by Richard Eskow | Sep 3, 2010 | Blog
Events of the last week have made the Deficit Commission an embarrassment. Co-Chair Alan Simpson is a one-man disaster movie, compulsively offending one key voting bloc after another. Commission member Paul Ryan faced an angry crowd over his anti-Social Security...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 3, 2010 | Blog, Minimum Wage
"Who could have known?" That's the cry from the big-corporate and DC elite as the economy and the environment and so many imporant things crash around us. (Around us, not them, they're doing just fine and taking good care of each other.) Who could have known that...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 3, 2010 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. White House (Finally) Considering...
by Leo Gerard | Sep 3, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America, Minimum Wage
This Labor Day feels gloomy. It’s a celebration of work when there is not enough of it, a day off when too many desperately seek a day on. America has commemorated two Labor Days since this brutal recession began near the end of George Bush’s presidency in December of...
by Tula Connell | Sep 2, 2010 | Blog
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka yesterday described the upcoming elections this way: This election is about economic patriots, and it’s also about corporate traitors. Economic patriotism resonates among working people and the millions ofAmerica's jobless workers--and...
by Bill Scher | Sep 2, 2010 | Blog
Soon after Congress passed health care reform, Minnesota Gov. and likely '12 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty decried that "we now have the federal government reaching so far inside our society, dictating whether human behavior is good or not." A few weeks earlier,...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 2, 2010 | Blog
Read the rest of the series here. In the previous post in this series, I wrote: To progressives, it seems a given that of course we must do something to alleviate the suffering that the financial collapse and economic downturn have the inflicted on millions of...
by Bill Scher | Sep 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. Not Even Hiding It Anymore. New...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 1, 2010 | Blog
A hedge fund manager's "investor letter" - really more of a staged, theatrical tantrum - has been getting a lot of attention lately. Daniel S. Loeb's diatribe demonstrates that banker greed is still out of control, and that it's as short-sighted and destructive as...
by Leo Gerard | Sep 1, 2010 | Blog
At the turn of the 20th Century, smoke meant jobs. When noxious fumes spewed from factory stacks, workers brought home paychecks. Industries hired. The future was bright as molten iron flowing from a blast furnace. In industrial Pittsburgh’s heyday, the smoke was so...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 1, 2010 | Blog
Sam Seder and I guest-hosted The Young Turks yesterday and spent our last few on-air minutes talking about Social Security and the Deficit Commission. We were discussing the fact that Simpson's personally objectionable behavior is only one aspect of the problem. There...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Sep 1, 2010 | Blog, Economy
We now have hard evidence of what we have been seeing on an anecdotal basis as the anemic economic "recovery" continues to muddle forward: The workers who lost their jobs in the Great Recession are entering a job market in which the new jobs being created are at...
by Steven Capozzola | Sep 1, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
Nearly one year ago, President Obama invoked a trade law known as “421” for the first and only time in the decade the law has been in effect and imposed tariffs on some automobile tire imports from China, which have been surging into the United States from 2004 to...
by Bill Scher | Sep 1, 2010 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. Tax Cuts For Jobs? WH continues to...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 31, 2010 | Blog
Last weekend was the anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom, and Labor Day is next weekend. Last weekend Glenn Beck tried to hijack the MLK march anniversary in the name of the far right and their tea party noisemakers, but we...
by Zach Carter | Aug 31, 2010 | Blog
Ezra Klein has a pretty silly post up about the Wall Street regulation bill and the SEC's funding. He argues that since the SEC failed miserably in the years leading up to the crisis, it's absurd to see them getting more funding in its aftermath. Like bloated banks,...
by Sam Pizzigati | Aug 31, 2010 | Blog
Today marks the 100th anniversary of what may be the most ‘radical speech’ an American ex-President has ever delivered. The words of that former President, Theodore Roosevelt, still ring incredibly true today. By Sam Pizzigati and Chuck Collins Ex-Presidents almost...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 31, 2010 | Blog
The Wall Street Journal assails President Obama for "bait and switch on Social Security," because he's criticizing Republican plans to privatize Social Security, which the Journal says don't exist. The editorial then goes on to call for cutting benefits to "strengthen...
by Bill Scher | Aug 31, 2010 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. Sack Simpson Calls Don't Stop WH...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 30, 2010 | Blog, Minimum Wage
America was formed as a government of, by and for We, the People. It says so right in the first words of our Constitution. To get that Constitution we rebelled against the King and England's aristocracy and their corporations, with their concentrated wealth and power....
