by Tula Connell | Mar 5, 2010 | Blog, Making it in America
Closing the New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. automotive plant in California will eliminate 25,000 jobs in the state and cost taxpayers $2.3 billion to replace the jobs lost, according to a March 3 report by University of California professor Harley Shaiken. The...
by Bill Scher | Mar 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
Public Option Fight May Continue After Reform Passes President seeks to reassure House progressives on future of public option. Salon.com:: "A key House progressive says President Obama blamed the Senate Thursday for the fact that a public insurance option has been...
by Richard Eskow | Mar 4, 2010 | Blog
Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz said the Fed was "corrupt," Elizabeth Warren said she wanted to fight for the CFPA until there were "blood and teeth" on the floor, and Robert Rubin said "virtually nobody" sa
by Richard Eskow | Mar 4, 2010 | Blog
Robert Byrd just came out in favor of using reconciliation in health reform. Since reconciliation's also known as the "Byrd rule," that's a definitive a confirmation of its legitimacy as you can get. It's like having Chuck Berry saying "that's a good Chuck Berry...
by Dave Johnson | Mar 4, 2010 | Blog
Toyota is planning on closing the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. NUMMI auto-manufacturing plant in Fremont, CA on March 31. The immediate effect is a loss of 5,000 jobs. But, as with any factory closing, the effects ripple out well beyond the immediately...
by Bill Scher | Mar 4, 2010 | Blog
The President and congressional leaders have repeatedly acceded to the demands of the right-leaning faction of the Democratic Party on health care. Typically, when congresspeople get what they want in a bill, they proceed to vote for that bill. Yet not one Democratic...
by Bill Scher | Mar 4, 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. President Calls For Final Health...
by Leo Gerard | Mar 3, 2010 | Blog
Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who single-handedly delayed unemployment benefits for 400,000 desperate Americans and forced an unnecessary furlough of another 2,000, should be a figure regarded with wonderment. The awesome power he held in his hands!...
by Bill Scher | Mar 3, 2010 | Blog
After President Obama finished his speech calling for an up-or-down vote on health care reform, a caller to C-Span spouted the usual right-wing complaint, "Why do we have to rush this?" I could not help but chuckle. How can anyone with a straight face still complain...
by Dave Johnson | Mar 3, 2010 | Blog
Americans who travel out of the country will tell you about how the US is so visibly falling further and further behind the rest of the world. This hurts our ability to compete economically. The cause of the problem was tax cuts. The solution is certainly not more tax...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Mar 3, 2010 | Blog
Today's Heritage Foundation "Morning Bell," its daily conservative talking-points memo, contains says this blunt statement about the process that the Obama administration wants to use to pass a health care reform bill through Congress: "Never has reconciliation been...
by Bill Scher | Mar 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. Jobless Aid Extension Signed Into...
by Robert Borosage | Mar 3, 2010 | Blog, Economy
Vice President Joe Biden defended the administration in a speech to America's labor leaders, gathered at the AFL-CIO Executive Council meetings in Orlando, Florida this week. Mentioning individual union presidents by name -- including some not in the room --he...
by Richard Eskow | Mar 3, 2010 | Blog
At what point does "bipartisanship" begin to erode the democratic process? Here's my answer: When it's used to take decision-making power away from voters and place it in the hands of a governing elite - an elite which acts in secret so that its members cannot be held...
by Sara Robinson | Mar 2, 2010 | Blog
My adopted home town of Vancouver, BC is returning to normal this week. The party's over, the Olympic banners are coming down, and the world is catching its planes for home. But the Canadian flags are still flying everywhere against the late winter skies, thanks to a...
by Dave Johnson | Mar 2, 2010 | Blog
In the middle of this terrible jobs crisis Whirlpool is closing a factory in the US and sending the jobs to Mexico. Their Mexican workers will be paid $70 a week so they won't be buying any refrigerators. As I wrote the other day, Our system is broken when "the...
by Alex Lawson | Mar 2, 2010 | Blog
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=885 * The Social Security program itself is race blind; the benefits it pays are a function of a worker’s earnings history and family situation. * Studies show African Americans receive modestly more in Social Security benefits for...
by Bill Scher | Mar 2, 2010 | Blog
Today in the Washington Post opinion section, Sen. Orrin Hatch called using Senate budget rules to pass health care an undemocratic affront to the Constitution: This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would...
by Bill Scher | Mar 2, 2010 | Blog
In Sen. Jim Bunning's words, he's not obstructing because he's against unemployment insurance. (That would be Sen. Jon Kyl) . He just wants the cost of extending unemployment insurance to be offset by cutting back on the Recovery Act, so we don't increase the budget...
by Bill Scher | Mar 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. Senate Dems Respond To Filibuster...
