On tomorrow, May 15, fast-food workers in 30 countries on six continents will walk off the job to protest low wages. Fast-food workers currently make between $7 and $10/hour, on average, and I can't imagine living on that (let alone raising a family on that!) unless the calendar says 1995. And personal to those who find their call for a $15/hour wage unreasonable: first, Seattle is very likely going to enact a minimum wage of $15/hour for all their workers, and second, you have heard of negotiation, have you not?
At least six Democratic Senators won't vote for the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac "overhaul" bill, casting doubt on whether it'll pass the full Senate. The bill will likely clear the Banking Committee with Republican help, but Harry Reid likely won't allow a vote on it as long as his own caucus isn't united. Which is good news, but only for the short term -- n.b. that most Democrats (Ms. Warren included) sound like they'd support a bill with some changes, rather than reject it entirely, which would be (as Dean Baker has instructed us) the right thing to do.
Billionaire creator of "Beanie Babies" gets 500 hours of community service for tax evasion. No, that's not a mistake: for tax evasion. There's no letting Mr. Warner off for his charitable donations, because tax evasion is a crime. And it's not a victimless crime, either, since that money would have gone to pay for services that help all of us. The worst part? Ty Warner isn't even as well-connected as some folks -- the next time some bankster even gets community service will be the first.
Rep. Devin Nunes (E-CA) calls fellow Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan "al-Qaeda's best friend in Congress," ostensibly because Mr. Amash opposes overweening government surveillance, but more likely because Mr. Amash voted against a Nunes-backed water bill, which sounds more like a sin against Mr. Nunes's big donors than anything else. Other Michigan Republican House Reps have either cut checks to his primary opponent or, ah, stayed neutral, but I wouldn't underestimate Mr. Amash if I were them, given that the Michigan state legislature already tried and failed to redistrict him into oblivion.
Fox News "personality" Eric Bolling says "I don't remember any attacks on American soil" between 2000 and 2008. By his calculus, then, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Stonycreek Twp., PA, were all on foreign soil on September 11, 2001. How people like this still have a job when there are so many unemployed folks more deserving of work is beyond me -- though, of course, his fellow panelists were no better, since none of them challenged him. At the risk of beating a dead horse, this is why we need a la carte cable packaging -- so we don't have to pay for stupid-and-arrogant-about-it cable news pundits.
But Eric Bolling is not even the biggest jerk at this morning's table setting: right-wing blogger Jim Hoft is, after actually mocking liberals with the notion that the 300 Nigerian kidnapped girls are already sold into slavery. Because we used social media to help call attention to their plight, instead of talking tough while doing the helicopter dance in front of the mirror, as Mr. Hoft would do. Let's never speak of him again.
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