Workers and Wage Slaves, Maximum Age, Minimum Wage, On the Job; Banks and Wall Street, Taxes, Class Warfare, Antiestablishmentarianism, Homeless; Chinese Exodus; Tau Day; Science Under Siege; Earth and Moon, Space Travel; Universe

Workers and Wages Slaves

• Meet 204 Republicans Who Don't Want to Punish Companies That Steal Workers' Wages
• Days After Decrying Flat Wages, McConnell Proposes Lowering Wages by $13 Billion
• How Walmart's Low Wages Cost All Americans, Not Just Its Workers
• Canada: Walmart wrong to fire unionized workers, high court says—"Supreme Court rules 5-2 in favour of 190 Quebec who lost jobs after first unionized Walmart shut its doors."
• Unions Fear This SCOTUS Case Could Bring Their 'Final Destruction'
• American Workers Need Overtime Protections
• Qatar police respond to fight at Sheraton Doha hotel

Maximum Age

• Tech industry job ads: Older workers need not apply
• Faygo accused of age discrimination - by founder's grandson
• Miss Delaware, 24, loses crown for being too old
• Singer sued for being too old and ugly for Pink cover band

Minimum Wage

• Zillow's Rich Barton on the $15 minimum wage, Uber regulations, and why the U.S. is filled with entrepreneurial 'freedom fighters'
• Ikea to raise its average minimum hourly wage to $10.76 LA Times
• Massachusetts: Minimum wage increase doesn't add up to a living wage—"The state's new $11 minimum wage –the highest in the nation -- will make low-wage workers' lives a little more stable, and less stressful. But not necessarily comfortable."
• A Minimum Wage That Makes More Sense—"Accounting for regional price differences is sound strategy when setting state or local minimum wages." NYT

On the Job

• Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (The Real Reason For The Forty-Hour Workweek)
• Taking a Vacation May Actually Save Your Career—"Workaholism is hurting the American economy."
• Unblinking Eyes Track Employees: Workplace Surveillance Sees Good and Bad—"Abundant data, smart software and cheap sensors are beginning to make it possible to measure and monitor employees as never before." NYT
• An Employee Dies, and the Company Collects the Insurance—"Many companies insure their employees’ lives with themselves as beneficiaries, a practice some deride as immoral. But companies say the policies, for which they get tax breaks, help them bolster pensions and health care." NYT
• Obama Says US Should Offer Paid Maternity Leave—Right-wingers say no [Salon]
• North Dakota coffee shop has no employees, runs entirely on the honor system…and it's working
• Job interviews reward narcissists, punish applicants from modest cultures

Banks and Wall Street

• Ex-Goldman Trader Calls $8.25 Million Bonus Unfair, Told Mom He'd Get More—They really are too big to jail.
• New York attorney general accuses Barclays of 'dark pool' fraud
• Grassley's Hunt For An Obama Insider Trading Scandal Backfires On GOP
• House GOP Staffer Allegedly Changed His Story In Insider Trading Probe
• House Passes Bill To Aid Koch Brothers, Deregulate Wall Street
• China's commodity-lending fraud just got $15 billion bigger

Taxes

• Krugman: Sympathy for the Trustafarians NYT
• Higher taxes do not kill jobs—"County-level BLS data tell the true story about job growth."
• Tax cuts in Kansas have cost the state money — and job creation's been terrible WaPo
  

Class Warfare

• Robert Reich on America's Koch Problem
• In US, over 75 per cent of conservatives say the poor 'have it easy'
• Elizabeth Warren says the U.S. economy is rigged. Many conservatives agree. WaPo
• Conspiracy of the plutocrats: Secrets of the wealth-inequality explosion revealed Salon
• Detroit's Water War: a tap shut-off that could impact 300,000 people—"A right-wing state and corporate push to cut off water is economic shock therapy at its most ruthless and racist, but resistance is growing."
• Debtors Prisons Are Taking the US Back to the 19th Century—"In recent years, more and more cells have been filled with poor individuals who are caught in a vile trap, unable to pay court fines."
• What wealth gap? Danish welfare narrows disparity WaPo

Antiestablishmentarianism

• The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% - ex CIA spy—"The man who trained more than 66 countries in open source methods calls for re-invention of intelligence to re-engineer Earth."
• Nick Hanauer: The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats Politico
• The United States Of Cruelty—"We are cheap. We are suspicious. We will shoot first. It does not have to be this way. Like Lincoln before us, it is time to do something about it."

Homeless

• 73-year-old veteran loses his job for allegedly giving a muffin to a homeless man
• Chinese tycoon's free lunch for homeless New Yorkers backfires—"Controversial businessman Chen Guangbiao angered homeless people in New York after promising them $300 each and failing to deliver."
• Flipside: Woman launches mobile showers for the homeless—"A San Francisco woman creates a "shower bus" to help accommodate the city's 3,500 homeless people. Vanessa Johnston reports."

Chinese Exodus

• Disappointed Immigration Applicants Sue Canada—"More than 1,400 Chinese plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit against the Canadian immigration authorities after Canada announced it was canceling its immigrant investor program along with tens of thousands of outstanding applications." NYT
• Mainland Chinese line up for Australia's 'millionaire visa'
• Cashed-up Chinese students turn to Australia
• China targets officials who sent families abroad—"China's anti-graft campaign is now targeting officials who have sent their spouses and children abroad, where they can create channels to potentially funnel illicit gains and establish footholds for eventual escape from the mainland."

