Trade
More questions and answers on contentious TTIP trade deal Guardian ...Congratulations on Owen Jones’s article highlighting the threat that the proposed EU-US free-trade deal known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership presents to our sovereignty – not to mention our standards of workers’ rights, environmental standards and food safety rules...
U.S. Trade Rep. Froman Pushes Secret TPP With Business, Political Elites New American ...U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman ... is making the rounds, addressing high-powered commercial, political, and academic circles to build support for the still-secret (and developing) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive assault on America’s national sovereignty that the Obama administration is attempting to market as a trade pact...
State Battles
Sam Brownback’s failed ‘experiment’ puts state on path to penury (opinion) Washington Post ...as the damaging social and budgetary impacts of his slash-and-burn fiscal measures have become apparent, Mr. Brownback, a conservative Republican seeking reelection this fall in a state where every statewide elected official is also a Republican, is in the disorienting position of trailing his Democratic challenger in the polls...
The real crimes of Chris Christie (opinion) Philly.com ...Over the last five years, the New Jersey governor has been running a political Ponzi scheme -- probably legal but definitely immoral -- in steering money, huge tax breaks, and other perks to his friends and to the 1 Percent, while the poor and middle class have suffered...
Audit discovers massive mismanagement problems and millions of lost dollars at Scott Walker's job-creation agency Wisconsin Gazette ...WEDC's official database includes documentation for only 4,796 "actual" jobs created by the agency over a two-year period. To create those jobs about $203 million in taxpayer money went out the door in grants, loans and bonding authority...
War on Workers
For-Profit Colleges as Factories of Debt naked capitalism ...A whopping 96% of students who manage to graduate from for-profits leave owing money, and they typically carry twice the debt load of students from more traditional schools...
Professors on food stamps: The shocking true story of academia in 2014 Salon ...Over three quarters of college professors are adjunct. Legally, adjunct positions are part-time, at-will employment. Universities pay adjunct professors by the course, anywhere between $1,000 to $5,000...
Labor Groups Seek Probe of Wal-Mart's PAC Wall Street Journal ...Labor and advocacy groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. … violated federal election laws by soliciting employees for donations to its political-action committee in exchange for charitable contributions to a fund that helps Wal-Mart employees in need...
Walmart's Plan To Encourage Political Donations Violates Election Law, Groups Claim Huffington Post ...The company entices managers, executives, professional workers and shareholders to give to its political action committee by promising to donate twice as much money to a company-run charity for Walmart employees as its workers give to the PAC...
Man, 51, is killed while working at Supervalu warehouse in Hopkins Minneapolis Star-Tribune ...A 51-year-old man was killed Sunday at the Supervalu warehouse in Hopkins in what authorities are calling an industrial accident...
Upstate NY farm worker dies after being trapped in hay baler Associated Press ...The Genesee County Sheriff's Office says a 23-year-old farm worker has died after becoming trapped in a hay baling machine...
Miscellaneous
Jerry Brown Seeks More Electric Cars in California New York Times ...Gov. Jerry Brown of California has signed several bills … designed to make electric cars more affordable for low-income residents, and the intent is to have at least one million zero-emission and near-zero-emission vehicles on the state’s roads by 2023...
