by People's Action | Sep 1, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Launches Fresh Attack on Immigrants Trump recommits to deporting undocumented immigrants. CNN: "The Republican presidential nominee on Wednesday re-upped the harsh immigration rhetoric .. vowing 'no amnesty' ... promising to build a 'beautiful' and...
by Terrance Heath | Sep 1, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
[fve]http://youtu.be/oPStqbQG_w8[/fve] High on decibels, low on policy details and devoid of anything new, Donald Trump’s latest immigration speech was still a lurid reminder of why he must not become president. It was a chilling speech, in the sense that watching...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 31, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
Legend Preston has nightmares now. Earlier this month, the 10-year-old was playing basketball in the front yard of his Newark, New Jersey home, when the ball rolled into the street. The fifth-grader ran out into the street to retrieve the ball, and when he looked up...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 31, 2016 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
[fve]https://youtu.be/nO4k2lLXiT8[/fve] BuzzFeed is running a very important investigative series called "Secrets of a Global Super Court." It describes what they call "a parallel legal universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone else."...
by Bill Scher | Aug 31, 2016 | Blog, Climate
In an ideal situation, our government would have the funds to support the needs of all Americans. For example, if a coastal community was at risk of becoming submerged because of the climate crisis, it wouldn't be a question that funds would be readily available to...
by People's Action | Aug 31, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump To Visit Mexico Trump to visit Mexico before AZ immigration speech today. NYT: "Donald J. Trump will visit Mexico on Wednesday for a private meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto ... 'They are not our friend, believe me,' Mr. Trump said in a speech last year...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Aug 31, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, ever the showman, is certainly poised this Wednesday to deliver a heavy dose of eye-grabbing and eye-rolling reality-show drama. Ahead of what is being billed as a major speech on immigration in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 30, 2016 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Corporations are more and more in the habit of telling governments that they are the boss of them. If corporations get their way, "trade" agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will formalize...
by Leo Gerard | Aug 30, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Democracy, This Is The GOP
Two Republican judges ceded their principles last week to Ohio Republicans intent on suppressing the African-American vote. The Ohio GOP, like their counterparts nationally, have decided that if they can’t win minority voters, they will cheat. So over the past decade,...
by People's Action | Aug 30, 2016 | Breakfast
Next President Has Power To Thwart TPP "White House says it sees a path to approval of Pacific trade deal" reports Reuters: "The White House said on Monday it could still win congressional approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact before President Barack...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 30, 2016 | Blog, Health
Financial columnist Megan McArdle recently wrote a column entitled "Healthcare Is a Business, Not a Right." She was responding to a tweet from financial writer Helaine Olen: 25. The health of Americans should not be a profit center. Health care is a right. Full...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Aug 29, 2016 | Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
News out of Germany that U.S. trade negotiations with Europe similar to the one that produced the Trans-Pacific Partnership have collapsed is another sign that an organized grassroots is successfully putting the multinational corporate trade agenda on its heels....
by Robert Reich | Aug 29, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
I recently got a call from a political analyst in Washington. “Trump is dropping like a stone,” he said, convincingly. “After Election Day, he’s history.” I think Trump will lose the election, but I doubt he’ll be “history.” Defeated presidential candidates typically...
by Nancy Altman | Aug 29, 2016 | Election 2016, Retirement Security
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has released a new ad that reveals that either he doesn’t understand Social Security or he wants to galvanize opposition to Social Security. Either way, his rhetoric undermines our collective security. In his ad, Trump...
by People's Action | Aug 29, 2016 | Breakfast
ISDS Exposé Blow To TPP Buzzfeed begins four-part series on investor-state dispute settlement courts, a key feature of TPP: "The BuzzFeed News investigation ... will show how the mere threat of an ISDS case can intimidate a nation into gutting its own laws, how some...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 29, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Financial Reform
When William Greider wrote his 1989 book about the Federal Reserve, it’s not hard to understand why he called it “Secrets of the Temple.” The Fed’s proclamations can make it seem as mysterious as the Oracle of Delphi. (To be fair, nobody has speculated that...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 26, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
This week, in a scathing take-down of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton linked him to white supremacists and white nationalists in the alt-right movement, and laid bare his own history of racial discrimination. Republicans responded with deafening silence. When the...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 26, 2016 | Blog, Democracy
If a company does something bad to you, you can sue them, right? Actually, thinking that is so 1970s. These days, gimmicks called "arbitration clauses" in contracts you are forced to sign basically let companies do what they want and keep you from taking them to...
by Miles Mogulescu | Aug 26, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Election 2016
Working in the film business, I briefly met the Donald Trump Republican presidential campaign’s new CEO, Steve Bannon, during the 1990s when he was a Hollywood investment banker. As one producer whom Bannon helped raise capital for told me, even back then he was an...
by People's Action | Aug 26, 2016 | Breakfast
Clinton Takes On Trump and the 'Alt-Right' Jamelle Bouie at Slate explains why "Hillary Clinton’s Alt-Right Speech Was Shrewd Strategy": "As analysis, Clinton’s argument about Trump’s distance from the rest of the GOP is wrong. ... As strategy, however, Clinton’s...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 26, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Progressive Vision, This Is The GOP
In a scorching takedown of Donald Trump and his alt-right allies, Hillary Clinton reminded Americans that silence never defeats hatred, but that it must be called out and exposed for what it is. With a record like his, Trump had it coming. After a week of hypocritical...
