Israel as Imperialist - While there is no doubt lots of antisemitism in the Middle East, the hostility to Israel is far more complicated--...
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Lamont and 1968 - Comparing the Lieberman-Lamont race to 1968, Jonathan Alter argues "the romance of the antiwar left...gave the world Richard Nixon in...
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July 22, 2006
Those Dangerous Suburbs - I live up in the heart of Harlem. Just in the last year, there was one murder on my block...
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Drug Costs Soar on Medicare Part D - Here's proof that states have been making inroads on controlling prescription drug costs in their Medicaid programs: When poor elderly...
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July 16, 2006
New Citizens- Bad News for GOP - The NYTimes highlights that immigrants are increasingly becoming citizens, with 604,280 taking the citizenship oath in 2005, or 12.5% more...
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Death of the First Amendment - No seriously, read this federal court decision in a trademark case where trends in intellectual property are leading to complete...
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Ulysses Grant: Our Greatest President? - In 1854, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison led a crowd celebrating Independence Day by burning the Constitution, denouncing it as "A...
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July 01, 2006
Chavez is no Dictator - There are things I like and things I don't about Hugo Chavez-- and there is no question he has consolidated...
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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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