by Jeff Bryant | Jan 3, 2017 | Blog
If you want to get an idea of what kind of education policies to expect from a Donald Trump administration, Wall St. has a clue for you. A report from BuzzFeed explains, online charter schools are “gearing up for a boom during the Trump administration, judging by...
by Leo Gerard | Dec 20, 2016 | Blog
Virtually every time President-elect Donald Trump performs in cities across America on his thank you tour, he mentions, to grand applause, his preference for Made in America. He describes his plan to create jobs with a federal infrastructure spending project – that is...
by Sam Pizzigati | Dec 19, 2016 | Blog
In a typical corporate board of directors meeting, what do CEOs see when they look out across their richly lacquered boardroom tables? They see . . . lots of other CEOs. That’s no accident. CEOs today purposely pack their corporate boards with their pals, who often...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 16, 2016 | Blog
Remember how the "news" media was going on and on about the Clinton Foundation -- at least when they weren't going on and on abut Hillary Clinton's emails, or airing entire Trump rallies for free? Media "coverage" of the 2016 campaign was almost entirely devoid of...
by Bill Scher | Dec 16, 2016 | Blog
Just in time for the Electoral College set to cast their ballots on Monday, all 50 states have finally certified their popular vote totals. Hillary Clinton: 65,844,610 (48.2%) Donald Trump: 62,979,636 (46.1%) Others: 7,756,035 (5.7%) Now we have the hard numbers to do...
by People's Action | Dec 16, 2016 | Breakfast
House Gropes Toward Health Care Strategy House Republicans say they will replace Obamacare with "universal access." NYT: "'Our goal here is to make sure that everybody can buy coverage or find coverage if they choose to,' a House leadership aide told journalists ......
by Richard Eskow | Dec 15, 2016 | Blog
This is the time of year when people try to make sense of the preceding twelve months. It’s a fool’s errand, in one sense. A year is an arbitrary division of time. We decide what it means in retrospect, and we never get it exactly right. But the meaning we give it...
by Jeff Bryant | Dec 15, 2016 | Blog
Donald Trump's election to the US Presidency left education policy experts at a complete loss to explain what this would mean for the nation's schools. During his campaign, Trump had given few clues about what would inform his education leadership, only that he had...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 15, 2016 | Blog
Coal miners, their communities and Faith groups are calling on President-presumed-Elect Donald Trump to honor his campaign promise to help coal workers. In an "Open Letter to President-Elect Donald Trump from coal miners," hundreds of coal miners from Appalachia to...
by People's Action | Dec 15, 2016 | Breakfast
Ellison Makes Case For DNC Chair Rep. Keith Ellison calls for "3,007 County Strategy" for DNC. Chicago Tribune: "'We need a 3,007-county strategy. We need a town strategy. We need a precinct strategy," said Ellison, as [Sen. Bernie] Sanders and AFT President Randi...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 14, 2016 | Blog
"Millions of families — undocumented workers, union members, women, Muslim Americans, low-wage workers who could lose healthcare or affordable housing — are living in fear of what comes next. " - Silicon Valley Rising Silicon Valley Rising is a coalition of community,...
by Larry Cohen | Dec 14, 2016 | Blog
I first met Keith Ellison soon after he came to Congress in 2007. We were beginning the push for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Ten years ago it was already clear that collective bargaining rights in the US were at the bottom of global democracies and many...
by People's Action | Dec 14, 2016 | Breakfast
Rates May Go Up Today Federal Reserve expected to raise interest rates today. Politico: "Expectations of more rapid growth, coupled with the threat of inflation, could bring more rate hikes, which could undermine Trump's plans to fire up the economy ... Trump and...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 14, 2016 | Blog
When it comes to Cabinet-level appointments, Donald Trump hasn't lost his ability to astonish and dismay. At this point his staffing process has pretty much turned into an extended exercise in trolling, a test to see how much humiliation the American people will...
by Bill Scher | Dec 13, 2016 | Blog
When the Trump transition asked the Energy Department to name employees that attended climate change conferences, many people -- especially Energy Department employees -- reacted in horror, concluding that the incoming administration wants to purge career civil...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 13, 2016 | Blog
Trump got fewer votes in an election where millions were denied their right to vote. Republicans control the House of Representatives through gerrymandering, not votes. Democrats got millions more votes for Senators but Republicans have the majority. Nonetheless,...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Dec 13, 2016 | Climate, The Trump Swamp
The two latest Cabinet nominations announced by President-elect Donald Trump are the equivalent of a middle finger to the planet. It would be almost impossible to come up with a more offensive combination of epithets shouted in the face of those of us who care about...
by Leo Gerard | Dec 13, 2016 | Blog
All Chuck Jones was trying to say is that Presidential-elect exaggeration is a killer when it involves jobs. It’s one thing for a candidate to inflate stuff like personal wealth. But when a President-elect tells the country...
by People's Action | Dec 13, 2016 | Breakfast
Big Oil Gets Bigger ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson named Secretary of State, faces tough confirmation. Bloomberg: "He would be the first oil executive to lead the State Department ... Tillerson would add to a cabinet increasingly full of millionaires and billionaires...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 13, 2016 | Blog
What does it tell us when leading Democrats are more upset about alleged Russian election-rigging than they are about proven Republican election-rigging? After all, American oligarchs like the Koch Brothers have no more right to undermine our democracy than Russian...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 12, 2016 | Blog, The Trump Swamp
"As we have learned before, when we are under attack, together we must stand up and fight back." - Larry Cohen Before we accept the threatened destruction of our government as "normal" or "just politics," here is something to think about. Our government is supposed to...
