by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 22, 2013 | This Is The GOP
House conservatives revealed a lot about themselves and their priorities when they passed a farm bill that did not include nutrition programs like SNAP – the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, known best as "food stamps" – but fast-tracked, without real...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 19, 2013 | Minimum Wage
This summer, in major cities like New York, Seattle, Washington DC, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis, thousands of workers have taken to the streets protest workplace abuse, poor working conditions, and wage theft. But most of all workers across the country...
by Jeff Bryant | Jul 19, 2013 | Education
After years of inaction on rewriting the nation's centerpiece legislation governing public schools, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Friday passed "The Student Success Act" by a mostly partisan vote of 221-207 – despite a veto threat from the...
by Bill Scher | Jul 19, 2013 | Uncategorized
Student Loan Market Rate Plan Heads To Vote Senate leaders announce student loan deal, vote next week. AP: "A bipartisan compromise on student loans promises better deals for students and parents over the next few years but could spell higher rates as the economy...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 19, 2013 | Minimum Wage
Marie Antoinette, meet Ronald McDonald. A lot of people are angry about McDonald's new financial advice website for employees, an ill-conceived project which drips with "let them eat cake" insouciance. "Every dollar makes a difference," McDonald's lectures its...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 18, 2013 | Uncategorized
Attorney General Eric Holder may be getting a reputation for saying what President Obama can’t, thanks to the irony of a black president. While Obama has shifted from calling for compassion to encouraging calm in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the...
by Stan Collender | Jul 18, 2013 | This Is The GOP
Make no mistake about it; House Republicans definitely prefer that a Republican be elected president. But what's been clear for years on things related to the budget has become even more obvious in recent weeks with the take-no-prisoner decisions House Republicans...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 18, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
Reports are that a student loan deal is in the works, with a vote as early as today. If consummated, it will have bipartisan support in the Senate and the support of the White House. We urge all to call on your senators today and tell them to oppose the deal. The...
by Bill Scher | Jul 18, 2013 | Uncategorized
Fed Stimulus May Not Be Ending Bernanke suggests Fed stimulus might continue if economy does not recover fast enough. Bloomberg: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke opened the door to a delay in reducing the central bank’s bond buying program, saying it will...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 18, 2013 | Student Debt Relief, This Is The GOP
Congress should do the right thing the right thing for our people, our country and our economy and provide a free college education to everyone who qualifies. Instead student loan rates doubled July 1 because our obstructed Congress couldn't and wouldn't act in time....
by Robert Borosage | Jul 18, 2013 | Jobs and Growth
In his congressional testimony yesterday, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke called out the Congress, telling them to stop the reckless and mindless spending cuts that are killing jobs and growth. Their stupidity, he suggested, poses the biggest threat to Americans...
by Alan Jenkins | Jul 17, 2013 | Financial Reform
In tough times, there’s some good news on the housing front. In slow but meaningful steps around the country, decisionmakers are adopting key elements of the Compact for Home Opportunity, and the reality for American homeowners and communities is beginning to improve....
by Jane Yurechko | Jul 17, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
Senators met with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday night to hash out a student loan deal – and came up with another bad solution for students. Have they really not received the message yet? The types of deals they continue to push, which will...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 17, 2013 | Uncategorized
The Senate didn’t quite go nuclear, but it came as close as it has in a long time. Close enough, in fact, to break through some Republican obstruction of presidential nominees, and fill some important vacancies. The filibuster-ending deal Senate Majority Leader Harry...
by Trevor Davis | Jul 17, 2013 | Uncategorized
It is with deep sadness that I share the news of Jules Pagano’s passing. Jules lived his entire life in service. Generations of labor leaders knew and admired him as both an intellectual force in championing public policies for economic justice and as an unabashed...
by Bill Scher | Jul 17, 2013 | Uncategorized
Nominations Deal Ends Attack on CFPB, NLRB Cloud of legal uncertainty removed from CFPB. NYT: "The Supreme Court agreed in June to hear a case regarding the legality of Mr. Obama’srecess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. If the court rules against...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 16, 2013 | Uncategorized
A deal over the "filibuster" was tentatively reached in the Senate Tuesday, but forget all the insider talk about “nuclear options” and “recess appointments." This isn’t a story about process. It’s a story about ideology – specifically, the radical-right extremism of...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 16, 2013 | Uncategorized
A memo released a few days by Democracy Corps, based on interviews with working-class voters in Florida and Ohio, has not gotten the attention it deserves. It underscores how deeply working-class people sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with the...
