by Dave Johnson | May 17, 2016 | Blog
The Verizon strike is still going on, and has passed the one-month mark. This is about working people versus giant corporations that have vast power. The 40,000 striking workers want a few things, but the immensely profitable corporation and its wealthy executives...
by Bill Scher | May 17, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Election 2016
You can say this for Donald Trump; he doesn't delegate the job of attack dog. He likes to scorch his own earth. In what has to be an unprecedented interview, Trump gleefully shared with the New York Times his innermost thoughts on how he plans to rhetorically fillet...
by Leo Gerard | May 17, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Economy, This Is The GOP
Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee Donald “I am really, really rich” Trump is, according to Forbes, the 121st richest person in America. So, yes, he is really, really rich He loves the perks of being really, really rich, like flying to campaign events in one...
by People's Action | May 17, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Why The Pentagon Needs an Audit Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, in this Burning Issues video, says an audit of the Defense Department’s finances must be the next president’s top priority to root out waste and...
by Dave Johnson | May 17, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Flint, Michigan is this year's face of the infrastructure problem: Flint's (and many other cities') outdated water systems are literally poisoning people. All around us we see bridges and roads that are in (really) bad shape, aging and failing rail transit systems,...
by Lindsay Koshgarian | May 16, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
My water’s clean, but I’m feeling sick anyway. The residents of Flint have gone without clean water for 748 days, and counting. That’s more than two years: long enough for toddlers to become preschoolers, for infants to graduate from lead-tainted formula to...
by Burning Issues Video | May 16, 2016 | Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]https://youtu.be/Dy1SSX2JaKU[/fve] An audit of the Defense Department's finances must be the next president's top priority to root out waste and "legalized corruption" in Pentagon procurement, says Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government...
by People's Action | May 16, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Takes Low Road Trump plans scorched-earth campaign. NYT: "Mr. Trump will try to hold her accountable for security lapses at the American consulate in Benghazi ... And he intends to portray Mrs. Clinton as fundamentally corrupt, invoking everything from her...
by Richard Eskow | May 16, 2016 | Blog, Economy
A new study by the Pew Research Center spurred a rash of headlines last week about “the dying middle class." But the word “dying” might be more appropriate if we were watching the regrettable but inevitable effects of natural forces at work. We're not. We're...
by Dave Johnson | May 13, 2016 | Blog
Colombia is allowing local production of a generic form of a cancer drug that is ultraexpensive because of a government-granted monopoly handed to a giant, multinational pharmaceutical corporation. The U.S. government is stepping in on the corporation's side with a...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 13, 2016 | Jobs and Growth
An alarm bell went off this week about the state of the nation's infrastructure and what government inaction is costing every American household – but the news media seems to have hit the mute button on the alarm in the rush of wall-to-wall Donald Trump coverage. But...
by Terrance Heath | May 13, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign says that selecting a well-known white nationalist as one of its delegates in California, was due to a “technical error.” But it was really Trump’s campaign showing its true colors, again. When California’s secretary of state...
by Bill Scher | May 13, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Tax Reform
After trying to sow confusion with different audiences regarding whether he would reverse course on his plan to slash top-end tax rates, the Donald Trump campaign sent a clear message that his extremely right-wing tax cut plan is here to stay. The New York Times...
by People's Action | May 13, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Is the Iran Nuclear Deal Working? In today's Burning Issues video, Kate Gould of the Friends Committee on National Legislation explains why now is the time for supporters of peace and diplomacy to reassert what the deal the Obama administration struck...
by Dave Johnson | May 13, 2016 | Blog, Tax Reform
[fve]https://youtu.be/zu19u8aOoq8[/fve] When companies dodge taxes, it's not just the federal government that takes the hit; people, communities and entire regions pay, too. For example, Silicon Valley's tech companies create billionaires and magnificently reward the...
by Burning Issues Video | May 12, 2016 | Blog, Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]https://youtu.be/PGAcgHgmZMM[/fve] Critics of the nuclear deal with Iran have stepped up their opposition even though it is a clear success. Kate Gould of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, an expert on the Middle East policy, explains why now is the...
by Courtney Freudenthal | May 12, 2016 | Election 2016, Jobs and Growth
Despite their generous philanthropy as they battle massive levels of student debt and a bleak job market, millennials are frequently misunderstood as narcissistic and social-media-obsessed. It might then come as a surprise that today’s young generation deeply cares...
by Jeff Bryant | May 12, 2016 | Blog, Education
Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. So some folks thought it might be a swell idea to ask teachers how "appreciated" they feel. The short answer? Not so much. Results of a wide-ranging new survey of 3,328 K-12 classroom teachers finds the nation's front-line...
by Dave Johnson | May 12, 2016 | Blog, Trade
Economists are still arguing over whether moving our jobs out of the country affects what the people still here get paid. Yes, really. For example, Jared Bernstein in The Washington Post looks at different studies of the effect of moving jobs out of the country. One...
by People's Action | May 12, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: The Arms Trade As A Foreign Policy Tool The next president should end the practice of recent presidents of using arms sales as an instrument of foreign policy, says William Hartung, director of the arms and security project at the Center for...
