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Weekly Immigration Wire: White House Meeting a First Step to Reform

After postponing twice, President Obama finally met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on June 25 to discuss moving immigration reform legislation forward. The meeting was applauded by activists and advocates for immigration reform, as the issue seemed to have stalled, and the acrimonious tone of the debate has proven deadly.

All parties emerged from the meeting with positive feelings about the prospect for progress, as I heard on last Friday's White House debriefing conference call. A confluence of positive factors are contributing to the momentum: Major labor leaders are united for reform, Democrats are leading much of Washington, and voters in the U.S. clearly want to see reform passed. President Obama made his intention to pass reform very clear and the White House predicts the process will begin late this year or early 2010.

New America Media calls the meeting a hopeful beginning, but makes it clear that nothing is guaranteed this year—despite the pressing need. And we can't wait too long for reform to begin. 2010 is the beginning of the 2012 Presidential election cycle and the issue could be "too easily politicized" at that time.

Wiretap Mag's M. Junaid Levesque-Alam writes that, while Obama complimented Senator John McCain for taking risks, he seemed averse to boldly stating what he hoped to see or would stand behind; that "nothing [Obama] said indicated significant political movement" on the issue. But, Levesque-Alam hypothesizes that Obama's caution is related to tension caused by "core contradictions not simply between but within the political parties." The immigration issue is contentious, even among members of the same party.

GritTV and The Nation teamed up to present a panel asking Is Immigration Reform Dead or Alive? (video). The panelists discuss a potential future in which immigration reform does not pass. Their predictions make a grim scene, centered around the horrors of a growing detention industry. Children are incarcerated in these facilities. Over 90 people have died in detention and they are damaging families. Guest Ravi Ragbir, now a member of Families for Freedom, spent two years in a detention center. Ragbir's young daughter was so disturbed by the sight of her father in shackles that Ragbir requested she no longer visit while he was detained.

A Truthdig article titled America’s ICE Backwards Approach to Immigration details the broken legal system that further clouds the immigration process. Over 200,000 immigration cases are backlogged and the number of government attorneys who argue for deportation has risen by 35%, stressing the court system accordingly. Add a declining number of judges and a sharp increase in the number of border guards and the result is a setting where "the equivalent of death penalty cases" are heard "in a traffic court setting," according to Judge Dana Leigh Marks, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

New America Media also explores the results of a study that finds a low rate of crimes are committed by the undocumented, which is a stark contrast to the accusations of right-wing pundits. The undocumented population in Utah grew from 70,000 to 110,000 in the last four years, according to a new study released by the Sutherland Instituate, but the number of incarcerated undocumented increased by only 28. That's 28 people, not percent. In fact, the crime rate for undocumented immigrants in Utah is only 3.9% and dropping.

Finally, RaceWire's Michelle Chen reports on the impact of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative on Mexican Americans who want to deliver children using a midwife. The Initiative, which went into effect yesterday, "requires Americans passing across the Canadian and Mexican borders to have a valid U.S. passport or passport card." Previously, only a valid driver’s license was required. This is yet another policy that refuses to recognize the long pattern of movement over the border area, and is culturally antagonistic to Mexican Americans.

Law indicates humankind's attempt to be just; it is an extension of a civilization's morality. Immigration reform must come soon; it is a moral duty. It must pass not just for the benefit of the undocumented community, but so we can live up to our national ideals, and also, to decisively stave off a destructive energy made possible by the lack of humane law.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

Weekly Pulse: All Public Plans Not Created Equal

Progressives are demanding that Obama's healthcare reform package include a public plan, aka a government-administered health insurance option for all. A good public plan would cover more people while cutting costs and improving care. The key committees in the House drew up a bill with a public option, but the Senate is much less friendly to the idea. The real test of a healthcare reform plan is whether it can pass the Senate, as the House Dems have the votes to pass whatever health reform bill is put before them.

But not all public plans are created equal. There's a fine line between competing with insurance companies and coddling them. In the American Prospect, sociologist Paul Starr identifies potential pitfalls for a public plan. Since his days on the campaign trail, Obama scored political points by framing public health insurance an alternative to employer-based private coverage. It sounds non-threatening: If you like your coverage, keep it. If not, go public.

There's a catch, of course. Employers can choose to offer private health insurance as a benefit or go with a public plan. Insurance is a boring form of legalized gambling: The whole system depends on healthy people paying into the system to cover a small minority of sick people. The higher the ratio of healthy people to sick people, the more widely the risk is spread and the cheaper the insurance will be.

Insurance companies love the employer-provided health insurance model because it's a built-in sicko filter. You're not even on their radar unless you're young and healthy enough to have a job. Employers with older, sicker employees pay more for private insurance. Starr predicts these employers will be more likely to drop their private health insurance if a public plan is available. As a result, the sicker workers will join the unemployed and the elderly on the public plan, leaving the lucrative low-risk customers for the insurance companies.

Starr suggests that such a divide might be acceptable if the government were willing to use all its leverage to drive down costs, but most the proposals don't do that. Unless the government gets tough with vested interests, the taxpayer could end up subsidizing inflated healthcare costs while the private insurers make even more money.

How did employers end up providing insurance in the first place? Currently the tax system encourages employers to pay their employees in overpriced insurance instead of cash. Employees save on taxes if their employer pays for their insurance, rather than giving them an equivalent cash raise. Some influential senators want to offset the cost of healthcare reform by taxing healthcare benefits worth more than a certain amount--about $17,000 per family per year, according to one proposal. So, if your health insurance was worth $17,500, you'd pay zero tax on the first $17,000 but you'd be taxed as if you'd earned that extra $500 in wages.

Organized labor vehemently opposes taxing benefits because they say it would amount to a big middle class tax hike. Even so, as Josh Holland explains for AlterNet, if the money went to fund a good public plan that drove down costs through economies of scale, the net result could be more money in the pockets of working people. Wages have stagnated but labor costs have risen, partly because employers are paying ever-increasing rates for health insurance. If employers can cover their workers for less, that's money freed up for cash raises.

All sides in the healthcare debate claim to love competition. Opponents of public options warn that government solutions will hurt healthcare by undermining the free market. However, as Josh Marshall of TPM observes, the status quo is not a free market but an oligopoly:

This won't come as the slightest surprise to those versed in health care policy issues. But I fear it's only barely permeated the health care reform debate in the country, certainly in Washington. And that's this: the opposition to a so-called 'public option' comes almost entirely from insurance companies who have developed monopolies or near monopolies in particular geographic areas. And they don't want competition.

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly agrees that despite their high-minded pro-consumer rhetoric, the health insurance industry opposes both choice and competition.

This week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) is circulating draft legislation for a nationwide, government-administered plan which would sustain itself with premiums, after an initial infusion of cash to get the program off the ground.

Under the HELP bill, unlike the House's healthcare plan, fees for healthcare providers would not be indexed to those offered under Medicare. Instead providers would be paid the average rate for a particular service based on the higher rates currently offered by private insurers. You're probably wondering: How are we supposed to save money if we lock into the same high fees that caused the problem in the first place? Good question! Medicare rates are lower because the government uses its massive bargaining power to get the best possible deal for the taxpayer. It's the CostCo principle: Buying in bulk saves money. But once again, special interest groups are refusing to let the government save our money.

Meanwhile, Sen. Kent Conrad of Senate Finance Committee is pushing for a private nonprofit insurance-buying co-ops instead a public plan. The idea is that larger buying pools will be able to negotiate better deals on health insurance for their members.

But if the goal is to leverage the bargaining power of a group, why stop at a co-op of just a few hundred thousand people? Why not put everyone into one huge, government-administered co-op for the best possible prices? Because, we're told, that would be single-payer, or a stalking horse for single-payer, and everybody in Washington knows that you can't pass a bill like that. The insurance companies and health care providers want to keep rates high.

Finally, Al Franken has officially won the Minnesota senate race. When Franken is seated, the Democrats will have 60 votes in the Senate, in theory a filibuster-proof majority. However, as Marie Diamond points out at TAPPED, the Democrats need every single senator present and voting to force cloture and break a filibuster.

With Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy in failing health and Blue Dog Democrats in failing loyalty, the Dems can't take a filibuster-proof majority for granted on any given day, even when Franken is seated.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net
for a complete list of articles on healthcare affordability, healthcare laws, and healthcare controversy.

For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.

Weekly Audit: Radical Inequality Fueled the Wall Street Meltdown
Now that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner isn't going to impose pay restrictions on bailed out Wall Street executives, it's critical to remember that severe economic inequality was a major factor in the financial meltdown. Our tax code funnels money into the hands of our wealthiest citizens, which means that our financial system protects the interests of the affluent—not the the average citizen. The broad divergence between our core democratic values and the existing U.S. economic structure must become part of the public debate over financial reform.

As Les Leopold notes in a roundtable discussion with GritTV's Laura Flanders, much of the Wall Street meltdown can be traced to a steady redistribution of wealth to the wealthy dating back to the Reagan years. Poor people, after all, do not have money to invest in the Wall Street speculation machine. By 2007, the financial world accounted for over 40% of U.S. corporate profits, an astounding percentage for a business intended to facilitate the operation of other industries. According to Leopold, we need to find constructive ways to shrink the financial sector, like taxing Wall Street transactions to move money into the real economy or imposing meaningful pay caps on financial jobs.

