Patty Bellasalma: We are the National Organization FOR Women not OF women. We fight for gender equity and women and girls’ empowerment. That is the qualifying core value that candidates and members alike must display.
Don’t Cut Social Security: Double It
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Steven Hill: An expansion of the Social Security retirement system — one of the most successful and popular social programs in American history — that converts it into a more robust retirement system would build upon the most stable component of the current system.
The Romney Campaign’s Situational Demagoguery
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Joseph Palermo: Worse than Swift Boating, worse than Willie Horton, Mitt Romney is running the most craven, dishonest, and hypocritical campaign we’ve seen in contemporary American politics.
Romney and the Right: They Hate Him…But They Hate Obama More…
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Bill Fletcher: Karl Rove was quite correct in pointing out that the Romney road to victory, should it happen, is brought about through a demoralization of the Obama base.
Think Occupy Is Dead? Think Again
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Tim Gatto: We are now receiving major headlines in the mainstream media, and the frightened pawns of the corporate world are fighting back.
What Small Businesses Need
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Caitlin Vega: It’s time to stop using this economic downturn to take away workers’ rights, eviscerate environmental protections or slash our safety net. Let’s get real about what we need to move California forward. It’s all about the jobs.
Don’t Let Doom Merchants Obscure True European Picture
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Steven Hill: Fearful headlines hide success stories such as Poland, which show Europe is taking the right steps to economic recovery.
The Poor of New York: Old-Fashioned Melodrama New Again
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Ed Rampell: Although, as this highly recommended play rightfully reminds us, poverty – then and now – is serious business. Greed was not good when perpetrated by Wall Street’s Gordon Gekkos of 1837, or today.
What Now for the Unraptured?
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Tom Hall: How perfect can heaven be, with 200 million new souls crowding into a facility designed by He who designed a world with shifting tectonic plates, ozone holes and republicans?
Shock Wave Coming
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Brent Budowsky: The economic and political shock wave will be momentous as budget politics will increase joblessness and reveal with brutality that Washington is out of touch with heartland America and dominated by special interests that voters deplore.
The Black Vote and California’s Next Governor
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Anthony Samad: Whitman and Brown — the black community likes to see who they’re voting for, and not just during election time.
Obama’s Summer of Discontent
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John Peeler: Overall, Obama has been successful as the leader of Washington. Where he is failing is as the leader of the country. That’s a surprise, given his short political career, and his very impressive rhetorical skills.
Skewed Wealth Distribution and the Roots of the Economic Crisis
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David Barber: What I do know is that while “social psychology” may have had some small role as a causal factor in the Crash of ’08, it was the actual structure of the American and world economies which brought on the crisis. And if in fact we enter a second round of this Crash, it will not stem from what Dr. Shiller calls a “weakness and vulnerability of confidence,” but will result from the same structural elements of our economy as those that brought on the “first dip.”
The Oil Next Time
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Robert Illes: So in the spirit of not letting any national calamity go to waste, the Republicans and their media mouthpieces have doggedly tried to hang the spill baby spill around the current President’s neck: Obama’s Katrina? read the graphics beneath the Fox “news” propagandists.
These Foliticians Are America’s Problem
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David Love: To be sure, the BP accident is an environmental threat that speaks to the deadly serious pitfalls of off-shore drilling. But it is also a crisis of bad political intentions, from the right-wing lobbyists such as FreedomWorks that worked with BP to push for more oil drilling, to the corporate lackeys at the 2008 GOP convention who shouted “drill baby dril.” Let’s not forget former Vice President Dick Cheney, who championed deregulation of the oil industry with his energy task force, and whose companyHalliburton figures prominently in the oil rig disaster.
Generations
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Joseph Palermo: he Boomers have contributed so much to the world and transformed it in so many amazing ways — technologically, sociologically, emotionally, etc. (made possible by the investments in education of their parents) — Yet they’ve decided to let their children fend for themselves. They’ve so failed us. The Boomers have made more money collectively than any generation in human history but they appear intent on hogging it all.
