by Dave Johnson | Apr 11, 2017 | Blog
In a democracy, We the People are in charge. We are the boss of the corporations. At least that's how it's supposed to work. Apparently, that isn't so much the way it is anymore. The United States used to regulate corporations to protect people from concentrated...
by Jill Richardson | Apr 11, 2017 | Blog
Imagine a parent who starves his children and fails to do any number of basic parental duties, but then buys one of his kids a healthy meal. Well, that’s good. Great, really. But it’s not enough. An act of goodness directed at one child cannot feed an entire starving...
by People's Action | Apr 11, 2017 | Breakfast
GOP Ducking Town Halls House Republicans, afraid of health care backlash, skipping town halls. USA Today: "Reps. Leonard Lance of New Jersey and Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania appear to be the only swing-district Republicans who voted for their party’s bill to replace...
by Sarah Chaisson-Warner | Apr 11, 2017 | Blog
It’s time to ramp up our resistance to the Trump-Ryan agenda on health care. We scored our biggest legislative victory so far on March 24, when Speaker Paul Ryan called off his bid to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), because he didn't have the votes. This was an...
by Mark Trahant | Apr 10, 2017 | Blog
No coal here. The Native Village of Tyonek, Alaska, celebrated the suspension of a nearby coal project by PacRim Coal. The tribal community is located some 45 miles west of Anchorage. PacRim estimated the project to include some 242 million tons of coal. A...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 10, 2017 | Blog
How many registered nurses fantasize about living forever? Probably not many. How many math teachers daydream about immortality? Probably not many there either. Traffic cops? Bartenders? Civil engineers? All likely the same story. We have no evidence that any economic...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 10, 2017 | Blog
At any other time, this (fill in the blank) would be the scandal of the decade. Now, with Donald Trump as president, we call it Monday. Thursday evening, Trump attacked Syria, a sovereign country, with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. This act of war was done without...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 10, 2017 | Blog
Making America Great Again; every time a U.S. company hires a hundred people, or even a dozen, President Trump's support network blasts out the message that this is what he's doing. Now they're crowing that unemployment fell to 4.5 percent in March, even though many...
by People's Action | Apr 10, 2017 | Breakfast
Congress on Edge Conservatives wary of secret talks to keep government open. Bloomberg: "Members of Congress are back home for a two-week recess ... Government funding expires on April 28, which will give Congress five days [when they return] ... a bipartisan group of...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 7, 2017 | Blog
The bombing of Syria is the most irresponsible act of Donald Trump’s circus presidency – yet it enjoys the greatest applause from the foreign policy and political establishment. Trump is doing what Obama refused to do – bombing a sovereign nation in response to a...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 7, 2017 | Blog
In his first 70 days in office, President Donald Trump is shedding his most popular populist economic promises with the ease of a confidence man. The “chaos candidate,” as Jeb Bush dubbed him, presented himself as a populist champion who would clean out Washington. As...
by Ken Grossinger | Apr 7, 2017 | Blog
From Colorado's legal elites, we've been hearing praise in the media for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. But for the majority of Coloradans — and Americans — who are everyday working people, Judge Gorsuch's record bodes ill. I recognize that Sen. Cory Gardner has...
by People's Action | Apr 7, 2017 | Breakfast
Trump Bombs Syria NBC asks what's next: "The Trump team has taken pains to emphasize that the move was a 'proportionate' response to the chemical attack, but what comes next? And if the goal is ending the bloodshed in Syria, how will Trump finish the job?"...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 7, 2017 | Blog
After hearing from We the People, the Republican Congress didn't take away our health care after all! Lesson learned: keep it up. So many people have been calling their representative and senators, showing up at their offices and especially at their town hall...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 6, 2017 | Blog
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos finally found a public school she could visit where there wouldn't be protests. It's on a military base, safely inside the compound of Fort Bragg in North Carolina. As a local news outlet reports, DeVos used her appearance at...
by Alejandra Gomez | Apr 6, 2017 | Blog
In Phoenix, Arizona, temperatures in the summer of 2016 reached a record high of 118 degrees. At least four deaths were attributed to the Arizona heat one particular weekend in 2016. Imagine being incarcerated in a jail that is entirely outdoors in such temperatures,...
by People's Action | Apr 6, 2017 | Breakfast
We Act Radio Supports Our Fight.Please Support We Act Radio.The voice of the resistance in the nation's capital and nationwide wants to keep telling the stories of People's Action and others fighting for justice. Support independent truth-telling with a contribution...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 5, 2017 | Blog
Senators love to talk about their history and customs. “The U.S. Senate relies heavily on tradition and precedent,” the Senate website says. “Many of its current rules, procedures, and traditions date from the First Congress in 1789.” But Republicans have been doing...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 5, 2017 | Blog
Last month, the Congressional "Freedom Caucus" was instrumental in defeating a health bill put forward by Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan. That bill would have deprived an estimated 26 million Americans of health coverage to provide a tax cut for the wealthy,...
by Stanley Fritz | Apr 5, 2017 | Blog
New York is one of only two states in the nation that charges sixteen and seventeen year olds as adults in criminal courts. This puts tens of thousands of teenagers in adult prisons. Our governor and legislature have a historic opportunity to right this wrong and end...
