by Richard Eskow | Jun 26, 2012 | Blog
A recent court case proves what many of us have long suspected: Big banks have been ripping off this nation's towns and cities for years in an old-fashioned racketeering scam. We ran some numbers to see how much this criminality might have cost the American people.The...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 26, 2012 | Blog
What a complex web we weave, when our lives are ruled by greed. Verizon is an example of what corporate greed (the 1%) is doing to our middle class and vulnerable (the 99%). It is a highly profitable company, just gave its CEO a huge raise, but dodges its taxes...
by | Jun 26, 2012 | Blog, The Sequester
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. There’s about to be a big change in the federal budget debate. In the end, the big winner will be the part of the budget that supposedly is so unpopular — federal spending — that a candidate for office this year cannot...
by Bill Scher | Jun 26, 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: Conservatives to...
by Leo Gerard | Jun 26, 2012 | Blog
Robin Hood popped up all across America last week. A bunch of green-suited Merry Men protested in front of Wall Street bank branches in 15 cities. Another felt-hatted group demonstrated in Washington D.C. during J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's testimony about why...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 25, 2012 | Blog
Never mind "class warfare." Generational warfare continues apace, this time in the editorial pages of the Washington Post, which echoed the conservative message to young (and older) Americans struggling with student debt: Drop dead. Congress faces two deadlines at...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 25, 2012 | Blog
Last week around 200 people marched across Washington in 100-degree heat to the offices of Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and pinned an arrest warrant on the door. This matters. It is one more in an ongoing series of actions that say that people are paying attention and...
by | Jun 25, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. The ever-watchful CG&G alum Bruce Bartlett sent this new You Gov poll constructed by Dartmouth (home to another CG&G alum, Andrew Samwick) Associate Professor Benjamin Valentino. The poll covers a number of issues but it...
by Bill Scher | Jun 25, 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: Romney And The...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 25, 2012 | Blog
Remember the "superpredators"? They were the supposedly super-violent youngsters of dark complexion that conservatives kept screaming about in the 1990s. We were told they were about to unleash an unprecedented wave of vicious crime any day now. Those superpredators...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jun 24, 2012 | Blog
Robin Hood would not be happy if he happened upon our incredibly top-heavy modern world. But the new campaign to levy a tax on speculative trading would most likely have him breaking out in smiles. The most lavishly paid bank CEO in America, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 22, 2012 | Blog, Economy
Will Mitt Romney create jobs and help our economy, or will he just take us back to the Bush-era, send-jobs-to-China destruction that made him rich? With Romney there is no way to connect what he says with what he means or might do. So we are forced to read tea leaves...
by | Jun 22, 2012 | Blog
The poor "job-creators." They just can't catch a break: Without much fanfare, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is edging towards what could be its first “perfect” Term before the Supreme Court since at least 1994. With today’s decision in Southern Union Company v. United...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 22, 2012 | Blog
On June 20, 2012, Nick Nyhart, CEO and President of Public Campaign, Joan Mandle, Executive Director of Democracy Matters, Tracy Leatherberry of Common Cause and others delivered a people's indictment for crimes against our democracy to Karl Rove, American Crossroads,...
by Bill Scher | Jun 22, 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: How To Fight Wall...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 21, 2012 | Blog
Eric Schneiderman was right. New York State's Attorney General told an audience at the Take Back the American Dream Conference that we need a "transformational politics" that will change the way we look at ourselves, our society, and our economy. The wealthy have...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 21, 2012 | Blog
I wonder sometimes if Paul Krugman ever gets tired of being right. Or does he get bored with it, given how often it happens? This week, at the Take Back the American Dream conference, Krugman shared the stage with Chris Hayes for the "End This Depression NOW!" plenary...
by Robert Borosage | Jun 21, 2012 | Blog, Economy
This was delivered as the opening address to the Take Back the American Dream Summit in Washington, D.C., on June 18. On behalf of the Campaign for America’s Future, I welcome you to this year’s Take Back the American Dream Summit. You are activists and leaders from...
by | Jun 21, 2012 | Blog
Originally published at Capital Gains and Games. This post from the libertarian Cato@Liberty blog by Christopher Preble about the sizeable increase in the deficit Mitt Romney's military spending plans will cause caught my eye yesterday thanks to the ever-watchful...
by Bill Scher | Jun 21, 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: Closing the...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 21, 2012 | Blog
The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year. For more than 30 years the public has been told that low taxes promote economic growth and jobs, and now we have low taxes, low economic growth and a no job growth. Oh,, and really, really high deficits from the revenue...
