by Terrance Heath | Apr 23, 2014 | Conservatism, Health, This Is The GOP
Obamacare didn’t come with ”death panels," like conservatives claimed it would. So, Republican governors and state legislatures formed their own. Until the death of Charlene Dill, the victims of those death panels were invisible. Conservatives constantly say that poor...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 23, 2014 | Economy
Inequality is a burning topic among economists, especially since the release of Thomas Piketty’s recent book on the subject. Many are questioning whether this is a temporary period of runaway inequality, or whether we are on the verge of an irreversible collapse into...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 23, 2014 | Blog
The sky, we all learn as children, is not falling — and never falls. Only silly Chicken Littles prattle about “precipitous collapses.” Only silly Chicken Littles, apparently, and applied mathematicians. One of those mathematicians, the University of Maryland’s Safa...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 23, 2014 | Uncategorized
America's Economic Divide The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest [New York Times]: "The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction. While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 23, 2014 | Blog, Populist Majority, Progressive Vision, The New Populism
There is new evidence of the high price working-class people are paying because of the stranglehold conservatives have on our economy that should embolden Democratic candidates to offer bolder, progressive populist prescriptions for addressing income inequality and...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 22, 2014 | Blog, Climate
It's Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is readying new greenhouse gas emissions rules for power plants, with the draft expected June 1. Forty-one percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from power plants. Nearly half of that comes from just...
by Lynne Stuart Parramore | Apr 22, 2014 | Economy
You would think that by the 21st century, we would know something about what it takes for humans to live fulfilling lives. After all, we’ve witnessed enormous advances in science, psychology, sociology, and related fields over the past couple of centuries. The great...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 22, 2014 | Jobs and Growth, Unemployment Benefits
A few days ago you were able to virtually shut down the phones at House Speaker John Boehner's office in response to our effort to get your voice heard on renewing unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless. It's time to do it again. Our click-to-call line is...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 22, 2014 | Blog
Republicans in America suffer a crippling anxiety. It’s the terrible fear of corporations paying poor workers too much. The GOP is so afraid that the nation’s lowest wage earners will get a raise that Republican politicians across the country are working overtime to...
by Bill Scher | Apr 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
The Nation Goes All-In For Earth Day Mark Hertsgaard explains "Why TheNation.com Today Is All About Climate": "...The Nation is marking Earth Day 2014 with special, wall-to-wall coverage of the climate challenge ... Growing a larger grassroots movement is vital...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 22, 2014 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The New York Times editorial board finally gets it right about trade in its Sunday editorial, "This Time, Get Global Trade Right." Some excerpts: Many Americans have watched their neighbors lose good-paying jobs as their employers sent their livelihoods to China. Over...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 21, 2014 | Blog
The housing market is supposedly recovering, yet the homeownership rate is dropping. Meanwhile rents in urban areas were already high but now are absolutely skyrocketing. What’s going on? As millions lost their homes many of the houses were and are being bought up by...
by Digby | Apr 21, 2014 | Conservatism
I have a post up at Salon this morning discussing this reflexive conservative impulse to explain that they are really winning all the elections. It's just that they are forced to count the votes of all those people of color: The news is so depressing for conservatives...
by Thom Hartmann | Apr 21, 2014 | Climate
This past Sunday was the fourth anniversary of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite what we've heard from BP, the wildlife, the environment, and the residents of the Gulf are still dealing with the effects of that massive oil spill. A new report from the...
by Bill Scher | Apr 21, 2014 | Uncategorized
Trade Deal Focus Of Presidential Asia Visit Obama to push for trade deal during Asia trip. W. Post: "The United States and Japan have been engaged in intense negotiations for months — and as recently as Friday — over how to resolve their trade differences in the...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 21, 2014 | Blog, Democracy
We are headed into a national reckoning. To paraphrase the unlamented Donald Rumsfeld, there are the known knowns and the known unknowns. We know that America is reaching new levels of extreme inequality. We know that from the founders on, our wisest leaders cautioned...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 18, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
What do you call it when an anti-Semite and white supremacist goes on a shooting spree at not one, but two Jewish community facilities, killing three people? If you’re the U.S. media you call it anything, but terrorism. With a barrage of bullets and a cry of “Heil...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 18, 2014 | Conservatism
Does the right get a free pass to ignore laws? Is armed intimidation the way we decide which laws should be followed? Is conservative media whipping up the conditions for another Oklahoma City bombing? These questions are popping up with more and more frequency in...
by Bill Scher | Apr 18, 2014 | Uncategorized
Obamacare Numbers Keep Rising Obama celebrates 8 million Obamacare signups. W. Post: "'I don’t think we should apologize for it, and I don’t think we should be defensive about it. I think is a strong, good, right story to tell.' ... the 8 million figure does not...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 18, 2014 | Populist Majority, The New Populism
Americans are in a surly mood, confronting rules they feel are rigged against them. President Barack Obama captured this populist temper in his re-election campaign. He then launched his second term declaring that inequality is the “most pressing challenge of our...
by Bill Scher | Apr 17, 2014 | Blog
Yesterday, pro-immigration Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart told the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, "I’m convinced that if we don’t get it [immigration reform] done by the August break, the president, who is feeling a lot of pressure from having not done anything on...
