Richard Eskow: The president and his fellow Democrats have agreed to a series of reckless budget-cutting measures instead of fighting for jobs and protecting the social contract, which has deepened and lengthened the lingering recession.
Don’t Vent, Organize — And “Primary” a Democrat Near You
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Norman Solomon: If there’s a defining issue that now separates the Obama party leadership from social decency, it is the president’s push to cut Social Security benefits.
How Shadow Drug Industry Avoids Regulation
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Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen: It is time for Congress to put the cop on this pharmaceutical beat before more Americans die from the profits-over-safety priorities of this rogue industry.
Texas Republicans Oppose Pay Equity for Women
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Brent Budowsky: Pay equity for women could influence the political future of America. This includes turning Texas blue, especially because the entire Texas Republican delegation to the U.S. House and Senate opposes pay equity for women, while Texas Hispanic women are among those treated most unfairly.
Which Members of Congress Are Standing Up for Economic Decency – And Which “Progressives” Aren’t
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Norman Solomon: As battles over key issues of economic fairness intensify on Capitol Hill, we’re very likely to see a lot of Democrats — led by President Obama — preening themselves as virtuously non-dogmatic while they rebuff the minimal humanistic demands of progressive constituencies.
A Sea Change in the Firearms Debate
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Tina Dupuy: The NRA wants to advocate for the absolute unchecked rights of gun manufacturers as they march over to the fringe. Goliaths fall.
Lincoln, Spielberg, Sandburg, Kennedy, and Compromise
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Walter Moss: With House Speaker John Boehner unable to convince uncompromising Republicans to give just a little to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” the lessons that Lincoln, Spielberg, Sandburg, and Kennedy have to offer seem more important than ever.
Obama’s New Southern Manifesto
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Anthony Samad: President Obama has a lot to look forward to when he presses forward with the Rice appointment. They’re pulling out the whole playbook now.
A Rice Worth Fighting For
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Karen Finney: Such a fight would galvanize support for Obama among progressives, creating goodwill he might need heading in to the “fiscal cliff” and budget discussions, which could require unpopular concessions from the president.
ACLU-SC Pasadena/Foothills Honors “Nuns on the Bus” – Sunday, September 30th
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The ACLU/SC Pasadena/Foothills Chapter will honor the NETWORK, a national social justice lobby of activist Catholic nuns, for their outstanding service to low income households ‘
Birtherism Bites Back: Samuel D. Burchard and Donald Trump
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Berry Craig: Birtherism is cool with a lot of tea party tilting Republican white folks who still aren’t that cool with Romney. Hence, he hasn’t flat told Donald Trump to clam up.
Retirement: Sitting on a One-Legged Stool
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Vivian Rothstein: According to the American Association of Retired People (AARP), a frightening 35 percent of Americans over 65 currently rely only on Social Security (an average person gets benefits of $14,000/year) to survive.
Why We Must Occupy Democracy
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Robert Reich: The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians. Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force.
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.
Jack Abramoff Explains How He ‘Owned’ Members of Congress and Their Staff
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Lee Fang: In a simple explanation of how the revolving door, Abramoff said he would use promises of jobs on K Street to lure Capitol Hill staffers into his pocket.
Separation Anxiety
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Wendy Block: My worst long-range political nightmare is watching the next Republican president appoint even one Supreme Court justice (Go Ralph Nader for President in 2000!).
Jobs: A Grand Bargain
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Brent Budowsky: Great presidents know the difference between empty public gimmicks and game-changing public policy. They demand creative ideas, not mediocrity or defeatism, from those who advise them.
Not All Black Democrats Subscribe to ‘But He’s the First Black President’
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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.
Does Your Congressperson Represent You — Or Israel?
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Medea Benjamin: The Congressional recess is a time for elected representatives to be home in their districts, reaching out to their constituents. So why are one in five taking a junket to Israel?
“Hurray! Congress Is to Adjourn!”
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Ted Vaill: Seventy or eighty arch-conservative Tea Party members of the House and Senate have held this country hostage to their right-wing demands that we sacrifice entitlements belonging to ordinary, hard working Americans for the benefit of their rich friends. What is the mood of the ordinary American? Disgust.
Washington vs. America
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Brent Budowsky: Washington is an island drowning in its own self-interest, surrounded by a hurting and unhappy nation of deeply patriotic citizens who hunger for shared national purpose but find our politics to be sickening, insulting and corrupted.
Democracy Is Messy
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Ted Vaill: Every Member of Congress who voted against increasing the debt ceiling should be targeted for defeat in the 2012 election. If that is not successful in changing the makeup of Congress after 2012, I may follow the lead of my ancestor Pelatiah Everett, and begin a new revolution.
Republicans Bungle War-Powers Pushback
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Ivan Eland: Although John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, laudably sent a recent letter to President Barack Obama suggesting the possibility of a violation of the War Powers Resolution in the attack on Libya, he was 90 days too late.
March on Washington
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Brent Budowsky: An American jobs march could be the largest such event in American political history because it would speak for a gigantic swath of America that hungers and yearns for American jobs, and does not believe its voice is heard in Washington.
Why Making E-Verify Mandatory Doesn’t Solve Anything
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Michele Waslin: Advocates are going to expend much time and energy fighting yet another enforcement-only program that—absent legalization and other reforms—does nothing to fix our broken immigration system but has extremely negative consequences for law abiding employers and U.S. workers.
A Few Cutting Remarks
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Walter Brasch: Slagheap World Airlines announced that in the spirit of national cost cutting, it would cut back its cockpit crew to one pilot and eliminate flight attendants, meals, and life rafts. “This way,” said the president, “we won’t have to penalize our loyal stockholders by lowering our return on investment.”
The Search for War
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Norman Solomon: In times of war, U.S. presidents have often talked about yearning for peace. But the last decade has brought a gradual shift in the rhetorical zeitgeist while a tacit assumption has taken hold — war must go on, one way or another.
Call Me a Socialist and I Won’t Get Mad
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Berry Craig: Genuine socialists are proud of the socialist handle. They call their parties — you guessed it – “socialist,” or sometimes “social democratic” or “labor.”
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