by Damon Silvers | May 12, 2016 | Blog
Throughout the developed world, extreme right wing politics have surfaced in ways not seen since the Second World War. In Europe, parties of the far right have levels of public support that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. In the United States, Donald...
by Dave Johnson | May 11, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
The Treasury Department released a new rule and several proposals last week that they said are intended to address the problem of corruption and dirty money in secret U.S. shell companies. A White House news release announced what it called "several important steps to...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 11, 2016 | Conservatism, Economy
Puerto Rico is in dire straits, and its citizens – no, make that "our fellow citizens" – need immediate relief from a crushing debt that is already causing severe hardship to people who can least bare it. Yet, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives were...
by Bill Scher | May 11, 2016 | Blog
The most recent round of Quinnipiac polls re-ignited Democratic fears that Donald Trump could actually win the presidency. The polls put him ahead of Hillary Clinton by 4 in Ohio, and behind her by only 1 point in Florida and Pennsylvania. Democrats should not be...
by Burning Issues Video | May 11, 2016 | Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]https://youtu.be/OfM73I-dzRY[/fve] The next president should end the practice of recent presidents of using arms sales as an instrument of foreign policy, says William Hartung, director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy, in...
by People's Action | May 11, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Hides Tax Returns Trump won't release tax returns. AP: "... the billionaire businessman ... does not expect to release his tax returns before the November election. 'There's nothing to learn from them,' Trump told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday....
by Robert Borosage | May 11, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Progressive Vision
West Virginia really likes Bernie Sanders. He swept the Democratic primary yesterday, winning 51.4 percent to Clinton’s 36 percent, even in the face of the mainstream media essentially declaring the race over. Speaking in Salem, Ore., Sanders described the key to his...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 10, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Health, Tax Reform
It's "Neoliberals Gang Up on Bernie Sanders Week" along the corridor of Washington establishment think-tanks that include the Brookings Institution, the Urban Institute and a Brookings offspring, the Tax Policy Center. Out of this corridor came not one, but two...
by Terrance Heath | May 10, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
A week after Ted Cruz’s defended it in a failed attempt to boost his presidential bid, the battle over North Carolina’s anti-LGBT “bathroom bill” is exposing fissures in the conservative movement. Since North Carolina hastily passed HB 2, in reaction to the city of...
by Bill Scher | May 10, 2016 | Blog
"I think I'll get a lot of his supporters" Donald Trump said on CNN of Bernie Sanders voters. A few seconds earlier, Trump smeared Sanders, saying he "could be beyond a socialist." That sums up his problem. Trump and Sanders are like oil and water, and so are their...
by Leo Gerard | May 10, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth, Trans-Pacific Partnership
On the fourth anniversary of the Korean trade deal, its lofty promises have been revealed as putrid pie in the sky: More jobs lost. No exports gained. Just like NAFTA, just like China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), free traders swore that the Korean...
by Sam Pizzigati | May 10, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Tax Reform
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has helped make a little medical history. The good doctor holds over 95 patents. He pulled off the first pig-to-human cell transplant to treat diabetes. And one of the drugs he designed and developed, Abraxane, keeps cancerous cells from...
by People's Action | May 10, 2016 | Breakfast
Trump Alienates GOP Donors With Kochs sitting on their wallet, Trump turns to RNC. NYT: "Donald J. Trump took steps to appropriate much of the Republican National Committee’s financial and political infrastructure ... Trump has no fund-raising apparatus to resort to...
by Bill Scher | May 10, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Election 2016
Donald Trump has a trick he likes to use when he wants to communicate two different messages to two different constituencies: incoherence. It doesn't take much to expose incoherence, yet it seems to flummox media headline writers who are itchy to summarize only one...
by Richard Eskow | May 10, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Progressive Vision
A CSX freight train derailed in Washington, D.C. last week. The Washington Post reported that ethanol, which is colorless and highly flammable, was leaking out of one of the overturned cars in the accident’s immediate aftermath. The 14-car derailment also “spilled...
by Dean Baker | May 9, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Economy
As the media erupt in fury over Donald Trump's comments on the debt, it is worth taking the opportunity to remind people that the interest burden on the national debt is near a post-World War II low. While the debt-to-GDP ratio rose sharply in the Great Recession,...
by People's Action | May 9, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Buying Weapons That Don’t Work The F-35 fighter place is a textbook example of how tax dollars are wasted on Pentagon weaponry, Mandy Smithberger, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight, explains in this...
by Burning Issues Video | May 9, 2016 | Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]https://youtu.be/BSDU8Fy-5nE[/fve] The F-35 fighter place is a textbook example of how tax dollars are wasted on Pentagon weaponry, Mandy Smithberger, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight, explains in this Burning...
by Dave Johnson | May 9, 2016 | Blog
Going into the West Virginia primary, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has come out in opposition to a "lame duck" vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This takes her beyond her previous statements mildly opposing TPP. Clinton also made a strong...
by Terrance Heath | May 6, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
This week saw the end of both Ted Cruz’s and John Kasich’s presidential campaigns, as well as the death of modern conservatism — killed off by a guy who bears more than a passing resemblance to an Oompa Loompa. Well, he did it. Whatever else can be said about Donald...