Tau Day

• The brain injury that made me a math genius—"Twelve years ago, Jason Padgett had never made it past pre-algebra. And then a violent mugging changed everything." Salon
• Notation, notation, notation: a brief history of mathematical symbols—The symbols we use every day have fascinating and surprisingly recent origins, explains author Joseph Mazur in his new book."
• The secret history of numbers: How math shapes our lives in amazing, unpredictable ways—"The relationship between people and numbers is so much more fascinating than simple dollars and cents." Salon

Science Under Siege

• Universities 'get poor value' from academic journal-publishing firms—"Research finds secrecy over contracts has stopped some institutions realising they are paying too much for journals."
• The U.S. Should Invest In Science, Not War
• Neil DeGrasse Tyson: US need not lose its edge in science—"The famed astrophysicist says there's a reason some chemical elements are named for places in the US -- and that we don't have to leave those glory days in the past."
• Asia's Cult of Intelligence—"With its 'cult of ignorance and anti-intellectualism' the U.S. risks falling behind rivals in Asia."
• xkcd: People are stupid

Earth and Moon

• Largest Active Volcano on Earth Rumbles Back to Life—"Recent quake swarms signal that magma is squeezing into Mauna Loa's magma storage chambers in the same spots below where the 1984 eruption occurred."
• Earth and Moon Are 60 Million Years Older Than Previously Believed
• Traces of another world found on the Moon—"Researchers have found evidence of the world that crashed into the Earth billions of years ago to form the Moon."
• The Moon is Now a Wi-Fi Hotspot
• Strange New World Discovered: The 'Mega Earth'

Space Travel

• A Klingon is currently commander of the International Space Station
• Astronaut Sally Ride and the Burden of Being The First
• The Curiosity rover has been on Mars for one Martian year. It celebrated by taking a selfie. WaPo

Universe

• Big Bang blunder bursts the multiverse bubble—"Premature hype over gravitational waves highlights gaping holes in models for the origins and evolution of the Universe, argues Paul Steinhardt."
• Light from huge explosion 12 billion years ago reaches Earth
• NASA detects mysterious signal ​240 million light years away from Earth
• The Timey Wimey Spacey Wacey Explanation of Relativity
• Avoiding "Sagan Syndrome." Why Astronomers and Journalists should pay heed to Biologists about ET.
• Star Within a Star: Weird Stellar 'Hybrid' Discovered—Red supergiant replaced its core with a neutron star.workers
• Collection of three supermassive black holes detected
• Mystery object in lake on Saturn's moon Titan intrigues scientists—"Nasa's Cassini probe took image last year as it passed by planet's largest moon – nothing seen when other images taken."
• Titan's Atmosphere May be Older than Saturn, a New Study Suggests

Workers and Wage Slaves, VW and UAW, Minimum Wage, Unemployment, Occupational Hazards; Class War, Florida; Banks and Wall Street, Accountability, Bitcoin, Haxx0red; Tech Tracking

Workers and Wage Slaves

• Rise of the low-wage breadwinner
• 40% of Americans Consider Themselves in the Lower Classes—"The economic recovery is nearly five years old, but many Americans are feeling financially worse off than they were in 2008 according to study released Monday by the PEW Research Center in partnership with USA Today."
• Reich: Why The Three Biggest Economic Lessons Were Forgotten
• Krugman: Inequality, Dignity and Freedom—"Who really honors work and liberty? Probably not the 1 percent or the Republican Party." NYT
• U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown lobbies for his bill that would expand Earned Income Tax Credits for the working poor
• AOL chief reverses changes to 401(k) policy after a week of bad publicity—One of the 'distressed baby' mothers speak out. WaPo
• Congress votes to repeal military pension cuts—Guess who was responsible for these cuts happening in the first place.

VW and UAW

• Tennessee legislators threaten to withhold incentives if VW workers choose UAW—"Not only are Republican legislators accusing Volkswagen of backing the UAW, some of their leaders on Monday threatened to withhold tax incentives for future expansion of the three-year-old assembly plant in Chattanooga if workers vote later this week to join the UAW."
• Union Drive Doesn’t Bother Management, but G.O.P. Fumes NYT
• U.S. senator drops bombshell during VW plant union vote—"[H]e has been 'assured' that if workers at the Volkswagen AG plant in his hometown of Chattanooga reject United Auto Worker representation, the company will reward the plant with a new product to build."
• VW counters U.S. senator, says new product not linked to union vote
• UAW and VW Seek Economic High Road, Anti-Union Pols Seek to Block It
• Obama lashes out at Republicans on Volkswagen-union organizing fight
• Loss at Volkswagen plant upends union's plan for U.S. South

Minimum Wage

• The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage—"An increase would help 27.8 million people. It would also help balance power in the workplace." NYT
• After 23 Years, Your Waiter Is Ready For A Raise
• NFL Cheerleaders File Suit Saying They Make As Little As $2.85 Per Hour
• Obama to include disabled workers in federal minimum-wage hike—"Nobody who works full-time should have to live in poverty."
• Wisconsin Republicans Want To Prohibit Local Minimum Wage Laws

Unemployment

• Unemployed Americans Increasingly Frustrated With Congressional Inaction
• What do the jobless do when the benefits end? WaPo
• Republicans Decide A Bad Idea To Help The Unemployed Is Suddenly A Good Idea To Help Others
• Emails show Florida officials celebrated launch of unemployment website as it failed for claimants
• Closing the gap—"America's labour market has suffered permanent harm."

