by Digby | Sep 23, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
I wrote about the conservative movement's last breaths for Salon today: That day 15 months ago when Donald Trump descended that escalator to announce his candidacy, it was obvious to me that whether or not he won, he was going to turn the race into something we had...
by People's Action | Sep 23, 2016 | Breakfast
Calls For Charlotte Video Release Demands rise for release of Charlotte police shooting video. NYT: "There is currently no law in North Carolina that regulates the public release of body camera video. Instead, each local law enforcement agency makes its own rules. The...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 22, 2016 | Blog
With the advent of Donald Trump, what was once covert in the Republican message has become overt. Yesterday's dog whistle is today's screaming siren. Case in point: anti-immigrant bigotry, which was most recently expressed in Donald Trump Jr.’s recent...
by Jeff Bryant | Sep 22, 2016 | Blog, Education
A new report is making big headlines for showing that public schools across the nation are experiencing severe problems with teacher shortages that are apt to develop into a “crisis” if left unaddressed. The report from an education think tank called the Learning...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 22, 2016 | Blog
Everyone has an opinion on what Hillary Clinton should do in the Monday's debate, and this is mine. Hopefully I will be wrong enough to earn a regular column on the New York Times op-ed page. This election season so far has been about Donald Trump, and not about the...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 22, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Leave it to Donald Trump to stand in black church, before a somehow still overwhelmingly white audience, and promise to implement New York City’s racist, unconstitutional stop-and-frisk policing nationwide. In the past week, Donald Trump has insulted an African...
by Jim Hightower | Sep 22, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
In their ongoing, all-out assault to crush labor unions, corporate forces have fabricated a cultural myth to undermine popular support for labor: Unions, they insist, are no longer needed. They tell us that in today’s entrepreneurial economy, workers must compete with...
by People's Action | Sep 22, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Embraces Stop-and-Frisk Trump pursues odd strategy to win African-American votes. Politico: "...sold himself as the candidate who could fix the problems of urban America. Within hours, Trump was proposing a vast expansion of 'stop-and-frisk' policing policies...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 22, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was forced to testify on Wednesday before a Republican impeachment committee. Republicans are doing this because the IRS (under a previous commissioner) dared to check whether organizations applying for special IRS nonprofit status were...
by Robert Reich | Sep 21, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
I finally found a Trump supporter – this morning when I went to buy coffee. (I noticed a Trump bumper sticker on his car.) “Hi,” I said. “Noticed your Trump bumper sticker.” “Yup,” he said, a bit defensively. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but I’m curious. Why are...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 21, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Progressive Vision, This Is The GOP
For all his bloviating about “law and order,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has yet to express any serious outrage over police killings of unarmed African-Americans. Will he now, after two more police-involved shootings of black men in the past week?...
by Bill Scher | Sep 21, 2016 | Blog
If you need any more evidence that knee-jerk obstructionism has ravaged the modern Republican Party, here's one more data point. Twenty-one of the the 27 states suing the EPA to prevent implementation of its Clean Power Plan, requiring cuts in carbon emissions, are...
by People's Action | Sep 21, 2016 | Breakfast
Warren v. Wells Fargo Sen. Warren grills Wells Fargo CEO. USA Today: "The Massachusetts senator has built a reputation for being tough on shady Wall Street dealings and the executives she believes are responsible. But she took it to the next level with Stumpf." "The...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 20, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
People who came looking for drama in Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf’s Senate testimony on Tuesday did not come away disappointed. Stumpf was called before the Senate Banking Committee after his bank was fined $185 million for opening more than two million accounts in...
by Leo Gerard | Sep 20, 2016 | Blog
Nine years after the Great Recession began during the tax- and regulation-slashing Bush administration, some startlingly good economic news arrived from Washington, D.C., last week. The incomes of typical Americans rose in 2015 by 5.2 percent, the first significant...
by Amber York | Sep 20, 2016 | Blog
The cost of child care is one of the biggest expenses facing many families in the United States. For some, the cost is more than their rent or mortgage payment. Low income families especially struggle to find affordable child care. Child care providers are among the...
by People's Action | Sep 20, 2016 | Breakfast
Hillary Criticizes Wells Fargo Hillary Clinton writes open letter to Wells Fargo customers: "Today, Wells Fargo’s CEO will appear before Congress. He owes all of you a clear explanation as to how this happened under his watch ... we need to defend the Consumer...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 20, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
The manager instructed her to push accounts but not to tell the customers about the downfalls and fees of new accounts. "Make them read the paperwork." She replied, "But you know no one ever reads the paperwork." His response: "Exactly." You might have heard that...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 20, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
"There was no incentive to do bad things,” said Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, after his bank was hit with $190 million in fines and restitution because employees fraudulently opened more than 2 million accounts over a five-year period without customers’ knowledge or...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 19, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Progressive Vision, This Is The GOP
You know those TV segments where they go out and ask regular Americans things like "Who is the Vice President?" and "Should we allow immigration from New Mexico?", and the people-on-the-street give answers like, "What's a Vice President?" and "I think we should send...
