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David Sirota

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David Sirota is a full-time political journalist, best-selling author and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist living in Denver, Colorado. He blogs for Working Assets and the Denver Post's PoliticsWest website. He is a Senior Editor at In These Times magazine, which in 2006 received the Utne Independent Press Award for political coverage. His 2006 book, Hostile Takeover, was a New York Times bestseller, and is now out in paperback. He has been a guest on, among others, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and NPR. His writing, which draws on his extensive experience as a progressive political strategist, has appeared in, among others, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Baltimore Sun, the Nation magazine, the Washington Monthly and the American Prospect. Sirota was a twice-a-week guest on the Al Franken Show. He currently serves in a volunteer capacity as the co-chairperson of the Progressive States Network - a 501c3 nonpartisan organization.

In the years before becoming a full-time writer, Sirota worked as the press secretary for Vermont Independent Congressman Bernard Sanders, the chief spokesman for Democrats on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, the Director of Strategic Communications for the Center for American Progress, a campaign consultant for Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and a media strategist for Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont. He also previously contributed writing to the website of the California Democratic Party. For more on Sirota, see these profiles of him in Newsweek or the Rocky Mountain News. Feel free to email him at lists [at] davidsirota.com Note: this online publication represents Sirota's personal views, and not the official views of the organizations he works with.


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(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 5, 2010
Tax the Corporations and the Rich or Take Draconian Cuts -- the Decision Is Ours No matter where we live, this same choice will soon face us all in some form. It is a choice embodied in President Obama's pragmatic initiative to end his predecessor's high-income tax breaks, a choice for which future local and federal elections will serve as proxies. Tax reform or draconian cuts, life or death -- the decision is ours.
(13 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Bush Used the IRS, FBI, CIA and Secret Service to Go After Opponents -- Where Was the Fox and GOP Outrage? In terms of partisanship, Republicans now screaming bloody murder over the IRS allegations clearly don't care about the principles of equal protection, nonpartisan public services or impartial governance. We know this because most of them had nothing to say about the Bush administration's actions against the GOP's ideological opponents.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 17, 2010
GOP: Recession's Foreclosure Victims "Want a Homeless Life" After their anti-tax zealotry left their city in the budgetary lurch, Colorado Springs Republicans have slashed their community's social services to the bone. We're talking big cuts to police, firefighters, park maintenance, public transportation - even turning off the city's streetlights (except, of course, in the wealthy areas!).
From ImagesAttr
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 27, 2015
How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Gives Corporations Special Legal Rights Opponents of the TPP say the new deal would do little to increase enforcement, and much to give companies special rights. Sure, corporations may still be considered people under U.S. domestic law -- but under American trade policy, they get far more rights than almost everyone else.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, January 19, 2009
Busting myths that FDR prolonged Great Depression ...the truism we must all remember in 2009: As conservatives try to obstruct a new New Deal, they're not making any arguments that are remotely serious. "Excepting 1937-1938, unemployment fell each year of Roosevelt's first two terms (while) the U.S. economy grew at average annual growth rates of 9 percent to 10 percent," writes University of California historian Eric Rauchway.
Edward Snowden., From ImagesAttr
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 17, 2014
Pentagon & NSA officials say they want Snowden extrajudicially assassinated How can anyone expect those who witness executive-branch crimes to blow the whistle when the head of the executive branch asserts the right to instantly execute anyone he pleases at any time? The answer in the Obama era is: they can't.
From Images
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 17, 2013
Huge majority wants Clapper prosecuted for perjury With these new polls, it doesn't seem so far-fetched that Clapper could be prosecuted for perjury. In fact, it seems more and more like shrewd politics -- especially if the White House continues to grant de facto immunity to Clapper and others who hid potentially illegal and unconstitutional surveillance from Congress.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 12, 2010
Thank You, Dick Cheney, For Giving Me the Proper Words Evan Bayh and Third Way and The Democratic Strategist and the DLC and all the professional pundits and cable-TV zombies and D.C. spokesholes - all of you soul-raping corpses and sh*t-eating poindexters paid to appear on my television screen and scream at me about liberals ruining everything, please, I beg you on behalf of the silent irritated majority: Just go f*ck yourself.
From ImagesAttr
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 3, 2015
A Deepening Democratic Party Divide For those pining for a Democratic Party that tries to represent more than the whims of the rich and powerful, these are, to say the least, confusing times. National Democratic politicians may not yet be hearing the message, but if they hope to hang onto power, they probably should start listening.
(10 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 16, 2009
First Amendment Rights Watch: Criminalizing the Internet HR 1966 is called the "Cyberbullying Prevention Act" and includes this section: Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Why Is the Military Infringing on Obama's Decison-Making Turf? The Washington Post insisted that Obama's failure to promptly back McChrystal's surge proposal could "dishonor" America, while the New York Times said no matter what the president wants, "It will be very hard to say no to General McChrystal."
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 29, 2015
The SEC Illustrates the Danger of Regulatory Capture When a government agency is effectively captured by -- and subservient to -- the industry that agency is supposed to be objectively regulating, it is a big deal. In 2013, the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight published a study showing that "more than 400 SEC alumni filed almost 2,000 disclosure forms saying they planned to represent an employer or client before the agency."
5/26/2020 Wall Street, From YouTubeVideos
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 31, 2020
Who Exactly Is Doing the Looting, and Who's Being Looted? Working-class people pilfering convenience-store goods is deemed "looting." By contrast, rich folk and corporations stealing billions of dollars during their class war is considered good and necessary "public policy" aided and abetted by arsonist politicians in Washington lighting the crime scene on fire to try to cover everything up.
Edward Snowden, From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 13, 2015
Has the U.S. Learned Anything From Edward Snowden's NSA Revelations? While Snowden's critics say he should come back to the United States to air out his grievances in open court, journalist Glenn Greenwald notes: "He's barred under the Espionage Act even from arguing that his leaks were justified; he wouldn't be permitted to utter a word about that."
President Obama, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 22, 2014
The U.S. government's creeping war on journalists Three-quarters of journalists surveyed now agree that "the public is not getting the information it needs because of barriers agencies are imposing on journalists' reporting practices." That's the whole point of government secrecy, of course -- and the ramifications are predictable. In an information vacuum, the public is being systematically divorced from public policy, which is exactly what too many elected officials want.
From ImagesAttr
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 11, 2013
Right-wing coup: Deluded secessionists have already won Through gerrymandering, conservatives have geographically walled themselves off in a way that prevents them from having to electorally answer to anyone but themselves. They have, in other words, made a deliberate choice to secede into their own separate nation. Call it Conservastan. The right chose to use redistricting to create a whole separate political country for themselves.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 11, 2011
10 stories more important than Weinergate An irrelevant congressman's bizarre behavior in a silly 140-character-limited medium strikes me as a tad less offensive and less worthy of media focus than at number of other less-covered stories that broke at the same time as the Weiner Scandal.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 1, 2015
In Defense of Hillary Clinton, Democrats Embrace Citizens United Decision Is it morally acceptable for firms to pay a public official's spouse while those firms are getting government contracts from the agency headed by that same public official? That's a matter of opinion, and if the Democrats want to now champion the ideology behind Citizens United, that's their right.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2014., From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, May 10, 2015
Christie's Administration Is Facing Another Investigation In recent months, details have emerged showing that Christie officials have directed lucrative pension management deals to some financial companies whose executives have made contributions to Republican groups backing Christie's election campaigns. Additionally, Christie's officials have admitted that they have not been fully disclosing all the fees the state has been paying to private financial firms.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 13, 2015
The Ugly Truth Behind Chris Christie's Sweetheart Deal with Exxon In agreeing to such a small settlement in the Exxon case, Christie placates his politically connected colleagues and gets himself some extra cash to spend on his budget's new tax cuts. He also gives a gift to an oil industry donor just as he starts raising money for a 2016 White House bid.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 22, 2009
Facing Progressive Pressure, Obama Backs off Panama Free Trade Agreement This is huge news for the Make Him Do It Dynamic: The decision, announced by Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Everett Eissenstat at a Senate Finance Committee hearing today, is a reversal from statements in March that the U.S. wanted to pass the accord soon... Eissenstat's comments follow remarks by John Sweeney
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 16, 2015
The Marijuana Economy Comes Out of the Shadows After Colorado voters legalized marijuana in 2012, more states and cities are considering a similar path for themselves. At the same time, the cannabis market is looking less like a music festival and more like a Silicon Valley confab -- upscale, data-driven and focused on investors.
