by Isaiah J. Poole | Jun 12, 2017 | Blog
The Cook Political Report, one of the most respected handicappers of political races, doesn’t count New Jersey’s fourth congressional district – which encompasses most of central New Jersey – as even plausibly competitive for a Democrat. It’s now represented by a...
by People's Action | Jun 12, 2017 | Breakfast
People's Summit Inspired by Sanders, activists in Chicago push Democrats to left — or out of the way. Chicago Tribune: "Nearly one year after effectively conceding the Democratic presidential nomination, (Bernie) Sanders was the star of this year's People's Summit,...
by Tobita Chow | Jun 12, 2017 | Blog
Tobita Chow delivered the following speech to the "From Resistance to Power" session at the People's Summit, a gathering of more than four thousand progressive activists in Chicago over the weekend of June 9-11, 2017. We live in a time of crisis. Billionaires and...
by People's Action | Jun 9, 2017 | Breakfast
Comey's Tale Comey raises possibility of Trump obstruction and condemns his "lies." NYT: "The recently fired F.B.I. director, said Thursday in an extraordinary Senate hearing that he believed President Trump had tried to derail an investigation into his national...
by Leo Gerard | Jun 9, 2017 | Blog
Donald Trump surrounds himself in gold. The signs on Trump buildings shimmer in it. His penthouse in New York is gilded in it. He claims now to have found the alchemy to conjure $1 trillion in infrastructure gold. He plans to put up a mere $200 billion in federal...
by Erica Nanton | Jun 8, 2017 | Blog
The two hundred miles I walked from Chicago to Springfield with my dear friends from Fair Economy Illinois have special meaning to me. We marched fifteen days to demand a budget for our state that puts people and planet first. Throughout this beautiful and grueling...
by Jeff Bryant | Jun 8, 2017 | Blog
U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos had another rough day in Congress this week when Senators grilled her on the details of her budget, which slashes over $9 billion from the education department and diverts $1.4 billion to privately operated schools such as charter schools...
by Richard Eskow | Jun 8, 2017 | Blog
If you needed a new stove or refrigerator, you wouldn’t give the keys to your kitchen to Olive Garden, then pay them to let you eat. You’d be opening your wallet for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of logic Donald Trump and his party are using to...
by Michelle Chen | Jun 8, 2017 | Blog
Confronting the climate crisis shouldn’t be rocket science — to push society to decarbonize, just treat greenhouse gases the way governments treat liquor and cigarettes: Raise the price. With the climate-change movement at an impasse as the Paris climate treaty...
by People's Action | Jun 8, 2017 | Breakfast
Patronage Rules The 'Patronage' Presidency: James Comey's 'extraordinary' testimony on Trump. Common Dreams: "In one of the most potentially damning moments recounted in the memos, Comey describes a private dinner with Trump at the White House on January 27 in which...
by Liz Ryan Murray | Jun 8, 2017 | Blog
“Wall Street wrote their wish list, and to Congress they’re flocking: But this Christmas in June, let’s put coal in their stocking!” Republicans in the House want make the deepest desires of Wall Street sharpies, loan sharks and big banks come true. They are poised...
by People's Action | Jun 7, 2017 | Breakfast
Collateral Damage Russia investigation may reveal aides' excesses. The Atlantic: "As the blast radius of the Russia investigation continues to expand, Donald Trump is facing an unnerving new reality: The fate of his presidency may now hinge on the motley, freewheeling...
by Angela Simaan | Jun 6, 2017 | Blog
The White House budget dispels any hopes Trump might keep his promise to extend a helping hand to the nation’s millions of small business workers with a family and medical leave act that works for them. Instead, the Trump team hands American workers an empty envelope....
by People's Action | Jun 6, 2017 | Breakfast
Gerrymander No More Supreme Court strikes down North Carolina's GOP-drawn maps for racial gerrymandering. DailyKOS: "In a major victory for voting rights on Monday, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling issued last year that had struck down 28 of North...
by LeeAnn Hall | Jun 5, 2017 | Blog
The GOP health bill won't just roll back Obamacare - it will end Medicaid as we know it. For thirty years, I’ve helped people fight for health care. In one of my proudest moments, I worked with people in small towns across Idaho to expand Medicaid for children. So...
by Josh Hoxie | Jun 5, 2017 | Blog
If you can get past the fuzzy math, Trump's budget means certain pain for most families — and big tax cuts for the wealthiest few. Federal budgets, while boring and wonky, can have a serious impact on our lives. They dictate our collective priorities for how we choose...
by People's Action | Jun 5, 2017 | Breakfast
Health Options Are Democrats becoming the single-payer party? NYT: "At rallies and in town hall meetings, and in a collection of blue-state legislatures, liberal Democrats have pressed lawmakers, with growing impatience, to support the creation of a single-payer...
by Robert Borosage | Jun 4, 2017 | Blog
Bernie Sanders is in England for sold-out speaking engagements to boost Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party’s candidate for prime minister in the snap election scheduled for June 8. Corbyn is surging in British polls, and running a populist campaign that pledges radical...
by Daniel Doubet | Jun 2, 2017 | Blog
Mr. President, when you took our country out of the global agreement to stop climate change, you said you “represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” As a proud native of western Pennsylvania, I strongly disagree. You do not represent Pittsburgh. Our people...
