Robert Reich: Instead of talking about Medicare as a problem to be fixed, Democrats should start talking about it as a potential solution to the challenge of rising health-care costs — as well as to our long-term budget problem.
Marcy Winograd on Harman’s Resignation and a Possible Run
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Marcy Winograd: When I heard the news that Jane Harman was resigning, I thought, ‘Now we finally have an opportunity to send a progressive to Congress, someone who will work to create jobs in the new economy, to free the 36th District from its perpetual war footing.’
Why Has Every Pro-Repeal GOP Lawmaker Given Their Congressional Staff Taxpayer-Funded, Government Health Care?
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Lee Fang: Evan as they rip the bill as some sort of “monstrosity” of “socialism,” nearly every Republican lawmaker eagerly accepts government health benefits afforded to them as members of Congress.
In Praise of “ObamaCare”
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Diana Peterson-More: I thank President Obama enormously for having persevered against much rancor and dis-information to pass health reform. My family, along with all American families, will benefit a great deal.
Tea Party Diversity?
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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.
The Enthusiasm Gap and You
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Robert Reich: Average Americans are hurting. But their pain isn’t coming from government. It’s coming from an economy whose benefits are concentrating ever more at the top, whose giant corporations are controlling ever more of our democratic process, and whose costs and risks are becoming ever more burdensome for the middle class and the poor
Universal Healthcare is Still Needed
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Is Universal Healthcare still on our radar now that the Obama Administration and congress has passed the healthcare reform bill?
The Party “De No”
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Mario Solis-Marich: Latino voters, long weary of the harshness of the conservative attack on immigration reform, have grown accustomed to GOP games on the issue. However, never has a message been so clearly articulated across the social, cultural, and ethnic divide as the Spanish / English word chosen by the GOP to define itself.
Catch 22 with President Obama
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Lydia Howell: Ultimately, what is most important about Barack Obama may not be that he is an African-American president but, that — like Bill Clinton before him — he is a Corporate Democrat, who offers no real alternatives to Big Business As Usual and Endless Wars for Empire — (just like the Republicans
Obama Era Sees Decline of Organizing
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Randy Shaw: As the midterm elections approach, progressives face a critical choice: either spend resources now on funding organizers who can win real change in 2010, or invest in the November elections to set the stage for 2011. The choice should be clear.
What’s Ahead for the Economy and Politics in 2010
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Robert Reich: Issue Number One — the overriding concern that will determine more than anything how many seats the Dems lose next fall — is jobs. If unemployment is 10 percent or more next November, the Dems are in danger of losing the House and will almost certainly be short of the 60 votes they need in the Senate.
Hypocritical Outrage: Why the Process of Engineering This Health Reform Bill Is No Uglier Than the Rest of Congress’ Handiwork
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Tanya Acker: Twice last week I was on panels with Republicans who expressed surprise about the “unseemly” tactics employed by Democrats in passing health care reform. The horsetrading was so “venal!” The process so “hyperpartisan!” Noble Americans, we should all be so very shocked! Well, not really.
The Oligarchy Wins Again!
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Something, anything, has to be done at some point to show that the Obama Administration is not just the latest group of good people with good ideas that are absorbed into a system that makes Hamid Karzai look like a clean government activist. The corporate money so clogs the arteries of our body political the whole damn thing is sclerotic, choked off from the life-giving oxygen of democracy.
Senate Speech Heralds New Social Movement
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It is time for the health of human beings to prevail. It is time to end the insurance cartel. Please join us as we continue forge the movement that will win Medicare for All. Onward to single payer.
Forty More Days
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As long as the Democratic leadership insists on being directed by the supposed wisdom of this advice, they will continue down their present path to an electoral train wreck next November as bad or worse than the one they suffered in 1994, when they played their cards the same way.
Obama Ignores Community Organizing Lessons
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When Barack Obama backed a Senate health reform plan that differed radically from prior proposals, he ignored the lessons he learned as a young organizer on Chicago’s South Side. Obama once knew that it’s wrong to bypass the community’s agenda to strike a backroom deal, regardless of its superior terms. Obama also understood that failing to consult with the community disempowers the base, and discourages people from participating in future organizing campaigns.
Top 5 Reasons Joe Lieberman Sticks It to Us
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Senator Joe Lieberman continues to threaten filibuster of the Senate health reform bill even in the face of the recent Harvard study showing that 45 thousand Americans die each year because of lack of sufficient health care.
Another Great Swindle: Doctors, Hospitals, Pharma as Much to Blame as Insurers
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While the health insurance industry’s immoral, amoral and, sometimes, illegal treatment of policyholders is an appropriate prime culprit and target in the current push for reform, the fact is that physicians, hospitals and drug companies are getting an undeserved pass by much of the media.
Health Care Reform Is Critically Important, But Getting Americans Back to Work Is More So
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If Obama and the Democrats lose one or both houses of Congress in the midterms, it will be because the president learned only the most superficial lesson of the Clinton years. Health-care reform is critically important. But when one out of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, getting the nation back to work is more so.
Why I Am Risking Arrest for Medicare for All
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I am going to be arrested because I believe that it is my professional responsibility to advocate on behalf of those patients who are suffering and because it is clear that traditional advocacy tools are not working.
Glenn Beck Can’t Take Glenn Beck’s Heat
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Mr. Beck, what I feel like writing is, sir, prove to me that you are not completely unhinged. And, anyway, why won’t you deny rumors that you raped and murdered a young girl in 1991 so this whole thing can be put to rest?
Obama: Labor’s Agenda Is My Agenda
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Organized labor has historically been the core of Barack Obama’s political base, and now that the President finds himself in a tough fight with corporate America, he is increasingly aligning himself with the labor movement
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and the 10th Amendment
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Somehow, I suspect Pawlenty is more interested in the impact of his idiotic comments on the GOP’s dwindling base of lunatics than he is in my comments. If I hear back, I’ll let you know.
Hope for Health Reform Fading
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The White House showed a white flag last weekend, discarding its commitment to a “public option” that would compete with private health insurance. Since then, despite efforts to backtrack, the signal keeps flashing: Obama won’t go to the mat for a public option after all.
Obama’s Health Care Approach Risks His Base
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Activists either insist that the President accept nothing less than a public option, or pave the way for Obama’s further “compromises” on the many other issues once widely thought to represent the ushering in of a new progressive era.
On Town Halls and Health Care Reform: Wasn’t Hitler the One With the Gun?
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As the GOP and their allies have concluded that all is fair in their attempts to either destroy health care reform (of any kind) and/or gain political leverage against a popular President, I am feeling the need to don a bullet-proof vest.
Progressives Shouldn’t Mimic Teabaggers In Promoting Health Reform
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Activists often make the mistake of fighting battles on their opponent’s turf. Small town hall meetings are so easy to disrupt that they offer a perfect forum for the passionate Rush Limbaugh crowd that lacks a broad base
Explaining the Media’s Anti-Obama Bias
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Fortunately, the Internet will not allow the traditional media to again derail the nation’s hopes for progressive change. No wonder the Obama Administration is openly courting bloggers to tell the truth about health care
Paula Is Home
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Then we next push Congress and President Obama to fix this broken healthcare system so people stop risking bankruptcy to get the care they need for their families.
What Obama Needs to Learn from the Failure of Bush’s Social Security Plan and Clinton’s Healthcare Reform
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In recent weeks, the president has joined his allies within and outside of government in launching a campaign to overhaul and reform the American health care system. It appears as if all the stars are lining up to ensure the President’s success – healthcare reform is in high demand, the president is popular, there are [...]
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