Of all the potential perils to the new American republic, the prospect of concentrated power . . . troubled the intellectual leaders of the Revolutionary generation. Familiar as the founders were with old Europe . . . they understood why the accumulation of inherited wealth led to inequities and imbalances that inevitably corrupted any system of government.
Joe ConasonThe irony is that what was supposed to be a great vulnerability of Hillary Clinton , which the Iraq war vote which she has acknowledged was a terrible mistake, has lent an aura of strength in a funny way.
Joe ConasonI have never understood why the politicians who are most eager to send soldiers into harm's way are always depicted as their most ardent friends.
Joe ConasonThe Patriotic Millionaires campaign, pulled together quickly by the Agenda Project in New York City, just happens to appear on the same day as a new study from the Center for Responsive Politics revealing that half of the members of the House and the Senate are millionaires.
Joe ConasonThe problem isn't that conservatives are wrong about the efficiency of markets or the creativity of enterprise. It's that they have made false idols of both, usually without acknowledging that markets work best when well regulated, that private enterprise cannot meet every human need, that government has always played a critical role in our economy, and that the profit motive can be socially and environmentally destructive as well as dynamic.
Joe Conason