by Digby | Aug 25, 2016 | Blog, This Is The GOP
I wrote about the Alt-right for Salon today. It's not exactly the same as European ethno-nationalism. It's scarier: After months of squabbling about whether it's acceptable to use the "F" word (fascism) it seems at long last that we have come to some kind of consensus...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 25, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
The Department of Labor (DOL) has released the final rules for implementing President Obama's two-year-old Fair Pay And Safe Workplaces executive order. The July 2014 post, Obama’s ‘Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order’, explained the order: Saying that...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 25, 2016 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Many opponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continue to assume Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is only saying she opposes TPP to get their votes, while hoping it passes in the "lame duck" session of Congress after the election and before...
by Jeff Bryant | Aug 25, 2016 | Blog, Education
Sometimes it takes a funnyman to make sense. Earlier this week, British comedian John Oliver devoted a “Back to School” segment on his HBO program "Last Week Tonight" to examining the rapidly growing charter school industry and what these schools are doing with our...
by Robert Borosage | Aug 24, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Flagging in the polls, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has decided to shake up his campaign, bringing in Stephen Bannon, head of Breitbart News LLC, as CEO. Paul Manafort, the experienced Republican operative who has urged Trump to pivot toward the center...
by Jamie Horwitz | Aug 24, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Do you remember the old Elvis hit "Return to Sender," and its lyrics “Return to sender, no such address, no such zone?” That’s the message that 2,000 postal workers from across the nation delivered at a rally against TPP Tuesday at Disney World’s Dolphin Hotel,...
by Richard Eskow | Aug 24, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
Sometimes you win. That can be an unfamiliar sensation for people on the left. When you fight for good causes, against powerful forces and overwhelming odds, you lose a lot of battles. But sometimes you win. Take last week's announcement from the Justice Department...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 24, 2016 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
Calling the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a "trade" deal (it isn't) the corporate community and the Obama administration are also trying to sell it as important for national security. Recent op-eds make a strong case that this is just wrong. First, Brigadier General...
by Hannah Gelder | Aug 24, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
Shutting down intersections as a tactic for interrupting the status quo and bringing attention to an issue has been used in organizing since time immemorial. But a classic action in Chicago on Monday had a different twist. Over 200 people shut down a downtown...
by People's Action | Aug 24, 2016 | Breakfast
“Evolving” on Immigration? Trump’s evolving immigration plan compared to Clinton, Obama. US News & World Report: “ Donald Trump’s new line on immigration — ”fair, but firm“ — is leaving both Republicans and Democrats with the same question: Is the famously...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 23, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Progressive Vision, Tax Reform
Are We the People the boss of giant multinational corporations, or are they the boss of us? Imagine, if you will, going to the IRS and saying, "I don't think the tax rate is fair so I'm not going to pay it." Regular Americans can't do that. But Apple just did. Apple's...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 23, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Contrary to recent headlines, Donald Trump isn’t reaching out to African-Americans. He isn’t even talking to us. He’s talking past us, and saying exactly what his alt-right base wants to hear him saying to black folks. Donald Trump is telling African-Americans that...
by Sarah Jaffe | Aug 23, 2016 | Blog, Democracy, Progressive Vision
At a press event in Kingston, New York, a Hudson Valley community about 90 miles north of Manhattan, the local Democratic congressional candidate, Zephyr Teachout, earlier this month called for a debate. But not with her Republican opponent, John Faso. Instead she...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 23, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is revving up for a vote in the "lame duck" session of Congress that follows the election, and the Rock Against the TPP Concert Tour is drawing large crowds. Awareness of TPP drives opposition, and Rock Against the TPP is doing its...
by Terrance Heath | Aug 23, 2016 | Uncategorized
Trump And The Alt-Right Clinton to target Trump’s ‘alt-right’ embrace in Thursday speech. Politico: “Campaigning in Reno, Nevada, on Thursday, Hillary Clinton will address Donald Trump’s recent campaign hires and what her campaign termed in an announcement as ‘his...
by Jacob Swenson-Lengyel | Aug 22, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
The first real conversation I had with Sarah Jaffe was on a school bus heading out for a series of direct actions — and a few brave arrests — in Washington, DC with 1,000 community leaders from National People’s Action and the National Domestic Workers Alliance. It...
by Mark Weisbrot | Aug 22, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
How much is President Obama willing to harm the Democratic Party in order to win approval for the deeply unpopular Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “trade” agreement? We may soon find out. On Tuesday, Politico broke the story that the White House will be “making an...
by Dave Johnson | Aug 22, 2016 | Blog
The 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union (APWU) is holding its biennial convention in Orlando this week. As part of that convention, there will be a rally to publicize opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The rally will take place Tuesday, August...
by People's Action | Aug 22, 2016 | Breakfast
Sanders To Launch Our Revolution, Wed, Aug. 24 Join Bernie Sanders Wed, Aug. 24 – to launch Our Revolution – at more than 2,000 organizing meetings nationwide. Find a house meeting in your area. Or, if you can’t host or get to a house, meeting, you can find the live...
