Friday, August 14, 2026

Tag: corporate lobbyists

Staff of Democratic lawmakers attend corporate lobbyists ‘luxury retreat’ pushing to...

Any "congressional staffer serious about finding solutions wouldn't touch that retreat with a 10-foot pole."

Where there’s smoke, there’s Boehner

But the crassness of this Boehner cannabis pitch somehow symbolizes, to me anyway, how low too many of our craven, so-called public servants are willing to stoop for an almighty buck once they’re out of office.

Meet the Lobbyists Who Got a $250 Million Subsidy for a...

Scott Walker continues his cuts to the public sector despite his plan to score the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks a new arena costing more than $250 million in taxpayer money. Meet the lobbyists who won Walker’s heart in the deal.

A Quiet Corporate Coup on Capitol Hill

Congressional staffers have gained a lot of control and influence over legislation and corporate lobbyists have long understood this. Flattery and gifts have become a way for lobbyists to get what they want in terms of political gain.

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The west front of the U.S. Capitol. The Protected Time Off Act, pending in Congress, would guarantee full-time workers two weeks of paid annual leave. Photo: Architect of the Capitol (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

US workers average 10 paid vacation days a year, and 33 million get none

Twenty-five OECD countries require employers to provide at least 20 days. The US legal minimum is zero, and 57 percent of the lowest-paid tenth of workers get no vacation at all.

Chris Hedges and Albert Raboteau on ‘American Prophets’ importance in an age of radical...

Watch the two thinkers talk about Raboteau’s book, which discusses the work of religious figures such as Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Who’s enabling Putin’s enablers?

We need a progressive politics that shows solidarity with all victims of military violence — while resisting the militarism of our own government.

Dear Joe

The time has come for a coalition, and that means being open, and honest, and doing the best for the country. So do it.
An ICE Special Response Team performs crowd control outside Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, on June 10, 2026. Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

“An ICE Murder”: Gabriela Soto Says She Miscarried While Husband Was Detained in Solitary

In the wake of a third ICE death at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey, we speak with Gabriela Soto, whose husband Martín was one of the leaders of the May hunger strike at the immigration jail. Martín was transferred to Elizabeth Detention Center, New Jersey’s other ICE facility, during the hunger strike at Delaney. Gabriela is calling for the closure of both facilities. “At first, I was fighting for my husband, but then I started to meet all of these people who are just innocent, and they are the people that make this country great,” says Soto, who blames her recent miscarriage on the stress of her husband being detained. “I am still grieving,” she says. “To me, this is an ICE murder, too.” This comes as Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a Salvadoran immigrant, died Saturday after being held for six weeks at Delaney Hall. He is the third immigrant to die at the ICE jail, which has been open since May 2025. Lopez-Cornejo’s mother, Maria Cornejo, says her son took medicine to manage diabetes, seizures and his blood pressure, but had not received his medications regularly since being detained. ICE said in a statement that Lopez-Conejo experienced a “medical emergency” on Saturday and was transported to University Hospital in Newark, but Maria Cornejo says her son died at Delaney Hall. More than 70 people inside the ICE jail have filed lawsuits alleging medical neglect. That neglect was one of the factors that led to the hunger strike. “Individuals are not receiving the kind of healthcare that they in fact need, particularly for chronic health conditions, for pregnancies, for cancers,” says Analilia Mejía, Democratic congressmember from New Jersey. “Being undocumented should not be a death sentence.”