by Terrance Heath | Feb 14, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
It’s Valentine’s Day, but there’s not a lot of love on the right, even for some of their own. There’s no love even for millions of schoolchildren, who will get valentines from their classmates today. At the beginning of the week, our sons came home with lists of all...
by Bill Scher | Feb 14, 2014 | Uncategorized
Dems Seek To Pressure Boehner on Immigration Sen. Chuck Schumer suggests using a discharge petition to force House vote on immigration. NYT: "[Schumer] accused House Republicans of trying to 'sweep this issue under the rug,' and added, 'In the next few months you’re...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 14, 2014 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The big corporations and the Obama administration are trying to push through a giant new trade treaty that gives corporations even more power, and which will send even more jobs, factories, industries and money out of the country. This is the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 14, 2014 | Minimum Wage
President Obama signed an executive order on Wednesday raising the minimum wage for some federally contracted workers to $10.10. This move illustrates the fact that we need a higher minimum wage for all workers. It also promotes the bill by Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep....
by Martha Burk | Feb 13, 2014 | Economy, Progressive Vision, The Jobs Challenge
When President Barack Obama talked about pay equity in his State of the Union speech last month and connected the dots between gender and low-wage work, advocates in the audience were ecstatic. Representative Rosa DeLauro, lead sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act...
by Thom Hartmann | Feb 13, 2014 | Climate
West Virginia is dealing with another coal-related toxic spill, and people are finding out the hard way about the real dangers of fossil fuels. Yesterday, news broke that the West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection is investigating a coal slurry spill...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 13, 2014 | Unemployment Benefits
The decision by Sens. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to join a filibuster of a measure to renew emergency jobless benefits is not only a moral disgrace, as Robert Borosage declared Wednesday. The reason they cited for doing so would advance an...
by Sam Pizzigati | Feb 13, 2014 | Economy
Finding true love, philosophers have always understood, can get complicated in deeply unequal places. Grand fortunes tend to give Cupid a hard time, on Valentine’s Day and every other. “If you gain fame, power, or wealth, you won’t have any trouble finding lovers,” as...
by Bill Scher | Feb 13, 2014 | Uncategorized
Executive Order Kicks Off Broader Minimum Wage Push "Obama launches fresh effort on minimum wage as part of populist election message" reports W. Post: "...Obama signed an executive order hiking the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 from $7.25 starting...
by Richard Long | Feb 13, 2014 | Minimum Wage
Today, 2/13, is the day before Valentine’s Day. $2.13 is the base wage at which tipped employees must be paid, implemented in 1991. This means that there is a strong likelihood that the server of your Friday evening Valentine’s dinner would not be able to purchase a...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 12, 2014 | Minimum Wage
President Obama is signing an executive order today raising the minimum wage for federal contractors from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. The order will also raise the "tipped" minimum wage for these contractors to $4.90 from $2.13 an hour. These minimums will increase with...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 12, 2014 | Jobs and Growth
In trying to do an end run around conservatives in Congress who are blocking adequate funding for badly needed improvements to our strained transportation networks and the jobs those improvements would create, is Congress and the Obama administration setting us up for...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 12, 2014 | Conservatism, Unemployment Benefits
After laboring for all of 18 days this year, Congress adjourns today for another 12-day vacation. They leave behind a city paralyzed by icy weather outside and icy indifference inside the halls of Congress. They leave after a minority of the Senate used a filibuster...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 12, 2014 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Some advocates of the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) claim that including trade adjustment assistance (TAA) for displaced workers will make things OK for people who lose their jobs and the communities where they live. The record of "NAFTA-style" trade...
by Jeff Bryant | Feb 12, 2014 | Education
Legend has, political disputes are supposed to be resolvable only when parties "meet in the middle" and shake hands on points of agreement that are possible. But in the much-contested issue of "education reform," only one of the disputing parties in the debate tends...
by Bill Scher | Feb 12, 2014 | Uncategorized
Republicans Surrender On Debt Limit House leadership surrenders on debt limit. AP: "Just 28 Republicans voted for the measure, including Boehner and his top lieutenants. But 193 Democrats more than compensated for the low support among Republicans. Senate Democrats...
by Bill Scher | Feb 11, 2014 | Unemployment Benefits
Last month, Senate Democrats offered Republicans a concession in order to help the long-term unemployed continue to receive unemployment insurance: offset the $17 billion cost by extending sequester cuts an additional year into 2024. The Washington Post reported...
by Digby | Feb 11, 2014 | Conservatism, This Is The GOP
I knew about Christie's little "deal" described here some time ago, but apparently it's just now coming to the attention of the Washington press: As the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Chris Christie struck an unusual deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb. In exchange...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 11, 2014 | Blog
[fve]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CERwr0MHYjQ[/fve] It’s heartbreaking to read of the suffering caused by environmental damage in West Virginia and North Carolina. We recently interviewed West Virginia filmmaker Mari-Lynn Evans on the “Zero Hour”...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 11, 2014 | Conservatism, Economy, Populist Majority
With Republicans unable to agree on a hostage strategy, Speaker John Boehner will hold an open vote on a "clean" debt-ceiling increase. This means that Democrats and a few moderately sane Republicans will formalize what everyone has known all along: It is illegitimate...