Pay for citizens who live outside the executive class has been steadily falling for decades. As Chuck Collins and Sam Pizzigati note for AlterNet, weekly wages for average Americans are now below 1970s levels after adjusting for inflation, while CEO payouts have exploded. So far, President Barack Obama has been hesitant to fight economic inequality at either end of the spectrum. Remember the promises he made to curb extravagant CEO pay on Wall Street back when the AIG bonuses were generating outrage back in February? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has already made them irrelevant, eliminating a $500,000/year salary cap.

While we've heard quite a bit about how Wall Street excess wreaked havoc for homeowners, relatively little attention has been paid to the plight of renters, who often face personal catastrophe when their landlord is foreclosed on. Under a new law passed by Congress, when a bank or new owner takes control over a foreclosed property, they have to give renters living in the home at least 90 days notice before evicting them. But the law does nothing to address other injustices renters face. If your landlord is foreclosed on, for instance, you can forget about getting your security deposit back, even if the house is in top condition.

Banks also are not required to hire property managers to maintain homes they take over, which means they often let houses deteriorate despite objections from tenants. Writing for The Colorado Independent, Martha White explains that these problems are easy to correct, if Congress actually wanted to: Require landlords to put security deposits in a special account that cannot be raided by creditors in bankruptcy and force banks to hire managers to maintain the properties they foreclose on. The latter policy would also discourage banks from foreclosing in the first place by making ownership of the property more expensive for the bank.

Obama recognizes the need for change, which is why he's proposed a major overhaul of the government's Wall Street oversight. But in many ways, his plan identifies the wrong problems and offers the wrong solutions. The Real News features a great video spot with commentary by University of Massachusetts at Amherst Economist Robert Pollin. One of the key reforms involves granting the Federal Reserve broad powers to oversee systemic risk in the economy, but the Fed already has similar authority.

"The problem is, the Fed has already had an enormous amount of regulatory power, they just don't exercise that power," Pollin says.

Instead of granting the Fed more power, we should be finding ways to hold its leaders accountable. By subjecting top officials at the Fed to democratic elections, we could help ensure that the top regulatory body in the U.S. answers to the people it is supposed to be protecting.

Other creative new approaches to combating the economic crisis are featured in the most recent issue of Yes!, which is devoted entirely to economic reforms. From tips on investing locally to overhauling our broken monetary system to empowering workers, the issue emphasizes solutions that rely on democratic structures, rather than the corporate status quo (full disclosure: I've got an article in there on community banks).

It's time to put some political firepower behind those ideas. Ordinary people simply have no serious voice in the policy debate surrounding Wall Street. In The Nation, Christopher Hayes describes the banking lobby's total domination over financial reform proposals.

"On the other major legislative battles—healthcare, climate change, the Employee Free Choice Act—there is an organized, mobilized permanent infrastructure to push lawmakers in a progressive direction," Hayes writes. "They may be underdogs, but at least it's a fight."

Changing the too-big-to-fail financial sector must become a priority. If we defer to the banking lobby or advisers like Larry Summers, who helped create the crisis by backing wildly deregulatory laws during the Clinton years, we can guess what the end result will look like. If we want our economy to answer to us, we have to do something about it. Income inequality and unaccountable regulators were a major part of the financial collapse. Addressing those problems has to be part of the economic solution.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy. Visit StimulusPlan.NewsLadder.net and Economy.NewsLadder.net for complete lists of articles on the economy, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical health and immigration issues, check out Healthcare.NewsLadder.net and Immigration.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

Weekly Immigration Wire: Reform Stagnates, Polarization Grows
President Obama has often stated that immigration reform cannot be approached in a piecemeal fashion, and that his administration would tackle the issue in 2009. This week, Obama will be meeting with members of Congress to kick off a bi-partisan approach to reform. These meetings don't guarantee any legislative action will take place this year, but are at least an encouraging sign. In the meantime, the deportation industry shows no sign of slowing, hate crimes are rising and hate groups are being main streamed. As a result, the polarization between reform advocates and foes is getting worse.

New America Media's Jun Wang writes about the disapointing consensus reached by a panel of immigration activists last Thursday at California State University in Los Angeles. A lack of movement around immigration reform won't help curb rising rates of hate crimes against Latino/as, and compounds other instances of "othering" and racism. According to one panelist: "Employers in conservative cities" are learning that "they are better off not hiring people who are 'foreign looking or having foreign sound names.'”

Not content with simply raiding homes, workplaces, or storming the local 7-11, Immigrations Customs and Enforcement (ICE) is escalating its enforcement tactics. Also in New America Media, Hiram Soto reports on the joint operation between the Border Patrol and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in deporting three high-school age girls, one as young as 16, who were stopped by ICE on their way to school. Immigration attorney Lilia Velasquez, who is representing the minors, said she "hasn’t seen anything like this in her 25-year career," because the children are being let back into the U.S. to fight their deportation.

The plight of these girls is proof that the destructive deportation fetish sweeping the Department of Homeland Security is producing increasingly ridiculous results.

Pundits like Michael Savage are also feeding the violent and anti-immigrant, anti-Latino/a energy in the U.S. Samhita Mukhopadhyay at Feministing writes that these broadcasts are are created "for the purpose of inciting violence against immigrants and to fuel racial tension." Exposing Savage's "paranoid" and fearful obfuscation of reality, Mukhopadhyay clears up the anti-immigrant propaganda by pointing out that despite Savage's tortured logic, the truth is that Immigrants are the "working base" of California, and not the ones creating a drain upon it. California's immigrants pay roughly $40 billion in taxes every year.

One of the loudest politicians feeding anti-immigrant hostility is Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman from Colorado. The Colorado Independent has linked Tancredo to the Minuteman American Defense (MAD) and its former Executive Director Shawna Forde, accused of murdering Raul and Brisenia Flores, via a letter expressing the politician's solidarity and gratitude to the organization for organizing a rally. It turns out that not only was this beaming "boilerplate rejection letter" (as campaign chair Bay Buchanan hopes to position it) sent to Forde, but a story published by the Everett Herald in 2007 places official Tancredo campaign staff at the event. The connections don't end there and only grow more unsettling.

Those fighting for justice and on the side of human rights are hardly laying low in this time of legislative uncertainty. In a guest column for RaceWire, undocumented immigrant Sonia Guinansaca writes about how over 500 students from all over the U.S. attended a "Mock Graduation ceremony" on Capitol Hill last Tuesday. The ceremony was intended to both draw attention and show support for the DREAM Act. Guinansaca reminds us of our country's most inspiring ideals: To be a nation where "nothin' is impossible."

RaceWire also brings us more news of youth behind change in Immigrants’ Kids File Lawsuit Against US, and Other News. In this political lull, "the kids of hundreds of deported parents are filing a lawsuit against the government claiming their constitutional right to stay in the U.S. is violated by the deportation of their parents."

*Editor's note: The original version of this post implied that all movement towards immigration reform had halted. We've updated this blog to reflect recent developments. Stay tuned to next week's Wire for in-depth analysis of the push for effective immigration reform.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

Weekly Pulse: Public Insurance Option is Not Optional
During a press conference yesterday, President Obama voiced support for government-administered health insurance for all who need it (aka the "public option"), as a key component of healthcare reform. Though Obama stopped short of threatening to veto a bill that didn't contain such an option, he said that a public option is needed to enforce market discipline. If the system is going to reform, the health insurance companies can't just keep selling the same bad coverage with bigger public subsidies for their monopolies. Essentially, Obama isn't about to force taxpayers to buy overpriced insurance from private companies.

"The public plan, I think, is an important tool to discipline insurance companies," Obama said during yesterday's White House news conference. "I think there is going to be some healthy debate about the shape that this takes." He outlined three options: Get insurance through your employer, buy insurance on your own, or buy insurance from a marketplace where public and private insurance providers compete for business.

In the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen notes the central irony of the standard insurance industry criticism of Obama's plan:

A public option, critics tell us, would provide a horrible, bureaucratic service for customers, including rationing and long waiting times. But here's the follow-up: if that's true, no one would choose the public option and insurance companies would be just fine for the indefinite future.

Except, of course, insurance companies and their policymaking allies know better. Which is why they're panicking.

As Senate Democrats continued to cast about for an elusive bipartisan compromise on healthcare reform, their colleagues in the House are pushing ahead on their own. House Democrats are holding hearings this week on draft legislation and is written without Republican input. The house bill would require all Americans to have health insurance and put new restrictions on employers as well. The Uptake is covering the hearings live.

