by Jeff Bryant | Oct 27, 2017 | Blog
President Donald Trump swept into office on a platform that included support for charter schools and other alternatives to public schools, and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, an ardent supporter of "school choice" in all its forms, recently announced her...
by People's Action | Oct 26, 2017 | Breakfast
GOP Budget Heads to House Vote Republican tax fight complicates plan to pass budget in House. CNBC: "A budget plan crucial to President Donald Trump's hopes for large-scale tax cuts looked set for a close vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday after...
by Sam Pizzigati | Oct 26, 2017 | Blog
How much did your paychecks total last year? You know the answer, of course. So does the Social Security Administration. The totals for every American’s paycheck income are sitting in Social Security’s computers. Once every year, Social Security does a serious data...
by People's Action | Oct 24, 2017 | Breakfast
Senate Votes To End CFPB Arbitration Rule Flake and Corker join Trump to upend a major consumer protection. The Intercept: "With national attention focused Tuesday morning on a mushrooming feud between President Trump and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., followed by a feud...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 24, 2017 | Blog
No political ideology in modern American history has failed as consistently, or for as long, as the Wall Street-friendly political brand known as "Democratic centrism." It's true that individual politicians have succeeded under this umbrella, through art and luck, but...
by Harvey J Kaye | Oct 24, 2017 | Blog
Halloween is coming and fear mongering seems to be the order of the day – not just on the part of Republicans, but apparently no less so on the part of “centrist” and conservative Democrats who are expressing growing anxiety about offending big donors who see politics...
by People's Action | Oct 24, 2017 | Breakfast
Trump, GOP Barrel Towards Tax Cuts Trump heads To Capitol Hill with clear message: Pass A Tax Cut. NPR: "Marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to send a message to Congress is a classic move in presidential political theater, and today is President Trump's inaugural...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 24, 2017 | Blog
The Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party will always be with us. Its policies—on financial deregulation, trade, fiscal austerity, mass incarceration, and military intervention—have been ruinous. Its political aversion to populist appeals has been self-defeating....
by Imre Szalai | Oct 24, 2017 | Blog
In the wake of White Nationalist demonstrations in Charlottesville, American business leaders surprisingly and boldly stepped up to demonstrate moral leadership at a time when we needed it most. That response, from the CEOs who spoke out against hatred, was a stunning...
by People's Action | Oct 23, 2017 | Breakfast
Trump Voter Commission Members Left In Dark Trump voting commission criticized for lack of transparency. AP: "President Donald Trump’s advisory commission on election integrity has integrity questions of its own — with some of its own members raising concerns about...
by O.J. Semans | Oct 23, 2017 | Blog
Years ago I heard a Federal Prosecutor, upon losing a case, quote Benjamin Franklin in this way: “It is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer.” Franklin’s words came back to me when I learned about President Trump’s...
by People's Action | Oct 20, 2017 | Breakfast
Senate Approves Fast-Track Budget Senate approves budget plan that smooths path toward tax cut. NYT: " The Senate took a significant step toward rewriting the tax code on Thursday night with the passage of a budget blueprint that would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 20, 2017 | Blog
Economically, culturally, strategically, and morally, Donald Trump's obsessive efforts to ban Muslim immigrants and refugees from the United States have impoverished us all. His most recent attempt proves it. Premeditated Hate On Tuesday, a federal judge in Hawaii...
by Jeff Bryant | Oct 19, 2017 | Blog
A favorite talking point of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is to say that conversations about education should not be about "systems and buildings" but about "individual students." It's a skillfully crafted soundbite designed to cast schools as oppressive...
by Tim Wilkins | Oct 19, 2017 | Uncategorized
Budget Paves Way For Trump Tax Cuts Trump: Senate budget vote 'first step towards massive tax cuts'. Politico: "Trump said Thursday morning that the Senate’s scheduled vote on budget legislation is a “first step towards massive tax cuts,” but cautioned that a...
by Hannah Gelder | Oct 19, 2017 | Blog
Republicans in Congress want to drive our nation’s economy, and budget, off a cliff. They just don’t care. But it doesn’t have to be that way; here in Illinois, we know from experience there is a way out of this madness, if we stand together and put people and planet...
by Sam Pizzigati | Oct 18, 2017 | Blog
What a great time to be alive — if you’re sitting on a couple hundred million and have a hankering for your own private jet. Buying a pair of luxury wings has never been more of a bargain. Prices for new and “pre-owned” jets have simply gone “insane,” as aviation...
by Tim Wilkins | Oct 18, 2017 | Uncategorized
Judge Blocks Trump Travel Ban Federal judge blocks Trump’s third travel ban. NYT: "President Trump’s attempts to block travelers from a handful of countries — most of them predominantly Muslim — from coming to the United States hit another legal snag on Tuesday, when...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 17, 2017 | Blog
Somebody ought to write a self-help book for Republican politicians called, “How to Profit from the Coming Trump Apocalypse.” Although, come to think of it, they're doing pretty well with that already. The newspapers have been filled with stories of Trump’s tense...
by People's Action | Oct 17, 2017 | Breakfast
McCain Rips Trump's Failure To Lead McCain, in speech, denounces 'spurious nationalism'. Politico: "Sen. John McCain delivered a condemnation of 'spurious nationalism' on Monday night in Philadelphia, using his acceptance speech for the National Constitution Center's...
