by Bill Scher | Sep 18, 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: Now We Know,...
by Leo Gerard | Sep 18, 2012 | Blog
Republicans in two Congressional committees voted last week to press forward with legislation that would deny states the flexibility they requested to help more welfare recipients get jobs. That’s right. Not only that, Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP vice presidential...
by Bill Scher | Sep 18, 2012 | Blog
I wrote the following last month after the Senate voted on competing tax plans, but it also helps to put Mitt Romney's "47%" comments in further context. *** It is often stated as fact that Democrats always want to raise taxes and Republicans always want to lower...
by Alan Jenkins | Sep 18, 2012 | Blog
Last week, a coalition of housing, civil rights, and consumer protection groups issued an open letter to President Obama and Governor Romney asking what they would do, specifically, to address the housing crisis in America, and seeking a meeting to share best...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 18, 2012 | Blog
Pollsters keep telling us that the public wants action on jobs, a higher tax rate for millionaires, and protection for Social Security and Medicare. Our best economists keep reminding us that job creation should be government's top priority. So why is the...
by | Sep 17, 2012 | Blog
Mayor's reputation tarnished in teachers union dust-up The measure of who won and lost in Mayor Rahm Emanuel's showdown with the Chicago Teachers Union won't be clear until the details of the new contract emerge, but last week's strike took some of the luster off the...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 17, 2012 | Blog, Jobs and Growth, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement is being negotiated in secret. Well, not exactly secret -- our trade negotiators know what is being negotiated, other countries know, heads of the huge multinational corporations get to know, but members of our...
by Bill Scher | Sep 17, 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: Bernanke's Wake Up...
by Sam Pizzigati | Sep 16, 2012 | Blog
In any society where wealth and income concentrate overwhelmingly at the top, the affluent will almost always come to sneer at public services and the men and women who provide them. In Chicago, those men and women have pushed back. Last year state lawmakers in...
by | Sep 14, 2012 | Blog, The Sequester
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. Bruce Bartlett emailed me to say that, rather than cancel the sequester as I recommended, we should get the band back together and reconstitute the anything-but-super committee to give it another chance to come up with a...
by | Sep 14, 2012 | Blog
Things you learn from Mitt Romney: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Is $100,000 middle income? MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. What a funny out of touch rich man: Regionally, in 2010, the Northeast reached a median household income of $53,283,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Sep 14, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: So Who Is It That Cares About The Deficit Anyway? Digby via Hullabaloo: "Your reading assignment is this great piece in the New York Review of Books by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson entitled 'What Krugman & Stiglitz Can Tell Us': … 'While the...
by | Sep 14, 2012 | Blog
Your reading assignment is this great piece in the New York Review of Books by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson entitled What Krugman & Stiglitz Can Tell Us. There's a lot to it, but I homed in on this particular piece: A majority of Americans have consistently told...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 13, 2012 | Blog, Climate
Republicans in the House have introduced a bill called the "No More Solyndras Act." It may as well be named the "No More Competing With Oil Companies Act" or the "Hand Our Economy To China Act." The "No More Solyndras Act" The "No More Solyndras Act," H.R. 6213, is...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 13, 2012 | Blog, Economy
There's one thing I forgot to mention in my previous post, "10 Ways to Rebuild the Middle Class": We already know how to rebuild the middle class. We've done it before. One way we built the middle class was to "Give unemployed job seekers a real, fresh start," which...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 13, 2012 | Blog, Economy, Minimum Wage
The middle class is the great engine of the American economy, but today that engine is sputtering. Our economic crisis is one half of a vicious cycle in which it and the unemployment crisis feed and perpetuate one another, hollowing out the middle-class in the...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 13, 2012 | Blog
Few individuals or organizations have been as influential as Mitt Romney and Bain Capital in worsening our runaway healthcare costs, causing unnecessary suffering, or accelerating our government's long-term deficit problem. Their highly leveraged investment strategy...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 13, 2012 | Blog
This week a lot of Democrats and "liberals" are attacking Chicago teachers for what they tell us are their extravagant and "unreasonable" demands. It's funny: If they think teaching's such a gravy train, why have they all become bankers instead? These...
by Jeff Bryant | Sep 13, 2012 | Blog, Education
"So much for Democratic harmony," is the way Herold Meyerson chose to start his op-ed in The Washington Post analyzing the ramifications of the current Chicago teachers strike on the well being of the Democratic party. His conclusion is that there must be some kind of...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 13, 2012 | Blog
Teachers in Chicago are on strike. You will hear from the usual anti-government, anti-union crowd that this is another instance of greedy public employees trying to get more money, but that is just wrong and here's why. The teachers say they are fighting for smaller...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 13, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: 10 Ways to Rebuild the Middle Class OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath: "The middle class is the great engine of the American economy, but today that engine is sputtering. Our economic crisis is one half of a vicious cycle in which it and the unemployment...
