by Sara Robinson | Sep 8, 2009 | Blog
There's emerging evidence to suggest that, as the legitimate advertisers disappear, Glenn Beck's TV show may be relying more and more on financial life support from rich right-wingers -- with plenty of extra help from us taxpayers -- to stay on the air. Media Matters...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 8, 2009 | Blog, Making it in America
At the recent Netroots Nation gathering in Pittsburgh bloggers toured the J. Edgar Thomson steel mill. I asked the plant manager about competitiveness. She said that labor costs are not a big factor in the cost competitiveness of Chinese steel; a major component of...
by Brian Dockstader | Sep 8, 2009 | Blog
I wrote last week about the absolutely shameful, shocking and appalling attacks from conservatives against President Obama in response to his plans to give students a back to school pep talk about the importance of education. I wrote at the time that the level of...
by Roger Hickey | Sep 8, 2009 | Blog
When President Obama speaks before the Congress on Wednesday night, he will tell the nation in more specific detail what he wants to do to make the health care system work for everyone. He’d had better pledge to make sure good health insurance is...
by Robert Borosage | Sep 8, 2009 | Blog
The departure of Van Jones from the White House is a sorry chapter in our politics. Van is a gifted leader of ideas and of action. He makes connections, thinks beyond the box, and inspires others to join. As California chose to spend billions on prisons locking up...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 8, 2009 | Blog
One of the teachers who influenced me the most was Mr. Harrison, my high school English teacher. He taught me that the purpose of education was not to teach me what to think, but how to think — how to examine and question what I was told; to not merely "know" what I...
by Bill Scher | Sep 8, 2009 | Uncategorized
The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day. Congress Returns, With Health Care #1 Priority Congress returns to DC, some more committed to pass health care reform than ever. W. Post: "'I think, if...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 8, 2009 | Blog, Making it in America
"A country’s economic power comes from manufacturing. But while other countries have industrial policies, America has a de-inustrialization policy. We have handed our country’s manufacturing capacity over to other countries, and as a result we have to borrow more and...
by Alan Jenkins | Sep 7, 2009 | Blog
My Fellow Americans: I speak to you tonight at a crucial moment in our nation’s history. When you elected me president almost one year ago, you voted in favor of hope, and in favor of change. You voted for the idea that we are all in it together, and that we share a...
by Sara Robinson | Sep 4, 2009 | Blog
Over on the right wing, the conservatives are all a-Twitter because someone dug up a YouTube video from last February in which White House environmental staffer Van Jones calls Republicans "assholes." And then yesterday, Glenn Beck breathlessly revealed that back in...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 4, 2009 | Blog
Sometimes you think you've lived beforeAll that you live todayThings you do come back to youAs though they knew the wayOh, the tricks your mind can play! "Where or When," Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart "It seems we've stood and talked like this before," goes the...
by Eric Lotke | Sep 3, 2009 | Blog
The Republican strategy of obstruction is working. The latest Pew poll shows Congressional Favorability Falls to 24-Year Low Former Senate Republican Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss, didn’t hide his goals. "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail...and so far...
by Brian Dockstader | Sep 3, 2009 | Blog
Well the reviews are already in on Obama's big speech on "the importance of education", and they aren't pretty. The descriptions range from "brainwashing" and "indoctrination of your children" to accusations that Obama's speech shows that he is actually Mao, Hitler,...
by Leo Gerard | Sep 3, 2009 | Blog
When the leaders of the G-20 nations arrive in Pittsburgh, I want them to know I am fomenting revolution -- Industrial revolution. Specifically, a 21st-century burgeoning of green manufacturing in the United States. Americans going green -- manufacturing windmills and...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 3, 2009 | Blog, Making it in America
A country’s economic power comes from manufacturing. But while other countries have industrial policies, America has a de-industrialization policy. We have handed our country’s manufacturing capacity over to other countries, and as a result we have to borrow more and...
by Alex Lawson | Sep 2, 2009 | Blog
***HEALTHCARE FOR ALL INFORMATION PROJECT***Sign up to receive our Health Care Information Project by email. Check the box next to Health Care for All • 1. Let's Pass Ted Kennedy's Health Plan by Roger Hickey, The Huffington Post, August 31, 2009 • 2. Private Health...
by Sam Pizzigati | Sep 2, 2009 | Blog
Top execs in high finance, says the Institute for Policy Studies, have turned hard times — for the American people — into a springboard for still another round of huge pay windfalls. Is the CEO pay bubble now beyond popping? Researchers at the Institute for Policy...
by Eric Lotke | Sep 2, 2009 | Blog
Today’s “Productivity and Costs” data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics contain what looks like good news. “Labor productivity increased at a 6.6 percent annual rate during the second quarter of 2009.” The Associated Press adds context to the data: “Worker...
