Tag Archives: Citizens United

Suddenly, Hillary Clinton’s positions are music to our ears… | #Progressivism on Blog#42

Hillary Clinton has been undergoing a transmogrification since announcing her candidacy for president. Gone are the neoliberal beliefs and policy positions and in are almost every single last  one of the progressive credos. Continue reading Suddenly, Hillary Clinton’s positions are music to our ears… | #Progressivism on Blog#42

Restoring our Democracy: Calling the NAACP and MoralMondays

Now that Election 2014 is over and we await whatever happens next in the Democratic camp, progressives need to step up efforts to take their rightful place at the helm of the party.

It is clear that voter disengagement was more a function of the unwillingness to keep voting in the status quo, than it was the abandonment of the Democratic party. It should be taken as a warning to Democrats that the party, as it is now, not only stopped reflecting the popular view, but has also allowed itself to be dragged into the Republicans’ dangerous race politics. Continue reading Restoring our Democracy: Calling the NAACP and MoralMondays

John @NicholsUprising: #ScottWalker is the #Kochs’ model governor

October 21, 2014 6:45 am

Scott Walker is a model governor.

Not in every sense, as critics of the Wisconsin Republican’s anti-labor extremism, ethical lapses and failed experiments with economic austerity will remind you. But he is certainly a model governor in the eyes of billionaire conservative donors David and Charles Koch and their acolytes. This reality has led 2014 Republican gubernatorial candidates who seek the billionaire blessing — so essential for conservative politicians in state races — to make reverential references to Walker when appealing to the Koch brothers.

Continue reading John @NicholsUprising: #ScottWalker is the #Kochs’ model governor

What Does the Democratic Party Actually Believe? | The Nation

By William Greider

To put it crudely, the dilemma facing the Democratic party comes down to this: Will Dems decide next time to stand with the working people, or will they stick with their big-money friends in finance and business? Some twenty years ago, Bill Clinton taught Democrats how they can have it both ways. Take Wall Street’s money—gobs of it—while promising to govern on a heart-felt agenda of “Putting People First.”

Continue reading What Does the Democratic Party Actually Believe? | The Nation

Get The Money Out of Politics: Install Greenhouse | Expose Corruption

A sixteen year old programmer named Nicholas Rubin created a browser plugin that, when installed, will recognize the names of political officials and will pop-up known campaign contribution data available online, with just a hover of the mouse. You can read more about him on Bill Moyers’ write-up. Continue reading Get The Money Out of Politics: Install Greenhouse | Expose Corruption

The faces of neo-liberalism, Part I: Robert Gibbs, Andrew Cuomo, and Rahm Emanuel

By Rima Regas

The rise of corporate Democrats has gone from a quiet but steady pace since 2010, to a very visible and in-your-face spectacle of late. The face of the party has changed, with some of the old guard gone, but many Democrats who were always at the right-most edge of the party playing more central roles in our parliamentary politics.

In Congress, especially over the past year, we’ve seen deals quietly made by certain Senate Democrats with the GOP, on the backs of the poor and unemployed. The economic agenda of the Democratic party, as a whole, has vanished, as has its vocal support for its blue collar constituencies.  While there are still a few progressives who stump for jobs, the unemployed, our safety net, education, and infrastructure, that talk isn’t backed by any particular legislative effort on the part of the leadership to, at the very least, give the appearance that it is trying to bring these issues back to the fore. Continue reading The faces of neo-liberalism, Part I: Robert Gibbs, Andrew Cuomo, and Rahm Emanuel

Joseph E. Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | NYTimes

By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

AN insidious trend has developed over this past third of a century. A country that experienced shared growth after World War II began to tear apart, so much so that when the Great Recession hit in late 2007, one could no longer ignore the fissures that had come to define the American economic landscape. How did this “shining city on a hill” become the advanced country with the greatest level of inequality?

One stream of the extraordinary discussion set in motion by Thomas Piketty’s timely, important book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” has settled on the idea that violent extremes of wealth and income are inherent to capitalism. In this scheme, we should view the decades after World War II — a period of rapidly falling inequality — as an aberration.

This is actually a superficial reading of Mr. Piketty’s work, which provides an institutional context for understanding the deepening of inequality over time. Unfortunately, that part of his analysis received somewhat less attention than the more fatalistic-seeming aspects. Continue reading Joseph E. Stiglitz: Inequality Is Not Inevitable | NYTimes