Occupational Hazards

• In the Name of Love—"Elites embrace the 'do what you love' mantra. But it devalues work and hurts workers."
• Why I Just Quit My Job at Apple
• How Innovation Could Leave The Typical Worker Behind
• Woman Files Suit Against Employer Who Fired Her Hours After Cancer Diagnosis
• Postal service 'spied on worker with cancer'—"A German postwoman, who was sacked for missing work due to chemotherapy, is entitled to get her job back...."
• Sitting At Work For Hours Can Be As Unhealthy As Smoking

Class War

• Tom Perkins' big idea: The rich should get more votes—"But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"
• The poor should stop whining, says luxury CEO
• Wealthy more worried about being seen as wealthy
• CEO to employee pay continues to widen: study
• The Rise (and Rise and Rise) of the 0.01 Percent in America—"The average 1 percenter is quite rich. But she lives in a state of relative poverty compared to the astronomical wealth of 'the 1 percent of the 1 percent.'"
• Reich: America’s "We" Problem
• Krugman: Vox Anti-Populi NYT
• The U.S. Is Locking People Up For Being Poor
• Chris Christie Mocks Income Inequality, Praises George W. Bush
• Banker couple waged war on neighbour over 12 inches of land in Kent village

Florida

• Florida Ordinance Makes it Illegal for Homeless to Use Blankets to Protect Themselves from Weather
• A Florida County Spent Over $5 Million Jailing Homeless People. It Could've Spent Less On Shelter
• Looking for the cheats? Don't look at the poor

Banks and Wall Street

• The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet—"Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever."
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren questions government's Wall Street enforcement strategy following JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon's $8.5 million pay raise
• Barclays Bonuses Up 10% As 7,000 Jobs Are Cut—"The bank's investment arm staff get bonuses more than twice the average UK worker's income, as 7,000 job cuts are announced."
• High-Speed Trading Isn't About Efficiency—It's About Cheating—"When hedge funds use bots to buy and sell stocks within milliseconds, they're not improving the market. They're rigging the market."
• Big Brother HSBC bank wanted to know what I'd spend my money on—"When I tried to withdraw £7,000 I had to provide an invoice to prove how I planned to use it."
• Feminist Writer Receives Letter From Bank of America Addressed to 'Lisa Is a Slut McIntire'
• Now FIFTH Bankers In Two Weeks Found Dead, Ruled 'Suicide' by Nail Gun

Accountability

• Bank of England Staff Said to Condone FX Traders' Conduct
• Ex-Morgan Stanley Chief Jams Foot in Mouth, Complains of CEO Abuse—"John Mack actually thinks the government is being too hard on his banker buddies."
• Chinese official made job plea to JPMorgan Chase chief—"Federal authorities are now investigating whether the hiring at JPMorgan — and at least six other big banks — was done explicitly to win business from Chinese companies."
• Regulator plans purge of Wall Street arbitrators
• Florida Rep Helped Fugitive Embezzlers

Bitcoin

• JP Morgan: Bitcoin is "vastly inferior" to traditional, fiat currency—"It would be onerous for any economy operating with it as legal tender."
• California Bill Would Make Bitcoin 'Lawful Money'
• New Silk Road hit with $2.6 million heist due to known Bitcoin flaw

Haxx0red

• Sophisticated Spy Tool 'The Mask' Rages Undetected for 7 Years
• Change your passwords: Comcast hushes, minimizes serious hack
• CloudFlare Warns Cyber-Criminals Already Experimenting With Much Bigger DDoS Attacks
• Bizarre attack infects Linksys routers with self-replicating malware
• Google will block local extensions in Chrome 33 for Windows, disable existing ones not in the Chrome Web Store

Tech Tracking

• French court orders Google to display fine for privacy breach
• How to stop ad trackers on your smartphones
• Which VPN Services Take Your Anonymity Seriously? 2013 / 2014

Workers, Wage Slaves, Walmart, Thanksgiving; Class War, Food Stamp Fight; Wall Street; On the Job; Obamacare, Sabotage

Workers

• Husband Sues Hospital, Saying It Worked His Wife to Death—"Jim Jasper says understaffing led to his wife being overworked, causing her to crash her car." (Turn off your speakers before clicking the link.)
• Caught in unemployment's revolving door—"Economists are concerned that joblessness lasting more than 6 months is a key factor preventing people from getting rehired, with grave consequences."
• Tennessee GOP trying to pressure Volkswagen to fight union it doesn't oppose
• The Robots Are Here—"Not only are they taking our jobs—they're harbingers of a new libertarian age."
• U.S. Retailers Decline to Aid Factory Victims in Bangladesh—"Walmart, Sears, Children's Place and other American companies that were selling goods produced at the site of two disasters are not joining in efforts to compensate victims' families." NYT

Wage Slaves

• Wages Stagnate as U.S. Manufacturers Reap Record Profits
• McDonald's Website Tells Underpaid Employees to Eat Smaller Meals and Sell Holiday Gifts on Ebay
• Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields?—"Young farm workers are falling ill from 'green tobacco sickness' while the industry denies it and government lets it happen."
• How McDonald's and Wal-Mart Became Welfare Queens—"According to one study, American fast food workers receive more than $7 billion dollars in public assistance."
• From fast-food strikes to efforts to raise minimum wage, low wage workers' movement appears on the rise
• Houston crackdown: City defies Texas corporate crime wave—"'If you can win it in Houston, you can win it in Atlanta or Dallas,' advocate says of landmark new 'wage theft' law." Salon
• Flipside: 11 Reasons To Love Costco That Have Nothing To Do With Shopping

Walmart

• That Time Stephen Colbert Created A Public Relations Nightmare for Walmart—"Earlier this week, a Walmart associate shared a photo from a Canton, Ohio store showing empty bins with a sign that read 'Please donate food items so associates in need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.'"
• Ashton Kutcher vs. Wal-Mart: Epic Twitter clash rages over poverty wages—"Kutcher slams retailer: 'You should be proud of your associates but I'm not sure if they should be proud of you.' Salon
• Wal-Mart Food Drive Unwittingly Fuels Talk Of Minimum Wage Hike
• Walmart Still Hasn't Paid Its $7,000 Fine For 2008 Black Friday Death
• Labor Board Sides With Workers: Walmart Can't Silence Employees Any Longer—"A landmark ruling by the National Labor Relations Board says Walmart unlawfully harassed and fired employees for protesting."
• WikiLeaks: Walmart bid Stratfor to investigate rival CEO's alleged affair

