by Richard Eskow | Nov 17, 2013 | Budget Talks
As we enter into yet another round of budget discussions, the Democratic Party is confronted with an opportunity – and a challenge. There's an opportunity to shift the budget debate to an area where they hold the high ground. But it will be a challenge for some...
by Bill Scher | Nov 15, 2013 | Health
In today's New York Times, Republicans are found comparing the rollout of the Affordable Care Act to the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina by President George Bush's FEMA. Slate's Matthew Yglesias, CEPR's Dean Baker and I'm sure others have delivered the most...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 15, 2013 | Blog
How many times have you read or heard in the news something along the lines of "a new report from the Institute of Free Markets and Liberty finds that giant corporations and billionaires create jobs if given tax cuts," or how about your classic "Toxic Sludge Is Good...
by Thom Hartmann | Nov 15, 2013 | Economy, Making it in America, Trans-Pacific Partnership
This week, Americans got a peek behind the curtain of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and what we found is frightening. On Thursday, Wikileaks published a complete draft of the “intellectual property rights” chapter of the TPP, and it poses a serious risk to free...
by Joshua Holland | Nov 15, 2013 | Conservatism, Economy, Progressive Vision
Rip-off: High Out-of-Pocket Social Costs are a Stealth Tax on the Middle Class and the Poor (via Moyers & Company) Editor’s note: This is the third piece in a series looking at the fact that while Americans enjoy a lower overall tax burden than that of the...
by Bill Scher | Nov 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Obama Tweaks Grandfather Clause WH proposal to loosen ACA grandfather clause has uncertain impact. TNR's Jonathan Cohn: "Insurers already had the right to extend existing insurance plans, for up to one year, even if those plans did not comply with Obamacare...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 15, 2013 | Conservatism, Economy, Financial Reform
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold – William Butler Yeats Washington is frozen even before winter, with the fierce Tea Party resistance to President Obama’s re-election producing...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 14, 2013 | Blog
Janet Yellen went to Capitol Hill today to be interrogated by some senators about the kind of job she plans to do once she's confirmed as Chair of the Federal Reserve. Many politicians expect little from the Fed because they think it has less power and flexibility...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 14, 2013 | Blog
The US Census Bureau's Bureau of Economic Analysis released the latest monthly U.S. trade figures this morning. And we have a winner -- September's $30.5 billion monthly goods trade deficit with China sets a new record. Also in September, the overall U.S....
by Dave Johnson | Nov 14, 2013 | Democracy, Trans-Pacific Partnership
We the People finally get to read one chapter of the 29-chapter Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "trade" agreement. If this agreement becomes law it will fundamentally alter the relationship between our government, other governments and giant multinational...
by Thom Hartmann | Nov 14, 2013 | Economy, Making it in America
You wouldn't know it by looking at your bank account, but our GDP growth rate was 2.8% in the third quarter of 2013. That's much higher than the long-term rate of 2%, but average Americans won't see any benefit from better growth. The latest figures from the Bureau of...
by Digby | Nov 14, 2013 | Economy, Making it in America, Rick Perlstein, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Sometimes gridlock is just what the doctor ordered: Tea party Republicans insist they’re in favor of free trade. They just don’t want to place a key trade negotiating power in President Barack Obama’s hands. The deep suspicion of giving the president authority to...
by Mary Bottari | Nov 14, 2013 | Budget Talks, Economy, Retirement Security
Say it ain’t so Jon. Our friend Jon Romano, press secretary for the inside-the-beltway PR campaign “Fix the Debt” and its pet youth group, The Can Kicks Back, have been caught writing op-eds for college students and placing the identical op-eds in papers across the...
by Bill Scher | Nov 14, 2013 | Blog
As you have surely heard, the first set of Obamacare enrollment numbers have been released. Unsurprisingly because of the federal website problems, the numbers are lower than initially anticipated. Though there are notable bright spots. Applications have been...
by Bill Scher | Nov 14, 2013 | Uncategorized
Obamacare Grandfather Issue Roils Congress Bipartisan push to alter Obamacare and allow more grandfathering. NYT: "...a vote is scheduled Friday in the Republican-controlled House on a bill that would allow Americans to keep their existing health coverage through 2014...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Nov 14, 2013 | Budget Talks, Retirement Security
Rep. Paul Ryan now has a clear, unmistakable message about where the American Majority stands on his ideas for cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits – no, no, 700,000 times no. Ryan's office on Wednesday received a petition signed by more than...
by Ethan Rome | Nov 13, 2013 | Conservatism, Health
In an effort to cynically score political points, the Republicans have taken up the cause of people who have received health insurance "cancellation" notices. The problem is that the Republicans aren't helping these people, they are exploiting them. They're peddling a...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 13, 2013 | Budget Talks, Conservatism, Economy, Retirement Security, The Jobs Challenge, The Sequester
The budget conference committee meets this week to hammer out a plan to avoid another government shutdown. So far, not so good. Committee co-chairs Rep. Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D, Wash.) are “struggling” to define the “parameters” of a “bipartisan...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 13, 2013 | Populist Majority
Polls and elections show that an "overwhelming" majority of Americans want the minimum wage increased. Gallup shows 76% support. New Jersey voters overwhelmingly passed a minimum wage increase. SeaTac voters passed a $15 minimum wage. But Republicans in the House and...
