Job openings decline sharply

Americans should expect more cooperation from the political class but that's not likely to happen in the middle of an election cycle. There are options out there such as the jobs bill that the GOP is blocking or another stimulus, but the Republicans are much more interested in damaging the economy so they can increase their chances of winning in November.

Although private industry is enjoying record profits, they're not hiring and won't hire until there is a stronger recovery. We can see from the UK and Europe that austerity is not the answer but that message hasn't made it through to the Republicans who believe that it's working well.

One of these days the GOP is going to have to step up and do something about jobs instead of obstructing. Why can't they think of all Americans rather than just the 1%?

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, indicated 3.4 million job openings at the end of April, an 8 percent decline from the previous month.

The pace of total hiring also slowed, with 160,000 fewer jobs filled during the month.

Moreover, the drop showed weakness across the employment spectrum, with manufacturing seeing 62,000 fewer job openings and construction dropping by 2,000.

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The Simpsons' Matt Groening ends "Life in Hell" comic strip

Odd that I feel sad since I haven't read the thing in years. Read the rest of this post...

Bloomberg poll: Americans better off since Obama

It's not clear what triggered the recent change, but it's good news for Obama. The Obama administration could and should be doing a lot more to address the serious problem of a declining middle class, but compared to Romney, at least there's something for Americans who aren't part of the 1%. Obamacare needs a lot of improvement but it's at least a start to fixing a system that no longer works.

Anyone who looks at the Romney plan has to know that it's a return to the Bush playbook of tax cuts for the rich and stagnation (at best) for everyone else. The GOP keeps talking about shredding Obamacare, but nothing about how they will fix the healthcare problem. In this context, it would be hard to imagine anyone outside of the 1% being optimistic about Romney as president.

Bloomberg:

Forty-five percent of those surveyed in a Bloomberg National Poll say they are better off than at the beginning of 2009 compared with 36 percent who say they are worse off. In March, poll respondents split almost evenly on that question after having been decidedly negative since the aftermath of the worst recession in seven decades.

“I’m just tired of the doom and gloom,” says Jim Seeley, 52, a mortgage banker in Traverse City, Michigan, and a poll respondent, in a follow-up interview. “I think it’s looking better. People just need to stay positive.”

The poll, conducted June 15-18, contains more unlikely cheer for the president, with larger numbers of respondents saying their household income is higher than a year ago. While 44 percent say they are treading water, the better off outnumbered the worse off by 28 percent to 22 percent.

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Verizon releases 300Mbps internet service, at an ugly price

The speed is definitely impressive. The price? It's even uglier than their earlier prices and still lagging far behind the overall service that is readily available outside of the US. Imagine what would happen with a bit of real competition, dare I say capitalism?

Verizon ought to call this the High Speed Internet for the 1% since it's so cost prohibitive.

There are two downsides to the 300Mbps FiOS Quantum. The first is that Verizon FiOS isn’t available in all areas, so you may not be able to get FiOS at all. The second is that the 300Mbps FiOS Quantum package is $210 per month ($205 if you agree to a two-year contract).

The 150Mbps FiOS Quantum service (with the same 65Mbps upload speed) may be more sensible in many cases. At $100 a month (or $95 on a two-year contract), it costs less than half of the top of the line service while still delivering more than adequate broadband speeds.

I love that they knock off $5 a month if you buy a two-year contract worth nearly $5,000.  How generous.

On a related note, what fool in Washington believes that it's a good thing to make the Internet so expensive that it's not easily available for all Americans? If they really want the country to compete, they need to allow competition and not what exists today.

I'll remind everyone again that in Europe we have plans for 30 euros a month that include Internet, cable TV, and an unlimited phone service to much of the world.  You are being ripped off.  (On a related matter, see John's earlier post about his $26 a month French iPhone service (I have the same plan) that beats anything you can find in the states.) Read the rest of this post...

NRA scored Holder contempt vote, proving that this is all about crazy gun nuts

The NRA doesn't score issues that it doesn't consider dealing with gun control.  And we know that the real motivation behind the GOP investigation of this issue has been some crazy conspiracy that this is all part of an Obama plot to take away our guns.  So it's no surprise that the NRA is treating this issue as a key vote for them.

So kids, remember: The NRA is behind everything that happened today. Read the rest of this post...

House GOPers vote to hold Holder in contempt, Romney and Boehner have (metaphorical) aneurysms

Thank you, Darrel Issa!
(image via Shutterstock)

It's a House committee that voted for it, along party lines of course, and next week the entire House gets to waste time on this, rather than the economy.

