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Why Republican Efforts to Block Obama Won’t Work This Time by Michael Tomasky, thedailybeast.com | December 17, 2012
So the Republicans look like crap right now. The brand, as they say, is at a horrible low. Naturally I find this amusing and satisfying. But then I recall: Well, they looked pretty bad in December 2008, too. Remember? They were written off. But then they came roaring back and really showed some muscle and swept the next elections. So what’s to prevent them from doing the same this time? Three factors, actually. History may repeat itself, as the saying goes, but never so precisely that the exact same tricks will work a second time. read more »Why You Can Kiss Public Education (and the Middle Class) Goodbye by Thomm Hartman, alternet.org | December 17, 2012
Quick - when you hear "public housing," what picture jumps into your mind? Or "public hospital"? All around us, our public institutions are disintegrating, and the most important public institution of all – our public education system – is the next to be ghettoized. Despite several progressive victories this Election Day, there was one significant defeat in Georgia, as voters approved of Constitutional Amendment 1 , which changes Georgia’s Constitution to give Republicans in that state the power to create charter schools as part of Georgia’s public education system. The result will be crucial taxpayer dollars being funneled away from free public schools and directed toward brand new, sometimes for-profit, privately-run charter schools. This is a major shot in the multigenerational war on public education part of our commons. read more »Why is Washington Obsessing About the Deficit and Not Jobs and Wages? by Robert B. Reich, robertreich.org | December 14, 2012
It was the centerpiece of the President’s reelection campaign. Every time Republicans complained about trillion-dollar deficits, he and other Democrats would talk jobs. That’s what Americans care about — jobs with good wages. And that’s part of why Obama and the Democrats were victorious on Election Day. So why are we debating how to cut the deficit when we should be debating how best to use the cheap money we can borrow from the rest of the world to put more Americans to work? Because too many Democrats inside and outside the Beltway have ingested the deficit Kool-aid that the “serious people” on Wall Street have serving for two decades. And the President has been all too willing to legitimize their deficit obsession by freezing federal salaries, appointing a deficit commission, and, now that the election is over, going back to deficit-speak. read more »Michigan: Workers, Women, What's Next? by Jenniver Granholm, Huffington Post | December 14, 2012
Back in March of 1984, the owner of the Baltimore Colts moved Baltimore's beloved football team to Indianapolis. He said he wouldn't do it, but, in the middle of the night, 12 Mayflower moving trucks were hired to tear out the region's heart and soul under cover of darkness. It was incredibly unpopular, extremely underhanded, and it devastated the people. It even brought Baltimore's mayor to tears. What's happening in Michigan this week is no less deceptive and devastating. The Republican legislature is ramming unpopular bills down the people's throats. That they're doing it in this murky, under-cover-of-darkness lame duck session is evidence enough of how unpopular it is. First it was the right to work law, and now it's bills restricting women's freedom to control their bodies and health care choices. First the workers, now the women -- we can only wonder whose rights they'll pile into their moving vans next. read more »‘Which Side Are You On, Boys?’ by Richard Reeves, truthdig.com | December 14, 2012
Is there a wave of nostalgia for the 1930s? I wouldn’t have thought so, at least not until the Republicans of Michigan passed the bucket of anti-union legislation last week. The procedure they used to pass "right-to-work" was pretty sneaky: no hearings, no public readings, voting by a lame-duck legislature and signature by a governor who had given the impression that such doings and law were not part of his agenda. I was surprised at what Rick Snyder, the governor of Michigan, and his boys did. I was even more surprised when I found myself humming "Which Side Are You On?"—Florence Reece’s labor anthem of 1931. read more »Ready To Jump From The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ by Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post | December 14, 2012
Are you as sick of the “fiscal cliff” as I am? Actually, that’s a trick question. You couldn’t possibly be. Having to read and hear the constant blather about this self-inflicted “crisis” is an onerous burden, I’ll admit. But just imagine having to produce that blather. Imagine trying to come up with something original and interesting to say about a “showdown” that has all the drama and excitement of, well, a budget dispute. Here is one observation about the fiscal cliff that is based not on guesswork but on empirical fact: The politicians who brought us to this precipice are the same politicians we’re counting on to keep us from tumbling into the void. This suggests to me that if you’ve got a parachute, now might be a good time to strap it on. read more »Rick Snyder's Turn Toward Confrontation In Michigan by Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post | December 14, 2012
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has — or had — a quirky slogan to describe his governing philosophy: “relentless positive action.” His approach, as I heard him describe it at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, was to find practical solutions and avoid unnecessary partisan division. Relentless positive action, he kept repeating. The mantra sounded more Dale Carnegie than Karl Rove, but it was goofily charming. Not anymore. Now it seems more like a sad commentary on the hopelessly fractured state of our politics. read more »How the Bitter Losers of 2012 Rammed Through a Union-Destroying Bill in Michigan by Steven Rosenfeld, alternet.org | December 13, 2012
