Congressional Democrats unveiled a new economic “action plan” to put a “Robin Hood” tax on Wall Street transactions and redistribute wealth from top earners to lower and middle classes (1/12).The plan, introduced by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) with backing from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), places a 0.1% fee on financial transactions that would be rolled in with reductions in tax breaks for the top 1% of earners. The new taxes would reportedly add up to $1.2 tln over the next decade, which would fund a “paycheck bonus credit” of $2,000 a year for couples earning less than $200,000.Other elements of Van Hollen’s proposal include incentivizing companies to raise worker pay by placing restrictions on tax treatment of executive salaries for companies that don’t also increase employees’ income, incentivizing worker training programs, nearly tripling the tax credit for child care and rewarding people who save at least $500 a year, Lauren McCauley noted at CommonDreams.org.“This is a plan to help tackle the challenge of our times,” Van Hollen, a ranking member of the House Budget Committee, said during a speech at the Center for American Progress ahead of the official roll-out. “We want a growing economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few.”A day after Van Hollen unveiled his proposal, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) released a “tax fairness plan” that would set a 30% minimum tax for people with multimillion-dollar incomes, regardless of credits and deductions they claim.The bill has the support of a broad coalition of liberal and progressive senators, including Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).Also part of the Whitehouse plan is the “Offshoring Prevention Act,” which would end the ability of corporations to defer taxes on profits earned or sent overseas, eliminating an incentive to take such actions as moving production out of the country. Another bill in the Whitehouse package revives a proposal championed by former Sen. Carl Levin that would end the ability of corporations to avoid taxes by funneling profits through overseas subsidiaries.Read More.Source:/The Progressive Populist/Dispatches
EDITORIAL: Congress Heads For Trouble
In the first week of the 114th Congress, the new Republican overlords acted to undermine the Affordable Care Act; set up a Social Security funding crisis; require President Obama to accept the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline; enact new roadblocks to immigration reform; and undermine the Dodd-Frank financial reforms.Republicans want to bull ahead with the Keystone pipeline regardless of the threat of potentially toxic leaks over the environmentally sensitive Ogallala Aquifer in the Midwest, in pursuit of 42,000 short-term jobs in building the pipeline and less than 50 long-term jobs to maintain it — all to carry Canadian oil to Texas to be refined for export overseas. Of course, the GOP also passed a bill to make it much more difficult to pass and enforce regulations to be enforced by federal and independent agencies.The House got a quicker start at mischief than the Senate since House leaders don’t pretend to seek consensus. They adopted a rule to create a funding crisis for Social Security Disability Insurance by banning transfer of funds within the Social Security Trust. That wouldn’t be so bad if Congressional Republicans had any intention of fixing the shortfall that is expected in the Social Security Disability program next year, but they have no apparent intention to do so. If Congress does not fix the disability trust fund, it will result in a 20% benefit reduction for 11 million disabled Americans.“Reallocation has never been controversial, but detractors working to privatize Social Security will do anything to manufacture a crisis out of a routine administrative function,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said. “Rather than solve the short-term problems facing the Social Security Disability program as we have in the past, Republicans want to set the stage to cut benefits for seniors and disabled Americans.”Read More.Source: The Progressive Populist/Editorial/Jim Hightower
Our Populist Agenda — in Elizabeth Warren's Words
The Massachusetts senator has taken the lead in defending reforms of Wall Street and protecting the economic interests of the working class. Now the corporate media is working on marginalizing her populist message.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has become the most visible leader of the growing populist movement that is uniting a new majority around an agenda for economic change.
