Did Dean Stand with Newt? - While I might not agree with every statement Dean made back in 1995 on Newt and proposed Medicaid and Medicare...
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September 28, 2003
Tracking Anti-Gay Companies - Want a handy-dandy guide to the top anti-gay companies in the country. Check out the Ave Maria Catholic Fund which...
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A US "Official Secrets" Act - Read this article about the attempt by Ashcroft to criminal leaks to the press. The article is by John Dean...
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September 27, 2003
Lieberman Right on Clark - Whether Lieberman is correct that Wesley Clark's emergence as a Democrat is a decision of "political convenience, not conviction," we...
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September 26, 2003
Jackboots in Cyberspace - Imagine if without a warrant, a political organization's office could be stormed, documents confiscated, private contact lists taken, and the...
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34.6 Million in Poverty - And Bush Doesn't Want You to Know Dumping the bad news onto Friday, the Census Bureau reported that poverty rate...
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Telemarketing and Judicial Activism - Two district judges struck down the Federal Trade Commissions's (FTC) proposed "Do Not Call" anti-telemarketing plan. Same result in each...
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September 25, 2003
Arnie- Son of Pete Wilson? - When Pete Wilson ran for reelection in 1994, he tied his reelection to appealing to racism against latinos with his...
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EU Sanity on Software Patents - Patents are supposed to be for fundamental insights-- not a way to prevent competition. But that's what so-called "business method"...
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Income Gap Soared Since 1979 - A new study by the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities shows that the economic "boom" existed only for the...
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Jon Stewart Sums up Davis - Emmy-winning Jon Stewart nailed why Dems in California are fighting to save Davis-- and holding their nose doing it. Quoting...
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Poll Illiteracy - Now, I don't usually go in for Sully bashing (fish-barrel problems) but this bit of illiteracy is ramping up a...
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Paying for the Bullets - In China, executions are very economical for the government. And punishment doesn't necessarily end at the point of death, usually...
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News from the Freedom Ride - A sampling of news from around the nation Minnesotans joining Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Miguel Olvera-Rucoba is a legal immigrant....
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Bush Loses to Eve/Parkers - Forget Kerry, forget Clark. Bush can't even beat UPN comedies. His interview on Fox came in dead last in the...
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September 22, 2003
What the UAW Won - Some of the press is playing the recent UAW contract deals as labor rolling over for management to preserve jobs:...
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Bush Tied w/Clark, Kerry, Lieberman - Well, Bush's falling reelect numbers are finally registering in head-to-head poll contests. Clark is even nominally ahead (within the margin...
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"Bring Troops Home" Wrong Slogan - Atrios wrongly criticizes Salon for publishing this article which argues the antiwar movement is being morally callous in focusing on...
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September 21, 2003
Why No NYC Affordable Housing - Arrgg-- yuppie zoning is killing housing in New York City. The new line at the zoning board is "context", making...
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September 20, 2003
Labor Teaches Yale Advanced Lesson - The Yale strike is over and labor won: Yale granted its largest union, representing 2,900 clerical workers, raises of 44...
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Iraq: From Russia With Love - Bringing in the Expert-- How to Loot a Country Read this article from Matt Taibibi in what he calls a...
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Legal Monstrosity of Conference Committee - Rules Barring Air Traffic Controller Privatization, Passed in Both House and Senate, Stripped in Conference Committee Take out your handy...
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Kosovo v. Iraq - The Difference Between Liberation and Profiteering I supported US-NATO intervention in Kosovo and opposed US unilateral occupation of Iraq. And...
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Block Grants as Anti-Urban Policy - A conservative blogger has complained that my describing block grants as just some way to undermine urban districts in favor...
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September 18, 2003
Volokh Gets It Wrong - US Founded on Progressive Taxation Eugene Volokh is accusing Wesley Clark of being historically ignorant. The complaint? Clark attacked Bush's...
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Employer Health Coverage Plummets - Here 's one more reason why California's employer mandate or, better yet, the enactment of a single-payer health care system...
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CALPERS: Don't Use Fund to Fire Beneficiaries - California Public Employees' Retirement System (CALPERS), the nation's largest pension fund, had decided to look into restricting investments in companies...
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Lie Refuted - No WMD Program - The Bush administration has tried to hedge its rhetorical bets by saying that while there were no WMDs found, they...
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September 16, 2003
Why Dean Not McGovern II - Really, I like TAPPED. I love the American Prospect. I've written for them. But why are they aping the rightwing...
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No Comment - Pay cuts possible for Guard members in Mideast...
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French Veto Bad, US Veto Good - Remeber all the anger that the French would dare threaten to veto a resolution on Iraq. How dare a country...
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Immigrant Rights Help US Workers - With the Immigrant Workers Freedom Rides coming, we all need to fight one of the premiere fallacies promoted by the...
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Slow Web Site Loading - Okay-- for those of you who have found that my weblog has been loading slowly recently, I found the culprit--...
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September 15, 2003
Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride - Immigrant workers... They can't vote, they have no labor rights, they can be detained without trial or charge-- they are...
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A Bit Better- TAPPED on Unions - This is a bit better by TAPPED, in that they agree unions are wonderful: they're just irrelevant. A step forward...
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September 13, 2003
CA Health Mandate- Good for Business - Late into the night, the California Assembly passed the health care employer mandate for larger businesses in the state-- promising...
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Don't Know What You've Got... - ...Til It's Gone Updated and moved to Today (Sat.): Not that Davis is a gem and he's signed bills largely...
