by Bill Scher | Feb 6, 2014 | Unemployment Benefits
Today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to call a vote on a new compromise bill to retroactively provide and extend unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed. In this version, Reid and the Democrats have met the Republican demands, yet...
by Richard Long | Feb 5, 2014 | Democracy
If you follow politics, you know the names Koch, Adelson, American Crossroads and Priorities USA Action. If you don’t know the names, you know their tools, the fearmongering ads that purport that voting for this candidate or another will cause the downfall of the...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 5, 2014 | Blog
On Tuesday the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report saying 2 million-plus people who are only working in order to get health care will finally be able to leave those jobs thanks to the Affordable Care Act. This will open up badly needed jobs. The...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 5, 2014 | Economy, Progressive Vision, The Jobs Challenge, The New Populism
One day after President Barack Obama called for moving forward on trade authority in his State of the Union address, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared, “I am against fast track,” and said he had no intention of bringing it to a vote in the Senate....
by Larry Cohen | Feb 5, 2014 | Economy, Trans-Pacific Partnership
What does a global economy mean? And who does it serve? These are the questions we need to ask as the United States seeks to negotiate new trade deals with Europe and Asia. Unfortunately, as 12 Pacific Rim nations race towards completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 5, 2014 | Progressive Vision
[fve]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbCcTeV2PUM&feature=youtu.be&t=30m[/fve] When Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., announced last week that he will be retiring from Congress, progressives lamented the loss of a great liberal champion, a product of the political ferment of...
by Bill Scher | Feb 5, 2014 | Uncategorized
Jobless Aid Vote Expected Tomorrow Another unemployment insurance vote set for tomorrow in the Senate. The Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has set up a cloture vote for Thursday on a new measure that would provide a three-month reauthorization of the...
by Jeff Bryant | Feb 5, 2014 | Education
If our nation's leaders made policy decisions on actual evidence, this matter would have been addressed a long time ago. This "matter" is the increasingly desperate state of the nation's youngest children and the callousness in the way they're being treated in our...
by Terrance Heath | Feb 4, 2014 | Conservatism, This Is The GOP
With the first ever “Mass Transit Super Bowl” happening in his state, New Jersey governor Chris Christie had two jobs: Make the trains run on time, and make sure New Jersey benefited. What actually happened is a classic example of conservative failure. “Jersey Sucks!”...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 4, 2014 | Financial Reform
It seems like an idea whose time has come. With one in four American households partially or entirely excluded from the current banking system, and with the U.S. Post Office in search of additional revenue, why not use the postal system to offer banking services to...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 4, 2014 | Unemployment Benefits
Senate Republicans have been using the filibuster to block the extension of long-term unemployment benefits. There are rumors of a "deal" that gives Republicans a payoff to stop obstructing the extension. The price this time is "pension smoothing," which means letting...
by Bill Scher | Feb 4, 2014 | Blog
[fve]https://youtu.be/Yn6KEKEQITg?t=1h33m[/fve] Watch Kirk Cameron make the anti-abortion pro-contraception case at the 01:33:00 mark above The number and rate of abortions dropped 13% during the first three years of President Barack Obama's term, concludes a new...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 4, 2014 | Blog
The State Department released an environmental impact report Friday saying, according to The Washington Post, "the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would be unlikely to alter global greenhouse gas emissions." The report triggered more than 275 protests in towns and...
by Leo Gerard | Feb 4, 2014 | Blog
For decades, college football players absorbed some pretty cheap shots from their schools and the NCAA. These athletes knew it wasn’t right that universities rescinded academic scholarships and refused to cover medical treatment for players permanently injured in...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 4, 2014 | Progressive Vision
This Saturday, Feb, 8, the North Carolina Moral Mondays movement is holding a major march in Raleigh, N.C. This is the beginning of a much larger national movement that you'll see across the country this year. [fve]http://youtu.be/GAbeTp44NTY[/fve] A news release...
by Bill Scher | Feb 4, 2014 | Uncategorized
Trade Not On Agenda Obama and Reid meet, but fast-track not discussed. NYT: "The dispute over trade, though, highlights the challenges facing Mr. Obama as he tries to advance his agenda in a campaign year ... But Mr. Obama did not make that case to Mr. Reid when he...
by Lori Wallach | Feb 4, 2014 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Corporate interests were fiercely lobbying for President Obama to dedicate serious time in this State of the Union speech to pushing fast track and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in order to try to overcome growing congressional and public opposition to both, but...
by Bill Scher | Feb 3, 2014 | Minimum Wage
[fve]http://youtu.be/UJ9eylkiVx8[/fve] Today, the Democratic National Committee's Organizing For America operation fired the first shots in the minimum wage fight, a national cable ad with the message "Congress: Give America a Raise." The ad amounts to a warning shot,...
by Robert Scott | Feb 3, 2014 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said that because “ninety-eight percent of our exporters are small businesses, new trade partnerships with Europe and the Asia-Pacific will help them create more jobs.” This suggests that small businesses will benefit...
by Sam Pizzigati | Feb 3, 2014 | Economy
America’s ongoing debate over economic inequality may be turning a new page. In the debate’s first chapter, starting in the 1980s, scholars, pundits, and policymakers did battle over whether the United States was becoming more unequal. We still have some “denialists”...