Thanksgiving

• Walmart: Plans to make Black Friday biggest worker mobilization ever—Including allegedly cutting down on holiday pay.
• Tim Cook vetoes Apple Retail plan to open additional stores on Thanksgiving, gives workers holiday off
• These stores won't be open on Thanksgiving

Class War

• This Is What It's Like to Be Poor
• The State With The Most Rich People Also Has The Highest Poverty Rate
• Fed Nominee Janet Yellen: Income Inequality Is 'A Very Serious Problem'
• Sen. Sherrod Brown: Strengthening Social Security for generations yet to come
• Elizabeth Warren Nails It On Social Security
• Platinum-Plated Pensions—"In the current budget debate, the loudest calls for Social Security cuts are coming from two lobby groups led by CEOs who will never have to worry about their own retirement security."
• Right-wing pension-cutters get humiliated by their own survey data—"Conservative ploy to slash public employee benefits runs into trouble when its own poll shows an unexpected reality." Salon

Food Stamp Fight

• See How Food Stamp Cuts Are Hitting Across The U.S.
• Paul Ryan: Poor People Need Jesus, Not Food Stamps
• The GOP's Cruel Crusade Against Food Stamps—"Want to reduce the culture of entitlement? Fine. But blindly cutting essential aid without additional job training makes no sense."
• Food Stamp Cuts Leave Rural Areas, And Their Grocers, Reeling
• Food Stamp Costs Swelled by States Spending $1 for Heat
• Support Grows In House to Save Food Stamps by Killing Farm Bill
• Cut Corporate America's Free Lunch, Not Food Stamps—"Simply eliminating the business meals and entertainment tax deduction could raise nearly as much revenue as the Senate farm bill cuts from food stamps."

Wall Street

• With Ongoing Criminal Investigation, JPMorgan's $13B Deal Won't End Its Legal Troubles
• Tim Geithner and the Revolving Door
• The House GOP's Hypocrisy on "Too-Big-To-Fail"—"Republicans in the House worry Dodd-Frank financial reforms won't prevent future bank bailouts. Meanwhile, they're trying to make it easier for banks to get bailouts."

On the Job

• They're Watching You at Work—"What happens when Big Data meets human resources? The emerging practice of 'people analytics' is already transforming how employers hire, fire, and promote."
• Offices For All! Why Open-Office Layouts Are Bad For Employees, Bosses, And Productivity
• Americans are leaving more than half a billion vacation days on the table

Obamacare

• HealthCare.gov contractor had high confidence but low success—"Contractor CGI displayed high confidence about HealthCare.gov features that proved not ready." WaPo
• Sen. Franken: We Should Consider Extending Individual Mandate Deadline If Website Isn't Fixed
• Bill Maher: Single-Payer Advocates: It Hurts To Say I Told You So
• No, Callous Americans, Private Giving Can't Replace Obamacare
• Nearly 80,000 Californians sign up for Obamacare plans
• If canceled, not even 1% will pay more for Obamacare: Study—"A 'tiny fraction' of people will lose their health plans and pay more for Obamacare coverage, a new study found."
• Here's Every Argument You'll Need To Win Your Obamacare Debate This Thanksgiving

Sabotage

• CNN obtains GOP playbook to target Obamacare
• Milbank: The GOP's scary-movie strategy—"The party is using fear against Obamacare." WaPo
• The Biggest Problem With Obamacare's Rollout Is Being Caused Intentionally by Republicans
• Republicans Refuse to Cover the Poor, Then Complain that Obamacare Isn't Covering the Poor
• Oops! John Boehner's Obamacare stunt backfires

Every Child Needs a Teacher, Educamation, School Budget, Testing, Zero Tolerance, Racism; Parenting, Think of the Children, Family

Every Child Needs a Teacher

• Teachers: Will We Ever Learn? Salon
• Teacher's resignation letter: 'My profession … no longer exists'
• The Exhaustion of the American Teacher

Educamation

• Why conservatives hate college—"The right's decades-long war on academia and 'liberal professors' is about defining an elite 'populists' can oppose." Salon
• Notes From an Employed Philosopher—"McCrory can hide behind the claim that this is about creating jobs, but it's not. It's about class, it's about power, and it's about who has access to education."
• In Wisconsin, Voters Reject ALEC/Walker Education Agenda

School Budget

• Chicago closing 54 schools; union leader blasts 'outrageous' plan
• West Virginia Republican: Make Kids Work As Janitors For School Lunches
• Jon Stewart ridicules bill linking welfare to good grades

Testing

• 3 Dozen Indicted in Atlanta Cheating Scandal
• Michelle Rhee and the unproven teacher evaluation
• What Michelle Rhee doesn't want you to know—"What's good enough for other people's kids apparently isn't good enough for the daughter of Michelle Rhee."

Zero Tolerance

• Newtown, Conn. residents reject budget with extra school security
• With Police in Schools, More Children in Court—"Youth advocates and judges say more children are being sent into the criminal justice system for acts like scuffles and truancy that are better handled in the principal's office." NYT
• Teacher Sues School over Suspension for 'Weapons' Charge: Showing Students Garden Tools

Racism

• Writing Assignment at Albany High School: Explain Why 'Jews Are Evil'
• Dress witches in pink and avoid white paper to prevent racism in nuseries, expert says
• Esther Irene Stokes, 'Racist' Teacher, Denies Molestation Charge, Claims She Doesn't Touch Black Kids

Parenting

• Weird Parents, Normal Children—"Does looking to the past help us become better parents?"
• Parental ethnotheories and how parents in America differ from parents everywhere else
• Poor parenting -- including overprotection -- increases bullying risk
• Kids With Low Self-Esteem: The Parental Praise Paradox—"From the journal: 'Person praise contributes to a self-perpetuating downward spiral of self-derogation.' D'oh!"
• Baby dies from whooping cough in Orange Co.—"Whooping cough, also called pertussis, and other diseases are making comebacks, because so many parents are deciding not to vaccinate their kids."