By allowing the proliferation of multiple healthcare bills, the Obama administration is deliberately avoiding the mistakes that the Clintons made in 1994, according to Mark Schmitt in the American Prospect. Instead of submitting its own 1300-page bill to Congress, the Obama administration is letting the legislative branch hash out the details while the executive branch hovers above the fray:

The Obama White House has a huge advantage that the Clinton administration didn’t: The plan is basically written, and it has a constituency. Everything Clinton spent a year on is done. All the work to build consensus around fundamental features – a regulated insurance market, an individual mandate, and a public plan to provide a competitive benchmark – made up the outlines of every Democratic presidential candidates’ proposals. They have been further developed at the think tanks and various “strange bedfellow” coalitions that have been at work in Washington for at least four years. There are some questions about details and cost containment, but all the major alternatives have fallen by the wayside. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment, and a real testament to the infrastructure that’s been constructed for progressive policy as well as politics.

The big picture approach gives the administration room to shore up key allegiances with powerful interest groups. Last week, many feared the public option was DOA when congressional budget analysts announced that the proposal would cost more than expected. Mike Madden explains in Salon that things were looking grim until Obama struck a deal with Big Pharma to save $80 billion on drugs for seniors:

So the deepest significance of the deal between the government and PhRMA, the drug lobby, may well have been what it meant politically. Yes, the announcement means Medicare patients will no longer have to deal with an odd "doughnut hole" in their drug coverage; before Monday, the government pays for seniors' prescriptions if their annual cost is under $2,700 or more than $6,100, but not if the price is in between. But more important, the news gave the administration a public relations victory -- the president just saved the government, and seniors, $80 billion -- to kick off a week where Obama plans to play offense, not defense, on healthcare.

Mike Lillis of the Colorado Independent explains why filling the donut hole isn't a big sacrifice for the industry: Drug companies have already profited handsomely from the prescription drug program. Furthermore, Lillis notes, the companies may still come out ahead if seniors begin to buy donut hole drugs that they previously couldn't afford. Even at half price, Big Pharma still does okay.

Finally, Eleanor Bader of RH Reality brings us the story of how the Women's Medical Fund helps women who can't afford abortions. The Pennsylvania fund was established in 1985 after state Medicaid cut off abortion funding. The Fund is one of over 100 abortion access funds nationwide providing options for poor women that anti-choicers sought to take away by manipulating healthcare coverage for political ends.

Healthcare reform, priority one on Obama's domestic agenda, is finally getting its moment in the spotlight. Competing healthcare bills are taking shape and a vigorous public debate is underway. Keep checking The Pulse for play-by-play coverage of the most important policy battle in a generation.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on healthcare affordability, healthcare laws, and healthcare controversy. And for the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net.

This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.

Weekly Audit: Obama's Regulation Overhaul Comes Up Short
President Barack Obama rolled out his plan to overhaul financial regulation last week. While much of the Obama plan relies on the same regulators and structures that led to the current meltdown, there is one key exception. The establishment of an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency would give ordinary citizens a seat at the financial policy table for the first time and prevent the abuses in credit card and mortgage lending that have wreaked havoc on households all over the country.

The new agency is the brainchild of Harvard University Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren. As chair of a key oversight panel for the Treasury Department's bank bailout program, Warren has uncovered major deficiencies in the government's handling of the plan, including nearly $80 billion in overpayments to bailed-out banks. American News Project features footage of an interview with Warren, who explains why we need a separate agency to regulate on behalf of consumers.

Several bank regulatory agencies, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision are already charged with writing and enforcing consumer protection rules for credit cards and mortgages, but have generally abandoned these duties to act as cheerleaders for their banks.The current structure's problems are two-fold. First, the current regulators are funded by fees levied on the very banks they regulate. When there are several different bank regulators, regulators compete to offer the weakest oversight and attract more banks, and, in turn, more funding. The process quickly becomes a race to the bottom. When the subprime mortgage boom was surging in 2003, the OCC, a federal bank regulator, went to court to ensure that the state of Georgia's tough predatory lending laws could not be enforced.

Second, the regulatory agencies tend to look at the health of the bank, rather than the quality of the loans it makes. If a commercial bank like Citigroup makes a really outrageous predatory loan, then sells that loan to an unregulated investment bank like Goldman Sachs, Citi's regulator doesn't particularly care. A new regulatory agency that answers exclusively to consumers rather than banks would be a very meaningful change for the financial system.

The rest of the overhaul is a little frightening. As William Greider explains for The Nation, instead of crafting explicit rules to curb obvious abuses, Obama's plan relies very heavily on ceding power to the Federal Reserve. Under the new framework, the Fed would both oversee "systemic risk" in the financial architecture and regulate the banks that have become "too big to fail." This, Greider emphasizes, is a very bad idea. The Fed has repeatedly proven itself to be uninterested in regulating banks. Citi needed $45 billion in direct cash infusions from the U.S. taxpayer and hundreds of billions of dollars in other guarantees to stay afloat, as Nomi Prins writes for Mother Jones. Who was charged with regulating the company and making sure such an outrage never occurred? The Fed.

In a video spot for GritTV, former senior banking regulator William Black argues that it makes little sense to allow banks to become too big to fail at all. Sturdier regulations are better than nothing, but the real solution is to break them up. "Why would we allow banks to be so big that they threaten the global economy?" Black asks.

Going back to Prins in Mother Jones: Elsewhere, the regulatory revamp is simply too vague to be helpful. Regarding derivatives—the financial weapons of mass destruction that destroyed AIG—it's not clear if Obama wants to regulate the entire industry, or a small, meaningless fraction. Obama's plan is to require that "standardized" derivatives are traded on exchanges and allow "customized" derivatives to escape investor scrutiny. But the Treasury never explains what the difference is between these "standard" and "custom" products, or how it will make sure banks don't game the system.

Lest we forget, this crazy finance system brought us the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate, by conservative measures, is at 9.4% and rising. You may have noticed the stories about "green shoots" signaling the first inklings of economic recovery circulating through the media. But these signs are only promising, AlterNet's Joshua Holland explains, if you take them completely out of context and ignore all of the other terrible news. The economy is in great shape ... except for the millions of foreclosures that will take place this year, the skyrocketing unemployment rate, the decimated retirement funds, and the mountains of credit card debt weighing down the average U.S. consumer.

Serious consumer protections are nothing to scoff at, especially after watching an outbreak of predatory mortgage lending spawn an economic collapse. It comes as no surprise then, as Tim Fernholz notes for The American Prospect, that the bank lobby is already working to water down the new consumer protection agency's powers. But even if a regulator for consumers makes the final legislative cut, with so many drastic problems in the current financial regulatory structure, the Obama plan simply does not do what is necessary to fend off another crisis.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy. Visit StimulusPlan.NewsLadder.net and Economy.NewsLadder.net for complete lists of articles on the economy, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical health and immigration issues, check out Healthcare.NewsLadder.net and Immigration.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

'Tomorrow is Too Late' for Iranian Election Intervention
Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf – a friend and supporter of Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi – gave a riveting, inspiring speech Wednesday, imploring the European Parliament and the international community not to recognize the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s victory. Video of the speech has now been translated into English:

According to Makhmalbaf, Moussavi was notified of his victory last week by the Committee of Elections and told to prepare a speech. However, while he was writing his speech “inviting the Iranian people to celebrate his victory,” military chiefs entered his office and told him “this green democratic revolution was not going to happen” – essentially staging a political coup.

Later, Iranian media declared that Ahmadinejad was elected and that any gathering of more than four people was completely forbidden. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have gathered in objection to Ahmadinejad’s victory, saying the vote counting was intrinsically flawed. Many have been killed, injured or arrested.

In the speech, Makhmalbaf proclaims: “Iranian people don’t want nuclear weapons. Iranian people want peace and democracy… Are the Iranian people ready for democracy? The answer is YES. Yes, they are ready. They have expressed themselves through their votes, but they have not been heard.”

He continues, saying that to recognize the legitimacy of Ahmedinejad’s presidency would be to invalidate the authority of the Iranian people.

Makhmalbaf asks that the international community control the next vote, rather than a recount of the past one. The international community needs to intervene, he says: “Tomorrow is too late.”

Why Does the Chamber of Commerce Oppose Arbitration For Union Workers?
Yesterday, the union movement ramped up its attacks on the Chamber of Commerce over its "two-faced" approach to the Employee Free Choice Act's provision requiring arbitration if a business won't bargain in good faith after a union's been chosen by workers. As the AFL-CIO Now blog observed:

The latest Big Business tactic is to attack the provision of the Employee Free Choice Act that guarantees workers who form a union a fair first contractóa vital provision, because more than 50 percent of workers who form a union donít have a contract after one year and more than a third still donít have a contract after two years.

Corporations are crying about the possibility they might have to take part in arbitration with employees if they don't reach a first contract after three months of talks - even though they're enthusiastic about arbitration in a wide variety of circumstances where they have the advantage.

In a new ad running in key newspapers, American Rights at Work again challenges corporate hypocrisy on arbitration. When itís a big corporate entity against an individual, as in credit card disputes or personal injury claims, corporate spokesgroups like the Chamber of Commerce say arbitration is a way to settle any sort of dispute ìfairly, quickly and inexpensively.î But when itís time to bargain over better wages and benefits for their workers, these same groups are viciously opposed to even the possibility of requesting arbitration.

