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Dave Johnson
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"Dave Johnson is a fantastic grandfather of the blogosphere." -- Mike Stark, BraveNewFilms.com


Dave Johnson is a Fellow with Campaign for America's Future and a Senior Fellow with Renew California.


Dave is founder and principal author at Seeing the Forest, and a blogger at Speak Out California. He is a frequent public speaker, talk-radio personality and a leading participant in the progressive blogging community.


Before starting Seeing the Forest, Dave had over 20 years of technology industry experience. Recently he helped co-found Carbon Tracing, Inc., the company developing the desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US. He previously held senior industry positions including CEO and VP of Sales and Marketing. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic, and he was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. Send e-mail to Dave. Twitter: http://twitter.com/dcjohnson

Blog Entries by Dave Johnson

The Latest Lie: IRS Targeted Conservatives

(13) Comments | Posted May 21, 2013 | 12:10 PM

Remember the video of the guy in the "pimp costume" who got advice from ACORN employees on how to run his prostitution ring? Turns out the whole story was just a lie, a doctored-video smear job on an important organization. The guy never wore a "pimp costume" and the real,...

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Apple Avoiding Billions and Billions of Dollars in Taxes

(15) Comments | Posted May 20, 2013 | 6:06 PM

Apple (like many giant, multinational corporations) has been avoiding paying the taxes they owe to the country by setting up foreign "subsidiaries" in tax-haven countries, and moving jobs and profit centers out of the country. They have accumulated billions upon billions of dollars in these tax havens. Now they want...

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Upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership Looks Like Corporate Takeover

(33) Comments | Posted May 15, 2013 | 1:24 AM

You will be hearing a lot about the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. TPP's negotiations are being held in secret with details kept secret even from our Congress. But giant corporations are in the loop.

TPP is a "trade" agreement between several Pacific-rim countries that is actually about...

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This Week's Opportunity to Get Our Labor Board Operating Again

(10) Comments | Posted May 13, 2013 | 10:50 AM

President Obama has nominated five people to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Two are Republicans. All are waiting for confirmation by the Senate. Let your senators know these nominees should be confirmed so the NLRB can get back to work.

What Is The NLRB?

The NLRB is the

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Zero Manufacturing Jobs Added -- Zero

(332) Comments | Posted May 5, 2013 | 11:15 AM

President Obama set a goal of 1 million new manufacturing jobs in his second term. Last month we added zero. Not one. Nada. Zip. We did add low-wage jobs, though. Maybe we can talk about a national manufacturing strategy now?

A Million Manufacturing Jobs?

In the 2012 campaign...

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March Trade Deficit Better -- Why This Matters More Than Budget Deficit

(24) Comments | Posted May 2, 2013 | 3:25 PM

The trade deficit fell to "only" $38.8 billion in March. This could mean that manufacturing is starting to shift from China (good) -- or it could mean our economy is slowing and we just aren't buying as much as we would have (not so good). It is also because we...

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What Does It Mean To Be An "American" Corporation?

(45) Comments | Posted April 25, 2013 | 8:21 PM

What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be an American corporation? An article in the Wall Street Journal the other day should trigger questions like these.

WSJ: Domestic-Based Multinationals Hiring Overseas,

Multinational companies based in the U.S. boosted their global work forces in...
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Minimum Wage Raise Essential to Fix Our Economy

(129) Comments | Posted April 19, 2013 | 1:51 PM

The Walton (Walmart) heirs now have as much wealth as up to 40 percent of all Americans combined, and Walmart's sales have been slowing down. What does the first fact have to do with the second?

The top 1 percent now rakes in 20 percent of the nation's income...

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Republicans Accuse Labor Nominee of Fighting for Civil Rights

(18) Comments | Posted April 17, 2013 | 10:10 PM

Where does the Republican Party put its energy? On anything that furthers the interests of the wealthiest. Tax cuts and kicking government are right at the top of that list*. Also near the top comes blocking minimum wage increases, blocking workplace safety rules and keeping lots of people unemployed so...

