by Dave Johnson | Dec 2, 2014 | Blog
Monday's post, "Is The Democratic Party Relevant Anymore?," looked at November's low turnout. Did voters stay away because the Democrats have seemingly turned themselves into a milder Republican neoliberal, pro-Wall Street party instead of pushing hard for the...
by Bill Scher | Dec 2, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Last month Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) second-guessed President Obama's decision to turn to health care reform after passing the Recovery Act in his first term. He told the National Press Club: "After passing the stimulus, Democrats should have continued to propose...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 2, 2014 | Progressive Vision
Editor’s Note: Following my posts about the Ferguson grand jury decision, a few people have asked why I — and many, many others — still say an injustice occurred. This series of posts attempts to offer some answers. St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 2, 2014 | Blog, Democracy
The 2015 Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference will be held Jan. 15–19 in Atlanta at the Westin Peachtree Plaza. The event is hosted by the AFL-CIO’s Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Department. Through plenaries, workshops and panels, attendees will...
by Sam Pizzigati | Dec 2, 2014 | Blog, Economy
We don’t know who exactly filed the tax returns with America’s 400 largest incomes in 2010. The IRS won’t reveal any of these 400 individually by name. But a just-released new IRS annual report on America’s highest incomes has revealed just about everything else about...
by Bill Scher | Dec 2, 2014 | Uncategorized
Republicans Grope For Immigration Strategy House Republicans meet today to decide immigration strategy. W. Post: "One bill under review, pushed by tea party conservative Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), would attempt to ban the White House from changing immigration laws, and...
by Terrance Heath | Dec 1, 2014 | Progressive Vision
Editor’s Note: Following my posts about the Ferguson grand jury decision, a few people have asked why I — and many, many others — still say an injustice occurred. This series of posts attempts to offer some answers. “The process is broken,” said Brown family attorney...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 1, 2014 | Blog
For six years, Republicans in Washington have blocked almost every effort to improve conditions and wages for working people. Around the country, cities and states are no longer waiting for Washington to act, and are taking things into their own hands. They have...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Dec 1, 2014 | Tax Reform
There is a very specific reason why red-state voters should be rallying behind President Obama's veto threat last week against legislation that would make permanent a host of business tax breaks but would not do the same for tax breaks for workers. It turns out,...
by Bill Moyers | Dec 1, 2014 | Blog, Economy
From "Moyers and Company," November 28, 2014 Let’s talk one more time about why inequality matters. Some people say it doesn’t, but they’re living in an ideological fairyland on the far side of the looking glass. In the real world, inequality is a deep and divisive...
by Bill Scher | Dec 1, 2014 | Uncategorized
Yet Another Shutdown Deadline Looms 10 days until shutdown deadline. Politico: "Government funding is suddenly in peril, as conservatives fume over President Barack Obama’s decision to end the deportation threat for millions of undocumented immigrants. Republicans and...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 30, 2014 | Blog, Populist Majority
Many Democrats examining what happened in the 2014 midterms are asking "what did the voters want?" But the right question is why did only 36.4 percent of potential voters bother to register and vote? Obviously Democrats did not give those voters a good enough reason...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 27, 2014 | Blog
As our family gathers this Thanksgiving, I am struck by the poetry and truth in the president’s words in the speech announcing his immigration initiative: “We know the heart of the stranger. We were strangers once, too.” For my family, it began in 1906 when my...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 26, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
This week, the only thing worse than the Ferguson grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, was the right-wing reaction to that decision. Many of us dreaded what we all but knew would be a decision not to indict. Some of us...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 26, 2014 | Blog, Economy, Tax Reform
The election is over. Congress is back in Washington. The first order of business after the election is to give big tax breaks to the corporations – $450 billion worth. Fortunately, President Obama is trying to do something about this. Tax Extenders Every year...
by Bill Scher | Nov 26, 2014 | Uncategorized
Veto Threat Upends Tax Break Deal Obama threatens to veto corporate tax break bill. Bloomberg: "Negotiators from both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, were preparing to exclude a pair of Obama’s top priorities from a year-end agreement ... Obama...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 26, 2014 | Blog, Financial Reform
Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times has attacked Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Her offense? Criticizing the appointment of yet another Wall Street banker to a top economic post. Sorkin's periodic defenses of the powerful are no longer unexpected. More surprising is the...
by Bill Scher | Nov 26, 2014 | Blog
Republican leaders want to squelch President Obama's immigration executive action. But they don't want a shutdown. They would like to just defund Obama's deportation relief, but the agency carrying it out, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is funded by its...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 26, 2014 | Blog, Financial Reform
It's been a grim period for American justice. Despite compelling evidence of widespread bank fraud in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis – and despite all those billion-dollar settlements – prosecutors have not indicted executives at any major U.S. bank. This...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 25, 2014 | Blog, Trade
Monday the U.S. Commerce Department said it appears that Chinese-made passenger car and light truck tires are subsidized by the Chinese government and are being "dumped" here, below cost. Because of this they will impose punitive tariffs ranging from 17.7% to 81.3%....
