by Lynne Stuart Parramore | May 2, 2014 | Economy
From her work on bankruptcy laws and her books on America's squeezed middle class, to her role as TARP watchdog and creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to her latest turn as U.S. senator, Elizabeth Warren has set herself firmly on the side of...
by Derek Pugh | May 2, 2014 | Education
This week Senate Democrats will begin turning their attention to the 40 million Americans whose lives are being hampered by student loan debt. The goal is passage of a bill with a provision that will allow these Americans to refinance their loans at lower rates. Not...
by Bill Scher | May 2, 2014 | Uncategorized
Seattle Poised To Adopt $15 Min Wage Seattle mayor announces deal for $15 minimum wage. NYT: "...more than twice the federal minimum wage and one of the highest anywhere in the nation, through a series of complex and phased-in stages. Just as crucially, he said, the...
by Robert Borosage | May 2, 2014 | Blog
The topline of the April BLS jobs report – a better than expected 288,000 jobs added, with the unemployment rate plummeting to 6.3% – will be celebrated, particularly in contrast to the collapse of growth in the first quarter (initially estimated at 0.1% but likely...
by Thom Hartmann | May 1, 2014 | Conservatism
If you want to understand the modern American right, just head on out to Bunkerville, Nevada and visit the Bundy Ranch. The mainstream media may have backed off talking about them ever since The New York Times published Cliven Bundy’s racist rant, but, believe it or...
by Dave Johnson | May 1, 2014 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The enormous, humongous trade deficit is doing incredible damage to our economy. Our country's elites used to care about that. In 2003 Warren Buffett wrote a highly-influerntial article, America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling The Nation Out From Under Us. Here's A...
by Jeff Bryant | May 1, 2014 | Blog
To address the nation's struggling economy, the Obama administration has announced a bold proposal to require states to provide more useful data about the career success of business and financial executives who graduate from the nation's colleges and universities with...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 1, 2014 | Jobs and Growth, Minimum Wage
If members of the U.S. Senate had bothered to scan the news before they cast their votes Wednesday on whether to allow final debate and passage of a bill that would increase the minimum wage, they would have seen headlines like this one from Bloomberg News: "Growth...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 30, 2014 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
President Obama held a joint press conference on Sunday with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and was somewhat dismissive of critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive "trade" treaty currently being negotiated between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei,...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 30, 2014 | Conservatism
Cliven Bundy isn't the first conservative to defend slavery, but he may be one of the first condemned by fellow conservatives for doing so. Does this mean conservatives are ready to stop defending slavery, if only for the sake of their political future? Conservatives...
by Derek Pugh | Apr 30, 2014 | Populist Majority
Consider this: Only 24 percent of millennials are positive they’ll vote this November, according to a new poll from the Harvard Institute of Politics. They rallied behind change in 2008 but have since steadily dropped off. But who can blame them? After enduring five...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 30, 2014 | Jobs and Growth, Minimum Wage
The Senate is expected to vote today on whether to proceed to final debate on a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. It's a key political vote that separates who stands with working people and who doesn't. But, more importantly, it's a vote that...
by Bill Scher | Apr 30, 2014 | Uncategorized
GOP to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike Republicans set to filibuster minimum wage today. AP: "Democrats ... plan to use the vote to buttress their campaign theme that the GOP is unwilling to protect financially struggling families ... Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of...
by Bill Scher | Apr 30, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth, Minimum Wage
Today at noon ET, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill to raise the hourly minimum wage to $10.10, and then index it to inflation. Actually, that's not quite right. The vote would allow the Senate to begin debate on the minimum wage bill. And if media reports are...
by Derek Pugh | Apr 29, 2014 | Conservatism
Enslavement: An economic means to an end that coupled with hatred to produce a reality of racism that Americans still struggle with today. It is a word that should not be used lightly. In recent months, many conservatives have felt entitled to its usage. They have...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 29, 2014 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
There is a huge trade treaty coming that will completely change the relationship between giant corporations and governments around the world. So why is the American corporate media telling the public so little about the Trans-Pacific Partnership? The Trans-Pacific...
by Dean Baker | Apr 29, 2014 | Economy
President Obama's chief economist, Jason Furman, weighed in behind efforts to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last week. The main plan on the table is a bill forward by Senators Tim Johnson and Mike Crapo, the chair and ranking member, respectively, on the Senate...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 29, 2014 | Economy, Making it in America
On Feb. 12, Edward Lewis Neal told his wife goodbye and drove to the Cooper Tire plant in Texarkana, Ark., where his co-workers called him Preacher because of his ministry at the Springdale Church of God and Christ. When an ambulance took Preacher from Cooper Tire...
by Bill Scher | Apr 29, 2014 | Uncategorized
Republican Minority Expected To Filibuster Minimum Wage Senate set for minimum wage vote tomorrow. The Hill: "The vote will be a major test of unity for Senate Democrats ... Some vulnerable Democrats up for reelection have expressed concern about the wage increase [to...
by Richard Long | Apr 29, 2014 | Jobs and Growth, Minimum Wage
As the National Restaurant Association prepared for its annual lobbying days inside the Capitol this week, more than a thousand grassroots activists went to the Capitol on Monday to demand that the voice of workers and their demand for a fairer economy that works for...
