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Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners...
—Langston Hughes

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While we would’ve preferred stronger provisions in some key areas, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2009" (H.R. 3962) constitutes a momentous step toward making a guarantee of quality affordable health care a reality for all Americans. We hope that it serves as a model for action by the Senate.

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This week, Barack Obama trips to China as part of an eight-day trip to Asia. The White House paints a full agenda: Afghanistan, human rights, North Korean nukes, climate change, trade relations, and the economy. But it's really just the economy, stupid.

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Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Cigna) announced today he would filibuster the health care bill because it contains a public option compromise.

Why does he want to do this? I don't know (*cough* -- Aetna -- *cough* *cough*) exactly. But we do know his stated reasons are lies.

Politico reports: more »

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The country needs a jobs program and needs it right now. Cash for Caulkers would be a good start. A new Civilian Conservation Corps would be another. But let's not allow a jobs program to cover over the need for real changes in the structure and core principles of our economy. more »

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Amid double-digit joblessness, two top U.S. corporations cut still another mega merger deal that enriches executives and tosses workers, by the thousands, out onto the street.

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with Diane Archer

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The Supreme Court may decide as soon as tomorrow on the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case involving a corporate-funded anti-Hillary smear ad. more »

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To our nation’s peril, the free trade orthodoxy continues to ignore a fundamental economic fact: It matters where things are made.

Over the past decade the U.S. industrial base has suffered an unprecedented decline. The loss of more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of more than 50,000 manufacturing facilities have undermined our nation’s technical capacity to innovate and to make things, while at the same time decimating our middle class.

Flawed trade and tax policies and a financial system focused on short-term profits drove good jobs offshore, led to record trade deficits, and left the economy in ruins. With the manufacturing share of gross domestic product withering to 12 percent (from 15.9 percent in 1995) and the financial sector growing to 22 percent, the structure of the U.S. economy looks more like Monaco than Germany. This growth model of asset bubbles, low wages, credit pyramids, toxic assets and unregulated out-of-control global capital has been a recipe for disaster.

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We've got a new red scare. Forget Glenn Beck; the fear isn't that America is going red, it's that it is in the red. Conservatives in both parties are raising alarms about deficits and government spending. Well, get over it. If we are going to generate growth and shared prosperity out of the mess we are in, expanded public investment must be a centerpiece of the new economy.

In today's Washington, this verges on heresy. The chattering classes are raising a clamor about Obama's deficits. The growing fixation, fanned by conservatives in both parties, may well cripple any short-term recovery. Worse, the wrong-headed debate could well undermine the reforms vital to the new economy we need to build out of the ruins of the old.

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Now that thousands of demonstrators confronted bankers at the "showdown in Chicago" during the American Bankers Association convention there this week, activist energy is now urgently shifting to Washington and to communities across the country.

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As long as we keep the status quo, then answer to the question "Are you a pre-existing condition?" is pretty clear: Yes. We all are, eventually.

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Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would submit a health care reform bill with a national public option that states could choose not to join.

This is how democracy is supposed to work. The highest ranking member of Senate was able to hear the will of America's progressive majority over the din of the insurance lobby and the right-wing noise machine, and was responsive to the majority.

But that's mere idealism. From a practical standpoint, this is how the modern progressive movement is supposed to work. more »

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Ahead of the Oct. 29 'Building the New Economy' conference in Washington, one can state the obvious: something has gone terribly wrong with the U.S. economy. But chalking up the blame to a few bad apples on Wall Street and their risky financial instruments, and responding by simply providing appropriate regulation in the financial services sector, will ultimately be unsatisfying. There are much deeper, structural issues which must be urgently addressed. Otherwise, the absurd positive feedback loop will continue: consumer debt, subsidized Chinese imports, American job loss and factory closures, the growing U.S. current account deficit, burgeoning Chinese currency reserves reinvested in American debt ... These will only inflate new bubbles and reinforce our current problems.

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Mike Elk couldn't have been more right in his thinking about what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have thought of the Teabaggers, Birthers, etc. He would have seen that those faces that at first glance seem twisted in anger are really twisted in pain. He would recognize those faces as well as the source of the fear and anger distorting them.

It's not about adopting their politics, compromising our own, or even tolerating their tactics. It's about reclaiming "We" — The same "We" that Dr. King and civil rights workers sang about, and that I remember singing about myself in church, on the occasions when we sang "We Shall Overcome."

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The dispute over whether or not a Texas wind farm receiving federal subsidies would source its components from a Chinese manufacturer has come to a more agreeable solution, with the partnering companies agreeing to open a 1,000 person turbine factory in the US more »

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Have you heard of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission? Their job is to assess the national security implications of the trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Actually, that’s a big deal, especially now. more »

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President Obama is home from China and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission today releases its 2009 report to Congress. What have we learned? That we need to pay attention because we’re getting schooled. more »

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gets it. No wonder she drives the wingnuts batty.

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We've got a jobs crisis in this country, and we need to fix it—now!

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