Bar corporations from deducting all executive pay in excess of $1 million – By Robert Reich – What can be done to deter pharmaceutical companies from jacking up prices of critical drugs? To prevent Wall Street banks from excessive gambling? To nudge CEOs into taking a longer-term view? To restrain runaway CEO pay? Answer to…
Guest Columns
What Happens After Trump Loses?
By Robert Reich – I recently got a call from a political analyst in Washington. “Trump is dropping like a stone,” he said, convincingly. “After Election Day, he’s history.” I think Trump will lose the election, but I doubt he’ll be “history.” Defeated presidential candidates typically disappear from public view. Think Mitt Romney or Michael…
Fox News Talking Head Sean Hannity Is Donald Trump’s Puppeteer
By Peter Funt – November’s biggest loser might not be Donald Trump — even if he gets clobbered at the polls. The person with the most to lose is Sean Hannity, the Fox News Channel host from Alabama, who isn’t just hitching his wagon to Trump’s campaign, he’s almost single-handily building the wagon on his…
A Single-Payer Healthcare System is Inevitable
By Robert Reich – The best argument for a single-payer health plan is the recent decision by giant health insurer Aetna to bail out next year from 11 of the 15 states where it sells Obamacare plans. Aetna’s decision follows similar moves by UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, and by Humana, another one…
Roger Ailes and Donald Trump Deserve Each Other
By Dick Polman – If you read Superman comics as a kid, you’re probably familiar with Bizarro World —- the planet where everything is the opposite of life on Earth. I bring this up because it’s clear Donald Trump is running for president of Bizarro World. Trump is on track to lose female voters like…
Demonstrations Planned Against Offshore Oil Leases in New Orleans
President Hillary Clinton Will Need Bernie’s ‘Political Revolution’ to Get Anything Done
By Robert Reich – It looks increasingly likely that Hillary Clinton, a self-described “progressive who likes to get things done,” will have her chance starting next January. But how much that’s progressive will she actually be able to get done? The Senate may flip to the Democrats but there’s almost no way Democrats will get…
Toward the Next Jewish Rebellion: Facing Anti-Semitism and Assimilation in the Movement
Donald Trump has Crossed the Line of Decency
A Conservative View – By Christine Flowers – I’m morbidly fascinated by the rhetorical mud being slung between Democrats and Republicans these days. How exhilarating to hear Hillary Clinton labeled “unstable” by Donald Trump, who is himself called “bat(bleep)-crazy” by a fellow billionaire and Hillaryite, Mark Cuban. This week, though, I actually do need to…
The Case for a Tax on Wall Street Trades
By Robert Reich – One of Bernie Sanders’s most important proposals didn’t receive enough attention and should become a law even without a president Sanders. Hillary Clinton should adopt it for her campaign. It’s a tax on financial transactions. Putting a small tax on financial transactions would: 1. Reduce incentives for high speed trading, insider…
There’s No Walking Back Trump’s Second Amendment Comments
By John L. Micek – Donald Trump knew what he was doing Tuesday afternoon. Make no mistake. “Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” a smiling Trump said of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during a rally in Wilmington, N.C. “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can…
The Real Threat to American Sovereignty
By Robert Reich – “Without a border, we just don’t have a country,“ Donald Trump says repeatedly. For him, the biggest threats to American sovereignty are three-dimensional items that cross our borders, such as unwanted imports and undocumented immigrants. He’s wrong. The biggest threats to American sovereignty are invisible digital dollars wired into U.S. election…
What’s at Stake in the August Special Session?
By Hank Sanders – MONTGOMERY, Ala. — What will this looming special legislative session bring? Will it bring fiscal solutions for Medicaid? Will it bring solutions for the hemorrhaging General Fund? Will it bring expansion of Medicaid? Will it bring long lurking gambling efforts to a head? Will it bring better or worse public education?…
Trump’s Tanking Numbers Begin to Hurt Other Republican Candidates
By John L. Micek – There are two sets of numbers, both related and intertwined, that should keep Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania awake at night. The first one: 49-38 percent. That’s Democrat Hillary Clinton’s current advantage over Donald Trump among likely voters in Pennsylvania in a new Franklin-Marshall College poll. The second one:…
Injustice Has Become An Epidemic: We Need A Change In Attitudes
By Scott Lander – Grassroots organizations are rising up all over the nation to combat this plague, which comes in many different forms. The Black Lives Matter movement is concerned with ending police brutality. The Occupy movement is exposing economic injustices. End Citizens United is purposed with getting money out of politics. People like Elon…
After 9/11: Clinton Helped First Responders, Trump Grabbed Federal Money
By Dick Polman – Unlike their Republican counterparts, Democrats tend not to wallow in the sewer with infantile chants like “Lock Her Up.” Instead, they simply whacked Donald Trump with substance throughout their four day convention in Philadelphia. Take for instance New York congressman Joe Crowley, who assailed Trump for grabbing federal money that was…
Can Hillary Convince Voters She’s the Optimistic Candidate?
By John L. Micek – PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – After four days of doom and gloom in Donald Trump’s America, Democrats have a deceptively simple task to accomplish with their convention this week: Namely, convincing broad swaths of voters that Hillary Clinton and her new running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, possess the right mix…
Donald Trump Could Be the Next President of the United States
By Alan Minsky – This is madness. Fully predictable madness. One archetype of the American experience is now realized. We’ve always had our carnival hucksters and itinerant preachers and snake oil thieves. P.T. Barnum put on a good show. All sought wealth and power. But never before has one risen so high as Donald J.…
Six Factors that Gave Us Trump
By Peter Funt – With Donald Trump basking in the Republican convention glow, tortured analysis persists among those seeking to explain how he ever got this far. A recurring view has it that Americans are fed up with politicians and now want an “outsider” to run things. Also, there’s the notion that it will take…
The Reluctant Embrace of Trump
By John L. Micek – CLEVELAND, Oh. – U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican, wanted to talk about a bunch of stuff during his primetime address at the Republican National Convention. But Donald Trump wasn’t high on that list. He barely mentioned him at all. Instead, the ever-wonkish Ryan focused on the House…