by Robert Reich | Sep 19, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Economy, This Is The GOP
Donald Trump poses as a working-class populist, but about his new economic plan would be a gusher for the wealthy. And almost nothing will trickle down to anyone else. He’d knock down the top tax rate on businesses from 35 percent to 15 percent, thereby richly...
by Bill Moyers | Sep 19, 2016 | Blog, Democracy, Progressive Vision
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship Let’s call the whole thing off. Not the election, although if we only had a magic reset button we could pretend this sorry spectacle never happened and start all over. No, we mean the presidential debates — which, if the present format...
by People's Action | Sep 19, 2016 | Breakfast
Are Incomes Rising Fast Enough? Hedrick Smith finds recent middle-class income gains insufficient: "...It’s an important milestone worth cheering that last year, families smack in the middle of the middle class saw their household incomes rise by 5.2% ... But what’s...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 19, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Jobs and Growth
Should Democrats present themselves as fighters for a transformative economic vision, or as skilled managers whose job is to restore and maintain the status quo of the last several decades? The question came up again last week, when new economic data for 2015 was...
by Martha Burk | Sep 18, 2016 | Blog
Donald Trump gave what was billed as a major economic address to the Economic Club of New York last week. Overall, the speech was same song, umpteenth verse of well-worn Republican bromides. Across-the-board tax cuts, especially for corporations and the wealthy (no...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 16, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
After Hillary Clinton went a bit wobbly at the 9/11 memorial, the internet went off the deep end with speculation about her health, and whether she’s even the real Hillary Clinton. It was the swoon felt around the world. After continuing to campaign despite being...
by Sam Pizzigati | Sep 16, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
John Stumpf, the CEO of America’s most profitable megabank, sent me an email earlier this week. Imagine that. The bank Stumpf runs, Wells Fargo, has 268,000 employees. Stumpf must be a very busy man. Especially these days. Wells Fargo has been operating in crisis mode...
by Bill Scher | Sep 16, 2016 | Blog
President George W. Bush tried to grow the economy by giving corporations and the wealthy lower taxes and less regulation. He left office having sparked a global economic meltdown and net loss in private sector jobs. Donald Trump would do it all over again. Yesterday...
by People's Action | Sep 16, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Economic Plan Right-Wing Rehash Trump reveals new economic plan, with "few details." NYT: "...Trump largely reiterated a broad economic vision he outlined in Detroit last month, vowing to slash taxes on business and scale back federal regulations ... He partly...
by Richard Eskow | Sep 16, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRg0OOf5s2o]Joseph Stiglitz speaks with Richard Eskow on "The Zero Hour." Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has a new book out entitled "The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe." On...
by Chuck Collins | Sep 15, 2016 | Blog, Climate, Progressive Vision
Thousands of Native Americans at Standing Rock in North Dakota are protesting a pipeline project that puts their water supply at risk, threatens to plow up their sacred sites, and would worsen climate change. Their rallying echoes hundreds of local struggles...
by People's Action | Sep 15, 2016 | Breakfast
Campaign Battle Over Child Care NYT compares child care plans: "He proposed requiring employers to give six weeks of maternity leave ... New mothers would be paid the same amounts they would collect in unemployment benefits if they had been laid off, which is usually...
by Jeff Bryant | Sep 15, 2016 | Blog, Education
Presidential candidate Donald Trump likely just handed the charter school industry the worst sort of favor. In unveiling his education plan, the Republican candidate proposed a $20 billion federal block grant to allow states to give vouchers to low-income students to...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 15, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Election 2016, Jobs and Growth
There’s a lot more going on in this election than the presidential race between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Borne out of the dedication and hard work of activists, ballot initiatives give citizens the opportunity to vote...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Sep 14, 2016 | Democracy, Progressive Vision
[fve]https://youtu.be/tYyLRIyv9H8[/fve]Cellphone video shot by someone attending Donald Trump's appearance at a Flint, Mich. church shows the Republican presidential candidate being interrupted and confronted by protesters. The Associated Press reported...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Jobs and Growth, Progressive Vision
Hillary Clinton was feeling a little woozy. On Sunday morning, after standing around for an hour and a half at the 9/11 memorial event at Ground Zero, possibly while wearing a bullet proof vest in 80 degree heat, the 68-year-old Democratic nominee felt a bit less than...
by Steve Rouzer | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
In the midst of slow recovery, the U.S. Census Bureau's report Tuesday showing an uptick in household incomes is music to the ears of Main Street small business owners. The report documented the first increase in median household incomes since 2007, and a 1.2 percent...
by Bill Scher | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog
President Barack Obama recently sat with the New York Times to discuss his legacy on climate, and was asked about his failure to enact legislation to cap greenhouse emission. He responded: "Here, in 2016, we've actually achieved more carbon emissions [reduction] that...
by People's Action | Sep 14, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Business Dealings Under Microscope Newsweek investigates Trump's business operations and potential for conflicts of interest: "A close examination by Newsweek of the Trump Organization, including confidential interviews with business executives and some of its...
by Dave Johnson | Sep 14, 2016 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Wall Street, the multinational corporations and President Obama are pushing for a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the "lame duck" session of Congress that follows the election. Wednesday, September 14, is a national call-in day to Congress to stop this....
