Michigan Speaker: Ask voters for a progressive income tax and dump the flat rate
The key fiscal policy at the heart of the progressive movement (and most of the Democratic Party) is a progressive income tax. Wealthy people should pay more of their income and poorer people should...
View ArticleEconomist: High gas prices are here to stay
Part of the progressive agenda should be a much larger investment in transit and intercity rail than the current federal budget (which is rather anemic). Why? Gas prices are high and are only getting...
View Article$20B question: How farm subsidies fuel immigration and depress wages
I don't have a full sense yet of how massive farm subsidies (about $20 billion of our money) benefit agribusiness, depress American wages, hurt the Mexican middle class and thus fuel immigration here,...
View ArticleWhy isn't Amtrak part of the climate change debate?
Here's what I don't understand. The feds just reaffirmed that the most energy-efficient way to travel is Amtrak (a bit better than commuter rail and rail transit, much better than airplanes and cars)....
View ArticleAsk Georgians to vote Tuesday in GA-10 special election
The first Congressional special election since the November thumpin' is tomorrow in Northeast Georgia in the 10th district. Since that thumpin', the Democratic majority's attempts to end the occupation...
View ArticleWhy do we keep insurance companies around?
Michael Moore raises the question in Sicko: why exactly are we tolerating for-profit health insurance companies that make money by denying us the health care that we've paid for?What sense does that...
View ArticleStrategic advice for rule of law advocates targeting Cheney
The diary from devilstower complaining that the mainstream media are not adequately covering Vice President Cheney's recent declaration that his office is not subject to federal law regarding document...
View Article"Socialized health insurance" not "socialized medicine"
I haven't seen Sicko yet, but the discussion that it has generated on getting rid of the for-profit, parasitic, middlemen health insurance companies has helped me to come up with a tighter phrase.We're...
View ArticleLet election workers out of jury duty
We've got a problem: not enough election workers (called election judges in Illinois). Our elections are run essentially by volunteers and we have a lot of them (four or five in a two-year cycle...
View ArticleBarack's momentum like his 04 Senate primary -- late and victorious
I live in Illinois and worked as a volunteer quite a bit on Barack Obama's 2004 Senate primary. The presidential campaign feels a lot like the Senate primary to me with late and ultimately overwhelming...
View ArticleReaction from Davenport on the caucus
I had suspected – or perhaps hoped – that the nation's Democratic primary voters would take to Senator Barack Obama the way that Illinois' primary voters had four years ago in his first statewide race....
View ArticleIndependent John B. Anderson endorses Obama
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune has the scoop:Former Illinois Republican Congressman (1960-1980) and 1980 independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson has endorsed Senator Barack Obama. That's...
View ArticleWant to lobby Congress? Recruit a messenger
The progressive movement can do a lot of things. We can elect good politicians (and we get a chance to do that a few times every two-year cycle -- local and state politicians matter too). We can track...
View ArticleNew voter? Take a hike. It's now illegal to register. Netroots challenge: fix...
In almost every one of the 22 states holding a primary election or caucus on February 5, democracy's door has already swung shut. With the most exciting presidential primary of the last two decades...
View ArticlePressure supers to pick, not Hillary to quit
The source of frustration for an over-extended primary campaign season should not be Senator Clinton. Every candidate has every right to run and it is expecting far too much of a campaign to pack it up...
View ArticleObama's magic number is 291. Help him clinch.
It's like baseball.Near the end of the season, teams that are going to make the playoffs have a magic number of wins (or their rivals' losses) to clinch their spot. We also have a magic number: the...
View ArticleOdd logic: she has *earned* a VP spot. What happened to winning?
I'm lucky to be a somewhat-regular guest on a synidcated radio talk show called Beyond the Beltway. The host, Bruce DuMont, makes a concerted effort to generate a diverse set of guests, so lately as...
View ArticleFund credit unions or local banks, not huge ones (and wait for Obama)
If the problem that Congress is trying to solve with the biggest economic stimulus package the nation has ever seen is that regular homeowners and business won't have access to capital, then why don't...
View ArticleHelp eliminate voter registration deadlines
This is the week where citizens are excluded.This is the week where the American electorate begins to shrink.This is the week where deadlines to register to vote start to kick in. And these deadlines...
View ArticleProgressive file sharing with P2P 2.0: LittleShoot launched
I know this is a bit off-topic, but for the Kossacks who like the ethos of community-generated content unfiltered by corporate gatekeepers, I'd like to draw your attention to LittleShoot.Developed by...
View ArticleYounger Dem GOTV: T-shirts of "Get Barack's Back"
Our major political challenge in November will be convincing the Obama surge voters to come out again in an election that feels a bit more like a chore than making history. Most of these first-time...
View ArticleTalk about money for better politics
"We're not allowed to talk about money in our society. You can't ask someone how much they make. That's considered impolite. It's taboo. But who does that benefit? The rich people. They don't want us...
View ArticleAmtrak got < fed $ in its history than highways get every year
Yesterday's hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was interesting and insightful. Chairman Mica and Subcommittee Chairman Shuster are pushing for much better passenger...
View ArticleHas your college emailed voter reg info?
There's a federal law that requires every college (public and private) that isn't in a same-day registration state to make a good-faith effort to distribute voter registration forms to all students....
View ArticleClimate change roundup: failure to price pollution costs everyone else
I'm trying something new: a weekly roundup of interesting progressive policies, insights and ideas. This inaugural post is about climate change.400,000 people marched in New York today before the...
View Article
