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Schumer backs Sanders’ proposal to include dental, hearing, and vision care in Medicare
"With the current Medicare platform, those three things are just left out, like it's no big deal," said the Democratic leader. "But it is a big deal and we should fix it."
Following calls from progressives to include an expansion of Medicare in the infrastructure bill being negotiated in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced late Sunday his support for covering dental, vision, and hearing care under the popular 56-year-old program, backing a proposal long pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders. Continue reading
With Bezos at the helm, democracy dies at the Washington Post editorial board
In the Soviet Union, everybody was aware that the media was controlled by the state. But in a corporate state like the U.S., a veneer of independence is still maintained, although trust in the media has been plummeting for years.
WASHINGTON—The Washington Post’s glaring conflicts of interest have of late once again been the subject of scrutiny online, thanks to a new article denouncing a supposed attempt to “soak” billionaires in taxes. Written by star columnist Megan McArdle—who previously argued that Walmart’s wages are too high, that there is nothing wrong with Google’s monopoly, and that the Grenfell Fire was a price worth paying for cheaper buildings—the article claimed that Americans have such class envy that the government would “destroy [billionaires’] fortunes so that the rest of us don’t have to look at them.” Notably, the Post chose to illustrate it with a picture of its owner, Jeff Bezos, making it seem as if it was directly defending his power and wealth, something they have been accused of on more than one occasion. Continue reading
New Israeli government, same Israeli apartheid
After 12 years, Israel finally inaugurated a new prime minister. While being hailed by many as the opportunity for a fresh start, Naftali Bennett is at best a continuer of Netanyahu’s policies and at worst an ideologue whose positions are to the right of Netanyahu’s. Continue reading
Biden faces backlash over ‘shameful’ capitulation to GOP governors as they end unemployment lifelines
"You only take back the lifeline when people aren't drowning," said Claire Guzdar of the Groundwork Collaborative.
Biden administration officials publicly signaled Friday that they have no intention of putting up a fight as the Republican governors of 25 states prematurely cut off emergency unemployment programs, yanking key lifelines from millions of jobless workers and depriving local economies of billions of dollars. Continue reading
It’s past time to end U.S. funding of Israeli violence
What else could billions of American tax dollars buy instead of innocent deaths?
At the end of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was continuing to ravage the populations of many nations, Israel stood out as a success story, administering more doses of vaccines to its modest-sized 9-million-strong population than any other country after China, the U.S., and the UK. Today, more than 60 percent of Israelis are vaccinated, which is 20 percentage points higher than the United States—a nation that happens to give more foreign aid to Israel than to any other country in the world. Continue reading
The biggest threat to Israel is the occupation
Netanyahu says, "We must live by the sword"—but he's never tried alternatives.
I first met Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, the Israeli peace and anti-apartheid activist, on a sunny spring Sunday in Jerusalem almost exactly seventeen years ago, in 2004. It was at the end of the second Intifada, and a few of us clambered into a van so that she and a colleague could give us a tour of what it was like to be a Palestinian living in the Occupied Territories. It was revelatory. We’ve remained friends ever since. Continue reading
Palestinian workers in Israel, West Bank launch general strike
Palestinians in both Israel and the West Bank declared a general strike Tuesday against the Israeli Netanyahu government’s escalation of aircraft bombing runs on Gaza, and the mounting death toll, now exceeding 219, including 59 children, among its inhabitants. Continue reading
Pay a living wage or ‘flip your own damn burgers’: Progressives blast right-wing narrative on jobs
"If one in four recipients are making more off unemployment than they did working, that's not an indictment of $300 a week in UI benefits. It's an indictment of corporations paying starvation wages."
