Robert Reich: Including all those who have entered the job market since the bottom fell out, the nation is about 11 million jobs short. The President ought to use his second honeymoon to get a jobs bill that will make a difference.
All Through the Night
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Tom Degan: But seriously, folks! If you still choose to remain blind to the overt racism that is the cornerstone of the so-called “Tea Party Movement”, you’re kidding yourselves. It is an organization of white supremacists – not much more; not much less. True, you might glimpse an occasional Uncle Tom on the fringes of any gathering, chomping away at a watermelon, but that’s merely for decorative purposes; Lester Maddox would have felt right at home with these birds.
Exec Bonuses/Newsroom Outsourcing a Virtueless Circle
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Michael Sigman: The decimation of the media industry, and particularly the newspaper business, has meant the elimination of health insurance benefits not only for the tens of thousands thrown out of work but also for the many writers, designers and others now forced to freelance. Media companies have to make cuts to stay in business, and some outsourcing is inevitable. But rewarding execs with big bonuses for, in effect, taking away workers’ health insurance is unconscionable.
Health Care Reform: Compassion versus Freedom?
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John Delloro: State rights and individual freedom have an important place in our society but so does the values and beliefs informing the lives of Ella Mae, my father and I. Our narrative of community and compassion yearns and demands to be included in the larger story of America. Although the health care reform bill is imperfect, it communicates to us—“we are beginning to be heard.”
ObamaCare Passed Passing Up Reproductive Justice
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Using women’s health care as a bargaining clip to pass H.R. 3590 has diminished, if not eliminated — for poor women and women of color who cannot pay for reproductive health care out-of-pocket — not only a safe abortion accessible to them but also emergency contraception.
An Extraordinary Achievement
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Joseph Palermo: President Barack Obama Tuesday morning gave Democrats a blueprint for what to do in November: back in your districts surround yourself with ordinary Americans who would be denied care if the federal government did not step in to bend the corporate imperatives of profits and share prices to fit the human needs of people who pay their taxes, play by the rules, and whose only “crime” is to have gotten sick.
Nancy Pelosi Deserves Chief Credit for Health Care Victory
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Randy Shaw: I knew how proud Burton was of his protégé, Nancy Pelosi, but his description of her as a single-minded “bulldog” never jibed with my own perceptions. Until now. Because when the history of the health care reform effort of 2009-10 is written, Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserves chief credit for making it happen.
“Preserving Democracy” Theme of LA Media Event This Saturday
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Please join the LA Media Reform Group, California Common Cause, and the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute on March 27, 2010, at Occidental College for our third annual summit. Given the recent Supreme Court decision, the changing media landscape, and the importance of the upcoming election cycle, we’ve decided to make this year’s theme, “Preserving Democracy.”
LA Progressive Articles: March 14-20, 2010
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Articles by Carl Bloice, Randy Shaw. Ivan Eland, Shamus Cooke, Carl Bloice, Ivan Eland, Rev. Irene Monroe, Robert Reich, Randy Shaw, Tracy Emblem, Michael Sigman:, Georgianne Nienaber, Tom Hayden, Sharon Kyle, Joseph Palermo, Berry Craig
Did Obama Kill Public Option in July?
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Paul Hogarth: President Obama has been justifiably slammed for not pushing hard enough for a public option, but the truth may be even worse than that. We know the White House cut a deal with hospitals and insurance companies last July on prescription drugs – but as a New York Times reporter said this week, they also killed the public option. And given the public option’s inexplicable fate, I have to believe the story.
Why Republicans Should Regret Scott Brown’s “Massachusetts Miracle”
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Randy Shaw: Prior to Brown’s win, national Democrats were adrift, the base was deeply demoralized, and a path to finally passing health care reform was unclear. But Brown’s win changed this, providing a desperately needed wake-up call to national Democrats and the Obama Administration.
Health Care 2010 and 1994, and the Political Lessons of History
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Robert Reich: Today’s Republican battle plan is exactly the same as it was sixteen years ago. In fact, it’s been the same since President Obama assumed office. They never were serious about compromise. They were serious only about regaining power. From the start, Republicans have remembered the lesson of 1994. Now, as they prepare to vote, House Dems should remember the lesson as well.
Continuing Bad Job Numbers Make It Harder — But Even More Important — to Pass Health Care Reform
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Robert Reich: In politics as in economics and love, timing is everything. Obama can’t wait much longer if he wants to convince waivering and worried conservative Dems to join him in a last ditch 51-vote reconciliation measure to get health care through the Senate. We’re already in the gravititational pull of November’s mid-term elections. But the economy is taking a longer time to turn around than anyone expected, and telling Americans the jobs numbers are getting worse more slowly isn’t exactly reassuring.
From “Fired Up and Ready to Go” to “Tired Out and Staying Home”
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Joseph Palermo: During the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush years the center of American politics was pushed about a hundred degrees to the Right. Obama gets elected and tries to move it about a half degree leftward and all we hear are screams of “socialism!”
How Obama’s Health Care “Reform” Kills Health Care
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Shamus Cooke: The ability for millions of people to see through the muddle in Washington points to a larger distrust of the two-party system. Even as “progressive Democrats” and other liberal pundits bow before the health care industry by urging passage of “an imperfect” health care bill, workers, the poor and the elderly aren’t taking the bait.
