by Jeff Bryant | May 6, 2012 | Blog, Education
Republicans in the US House of Representatives have scheduled a vote on Friday to stop interest rates on college student loans from doubling beginning July 1. Up until now, Republicans on the Hill had been staunchly opposed to any bipartisan action to stop the...
by Sam Pizzigati | May 6, 2012 | Blog
From Manhattan to Monaco, the world's super rich are fashioning themselves into a new global tribe of footloose and stateless. The rest of us get to gawk — and foot the ultimate bill. Back in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, a short story took the American...
by | May 4, 2012 | Blog
The unemployment rate is now officially higher than it was when President Obama took office. That's a slow recovery, but still good. Here is the bad news: Actually it's a complicated issue isn't entirely a reflection of this lesser depression but part of a longer...
by Richard Eskow | May 4, 2012 | Blog
Here's a walk down memory lane that's worth taking, even if it makes your blood pressure spike a little: Three years ago Tim Geithner was in the position of having to explain why the Federal government wasn't going to nationalize the nation's failing banks. In 2009...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 4, 2012 | Blog, Economy
The economy produced only an additional 115,000 jobs in April, with the unemployment rate going down to 8.1 percent only because some 342,000 people dropped out of the labor force. This is, as co-director Robert Borosage says in his media statement today, not a...
by Bill Scher | May 4, 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: Time For $10/Hour...
by Dave Johnson | May 3, 2012 | Blog
You'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of corporate greed than Verizon, a company making billions and tripling its CEO's pay while demanding givebacks from its workers. Today the 99% Spring movement let Verizon know that 99% of us are trying to bring big...
by | May 3, 2012 | Blog
Sure, this is healthy: Between 1979 and 2005 (the latest data available with these breakdowns), the share of total income held by the top 1.0 percent more than doubled, from 9.7 percent to 21.0 percent, with most of the increase occurring since 1993. The top 0.1...
by Terrance Heath | May 3, 2012 | Blog
What's end of the line for austerity? We've gone through despair, desperation, and indifference. The latter feeds the first two, creating what Robert Reich calls "a tinderbox society," as "those collecting capital gains" demand austerity, resulting in "rising...
by Bill Scher | May 3, 2012 | Blog
The five finalists for the Sixth Annual Maria Leavey Tribute Award have been announced, honoring the person in the progressive movement whose behind-the-scenes work and selfless service has made an invaluable contribution to social justice. The public is invited to...
by Bill Scher | May 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: Krugman: Ending...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 3, 2012 | Blog
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has a simple answer for what's wrong with the economy. Never mind the arguments about structural economic problems that have disadvantaged the middle class and have put America at a global competitive...
by | May 2, 2012 | Blog
Rep. Keith Ellison is a speaker at this year's Take Back The American Dream conference in Washington, DC. Register today! Early-bird registration expires May 3. One year ago, the enemy that had haunted America for nearly a decade met his end in Abbottabad, Pakistan....
by Steven Capozzola | May 2, 2012 | Blog, Making it in America
Tremulous times in the world of U.S. trade with China. Tomorrow, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Beijing for the latest semi-annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED). At ManufactureThis, we've...
by Richard Eskow | May 2, 2012 | Blog
"Hmm," writes a blogger. "Liberals need to get off their fainting couches." It's in an argument for cutting Social Security benefits - and it comes from a liberal. Benefit cuts would hurt millions of disabled and elderly people, harm our economy, and wound our social...
by Bill Scher | May 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 99% Spring...
by Dave Johnson | May 2, 2012 | Blog
The Take Back the American Dream conference -- the summit for the 99% -- is taking place June 18-20 in Washington, DC. Click here to register. Big companies like Verizon use threats of layoffs to force their workers to take pay and benefit cuts, and use the money to...
by Richard Eskow | May 1, 2012 | Blog
Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is the United States of America. Our pilot and crew are under the influence of unseen forces. Our position is unknown and our time is growing short. We have 311 million souls on board. We are in urgent need of assistance. There's "May Day"...
by Dave Johnson | May 1, 2012 | Blog
The full Republican media "noise" machine is rising up in a full-scale "hissy fit" because the President pointed out that Osama bin Laden was killed a year ago, under his watch. They are pretending to be absolutely outraged, accusing the President of politicizing the...
by Terrance Heath | May 1, 2012 | Blog
We can probably expect to see more of this. It will no doubt go on through the Republican convention. I mean the parade of Republican presidential wannabees now preparing to kiss up to Mitt Romney after attacking him so viciously — and accurately — during the...