by Thom Hartmann | Apr 17, 2014 | Economy
There’s nothing “normal” about having a middle class. Having a middle class is a choice that a society has to make, and it’s a choice we need to make again in this generation, if we want to stop the destruction of the remnants of the last generation's middle class....
by Bill Scher | Apr 17, 2014 | Uncategorized
Hillary Defended as Warren Prepares Book Tour Hillary Clinton supporters defend her record on inequality. CNN: "In a research report titled 'Hillary Clinton: A Lifetime Champion of Income Opportunity,' the group [Correct The Record] is defending Clinton's record by...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 17, 2014 | Blog, Health
[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5-UvHcFmEw[/fve] Why did Florida’s Republicans let a hard-working young mother of three die rather than accept federal funding that would’ve provided her with health insurance? “Sadism.” According to Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.),...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 16, 2014 | Blog, Education
Would you like your job performance judged by a 5-year-old? That's a relevant question for public school teachers in Hawaii, where the state's new teacher evaluation system attributes 10 percent of their job performance rating on what children as young as 5 years old...
by Bill Scher | Apr 16, 2014 | Blog
Today the EPA released its annual accounting of US greenhouse gas emissions for 2012. And it's good news. The highlights: 1. After increasing greenhouse gas emissions nearly every year from 1990 to 2008, emissions are down 8% since President Obama was sworn in, and...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 16, 2014 | Blog, Trade
LISTEN: Dave Johnson on the Rick Smith Show talks about China's currency manipulation. The Treasury Department released its "Semi-Annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies" this week, and went to great lengths to find a way not to...
by Dean Baker | Apr 16, 2014 | Economy
We all owe a debt to Thomas Piketty and his various co-authors for hugely advancing our understanding of income distribution at the top. As a result of their work, we now have a much clearer picture of the big gainers over the last three decades and the process that...
by Bill Scher | Apr 16, 2014 | Uncategorized
Republican Gov Challenges Boehner To Pass Jobless Aid Nevada's GOP governor backs Senate unemployment insurance bill. Politico: "Sandoval became the first Republican governor to endorse the Senate’s bill to retroactively revive long-term jobless aid through May,...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 16, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
How's your job going – if you even have one? The odds are very, very high that you haven't seen a raise in a long time. Or maybe you were laid off and found a new job at half your old pay. They say this is the "new normal." Meanwhile, CEO pay just keeps climbing and...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 15, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
It's Tax Day! And right now Congress is working on Tax Day giveaways for the big corporations. When corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes, the rest of us end up picking up the tab. So Happy Tax Day! Have you heard politicians screaming about "the...
by Bill Scher | Apr 15, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism
On Saturday, Sen. Rand Paul traveled to New Hampshire and addressed conservative activists at the Freedom Summit. In his remarks he described his vision to "grow our movement" and attract new constituencies to the Republican fold. Namely, "We can't be the party of the...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 15, 2014 | Economy
[fve]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytqTSh3oGw&t=10m37s[/fve] Toward the end of the Economic Policy Institute's forum Tuesday featuring economist Thomas Piketty, he was asked what he would consider the most serious consequence of the historic levels of wealth...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 15, 2014 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Rejecting dozens of heroic characters, from Captain America to Underdog, Republicans last week chose instead a villain for their figurehead. They selected Prince John, the guy who coddled the rich and tried to crush Robin Hood. House Republicans voted to elevate...
by Bill Scher | Apr 15, 2014 | Uncategorized
Happy Tax Day The wealthy are paying more. The Hill: "The highest 1 percent of earners, generally those making north of $500,000 a year, will see a tax hike of some $38,000 a year because of the fiscal cliff deal, the Tax Policy Center found. The ObamaCare taxes will...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 15, 2014 | Blog, Tax Reform
A great thing happened at the end of 2013: A pack of corporate tax breaks that long ago should have been weeded out of the tax code finally expired due to congressional inaction and were dispatched to the graveyard of tax inequity. But today, as millions of Americans...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
The following email was sent to Campaign for America's Future supporters today. Last week, Speaker John Boehner had a chance to follow the Senate's lead and put the bipartisan unemployment extension up for a vote in the House. We asked you to call his office. You told...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog
Last week House Republicans passed the "Ryan budget." It won't become law because it won't get through the Senate and President Obama would veto it. But because it's the budget statement of the Republican Party going into the fall elections, it shows voters who the...
by Alan Jenkins | Apr 14, 2014 | Blog, Economy
We measure a lot of stuff in our society—stuff like gasoline prices, Hollywood box office numbers and, Heaven help us, Kim Kardashian’s Twitter followers (there are 20.7 million, in case you’re wondering). But it’s rare that we try to measure our progress in achieving...
by Bill Scher | Apr 14, 2014 | Uncategorized
Sebelius Takes a Bow Outgoing HHS Sec Sebelius takes victory lap. McClatchy: "...Sebelius said Sunday that health insurance exchanges that are now up and running across the country have given uninsured Americans a true choice of insurance plans with price comparisons....
