Here’s an experiment: If you’re not downtown as you read this, go there now and find some homeless people. They probably won’t be hard to find. Now, look at their […]
“Mission accomplished,” says the President. What, exactly, was the mission? And what exactly was accomplished? Donald Trump is being mocked for using this phrase in a tweet to praise what […]
In the time it takes to read these words, a child under the age of five will probably die in Yemen. And, as this is being written, the U.N. Security […]
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote a column entitled “Liberal World Order, R.I.P.” Haass sees the post-World War II order succumbing to centrifugal forces. He […]
Peter G. “Pete” Peterson, the billionaire businessman and anti-government crusader, died last week at the age of 91. He leaves behind family and friends who will miss him, and a […]
There is increasing public concern about the political manipulation of Facebook and Twitter by private corporations and foreign actors, and it’s certainly warranted. Social media, especially Facebook, are increasingly mediating […]
A movement without memory is adrift. And a movement that picks the wrong heroes is lost. Two milestones should serve as reminders to self-styled members of the Resistance. One marks […]
Why would Democratic senators join their Republican colleagues in pushing a bill that lays out a rich banquet of goodies before some of America’s worst bankers, and increases the risk that taxpayers will have to bail them out?
Fifty years ago, the Kerner Commission warned our society was becoming "separate and unequal." Today, this is even more true. Kerner's solutions were simple and potent, yet remain unheeded: combat racism with housing, jobs and reform .
About Ben Carson's $31,000 dining room set: that's roughly three times the average income for a rural household that receives rental assistance from Housing and Urban Development, the department Carson is redecorating for Donald Trump.
A new report concludes that cancelling all student debt would create more than a million jobs. To those who say we can’t afford to cancel this debt, the report poses a new and different question: Can we afford not to?
Resistance to Trump is vital, but it is not enough; it only defines what we're against. If today's resistance is to become a lasting movement, voters must decide what we're for: a new pledge from leading progressives points the way.
"America's Harvest Box" is Trump administration's bid to "reinvent" food assistance to the poor. All it really does is heap shame on the hungry and offer private interests a new opportunity to enrich themselves at public expense.
The fatal shootings at a Florida high school result from our elected officials' self-serving refusal to control weapons designed for mass killing. Once again, we have failed our sacred promise to protect all children's future.
Here's what voters need to know. If Republicans prevail – with or without Trump – the country will face $50 road tolls, a plundering of common wealth, and more deaths of poor and working people. That's what we need to focus on and stop.
Defense Secretary Mattis is not a “Mad Dog.” He's a rational and articulate spokesperson for the national security ideology that has dominated American political life since the end of World War II. That’s disturbing in a very different way.
A new report concludes 600,000 American children have died for no reason. An entire city of children has been lost. This is the real “death tax”: It’s a tax on poverty, race, and powerlessness. It’s paid with the lives of our innocents.
This Monday, the nation celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. How would Dr. King view today’s activists? Would he join them to demand a living wage, take a knee in the national anthem, and decry our nation's growing gap between rich and poor?
Americans love democracy, at least in principle. So how have Republicans been able to successfully engage in a decades-long assault on voting rights? It's time for the GOP to pay a political price for undermining democracy at home.
The deeper forces of history are on the move, and we ignore them at our peril. Trump and his fellow Republicans are radically rewiring our political and economic order. This is a long game, and it can’t be won by playing defensively.
When Democrats get confident, I get nervous. That’s true even when Republicans inflict disaster on the country – and potentially on themselves. The GOP's tax scam and growing inequality should prompt Dems to examine their own values first.
Former NBA star Charles Barkley calls Doug Jones' Alabama Senate win "a wake-up call for Democrats to do better for black people and poor white people." If Democrats were to follow his frank advice, over their own, they might actually win.
Two political scientists lament in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, that "the Democratic Party Becoming Too Democratic?" Their cherry-picked election data and anecdotes paint a misleading portrait of what our country needs.
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley scorns working-class families for "spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies." So why can't we all just be rich, like him? To Grassley, it all comes down to philosophy.
On his first day on the job, Mulvaney froze all hiring and rule-making at the CFPB, bringing consumer protection by the bureau to a standstill. The banks won the first round, and Trump proved again he's just a fast-talking huckster.
Sen. Orrin Hatch wants to slam shut the door of opportunity, so future generations can't have the help he used to start his career. Hatch's tax plan benefits the rich, not the working folks he claims to defend, and voters know it.
Nominating Alexander Azar for Health and Human Services Secretary is like pinning a sheriff's badge on Billy the Kid. When it comes to public harm, the mild-mannered Azar puts blowhard "pharma bros" like Martin Shkreli to shame.
If you're a Democrat, there's a name for that unfamiliar emotion you were feeling last Tuesday night. It's called happiness. But there is a serious risk that the party will draw the wrong lessons from last week's results.
New reports offer a rare glimpse into the world of the super-rich. Their concentrated wealth is the dark matter of the world economy: rarely seen, yet reshaping everything around it. We must confront this power before it is too late.
Why are Democrats still fighting the Battle of 2016? Aren't there better things to argue about? As it turns out, there are - including the future of the party, which depends on their ability to democratize it from the inside out.
A new poll shows most Democratic voters want their party to move left, with new people in charge. In other words, they want a political revolution. They've got the right idea.
No ideology in modern American history has failed as consistently or for as long as the Wall Street-friendly "Democratic centrism." Its practitioners are undeterred by the losing streak that has brought their party to its knees.
Economically, culturally, strategically, and morally, Donald Trump's obsessive efforts to ban Muslim immigrants and refugees from the United States have impoverished us all. His most recent attempt proves it.
Somebody ought to write a self-help book for Republican politicians called, “How to Profit from the Coming Trump Apocalypse.” Although, come to think of it, they're doing pretty well with that already.
Two opposing forces are fighting to reshape Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Wall Street, which has been plundering the island for years, and organized labor, which is working to rebuild the island - and its own ranks.
Insider centrism, the time-honored kind that unites leaders of both parties with their corporate funders, will always be a plaything of the elite. But centrism emerging from the true needs of voters could conceivably become a movement.
The political project known as "centrism" is collapsing around the globe. But what about the "New Labour"/"New Democrat" phenomenon of the "center-left" that once seemed to offer so much hope? Can it survive? More importantly, should it?
Germany's recent elections affirm an alarming rise of the far right in Europe. But a deeper global phenomenon is at work, with implications for the American future. If political centrism is collapsing, what - and who - will replace it?
The sixteen senators who have joined Sanders understand their health bill won't pass in today's Republican Congress. They signed on because it's a good idea, and because they recognize that they can both reflect and shape political change.
Richard (RJ) Eskow is a writer and radio journalist who has worked in health insurance and economics, occupational health, risk management, finance, and IT. He is also a former musician.