Robert Reich – Are Trade Deals Good for America?

Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are blaming free-trade deals for the decline of working-class jobs and incomes. Are they right? Clearly, America has lost a significant number of factory jobs over the last three decades. In 1980, 1 in 5 Americans worked in manufacturing. Now it’s 1 in 12. Today Ohio has a third fewer manufacturing jobs than it had in 2000. Michigan is down 32 …

Rising Seas on Path to Devastate Coastal US Cities Home to 13 Million

U.S. coastal communities, home to more than 13 million people, are at risk of being completely flooded by rising sea levels within the century under a worst-case climate change scenario, new research publishedMonday reveals. In a scenario involving a 6ft rise by 2100, a total of 13.1 million people—more than 6 million of whom would be living in Florida—would be at risk …

Eric Zuesse – Proof that Ignorance Drives Hillary Clinton’s Voters

Although no organization that predictively polls the Democratic Presidential primaries has sampled the question (or its equivalent) “What is the most important reason why you prefer that candidate?” the assumption by political pundits has always been that, regarding Hillary Clinton voters, perhaps the most important reason for their choice of Clinton over Sanders is that she would be a stronger …

Dr. Jill Stein on the Democratic Party and Electoral Chances for Real Change

“The course of recent events has made it apparent we need to go outside of the Democratic Party to effect real change,” Dr. Jill Stein said in a phone interview last week. American politics is a two party system. The country is roughly split down geographic lines that mirror an ideological divide: urban liberal elites versus rural conservative populists. Democrats versus Republicans. …

Dave Johnson – “Free Trade”: The Elites Are Selling It But The Public Is Longer Buying

“Free trade”: The elites are selling it but the public is longer buying it. Look at the support for Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump, especially in light of Sanders’ surprise 20-point comeback in this week’s Michigan primary. With primaries coming soon in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina, will Sanders’ trade appeal resonate again? Voters See Free Trade …

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR – ALEXANDER COCKBURN – Clintons, Contras and Cocaine

The political rise of the Clintons has been monetarily fueled by a man linked to one of the biggest banking scandals in the nation’s history. Arkansas financier and political king-maker Jackson Stephens, with his son Warren, helped raise more than $100,000 for Clinton. More important, Stephens’ Worthen National Bank extended Bill Clinton a $2 million line of credit in January 1992, …

DAVID ROSEN – Corruption, USA

The game is rigged — you know it, I know it and so does a growing number of Americans know it. A recent Gallup poll found that in 2014 three in four Americans (75%) acknowledged corruption was widespread throughout the U.S. government. More revealing, it noted that over the last decade this perception increased; in 2007 and 2009, it was at two …

Alanis Morissette, – Feminism Needs a Revolution

ften when I’m being interviewed about my career and music, I’m asked whether I am a feminist. What the interviewer means depends on who’s doing the asking and what their take on the feminist movement is. Sometimes it’s rhetorical. Other times, a thinly veiled indictment. My answer is always yes. I have never been apologetic about this, but rather deeply …

Sam Sacks and Sam Knight – “Broken Promises”: How Congressional Democrats Are Pushing the TPP to the Brink

Barack Obama might come to regretbranding the Trans-Pacific Partnership as “the most progressive trade deal in history.” A meaningless distinction from inception (the WTO and NAFTA set low benchmarks), Congressional Dems disputed the talking point in 2015 to devastating effect. As a result of their prodding from the left, the TPP looks far more in doubt than it ought to at …

Gaius Publius – The Goal of the Neo-Liberal Consensus Is to Manage the Decline

If you think of the country as in decline, as most people do, and you think the cause is the predatory behavior of the big-money elites, as most people do, then you must know you have only two choices — acceptance and resistance. Why do neo-liberal Democrats, like the Clinton campaign, not want you to have big ideas, like single-payer …