Allied Approaches

Federal unemployment assistance for 1.3 million people who have been unemployed longer than 26 weeks expired last Saturday, after Republicans blocked efforts to extend them. 3.6 million more people will lose these benefits over this year. Restoring these benefits is a moral, economic and political imperative.

What would you do if someone called you a whore? What if that person was referring to your co-worker, your wife, your sister or even your daughter?

The Family and Medical Leave Act helps protect families from making the choice between their families or their jobs in times of crisis, but still does not mandate paid sick leave when a person takes time off due to illness. The movement toward universal paid family leave is gaining strength, however, and would alleviate many of the burdens a critical illness can cause.

While the Treasury Department could prioritize interest payments after October 17 — the day the Treasury Department says it no longer has legal authority to pay the nation’s debts — and not pay Social Security and Medicare, this would buy a few days at most. Meanwhile, interest rates will soar, stock prices will plummet, the global economy will begin spiraling downward, and millions of Americans wouldn’t receive their Social Security and Medicare.

Why are the Tea Party Republicans so desperate to defund ObamaCare right now? Because they know that once it is fully implemented, it will be impossible to take away the many benefits of ObamaCare. It is one thing to prevent something good from being passed by Congress. It’s quite another to take something away from the voters.

Over 21 million people are in need of full-time work. Wages are stagnant. The too-big-to-fail banks are bigger and more concentrated than ever. The wealthiest Americans have captured virtually all of the rewards of growth, while most Americans have yet to experience any recovery. Now the Republican Party in the Congress is concocting another manufactured budget crisis.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will be one of the keynote speakers at the AFL-CIO 2013 National Convention in Los Angeles from Sept. 8–11. Here are 12 key quotes from her that show why she is a champion of the 99%.

In America we tend to look down on Third World autocrats who siphon their country’s wealth into their personal Swiss bank accounts at the expense of their citizens. But we have our own class of kleptocrats that in many ways behave the same way — and often with the same result.

The Radical Rightwing is licking their chops over the economic and financial failure of what was once the great city of Detroit, at one time perhaps the greatest industrial city in the world. Lavish pensions and much too powerful unions destroyed Detroit they crow on Fox News.

The American Association of Manufacturers is calling on the President and Congress to make good on promises to boost manufacturing jobs in the United States, specifically the Administration's promise to create one million of those jobs by the end of Obama's tenure.