SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
U.S. President Joe Biden walks into the U.S. Capitol building with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for a meeting with House Democrats on the continued negotiations over the domestic spending Bills before the President departs for Europe on October 28, 2021 in Washington, DC. President Biden is heading to Rome where he will meet with leaders from the G20 as well as the Pope in the Vatican as Democrats are continuing internal negotiations about his administration's social policy spending bill. (Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
'Hold the Line': Progressives Push to Block Vote on Weaker Bill Without Final Text of Build Back Better
"By holding firm on keeping the Build Back Better Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill firmly linked, progressives are giving their colleagues in the Senate the space and the leverage to negotiate the strongest package possible."
Oct 28, 2021
As President Joe Biden arrived on Capitol Hill to meet with Democratic leadership and caucus members on how to finalize agreement on a pair of bills designed to fix the nation's physical and care-giving infrastructure systems, progressive advocates mobilized Thursday to make sure lawmakers do not fully cave to the pressure of corporate lobbyists who have swarmed Congress over recent months to kill key aspects of the Build Back Better Act's social investment programs like Medicare expansion, paid family leave, bold climate action, elder care, and lower drug costs.
With the possibility for a vote on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIF) possible as early as later in the day, Indivisible issued a call to action via email Thursday morning and told its members: "If the Democrats let conservatives push through BIF without also passing the reconciliation package (that's the one that covers healthcare, climate, childcare, and more), we are going to squander our trifecta and accomplish nothing. We can't let Democrats cave. That's why it is urgent you call your representatives and tell them to vote no on the BIF until they've passed an inclusive recovery bill that works for everyone."
\u201cAbsolutely not. Progressives will support the infrastructure bill once there's a vote on Build Back Better -- like the White House and Congress agreed at the start of this process.\n\nPlease contact your representative and tell them to temporarily vote no: https://t.co/jNEPKYybWV\u201d— Indivisible Guide (@Indivisible Guide) 1635429905
While Biden was expected to push a scaled-back $1.75 trillion deal during the meeting with congressional Democrats, Indivisible warned that if the BIF is passed without final and firm guarantees, Democrats "will lose the much-needed leverage we had to pass our full Build Back Better plan--and Americans can't afford to lose Build Back Better."
The bipartisan deal isn't necessarily bad, the group explained, "it's just too small to meet the moment, which is why it needs to be paired with the full Build Back Better reconciliation package. Passing all of Build Back Better would mean expanding access to affordable healthcare and child care, making investments in a strong climate strategy, creating a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants and migrants, investing in housing, especially affordable housing and housing for unhoused populations, ensuring paid family and medical leave for every worker nationwide, and so much more. In short, it would help everyone."
In a joint statement, dozens of national, state, and local organizations--including Indivisible, Our Revolution, People's Action, Greenpeace USA, and others--offered a similar message Thursday morning.
"We are fully behind the Progressive Caucus as it holds the line for the biggest, boldest reconciliation package possible. Over the last year, progressives in Congress have played a crucial role keeping the Build Back Better Act on track, even in the face of a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by big business to kill it in its cradle," the groups said.
"Now we're in the home stretch," the statement continued. "By holding firm on keeping the Build Back Better Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill firmly linked, progressives are giving their colleagues in the Senate the space and the leverage to negotiate the strongest package possible."
Just ahead of a full Democratic caucus meeting with Biden mid-morning, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, reiterated to reporters that there is no deal that she and her members have agreed to and that both bills must be finalized before one can possibly be reached.
\u201cWe will deliver both the infrastructure package and the Build Back Better Act to people across America \u2014 but we can't do that if we don\u2019t even have a bill. \n\nWe won\u2019t risk leaving working families and our communities behind.\u201d— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1635428700
Also ahead of the meeting, campaigners with the progressive group People's Watch and others said that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called on them to "hold the line" outside so that she and her progressive colleagues in the House could do the same from inside. "You holding the line out here helps us hold the line in there," Ocasio-Cortez said.
\u201c.@aoc gave us marching orders: #holdtheline out here so she can hold the line in there.\u201d— People\u2019s Watch (@People\u2019s Watch) 1635427377
"With so much happening in Congress right now, it is crucial that we have all hands on deck," said Indivisible in its missive. "Congress must deliver on Biden's full recovery agenda. The recovery package is an essential, must-pass bill that will help pretty much everybody in the entire country--we can't let conservatives tank it. We have to do everything we can to get it passed."
An Unconstitutional Rampage
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
As President Joe Biden arrived on Capitol Hill to meet with Democratic leadership and caucus members on how to finalize agreement on a pair of bills designed to fix the nation's physical and care-giving infrastructure systems, progressive advocates mobilized Thursday to make sure lawmakers do not fully cave to the pressure of corporate lobbyists who have swarmed Congress over recent months to kill key aspects of the Build Back Better Act's social investment programs like Medicare expansion, paid family leave, bold climate action, elder care, and lower drug costs.
