WASHINGTON – Unlimited outside spending fueled by a small number of wealthy donors is poised to have an outsized impact on the 2012 elections, according to the latest campaign filings.
This Thursday August 2nd at 11am, national public policy organizations Demos and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) will hold a press call to announce the major findings from the new report “Million-Dollar Megaphones: Super PACs and Unlimited Outside Spending in the 2012 Elections.”
The newest GDP release shows an increase of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012, down from a 1.9 percent growth in the first quarter and three percent growth in 2011. But, as Demos continually asks in our Beyond GDP work: What exactly is GDP measuring?
SANTA FE— A new report released today reveals how New Mexico’s economy is at risk for serious damage as the climate change crisis grows graver. New Mexico, the report explains, is particularly vulnerable to water shortages and increased forest fires due to the impacts from climate change.
Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law protecting people with disabilities from discrimination in public spaces and work places, among others. In 2010, nearly 1 in 5, or 56.7 million, Americans had a disability, according to a report released by the Census Bureau yesterday.
As early as today, the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives will be bringing H.R. 4078, the so-called “Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act” up for a vote. Like so much of what passes for legislation in Congress these days, this legislation is more a statement of philosophy than a thought out piece of policy.
Thank you for this opportunity to submit testimony regarding the damage that Citizens United and the rise of Super PACs has done to our system of democratic government. In the text below I will discuss why rules that govern the role of money in politics are important to our democracy; the impact of Citizens United and related decisions on our electoral system; and what Congress can and must do to promote the core American value of political equality.
As we pointed out a few weeks ago, man-made climate change will make extreme weather events much more likely going forward and we are facing a pretty serious one now. More than half of the continental U.S.
Work as a hotel housekeeper isn’t an easy job under any circumstances. For more than 400,000 predominantly female and immigrant workers, the work means lifting heavy mattresses, stretching to clean high surfaces, and often scrubbing bathroom floors on hands and knees. Full-time workers earn just $21,000 a year, on average.
The days between the Fourth of July and Bastille Day on the 14th are known for fireworks on both sides of the Atlantic. This year, more rockets and firecrackers than usual were going off, but they were inside hearing rooms in the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress. Barclays bank announced that it had been fined more than $450 million by regulators from both countries, and its CEO, Robert E. Diamond Jr., and COO, Jerry del Missier, both resigned. The fines were part of a settlement that granted Barclays immunity from potentially worse punishment for its manipulation of interest rates.
How will Marissa Mayer’s pregnancy play out? Will the new Yahoo chief executive find that it’s not so easy to power through a maternity leave? Or will she spend just a few short weeks at home — working all the while, as she promised in an interview — and thus set the bar high for future pregnant executives of Fortune 500 companies? What should the new “it” mom-to-be do?
For all the talk about the need for voter-identification laws, you’d think millions of Americans were impersonating dead people to get their candidates elected, or casting multiple ballots after breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
One of the big questions environmentalists struggle with is whether there should be a price on nature. For some things, like the cost savings that are realized through cleaner air or water, there is a rote calculation that can be done to price out environmental and health benefits. But, if you think of nature as an independent entity having a worth beyond what it can provide to humans, how do you put a price on it? How much is the Amazon River or the Himalayan mountain range worth?
WASHINGTON, DC – Last night, the DISCLOSE Act which would shine a light on the dark money dominating our democracy was defeated on the Senate floor. Although it received a majority of votes it failed to overcome a filibuster from Senator McConnell.
How to value the economic role that natural resources play and incorporate some of these external costs so that not only are we aware of the impacts, we can begin to start incorporate them into pricing.
Every day brings more reminders of the terrible unfairness that besets our country, the tragic reversal of fortune experienced by millions who once had good lives and steady jobs, now gone.
An article in the current issue of Rolling Stone chronicles “The Fallen: The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class” and describes a handful of middle-class men and women made homeless, forced to live out of their cars in church parking lots in Southern California.
The think tank Demos has been doing a really stellar job commemorating the anniversary of Michael Harrington’s “The Other America” — as mentioned in my poverty charts post yesterday — and their best item so far is this series of beautiful interactive charts illustrating the state of poverty in America:
Following up on our last post on the link between climate change and extreme weather, a new scientific study was released that found that manmade climate change increases the probability of extreme weather patterns. The study was a joint effort between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S. and the Met Office in the U.K.
Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, documenting – among the many ravages of poverty – that millions of children in the richest country on earth went to bed hungry every night. His book inspired two Democratic presidents, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, to launch a war on poverty, then estimated at more than 20 percent of the population.
NEW YORK – Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington's classic exposé The Other America blew open the reality of widespread poverty in the United States, and while it paved the way for policies that have improved the lives of millions of Americans, the problem persists today. Today, Demos and The American Prospect are co-hosting a conference and launching an interactive data visualization to examine why proven solutions to poverty are going unheeded, leaving 46.1 million Americans in poverty in 2010.
Since 2008, working families have done everything they can to get by – changing spending habits, paying down debt, taking on 2nd (or 3rd jobs), digging into savings and retirement funds, and even cutting back on medical care – but they’re still falling behind.