Public Option Only Way Out of Health Care Mess
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Paul Hogarth: Polling in key states where hot Senate seats are in play (Illinois, Colorado and Harry Reid’s own Nevada) shows the public option is still popular, and putting it back in the health care bill would improve things. Only 34% of Nevadans liked the Senate bill that passed in December, but 56% like the public option. The gap grows to 31 points in Illinois and 37 points in Minnesota, so why not use it?
Plucked Chickenhawk Still Squawking
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Berry Craig: Tom Tancredo, who has characterized the Iraq war as “America’s noble sacrifice,” fancies himself as ultra pro-military and a super hawk. The New Hampshire Gazette calls him a “Chickenhawk” because he dodged the draft and Vietnam in his salad days.
The Democrats, the Deficit, and Social Security
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Shamus Cooke: Unions and progressive groups must educate and mobilize their base to confront both the Democrats and Republicans over the protection of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. However, it is not enough for only the leaders of unions and community groups to pressure the Democrats over this issue, especially when Obama has made it clear that he prefers the advice of Wall Street CEOs.
The National Anthem: Why We Need Health Care Reform So Desperately
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Robert Reich: Anthem obviously believes it can raise its rates by as much as 39 percent without losing every one of its remaining customers with average or even somewhat above-average medical needs. The only way it could possibly raise its rates so high and expect to keep its customers would be if Anthem’s customers have no other choice.
The New Obama Is the Old Obama
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David A. Love: And at the Republican Party’s retreat in Baltimore, President Obama was responsible for the most compelling example of political theater in recent American history. He fielded questions from a crowded room of hostile adversaries– outnumbered, perhaps, but unmatched in intellectual firepower. The result was nothing less than a nationally-broadcast smackdown that the Republicans will not soon forget. Perhaps the president’s adversaries in the GOP, blinded by their partisanship, extremism, and dare I say racism, underestimated his capabilities.
Medicare-for-All: The Answer to a President’s Call and a Nation’s Woes
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Dr. Margaret Flowers: I was overjoyed to hear you say in your State of the Union address on Wednesday night: “But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.” My colleagues, fellow health advocates and I have been trying to meet with you for over a year now because we have an approach which will meet all of your goals and more.
The Power to Change the Debate
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Tracy Emblem: With the recent Supreme Court 5-4 radical decision treating corporations the same as individuals and asserting that federal laws cannot limit corporate speech, legislation requiring public disclosure of lobbyist driven “grassroots” advertising campaigns is needed more than ever. Individuals have constitutional rights. Corporations are legally recognized business entities.
Blue Dog Democrats Exposed as Frauds
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Paul Hogarth: many Blue Dogs are in trouble because of health care, and ironically what could save their hide is a public option. Instead, they are left selling a corporate-friendly bill hashed behind closed doors that forces Americans to buy private insurance – which will only make their constituents vote Republican. That’s why so many Blue Dogs are retiring – so they can bail and become lobbyists for the insurance industry.
Obama’s Tiny Jobs Ideas for Main Street, A Big Spending Freeze for Wall Street
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Robert Reich: President Obama today offered a set of proposals for helping America’s troubled middle class. All are sensible and worthwhile. But none will bring jobs back. And Americans could be forgiven for wondering how the President plans to enact any of these ideas anyway, when he can no longer muster 60 votes in the Senate.
OFA Should Reassess Organizing Strategy
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Craig Williams: An old Teamster organizer once told me “you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” It’s also an insult to working people and the tradition of organizing.
Blue Shield Cares — About What?
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Wendy Block: My criticism of Blue Shield (substitute Blue Cross or Aetna or…) is that the medical experts who know and have treated me for many years, got disgusted and finally left. My HMO doc gives me normal prescriptions and orders routine lab tests. But often, normal isn’t enough.
Massachusetts Calling: Harnessing Independents’ Anger and Disillusionment to Form a Second (i.e. Non-Corporate) Party
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Gary Corseri: Can these radio jockeys really believe half of what they say? They serve the system that butters their croissants. They are the corporate media, they are the Republicratic party—two sides of the same coin—the tarnished coin, the cheapened, sinking coin of this realm.
We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us
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Berry Craig: I’m a union-card carrying Hubert Humphrey Democrat. I support a public option. But you can bet your snow boots if I were a Bay State voter, I’d have trudged through a blizzard to cast my ballot for Martha Coakley, Brown’s Democratic opponent.
Democrats Never Had Sixty Votes; Sixty Votes Never Mattered
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Paul Hogarth: With Scott Brown now pledging to be the 41st vote to kill health care reform, Democrats cannot react by ramming through a bill before the Senate seats him. Republicans are not interested in governing; it’s time to pass a real bill through reconciliation.
Despite Obama, “Yes We Can” Spirit Survives
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Randy Shaw: In the Beltway, the Obama Administration frustrated key constituency groups and organizations by failing to push for transformative change. In the world where most people live and work, activists were not deterred by Obama’s inaction and instead seized upon the “Si Se Puede” spirit to build successful campaigns for justice.
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