PDA National News

Stopping 'The Long War'--What It Demands of Us

Published by Progressives for Obama. The simultaneous conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond are all connected to the Pentagon strategy of "the Long War" projected to last fifty years in "the arc of crisis" that just happens to stretch across Muslim lands where there are oil reserves and plans for Western-dominated pipelines. The term "Long War" was introduced by Gen. John Abizaid in the 1990s and is the perspective of counterinsurgency experts around the Pentagon and think tanks led by the Center for New American Security. [more]

Our Jobless Recovery

Join PDA's Clean, Fair, Transparent Elections Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

This article appeared in the July 13, 2009 edition of The Nation. President Obama just told us that the economic stimulus plan has "already saved or created" 150,000 jobs and that another 450,000 will be "saved or created" by the end of the summer, including 125,000 summer-only jobs for students. It's hard for us to see how this will be the case--we hope it is--but, more important, there's a huge difference between a job that is saved and one that is created. Just ask the 30.2 million workers who are already unemployed. [more]

While the U.S. Dilly Dallies on Honduras, We Continue to Support a Right-Wing Thug in Colombia

Alvaro Uribe could be re-elected through just the type of referendum the ousted Manuel Zelaya has been accused of trying to carry out.

Published by AlterNet. With all eyes suddenly on Honduras over the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya, few were paying attention when President Barack Obama quietly met with Colombian president and staunch U.S. ally Alvaro Uribe this week. [more]

Go Ahead, Tax those Benefits, It's Central to the Health Plan

Take Action: Tell Congress "Let the CBO score and compare HR 676"

Published by The Huffington Post. Enough already on the hand wringing over the plan to start taxing employee health care benefits. The tax is not a threat to the type of reform plan expected to emerge from Congress. It's a central element--to pay for the massive public bailout of the health insurance industry and as a backdoor way to cut costs by discouraging people from seeking medical care. [more]

Public TRICARE Military Health Plan Most Popular in South

Published by the Institute for Southern Studies. In this year's health reform debate, Congressional Democrats quickly took proposals for a single-payer system off the table, claiming it was "unrealistic." But more than 9 million people in the U.S. have already signed on to a single-payer system that's proved both workable and popular: TRICARE, the Department of Defense's program for active-duty military and retirees. [more]

White House Prescription for Corporate Profits

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Published by After Downing Street. President Obama held a town hall on Health Care Reform last Wednesday, broadcast nationwide on ABC with Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer. Once again, even though a majority of the public and now even a majority of doctors in the US favor a single payer system, single payer was still off the table. [more]

The Suppressed Fact: Deaths by U.S. Torture

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Published by Salon. After numerous delays sought by the Obama administration, it is expected that a 2004 CIA Inspector General's Report--aggressively questioning both the efficacy and legality of Bush's interrogation tactics--will be released tomorrow. A heavily redacted version of that document was already released by the Bush administration in response to an ACLU lawsuit and it remains to be seen how much new information will be included in tomorrow's version. [more]

Why I Was Arrested in Coal River, West Virginia

Take Action: Tell Congress "Stop Mountain-top Removal"

Published by The Huffington Post. Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America? Well, have you ever heard of MTR? Don't feel bad, my friends are intelligent, well-read and informed people, but most of them had never heard of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) either. [more]

Abstract Quality Journalism for War

The New York Times used three square inches of newsprint on June 30 to dispatch two U.S. Army soldiers under the headline “Names of the Dead.” Their names--Peter K. Cross and Steven T. Drees--were listed along with hometowns, ranks and ages. Cross was 20 years old. Drees was 19. They were, the newspaper reported, the latest of 706 Americans “who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations.” There wasn’t enough room for any numbers, names or ages of Afghans who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations. That’s the way routine death stories go. But of course no amount of newsprint or airtime can do more than scratch the human surface. Reporting on life is like that, and reporting on death is like that: even more so when the media lenses are ground with ideology, nationalism and economic convenience. [more]

Debating the Public Option

The three founders of the Prospect discuss the perils and promise of a public-insurance option.

Take Action: Tell Congress " Let the CBO score and compare HR 676"

Published by The American Prospect. In "The Perils of the Public Plan," Paul Starr warns that a public-insurance option could turn into exactly the opposite of what progressives want. Here he discusses the problems with the Prospect's two other co-founders, Robert Kuttner and Robert Reich. [more]

The Netroots and the House Progressives: Toward More Progressive Policy

Published by Daily Kos. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has had some successes in recent weeks, particularly in holding the line against the Blue Dogs on a trigger-free public option in health care reform (remember that?). Three weeks ago, they outlined their requirements for a public option in health care reform, and in the ensuing weeks, have reiterated their opposition to any plan that does not include one, along with the black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American caucuses. [more]

Bernie Sanders Demands Democrats Commit To Stopping Health Care Filibuster

Published by The Huffington Post. One of the Senate's most vocal progressives is demanding that the Democratic Party commit to voting against filibustering health care legislation now that, with the impending arrival of Al Franken, the party has 60 caucusing members. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called on the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress to ensure that party members agree unanimously to support cloture on legislation that would revamp the nation's health care system. Democratic senators on the fence, he added, could still oppose the bill. But at the very least they should be required to let the legislation come to an up-or-down vote. [more]

Obama's Public Education Policy: Privatization, Charters, Mass Firings, Neighborhood and Family Destabilization

Published by Black Agenda Report.

“The education policies of America's First Black President Obama's education policies are not discernibly different from those of his Republican predecessor.” Six months into the Obama administration, its stand on public education could not be clearer. Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have bought the entire bipartisan set of anti-democratic and corporate friendly line that “failing” public schools are problems best solved by firing tens of thousands of perfectly competent and experienced teachers, and reorganizing them as charter and other institutions in which organized parents and teachers have no say whatsoever. The education policies of America's First Black President Obama's education policies are not discernibly different from those of his Republican predecessor. Despite the unpopularity of school privatizations and the wholesale replacement of public schools with charters wherever this has been tried, the administration of the First Black President seems able to push the corporate line on privatizing education almost without significant public challenge from large sectors of black and progressive America, including what remains of traditional civil rights-style organizations and teachers unions. [more]

Regulatory Capture: What the Big Banks Have Won

Take Action: Tell Congress "Throw the Wall Street con men in jail"

Published by Counterpunch. The trouble started 24 months ago, but the origins of the financial crisis are still disputed. The problems did not begin with subprime loans, lax lending standards or shoddy ratings agencies. The meltdown can be traced back to the activities of the big banks and their enablers at the Federal Reserve. The Fed's artificially low interest rates provided a subsidy for risky speculation while deregulation allowed financial institutions to increase leverage to perilous levels, creating trillions of dollars of credit backed by insufficient capital reserves. When two Bear Stearns hedge funds defaulted in July 2007, the process of turbo-charging profits through massive credit expansion flipped into reverse sending the financial system into a downward spiral. [more]

A Fight for the Amazon that Should Inspire the World

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The uprising In the Amazon is more urgent than Iran's--it will determine the future of the planet

Published by The Independent. While the world nervously watches the uprising in Iran, an even more important uprising has been passing unnoticed--yet its outcome will shape your fate, and mine. In the depths of the Amazon rainforest, the poorest people in the world have taken on the richest people in the world to defend a part of the ecosystem none of us can live without. They had nothing but wooden spears and moral force to defeat the oil companies--and, for today, they have won. [more]