by Dave Johnson | Aug 8, 2012 | Blog
There is a big rally Saturday in Philadelphia, to begin to "change the conversation" to focus on the needs of working Americans. Read America's Second Bill of Rights, which demands: Full employment and a living wage. Full participation in the political process. A...
by Alan Jenkins | Aug 8, 2012 | Blog
Even Olympians are, alas, not immune from America’s homeownership crisis. The Associated Press reported this week that the parents of U.S. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte are facing foreclosure in Florida, while the mother of gold medal gymnast Gabby Douglas filed for...
by Bill Scher | Aug 8, 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 Calculation...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 7, 2012 | Blog
This month the Mitt Romney campaign offered a one-page economic plan, Mitt Romney’s Plan For A Stronger Middle Class. One of the points of the plan focuses on what they call "small business." So what does the Romney plan do for small business? Let's take a look. This...
by Bill Scher | Aug 7, 2012 | Blog
Mitt Romney released a new ad today about welfare reform. It's a stone-cold lie. The ad's narrator says: "Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check." That's a wild fabrication. As my...
by Bill Scher | Aug 7, 2012 | Blog
While on The David Pakman Show yesterday, host David Pakman asked me why I thought Mitt Romney has proven to be such a bad candidate. The conventional wisdom is that Romney is weird, aloof, socially awkward and removed from the lives of average Americans. All that may...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 7, 2012 | Blog
We tend to over-emphasize personalities in our politics especially in Presidential campaigns. It matters who's President, of course, but our national elections are the product of much larger economic and social forces. They're increasingly dominated by a few financial...
by Bill Scher | Aug 7, 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 Talented Mr....
by Leo Gerard | Aug 7, 2012 | Blog
In the case of fetuses and rich people, Republicans insist on the sanctity of life. But in the case of destitute people, infants who imprudently choose working-poor parents and struggling young adults – basically all riffraff unable to afford health insurance – the...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 6, 2012 | Blog
Mitt Romney and the Republicans are being shielded from accountability for their economic plan, because the plan is so extreme that many people just won't believe you when you tell them about it. They think that you have something wrong with you for saying such...
by | Aug 6, 2012 | Blog
"I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." --- Ralph Reed I don't know why nobody's paying attention to what the far right is doing in...
by | Aug 6, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. One of the last things the House did last week before leaving Washington for five weeks was to spend time and energy defining legislative masturbation. At least that's the inescapable conclusion when you read H.R. 6169,...
by Bill Scher | Aug 6, 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: Happy Birthday...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 5, 2012 | Blog
Yesterday I got an email for the President's birthday inviting me to sign an e-card (and no doubt asking for contributions, too.) The subject line, "Big Birthday," could have been about another landmark: Today, August 5, the Federal income tax turned 151 years old....
by Sam Pizzigati | Aug 5, 2012 | Blog
In today's anything-goes political fundraising world, the nation’s super rich and their favored politicos are no longer even going through the motions of maintaining 'separate and independent' campaigns. The U.S. Supreme Court's most notorious decisions have almost...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 3, 2012 | Blog, Climate
Mitt Romney unveiled a one-page economic plan - Mitt Romney’s Plan For A Stronger Middle Class - includes an energy component that is strongly attached to the fading, dinosaur oil and coal industries. It should be called "Mitt Romney's Plan To Heat The Planet." The...
by Bill Scher | Aug 3, 2012 | Blog, Economy
This is 100% true. Mitt Romney does know how jobs come and go. You can outsource them. You can crush them with a big box chain. You can shut down factories … and still make a profit for yourself.
by Dave Johnson | Aug 3, 2012 | Blog
The following email appears to be circulating widely: THIS IS A GREAT IDEA…LET'S DO IT!! AUGUST 1st to Sept. 1st Well over 50 yrs ago I knew a lady who would not buy Christmas gifts if they were made in China. Her daughter will recognize her in the following....
by Richard Eskow | Aug 3, 2012 | Blog
A well funded network of right-wing extremists wants to make it socially and politically impossible to express the ideals that made this country great. One of those extremists appeared on their billionaire-funded network this week to attack Elizabeth Warren, and...
by Bill Scher | Aug 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: Austerity Bites...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 3, 2012 | Blog
Austerity bites. According to the BLS, 163,000 new jobs were produced in July, up from the last month but still barely at the level needed to keep up with new workers coming into the jobs market. Government employment was down by 9,000 jobs, at a time when the...