by Leo Gerard | Jun 2, 2017 | Blog
To justify withdrawing from the Paris climate change accord, President Trump said during his press conference yesterday, “I was elected to represent the city of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” From terrible experience, Pittsburghers know about pollution. Before...
by People's Action | Jun 2, 2017 | Breakfast
Calling It Quits on Climate Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement. NYT: "President Trump announced on Thursday that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, weakening efforts to combat global warming and embracing isolationist...
by Katherine Kiel | Jun 1, 2017 | Blog
Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the Love Canal crisis, when toxic chemicals were found to be leaking from an underground dump into homes in Niagara Falls, New York. State and federal agencies relocated more than 200 families out of the affected area....
by Jeff Bryant | Jun 1, 2017 | Blog
This week's disturbing news that Oklahoma schools are so poorly funded some of them may move from five days a week to four got a lot of people's attention, including my colleague Richard Eskow, who called this an example of "the Republican party's sickness of the...
by People's Action | Jun 1, 2017 | Breakfast
Brinksmanship Trump to announce whether U.S. will leave Paris Climate Accord at 3 p.m. today. Politico: “President Donald Trump -- joined by Vice President Mike Pence -- will announce whether the United States will drop out of the Paris climate agreement, joining...
by Libero Della Piana | Jun 1, 2017 | Blog
As resistance to Trump’s agenda gathers steam, many sectors of the progressive left and Democratic Party leaders turn their eyes toward the 2018 elections as the next step in the struggle. But too few are working to defend and restore voting rights. Don’t get me wrong...
by Robert Borosage | May 31, 2017 | Blog
The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed what was already apparent: The revised House Republican health-care bill will still deprive millions of Americans - 23 million in the CBO estimate - of health insurance. Senate Republicans are devising their plan in...
by People's Action | May 31, 2017 | Breakfast
Cuts and Militias Trump administration plans to minimize civil rights efforts in agencies. WaPo: "The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according...
by Richard Eskow | May 30, 2017 | Blog
There’s a sickness on the land. You know the facts: millions of Americans lives in poverty. The number of Americans in the workforce remains low. Wages are stagnating and inequality is growing. “Deaths of despair” from alcoholism, opioid overdose, and suicide are on...
by People's Action | May 30, 2017 | Breakfast
United States of Mean Texas GOP lawmaker calls ICE on protesters, threatens to shoot colleague in the head. NPR: "By the end of the state legislative session in Texas on Monday, the Capitol had devolved into scuffles and grave accusations. A Democratic lawmaker had...
by Jeff Bryant | May 30, 2017 | Blog
You and I witnessed history last week, and not the good kind. At a House subcommittee hearing In Washington, DC, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was called to defend to Congress the Trump administration’s education budget which cuts education options for poor...
by Leo Gerard | May 30, 2017 | Blog
A few hundred billion cut here, a few hundred billion slashed there, and the Trump budget proposal adds up to real crushed opportunity. The spending plan slices a pound of flesh from everyone, well, everyone who isn’t a millionaire or billionaire. For the rich, it...
by Lois Gibbs | May 26, 2017 | Blog
'Homeland Security - No more wars over oil!' That’s what families in communities across Pennsylvania were promised a decade ago. 'We’ll extract natural gas from the ground, using an unconventional process called hydrofracturing, to acquire enough natural gas that the...
by Tobita Chow | May 26, 2017 | Blog
The White House has sent formal notice to Congress that it is initiating the process to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). All evidence suggests that despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, this puts us on track to yet another corporate trade...
by People's Action | May 26, 2017 | Breakfast
Reap What You Sow Reporter-punching Republican Gianforte wins Montana House race. WaPo: "The darker forces that propelled President Trump’s rise are beginning to frame and define the rest of the Republican Party. When GOP House candidate Greg Gianforte assaulted a...
by Bryce Oates | May 25, 2017 | Blog
Long before the nation got to know Greg Gianforte as a body-slamming, reporter-punching candidate to Congress, I knew the guy was a jerk. Why? Because he sued his own state, Montana, to remove public access to fishing on a public riverbank near his property. He sued...
by Liz Ryan Murray, Ben Ishibashi | May 25, 2017 | Blog
[fve]https://youtu.be/ueilYCHhZ9c[/fve] There’s broad agreement across our country, and across party lines, that we need more good jobs and that we need to rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. But that’s where the agreement ends. The answers to how we...
by People's Action | May 25, 2017 | Breakfast
Lies and Rounding Errors White House denies "egregious" $2 trillion math mistake in budget. BBC: "Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers pointed out the spending plan double-counts $2tr... but White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters: 'We...
by Richard Eskow | May 24, 2017 | Blog
Well, that happened. Pope Francis, who has made his mark with proclamations for social and environmental justice and a humble lifestyle, met the president whose life has been marked by self-indulgence, grandiosity, and greed. Their meeting took place as Donald Trump’s...
by Sam Pizzigati | May 24, 2017 | Blog
Somebody get this man a dictionary. Mick Mulvaney, the Trump administration budget chief, desperately needs some serious lexicological support. That became obvious when Mulvaney stepped up before reporters to defend the new Trump budget for the federal fiscal year...
by Robert Borosage | May 24, 2017 | Blog
Donald Trump’s FY 2018 budget is, the White House admits, a “message document” - at best, a marker to begin negotiations. So what is the message this White House is sending? First, it raises a long, fat middle finger pointed at the working class voters who helped to...
