by Terrance Heath | May 29, 2013 | Uncategorized
Washington may be in for a very hot summer. I don't mean the usual sweltering heat and suffocating humidity that are just a natural part of living in a former swamp (or "tidal plain," if you prefer). While the rest of us will be sweating through another Washington...
by Dave Johnson | May 29, 2013 | Uncategorized
Obstruction as a political strategy is working - so far. It's also succeeding as a wage-reducing, profit-increasing strategy. How does a country confront a minority opposition strategy of obstructing everything? One way is to try to get the corporate media to inform...
by Jeff Bryant | May 29, 2013 | Education
Well, someone in the mainstream media finally had to ask the question. MSNBC's Chris Hayes, on his "All In" program on May 24, covered the forced closing of 50 public schools in Chicago – the largest incident of mass school closings in the nation's history. Joining...
by Richard Eskow | May 28, 2013 | Uncategorized
Is our country losing the vision and values that gave rise to Social Security? Social Security benefits lag far behind those of other developed countries. A new analysis of census data shows that elder poverty is much higher than we first realized. And yet the...
by Thom Hartmann | May 28, 2013 | Blog
This week, Apple CEO Tim Cook was questioned in a Congressional Hearing about his company's complex scheme to avoid paying taxes. According to Mr. Cook, the company's stash of billions of dollars in overseas shell corporations was not tax dodging – it was ingenuity....
by Digby | May 28, 2013 | Uncategorized
The New York Times has published an article about what some of the groups the IRS subjected to scrutiny actually did. And it is very informative. It would appear that many of these people were lying about their activities or "understood" their political activities to...
by Leo Gerard | May 28, 2013 | Uncategorized
You and I, we're the same. Live and die, we're the same. Hear my voice, know my name, you and I, we're the same. ~ Avett Brothers, Live and Die Although Gap, the world’s third largest apparel company, used that Avett Brothers song in commercials last fall, the...
by Sam Pizzigati | May 28, 2013 | Financial Reform
High-profile prosecutions only hint at the crime and ethical misbehavior rampant in America's most rewarding high-finance suites. They’re hunkering down at SAC Capital, the hedge fund empire billionaire Steven Cohen has spent over two decades building. Federal...
by Richard Eskow | May 28, 2013 | Blog
The real healthcare battle in this country isn’t the one being fought over the bill everyone now calls “Obamacare.” In fact, it's not a battle between Republicans and Democrats at all. The real battle is the one millions of Americans face every day as they struggle to...
by Dave Johnson | May 27, 2013 | Blog
An aging bridge fell down outside of Seattle the other day. This shocked people. But a few people were expecting it because they have been keeping track of how our country's "infrastructure" is aging. The American Society of Civil Engineers has put out their...
by Roger Hickey | May 27, 2013 | Making it in America
In testimony last week Apple CEO Timothy Cook proudly described the ingenious ways in which Apple tax attorneys have gamed the U.S. tax system to make sure their company pays a whole lot less in taxes to the U.S.A. – their supposed "home country" – than U.S. users of...
by Digby | May 24, 2013 | Blog
The following chart measures the growth of hunger over the past few years in Europe and the US: If you can't afford food, there's really nowhere to go but up. That's why it's so shocking just how many more hungry people there are now in what were formerly known as the...
by Dave Johnson | May 24, 2013 | Making it in America
Another aging highway bridge falls, cars and people in the water... This problem was well-known and urgent years ago! But Republicans block it, saying fixing our infrastructure is "more government spending." Fixing our infrastructure is also jobs and economic growth....
by Derek Pugh | May 24, 2013 | Uncategorized
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s recent data on college graduates has been a gift that keeps on giving. The plethora of information has provided great insight into the millennial generation’s current economic predicament. In their most recent report, Jaison Abel...
by Robert Borosage | May 23, 2013 | Blog
On Tuesday, a "sinkhole" suddenly sank in Washington D.C. three blocks from the White House. Not a metaphor, but a massive hole in the road as "long as a Ford Explorer," double the width of a train car and 17 feet deep. The asphalt eroded around a metal plate covering...
by Dave Johnson | May 23, 2013 | Making it in America, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is using a process that is rigged from the start. It is not being negotiated by governments for the benefit of their people, it is being negotiated by executives (or future executives/lobbyists currently in...
by Terrance Heath | May 23, 2013 | Blog
Even before the winds died down in his home state, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn insisted that additional disaster relief be "paid for" by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Coburn defended his position by invoking the children pulled from the rubble of two...
by Bill Scher | May 23, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Apple Pie is American, But Apple Computer Isn’t OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "We should treat Apple and other formerly American multinationals as neutral entities with whom we can cooperate at times for our mutual benefit. We should encourage them...
by Jeff Bryant | May 23, 2013 | Education
Anyone who thinks education is the "civil rights issue of our time" needs to look at what's going on in Chicago. In three days of protests over the weekend and lapping into Monday, people who look like they would be involved in a civil rights cause – mostly...
by Richard Eskow | May 22, 2013 | Making it in America
Did you know that Apple Computer has become a foreign entity? Did you know that it's more Irish than anything else, at least as far as taxes are concerned? Or that it pays very little in income tax, even though its products wouldn’t exist if it not for U.S. taxes?...
