Blog Archive: June, 2012

Everyone is talking jobs and saying nothing. The inadequate recovery is sputtering and no one is doing anything. In the war on unemployment, no one has picked up a gun. We’re going through the motions, waiting for the misery to ratchet up, the cities to blow, corporate profits to tank before anything is done.

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This week on The Breakdown we reviewed our nation's ongoing financial mess with Firedoglake's David Dayen, talked with housing superheroes from the Home Defenders League, and prepped for the Wisconsin governor's recall with journalist Amanda Terkel and activist Melissa Ryan. more »

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At the June 18-20 Take Back the American Dream conference, we'll organize to stop Simpson-Bowles from passing Congress in the December "lame duck" session. Hear Robert L. Borosage, Van Jones and Melissa Harris-Perry on "Winning in November – So We Can Win in December and Beyond" and hear Rep. more »

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In less than 36 hours, a petition by Rebuild the Dream calling on the Department of Justice to focus on prosecuting crimes done by Wall Street executives during the financial crisis has collected more than 50,000 signatures.

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I realize that electoral politics seems like old news to a lot of progressives these days. Many of you were highly motivated in 2008, believed in the system, and are now disillusioned. Some of you have decided to work on systemic change outside the government while others are simply standing aside, not wanting to participate is anything as corrupt and immoral as politics, regardless of the result. Some of you feel the big money has it so rigged that it's pointless. I understand all those reactions. We're in a bad place right now and it's very hard to see any light.

However, if you still believe that progressive principles can be successfully applied to democratic government, then supporting progressive candidates for congress is one way to do that. It's less glamorous than the ecstatic "Camp Obama" experience of 2008 and it's long term project that goes forward in fits and starts and features plenty of disappointment --- but it can result, over time, in changing the way government works.

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Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games.

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You buy things till your wallet is empty. So you raid the savings account to buy more stuff. Then you get a loan, and buy more stuff. Another loan, another, you keep buying stuff... Finally you're selling off the tools you had used to make a living. That's where the country is now because of the huge imbalance in our trade relationships. more »

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• MORNING MESSAGE: No Middle-Class Millionaires
• Recall Tomorrow
• Welcome To The Republican Economy
• Sequestration Threat Pressures GOP
• JPMorgan Chase Was Warned
• Breakfast Sides

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Once again a Democrat's letting the Right set the terms of the debate. This time it's House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who's undercutting her party's tax policy in an odd way: by redefining "middle class" so that it includes people making a million dollars a year.

Pelosi's proposal would be great for millionaires - and bad for everyone else. more »

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Sugary soft drinks, as Michael Bloomberg reminds us, do our nation no good. But if we really want to narrow our waistbands, we’re going to have to narrow the income gaps that divide us.

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