some Democrats don't want to gamble their own jobs...

Robert Reich, who was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, attempts to scare corporate America away from the tea party in today's Wall Street Journal. In his piece titled "Why Business Should Fear the Tea Party" he does his level best to convince businesses that the ideas of the tea party are too extreme and will hurt business. Reich even argues that the IRS is actually a good an necessary part of our government (although he can't put into words why). What sticks out like a sore thumb is Reich's analysis of the tea party. Reich assigns and maligns tea party...

Robert Reich, who was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, recently wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled “The Secret Big-Money Takeover of America” that is biased and riddled with half truths. His partisan ranting is a good example of the attitude that helped spawn the grassroots Tea Party. The piece starts off with a scary first paragraph about people buying our democracy. By the second paragraph he has lost all but the most entrenched ideologues or the uninformed; Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose...

Reich: We’re in One-and-a-Half Dip Recession Thursday, 22 Jul 2010 02:11 PM Article Font Size By: Dan Weil The economy needs more fiscal and monetary stimulus to avoid falling back into recession, says economist Robert Reich. “We’re not in a double-dip recession yet. We’re in a one-and-a-half-dip recession,” he wrote in a column on Business Insider. Retail sales, home sales, housing starts and consumer confidence are dropping, Reich says. Only inventories and loan defaults are rising. “The 1.5-dip recession should be causing alarm bells to ring all over official Washington,” wrote Reich, who served in three national administrations and was...