To union activists, what's especially galling is how fervently businesses embrace arbitration when it allows them to avoid being held accountable for negligence towards employees or the defrauding of consumers.

As Stewart Acuff, the special assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, observes, "It's pretty simple: arbitration is fine for them when it keeps them out court and limits damages to business. They use it to settle credit card disputes, mortgage payment disputes, and whenever it limits businesses liability and negligence. But when they look at arbitration for workers, then all of it sudden they hate it when it's simply used as an incentive to force good-faith bargaining, a last resort to allow workers to get a collective bargaining agreement."

In contrast, business interests have so championed and abused little-known arbitration provisions to keep themselves from being sued that they've spurred new legislation pushed by the Fair Arbitration Now coalition designed to rein in their excesses. A few days ago, NPR featured the story of Jamie Lee Jones who was repeatedly raped by co-workers of Halliburton in Iraq but has been barred from suing the company because of an employer's contract she signed preventing a lawsuit. As the NPR story noted:

Jones was escorted by security to the company clinic for a rape examination. When the rape kit examination was done, the evidence was turned over to Halliburton security.

The young woman's breasts were so badly mauled that she is permanently disfigured. It has been four years since the attack, and despite the physical and circumstantial evidence, the Department of Justice has declined to investigate.

Seeking Justice Through a Suit

Justice Department officials refused to explain or comment in any way to NPR about the case. Jones has decided that if she can't have her day in criminal court, she'll sue Halliburton and its former subsidiary, KBR, in civil court.

"I want corporate accountability," she says. "I was so brutalized that I'm going to have to remember this the rest of my life. And Halliburton was so uncompassionate that they even let the men work there, still, after I went home."

Heather Browne, director of communications at KBR, says that while the company can't speak to the facts since the case is ongoing, it denies any liability in the attack. And she argues that any dispute with Jones, even one involving charges of rape, must go to arbitration.

So Jones is now going to court seeking the right to sue. She has become one of the nation's leading arbitration reform advocates.

An Arbitration Culture

If Jones' case is remarkable, the fact that arbitration is involved is not. In the past 20 years it has become a dominant feature in the legal relationship between American corporations, their employees and their customers.

If you use credit cards, have a cell phone contract, bought a house from a builder or put your mother or father in a nursing home, you have very likely signed away your right to be heard in court if there's a problem. It's called pre-dispute mandatory binding arbitration.

Public Citizen's David Arkush, one of the country's leading researchers on arbitration, says many consumers have no clue as to the rights they're signing away.

"In the fine print of those contracts is a provision that says that they can never sue the company if they have a dispute," Arkush says." Instead they have to go to a private, secret tribunal chosen by the company."

To top it all off, businesses rig the arbitration process against consumers and employees by barring them from going to court if there's any fraud or negligence before a dispute occurs, and only the company can choose the arbitrator.

The arbitration provision in the Employee Free Choice Act, on the other hand, only uses arbitration if negotiations between business and labor have broken down for 120 days after negotiations begin, and both businesses and the union must agree on their arbitrator from a vetted list of private arbitrators approved by a federal agency, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

All that makes the two different types of arbitration strikingly different: one is a business ruse used by businesses to deprive customers and workers of their rights, and the other is a bulwark designed to protect workers' rights against bad-faith bargaining.

The new pro-labor ad attacking such hypocrisy, running in Capitol Hill political newspapers as negotiations in the Senate are heating up, puts the issue starkly:

Big Business is happy to support arbitration when it's in their best interest. But when it comes to negotiating contracts with their workers, Big Business would rather use delay tactics to avoid paying better wages and benefits. It's only fair that corporations agree to arbitration for workers who are trying to negotiate a first contract after forming a union. Arbitration is a key part of the Employee Free Choice Act that will let both sides reach a fair agreement.

One reason the Chamber and other Big Business interests are turning to attacking arbitration is that their previous bogus claims that the legislation takes away the right to a secret ballot have been exposed as a fraud on Capitol Hill. (The bill actually gives workers the choice -- now determined by employers -- of whether to form a union by majority sign-up or secret-ballot election.)

Of course, you don't hear Newt Gingrich or the Chamber of Commerce championing the rights of on-the-job rape victims like Jamie Lee Jones to sue and avoid forced arbitration, indeed when it comes to abused employees or defrauded consumers they hail arbitration as the best way to handle any dispute quickly and inexpensively.

As the SEIU Blog sums up their attitude, "Corporate Lobbyists: We Were for Arbitration Before We Were Against It." Among the paeans to the glories of arbitration offered by business leaders before they attacked its use in the Employee Free Choice Act:

"For more than 80 years, arbitration has helped Americans settle disputes fairly, quickly and inexpensively, without having to file a lawsuit or navigate the court system." - Lisa Rickard, president of the US Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform (4/2/08)

"Arbitration is mutually beneficial, which is what we have always thought." - Arne Wagner, assistant general counsel for Bank of America [ABA Journal, December 1994]

"[F]ederal policy... favors the use of arbitration as an efficient, effective, and less expensive means of resolving disputes...Arbitration, has served as an essential valve for the nation's overburdened civil justice system." - Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee signed by US Chamber of Commerce, Retail Industry Leaders Association, National Retail Federation, National Association of Manufacturers, Jackson Lewis, et al (2/7/08)

Just a little bit of a double standard, no? Arbitration is the best thing ever when it comes to protecting their wallets, but when it comes to adding the safety net of first contract arbitration during collective bargaining, it's the devil incarnate that must be stopped at all costs.

Despite such hosannas to arbitration, they're not-so-surprisingly eager to denounce arbitration as a "mortal threat to American freedom" when workers want it after months of stalled labor negotiations.

And the research is now irrefutable that a majority of workers who select a union don't get a contract in their first year as a result of business stalling tactics; if businesses can't bust a union through illegal intimidation before an election, then they've got a second shot at union-busting by foot-dragging tactics and lowball proposals to slash wages and benefits by the company. As American Rights at Work reports:

One year after a successful union election, 52 percent of employers deny their workers a contract. According to Cornell University researcher Kate Bronfenbrenner, 52 percent of workplaces had no collective bargaining agreement one year after a successful union election. Two years after an election, 37 percent of workersí unions still had no labor agreement.

It's easy to determine when businesses will back or oppose arbitration: if it seems likely to screw workers and consumers out of their day in court, then they see it as good, and it if might possibly help workers achieve decent wages and benefits through labor negotiations, then it's bad. As Paula Brantner, the attorney who heads the pro-worker Workplace Fairness advocacy organization, observed recently:

So if employers truly think that arbitration is a better system than resolving disputes in court, then why are they fighting the Employee Free Choice Act [EFCA] provision? You don't have to be a cynic to realize that they're inclined to fight any effort to level the playing field for workers, which the Employee Free Choice Act would do. Just as they're spreading the myth that EFCA would eliminate the secret ballot, it just comes naturally for them to confuse the public about the other EFCA provisions that would empower workers.

But if corporate America doesn't want a bureaucrat from Washington to tell people how to run their businesses, then we have to wonder why they want arbitrators who are not even required to know the law or follow it passing judgment on their employment practices. Essentially, companies are talking out of both sides of their mouth: they want to impose an unfair arbitration process on their employees, but cannot bear to have even a fair arbitration process applied to them.

But workers don't have to accept this hypocrisy: we can work to support both the Arbitration Fairness Act and the Employee Free Choice Act. If both were to pass, workers would be able to go to court for their employment and civil rights claims (under the Arbitration Fairness Act), and leave arbitration to the unions and employers who know how to use it best (under EFCA). But that might simply be too much fairness for employers to handle.

And while the Chamber of Commerce and its GOP allies like Newt Gingrich have been painting a nightmarish scenario of jackbooted bureaucrats imposing job-killing arbitration concessions, the real truth of how arbitration works in labor negotiations has been ignored. As a new Roll Call column by two Harvard and MIT labor scholars, including Arnold Zack, the former past president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, points out:

Something is drastically wrong with a labor law when an employer can ignore and thwart the will of the majority of its employees.

The Employee Free Choice Act currently before Congress addresses this problem by assuring time for negotiations and mediation as the first step in the process and arbitration when agreement is blocked.

The bill has led to a misguided debate and mistaken information about the role played by arbitration in a well-designed and professionally administered dispute resolution system. This has made the current bill an easy target for opponents to argue that everyone will end up having a contract imposed by 'government arbitrators' who know nothing about business or labor issues...

If passed, the Employee Free Choice Act would assign a mediator by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service as soon as a new unit is certified to support the negotiations by offering the full range of mediation, education, and facilitation services helping the parties reach a voluntary agreement. The vast majority of cases are likely to be resolved through negotiations and mediation.

In fact, settlements are reached more than 90 percent of the time in public sector jurisdictions that provide mediation prior to arbitration. So, contrary to those who argue every case will go to arbitration, the presence of arbitration encourages and enhances the ability of the parties to reach voluntary agreements in negotiation and mediation - and incidentally does so without imposing on employees or employers the risks and costs of a strike to get a contract.

