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Stacking the Deck: The Phony ‘Fix the Debt’ Campaign

Pete Peterson’s $60 million push to sell corporate America’s ruthless austerity agenda.

The Editors

The Austerity Agenda: An Electoral Loser

Candidates who ran on slashing Medicare and Social Security lost big in November. But that doesn’t stop Pete Peterson from pushing the fantasy that voters’ biggest concern is the deficit.

John Nichols

Pete Peterson’s Long History of Deficit Scaremongering

The man behind Fix the Debt has spent decades trying to foment panic over a looming economic disaster, with little to show for it.

Lisa Graves

Pete Peterson’s Puppet Populists

The “Fix the Debt” campaign is pure astroturf: corporate cash machinery masquerading as a grassroots uprising.

Mary Bottari

Fix the Debt’s Fuzzy Math

Dire warnings about the deficit don’t add up mathematically. But then, Fix the Debt is not really about the economy, it’s about gutting Medicare, Social Security and other social programs.

Dean Baker

University Presidents—Speak Out!

Where are their voices on the major issues of the day?

Scott Sherman

Death Row Prisoner Larry Swearingen May Be Innocent. Do Texas Courts Care?

Swearingen has faced execution four times for a crime scientists say he could not have committed.

Jordan Smith

A Night at the Oscars for Israel-Palestine

Two brilliant nominees, The Gatekeepers and 5 Broken Cameras, along with other recent documentaries, have deepened our understanding of the conflict.

Roane Carey

The Keystone Test: Will President Obama Pass?

Yes, he said the word “climate”—but he hasn’t committed to any of the big steps needed to avert catastrophe.

The Editors

Oh Yoko! Ms. Ono at 80

Yoko’s 80th birthday is a day to celebrate her art, music and activism.

Jon Wiener

Racism, Torture and Impunity in Chicago

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is continuing the city’s tradition of refusing to apologize for the torture of scores of black men under police commander Jon Burge.

Flint Taylor

Noted

Victor Navasky on our friend and ally Don Shaffer, Sarah Woolf on Canada’s women premieres

Various Contributors

The Sip Heard Round the World

Calvin Trillin

They’ve Got the Fever…

As the GOP’s ideological center hurtles into the farthest reaches of the universe, the MSM still strives for “balance.”

Eric Alterman

Oh Yoko! Ms. Ono at 80

Yoko’s 80th birthday is a day to celebrate her art, music and activism.

Jon Wiener

A Night at the Oscars for Israel-Palestine

Two brilliant nominees, The Gatekeepers and 5 Broken Cameras, along with other recent documentaries, have deepened our understanding of the conflict.

Roane Carey

At War With Art

The Smithsonian’s show on the Civil War and American Art expresses a deep unease about the relationship between between art and history.

James W. Loewen

A Deliberate Pace: On Rachel Carson

On a Farther Shore captures the conservationist’s deep sense of geologic time and the forces of evolution.

Vivian Gornick

Wild Things: What Was Abstract Art?

MoMA’s monumental exhibition recalls the time when abstraction affected people like love or revolution.

Barry Schwabsky

Hollywood Ending?

Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects; Lynne Sach’s Your Day Is My Night

Stuart Klawans

Exchange: ‘Stripping Down and Lighting Up’

Seth Rosenfeld and Steve Wasserman

Puzzle No. 3273

Joshua Kosman and Henri Picciotto