In October 2002, a resolution sailed through the House and Senate to authorize a massive U.S. military attack against Iraq. I could almost hear the r… - Norman Solomon

It’s mid-October, and the Wall Street bailout that was supposed to save the economy from collapse is a flop... Senate passage came on Thursday, Oct. 2...President Bush signed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout into law... Despite all the media hype about how the bailout measure would quickly steady the stock market, it fell and kept falling... the Dow made history as stocks plunged by 18 percent in five trading days. And what about the ostensible main reason for the humongous bailout... unfreezing the credit markets? Well, in spite of the enormous media outcry..., it didn’t. And the key economic factor in the recession — housing — remained just as stuck as before. As the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out on Oct. 1, “A real ‘bailout’ would target the troubled households of working American families. A $200 billion ‘Main Street Stimulus Package’ could bolster the real economy and those left vulnerable by the subprime mortgage meltdown.” Components of such a stimulus package could include “a $130 billion annual investment in renewable energy to stimulate good jobs anchored in local economies and reduce our dependency on oil” — and “a $50 billion outlay to help keep people in foreclosed homes through refinancing...” — and “a $20 billion aid package to states to address the squeeze on state and local government services that declining tax revenues are now forcing.” But that kind of discourse for grassroots economic stimulus hasn’t gotten into the media storyline...

We really have to fault the mass media of the United States, not just for the last few days, but the last decades, pretending that somehow, by implication, almost that John McCain was doing the people of North Vietnam a favor as he flew over them and dropped bombs. You would think, in the hagiography that we’ve been getting about his role in a squadron flying over North Vietnam, that he was dropping, you know, flowers or marshmallows or something. He was shot down during his 23rd mission dropping bombs on massive numbers of human beings, in a totally illegal and immoral war.

In the last few days, both Politico and the New York Times have reported that freshman Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has ruffled the feathers of fellow congressional Democrats. Chief among the reasons for the tension? Ocasio-Cortez’s apparent support for progressive primary challenges against centrist Democrats. It’s one of the most significant ideas the young New York congresswoman has brought with her to Washington.