“The appeal for each Moral Monday has been the same: urging legislators to govern for the good of the whole, rather than for the wealthy.” — Rev. William Barber. Since April, North Carolina citizens have been gathering at the state capital in Raleigh for “Moral Monday” rallies and acts of civil disobedience to protest the [...]
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Starting today, Massachusetts Rep. James McGovern is joining the state’s Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz and other Massachusetts officials in the “SNAP challenge.” For the next seven days, they are going to be living off a food budget of $31.50, the average weekly benefit received by an individual in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance [...]
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The IMF has “acknowledged major mistakes” in Greece’s bailout, and admitted to seriously underestimating the severity of Greece’s downturn. Yet the Greek government continues with draconian spending cuts, in order to comply with the austerity measures based upon those ”major mistakes.” In response, Greeks have again take to the streets, this time to protest an austerity [...]
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The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) has just released a report on tax havens, Corporate Pirates of the Caribbean. The report shows that the corporations engaged in the “Fix the Debt” austerity push would gain up to $173 billion in tax breaks from their proposal for a “territorial tax system.” So under the guise of [...]
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It seems as if the same battle is being fought in every aspect of American society. On one side are the forces of egalitarianism, economic opportunity and self-determination. On the other is a well-funded and entrenched elite bent on hijacking our media, our political process and our institutions for their selfish ends. Sadly, the classrooms [...]
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Seven homeowners who have faced foreclosure by some of the nation’s biggest banks after doing the best they could to save their homes faced a D.C. Superior Court judge Tuesday. They were in court for the act of civil disobedience their financial plight had driven them to commit: blocking the entrance to the law firm [...]
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This is a fascinating account of how the Grand Bargain came to be the tired conventional wisdom among the Village wonk crowd. (I'm characterizing it that way, not the author, the esteemed Larry Mishel. ) It's required reading for anyone who has been following this story for the past few years.
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This week I hosted a blogger call to discuss the outcome of last week’s Friday/Saturday meetings between President Obama and Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping. None of this matters much, unless you care about your job, wages, retirement, kids, community, democracy — and just possibly if things [...]
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With the House Republican caucus still squabbling over what ransom they should demand for an increase in the debt limit, Speaker John Boehner issued his own threat yesterday. According to Roll Call, Boehner wants “another round of spending cuts beyond the sequester.” Cuts how big? In Boehner’s word, “greater than the increase in the debt [...]
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