by | Oct 31, 2011 | Blog
As the world impatiently awaits a statement of purpose and list of demands from the Occupy movements across the country and world, former Charlotte, North Carolina mayor Pat McCrory perhaps unintentionally and unwittingly framed it perfectly in a television interview...
by Bill Scher | Oct 31, 2011 | Uncategorized
NOTE: Today's Breakfast was delayed because of the weekend power outage in the Northeast. Apologies for any inconvenience. Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs,...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 31, 2011 | Blog, Economy
Texas Governor Rick Perry touts himself as the most conservative candidate who is electable. He prays with the fundamentalists, hunts with the Second Amendment gang, decries federal tyranny with the 10th Amendment crowd, and “pokes” around with the birthers. He just...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 30, 2011 | Blog
What do they call the night before Halloween? Oh, yeah. Hell night. That makes tonight just right for grabbing a fistful of mashmallows and candy corn before sitting down to read this article. It'll make your blood run cold, and afterwards you'll probably agree: It's...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 30, 2011 | Blog
A Huffington Post commenter responding to my recent piece on the Washington Post's recent Social Security article by saying that I "claimed 'inaccuracies, falsehoods, and downright lies' but delivered problems of tone, and emphasis." Then, and without irony, the...
by Roger Hickey | Oct 28, 2011 | Blog
TAKE ACTION Sign this petition calling on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Boehner to not let the congressional deficit-reduction supercommittee cut Social Security and Medicare. At a time when American’s are demonstrating in cities and towns across...
by | Oct 28, 2011 | Blog
Dana Milbank dissects the Super Committee in yesterday's column: Reasonable people on all sides know that tackling the nation’s long-term debt problems will require both an increase in taxes and cuts to entitlement programs. But just weeks from the committee’s...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 28, 2011 | Blog
Bad economics makes strange bedfellows. Thanks to our nation's misguided obsession with budget cuts, disabled children and the stock market face a common threat: an undemocratically-selected "Super Committee" which was formed during a national jobs emergency in order...
by Bill Scher | Oct 28, 2011 | 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 Disastrous...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 28, 2011 | Blog
If you've ever questioned whether the so-called "Super Committee" represents a breakdown in the democratic process, yesterday's proposal from the group's Democratic members should put your doubts to rest. The system's seriously broken when unelected super-legislators...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 27, 2011 | Blog
In Oakland peaceful #Occupy demonstrators were camping out in front of city hall. The city launched a police raid to clear out the camp, using tear gas, flash-bank grenades, rubber bullets and beating people with batons. An Iraq war vet was hit in the head by either a...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 27, 2011 | Blog
Here's the clip of a conversation we had yesterday on The Alonya Show about the new CBO report, which provides even more data on the explosion of wealth at the very top of the scale, the injustices driving Occupy Wall Street, and where we go from here. After Alonya...
by Sean McMartin | Oct 27, 2011 | Blog, Economy
For most people Social Security cuts are something to be feared in the future, but for one group of people cuts in Social Security are already a real and present danger: the employees of the Social Security Administration. And these Social Security cuts are having a...
by Jeff Bryant | Oct 27, 2011 | Blog, Education
Now that the mandate to run our nation's schools according to No Child Left Behind has utterly collapsed, and many of the best minds are suggesting that we move on, there is still a prevailing contingency seeking to not just prop up but expand many of the tenants of...
by Bill Scher | Oct 27, 2011 | 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: Don't Fear a...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 26, 2011 | Blog
Watch this interview on taxes. Watch how fast the argument against taxing the wealthy turns into an argument against democracy. Below is a Wednesday Newshour with Richard Epstein of the New York University School of Law. In the interview Epstein claims that the...
by Roger Hickey | Oct 26, 2011 | Blog
The members of Congress' deficit-reduction "supercommittee" should be on notice: When the time comes to pay to clean up the mess that Wall Street’s excesses caused in our economy, Americans will not accept having the bill sent to seniors, the vulnerable, the ill and...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 26, 2011 | Blog
It was noteworthy when Peggy Noonan — Our Lady of the Dolphins — stepped into the role of the GOP's voice of reason, following the rise of Sarah Palin as its vice presidential nominee in 2008. It was a real eyebrow-raiser when David Brooks took on the task of talking...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 26, 2011 | Blog
The Republicans are obstructing the government from operating. Judges, appointees, NLRB members, etc. are blocked with the purpose of keeping government from doing its job. This is taking a terrible toll on We, the People. The President has the power to do something...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 26, 2011 | Blog
The corporate/conservative plan for decades has been to turn people against government and democracy. Because when people stop accepting the idea of We, the People making decisions, guess who gets to make the decisions instead? Last month a retiring GOP staffer...
