by Roger Hickey | May 4, 2015 | Blog, Education
Last week Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Senate’s foremost advocate for lowering student debt and lowering the cost of college, received a petition signed by more than 240,000 people. The petition called on Congress and President Obama to cancel all student debt – all...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 1, 2015 | Economy
We've written time and time again about the research debunking the conservative canard that declining marriage rates contribute to high rates of poverty. Still, this argument is a hardy perennial, and with two of its leading proponents, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and...
by Terrance Heath | May 1, 2015 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
This week, conservatives were confronted with two of their worst fears: gay people getting married and black people getting angry. Then, as if things weren't bad enough, the federal government began preparations to invade Texas. Baltimore Freddie Gray, 25, was walking...
by Dave Johnson | May 1, 2015 | Blog, Trade
Khalil Bendib/OtherWords If you make things and sell them, you do better over time than if you borrow to buy things. If you send jobs and factories out of the country, you end up with devastated cities like Baltimore. Sure, a few people get rich from that, but 99...
by Bill Scher | May 1, 2015 | Uncategorized
Bernie Transforms Dem Primary Iowans welcome Bernie Sanders to the race. Des Moines Register: "Sanders, a no-frills man of the people, will be welcome in the presidential race becaucharse he's so sincere about his ideas for making working-class Americans' lives...
by Robert Borosage | May 1, 2015 | Blog, Progressive Vision
Tweeting that “America needs a political revolution,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders threw himself Thursday into the race for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Sanders is in many ways the mirror image of Hillary Clinton, the favored candidate in the race. She...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 30, 2015 | Jobs and Growth
Several progressive organizations are lining up today in support of the Raise the Wage bill introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Robert Scott (D-Va.). That bill would raise the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour, to $12 an hour by 2020. That...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 30, 2015 | Blog, Populist Majority, Progressive Vision, The New Populism
The race for the Democratic nomination for president was transformed today as populist stalwart Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy. The mainstream media immediately focused on the horse race – assessing Sanders' standing in the polls (low), money...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 30, 2015 | Blog, Populist Majority
At a time when polls often show a high level of skepticism and even antipathy toward government, progressive pollster Celinda Lake offered some contrarian advice Wednesday to the "Families First: Good Jobs for All" meeting sponsored by the Center for Community Change:...
by Bill Scher | Apr 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
Bernie Announces Sen. Bernie Sanders tells the Associated Press he's running for president in the Democratic primary: "People should not underestimate me. I've run outside of the two-party system, defeating Democrats and Republicans, taking on big-money candidates...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 30, 2015 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The great Thomas "Mustache" Friedman is perhaps best known for encouraging the invasion of Iraq (and subsequent resistance insurgency, civil war, thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, eventually leading to the formation of ISIS – plus the...
by Bill Scher | Apr 30, 2015 | Blog, Climate
Pope Francis is preparing to deliver a major "encyclical," or address to clergy, that declares preventing a climate crisis to be a moral imperative. This will be a landmark moment: the marriage of faith and science by one of the world's most influential religious...
by Richard Long | Apr 29, 2015 | Blog, Education
Tyrone Hankerson, a graduating senior at Howard University, is in a particularly good position to see the impact of today’s student loan debt crisis firsthand – even though he has managed to head into graduation without student debt overhanging him personally. That is...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 29, 2015 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Last week, in "Government Sweatshops: A Time for the President to Act," Robert Borosage wrote about federal government contract employees working for poverty wages: This week in Washington, hundreds of low wage federal government contract workers walked off their...
by Donald Kaul | Apr 29, 2015 | Blog, Progressive Vision
What started out as righteous protest over the death of a young black man in the hands of Baltimore cops (he had been accused of “making eye contact with a police officer”) quickly degenerated into a full-scale riot. By nightfall the city was on fire, its hopes for a...
by Harvey J Kaye | Apr 29, 2015 | Blog
On May 5, 1886, thousands of Milwaukee workers marched peacefully on the huge Bay View Rolling Mills as part of a nationwide effort to bring about the eight-hour day. On orders from Gov. Jeremiah Rusk, the state militia fired, killing seven. This was the...
by Bill Scher | Apr 29, 2015 | Uncategorized
Bernie Is In Sen. Bernie Sanders to announce Democratic primary challenge tomorrow. Vermont Public Radio: "Sanders will release a short statement on that day and then hold a major campaign kickoff in Vermont in several weeks ... Sanders' basic message will be that the...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 29, 2015 | Blog
The nation is now seeing that there is a broader story to be told about the roots of the violence that broke out in Baltimore this week. In addition to the mistreatment of African Americans by police, there is also the story of extreme economic deprivation – the...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 28, 2015 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
The right-wing response to stories of police violence and brutality against blacks, and black deaths at the hands of police, is becoming as predictable as the stories themselves. Only the names and locations seem to change. Here we are again. Another unarmed black man...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 28, 2015 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Republicans in Congress can read polls and letters from their constituents as well as Democrats, and they, as most Democrats already have done, are starting to realize that it might not be wise to rubber-stamp the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the rigged fast...