NYC: New York Times Building, From CreativeCommonsPhoto
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, November 9, 2021
The Thumb On The Scale The New York Times published a screed from pollster Mark Penn and former New York City lawmaker Andrew Stein demanding Democrats abandon their promised agenda ahead of the midterm elections.
(14 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 20, 2009
The Growing Anger In the Heartland [His]passion exemplifies a level of rage out in the country that isn't being fully appreciated in Washington, D.C., as evidenced by everything from the continued no-strings-attached bailouts to the criticism of the most basic "Buy America" laws. The anger out here is real and it is breaking through the Beltway din. It is only going to get worse if genuine change doesn't happen in short order.
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 16, 2009
Afghan Escalation Would Make One-Year Pentagon Budget Almost As Big as Entire 10-Year Health Bill There's no attempt to put the costs into any context - specifically, there's no mention that an escalation in Afghanistan would mean outlays for the one-year Pentagon budget is approaching the total outlays of the entire 10-year health care bill.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 30, 2015
Hillary Clinton's State Department Authorized Billions in Arms Sales to Foundation Donors While Clinton was secretary of state, her department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors. That figure from Clinton's three full fiscal years in office is almost double the value of arms sales to those countries during the same period of President George W. Bush's second term.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 7, 2009
The Me-First, Forget-Everyone-Else Crowd the Me-First, Forget-Everyone-Else Crowd isn't interested in fairness, empiricism or morality. They are merely using the argot of fairness, empiricism and morality to hide its real motive: selfish greed.
Concept sign of social and economic inequity and the worldwide wealth gap, From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, October 4, 2014
The Surprising Reason that Crushing Economic Inequality Isn't More of Election Issue Recent polling from the Pew Research Center found while a large majority of Americans acknowledge the growing gap between rich and poor and see it as a problem, there is little public consensus on the cause of -- or proper counter to -- that trend.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 29, 2014
Microsoft's Staggering Tax Dodge Alone Would Fund the Entire State of Washington for Two Years With the U.S. tax code now permitting companies to use brazen tax avoidance schemes in true tax havens, the real question is more fundamental than what the proper corporate tax rate should be. Instead, the question is now whether corporations should have to pay any taxes on their profits at all?
From flickr.com/photos/82066314@N06/15602066227/: High rise buildings: High rise buildings, From Images
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 24, 2015
Cities And States Paying Massive Secret Fees To Wall Street Currently, about 9 percent -- or $270 billion -- of America's $3 trillion public pension fund assets are invested in private equity firms. If CEM's calculations are applied uniformly, it could mean taxpayers and retirees may actually be paying double -- more than $10 billion a year.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 18, 2005
The Most Important Question of All in Bush's Domestic Spying Scandal The question reporters should be asking is "Why did the President order domestic surveillance operations without obtaining constitutionally-required warrants?"
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 23, 2009
U.S. Moving Toward Czarism, Away From Democracy [T]his culture of "presidentialism," as Vanderbilt Professor Dana Nelson calls it, has justified the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps and a radical theory of the "unitary executive" that aims to provide a jurisprudential rationale for total White House supremacy over all government. But only in the past three months has American czarism metastasized from a troubling slow-growth tumor to a potentially deadly cancer.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 23, 2014
That's Rich! Why So Many Wealthy Americans Think They're Middle Class Lew is a pauper compared to Weiss. The Treasury nominee reported more than $15 million in compensation in the last two years at Lazard. Like Lew before him, Weiss would receive a massive payout from his firm if he gets a job in government.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 5, 2014
The Real Reason the GOP Is Obsessed with Voter Fraud Republican efforts to prevent same-day registration and preclude voting betray a fear that has nothing to do with voter fraud and everything to do with political power. Essentially, the GOP fears that when more Americans exercise their basic democratic rights, Republicans may have less chance of winning elections.
Hillary Clinton, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 7, 2015
Hillary Clinton Says She Didn't Work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Considering all the evidence, Clinton nonetheless pretending she had nothing to do with TPP is clearly a strategic calculation: She is betting that few voters will notice the gap between her rhetoric and her own record. It is certainly a cynical tactic. Time will tell if it is a politically shrewd one.
From ImagesAttr
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 1, 2014
Clinton vs. Warren: Big Differences, Despite Claims to the Contrary Hillary Clinton's political allies want Democratic primary voters to believe that the former secretary of state is just like populist Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, and they've been claiming that there are no differences between the two possible presidential contenders. There's just one problem: That's not true.
From ImagesAttr
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 14, 2011
The new "Let them eat cake!" In the midst of this prole-crushing economic emergency engineered by wealthy speculators and their political puppets, we now find ourselves watching those same modern-day Marie Antoinettes at once celebrating their station and begging for sympathy as if they were the real casualties of the decade-long economic slowdown they created.
Al Gore, From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 13, 2014
Al Gore Tells Techpreneurs Some Truths They May Not Want to Hear About Inequality Hedge funders make big donations to charter schools. Yet, the hedge fund industry lobbies against higher taxes that would generate new revenue for education. Likewise, there are the Koch Brothers, who simultaneously finance the nationwide anti-tax movement while making huge donations to public institutions. Al Gore is right -- "Democracy has been hacked by moneyed interests."
From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Don't buy the right-wing myth about Detroit From the right, Detroit is being cited in the discussion about budget shortfalls as proof of the need for austerity. Yet, we aren't hearing much about why in the face of such shortfalls Gov. Snyder just devoted $1.7 billion to a new corporate tax cut that will likely exacerbate the state's deficit, nor are we hearing much about why state law compelled Detroit to forfeit other desperately needed tax revenues.
Hillary Clinton, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, March 8, 2015
Technology Does Not Guarantee Transparency The proponents of secrecy may not have to use clunky document shredders anymore; instead, they can shred more of those documents with a click of a button. Preserving any kind of open government, therefore, requires continued vigilance and stronger freedom of information laws because new technology alone does not guarantee transparency. Too often it can foster the opposite.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 7, 2013
Enron billionaire expands craven plot to abuse workers In states where Arnold has operated, the end result is usually that retirement benefits are cut in order to keep financing the corporate subsidies. And in some states like Rhode Island -- and now, possibly California, depending on Arnold's specific ballot initiative language -- reformers additionally press to use some of the remaining pension money to pay newly mandated Wall Street fees for "alternative investments."
