By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

Unemployment figures in the U.S. are staggering: The official rate stands at 10.2%, the highest in 26 years. A broader measure that includes people who are involuntarily working part-time or who have given up looking for work is at 17.5%. That’s a full-b… Read full post »

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

Last weekend in Singapore, President Barack Obama acknowledged that a comprehensive international climate deal will not be reached during the climate change summit in Copenhagen. While many might view this as a letdown, lowering expectations might actually be… Read full post »

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

First it was immigrants from Mexico, now Muslims in the armed services. After the tragic shootings at Fort Hood, conservative pundits are verbally attacking Muslims and Arab-Americans, much like they have vilified the immigrant community. The complexities of Islamic… Read full post »

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger

A Michigan woman threatened a Minnesota newspaper with mass murder for criticizing Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN)’s anti-health reform rally, reports Paul Schmelzer in the Minnesota Independent:

…A woman in Michigan, angered over a newspaper

… Read full post »

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

By proposing financial reforms that won’t curb Wall Street excess, U.S. policymakers have offered an unacceptably weak response to our enormous financial crisis. If voters don’t demand that their elected representatives help workers and consumers i… Read full post »

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

For weeks, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has opposed climate change legislation. In the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, he openly voiced his doubts and was the only Democrat to refrain from voting for the bill’s passage. Now that the bill is in t… Read full post »

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

After 30 years, commentator Lou Dobbs—infamous for his tirades against undocumented immigrants—has left CNN, as TPM reports. Dobbs employed disturbing, dangerous, and dated language to slur immigrants, often equating them with disease and infection. Ther… Read full post »

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger

A clique of anti-choice Democrats in Congress joined forces with Republicans to write abortion access out of the House’s health care reform bill last Saturday. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) wants to force women to choose between affordable health insura… Read full post »

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

On Friday, we learned that the U.S. unemployment rate officially broke 10% for the first time since the early Reagan years. This is about as bad as it gets for a modern, developed economy. No economic force takes a heavier toll on a society than… Read full post »

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

Senate Democrats in the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) finally squelched Republican boycotts and passed a version of the climate bill yesterday morning. Last week, Republican Senators refused to show up to committee hearings in an attempt to sta… Read full post »

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

While many pundits and political analysts are musing about what Tuesday’s mixed bag election results mean for Obama administration, New America Media reports that “there’s another trend to watch; the surprising prominence of immigration politics.&r… Read full post »

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger

The House released a final version of the health reform bill. It has a public option all right, but not the robust version progressives were hoping for. The public plan would only cover 2% of Americans and premiums will cost more than anticipated.

Meanw… Read full post »

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

Last week, President Barack Obama released key legislation designed to fight the banking industry’s too-big-to-fail problem. But Obama’s plan doesn’t actually address too-big-to-fail at all. It reinforces a broken system in which economically… Read full post »

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

This week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held three hearings on the Kerry-Boxer clean energy bill and, as David Roberts reports for Grist, Republican Senators had an “adolescent tantrum” about the cost of emission reductions. Th… Read full post »

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

Anti-immigration groups and pundits cling to phrases like “Illegal Alien” because they only focus on foreignness and danger. These extreme factions are all about casting immigrants as what ails our society, conjuring up demons upon which to focus nationa… Read full post »

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger

Progressives rejoiced when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this week that the final Senate health care bill would include a public option. The announcement was a major victory for left-wing Democrats.

Better yet, it would be a public option… Read full post »

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

Bailout pay czar Ken Feinberg raised a ruckus last week when he announced plans to slash cash payouts to executives at seven companies that have received massive levels of taxpayer support. While better oversight of the bailout barons is helpful, the best way… Read full post »

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

After several prominent members left the Chamber of Commerce over its prehistoric climate change policies, the organization appeared to do an about-face on its climate stance during a press conference on Monday. Sound too good to be true? It was. Members of t… Read full post »

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

For the most part, it’s been a good week for immigration reform. The Senate approved a measure that will end the “Widow Penalty,” which rescinded applications for U.S. residency if one’s spouse of two years or less years dies, and on Tuesday,… Read full post »

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger

A plan to reform health care that includes a robust public option would actually cut the deficit, according to preliminary estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). For the purposes of this analysis, a robust public option was defined as one t… Read full post »

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

The U.S. economy has diverged: Wall Street is living high on the hog, while everyone else is struggling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average eclipsed 10,000 for the first time since last October this week, even as unemployment continues to spiral out of control. A… Read full post »

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

The U.S. might not have to go to December’s climate change talks in Copenhagen empty handed. Two weeks after Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) unveiled a new draft of the climate change bill, Kerry and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announ… Read full post »

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

A crowd of thousands gathered on Capitol Hill Tuesday, to lobby for and support immigration reform, as Debayani Kar writes for RaceWire. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus “presented his key principles for comprehensive i… Read full post »

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee finally passed its health care bill. John Nichols of the Nation reacts:

If every kid in class finishes their homework except for one, guess which kid will get the most attention. That’s right, the slacker.

And, when the slacker finally does turn in the a

… Read full post »

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

Last month, the U.S. unemployment rate surged to 9.8% as 260,000 people lost their jobs. Although the stock market and corporate profits appear to be recovering from last year's financial catastrophe, work is harder to find. President Barack Obama and Congress… Read full post »