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...

Just over a year after the financial meltdown spurred government bailouts, loans and guarantees worth a staggering $17.5 trillion to the financial industry, leaders in the field are finally paying consumers back.

How? They're fighting hard against a Consumer Financial Protection Agency and gutting what reform advocates say...

Rachel Maddow last night took on corporate PR maestro Rick Berman. Berman has established a bevy of anti-reform "non-profit" websites that enable him to attack everything from ACORN to unions to Mothers Against Drunk Driving while defending trans-fats, lowering the minimum wage and high fructose corn syrup as good...

Republicans reacted wtih outrage last week after Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) offered a blistering attack on the nearly-invisible Republican healthcare proposals: "The Republican health care plan is this: Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly."

Unfortunately, the White House isn't doing all it can to...

The selection Wednesday of Richard Trumka as president of the AFL-CIO could add a harder progressive edge to the tough drives for health care and economic reform facing progressives and the Obama administration. At the same time, he was joined in the top AFL-CIO leadership ranks by two women:...

So much for the economic independence that's supposed to come with young adulthood.

But when unemployment among young men workers is the highest it's been in 61 years, as noted by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, it's little wonder that workers under 35 are facing so many...

When health facilities ignore the quality-of-care concerns of nurses, whether involving nurse-patient staffing ratios or infection control practices, people die or get ill needlessly.

Now, as reported by the AFL-CIO Now blog, those dangers now face patients who are expected to seek treatment for swine flu/H1N1...

Last week, Glenn Beck supplemented his racist pandering by picking up the hoary right-wing talking point that both health care and labor reform would "murder" small businesses. Defending small businesses, in fact, is the last refuge of big businesses and their right-wing allies just defending their profit...

In the wake of the administration's signaling that it was willing to drop the public option, progressive groups, unions and liberal Democrats came out strongly for the key reform measure Monday. But will there be enough grass-roots activism to save the public option that a...

While the "astro-turf" generated anger targeting health reform continued to grab headlines, Democrats and progressives are pushing back on several fronts. Their counter-punching includes everything from massive ad buys to pro-reform viral emails to aggressive PR about productive Congressional Town Hall meetings that featured...

With President Obama scheduled to promote health insurance reform at a Town Hall-style meeting in New Hampshire, both the network of lobbyist-fueled "tea-party" activists and progressives supporting reform are ramping up their organizing. Expect massive, and potentially ugly, right-wing protests outside the hall, while Secret Service and...

The generally well-reviewed broadcast Monday of HBO's Nine Lives of Marion Barry shows just how riveting real-life melodramas can be. The rise and fall of Marion Barry from civil-rights activist to crack-smoking mayor to a councilman still dogged by drug, tax and corruption charges illustrates the unique...

With lobbyist-backed GOP mobs working to shut down town hall meetings on health reform with members of Congress, labor and progressive groups are fighting back on several fronts. The orchestrated mob scenes have already led to reported death threats against at least one congressman and

The fate of health care reform could be determined by progressive and labor groups' ability to fight right-wing lies and health industry lobbying against health care reform during the August Congressional recess. But even as debunked smears continue, such as the claim the bill aims...