After being smeared by hyperbolic distortions about the bill's arbitration provision and research by the Chamber's extremist libertarian scholar-for hire, Richard Epstein, the union movement is finally hitting back on this issue. The latest inside-the-Beltway barrage follows up on last week's first round of attack ads against the Chamber's "hypocrisy." As a spokesman for American Rights at Work (ARAW) told The Hill newspaper this week:

"Labor law reform must ensure that workers who want to join a union are able to do so without facing endless delays from corporations seeking to deny them a voice in the workplace," ARAW spokesman Josh Goldstein said. "Big Business' position is hypocritical and motivated by their desire to maintain a status quo in which corporations make millions while middle class families struggle to get ahead."

Weekly Pulse: The Push for a Public Plan
Healthcare reform is back in the news, as Legislators and interest groups spar over the promised public component of Obama's healthcare plan. In very simple terms, this is a fight between groups with a vested interest in expensive healthcare and everyone else. This week, the American Medical Association warned Obama that a public plan could restrict patient choice. But for millions of Americans, getting a choice between healthcare and no healthcare wold represent a 100% increase in their healthcare options. Obama's public plan would also give people the choice of keeping their private health insurance. So, the public plan is an additional option, not a diminution of options.

The AMA is a powerful interest group, but it doesn't speak for all physicians. Several prominent groups representing doctors and medical students, including the American Association of Family Physicians, co-signed a declaration supporting Obama's push for a public plan this week.

Expect the health insurance lobby to fight the public option tooth and nail, says economist Dean Baker in AlterNet. It's smart business from their perspective. Platitudes about the free market aside, no real capitalist welcomes competition. As Baker points out, a public plan represents competition to health insurance companies. For every dollar Medicare pays to providers, it spends two cents on administration. Whereas private insurers spend about fifteen cents on the dollar in administrative costs. Baker estimates that if a public plan were available, insurance profits would drop by 20-30%, all things being equal.

Former president Bill Clinton invited about 20 progressive bloggers to his Harlem office on Monday for a seminar-style discussion about the work of the Clinton Foundation. Several staff from Media Consortium member organizations were in attendance, including yours truly. Healthcare was a major topic of conversation. Emily Douglas of RH Reality Check, who also attended the meeting, writes:

The former President observed that the country, emerging from a "post-9/11 emotional straitjacket" has become "more communitarian" -- and that President Obama has fewer budget issues, and less Republican opposition, to content with when attempting reform. But, most importantly, "everything is worse now" -- health care spending has doubled, more are uninsured, and disposable income, adjusted for inflation, is down.

Clinton said that he's optimistic about the prospects for healthcare reform this year, but he encouraged Obama to drive a hard bargain with congressional Republicans. All things considered, the former president said, it would be better to pass healthcare with 60 votes for the sake of the Obama administration's long-term relations with congress. The alternative would be to pass healthcare through budget reconciliation, which would require only 51 votes, but which would incur a lot of ill-will among Republicans. However, Clinton cautioned against writing a weak bill to avoid reconciliation. In Clinton's opinion, if we don't contain healthcare costs by moving to outcomes-based medicine and making our healthcare delivery systems more efficient, the system will be unsustainably expensive.

James Ridgeway of Mother Jones has also been mulling the challenge of writing a bill that's acceptable to enough Republicans to avoid a budget reconciliation fight. Ridgeway fears that sweeping structural reform will take a back seat to political expediency. He fears that by trying to please everyone, Obama could end up pleasing no one:

One disturbing possibility is that health care could become a replay of the credit card legislation. The pattern goes something like this: First, we get a propaganda blitz heralding sweeping changes. But although the final legislation corrects some of the most egregious abuses, it doesn't change the system's underlying flaws. So, for example, insurance companies may be required to cover people with preexisting conditions—a need Obama illustrated vividly in his AMA speech with moving references to his mother's battle with cancer. We might see what the president called "more efficient purchasing of prescription drugs," which presumably means faster approval of generics and giving the government greater power to haggle with Big Pharma over drug costs. We will likely see incentives for health care providers to offer more cost-effective—and, hopefully, better—treatment. These things are not meaningless, and they will provide a modicum of relief to some struggling Americans. But they do virtually nothing to strike at the deeper problems of the for-profit health care system. And they offer only a fraction of the savings that a single-payer system would provide.

If the healthcare debate sounds vague and abstract, that's because it is. There are several competing bills coalescing, but at this point, there's no overall vision for reform. Everything is up for grabs. Never afraid to think big, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is circulating a petition for single-payer healthcare, with an assist from Chelsea Green.

Surely the weirdest healthcare story of the week comes from Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon: An anti-choice blogger who claimed to be carrying a non-viable pregnancy to term out of pro-life principle was exposed as a hoaxster when an alert reader identified her "dead baby" as a doll. It's not clear why the 26-year-old social worker perpetrated the hoax. Jessica Valenti of Feministing injects a note of compassion for the perpetrator, "Though as angry as this makes me, I'm with Sadie at Jezebel on this: 'It's tempting of course to use this as a chance to take an easy bash at anti-choice, and revel in anything that makes them look foolish, but frankly, I'm just sad for this woman.' As am I."

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on healthcare affordability, healthcare laws, and healthcare controversy. And for the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net.

Weekly Audit: Reining in the Subprime Scoundrels
President Barack Obama is scheduled to unveil his agenda for revamping financial regulation later this week. As the economy struggles though a recession created by the banking industry, it's crucial that Obama and his advisers craft a set of rules ensuring that the financial sector strengthens our economy instead of destroying it.

Various government regulatory agencies are sparring over how the final regulatory structure will be divided. But, as Robert Kuttner notes for The American Prospect, the most important aspects of the plan will not be who regulates what, but how stringently they are required to regulate. The Federal Reserve has had the power to devise consumer protection regulations for years, but has generally decided against writing strong rules to defend borrowers. There is perhaps no area of public policy more critical to the nation's economic stability than consumer protections in banking, especially as the subprime mortgage crisis continues to devastate U.S. households.

Without stronger regulations, the government's rescue programs for the financial sector will be a complete waste, and bailouts will only reward the destructive behavior that created the current recession. And the bailout plans are getting more absurd every week. Writing for Mother Jones, Nomi Prins details the latest bank bailout farce: The false euphoria emanating from the Treasury Department after it decided to allow 10 banks to return the bailout money it received from the public. Or, at least, some of the bailout money.

As Prins explains, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) accounts for just a tiny fraction of the bank rescue efforts currently orchestrated by the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC. When banks accepted TARP money, they agreed to implement a few modest restrictions on executive pay, though none of the other bailouts came with any strings attached. The FDIC, for instance, agreed to guarantee the corporate debt that banks issue to fund their operations without requiring banks to adopt any changes in the way they do business. This government backing has allowed banks to raise several billion dollars in funding at extremely inexpensive rates, at a time when most banks were struggling to raise any money at all. Suddenly, some of the chief beneficiaries of the FDIC program—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and American Express, to name three—find themselves flush with cash and able to pay back the TARP money, and thus allow their CEOs to escape the executive compensation caps.

As Laura Flanders explains in the below video from GritTV, there is a difference between how "healthy" a bank appears to the U.S. Treasury and what it actually does for ordinary people. The TARP money was supposed to serve a public purpose by freeing up funds that could be lent out into the economy. But the very banks now going off the public payroll have been retroactively jacking up interest rates on credit cards all year and spending millions to lobby against legislation that would prevent foreclosures. Small surprise, then, that the state of the U.S. housing market is as bad as it has ever been.

"The lesson is pretty clear: you cannot stabilize the mortgage market and undercut the working family at the same time, you just can't," Flanders says.

It's not as if the economy has suddenly turned a corner. In addition to all those foreclosures, the unemployment rate is 9.4% at last count and keeps surging higher. But the effects of the recession are not being felt equally among all workers. New America Media (NAM) features a piece by Raechal Leone that highlights the even more severe unemployment rate among blacks in the U.S.—a whopping 14.9%. Those numbers are not expected to get better anytime soon. When economists talk about the recession "ending," they mean that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measurement of the total output of the U.S. economy, will have stopped shrinking. Economists almost universally believe that the unemployment rate will increase well after GDP stops contracting—as many as five years in some predictions.

The Applied Research Center (ARC) has released a report detailing the disparate impact of the recession on minorities, accompanied by a host of constructive policy recommendations. In the financial world, minority borrowers still face a dramatically uneven playing field. Black and Latino borrowers were more much more likely to be steered into an expensive subprime mortgage during the housing bubble than white borrowers were. As Nina Jacinto details for Wiretap, these lending practices have been so pervasive that the NAACP has filed lawsuits against both Wells Fargo and HSBC for systematically targeting black borrowers with expensive supbrime mortgages.

We need to upgrade our anti-discrimination banking regulations to end this systematic predation. Many of the other policies that ARC endorses are not geared specifically toward ending the racial wealth gap, but would alleviate some of the glaring effects of institutional racism. Since people of color are disproportionately relegated to low-paying jobs (or, as Leone noted for NAM, no work at all), policies that make it easier for low-wage workers to organize and demand fair pay, like the Employee Free Choice Act, would help ease this rampant inequality.