Pushing back on the right-wing narrative about the reason for real or perceived labor shortages in some markets nationwide, progressives on Friday told corporations that if they want to hire more people, they’ll need to start paying better wages. Continue reading
Squad & Co: Unite as a block to downsize Biden’s military budget
Imagine this scenario: A month before the vote on the federal budget, progressives in Congress declared, “We’ve studied President Biden’s proposed $753 billion military budget, an increase of $13 billion from Trump’s already inflated budget, and we can’t, in good conscience, support this.” Continue reading
Bottom-up politics: Grassroots activism behind pro-Palestine shift in the US
At a recent virtual J Street Conference, US Senators, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren broke yet another political taboo when they expressed willingness to leverage US military aid as a way to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian human rights. Continue reading
In closed-door event with corporate lobbyists, Manchin vows $15 wage ‘not going to happen’
A top restaurant industry lobbyist reportedly "couldn't contain his excitement" at the West Virginia Democrat's remarks.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on Tuesday reportedly mocked the popular push for a $15 federal minimum wage during a private event with restaurant industry lobbyists, telling attendees he prefers an hourly wage floor of $11 and nothing “above half of that” for tipped workers. Continue reading
Perfidy meets putty—congressional Democrats betray voters
Where is the outcry among Democratic politicians to reverse completely the corporate takeover of Medicare?
Do you remember the promises made by the Democratic Party’s presidential and Congressional candidates on universal health insurance? You can forget their pledges and somber convictions now that your votes put the Democrats in charge of the House and the Senate. The Democrats’ leaders are abandoning their promises and retreating into a cowardly corporatist future. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: The minimal minimum wage
Most Democrats either don’t want a minimum wage increase or are too afraid of bucking their party’s donor class. Continue reading
Conservative Democrat Joe Manchin playing a dangerous game
The press is talking about how a conservative Democratic senator from West Virginia is now allegedly one of the most powerful movers and shakers in the nation’s capital. Continue reading
Is Biden committing diplomatic suicide over the Iran nuclear agreement?
As Congress still struggles to pass a COVID relief bill, the rest of the world is nervously reserving judgment on America’s new president and his foreign policy, after successive U.S. administrations have delivered unexpected and damaging shocks to the world and the international system. Continue reading
The fascist ‘big lies’—deceptive names are back
We should remain vigilant against the far-right, which continues to misappropriate the historical and traditional names of the parties of labor, the popular masses, equality, and progressivism
From 1920 to 1945, the formal name of the German Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, abbreviated NSDAP in German. Despite its name, there was nothing even remotely “socialist” or “workers” related about the Nazi Party. Its very foundation was to combat the influence of labor unions, particularly those closely-linked to the Socialists or Communists. Socialist ideology, whether it was of the social democratic or Marxist -Leninist version, was anathema to Nazi policy. Therefore, it was the height of hypocrisy that the Nazis, with their financial backing from Germany’s leading industrialists—Krupp, Thyssen, and Opel, to name a few—would appropriate the terms socialist and workers for their own designs. When “socialist” was added to the “National German Workers’ Party” in 1920, in a jaded attempt to appeal to lower middle class left-wing laborers, Adolf Hitler vehemently objected. The term “socialist” within the official name of the Nazi Party was more of a mockery of socialism than anything else. Continue reading
On January 5 and 6, democracy won, fascism lost
The United States of America was redefined on January 5 and 6, 2021. Never underestimate the pivotal power of these two dates in our nation’s history. And do not believe that a Senate failure to convict Donald Trump will change any of it. Continue reading
Same as the old boss, Julian Assange edition
On February 9, the US Justice Department announced that US President Joe Biden, as in so many other areas, intends to serve Donald Trump’s second term when it comes to persecuting heroes guilty of exposing US war crimes and embarrassing American politicians. Continue reading
Democrats disarm themselves before Trump’s Senate impeachment trial
If the Democrats do not go full throttle in this trial—this last clear chance to exercise the Constitution against Tyrant Trump—they will be remembered as profiles of infamy.