Boehner and the GOP leadership can't be thrilled that the Republicans are yet again not talking about the economy - the voters don't like that, nor does Mitt Romney, who needs to keep talking about the economy in order to have any chance of winning in November.

The more the House Republicans remind Americans that they exist, the harder it is for any Republicans to win re-election in the fall. And Darrell Issa is doing his damndest to remind Americans just how far to the right, and unfocused on the problems of real Americans, the Republican party really is.

So let's all give Darrell Issa a big kiss, won't you? Read the rest of this post...

Video: Chinese TV mistakes sex toy for mysterious new breed of mushroom

This seems to be for real - the TV station has reportedly already apologized for the "investigative" broadcast. A part of me still feels like this is a hoax. Does China (or better yet, Taiwan) have Onion TV?


(H/t Towleroad) Read the rest of this post...

Bush isn't going to be happy when he sees these new CIA documents about 9/11

From Jordan Michael Smith at Salon:

Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time, having been newly declassified and released to the National Security Archive. The documents were released after the NSA pored through the footnotes of the 9/11 Commission and sent Freedom of Information Act requests.

The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaida’s relationship with America’s ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks. “I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didn’t get the institutional support they needed,” says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.

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GOP already fundraising off of Holder-Issa showdown

Note the big red "donate" button.  Yes, the GOP is very concerned about this issue... and its potential for raising money for the election.  If they were only as concerned about jobs and the money far too many Americans still aren't seeing in their paychecks.

PS Why are Republicans always so ginned up about firing people?

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Obama's 13 point lead, real or blip?

Steve Kornaki at Salon sounds a predictable note of caution as a new Bloomberg poll shows Obama 13 points ahead:

It’s very, very doubtful that Barack Obama is really running 13 points ahead of Mitt Romney, as a new Bloomberg poll shows. With so many outlets conducting surveys so frequently these days, the occasional funny result is inevitable. Remember when Barack Obama’s approval rating seemed to crash overnight a few months ago? That was what one CBS/New York Times poll found, but it quickly proved to be an aberration, with other outlets putting his approval score where it’s been for much of his presidency, just under 50 percent.

Which is all sensible enough. Polling is a statistical science. If every poll has 95% accuracy then one poll in 20 will be wrong. But Kornaki's conventional wisdom continues in a later paragraph:

That said, the poll is still something of an antidote to the consensus that’s sprung up recently in the political world about the supposedly flailing state of Obama’s reelection efforts. Even if Obama isn’t actually ahead by 13 points, there’s still plenty of evidence that he’s faring better than an incumbent president should under the current economic conditions.

The assumption that voters respond to economic conditions is deeply embedded in both the press corps and the Republican party leadership which has spent the past three years cynically blocking any measure that might improve the economy. As Mitch McConnell and other leaders confirm, their 'single most important' goal is to defeat Obama and their actions prove that defeating Obama is more important to them than improving the economy.

But what if the establishment consensus is wrong and what voters really respond to is not the current state of the economy but what they consider the ability of the candidates to improve it? If this is the case we should probably be asking why Obama isn't 20 points up and the GOP looking towards a landslide defeat.

Coincidence does not mean causality. Voters are likely to blame the incumbent when the economy is doing badly and credit them when it is doing well but only if the opposition convinces them that they can do better.

There isn't really a good precedent for the current US situation in US politics: An economy struggling to recover from recession as the opposition party tries to bind itself tighter to the ideology most believe caused the recession in the first place. But the 1983 general election in the UK looks like a pretty good match. The Conservative party was re-elected election despite a catastrophic economic performance.

While the left generally blames the 1983 defeat on the anti-Tory vote being split between Labour and the Liberal Party, the Conservative share of the vote dropped only slightly from the previous election (1.5%). While the result was not an unqualified victory for Thatcher (her party only won 42.4% of the vote after all) it was a decisive defeat for the Labour party and in particular the hard left who seemed to be more interested in fighting abstract ideological battles than actually governing.

The only real difference between the 2012 GOP and the 1983 Labour party is that the Republican ideologues have succeeded in silencing all the moderates or driving them out of the party. There is no Neil Kinnock waiting in the wings. Read the rest of this post...

White House invokes executive privilege to stop Issa witch hunt

Mitt who?  We can all thank far-right GOP Cong. Issa for forcing this confrontation, and changing the national discussion away from the economy.  Mittens isn't going to be happy about that one.