With the possibility for a vote on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIF) possible as early as later in the day, Indivisible issued a call to action via email Thursday morning and told its members: "If the Democrats let conservatives push through BIF without also passing the reconciliation package (that's the one that covers healthcare, climate, childcare, and more), we are going to squander our trifecta and accomplish nothing. We can't let Democrats cave. That's why it is urgent you call your representatives and tell them to vote no on the BIF until they've passed an inclusive recovery bill that works for everyone."
\u201cAbsolutely not. Progressives will support the infrastructure bill once there's a vote on Build Back Better -- like the White House and Congress agreed at the start of this process.\n\nPlease contact your representative and tell them to temporarily vote no: https://t.co/jNEPKYybWV\u201d— Indivisible Guide (@Indivisible Guide) 1635429905
While Biden was expected to push a scaled-back $1.75 trillion deal during the meeting with congressional Democrats, Indivisible warned that if the BIF is passed without final and firm guarantees, Democrats "will lose the much-needed leverage we had to pass our full Build Back Better plan--and Americans can't afford to lose Build Back Better."
The bipartisan deal isn't necessarily bad, the group explained, "it's just too small to meet the moment, which is why it needs to be paired with the full Build Back Better reconciliation package. Passing all of Build Back Better would mean expanding access to affordable healthcare and child care, making investments in a strong climate strategy, creating a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants and migrants, investing in housing, especially affordable housing and housing for unhoused populations, ensuring paid family and medical leave for every worker nationwide, and so much more. In short, it would help everyone."
In a joint statement, dozens of national, state, and local organizations--including Indivisible, Our Revolution, People's Action, Greenpeace USA, and others--offered a similar message Thursday morning.
"We are fully behind the Progressive Caucus as it holds the line for the biggest, boldest reconciliation package possible. Over the last year, progressives in Congress have played a crucial role keeping the Build Back Better Act on track, even in the face of a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by big business to kill it in its cradle," the groups said.
"Now we're in the home stretch," the statement continued. "By holding firm on keeping the Build Back Better Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill firmly linked, progressives are giving their colleagues in the Senate the space and the leverage to negotiate the strongest package possible."
Just ahead of a full Democratic caucus meeting with Biden mid-morning, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, reiterated to reporters that there is no deal that she and her members have agreed to and that both bills must be finalized before one can possibly be reached.
\u201cWe will deliver both the infrastructure package and the Build Back Better Act to people across America \u2014 but we can't do that if we don\u2019t even have a bill. \n\nWe won\u2019t risk leaving working families and our communities behind.\u201d— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1635428700
Also ahead of the meeting, campaigners with the progressive group People's Watch and others said that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called on them to "hold the line" outside so that she and her progressive colleagues in the House could do the same from inside. "You holding the line out here helps us hold the line in there," Ocasio-Cortez said.
\u201c.@aoc gave us marching orders: #holdtheline out here so she can hold the line in there.\u201d— People\u2019s Watch (@People\u2019s Watch) 1635427377
"With so much happening in Congress right now, it is crucial that we have all hands on deck," said Indivisible in its missive. "Congress must deliver on Biden's full recovery agenda. The recovery package is an essential, must-pass bill that will help pretty much everybody in the entire country--we can't let conservatives tank it. We have to do everything we can to get it passed."
As President Joe Biden arrived on Capitol Hill to meet with Democratic leadership and caucus members on how to finalize agreement on a pair of bills designed to fix the nation's physical and care-giving infrastructure systems, progressive advocates mobilized Thursday to make sure lawmakers do not fully cave to the pressure of corporate lobbyists who have swarmed Congress over recent months to kill key aspects of the Build Back Better Act's social investment programs like Medicare expansion, paid family leave, bold climate action, elder care, and lower drug costs.
With the possibility for a vote on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIF) possible as early as later in the day, Indivisible issued a call to action via email Thursday morning and told its members: "If the Democrats let conservatives push through BIF without also passing the reconciliation package (that's the one that covers healthcare, climate, childcare, and more), we are going to squander our trifecta and accomplish nothing. We can't let Democrats cave. That's why it is urgent you call your representatives and tell them to vote no on the BIF until they've passed an inclusive recovery bill that works for everyone."
