FDR's 1944 State of the Union Address was a landmark statement of a comprehensive definition of American freedom. In the 1930's and 1940's the right-wing Liberty League, founded by the Du Pont's and other wealthy industrialists, articulated a freedom from the "abusive powers of government" as their central cause. Today it's ALEC, American's for Prosperity, the Tea Party and other corporate sponsored groups that pretend to stand for freedom and liberty.
Coalitions in Missouri, Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts have launched campaigns to increase the minimum wage in their states. Students in the city of San Jose, California collected thirty thousand signatures to put a minimum wage hike on the city’s November ballot.
Two hundred and thirty six years ago, in January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, the wildly popular pamphlet that made the case for American freedom and helped to spark a revolution.
By Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen Grover Norquist is fast becoming the man everyone loves to hate – except those who fear him. Norquist, the leader of Americans for Tax Reform, is both the architect and enforcer of the Republican Party’s obsessive opposition to all taxes – an obsession that threatens to drive America off a fiscal cliff.
Every Republican running for president (except John Huntsman) has signed Norquist’s no-tax pledge. So have 13 governors, 1,300 state legislators, 40 of the 47 Republicans in the Senate, and 236 of the 242 Republicans in the House.
Major food manufacturers are readying their next attack on nutrition by calling proposed food marketing guidelines "job killers" that will devastate the American economy.
Earlier this month, thirty-six House Republicans filed an amicus court brief to support corporate America’s war on workers’ rights. They are embracing a suit filed by the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Restaurant Association , and other business lobbies to block a new ruling by the National Labor Relations Board.
This ruling, by one of those out-of-control federal government agencies, could be devastating to the job-creating corporations that are the engine of the American economy. Just listen to those who should know:
“The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is causing great uncertainty among manufacturers at a time when our economy is struggling to recover,” Jay Timmons, President and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, recently warned.