by Leo Gerard | Nov 25, 2014 | Blog
At the first Thanksgiving 383 years ago, Native Americans and Pilgrim immigrants gathered with mutual respect to share a bountiful harvest they’d produced together. This Thanksgiving, though, there’s no respect or sharing in the homes of GOP nativists. Suffering...
by Bill Scher | Nov 25, 2014 | Uncategorized
GOP Leaders Try To Avoid Shutdown Debacle Republicans float plan to confront Obama without shutdown. Politico: "The likely proposal would fund nearly the entire government through September 2015, but immigration enforcement related funding would be renewed on a...
by john a. powell | Nov 25, 2014 | Blog, Democracy
Last night, like many across the world who were watching, we experienced deep disappointment in the decision by the St. Louis County grand jury not to indict Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenage boy,...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 25, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
"60 Minutes" ran a report Sunday, "Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure," describing the seriousness and damage to the economy caused by our country's crumbling infrastructure. Here are a few choice quotes, but really you should click through and watch...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 25, 2014 | Blog, Progressive Vision
The grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., has reached the decision many of us dreaded, but fully expected. Now, we must forge our profound disappointment into determination to achieve lasting justice, in Ferguson and beyond. [fve]http://youtu.be/S0FZZJzkivY[/fve] The Ferguson...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Nov 24, 2014 | Blog, Populist Majority
Hillary Clinton invoked what she called the "vital center" in a speech before the New York Historical Society this past weekend as the place where most Americans want their politicians to be. But public opinion right now is actually tilted fairly leftward, according...
by Dean Baker | Nov 24, 2014 | Blog, Economy
December will mark the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the recession brought on by the collapse of the housing bubble. Usually an economy would be fully recovered from the impact of a recession seven years after its onset. Unfortunately, this is not close to...
by Bill Scher | Nov 24, 2014 | Uncategorized
GOP Struggles To Control Agenda Republicans rail against immigration action, still lack plan. Bloomberg: "Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Republicans are instead weighing whether to use 'the power of the...
by Sam Pizzigati | Nov 24, 2014 | Blog, Economy, Tax Reform
Average Americans have a choice at tax time. They can pay their taxes or risk going to jail for tax evasion. America’s corporate CEOs have a different set of tax-time choices. These CEOs can have the corporations they run pay Uncle Sam or they can have their...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 24, 2014 | Blog, Progressive Vision
The President’s historic executive action on immigration has been greeted with scripted Republican outrage, from threats to close the government (again), block all presidential appointees (what’s new?), and riots in the streets (see #coburnriots on twitter for...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Nov 24, 2014 | Blog, Progressive Vision
Rev. William Barber II's new book, "Forward Together: A Moral Message To The Nation," traces the advance of the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina, which rose up in response to the right-wing takeover of the North Carolina state government in 2012. But what it...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 21, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
This week, President Obama punk’d the GOP on immigration, leaving them caught between Latino voters and their wingnut base. And there’s not much they can do about it. Thursday night, President Obama executed one of the most brilliant moves ever ignored by...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 21, 2014 | Blog, Trade
Walmart runs commercials about how great they are for American workers, in part because they sell TVs manufactured by Element Electronics that are supposedly "Assembled in the USA." (Wait ... isn't the "Walmart model" of selling cheap goods from China the reason...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 21, 2014 | Blog, Trade
"My experience is that the greatest aid to efficiency of labor is a long line of [unemployed] men waiting at the gate." — Magnate Samuel Insull, 1920s Economists strive for "efficiency" in our economy. "Efficiency" means that the things we buy are produced at their...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Nov 21, 2014 | Economy, Progressive Vision
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has issued a blunt critique of his fellow Democrats on why they lost the midterm elections and what they have to do to win electoral majorities again. In an interview with Danny Feingold at the news site Capital and Main, de Blasio said...
by Bill Scher | Nov 21, 2014 | Uncategorized
Sweeping Relief For Undocumented Presidential address waives deportation threat for millions, challenges Republicans to step up: "What I’m describing is accountability –- a common-sense, middle-ground approach: If you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 21, 2014 | Democracy
NOTE: This official statement by the Campaign for America's Future was released after President Obama announced his executive action on immigrant deportations Thursday night. President Barack Obama’s decision to waive the threat of deportation to upwards of five...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 21, 2014 | Blog, Financial Reform
Lately Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been talking about President Obama's economic appointees – and it sounds like she's pretty fed up. Consider these words, from a Huffington Post essay she published earlier this week: “I believe President Obama deserves deference in...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 20, 2014 | Blog, Progressive Vision
In Ferguson, Missouri, citizens and activists prepare for injustice, while government and law enforcement prepare for outraged reaction to injustice. But what about preparing for the justice Ferguson, and America, really needs? As it waits to hear whether the grand...
by Jeff Bryant | Nov 20, 2014 | Blog, Education
Every school day in the Lincoln Park community on the North Side of Chicago greets students with well-appointed institutions that include some of the best facilities that American public schools have to offer. Click over to the Yelp ratings for the elementary schools...