by Bill Scher | Aug 2, 2012 | Blog
It is often stated as fact that Democrats always want to raise taxes and Republicans always want to lower taxes. We now know this to be false. Nearly every Republican in the Senate, nearly every Republican in the House and the Republican nominee for President Mitt...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 2, 2012 | Blog
Republican tax plans raise taxes on the middle class to pay for tax cuts on the rich. They just voted against tax cuts for people making under $250,000, and for tax cuts for people making more than that. Last month they filibustered the bill ending tax breaks for...
by | Aug 2, 2012 | Blog
Ed Kilgore is righteously irked about the latest idiotic right wing contretemps over the fact that Olympic athletes have to pay taxes on their medals: You could see this coming the moment Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform put out its press release on the tax...
by | Aug 2, 2012 | Blog
The nub of Bill Keller's recent essay on why Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid must be cut is a graph – taken from a report by a group called Third Way – that compares federal “investments” with “entitlements,” showing that one is in decline and the other is on...
by Bill Scher | Aug 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: White House Can...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 2, 2012 | Blog
Is a little-known bureaucrat named Edward DeMarco an unreasonable, ideological obstructionist who's blocking badly-needed homeowner relief? The White House says he is. So does Paul Krugman. Some of us having been harping on the subject for months. Now the...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 1, 2012 | Blog, The Sequester
Protect Social Security and Medicare, raise taxes on the wealthiest, create middle class jobs -- who could be against those things? The Congressional Progressive Caucus announced today a set of "Deal for All" principles that take a stand "against any plan that...
by | Aug 1, 2012 | Blog
Everybody's all excited because Huckleberry Graham is being a grown-up: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday urged Mitt Romney to embrace revenues as part of a plan to stave off the automatic spending cuts set to take effect next year. “If he gave his blessing, it...
by | Aug 1, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. Let me start by stating for the record that, while it would have been extremely entertaining to have a government shutdown a month before the 2012 election, the deal for a six-month continuing resolution kind of/sort of...
by Bill Scher | Aug 1, 2012 | Blog
Today the House is expected to vote on what to do about the expiring Bush tax cuts. The Democratic proposal would extend them for the middle class, while ending them for income above $250,000 -- the top 2%. The Republican proposal would extend them for everybody, but...
by Bill Scher | Aug 1, 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: Prosperity...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog, Economy, Financial Reform
If a filibuster happens in the forest and no one is told about it, did it really happen? The GOP is said to be ready to filibuster the bill extending jobless benefits today. Will this be reported as the national emergency that it is? Will this be reported as a...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog
“But.” Everything you read about the filibuster talks about how important the filibuster is, allowing a minority to retain some power over abuse by a majority… and then it says, “But.” For example, the Camden, N.J., Courier Post editorial today, "Alter filibuster...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog
Republicans filibustered an appeals court nominee today. This is, of course, not surprising. What is surprising is that news outlets are telling the public! Today Republicans in the Senate used the filibuster to obstruct the nomination of Robert Bacharach’s to the...
by Brian Dockstader | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog, Climate
The key comment was made by Shawn McCoy, a spokesman for Romney’s Iowa campaign, who, while explaining how Romney is anti-renewable energy, told The Des Moines Register that the candidate would "allow the wind credit to expire, end the stimulus boondoggles*, and...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog
With the elite conventional political wisdom so congealed around the idea that the federal government is broke, that our top priority must be to "cut the spending" without discussing the merits of the government spending we are told we must be eager to cut, and that...
by | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog, Economy
The following media statement was released today in support of the new economic vision, "Prosperity Economics." The full report is available at ProsperityForAmerica.org. *** Professor Jacob Hacker and Nathaniel Loewentheil of Yale University today released their new...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog, Climate, Making it in America
The game is to underprice your product until your competitors go out of business (like Solyndra & other solar companies). Then you own the market. This is about a lot more than just jobs. Our government is finally doing something about leveling the playing field! This...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 31, 2012 | Blog
I was on Minnesota Public Radio's "The Daily Circuit" yesterday, to talk about the Obama campaign's tailored health care reform pitch to African Americans and Latinos. It's one of the few times I can recall the White House being as specific about the benefits of...
