Author: Isaiah Jerome Lewis Poole
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A Declaration To Reset The Education Debate
You may have seen stories about the poor quality of Washington, D.C.’s public schools. You probably have also heard about how Michelle Rhee was brought from near-obscurity to take over the city’s schools, overnight becoming a national symbol of dramatic education “reform.” What you may not have heard is that after years of high-stakes testing…
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AFSCME\’s Lee Saunders on Why Unions Are Needed Now More Than Ever
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees president Lee A. Saunders took to the pages of The Huffington Post this week to call conservatives out on the \”class war\” they are waging against workers and to assert that unions are \”the first and last line of defense for America\’s workers.\” The importance of unions…
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Tell The Senate To Stop Filibustering Affordable College
The Senate on Thursday, in a real sense, filibustered the future. A Republican minority set themselves up as a roadblock against college students struggling to pay for their education and establish financial stability. A narrow, 51-vote majority in the Senate supported legislation that would have kept student loan rates from increasing above 3.4 percent for…
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Social Security Report Takeaway: Keep Calm And Strengthen Benefits
Today the Social Security trustees released their annual report, and regardless of what you might hear otherwise from the chattering class, the underlying message is that there is no need to consider cuts in Social Security or Medicare benefits. In fact, we can and should increase benefits by taking a couple of basic, straightforward steps.…
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Pushing Back Against Austerity: Hickey and Eskow on Pivot Point with Maya Rockeymoore
OurFuture.org\’s Roger Hickey and Richard Eskow explain during their appearance Sunday on \”Pivot Point with Maya Rockeymoore\” what it will take for progressives to win the fight against conservative austerity economic policies that are holding down the economy and preventing the job growth that we need. \”The great thing is that the idea of austerity…
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A Long Cold Summer For Young People Looking For Work
I got my first job while I was in high school through a small community organization run by Willie J. Hardy who operated out of what legendary Washington Post writer William Raspberry described as a \”tiny, hopelessly cluttered quonset hut.\”
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House GOP: 37 Obamacare Repeal Votes, Not One Budget Conference Vote
On Thursday, House Republicans have scheduled a vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Haven\’t they already done that, you ask? Yes, they have, in one form or another, 36 times since it has been enacted. This week\’s vote would make 37. It\’s gotten to the point that today the director of…
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Lift The Millstone of Student Debt That\’s Slowing The Economy
Do you think that student loan debt is only a problem for college students and perhaps their parents? The escalation of student loan debt in the past decade is a millstone around the neck of the entire economy, and you are touched by its effects.
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The \’Party Of No\’ Acts Out Again, Won\’t Even Vote on EPA Nominee
Right-wing obstructionism reached another low today when Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would not even show up to vote today on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be director of the Environmental Protection Agency. The spectacle was the equivalent of the six-year-old, willful diva-to-be slamming the doll on the ground and…
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Rick Perlstein: Questions The Senate Should Ask Penny Pritzker (Video)
We interview Rick Perlstein, a former writer for the Campaign for America\’s Future who now writes for The Nation, about his detailed and deeply troubling two-part examination of President Obama\’s nominee to be Commerce secretary. Penny Pritzker.