The Obama team's regulatory proposal will only mark the beginning of a policy debate that will likely last for months. But make no mistake, serious bank reform is one of the most important steps the government can take to make the economy accountable to ordinary citizens and CEOs alike. Without substantive change in the financial sector, the next meltdown could already be underway.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy. Visit StimulusPlan.NewsLadder.net and Economy.NewsLadder.net for complete lists of articles on the economy, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical health and immigration issues, check out Healthcare.NewsLadder.net and Immigration.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

As Senators Huddle Over Bill, Pro-Labor Ads Pressure Wavering Dems
Senators, led by Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, are stepping up the pace of negotiations for a version of the Employee Free Choice Act that could be introduced by next month, Roll Call and CQ reported this week. Conservative bloggers and pundits are alarmed, with the right-wingers at Red State quoting with dismay the new developments involving moderate Democrats:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) indicated Wednesday that he will be ready to bring up the long-stalled Employee Free Choice Act next month, following weeks of negotiations with key stakeholders.

"We're in meetings right now. I'm still hopeful that we can get something done," Harkin said.

The Iowa Democrat has regularly huddled with Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) to try to hatch a compromise on the measure, known as "card check." On Tuesday, Harkin included AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuel in the talks--an indication that progress is being made.

Excluded from the closed-door talks have been Democratic naysayers to the bill such as Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), whose support Harkin will need to avoid a filibuster...

The conservative pundits are worried: "Polls show Specter is vulnerable to a real Democrat; he may need the foot soldiers the unions bring, and it's likely that whatever his public posture, he's working behind the scenes to deliver for labor."

Meanwhile, unions are stepping up the pressure on wavering Democratic Senators, such as Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Union activists are using every strategic tool at their disposal, from grass-roots campaigns to tough ad campaigns. As Stewart Acuff, the special assistant to the AFL-CIO president, noted in a recent column citing as one example the mounting support by black mayors in Arkansas:

Both nationally and in targeted states, every element of the Democratic Party is stepping up to demand that Democratic Senators support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Democratic mayors and state legislators have the small political organizations that keep their creators elected and are called on to deliver the energy, enthusiasm, and votes to elect Democrats statewide. Black elected officials and union leaders and activist are central to Democratic Get Out the Vote operations. Democrats don't win statewide elections without them. Some members of the U.S. Senate have made decisions to support the Employee Free Choice Act based on principle and values. Some are making political calculations. The AFL-CIO is painstakingly making the political calculations for Members of the Senate: Black elected officials, faith leaders, small businesses, community organizations, union members and activists. All are necessary for Democratic victories each November. All are calling for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

For instance, in Arkansas in recent weeks, there have been vigils and rallies outside the local offices of Sen. Blanche Lincoln, across-the-state media coverage, and thousands of hand-written letters delivered to both senators. As Fred McKenzie, an AFL-CIO communications staffer who has helped organize the mobilization in Arkansas, told me, " We want to let them know it's not just a labor bill, it's a bill for the worker and everyone in the community: small business owners,community leaders and faith leaders." Some of that passion for the legislation was captured in this speech by Acuff at a recent rally in front of Sen. Lincoln's Arkansas office:

At least 300 small businesses in Arkansas alone have signed letters of support for the legislation, part of a broad coalition of a 1,000 businesses that realize the value to their bottom line of having workers in their communities able to buy what they offer -- and employees eager to share in the prosperity with their bosses and make a long-term commitment to a firm's productivity.

One leading labor organization, SEIU, is taking a hard-line political approach to keeping up the pressure on Senate moderates. It's launched four ads targeting Senators Pryor, Lincoln, Jim Webb of Virginia, Arlen Specter and Louisiana Republican David Vitter. In some ways, these new ads are part of an emerging trend by some progressive activists, groups and commentators, such as Moveon.org, Chris Bowers of Open Left and William Greider in The Nation, urging liberals to increase the heat on "blue-dog" or centrist Democrats in Congress to push for a more progressive agenda on such issues as a public health insurance option and the banks bailout.

As first reported by Sam Stein in The Huffington Post, the SEIU ad campaign links failure to support the legislation to siding with greedy corporations. Here's how it reaches out to Arkansas voters and pro-union activists (via the SEIU blog):

In addition to putting out the four web videos, the SEIU is also launching email campaigns targeting the five senators, with much the same message and aim.

The email campaign mirrored the below message sent to our Arkansas activists....

Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, stand with Arkansas' working people, not greedy CEOs.
Last week hundreds of CEOs and other businesspeople flew to Washington, DC to pressure your senators.

They want Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor to stand with the same greedy CEOs who wrecked our economy in the first place.

We need you to fight back. We just produced this ad making it clear that Senators Lincoln and Pryor can't stand with CEOs. Write your message in support of working Arkansasans.

Some of the biggest corporations in America are lining up to fight the working people of Arkansas. They're spending millions of dollars - some of it your tax dollars from the bailouts! - to stop corporations from being held accountable.

They think that they can send in CEOs to make Senators Lincoln and Pryor forget about working people. With your help, we can make sure that doesn't happen.

Tell Senators Lincoln and Pryor to stand with working families and support the Employee Free Choice Act: http://action.seiu.org/page/s/standwithusar.

As the legislation is being shaped in the Senate, ads like this one below -- enhanced by the involvement of hundreds of thousands of workers and their allies in communities across the country -- could indeed make a difference in the ultimate outcome:

Studying 'Abroad' at Liberty University
In his book The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University (Grand Central, March), Brown University sophomore Kevin Roose chronicles his semester “abroad” at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Liberty is currently the largest evangelical university in the world, with over 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Jerry Falwell, also the founder of the Moral Majority and the founding pastor of one of America’s largest megachurches, is known (especially by rampant liberals like myself) as being the man who blamed September 11 on feminists, homosexuals, abortionists and the ACLU, among others. He also said that AIDS was “God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

Needless to say, not many of Roose’s Brown classmates envied him and his decision to study at Liberty for a semester. Roose, with a fiercely liberal family and educational background, could have easily dismissed the entire Liberty student population and their conservative principles, but he did not. He took classes like Evangelism 101, Old Testament and History of Life (which turned out to be a shameless plug for creationism). He went to Bible study groups, joined the Church choir, and went on a spring break mission trip to Daytona Beach.

With a style that is both poignant and comedic, Roose narrates the struggles he faced with two clashing ideologies in his life and his ultimate realizations about the differences (or lack thereof) between himself and a typical Liberty student.

The Unlikely Disciple, an excerpt of which is in our July issue (and not on our website, hint hint), is definitely worth picking up. Roose manages to be simultaneously humanizing and sharply critical of his peers and of Liberty as an institution, providing a viewpoint that is often left out by those of who lean to the left.

For more information, check out Roose's website or this YouTube trailer for the book:

Key Legal Battles in Fight for Immigrant Rights

While the United States' legal system is founded on grand ideals like all humans being equal, the law is rarely as benevolent or efficient in practice, especially for immigrants. Different classes of people receive different consideration, and the subsequent disparities are glaringly evident in the lives of immigrants. This week's Wire focuses on immigration-related legal battles, including unconstitutional raids by Immigrations Customs and Enforcement (ICE) and the rights to have competent representation in a court of law.

In 2007, ICE raided numerous residences in New Haven, Connecticut without arrest warrants, probable cause, or consent. The violent and "highly visible" raid was likely "retaliatory," as it came two days after New Haven approved "the issuance of identification cards for all residents irrespective of immigration status." The Department of Homeland Security was clearly sending their own message to the town, or so many perceive it. But good news: M. Junaid Levesque-Alam of Wiretap mag reports that a federal judge ruled the raid unconstitutional, stating that ICE officials violated the rights of four undocumented immigrants and called a halt to the deportation proceedings on Monday.

RaceWire's Michelle Chen reports on an important reversal in Bush-era immigration law made by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Previously, immigrants represented by counsel they claimed were "incompetent, unethical, fraudulent, or absent" could not halt deportation proceedings. The right to contest the quality of their counsel has been restored. It's a fair ruling, as the former law implied that, while immigrants members supposedly had “the privilege of being represented,” justice was little more than a show.

Unfortunately, even with this positive change in law, it's hard to assert that justice has been attained for more than a relative handful. As Chen writes, "current law does not guarantee government-appointed counsel" and so most detained immigrants will not even have state-appointed representation.

In Local (In)hospitality, Chen also provides a good roundup of issues around the country that touch on immigration legislation, such as Republican lawmaker Joe Carr's "vigorously slamming the door on undocumented workers" by advancing a bill to "block local governments from explicitly restricting police from enforcing federal immigration law."

RH Reality Check's Margo Kaplan reports on one Judge's ruling that "doubled the recommended sentence and exceeded federal sentencing guideline recommendations" for Quinta Layin Tuleh, a woman five months pregnant, "for the sole purpose of keeping Tuleh in prison until she gave birth." Whether or not such a ruling creates a double standard for women or women immigrants in the eyes of the law may be up for debate, but this interpretation of the law was cruel.

