Subcontracting Human Rights Abuse - This is why use of mercenaries are unacceptable: Graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in...
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April 29, 2004
Making "Investor Democracy" Work - How's this for a tactic? Justice at Work wants to mobilize all the 401Ks and other personal investments you own...
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World's Largest Dictatorship - The Bush administration went to China to negotiate a deal on technology access, yet they didn't say a word about...
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Dems are Better Catholics - Okay, I'm not that into claiming religious piety for political parties, but the whole assault on Kerry for betraying his...
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Has Trade Overstated GDP? - Look carefully at this graph from the Economist, which compares official GDP numbers with alternative measures of industrial production: Note...
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April 22, 2004
Losing A Job To Highlight Reality - Since Tami Silicio was fired for releasing this photo, in the name of honoring whistleblowers, here it is: The White...
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Beating Back Anti-Immigrant Prejudice - A big sigh of relief. The members of the Sierra Club have decisively National > Establishment Candidates Defeat Challengers in...
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April 21, 2004
Labor Roundup - Organizing, Contracts and Strikes Columbia grad students hit the picket line. Adjunct professors at New York University to join them....
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April 20, 2004
Die Mercenary Die - Why are we using Apartheid death squad killers in the Iraqi Occupation? Because I have zero tears that this security...
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Pottery Barn Denounces Powell - A break for the surreal. Pottery Barn has intervened in the discussion of Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack to impeach...
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Bush Retreats on Overtime Fight - We'll see what the final details look like, but Bush is revising his overtime proposal to guarantee overtime to more...
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Why Do They Hate US? - How stupid is the Bush administration? Here's why some Iraqis hate us. Because we spend money on private mercenaries rather...
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Stealing Lives - What are the numbers of the wrongly convicted in our prisons? Projecting from those wrongly convicted in capital and rape...
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April 18, 2004
Brits to Leave If Asked by Shias - If the Sadr insurgency evolves into a more general Shia rebellion, Bush better not count on the Brits to help:...
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Why Detroit Likes Gas Taxes - Bush is running ads that bash Kerry for voting for a proposal that would have raised the gas tax by...
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Trade: Corporate & Labor Rights - A lot of "free trade" Democrats (and of course Republicans) throw a fit when labor activists demand that labor rights...
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April 17, 2004
Union Busting Universities - Universities are dominated by liberals, you may have heard. So how come they are some of the worst union busters...
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A Study in Corporate Abuse - The largest company in the US in the mid-20th century? General Motors- a company paying high wages and pioneering pensions...
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April 16, 2004
Max on Tax Credits - Max has a good response to my post on Kerry's tax credits. The problem with tax credits, as Max points...
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South Korea Shifts Left - In a historic change, conservative forces lost control of South Korea's parliament. The change was fueled by a backlash of...
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April 15, 2004
A Tax Day Quote - On rising taxes of working families "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning," Warren...
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A Knockout New Union - When a lot of people think of unions, they think of big guys beating the hell out of other people....
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Competing Auto Unions - An interesting story about competing campaigns to organize a Honda plant near Toronto-- by the US-based United Auto Workers (UAW)...
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Return of Inflation - Remember inflation? You know, that phenomena where increase in wages doesn't get you an increase in lifestyle, since all the...
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April 14, 2004
Taxes on Wealthy Help Employment - Here is an intriguing article from The Economist, an article that compares the US taxing and welfare systems to Europe....
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April 13, 2004
More on the "Mercenary" controversy - This from Tech Central Station celebrating that the blogosphere can "police itself" by holding "irresponsible" bloggers like Kos and myself...
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Great News on Gay Rights - Amidst all the discussion of gay marriage, it's worth remembering how much support for general gay rights has increased in...
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April 12, 2004
Labor Roundup - Action Support Sri Lankan workers seeking to organize a garment union among workers producing rubber gloves for developed nations. Support...
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Fraud of "Tax Freedom Day" - Every year the Tax Foundation declares some day in April "Tax Freedom Day"-- arguing that up to that point in...