Donald Trump has, with luck, eluded the consequences of being a failed gambling czar with no respect for the law. But his luck has reached a new level with Congressional Democrats refraining from holding him accountable for breaking the law and violating the Constitution as regularly as the rising and setting of the sun for four years. (See: December 18, 2019, Congressional Record, H-12197). Continue reading
Will a Hitlerian impeachment performance ignite Trump’s paramilitary death squads?
Lawyers galore have fled the prospect of representing Donald Trump at his upcoming impeachment trial (the sequel). Continue reading
The movement for a wealth tax in Washington state
A levy of just 1 percent on wealth over $1 billion would raise more than $2 billion per year to meet the state's urgent social needs.
Legislators in Washington state are taking bold steps towards instituting a state-level wealth tax. The proposed tax is a 1 percent levy on wealth over $1 billion, applying to fewer than 100 households in the state. Continue reading
Judging Biden by low standards set by Trump would be an unforgivable catastrophe
We don't have any room to grade this administration on a curve. Progressives must push with everything they've got.
Unless consciously resisted, one of Donald Trump’s lasting triumphs will be the establishment of such a low bar that mediocre standards will prevail for his successor. Of course, providing a clear contrast to the atrocious Trump presidency is irrefutably necessary—but it’s hardly sufficient. Continue reading
CEOs’ newfound concern for democracy is bunk
The sudden lurch from Trump to Biden is generating vertigo all over Washington, including the so-called fourth branch of government—CEOs and their army of lobbyists. Continue reading
Let’s all sing for joy as the KKK/evangelical “pro-life” double-impeached mobster/serial-earth-killer flees town
Our shredded nation slowly breathes again as the unelected orange menace leaves us at last. If you somehow feel your mood lightening and your state of mind improving, here’s why: This twice-impeached viral dung heap who needlessly killed 400k-plus Americans, along with 13 federal prisoners he outright murdered at the last minute, is actually on his way out. Continue reading
Will the Senate confirm coup plotter Nuland?
Who is Victoria Nuland? Most Americans have never heard of her because the U.S. corporate media’s foreign policy coverage is a wasteland. Most Americans have no idea that President-elect Biden’s pick for Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs is stuck in the quicksand of 1950s U.S.-Russia Cold War politics and dreams of continued NATO expansion, an arms race on steroids and further encirclement of Russia. Continue reading
Address the stagnation that paved the way for Trump
Trump had plenty of rich supporters, but left-behind communities have been fertile ground for extremism throughout our history.
Donald Trump won’t be around forever. But the political crises his attacks on democracy have caused will outlive his one-term presidency. Continue reading
America and the mob
The far-right has come out in support of Trump. After the failed coup attempt of January 6, what’s next?
The United States began as a glint in the eyes of an English mob of oddballs, dissenters, and criminals let loose on what they considered virgin territory. Once secure in their new digs, they administered rough justice to the original Americans and any colonist who fell afoul of community rules. Eventually, casting aside their imperial British overlords, the rabble achieved a measure of respectability by creating an independent state. Continue reading
Neera Tanden and Antony Blinken personify the ‘moderate’ rot at the top of the Democratic Party
What's so moderate about being on the take from rich beneficiaries of corporate America while opposing proposals that would curb their profits in order to reduce income inequality and advance social justice?
Sometimes a couple of nominations convey an incoming president’s basic mindset and worldview. That’s how it seems with Joe Biden’s choices to run the Office of Management and Budget and the State Department. Continue reading
The US money tree: The untold story of American aid to Israel
On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel. Continue reading
Why senators must reject Avril Haines for intelligence
Even before President-Elect Joe Biden sets foot in the White House, the Senate Intelligence Committee may start hearings on his nomination of Avril Haines as director of national intelligence. Continue reading
Why progressives must not give Joe Biden a political honeymoon
Silence or merely faint dissent would enable the third Democratic president in four decades to again sacrifice progressive possibilities on the altar of corporate power.
The third time would not be a charm. Continue reading
How the United States helps to kill Palestinians
Posted on May 18, 2021 by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies
The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Continue reading →