In other immigration news, Steve Benen of The Washington Monthly reports that approximately a million people cross into Mexico each year for medical care. Personalities or media outlets that seek to spread fear or maintain a particular view of Mexico often insist that violence is bubbling and spilling up over our southern border. It is difficult, however, to remember that many people are crossing the border into Mexico to reap the benefits offered there. And not only are the reported numbers thought to be low, but the trend shows no signs of slowing down.

"If America is the land of beckoning opportunity," writes Terray Sylvester for High Country News, "Mexico is the land of bargain operations -- and cheap dental care, and sensibly-priced treatments for chronic illness." Sylvester points out that, since approximately 500,000 of these people are Mexican immigrants returning for care, there's a new "twist in the refrain that Mexican immigrants stress social services" in the U.S.

Speaking of opportunity, Wiretap is featuring a video called Immigration: New York Voices, which puts today's hostile attitudes against immigrants in stark contrast. In the words of one interviewee, the U.S. has a legacy: It is where you go when you need to find safety or are "unhappy" with the land you live in.

Finally, we come to New America Media (NAM), which is featuring a bunch of content related to last week's Expo and Awards. In Women Immigrants Key to Family Unity, Viji Sundaram reports a panel focused on both a breakfast for women and ethnic media and the recent survey [pdf] that New America Media commissioned from pollster Sergio Bendixen.

"Women journalists navigate a greater range of threats than do their 'male counterparts,'" said Meredith Greene Megaw, communications director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, because women face the same threats, in addition to "cultural taboos, as well as the danger danger of being sexually assaulted and threatened." See the page to view a slideshow of that panel.

And in Coalition Vows to Press Congress and Obama for Immigration Reform, New America Media's Khalil Abdullah reports on the Reform Immigration for America campaign (RIFA), a coalition of groups like the Center for American Progress and AFL-CIO and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference that came together to "press Congress for comprehensive immigration reform legislation this year." It sounds like a very positive move overall, but time will tell how effective this coalition is.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

Will Feds Dare Call Tiller's Assassination Terrorism?
The fallout from the assassination of women's healthcare provider Dr. George Tiller continues. As Zack Roth of Talking Points Memo reports, the Justice Department will investigate whether Tiller's shooter, an anti-choice zealot, violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act or any other federal statutes. But little has been said about investigating the killing as an act of terrorism, a federal crime. The Oklahoma City bombers were investigated by the FBI and tried under a 1994 federal anti-terrorism statute, and that was before the PATRIOT ACT, which presumably makes it even easier to prosecute terrorism as a federal crime today.

Tiller's murder was terrorism by any reasonable definition of the term. It was a politically-motivated act of conspicuous brutality, designed to suppress abortions through fear. The feds will probably stop short of investigating Tiller's murder as a terrorist attack. That designation would unleash vast federal powers to investigate large swathes of the radical anti-choice movement and hold accountable anyone who gives them the slightest aid and comfort. The feds are simply not prepared for the political fallout that would ensue if, say, Operation Rescue were officially designated as a terrorist organization.

But Tiller's assassination seems to be working as an intimidation tactic. On Tuesday, Dr. Tiller's family announced that his clinic, one of only three facilities of its kind in the country, will close its doors forever. Tracy Clark-Flory writes in Salon that the terrorist got exactly what he wanted:

A lesson in the effectiveness of terrorism: Dr. George Tiller's Kansas clinic is closing permanently, according to his family's lawyers. In a statement Tuesday, the family said: "We are proud of the service and courage shown by our husband and father and know that women's healthcare needs have been met because of his dedication and service." They will continue to honor his memory "through private charitable activities" -- in other words, the type of activism that is less likely to get a person killed.

Of course, the intimidation won't stop at a single act. As his clinic notes in Mother Jones, the alleged assassin is inciting further violence from his jail cell:

The fact that the family made clear that it would not be involved "in any other similar clinic" suggests that they are traumatized and fearful--in a word, terrorized. And no wonder, since Roeder, as I detailed yesterday, has issued warnings from his jail cell of further attacks on abortion providers--an act which, coming from just about any other comparable source, would certainly be deemed terrorism, and treated accordingly.

Making explict the link between Tiller's murder and larger political goals, the Associated Press headline calls the closing a "tainted victory" for the larger anti-choice movement.

Professional anti-choicer Ross Douthat sparked controversy in an op/ed for the New York Times, insinuating that Dr. Tiller might still be alive if pro-choicers didn't make such a big deal about protecting late-term abortions. Hilzoy of the Washington Monthly tackles some Douthat's errors, starting with his misleading implication that third trimester abortions are unregulated. Without that premise, Douthat's argument falls apart, since he's arguing in effect that pro-choicers have created a free-for-all in which anyone can get a late term abortion for any reason.

Amanda Marcotte of RH Reality does a great job exposing the misogyny behind the anti-choice myth of frivolous late-term abortions. If you think that women are flighty, irrational, fundamentally unserious beings, you expect them to opt out of pregnancy on a whim after months of gestation. The imagined problem of casual late-term abortions reveals what anti-choicers really think of women, that they are lesser beings who need to be controlled by the state. Dr. Tiller's motto was the exact opposite: Trust women.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on healthcare affordability, healthcare laws, and healthcare controversy. And for the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.

Hunting Vultures of All Stripes: Greg Palast Investigates
Investigative journalist Greg Palast recently released a documentary – On the Trail: From 8-Mile to the Amazon – collecting three of his BBC films, which detail financial exploitation of the world’s poor, the human cost of Amazon oil production, and the impact of voting fraud during the 2008 election on Native Americans in New Mexico.

The new DVD features Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio, as well as music from Willie Nelson and Chris Shiflett. Here’s the trailer:

Palast has written multiple New York Times' bestsellers and made a name for himself covering corporate wrongdoing, labor unions, consumer advocacy groups and voter fraud. He runs a nonprofit investigative team devoted to progressive journalism and independent media.

He also serves on the advisory board of "Between the Lines," a radio public affairs show based in Bridgeport, Conn. The weekly “radio newsmagazine” focuses on progressive news and under-reported stories, with the goal of providing its audience with the information and means to take action on issues.

If you're feeling flush, make a (tax-deductible) donation of at least $40 here, and you'll get an autographed copy of the DVD. All funds will be split between the Palast Investigative Fund and "Between the Lines."

Of course, don't forget about us.

We Are the Healthcare Reform Pressure
Chris Bowers over at Open Left makes a very simple and good point:

Here is a message that progressive organizations and media outlets need to start sending to all Democratic party committees and members of Congress:

We are done attacking Republicans until you pass a public option for health care.

Yes, nearly every single Senate Republican opposes a public option, but the two courses (attack Republicans vs. pressure hesitant Democrats) are still essentially mutually exclusive because GOP support for real healthcare reform is less likely than pigs flying. While perhaps good fun, attacking Republicans is needless and distracting and counterproductive, as Bowers writes:

Stop telling me how bad Republicans are--we don't need a single one to pass the public option. In fact, not only do we not need any Republicans, but a public option can become a reality even if nine Senate Democrats, and 39 House Democrats, defect. This should be a slam dunk.

We should be naming names, flying to their home states to hold large rallies, and lining up primary challengers against public-option averse Democrats. Instead, our leaders are holding fundraisers for them, pressuring their primary opponents, and hosting dinners in their honor. Kind of makes you wonder how serious even those Democrats in favor of the public option are about change.

So here is the deal we should make: progressive media outlets and organizations will only start attacking Republicans again Democrats pass a public health care option that is open to all Americans who are not currently eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, or S-CHIP. Until that happens, we are not allies. Instead, they are the obstacle, and we are the pressure.

Weekly Audit: Ending the Economic Status Quo
The banking lobby still holds enough sway inside the Beltway to torpedo sensible consumer protection rules, even after releasing a flood of predatory mortgages that kicked off the current economic crisis. On issues ranging from payday loans to subprime mortgages, the banking industry continues to successfully defend itself against new regulations that would protect the consumer. As if that weren't outrage enough, the finance lobby has also joined other corporate interest groups to fund misinformation campaigns that smear unions and block wage growth.

As Mary Kane explains for The Colorado Independent, the push to rein in predatory mortgage lending appears to be losing steam on Capitol Hill. An extremely complex mortgage reform bill that is conciliatory to the finance lobby passed the House last month, angering consumer advocacy groups. Among the problems: the bill pre-empts many stronger state predatory lending laws and protects the Wall Street investment banks that gorged themselves on mortgage-backed securities.

Consumer protection shortfalls are not limited to messy mortgages. Lagan Sebert and David Murdoch detail the payday loan industry's continued assault on U.S. consumers for the American News Project. By offering small loans, typically in amounts ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, payday lenders target consumers who need money for basic necessities, then charge them outrageous interest rates (as in, above 700%).

For years, newspaper editorials have denounced payday lenders for systematically exploiting the most vulnerable members of society, including members of the U.S. military, who are often targeted as a result of their reliable paychecks. The solution to the problem is as simple as the business is repulsive: Capping annual interest rates on all consumer credit products at 36% would make this kind of predation impossible.

