by Robert Borosage | Jul 27, 2010 | Blog
Washington is enmeshed in a partisan debate about gestures -- with Republicans now boasting that Americans will reward them for saying no to just about everything. No to forestalling the layoff of teachers. No to jobs in the cities. No to infrastructure projects. No....
by Bill Scher | Jul 27, 2010 | Uncategorized
WH Signals Support For Warren? Is the White House ready to back Warren? The Hill: "The White House on Monday gave the strongest signal yet that it may pick Elizabeth Warren ... White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday said Warren is 'very confirmable' ..."...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 26, 2010 | Blog
Somebody really, really doesn't want Elizabeth Warren to run the new Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, or "CFPB," which she first envisioned and proposed. Who? The big banks, for sure, as well as others who don't want their misbehavior brought to light. And Tim...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 26, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
Over the weekend I wrote about Speaker Pelosi talking at Netroots Nation about the upcoming "Making It In America" initiative that the Congress will be taking up after the summer recess. CNN's Money.com describes what's coming, Democrats kicked off the campaign last...
by Bill Scher | Jul 26, 2010 | Blog
Conservative corporate executives -- many of whom are raking in profits while refusing to create jobs -- continue to complain that President Obama's agenda is blame for the weak economy because it has created too much
by Bill Scher | Jul 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. Time To Choose Sides On Tax Cuts...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 24, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
At the Netroots Nation convention today in Las Vegas, Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked about an upcoming Congressional initiative to help restore American manufacturing. The initiative, called “Making It In America” will include a series of bills to be introduced after the...
by Bill Scher | Jul 23, 2010 | Blog
At Netroots Nation today, Van Jones sought to rally attendees after the Senate leadership put plans for a climate protection bill on the back burner: "This thing is not over." He's right, for one very simple reason. It is against the law under the Clean Air Act, the...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 23, 2010 | Blog
The "teachable moment" cliché may be overused, as Jason Linkins observed the other day, but what the White House really needed this week was a learnable moment. The Administration and other leading Democrats had an opportunity this week to understand the nature of the...
by Bill Scher | Jul 23, 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. No Carbon Cap Bill This Summer Sen....
by Bill Scher | Jul 22, 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. With Wall St. Reform Now Law, Eyes...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 21, 2010 | Blog
This week's big story is that a faker scammed the media, trashing an innocent USDA employee's career in order to push a false right-wing narrative. But another scam's underway too, and it's targeting Social Security and other entitlement programs. As Republicans (and...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 21, 2010 | Blog, Economy
"It hurts me that they didn't even try to attempt to see what is happening here, they didn't care." Shirley Sherrod – on her forced resignation from the USDA within hours airing of a heavily edited video of Sherrod speaking at an NAACP event by right wing...
by Zach Carter | Jul 21, 2010 | Blog
Ezra Klein needs to stop repeating bank lobby smears against Elizabeth Warren. He's sympathetic to the charge that Warren is "too dismissive of the benefits of financial innovation," because, well, I don't know why. It's a baseless allegation being made by Warren's...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 21, 2010 | Blog
In the deficit hysteria now sweeping Washington, Social Security has emerged in the bull's-eye as a target for cuts. Perpetually tanned Republican House Minority leader John Boehner, called for hiking the retirement age to 70. The Democratic House Majority...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 21, 2010 | Blog
The right-wing smear machine that cost an exemplary Agriculture Department official her job should be denounced for what it is: a high-tech, low-rent McCarthyism that launches search-and-destroy missions with no purpose but poisonous partisanship. That the Obama...
by Zach Carter | Jul 21, 2010 | Blog
Today, President Barack Obama will sign into law the first serious effort to regulate Wall Street in decades. The bill has much to be said for it, but the unfortunate truth is that it ducks several of the most critical reforms needed to protect our economy from banker...
by Bill Scher | Jul 21, 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. Wall St. Reform Becomes Law Today...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 20, 2010 | Blog
Where's the Tea Party when you really need them? There's a bit of investigative reporting from the Washington Post that ought to have launched a Tea Party protest, complete with signs, slogans, and speeches (from the likes of Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Rand...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 20, 2010 | Blog, Economy
Two depressing reports today show the depth of today's jobs emergency, both immediately and in the long term. The message that these two reports convey is clear: We are in a deeper hole than much of the rhetoric coming from either end of Pennsylvania Avenue suggests....
by Dave Johnson | Jul 20, 2010 | Blog, Economy
The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 3: "He may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them..." We have a jobs emergency and the Congress has not acted. Almost everything the Senate does is being blocked by an...