by Richard Eskow | Aug 30, 2010 | Blog
There's been a lot of talk recently about the enormous power that's been given to the Deficit Commission, which is co-chaired by Alan "Social Security recipients are milking it" Simpson and dominated by people who have advocated cuts to Social Security and
by Bill Scher | Aug 30, 2010 | Blog
Yesterday on CBS' Face The Nation, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour applauded conservative Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller for opposing federal aid to his own state. On what grounds? Because slashing state budgets in the middle of a recession is no big deal. Gov....
by Zach Carter | Aug 30, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
A lot of CNBC anchors do not seem to understand how regulation works. In fact, it seems like the network's anchors don't really get how competition works. If you've tuned into the business channel this summer, chances are you've heard its anchors pushing the...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Aug 30, 2010 | Blog
You wouldn't know it from this past weekend's media coverage of Glenn Beck's effort to co-opt the message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the site of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, but there was a counterdemonstration that day that featured people...
by Bill Scher | Aug 30, 2010 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. Rising Chorus Demands Congress...
by Sam Pizzigati | Aug 29, 2010 | Blog
'Soak the rich,' after years in the shadows, has suddenly become a policy option fit for discussion in 'respectable' media circles. At long last, we may be witnessing a fundamental paradigm shift in how we, as a society, talk about taxing the rich. Until this summer,...
by Bill Scher | Aug 27, 2010 | Blog
by Richard Eskow | Aug 27, 2010 | Blog
Four prominent leaders of women's organizations held a conference call today, accompanied by Rep. Raul Grijalva, to demand the resignation of retired Sen. Alan Simpson as co-chair of the Deficit Commission. Their comments, together with a number of private...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 27, 2010 | Blog, Economy
When we pack up a factory here -- and all of its jobs and supply chain and its support/.maintenance structure -- and send it all over there to a country that doesn't have the wage and safety and environmental protections we have, just to save a bit of money today we...
by Bill Scher | Aug 27, 2010 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. Weak 2Q Growth Spurs Calls For...
by Trevor Davis | Aug 26, 2010 | Uncategorized
March of Washington Anniversary Re-Energizes Progressive Agenda 50 years later, blacks lag behind whites "by almost every measure" reports Bloomberg: "Since the June 2009 end of the recession, median income for black households has dropped 10.9 percent, compared with...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 26, 2010 | Blog
Millions of Americans are struggling to survive in the ruins of a once-healthy economy. A bipartisan frenzy of bank deregulation led to this catastrophe, and the financial reform bill passed this year is only a first step toward repairing the damage. We should be...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 26, 2010 | Blog
In today’s New York Times, One Liberal Voice Dares to Say, Cut the Budget, by Matt Bai. Bai's piece frames the federal debt as almost entirely the fault of Social Security, with cutting Social Security the only real way to fix the problem. Bai claims that "liberal...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 26, 2010 | Blog
Alan Simpson said he's sorry, but it's not enough. The calls for his resignation will continue - and not because of "political correctness" or his use of the word "tit," has his apologists suggest. They'll continue because he's uninformed about Social Security,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Aug 26, 2010 | Blog
A number of cities around the country are turning off their street lights, unpaving their roads and rolling back what used to be sacrosanct public services because they can no longer afford to provide them. The New York Times reported recently that students at a...
by Mary Bottari | Aug 26, 2010 | Blog
Some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen - Woodie Guthrie Like mushrooms popping up in a damp basement, a slew of court settlements have been registered recently involving the big banks and their role in the financial crisis. An informal review of...
by Bill Scher | Aug 26, 2010 | Uncategorized
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security. Simpson Apology Doesn't Stop Calls...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 26, 2010 | Blog
Former Wyoming Republican Senator Alan Simpson is co-chair of President Obama's Fiscal Commission. This is what he said the other day about the relationship between the American people and our government: "We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 25, 2010 | Blog
Ryan Grim reports that Alan Simpson has apologized to Ashley B. Carson of the Older Women's League for sending her an insulting email. Unfortunately, it's not enough.
by Bill Scher | Aug 25, 2010 | Blog
The Recovery Act, often known as the stimulus, was the first major act of active government in at least decade. After the unmitigated failure of conservatism, the stimulus has likely be viewed by many voters as a test of whether active government can work and should...
