Progressive Media Advocates
Tina Dupuy: There is a “war on Christmas” because there are spoils to be had over Christmas. If Easter raked in nearly half a trillion in sales, the outragemeisters would suddenly claim it was under attack by pagans trying to obscure the Christian message by making it about pastel colored eggs.
Steven Mikulan: Take away organized labor and the political playing field suddenly becomes a whole lot more even for a party with a vast treasury but a shrinking demographic base.
Joseph Palermo: With the stroke of a pen Michigan Governor Rick Snyder reduced the earning potential of millions of people, lowered the quality of the state’s schools and government services, and set up the next fiscal crisis when, lo and behold, they discover that low-wage workers have little means to pay taxes adequate to meet the basic needs of the state.
Clifford “Felonius Ax” Tasner: Mitt showed us his mettle when he was at the helm of Bain – buying up companies – downsizing, outsourcing and squeezing every last drop out of them before leaving behind dried up little husks.
Lee Fang: Corporate coercion of employees is perhaps the most profound repercussion from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year.
Lee Fang: It should be no surprise that Walker’s radicalism is boosted by Bradley money. Today, the Bradley Foundation is controlled by a group of establishment Republicans, along with Washington Post columnist George Will.
Lee Fang: In response to the growing protests in Madison, Koch fronts are busing in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign.
Lee Fang: Koch Industries takes advantage of government money for the same reason it funds climate change-denying journalists, academics, front groups, and think tanks: its goal is to maximize profit, even if it comes at the expense of the American public.
Thousands of protesters gathered this weekend in Palm Springs to express opposition to the secret meeting held by David and Charles Koch. The Koch brothers, owners of the 2nd largest privately held corporation in the United States, were conducting their bi-annual retreat where they and a cadre of well heeled power brokers hold strategy sessions.
Sharon Kyle: The billionaire Koch brothers, David and Charles, are hosting their bi-annual meeting of right-wing billionaires. Odds are you’re probably not a right-wing billionaire and weren’t invited to their event. But, no worries, a coalition of progressive organizations has planned an event just for you.
Joseph Palermo: The whole tenor of the next two years is going to feel like George W. Bush never left office. The GOP will have de facto control over the nation’s politics and agenda. If President Obama goes down the Clinton path of triangulating against his progressive base (as seems likely) then he deserves to be a one-term president.
Joseph Palermo: Wouldn’t it be something if the Bin Ladens of the world funneled untraceable cash into Republican candidates’ coffers because they know they can count on the GOP to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two of their greatest recruiting vehicles?
Regardless of the outcome of the midterm elections, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United is one that cannot be ignored. Joe Palermo called the impact of the Citizens United decision a “game changer”.
David Love: People of color and other minorities need membership in the Tea Party like they needed membership in the White Citizens’ Council during Jim Crow. And the notion of Tea Party diversity is just as implausible.
John MacMurrary: Exactly how much the Kochs have spent to make America over into their image of a Libertarian paradise may never be known outside the company and the foundations the family controls. Current Federal tax law permits anonymous personal donations to politically active nonprofit groups. But what can be gleaned shows spending somewhat north of $200 million since the late 90s alone.
Wendy Block: The Citizens United decision doesn’t address the homeland of donors. So what would stop multi-national companies or even foreign countries from procuring such potential winners as Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, or Christine O’Donnell? Who are the people/corporations behind these mysterious ads? Could Osama bin Laden be a donor? After all, the Supreme Court did rule in favor of free speech for all money.
Tracy Emblem: Implementing clean energy in California now – not twenty years from now – is a not only a public health issue — it’s a matter of economic survival.
Author Alexander Zaitchik sits down with Keith Olbermann to discuss his new book, “Common Nonsense, Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance”. Zaitchik tells Olbermann that we shouldn’t misinterpret Beck’s recent dip in ratings to mean that he is losing popularity.
It’s amazing that even after the entire Wall Street house of cards collapsed a year ago requiring the public sector to rescue the private sector these fierce advocates of free-market fundamentalism can still show their faces in public, let alone gather to rail against the evils of the government that saved their asses.
This Republican disruption strategy will fail. 2010 will not be 1994. There’s too much momentum behind universal health care right now to stop it.
The City of Los Angeles is about to unveil its brand new “state-of-the-art,” world-class headquarters for what it considers its world-class law enforcement agency. Just know there’s one too many “world-class” attributes in that last sentence, and given the latest controversy — the public should decide where the “world-class” attribute should actually go. A month [...]
he tea parties that recently took place around the country were billed as a grassroots, bottom-up groundswell against taxes, big government and bailouts. Fox News, apparently promoting itself as the official teabag network, hopes to grab ratings by embracing the pseudo-populist protests as their own. Republican politicians tried to hitch onto the mean-spirited tea party [...]
Victoria Defrancesco Soto: The issue trifecta of Benghazi, the IRS audits, and the AP investigations has resuscitated the near moribund Tea Party. While each of these issues deals with different agencies and actors they share the common denominator of heightening distrust in the government.
RJ Eskow: Dimon isn’t the cause of our economic problems. He’s merely a symptom. He’s no more responsible for the wreckage he leaves behind than a surfer is responsible for the undertow of the wave he’s riding. Dimon may lack moral sensitivity, but then, that’s the character that got him where he is today.
Randy Shaw: Garcetti kept the progressive base he earned from this City Council record and combined it with conservative San Fernando Valley voters angry at the Valley-based Greuel for her campaign receiving million of dollars from unions representing Department of Water and Power workers.
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