by Robert Borosage | Sep 2, 2009 | Blog
As Congress returns from its summer recess, President Obama, slipping in the polls, assailed on all sides by the carpers, faces a strategic choice: Lead the charge, rally Democrats, and push forward on his agenda, starting with health care reform or trim his sails and...
by Tula Connell | Sep 2, 2009 | Blog
by Brian Dockstader | Sep 1, 2009 | Blog
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post entitled "Sarah Palin Thinks You Are Stupid" in which I explored her "death panel" fearmongering and what it showed about how she viewed the American people (hint: she thinks you are stupid). At one point I referenced the fact that...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 1, 2009 | Blog, Making it in America
The definition of “anti-American” might be up for grabs after so many years of conservatives using the label like a club, but can we all agree that when other countries are working against the interests of America, that it is fair to call that “anti-American?” I...
by Roger Hickey | Aug 31, 2009 | Blog
Let’s get a few things straight: Until last year, Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s health care bill (co-authored with with Rep. John Dingell) was a bill known as Medicare for All. Not expensive private insurance for some, but Medicare [a...
by Bill Scher | Aug 29, 2009 | Blog
In this week's edition of The Week In Blog at Bloggingheads.tv, The Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll pushed an argument voiced by another conservative blogger Patrick Ruffini: that the initial intention of the public health insurance option was to create a Trojan...
by Brian Dockstader | Aug 28, 2009 | Blog
♫No one knows what it's like To be the bad man To be the sad man Behind blue eyes No one knows what it's like...
by Bill Scher | Aug 28, 2009 | Uncategorized
The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day. Health Care Attacks Continue, As Does Debunking Roger Hickey maps out grassroots strategy to win health care for all on BlogTalkRadio's D'Antoni & Levine...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 28, 2009 | Blog
When China was accepted into the World Trade Organization, they agreed that if we experienced import surges of Chinese goods that caused "market disruption," we would be allowed to limit the import of those goods. The particular section of the agreement is called...
by Brian Dockstader | Aug 27, 2009 | Blog
by Eric Lotke | Aug 27, 2009 | Blog
Today’s data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis tell the same old story. National GDP is dropping and personal incomes are dropping along with it. These are troubled times. But wait! There's more! Corporate profits are on the rise. Source: BEA: GDP, personal income,...
by Sara Robinson | Aug 27, 2009 | Blog
August, die she must. The town hall freak show is winding down, the media circus is packing the cameras and satellite dishes and hairspray back into the vans, and Congress is soon heading back to the relative safety of DC. Yet, after all the fuss and bother, they're...
by Bill Scher | Aug 27, 2009 | Uncategorized
The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day. Kennedy Inspiring Action On Health Reform, While Conservatives Politicize The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel calls on Democrats to rally behind Kennedy's...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 27, 2009 | Blog, Financial Reform
The reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve -- cleverly timed to defuse the news of burgeoning federal deficits -- was preordained. The "markets" demanded it, and as James Carville noted, when the markets speak, presidents listen. (Carville,...
by Eric Lotke | Aug 26, 2009 | Blog
The Congressional Budget Office published revised estimates about the deficit, and people are hyperventilating. “[B]urying our children and grandchildren under a mountain of unsustainable debt,” declared House minority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Leave aside for a...
by Bill Scher | Aug 26, 2009 | Blog
Last month, Sen. Ted Kennedy wrote in Newsweek: "quality care shouldn't depend on your financial resources, or the type of job you have, or the medical condition you face. Every American should be able to get the same treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to. This...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 26, 2009 | Blog
We have lost a giant. The Senate is a smaller place today — a special measure of joy, political passion, irrepressible energy has been lost. Edward Kennedy's words, delivered as his 1980 presidential campaign came to an end at the Democratic Convention in Madison...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 26, 2009 | Blog
It was quiet this morning, when I sat down to read the news, after seeing the rest of my family out the door. It was quiet this morning when I read about the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., died without realizing what he called "the cause...
by Bill Scher | Aug 26, 2009 | Uncategorized
Sen. Ted Kennedy, The Liberal Lion, Dies At 77 NYT obituary: "Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 26, 2009 | Blog
This is a story we are all too familiar with: Wall Street vs. Main Street. Irresponsible behavior leads to bonuses for Wall Street while working hard and playing by the rules leads to unemployment and foreclosure for Main Street. You've heard the elements of the...
by Brian Dockstader | Aug 25, 2009 | Blog
Actual cover of "Your Life, Your Choices" offered by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs Did you hear the latest ridiculous lie the right-wing is promoting against health insurance reform? You see, there is a book, an evil book, and if you read it, you get a phone call, and...
by Bill Scher | Aug 25, 2009 | Uncategorized
The daily Progressive Breakfast serves up what progressive movement members need to know to start their day. Bernanke Re-Appointed to Head Fed Baseline Scenario's Simon Johnson asks "Which Bernanke Are We Getting?" "1. The Bernanke who led the charge to rescue the US...
