Seattle’s minimum wage hike is news across country and ‘across the pond’ Seattle has always craved national news recognition, whether it’s for architecture of the Seattle Downtown Library, or for radical politics that once caused Franklin D. Roosevelt’s political strategist James Farley to say there were “47 states in the Union and the Soviet republic…
Mississippi primary fight is one of geography and ideology For all of the Tea Party’s struggles this year, it has a real chance to unseat an incumbent Republican in the Mississippi Republican primary Tuesday. Thad Cochran, the first Republican senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction, is facing a strong challenge from Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party-backed state senator. The…
Let’s stop subsidizing economic inequality Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, recently asked in a speech at the New Populism Conference in Washington, “Why should our tax dollars subsidize economic inequality?” Why must you and I foot the bill, via our taxes, for the callousness of Wal-Mart or Domino’s? The chasm between C-suite pay…
The Seattle prof who is changing the conversation—and law—surrounding voter ID The debate over state voter-ID laws in the lead-up to November’s elections may have gained a national audience, but the legal action has played out largely in Midwest and Southern courtrooms to this point. That’s not to say Seattle hasn’t been well-represented. University of…
Hillary leaves the left cold Liberal Democrats feel the wind is at their backs, making it all the more irksome for them that Hillary Clinton could be their presidential nominee in 2016. For many on the left, Clinton is the woman who supported the Iraq War, ran to the right of President Obama, and is associated…
Younger members split with GOP on social issues At a recent meeting, the Tampa Bay Young Republicans recited the Pledge of Allegiance, prayed, and then tackled the night’s topic: marijuana. Their guest? Personal injury lawyer John Morgan, a huge Democratic Party donor campaigning to legalize medical marijuana in Florida. Months earlier, the same group supported a…
How corporations get away with rampant wage theft For workers stuck on the bottom rung, living on poverty wages is hard enough. But many also are victims of wage theft, a catch-all term for payroll abuses that cheat workers of income they are supposedly guaranteed by law. Over the last few years employers ranging from baseball’s…
No more liberal apologies as Elizabeth Warren takes the offensive Elizabeth Warren is cast as many things: a populist, a left-winger, the paladin against the bankers and the rich, the Democrats’ alternative to Hillary Clinton, the policy wonk with a heart. The senior senator from Massachusetts is certainly a populist and her heart is with those…
The coming realignment: cities, class, and ideology after social conservatism Following Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008, pundits posited that a new Democratic majority would dominate American politics for generations to come. But according to Michael Lind, no such majority will hold: political conflict is with us to stay, though traditional terms like ‘left,’ ‘right,’…
Who watches the watchers? Big Data goes unchecked The National Security Agency might be tracking your phone calls. But private industry is prying far more deeply into your life. Commercial data brokers know if you have diabetes. Your electric company can see what time you come home at night. And tracking companies can tell where you…