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 12, 2014
Charter Schools Accused of Segregating America's Education System In 2010, a University of Colorado report analyzing charter schools found that "as compared with the public school district in which the charter school resided, the charter schools were substantially more segregated by race, wealth, disabling condition and language."
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 25, 2014
Wall Street's Outrageous Pension Swindle The texts of the agreements signed between public pension funds and financial firms are almost always secret. Although they are public pensions that taxpayers contribute to and that public officials oversee, the exact terms of the financial deals being engineered in the public's name and with public money are typically not available to you, the taxpayer.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, September 8, 2009
CNN Debate on Van Jones: Obama Sells Us Out to Political Terrorist Glenn Beck & His Lynch Mob I am at once loathe to help fuel this media-manufactured controversy and eager to use this as a kind of "teachable moment" that Obama talks about, but rarely delivers on. If we as a movement cannot stand up for a genuine progressive hero like Van Jones--a guy with a towering record of real-world accomplishment on behalf of issues and grassroots communities--then we will not be able to stand up for anything.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 4, 2009
Progressives Pay the Price for Confusing a Party With a Movement The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it.
Kyrsten Sinema, From CreativeCommonsPhoto
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Call Their Bluff Right Now As millions of Americans are being cut off from jobless benefits, pulverized by health care costs, bankrupted by the COVID economy, and battered by the intensifying climate apocalypse, the country has spent weeks watching Sen. Joe Manchin issue royal edicts from the deck of his luxury yacht, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema toggling between spa fundraisers and a European vacation.
From Images
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, October 6, 2013
GOP's massive fraud: The shutdown isn't really a shutdown! There is an insidious method to the madness of government shutdowns. In general, the dividing line between what gets shut down and what doesn't is a similar dividing line between what America's political culture typically venerates as The State and what that culture lambasts as The Government.
Donald Trump in Laredo, Texas, From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 25, 2015
More 2016 Candidates Embrace the Donald Trump Zeitgeist ... Including Hillary Clinton Donald Trump may get all the attention for flamboyantly embodying such a cavalier attitude. However, the cynical view of the electorate -- and the attendant say-absolutely-anything attitude -- has now become the pervasive zeitgeist of the hopefuls in the entire 2016 campaign.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 5, 2015
Why Biden's Bankruptcy Bill Could Complicate a Presidential Run Biden earlier this month met with Warren, a Wall Street critic who is well-known among Democratic voters. The meeting was widely seen as an effort by Biden to try to convince the Massachusetts lawmaker to support his prospective White House bid. While some Democratic activists are pining for a Biden-Warren ticket, Warren's writing suggests such a political marriage would be more than a bit complicated.
Post Office Independence California, From FlickrPhotos
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, August 27, 2020
The Goodfellas Scheme To Destroy The Post Office - TMI Lawmakers deliberately manufactured a USPS financial crisis and now Trump is using the turmoil to justify burning the whole place down.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 11, 2014
Rahm Emanuel's Bait-and-Switch with Public Employees' Pensions According to a report by the taxpayer watchdog group Good Jobs First, the supposedly budget-strapped Windy City -- which for years has not made its full pension payments -- has mountains of cash sitting in a slush fund controlled by its poverty-pleading mayor. Indeed, as the report documents, the slush fund now receives more diverted property taxes each year than it would cost to adequately finance Chicago's pension funds.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 6, 2015
Can Jeb Bush Be His "Own Man"? Jeb Bush will no doubt have more opportunities to try to distinguish himself from his family members. If he can't, though, even the enormous advantages that come with his last name might not be enough to carry him to victory.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 20, 2015
Tax Fairness Could Mean More Resources The facts about tax fairness are certainly compelling -- the numbers prove that the system could be at once more equal and raise more resources for public priorities. But those numbers will only become a reality if there is a serious political counterweight to the GOP -- and that remains a big if.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 15, 2009
An American Griswold In China, Days 1-3: The Gateway to the Mainland As some background on our journey, my wife Emily and I visited both coastal and the less-well-traveled interior regions of China for about three weeks in June and July. We were guided around the country by my longtime friend Mike Levy, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in China and who has a forthcoming book about his experiences entitled "Kosher Dogmeat."
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Wall Street Dems Unveil Plans to Undermine the Progressive Movement Here's a big shocker - the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party today announced it is beginning a new war on the grassroots elements of the party that are demanding serious public policy changes from the Establishment. As the Financial Times reports, Citigroup Chairman Bob Rubin held a press conference at the Brookings Institution to announce the formation of the so-called "Hamilton Project."
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, June 24, 2013
10 Questions for NBC Host Who Shamelessly Suggested Greenwald Be Arrested for NSA Leaks Why do many media outlets still somehow portray the NSA surveillance programs as perfectly legal? Perhaps the most damning question of all: Why are so many media outlets far more interested in the minute details of Edward Snowden's life and location than in the potential crimes against millions of Americans that he exposed?
From ImagesAttr
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, April 16, 2009
Mainstreaming the Militia I think between the media coverage of yesterday's Tea Parties and the national Republican Party effectively coming to the public defense of right-wing extremist groups against the Department of Homeland Security, that mainstreaming has gone into overdrive.
Wall Street, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, September 28, 2014
A Pension Jackpot for Wall Street The more public money that goes into alternative investments, the more fees alternative investment firms generate, the more campaign contributions are made by those firms, and thus the more money politicians devote to alternative investments, even as those investments deliver poor results for pensioners. It is a vicious cycle whereby the financial industry wins and taxpayers, once again, lose.
2014 Elections Had the Lowest Voter Turnout Since...World War II, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 24, 2014
The ominous reason voter turnout was so low this election cycle What if you held an election and nobody showed up to cover it? Americans have now discovered the answer: You get an election with lots of paid ads, but with little journalism, context or objective facts. That requires two things: a genuine commitment and willingness to do the hard work of serious journalism and enough resources to succeed.
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Blacklisting Progressives: The Untold Story Beneath the Daschle Headlines Leo Hindery, one of the few business leaders to use his wealth to challenge deregulation, corporate trade deals and anti-worker policies was blacklisted by the Obama administration well before the Daschle flap ever happened.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 20, 2009
When An Intern Can Form a Shell Corporation, It's Time For Trade Reform Bloomberg News this morning reports that U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk gave a speech yesterday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce "saying he hopes Congress will approve stalled trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea within the next year." The good news is that Kirk also noted that Bush-written trade policies are "really a tough sell in this environment."
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, February 20, 2010
Who's in control in the White House? If you thought the rogue sensibility went away with the Bushes, think again
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, September 4, 2013
4 Essential Questions Before We Rush To War Ask yourself: is it really so indisputably good, moral or constructive to support dropping bombs on Syria -- most likely in heavily populated civilian areas -- to make some sort of abstract political statement, but with no real expectation that doing so will make anything better?
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, January 19, 2010
It's Not Mere Cynicism or Demoralization - More Likely, It's Humiliation and Alienation After a 2008 campaign that saw Dems promise to genuinely take on the health care and financial industries, we've seen a 2009 that has asked Dem voters to fight for extremely small, extremely modest scraps. We've been relegated to having to mount fierce campaigns to keep things like the public option in the debate and not to stop trillion-dollar bailouts - but just make sure they have one or two flimsy strings attached to them
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 22, 2015
Amtrak's Spectrum Gap Amtrak had for years failed to acquire adequate rights to broadcast communications signals through the public airwaves. Without these so-called spectrum rights, Amtrak's trains could not communicate with the electronic brains of the safety system, preventing its use along key stretches of track.