by Dave Johnson | May 1, 2012 | Blog, Economy
The path to creating millions of jobs is so easy and obvious. Hire people to modernize the infrastructure and to retrofit buildings to be energy efficient. Millions would be paying income taxes instead of receiving unemployment or food stamps. The companies that...
by Bill Scher | May 1, 2012 | Blog
The five finalists for the Sixth Annual Maria Leavey Tribute Award have been announced, honoring the person in the progressive movement whose behind-the-scenes work and selfless service has made an invaluable contribution to social justice. The public is invited to...
by Bill Scher | May 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: Stop The Apple Tax...
by Dave Johnson | May 1, 2012 | Blog
Not kidding, read it for yourself: New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism, The Obama campaign apparently didn't look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, "Forward" — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism....
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 1, 2012 | Blog
In one sense, Sunday's New York Times story on how Apple avoids paying U.S. taxes is not a surprise. In 2010 Bloomberg News exposed how another technology titan, Google, managed to lower its tax rate to a measly 2.4 percent. And, as the New York Times story notes, the...
by Leo Gerard | May 1, 2012 | Blog
Corporations, 1 percenters and Republicans want to take America back. And by that they mean all the way to the 1780s when wealthy white men controlled the nation. Because only they could vote. In the intervening 230 or so years, America became increasingly democratic,...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 30, 2012 | Blog
Finally, someone's giving NJ governor Chris Christie (whom fellow blogger Richard Eskow rightly dubbed, "The Heartless, Smug, Bullying Embodiment Of The Republican Party") as good as he dishes out. At the Daily Beast, author Stephen King has posted a response to...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 30, 2012 | Blog, Economy
President Obama spoke today at the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department Legislative Conference in Washington, asking Republicans to stop blocking infrastructure and transportation projects. (See transcript here.) These projects would immediately...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 30, 2012 | Blog
(Note - updated with audio of meeting and video of protests taking place outside, at bottom of post.) I attended the GE shareholder meeting in Detroit today. The beginning of the meeting was disrupted by people from the 99% Spring movement and 99% Power respectfully...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 30, 2012 | Blog
Depending on your point of view, the results on austerity are in. The roll call European countries with shrunken economies, mired in recession, is identical to the list of European countries yoked to austerity economics — Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Greece (of...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 30, 2012 | Blog
Two Occupy movement volunteers, a Chicago community organizer, an Atlanta health care activist and a crusader against "prison-based gerrymandering" have been nominated for the annual Maria Leavey Tribute Award, which honors an unsung progressive hero. The deserving...
by Bill Scher | Apr 30, 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: Higher...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 29, 2012 | Blog, Minimum Wage
Bits and bytes would be doing a lot more to help make our lives less nasty, brutish, and short if we shared wealth as routinely as bandwidth. From San Francisco, a new lesson in that reality. A brick factory makes 10,000 bricks a day. But then the factory happens on a...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 28, 2012 | Blog
Today's false equivalence award goes to Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein for their Washington Post op-ed titled, Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem. This false equivalence award is noteworthy, as the authors claim to be writing about false...
by | Apr 27, 2012 | Blog
People who follow politics often reach the conclusion that average Americans are kind of dopey and don't really understand what's going on. After all, they often hold contradictory views and vote against their self-interest. But sometimes there's just no denying that...
by Roger Hickey | Apr 27, 2012 | Blog
House Republicans are trying to snooker the public with a vote today, around 12 PM ET, on a sham student loan bill. We need you to call House switchboard at 202-225-3121 NOW, ask for your representative and say "Vote No." The Republican bill is only designed to give...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 27, 2012 | Blog
Mitt Romney says government workers are paid too well and in general government is a bad thing. But he wants to run it. Romney made his fortune by buying companies, laying off the workers, and keeping the money they were making for himself. He apparently thinks...
by Bill Scher | Apr 27, 2012 | Uncategorized
MORNING MESSAGE: Wall Street’s Unpunished Crimes OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "... it was nothing short of astonishing to hear the Secretary of the Treasury assert yesterday that ... 'most financial crises are caused by a mix of stupidity and greed and recklessness...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 26, 2012 | Blog
Forgery. Perjury. Investor fraud. Bribery. Money laundering. The body of evidence against individuals at the nation’s biggest banks is overwhelming. Nothing speaks louder about the banks’ guilt than this evidence - nothing, that is, except the billions they’ve paid to...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 26, 2012 | Blog
Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general who is co-chairing President Obama's investigative working group on the mortgage crisis, told members of the House Progressive Caucus that he is beginning to get the resources he needs to hold the people who caused...