And of course, GOP propaganda organ Fox News is talking about Nixon, while ThinkProgress reminds us that pretty much every President in recent times has invoked executive privilege, including George W. Bush. Reagan used it too.

ThinkProgress has some great background on the GOP witch hunt on the "Fast and Furious" issue.

It seems the House GOP leadership isn't very happy with Issa's witch hunt:

Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California have decided to slow Rep. Darrell Issa’s drive to hold the attorney general in contempt over the controversial Fast and Furious program, a move that could infuriate conservatives who have been calling for Holder’s resignation.
The delay could be a month or even longer, according to lawmakers and aides familiar with the issue.
Some within House GOP leadership circles would like Issa to abandon his plan for a committee and floor vote, which was sparked by a 64-page memo last week, which laid out the case for contempt.

Read the rest of this post...

Goals of an Effective Progressive Coalition: Move the ball. Guard the progressive frontier.

This is a shorter follow-up to my recent essay on "Managing an Effective Progressive Coalition" in four easy rules. (Does the word "effective" jump out at you? I hope so.)

The purpose of the rules is (a) to get agreement up front on how to act from those who participate at the core. And (b) to head off obvious losing behaviors by naming them explicitly and rejecting them. The rules tend to head off failure and save front-end time.

What's the purpose of the Coalition itself? Simple:

On offense — Move the ball down the field. Achieve progressive wins. Period.

On defense — Guard the progressive frontier, the progressive border. Stop and sting anyone who crosses with ill intention.

In practice I think that means the following.

Moving the ball

Progressives don't win much, and we get aced by both our enemies and our "friends." The goal of any Effective Progressive Coalition is to reverse that. I haven't talked about tactics yet (I will), but short of actual violence, the choice-list is wide open, in my opinion.

Freeway blogging? Low cost. Go for it.

Freeway blogging in Nancy Pelosi's district? That comes under "guarding the frontier" but it also comes under using your leverage. Go for it. No one has to vote you permission.

Organize an action against a foreclosure. Spotlight a pol with a spouse with funky financing.

Try to take away the "brand" — the Unique Selling Point — from any pol you want to target. Believe me, that one will hurt, since it targets their fundraising.

Pols fundraise on a brand, just like consumer products do. The brand is often an illusion, but it's necessary. Imagine what would happen if Pelosi were somehow effectively retagged "not a liberal." Instant loss of branding. Even threats to do that, if credible, will have an effect.

The anti-ALEC campaign is a great example of moving the ball. It's also an example of targetting the branding, this time of corps. A group with "position" — Color of Change — painted ALEC support-corporations, one by one, in big bold Trayvon Martin colors. And that color said "racist."

They had timing and position — see why this is the right group to front this? — and ALEC is now branded as racist. The corps are fleeing, since race is still a bridge too far for them. (Nice to know that, by the way. Stash that one for later.)

The anti-ALEC campaign is a one-off, but it works. The groups running it are implicitly following the rules (do you see any violations?) and I don't expect them to stray. Great work.

My favorite example of moving the ball is Joe Sudbay, a group of one, who found himself in the same room with the president, a mic, a transcript, witnesses, and a chance to ask questions. Obama was trapped; he couldn't early-end the meeting, and whatever he said was already set to be published.

Joe had leverage and acted. Do you have an idea for something you could do? Use leverage and act. Gather a group (if you like), agree to the rules (it will save a ton of trouble) and act.

Early on, I don't expect a large Coalition, but a bunch of little ones. All these little Coalitions have to be, is effective. At some point, like-minded people who want to be effective will find each other. We are many, sitting in this silence; I have every confidence.

Guarding the progressive frontier

This is where we play effective defense. We try to take no losses (no backward steps), and we punish those who try to force losses on us.

Sometimes people, even our friends, need to be bit if they cross the line. That how they know they crossed the line.

For example, if you think Nancy Pelosi crossed the line with her Grand Bargain Simpson-Bowles endorsement (I do), give her a nip she will feel. That's what Russ Feingold and Progressives United did.

Is Pelosi a "good progressive"? Perhaps. But not in this. Stop giving her cookies for past behavior, and find a way to hurt her for this off-the-progressive-reservation move.

Make it a hard enough nip that she thinks twice the next time. The goal isn't to hurt; it's to change anti-progressive behavior with incentives.

Sometimes that how they learn. If you've ever raised kids, you understand incentives. Apply incentives, get the result you want, then move on. (Primaries make great incentives, by the way. Just saying.)

Progressives tend not to cross their friends, even when their friends cross them. That can stop the minute we want it to. Apply the sting when the border is crossed, make it hurt, and you'd be surprised at how the niceness returns.