by Bill Scher | Apr 28, 2015 | Blog
When 47 Republican Senators wrote an open letter to the Iranian government designed to undercut President Obama's negotiating strategy, they not only were excoriated at home for mischievous meddling in foreign policy, they also were humiliated when the gambit didn't...
by Gloria Totten | Apr 28, 2015 | Blog, Progressive Vision
So far this year… ● The Oklahoma House passed legislation to eliminate AP American History classes from public schools because, right-wingers said, the course is too negative about America. ● The Tennessee House voted to designate the Holy Bible as “the...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 28, 2015 | Blog, Economy, Jobs and Growth, Progressive Vision
To give voice to 35 workers killed on the job over the past 35 years at a massive refinery in Texas City, hundreds of surviving family members, co-workers and friends gathered there last month to erect white crosses marked with their names. They conducted the ceremony...
by Bill Scher | Apr 28, 2015 | Uncategorized
Would Republicans Bail On Fast Track? Republicans feeling pressure to reject fast track. The Hill: "Republican leaders are facing dissent within their own caucus because of currency manipulation and immigration concerns. 'The polling is bad, and some people are...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 28, 2015 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Power is the ability to control, to tell what to do, to get your way. Corporations have a lot of power over working people in our country now, and they might be about to get a lot more. The proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) tell us that it will have...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 28, 2015 | Blog, Education
This week Corinthian Colleges Inc. announced that it had “ceased substantially all operations and discontinued instruction” at its remaining campuses. That should have brought the indebtedness of its many defrauded students to an end. This "educational institution"...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 27, 2015 | Jobs and Growth, Trade
In the continuing battle over whether Congress should pass fast track authority legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch today unleashed the latest salvo: a list of more than 2,000 organizations in opposition to the trade bill...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 27, 2015 | Conservatism, Progressive Vision, This Is The GOP
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear opening arguments in marriage equality cases challenging state bans on same-sex marriage. The resulting ruling could legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. A lot has changed since the Court overruled the part of the Defense of...
by Robert Reich | Apr 27, 2015 | Blog, Economy, Progressive Vision
A security guard recently told me he didn’t know how much he’d be earning from week to week because his firm kept changing his schedule and his pay. “They just don’t care,” he said. A traveler I met in the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport last week said she’d been there...
by Bill Scher | Apr 27, 2015 | Uncategorized
Left Energized By Trade Fight Congressional Progressive Caucus members hope fast track fight, win or lose, will influence Hillary. Roll Call: "Ideally, Clinton would have come out already against TPA, [Caucus co-chairs] Grijalva, Ellison and others say. But if she...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 27, 2015 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Will Hillary Clinton oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the fast track authority designed to ramrod it through the Congress? She’s been noncommittal to date, with many assuming she will eventually support the president who she served as secretary...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 24, 2015 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in same-sex marriage cases that could result in a ruling that makes marriage equality the law of the land. Naturally, wingnuts have already worked themselves into a panic. Lawyer and former Antonin Scalia law clerk Gene...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 24, 2015 | Blog, China Currency Showdown, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
President Obama, speaking to the Organizing for America (OFA) Summit Thursday, said that people who have concerns about the Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority process and the still-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "don't know what they're talking about," and...
by Emily Schwartz Greco | Apr 24, 2015 | Blog, Climate
As Earth Day approached, fossil-fuel divestment actions rattled college campuses large and small. Targets ranged from Harvard University’s $36-billion endowment to the University of Mary Washington’s $46-million nest egg. That’s only natural: Students, professors, and...
by Bill Scher | Apr 24, 2015 | Uncategorized
Upcoming Events Next Week Tackle Inequality Sen. Elizabeth Warren's and Rep. Elijah Cummings' Middle Class Prosperity Project visits Howard University Monday, 2:30 PM: "The forum will focus on the effect of rising college costs on the middle class particularly the...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 24, 2015 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The "fast track" trade bill introduced last week by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has a number of problems. It sets aside Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and essentially pre-approves the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) before the...
by Jim Hightower | Apr 23, 2015 | Blog, Populist Majority, Progressive Vision
It’s futile to hope that the GOP’s gaggle of corporate-hugging, right-wing presidential candidates will seriously address the issue of rising inequality in our land. How about the Democrats? Well, Hillary Clinton has warned that “extreme inequality has corrupted other...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 23, 2015 | Blog, Education
The movement to boycott standardized testing has caught the media totally by surprise. The mostly parent-led effort that started with Facebook pages and neighborhood meetings has grown into a firestorm of resistance. As the Associated Press reported this week, "This...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 23, 2015 | Blog, Education
No one likes a cheater. So you’d think plenty of people would be pleased to hear that educators in Atlanta, on trial for cheating on standardized tests, were found guilty of those charges and sentenced “harshly,” according to the New York Times. As CNN reports, of the...
by Bill Scher | Apr 23, 2015 | Uncategorized
Fast Track Heads To Senate Floor Senate Finance Committee passes fast track bill. The Hill: "The panel approved, on an 20-6 vote, a long-awaited trade promotion authority (TPA) measure with the support of seven Democrats ... Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Debbie...
