Taxing the Wrong Casino - The dependence of state governments on taxing the gambling addiction of their citizens is just sad. But what's sadder is...
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March 29, 2005
Open Source and What GDP Misses - The commitment of Brazil's government to spread open source software has been a delight to lefty tech geeks and a...
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Look at What They Do, Not What They Say - GOP Hypocrisy on "Progressive Indexing" of Social Security So the GOP wants to cut benefits for wealthier retirees, while preserving...
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Shortchanging Security - The Bush administration has spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting non-existent WMDs in Iraq. But bioterrorism in the US?...
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March 24, 2005
How the WTO Kills - As a requirement of India joining the WTO, people must die. That is the likely result of India being forced...
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So Will Chicago Teach Marx? - The intimidation of pro-Palestinian professors at Columnia continues. Critics are shocked, shocked, that students might feel that aping their professor's...
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Social Security as welfare - Skip the discussion over privatization for a second. The other idea that White House is promoting is cutting benefits more...
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March 23, 2005
Stupid NY Times on Federalism - How can the New York Times say the following with a straight face? The Republican Party has long associated itself...
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Senate Does Right Thing on Medicaid - Thanks to a few decent moderate Republicans, led by Gordon Smith of Oregon, Bush's proposed Medicaid Cuts were dropped from...
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Scandal, What Scandal? - What is Brad Plumer thinking, echoing a rightwing attack on progressive groups receiving foundation money for campaign finance reform? It...
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Redesign of Site - As some may notice, I've done a redesign on the site. Visually, it mostly cleans up the look of the...
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March 13, 2005
MT Gov Fights for Homeland Security - What an odd guy. Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana actually thinks Montana residents are more National > Montana Governor Sets...
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March 12, 2005
Conservatives Email Me - I received this nice email today: Why am I shocked, shocked to find a Communist Jew being pro-union? I myself...
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GOP v. Religious Voters on Global Warming - Okay, this gets interesting, as the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the umbrella organization of denominations representing 30 million evangelicals,...
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Lebanon: Another Ally for Iran? - The US invades Afghanistan and evicts Iran's long-time enemies, the Taliban, giving Iran great influence in the country, especially in...
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March 08, 2005
UCC BlogAd - The Ad the Networks Didn't Want You to See I don't usually comment on the blogads on my site; they...
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March 07, 2005
Irony is Dead Department - No comment: "When the special interests push me around, I'll push back," Schwarzenegger said to cheers and applause from more...
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Great Blogging on Bankruptcy BIll - Kevin has been lacerating the bankruptcy bill and the credit card companies backing it. Go read. Also see this Daily...
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March 05, 2005
Communist Virtue - I have no sympathy for the violence and tyranny of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and China. But...
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Ignorance is Safety - If everything is secret and we make ourselves as collectively stupid as possible, we can spread that ignorance to any...
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March 04, 2005
House GOP Cuts Aid to Afghanistan - Unbelievable. We bomb the hell out of a country and the GOP still doesn't feel any responsibility for helping them...
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March 03, 2005
Take the Pledge to Defy FEC - The FEC is making noises to limit the speech of blogs in the name of campaign finance reform. Josh worries...
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Fear of Good Policy from Bush - Okay, so even if private accounts are completely scuttled, Hesiod at the American Street is horrified at the thought that...
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Scalia on Theocracy - As the Court debates whether governments can display the Ten Commandments on public property, Justice Scalia is getting more aggressive...
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March 02, 2005
Why 401(k)s Can Suck - Matt rightly suggests that before we talk too much about new "private accounts", maybe we should pay more attention to...
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Bush Senior and Syrian Control of Lebanon - The rightwing is going off on a bit of triumphalism over Lebanon, even attacking progressive bloggers for being insufficiently triumphalist....
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What's Right With Kansas - Lesbian wins election in Topeka, as voters support city ordinance banning discrimination against gays....
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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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