Daily Clips

ALEC fires back, but proves its ‘pro-business’ state index is bogus Plainly stung by the chorus of ridicule that has greeted their latest attempt to paint anti-union policies and tax cuts for the rich as pathways to economic nirvana, the folks at the American Legislative Exchange Council have struck back with a “response to the critics.” If you…

Look who the folks who took down ACORN are targeting now In a presentation at the Drake Hotel in Chicago last October, Joseph Kefauver addressed a conference of executives from companies like Nike, Macy’s, and Crate & Barrel, among other leading brands. Kefauver, a key player in the rising cottage industry of lobbyists and consultants…

Is an ideological agenda destroying the future of Boeing? This is not a story about Boeing versus Airbus. It’s about the view in management schools that an unhappy, insecure and more anxious society is better for capital than one that is happy, cooperative and mutually reliant on common objectives. The most perplexing thing about Boeing for…

How the Cliven Bundy saga exposes America’s most enduring myth When the anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy stepped before the cameras to “tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he also stepped into far-reaching and noxious American historical myths about self-sufficiency, race, and rugged individualism. Bundy’s actual words—delivered in a Western drawl by…

LIAR: Rand Paul says 40 times more Kentuckians have had health insurance canceled than have signed up for Obamacare A reader sent us a newsletter to constituents released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a critic of the law and a potential presidential candidate in 2016. The claim that leapt out at us was, “For every Kentuckian that…

Why is Sakuma using guest workers as strikebreakers? By law, a company can’t hire H-2A guest workers if it is in a labor dispute with its US workforce. But that is exactly what this Washington State berry grower is trying to do. This year Sakuma Farms, in Skagit County, applied for H-2A work visas for 438…

Inequality has been going on forever, but that doesn’t mean it’s inevitable We have been living with rising income inequality for so long—in good times and bad, under Republican presidents and Democratic ones—that it has come to seem inevitable. It is no longer news that the affluent did better than everyone else during the booms…

How the Democrats can avoid going down this November: The new science of Democratic survival In one very measurable and consequential sense, there are two Americas. There is the America that votes in presidential elections, which has helped Democrats win the popular vote in five out of the last six cycles and supports the view that…

Fleetwood plans to challenge Ericksen for state Senate Former Bellingham City Council and Whatcom County Council member Seth Fleetwood has announced plans to run against Republican state Sen. Doug Ericksen for the 42nd District seat, setting up a lively race between two well-known political figures. Fleetwood, an attorney, served on the Whatcom County Council for eight…

In victory for Obama, justices back rule limiting coal pollution In a major victory for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the smog from coal plants that drifts across state lines from 28 Midwestern and Appalachian states to the East Coast. The 6-2 ruling bolsters the…