Unless Congress acts before the Christmas holiday recess, basic lifeline aid for nearly 2 million workers who have lost jobs will be cut off Dec. 31 as the extended unemployment insurance benefits expire. In Alabama alone, this means 24,700 will lose unemployment benefits, according to a report just out from the AFL-CIO.
Over the course of 2012, an estimated 6 million U.S. workers struggling to find jobs will lose these essential benefits if Congress continues to focus on keeping tax cuts for the 1% who crashed our economy rather than helping the 99% by extending unemployment insurance.
“If Congress fails to act, the impact on families, communities and our economy will be devastating,” says Jenn Kauffman, field communications director for the AFL-CIO.
The average weekly benefit for an unemployed worker on the federal extension is about $297, which amounts to only half of the income needed to cover the most basic necessities of food, housing and transportation, as measured by the annual Consumer expenditure survey. In Alabama, the weekly benefit averages $203.67.
Well, it’s official. Now that they think they have run all the Mexicans out of Alabama, the tea party Republicans are going to try to bring back the convict-lease system of slave labor to the state. The national and local backlash over the state’s draconian immigration law was apparently not enough.
Conservative Senator Arthur Orr, a Republican from Decatur, has prefiled a bill for the next session of the Alabama Legislature in February that would make it legal for private companies to hire prisoners to work on farms and chicken processing plants and even in manufacturing industries.
“There was probably no issue in the 20th century that has left a more negative, lasting impression of Alabama than the convict-lease system,” Historian and author Dr. Wayne Flynt said in an exclusive interview. “If Orr and Scott Beason decided that they had not done enough damage to the state already with the anti-immigration law, and they wanted to ratchet up the damage, to extend it and expand it and make Alabama even more the laughing stock of the nation, creating a convict-lease system in Alabama would just be a great idea.”
Under existing law, the employment of prisoners within the Department of Corrections facilities by private industry is not authorized, according to language in the bill. The proposed law would specifically authorize the Department of Corrections to enter into contract agreements with private industry “to establish work-oriented rehabilitation programs.”
As video spread of an officer in riot gear blasting pepper spray into the faces of seated protesters at a northern California university Friday, outrage came quickly — followed almost as quickly by defense from police and calls for the chancellor’s resignation, according to National Public Radio.
In the video, an officer dispassionately pepper-sprays a line of several sitting protesters who flinch and cover their faces but remain passive with their arms interlocked as onlookers shriek and scream out for the officer to stop.
University of California Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said in a statement Saturday she was forming a task force to investigate the police action and the video images she said were “chilling.”
Alabama Senate Minority Leader Roger Bedford, a well-liked and respected Democrat, had some interesting things to say about politics and new technology at the AFL-CIO Convention this week. Watch the video to see my interview with him.
Majorities of people in China and America now have a more positive view of the economy in China than the economy in the United States, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.
According to recent comments on Facebook, the Chinese people may now be advising their kids not to throw away food, since it could go to feed a poor American family. Some reversal of fortune, eh? Thanks Republicans.
Majorities of Chinese and Americans in 2011 agree now is a bad time to find a job in the city or area where they live — but Americans are more negative, according to Gallup. Seventy-two percent of Americans say it is a bad time to find a job, compared with 56 percent of Chinese.
Chinese are also more positive about the general economic conditions where they live. Eighty percent of Chinese say the economic conditions in communities are getting better, while 5 percent say they are getting worse. This compares with the 48 percent of Americans who say their local economic conditions are getting better, while 43 percent say they are getting worse.
“Here again, Chinese attitudes have been fairly steady,” Gallup concludes, “while Americans’ have been more volatile.”
A new Gallup poll has some heartening results for the Occupy Wall Street movement, in that more Americans approve than disapprove of the protests, although it shows that the lack of an effective communications strategy and coherent goals could jeopardize the movement’s effectiveness (see Further Analysis below).
Less than half of Americans express an opinion about the Occupy Wall Street movement’s goals or the way it has conducted its protests. Those with an opinion are more likely to approve than disapprove, however, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has attracted significant alternative and mainstream media attention for its nearly month-long protest of major U.S. financial institutions in New York, with similar demonstrations taking place in other cities across the country in recent weeks.
“But the American public does not seem to be very familiar with the movement or its goals,” according to Gallup’s analysis of public opinion.
The cool October air has driven me inside. It’s that time of year again, when the rotation of the earth leads to shorter days and cooler nights.
God has nothing to do with it. That’s just how our planet works.
Meanwhile on the outside, people all over the planet are finally getting off their couches and protesting the abysmal economic situation brought on by the greed and corruption of the American moneyed class.
In New York, where the protests began, the Occupy Wall Street movement celebrated when the decision was made to keep Zuccotti Park open instead of forcing the protesters out while a company cleaned the park. They feared, probably correclty, that once the crowd was dispersed, the protest would effectively end.
by Michael Braunstein
Guest Column Special to the Locust Fort News-Journal
The current economic collapse that has led to the continued occupation of Wall Street is a long time in the making, and solutions are not easily coming.
Our current economic system dates back to the beginning of the 1830′s when specialization of employment and a surplus of goods brought economics from the area of biblical mandate and the Divine Rights of Kings to the realm of conscientious political policy.
Every seven to ten years between 1830 to 1929 the American economy went through a terrible boom and bust cycle from complete unemployment and economic standstill to full employment and then crashing back to zero.
More Americans say unemployment is the No. 1 problem facing the United States than anything else at the start of the new year, according to Gallup’s latest poll on the subject.
Mentions of “the economy” in general as the leading problem have been trending downward since October, with 29 percent now saying unemployment is No. 1. The current 26 percent reading for the economy in general is the lowest since May, while focus on the federal deficit has been edging up. The 12 percent of Americans citing the deficit this month is the highest Gallup has recorded in at least a decade.
A large majority, 68 percent of Americans, name at least one economic issue as the top problem.
The survey was conducted the weekend of the incident in which six Americans were killed, and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others were critically wounded, in the Arizona shooting rampage, but it may have been too soon for the survey to measure any changes in Americans’ perceptions of the nation’s top problem — such as an increase in concern about gun violence.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