by Bill Scher | Feb 3, 2014 | Uncategorized
1% Knows What's Happening To The 99% Corporations quite aware the middle class is eroding. NYT: "The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the middle class is shrinking as the top tier pulls even further away ... Within top...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 3, 2014 | Populist Majority
Of all the myths that circulate in Washington, perhaps none is more prevalent or intractable than the one that says that the United States is a “moderate” nation – and that the “center” of public opinion lies somewhere between the views of conservative Democrats and...
by Terrance Heath | Jan 31, 2014 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Nothing drives conservatives around the bend like a speech by Barack Obama. So, thanks to the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, there’s no shortage of wingnuttery this week. A Grimm Encounter The most unhinged moment on the right this week was when...
by Clyde Prestowitz | Jan 31, 2014 | Economy, The Jobs Challenge, Trans-Pacific Partnership
In his State of the Union message, President Obama suggested apprenticeships, tax reductions on new investments, and building new infrastructure as ways to increase jobs and reduce inequality in America. But he said virtually nothing about what is probably the single...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 31, 2014 | Jobs and Growth
It has now been 34 days since the first wave of long-term unemployed Americans saw their weekly jobless benefits cut off. And it will be at least another three days of waiting before Congress makes the first step toward ending this travesty. News reports from the...
by Bill Scher | Jan 31, 2014 | Uncategorized
WH Spotlight On Long-Term Unemployment President hosts summit today to solve long-term unemployment crisis. W. Post: "More than 300 companies—including 20 of the nation’s 50 largest, such as Apple, Wal-Mart and General Motors—have agreed to reassess their hiring...
by Bill Scher | Jan 31, 2014 | Climate
"Climate change is a fact," said President Obama at the State of the Union address Tuesday. While that was directly lobbed at climate deniers, it was also implicitly aimed at those environmentalists who have been critical of his support for natural gas. Obama didn't...
by Celeste Drake | Jan 31, 2014 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
For more than 20 years (including in Tuesday night's State of the Union address), America’s workers have heard that we need new trade agreements so we can export more and create jobs. It’s a great theory. It’s just that—because of the way our trade deals are...
by Terrance Heath | Jan 30, 2014 | Economy, This Is The GOP
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is caught in a time warp. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Paul went back more than 20 years to the Clinton sex scandal in an attempt tot blunt Democrats’ claims that the GOP is waging a “war on women.” Following President...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 30, 2014 | Blog
Today, January 30, is Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birthday. In a week of mourning for Pete Seeger, that’s a good time to remember what Pete’s friend Woody Guthrie had to say in song about FDR: “This world was lucky to see him born.” The White House website’s biography of...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 30, 2014 | Progressive Vision
President Obama today traveled to a General Electric engine manufacturing plant in Waukesha County, Wis., to promote his job training initiatives. One goal, of course, is to call attention to what the Obama administration is doing on what the public believes should be...
by Bill Scher | Jan 30, 2014 | Uncategorized
President Drives Minimum Wage in Post-SOTU Tour Obama pushes minimum wage at Maryland Costco. McClatchy: "Obama came to Costco to highlight that the company’s CEO pays entry-level employees such as cashiers and stock associates $11.50 an hour, while the average hourly...
by Dave Johnson | Jan 30, 2014 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
President Obama cited a plan to promote "manufacturing hubs" in Tuesday's State of the Union address as one of the ways he would use his executive power to get around the Republican strategy of obstruction and sabotaging the economy. On manufacturing, the president...
by Richard Eskow | Jan 30, 2014 | Financial Reform, State of the Union
How did Tuesday night’s State of the Union speech resonate on Wall Street? Sometimes the old saying is literally true: Silence is golden. Here are some of the words and phrases that did not appear in President Obama’s speech: “Wall Street,” “bank,” “regulation,”...
by Terrance Heath | Jan 29, 2014 | Conservatism, State of the Union
How Many Republicans does it take to respond to the State of the Union address? The flurry of GOP responses to the State of the union reflect both the party’s disarray and the growing distance between the GOP and the majority of Americans. This year, our Republicans...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 29, 2014 | Populist Majority, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Two big developments are following quickly behind President Obama's soft-pedaling in his State of the Union address of his administration's attempt to fast-track a seriously damaging Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty through Congress. The most consequential action...
by Dean Baker | Jan 29, 2014 | Trans-Pacific Partnership
With the New Year the corporate lobbyists and the Obama administration are stepping up their drive for passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the new trade deal being negotiated in secret by the United States and eleven countries in the Pacific region. The...
by Derek Pugh | Jan 29, 2014 | Minimum Wage
The federal government funds more low-wage jobs than Wal-Mart and McDonalds combined. Thanks to President Obama’s announcement this week that he will sign a ‘good jobs’ executive order, this will change. “We consider this a win,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., on...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jan 29, 2014 | Economy, Populist Majority, State of the Union
The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday before President Obama's State of the Union address, and a Democracy Corps focus group polled during the speech, indicate that President Obama wins, and Democrats in Congress will win, with a progressive...
by Bill Scher | Jan 29, 2014 | Uncategorized
Minimum Wage Center Stage in SOTU Minimum wage centerpiece of 2014 agenda. CNN: "[President Obama] asked Congress to get on board with a Democratic proposal to raise the federal minimum to $10.10 per hour. But he also urged everyone from companies to small businesses,...