by Robert Reich | Apr 28, 2014 | Economy
Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on average, 30 times what their typical worker was paid. Since then, CEO pay has skyrocketed to 280 times the pay of a typical worker; in big companies, to 354 times. Meanwhile, over the same thirty-year time span the median...
by Bill Scher | Apr 28, 2014 | Blog
As the Washington Post recently reported, fossil fuel interests led by the Koch Brothers are trying to repeal renewable energy mandates and nullify upcoming EPA climate regulations in 18 states, yet they haven't had a win in 17 of them. And Slate reports that Team...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 28, 2014 | Blog, Trade
I discussed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and what President Obama's trip to Asia could mean for American workers on "The Sunday Show with Philip Maldari" Sunday morning, on KPFA-FM in Berkeley, Calif. Listen to the full show here: With me on the show was Tim...
by Lynne Stuart Parramore | Apr 28, 2014 | Blog
Between the rampant legalized looting, an emergency manager thrust upon them, water turn-offs, threatened pensions, and darkened streets, the people of Detroit have been to hell and back. Now they can add grotesque racial insensivity from a newspaper editor to their...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 28, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth, Minimum Wage
A good many Americans now know the high-finance games that JPMorgan Chase and other big banks like to play — at our expense. And big oil giants like ExxonMobil have been outraging Americans for years. But plenty of other corporate giants that inflate our inequality...
by Bill Scher | Apr 28, 2014 | Uncategorized
Minimum Wage Vote This Week Senate minimum wage vote expected Wednesday. AP: "...Republicans seem likely to block the Democratic measure, which would gradually raise today's $7.25 hourly minimum, reaching $10.10 as soon as 2016 ... Key constituencies oppose...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 28, 2014 | Blog, Economy, Tax Reform
“The game is rigged and the American people know that. They get it right down to their toes.” — Senator Elizabeth Warren This week, the House Ways and Means Committee is poised to demonstrate exactly how the rules are rigged. On Tuesday, the committee will begin to...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 25, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
This week, they didn’t come any nuttier than Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, and the right-wing pundits and politicians who rushed to support his “range war" against the federal government. Revolution was almost nigh, until Bundy shot off his mouth. It’s hard to blame...
by Bill Scher | Apr 25, 2014 | Blog
Yesterday Speaker John Boehner, right after acknowledging the video camera in the room, proceeded to blast Republicans afraid to vote on immigration. In a high-pitched mock whine, he impersonated his colleagues: "Ohhhh. Don’t make me do this! Ohhhh. This is too hard!"...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 25, 2014 | Progressive Vision
Listen Harvey Kaye talks to OurFuture.org about the Four Freedoms and their relevance to today's effort to build a new progressive populist movement. Historian and author Harvey Kaye believes that the key to progressives taking the offensive and creating a winning...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 25, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism
[fve]http://youtu.be/FbnRnhrNFEY[/fve] "Dog-whistle," "code word" politics is not about what the politician says, it's about what the listener hears. Mitt Romney says this: "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right,...
by Bill Scher | Apr 25, 2014 | Uncategorized
No TPP Deal In Japan WH claims progress with Japan in trade talks. The Hill: "Six agriculture sectors — including beef, pork, dairy, wheat, sugar and rice — were the focus of the negotiations, and the senior official said that progress was made in each area. 'We took...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 25, 2014 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
President Obama is in Asia, partly to "reassure" partner countries that the U.S. is a strong ally and partly to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Both are to counter China's growing influence. While TPP is being sold as a "strategic" countermeasure to China,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 25, 2014 | Populist Majority, Progressive Vision
This weekend more than 1,000 grassroots activists are scheduled to converge in Washington to launch a new level of progressive populist movement-building, focused on "taking back the Capitol" from corporate interests and the right wing. Chicago-based National People's...
by Lynne Stuart Parramore | Apr 24, 2014 | Economy
Fancy living up in Canada? Granted, it’s a bit chilly. But the middle class up there has just blown by the U.S. as the world’s most affluent. America’s wealthy are leaping ahead of the rest of much of the globe, but the middle class is falling behind. So are the poor....
by Bill Moyers | Apr 24, 2014 | Economy
Written by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship. The evidence of income inequality just keeps mounting. According to “Working for the Few,” a recent briefing paper from Oxfam, “In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 24, 2014 | Uncategorized
Talking Trade Obama to use Japan visit to reassure Asian allies. Reuters: "U.S. President Barack Obama will use a state visit to Japan on Thursday to try to reassure Asian allies of his commitment to ramping up U.S. engagement in the region, despite Chinese complaints...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 24, 2014 | Blog, Education
For most children, their first teacher is a parent or primary caregiver. And most teachers will tell you that parent behaviors in the home affect student learning in schools. So it would make sense to make sure education policy isn't strongly at odds with what we know...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 24, 2014 | Blog, Populist Majority
Mainstream Democratic campaign consultants and pollsters typically tell candidates they should "move to the right" and campaign to the "center" with positions that are "between" the "left" and the "right." This is the way, they say, to "attract swing voters" who would...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 24, 2014 | Blog, Economy
When a product sells phenomenally well, as Thomas Piketty's new book is currently doing, popular economic theory says that means one of two things: either it’s filling a substantial unmet demand, or the product is exceptionally well executed. In the case of "Capital...