Think of the Children

• The Hell of American Day Care—"An investigation into the barely regulated, unsafe business of looking after our children.
• Toddlers becoming so addicted to iPads they require therapy
• Twenty percent of New York pre-teens have mental issues
• Why fake ID is an American rite of passage—"New York is pioneering 'unforgeable' driving licences in a bid to clamp down on fake IDs - currently used by millions to buy alcohol before the legal age of 21."
• 15 Mid-Century Modern Dream Homes that will Kill Your Children—Child-proof everything!

Family

• Telling the Inlaws We're Pregnant
• Korean twin sisters separated at birth find each other via Facebook
• Reasons my son is crying

Economy; Wall Street; Poverty; Jobs, H-1B, Occupational Hazards, Disability, Sick Leave, Labor

Economy

• State-Wrecked: The Corruption of Capitalism in America—"Eight decades of bipartisan Keynesian spending and Federal Reserve money-printing have left us exhausted and bankrupt." NYT
• Krugman: Cheating Our Children—"By neglecting public investment and failing to provide jobs." NYT
• Sequester axe falls in Washington — but not on lawmaker salaries
• Obama to return 5% of salary because of sequester—"The president follows the lead of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, giving up some salary because of forced federal furloughs."
• The case for expanding Social Security, not cutting it

Wall Street

• Democrats Are Undermining Wall Street Reform, Too—"Eight House Dems are pushing a slate of bills that would roll back key financial-reform laws."
• It's still a lovefest between Wall Street and regulators—"Here's how we regulate banks and funds: they pay a small fine and 'neither admit nor deny' wrongdoing. And nothing changes."
• Wall Street power player: We're incentivized to cheat—"Jim Chanos, an early detector of Enron's fraudulent practices, explains our dysfunctional banking system." Salon
• Justice Department Official Who Didn't Prosecute Banks Returns To Law Firm That Defends Them
• The Growing Sentiment on the Hill For Ending 'Too Big To Fail'

Poverty

• Where Are the Country's Least Happy and Healthy Americans? New Studies Reveal America's "Sadness Belt"
• Help shrinks as poverty spikes in the US—"US poverty spikes but help from Washington shrinks as government struggles with debt."
• Want to Help People? Just Give Them Money
• Fox's Charles Payne Criticizes Anti-Poverty Programs: "It Gets A Little Comfortable To Be In Poverty
• Obama administration pushes banks to make home loans to people with weaker credit

Jobs

• Ask The Headhunter: The Talent Shortage Myth and Why HR Should Get Out of the Hiring Business
• McDonald's want ad demands bachelor's degree, two years experience for cashier
• Retailers Track Employee Thefts in Vast Databases—"Databases that are used by major retailers to prevent workers accused of stealing from getting another job are increasingly under scrutiny from labor lawyers and federal regulators." NYT

H-1B

• Lawmakers hear from CEO opponents of H-1Bs—"Domestic IT services providers believe U.S. visa policies put them at a competitive disadvantage."
• Outsourced, at home—"Hyped as source of tech talent, H-1B visas usher in cheap replacements for US workers."
• High-Skilled Visa Requests Likely To Exceed Supply

Occupational Hazards

• When workers die: "And nobody called 911"—"A man is scalded by nearly boiling water and citric acid. His fate points to a dark reality for temp workers." Salon
• Undocumented workers' grim reality: speak out on abuse and risk deportation—"Migrants in the low-wage depths of the US economy say they're being targeted for simply standing up for employees' rights."
• Business balks at immigration deal—"A deal between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and labor groups on visas for low-skilled workers was supposed to clear a path for an immigration reform package in the Senate. Instead, some business groups are grumbling about the deal and they're gearing up for a lobbying battle on Capitol Hill — where powerful interests helped doom immigration reform over the same issue before."

Disability

• Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America—"In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government."
• The Right Is Furious at How Much Disability the Right Is Claiming
• The simple, boring reason why disability insurance has exploded

Sick Leave

• 'We Have a Deal': Paid Sick Days Will Be Law in NYC
• Lack of paid sick leave is unhealthy for America
• Efforts to Deliver "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave Tied to ALEC

Labor

• When America Came 'This Close' to Establishing a 30-Hour Workweek
• GOP Pitches 'Family-Friendly' Policy That Would Weaken Overtime Pay
• Respect and implement employees' rights for better productivity

Jobs, Wage Slaves, Retirement, Public Sector; Inequality, Rich, Philantrophy

Jobs

• Union-busting bullies—"Conservative lawmakers in Topeka are bullying labor unions. Sadly, they are acting like hired thugs for large corporate interests that finance their campaigns."
• Labor unions file federal suit challenging Michigan's right-to-work legislation
• Gov. Pat Quinn to seek minimum-wage hike to $10 an hour—“The governor feels very strongly that nobody should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty."
• Cities Must Strategize To Boost Service Workers' Pay
• Nike accused of using military to intimidate workers—"Workers at a Nike shoe factory in Indonesia say the company paid military personnel to intimidate them into working for less than the minimum wage."