by Leo Gerard | Feb 11, 2014 | Conservatism, Economy, Progressive Vision
The GOP is all about freedom – for corporations, that is. Republicans believe, for example, that business should be free from the kind of government regulation that would prevent chemical companies from spewing poison into West Virginia drinking water. When it comes...
by Bill Scher | Feb 11, 2014 | Uncategorized
Debt Limit Resolution In Sight House may vote on debt limit increase tomorrow. W. Post: "House Republican leaders spent Monday trying to finalize a plan to increase the Treasury’s borrowing authority [with] a proposal that ties a debt-ceiling increase to a plan to...
by Bill Scher | Feb 11, 2014 | Democracy
Throughout the immigration debate, Republicans have run phony excuses for delay, Democrats keep stripping them away, and the process keeps moving forward. Last June when the Senate was deliberating immigration reform, and Republicans were complaining that it didn't do...
by Derek Pugh | Feb 10, 2014 | Blog
Ahead of the Obama administration’s decision to whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, key environmental and labor organizations met in Washington, D.C. on Monday to offer an alternative: Repair America’s more than 2.5 million miles of existing deficient...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 10, 2014 | Conservatism, Health
As Media Matters and other outlets noted last week, right-wing commentators drastically misrepresented a Congressional Budget Office report’s findings about the Affordable Care Act. Fox News, Washington Post conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin, and many other...
by Bill Scher | Feb 10, 2014 | Uncategorized
No Spending Cuts On Debt Limit Hike Republicans try to figure out how to surrender on debt limit. W. Post: "Facing a timeline that leaves no room for trial and error, some party leaders were advocating a debt-ceiling solution that would wrap several popular, must-pass...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 10, 2014 | Democracy, Progressive Vision
[fve]http://youtu.be/entactmHPEY[/fve] The scene was Raleigh, N.C., but for many of the people who were there the message and its impact was intended to be national: There is a growing populist resistance to the conservative extremist agenda, and the tens of thousands...
by Roger Hickey | Feb 10, 2014 | Democracy, Progressive Vision
I was honored to be part of a historic and joyful event on Saturday, February 8, as an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 North Carolinians streamed into their capital city to from all over their state to participate in a historic Moral March on Raleigh. As they were filling...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 9, 2014 | Blog
A crowd declared by organizers to exceed 80,000 showed up to march to protest Republican policies in Raleigh, N.C. Saturday. But you wouldn't know it if you live outside the area. Saturday's big march, organized by the North Carolina NAACP along with more than 160...
by Terrance Heath | Feb 7, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
You knew it was coming. The moment you saw Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl commercial, you knew the reaction from the right was coming. The ad featured “America, The Beautiful,” sung in various languages, including English, while images of Americans of every race, creed,...
by Emily Schwartz Greco | Feb 7, 2014 | Health
Remember when it looked like the Republican Party could do nothing but stamp its feet and shout about the Affordable Care Act’s shortcomings without coming up with any alternatives? OK, there was former Sen. Jim DeMint’s suggestion last summer that having the...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 7, 2014 | Blog
Today's jobs report has a bit of sort-of good news for manufacturing employment: 21,000 new jobs! At that rate President Obama ... won't ... make it to his goal of 1 million new manufacturing jobs in his second term. (Note: Passing Fast Track so the big corporations...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 7, 2014 | Conservatism, Reagan Revolution
January 20 marked the 25th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as President. And February 6 marked the 103rd birthday of the former sports announcer, actor, governor of California and 40th President of the United States of America. Reagan’s economic...
by Roger Hickey | Feb 7, 2014 | Jobs and Growth
Today's unemployment report from the Labor Department is disappointing to millions of Americans who are looking for jobs. It shows that the U.S. economy created only 113,000 jobs – well below most economists' expectations. Many experts had hoped that this report for...
by Bill Scher | Feb 7, 2014 | Uncategorized
Republicans Filibuster Jobless As Job Market Stalls Jobs report again below expectations. BLS: "Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 113,000 in January, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.6 percent ... the civilian labor force rose by 499,000 in...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 7, 2014 | Jobs and Growth
Today's unemployment report from the Labor Department is another in a string of disappointments for the unemployed. It shows that the U.S. economy created only 113,000 jobs – well below most economists' expectations – with the unemployment rate at 6.6 percent. It...
by Bill Scher | Feb 6, 2014 | Unemployment Benefits
Republicans today ended all doubt: They do not want to help the long-term unemployed. Given a bill that would help for a mere three extra months without adding to the deficit, Republicans refused to let the majority rule and filibustered the legislation. If only one...
by Joshua Holland | Feb 6, 2014 | Conservatism, Health, Progressive Vision
On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new report on Obamacare’s impact on the economy that ignited an enormous amount of controversy. The firestorm centered on CBO’s projection that the Affordable Care Act would reduce the hours we work by the...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 6, 2014 | Blog
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released trade deficit figures for December, which also means we can add up the totals for 2013. Our "oil boom" lowered the total, but goods and services got worse, with our China problem setting another record. The...
by Bill Scher | Feb 6, 2014 | Uncategorized
Vote Expected Today on Unemployment Insurance Democrats close to 60 votes for jobless aid before expected vote today. Las Vegas Sun: "After five weeks of suspended benefits, jobless workers will get another chance at having their checks restored today when the Senate...