But with media visibility comes oversimplified media analysis. For example, a Dec. 24 McClatchy News Service article characterizes Warren supporters as a liberal faction mobilizing “voter outrage” against the banks – as if Americans were not already outraged by the way bankers manipulate our economy. The story describes populists as pitted against “centrists who want the party to provide economic incentives for people to succeed, relying less on wealth redistribution through higher taxes or guaranteed incomes.” Note the absurd implication that we populists somehow oppose helping people to succeed.All reporters and pundits – and all Warren supporters – should read a series of speeches (stitched together below) in which Sen. Warren carefully explains why so few people are able to succeed in today’s American economy. And her solutions, drawn from some of the best thinkers and social movements in America today, go well beyond stale debates about redistribution, zeroing in on what it will take to create jobs, raise wages, and put government on the side of working Americans.Read More.Source: The Progressive Populist/ROGER HICKEY and ELIZABETH WARREN
'Entertainment' Steers Clear of Progressive Action
When I started writing this column some 15 years ago, my editor asked me to wrap up each year with an overview of the notable political and progressive music of the previous 12 months or so. At first it was there was always sufficient music with a political or progressive bent to fill a space twice the length of my usual column.aSoon that began to decline precipitously. I shifted tack and began to cover more the music that might appeal to those with a leftist bent and include the few political treasures. In time there became even less of that. Last few years I’ve found myself not doing an overview and commenting on the paucity of music that expresses the feelings and concerns of liberals and left wing Americans.What happened? Where did such music go? That’s what I hope to explore and maybe answer at least in part this year. And not just in music but entertainment overall.Certainly there are some people making political music. But for the most part it’s in the margins, ergo not really significant. Nor is much if almost any of it music so strong that it can and will reach a wider audience. If it doesn’t, it’s just preaching to the choir.A little context here: I was born in 1954, the same year that rock’n’roll started to go large in popular culture. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a sensible mainstream Republican, was president. McCarthyism was fading, Korean War had ended, and prosperity was blooming. Eisenhower ended his presidency quite presciently warning about the military-industrial complex.I came of age in the 1960s. Folk music with a topical bent enjoyed its greatest cultural focus at the dawn of that decade, and then came The Beatles and the blossoming of rock’n’roll, soul, pop and more. John F. Kennedy inspired us to conquer new frontiers (and got assassinated). Martin Luther King Jr. inspired us to end segregation by non-violent means (and got assassinated). Robert F. Kennedy began to build on what both his brother and MLK began (and got assassinated).Read More.Source: Populist/Rob Patterson
Hand to Mouth: No Way To Live, Unless You Have No Other Choice
“I haven’t had it worse than anyone else, and actually, that’s kind of the point. This is just what life is for roughly a third of the country.” In her introduction to Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America (published in October from GP Putnam’s Sons), author Linda Tirado expands on the online essay that went viral, in which she tried to answer an anonymous poster’s question about why poor people make “self-destructive” decisions. Her arguments are funny and incisive, often summarizing big ideas into a single perfect sentence (“I have trouble understanding why taking a few grand a year in food stamps is somehow magically different than taking trillions as a bailout.”), and prodding readers to see the bigger picture about poverty. Many of those “bad” decisions represent the best option available at the time for people with limited resources. I emailed Tirado some questions about life before and after the book, dental drama and the daily grind that is life between paychecks.The Progressive Populist: Hand to Mouth has its roots in an essay you wrote online that went viral, in answer to a question about “why poor people make such bad decisions.” What were you feeling when you wrote that initial reply?Linda Tirado: That particular day I’d been due home at a reasonable hour, and I had a list of things to get done. Of course I wound up having to stay at work for hours, and by the time I got home, I was reflecting on the fact that you can’t vacuum the floors when everyone’s asleep. I felt like I was failing personally, and I was really angry about that. It’s pretty much the default state of any service worker, actually. Not quite ever able to get on top of everything.TPP: How has it been dealing with the media about the initial post and now the book?Read More.Source: The Progressive Populist/Heather Seggel
Obama's 'Historic' Agreement with China Neither Historic, Nor an Agreement