by Bill Scher | Jul 16, 2013 | Uncategorized
Filibuster Showdown Today No deal on nominees after late night bipartisan Senate caucus, votes slated for 10 AM. TPM: "Seven nominees are scheduled to come up for Senate votes Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. ET: three members of the National Labor Relations Board and picks...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jul 16, 2013 | Uncategorized
To protect our health, we’ve learned to have our ‘vital signs’ taken. But no visit to a doctor’s office can tell us the vital signs that determine where on earth people can expect to live the longest lives. Let’s talk life expectancy. The stats first. They tell a...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
There’s an old saying: When one door closes, another opens. Whoever said that never worked in Washington. The last four years have offered the Federal government a borrowing and investment opportunity that’s unprecedented in modern history. Interest rates have been at...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Senate Democrats on Tuesday will choose whether to finally put an end to Republican filibuster obstruction of everything. In particular Republicans are obstructing appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...
by Bill Scher | Jul 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Yesterday on NBC's Meet The Press, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was having a hard time understanding why the Majority Leader is ready to change the rules to prevent filibusters on executive branch nominees: We don't all agree on everything, and they elect...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
After the 2009 arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., I and many other African-American writers shared our experiences of "Black Man 101"; a lifelong course in survival and behavior modification in which we are enrolled almost from birth, and from which we never graduate....
by Digby | Jul 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Charles Pierce thinks so: There will be much for George Zimmerman to do. Things may be a little rough back home, but there will be the victory tour on Fox. And the inevitable book deal. There will be the long career as a hero to the people in the communities that feel...
by Bill Scher | Jul 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
Senate Student Loan Negotiations Stuck Student loan deal "elusive" says National Journal: "By late last week, lawmakers had broken the gridlock, agreeing to work toward a deal that would be deficit-neutral, tie interest rates to the market, and place rate caps on...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 14, 2013 | Blog
s“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That’s what Dr. King said, not long before he was killed by a bullet from a white man’s gun. A half-century after those words were spoken, the killer of Trayvon Martin walks free. I’m sorry,...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 14, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
Once this nation saw higher education as a citadel of learning, growth, and opportunity. Now student debt is being used as a cash cow to subsidize corporate tax breaks, while universities become incubators for corporate employees and cheap laboratories for...
by Jane Yurechko | Jul 12, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
Republicans in the Senate rejected their own student loan deal today after the Congressional Budget Office released its potential cost. The CBO announced today that the bipartisan student loan deal created and pushed for by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), Lamar...
by Nehemiah Rolle | Jul 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
The one thing that’s worse than the House Republican vote Thursday to pass a farm bill that did not include the nutrition assistance program commonly known as food stamps is what was likely to happen if the nutrition assistance program remained part of the bill. After...
by Thom Hartmann | Jul 12, 2013 | Financial Reform
Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to make banking boring again. Yesterday, the freshman senator introduced the 21st Century Glass Steagall Act, which would break up the big banks, and rebuild the wall between traditional banking and Wall Street gambling. In a...
by Bill Scher | Jul 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
When Speaker John Boehner said he would make any immigration reform bill adhere to the ridiculous "Hastert Rule," barring any bill from the floor that doesn't have the support of a majority of Republicans (aka, a minority of the House), it sounded like an excuse to...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 12, 2013 | This Is The GOP
Conservative Republicans have turned the farm bill – normally a bipartisan grotesquerie of agribusiness subsidies and excess – from legislation to identity politics. They wanted to make a statement, even though they knew it couldn't survive the Senate or the White...
by Bill Scher | Jul 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
Countdown To Filibuster Showdown Sen. Reid takes step towards filibuster showdown. McClatchy: "Senate business ground to a halt Thursday morning as Reid, D-Nev., ending weeks of silence on the filibuster, set the stage for a confrontation between Democrats and...
by Jeff Bryant | Jul 12, 2013 | Education
"No excuse" has been a mantra from people who present themselves as advocates for "reforming" America's public schools. And the term is a "pillar" of more than one popular charter school franchise. The term originated from the belief that "the schoolteacher’s age-old...
by Hugh Upton | Jul 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
by Digby | Jul 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
I'd be simply hoping we can hold out until these evil old brothers finally shuffle off their mortal coils but unfortunately, there are probably a lot more where they came from: On Wednesday, the Charles Koch Foundation launched a $200,000 media campaign in Wichita,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 11, 2013 | Minimum Wage
Progressives won a victory in Washington this week when the D.C. City Council stood up to Walmart and passed a bill that would require the retailer, and other nonunion big-box retailers, to pay their employees a $12.50 minimum wage. Walmart promptly announced that it...
by Robert Reich | Jul 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Before January 2009, the filibuster was used only for measures and nominations on which the minority party in the Senate had their strongest objections. Since then, Senate Republicans have filibustered almost everything, betting that voters will blame Democrats for...
by Jane Yurechko | Jul 11, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
Late Wednesday night, after a bill to roll back to 3.4 percent the rate for subsidized Stafford student loans was filibustered on the Senate floor, a group of senators – including Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) – did the unthinkable. They agreed...
