Washington Republicans, with their obstructionism and worship of austerity as the answer to all of our economic ills, are creating an opportunity for the Democrats to offer a more appealing alternative (if they’re not too lame or bought off to seize the initiative). By giving the country nothing to think about except budget cuts...
The 29,000 striking Chicago teachers are sending the message to Mayor Rahm Emanuel (and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan) that their teacher bashing and privatization schemes for public education have become so onerous and destructive to the teachers’ mission and profession that they have no choice but to fight back. In this epic struggle...
By striking down the Montana campaign finance law that dates back to 1912, the Supreme Court steams ahead on its long-term project of turning our political system over to giant corporations. (So much for “states’ rights,” or the role of states as “incubators” for best practices). A century ago, the same year Montana passed...
Going into the 2012 elections people on the progressive end of the political spectrum need to ask the simple question: How will the first post-Citizens United presidential election affect the outcomes for those desperately seeking social change? The most likely result, unfortunately, is that after the mountains of anonymous campaign money come crashing down...
The Republican House members who voted for Paul Ryan’s Ayn Rand wet-dream budget are apparently getting an earful from their constituents. And the earful isn’t coming from people wearing Bradley Manning T-shirts, but from crusty old baby boomers who probably voted for the GOP in the last election. Too bad their angst isn’t being...
What we are witnessing right now in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and other states is the final battle against the last bastion of union strength in this country. With the aggressive onslaught aimed at public employees and their unions that Republican governors have unleashed in recent weeks, it’s long past time for politicians calling themselves...
The overstated celebrations and commemorations of the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth, with their razzle-dazzle of Super Bowl tributes and marathon deifying in Simi Valley, are fitting tributes to a president whose public relations guru, Michael Deaver, was a pioneer of this same kind of flim-flammery. But the Reagan Centennial’s flashy hagiography masks a...
The whole tenor of the next two years is going to feel like George W. Bush never left office. The GOP will have de facto control over the nation’s politics and agenda. If President Obama goes down the Clinton path of triangulating against his progressive base (as seems likely) then he deserves to be...
On what set of national policies was President Obama anything other than a “centrist?” How many times did he “reach out” to Republicans? On the war in Afghanistan, education, health care, Wall Street reform, immigration, and climate change he bent over backwards to accommodate the opposition party. Yet the Republicans stiffed him on all...
Losing the Narrative on Public Employee Unions
Despite what some polls are telling us the Democrats at the national level are rapidly losing the narrative thread on the issue of collective bargaining rights for public employees. The frame of the “debate” on public worker pensions, and the role of labor unions in American society generally, has already largely moved in the...
Read more »