Love is the shit
Indignant Desert Birds
Class Warfare and Video Games
That’s right. Hilda Solis, the Labor Secretary-Designate will get a vote today at 2:00 P.M. according to Senate Aides. The coming battle on the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) is mostly what is at stake. Other than Congresswoman Hilda Solis’s husband owning some tax liens–in the amount of $6,468.00–there is no good reason for the vote to be delayed. Imagine that. A pro-labor Labor Secretary. Her husband has since paid those liens which for business-owners isn’t all that uncommon.
Senate Republicans attempted to pull her into a stand off on Union Issues in her confirmation hearings in an attempt to draw a sound bite, or a snide remark, or some other reason to deny her the position. A statement in a Los Angeles Times article entitled “Hilda Solis Deflects Republican Questions Over Union Issues” is pretty incredible: “Republicans are concerned that Solis, a strong supporter of unions in her eight years in the House, will bring a pro-union bias to the Labor Department.”
A pro-union bias to the Labor Department? Listed in the “About DOL” tab on http://www.dol.gov:
“The Department of Labor fosters and promotes the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners, and retirees of the United States by improving their working conditions, advancing their opportunities for profitable employment, protecting their retirement and health care benefits, helping employers find workers, strengthening free collective bargaining, and tracking changes in employment, prices, and other national economic measurements. In carrying out this mission, the Department administers a variety of Federal labor laws including those that guarantee workers’ rights to safe and healthful working conditions; a minimum hourly wage and overtime pay; freedom from employment discrimination; unemployment insurance; and other income support.”
But what is all this about anyway? Previously Labor Secretaries were often ineffectual as unions were systematically busted nationwide over the course of the last 15-20 years; including during the Clinton years. There is a piece of legislation currently pending that could fundamentally remake unions and revitalize them. While not all unions are perfect, and there is corruption in them like any organization, it is important to understand what they have done for the American people over the last century in terms of worker safety, fair wages and have turned the United States into the highest-trained work force in the world.
The Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800 which can be read here) is meant to accomplish a few things. Mostly, it makes the penalty for unlawfully terminating union employees three-times back pay and reinstitution; a $20,000 penalty for each separate violation of EFCA; and makes forming, maintaining and expanding a union easier.
Currently, the National Labor Relations Board is the arbitrator if strikes and union disputes affect commerce. The United States, under the inter-state commerce clause of the Constitution has a vested interest in the quick resolution of these disputes. It is an independent government agency created by Congress in 1935, under the leadership of FDR under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Act to “protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy.” The EFCA would require that the NLRB accept a card-check to ensure that all members of the union have representation at negotiations and intimidation cannot be allowed during the secret ballot that may or may not be truly secret.
Representative George Miller (D-CA) introduced the legislation, remarked that “The current process for forming unions is badly broken and so skewed in favor of those who oppose unions, that workers must literally risk their jobs in order to form a union. Although it is illegal, one quarter of employers facing an organizing drive have been found to fire at least one worker who supports a union. In fact, employees who are active union supporters have a one-in-five chance of being fired for legal union activities. Sadly, many employers resort to spying, threats, intimidation, harassment and other illegal activity in their campaigns to oppose unions. The penalty for illegal activity, including firing workers for engaging in protected activity, is so weak that it does little to deter law breakers.”
Now that there are 59 Senators (including Al Franken: we’re rooting for you, buddy!) on the Democratic Side, it is much more likely that cloture will be achieved. However, it is probably unlikely that Senators Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins will vote for it. Which means that unless there is a tremendous amount of pressure placed on them, or on rust-belt Republican Senators (Voinovich is a prime example) this legislation will not pass until the next Senate, seated in 2010. So if you want to see this legislation pass and strengthen the United States economy, ensure that you are working for the Democratic Senate candidate in your State, get involved early in the process by finding whoever you believe will be the strongest candidate in the general and start with them.
