US jobs gap between young and old is widest ever
Squeezed by a tight job market, young Americans are especially struggling. They have suffered bigger income losses than other age groups and are less likely to be employed than at any time since World War II.
An analysis by the Pew Research Center, released Thursday, details the impact of the recent recession on the attitudes of a generation of mostly 20- and 30-somethings.
With government data showing record gaps in employment between young and old, a Pew survey found that 41 percent of Americans believe that younger adults have been hit harder than any other group, compared with 29 percent who say middle-aged Americans and 24 percent who point to seniors 65 and older. A wide majority of the public — at least 69 percent — also said it’s more difficult for today’s young adults than their parents’ generation to pay for college, find a job, buy a home or save for the future.
http://tinyurl.com/7ep9j3v
Occupy the Human Rights Campaign
Goldman Sachs is unworthy of the Corporate Equality award because it has produced and perpetuated economic, gender, and racial inequality through irresponsible financial practices. But why should economic, gender, racial, and economic inequality matter at all to the Human Rights Campaign? The simplest reason is that there are LGBT people of all races, genders, and classes, and the HRC cannot expect support from people whom it liberates in some ways but oppresses in others.
CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference] Set to Host White Nationalist Leader
Following speeches from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Michele Bachmann, CPAC is hosting the panel “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity” with Peter Brimelow, the founder and head of VDARE.com.
VDARE is a White Nationalist website, run by Brimelow, which frequently publishes the works of anti-Semitic and racist writers and is named after Virginia Dare, who is believed to be the first child of English parents born in the Americas. Brimelow, an immigrant from Great Britain, expresses his fear of the loss of America’s white majority, blames non-white immigrants for social and economic problems and urges the Republican Party to give up on minority voters and focus on winning the white vote. He also said that a New York City subway is the same as an Immigration and Naturalization Service waiting room, “an underworld that is not just teeming but also almost entirely colored.”
VDARE has published the work of people like Robert Weissberg, who says that black and Hispanic students are responsible for problems in the American education system, Marcus Epstein, the Youth for Western Civilization leader who karate-chopped a black woman after calling her a “n****r” (he later pled guilty to assault), and J. Philippe Rushton of the eugenicist Pioneer Fund.
More than 80 percent of bankruptcy attorneys say cases prompted by student loan debt have increased ‘significantly’
Growing numbers of Americans are finding themselves bankrupt, with their college diplomas partially to blame.
Slightly more than 80 percent of bankruptcy attorneys say the number of their potential clients with student loan debt have increased “significantly” or “somewhat” in the past three to four years, according to a survey by the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. And there’s little hope those debtors will get out of their obligations; 95 percent of bankruptcy attorneys surveyed said that very few student loan debtors will be discharged from their loan as a result of undue hardship.
“Take it from those of us on the frontline of economic distress in America: This could very well be the next debt bomb for the U.S. economy,” William E. Brewer, Jr., president of the NACBA said in a statement accompanying the survey.
In DC, some legislators send millions to businesses and groups connected to their relatives
Some members of Congress send tax dollars to companies, colleges and community groups where their spouses, children and parents work as salaried employees, lobbyists or board members, according to an examination of federal disclosure forms and local public records by The Washington Post.
A U.S. senator from South Dakota helped add millions to a Pentagon program his wife evaluated as a contract employee. A Washington congressman boosted the budget of an environmental group that his son ran as executive director. A Texas congresswoman guided millions to a university where her husband served as a vice president.
Those three members are among 16 who have taken actions that aided entities connected to their immediate families. The findings stem from an examination by The Post of all 535 members of the House and Senate, comparing their financial disclosure forms with thousands of public records. The examination uncovered a broad range of connections between the public and private lives of the nation’s lawmakers.
Chris Hedges debates ‘black bloc’ with Occupy Oakland participant
(radio)
http://tinyurl.com/836op82
Letter to the editor: Occupy movement just regular people
While the right wing politicians just want the Occupy protesters to go away and quit pointing out the inequities in our system, it’s obvious they aren’t going anywhere.
Throughout recorded history people have revolted when they feel all other resources have been taken from them. Conservatives keep trying to paint the protesters as unkempt hippies and bums, but watching news coverage it’s clear that these are just regular people whose frustration is over boiling.
http://tinyurl.com/7jk75wz
New Hampshire Republicans Propose Bill To Eliminate Workers’ Lunch Breaks
New Hampshire’s GOP legislature has come up with all manner of absurd bills recently, including a proposal making public school curriculum optional, another to prevent police from protecting domestic abuse victims, and even a measure mandating that new laws be based on the Magna Carta. Some of the Granite State’s GOP lawmakers have even proposed doing away with the law that requires employers to give their workers time off for lunch, under the rationale that all employers will simply grant lunch breaks out of the goodness of their hearts:
http://tinyurl.com/6vmarsg
Occupy Baltimore Activists Protest Building of Youth Jail
(video)
http://tinyurl.com/7zkywwu
Oregon: Who’s legislature?