China is producing about one-third of the world’s greenhouse gases, twice the level of the United States. If we are truly serious about reducing greenhouse emissions and air pollution, we must get tough with China (as well as with Russia and India) who produce high levels of carbon pollutants. The recent vague and supposed historic agreement entered into between President Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping does not require China to do anything specific, only to promise to do something about pollution reduction in 16 years. The agreement is not historic. It is, in fact, a continuation of the United States’ lame policy of trying to play nice with China.The Agreement is Not Binding on the Parties. The “agreement” entered into between President Obama and China is not binding on the parties. Agreements, by their very definition, must be binding or they are not worth the paper on which they are written. It is not a treaty because it will not be presented to the US Senate for approval. Treaties must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. That means that there is no binding international law that can require the US, or China, to reduce these toxic emissions. The agreement has lofty goals for a document that no one can enforce. China has agreed to reduce emissions if the US does so first. The “agreement” states that the US will reduce carbon pollution 26-28 percent less in 2025 than it did in 2005. Even the US does not have to do anything for 11 years. China’s unenforceable pledge is to stop pollution from increasing by 2030. So the agreement allows China to continue to increase carbon emissions for 16 years and then start to reduce them.Read More.Source: Populist/Joel D. Joseph
Congress Predictably On The Side Of Dirty Air
Unlike Barack Obama, I am not a father to teenage girls, but it must be something like being President with this obstructionist congress. No good deed for Obama goes unpunished by Republicans in Washington, and the recent climate agreement with China is a good example.America showing world leadership? Finding progress where there was once was only problems? Reaching the most important international climate deal in the history of the world. I can’t even, mutters congress, it’s eyes fixed on the glowing screen, thumbs furiously typing up articles of impeachment or begging for a booking on Fox News. That is literally the greatest thing, said no one ever. Sorry not sorry.This deal should be an easy sell. The U.S. and China have the two biggest economies in the world and produce the most pollution. China, in particular, is out of control. It finishes a new coal plant about every 10 days and is responsible for 60 percent of the growth in global carbon emissions over the past 15 years. No country produces more greenhouse gases than China, which until now refused to do much about it.Read More.Source: The Cagle Post/Jason Stanford
Fix Decaying Pipelines First for Jobs, Health and Safety
With the Keystone XL pipeline stalled again, now perhaps we can look ahead and consider more promising ways to rebuild our energy system, creating many more jobs than that controversial project ever would. No matter where we look, the far larger issue that still confronts Americans is decaying infrastructure — which emphatically includes the enormous web of oil and gas pipelines crisscrossing the continental United States in every direction.When TransCanada CEO Russ Girling touted Keystone as an engine of employment on ABC News' "This Week" last Sunday, he insisted that its construction would create 42,000 jobs. Not only would his venture create those 42,000 "direct and indirect" jobs, boasted Girling, but also those positions would be "ongoing and enduring" rather than temporary like most construction jobs; he cited a State Department study that drew no such conclusions. A company spokesman later tempered Girling's pronouncements, more or less acknowledging that they had been grossly exaggerated. The number of permanent jobs after the construction would top out at about 50. With or without Keystone, the national economy already produces about 42,000 jobs every week, so it just wouldn't matter much.Read More.Source: Creators.Com/Joe Conason
Media Lessons From The Benghazi Charade
The calling cards of anger and denial have been on display since Friday afternoon when the House Intelligence Committee, led by Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, released the findings of its two-year investigation into the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi. Becoming the sixth government inquiry to come to a similar conclusion, the report found nothing to support the allegations behind Fox News' ongoing Benghazi witch-hunt. And that's where the anger and denial came in.Appearing on CNN, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has staked his professional reputation on the endless claim of an elaborate White House cover-up, flashed irritation when he denounced the House report as being "full of crap."Meanwhile, Fox News contributor Stephen Hayes did his best to deflate the supposedly "deeply flawed" Republican report:For Benghazi conspiracy disciples, unanswered questions always remain as long as devotees say so, and as long as the answers provided by government (and Republican-led investigations) don't match up their conspiracy narrative. But apparently if the seventh investigation finds wrongdoing on the part of the administration, that's the one that will really matter?Read More.Source: Media Matters/Eric Boehlert
Keep On Steppin’, Mr. President
The President’s historic executive action on immigration has been greeted with scripted Republican outrage, from threats to close the government (again), block all presidential appointees (what’s new?), and riots in the streets (see #coburnriots on twitter for gripping hour by hour reporting of the carnage). But threats of more obstruction are pretty empty from a Republican leadership that has waged a relentless scorched earth opposition to all things Obama from the start of his administration.Instead of suing for peace, the president would be wise to keep on steppin’.Read More.Source: Campaign For America's Future/Robert Borosage