by Bill Scher | Oct 26, 2011 | 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: People Power...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Oct 25, 2011 | Blog
The conservative campaign against worker rights is losing in Ohio, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Support for the repeal of SB 5, the law pushed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich that strips the bargaining rights of public workers, is up to 57...
by | Oct 25, 2011 | Blog
I hate to hit Paul Ryan twice in one day, but this is so mind-bogglingly disingenuous that you have to assume the man is either a sociopath or extremely disabled: RYAN: Let's review for a moment the path we are on, where we stand right now. It pains me to say this,...
by Dave Johnson | Oct 25, 2011 | Blog
Have you heard about the "tax holiday" idea? The idea is to let corporations bring overseas profits back to the United States at a very low tax rate. These overseas profits were made in various ways, including schemes to move factories and jobs out of the country in...
by Bill Scher | Oct 25, 2011 | 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: Republicans Say,...
by Eric Lotke | Oct 25, 2011 | Blog
I’ve been spending evenings and weekends recently with the Occupy protestors in DC. I can’t stay full time because, unlike many protestors, I have two children and a full-time job. But I clearly share their interests and I’m glad they’re making the ruckus. Our economy...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 24, 2011 | Blog
Imagine that a group of arsonists was terrorizing your town. First they'd buy insurance on a stranger's home, then they'd show up with a blowtorch and a tanker truck filled with gasoline and burn the place down. Imagine that they've burned down a thousand homes this...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Oct 24, 2011 | Blog, Minimum Wage
Former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain's comment a couple of weeks ago that "I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way" didn't cause much of a national stir when he made it. Why would it, when a mixed-race African American is...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 24, 2011 | Blog
The "Tea Party To Businesses: 'Stop Hiring!'" story has really taken off. Even Stephen Colbert has covered it. The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive I didn't get to be on "The Colbert Show"...
by | Oct 24, 2011 | Blog
Wall Street may be metaphorically beating mean old President Obama with a stick for calling them (sniff) fat cats, but they are offering him plenty of carrots to soothe the pain: Despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has still...
by Leo Gerard | Oct 24, 2011 | Blog, Financial Reform
Republicans jammed together a mess of old, failed and vague schemes and called it a jobs bill. Sen. John McCain conceded the reason for the rehash: “Part of it is in response to the president saying we don’t have a proposal.” They still don’t. This despite the fact...
by Bill Scher | Oct 24, 2011 | 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: Beware Elites...
by Sam Pizzigati | Oct 24, 2011 | Blog
Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the online weekly on excess and inequality published by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, where the following originally appeared. Can a small army of policy wonks, working in a bipartisan political environment...
by | Oct 21, 2011 | Blog
Smart: Occupy Wall Street held back from rejecting participation in the current American political system Wednesday night when the General Assembly -- the group's main decision-making body -- tabled an official resolution to refuse support for both the Democratic and...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 21, 2011 | Blog
The President says he understands the frustration behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. That's nice. But the anger will keep growing as long as the government keeps handing out free passes instead of perp walks to bankers at serial corporate criminals like...
by Bill Scher | Oct 21, 2011 | 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: Five Outrages Over...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 20, 2011 | Blog, Economy
"Get a job!" It's the right-wing's favorite retort to protesters on the left. It goes back at least as far as the 1960's and 1970's, and implies that only "dirty hippies" who are too lazy to work — and would rather mooch off the government and be subsidized people in...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Oct 20, 2011 | Blog, Economy
As the Senate prepares for a vote on a $35 billion bill to support hiring of teachers and first responders around the country, conservative are pillorying Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a bit of inartful truth-telling. After all, it is so much easier for Senate...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 20, 2011 | Blog, Economy
Telling people to "Get a job!" on one hand, while telling businesses to "Stop creating jobs!" on the other, and then blaming the unemployed for their jobless state sounds more than a little contradictory. If an individual person managed all three,...
by Terrance Heath | Oct 20, 2011 | Blog
It was a jaw-droppingly, mystifyingly obtuse, callous moment in an administration that's given us enough of them to fill what would have to be the world's most depressing bloopers reel. It also brilliantly captured a president and an administration who don't feel...