Remember — it's not any Democrat's job to guard the progressive border. It's our job. Effective defense.

These are the goals; the rules are the methodology

The only purpose of the rules is to keep everyone in the core group headed the right way and not down known-bad pathways. The two principles above are the goals. Pretty basic stuff, but sometimes even the basics need saying.

What about tactics? That's for later. A lot depends on whether you're in office or not, but here's a preview — progressives tend not to use power, even when they have it.

Those on the other side, especially Republicans, use every ounce of power they have, every chance they get. I think we can extrapolate from there.

Just a reminder, the rules again:

Rules for managing an Effective Progressive Coalition

1. No constituency in the Coalition takes a backward step to advance another's cause (the Cruickshank Rule).

2. Members of the Coalition have each others' back. No constituency under attack stands alone.

3. The Coalition serves the Coalition, not the Democratic Party or any other group or goals.

4. The Coalition preferences political action to discussion (the No Dithering Rule).

Thanks for your consideration; let's get some more wins.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius Read the rest of this post...

Change.org and union-busting

By now I assume you've seen that Change.org has dropped its two union-busting clients. This is the right move and I'm glad to see it. John's post this morning does raise some real concerns, though I'll leave those aside as they've already been covered.

I want to follow up on John's excellent post from yesterday on Change.org's work for conservative clients. I think John nails a lot of the reasons why Change working for conservatives is deeply problematic, but it's worth getting into the specifics of what Change was doing, why it is relevant, and why there was a strong push by supporters of workers rights' to get them to drop these clients.

As a disclaimer, because I view the use of ".org" to be a misleading piece of branding by a for-profit, I refer to them simply as Change.

Change had a long-running relationship with Students First, a group started by Michelle Rhee and funded by conservative Republican luminaries like Rupert Murdoch. Rhee and Students First are in the business of busting teachers unions, promoting private, for-profit schools, and making it easier for teachers' to be fired. If you've signed a petition on Change in the last year, you've probably been asked afterwards if you want to sign a petition for Students First. They're one of the most common promoted petitions I've seen, regardless of what issue I'm signing - even those related to workers' rights!

Despite lots of criticism, Change never backed down from their work with Rhee. Students First has gathered over 1.2 million supporters through Change, though it's not clear exactly how many of those came from paid acquisition versus visitors to the website genuinely wanting to bust teachers' unions.

The discussion of Change's partnership with union busting organizations has exploded this week because it appears they made a jump from working with an organization which advocates busting unions (Students First) to working with a group that is actively involved in a labor dispute (Stand for Children).

What's the deal with Stand for Children? According to the AFL-CIO, "a billionaire-funded “education reform” group founded by Jonah Edelman, that Chicago teachers say directly interferes with the collective bargaining process between the Chicago Teachers Union/AFT and the School Board." Billionaire funding including the Walton Foundation (of Wal-mart fame) and Bain. For more information about Stand for Children and their conservative, corporate funders, check out this post and this post.

The Chicago Teachers Union/AFT are currently in a bitter bargaining fight with the Chicago School Board. At issue are such life-changing matters as teacher pay, including the arts in the curriculum for children, and making sure there are nurses and counselors available for children in public schools. The union's members voted to authorize a strike, with 90% of members approving the move. This is notable, as Rahm Emanuel and Stand for Children had recently support a change to a law requiring CTU to have 75% support to strike.

Jennifer Johnson, a Chicago public school teacher and a CTU member, created a petition on SignOn.org (MoveOn's competing toolset to Change) that asks Change founder Ben Rattray to stop working with Stand for Children:

I am very dismayed to discover that you have taken on an anti-labor client, targeting teachers, at the height of their contract negotiations. These teachers are negotiating for libraries, art classes, school playgrounds, and support staff including counselors and nurses. These are important for schools and more importantly, children. To promote an anti-labor group’s anti-labor petition in the middle of a contract negotiation is unacceptable and dangerously close to crossing a picket line. Please stop promoting Stand for Children’s petition immediately. The teachers of Chicago deserve a public apology and assurances that you won’t promote conservative groups who work to weaken their bargaining ability on behalf of their students and jeopardize the quality public education for students that they are fighting for.

It's really important that Change listened to Jennifer Johnson and was responsive this progressive criticism.

It's worth noting that in recent months, corporations which not only have never marketed themselves as progressive, but are largely anti-progressive, have withdrawn from the conservative advocacy group ALEC in the face of progressive pressure (again, Wal-Mart comes to mind). It's good to see Change be at least as responsive as these other for-profit businesses.

