by Bill Scher | May 6, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
[fve]https://youtu.be/HSEi0RXGVq8?t=10m8s[/fve] Donald Trump, being a politician, likes to say different things to different audiences. When he was running in the Republican primary, he rejected raising the minimum wage: "...wages [are] too high, we’re not going to be...
by People's Action | May 6, 2016 | Breakfast
Job Growth Slows In April OurFuture.org's Robert Borosage dissects the April jobs report: "The Bureau of Labor Statistics April jobs report – 160,000 jobs, unemployment stable at 5.0 percent – is cause for concern. Job growth lags the yearlong average of 232,000 per...
by Robert Borosage | May 6, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
The Bureau of Labor Statistics April jobs report – 160,000 jobs, unemployment stable at 5.0 percent – is cause for concern. Job growth lags the yearlong average of 232,000 per month, and is accompanied by downward revisions in the February and March totals. Both labor...
by Jeff Bryant | May 6, 2016 | Blog, Education
Conservative lawmakers are well known for wanting to cut funding to public education. But just remember, every time they take a swing at public school budgets, they hit poor kids. The newest blow aimed at public schools will hit low-income students in the stomach –...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 5, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is on the verge of correcting a fundamental perversion of our justice system and restore to consumers their right to their day in court when they are wronged by a bank or credit card company. A new regulation that the agency...
by Dave Johnson | May 5, 2016 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
In 2011 the Obama administration sold the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) by promising "more exports, more jobs". The U.S. Trade Representative's website on KORUS still offers those promises. It still says right there the agreement "means countless new...
by People's Action | May 5, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Economic Growth To Fight Income Inequality William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, in this Burning Issues segment argues that presidential candidates who emphasize closing the federal spending deficit are ignoring a more important investment...
by Burning Issues Video | May 5, 2016 | Burning Issues
[fve]https://youtu.be/-3X1Mj7Vqlw[/fve] Presidential candidates who emphasize closing the federal spending deficit are ignoring a more important investment deficit in our infrastructure, our schools and in other fundamentals of future growth and shared prosperity,...
by Dave Johnson | May 4, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Thursday has been declared a Verizon Strike National Day of Action. There are 39,000 Verizon workers on strike right now. They are not just striking for better pay and conditions from Verizon; this is also about how all of the giant corporations are treating all of...
by Courtney Freudenthal | May 4, 2016 | Jobs and Growth
Fight for $15 supporters won a major victory on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Seattle’s recent law phasing in a $15 minimum wage. That refusal let stand a lower-court ruling against restaurant franchises that asserted the Seattle...
by Terrance Heath | May 4, 2016 | Blog, Climate, Conservatism, Progressive Vision, This Is The GOP
Today, President Obama is visiting Flint, Michigan for the first time since state officials revealed that the city’s water was contained with lead. The president was invited to Flint not by Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, but by eight-year-old Mari...
by Bill Scher | May 4, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism
Modern American Conservatism died last night at 7 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. It was 35 years old. Born with the 1980 presidential election of Ronald Reagan, conservatism had an impressive childhood. After cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating the economy,...
by Dave Johnson | May 4, 2016 | Blog, Trade
The U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday that the March goods and services trade deficit fell to "only" an enormous, humongous level of $40.4 billion in March. This is $6.5 billion less than February (revised) but not for good reasons (see below). Chinese imports...
by People's Action | May 4, 2016 | Breakfast
GOP Trumped Cruz quits, and the Republican Party dies, says The Atlantic's Molly Ball: "...to the anti-Trump faction, the GOP they cherished for decades as a vehicle for right-of-center ideas seemed to be no more ... But the party was broken before Trump came along,...
by Robert Borosage | May 4, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Progressive Vision
Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist insurgent, won Indiana convincingly Tuesday night – 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent – over Hillary Clinton, the establishment moderate. This is a remarkable victory, a statement of the extent and scope of the Sanders surge....
by Dave Johnson | May 3, 2016 | Blog, Trade
""There are no red lines which would clearly protect environment and health." - Jorgo Riss, director of Greenpeace EU There has been a major leak concerning another "trade" agreement that is currently being negotiated in secret. This time it is the TTIP and it was...
by Leo Gerard | May 3, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Trade
Forged with the despicable dividend of stolen trade secrets, priced with monopoly collusion, then traded with fraudulent labeling to dodge U.S. duties, steel from China violates every principle of capitalism. That’s in addition to defying both U.S. and international...
by People's Action | May 3, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Pentagon Spending Out of Control? Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, highlights the reasons why our Pentagon budget is so bloated in this Burning Issues segment. Last Gasp For Cruz? Trump expected to win...
by Burning Issues Video | May 3, 2016 | Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]https://youtu.be/uPzFqfa4UQY[/fve] Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, highlights the reasons why our Pentagon budget is so bloated in this Burning Issues segment. One simple answer: It's politics. The way the Pentagon...
by Dave Johnson | May 3, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Trade
[fve]https://youtu.be/Y3ttxGMQOrY[/fve] Sometimes an event comes along that crystallizes people's awareness of an issue. It is just the right things at the right time. The layoffs at the Indianapolis Carrier air conditioner factory are an example of this kind of...
