by Leo Gerard | Apr 13, 2018 | Blog
Remember the Republicans’ claim last year that their $1.5 trillion tax scam, slashing rates for the rich and corporations would magically pay for itself? Here is how that works: a rich guy walks into a Mercedes-Benz dealership, gets behind the wheel of a $112,400 GP...
by Miles Mogulescu | Apr 13, 2018 | Blog
It’s starting to look like a credible scenario that an increasingly unhinged Donald Trump might start a war, fire special counsel Mueller, and then argue, along with his Republican allies, that you can’t impeach a wartime President/Commander in Chief without...
by People's Action | Apr 12, 2018 | Breakfast
Ryan Resignation Leaves GOP In Turmoil A House (and a party) upended as Paul Ryan calmly takes his leave. NYT: "The matter-of-fact way Mr. Ryan handled this bit of personal news belied the tumult that is certain to follow the unusually timed announcement that he would...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 12, 2018 | Blog
One of the more interesting stories about the recent release of scores on the 2017 National Assessment of Education Progress (aka. The Nation's Report Card) is not about the scores themselves but the way conservative education policy operatives are spinning them. The...
by People's Action | Apr 11, 2018 | Breakfast
Trump Orders Review Of Welfare Programs Trump orders top-to-bottom review of welfare programs. Politico: "President Donald Trump has directed his agencies to raise the bar for recipients of food stamps, Medicaid, rent subsidies and other welfare programs, and find...
by Tara Raghuveer | Apr 11, 2018 | Blog
The Fair Housing Act, passed fifty years ago today, was a critical victory of the Civil Rights era and an effort to address generations of systemic racism in housing policy. The law intended to prohibit discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 11, 2018 | Blog
The momentum of this spring's teacher uprising is growing, as Oklahoma teachers extend their walkout into a second week and teachers in Kentucky and Arizona are increasingly eager for some kind of disruptive action. It's too early to gage the full impact of this...
by People's Action | Apr 10, 2018 | Breakfast
FBI Raids Trump Lawyer Cohen FBI raids office of Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen. NYT: "The F.B.I. raided the Rockefeller Center office and Park Avenue hotel room of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, on Monday morning, seizing...
by Sara Alcid | Apr 10, 2018 | Blog
It’s Equal Pay Day, America. That’s the day when women’s wages finally catch up with what men were paid in the previous year. How much more, you ask, did men receive? $840 billion. That’s a lot of lattes. What would you do with your share of that $840 billion? I can...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 10, 2018 | Blog
In the time it takes to read these words, a child under the age of five will probably die in Yemen. And, as this is being written, the U.N. Security Council is meeting to discuss a gas attack in Syria. President Trump, with newly-appointed National Security Advisor...
by People's Action | Apr 9, 2018 | Breakfast
Syria Crisis Looms Over White House Syria attack response looms over Bolton's first week in WH. CNN: "John Bolton faces a baptism of fire on Monday, his first official day as President Donald Trump's national security adviser. The brutal chemical weapons attack in...
by Madison Hardee | Apr 9, 2018 | Blog
The Trump administration has attacked immigrant communities from day one with a range of misguided proposals and executive orders that undermine civil rights and terrify families. These efforts are having devastating effects - right now, as well as potentially long...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 9, 2018 | Blog
When coal-mine bosses said mules were more precious than men because dead miners could be replaced for free, but not dead mules, it demonstrated disrespect. That contempt from the top provoked pitched gun battles between workers and mine-owner militias in West...
by People's Action | Apr 6, 2018 | Breakfast
US, China Trade Threats Escalate Trump threatens China with new $100 billion tariff plan. CNN: "President Donald Trump ratcheted up the trade war rhetoric with China on Thursday evening, saying he was considering another wave of steep tariffs on the country's exports...
by Todd Zimmer | Apr 6, 2018 | Blog
Far-right radicals have made North Carolina the place to test their most extreme ideas. They redrew our voting maps, disempowered Black voters, shredded our safety net and are trying to pit rural and working people against each other. They rewrote the rules to benefit...
by People's Action | Apr 5, 2018 | Breakfast
Trump Wants Troops At Mexican Border WH makes hasty plan to send National Guard to border, leaving mission and duration unclear. LA Times: "The Trump administration announced a hastily assembled plan Wednesday to deploy National Guard troops along the southwestern...
by Olivia Alperstein | Apr 5, 2018 | Blog
We’re helping fight someone else’s war in Yemen — and the blood is on our hands. Since March 2015, the United States has supported a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that’s intervening in a civil war in Yemen. The war has...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 5, 2018 | Blog
Teacher strikes that started in West Virginia and are now raging in Oklahoma and whipping up in Kentucky and Arizona are being called a "nationwide movement." But a nationwide movement for what? The Wall Street Journal calls the teacher rebellions a "response to years...
by People's Action | Apr 4, 2018 | Breakfast
Church Leaders Look To King's Challenge Church leaders who propelled Civil Rights Movement look to rekindle King’s activist spirit. NYT: "Bishop Blake is one of dozens of ministers who will converge on Memphis on Wednesday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the...
by Libero Della Piana | Apr 4, 2018 | Blog
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down fifty years ago today on April 4, 1968. It was a turning point of the twentieth century, marking an ending and a beginning. It was the end of one phase of the Black Freedom struggle, and the beginning of one of the most...
