Blogs: Isaiah J. Poole

What would it take to build a "rainbow coalition" that unites people across race and class lines around a progressive agenda for change? Let's have a conversation. more »

It is, as our co-director Robert Borosage pointed out this week, ludicrous on its face. more »

It does not take much to understand why a hard-core Republican district in Mississippi would elect a Democrat to the House of Representatives by a nine-point margin. Mississippi is a state under particularly serious economic stress, a point brought home in a report released this week by the Campaign for America's Future. more »

Sen. John McCain and the Bush administration should be taken to task for failing to address one of the most critical failings of our health care system: our overstressed urban hospitals. more »

Instead of a silly argument over a "gas tax holiday," we desperately need a serious discussion about the nation's infrastructure. And there is a good legislative proposal that could be the basis for that discussion. more »

The conservative war against the war on poverty continues as Arizona Sen. John McCain goes to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. He calls his tour of communities where the failures of conservatism have had their most graphic impact the "It's Time for Action Tour." But the only real action on this tour is on behalf of the benefactors of a failed conservative ideology.

• Rick Perlstein uncovers the video that puts McCain's New Orleans speech in context. ALSO: Read and comment on Mother Jones' breakdown of McCain's record on Katrina.

• Bill Scher adds that maybe we don't want McCain taking any action. more »

It's now more clear than ever that the so-called economic stimulus package Congress passed earlier this year is inadequate. It is now time to demand that Congress get to work on finishing the job by passing a second economic stimulus package in the coming weeks—and do it on its own merits, without falling into the trap of linking its passage to more funding for the war in Iraq. more »

Perhaps the ultimate workplace expression of conservative "you're-on-your-own" ideology is FedEx Ground, where all of the workers who deliver packages are not FedEx employees but are independent contractors. more »

Even though a fight for union representation rights has stalled in Congress, the Jobs with Justice coalition is not only being persistent but is optimistic as it prepares for its upcoming national conference in May. Its executive director, Sarita Gupta, says the organization will be tacking some big issues at the conference and in the months ahead. more »

Honest discussion about the roots of working-class angst and how to address it has gotten seriously burned in the firestorm of controversy fanned around comments by Sen. Barack Obama that working-class people are "bitter" about the economy and government. more »