Let‘s send a message to the Democrats in the Senate. Let‘s tell ‘em this: A lot of us out here in the real America (aka the electorate) have totally given up on the Republicans, but that doesn't mean you can count on getting our votes. You think we have nowhere else to go, but you're wrong.
At the end of 2012 we were hearing a lot of noises about filibuster reform, remember? Noise from liberal pundits, noise in the liberal press, noise from our newly elected insurgent liberal senators. What happened to all the noise? The war cry is sounding more like a whimper lately.
Is the silence a signal? Is the issue dead – again? If so, expect another season of partisan gridlock, political dysfunction, and rising public discontent.
Tom Magstadt earned his Ph.D. at The Johns Hopkins University School of International Studies. He is the author of "An Empire If You Can Keep It: Power and Principle in American Foreign Policy," "Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institutions and Issues," and "Nations and Governments: Comparative Politics in Regional Perspective." He was a regular contributor to the Prague Post in 1998-99 and has published widely in newspapers, magazines and journals in the United States. He was a Fulbright Scholar in the Czech Republic in the mid-1990s and a visiting professor at the Air War College in 1990-92. He has taught at several universities, chaired two political science departments, and also did a stint as an intelligence analyst at the CIA. He is a member of the board of the International Relations Council of Kansas City. Now working mainly as a free-lance writer, he lives in Westwood Hills, Kansas.
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
Last month, the Supreme Court said it will consider the constitutionality of a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the hallmark legislation from the Civil Rights era that has come under increased challenge.
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
Washington has a way of focusing the nation’s attention on tactical games over partisan maneuvers that are symptoms of a few really big problems. But we almost never get to debate or even discuss the big problems because the tactical games overwhelm everything else.
This article was originally posted on Robert Reich's blog.
ROBERT B. REICH, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
Supreme Court Takes No Action On Same Sex Marriage Cases
The Supreme Court on Monday was silent on whether it will remain silent on same sex marriage. The justices met in private on Friday to discuss whether or not to review chalenges on the U.S. Defense of Marriage act, an act which denies benefits to same sex couples. 31 of the 50 states have banned same sex marriage while Washington D.C. and nine other states have legalized it. Even where same sex marriage is legal, howeverr, same sex couples do not receive benefits due to DOMA.
Most of us today, unfortunately, have no inkling that this huge transformation even took place, mainly because that exuberantly middle class America of the mid-20th century has disappeared.
To Move Forward, We Must Learn from Our Progressive Past
Our contemporary billionaires, most Americans would agree, are exploiting our labor and polluting our politics. Can we shrink our super rich down to a less powerful — and more democratic — size? Of course we can. We Americans, after all, have already done that before.
Between 1900 and the 1950s, average Americans beat down plutocrats every bit as dominant as ours. A century that began with huge private fortunes and most Americans living in poverty would come to see sweeping suburban developments where grand estates and mansions once stood.
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
Supreme Court to Decide on Rules for Workplace Harassment
The case turns on the definition of a single word - "supervisor" - under a federal civil rights law that prohibits racial, religious, and sexual harassment in the workplace. Previously under Supreme Court rulings, the employer is automatically responsible if a supervisor harasses a subordinate. The employer is not liable if the harassment is between two equal coworkers, unless they are negligent in case of abuse.
Following a long presidential campaign full of policy battles and disagreements, progressives have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season. Here are 10 things we can all celebrate.
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
“Americans recognize the danger of GOP-backed barriers to their right to vote, as Minnesotans showed by rejecting a constitutional amendment mandating photo voter IDs.”
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
“Unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United edict allowing unlimited sums of cash in our elections, they spewed an ocean of money into efforts to enthrone Mitt Romney in the White House and turn the Senate into a GOP rubber stamp for totally corporatizing government.”
They came. They spent! Then, they limped home, tails between their legs. (OK, they didn't limp; they were flown home on their private Gulfstream jets. But still, their tails were tucked down in the defeat mode.)
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
"Paul is a graduate journalism student at American University. He comes to D.C. after four years in Detroit reporting on education for Labor Notes magazine. His story on President Obama's charter school policy won a 2010 Project Censored award. He is in post-production on a documentary about Detroit's Brewster-Douglass projects, the country's first public housing development built for black residents."
Georgia is one of three states that exclude undocumented students from full access to higher education. “Freedom University” operates on the principle that “you can stop me from going to a UGA classroom, but you can’t stop a UGA professor from teaching me.”
Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”
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