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 29, 2009
There's Something Happening Here Suddenly, we have a Congress pushing the executive branch to be more progressive - and that's a big deal. If......we're going to close the gulf between the rhetoric of hope and the real action of change, it will be through our work continuing to create the conditions for this new dynamic to thrive. The bolder the Democratic Congress, the more it can reject czarism and reassert its constitutional role.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 2, 2013
Pennies at the Register, Dollars in the Paycheck What is more devastating: wages that relegate millions of people to a life of poverty or having to fork over just a bit more pocket change during your next trip to McDonalds and Wal-Mart? As Congress contemplates raising the minimum wage and more workers take collective action in the fight for better pay, the answer should be more obvious than ever.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 12, 2015
Prosecution of White-Collar Crime Hits 20-Year Low Holder has recently defended the administration's record of not prosecuting any individual financial executive involved in the financial crisis. He says the fines the administration has assessed against financial institutions were effective. Left unexplained is how those cultures have supposedly changed when many of the same individuals who were involved in the financial crisis have managed to avoid any punishment.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 14, 2009
On Racism, Death Threats & The Blindness of Those Who Will Not See We're living in a world where the behavior of right-wing lynch mobs clearly is far less about ideology, and far more about partisanship and racial hate. The tea party protestors were nowhere to be found when George Bush trampled the constitution and grew the government.
From ImagesAttr
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 11, 2009
Three Questions About Obama's 'Major' Health Care Announcement Today Today's press conference has the President effectively saying that the health insurance industry should have a major seat at the health-reform table - and that it should be trusted. But any serious health care reform will need to take on the health insurance industry in a way that will make that industry unhappy.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 26, 2010
Glenn Beck Finally Admitted His Great Desire: To 'Eradicate' Progressives We owe Beck gratitude for using his keynote address to CPAC to so frankly outline what the conservative movement has become -- and why it repulses so many Americans. To wild applause, he labeled this alleged tumor of "community" the supposedly evil "progressivism" -- and he told disciples to "eradicate it" from the nation.
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 28, 2014
Warren Buffett's Epic NCAA Humblebrag This might not be so hideous if the cash were at least being offered to address a serious social crisis. But Buffett is not offering his billion-dollar check to find a cure for a disease, put people back to work, stop climate change, restore cuts to food stamps or anything else like that. He and Quicken Loans propose instead to reward someone for predicting the outcome of games.
(18 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, March 30, 2009
Why Can the Auto Industry CEOs but Spare Bank CEOs? I'm genuinely asking this question, and not in a way aimed at defending Rick Wagoner. I just want to know what possible public explanation there could be as to why the White House would push auto company CEOs around while coddling banking CEOs?
From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 20, 2009
D.C. Reporters Just Make Sh*t Up, Part 1,489,890,992,384 I wonder if instead of working in the factual world, I should just start making shit up. It would save me so much time in my work to not have to, ya know, verify anything. I could write entire columns just saying the first piece of conventional wisdom that came into my mind, without even bothering to see if it was true. Wow...what an easy life that would be.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Lying Or Incompetent - Either Way, Geithner Needs to Be Fired This comes on top of Geithner and Summers dishonestly insisting that they are unable to stop the AIG bonuses because of Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-CT) executive compensation legislation that exempted AIG-style bonuses from limits. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal and Hill newspaper long ago reported, Dodd's original bill would have limited such bonuses
Michigan Central Station in Detroit has become of the city's supposed disrepair., From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 15, 2013
Three Questions About the Motor City Michigan taxpayers and retirees have a right to some basic answers. The same goes for taxpayers and retirees in the next city that tries to follow Detroit's current path -- and yes, that will almost certainly happen. The class war is clearly going local.
Dome of State Capitol Building in Springfield, Illinois., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 14, 2014
Wall Street Takes Over More Statehouses No runoff will be needed to declare one unambiguous winner in this month's gubernatorial elections: the financial services industry. From Illinois to Massachusetts, voters effectively placed more than $100 billion worth of public pension investments under the control of executives-turned-politicians whose firms profit by managing state pension money.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Is U.S. Trade Policy About to Change? Because of mixed messages from President Obama on trade, many are looking to his nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, to clarify things and answer the fundamental question on trade policy: Which side is the president on? There are encouraging signs.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, March 19, 2010
What's the Matter With Democrats? Ever since Thomas Frank published his book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Democrats have sought a political strategy to match the GOP's. The health care bill proves they've found one.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 9, 2009
Energy Taxes' Faustian Bargain Revenuewise, it's easy to see why severance taxes are an attractive target in an era of belt-tightening. Energy companies are making big profits, and severance receipts have doubled in the past five years to almost $11 billion nationwide.In an age of money-dominated politics, that warning may, indeed, be valid - at least in the short term. The trick for severance tax reformers, then, will be to find ways of making deals
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Right-Wing Authoritarianism: Gay Marriage & the Selective Indictment of Democratic Institutions The Right really exhibits a nasty authoritarian streak that lets them, whenever they see fit, offer up selective interpretations of what is and isn't "legitimate" in a democracy - and conservatives are most willing to do this on divisive issues like gay marriage.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Sign I've Been Waiting For Many of have our own "signs" - the things we take from our lives that seem to suggest a deeper force in the universe. Most of these signs are mundane - a breeze here, a coincidental encounter there. This week, though, I found my superstitious sign that something very different - very special - is happening. That sign came in the form of the Philadelphia Phillies.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 13, 2009
Feeling Sorry for Yourself? It's called graft - a surefire wealth creator that takes your investments, modifies laws, and delivers returns that the best stock trader could never dream of. This is the ShamWow of strategies, the Flowbee of economics, the Ronco of investing. Just look at the profits it generates!
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Announcement of Audie Award A feather in the cap of an OEN member: I wanted to let you know the good news - my 2008 book, The Uprising, was nominated for an "Audie" - the publishing industry's most prestigious set of awards for best audiobooks of the year. You can download the audiobook at Audible.com or order the CD at this link:
From Images
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Rise Of The Conservative Revolutionaries A civilized society should solve disputes through a democratic process and democratic institutions, rather than through the barrel of a gun. And while our democracy has been corrupted by Big Money, it still functions better than autocracy. In that sense, Churchill had it right when he said "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 28, 2012
The Economic Normalcy Bias ...the root of one of America's most destructive traits: our obsession with materialism and consumerism.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Teabags vs. Douchebags Why this May Not be the Second Coming of the New Deal After All. Teabaggery takes its name from the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Mythologized high-school history texts tell us that colonists tossed British tea into Boston Harbor in America's first populist revolt. Today, as evidenced by the April 15 protests, the original Boston Tea Party has become a transcendent icon of pugilistic radicalism--a symbol of patriotic resistance against unresponsive government and elite douchebags.
RIP Women's Rights & Unions, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, November 6, 2014
Midterms 2014: Election Puts Extra Pension Funds in Control Of Wall Street Financial Services No recount will be needed to declare one unambiguous winner in Tuesday's gubernatorial elections: the financial services industry. From Illinois to Massachusetts, voters effectively placed more than $100 billion worth of public pension investments under the control of executives-turned-politicians whose firms profit by managing state pension money.
