Media

This week brings yet another revelation of misconduct by a major bank, with a top New York State regulator reporting that the British bank, Standard Chartered, circumvented laws aimed at stopping Iran from using the U.S.

“American workers should have paid sick leave,” announced the New York Times in a staff editorial on Sunday, “and New York City could set a standard for the rest of the nation.” With that, the nation’s newspaper of record waded into the long fight for what most Americans already say is a basic workplace right: the chance to recuperate from sickness without l

Harry Reid's unsubstantiated charge that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for a decade is a reminder of why so many Americans are turned off by politics. The Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate should not be trafficking in hearsay; if he has an evidence-based attack to make on Romney, he should start with the evidence -- if there is any. On its face, Reid's claim seems absurd: No politician as ambitious and calculating as Romney would pay zero taxes. Even if that were possible under law, Romney surely would have found a way to pay something.

While Congress fails to make any inroads into establishing a meaningful energy policy that moves us beyond fossil fuels, advocates around the country are vocalizing their opposition to dirty energy. In just the last few weeks, coal opponents have staged protests in at least six different states. They may not be getting much national attention, but it’s clear that advocates on the state level are making their preference for clean energy known.

Critics of government say that the public sector is bigger now than it's ever been before and, in fact, swells larger in a nearly automatic fashion.

Representative John Dingell (D-MI), the longest-sitting member of Congress, introduced a bill Thursday designed to force the Supreme Court to reconsider its Citizens United decision. Along with at least ten co-sponsors, Dingell's Restoring Confidence in Our Democracy Act, would ban corporations and unions from making independent political expenditures. It would also subject Super PACs to the same contribution limits that exist with other PACs.

Prominent Jewish Republicans flew to Israel last weekend to join presidential candidate Mitt Romney on his overseas trip. Among them were casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam.

The Adelsons were in the audience Sunday when Romney gave a policy speech in Jerusaleum. And at a fundraising breakfast Monday, Sheldon Adelson sat by Romney's side.

The July jobs report this morning was better than expected, but still bad news. The unemployment rate remains unchanged and the economy is barely treading water. The U.S. would need to create 5 million jobs just to get back to 2007 levels -- yet, of course, millions of young people have since graduated school and entered the workforce (or want to, anyway). So we are talking about a need for way more than 5 million jobs.