by People's Action | Apr 5, 2017 | Breakfast
Gorsuch, Plagiarist Gorsuch hit with plagiarism charge. Politico: "... documents show that several passages from the tenth chapter of his 2006 book, 'The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,' read nearly verbatim to a 1984 article in the Indiana Law Journal. In...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 5, 2017 | Blog
Our economy has a trade problem. Our trade deficit measures the extent of the problem. Our trade deficit continues to be enormous and humongous. February's Enormous, Humongous $43.6 Billion Trade Deficit The Census Bureau reports the February U.S. deficit on trade...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 4, 2017 | Blog
No strings attached. Con men love this simple phrasing. They use it all the time. They make an offer too good to be true, then assure their targeted victims that if they accept the offer and turn out not to like it, they can always walk away. No strings. Corporate...
by People's Action | Apr 4, 2017 | Breakfast
Thursday Vote On Nuclear Option At least 41 Dems will filibuster Gorsuch. Politico: "To [confirm Gorsuch], Republicans will have to invoke the so-called nuclear option ... no Republican has said they would oppose the controversial parliamentary move ... The showdown...
by Martha Burk | Apr 4, 2017 | Blog
Equal Pay Day is here. Never heard of it? If you’re a working woman, or a man who cares about the women in your life, this matters to you, so listen up. Equal Pay Day is the day in any given year when women working full-time, year-round catch up to men’s earnings from...
by Libero Della Piana | Apr 4, 2017 | Blog
Fifty years ago today, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of his most prophetic and powerful speeches, ‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence’, at Riverside Church in New York City. One year later - to the day - he was assassinated in Memphis. King’s words...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 3, 2017 | Blog
President Trump has nominated Makan Delrahim to head up the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Most recently, the lawyer lobbied for approval of health insurance giant Anthem's effort to acquire health insurance giant Cigna. Bad sign. Scarcely seventy days into...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 3, 2017 | Blog
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, has been remarkably effective at reining in lawless banks. How effective? So much so, that Republicans now target the agency for destruction. And some Democrats may be willing...
by People's Action | Apr 3, 2017 | Breakfast
Nuke For Gorsuch Without 60, GOP about to push button. Politico: Neil Gorsuch almost certainly will end this week confirmed as a Supreme Court justice ... Senate Democrats are quickly closing in on the 41 votes needed to block the nomination ... [But] the Senate is...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 2, 2017 | Blog
Students with disabilities already face a difficult path through our nation's education system, but President Donald Trump appears determined to add to the disadvantages these students already face. His nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court is yet...
by Miles Mogulescu | Mar 31, 2017 | Blog
The number one priority for the resistance movement this coming week must be to use every tactic in the playbook - phone calls, emails, letters, petitions, mass demonstrations at senators' homes and offices, and more - to make clear that every Democrat who votes to...
by Dave Johnson | Mar 31, 2017 | Blog
Say anything - literally anything - to sway working-class voters. Get elected, then loot the country. Hey, it worked for this guy. If there was a singular issue Trump campaigned on, it was trade. Everywhere he went, Trump swore the North American Free Trade Agreement...
by People's Action | Mar 31, 2017 | Breakfast
2 Dems for Gorsuch Two Dems back Gorsuch. The Hill: "[Sen. Heidi] Heitkamp’s announcement came moments after [Sen. Joe] Manchin became the first Senate Democrat publicly backing Gorsuch ... Gorsuch will need backing from six more [Democrats]. Other red-state Democrats...
by Liz Ryan Murray | Mar 31, 2017 | Blog
A great old Calvin & Hobbes comic strip tells us a lot about the current budget debate. Calvin asks his mom to let him do a succession of ridiculously dangerous things: First he asks if he can set his mattress on fire; his mom says no. Then he asks if he can ride...
by Dave Johnson | Mar 30, 2017 | Blog
Last year Maine voters approved an increase in the minimum wage. After this jobs and wages surged. So business groups are trying to do something about it. And not just in Maine. Maine's Job "Surge" Last year voters approved a Maine ballot initiative raising the...
by Sam Pizzigati | Mar 30, 2017 | Blog
President Donald Trump named Michael Piwowar as acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission shortly after his inauguration. Piwowar, one of the SEC’s five commissioners since 2013, quickly flexed his acting chair muscles - on one of the agency’s most...
by People's Action | Mar 30, 2017 | Breakfast
Trump Wants To Deregulate Infrastructure Trump's infrastructure plan will be heavy with deregulation. Time: "The strategy, aides say, is to shell out between $100 billion to $200 billion in federal dollars, while overhauling the regulatory process, cutting regulations...
by Robert Borosage | Mar 30, 2017 | Blog
Roger Wilkins has left us, just after his 85th birthday. A great champion of social justice, proud father and good friend, he will be missed. Born into an educated middle class family, Roger was raised with high expectations. His father, business manager of the Kansas...
by Jordan Estevão | Mar 29, 2017 | Blog
President Donald Trump has used a sweeping executive order to reverse years of government efforts to promote clean air, water and energy. His claim? Environmental protections are bad for jobs. His solution? Windfalls to giant energy and carbon-extraction...
by People's Action | Mar 29, 2017 | Breakfast
GOP Prepares To Nuke McConnell readies nuclear option for Gorsuch. Politico: "Mitch McConnell told his leadership team in private [that] Neil Gorsuch probably won’t get 60 votes to avoid a filibuster [and] Republicans should have no compunction about pulling the...
