by Miles Mogulescu | Jan 8, 2020 | Blog, Conservatism, Featured, Politics
Democrats seem thrilled that John Bolton - a leading neoconservative, an advocate of bombing Iran and North Korea, and, briefly, Trump’s National Security advisor - has said he would testify at Senate impeachment hearings, if subpoenaed. They seem to hope Bolton will...
by Tim Wilkins | Jan 7, 2020 | Blog, Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Jeff Bryant Have Democrats Changed Course On Charters? Education has been mostly ignored in previous presidential elections, and the topic had not come up for serious discussion among the candidates in televised debates prior to the Public Education...
by Jeff Bryant | Jan 7, 2020 | Blog, Education, Featured
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet wants you to know how much he cares—really cares—about education. Speaking at the Public Education Forum 2020, Bennet began his remarks by declaring he is “the first school superintendent in the history of America to...
by Tim Wilkins | Jan 6, 2020 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Sam Pizzigati Are America’s Rich Getting Tired of Winning? The obituaries for Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chair who died December 8 at age 92, almost all echoed a noble, even heroic narrative. Between 1979 and 1987, Volcker’s bold and...
by Sam Pizzigati | Jan 6, 2020 | Blog, Economy, Featured, Inequality
L-R: Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, Ben Bernanke. Photo credit: U.S. Federal Reserve / cc The obituaries for Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chair who died December 8 at age 92, almost all echoed a noble, even heroic narrative. Between 1979 and 1987, as one...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 19, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Holly Otterbein People's Action Endorses Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders has won the endorsement of People’s Action, a coalition of 40 progressive groups that said it represents more than 1 million members in key early-voting states and others across the...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 18, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Thom Hartmann How America Broke Up With The Democratic Party Many grassroots Democrats separated from their party in the 1990s, and the 2020 election may be the last chance to save the marriage. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four times to the...
by Thom Hartmann | Dec 18, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Economy, Election, Featured
FDR signs the Banking Act of 1935. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Many grassroots Democrats separated from their party in the 1990s, and the 2020 election may be the last chance to save the marriage. While the GOP has been trying to establish a semi-permanent ruling...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 17, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Tim Wilkins The New Know-Nothings And Why We Must Impeach Trump’s America feels more and more like the 1850s, when our country’s violent anti-immigrant movement was born. Anti-Catholic mobs, alarmed by a rapid influx of poor immigrants from Germany,...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 17, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured
Trump’s America feels more and more like the 1850s, when our country’s violent anti-immigrant movement was born. Anti-Catholic mobs, alarmed by a rapid influx of poor immigrants from Germany, Ireland and Italy, burned churches and killed Catholics in Philadelphia and...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 16, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Rev. Susan K. Williams Smith What Trump And The GOP Learned From Obama As President Trump’s impeachment unspools, news coverage is buzzing about conspiracy theories and geopolitical rivalries. But at the root of Trump’s effort to extort Ukraine was a...
by Rev. Susan K. Williams Smith | Dec 16, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured
As President Trump’s impeachment unspools, news coverage is buzzing about conspiracy theories and geopolitical rivalries. But at the root of Trump’s effort to extort Ukraine was a simple motive: Trump hoped to influence our elections to preserve his power and that of...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 13, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Jeff Bryant Charter Schools’ Billion-Dollar Fraud Stinks Worse Than We Thought When members of Congress repeatedly confronted U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos about a study finding the federal government’s charter school grant program had wasted...
by Jeff Bryant | Dec 13, 2019 | Blog, Education, Election, Featured
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr / cc Earlier this year, when members of Congress repeatedly confronted U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos about a study finding the federal government’s charter school grant program had wasted an estimated $1 billion on...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 12, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Greg Chung Mayor Pete, It’s Time To Get Big Money Out Of Your Campaign What will it take to get big money out of politics? As a voter and a student, that’s what I want to know from any candidate who wants my vote, so I asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg this...
by Greg Chung | Dec 12, 2019 | Blog, Education, Election, Featured
What will it take to get big money out of politics? As a voter and a student, that’s what I want to know from any candidate who wants my vote, so I asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg this when he visited our campus – Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa – this weekend....
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 11, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Payday Lenders Use Installment Loans To Evade Regulations Paige Marta Skiba, Caroline Malone Installment loans seem like a kinder, gentler version of their “predatory” cousin, the payday loan. But for consumers, they may be even more harmful. In fact,...
by Paige Marta Skiba, Caroline Malone | Dec 11, 2019 | Blog, Economy, Financial Reform
Installment loans seem like a kinder, gentler version of their “predatory” cousin, the payday loan. But for consumers, they may be even more harmful. Use of the installment loan, in which a consumer borrows a lump sum and pays back the principal and interest in a...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 10, 2019 | Blog, Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Thom Hartmann Is It Time To Regulate Or Nationalize Facebook? Has Facebook gone from merely being a destination on the internet to something so interwoven in our lives that it should now be considered part of the commons and regulated as such? Is it...
