Arturo de los Santos, a 46-year-old Marine who lives in Riverside, California, doesn't usually listen to National Public Radio, but a friend told him to pay attention to a disturbing report broadcast Monday on NPR's "Morning Edition." The report disclosed that Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage...

"I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death," Frank Luntz, an influential GOP pollster and strategist, warned the Republican Governors Association at a meeting in Florida last month, referring to the Occupy movement. "They're having an impact on what the American people think of...

Even though their encampments have been dismantled, the ripple effects of the Occupy Wall Street movement are being felt throughout the country, including in the Republican Party's presidential primaries. As the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny wrote on Saturday, "Mitt Romney has spent days defending himself against accusations...

At the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Muhammad Ali suddenly appeared on a platform in the stadium. Janet Evans, a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming, passed the heavy Olympic torch to Ali. Shaking from Parkinson's disease and perhaps from nervousness, he stood for a moment acknowledging...

With one statement on Thursday, Newt Gingrich, who constantly reminds voters about his past as a college professor, managed to mangle the facts while resorting to old-fashioned racist stereotypes to gain votes. With his poll numbers sinking, and his presidential campaign desperate, Gingrich told a crowd at a...

Through a story of personal tragedy and the virtues of small-town life, voluntarism, and compassion, the New York Times' David Brooks has written a column that unwittingly exposes our nation's outrageous cruelty and callousness.

In his December 30 column, "Going Home Again," Brooks tells the story of...

After five weeks, Harvard students just evacuated the tents they had pitched on campus as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Their protest helped persuade the university to raise wages and benefits for the college custodians. The students intend to continue their activism by other means, focusing on issues...

As a House back-bencher and then as Speaker, Newt Gingrich made his name as a fiery opponent of wasteful government spending. But, in fact, he was one of Congress's biggest spenders.

Gingrich's big-spending habit is perhaps the most important, but the least-known, of his many hypocrisies. When...

Criticized for focusing more on what it is against than what it is for, the Occupy Wall Street movement has now found an organizing issue it can embrace. Perhaps because so many Occupiers have recently been evicted from their encampments in cities across the country, they have found common cause...

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 Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has changed our national conversation. At kitchen tables, in coffee shops, in offices and factories, and in newsrooms, Americans are now talking about economic inequality, corporate greed, and how America's super-rich have damaged our economy and our democracy.

The wide gulf between...

The "audacity" and "hope" that inspired lots of Americans to participate in the Obama campaign in 2008 seems to have re-emerged with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Many observers view this new phenomenon as the progressive counterpart to the Tea Party. There are some important similarities and some significant differences....

Much of the recent commentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement focuses on whether or not this radical movement will be "co-opted" by the unions, or the Democratic Party, or other liberal forces. This seems to be the concern of many academic lefties and activists, who are quick to warn...

The protesters challenging the big banks and the super-rich won a dramatic victory in Los Angeles on Thursday, as I describe below. OneWest Bank, the biggest bank based in Southern California, and Fannie Mae, stopped their foreclosure and eviction against Rose Gudiel, a working class homeowner, in response...

Two years ago, when Steven Mnuchin moved to Los Angeles to become CEO of OneWest Bank, he sold his five-bedroom duplex co-op apartment for $9 million. The New York Times said that the apartment at 740 Park Avenue was "one of the most prestigious addresses in New York."...

Rose Gudiel is on the front lines of a growing protest movement to stop banks from foreclosing on families victimized by the economic crisis and abusive banking practices.

The 35-year old Gudiel, who juggles two jobs and lives with her parents and brother in La Puente, a working class suburb...

On his radio show last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned that rising unemployment and poverty in the United States are a ticking time bomb that could explode in a wave of riots.

"You have a lot of kids graduating college can't find jobs," Bloomberg...

Progressives and liberals should hope that before he delivers his speech to Congress next Thursday, President Barack Obama channels the fictional President Andrew Shepherd in the film The American President.

In the 1995 movie, President Shepherd (a young liberal Democrat and widower, played by Michael Douglas) abandons support for a...

For the past eight months, Wisconsin has been ground zero in the battle over liberal vs. conservative values. The state's workers, their families, and their allies have been fighting for their lives against an assault led by Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Throughout their struggle, President Barack Obama has been sitting...