The Londoner

Wayne LaPierre and the NRA : so defensive it was downright offensive The leading gun rights lobbyist gave a performance so tone-deaf that only he missed why 'put more guns in Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice-president, called reporters 'irresponsible, duplicitous and dangerously dishonest'. Photograph: Christian Gooden/AP Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association , came to the podium Friday with the pursed lips and furrowed brow of a banker anxious over accounting errors . Throughout the press conference, he seemed to be reaching for an emotional range that would reflect the horror and sorrow so many felt in the wake of the Sandy Hook killings . But the most effective expression he could muster was that of someone trying to remember his lines. I would like to believe that LaPierre was as anguished and confused by the events of last week as the rest of us, but the man clearly suffers from constip

Progressive tax rates have always puzzled me because they assume that government has different value for citizens based on their incomes . Break government down to the basics and it is essentially a provider of services — defense, transportation, the legal system, schools , etc. — that customers want or need and are willing to pay a price to obtain. In that way, it's little different than a private sector business. Except in the private sector, goods and services have a set value; all customers pay the same. You don't have to scan your 1040 at the gasoline pump to set the price per gallon. Only in government does every customer pay a different price for the same thing. Reader Jon Taub sent me a note last week putting the difference between government and private sector pricing in perspective. Taub, a corporate lawyer for a Detroit business, notes that the top 1 percent of earners pay for 38 percent of the general fund services delivered by the federal governme

Michael Tomasky : The GOP Brings Politics to a Crisis Point by Michael Tomasky Dec 23, 2012 4:45 AM EST With their refusal to vote for Boehner’s Plan B , Republicans have definitively shown that they’d rather sabotage democracy than govern. How can they be stopped? Really, what is to be done about this Republican Party ? What force can change it—can stop Republicans from being ideological saboteurs and convert at least a workable minority of them into people interested in governing rather than sabotage? With the failed Plan B vote, we have reached the undeniable crisis point. Actually we’ve been at a crisis point for years , but this is really the all-upper-case Undeniable Crisis Point. They are a direct threat to the economy, which could slip back into recession next year if the government doesn’t, well, govern. They are an ongoing, at this point almost mundane, threat to democracy, subverting and preventing progress the American peo

Sen. Barrasso : Obama sees a ‘political victory ’ in going over the cliff Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday he thinks President Obama wants to dive over the so-called "fiscal cliff." "I believe the president is eager to go over the cliff for political purposes," Barrasso told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday. " "He senses a political victory at the bottom of the cliff." The senator also said he believes the nation will go over the cliff, with the deadline just nine days away. Barrasso said he thinks Obama is eager to blame Republicans if Congress cannot reach a deal by the end of the year. Polls have indicated that Americans would blame Republicans more than Democrats if talks fail. Barrasso also pointed to a report in the Wall Street Journal late last week that said during negotiations, Obama threatened Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that he would use the presidential bully pulpit to heap blame on the GOP

How 'Cliff' Talks Hit the Wall Behind Scenes, Boehner Failed to Sell Republicans on Taxes , While Obama's Spending Plans Rankled WASHINGTON— Congressional leaders and President Barack Obama called Friday for a return to negotiations to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, a day after talks cratered in a very public fashion when Republicans abandoned House Speaker John Boehner 's backup plan. In truth, talks to secure a big deficit-reduction deal had already broken down Monday afternoon in the office of Mr. Boehner (R., Ohio), a Wall Street Journal reconstruction shows. Mr. Boehner had been negotiating a deal with the White House to let tax rates rise for upper-income people. Mr. Boehner, irritated with the White House, was finding it hard to keep his troops in line as details of his negotiations with Mr. Obama leaked out. In the speaker's office just off the Capitol's majestic rotunda that afternoon, he told his top lieutenants that

The crab-like performance of the last two years is not easy to explain – a third year of the same would be . The sales have started early this year, which means the economy is struggling . Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA On the Saturday before Christmas the shop windows told their own story. Up to 50% off at Hobbs. Discounts of 60% at LK Bennett. Similar reductions at French Connection and the Gap . The sales started early this year and that means the economy is struggling. Fearful of being left with large amounts of unsold stock, retailers are slashing prices to attract hard-up consumers. It was the same a year ago. Hopes of recovery have been dashed in 2012, a year in which the UK has gone nowhere fast. Interest rates, gross domestic product and house prices are where they were in January. The economy is not collapsing but it is not growing either. For the past two years it has gone sideways, and the expectation at the Bank of England and the Treasury is that

America’s Baby Boom And Baby Bust Cities At this most familial time of the year, as recent events make us hold our children even closer, we might want to consider what kinds of environments are most conducive to having offspring. Alarm bells are beginning to ring in policy circles over the decline of the U.S. birth rate to a record low . If unaddressed, this could pose a vital threat the nation’s economic and demographic vitality over the next few decades. In contrast to last week, when we examined the nearly uniform aging of America’s biggest cities over the last decade , the decline in the country’s youth population has been in relative terms. In 2000, roughly 21.4% of Americans were under 15; in 2010, that percentage had dropped to 19.8%. However, unlike in parts of Europe and East Asia , the number of American children did not decline – there were over a million more in 2010, a 1.7% increase. Yet since children are by def