If President Obama played basketball with the king of Bhutan, would the world have a better shot at becoming a happier place? What makes us happy? A simple question. In America, we’ve been asking it ever since 1776, the year we declared for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Back in those days, Americans [...]
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The Senate is getting ready to vote on five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They should confirm the whole package and get the NLRB functioning again. They are also voting on several other nominees from judges to cabinet positions. If Republicans filibuster to obstruct these, it is time to fix the filibuster. [...]
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For weeks, I've been writing that the movement to increase the minimum wage near you. Next week, however, that movement will arrive in my own back yard. Low-wage workers organized by Good Jobs Nation are coming to Washington, DC to rally for living wages, on Tuesday, May 21st, at 12:00pm, at Columbus Circle, in front of Union Station.
But this protest isn't targeting fast food restaurants like McDonald's or Burger King or retail shops like TJMaxx. On Tuesday, low-wage workers will take their demands to the biggest low-wage job creator in the country — the one funded by taxpayers like you and me: the federal government.
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MORNING MESSAGE: Five Real Scandals Republicans Might Want To Address OurFuture.org’s Bill Scher: “Republican might want to ask themselves: do we really believe there’s any there there? … Meanwhile, there are real scandals out there: festering crises that demand policy solutions and government action. For example: 1. Carbon dioxide atmospheric levels hovering around 400 parts [...]
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Over at The Week, I make the argument that presidential scandal politics usually fail to lift the political prospects of the party outside the White House. No party has reaped a political reward from pushing scandal since Nixon, yet both parties have repeatedly tried. However, short of impeachment or electoral gains, opposition parties may be [...]
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It’s official. Minimum wage workers going on strike is no longer a mere trend. It’s a movement. Not that there was ever any doubt, after minimum wage workers in the fast food and retail sectors of major cities like New York City, Chicago, St.Louis, and Detroit walked off the job, demanding better wages and better [...]
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MORNING MESSAGE: Simpson-Bowles Austerity Gang, Go Home OurFuture.org’s Richard Eskow: “A lot of liberals, like Josh Marshall, are celebrating the fact that the deficit is plummeting so rapidly. But it’s actually going down too quickly, in a way that undercuts long-term stability and growth … ‘Go big or go home,’ bellow Bowles and Simpson, and [...]
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The Senate Heath, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will vote Thursday on President Obama’s nomination of Thomas Perez, currently head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to head the Department of Labor. There are a majority of Democrats on this committee, so Republicans will not be able to obstruct this nomination from making it [...]
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Senate Republican obstruction of President Obama’s nominee for secretary of labor, Thomas Perez, got a strong rebuke from a coalition of Latino organizations that held a march and rally on Wednesday to call for an end to the filibuster threats to his nomination. “We are here to put forward our full support for Tom Perez [...]
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Yesterday I wrote about how obstructionist Republican tactics are hollowing out our government, hobbling its agencies, and diminishing its responsiveness to the needs and concerns of ordinary Americans. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our court system, where Republican obstructionism may have far-reaching, disastrous consequences for public policy. And, again, that’s just fine with [...]
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