by Terrance Heath | Jul 30, 2014 | Uncategorized
Senate Nears "Highway Cliff" Senate steps closer to 'highway cliff'. Politico: "The Senate has passed a bill to rescue highway and transit funding that House Speaker John Boehner says he won’t accept, keeping the specter of a 'highway cliff' alive with just days...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 30, 2014 | Jobs and Growth
When a recent study by the Russell Sage Foundation revealed that the median American household had lost a third of its net worth in the decade between 2003 and 2013, while those at the very top saw significant gains, it was the latest evidence that the economy has...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 29, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
More than 200 low-wage federal contract employees in Washington D.C. went on strike on Tuesday morning and attended a Union Station rally to demand President Obama sign a "good jobs executive order." Participating were employees working at the Ronald Reagan Building,...
by Jim Hightower | Jul 29, 2014 | Economy, Tax Reform
Did you scramble to get your taxes done this year at the last minute? Yeah, me too. I really didn’t mind paying what I owe — but I hate having to pay the taxes owed by the likes of JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil, and Amazon. They’re just a few of the astonishingly...
by Digby | Jul 29, 2014 | Democracy
Who could have ever predicted that No Labels was just another wingnut welfare operation? Elias Isquith writes in Salon: The No Labels dream is coming up on its fourth birthday, and in that time the group has made exactly zero progress towards its goal of untangling...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 29, 2014 | Blog, Retirement Security
Actuarial science is the art of prediction. And speaking of predictions, here’s one that hasn’t been wrong yet: No matter what new data emerges about Social Security and Medicare, the well-funded opponents of those two worthy programs will always insist that we’re on...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 28, 2014 | Tax Reform
The corporation that is best known for blending yogurt is about to be known as the base for a not-so-delicious corporate tax-avoidance scheme. The New York Times is among the outlets reporting today that an Illinois drug maker that you likely haven't heard of,...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 28, 2014 | Blog, Trade
Should an iPhone made in China and sold in England be counted as a U.S.-made manufacturing export? If a sneaky new proposal to change the way our trade deficit is measured is allowed to sneak through, this is exactly what will happen. At Least We Know It's Enormous,...
by Eileen Appelbaum | Jul 28, 2014 | Financial Reform, Jobs and Growth
The theme of this year’s European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) symposium held in Vienna in June was “Private Equity as a Transformational Force.” Speakers emphasized the industry’s need to develop partnerships with the companies it acquires...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 28, 2014 | Uncategorized
Moral Mondays And Walking Mayor Come to DC Moral Mondays and “Walking Mayor” Come to Washington for Medicaid Expansion and Support for Rural Healthcare. Save Our Hospital: "Expanding Medicaid saves lives. When the North Carolina state legislature denied the Medicaid...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 28, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Rep. Keith Ellison, activist Joseph Geevarghese, and Eskow on The Zero Hour. There were no formalities when we interviewed Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and activist Joseph Geevarghese on the crowded and clamorous floor of this...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 25, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
There is more and more interest in the stories about corporations "renouncing" their U.S. citizenship in order to evade paying taxes for the courts, roads, military, schools, and other public services that have made them prosperous. They are using something called...
by Harvey J Kaye | Jul 25, 2014 | Blog, Progressive Vision
The Wisconsin Public Radio/National Public Radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge regularly asks writers if they have a "Dangerous Idea" that they would like to talk about (unscripted). My Dangerous Idea was American exceptionalism. I did not speak on the dangers of...
by Nick Jacobs | Jul 25, 2014 | Economy, Tax Reform
A Senate hearing this week revealed a broad consensus on the need for short-term action against “inversions,” an increasingly used corporate tax-dodging tactic. The Senate Finance Committee’s chairman, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) indicated at its hearing on Tuesday that...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 25, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Right-wing reaction to issues in the news this week brought to mind a classic 1980s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercial, but with a wingnut spin on the famous line: “Hey, you got your Malaysian airliner in my Benghazi!” Across the wingnut-o-sphere, right-wingers...
by Jeff Bryant | Jul 25, 2014 | Blog, Education
Every year Netroots Nation is arguably the most important annual event in the progressive community and a telling barometer of what is on the minds of, as Howard Dean put it, "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Last week's meeting was no exception....
by Terrance Heath | Jul 25, 2014 | Uncategorized
Ryan's Poverty Plan Panned Bob Greenstein, of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says Paul Ryan's poverty plan would increase poverty and shrink poverty programs: "A centerpiece of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s new poverty plan would consolidate...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 25, 2014 | Conservatism, Economy
There is at least one fatal flaw in Rep. Paul Ryan's kinder, gentler version of how conservatives would change federal antipoverty programs: The proposal at the center of his vision, as are the conservatives in whose hands Ryan would entrust it, would be neither kind...
by Thom Hartmann | Jul 24, 2014 | Economy
It’s time to put an end to the financialization insanity that’s hurting average people, destroying the American dream, and turning our economy into one big giant casino. One of the most startling trends to come out of the wreckage of the 2007-2008 financial crisis is...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jul 24, 2014 | Economy
Narcissists don’t happen to be particularly nice people. They preen. They grab. And they never ever really feel our pain. Extremely self-centered people, some fascinating new business school research shows, also don’t make for particularly effective corporate CEOs....