by | Sep 12, 2012 | Blog
To those still wondering if Romney might be a kinder, gentler foreign policy president, think again: Yesterday we noted that Mitt Romney, down in the polls after the convention, was throwing the kitchen sink at President Obama. Little did we know the kitchen sink...
by | Sep 12, 2012 | Blog, The Sequester
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. I want to say this as directly as possible: The sequester - the Jan. 2 across-the-board spending cut that was triggered when the anything-but-super committee failed to agree on a deficit reduction plan last November -...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 12, 2012 | Blog
If a recent report is true, the Justice Department will need a new name – and some of us will have to step up and admit we were wrong. It was clear that the foreclosure fraud settlement which the Administration and most states reached with major U.S. banks was a great...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Sep 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: When It Comes to the DoJ and Wall Street, Don't Call It "Justice" OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "If a recent report is true, the Justice Department will need a new name – and some of us will have to step up and admit we were wrong. It was clear that...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Sep 11, 2012 | Blog, Minimum Wage
The latest edition of the Economic Policy Institute's "State of Working America" report, out today, documents in sharp detail what has been for the middle-class economy a "lost decade" in which working people have fallen behind. But what's more disheartening is its...
by Jeff Bryant | Sep 11, 2012 | Blog, Education
[My guest writer today is Cynthia Liu, PhD. Cynthia launched member-supported K12NewsNetwork.com to amplify grassroots education news and provide a national platform for people to use sophisticated online organizing tools to better improve and strengthen public...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Sep 11, 2012 | Blog, Making it in America
At least one moderately good thing is coming out of the ideological sewer that is the House of Representatives these days: legislation that will require the executive branch to develop "a strategy to promote growth, sustainability, and competitiveness in the Nation's...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 11, 2012 | Blog
Both political parties have "an aversion to telling the truth," says The Washington Post. The truth? That newspaper's editors are part of a small but powerful billionaire-funded circle that seems to believe that any facts which don't support their distorted and...
by Leo Gerard | Sep 11, 2012 | Blog
Damn right America is better off than it was four years ago. Four years ago was September 2008. George W. Bush was president and Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers was collapsing. It was a time of fear. It was a time of panic about the future. Recalling that anxiety is...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 11, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Deficit Rorschach Test: The Presidents, the Editors, and the Truth OurFuture.Org's Richard Eskow: "Both political parties have 'an aversion to telling the truth,' says the Washington Post. The truth? That newspaper's editors are part of a small but...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 10, 2012 | Blog
It's always amusing when God (if — and I know I risk losing a huge chunk of readers by writing this — there is one) gets dragged into politics. After all, with an entire universe to run (unless you're a Deist of the Thomas Jefferson variety), you have to admit it's...
by | Sep 10, 2012 | Blog
Mark Halperin chronicles the many woes of the Romney campaign in the wake of their epic Meh Convention. It's not pretty. If this is the conventional wisdom, they've got to be getting pretty desperate. But Halperin shares a little inside knowledge from earlier in the...
by Roger Hickey | Sep 10, 2012 | Blog
President Obama is enjoying a post-convention bump in job approval (Gallup says 7 percentage points – from 45 to 52 percent) after the negative and divisive Republican convention, followed by the energetic populism of the Democrats in Charlotte. With large leads among...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 10, 2012 | Blog, The Sequester
You might be hearing about the "Fiscal Cliff." And you might be hearing about a "Grand Bargain." You certainly have heard about "Simpson Bowles." You will be hearing more and more about these strangely-named things because the usual suspects are cranking up the usual...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 10, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Obama, Yes. And Win the House Too. OurFuture.org's Roger Hickey: "President Obama is enjoying a post-convention bump in job approval (Gallup says 7 percentage points - from 45 to 52 percent) after the negative and divisive Republican convention,...
by Sam Pizzigati | Sep 9, 2012 | Blog
Corporate execs and billionaire ideologues are creating — at taxpayer expense — a network of schools where learning takes a back seat. The sounds of September: school bells ringing, looseleaf binders snapping open, sneakers squeaking on gymnasium floors. Next to apple...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 7, 2012 | Blog
Ever since humans first took to the sea, pirates have inexplicably vanished and reappeared along our coasts and waterways. Who were those mysterious figures who appeared along the mist-shrouded docks and beaches of Tampa Bay during last week's Republican Convention?...
by | Sep 7, 2012 | Blog
There are many fine passages in Obama's speech tonight, of course. I would expect nothing less. He's great at this stuff and I'm sure he fired up the base and brought over some undecideds too. But you had to know that I was going to look at what he said about...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Sep 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Obama Stakes Claim For Renewed Mandate OurFuture.org's Bill Scher: "President Obama's powerful acceptance speech gave no ground from his last acceptance speech. Despite the anti-government Tea Party spasm that occurred in between, Obama once again...
