Media

Conservatives are trumpeting a new video in which a younger Obama embraces the dreaded socialist sin of redistribution. His earlier words will no doubt hurt Obama among some segment of the electorate -- even though most voters in both parties, whether they realize it or not, actually favor a host of redistributive policies. 

The afternoon before early voting began in the 2010 midterm elections, a crowd of people gathered in the offices of a Houston Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots. They soon formed a line that snaked out the door of the Patriots’ crumbling storefront and down the block, past the neighboring tattoo parlor. The volunteers, all of whom had been trained by the Patriots to work as poll watchers, had come to collect their polling-place assignments.

In a 4-2 decision issued yesterday, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court vacated a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed the state’s controversial voter ID law to go into effect for this November’s elections.

The ruling, which sent the case back to the lower Commonwealth Court for further consideration, is not the end of the legal fight over Pennsylvania’s Voter ID laws, but the decision is being celebrated as an important step in the right direction.

Last Friday a Circuit Judge in Dane County, Wisconsin ruled that certain portions of the Wisconsin law known as “Act 10” was unconstitutional under the state and federal constitution. Act 10 is the controversial law passed by the Wisconsin legislature in the March, 2011, that practically stripped most of Wisconsin’s public sector workers of their rights to engage in collective bargaining.

Last week you may have seen my brother Dave grimacing on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek. He was the posterboy for Peter Coy's cover story, "Student Loans: Debt for Life," about the more than $1 trillion in student loan debt owed by US borrowers.

David Callahan has already posted a comprehensive analysis of Mitt Romney's recently revealed assertion that 47 percent of Americans are entitled freeloaders, and it's well worth a read.

So I'm going to tackle another, related question: Why is there such a persistent, pernicious tendency to beat up on the poor? What psychological needs are filled by this all-too-common feature of our political discourse?

Citizens in Orange County, Florida will not have a chance to vote for paid sick leave on November 6th due to the fierce opposition of business allies. 

Outreach and leadership will strengthen worker rights, but a cultural shift is needed in the way we think and talk about work, panelists said Sept. 12 at the launch of the ILR School's Worker Institute. The event, moderated by MSNBC political analyst Chris Hayes, drew an audience of 300 to hear representatives of community organizations, unions, academia, business and other sectors talk about "Strengthening Worker Voice, Advancing Economic Fairness" at the headquarters of Service Employees International Union 32BJ in Manhattan.

Another week, another distraction for the Romney campaign. This latest flap, though, is instructive. The revelation that Romney told donors that nearly half all Americans are basically freeloaders offers insights into the core ideas -- or myths, as it turns out -- that animate modern conservative thinking.

Of the Americans who don't pay federal income taxes, 37% are not in the labor force either because they're students, elderly, or unemployed. (University of Denver)