Chris Christie, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 23, 2014
Imagine Christie's Budget Crisis on a National Scale The firms getting the New Jersey subsidies and the investment fees have far more political campaign cash at their disposal than the public workers whose retirements could be jeopardized by Christie's pension maneuver. And so Christie is choosing to side with the bigger money. Christie's move can certainly be seen as shrewd. But it was a self-serving decision to protect the donor class.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, August 7, 2014
Study: Government Blocks Specific Journalists From Accessing Information Data from 2014 shows that three-quarters of journalists surveyed now agree with the statement that "the public is not getting the information it needs because of barriers agencies are imposing on journalists' reporting practices." Yet, despite that lament, the government's efforts to keep information secret may be having its intended effect on the psychology of journalists.
Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower., From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 20, 2013
Edward Snowden Is the Whistleblower of the Year Sure, the opinion-based speculation about Snowden's social status -- is he a narcissist or a hero? is he unpatriotic or a patriot? -- can and will continue. But from a legal perspective, this former NSA contractor is clearly a whistleblower -- one entitled to the most basic whistleblower protections.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, October 19, 2008
Here Comes the Onslaught This Newsweek cover piece is the starting gun of the elite pushback against what could be a new progressive era. Penned by one of the most reliable peddlers of Establishment talking points, Jon Meacham, it argues that a President Obama will have to govern America as a slightly more moderate Ronald Reagan.
From ImagesAttr
(12 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 17, 2009
Columbine questions we still don't ponder I wish I were surprised that Columbine-like shootings are still happening, or even that our national discussion about violence hasn't yet matured past gun control and video games. I wish I were surprised, but sadly, I'd be surprised if it were any different because we still refuse to ask the most uncomfortable questions.
Charles Schumer, U.S. Senator, who hails from Brooklyn, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 11, 2014
Corporate welfare's quiet enablers: How democrats pander to big business If the Export-Import Bank debate ends up with the same results as years past (read: no reform), then it will be a reminder that the corporate lobby still calls the shots in a principle-free legislative arena. Big Business is still able to shape party politics to make sure its permanent interests remain Washington's permanent interests -- regardless of what is the best policy for the country as a whole.
From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 19, 2015
Jeb Bush's Audacious Announcement Jeb Bush's announcement address at Miami Dade College this week was an extreme makeover that included passages that likely had America doing a double take. He did not offer voters a run-of-the-mill speech. He delivered a tour de force of sheer audacity. The trouble is, it's the kind of audacity that assumes America will never bother to consider even the most basic facts about Jeb Bush.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 13, 2009
Back From My Long Strange Trip Editor note: This comes via Email, 2 days earlier than David originally promised to be back. So, as he says, Rock the Boat
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 21, 2014
The NFL Proves Why America Needs to Update Its Civil Rights Laws Whether or not Sam was ultimately going to end up a top draft pick based purely on his skill is not the point. What's important here is that NFL executives are admitting that regardless of his skill, SEC Defensive Player of the Year Michael Sam will suffer consequences specifically because he is openly gay.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 19, 2014
Are Some Banks Too Big to Punish? The Obama administration announced its proposal to waive some of the possible sanctions against Credit Suisse. The little-noticed waiver, which was outlined in the Federal Register, comes amid criticism that the Obama administration has gone too easy on major financial institutions that break the law.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 18, 2015
Silicon Valley Emerges as a Political Force All of a sudden, Silicon Valley has surpassed many traditional political powerhouses as a source of campaign cash. Specifically, in the last election cycle, technology firms delivered more money to candidates for president and Congress than defense contractors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, the automotive industry and Hollywood.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 2, 2014
We're All Just Grenades in the Partisan Wars In today's self-serving political wars, social emergencies are treated as partisan battlefields, and politicians are the field generals using human beings as cannon fodder. Worst of all, life-and-death crises are now viewed exclusively as political weapons rather than as pressing problems that need to be solved.
From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 11, 2013
Return Of The Anti-Muslim Bigots Right now, the Republican Party is tearing apart at the seams. the GOP's unholy alliance of super-wealthy country clubbers and working-class cultural conservatives is now fraying. They are grasping for any issue or cause that unifies the conservative audience across increasingly wide economic, cultural and class lines. Islamophobia is sadly one of the few things that can achieve that among Republicans.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 23, 2015
Big Tax Bills for the Poor, Tiny Ones for the Rich Middle-and low-income Americans are facing far higher state and local tax rates than the wealthy. In all, a comprehensive analysis by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that the poorest 20 percent of households pay on average more than twice the effective state and local tax rate (10.9 percent) as the richest 1 percent of taxpayers (5.4 percent).
 AP/Reuters), From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, January 15, 2012
Easy to Gut Public Education When Your Own Kids Attend Private School The country's class structure is becoming medieval which is just fine with America's aristocracy.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 17, 2010
Corrupt Practices Accelerating the Decline of American Journalism Are many of today's opportunity-maximizers destroying journalism? Clearly, yes -" and unless media sachems institute some basic ethics rules, the parasites within their ranks could end up making sure there's no journalism industry left to save.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 6, 2009
Hands-Off Attitude Towards Financial Regulation - Cause & Effect? Was there a quid pro quo whereby Summers took cash from Wall Street and then entered the administration and did Wall Street's bidding? Not explicitly, no. Bribery in our country most often operates in the world of the implicit - Summers got the cash because he was a solid Wall Street investment
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SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Gore at Southland: Snowden Revealed Far Bigger Violations Than The One He Committed Former Vice-President Al Gore said, "what he [Edward Snowden] revealed in the course of violating important laws included violations of the Constitution that were way more serious than the crimes he committed. In the course of violating important laws he also provided an important service because we did need to know how far this has gone."
From Images
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, August 22, 2013
This Cowardly Silence Is An Act Of War That Western governments needed such a public reminder that "journalism is not terrorism" is an illustrative commentary on how intense today's assault is on basic press freedom.
From Images
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, April 4, 2013
Five Questions That Will Decide The Gun Debate Because Congress is structurally designed to create gridlock, what happens at the state level doesn't necessarily translate into congressional action. So while even a state in the traditionally pro-gun Inter-mountain West can pass gun regulations, Washington may have more trouble doing the same.