by Radhika Raman | Jun 21, 2012 | Blog
There are people who become the face of a movement. They attend press conferences, head panels at conferences, and claim to speak for those who do not traditionally have a voice. Then there are the “behind-the-scenes” activists. They are the people in back rooms who...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 20, 2012 | Blog
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., explains in this interview with Richard Eskow that progressives can and must win the fight against the right-wing austerity policies wrapped in the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction plan. Schakowsky was a member of the deficit commission...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 20, 2012 | Blog
A straw poll taken at the Take Back the American Dream conference shows that the "enthusiasm gap" between progressives and President Obama is very real. Progressive leaders are nonetheless committed to Obama's reelection, the poll shows. The question that Obama must...
by | Jun 20, 2012 | Blog
I love it when a politician just lets it all hang out and says what he really believes: During the Q&A portion of the event, [Senate candidate]Hovde expressed his support for lowering the corporate tax rate, tackling the country's spending problems and lowering the...
by Radhika Raman | Jun 20, 2012 | Blog
At the Take Back the American Dream conference Wednesday, strategies and tactics were weaved with moving personal stories at a session on racial profiling with Gaby Pacheco, Rashad Robinson, Jasiri X, and moderator Cathy Montoya. The panelists described racial...
by Radhika Raman | Jun 20, 2012 | Blog
At the 2012 Take Back the American Dream conference, activists Amanda Devecka-Rinear, Sarita Gupta, Ai-Jen Poo and Nelini Stamp all spoke at a plenary titled “The 99% Movement: The Next Steps.” The plenary focused on the successes of and future plans of a new social...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 20, 2012 | Blog
Politicians in both political parties are leaning on the Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction plan as a political crutch to make them appear "serious" to the inside-the-Beltway crowd. But if that crutch is merely enabling a nation to hobble over the edge of a cliff, then...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 20, 2012 | Blog
There's a march and demonstration taking place tomorrow (Wednesday, June 20) to protest money's corrupting influence in our political process. We'll be marching on the headquarters of Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS organization in Washington DC to protest the corrupting,...
by Bill Scher | Jun 20, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Why You Should Join Wednesday's March Against Money In Politics OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "We'll be marching on the headquarters of Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS organization in Washington DC to protest the corrupting, debasing, and anti-democratic...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog
At the Take Back the American Dream conference this morning, Paul Krugman reprised what he said on the Colbert Report recently, concerning Ireland's austerity agenda and it's frightening resemblance to Mitt Romney's economic agenda. If Mitt Romney is elected...
by Bill Scher | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog
Conservatives have long sought to condemn the Recovery Act by claiming it failed to prevent unemployment from going higher than 8% as the White House projected. This is silly because the White House projection was made in January 2009, and unemployment lept to 8.3% in...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog
What is now more clear than ever is that building a progressive political force is a 24/7/365 effort. It's not just work to be done during election cycles, and not just done in presidential and congressional elections. Tuesday morning at the Take Back the American...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog, Economy
It seems like just yesterday Mitt Romney released his 59-page "plan for jobs and economic growth." That's because it practically was just yesterday. Romney released "Believe in America: Mitt Romney's Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth," around the beginning of...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog
In American politics, especially in post-9/11 politics, what most desperately needs saying is often banished to the realm of the unsayable. It's either too impolite or too impolitic to utter. This tends to apply more to the left than the right. Almost nothing's...
by | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Gains. At least since I’ve been an adult, I’ve never believed in heaven or hell. Despite all of the fire-and-brimstone warnings and thunderous sermons about the need to avoid eternal damnation by behaving a certain way, I can’t...
by Terrance Heath | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog
When I walked into the "What's Next for the LGBT Community" at the Take Back the American Dream conference, I thought I already knew what I would write about it afterwards. In the past month, I've written two posts — one after President Obama announced his support for...
by Leo Gerard | Jun 19, 2012 | Blog, Financial Reform
The Romney v. Obama economic smack down in Ohio last Thursday failed to deliver half the punch of remarks the men made earlier in the week. President Obama said the nation must focus on the public sector, which continues to lay off thousands of teachers, cops and...
by Bill Scher | Jun 19, 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 "B.S. Plan" To...
by Dave Johnson | Jun 18, 2012 | Blog, Economy
This morning Robert Borosage, Melissa Harris-Perry and Van Jones opened the Take Back the American Dream conference, speaking at a plenary titled "Winning in November So We Can Win in December and Beyond." The opening session was focused on the need to both win the...