It Really Was the Economy, Stupid
You could almost feel the big, red wave coming. In the midterms Democrats, confronted by a radical-right Republicanism intent on disparaging their leadership, demeaning their accomplishments, and dismissing their approach to governing, had no answers. Their response ranged from assuming a defensive crouch to shriveling up into the fetal position.As a party, the Democrats seemed tired, dispirited and listless. It was obvious they, like the country, were disillusioned with Barack Obama, whose shortcomings as a manager and politician had, by the sixth year of his presidency, overwhelmed his more intangible strengths in the area of vision and inspiration.Admittedly, the president was battered post-2012 by events beyond his immediate control: ISIS, Ebola, Russian aggression, the IRS and VA mini-scandals. Nevertheless, his reactions lacked the verve and clarity of the early years, and Democrats, who had tied their party fortunes to a cult of the Obama personality, were dragged down with him.Rather than defending their ground and playing the hand they were dealt, Democrats as a whole entered the lists in 2014 determined to run Republican-lite campaigns and deny their Obama connection; it made their situation untenable. By deserting their president in his hour of need, the party’s midterm candidates looked cowardly, duplicitous, and unappreciative; they were with him in the good times, had never heard of him in the bad times. Barack who? Naturally, the public, not being stupid, saw through the charade and voted for the real anti-Obama candidates, not the ersatz alternative.Read More.Source: Populisr/Wayne O'Leary
Exploding the myths about American health care
I don’t agree with Romney and Obama health care advisor Jonathan Gruber that Americans are stupid, but there is abundant evidence that we’re incredibly gullible. And we’re paying a big price for it. For the latest evidence, check out the documentary Remote Area Medical, which opens in select theaters across the country this coming Friday.We’ve been told over and over again by politicians and flacks — including me in my previous career — that we have the world’s best health care system. As I explained in Deadly Spin, if you continue to believe that no other country could possibly have a better system than ours, it’s because of the overwhelmingly successful PR campaign my former colleagues and I carried out over decades.The purpose of that campaign — a campaign that’s ongoing, by the way — is to protect the profitable status quo by obscuring an empirical truth: that when it comes to access to affordable health care, millions of Americans might as well be living in a third world country. And that’s still true today, more than four years after Obamacare became law.Read More.Source: Center For Public Integrity/Wendell Potter
Let’s Hope We Don’t Get the Government We Deserve
It was Adlai Stevenson, among others, who said, “In a democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve.” There are two groups of people who have been remarkable accurate in their interpretation of modern issues, and it’s just our luck that they turn out to be Keynesian (and neo-Keynesian) economists and climate scientists. Consider John Boehner’s recent quote: “Listen, I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change. But I am astute enough to understand that every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs. That can’t be the prescription for dealing with changes in our climate.”Now the obvious fact is that we’ve wasted too much time to accomplish all we’d like in terms of climate change, and given the nature of our government we might as well throw up our hands, or possibly just throw up. According to the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change fifth assessment report (Approved Summary for Policymakers 11/1/2014) “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems. Limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which, together with adaptation, can limit climate change risks.”It isn’t necessary to be a scientist to see the effects of climate change and, anyway, most scientists aren’t climate scientists, but we’ve seen the erratic weather conditions that the climate scientists predicted. Also, it shouldn’t be necessary to figure out that if we keep pouring tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere something is going to change. Yes, climate change can be a natural phenomenon – the ice ages occurred long before the internal combustion engine – but that doesn’t mean we have no responsibility or should just ignore what’s happening. The fact is combating climate change will create more jobs, not fewer.Read More.Source: Populist/Sam Uretsky
A Sad Chapter in the I-Hate-Obamacare Chronicles
The I-Hate-Obamacare Chronicles has its predictable chapters, written by entrepreneurs who don’t want Uncle Sam telling them they must either insure their employees or pay subsidies. The citizens forced to drop substandard policies in favor of more expensive, yet more inclusive, policies, have penned their objections. (These healthy people don’t yet recognize the worthlessness of the policies they are mourning.) And the well-insured, wealthy solons who blather against Obamacare in Congressional tirades have added their harangues – part of their life-work to block whatever this President has done.Religious people, members of conservative sects that deplore extramarital sex, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco (the two-fer vices that are both immoral and unhealthy), have also spoken up. They see immoral people as unhealthy people, and the moral ones are loathe to pay for the diseases of the larger pool of