by Paul Harvey | Apr 4, 2018 | Blog
Martin Luther King Jr. has come to be revered as a hero who led a nonviolent struggle to reform and redeem the United States. His birthday is celebrated as a national holiday. Tributes are paid to him on his death anniversary each April, and his legacy is honored in...
by Tim Wilkins | Apr 3, 2018 | Blog
Reverend William Barber and Dr. Liz Theoharis speak in Memphis, Tennessee about the "new and unsettling force" of Dr. Martin Luther King's life and legacy, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. Barber and Theoharis are co-chairs of the New...
by People's Action | Apr 3, 2018 | Breakfast
SCOTUS Shields Police In Shootings Police shootings stir outrage among some, but not the Supreme Court. NPR: "he U.S. Supreme Court has again stepped into the bitter public turmoil over police shootings of civilians, ruling Monday that an Arizona police officer is...
by Tim Wilkins | Apr 3, 2018 | Blog
Eight years: that’s how long an American president can serve, and it’s the age at which children start to solve problems on their own. It’s also how long we’ve had President Obama’s signature reform of health care, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Obama achieved goals...
by People's Action | Apr 2, 2018 | Breakfast
OK, KY Teachers Walk Out In Protest OK, KY teachers to walk out, plan huge rallies. CNN: "Oklahoma and Kentucky teachers are walking off the job Monday and holding rallies in their state capitols to pressure lawmakers. Inspired by the West Virginia strike in which...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 2, 2018 | Blog
Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote a column entitled “Liberal World Order, R.I.P.” Haass sees the post-World War II order succumbing to centrifugal forces. He foresees a fragmented and chaotic world made up of “regional...
by People's Action | Mar 30, 2018 | Breakfast
Red-State Teacher Rebellion Grows Red-State teacher rebellion hits OK, grows in AZ. AP: "A teacher rebellion that started in the hills of West Virginia spread like a prairie fire to Oklahoma this week and now threatens to reach the desert in Arizona. In the deep red...
by James Haslam | Mar 30, 2018 | Blog
Last week, I found myself where no parent ever wants to be: in a hospital emergency room, next to my big guy – he’s 7. On the way to school, he’d experienced severe abdominal pain and bleeding, so we rushed to the hospital. It happened so fast that we feared the...
by Leo Gerard | Mar 30, 2018 | Blog
Shale oil and gas, now fracked from deep underground in two dozen states, is celebrated for delivering energy independence to the United States. But that goal can’t truly be achieved if America depends on China, Korea, even Brazil for the steel vital to drilling....
by Sam Pizzigati | Mar 30, 2018 | Blog
Back in the 1980s, the decade that saw researchers start detailing America’s increasing concentration of income and wealth, flacks for the emerging Reagan economic order disdainfully dismissed the significance of the alarming new data. The United States isn’t getting...
by People's Action | Mar 29, 2018 | Breakfast
VA Chief Fired For Opposing Privatization Shulkin: Privatizing the V.A. Will Hurt Veterans. NYT: "The department has become entangled in a brutal power struggle, with some political appointees choosing to promote their agendas instead of what’s best for veterans....
by Jeff Bryant | Mar 29, 2018 | Blog
While progressives lament their recent failure in an Illinois primary to knock out Dan Lipinski – a conservative, anti-abortion, Congressional Democrat who voted against the Affordable Care Act – they mostly fail to note where and how they won elsewhere in the state....
by People's Action | Mar 28, 2018 | Breakfast
States Sue Over Citizenship Test At least twelve states to sue Trump over Census citizenship question. NYT: "At least 12 states signaled Tuesday that they would sue to block the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, arguing...
by Andy Spears | Mar 28, 2018 | Blog
In the Paleozoic Era, Tennessee was covered by a warm, shallow sea, filled with sharks. The waters receded millions of years ago, but sharks still linger in our state, ready to sink their teeth into your wallet. These modern-day apex predators are called “payday...
by People's Action | Mar 27, 2018 | Breakfast
Outrage Over Killing Of Unarmed Sacramento Man Grows As outrage over Stephon Clark's killing grows, his grandmother asks: 'Why? Why?'. LA Times: "Sacramento officers searching the neighborhood for a reported vandal encountered Thomas' grandson Stephon Clark, who lived...
by Jeff Bryant | Mar 27, 2018 | Blog
Despite the strong marketing for "school choice" by politicians and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, communities that know firsthand what it's like to have lots of "options," like charter schools and vouchers, have found what's more important is to have a...
by Richard Eskow | Mar 27, 2018 | Blog
Peter G. “Pete” Peterson, the billionaire businessman and anti-government crusader, died last week at the age of 91. He leaves behind family and friends who will miss him, and a vast coterie of consultants and politicians who may miss his checks even more. They can...
by People's Action | Mar 26, 2018 | Breakfast
Next Steps In Movement Against Gun Violence Thousands of students staged a walkout and marched across the U.S. What's next?. USA Today: "The student-led movement forged in Parkland, Fla., after the high school shooting that took 17 lives is remarkable, organized and...
by Richard Eskow | Mar 26, 2018 | Blog
“Snowpocalypse." “Robo-apocalypse.” “Retail apocalypse.” Casual references to annihilation pop up every day in American life. That makes it harder to communicate the danger posed by Donald Trump’s appointment of John Bolton as National Security Advisor. Bolton has...
by Miles Mogulescu | Mar 26, 2018 | Blog
Teach your parents well, Their children's hell will slowly go by, And feed them on your dreams The one they pick's the one you'll know by. Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry, So just look at them and sigh, And know they love you....
