Clinton offers fresh support for key progressive priorities
Over the course of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton hasn’t had a whole lot to say...
Over the course of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton hasn’t had a whole lot to say about the Federal Reserve or monetary policy in general, which is why it was all the more interesting to see the Democratic frontrunner’s campaign yesterday endorse a change long sought by progressive activists. The Washington Post reported:
The Fed is led by a seven-member board of governors based in Washington and a dozen regional bank presidents based across the country, from New York to Kansas City to San Francisco. The governors are nominated by the White House and approved by the Senate, but regional bank presidents are selected by their boards of directors, whose occupants are chosen by the banking industry and by the Fed governors in Washington.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Clinton’s campaign said she supports removing bankers from the boards of directors and increasing diversity within the Fed.
In a written statement, a campaign spokesperson told the Post, “The Federal Reserve is a vital institution for our economy and the well-being of our middle class, and the American people should have no doubt that the Fed is serving the public interest. That’s why Secretary Clinton believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole and that commonsense reforms – like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks – are long overdue.”
This brings Clinton in line with Bernie Sanders, who endorsed this policy late last year, saying he wants a system in which “the foxes would no longer guard the henhouse.”
The statement also came the same day Clinton wrote an op-ed for the Washington Informer, an African-American newspaper, vowing to be a “vocal champion” for D.C. statehood.
“In the case of our nation’s capital, we have an entire populace that is routinely denied a voice in its own democracy,” Clinton wrote, adding, “Washingtonians serve in the military, serve on juries, and pay taxes just like everyone else. And yet, they don’t even have a vote in Congress.”
Earlier this week, Clinton also emphasized her support for a “public option” in health care coverage, including a possible Medicare buy-in policy.
The broader pattern matters, and it’s not altogether expected.
When Clinton’s campaign got underway nearly a year ago, the former Secretary of State started laying out her platform, and on a variety of issues – immigration, criminal-justice reform, expanding voting rights, etc. – the Democrat not only endorsed progressive ideas, she endorsed an agenda that was even more ambitious and further to the left than many expected.
At the time, of course, the question that loomed over the race dealt with motivation: was Clinton throwing her support behind a series of bold proposals because she was worried about Bernie Sanders, or was she serious about these plans? It’s one thing to make appeals to the left as the Democratic race gets underway, but would Clinton follow through when she shifts her attention to the general election?
The answer to these questions is coming into sharper focus. While the Democratic race still has some primaries to go, the delegate math suggests Clinton is well positioned to prevail, and she’s already begun shifting her attention to Donald Trump and the fall election. If the cynics were correct, this would be about the time we’d expect to see Clinton move gradually towards the center, eschewing some of her more progressive goals.
Except this week, we’re seeing the opposite, with Clinton backing Sanders-endorsed changes to the financial industry and touting her support for a public option.
Maybe Clinton is hoping to win over Sanders’ ardent fans who aren’t yet ready to back her candidacy in the fall. Maybe she believes these progressive goals are popular enough with the American mainstream that she’s not really taking much of a risk. Maybe she actually believes what she’s saying and none of this is calculated in any meaningful way.
Whatever the motivation, Clinton may be focusing her attention on the general election, but many of her key progressive ideals, at least for now, remain very much intact.
By Steve Benen
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At Urban Outfitters, On Call Needs An Off Switch
URBAN Outfitters, you're breaking my heart. I'd loved you since I discovered your lone West Philly shop...
URBAN Outfitters, you're breaking my heart.
I'd loved you since I discovered your lone West Philly shop when I was in college. You'd just changed your name from the Free People Store, and your countercultural merchandise spoke to my giddy dreams of a boho life. I was smitten the day I bought an Indian-print cotton bedspread from you to sew into curtains for my first-ever single-girl apartment.
"Where'd you get them?" friends would ask, eyeing my handiwork.
"Urban," I'd say, knowing the word had become code for "I may be broke, but at least I'm hip."
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Urban Outfitters company asks employees to work for free
God, I was young.
Since then, you've become more successful than I have, morphing into a $1 billion global behemoth that also encompasses the brands Free People, Anthropologie, Bhldn and Terrain. Your clothes still skew to the young demographic I used to belong to, so I'd taken to scanning your racks for Christmas gifts for my clothes-horse teenager.
She got to wear your cute stuff and I got to maintain a touchstone relationship with a company that had put down roots in Philly, as I had, and never left. It made me happy.
Sure, your price tags indicated you'd gotten a tad full of yourself ($89 for a cotton/poly romper? Really?). And you'd stumbled embarrassingly in attempts to be edgy (a shirt evocative of the one the Nazis made gay concentration-camp prisoners wear? What were you thinking?).
Still, Urban, I'd cut you slack the way family cuts slack to kin. You've remained a player in a city that has lost too many homegrown businesses to either bankruptcy or foreign soil. That counts for a lot in my book.
You may not be perfect, I'd always told myself, but you're ours.
But Urban - oh, Urban. I've been learning about the way you treat your part-time employees, the young, mostly female staff who work in your retail stores. And I'm ashamed of you.
For years, you've subjected them to an enslaving scheduling system that betrays your "free people" roots. Basically, you give them their schedule only a few days in advance, with some shifts designated as "on call." But they don't know, until three hours before the shift is to begin, whether you need them to work that shift or not. If not, they don't get paid.
Yet they're required to hold that time for you, in case you do.