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 25, 2009
How the Ultra-Rich Are Trying to Kill Health Reform According to government figures, 1-percenters' share of America's total income is the highest it's been since 1929, and their tax rates are the lowest they've faced in two decades. Through bonuses, many 1-percenters will profit from the $23 trillion in bailout the Treasury Department now says could be headed to financial firms. And, most of them benefit from IRS decisions to reduce millionaire audits and collect zero taxes.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The 4.6% Truth: How Absurdly Small Stimulus Spending Really Is Of course, that doesn't mean the stimulus bill should be rejected, even in the overwhelmingly mediocre state it's in - but it does mean that we should have a little perspective and stop judging everything by conservatives' know-nothing parameters.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Propaganda & The Moustache of Neoconservatism NY Times' Tom Friedman is regularly lampooned for his arrogance and know-it-all posturing. Friedman in his column today shows once and for all that he is really the "Moustache of Neoconservatism" - despite being regularly labeled as some sort of pseudo-intellectual progressive. ...it's quite clear Tom Friedman is one of the most out of touch, politically disconnected people on the planet earth.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 19, 2006
REPORT: Oman Trade Pact Permits Foreign Ownership of U.S. Nat'l Security Assets In an explosive report tonight, top House Democrats discovered provisions in the controversial Oman Free Trade Agreement that would permit foreign ownership of U.S. ports and other key national security assets. Three Democrats and one Republican held an emergency press conference today to expose the provisions just before the House is scheduled to vote on the Oman pact on Thursday.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 19, 2010
Sorry, Trillions in Unmined Mineral Wealth Is Not a Reason to Keep Occupying Afghanistan Whereas it was previously considered uncouth for anyone to even suggest that economic hegemony might motivate U.S. military action, our leaders are now boldly selling wars as commendable instruments of such profit-focused imperialism.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, January 6, 2006
Bush announces radical shift in foreign policy; No U.S. media report it Buried in the UK's Financial Times - and as far as I can tell, not reported anywhere else - are the details of a State Department briefing this week in which the Bush administration very publicly said it is essentially scrapping U.S. support for NATO and the United Nations. No joke.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 20, 2008
White House Papers Expose Lies of Clinton, Emanuel & Gergen On NAFTA Finally, the dishonesty is being unmasked. Finally, we see just how much we're being lied to when it comes to economic policy. Finally, we see it hasn't just been Hillary Clinton lying about her role in championing NAFTA, but we see it is the entire Clinton machine. The facts are clear: The Clinton machine joined with K Street to manufacture the very international economic policies that are destroying the economy.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, March 17, 2009
America Is Really Angry - Obama Aides Still Fretting About Elite Opinion This was the reason why Obama was originally right when he said "change doesn't come from Washington, it comes to Washington" - because Permanent Washington is predisposed to see public passion and anger as a threat rather than an opportunity.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 14, 2013
Permanent Washington's Backlash to Edward Snowden First and foremost, the backlash reveals that Permanent Washington doesn't work for We the People -- it works to protect itself. We know this because whereas Snowden is vilified for disclosing information that's inconvenient to Permanent Washington, those who leak classified information that is advantageous to Permanent Washington are left alone.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, July 18, 2014
A Local Fight for the Future of the Internet With Census figures showing more than one in five Tennessee residents having no Internet connection, EPB is now proposing to offer its ultra-fast services to new communities. But it needs the Federal Communications Commission to preempt the Tennessee statute prohibiting the utility from competing with private telecom companies outside its current market.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 30, 2005
A PLAN to Fight Against the Stealth War on Workers' Wages The right-wing's stealth assault on workers' wages rages on in America at the state and local level. But every so often, we get a big victory. Today is one of those days...
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, September 19, 2009
Obsessive Compulsive Bipartisanship Disease In the blogosphere, we've often discussed Washington's sick fetishization of bipartisanship. Whether it's pundits or politicians, the entire D.C. Establishment has made abundantly clear that it is first and foremost interested in bipartisanship for bipartisanship's sake before it is interested in the ramifications of public policy.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 30, 2005
Republicans Tell America What They Think Is "Necessary" and "Unnecessary" over the last few weeks, the Republican Party has made clear what its priorities really are in these very terms. Just take a look at what we now know the GOP thinks is "necessary" and "unnecessary" in the wake of the worst natural disaster in American history:
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, March 3, 2009
"Swinging for the Fences": The Major League Moment In American Politics Yes, the budget has some bad "business as usual" ideas in it, including more increases in defense spending, and what amounts to a second $700 billion bank bailout. But on the whole, Republican Sen. John Thune (SD) is (gasp!) actually right: the administration is "really swinging for the fences" on progressive policy. That's a paradigm shift from a past era that pretended We the People didn't even exist.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The Rise of Rectal Journalism Having gone to journalism school, I never had a class about the most important trend sweeping the national media like wildfire in the modern era. All across the media, we are seeing more and more of the highest profile pundits and "experts" peddle as fact things pulled straight out of their asses. We are living in through the rise of Rectal Journalism.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 5, 2007
Progressive Senators Learn How to Use Ben Nelson-ism for Themselves
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 17, 2009
"Either In the Pocket of the Banks or Incompetent" Stiglitz said there are conflicts of interest at the White House because some of Obama's advisers have close ties to Wall Street. Stiglitz is reiterating a truth that he and many of us have been saying for months now - a truth that Obama partisans still somehow see as unacceptable to talk about.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 7, 2007
Lou Dobbs Challenges The Great Objectivity Scam CBS 60 Minutes' piece on Lou Dobbs last night told us a lot more about traditional journalism's biases than it did Dobbs' on any given issue he covers.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 15, 2006
For the Love of God, Please Stop. It's Embarrassing. Like, Really Embarrassing take a quick look at what's going on in the race for House Majority Leader between anti-Iraq-War leader Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) and recently-reconstructed pro-war mouthpiece Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) In the last few days, both the DLC and Hoyer's own allies on Capitol Hill have mimicked Lieberman's tactics in an effort to reposition Hoyer as one of the longtime leaders of the global anti-war movement.
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 8, 2008
West will be where it's won From Butte, Montana, David Sirota considers how the West is listening to Democrats. His syndicated column appears in the Denver Post.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Democrats Beware: An Economic Populist Is Rising In the GOP's Presidential Primary Huckabee has an extraordinarily different message than any of the other Republican presidential contenders - a populist economic message that may be shunned by conservative operatives and K Street lobbyists in the GOP-dominated Money Party in Washington, but likely has an appeal among rank-and-file working-class Republican voters.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, July 30, 2009
"Parochial Considerations" As the ridiculous debate over health care "reform" careens from one manipulative boondoggle to another, our citizens, and our democracy itself are in peril. In this article, David Sirota discusses some of the blatant hypocrisy that is driving this discussion.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Fusion's Third-Party Path to the Center Watching the national Democrats' often disappointing and flaccid behavior these days, a lot of folks often ask me - what's the alternative to the Democratic Party? The answer is that it doesn't have to be an either/or, zero-sum alternative with fusion voting. One third party is using this system to build up very real, very centrist and very progressive power in one of America's largest states.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 23, 2005
David Sirota: Only One Thing Left to Conclude: The Media Want the War The "objective" mainstream media are now openly attacking people who oppose the Iraq War. Not editorialists or pundits, these are the people who are supposed to be telling the objective truth - and instead they are literally attacking war critics.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 10, 2008
Local Pressure Builds On Superdelegates What we have on our hands is a potential back room effort to use undemocratic "superdelegates" to anoint a Democratic presidential nominee - with many superdelegates potentially using their power in defiance of how their states and communities voted.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, April 2, 2006
The taboo subject at the heart of the immigration debate Amid all the buzzword phrases being thrown around in the immigration debate, one phrase has barely been mentioned: "free trade." . How does "free trade" fit into immigration? It's pretty simple: had America actually had a trade policy that lifted up the economic conditions for ordinary workers both at home and in other countries, there would likely be far less demand by desperate workers for illegal entry into our country.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 30, 2007
Disturbing Questions On A Monday Morning
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 28, 2008
Clinton Criticizing Closure of Indiana Factory That Clinton Helped Close Clinton is airing a television ad in Indiana, bemoaning the closure of a defense contractor Magnequench's manufacturing plant in Valparaiso (she is also echoing this line in her stump speeches). Looking at the camera, she tells us she's upset that the 200 jobs that were sent to China, and that "now America's defense relies on Chinese spare parts." Problem is, it was Bill Clinton who could have stopped it.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Um, No - We're Not Governed "In A Way That Is Entirely Consistent With Free-Market Principles" What's not a good thing is Obama effectively validating the right wing's frame. In going out of his way to insist he's for the "free market," the president is signaling that he believes that the "free market" must always be worshiped and publicly glorified, even though this is an historic opportunity to reframe the entire debate on far more pragmatic, less ideological, terms.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Rangel: Preserve Millionaire Tax Cuts, Consider Soc. Security Cuts, Pass More Free Trade Pacts In the weeks after the congressional election, Rangel has expressed interest in preserving President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy; considering Social Security benefit cuts and retirement age hikes; and supporting lobbyist-written trade pacts that have no wage, environmental or human rights protections in them.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, May 24, 2007
We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check Today was a dark day in our nation's history. That sounds melodramatic - but it is true. Today America watched a Democratic Party kick them square in the teeth -
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 9, 2007
SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 60: Dems Reassure Bush As K Street Begins PR Push This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration. That deal encompasses free trade agreements with Peru, Panama, South Korea and Colombia, and is designed to pave the pay for the passage of presidential fast track authority - the authority that lets presidents eliminate all labor, environ...