by Bill Scher | Jul 20, 2010 | Blog
A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds the most Americans do not support broad cuts in Social Security, either by raising the retirement age or the payroll tax. Oddly, that news is buried in the second-to-last paragraph of the USA Today article of the poll, and is not even...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 20, 2010 | Blog
The following was originally published by Politico With more than 20 million people unemployed or underemployed, deflation looming, trade deficits rising and the economy staggering, American elites are hyperventilating about balancing the books. While most economists...
by Bill Scher | Jul 20, 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. Cruel Irony: Teachers May Face...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 19, 2010 | Blog
A disturbing pattern seems to be forming in Washington: Evidence of financial wrongdoing leads to financial settlements with large banking institutions, but with no apparent move to indict the individuals responsible. AIG agreed to the largest settlements in history,...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 19, 2010 | Blog
They forget to dance with those that brung them Consider the current tempest about the “poisonous relations” between Obama and business. Former Clintonista Roger Altman, a Democratic investment banker, offers advice on how to mend the fences to both sides of the...
by Robert Borosage | Jul 19, 2010 | Blog
They’d rather switch than fight. Consider. Elizabeth Warren, brilliant Harvard Law Professor, stalwart defender of America’s beleagued middle class, championed the Consumer Financial Protection Agency as essential to protecting consumers from financial fraud and...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Jul 19, 2010 | Blog
Today's image from the Rose Garden was a potent one: President Obama, standing with three of America's long-term jobless, calling on Congress to end the Republican filibuster of unemployment benefits and calling out Senate conservatives for their hypocrisy. In today's...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 19, 2010 | Blog, Economy, Making it in America
Will you be at Netroots Nation in Las Vegas later this week? I will be on a panel, The 2010 Elections: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter, Thursday at 10:30am. Come on by and attend the panel! Here is the complete description: The 2010...
by Leo Gerard | Jul 19, 2010 | Blog
A brutal competition pits worker against worker continually now in this country. Five unemployed people vie with each other for each available job. It’s like a cruel game of musical chairs, with five desperate competitors for one seat. Workers who’ve lost cars to...
by Bill Scher | Jul 19, 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. Jobless Aid Extension Expected To...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jul 18, 2010 | Blog
Make room for a new right-wing assault on scientific research. In the cross-hairs this time: the massive epidemiological evidence on inequality's horrific toll on our health and overall well-being. Just over three decades ago, in 1979, an obscure research paper began...
by Dave Johnson | Jul 18, 2010 | Blog
Over the weekend the San Jose News carried a story, Made in China, bought in China — for more, describing some of the barriers Chinese consumers face when buying goods made by non-Chinese companies -- even if the goods are made in China, The laptop computer Luo...
by Sara Robinson | Jul 16, 2010 | Blog
You've heard the latest one, right? President Obama -- or maybe it was Obama working hand-in-glove with BP -- deliberately blew up the Deepwater Horizon, sent 11 workers to their deaths, destroyed the country's biggest fishery, and smeared the coasts of five states...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
Obama, Democrats Pass Historic Financial Reform The Senate has sent to Obama the most sweeping financial reform since the Great Depression: "The Senate on Thursday voted 60-39 to approve the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system since the...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jul 15, 2010 | Blog
The staggering gap between CEO and worker pay, new research from three business scholars suggests, has left America's workplaces still more nasty, brutish, and short. We have today in academia, after 30 years of rising CEO pay, a vast scholarly literature on CEO...
by Zach Carter | Jul 15, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
Wall Street reform passed Congress today, with three Republicans voting "yes," among them Scott Brown of Massachusetts. But Brown's vote came with a high price tag: he insisted on both hammering ordinary citizens with new taxes, instead of imposing them on the...
by Terrance Heath | Jul 15, 2010 | Blog
It would be funny, if only it wasn't reality. That's what I thought when I came across this while perusing videos on my iPhone recently. It's a pretty good compliation of the recent insanity. It's good political satire. If it was an obvious parody, I could laugh. But...
by Zach Carter | Jul 15, 2010 | Blog, Financial Reform
Good news: The Senate just secured 60 votes to proceed on Wall Street reform, clearing the way for the legislation's final passage today or Saturday. The legislation garnered the votes of every Democrat except Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who argued that the bill was...
by Richard Eskow | Jul 15, 2010 | Blog
The United States Chamber of Commerce has released an "open letter" to the President, Congress, and the American people which lays out its blueprint for our political future. It lays out the current Republican playbook in stark terms, and it reads like the battle plan...