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Will Social Security Cuts Be the Democratic Party's 'New Coke'?

(20) Comments | Posted April 15, 2013 | 7:05 PM

All the smartest people in the executive suites just knew that the taste of Coca-Cola needed "reform." Rival Pepsi was advertising to the "New Generation" and Coke's executives came to believe their product wasn't what the "cool" people wanted to drink. Everyone they talked to at the executive-level strategery seminars,...

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Fight This New Push to Lower Corporate Taxes

(28) Comments | Posted April 2, 2013 | 1:40 PM

There is a big push going on to again reduce tax rates for the giant multinational corporations. See if you can guess who will make up the difference? (Hint: it will be you paying through cuts, and smaller companies that are trying to challenge the incumbency of the giant multinationals.)

...
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Austerity Lovers in DC, Austerity Haters at Home

(8) Comments | Posted March 29, 2013 | 12:11 PM

In Washington, austerity-hungry Republicans called the sequester's "across the board" spending cuts a "victory" -- until their districts feel them. Then they complain about the cuts, but still demand cuts somewhere else and add new demands that someone ELSE decide what should be cut. This is because Republicans talk about...

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Surprising Studies Find DC Does What Wealthiest Want, Majority Opposes

(6) Comments | Posted March 28, 2013 | 2:34 PM

A new study, Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans, by Professors Benjamin I. Page, Jason Seawright and Larry M. Bartels, sought to gauge the political and policy priorities of the wealthy, and...

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Beware the New Corporate Tax-Cut Scam: LIFT Is A Big LIE

(16) Comments | Posted March 22, 2013 | 3:55 PM

First it was Fix the Debt, with tax-dodging corporations "leading the charge for massive new corporate tax cuts paid for with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid." Now there's a new "LIFT America coalition," pushing for massive, massive corporate tax cuts, without bothering about cutting benefits....

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Important Bipartisan Currency Bill Introduced in House

(14) Comments | Posted March 20, 2013 | 6:18 PM

A new bill was introduced in the House today to fight currency manipulation, including China's. The bipartisan Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act was introduced by Representatives Sander Levin (D-MI), Tim Murphy (R-PA), Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Mo Brooks (R-AL). This bill would treat undervalued currency as a subsidy under...

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72000+ to 2: "Wired for Republican" Media Ignores CPC/Dem Back-to-Work Budget

(2) Comments | Posted March 13, 2013 | 4:49 PM

They say that Washington, D.C. and the major media are "wired for Republicans." Steve Benen explains how this works:

... week in and week out, this debate is dominated by voices from only one party.

A couple of years ago, Josh Marshall talked about how the Washington establishment is...

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DC Should Talk About Fixing the Trade Deficit

(110) Comments | Posted March 6, 2013 | 10:23 AM

The economy is not working for We, the People. But even with $4 trillion already cut from deficit projections, a deficit drop of about 50 percent as a share of gross domestic product, and Congressional Budget Office projections that the deficit is stable for the next 10...

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Bob the Businessman: An American Success Story

(10) Comments | Posted February 27, 2013 | 6:40 PM

This is the story of Bob The businessman.

Suppose a local businessman, let's call him Bob, went around town raising money from the townspeople to open a car dealership. Dozens and dozens of people in town invested, putting in $1,000, $5,000, and a few putting in as much as...

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You Should Be Outraged By What Is Being Done to Our Postal Service

(404) Comments | Posted February 11, 2013 | 10:49 PM

You are probably hearing that the Post Office is "in crisis" and is cutting back Saturday delivery, laying people off, closing offices, etc. Like so many other "crises" imposed on us lately, there is a lot to the story that you are not hearing from the "mainstream" media. (Please...

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Fix the Trade Deficit, Fix the Economy

(148) Comments | Posted February 8, 2013 | 10:50 AM

Yet another report is out showing how the trade deficit is costing us millions of jobs and hurting our economy. This report has specific numbers: between 2.2 million and 4.7 million U.S. jobs, between 1 percent and 2.1 percent of the unemployment rate and a gross domestic product increase of...

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