Travelling - Hi, I'm out of town with some computer problems (this is being Treo blogged), so posting could be erratic or...
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April 22, 2005
Justice as if It Mattered - Following in the footsteps of my fellow blogger, Mark Schmitt, I guest lectured on Wednesday with the Bard Prison Initiative,...
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April 19, 2005
The Upside of Ratzinger as Pope - On first blush, it's a bit depressing that the Catholic Cardinals have picked a Pope identified with rigid imposition of...
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April 16, 2005
Idiocy of Bush Iraq Policy - How can Iraq be considered even in the realm of a success by an administration that allows children to be...
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The Supreme Court and the Klan - Progressive bloggers like Josh are appalled that the religious right would compare the Supreme Court to the Klan. I wish...
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April 09, 2005
What's Wrong With Impeaching Judges? - Tom Delay is rightwing and corrupt, but he is actually upholding an important principle in arguing that legislators have the...
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April 08, 2005
How About Democracy in Mexico? - So where is the conservative outrage over violations of democracy in Mexico?: In a vote that casts doubt on the...
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So Much for States Rights - Some states are thinking about supplementing Medicare prescription drug benefits for low-income seniors with additional funds and steering recipients into...
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April 07, 2005
Against the Filibuster (Again) - Mark Schmitt has written an excellent response to my argument for why progressives should welcome the end of the Senate...
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Supreme Court: Mob Rule Central - Here is the liberal myth: that courts protect minority groups from populist attack. As Joe said in comments: [B]ad as...
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In Defense of Senator Cornyn - I'm sorry, I just can't join in the liberal feeding frenzy around John Cornyn's remarks that some of those violently...
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Immigrants will Save Social Security - For years, I've argued that new immigrants will save social security, with an expanded population of working immigrants confounding official...
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April 04, 2005
One More Reason Against War - One reason I had some mixed feelings about the Iraq war was that the devastation of sanctions against Iraq had...
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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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