by Dave Johnson | May 13, 2014 | Blog, Populist Majority, The New Populism
There is a new populist movement that is driving minimum wage and other reforms across the country. The public wants the minimum wage increased, and cities and states are acting on their own to bypass D.C. and get this moving. Does It Matter What The Public Wants?...
by Kenneth Quinnell | May 12, 2014 | Economy
In his new book, The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap, Matt Taibbi takes a look at the growing problem of inequality in the justice system. Taibbi shows, through many examples, that the way justice works in the United States is divided pretty...
by Thom Hartmann | May 12, 2014 | Conservatism
The Ugly American is back in a big way. Back in March of 2001, the Taliban blew up and destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan, two massive, 6th century statues of the Buddha, that were carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamwam valley of Afghanistan. The historic...
by Joshua Holland | May 12, 2014 | Economy, Progressive Vision
It’s become a political cliché that “red” and “blue” states represent two Americas. But consider how states prioritize programs like health care and education — or how they administer their social safety nets — and the differences are very real. Federal policies help...
by Bill Scher | May 12, 2014 | Uncategorized
Banks Try To Escape Prosecution Banks beg not to be prosecuted. NYT: "To avoid the fallout from pleading guilty — no giant bank has done so in more than two decades — BNP Paribas and Credit Suissemade last-ditch appeals to prosecutors and regulators in recent weeks,...
by Dave Johnson | May 12, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth, Winning Issues for 2014
The country needs jobs. The country needs to start fixing up its crumbling infrastructure. The country doesn't need more corporate tax breaks. Guess which of these three is in legislation the House is passing – unfortunately with help from many Democrats. If this...
by Terrance Heath | May 9, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Hillary Clinton's all-but-inevitable presidential candidacy in 2016 and Monica Lewinsky's return to the spotlight have led to recurrence of the right's derangement disorder of the '90s. Monica Lewinsky, whose name became a verb in the late 1990s, broke her silence on...
by Bill Scher | May 9, 2014 | Blog
When the State Department delayed its decision on the Keystone pipeline because the specific route is tied up in the Nebraska courts, pipeline supporters accused President Obama of playing politics, avoiding a polarizing decision before the midterm elections. When the...
by Bill Scher | May 9, 2014 | Uncategorized
Geithner Defends His Tenure Geithner defends bailouts in wide-ranging NYT interview: "Elizabeth Warren [wrote] that Geithner 'believed the government’s most important job was to provide a soft landing for the tender fannies of the banks.' ... As for the argument that...
by Sam Pizzigati | May 9, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
We may now be living in the golden age of executive-pay journalism. Nearly every day seems to bring still another story exposing the sheer lunacy of contemporary CEO compensation. In the last week alone we’ve learned that “pay for performance” has raised CEO earnings...
by Richard Eskow | May 9, 2014 | Blog, Economy
Sixty years after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of school integration, a review by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that “Schools remain segregated today because neighborhoods in which they are located are segregated.” EPI’s Richard Rothstein found that...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 8, 2014 | Blog, Winning Issues for 2014
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn), the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has a sharp warning for Democrats in an exclusive interview with Truthout.org: Focus less on fund-raising and more on people and their need for progressive, populist solutions to...
by Dave Johnson | May 8, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth, Minimum Wage
This week North Carolina's Tom Tillis won the state's primary to become the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. Then he appeared on Chuck Todd's show on MSNBC and was asked about raising the federal minimum wage. Tillis replied with the standard Republican...
by Robert Borosage | May 8, 2014 | Blog, Health
Partisan politics can cost lives. Partisan passions blind petty politicians to the human costs of their actions. Today, 24 state legislators and governors have refused to expand Medicaid to cover poor working people in their state – even though the Federal government...
by Bill Scher | May 8, 2014 | Uncategorized
GOP Poised To Sacrifice Keystone So It Can Filibuster Energy-Efficiency Reid rejects GOP amendments to energy-efficiency bill. The Hill: "Reid refused to allow Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to call up five GOP amendments, saying Republicans couldn’t...
by Dave Johnson | May 8, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
A huge, huge giveaway of tax money to giant corporations is rolling down the tracks at us. If it happens, this tax giveaway would be second only to the bank bailouts on the list of schemes to give money to private corporations. (Except, with the bailouts we got some...
by Jasmine Tucker | May 7, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
From the perspective of the federal government, tax breaks are no different from any other kind of federal spending. Just like money we spend on programs such as early childhood education or food safety, when we approve tax breaks, it means less money in the U.S....
by Jeff Bryant | May 7, 2014 | Blog, Education
When members of the U.S. House of Representatives consider, beginning today, a bill to incentivize the expansion of charter schools, you can expect there to be a lot of heat but not very much light in their discussion of the need for more of these institutions. The...
by Terrance Heath | May 7, 2014 | Conservatism
Right-wing lawlessness continues apace at Cliven Bundy's ranch, where supporters who were itching to shoot police officers and federal agents, nearly shot each other instead. Some citizens want the "militia" out. Can this thing end without bloodshed? Standoff At The...
by Bill Scher | May 7, 2014 | Blog
[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUwVAimKnIM[/fve] Two months ago, Republican congresswoman Renee Ellmers went on Laura Ingraham's national right-wing radio show, forcefully defended her position on immigration reform, and told the host, "Why are you being so...