Wage Slaves

• Working, but still poor—"Why is it that millions of Americans who have jobs can't make ends meet?"
• The Rise of the Permanent Temp Economy—"To avoid union opposition, the postwar temp industry exploited cultural ambivalence about middle-class white women's work. Then it became a model for corporate America." NYT
• The Age of the Permanent Intern—"Many of the ambitious young people who flock to Washington toil for years as low-paid interns—and count themselves lucky to do so. Is this what success looks like in 2013?"
• I'm sick of working for free—"I do volunteer design work and they treat me like a dog. I'm through giving it away!" Salon
• The Most Important Chart in American Politics

Retirement

• 401(k) breaches undermining retirement security for millions
• Wealthy CEOs Want To Force Americans To Retire Later
• Insurers under fire over annuities—"Insurers were... accused of being slow to pass on the full benefit of recent rises in the assets which underpin annuities, leaving pension customers short-changed."

Public Sector

• Paul Krugman Destroys GOP's Talking Points On Government Jobs—Why does failed-CEO-then-failed-senatorial candidate Carly Fiornia still get to tell people what to do?
• U.S. keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
• Postal Service will end Saturday mail delivery

Inequality

• Before Greed: Americans Didn't Always Yearn for Riches
• Social mobility in America: Repairing the rungs on the ladder—"How to prevent a virtuous meritocracy entrenching itself at the top."
• Oxfam seeks 'new deal' on inequality from world leaders
• In China, a Vast Chasm Between the Rich and the Rest NYT
• First World problems read by Third World people

Rich

• Noam Chomsky: The Paranoia of the Superrich and Superpowerful
• Republicans Still Hellbent on Cutting Taxes on the Rich—"[G]overnors in Louisiana, Nebraska, and North Carolina have proposed eliminating their state's personal and corporate income taxes and raising the sales tax to offset the lost revenue..."
• Wisconsin considers steep sales tax hike to eliminate income tax
• Ohio Governor's Tax Plan Would Cut Taxes For Wealthy, Raise Them On The Poor
• 87% of Americans Say Tax the Wealthy More to Protect Social Security Benefits
• The Swiss turn on the super-rich
• D.C. turns down Donald Trump's request for tax break
  

Philantrophy

• Philanthropist Wants to Be Rid of His Last $1.5 Billion—Chuck Feeny is the "James Bond of Philantrophy." NYT
• S. African Billionaire to Give Away Half His Money
• RSA Animate: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce—"In this short RSA Animate, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek investigates the surprising ethical implications of charitable giving."

Fiscal Cliff, Defense Cuts, Republicans, Elections, Racism, Right-to-Work, Walmart

Fiscal Cliff

• Obama Makes Boehner A New Offer
• Krugman: That Terrible Trillion--Republicans "use the deficit to argue that we can't afford to maintain programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid." NYT
• Taxing the rich: why $250,000 became the benchmark

Defense Cuts

• Right, left call for defense cuts
• Generals: Get real and cut Pentagon spending
• The Hidden Costs of Empire--"The Pentagon's budgetary accounting conceals $170 billion in spending."
• Defense Bill Likely to Mention East Coast Missile Site
• The Culture of War Must be Ended by Cutting Military Spending
• How to cut $100B from the defense budget
• 7 Shocking Ways the Military Wastes Our Money

Republicans

• We Have To End Republican Nihilism
• Krugman: The G.O.P.’s Existential Crisis--"This is worth repeating: We'e not having a debt crisis. What we're having is a political crisis." NYT
• How Republicans Are Duping Members of Their Own Party--"GOP intransigence reflects the views of rank-and-file Republicans, right? Wrong. Michael Tomasky on the poll that exposes a party devoted to ignoring the voice of its own voters."
• House Republicans Have Nothing To Lose But Primaries
• Why Republican Efforts to Block Obama Won't Work This Time

Elections

• The GOP's Effort to Siphon Votes Away From Blue States
• How the Republican Party is planning to marginalize urban voters in the next election
• Yet More Republican Attempts to Game the System
• Angry Over Gay Mayor's Election, Florida GOP Leader Wants To Stop College Kids From Voting
• U.S. should automatically register voters: attorney general--Good luck getting that through Congress while the Repulicans keep obstructing.

Racism

• Va. college punishes 4 in racial protest over Obama win
• North Alabama player tweets racist Obama comment after speech pre-empted NFL game, now gone from team
• Sirota: Time to profile white men? Salon

Right-to-Work

• Michigan Republicans Re-Pass Anti-Union Law That Voters Repealed Just Six Weeks Ago
• The misleading framing of 'right-to-work'
• Josh Eidelson: Right-to-Work Laws Are Good for Corporations, Not Workers
• Right to Work Laws and Why Labor Unions Are in Crisis
• Video: What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us?

Walmart

• Walmart Bails On Obamacare-Sticks Taxpayers With Employee Healthcare Costs
• Walmart Tells Workers Who Ask About Unions That Benefits And Vacation 'Might Go Away'
• India MPs in parliament uproar over Walmart lobbying
• How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs to Get Its Way in Mexico NYT
• Global Day of Action Hits Walmart in 10 Countries

Fiscal Cliff, Disability; Right-To-Work, Workers, Government at work, Immigration; Elections Aftermath, Republicans; Fucks News, Media & Journalism

Fiscal Cliff

• Obama takes his case to people for "fiscal cliff" deal
• Republicans wave the white flag--Even Ann Coulter thinks so.
• McConnell Filibusters His Own Bill To Lift Debt Ceiling--Maybe the Senate can work something out to stop this ridiculousness.
• Poll: Republicans think anti-tax pledge is bad idea--GOP is still scheming how to avert the blame.
• Republican Congressman's Excuse For Not Extending The Middle-Class Tax Cuts--"Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) admits that he won't extend middle-class tax cuts in order to keep control of the floor out of the hands of Democrats."
• Why Not Push the Pentagon off the Fiscal Cliff?
• Billionaires Warn Higher Taxes Could Prevent Them From Buying Politicians--"Introducing a new wrinkle into the already fraught fiscal cliff showdown, a consortium of billionaires today warned that if their taxes are raised they will no longer have enough money to buy politicians." Let's see how many fall for this piece of satire.