immoral Americans.The good news for the moral ones: This Act allowed them an exit: they can join faith-based collectives that pool premiums to pay medical bills – a different variation of risk-based insurance, called “health-sharing ministries”. (They can join only those that have been in operation since 1999, to preclude the scams that might otherwise surface.) Enrollees will not face a tax penalty for being uninsured. The catch: the enrollees pledge to live faith-based lives, eschewing the litany of unhealthy sins. As a reward, the right-living pool will not need to pay for sexually transmitted diseases (HIV, AIDS, Chlamydia), abortion, or diseases linked to alcoholism, drug abuse, or smoking. Presumably, their costs will be lower than for the larger pool.More good news: 26 states have exempted these ministries from state regulation. The government is off their backs.Enrollees pay a hefty price for getting government off their backs. The backbone of a risk-based pool is numbers: the higher the numbers, the greater the spread of major catastrophes — and the smaller the premiums. (That is probably why enrollees in faith-based ministries may well gravitate to Medicare once they turn 65 – reluctantly accepting the protection of government). These ministry pools are small, compared to national pools. An enrollee, even one with a low income, can face a deductible as high as $10,000. And where the Affordable Care Act subsidizes enrollees with low incomes, the participants in these ministries get no subsidies. Nor do they get the protections considered basic to public health: free immunizations and preventive care visits, a cap on expenditures, and general oversight of the policy’s management.An article in the Charlotte Observer describes one pastor, a member of one such ministry. With a $10,000 deductible, he faced a bill for over $1,000 for immunizing his children (later negotiated down to $400). Under the Affordable Care Act, the visits would have cost him nothing. The ministries suggest that enrollees willingly pay whatever the plan may cost – though the publicity hints that since the pool will not be subsidizing abortion, drug treatment, etc, the overall costs may be lower than among the profligate general population. This pastor did not complain about the higher cost, but did lament the lack of government subsidy for his children’s immunizations. (The government would have subsidized the visits of uninsured low-income children.)Read More.Source: Populist/Joan Retsinas
Standing by Those Who Stand in the Way of Fracking Infrastructure
It all began taking shape back in March of 2013, when Sandra Steingraber — the noted biologist, author, educator and advisor of Americans Against Fracking — and 11 other courageous individuals were arrested for blockading the entrance to a natural gas compressor station on the banks of Seneca Lake, in the environmentally sensitive Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. These so-called “Seneca Lake 12” were simply doing what countless other Americans have done over generations when they knew their health and safety were threatened, when their elected leaders weren’t there to help, and when they had no other choice: they stood up for their neighbors, their families and themselves, and were hauled off to jail. Sandra spent 10 days behind bars after defiantly refusing to pay a fine.The narrative of the Seneca Lake 12 is becoming all too familiar, as concerned residents across the nation are often finding no legal means of resistance against the incessant development of dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure spurred on by fracking. Thanks to the decimation of campaign finance laws by the U.S. Supreme Court, state and federal politicians have become increasingly bought off by the unlimited wealth of the oil and gas industry. As such, pleas from desperate local officials and community groups to reject hazardous infrastructure projects fall on deaf ears.Read More.Source: Food & Water Watch/Wenonah Hauter
Citizens Shouldn’t Have to Force the Government to Enforce the Law
This is a story from Wisconsin, but similar stories are playing out every day all over the US. Stories about big dairy farms, hog farms, poultry farms. Stories about people whose health, homes and communities were adversely impacted by putting too many animals in too small an area. Kewaunee County, near Green Bay Wisconsin has 14 permitted CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations of 1,000 animal units, about 700 dairy cows) giving it one of the highest livestock densities in the state. Wisconsin has over 220 dairy CAFO’s and according to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) there are currently about 30 more permit applications pending. Clearly, the move to fewer and bigger livestock operations is a growing trend.With more cows comes more manure and when concentrated in a smaller area the possibility of ground and surface water pollution becomes a very real threat.With 30% of the private wells tested in Kewaunee county and 50% of the wells in the county’s Lincoln Township contaminated with E. coli and other contaminants it would appear that the threat is now a reality.Read More.Scource: Counterpunch.Org/Jim Goodman
Clueless cop targets liberal: NYPD union chief says mayor thinks he’s running “a f**ing revolution”
If you thought nothing could top Cleveland police union chief Jeff Follmer’s brazen defense of police authority – “the nation needs to realize, when we tell you to do something, do it” – you need to read this story about New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch’s meltdown in the wake of criticism over the NYPD’s killing of Eric Garner in Staten Island.