by Thom Hartmann | Dec 10, 2019 | Blog, Economy, Featured
I was oblivious to the real significance of Facebook in everyday life until the company disabled my personal, private thomhartmann account. The list of “possible” reasons they posted for doing this included “impersonating a celebrity,” so maybe they shut me down...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 9, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Andrea Flynn What Breast Cancer Taught Me About Unequal Health Care Every weekday for six weeks this fall, I had radiation for early-stage breast cancer. October 9th was my last treatment. This journey has been a lesson in privilege, structural...
by Andrea Flynn | Dec 9, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health
Every weekday for six weeks this fall, I had radiation for early-stage breast cancer. October 9th was my last treatment. This journey has been a lesson in privilege, structural inequality and our broken social and economic systems. In May, I saw my obstetrician in New...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 6, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Sam Pizzigati Will The 2020 Contenders Take On Inequality? Is America’s political discourse on inequality finally getting real? In the early going of the 2020 presidential campaign, this has become a question worth asking. White House hopefuls have...
by Sam Pizzigati | Dec 6, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Economy, Election, Featured
Is America’s political discourse on inequality finally getting real? In the early going of the 2020 presidential campaign, this has become a question worth asking. White House hopefuls have been condemning the maldistribution of America’s income and wealth with an...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 5, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Thom Hartmann Why Have No Republicans Turned On Trump? There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S....
by Thom Hartmann | Dec 5, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Featured, Supreme Court
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr / cc There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. In 1976 (Buckley...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 4, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Chelsea Hoglen Building Power And Raising Voices Of Rural Women In rural areas of North Carolina, people get sicker, die sooner, and have less access to what they need to thrive than their counterparts in the rest of the state. Women in rural...
by Chelsea Hoglen | Dec 4, 2019 | Blog, Featured, I Speak, Rural
Here in North Carolina, like many other rural areas around the country, reactionary forces have used trends like the decline of jobs, infrastructure, and public services to consolidate power, advance racist and misogynist narratives, and erode public confidence in the...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 3, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Megan Day Ilhan Omar Is The Fighter The Tenants’ Movement Needs "I’m excited to introduce the Homes for All Act,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, “which will fulfill the promise of a homes guarantee by building 12 million new public housing and private,...
by Tim Wilkins | Dec 2, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Lindsay Koshgarian Medicare For All, Or Endless War? It’s Our Choice If you’re following the presidential race, you’ve heard plenty of sniping about Medicare for All and whether we can afford it. But when it comes to endless war or endless profits for...
by Lindsay Koshgarian | Dec 2, 2019 | Blog, Economy, Featured
Photo credit: Markeith Horace/MCoE PAO / cc If you’re following the presidential race, you’ve heard plenty of sniping about Medicare for All and whether we can afford it. But when it comes to endless war or endless profits for Pentagon contractors, we’re told we...
by Tim Wilkins | Nov 27, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Connie Huynh How We Can Take On Powerful Interests To Win Medicare for All Achieving Medicare for All in the United States would mean replacing our current broken patchwork of a healthcare system with one where everyone could access comprehensive,...
by Connie Huynh | Nov 27, 2019 | Blog, Featured, Health, Organizing, Policy
Achieving Medicare for All in the United States would mean replacing our current broken patchwork of a healthcare system with one where everyone could access comprehensive, equitable care whenever and wherever they need it. The path to winning Medicare Care for All...
by Tim Wilkins | Nov 26, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Tom Conway Trump’s EPA Is Selling Out Safety In January 2017, the EPA issued the Chemical Disaster Rule, which provided sweeping new safeguards for workers, first responders and communities where dangerous plants are located. It would have forced...
by Tom Conway | Nov 26, 2019 | Blog, Climate, Environment, Featured, Future of Work
Photo credit: CSB.gov / cc The March 2005 fire and explosions at BP’s Texas City, Texas, oil refinery killed 15 contractors and injured 180 other workers in ways that will haunt them forever. Some lost limbs. Others suffered horrific burns, head injuries or wounds...
by Tim Wilkins | Nov 25, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Anat Shenker-Osorio Progressive Ideas Are Popular, They Win – Here’s How Like many of us, after the Trump election I looked around and saw that whatever it was we were doing, as hard as we were working, it either wasn’t enough, or wasn’t the right...
by Anat Shenker-Osorio | Nov 25, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured, Organizing
How do we build a bigger “we”? Anat Shenker-Osorio says we do this when we talk about race and class in a way that welcomes everybody in, and leaves nobody out. This “Race-Class Narrative Strategy,” which she and UC Berkeley law professor Ian Haney López developed in...
by Tim Wilkins | Nov 22, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Miles Mogulescu Is Pete Buttigieg A Shill For The Donor Class? Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old Maltese-American mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest town in Indiana, is the shiny new object in the race to become the Democrats’ candidate for...
by Miles Mogulescu | Nov 22, 2019 | Blog, Democracy, Election, Featured
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr / cc Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old Maltese-American mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest town in Indiana, is the shiny new object in the race to become the Democrats' candidate for president in 2020. Coming from almost...
by Tim Wilkins | Nov 21, 2019 | Breakfast
MORNING MESSAGE Steven Rosenfeld How Social Media Amplifies Trump’s Rants And Disinformation As 2020 nears, disinformation—intentionally false political propaganda—is increasing and getting nastier. Central to this disturbing trend is President Trump, whose...