by People's Action | Dec 12, 2016 | Breakfast
Turning Back The Clock Incoming EPA chief Scott Pruitt threatens your water. American Prospect's Sam Ross-Brown: "...Pruitt led a multi-state lawsuit against Obama’s Clean Water Rule, a regulation aimed at protecting source water for one in three Americans. As with...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 12, 2016 | Blog
If you're an older American -- or expect to be someday -- and you aren’t wealthy, you may have concluded that the Republican Party is at war with you. If so, you’re not wrong. Republicans are pushing proposals that protect and expand the wealth of the wealthy at the...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 9, 2016 | Blog, The Trump Swamp
Outgoing Louisiana Republican Congressman Charles Boustany is being talked about as a contender for becoming Donald Trump's US Trade Representative (USTR). Politico wrote about this in "Boustany making bid for top trade spot," summing up his qualifications as mostly...
by Diane Archer | Dec 9, 2016 | Blog
The price of drugs remains out of control, and President-elect Trump has vowed to address high drug prices. But, the Republican Congress is set to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which means that the drug companies will lose millions of customers with drug coverage,...
by Robert Borosage | Dec 9, 2016 | Blog, The Trump Swamp
Donald Trump is a masterful con man, and his presidency will be a bait-and-switch of epic proportions. He will, on one hand, appeal to the populist temper of the time—as he did this week with his “thank you tour”—and with stunts, as he did with the Carrier deal or his...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 9, 2016 | Blog
Donald Trump's recent cabinet picks have a history of being very good ... to Donald Trump. Working Americans probably won't be as lucky. His latest hire is wrestling billionaire Linda McMahon, who's been tapped to lead the Small Business Administration. In the...
by People's Action | Dec 9, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Still Unpopular Trump still unpopular in Pew poll: "55% of the public says that, so far, they disapprove of the job he has done explaining his policies and plans for the future, while 41% approve of the job he has done ... In December 2008, 72% said they...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 9, 2016 | Blog
"You better keep your eye on your kids. We know what car you drive." That's the kind of threats a local union official is getting after President-presumed-Elect Donald Trump tweeted something bad about him. "You gonna die. Death is coming to you real soon." A Florida...
by Bill Scher | Dec 8, 2016 | Blog, The Trump Swamp
It's a simple fact that most Americans did not vote for Donald Trump. But our republic is not designed to reward the top vote-getter. It's designed to guard against tyranny-of-the-majority, and ensure that minority voices will help shape public policy. But the fluke...
by People's Action | Dec 8, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Attacks Local Union Leader Trump attacks Carrier's union head. NYT: "Chuck Jones, the president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that the president-elect had 'lied his ass off' when he claimed he had saved 1,100 jobs ......
by Jeff Bryant | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog, The Trump Swamp
President-elect Donald Trump's appointment of Betsy DeVos for US Secretary of Education in his administration set off a firestorm of commentary on what her impact might be on furthering "school choice" ventures like charter schools and vouchers that send taxpayer...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
President-elect Donald Trump promised during his campaign "more jobs and better wages." So on Wednesday several hundred workers gathered near the White House and challenged Trump to be true to his words. Speaking at the New York Economic Club in September, Donald...
by Sam Pizzigati | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog
In every society, some people hold more wealth than other people. Every society, in other words, has a rich. But not every society’s rich has enough wealth to really dominate. Not every society’s rich has enough wealth — and power — to rig the rules at the expense of...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog
Here’s Donald Trump, speaking at a presidential debate in October of last year (emphasis mine): “We’re already [the] highest-tax nation in the world. Just about. They can maybe find—every once in a while they’ll say, they’ll fact-check me, ‘Well, there’s a nation that...
by Bill Scher | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog, The Trump Swamp
Reuters is reporting that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt will be Donald Trump's choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Unsurprisingly, Pruitt is one of the conservative attorneys general who has sued to block President Barack Obama's Clean Power...
by People's Action | Dec 7, 2016 | Breakfast
Obamacare Divides GOP GOP divided on Obamacare strategy. Politico: "Lawmakers have proposed putting off the effective date of repeal from as little as six months to as long as three years ... Several senators suggested at the meeting with Pence that additional...
by Dave Johnson | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog
Our Revolution and Good Jobs Nation will hold a rally with low-wage federal contract workers Wednesday to launch "Good Jobs Defense" to call on President-elect Trump to stop all federal contractors from shipping jobs overseas and stealing the pay of workers who serve...
by Richard Eskow | Dec 7, 2016 | Blog
The future was supposed to bring prosperity and leisure to working people, not joblessness and misery. But that was before the money guys took over. This week Amazon announced that it’s planning to open a grocery store that has no cashiers or checkout lines. The...
by Monique Morrissey | Dec 6, 2016 | Blog
With a raised hand, my daughter’s teacher can magically line up 20 kindergarteners who are running circles around a loud gym. She’s at school when I drop my daughter off in the morning and still on the job—calling us and other parents from the subway—as my...