Because Mayor Bill de Blasio won’t let cops do “what’s right,” Lynch tells his members to use “extreme discretion” when policing “our enemies” – which, in context, sounds like advocating a work slowdown.“If we won’t get support when we do our jobs, if we’re going to get hurt for doing what’s right, then we’re going to do it the way they want it,” he told his members in a meeting last Friday that was secretly recorded, and leaked to Capital New York. “Let me be perfectly clear. We will use extreme discretion in every encounter …”“Our friends, we’re courteous to them. Our enemies, extreme discretion. The rules are made by them to hurt you. Well now we’ll use those rules to protect us.”He doesn’t define who the NYPD’s enemies are. He presumes his audience will know.On the one hand, Lynch’s comments are good news – if police are really going to use “extreme discretion” – or as Lynch says, just follow “the rules” — that’s what we all want. (A PBA spokesman says that’s exactly what Lynch was advocating: “The message I got was do the job right.”)On the other hand, the histrionic, self-pitying tone of his comments makes clear he’s urging cops to follow a ludicrous interpretation of “the rules” to the detriment of the communities they’re supposed to serve.Here’s more of his comments.Read More.Source: Salon/Joan Walsh
GOP outrage at Obama immigration plan sticks to an old script
Ronald Reagan pulled off a great performance as president of the United States. All those years in the movies came in handy. Yet, it must be acknowledged that, even without careers in Hollywood, members of the current cast of Republicans are no slouches when it comes to playacting.
I’m not talking about the professional entertainers, such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who are paid big money for their florid melodramatics. Nor do I mean the party’s hilarious clown corps, the laugh-a-minute buffoons Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert. I mean the true thespians – Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner, as well as understated players such as South Dakota Sen. John Thune and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.
Source: LA Times/David Horsey
San Francisco Breaks Ground With Retail Worker ‘Bill Of Rights’ Law
For six years, Republicans in Washington have blocked almost every effort to improve conditions and wages for working people. Around the country, cities and states are no longer waiting for Washington to act, and are taking things into their own hands. They have passed laws increasing the minimum wage and requiring sick pay for workers. Now San Francisco has passed, and is waiting for the mayor to sign, a groundbreaking law that lets employees know in advance when and where their work shifts will be.People Are Fed UpCongress is “gridlocked,” which is Washington-speak for Republicans are obstructing everything that might help regular, working Americans. People want protections and improvements. Brigid Schulte writes in The Washington Post:
As many as 73 percent of voters surveyed by The Pew Research Center earlier this year favored raising the minimum wage. And 86 percent of those surveyed in recent years by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago favored legislation to guarantee workers paid sick days.
People are giving up waiting for Washington to act, and are going ahead to make things happen locally. Cities and states around the country are passing local minimum wage increases and other laws to help working people. For example, we’ve seen it with minimum wage ballot initiatives passing in November — even in states that voted “red” — and votes by local governments. Connecticut and California and Massachusetts have passed laws to give workers paid sick days, as have numerous cities.Read More.Source: Our Future/Dave Johnson
Patrolling the Boundaries Inside America
America is embroiled in an immigration debate that goes far beyond President Obama’s executive order on undocumented immigrants.It goes to the heart of who “we” are. And it’s roiling communities across the nation.In early November, school officials in Orinda, California, hired a private detective to determine whether a seven-year-old Latina named Vivian – whose single mother works as a live-in nanny for a family in Orinda — “resides” in the district and should therefore be allowed to attend the elementary school she’s already been attending there.On the basis of that investigation they determined that Vivian’s legal residence is her grandmother’s home in Bay Point, California.Never mind that Vivian and her mother live during the workweek at the Orinda home where Vivian’s mother is a nanny, that Vivian has her own bedroom in that home with her clothing and toys and even her own bathroom, that she and her mother stock their own shelves in the refrigerator and kitchen cupboard of that Orinda home, or that Vivian attends church with her mother in Orinda and takes gym and youth theater classes at the Orinda community center.The point is Vivian is Latina and poor, and Orinda is white, Anglo, and wealthy.Read More.Source: RobertReich.Org/Robert Reich