by Bill Scher | Nov 13, 2013 | Uncategorized
House Obstacle For TPP WH push for "fast-track" trade legislation hits resistance in House. NYT: "...nearly half of the members of the House [have signed] letters or otherwise [signaled] their opposition to granting so-called fast-track authority that would make any...
by Richard Long | Nov 13, 2013 | Financial Reform
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., says that the problem of “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions has only gotten worse in the years since Congress passed financial reform legislation. That's why she is calling on activists to step up the pressure on Congress to pass...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 13, 2013 | Making it in America, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Giant corporations are trying to get Congress to give up its Constitutional obligation to consider and amend a trade treaty that requires our country to give up its sovereignty. Many organizations and legislators -- including many Republicans -- don't appear to be...
by Jeff Bryant | Nov 12, 2013 | Education
It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry when an "All-Purpose-Pundit" at The New York Times takes it upon him/herself to write a commentary about education. "Thomas Friedman is infamous for his uninformed pieces on education," Larry Ferlazzo, a full-time...
by Leo Gerard | Nov 12, 2013 | Health
In a shocking turn of events, Republicans now care about whether Americans have health insurance! It happened quite suddenly. The moment can be precisely pinpointed. It occurred early in the day of Oct. 1 when the media declared the launch of the Affordable Care Act...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 12, 2013 | Blog
“There’s something happening here/what it is ain’t exactly clear …” When Steve Stills wrote the dystopian anthem “For What It’s Worth” in 1966, it resonated with listeners who understood that great if half-hidden transformations were underway. There’s been a turn...
by Bill Scher | Nov 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
America In 40-Year Slump The American economy is in a "40-year slump," chronicles The American Prospect's Harold Meyerson: "Since 1947, Americans at all points on the economic spectrum had become a little better off with each passing year ... [Then in] 1974, wages...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 12, 2013 | Democracy, Progressive Vision
"We the People." How many of us have really thought through the implications of these three words? Can people today even imagine a government that is on the side of We the People, instead of being rigged to benefit the already-wealthy and crush the hopes and efforts...
by Richard Eskow | Nov 11, 2013 | Blog
It’s not easy to maintain a civil tone while describing the magnitude of the misbehavior among executives at Wall Street’s largest institutions. To criticize bankers is to describe large-scale wrongdoing, mass-produced outrages that lead to widespread misery. It can’t...
by Sam Pizzigati | Nov 10, 2013 | Blog
Americans are gaining, ever so slowly, a more accurate picture of just how wide the gap has stretched between the nation's most fabulously privileged and everyone else. How unequal have workplaces in the United States become? Our best answer happens to come...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 8, 2013 | Conservatism, Progressive Vision, This Is The GOP
Seventeen years after failing by just one vote, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act passed in the Senate on Thursday, in a historic 64-32 vote. America has never been closer to prohibiting workplace discrimination against LGBT Americans. The majority of Americans...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 8, 2013 | Making it in America
Today's jobs report shows a gain of 19,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector in October. This is big because for all of 2013 the U.S. has gained a total of 35,000 manufacturing jobs, so more than half of those were gained last month. See this chart at IndustryWeek for...
by Robert Borosage | Nov 8, 2013 | Blog
The headline jobs number of the Bureau of Labor Statistics October jobs report --204,000 new jobs – is higher than expected, given that the report covers the time of the government shutdown. Although the report notes that furloughed federal workers were largely...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 8, 2013 | Uncategorized
Jobs Report U.S. Unemployment Rate Rises to 7.3%; 204,000 Jobs Added [New York Times]: "The American government shutdown was barely evident in the October jobs report Friday, as private employers added positions at an unexpectedly robust pace. Employers added 204,000...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Nov 8, 2013 | Jobs and Growth
The buzz today over a surprisingly positive jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should not obscure the big picture. Job-seekers are still suffering because of the reckless spending cuts and legislative obstruction forced onto the country by intransigent...
by admin | Nov 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
Obamacare: Playing Games, Getting Played Brian Beutler at Salon's take on what the media is missing with those Obamacare stories "In our haste to find human interest stories that contradict President Obama’s misleading claims about grandfathered insurance plans, the...
by Terrance Heath | Nov 7, 2013 | Conservatism, Progressive Vision
House Speaker John Boehner says he opposes the Employment Nondiscrimination Act because it will lead to “frivolous lawsuits” against employers. For the people who live with it every day, workplace discrimination is anything but frivolous. Senate Majority Leader Harry...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 6, 2013 | Blog
Everyone is reading the tea leaves to understand what the Virginia or New York City or New Jersey elections might mean in 2014 and 2016. Does Christie's election mean Republican "moderates" are ascendant? Does Bill de Blasio's election show that progressives are the...
by Bill Scher | Nov 6, 2013 | Blog
Tonight at 6:30 PM in Washington, DC progressives inlcuding Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Van Jones and Rep. Donna Edwards will gather to honor grassroots champions, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Leo Gerard and Margery Tabankin at the Celebrating America's Future 2013...
by Jeff Bryant | Nov 6, 2013 | Education
"I'm tired of you people. What do you want?" Those were the words New Jersey Governor Chris Christie used to respond to one of his constituents, a taxpayer, and a public servant of the state, who had the temerity to question the governor's leadership of the state's...
by Dave Johnson | Nov 6, 2013 | Blog
The current filibuster rules are being used to thwart the will of We the People. Republicans have abused it to obstruct everything -- and I do mean everything. The solution is to change the rules and make them talk, not kill the filibuster entirely. Obstructing The...