by Dave Johnson | Jul 24, 2014 | Blog, Trade
This week one more example of Republican obstruction occurred – blockage of an important "Make It In America" bill – and one more time not a single corporate media outlet reported it. The House Republican leadership on Tuesday blocked a bill to secure for American...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 24, 2014 | Uncategorized
"Factoryless" Manufacturers And Corporate Defectors WSJ's Timothy Aeppel covers furor over "factoryless" manufacturers: "Manufacturers, by definition, make things. But is that definition outdated? That’s the question behind a move among federal government agencies to...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 24, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
Walgreens is the pharmacy that, at least according to its website, can be found “at the corner of Happy & Healthy.” If its executives have their way, however, it may soon be found near the intersection of Ziegelackerstrasse and Untermattweg in Bern, Switzerland....
by Editors | Jul 23, 2014 | Jobs and Growth, Populist Majority
Latinos remain pessimistic about the economy, but they continue to believe in the possibility of the American Dream and support greater government intervention to achieve economic stability, according to a poll released this week by the National Council of La Raza and...
by Thom Hartmann | Jul 23, 2014 | Blog
Rich brat billionaires and giant transnational corporations have hijacked our political system. CNN is reporting that Shelly Adelson, the same man who dropped a cool $150 million during the 2012 election cycle to defeat President Obama, is now talking about spending...
by Emily DiVito | Jul 23, 2014 | Jobs and Growth
When American women have no control over their own work schedules, they have no control over their own lives. Mary Coleman of Wisconsin knows this first-hand. She was working the night shift at a Milwaukee Popeye’s restaurant, a time slot notoriously unpopular for its...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 23, 2014 | Uncategorized
Dueling Rulings On Obamacare Wild day for Obamacare: Appeals court rulings conflict. Politico: "First, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a 2-1 decision said the insurance subsidies can't be awarded through the 36 federal-run exchanges, that they can...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 23, 2014 | Blog, Progressive Vision, The New Populism
The 2016 election is two-and-one-half years off, but already Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is getting pummeled. Her book tour, designed to provide soft interviews burnishing her record as secretary of state, has been plagued by missteps. She’s...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 23, 2014 | Populist Majority, Winning Issues for 2014
If Democrats want to keep control of the Senate this fall, a new Democracy Corps memo says that it will have to target a progressive populist message to single women and the "rising American electorate" that acknowledges that the economy remains rigged against working...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 22, 2014 | Conservatism, Economy, Minimum Wage
Sen. Rand Paul mocked President and Mrs. Obama for wanting their daughters to experience working for minimum wage. My own experience taught me “the value of work,” and to value the workers for whom earning a paycheck isn’t always fun, stimulating, or fair. In a...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 22, 2014 | Economy
Talk about the need to get above "the snake line": A perfect example of how House Republicans operate in the realm where snakes slither and inject their poison is about to unfold this week on the House floor. The House is about to take up what Republicans call an...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 22, 2014 | Blog, Progressive Vision
We've got to make our way to higher ground. We've got to get our politics above the snake line. Click here to support Rev. William Barber's Freedom Summer project.People came to Netroots Nation to see Senator Elizabeth Warren speak, and discovered Rev. William Barber...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 22, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
Corporations get enormous benefits that regular “persons” do not. One of the biggest is limited liability. This means that the shareholders are not liable for the debts of the corporation. A corporation can get in a lot of trouble, financial and otherwise, and then...
by Leo Gerard | Jul 22, 2014 | Blog, Economy, Tax Reform
Early last week, the drug firm Mylan stomped on the Stars and Stripes as it ditched America for the Netherlands. Then, on Friday, the drug company AbbVie similarly renounced America. For 30 pieces of silver, it will become Irish. Medical device maker Medtronic...
by Bill Scher | Jul 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
Perry Pulls National Guard Stunt TX Gov. Rick Perry sends National Guard to border. Bloomberg: "The 1,000 Texas National Guard troops Governor Rick Perry will send to the Mexican border will augment almost 10,000 federal agents already there, part of an unprecedented...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 22, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
Our anti-government, anti-tax policies have seriously benefited the few gazillionaires who are paying to promote and propagandize these policies, but this is seriously costing the rest of us, our economy and our country. We the People are being looted and it is time...
by admin | Jul 21, 2014 | Progressive Vision
In this interview Monday on NPR's "On Point," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) laid out his argument for a potential presidential bid, and Campaign for America's Future's Robert Borosage outlined the agenda that Democrats should adopt to rebuild its majority. Also...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 21, 2014 | Jobs and Growth
Several progressive members of Congress this week are working on two fronts to highlight and ultimately improve the plight of low-wage workers. Some are participating this week in the "Live the Wage Challenge," in which they commit to trying to live within a weekly...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 21, 2014 | Progressive Vision
Sixty bodies lie in a heap on the floor of a morgue that receives the corpses of children under 10 and as young as 2. It's the body count for just one day, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. How can we in good conscience send children back there? We just did. The first...
by Bill Scher | Jul 21, 2014 | Uncategorized
Republicans Prepare Child Migrant Proposal House GOP set to introduce child migrant legislation this week. Politico: "The seven-member group established by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has already missed a few self-imposed deadlines ... The group is likely to...
