by Martha Burk | Apr 27, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
We heard a lot about the “war on women” during the 2012 election cycle — mostly over Republican attacks on abortion rights and birth control. While the phrase has faded in this election year go-round, the war on women has not. The only change is that now we’re...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 27, 2016 | Conservatism
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Wednesday received an incredibly light sentence for actions related to the sexual abuse of boys he supervised when he was a high school athletics coach. U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin used the phrase "serial child molester" in...
by Dean Baker | Apr 27, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth, Trade
Why are none of the "free trade" members of Congress pushing to change the regulations that require doctors go through a U.S. residency program to be able to practice medicine in the United States? Obviously, they are all protectionist Neanderthals. Will the media...
by People's Action | Apr 27, 2016 | Breakfast
Northeast Primaries Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton emerge from Northeast primaries as presumptive nominees. CBS News: "After resounding victories across the Northeast on Tuesday, both Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 27, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Progressive Vision
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton – the two presumptuous if not yet presumptive leaders for their party’s presidential nomination – won big on Tuesday. Trump swept all five states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) by double digits....
by Dave Johnson | Apr 26, 2016 | Blog, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) went dormant in Congress after election season began. It became clear that the public despises our country's corporate-dominated "trade deals" that let companies just lay people off and close factories here to take advantage of...
by Sam Pizzigati | Apr 26, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Tax Reform
Overcrowded classrooms. Crumbling bridges. Shuttered libraries. These have become our everyday realities after over a generation of tax-cutting political bravado. A shrinking middle class. Rising dead-end poverty. The splurges of a new super rich. These have also...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 26, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Jobs and Growth, This Is The GOP
Alan White couldn’t shout jubilation from the rooftop on March 25 when he heard that the U.S. Department of Labor, after decades of trying, had finally issued a stricter rule to limit exposure to potentially deadly silica dust in workplaces. He was happy, all right....
by People's Action | Apr 26, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Reexamining Our Africa Policy Emira Woods, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says in this Burning Issues video that the next U.S. president needs to think of Africa differently and ally with the forces of change seeking to improve...
by Burning Issues Video | Apr 26, 2016 | Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]ttps://youtu.be/tki-nuTUCko[/fve] Emira Woods, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says in this Burning Issues video that the next U.S. president needs to think of Africa differently and ally with the forces of change seeking to improve the...
by Richard Eskow | Apr 26, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
Regulators recently rejected plans from five too-big-to-fail banks, saying they haven't found a way to go bankrupt without relying on taxpayers to bail them out. If they can't fix it, they're supposed to be broken up. So why are we suddenly debating the very concept...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 25, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
In his poem, “For My Own Protection,” the late black, gay poet Essex Hemphill wrote: I want to start an organization to save my life. If whales, snails, dogs, cats Chrysler and Nixon can be saved, the lives of Black men are priceless and can be saved. We should be...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 25, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
Silicon Valley is a region of sharp contrasts: ● The region's top tech firms made a record $103 billion in profits in 2013. ● One in three Silicon Valley households do not make enough money to meet their most basic needs. ● There are well-compensated tech employees...
by Bill Scher | Apr 25, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, Election 2016
Ted Cruz and John Kasich had finally decided to join forces and work to prevent Donald Trump from reaching a majority of delegates before the convention. On Sunday evening, each campaign released a statement saying the two campaigns will strategically deploy resources...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 25, 2016 | Election 2016, Progressive Vision
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign operation has been anything but subtle in suggesting that now that her win in the New York primary Tuesday has made her nomination at the Democratic convention pretty much inevitable, it’s time for the Bernie Sanders campaign to...
by People's Action | Apr 25, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Protect Civilian Control of the Military In our latest Burning Issues video, Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration, explains that the fundamental principle of...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 25, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Progressive Vision
Hillary Clinton’s heated defense of the money she has raised from Wall Street and other interests won’t cut it. Her protests contradict the basic case that virtually all Democrats and reformers have made for getting big money out of politics. It is vital that voters...
by Burning Issues Video | Apr 25, 2016 | Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]https://youtu.be/2A8YD-yMo-I[/fve] The principle of a civilian-run military – a military answerable to a democratically elected president and Congress – has proven vital to the health of American democracy. But retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 22, 2016 | Blog, Conservatism, This Is The GOP
For eight years, wingnuts had to deal with the reality of a black man in the White House. Now, it looks like there will be a black woman in their wallets. They’re not taking it well. On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that former slave Harriet Tubman,...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 22, 2016 | Blog, Jobs and Growth
(Photo by Communications Workers of America (CWA)) 40,000 workers at Verizon and Verizon Wireless are still on strike, fighting for their future and the future of middle class wages in our economy. Despite making $131.6 billion in annual revenue, Verizon refuses to...
by Isaiah J. Poole | Apr 22, 2016 | Jobs and Growth
Remembering the artist Prince and one of his greatest hits, "1999," got us thinking: 1999 was actually a pretty good year for the U.S. economy. Time spent browsing through the Economic Policy Institute's "State of Working America" website is sobering, though, once you...
by People's Action | Apr 22, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: Avoiding The Failures of Militarism The next president should heed the wisdom of an electorate that is “fed up” with the follies of military adventurism because of the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, says Emira Woods, a foreign policy fellow at...