Also, send donations to Democratic candidates for Senate if you live in a state with an uncompetitive Senate race. You can do so through Act Blue. Heck, send them money even if you are volunteering for them.
Together, we can rebuild our economy. It’s going to be a fight. Let’s get to work.
Conservatives love to prattle on about how, other than the most devastating attack on US soil since the war of 1812, President Bush kept us safe from terrorism. It occurred to me today that in addition the the incompetence of Bush*, it also points to the incompetence of Al-Quada…
Imagine, for a bit, that instead of 12 guys sent to hijack 4 airplanes in a devastating attack that lasted only long enough for unarmed civilians to intervene– imagine that the evil doers had done something… else.
What if Al-Quada had instead ordered their men to do as much damage as they could without getting caught? They could easily have sent 100 guys to plant bombs along highways 80, 90, 70, 40, etc. They could have blown up dozens of shopping malls across the nation, or one Starbucks in each of the 30 biggest cities in the country. They could have made Americans terrified of going shopping, of driving of.. leaving their houses.
Such a low-grade campaign would have had left Americans wondering which murders and which deaths were caused by terrorists, and which were the “normal” sorts of mayhem which accompanies living in the United States. If Al Quada didn’t claim responsibility for the attacks, the American Left would blame the Right (“Haven’t they, after all, been bombing abortion clinics and federal buildings for years?”) and the Right would blame the Left (“They’re unable to get over the Florida decision.”) You might even see independent terror campaigns taking advantage of the chaos.
Think of Checkpoints at every major intersection– after all, haven’t they been attacking roads? Police roaming New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Columbus, and dozens of other cities– police need to be able to quickly respond to threats. Rather than seeing America united to fight a common enemy, we might have verged on Civil War.
Fortunately, Al Quada prefers grand gestures to effective ones. Unforgivably, President Bush thought along the same lines. And so while we’re still around, so is Al Quada…
The caveat “other than the most devastating attack on US soil since the war of 1812″ covers a _lot_ of dead Americans…
A hundred and twenty five religious leaders – lay and ordained – gathered in St. Patrick’s church basement last Wednesday to motivate faith-based actions on immigration. I’ve chosen the top three funniest things of the day to share with you.
1. Arming yourself with the Bible
A minister, whose white color reflected his holy status, found himself without a pad of paper and too shy to ask his neighbor. He was armed with a pen, the agenda, and – thank God – the Holy Bible. God must have surely intervened, for without the Bible backing, the inspiring and non-prescriptive words of our panel would be lost. The Bible served as a great tablet, even if his pen may have slipped a time or two.
2. Praying, technologically speaking
When the Bishop popped out his iPhone to check notes during his opening panel, I figured the poor man had been up all night, and couldn’t remember the basic facts of his organization. Generally a wonderful speaker, he was just shy of inarticulate that day. Yet, when the Rabbi led closing prayers from his iPhone, I realized this must be a growing trend with religious leaders. Check the weather, google naked girls, write a sermon, see if you have any e-mail. All within a day’s work. I knew that iPhones were amazing, but can they supply me with spiritual counseling, or absolve my sins? I’ll take one please!
3. A great place to meet a date
My San Francisco break-out group had 20 activists sitting in a circle, 18 of which were female. While some of them were taken out of the running because their religious oaths prohibits copulation, and others hand rings on their fingers, others you could say were “up for grab”. With so much networking going on, there were no unattached non-ministers to pick up on socially-conscious chicks. It wouldn’t have been considered out of place in a basement where so many business cards were already changing hands. Boys, all you got to do is show up!
I’ve heard a lot about “ofa2.0″, the transformation of the community activists into local organizers to help Obama get his agenda passed. It sure would be helpful if, say, Mitch McConnell were to get a thousand calls from his constituents letting him know that they couldn’t possibly vote for somone who voted against the stimulus…
Ginsburg had surgery today for pancreatic cancer. At 75 it’s not so surprising that she has some health problems, but I hope for the best. While Obama would likely pick a better candidate than our last Supreme Court nominee, Ginsburg is the only woman who is currently sitting on the bench.
