Congressional Democrats are sending strong signals that they want to see more leadership from the President on health care reform.

But progressive groups, Democrats and unions also haven't coalesced behind a clear strategy to move now-stalled health care reform forward, or to convince...

It's not just New Orleans residents and Saints fans who have reason to cheer Sunday's victory, but some -- if not all -- hotel, club and restaurant owners in Miami-Dade's tourist mecca, Miami Beach, even if the influx of Super Bowl visitors wasn't all that they'd hoped...

The centrist natives of Washington are banding together to defend their faith-based totem: the wildly unpopular excise tax on high-cost health plans.

They and some of their academic allies are reciting mantras in editorial pages and

House members are continuing their strong opposition to the Senate excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" plans that a growing number of economists and labor unions say would raise costs for middle-class families and wouldn't "bend the cost curve," as proponents say. At the same time, as Huffington...

The biggest remaining progressive battle over health care reform hasn't yet been fought: the conflict between the House and Senate versions on how to pay for reform. Yet in the eyes of most editorial pages and policy wonks, taxing working families' benefits somehow makes more...

With heavy defections from Blue Dog Democrats, the House of Representatives still narrowly passed Wednesday evening 217 to 212 a $154 billion jobs package. It included funds for states to retain front-line workers, aid to the unemployed and transportation projects.

But a jobs bill...

From reading the headlines Tuesday on President Obama's jobs program, you might think that all the President has to do is to tap into the unexpected $200 billion in remaining TARP bailout funds in order to save American jobs. He supposedly could then just spend...

Today's White House job summit on the unemployment crisis won't be directly addressing one of its most serious side-effects: the rising tide of foreclosures and evictions across the country. With this week's announcement by the Treasury Department of new efforts to pressure lenders to lower mortgage costs, progressive...

With the economy still reeling from unemployment at 10.2% , Democrats and progressives are battling a barrage of GOP-driven misinformation about the first $787 billion stimulus plan as they look to create a new, targeted, fast-acting jobs program, possibly before Christmas.

Aiming to cash in --...

What happens if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can't get the votes he needs from conservaDems and Joe Lieberman to shut down a filibuster before a final vote on health care reform?

For months, many strategically savvy progressives have pointed to the obscure budget reconciliation process...

Democratic leaders yesterday sent their strongest signals yet that they were eager to pass a jobs creation and benefits-extension package to help stop the economic and political bleeding caused by a 10 percent official unemployment rate, the worst in a generation.

They have to promote...

SEIU President Andy Stern is joining hundreds of progressives -- and potentially more -- in a newly organized protest outside the Washington, D.C. offices of Goldman Sachs on Monday at noon. SEIU is part of a co-sponsoring coalition, Americans For Financial Reform, that also includes other unions, such...

WASHINGTON -- Sources close to God reported Thursday that the Supreme Being was angered at recent comments by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein that's he's just a banker "doing God's work." Blankfein's comments, God and other experts believe, stand in sharp contrast to the firm's track record as...

Today, the centrist lobbying powerhouse for the elderly, the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP), is scheduled to endorse the House health care bill despite its possibly flawed public option. Still, the House bill is winning high marks from a growing number of influential progressives for...

Is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner the new champion of real financial reform, fighting to rein in Wall Street and the big banks? That's the impression you might get when seeing the largely fawning coverage he's received lately from mainstream media outlets, such NBC's Meet the Press or Time...

The unveiling last week of new health reform bills by House and Senate leaders has focused most public and media attention on the scope of the public option. But, in truth, neither the House nor Senate versions of that measure could offer the extensive, affordable coverage that reformers are hoping...

With the capital being torn apart by partisan fighting over everything from health care reform to Afghanistan, the last two weeks in Washington, D.C have seen a bonanza of comic talent descend on a laugh-starved city. Thanks to the Bentzen Ball organized by blogger hipsters-turned-entrepeneurs Brightest Young Things...

On the same day that Senator Harry Reid announced that the Senate would consider an "opt-out" public option, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka reminded Democrats to hold to basic progressive goals in pushing for reform. He told reporters Monday in a conference call, "We cannot be in favor of...

Taxpayers and working families losing their jobs and their homes "will not benefit" from the huge $700 billion TARP bailout that saved banks and Wall Street firms a year ago, the Treasury Department's Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky reported Wednesday. As he told CBS News and the...

Even under President Obama, the gridlocked National Labor Relations Board is still broken in responding to anti-union abuses. A case in point: After nearly 20 years of a protracted legal battle, four construction unions finally reached a settlement with Flour Daniel, Inc. over its practice of discriminating against union...