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Dean Baker, Op-Ed: "Last week Vice President Joe Biden did a courageous thing, he promised an audience in southern Virginia that there will be no cuts whatsoever to Social Security in a second Obama Administration. He used the strongest possible language, telling customers at a local diner: 'I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security. I flat guarantee you.' That was good to hear from the Vice President. Since the Obama Administration had several times indicated that it would be willing to cut Social Security as part of a 'Grand Bargain' on the budget, it was encouraging to hear Mr. Biden make such an unambiguous commitment." 
Kristin Moe, News Report: "August 4 was the third annual Healing Walk through the tar sands, an eight-mile trek through one of the world's largest ecological dead zones. Hundreds gathered from all over North America to support members of native communities who are on the front lines of the tar sands fight. They come to heal not only the land, but themselves. Among the walkers were several residents of Fort Chipewyan, one of the communities hit hardest by industrial contamination of water and air. Cancer rates there are abnormally high." 
Jim Hightower, Op-Ed: "Poor Paul Ryan — he successfully rammed a budget bill through the U.S. House of Representatives that gutted Medicare, thus earning him the undying adulation of the far-right Republican fringe, whose unrestrained enthusiasm for him compelled Mitt Romney to name the Wisconsin Republican as his vice presidential nominee. The Romney-Ryan ticket had barely debuted before Mitt started dumping on his newly anointed running mate's budget. Curiously, that's the exact same budget that Romney had gushed about during the Republican primary this spring, calling it a 'bold and exciting effort' that is 'very much needed." 
Travis Waldron, News Analysis: It is hardly a secret that the Obama administration's programs to bolster the housing market and help struggling homeowners have failed to meet expectations — Obama admitted so himself last year, when he said his administration was "going back to the drawing board" to expand those programs. The slow progress in housing, as the New York Times detailed today, has "remained a millstone" around the economy's neck, even though the programs have helped millions of homeowners: the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) have helped more than 3.6 million people refinance or modifyexisting loans. 
Froma Harrop, Op-Ed: "Paul Ryan has bold economic ideas. Or maybe he doesn't. It's really hard to know what Mitt Romney's VP pick thinks, since his budget plan includes Obamacare's $716 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years, but his election plan has him saying he would restore those spending cuts. Romney is accusing president Obama of 'robbing' that money from today's beneficiaries." 
Robert Reich, Video Report: "Mitt Romney hasn't provided details so we should be grateful he's selected as vice president a man with a detailed plan Romney says is 'marvelous,' 'bold and exciting,' 'excellent,' 'much needed,' and 'consistent with' what he's put out. It would boost unemployment, Ryan would take from lower-income Americans and give to the rich, Ryan wants to turn Medicare into vouchers, he wants to add money to defense while cutting spending on education, infrastructure, and basic research and development, Ryan's budget doesn't even reduce the federal budget deficit." 
Carey L. Biron, News Report: "Five months behind schedule, the board of the newest and largest international financing mechanism aimed at dealing with the effects of climate change, the Green Climate Fund, is finally slated to meet this week, just ahead of a late-summer deadline. When the GCF was proposed, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2009, its aim was to steer money towards the world's poorest countries to deal with the effects and causes of climate change." 
George Lakey, Op-Ed: The hardest job I ever had in a half century of social change work was coordinating a multi-class coalition. It didn't simplify things that it was also cross-racial. Nor that it was composed of people who had substantially different politics. I led the Pennsylvania Jobs With Peace Campaign for seven years, in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan's White House was trying its best to undo the progress made in the 1960s and '70s. Our chapter was part of a national campaign pressing to take money out of the military and use it for human needs. 
Rachael Marcus, News Report: "The conservative, free-market nonprofit American Future Fund announced the release of attack ads to run in Florida and Wisconsin, battlegrounds for control of the U.S. Senate. In Florida, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is facing $1.9 million in independent from conservative independent spending groups, which favor Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., according to the Center for Responsive Politics." 
Chris Hedges, Truthdig Op-Ed: "A Swedish documentary filmmaker released a film last year called 'Last Chapter—Goodbye Nicaragua.' In it he admitted that he unknowingly facilitated a bombing, almost certainly orchestrated by the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which took the lives of three reporters I worked with in Central America. One of them, Linda Frazier, was the mother of a 10-year-old son. Her legs were torn apart by the blast, at La Penca, Nicaragua, along the border with Costa Rica, in May of 1984. She bled to death as she was being taken to the nearest hospital, in Ciudad Quesada, Costa Rica." 
Dave Lindorff, Op-Ed: "Okay, so he's taken the legal option of delaying filing his 2011 taxes, which every taxpayer is entitled to do without penalty and without having to give any explanation until October 15 this year (I agree it's a little weird when a super-rich guy who pays accountants by the dozen does this, but hey). The nagging question though is why he hasn't just responded to the demand that he release two years of tax returns like John McCain did in 2008 by simply releasing his 2009 tax filing, along with the 2010 return he already released?" --
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