Disability

• Senate Republicans' profiles in moral cowardice
• What Kind of Party Votes Against Protection for People With Disabilities?
• Stewart Rips GOP: 'They Hate The United Nations More Than They Like Helping People In Wheelchairs'

Right-To-Work

• Michigan passes 'right-to-work' measures--"Michigan's GOP-dominated statehouse voted Thursday in lame-duck session in favor of right-to-work laws that critics say would limit workers' rights and weaken unions."
• "This is where Democracy goes to die today."--"In this clip, State Rep. Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) explains his opposition to House Bill 4054, a proposal to make Michigan a 'right-to-work' state. The proposal was pushed through the House in one day without a single committee hearing and without taking a single word of testimony."
• 'It's Not Just Anti-Union. It's Anti-Worker.' NFLPA and MLBPA Join Fight Against Michigan Right-to-Work
• NFL Players Union Opposes Michigan's 'Right-To-Work' Push: 'We Don't Think Workers Deserve This'
• Obama: Right-To-Work Laws Mean 'Right To Work For Less Money'

Workers

• Krugman: The Forgotten Millions--"Let's get one thing straight: America is not facing a fiscal crisis. It is, however, still very much experiencing a job crisis." NYT
• The End of Middle Class Growth: What It Means for the Future of Work, Family, and the Economy
• McJobs Should Pay, Too: Inside Fast-Food Workers' Historic Protest For Living Wages
• The argument in the floor: Evidence is mounting that moderate minimum wages can do more good than harm
• This week in the War on Workers: This cartoon about taxing the rich outraged Rush Limbaugh

Government at work

• Was spruce-up of Point Breeze lot a trespass?--Good samaritan gets sued by city for cleaning up trash.
• Disabled daughter dies just hours after state takes her from mom--Stay classy, Florida.
• Rick Scott's Job Czar Hunting Deutsch Quits After Collecting Unemployment Benefits While Traveling Through Europe--Stay classy, Florida.
• Florida State seeks details of young women's sex lives--Stay... ah, forget it. This is why they got their own Fark tag.
• Wikipedia Bans Congress--"A one-week ban on IP addresses associated with the US Congress will stay in effect until the Wikipedia Foundation can collect comments on abuses of Wikipedia by Congressional staffers."

Immigration

• Republicans' Immigration Bill Blocked by Senate Democrats--It would have ended up "abolishing an annual lottery that distributes green cards to foreigners from countries with traditionally low immigration to the United States." NYT
• The GOP's immigration jam
• Understanding Immigration Reform"--Comprehensive immigration reform means different things to different people. What should we look for in attempts to fix the system?" NYT
• Top 10 Reasons Why The U.S. Needs Comprehensive Immigration Reform
• Illegal immigration drops after decade-long rise Salon

Elections Aftermath

• How President Obama Won a Second Term--"Political strategist James Carville breaks down where the Republicans went wrong – and what it means for the future."
• Where Americans stood this election--"See how much selected voter groups voted Democratic or Republican in the 2012 election national exit poll."
• Ex-Fla. Gov. Charlie Crist tweets he’s 'proud and honored to join the Democratic Party'
• The Real Republican Adversary? Population Density
• Florida Rejects Christian Slater's Ballot--He resorted to using a provisional ballot after waiting for hours in line to vote.

Republicans

• RNC launches official review on 2012 election
• GOP Resurrects Plan to Rig Electoral College--"After Romney got walloped on November 6, Republicans want to change how electoral votes are awarded."
• Almost Half of Republicans Indulge the 'Stolen Election' Delusion
• Billionaire Casino Mogul Sheldon Adelson Says He'll Double Down On GOP - Literally
• Will the GOP ever get serious?--"The Republicans' big-idea guys and policy wonks outlined their 2016 platforms this week. They sound a lot like 1980." Salon
• Paul Ryan Responds To Election Defeat By Swinging Even Further To The Right
• Joe Scarborough: Conservative Media Is 'Destroying' Republican Party

Fucks News

• Publicist confirms it: Fox News banned book critical of George W. Bush
• Fox News has oldest cable audience
• PR Stunts: Fake Study Links Fox News to Low IQs--"It was a headline destined to simultaneously inspire a dozen highfalutin op-eds and a million bitchy comments: Fox News Viewers Are the Dumbest. One problem, though: it was what we in the media world call 'a bunch of BS.'"

Media & Journalism

• FCC Taking Beating For Plans to Gut Media Consolidation Rules--Wawtch Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss why 'big media shouldn't get bigger.'
• Time Gives Up on Factchecking--"Corporate media can't find a way to tell the truth."
• 10 Brilliant Quotes by Noam Chomsky on How Media Really Operates in America
• The Oatmeal: I wrote a response to Jack Stuef's BuzzFeed article about me--The amount of misinformation in Stuef's article is absurd, and I saw a pathetic hack piece on Salon piling on Inman.
• What Disturbs Us Most About the N.Y. Post Subway Death Cover

Jobs, Wage Slaves, Walmart, Unions, Cars, Rise of the Machines, Quittin' Time

Jobs

• The Surprising Global Shortage of Skilled Workers--"Even as economists and politicians fret about the problem of global unemployment, those with the right résumés are in hot demand."
• Carpentry business creates hope for craftsmen down on their luck
• Time Banks Provide New Way to 'Spend' an Hour--"Time-based currency provides a sense of value for skills that the larger job market doesn't pay for."
• You Should Always Tell Your Employer That You're an Honest Person--"The Wall Street Journal reports that more and more companies are turning to software to make hiring decisions for them, rather than using human interviewers."
• What Do You Do With the Brilliant Jerk?--"Based on sheer loyalty, most entrepreneurs are inclined to try to find a way to make things work. That's almost always a mistake." NYT
• The 5 Questions That Will Tell You Everything About a Company’s Culture
• The 11 Worst Companies To Work For In America