In other Supreme Court news, the California Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments on the Prop 8 case on March 5th, and a decision is required 90 days following arguments. The court will also hear the case regarding the 18,000 couples who were already married. The Courage Campaign produced this video protesting the divorce of these couples.
“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
I got a text message yesterday morning from a friend of mine who is as much a political junkie as I am. It said, simply, “We lost Daschle.”
My heart sank. The red-bespectacled wonder had won redemption, something that comes along far too few times in American politics, only to piss it away over a car, a driver and one, admittedly galactically stupid, tax error. Daschle is one of the nation’s thought leaders on health care and how to fix our broken system. In fact, he may be THE thought leader on the subject. He basically singlehandedly wrote the new President’s health care policy during the campaign. If you ask people high up in the administration, they will tell you when the time came to select a health czar, the President had his man in Daschle.
Of course, he was so busy figuring out how to fix health care, he kinda sorta forgot to pay his taxes. A lot of them.
Oops.
The truth is, Daschle could have weathered the storm, but – and I actually believe this when I say it – Daschle so intimately knew the fight he and the President were going to have to wage on fixing our health care system that any distraction – a la the HillaryCare debacle in 1993 – would give the entrenched interests an opportunity to distract, delay and defuse the forces of Good and defeat any bill that would move us to a progressive health system.
We need real movement on this issue and we need it today. No distractions, no sideshows, no BS. People die every day because of lack of access to health care in this country, which is a fact that drives straight through cruelty before arriving at being a sin, a stain on all of us.
So, with this early setback, where do we go from here? Why not try the Pacific Northwest?
Allow me to introduce you to Governor John Kitzhaber. I am lucky enough to have a friend and political mentor in Joe Trippi, my former boss on the Dean campaign. To Joe’s credit, he has been out in front on Twitter since the Daschle retraction went down yesterday, introducing his legions of followers to the work Kitzhaber’s Archimedes Project has been doing. And as I’ve read more about Kitzhaber, himself a medical doctor, and his project, I have been thoroughly impressed with his chops.
The Archimedes Project has been working since 2006 under three key notions on how to reshape the health care debate in this country. Instead of working to fix medicare or other barely functional existing institutions, we must ask ourselves a simple question: What would the optimal system look like that could improve population health, reduce per capita cost and improve the patient’s experience regardless of their category, how care is financed, a person’s age, income, race or gender? It is a more holistic look back at where we’ve been with health care, where we’ve succeeded, more notably where we have failed, and, most importantly a look forward to what American inginuity on this idea can bring us.
Kitzhaber understands, as well, that change like this does not come swiftly, but rather with the steady drumbeat of leadership and forward thinking coupled with legislative initiatives to back it up. And, more importantly, the Project understands that being a thought leader on such an important topic is great, but without the support of the grassroots, the people who will benefit directly from these ideas, the Project won’t go anywhere.
John Kitzhaber is a perfect intermediary to work between the President and the Congress and the People on this issue. He and the Archimedes Project leaders understand the need to work collectively on an issue that will mean greater prosperity for us all. And, though I haven’t checked his tax returns as yet, Kitzhaber showed leadership as a two-term Governor in Oregon, expanding access to health care and building economic prosperity throughout the state. I encourage you to read more about and get involved with Kitzhaber’s current work with the Archimedes Project at WeCanDoBetter.org, and join in the growing chorus of support, reminding President Obama that real change comes from the people, and that leadership on this issue means working across all boundaries to get the job done for the American people.
*As always, this is crossposted on my personal blog, Theory In Practice; Also, the views expressed are mine and mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the other contributors here at IDB…but they should. 
Why or why not? Shoot. I’m not going to write anything here that isn’t already posted elsewhere, and likely more eloquent.