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September 12, 2003
Dean Right on Israel - It's odd, despite my antiwar stance, Dean really didn't pull me in to support on that issue. But given his...
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September 11, 2003
Bush Loses on Patronage Vote - Bush's goal of converting federal positions protected from political patronage by civil service protections into jobs done by allied big...
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A Dissent from 911 Rememberance - The families and friends of those who died on September 11, 2001 deserve all the compassion possible. But for the...
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September 10, 2003
We Win- Senate Overtime Vote - Now on to the House. You can act now by clicking this link. Representatives in the House will be asked...
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The Next Ann Coulter - Over at Town Hall, you can see the next budding Ann Coulter, spitting McCarthyite venom at liberals and wrapping the...
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No Inflation? Look at Health Ins. - It's good that prices at Wal-Mart aren't going up -- although to the extent that this reflects close-to slave labor...
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Tapped Disses Labor - What the hell is wrong with Tapped these days? They are going rightwing on immigration, trashing "identity politics", and now...
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SEIU: Remaking 2004 Election - An associate tells me all the candidates speaking at the SEIU political Convention were incredibly impressive, but the most impressive...
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Rumsfeld Lies Tying Iraq-Al Quaeda - Why do the American people think that Iraq was behind the 911 attack? Because the Bush administration continues to lie...
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September 08, 2003
Silliness of Dean-McGovern Comparison - Once again, you have a major paper quoting people discussing the supposed comparison between Dean and McGovern. This is ludicrous....
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September 06, 2003
No Progressive Policy w/o Labor - Usually when labor in politics is discussed, it comes down to comparisons of PAC dollars contributed where labor is outspent...
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End of Database Fair Use? - Information database sellers are trying to pass new legislation to end fair use of database information-- seeking to reverse a...
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A New CIO? - Unlikely, but a crew of the top organizing union leaders in the AFL-CIO are setting up a staffed committee to...
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Labor's Support for Civil Rights - [Note this history comes from a number of sources, including Working Class New York by Joshua Freeman, Time on the...
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September 04, 2003
Save Overtime: Act Now - Any day now the Senate will be voting on the Harkin Amendment to block Bush's plan to roll back overtime...
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Kerry Committing Political Suicide - Struggling in the polls, Kerry has decided trashing Dean is the way to go: Since Sunday, the Massachusetts senator has...
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Religious Freedom - What's the religious aspect of the First Amendment all about? * The right to display religious symbols in public spaces....
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September 03, 2003
Unions Strengthen the Economy - Before I hear the usual rightwing ramble about unions sinking the economy and driving jobs overseas, note two basic realities....
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Environmental Suicide - The US is fighting a war because of fears of running out of oil. The whole Northeast gets blacked out...
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Takedown on MEChA Smear - Ted Barlow now at Crooked Timber does a full-length refutation point-by-point of the smear against MEChA. And David Neiwert explores...
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How Unions Increase Pay - [Note that I've added a link to this older post on Why Unions Have Trouble Organizing Workers.] The fact that...
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September 01, 2003
Why Unions? Human Dignity - I am going to do a series this week on why progressives should be more committed to promoting unionization as...
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Labor Day Monday - A roundup of labor stories and opinion pieces from around the country and the world. State of the Unions (and...
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Carolina GOPers Zap Bush - Last week I noted the rise of Perot-like anti-trade sentiments in the Carolinas that was turning a lot of former...
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Wal-Mart Doing Good for Environment - Seriously. This initiative by Wal-Mart to promote energy-saving light bulbs is a major environmental initiative. "Compact fluorescent" bulbs fit in...
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The Collapse of Tax Cut Politics - You can check out Progressive States rundown of progressive successes in the states on Tuesday, but I want to focus...
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November 08, 2006
A Good Night for Progressives - Let's be clear-- this wasn't just a good night for Democrats. It was a good night for progressives, and no...
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November 01, 2006
Labor Cold War Ends - New International Labor Federation - At the dawn of the Cold War, the international union movement divided up between the ICFTU, dominated by US and Western European unions, and the World Confederation of Labor, largely allied with the Soviet Union. It's taken a decade and a half, but the irrelevancy of that division will end today as the two federations merge-- bringing together 241 labor organizations from 156 countries representing 190 million workers. The new International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is a good step for a labor movement looking to globalize itself in the taking on global capital power....
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- Valuing Families: State Legislative Models Brought to you by Progressive States and MomsRising What would a policy that really values families look...
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October 09, 2006
Emaciated Models, Labor Regulation - There's a bit of debate in the blogosphere around Spain's new law banning underweight models from the runways in that country. See Jordan, Amanda at Pandagon and Lindsay Beyerstein at Majikthise on whether this is an intrusive regulating violating free expression or something like that and whether OSHA safety regulations are appropriate. Just to throw my two cents in-- any broader OSHA approach would seem cumbersome and bureaucratically intrusive in a deep way. But the original Spanish proposal is brilliant in its high-impact, low-intrusion approach. Regulate only the fashion week type runways, where in a single spotcheck, models can be...
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October 03, 2006
Big loss for Labor-- - The National Labor Relations Board ruled today that a range of professionals are now deemed "supervisors" and thus lose all protections under labor law. That means if they say a positive thing about unions, their bosses are free to fire them at will. The AFL-CIO has more here. To put this denial of labor rights in perspective, 32 million workers or 25% of the workforce already have no right to form a union under federal, state or local law (see this GAO report and this ARAW summary). This includes: Supervisors 16.6 million workers, 8 million new supervisors plus traditional 8.6...
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