Wage Slaves

• Krugman: The Fake Skills Shortage--"Whenever you see some business person quoted complaining about how he or she can’t find workers with the necessary skills, ask what wage they’re offering." NYT
• Harris-Perry guest: real job creators are 'low-wage workers who spend every dime that they get'
• How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart--"Costco Wholesale, the nation's fifth-largest retailer, pays its workers 42 percent more on average than its closest rival, Sam's Club." What's their secret? NYT

Walmart

• Grayson: Walmart is 'the largest recipient of public aid in the country'--Welcome back, Alan.
• Why Raises For Walmart Workers Are Good For Everyone
• Why Walmart Organizers Can't Build A Union The Old-Fashioned Way

Unions

• Fox Attacks Unions for Bargaining for Better Pay and Benefits for Their Members
• Failed CEO Carly Fiorina, with $40m retirement package, says union pensions too high
• Poor management, not union intransigence, killed Hostess

Cars

• Romney never overcame bailout opposition in Ohio
• U.S. auto industry makes the cover of Time
• When American industry was great Salon
• Happy July 4th, American automakers
• How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

Rise of the Machines

• Nine jobs that humans may lose to robots
• Skilled Work, Without the Worker NYT
• Google's self-guided car could drive the next wave of unemployment
• Will your next iPhone be built by robots?
• Are droids taking our jobs?

Quittin' Time

• Ready To Quit Your Job? Here Are The 5 Things You Must Do Before Giving Notice
• I Sold Everything To Buy A Lamborghini And Drive Across The Country
• Be More Productive. Take Time Off--"Take a tip from the seasons and introduce change into the workplace." NYT

Elections, Voter Intimidation and Suppression, PBS, That's Rich, Obama, Phoney Romney, the Lyin' King, Job Truthers, Unions, Economy

Elections

• Register today--As it may be your last chance for some of you for this cycle.
• New Yorker cover about Obama-Romney debate is funny--Right on the mark.
• Nate Silver's book The Signal and the Noise, reviewed
• Post 47 percent: Audio, video banned at Romney/Ryan fund-raisers
• JetBlue will fly upset voters out of the country

Voter Intimidation and Suppression

• How GOP Voter Suppression Radicalized William Louis-Dreyfus, 'Seinfeld' Star's Mogul Dad
• Voter Suppression Guru Says He's Doing Poor People a Favor
• Husted To Appeal Ohio Early Voting Ruling To Supreme Court
• Voter Intimidation and Suppression Come to New Mexico
• CREW Files FEC Complaint Over Coal Company's Coerced Campaign Donations

PBS

• Big Bird will haunt Mitt Romney--Check out Obama campaign's Big Bird Ad.
• Romney's Threat to Big Bird Sows Confusion Abroad, and Feeds It at Home--7 percent of Americans wrongfully believe "that more than half of the federal budget was spent on television and radio broadcasts."
• Can You Tell Me How PBS Got Sesame Street?

That's Rich

• Super-Rich Irony: Why Do Billionaires Feel Victimized By Obama?--"The hostility toward Obama demonstrated by America's super-rich is not just the self-aggrandizement of wealthy billionaires-it's having a material impact on the 2012 campaign."
• The billionaire Obama hate club--"Billionaires are up in arms over Obama's new tax plan. He should follow the wisdom of FDR and tell them to stuff it." Salon
• The CEO Who Built Himself America's Largest House Just Threatened to Fire His Employees if Obama's Elected

Obama

• The Spectre Of Obama's America--In 2008, conservative group Focus on the Family had 34 doomsaying predictions of an Obama win.
• The Backscratcher—Bob Woodward's Anti-Obama Bias--"The problem with Woodward's latest isn't its tediousness, it's the unabashed bias against President Obama."
• Why Obama Now?--An animated short about the big choice in 2012's presidential election by Simpsons / Family Guy animator Lucas Gray.
• Why I, a Former GOP Senator, Will Vote for Obama
• The Economist: Experts agree on Obama plan over Romney's--"Former vice presidential economic advisor Jared Bernstein and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs examine a new report in The Economist that once again says the numbers for Mitt Romney's tax cuts and Paul Ryan's budget plan just don't add up."

Phoney Romney, the Lyin' King

• Mitt Romney Leads Us Into An Age Of Stupidity--He is leading a party packed with paranoids and fabulists.
• Quote of the Day: Should Obama Call Romney a Liar?--Romney's certainly making it easy.
• Romney Tries to Trick Voters into Believing He’s Moderate on Abortion
• Romney revives debunked point from the dust bin--"This is just one more indication of Mitt Romney saying anything regardless of the facts to get elected."
• The Daily Show on Romney's magical tax plan--"Are you a wizard?"

Job Truthers

• Truth About Jobs--"The furor over Friday's report revealed a political movement that is rooting for American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news for the nation';s long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind rage." NYT
• Welch can't take the heat: I quit--He shoulda added the question mark.
• Santelli goes berserk when asked to defend jobs report conspiracy theory
• Jon Stewart Mocks Claim That Obama 'Cooked' Jobs Numbers: 7.8 Percent Is 'A Sh**ty Recipe' 
• Colbert: Jobless Rate 'A Little Too Barely Better To Be True'

Unions

• Judge Strikes Down Wis. Law Limiting Union Rights
• The NFL ref strike is over, but The Daily Show still got to make jokes about it with Patrick Stewart
• Walmart's First-Ever Retail Worker Strike Spreads To 12 Cities

Economy

• Phoenix mayor lives off food stamp budget for a week
• The 30 Year Decline of American Entrepreneurship
• Who Destroyed the Economy? The Case Against the Baby Boomers