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, May 23, 2006
After VA Loss of Records, Congress Tries to Hide Key Vote Politicians in Washington today are tripping over themselves to trumpet their outrage at the Veterans Administration's admission that the agency potentially lost the personal data of 26 million of our nation's veterans. It is true - the news is awful.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Election '06: GOP's culture of corruption vs. Dems culture of weakness The American Heritage Dictionary describes the term "weak" as "lacking firmness of character or strength of will, lacking aptitude or skill, lacking the ability to function normally or fully or lacking authority or the power to govern." Incredibly, even with President Bush at an all-time low, we're watching this week as the Democratic Party in Washington fulfills all these definitions and more.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 13, 2009
The Reward Method of Corruption If members are interested in someday making the trip across town, Fazio suggested they work more closely with Washington's influence class. "If you want to be respected in the world of Washington outside the Capitol, you need to make yourself open to that, and you learn a lot," said Fazio, who moved in 2005 to the lobbying law firm Akin Gump.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, January 21, 2008
Are We Ready to Rise Up Again? The question on this Martin Luther King Day is - are we ready to discard our pessimism and rise up to the challenge like generations past?
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 1, 2006
GOP Bankruptcy Vote Comes Back to Crush U.S. Troops The GOP corporate-written Bankruptcy Bill is punishing US troops, especially National guardsmen who are forced to take a pay cut from their regular jobs when they are called into service and deployed overseas. Lord knows our soldiers serving in Iraq have enough to worry about...
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 3, 2008
As Predicted, Populism Is On the Rise - Who's Laughing Now? The mainstream media are ignoring the major role populism is playing for both parties. Voters are POed and populism is the answer
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 12, 2005
GOP Using Katrina to Justify Unrelated Right-Wing Agenda In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it now appears the Republican Party has made a strategic decision to use the disaster to push its far-right ideological agenda - no matter how off-topic it is.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 4, 2006
The War on Workers Republicans are waging a war on the very workers they purport to care about this Labor Day as they make their rounds of stump speeches.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, September 7, 2006
Fear & Loathing In the Senate Democratic Club Change does not come easy - it never does. And change never comes from D.C. - it is always forced on that city. But I must confess - for some reason (call me a naive idiot) I thought change among Democratic lawmakers in Congress would occur after Democratic primary voters spoke. Apparently, I was wrong. In a spate of stories today, we see that Democratic Senators yesterday tripped over themselves to applaud Sen. Joe Lieberman
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, September 15, 2005
New Poll Shows Americans Want Troops Brought Home; Top Dems Ignore the Public
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, September 21, 2006
The Tidal Wave Heading Straight For the Hall of Mirrors There are times every now and again where you just have to step back and behold the absurdity of it all. You have to step back from the day-to-day trench wars and just marvel at how entrenched power really is in this, the country where we still cling to Horatio Alger fables or "anyone can grow up to be president" myths. Amazing-- the propaganda system that holds this whole structure up.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Rush "Ass Cyst" Limbaugh Attacks Vietnam Vet, Calls For Radical Change in Military Policy Sometimes the title says it all...
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Ohio Debate Primer on Trade Campaign For America's Future, 2/26/08
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SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 28, 2007
The Innocent Bystander Fable The Innocent Bystander Fable teaches that every politician in America except the President of the United States has absolutely no power at all to stop or even slow down the escalation of the war in Iraq - an escalation that is expected to deploy "more than 200,000 [troops to Iraq] -- a record high number -- by the end of the year..." The Innocent Bystander Fable is convenient for all players involved, even if it is a fable -
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Politics 101: Don't Reinforce Your Opponents' Lies Progressives who say they aren't "moderate" or "centrist" or who claim their opponents are more "moderate" or "centrist" are by definition saying they believe they themselves to be "extreme" or "more extreme."
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 19, 2006
Pension battle becomes new front in the class war Slowly but surely, pension issues have become the new front in the class war being waged on ordinary Americans. And what is particularly disturbing is politicians and media pundits who constantly portray those who have managed to secure decent pensions as greedy and evil.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 25, 2006
Lieberman Defended FEMA Director Before and AFTER Katrina How could our congressional leaders allow an inexperienced Republican political campaign operative like Mike "Brownie, You're Doing a Heck of a Job" Brown to head up FEMA? How could he be allowed to be put in such a position, especially considering his nomination was overseen by a Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate? The answer is found in one man: Joe Lieberman
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Congress's upcoming "free" trade fight: The good, the bad & the ugly in the new Congress the battle is going to be fierce and nasty over "free" trade (read: trade deals that are filled with protectionist measures for corporate profits but free only of protections for human beings).the trenches being dug by both sides, and incredibly - when many senior congressional Democrats aren't helping the K Street crowd dig its trench, they are making threats of retribution against their own freshmen
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 16, 2007
More Proof the West Is A Heckuva Lot More Colorful Than Red vs. Blue From the Rocky Mountain West's Department of Shifting Politics comes dispatches out of two key states that show, once again, how fractured the old Republican coalition has become, and how many opportunities there are for Democrats - if they can shake off their Wall Street wing and embrace their populist roots.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 30, 2006
Pundits still dumbfounded, even as workers' share of gains hits 40-year low Commentators look at today's Wall Street Journal headline blaring that "Corporate Pretax Profits Jump 14.4% - Strongest Gain Since 1992" and wonder: why ordinary Americans aren't jumping with joy? The answer is simple if you actually look at the underlying data, you see that those profits aren't actually benefitting ordinary workers - they are increasingly benefitting only those at the very top of the economic ladder
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Give 'Em Hell, Harry - And Get Answers to These Specific Questions Give-'Em-Hell Harry Reid today did a great service to America today by standing up, shutting down the Senate and demanding answers about how and why the Bush administration lied to America about the Iraq "threat" in the lead up to the war. The question now is, what's next?
