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New Jersey was ready when Hurricane Sandy rushed ashore the evening of October 29, 2012. Teams from FEMA and the National Guard had been activated, nuclear reactors had been shut down, and the Red Cross had prepared meals and shelters.

The carefully laid plans didn’t prevent the storm from wreaking record-setting devastation – including 37 deaths in New Jersey alone.

It is often assumed that the majority of Americans who don't vote are poor and nonwhite. Not so. While it is true that low-income Americans vote at much lower rates, the majority of nonvoters -- in raw numbers -- are white middle class Americans. 

Republican governor Bobby Jindal attracted attention earlier this year when he said that Republicans must stop being the "stupid party." But in that same speech Jindal said something equally important:

Employment credit checks illegitimately obstruct access to employment, keeping qualified workers out of jobs they need. It’s an argument Demos has been making for a few years, but the new study we released this week provides additional data to back it up.

Eighty years ago, in the 1930s, the auto industry -- a centerpiece of America's industrial economy -- was not yet unionized. Yet within twenty years, the big carmakers and the United Auto Workers would be effectively sharing power in Detroit, and building cars had become a reliable path into the middle class for workers with only a high school diploma, or not even that. 

The Dow may be at a record high, leaving many traders and CEOs elated, but as the New York Times reported Monday, the share of national income going to American workers is near an all time low.

One way to undermine movement on climate change is to create a false dichotomy that pits advocates against each other. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening now in the fracking battle.

Emmett Pinkston served in the military for 30 years, first in the Marines, then in the Air Force, then in the Army. He helped coordinate security for President George W. Bush during the G8 Summit on Sea Island, Ga., in 2004, and worked as an intelligence analyst in Iraq from 2005 to 2007, some of the deadliest years of the war.

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A new bill introduced today by Senator Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, and more importantly, peg it to inflation so that it would automatically adjust. The proposed wage hike is higher than the $9 per hour proposed by President Obama and is closer to what the minimum wage would be now if it had kept up with the rate of inflation. The bill also increases the tipped wage, which has not risen in twenty years.