The Pew Charitable Trust’s fourth annual report on “Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race?” doesn’t give the United States much to celebrate on this Earth Day. The report, released last week, finds that the United States is no longer the global leader in renewable energy investment. China is. From 2011 to 2012, China attracted $65.1 [...]
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MORNING MESSAGE: Sinking American Electorate – Unmarried Women On The Edge Page Gardner of Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund: “Composed of unmarried women, African Americans, Latinos, other people of color, and youth ages 18-29, the Rising American Electorate, or RAE, continues to feel the pinch of the underperforming American economy … this past March, [...]
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“Tell me I’m your national anthem.” That was the theme of the hundreds of environmentalists and labor union members gathered today at the BlueGreen Alliance’s annual conference in Washington. They wanted to remind President Obama and Congress that the middle class is still the national anthem of this country. In response, Obama administration officials and [...]
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Can something be equally beneficial for both the environment and the economy? Leaders of the nation’s largest environmental organizations and labor unions say yes. This week in Washington, the BlueGreen Alliance will be holding its annual conference, appropriately themed “Good Jobs, Green Jobs.” Often considered each other’s adversary, both the labor and environmental movements share [...]
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MORNING MESSAGE: Progressive, Labor Leaders United Against Chained CPI OurFuture.org’s Richard Long: “The Congressional Progressive Caucus and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka pressed their opposition to President Obama’s proposed chained-CPI change to Social Security benefits at a Thursday afternoon news conference, denouncing it as a cut in benefits for those who need the social safety net [...]
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An estimated 60,000 converged on the Capitol on Wednesday to tell Congress to take legislative action to enact comprehensive and fair immigration reform. To borrow a line from so many of yesterday’s speakers and protesters, “the time is now.” But one group that deserved more time at the rally was undocumented youth, who need measures [...]
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Have our trade policies helped or hurt the country? You can look down at equations and models, or you can look up and see what is happening around you. Equations and models will tell you that “free trade” is a good thing. But if you look up and see what is happening around you … [...]
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First it was Fix the Debt, with tax-dodging corporations “leading the charge for massive new corporate tax cuts paid for with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.” Now there’s a new “LIFT America coalition,” pushing for massive, massive corporate tax cuts, without bothering about cutting benefits. LIFT stands for “Let’s Invest for Tomorrow,” but [...]
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A new bill was introduced in the House today to fight currency manipulation, including China’s. The bipartisan Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act was introduced by Representatives Sander Levin (D-MI), Tim Murphy (R-PA), Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Mo Brooks (R-AL). This bill would treat undervalued currency as a subsidy under U.S. trade law, meaning we [...]
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At the Conservative Political Action Conference, the large annual gathering of right-wing activists and followers, people say a lot of crazy things -- too many, in fact, for me to cram into a single story. So I’ve picked a random 10 -- random insofar as they were among those I came across both in my own time at this enormous conference in Oxon Hill, Md., at the Gaylord National Harbor Convention Center just outside of Washington, D.C., and in reading the work of my fellow journalists and muckrakers. The conference took place March 14 - 16.
Presented, in no particular order, are 10 statements worthy, at least, of an eyeroll.
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