\u201cAbsolutely not. Progressives will support the infrastructure bill once there's a vote on Build Back Better -- like the White House and Congress agreed at the start of this process.\n\nPlease contact your representative and tell them to temporarily vote no: https://t.co/jNEPKYybWV\u201d— Indivisible Guide (@Indivisible Guide) 1635429905
While Biden was expected to push a scaled-back $1.75 trillion deal during the meeting with congressional Democrats, Indivisible warned that if the BIF is passed without final and firm guarantees, Democrats "will lose the much-needed leverage we had to pass our full Build Back Better plan--and Americans can't afford to lose Build Back Better."
The bipartisan deal isn't necessarily bad, the group explained, "it's just too small to meet the moment, which is why it needs to be paired with the full Build Back Better reconciliation package. Passing all of Build Back Better would mean expanding access to affordable healthcare and child care, making investments in a strong climate strategy, creating a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants and migrants, investing in housing, especially affordable housing and housing for unhoused populations, ensuring paid family and medical leave for every worker nationwide, and so much more. In short, it would help everyone."
In a joint statement, dozens of national, state, and local organizations--including Indivisible, Our Revolution, People's Action, Greenpeace USA, and others--offered a similar message Thursday morning.
"We are fully behind the Progressive Caucus as it holds the line for the biggest, boldest reconciliation package possible. Over the last year, progressives in Congress have played a crucial role keeping the Build Back Better Act on track, even in the face of a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign by big business to kill it in its cradle," the groups said.
"Now we're in the home stretch," the statement continued. "By holding firm on keeping the Build Back Better Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill firmly linked, progressives are giving their colleagues in the Senate the space and the leverage to negotiate the strongest package possible."
Just ahead of a full Democratic caucus meeting with Biden mid-morning, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, reiterated to reporters that there is no deal that she and her members have agreed to and that both bills must be finalized before one can possibly be reached.
\u201cWe will deliver both the infrastructure package and the Build Back Better Act to people across America \u2014 but we can't do that if we don\u2019t even have a bill. \n\nWe won\u2019t risk leaving working families and our communities behind.\u201d— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1635428700
Also ahead of the meeting, campaigners with the progressive group People's Watch and others said that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called on them to "hold the line" outside so that she and her progressive colleagues in the House could do the same from inside. "You holding the line out here helps us hold the line in there," Ocasio-Cortez said.
\u201c.@aoc gave us marching orders: #holdtheline out here so she can hold the line in there.\u201d— People\u2019s Watch (@People\u2019s Watch) 1635427377
"With so much happening in Congress right now, it is crucial that we have all hands on deck," said Indivisible in its missive. "Congress must deliver on Biden's full recovery agenda. The recovery package is an essential, must-pass bill that will help pretty much everybody in the entire country--we can't let conservatives tank it. We have to do everything we can to get it passed."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
LATEST NEWS
'We're Turning Into a Dictatorship': Trump Tariffs Seen as Ploy to Further Consolidate Power
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy called President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs "a political weapon designed to collapse our democracy."
Apr 07, 2025
Analysts puzzling over the bizarre formula the Trump administration used to calculate its country-by-country tariff rates are wasting their time, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said in a response to the American president that has gone viral in recent days as global markets continue to nosedive.
"It's not economic policy, it's not trade policy," Murphy (D-Conn.) said in remarks recorded after Trump announced the sweeping tariffs last week. "It's a political weapon designed to collapse our democracy."
While President Donald Trump's universal tariffs on imports make no sense as an effort to rectify the failures of the status quo trade regime and bring back offshored U.S. jobs, they are comprehensible when viewed as "a tool to try to compel pledges of loyalty, this time from companies and industries in the United States," Murphy argued.
"You have to understand that everything Donald Trump is doing is in service of staying in power forever—either him or his family or his handpicked successors," the Democratic senator continued. "He's trying to destroy our democracy."
Murphy contended that the president designed the tariffs to be so widespread that corporations across private industry would have to come to the White House and "make an agreement with Trump in which he gives them tariff relief in exchange for a pledge of political loyalty."
"What could that pledge look like?" Murphy continued. "Well, maybe they agree to champion his economic policy publicly. Maybe they agree to make contributions to his political campaign. Maybe they agree to police their employees to make sure that nobody that works for that company works for the political opposition."
Politico reported late last week that businesses across corporate America "fear Trump's wrath" and are thus declining to criticize the president's tariff policies even as they wreak havoc worldwide and threaten to spark a devastating recession.
"There is zero incentive for any company or brand to be remotely critical of this administration," one unnamed public affairs operative told Politico. "It destroys your ability to work with the White House and advance your policies, period."
"While the United States has plenty of real problems to deal with, Trump is ignoring them to manufacture the fake emergencies he needs to further enlarge and centralize his power."
Murphy is hardly alone in seeing Trump's tariffs as an instrument of power consolidation.