by Robert Reich | May 7, 2014 | Progressive Vision, The New Populism
More Americans than ever believe the economy is rigged in favor of Wall Street and big business and their enablers in Washington. We’re five years into a so-called recovery that’s been a bonanza for the rich but a bust for the middle class. “The game is rigged and the...
by Bill Scher | May 7, 2014 | Uncategorized
Dems Keep Focus On Jobless Dems ramp up pressure on GOP over unemployment insurance. Roll Call: "Democrats brought seven unemployed people to the Capitol steps Tuesday to tell their stories in a deeply emotional — and deeply political — news conference designed to...
by Richard Eskow | May 7, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Sometimes you have to step back a few paces to see how much conservatism has distorted the public debate. Case in point: employment. Somehow the right has managed to stigmatize public-sector jobs so effectively that only politicians of rare and admirable courage are...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 7, 2014 | Jobs and Growth, Tax Reform
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with businesses receiving incentives to do the research and development that will lead to the products and services – and jobs – of the future. But the House is about to get it all wrong in today's vote for a research and...
by Dave Johnson | May 6, 2014 | Blog
Wall Street wants people to think that budget deficits are a problem. But the deficit that is causing trouble for our economy, costing us jobs and driving down our pay is the trade deficit. And we have an enormous, humongous trade deficit. I mean, huge. I mean $40...
by Derek Pugh | May 6, 2014 | Education, Student Debt Relief
Declaring that the burden of student loan debt is "an emergency," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to introduce a bill that would allow graduates to refinance their loans at lower rates. “Student loan debt is exploding. And it...
by Bill Scher | May 6, 2014 | Blog
Today the Obama administration released its comprehensive National Climate Assessment in both digital and PDF form. It's packed with hard data on how much global warming we've already suffered, how it has hurt us and how much worse it could get. Surely you've heard...
by Leo Gerard | May 6, 2014 | Blog
Those of the ilk of rancher Cliven Bundy and billionaire Donald Sterling believe there’s a place for African-Americans. And, Sterling said in a taped conversation, that place certainly is not in photographs with his girlfriend posted on Instagram. Bundy, who stiffed...
by Bill Scher | May 6, 2014 | Uncategorized
Obama Releases "Game Changer" Climate Report Today WH to release major climate report. Reuters: "Some environmental and public health groups expect the U.S. National Climate Assessment to be a 'game changer' in the administration's efforts to address climate change...
by Bill Scher | May 5, 2014 | Blog, Populist Majority
With a new wave of populism rising, the Campaign for America's Future has announced that tickets are on sale for "The New Populism Conference," convening May 22 in Washington and featuring Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Starting at 9 a.m. at the Washington Court Hotel near...
by Bill Scher | May 5, 2014 | Blog
[fve]http://youtu.be/4TDrqn4U3OE[/fve] Yesterday the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation presented former President George H. W. Bush with its "Profile In Courage" award in honor of his decision to risk his political future and compromise with Democrats by raising...
by Lynne Stuart Parramore | May 5, 2014 | Progressive Vision
There’s really a storybook quality to Elizabeth Warren. How did this cookie-baking housewife from Oklahoma end up staring down the most powerful financial powers on Planet Earth, causing them to tremble in their wingtip shoes? Seemingly conjured up from the fabled...
by Dave Johnson | May 5, 2014 | Blog
Wednesday May 7 is Fair Trade Day. Add your voice to the movement to stop "Fast Track," which will be used to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership corporate dominance treaty through Congress. There is a “Fair Trade rally” in the Upper Senate Park in Washington, D.C. at...
by Bill Scher | May 5, 2014 | Uncategorized
America Really Does Need a Raise Negligible wage growth dragging down economy. NYT: "...after adjusting for inflation, real wages have increased by something like 0.5 percent [in past 12 months] ... David G. Blanchflower, an economics professor at Dartmouth College,...
by Richard Eskow | May 5, 2014 | Blog, Economy
His racism got all the headlines, but there was something to be learned from Donald Sterling’s other words. So, before the spotlight turns elsewhere and Sterling crawls back into well-deserved obscurity, it’s worth considering his usefulness as a representative sample...
by Terrance Heath | May 2, 2014 | Conservatism
At what point do armed citizens consider themselves the law, based on little more than their numbers and their guns? The latest news from Bundy Ranch, raises this and many other questions. The Bureau of Land Management called an end to its gather of Cliven Bundy’s...
by Bill Scher | May 2, 2014 | Blog
Earlier this week, former President Bill Clinton delivered a 90-minute defense of his economic record, which some are analyzing through the prism of Hillary Clinton's expected presidential campaign. But within that defense, Clinton admitted to a big mistake: the...
by Dave Johnson | May 2, 2014 | Blog
Republicans aren't for things. Instead they run from one hysterical anti-something scream to the next. They have shifted from the "noun-verb-911" of the Bush years to "Obama said you didn't build this" road and bridge, then to "Obamacare failed" and after Obamacare...
by Terrance Heath | May 2, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Here’s a basic rule of thumb for wingnut rhetoric. If right-wingers have returned to flogging that dead horse called Benghazi, they’re fresh out of ideas again. This week, wingnuts weren’t just beating a dead horse. They were almost making glue. Maybe they got the...
by Dave Johnson | May 2, 2014 | Blog
Senate Republicans filibustered the minimum wage increase. This means the bill doesn't even get a debate, never mind a vote. This is part of their strategy to hold back the economy and then campaign on the bad "Obama" economy. Meanwhile cities and states are helping...