Nevertheless, the payday loan industry has been able to escape a regulatory crackdown via an intense and sustained lobbying effort. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is now parroting payday lending lobbyists. Since payday loans are supposedly paid back within a matter of weeks, Dodd and the payday lending lobby say that it's unfair to hold them subject to the same standards as a 30-year mortgage.

The argument is insane. No bank would ever get away with charging a 36% interest rate on a mortgage. Even the most predatory subprime mortgages didn't have interest rates anywhere near that high. But Sebert and Murdoch go further, highlighting a report from the Center for Responsible Lending which found that payday lenders make 90% of their revenue from borrowers who do not pay their loans off on time. The loans are structured to be so expensive that consumers become trapped into making payments for the long-term, often spending thousands of dollars over multiple years to get out from under an initial loan of just a few hundred dollars.

Dodd has received major campaign contributions from the banking industry, but sometimes the lobbying effort is much more subtle. Several major corporate lobby groups have united under the misleading moniker of "Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs" to finance shoddily researched projects that defend the interests of the executive class in economic policy. An Alliance for Main Street Jobs report written by Anne Layne-Farrar has received quite a bit of attention for its claim that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would kill 600,000 jobs by making it easier for employees to organize. Several major news outlets have cited the allegation, including Fox News, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, and CBS News. As Art Levine reveals for In These Times, however, this research relies on completely meaningless statistical trends and disingenuous research design that render its findings utterly hollow.

Corporate executives are not afraid of EFCA because they think it will kill jobs or disenfranchise workers. They are afraid because it will empower workers to fight for living wages and provide safe working conditions—things that leave less money around for big executive bonuses at the end of the year and give workers a greater say in how companies operate.

In some respects, EFCA also represents the other side of the predatory lending problem. It is important to ban abusive loans, but it is just as important to make sure people are paid fairly for their work to ensure they don't need to seek out shady credit just to make ends meet.

When so many brewing legislative battles relate to the economy, it's easy to forget about the programs that have already been enacted. Some of the tax cuts included in the economic stimulus package were aimed at fostering investment in low-income and minority neighborhoods—a worthy goal. But as Michelle Chen notes for ColorLines, the program has some significant flaws. Chen highlights a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which found that minority-owned community development entities are largely being excluded from the program, with approval rates about 67% lower than other applicants. The GAO could find no reasonable explanation for why minorities were not making the cut, especially when some recipients of the tax credits have a history of consumer exploitation. Capital One Bank, for instance, is receiving $90 million of these tax credits, despite its long history of abusive subprime credit card lending.

There have been some successes this year in the push for an economy that answers to workers and consumers. Much of the stimulus bill is designed to make sure important jobs don't disappear during the recession, and Sen. Dodd's credit card reform bill passed both chambers of Congress by comfortable margins and included some very strong improvements. But we know what caused the economic crisis: stagnant wages and predatory lending. A true recovery will have to empower workers and protect consumers, both of which will require breaking with the corporate status quo.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy. Visit StimulusPlan.NewsLadder.net and Economy.NewsLadder.net for complete lists of articles on the economy, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical health and immigration issues, check out Healthcare.NewsLadder.net and Immigration.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

In These Times is now on Twitter!
In These Times has officially entered The Future. Or, well, The Present.

Some charlatan is squatting on "inthesetimes," so you'll find our frequent and thoroughly illuminating tweets here: http://twitter.com/inthesetimesmag

(If you're reading this, false "inthesetimes," relinquish the account to us now or face certain shame! Email jeremy@inthesetimes.com with your account details so we can get this little issue resolved.)

For all you eager followers out there, prepare your feeds for a nearly daily stream of links to the newest stories at InTheseTimes.com, not to mention millions of scintillating micro-insights, each less than 140 characters. (Maybe not millions, but we'll do our best.) Don't be shy – follow us today. And don't worry, we'll be updating our account's background in short order, so your eyes don't start twitching.

Grassroots Labor Pressure on Specter: "He Knows When There's a Fire Under His Ass"
Unflagging grassroots lobbying pressure on the newly-converted Democratic Senator, Arlen Specter, who previously said he couldn't support the bill, led Specter over the weekend to promise union activists he'd support a compromise version of the bill that would please them. It's a sharply different tone than he took after abandoning his earlier support for the legislation in recent months, both before and after he switched parties.

State AFL-CIO leader, Bill George, summed up what's at stake for him:

"I've got to tell you, Arlen Specter knows what pressure is," George said before Specter took the stage of a pro-Employee Free Choice Act rally, having invited himself to attend the night before. "He knows when there's a fire under his ass, and you build that fire."

State activists, including faith leaders and other progressives joining union members in this strong pro-labor state, have generated since the early spring over 150,000 letters, faxes and phone calls to all of Specter's office in Washington and around the state. On top of that, over 400 small business leaders in Pennsylvania have signed up to back the bill, viewed as essential by supporters to reviving the middle-class and generating consumer spending on their businesses. AFL-CIO communications staffer Marty Marks, who has helped organize the campaign, says he was never deterred by the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that the bill was dead: " I never accepted it for a moment. It's too important, too much of a movement and it's going forward. Something's going to happen, and we're not going to move on our core principles." He says of Specter: "My sense is that he's coming home," to his pro-labor, Democratic Party roots.

At a rally for the Employee Free Choice Act that was held before Specter spoke to the state Democratic party, the Senator faced a mixed reaction, and the pressure was palpable (via PA2010):

During his ten-minute remarks to a couple hundred union workers assembled outside the Westin Convention Center, Specter sought to focus attention on his past support for initiatives important to organized labor, and in what is becoming a familiar talking point, he touted his role in helping to pass President Obama's stimulus package. As workers chanted for him to "pass the vote," he said he was working on a compromise for the "card-check" bill.

"I'm committed to find an answer which will satisfy you, and I'm optimistic we can do that," Specter said.

But that wasn't good enough for many rank-and-file union members in the crowd--some groaned in displeasure, some booed, and at least one hurled an epithet at Specter.

"You want my vote? I want yours!" John Heinlein, a retired ironworker, shouted repeatedly until Specter was forced to acknowledge him.

Attempting to calm the crowd, Specter said: "I understand your job's on the line and I understand that my job's on the line. I understand that, and I believe that you'll be satisfied with my vote on this issue. And if you're not, I recognize your right in a free society to cast your vote as you choose."

Later, after Specter left the makeshift stage to chants of "Free Choice Act," Heinlein told pa2010.com that Specter was on thin ice.

"I voted for him in the past," Heinlein said. "But he can't fence-ride on this. If he wants our support, he has to vote for this. If he votes against this, he'll never get my vote again.

While Specter has been courting Democratic leaders, a potential challenger, Rep. Joe Sestak, has been garnering strong support for his support for the Employee Free Choice Act:

The contrast between Specter and his new Democratic colleagues was striking. Whereas labor leaders and Democratic members of Congress--including Specter's likely primary opponent, Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7)--took the stage to raucus applause, Specter was greeted far more cooly...

In his brief remarks, Sestak was unequivocal in his support for "card-check," which he has sponsored in the past.

"Are the facts there about worker intimidation? They are," he said.

Clearly enjoying that union workers were approaching him to offer their thanks and support, Sestak told pa2010.com that a compromise could work for him, but only if it the unions support it.

"IF we can get EFCA through, I'm here 100 percent," he said.

To Stewart Acuff, the special assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO, there are clear political lessons to be drawn from this grass-roots mobilization, duplicated in states with key swing Senators, such as Arkansas and Maine:

"What is happening now [with Specter] is the reason we didn't give up when most of the chattering class, pundits, observers and our opponents said the Employee Free Choice Act was dead. You play the whole game, run the whole campaign all the way through, implement your entire plan. We are gonna pass the Employee Free Choice Act because we have waged the most massive grassroots legislative campaign in the history of the American labor movement."

He added, "When we win we will have won on the ground!"

And the winner is...Fidel
Fidel must be laughing his way to the grave. Let’s just admit it…he won. Cuba was readmitted to the Organization of American States (with U.S. support) yesterday, and Cuban-inspired guerrilla groups – now legal political parties – have now won the presidencies of both El Salvador and Nicaragua. All of this was impossible during the Cold War.

Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, U.S. policymakers have tried to isolate and eliminate what they deemed a threat to America's influence over the Western Hemisphere. Since the late 1800s, Washington had freely intervened in the region, ensuring American business interests were secure.

Cuba directly challenged this policy by nationalizing foreign businesses holdings and allying itself with America’s arch nemesis, the U.S.S.R. But inspiring a generation of Latin Americans now taking power throughout the hemisphere – along with maintaining his regime decades after Cold War ended – could be considered Castro’s greatest feats.

Once the hemisphere’s pariah state, Cuba is being brought back into the fold, with Castro now seen by many leaders in the Americas as one of the region’s elder statesmen. Over four decades of U.S. containment has proved to be a failure.

The only thing left is the embargo. Critics do point, rightly, to Havana’s poor human rights record as a precondition for normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations. But considering the efficacy of the last 40 years, it might be time for a change. Engagement with the island nation may allow for greater improvements. Repression seems more absurd when faced with kindness.