by Richard Eskow | Oct 4, 2012 | Blog
There's a lot of post-debate analysis going on -- some would say too much -- but not enough is being said about the ace in the Democrats' deck: defending Social Security and Medicare. That's not just a winning card for the candidates who play it.Seniors, young people,...
by | Oct 4, 2012 | Blog
I've been detecting quite a bit of smug, self aggrandizement coming from certain Democratic quarters about the brilliance of the stimulus and how it deftly avoided all the problems that Europe and the UK are facing with their harsh austerity programs. It's a nice...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 4, 2012 | Blog
Walmart warehouse workers have been staging strikes, now workers at some stores are joining in. This morning in Pico Rivera, California, Walmart workers staged a one-day work stoppage, saying there has been retaliation against them for trying to organize a union. At...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 4, 2012 | Blog
After last night’s tiresome presidential debate, President Obama’s supporters were replete with what Groucho Marks used to call “departee” – suggestions on what the president should have said. That’s a pretty good indicator about how the debate turned out. The evening...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 4, 2012 | Blog
I think President Obama spoke the best line in the debate last night. Call it a "zinger" if you want. "If you're 54 or 55, you might want to listen." Again and again Mitt Romney talked about how under his Medicare plan there would be no changes for "current retirees."...
by Bill Scher | Oct 4, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: The Etch-A-Sketch Debate OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage: "The evening featured another remarkable shifting of shape, a new etch a sketch, by Mitt Romney. Romney, filled with earnest intensity, simply walked away from much of his campaign to date....
by | Oct 3, 2012 | Blog
Golly, I'm so old I can remember when the Republicans used to go into a fugue state and start speaking in tongues upon hearing tales of Democratic campaign organizers offering free cigarettes to homeless people to get them them to vote: "This is just plain and simply...
by | Oct 3, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. Over at his own blog, Paul Krugman says something that can't be said enough: The plan Bowles and Simpson proposed would have been terrible fiscal policy had it been adopted. Krugman doesn't include one other thing...
by Bill Scher | Oct 3, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: The Real Incumbent...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 3, 2012 | Blog
The conventional wisdom says that when a President runs for re-election the race becomes a referendum on the economy. Unemployment's still at record highs, poverty has soared, and middle-class Americans are struggling to stay afloat. And yet the President has a...
by Alan Jenkins | Oct 2, 2012 | Blog
For months I’ve been part of a chorus of voices calling on the presidential candidates to talk about home opportunity. Their virtual silence on addressing foreclosures, restoring devastated communities, ensuring fair housing and lending, and resurrecting the American...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 2, 2012 | Blog
The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights has issued a report describing the company Mitt Romney invested in and described in the now-famous secret video – Global-Tech – as a "brutal Chinese sweatshop." In a report titled Betting Against American Workers the...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 2, 2012 | Blog
The complicated story of how the 1%ers and their corporations evade democracy's taxes is the story of our crumbling schools and infrastructure and the flow of all the gains of our economy to a very few at the top. This tax evasion is also part of the story of our...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 2, 2012 | Blog, Financial Reform
In his most recent column, Paul Krugman makes a convincing case that the "real referendum" in this election isn't about President Obama's (real or imagined) economic policies, but about the "the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on...
by Bill Scher | Oct 2, 2012 | Blog
How do you know that Elizabeth Warren won yesterday's debate with Sen. Scott Brown? Both campaigns released web videos today. But only Warren's features a moment from the debate: The Scalia Moment. This is the worst kind of gaffe, the kind that confirms everything...
by Bill Scher | Oct 2, 2012 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. MORNING MESSAGE: The Debate - Ask...
by Leo Gerard | Oct 2, 2012 | Blog
Republicans’ reaction to last week’s Monday Night Football debacle was record breaking given their decades of hating on union workers. After replacement refs bestowed on the Seattle Seahawks a game clearly won by the Green Bay Packers, GOP standard bearers Mitt Romney...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy
As Wednesday’s presidential debate approaches, the pundits are starting to handicap the event. There’s much talk about the horse race: Romney needs a knockout; Obama has to avoid a big mistake. Much talk about styling: Romney is practicing zingers; Obama is too...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy
In the wake of an anemic jobs report that his Republican challengers are laying at his feet, President Obama could rightly respond that if he could have signed into law a jobs plan along the lines of what the House Progressive Caucus has proposed for the past two...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy
Want jobs? Here's how. Jobs have been on the agenda for some time. Republicans filibustered both (and are campaigning that there are no jobs). If you are reading, hearing or watching a report covering jobs and/or the campaign that does not include this information,...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy
The August job numbers -- a disappointing 96,000 net new jobs for the month – only reinforce the need for greater action on jobs. At this rate, new job creation is not sufficient to cover the people coming into the jobs market. Worse, the economy faces severe hurdles...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy, The Sequester
Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke announced a dramatic new commitment of the Fed to keep long term interest rates low in the hope of boosting employment and economic growth. In doing so, Bernanke issued a wake up call to the Congress and to both...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy
In my previous post this morning, I noted that the U.S. is starting to look a lot like Greece, at least in terms of austerity-driven suicides. This week, Greece's austerian nightmare seems to have metastasized into a full-fledged tragedy. Thousands of Greeks who still...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy
We have millions unemployed with millions more underemployed or just gave up looking, our infrastructure is literally crumbling, our trade deficit is horrendous, our "safety net" has eroded below minimum acceptable standards, pensions are cut or gone, the climate is...
by | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog
Those of you who read this blog know that I've been nearly apoplectic over the past few months over the behind the scenes maneuvering to enact a Grand Bargain after the election. It is a great relief to see Paul Krugman take up the cause: If the polls are any...
by | Oct 1, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. This is a true but hard-t-believe story. Last October, when I was talking one-on-one with a number of hedge funds and other Wall Street firms about what the anything-but-super committee was likely to do, I repeatedly came...
by Bill Scher | Oct 1, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Mitt's Harvest OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "David Corn at Mother Jones has released another Romney video. This one's from a Bain Capital meeting in 1985 in which Romney says Bain's business model is to acquire companies and then 'harvest them at a...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 30, 2012 | Blog
Austerity -- cutting government benefits and services -- is not the path to fixing deficits. In fact, economists warn that trying to fix a sluggish economy by cutting government spending will just make things worse. Worse yet, this approach can have damaging effects...
by | Sep 30, 2012 | Blog
Paul Krugman today: So much for complacency. Just a few days ago, the conventional wisdom was that Europe finally had things under control. The European Central Bank, by promising to buy the bonds of troubled governments if necessary, had soothed markets. All that...
by | Sep 30, 2012 | Blog
I see that the New York Times is helpfully reframing the election away from jobs and the economy. Here's the headline on the dead tree version: "Romney chooses Ryan, pushing fiscal issues to the forefront" Huzzah. As Tristero points out below, this would be a lot less...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 30, 2012 | Blog
Americans now stand a greater chance of dying from the effects of austerity than being killed in a car crash. At least that's what a new report suggests, if you read between the lines. The study, authored by a West Virginia University professor and published in the...
by Sam Pizzigati | Sep 30, 2012 | Blog
America's billionaires have realized they really don't have to bother convincing a majority of people to vote their way. They can put their cash instead into campaigns to keep the hard-to-convince from voting. Our two major presidential candidates descended on Ohio...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 28, 2012 | Blog
David Corn at Mother Jones has released another Romney video. This one's from a Bain Capital meeting in 1985 in which Romney says Bain's business model is to acquire companies and then "harvest them at a significant profit" in five to eight years. The word "harvest"...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 28, 2012 | Blog
Get the word out. The movie Won't Back Down is another propaganda product of the corporate/conservative machine, put in theaters to get you to support union busting and school privatization. Over at the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch, Mary Bottari writes in...
by Bill Scher | Sep 28, 2012 | Blog
Earlier this week, The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote a piece that began with what was intended as a rhetorical question: "Quick, name President Obama’s best moment in the 2012 campaign so far? What about Mitt Romney’s high point?" Cillizza was trying to...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 28, 2012 | Blog
It's one of the dumbest, most insulting, dismissive, and frequently heard bits of rhetoric spewed forth from the sneering mouths of conservative pundits and politicos. So, it stands to reason that congressional Republicans would like to make it the law of the land....
by Dave Johnson | Sep 28, 2012 | Blog
The Department of Labor has announced a new "Make it in America Challenge" to American businesses, to "to accelerate the trend of insourcing, where companies are bringing jobs back and making additional investments here in America." The challenge is a national...
by Bill Scher | Sep 28, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Don't Let Them Push Social Security Off The Fiscal Cliff OurFuture.org's Roger Hickey: "…29 Democratic senators, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), have signed a letter opposing any cuts to Social Security as part of a deficit...
by Steven Capozzola | Sep 27, 2012 | Blog
The presidential campaign is in high gear, and both candidates are firing back and forth with "I can do more to save manufacturing than you can" and "I can do more about China than you can." With just over a month until Election Day, the Obama campaign has released a...
by Roger Hickey | Sep 27, 2012 | Blog
They call it the "fiscal cliff," but it's Social Security that's going to be pushed over it, unless we speak out now. The forces of austerity in Washington are using the prospect of automatic spending cuts and tax increases at the end of the year to pressure Congress...