Union busting isn't ever OK, at least not for progressives. While Change has done the right thing by dropping Students First and Stand for Children as clients, it'd be great to know if this means they won't take other union-busting groups as clients in the future, or if this is them just caving to a particular pressure campaign. As John noted earlier, there are certainly things that are concerning in even how they talked about the choice they made.

Nonetheless, this is a strong victory, lead by the teachers' unions and progressives who believe that protecting workers' rights is just as much a part of what it means to be progressive as protecting LGBT rights or immigrant rights. Read the rest of this post...

Change.org drops anti-union clients, then slurs progressives as "imperialist" and "anti-Muslim"

I wrote yesterday about the news that Change.org, an online petition organization that has become a favorite of progressive activists, is actually a consulting firm working with, among others, conservative anti-union, anti-teacher clients.

As a result of the outcry over the news, Change.org has dropped its two anti-union, anti-teacher clients. But statements from the organization, and news reports, suggest that nothing has changed at Change.org.

The organization believes that the only reason it's being criticized is because American progressives mistakenly believe that Change.org is a progressive organization with progressive values.  In the latest story from Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post, Change.org makes clear it is not.

Change.org leaders, for their part, said they think some of the outrage resulted from a misunderstanding of the company's goal, which is not to spread American-style progressive values around the globe, but rather to empower as many people as possible under the theory that the world will be better as a result. By not embracing American progressivism, the company said it hopes to make its platform more welcoming to people around the globe who might see such an association as imperialist or anti-Muslim. [emphasis added]

Seriously?

Change.org was afraid of being perceived as a progressive organization because of the reputation that American progressives have for promoting international imperialism and anti-Muslim hatred.

So, Change.org decided to work with American conservatives, who have a much better track record with imperialism and diversity.

I've worked all over the world with the "left" in various countries, mostly in Europe, but I've also worked in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And the "left" in those countries tends to see itself as a partner of American Democrats. It's pretty clear to everyone in the world who the "imperialists" Muslim-haters are, and it tends not to be people who espouse progressive values.  I just find that graf extremely disturbing and, I'm sorry, but it sounds downright deceitful.

I've dealt with a lot of companies in the past that have crossed the line, usually on gay issues, but not always. And this isn't the kind of statement they issue when they "get it."  It's the kind of thing they say when they want you to go away.

It doesn't sound like Change.org has changed at all. Read the rest of this post...

Survey by The Guardian shows extreme hunger in UK schools

Everything about this new survey is disturbing. Reading it takes me back to the early days of nastiness in America, when Reagan and the GOP wanted to declare catsup as a vegetable. The mean spirited "me first" attitude of those early days is nothing compared to what they churn out today, but it raises questions about the direction of things in the UK.

Though not perfect, the UK has generally been a much more tolerant country than the modern US. The extreme hatred that so strongly dominates the US ("religious") right has still been mostly absent in the UK, with a few exceptions.

Is the Tory government now tapping in to existing sentiment or are they promoting American right wing selfishness? It could be some of both, but whichever it is, the direction is not good. There's something fundamentally wrong when school teachers are seeing such extreme problems with hunger in the classroom.

How bad will things be when the full impact of the Tory budget chopping hits the country?

Four out of five teachers (83%) see pupils who are hungry in the morning and 55% said up to a quarter of pupils arrive having not eaten enough. More than half say the number of children involved has been rising in the past year or two, which have seen some families hit hard by the recession, unemployment and benefit cuts.

In the survey of 591 teachers across Britain who belong to the online Guardian Teacher Network, 49% said they have taken food or fruit into school to give to children who have not had breakfast. Almost one in five (17%) have given such pupils money out of their own pockets to buy lunch.

Almost four in five (78%) said they wanted children from low-income families to get a free breakfast on arrival at school, just as some already receive a free lunch.

Read the rest of this post...

Science breakthrough: malaria-resistant mosquitoes bred in lab

For many parts of the world, this could be enormous. According to the World Health Organization, over 650,000 died in 2010 from malaria. Scientific American:

Scientists may have developed a new tool for combating malaria, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

After more than 20 years of genetic experimentation, researchers have discovered how to breed malaria-resistant mosquitoes that are unable to infect humans with their bites.

"We see a complete deletion of the infectious version of the malaria parasite," said Anthony James, a microbiology and molecular genetics professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the lead author of the report. This can help to "significantly reduce human sickness and death," he added.

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