by Burning Issues Video | Apr 22, 2016 | Burning Issues, Defense/Foreign Policy
[fve]https://youtu.be/WEXE6YK0SDg[/fve] The next president should heed the wisdom of an electorate that is "fed up" with the follies of military adventurism because of the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, says Emira Woods, a foreign policy fellow at the...
by Bill Scher | Apr 22, 2016 | Blog, Climate
I noted on Wednesday that while the Paris climate agreement, to be signed by 155 nations Friday in honor of Earth Day, may be too little, it is not too late. The agreement creates a critical global commitment to combating climate change, sets the stage for an initial...
by Jeff Bryant | Apr 21, 2016 | Blog, Education
Does this sound like a place you'd like to work? The work environment is "depressing" … "morale is at an all-time low." "It feels like a lot of busy work and hoop jumping and detracts from the work." "Every move … needs to be documented and noted." "We have to respond...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 21, 2016 | Blog, Trade
Yes, much of Donald Trump's message has a white nationalist and anti-woman character to it. But here is a warning: If Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee she had better get tough on trade – and mean it. One of Donald Trump' main elements of appeal to...
by Justin Talbot-Zorn | Apr 21, 2016 | Blog, Economy, People's Budget
In recent years, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has spearheaded policy ideas, from debt-free college to the $15 minimum wage, that have gained incredible momentum from city halls to presidential debate stages. Predictably, Republicans’ responses to these ideas...
by People's Action | Apr 21, 2016 | Breakfast
Sanders Keeps Going Sanders campaign insists it still has a winning path. Strategist Tad Devine on MSNBC: "We think we can win more states. We think we can win more delegates. We think we can prove to Democratic leadership that he is the best possible candidate for a...
by Terrance Heath | Apr 21, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
On Tuesday night, our neighborhood in Montgomery County, Md., had no water. It had been temporarily turned off between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, as workers worked to replace the decades-old water mains that run beneath the busy...
by Robert Reich | Apr 20, 2016 | Blog, Financial Reform
Why is there so little discussion about one of Bernie Sanders’s most important proposals – to tax financial speculation? Buying and selling stocks and bonds in order to beat others who are buying and selling stocks and bonds is a giant zero-sum game that wastes...
by Bill Scher | Apr 20, 2016 | Blog, Climate
The historic international Paris climate agreement will be formally signed by 155 nations on Earth Day this Friday, but scientific reports since the pact's forging in December that indicate a more urgent climate crisis are renewing the question of whether the...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 20, 2016 | Blog, Trade
China is producing much more steel than the country and the world can use, and is "dumping" it onto international markets. But when China was confronted with the dumping charge at a conference in Brussels this week, the Chinese government refused to back down. The...
by People's Action | Apr 20, 2016 | Breakfast
Clinton Eyes General, Sanders Eyes Convention Clinton again tries to pivot to the general election. Bloomberg: "Hillary Clinton's campaign is moving rapidly to set up the infrastructure she'll need for the general election, a process that will unfold mostly behind the...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 20, 2016 | Blog, Election 2016, Progressive Vision
There’s no place like home. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won big last night in their home state of New York. Trump won 60.5 percent of the vote and 88 delegates, with John Kasich a distant second and New Yorkers giving Ted Cruz a good taste of their values – and a...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 19, 2016 | Blog, Trade
I went to Washington, D.C., last week to ask trade experts and lawmakers to stop the relentless, lawless, callous dumping of Chinese steel, aluminum, paper, rubber, glass, chemicals and other products, which has closed mills, killed jobs, destroyed lives, devastated...
by Dave Johnson | Apr 19, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision, Trade
The Bush administration negotiated the Panama free trade agreement without addressing Panama's bank and corporate secrecy. Panama has little to "trade" with the U.S., so maybe leaving secrecy out of the agreement wasn't an accident; it was the point. It provided a...
by Bernie Sanders | Apr 19, 2016 | Blog, Progressive Vision
[fve]https://youtu.be/sTfTabMRRpw[/fve] Remarks delivered by Bernie Sanders at The Vatican, on April 15, 2016. I am honored to be with you today and was pleased to receive your invitation to speak to this conference of The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Today...
by People's Action | Apr 19, 2016 | Breakfast
Burning Issues: The U.S. Exporting Climate Change Kyle Ash, senior legislative representative at Greenpeace, says in this Burning Issues video that there are real dangers that the U.S. will facilitate the extraction of new fossil fuel sources around the world, despite...
by Burning Issues Video | Apr 19, 2016 | Burning Issues, Climate
[fve]https://youtu.be/aGR1KS_HpVw[/fve] Given the threat of global climate change, the United States should not have a two-faced energy policy – encouraging green energy at home and encouraging fossil fuel exports abroad. Kyle Ash, senior legislative representative at...
by Roger Hickey | Apr 18, 2016 | Blog, Democracy, Progressive Vision
[fve]https://youtu.be/oVVwHH8FFjE[/fve] On Monday I joined hundreds of others to get arrested at the U.S. Capitol building. It’s been a while since I last engaged in civil disobedience. But I am just one of millions of people in America who want to stop the growing...