Massachusetts: Timidity of Hope Won’t Cut It
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Joseph Palermo: The Obama Administration cut far too many deals with the same corporate special interests that have dominated Washington since the Reagan years. Obama watered down his agenda. The Democratic base stayed home. The Republicans were energized beyond belief. And the Democratic candidate in a Democratic state lost the “Lion of the Senate’s” seat.
So Much Happening in Washington and So Little to Show for It, So Far
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The public doesn’t know what’s going on because the national media would rather report on the sexual escapades of famous people or social trends or high finance (a recent Pew study of economic reporting shows the vast majority of stories about the Great Recession have focused on Wall Street rather than Main Street).
Experts Wrong: Newsom Clear Beneficiary of Villaraigosa Non-Entry
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According to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross, nearly all of the political experts they consulted felt that California Attorney General Jerry Brown would gain more than Gavin Newsom from the non-entry of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa in the 2010 Democratic race for Governor. Not to be too blunt, but this analysis is [...]
Does the Obama Plan for Reforming Wall Street Measure Up?
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In a word: No. The plan doesn’t stop stop bankers from making huge, risky bets with other peoples’ money. It does increase capital requirements and oversight, but it doesn’t require bankers to take their pay in long-term stock options or warrants, and it doesn’t even hint that banks should go back to being partnerships instead [...]
California’s Death Throes: A View From Sacramento
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Republican colleagues are using the trauma of the economic collapse and the record state budget deficit to implement policies they’ve been advocating for years. “This budget ought to be solved in one chunk, at one time,” the governor says, “and let’s do it quickly.” As usual, the working poor [...]
The Great Debt Scare: Why Has It Returned?
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It’s the kind of thing I expect to hear from deficit hawks and chicken littles — from the self-described “fiscally responsible” right, from the scolds Ross Perot and Pete Peterson, from my former cabinet colleague Bob Rubin. But yesterday I was shown slides developed by the putatively liberal Center for American Progress intended to make [...]
The President’s American Recovery & Reinvestment Act: What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us
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One of the first things President Barack Obama did as our nation’s Chief Executive was to urge Congress to pass, then sign, the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA), better known as the nation’s “economic stimulus” package. The $787 billion bill, the largest taxpayer footed bill ever passed, was viewed as the primary vehicle to [...]
Where Government Spending Should be Trimmed — And Why It’s Necessary to Fast-Track Universal Health Care
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It’s no accident that as Congress returns this week from its two-week recess and begins debate on the $3.5 trillion budget plans for the fiscal year starting in October — which may or may not include a provision that fast-tracks Obama’s health care proposal by allowing it to pass the Senate with a mere majority [...]
Stimulus Mania: Is It The 21st Century Soup Line?
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The efforts to jump start the economy in the United States, in hopes of causing a global ripple, have taken on an entirely new meaning as people and industry alike wait for the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package to drop. It’s like a “mania” as so many cities, states, industries, school districts, homeowners, small [...]
A Short Citizen’s Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day
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No one likes to pay taxes, so tax day typically attracts a range of right-wing Republicans, kooks, and demagogues, all of whom tell us how awful we have it. Herewith a short citizen’s guide (that is, a citizen’s guide that’s short rather than a guide for short citizens) responding to the predictable charges: “Americans pay [...]
We Can Stop Our Businesses From Moving Out
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Long before I saw her walking her dog that morning or the guy who was jogging, or that couple move in down the street, I concluded that one way or another, my neighborhood was going to change. I just wasn’t expecting it so soon or for Black people to play such an active roll in [...]
We Need More Stimulus, Not More Bailout
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With only $110 billion remaining in the TARP bailout fund, all signs are that Tim Geithner is preparing to return to Congress seeking more bailout money. He’ll bring along the results of his bank “stress tests,” which will probably show many that big banks are still technically insolvent, along with bankruptcy scenarios for General Motors [...]
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Angela Merkel: The World’s ‘Most Valuable Leader’
Steven Hill: Forget Barack Obama. Forget the Hu Jintao/Wen Jiaboa duo, or David Cameron or Vladimir Putin. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is the world’s most important leader.