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 10, 2007
The Innocent Bystander Fable Goes Into Overdrive The Washington Post is the latest Establishment media organ to push what I have called the Innocent Bystander Fable. This is the myth that Democrats have no power to stop the war, despite controlling both houses of Congress.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Populist Jon Tester Scores Huge Win Against D.C. Dems & For the Rest of Us There are a lot of lessons to learn from this primary. First and foremost, when Democrats take strong positions and courageously stand up to the powers that be, they are rewarded.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, November 18, 2005
Rahm, Please Tell Us: How Many More Must Die for It to Be "The Right Time?" in response to Murtha's announcement, some Democrats seemed to leap at the chance to embarrass themselves, and publicly flaunt just how nauseatingly spineless they are. And there is no better example of this than Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) in today's Washington Post.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 9, 2005
The High Cost of Free Trade's Supposedly Low Prices A big myth that "free" trade policy proponents use to support their positions is the idea that a) our "free" trade policies always creates lower prices and b) those low prices most often offset other effects of "free" trade. This myth, expressed as fact, is anything but fact
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Connecticut Begins to Boil With Chatter of Lieberman Challenge Well, it seems like it is finally starting to happen - Connecticut seems to now be moving into a boil over Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D) continued efforts to be a mouthpiece for the Bush administration's Iraq War policy.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, May 5, 2006
Rick Santorum's Hostile Takeover As I head back to Philadelphia for the launch of my new book on the money culture of politics, I'm thinking of just how used to political corruption Pennsylvanians are, thanks to Santorum.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 7, 2005
Swift Boat Vets Are Back, This Time Targeting Sanders In a breathless, frightening, foaming-at-the-mouth diatribe on the right-wing fringe site Newsmax, John O'Neill - the leader of the slanderous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - said his group is targeting Vermont Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders for defeat in Vermont's upcoming U.S. Senate race.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, December 5, 2005
Iraq Transforms American Democracy Into American Eliteocracy If we were to start being honest, we would simply stop calling America "the greatest democracy in the world," because what it has become in recent years is anything but democracy.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 22, 2007
VOTE ALERT: GOP & 11 Dems Vote Down Property Tax Relief
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 3, 2005
Miers Headed Law Firm Repeatedly Forced to Pay Damages For Defrauding Investors In case anyone thought Harriet Miers wasn't a corporate-shill-in-White-House-clothing, take a gander at how Miers did her best Ken Lay impression while heading a major Texas corporate law firm.
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Lamont's Victory & Lieberman's Insult to Democracy & the Democratic Party Creepo Lieberman, running as independent, disrespects Democracy and Democratic party.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, November 30, 2005
The Growing Problem of Defense Industry Profiteering If you thought it impossible to top the image of Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) driving around a Rolls Royce and living on a yacht thanks to defense industry cash, just stop and take a look Lloyd Grove's story today in the New York Daily News
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, January 9, 2007
The Iraq War Is Not Michael Jordan Kennedy's new legislation will force lawmakers to publicly state whether they have the guts to exercise their constitutional responsibilities or not.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, September 16, 2005
The deafening - and dangerous - silence on taxes As silence sets in over a Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina, it is also setting in among both political parties in Washington.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 25, 2006
CAUGHT ON TAPE: Tom Friedman's Truly Shocking Admission Now, in a little-noticed interview, Friedman actually went on record admitting he advocates for specific trade deals without knowing anything about what's in the trade deals he is writing about.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, August 27, 2006
Beltway Media Distorts GOP Position on Iraq top Republican leaders have repeatedly gone on record making statements or taking concrete steps that support actually KEEPING large amounts of U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Bush Walks Right Into Castro's Trap In political campaigns, the worst thing a candidate can do is publicly walk into their own stereotype.
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 15, 2006
Supreme Court Helps Corporate America Emasculate Taxpayers In a unanimous decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling that would have invalidated massive taxpayer giveaways to Corporate America.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, September 21, 2005
On Roberts, Who Is More Pathetic: The Media, or the Democrats?
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 17, 2005
How the media "authorize" the abuse of government power The story of President Bush deliberately breaking the law to create a domestic spy operation is a lot of different things: a tale of power abuse, arrogance, and contempt for the law by an out-of-control president. But it also about today's media missing-in-action.
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Prima Donnas Endangering A Democratic Victory In 2006 Last week, in response to an awful article in Roll Call newspaper, I posted an open letter to Nancy Pelosi asking her to tell her fellow House Democrats to stop running to reporters bragging about how they are shaking down Big Money interests for cash. Such behavior insults the intelligence of voters, since it is happening at the same time Democrats are hammering the GOP for its "culture of corruption."
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, August 18, 2005
The pro-business case for Minimum Health Care Laws
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Where is America's true center? Polls showing more conservatives than liberals mean little in terms of party policy.
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 29, 2005
SEC mounts attack on post-Enron corporate crackdown Big Money interests have been desperately trying to water down or eliminate even the weak reporting requirements in the post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley bill. But even the bought-off Congress has, so far, been too embarrassed to make such a move so soon after the corporate scandals. So the Bush acts.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, January 30, 2006
The big flaw in Bush's health care plan Now today, on the eve of the State of the Union, we see another euphemism being trotted out by the White House to hide its ulterior agenda: "consumer-driven" health care.
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Second Bush security official says corporate interests must supersede national security A Wall Street Journal story confirms what I've written about the UAE port scandal: that it has everything to do with Big Money's efforts to prioritize the free trade agenda over national security concerns. And now, the second Bush administration security official is admitting as much.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 13, 2005
When humor tells us troubling truths...about ourselves Yesterday's behavior by President Bush (in Philly) - and the reaction to it by the audience and the media - is a disturbing commentary about both the current White House, and about ourselves.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Rejecting the McGovern Complex The psychology of the middle-aged, self-described partisan/media political "expert" is something of a puzzle to me. Strip away all the bloviating, all the self-importance, all the haughtiness, and you'll find a deeply-rooted hatred of all things relating to George McGovern.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, October 25, 2005
What Should Progressives Demand From Candidates - Sizzle or Substance? Paul Hackett or Sherrod Brown>
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, December 12, 2005
DLC attacks Dems as "offering surrender," then calls for "inclusion" The nation's capital has become a place where corporate-funded institutions like the DLC can one day viciously stab courageous progressives, and then the next day turn around and claim they are actually for "inclusion"
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 27, 2006
The Corporatist Manifesto Tells Pundits of America: Unite! The highest-profile corporate spokesmen in the punditocracy are quickly uniting to try to divert the debate over the UAE port security scandal from where its focus really should be: on America's dangerous "free" trade policy that lets these kinds of deals happen all the time, with almost no scrutiny.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 1, 2005
Moveon Considers Backing Primary Against Lieberman Bush apologist, Republicrat Lieberman has stabbed his party in the bak one time too many...
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, July 2, 2006
Who's Lieberman Represent? Not You More talk about Dumpin Joe, hopefully, the next former senator from CT
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 10, 2007
Memo to Dems: How the Immigration Debate Can End the Iraq War How to End the War? Make GOPers Decide Between Bush and Their Base
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 10, 2005
Right-Wing Spin In the House Democratic Caucus Never underestimate the willingness of some Democrats to regurgitate right-wing lies and undercut their own party's message. Even in the seemingly smallest settings, we see it all the time.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Dems' New Agenda: The Good, the OK, and the Ugly
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, December 19, 2005
Serving the Establishment instead of questioning it In writing a piece about the long-term future of the economy and lamenting about those who are supposedly clinging to the past, Matt Bai shows that he is the one caught in the past, as if totally brainwashed by the corporate propaganda he is undoubtedly flooded with as a journalist.
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, December 7, 2005
House Dems' Staggering Work of Incomprehensible Stupidity
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, November 1, 2005
Why Give Ground to Archconservatives & the Radical Right? There's a lot of talk these days about progressives needing to stand up and have the guts to take it to conservatives. One of the keys to doing this is to never give ground - something that appears to be happening in Ohio's 2006 U.S. Senate race
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 22, 2005
CAUSE & EFFECT: The real-life consequences of rigged energy markets When Big Business is allowed to rig markets, the result is often a crushing blow to average consumers. There's a perfect example of that this week on energy issues. The oil companies, of course, call this "free market capitalism" - but it is anything but.

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