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The Other Kerrey Gets It Right - A good sign for the 911 Commission ultimate report- Bob Kerrey gets that our military actions in Iraq are breeding...
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April 10, 2004
Kerry: Progressive Tax Credits - Okay, I trashed Kerry's spending cap plan, and then Max Sawicky attacked it. Anytime Max disagrees with me on anything...
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US Created Global Terrorism - Read this. The dirtiest, dirtiest secret of the "war on terrorism" is that the US created its own enemy, not...
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April 09, 2004
Bush- A Uniter Not a Divider - Really, the uprisings and continued war in Iraq just shows Bush's subtle genius: When the United States invaded Iraq a...
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April 08, 2004
Immigrant Voting Nothing New - New York City is discussing giving the vote to legal immigrants, and no doubt conservatives will portray this as some...
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My Favorite Brit - My favorite British politician is Ken Livingstone, mayor of London. Read this profile for why....
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And Back in Kabul - Much ignored has been the continual warfare breaking out in Afghanistan, the country neglected when Bush decided war with Iraq...
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April 07, 2004
Why Kerry's Spending Cap Sucks - Kerry has announced his deficit cutting plan. Proposals to eliminate Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, require new spending to...
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More Newspeak - William Safire is supposedly an expert on language. So his use of newspeak in referring to the Sadr fighters as...
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What Labor Wants from Trade - Like a lot of "free trade liberals" Ezra Klein at Pandagon sounds worried every time a Democrat sounds "protectionist" in...
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April 06, 2004
A New Target for the WingNuts - Ah-- I'm honored. After going after Kos, the wingnuts have decided I'm the next worthy target for their hate. See...
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Tax Outlaws - Two thirds of companies operating in US paid no taxes from 1996 to 2000. And we all know how businesses...
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The Next NAFTA Debate - Forget recent trade deals. The deals with Singapore and Chile were with countries with decent labor laws and conditions in...
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April 05, 2004
Labor Roundup - ACTION Send-A-Fax: Tell President Bush to withdraw his overtime pay take-away. Voice your support in Congress for the right to...
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Leftwing Economist Magazine - Apparently, the wingnut right should have a new target, The Economist magazine, which apparently used the left jihadist term "mercenaries"...
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April 04, 2004
Why Kristof is Wrong on Child Labor - Nicholas Kristof makes a softheaded appeal for why child labor is necessary for many families in the developing world: It's...
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Why Iraqi People Hate Bush/Bremer - Listen to the enemies of the United States and you won't be surprised that the rebellion against the Occupation continues...
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Tell It Like It Is - Allan Sloan at Newsweek let's loose on Bush's real tax goals: If Bush gets what he wants, the income tax...
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Ineeffiency of Private Charity - At least one piece of rhetoric by the rightwing is that government is inefficient, and social services and public goods...
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April 03, 2004
More on Drop in Work Hours - This is an additional graph on top of the earlier analysis on drop in aggregate hours worked. From the St....
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Silliness of the ProWar Right - With all the silly comments in the two threads on the four ex-military types killed, you get a real sense...
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Avoiding NewSpeak is Treason - A number of folks in comments and linked posts have accused me of supporting the killing of the mercenaries/security guards/soldiers/food...
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More Jobs, Less Work - It's a strong jobs report out this month, but like every number out there, in this back and forth economy,...
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Bush Sought to Poison Europe - Let it not be said that Bush does not punish his enemies. With Europe snubbing his pet war in Iraq,...
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April 01, 2004
AT&T Dropped from Dow Jones - It's a symbol of the massive changes in the telecom industry that AT&T has been dropped from the list of...
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Russia to End Democratic Protest - Russia's parliament, dominated by Putin's allies, voted yesterday to ban all demonstrations on public property. As Russia day by day...
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Four Mercenaries Killed in Iraq - That should be the headline from yesterday's attack in Iraq. Talking about "civilians" killed, when the people involved are ex-military...
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Bush to Veto Jobs - Bush has yet to veto a bill. But now he's threatening to veto one of the few bills being voted...
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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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