Dozens of Occupy participants convened at the Capitol on Wednesday to mark the start of the 35-day legislative session. A bus arrived from Portland and Occupiers from Eugene, Corvallis and other communities were also present. Legislators and Capitol staff entering the building strode purposefully past protesters with signs reading “For Sale: Your Legislature” and a man dressed as a jester with a drum._Along with a rally and open mic, impromptu workshops on campaign finance reform, tax fairness and “reality-based economics” were held on the Capitol steps and in the lobby in keeping with the rally’s focus of exposing corporate influence in government. Also in the works were citizens lobbying efforts to protest the austerity budget and advocate for initiatives favorable to the majority of Oregonians. One goal of the month-long session is to find $3.6 billion in budget cuts.
http://tinyurl.com/72tvvkk
Screening explores the ins, outs of Walmart
With a new Walmart location being proposed in the city near Citrus Plaza and the controversy it has produced, a film and discussion exploring the business will be held Sunday.
The Redlands Citizen’s Action for Peace is partnering with the Redlands Good Neighbor Coalition and Occupy Redlands to present the PBS film, “Is Walmart Good for America?” at 1:30 p.m. at the Redlands United Church of Christ, 168 Bellevue Ave.
The film explores the ins and outs of the company, including a $25-billion production platform with China that helps deliver products to 100 million customers each week.
The film also explores ways the company allegedly limits pay and health benefits to its employees and the affect it can have on small businesses and locally owned grocery chains, said Sunny Wallick, program coordinator for CAP.
http://tinyurl.com/8ycenrn
The Revolutionist: ‘Whatever happens in New York or Boston or Denver is connected to a larger global movement’
LATE LAST YEAR, while visiting the United States to accept his nomination as one of Foreign Policy magazine’s top 100 global thinkers, Srdja Popovic took time to talk with a number of Occupy Wall Street activists in New York. He left those conversations with a mixed impression.
“The good news,” Popovic, a wiry Serb, told me, “is that for the first time in many years, something has awakened the enthusiasm and the activism in this country, which is not typically an activist society.” Yet he added that Occupy had to make sure it got three things exactly right: a clear vision of tomorrow, a clear plan for pursuing that vision, and a clear understanding that whatever happens in New York or Boston or Denver is connected to a larger global movement that stretches from the alleyways of Cairo to the beaches of the Maldives. “Talking about the 99percent and the 1percent can be applied in so many ways,” Popovic said. “But this is not just a story about capitalism. It’s a story about unjust societies around the world.”
Popovic is something of an expert on unjust societies, and in particular their rectification and reconstruction by nonviolent means. Just over a decade ago, Popovic was a student activist in Belgrade working to oust Slobodan Milosevic. After that odds-defying campaign ended with the Yugoslav president’s one-way trip to The Hague, Popovic spent a few years in electoral politics before founding the Centre for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS, and began training activists interested in copying the Serbian model of bottom-up regime change.
“Occupy” Protesters May Disrupt Major Vote For Public School Closures
When it comes to protesting school closures, there is a new kid in town this year. For months, an Occupy Wall Street spin-off called “Occupy the DOE” has been organizing against the Department of Education policy of closing struggling schools. While there have been major protests against school closures in the past, the Occupiers say they hope to stop the closure votes from happening at all.
http://tinyurl.com/6mja3mq
Occupy Chattanooga decries “Elections Not Auctions”
Occupy Chattanooga has a new campaign, “Elections Not Auctions”.
At midnight Occupy Chattanooga launched a petition calling on the Tennessee General Assembly to pass legislation that changes the way we choose public officials in Tennessee.
R.I. state police say condoms thrown at anti-abortion rally didn’t target anyone
[Right-wing anti-Occupy media has been hyping a story all week that someone they describe as an Occupy supporter ‘threw condoms at Catholic school girls.’ See this story: http://tinyurl.com/82bcpsm.]
State police confirmed Monday that a trooper saw a man tossing condoms at a Jan. 26 anti-abortion rally at the State House, but said it appeared the man wasn’t targeting anyone.
“What essentially happened was that the trooper saw a male toss what appeared to be papers or articles into the crowd. The articles came down on [people] on both sides of the rally,” Maj. Wilfred K. Hill said. “The trooper then saw the man approaching the door and told him, ‘You have to pick up what [you] dropped.’ ”
When the trooper realized they were condoms, he had the man escorted from the building. Hill said the trooper made no arrest because “there was no altercation, no verbal or physical assault.”
One Response to “The OB Media Rundown for 2/9/12”
on February 9th, 2012 at 3:46 am #
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