According to a Fair Housing complaint filed last month by the Department of Justice, Palmdale and Lancaster in the northern section of Los Angeles County are the latest satellite cities to be found discriminating against African American Section 8 voucher holders. This comes as disturbing but not unsurprising news as communities of color, particularly in […]
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Posted inAmerica and the World
The Gray Lady Agrees: Southern Workers Are Cheaper Than China’s
Today’s New York Times features a front-page story on Chinese textile firms opening new factories not in China but in the American South. With the steep rise in the wages of Chinese workers and the stagnation (at best) of the wages of American workers-Southern workers most particularly-and with the higher levels of productivity and lower […]
Posted inWorking in America
The Guardian US Will Unionize. Can We Call This a Trend Now?
Staffers at the Guardian US unanimously voted yesterday to unionize with the News Media Guild, The Huffington Post reported. The vote is just the latest in a surge of recent union drives in the digital media world. Guardian US management voluntarily recognized the union effort, therefore negating the need to go through the formal channels […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
Dems Are Divided on Minimum Wage. But That’s Not Bad News
Last week, Bernie Sanders and other leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. The bill is not only the most ambitious wage hike legislation to come from the left, but it’s also indicative of the growing influence that the national Fight […]
Posted inEconomic Policy
The Senate Wants to Eliminate One of the Most Successful Affordable Housing Programs
For more than 20 years, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program has helped rural, suburban, and urban communities provide housing for some of their most vulnerable citizens. HOME is the largest federal block grant for state and local governments that can be used to create affordable housing for low-income populations, including seniors, families with children, people […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Defunding Planned Parenthood Would Be the Real Betrayal of Women
In the past two weeks, three secretly recorded (and misleadingly edited) videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing fetal tissues were leaked by anti-choice activists in an attempt to make the organization appear to be participating in the illegal harvesting of body parts for profit. Pro-choice activists have dissected the videos and proved that Planned Parenthood […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Foul-Mouthed Far-Right Can Win. Just Ask Maine.
If you want to know what a Donald Trump presidency might be like, take a look at Maine. The state, known for its mild moderates (like Senator Susan Collins and former Senator Olympia Snowe), has acquired a new reputation for Tea Party impetuousness thanks to Republican Governor Paul LePage. Like Trump, when it comes to […]
Posted inEducation in America
Ohio Charter Teachers Fired for Organizing Will Be Reinstated
Teachers at the Ohio-based I CAN charter network decided to organize a union during the 2013-2014 school year. Yet when the school year ended, the administration did not renew contracts for seven teachers leading the union drive-resulting in a cancellation of the scheduled union vote. While about 40 charter schools in Ohio are already unionized, […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Black Lives Matter Convenes in Cleveland for First National Meeting
Today, hundreds of organizers, activists, and people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement arrived in Cleveland for the first national Movement for Black Lives convening. The timing is striking: two weeks after Sandra Bland was stopped by an authority-abusing Texas state trooper and was later found dead in her jail cell, and one week […]
Posted inLaw and Justice
This Prosecutor is Wrong About the Death Penalty, But He’s Also Right
A few months ago, Dale Cox, the acting district attorney in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, told a reporter from the Shreveport Times the country needs to “kill more people.” The dramatic increase in capital convictions in Cox’s parish, which now accounts for almost 50 percent of those in all of Louisiana, was also the subject of […]
