I want to send a warning to working people in Europe: when you let your businesses save money by mistreating workers in other countries, it might teach them to think they can save money by mistreating you, too. Over here in the US we have learned this the hard way. We entered into “free trade” [...]
When the corporate rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes, it leaves us more vulnerable to attack.
From CAF, National Teach-In To Take Back The American Dream:
On February 21, the nation will have an opportunity to hear the true story of who broke the economy for the 99%, and what we need to do to fix it. And you can help us make sure that story is heard.
The [...]
The late George Carlin had this comedy bit involving a four-letter word starting with S. He marveled at how it was this all-purpose expletive. He provided lots of examples. What fascinated Carlin was how everyone used the S-word figuratively. Almost never literally.
Socialist is like that. Conservatives started throwing the word around [...]
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a waiter. For seven years. Before PCs. Back in the age of LPs and carbon paper. I remember one customer who, after he’d signed his credit card receipt and I handed him his copy, asked me to give him the carbons (back then [...]
“Producers” and “parasites.” Cruel language justifying extreme greed seems to be mainstream now. Even Presidential candidates feel free to disparage 99% of us! In today’s right-wing folklore government by We, the People is an evil thing that takes from “producers” and gives to “moochers,” “freeloaders,” and “losers.” Government and taxes “take money out of the [...]
Economist Christina Romer had an op-ed in the NY Times this weekend, Do Manufacturers Need Special Treatment? The question that keep coming back to me is why did she feel the need to write an op-ed to diss manufacturing? Is it just an economist thing? Or is she, like so many economists, from [...]
The Senate votes today on restricting labor rights, in the FAA bill. Committee Dems caved and gave away union election rights. At least 18 unions including CWA,SEIU have voiced opposition. Here are some actions you can take right now.
Last week, in FAA Bill Still Anti-Labor! Call Your Senators!:
Why This Fight?
The [...]
The Project for Government Oversight has written a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reminding him that it’s U.S. taxpayers who pay for nuclear weapons in Europe.
Not long ago, in A Win For Labor – FAA Bill Drops Anti-Union Language, I wrote that, “negotiators have dropped the anti-union language for votes to start a union. Republicans were insisting that no-shows be counted as “No” votes. Delta’s check must have been mailed late.”
Well, not so fast. While dropping a [...]
Congress has scarce public interest filters and so acts like an information cartel — knowledge is not necessarily a public obligation. Instead, it is a commodity (lobbyists) or a weapon (talking points). We need to create a common good capacity for our legislative branch.
The spiral-to-the-bottom and inequality we are suffering is not an inevitable result of globalization, it is what happens when we don’t hold cheaters and exploiters accountable and stop them. This is not just about Wall Street, it is the story of what has happened to our wages and benefits, jobs, factories, companies, industries, economy and [...]
Primary voters just gave former Speaker Newt Gingrich the win in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, “America’s most conservative state.” Reddest of the red. Buckle of the Bible Belt. CNN welcomed viewers to the Charleston debate this week with “Welcome to the South,” a place “where values matter.”
More [...]
Much has been made about income taxes and income tax cuts – not just by Republicans, who base their entire economic plan on less taxes (which of course will usually vastly benefit their base by every conceivable metric), but also by Democrats lately as a way to provide stimulus or help in a time of [...]
Mitt Romney’s ultra-low tax rate on his ultra-high income is reviving questions about the breaks and perks that the wealthiest of the 1% receive from the rest of us. One of these is a special low tax rate for investments — as if anyone needed special tax incentives to induce them to make a bundle.
[...]
Last month I wrote about a bill before Congress that would both help fight the offshoring of call-center jobs and protect consumers. Now the countries where we have been sending those jobs are organizing a lobbying campaign to fight the bill.
The Bill
There is a bipartisan bill before Congress, The U.S. Call Center Worker [...]
So much misdirected anger.
Over at Daily Kos, Zwoof has seen a rash of chain emails about “welfare junkies” who are “drug-fueled slackers.” Obligingly, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced the Welfare Reform Act of 2011 to discipline deadbeats on food stamps.
This is old news. It is Ronald Reagan’s “welfare [...]
As of now an agency of our government, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), is effectively shut down, unable to do its job. This is a “nullification” by Republicans, of laws that protect workers and companies, in exchange for campaign help from the 1%. They are simply obstructing, blocking appointments in order to keep the [...]
It may not be much consolation to most Americans, but cuts to our nuclear-weapons program are a silver lining to our economic crisis.
Here is how far we have fallen: Republicans and big corporations are going to extremes, even threatening to shut down entire agencies of the government, just to keep people from knowing what their rights are. They are “investigating” the NLRB for enforcing the laws that cover employees and employers. They are pledging to block any [...]
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Empowerment and education: Why young people don't vote
“Greater education of our civic processes must be the fulcrum of any program to increase voter participation amongst young people. … When people stop participating in democracy then that is an institutional failure, not a failure of the citizens. Assuming otherwise leads us down a slippery slope to elitism and nothing could be more anathema to the American Republic.”
By blocking the stream of pepper spray, these protesters were clearly hindering police and, in a larger sense, defying authority, and in an even larger Fox News sense, hating America. When will Occupy hooligans learn that intercepting noxious chemicals with their faces, stopping tear gas canisters with their skulls, violating airspace with their loud voices, and beating up police batons with their bodies are all illegal provocations?
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