by Daniel Doubet | Oct 17, 2017 | Blog
State Senator Scott Wagner, the waste treatment millionaire who wants to become Pennsylvania’s next governor, derides left-leaning donor George Soros as a “Hungarian Jew” who harbors “hatred for America.” Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Dave Reed used campaign...
by People's Action | Oct 16, 2017 | Breakfast
Puerto Rico Health Crisis Looms In Puerto Rico, a daily struggle for water and food. Inside Climate News: "In rural and impoverished areas of Puerto Rico, a new day means a new search for food and safe water as the humanitarian crisis there continues to escalate......
by Lois Gibbs | Oct 16, 2017 | Blog
Millions of Puerto Ricans are still without water, food, electricity and shelter, four weeks after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island. With waterborne illnesses on the rise, a full-blown humanitarian crisis is on the horizon. “Raw sewage continues to be released...
by Miles Mogulescu | Oct 15, 2017 | Blog
Trump’s true plan to “drain the swamp” has now become clear: Make the “forgotten men and women” of this nation drink swamp water until they die. Hurricane victims in Puerto Rico are getting sick and dying from drinking polluted water. And now, Trump’s lone-wolf attack...
by Miles Mogulescu | Oct 15, 2017 | Blog
Donald Trump's choice of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to co-chair his new commission on “election integrity" is like asking Vito Corleone to crack down on police corruption or Vladimir Putin to defend human rights. It's worse than a fox guarding the henhouse....
by People's Action | Oct 13, 2017 | Breakfast
Trump Cuts $7 Billion from Health Care for Poor Trump ends ACA subsidies for poor, to undermine health marketplaces. WaPo: "President Trump is throwing a bomb into the insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act, choosing to end critical payments to...
by LeeAnn Hall | Oct 13, 2017 | Blog
When Republican leaders tried to repeal health care in the spring and summer, many Americans raised the alarm and made a ruckus. We asked hard questions, looked at the independent analyses, held town halls, told our health care stories, and took to the streets....
by Richard Eskow | Oct 12, 2017 | Blog
Two opposing forces are fighting to reshape Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Wall Street, which has been plundering the island for years, is trying to tighten its grip on the island. Meanwhile, organized labor is working to rebuild the island - and to...
by Leo Gerard | Oct 12, 2017 | Blog
Giant corporations, loyal to coin and faithless to country, staged a public display of blubbering in the run up to this week’s fourth round of negotiations to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Whaa, whaaa, whaaaa, groups like the U.S. Chamber of...
by People's Action | Oct 12, 2017 | Breakfast
Trump Order to Gut ACA Rules Trump to sign executive order to gut ACA insurance rules and undermine marketplaces. WaPo: "President Trump is due to sign an executive order Thursday morning intended to allow individuals and small businesses to buy a long-disputed type...
by Jeff Bryant | Oct 11, 2017 | Blog
With less than a year in office, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is already having the narrative of her impact on the nation's public schools recast from someone with the power to "single-handedly decimate our public education system" to someone who is capable of only...
by Tim Wilkins | Oct 11, 2017 | Uncategorized
Clean Power Plan Repeal Unlikely to Help Coal Scott Pruitt can't stop the death of big coal. Rolling Stone: "Virtually no coal industry leader, lobbyist or hack politician believes coal has a future in America. Everyone else knows it's a dead industry walking. The...
by Robert Borosage | Oct 11, 2017 | Blog
The Republican tax plan is a lie. It’s being sold with the promise that the tax cut will create jobs and growth. In fact, the Republican tax cuts, if passed, will become the major obstacle to the very investments vital to generating good jobs and future economic...
by Ben Ishibashi | Oct 10, 2017 | Blog
Donald Trump and his Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, think undoing all that has gone before them is something to celebrate. With no real accomplishments of their own, they revel in their power to destroy, rather than defend. This is what Pruitt...
by People's Action | Oct 10, 2017 | Breakfast
WH Issues Demands To Curb Immigration WH releases hard-line immigration principles, threatening deal on ‘dreamers’. WaPo: "The Trump administration released a list of hard-line immigration principles late Sunday that threaten to derail a deal in Congress to allow...
by Jessica Juarez Scruggs | Oct 10, 2017 | Blog
Can one emergency expense ruin your life? It can if you get caught up in the traps set millions of times each year for ordinary working people by payday loan sharks. Stephany Morales was a single mom in college, studying to be a nurse, when her toddler got a chest...
by Richard Eskow | Oct 6, 2017 | Blog
Astronomers tell us the stars we see in the night sky died many millennia ago. Their light has spent eons crossing the emptiness of space. To us, they still seem to glitter and shine, but were extinguished long ago. Last week, the Washington Post ran an op-ed about...
by People's Action | Oct 6, 2017 | Breakfast
Tell Lawmakers To Vote NO! On GOP Budget The GOP is pushing through a budget through Congress that slashes Medicare, Medicaid, and other vital services. Call your representatives today at (888) 516-5820 and tell them to vote NO! on the GOP budget. House Passes GOP...
by Jeff Bryant | Oct 5, 2017 | Blog
When the U.S. Department of Education recently announced its list of recipients of over a quarter billion dollars in federally funded grants to charter schools, charter management organizations, and charter development agencies, charter skeptics cast a suspicious eye...
by People's Action | Oct 5, 2017 | Breakfast
Tell Lawmakers To Vote NO! On House Budget The House GOP is pushing through a budget that slashes Medicare, Medicaid, and other vital services. Call your representative today at (888) 516-5820 and tell them to vote NO! on the House budget. GOP Seeks to Ram Tax Cuts...