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote Monday that "we're turning into a dictatorship" as Trump conjures "fake national emergencies" to jack up tariffs, deport people en masse without due process, gut efforts to combat the climate crisis, and dismantle large swaths of the federal government.
"As Trump declares emergency after emergency to justify his reign of terror, he's simultaneously eliminating America's capacity to respond to real emergencies," Reich wrote. "Make no mistake about what’s really going on here. While the United States has plenty of real problems to deal with, Trump is ignoring them to manufacture the fake emergencies he needs to further enlarge and centralize his power."
One analyst, Zack Beauchamp of Vox, argued the tariffs are more a symptom of the decline of U.S. democracy rather than a cause of it.
"Trump's tariffs will, if fully implemented, be remembered as their own cautionary tale. While he campaigned on them, he wouldn't have been able to implement the entire tariff package had he gone through the normal constitutionally prescribed procedure for raising taxes," Beauchamp wrote. "The fact that America isn't functioning like a normal democracy, with public deliberation and multiple checks on executive authority, is what allowed Trump to act on his idiosyncratic ideas in the manner of a Mao or Putin."
"It's still possible that Trump steps back from the brink," he added. "But even if he does, and the worst outcome is avoided, the lesson should be clear: The long decay of America's democratic system means that we are all living under an axe. And if this isn't the moment it falls, there will surely be another."
Trump Calls Tariff Madness a 'Beautiful Thing to Behold' as Global Markets Crater
"If the 4.8% fall in S&P 500 futures at the Asian opening isn't reversed, then it's on course for its worst three-day selloff since the Black Monday crash of October 1987."
Apr 07, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump late Sunday openly embraced the global chaos sparked by his sweeping tariffs, careening headlong into a potentially catastrophic trade war as worldwide financial markets plummeted and American retirees began to panic.
In a post on his social media platform, Trump declared that his tariffs are "already in effect, and a beautiful thing to behold."
"Some day people will realize that Tariffs, for the United States of America, are a very beautiful thing!" Trump wrote as recent retirees and people near retirement expressed fear and astonishment at the swift damage the president's policy decisions have done to their investment accounts.
One retiree, a 68-year-old former occupational health worker in New Jersey, told NBC News that she is "just kind of stunned, and with so much money in the market, we just sort of have to hope we have enough time to recover."
"What we've been doing is trying to enjoy the time that we have, but you want to be able to make it last," the retiree, identified as Paula, said on Friday. "I have no confidence here."
Trump's post doubling down on his tariff regime came as Asian markets cratered and U.S. stock futures opened bright red, signaling that Monday will bring another broad sell-off in equities. One of Trump's top economic advisers claimed in a Sunday interview that the president is not intentionally crashing the stock market, even as Trump—returning from a weekend golf outing in Florida—characterized the tariffs as "medicine."
"I don't want anything to go down," the president said. "But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."
Bloomberg's John Authers wrote early Sunday that "if the 4.8% fall in S&P 500 futures at the Asian opening isn't reversed, then it's on course for its worst three-day selloff since the Black Monday crash of October 1987."
Though the stock market and the economy are not synonymous, economist Josh Bivens recently noted that they are currently "mirroring each other: Stock market weakness is reflecting broader economic weakness."
"While the stock market isn't the economy, the stock market declines we have seen in recent weeks are genuinely worrying," wrote Bivens, the chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "They are a symptom of much larger dysfunctional macroeconomic policy that will likely soon start showing up in higher unemployment and slower wage growth for the vast majority."
'Totally Lawless': Judge Orders Trump to Return Man Sent to El Salvador Prison in 'Error'
"This was an illegal act," said U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis.
Apr 06, 2025
A federal court judge on Sunday declared the Trump administration's refusal to return a man they sent to an El Salvadoran prison in "error" as "totally lawless" behavior and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to repatriate the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, within 24 hours.
In a 22-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis doubled down on an order issued Friday, which Department of Justice lawyers representing the administration said was an affront to his executive authority.
"This was an illegal act," Xinis said of DHS Secretary Krisi Noem's attack on Abrego Garcia's rights, including his deportation and imprisonment.
"Defendants seized Abrego Garcia without any lawful authority; held him in three separate domestic detention centers without legal basis; failed to present him to any immigration judge or officer; and forcibly transported him to El Salvador in direct contravention of [immigration law]," the decision states.
Once imprisoned in El Salvador, the order continues, "U.S. officials secured his detention in a facility that, by design, deprives its detainees of adequate food, water, and shelter, fosters routine violence; and places him with his persecutors."
Trump's DOJ appealed Friday's order to 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Virginia, but that court has not yet ruled on the request to stay the order from Xinis, which says Abrego Garcia should be returned to the United States no later than Monday.
Most Popular
We cover the issues the corporate media never will.
Please support our journalism.