by Robert Reich | May 2, 2016 | Blog, Economy, Progressive Vision
Marissa Mayer tells us a lot about why Americans are so angry, and why anti-establishment fury has become the biggest single force in American politics today. Mayer is CEO of Yahoo. Yahoo’s stock lost about a third of its value last year, as the company went from...
by Isaiah J. Poole | May 2, 2016 | Conservatism, Jobs and Growth
Once again, that conservative maxim about the government that's closest to the people serves the people best was thrown out the window by conservatives when it comes to protecting the interests of workers against the abuses of businesses. The latest example is Kansas,...
by Bill Scher | May 2, 2016 | Blog
In The New Republic today I explore how Hillary Clinton could campaign when there are two disparate camps of voters she will be compelled to pursue: Bernie Sanders voters on her left, and anti-Donald Trump Republicans on her right. Sanders voters are...
by People's Action | May 2, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Hidden Wealth and the Rigged Financial System The Panama Papers help reveal the extent to which the global financial system is rigged to favor the wealthy and powerful, says Eryn Schornick, policy adviser at Global Witness, in this Burning Issues...
by Burning Issues Video | May 2, 2016 | Burning Issues, Economy, Election 2016, Financial Reform
[fve]https://youtu.be/TGl3p6cVSCU[/fve] The Panama Papers, which opened a window into the world of secret bank accounts and money flows, help reveal the extent to which the global financial system is rigged to favor the wealthy and powerful, says Eryn Schornick,...
by Larry Cohen | May 2, 2016 | Blog
Bernie Sanders will campaign all the way up to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia to seek the nomination—and to continue building the “political revolution.” What is that political revolution, beyond his call to get the billionaires and corporations out and the...
by Richard Long | May 2, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Populist Majority, Progressive Vision
Part of the case that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been making for pressing his campaign through the convention can be found in a poll of young voters released last week by the Harvard Institute of Politics. That poll of over 3,000 respondents reveals two...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 29, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Billionaire investor (he's always described that way) Carl Ichan is calling on Congress to start spending. You read that right: Ichan is saying there is a "day or reckoning" coming if the federal government doesn't spend more to stimulate the economy. CNBC has the...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 29, 2016 | Blog, This Is The GOP
Nobody but nobody drops an album like Beyoncé. The lady single-handedly changed the game on how albums are released, and showed herself to be a savvy marketer. This week, after dropping multiple hints, Beyoncé finally dropped her latest, a 13-track collection called...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 29, 2016 | Blog, Trade
More than 160 food, farm, faith and rural organizations have sent a letter to Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The letter begins: The undersigned 161 farm, food, rural and faith groups urge you to reject the TransPacific...
by People's Action | Apr 29, 2016 | Breakfast
Democratic Tension Builds Sanders criticizes Democratic Party's commitments in Oregon address. NYT: "Sanders spoke at length about how Democrats had not spent enough time trying to help working-class people obtain adequate health care and higher wages. 'The Democratic...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 29, 2016 | Blog
Protests in North Carolina against HB2, the state's infamous “bathroom law,” limiting protections for LGBT people, have made national headlines recently. But there's another wave of protest actions going on in the Tarheel State you should know about. This movement is...
by Hedrick Smith | Apr 29, 2016 | Blog
David and Charles Koch. Illustration by DonkeyHotey (Creative Commons). Washington – If you’re tempted to think campaign megamillions no longer matter because maverick Republican Donald Trump is a self-financed near-nominee and Bernie Sanders has fomented a nationwide...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 28, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) strike at Verizon is now in week three. Thirty-nine thousand workers are striking to preserve middle class wages in the U.S. The strike is affecting company operations and customers are feeling it, but the executives want...
by Bill Scher | Apr 28, 2016 | Blog
We already knew Carly Fiorina was good at making people lose their jobs, having laid off 30,000 while leading Hewlett-Packard. We also knew she was good at losing campaigns, having lost a campaign for U.S. Senate and barely making a dent in the 2016 presidential...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 28, 2016 | Blog, Education
The recent debate about Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of a $20 bill revealed broad disagreements in the country about the value of lifting up the contributions to the nation made by women and people of color. It also revealed the importance of...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 28, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
A Bloomberg story reports that the cellular phone company T-Mobile is being accused of creating a fake union as a way to fight off gains by the real union, the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The company is accused of pretending to have a system that...
by People's Action | Apr 28, 2016 | Breakfast
Sanders Moves To Shape Platform The Hill explains "How Sanders is actually winning": "...the Vermont senator has surpassed all expectations in the presidential race, creating a movement of impassioned supporters that is likely to shape politics for years to come ......
by Dave Johnson | Apr 28, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Trade
Is it really "extreme" to think we should have fair trade policies? The New York Times on Tuesday published a story by Nelson D. Schwartz and Quoctrung Bui, "Where Jobs Are Squeezed by Chinese Trade, Voters Seek Extremes," reporting that, "research to be unveiled this...
by Lindsay Koshgarian | Apr 27, 2016 | Defense/Foreign Policy, Economy
Senator John McCain has had enough of government secrecy and bloated Pentagon projects. The Arizona senator made headlines Wednesday by calling for more transparency around defense contractor Northrop Grumman's winning contract to build the B-21 bomber. The Air Force...
