By Paul Starr on Alternet.org, 12-7-09 The continuing rise in the unemployment rate, up to 10.2 percent in November, has to give a sense of urgency to Democrats in Congress and the administration about the work they have at hand before next fall's elections. In 2010 Republicans are looking to...

by Simon Johnson on Baseline Scenario, 12-5-09 This post is a slightly edited version of remarks prepared for delivery at Unwinding Public Interventions in the Financial Sector: Preconditions and Practical Considerations , IMF High-Level Conference, Thursday, December 3, 2009, Washington...

The health care debate has so many moving parts that it's hard for anybody to keep them straight. So we decided to put together an overview of where we're at—both good and bad—and what we're all going to need to keep fighting for. Neither of these bills is close to perfect. But we're...

Following a speech on the Floor of the House of Representative, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement: "America is in the fight of its life and that fight is not in Afghanistan -- its here. We are deeply in debt. Our GDP is down. Our manufacturing is down....

by Ryan Grim on HufffingtonPost.com, 12-3-09 Ben Bernanke has overseen the greatest expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet in its history, pouring trillions of dollars into Wall Street firms at roughly zero interest rates. His generosity, however, has a limit. In...

By Emily Berry American Medical NewsNovember 30, 2009 Back when it was the largest private health plan in the country, Aetna downsized its membership by millions but boosted profits during an overhaul of its business several years ago. Now it looks to be making a...

Congressional Budget Office November 30, 2009 The analysis looks separately at the effects on premiums for coverage purchased individually, coverage purchased by small employers, and coverage provided by large employers. Nongroup Policies Average premiums per...

by Sue Sturgis on CommonDreams.org, 12-1-09 President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech to the nation tonight from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in which he's expected to announce he's sending up to 35,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. In this photograph...

by Jason Linkins on HuffingtonPost.com, 11-30-09 One of the things we re-learned on Sunday is that Evan Bayh is a big fan of pretending that the cost of the war in Afghanistan doesn't ever need to be reckoned with, as long as we steadfastly hew to platitudes. Confronted by Fox News's Chris...

By Seth Sandronsky, AlterNet,11-28-09 Sara Steffens, 37, is standing her ground. Once, she was a top reporter covering poverty and social services for the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, California. Today, Steffens labors as a union organizer. But a lasting lesson about unions came as...

By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet, 11-26-09 In August, the Associated Press asked the Obama White House -- which has promised to be the most transparent administration 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has ever seen -- to release information on all communications between top staff and health care industry...

Dana Perino Claims No Terrorist Attacks on U.S. During Bush Presidency By Jed Lewison, Daily Kos via alternet.org, 11-26-09 This wonder of evolution was actually the Bush Administration's top spokesperson: 

PERINO: Well, I...there is one thing that I would say about Ft....

By Dean Baker, CounterPunch via alternet.org, 11-25-09 There are more than 15 million people unemployed and almost 2 million people set to lose their homes to foreclosure this year. But there is good news: the Wall Street banks are as profitable as ever and set to give out record bonuses this...

Bailed-Out AIG Forcing Poor to Choose Between Running Water and Food By Yasha Levine, AlterNet, 11-26-09 What are we getting in return for the bailout? So far, predatory credit card rates, exorbitant bank fees and obscene Wall Street bonuses. But we're being robbed in other, sneakier ways,...

by Jeff Cohen on CommonDreams.org, 11-25-09 With Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that...

by John Nichols in The Nation via alternet.org, 11-25-09 The most rigidly conservative members of the Republican National Committee are circulating a proposal to establish a purity test for the party's candidates. If adopted, the party would withhold money from any contender who disagreed...

In the Shadow of Hoover by William Greider in The Nation via CommonDreams.org, 11-24-09 While he was in China, Barack Obama made a bizarre declaration that the US government must reduce its budget deficits in order to avoid "a double-dip recession." The remark was alarming because it...

The Budget Deficit Crisis: The Blame Is Bipartisan by Dean Baker on HuffingtonPost.com via CommonDreams.org, 11-24-09 The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These...

by Leslie Berliant on CommonDreams.org, 11-24-09

Grassroots - adjective of, pertaining to, or involving the common people, esp. as contrasted with or separable from an elite. Astroturf - trademark used for an artificial grass-like ground covering.

In the lead...

by Johanna Neuman in The LA Times via ICH, 11-23-09 David Obey came to Congress in 1969, a young Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, opposed to the Vietnam War and mindful of the funding it was draining from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Thirty years later, he is...