The lightning-quick adoption of union-busting ‘right-to-work’ legislation in Michigan this week by an outgoing, lame-duck Legislature was a political coup led by vengeful Republicans as payback for their corporate patrons, including the billionaire oil baron Koch brothers and their front group, Americans for Prosperity. There is no other way to interpret the events of the past few days other than to see it in the starkest of Hobbesian terms: while the state’s GOP still held legislative power, it enacted a bill to undermine the fundraising ability of organized labor—an obsession among right-wingers dating to the 1940s South, when states enacted similar laws to prevent organized labor from helping civil rights activists. read more »The Fed Targets Unemployment: Why Are They Alone in that Pursuit? by Jared Bernstein, jaredbernsteinblog.com | December 13, 2012
Why is it that the one person/public institution that’s bringing real grown-up concern and action to the current economy and the plight of the people in it is an unelected body? How we really devolved to the point where so many of our elected officials are so enthralled to vested interests that their jobs are no longer to serve the vast majority of us who depend on a tight job market? Instead, to keep the bucks rolling in, they choose to serve Grover, the Kochs et al, lobbying for tax cuts, corporate breaks, less regulation, and so on, leaving it to a dwindling band of the truly concerned and Fed Reserve technocrats to worry about jobs, wages, middle class incomes and poverty. So, I’m glad Ben Bernanke is standing tall, doing his best to keep the focus on growth and jobs. But the fact that he’s virtually alone in that pursuit is what’s so disturbing. read more »Michigan’s New 'Corporate Servitude Law': It Takes Away Worker Rights by George Lakoff, commondreams.org | December 13, 2012
Michigan has just passed a corporate servitude law. The law is intended to destroy unions, or at least make then ineffective. It says simply that workers do not have to pay union dues to take a job—even if they get benefits previously negotiated by a union. Most workers who don't have to pay dues won't pay, and that will defund the unions, killing them and taking away rights unions have fought hard for over generations. Without workers negotiating as a unified group, corporations will not have to grant those union-created rights. Corporations will have take-it-or-leave-it power over individual workers. In short, this is corporate servitude: you do what you are told and take what you are offered. read more »
The Latest
Smoother Ride for Auto-Parts Makers , The Wall Street Journal | August 4, 2010
A year ago the U.S. auto-supplier industry was all but left for dead. Companies such as Lear Corp. were filing for bankruptcy, demand for parts was plummeting and investors were abandoning the sector as General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC grappled with Chapter 11 reorganizations. read more »
U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers , informationweek.com | August 4, 2010
Despite President Obama's pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $22 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia. read more »
New Democratic Strategy for Creating Jobs Focuses on a Boost in Manufacturing, The Washington Post | August 4, 2010
When Jobs Go Away for Good, stateline.org | August 3, 2010
99 Weeks Later, Jobless Have Only Desperation, The New York Times | August 3, 2010
Ms. Jarrin, 49, wound up at a motel here, putting down $260 she had managed to scrape together from friends and from selling her living room set, enough for a weeklong stay. It was essentially all the money she had left after her unemployment benefits expired in March. read more »
Will The GOP Senators Whose States Face Thousands Of Teacher Layoffs Vote Against Teacher Funding? , wonkroom.thinkprogress.org | August 3, 2010
Today, the Senate will be taking a procedural vote on a bill providing $26 billion in aid to state and local governments, $10 billion of which is dedicated to preventing teacher layoffs. This particular batch of funding has been included in, and then cut from, multiple bills, as each time conservatives have objected. read more »
Budget Woes Snare State Aid Bill, dyn.politico.com | August 3, 2010
While scrambling to save pre-election jobs assistance, Senate Democrats are quietly conceding that Republicans have already won and big swaths of President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget will be cut when Congress returns after its summer recess. read more »
Few in U.S. Move For New Jobs, Fueling Fear the Economy Might Get Stuck, Too, The Washington Post | July 30, 2010
Labor mobility has nearly ground to a halt in the past two years, and policymakers are increasingly worried that the slowdown is not just a symptom of the nation's economic struggles but also a barrier to overcoming them. read more »
Netroots Nation: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter, blog.aflcio.org | July 23, 2010
Where does populist anger over the economy go—left or right? It’s a question Working America has focused a great deal on as it relates to both policy and politics, in our discussions of a “working class at the tipping point,” in our daily work and as it relates specifically to this fall’s elections. This morning, a Netroots Nation panel also took up the question. read more »
Checks are Coming: Obama Signs Unemployment Bill, salon.com | July 23, 2010
Federal checks could begin flowing again as early as next week to millions of jobless people who lost up to seven weeks of unemployment benefits in a congressional standoff. read more »
