Progressive Media Advocates
Carl Matthes: Since 1922, only 44 women have served as Senators. Today, in the United States Senate, the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” there are now twenty female Senators, the most ever serving at one time. While women total over 50% percent of the population, only 20% of Senators are female.
Brent Budowsky: President Obama blew it, but he can still lead Democrats to a landslide victory in 2012 by understanding the sources of the third great realignment in more than a century, which should have been realized after his election in 2008.
Mark Bowen: America is at a moment of truth where we, the people must force Republicans to choose who their real leader is: Jesus Christ, or Ayn Rand.
Victoria Defrancesco Soto: Simple addition and a prime-time convention spot make a Castro presidency seem natural, but the larger equation is complex and does not bode well for the young San Antonio mayor.
Paulina Gonazlez: In addition to needing to win political support for their demand, the Dream Movement identified the White House’s legal argument as the first and most important hurdle they needed to overcome,
Brent Budowsky: Mitt Romney should disclose 10 years of his tax returns. He should disclose exactly how much personal wealth he achieved through investments in firms that destroyed American jobs.
Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: The 99% Spring is the latest effort by those close to the Democrats to take advantage of Occupy, but the results were less than spectacular.
Brent Budowsky: It is far too early to predict the 2012 elections. But I suggest that Reid is rocking, Pelosi is rolling and Democrats are rising
Brent Budowsky: George Will writes on Sunday that Republicans could face a 1964-magnitude landslide loss. Things are falling into shape for Democrats to keep control of the Senate and regain control of the House.
Jackie Cornejo: While Republicans and Democrats are fighting each other tooth and nail on health care reform, Medicare, defense spending and almost everything else, nationwide our roads are crumbling. Literally.
Friday Feedback: This week, regular commentor Joe Weinstein addresses Brent Budowksy’s “Calling Wealthy Democrats.”
Tina Dupuy: Part of being a Democrat is acting like you’re losing even when you’re winning. Part of being a Republican is acting like you’re winning even when you’re losing.
Randy Shaw: Considering that polls show that 99% of all women and 98% of Catholic women who have had sex have used contraceptives, Democrats should follow Senator Barbara Boxer’s lead and aggressively frame the November elections around this issue.
Brent Budowsky: Will men and women of the center and left fight as hard as those on the right for their vision of America, or will they surrender from the sidelines? If they surrender, I tremble for the future of the nation.
Robert Reich: No responsible Democrat should be pleased at the prospect that Gingrich could get the GOP nomination. The future of America is too important to accept even a small risk of a Gingrich presidency.
Tanya Somanader: Hoping to refocus priorities in 2012, Michigan’s Senate Democrats have released a new plan that puts Michigan students ahead of wealthy corporations.
Carl Bloice: Several Democrats said during the day that the presentation had the support of a majority of the six Democrats on the panel, leaving the impression that at least one, and possibly two, of the party’s lawmakers had not signed on — possibly Becerra and Clyburn.
Randy Shaw: If President Obama and fellow Democrats agree to a deficit reduction deal that cuts Medicare, Social Security, and other programs serving the 99%, expect an electoral calamity for Democrats in 2012.
Robert Illes: “Occupy” is in the third stage of Gandhi’s meme about how non-violent resistance, and civil disobedience works. We have seen the movement ignored. Then we saw it ridiculed. Now we’re seeing it being fought. The next step: “… then you win.”
As the grassroots campaign against Wall Street grows, Democratic politicians are moving in the opposite direction. President Obama has secured the House Republican support necessary to pass three trade bills strongly opposed by organized labor and most Democrats. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who like Obama was elected with huge labor funding and ground support, [...]
Ted Vaill: The party of Lincoln has become the party of the Old Confederacy. There is no way Abraham Lincoln would be a Republican today – he would be a Democrat.
Joseph Palermo: Obama and the Democrats are in trouble politically not because they did too much to help hurting Americans, but because they did too little.
Randy Shaw: With the President still ignoring cries from his base for confrontational and dramatic action, did anyone really expect those Brooklyn Democrats to be highly motivated to get to the polls?
Brent Budowsky: The Truman metaphor is right for Obama, but it must presage a sustained battle for jobs, and not another brief theatrical scene in an incoherent drama with an inconclusive ending.
Berry Craig: This union-card carrying Hubert Humphrey Democrat from Kentucky — where Steve Beshear, our second-term-seeking, union-endorsed Democratic governor is up two dozen points over his Scott Walker-wannabe Republican challenger in a recent bellwether poll — hopes Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s “way forward” will include a recall election that will unemploy him, too.
Jasmyne A. Cannick: Me — I long fell out of love with the President. I don’t talk about it much because doing so can be a detriment to your well-being in certain company.
Norman Solomon: Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the vital lessons of the New Deal. Many millions of good jobs must be created — and that will require well-funded federal jobs programs on a large scale.
Robert Reich: Had the President and the Democrats stuck to their guns during the health-care debate and insisted on Medicare for all, or at least a public option, they wouldn’t now be facing the possible unraveling of the new health care law.
Peter Dreier: Throughout Wisconsin Democrats’ struggle, President Barack Obama has been sitting on the sidelines, failing to use his bully pulpit to encourage the burgeoning movement to protect working families from the corporate- and Tea Party-sponsored attacks.
Dan Bacher: Despite intense political pressure by the oil industry, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 29 approved three bills proposing to halt fracking, a controversial method of oil and natural gas extraction, in California.
Benjamin called on the President to use his power as Commander-In-Chief to close Guantanamo prison, release the 86 Guantanamo prisoners who have been cleared for release, and stop the killer drone program
Angola 3 News: Hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily. Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties.
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Labor Must Choose Between Occupy and the Democrats
Shamus Cooke: The labor movement has a foot in both worlds; one in step with the Occupy Movement and the other with the Democrats, who are working to crush Occupy outright.