by Terrance Heath | May 22, 2013 | Uncategorized
President Obama has promised Oklahoma "everything that it needs right away" to begin the process of recovering and rebuilding, after the massive tornado touched down in the state on Monday, devastating the cities of Monroe and Newcastle. Already hundreds of Federal...
by Digby | May 22, 2013 | Blog
Yes, they're already on it: On top of the troubles the administration is facing over its handling of the attack on the Benghazi mission, the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups, and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone...
by Dave Johnson | May 22, 2013 | Making it in America
At yesterday's Senate hearing the CEO of Apple said they follow the law when they "defer" billions and billions of dollars in taxes they owe by keeping profits "out of the country." He's talking about the "Subpart F" corporate tax loophole that practically forces...
by Bill Scher | May 22, 2013 | Uncategorized
Republicans have been eager to blame the sequester on President Obama, and complain when certain cuts affect their districts. But beyond proposing robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul solutions for things like protecting air traffic controllers, what do Republican want to do...
by Derek Pugh | May 22, 2013 | Blog
On Monday afternoon 27 people were arrested in front of the Department of Justice and put behind bars. Their crime: Being sick and tired of Washington bailing out banks while there is no bailout for those among the other 99 percent of the country who are drowning in...
by Richard Eskow | May 22, 2013 | Uncategorized
A lot of people have attacked JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon over the years, including this author. After today’s shareholder votes at JPM, Mark Gongloff is right to describe Dimon as a “cult leader.” Gongloff quotes critics, like Public Citizen’s Bart Naylor who...
by Alan Jenkins | May 21, 2013 | Blog
Change is coming to the most important government agency that most Americans never heard of. For many months, a broad coalition of housing, consumer protection, and civil rights groups has been calling on President Obama to replace the acting head of the Federal...
by Thom Hartmann | May 21, 2013 | Blog
For over a week, Republicans have refused to focus on anything but so-called scandal. And, it turns out, that's exactly the way they want it. On Thursday, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, sent a letter to GOP leaders, and told them to...
by Derek Pugh | May 21, 2013 | Student Debt Relief
As part of their latest effort to rebrand the GOP as a more caring party, House Republicans are scheduled this week to put forward a student lending bill called the "Smarter Solutions for Students Act." But the label is misleading. A more appropriate name would be the...
by Dave Johnson | May 21, 2013 | Making it in America
The "Apple hearing" is underway (Go Sen. Levin!!) with Apple CEO Tim Cook explaining why Apple "can't" bring back over $100 billion they have parked outside the country because they would have to pay the taxes they owe. Senator after senator is explaining that our tax...
by Digby | May 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
This report by the Kaiser Family Foundation about elder poverty is shocking. I don't think people realize just how many millions of people are barely subsisting in their old age, but it's many more than the government likes to admit to. Just as with the Chained-CPI,...
by Leo Gerard | May 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
The IRS, always friendless, now is a pariah. Republicans can’t stop condemning it. Democrats can’t stop agreeing. Targeting Tea Party groups for scrutiny, even if through incompetence, not intention, turned the IRS into a nasty carbuncle on the governing body....
by Dave Johnson | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Remember the video of the guy in the "pimp costume" who got advice from ACORN employees on how to run his prostitution ring? Turns out the whole story was just a lie, a doctored-video smear job on an important organization. The guy never wore a "pimp costume" and the...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
OurFuture.org's Roger Hickey and Richard Eskow explain during their appearance Sunday on "Pivot Point with Maya Rockeymoore" what it will take for progressives to win the fight against conservative austerity economic policies that are holding down the economy and...
by Jas Sajjan | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Police in Washington made numerous arrests today in connection with the ongoing mortgage foreclosure crisis, in which millions of homeowners lost billions of dollars due to the fraudulent actions of bank executives. But the arrests were not of the criminals who caused...
by Stan Collender | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Sunday, May 19, 2013, was one of the saddest and most notorious moments in the sordid history of the federal budget. Let's start from the beginning. It's December 2012 and House Republicans are facing a number of politically very difficult and unpalatable choices...
by Terrance Heath | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Did you know that Washington, DC is the 9th most expensive American city to live in? Did you also know that thousands of private sector workers whose jobs are supported by taxpayer dollars don't earn enough to live in the city where they work? Tomorrow, those workers...
by Richard Eskow | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Last week I wrote to the Executive Vice President of CBS News asking for a comment on Lesley Stahl's unpublicized withdrawal from the Advisory Board of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. The inquiry was acknowledged and forwarded on to the press officer for 60 Minutes....
by Dave Johnson | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
Apple (like many giant, multinational corporations) has been avoiding paying the taxes they owe to the country by setting up foreign "subsidiaries" in tax-haven countries, and moving jobs and profit centers out of the country. They have accumulated billions upon...
by Bill Scher | May 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: A Long Cold Summer For Young People Looking For Work OurFuture.org's Isaiah J. Poole: "Just in the past decade Congress has cut $1 billion from youth jobs programs, according to a report by the Center for American Progress. And that is at a time when...