by Sam Pizzigati | Mar 1, 2010 | Blog
Deep down in our lobes, says new research from an international scientific team, sits a basic tilt toward fairness. Are we humans hard-wired to hoard or to “share the wealth”? Are we selfish by nature? Or do our psyches have a preference for equality...
by Bill Scher | Mar 1, 2010 | Blog
Minutes ago on the Senate floor, the Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl just defending Sen. Jim Bunning's filibuster by attacking the entire premise for unemployment insurance during a protracted period of job losses. Sen. Kyl argued that unemployment insurance would not...
by Bill Scher | Mar 1, 2010 | Blog
The exploitation of the Senate rules to obstruct the majority will has reach it's inevitable but inane endpoint. Sen. Jim Bunning has single-handledly forced the furlough of 2,000 transportation workers and cut off hundreds of thousands unemployed Americans from...
by Richard Eskow | Mar 1, 2010 | Blog, Economy
When I worked in the Financial District back in the nineties, the big-shot investment types loved to talk about accountability. Almost all male, they loved macho posturing. They got big money because they took big risks, they'd say. They were the Danger Boys. They had...
by Dave Johnson | Mar 1, 2010 | Blog, Economy
Last week the Washington Post ran an op-ed with the curious headline, “The Green Jobs Myth.” Oil and coal lobbyists everywhere, well-aware that most people only read headlines and a few paragraphs at most, were giving each other high-fives. You see, a headline like...
by Bill Scher | Mar 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. Unemployment Insurance Cut Off For...
by Sam Pizzigati | Feb 28, 2010 | Blog
To really reform big bank behavior, we need to scuttle the pay system that 'entitles' Wall Streeters to however much loot they can grab. Too many Americans, conservative ideologues often lament, feel entitled to the good life, even if they haven’t worked to...
by Leo Gerard | Feb 26, 2010 | Blog
Leo W. Gerard: Richard, when you appeared recently at Youngstown State University as a guest of the Center for Working-Class Lecture Series, you talked about how essential manufacturing is to the U.S. economy and how politicians seem clueless about that. In fact, you...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 26, 2010 | Blog
The latest bit of obstruction being staged by a Senate conservative, done in the name of limiting federal spending, is going to end up costing cash-strapped states millions of dollars as well as potentially causing millions of workers to lose their unemployment...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 26, 2010 | Blog
Whirlpool is closing a plant in Evansville, Indiana, and moving the jobs to Mexico, where the workers will be paid $70 per week. Our system is broken when "the market" encourages companies like Whirlpool to close factories, destroy the lives of American workers,...
by Bill Scher | Feb 26, 2010 | Blog
The partisan gulf was not just present in the summit room yesterday, but liberal and conservative bloggers also had completely different takes on what transpired. Liberals slammed the inability of Republicans to engage in serious discussion, while conservatives tried...
by Bill Scher | Feb 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. After Summit, Dems Move To Pass...
by Alex Lawson | Feb 25, 2010 | Blog
# With longer life expectancies than men, elderly women tend to live more years in retirement and have a greater chance of exhausting other sources of income. They benefit from Social Security's cost-of-living protections because benefits are annually adjusted for...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 25, 2010 | Blog
The pheremonic scent of compromise is inducing euphoria in the nation's capitol once again. Not that there's anything wrong with compromise, if it results in policies that work. But we've just pulled ourselves back from the brink of financial meltdown, and tens of...
by Bill Scher | Feb 25, 2010 | Blog
During the lunch break of today's health care summit, C-Span 3 took two calls from Republican voters appalled at what they saw from their own party's congressional leaders. One praised President Obama for trying to tackle a serious problem, while lamenting the...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 25, 2010 | Blog
Yesterday: Whirlpool Threatens Workers Who Protest Plant Closing, I thought that was the end of it, but whoa, what's this? Whirlpool Threatens Workers: Protesting Plant Closure Risks 'Future Jobs' A major corporation planning to shut down a factory in Indiana has...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 25, 2010 | Blog
McJoan at DailyKos says it best: "How despicable can these guys get?" This is how despicable: Starting Monday, 1.1 million people will lose their unemployment benefits because right-wing Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., thinks its more important to give tax breaks to...
by Dave Johnson | Feb 25, 2010 | Blog
A month ago while covering the arrest of James O'Keefe after his attempt to tamper with the phones at Senator Mary Landrieu's office the New York Times repeated conservative misinformation that smeared ACORN, and is now refusing to retract their "reporting." James...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Feb 25, 2010 | Blog
by Bill Scher | Feb 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
Summit Convenes Today Six-hour health care summit begins at 10 AM ET. Successful bipartisan talks achieve consensus on shape of table. NYT: "...the White House at first proposed a U-shaped table with President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the center...