"On calls are considered scheduled shifts, and the same attendance policy applies," your employee handbook says.
All I can ask, Urban, is: What the hell? But your PR flacks didn't respond to my questions.
The use of "on-call" staffing is obviously necessary in medical and first-responder fields, where lives depend on workers being available when needed. Reasonable people know it's part of the gig. But using the same scheduling to ensure that a billion-dollar retailer doesn't "waste" money on excess workers during a slow day at the shop?
C'mon, Urban. It's horrible.
The unpredictability means employees can't schedule classes, if they're in school. Or go to a second job, so they can cobble together a full-time salary. Or reliably arrange child care or pay their bills, since their cost to do both remains fixed even though their working hours don't.
Their only compensation, if I read the handbook correctly, is that they get to keep their jobs so you can continue to exploit their need to make a living.
"It's pretty messed up," one of your employees told me when I asked her about the policy. I won't say which of your 179 U.S. stores employs her, since she needs her crappy job. She's toiling through college and doesn't know, week to week, what her paycheck will be. "It's hard to plan," she said.
She could get a job at a different store, but it seems you're not the only retail chain doing this.
Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, and L Brand Inc.'s Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works are some of the other billion-dollar corporations whose on-call scheduling have wreaked havoc on their workers. The practice began about 10 years ago, says Carrie Gleason, as globalization increased retail competition and companies needed new ways to shave expenses.
"They started incorporating new technology into scheduling that used software algorithms" to track store traffic, the time of year, even weather patterns, says Gleason, director of the fair-work-week initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy.
But the predictions aren't perfect, so on-call staffing provides wiggle room to keep labor costs down. Retailers also tie store managers' bonuses to how low they keep labor costs.
How can you stand being part of this, Urban?
In April, New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called companies like you on the carpet, following his investigation into the legality of on-call staffing at 13 retailers whose New York stores employ thousands of low-wage Americans.
As a result, big changes have happened.
Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works stopped the practice nationwide. Abercrombie and Gap say that nationally they, too, are phasing out on-call shifts.
But you, Urban, are dragging your feet. You'll stop the practice in New York, you announced this month, but everywhere else it'll be exploitation as usual.
Which means you're doing the right thing in New York only because New York law requires you to. As for everywhere else, it's human decency be damned.
"If Urban found a business model to let them stop on-call shifts in New York, they ought to be able to find a business model that will let them stop the shifts everywhere else," says Lance Haver, formerly the city's consumer advocate and now director of civic engagement for City Council.
"If they don't, then consumers can say we're not going to shop at their stores until they change their practice. We can refuse to support a store that abuses the people who wait on us."
Haver also thinks the only way to assure that businesses like you, Urban, treat employees better is for your workers to organize.
"People say there's no longer a reason for people to join unions," he says, "but that's because they don't know about these disgusting practices."
Lest you think, Urban, that all your employees are miffed with you, that's not the case. I spoke with one employee, a fan, who asked not to be named because she's hoping to work her way into your corporate headquarters at the Navy Yard. She sees her on-call schedule as a necessary evil, given the vagaries of the retail market.
"The company has to do right by its shareholders," she told me. "I think they're stuck between a rock and a hard place."
Except that your company founder and CEO, former hippie and current billionaire Richard Hayne, owns most of your stock.
He has the clout to end on-call staffing. That's not being between a rock and a hard place. It's holding the power position.
Please, Urban, return to your roots and free your people. And please start in Philly.
Because family comes first.
Source: Philly.com
Liberals and conservatives blast the Fed
WISN 12 ABC - November 11, 2014, by Patrick Gillespie - The economy might be improving, but Federal Reserve chair Janet...
WISN 12 ABC - November 11, 2014, by Patrick Gillespie - The economy might be improving, but Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen can't catch a break.
Conservatives in Congress demanded an audit of the Fed last month. Now liberals have their list of grievances.
A coalition led by the left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy has launched a "Fed Up" campaign. They say the Fed is out of touch with Main Street and isn't focusing enough on getting people back to work.
America's central bank has a dual mandate to keep prices of goods stable and get the economy to full employment.
The coalition sent a public letter to Yellen on Tuesday calling for "public engagement" in the selection of the replacements for two regional Fed Presidents who are resigning. Dallas Fed President Richard Fischer and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser are leaving their posts soon.
Yellen will meet with three dozen coalition representatives on Friday.
The timing of the demands is a bit odd. Since taking over as Fed chair in early 2014, Yellen has repeatedly stressed that full employment and higher wages are among her top goals.
America's unemployment rate is now at a six-year low. The economy added another 214,000 jobs in October and is on track for its best year of jobs gains since 1999. Wages, however, have not improved since the recession.
"We continue to hear reports that the economy is recovering, but millions of workers and their families are still struggling, whether from involuntarily part-time hours, poverty wages, or a lack of earned sick time," said Ady Barkan, a staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy.
Both conservative and liberal groups say their aim is simply for more transparency at the Fed, although there is concern about politics impacting the central bank.
The Fed's decisions on interest rates which influence everything from mortgage rates to the bond market are intended to be free of outside influence.
In October, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, led the conservative critics and said the Fed should be audited by a Congressional oversight office. Two auditors already look at the Fed's finances every year, but Cruz wants closer scrutiny of whether the Fed made the right monetary policy choices.
Yellen and Cruz have not scheduled a meeting, although Yellen appears before Congress twice a year.
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Tipirneni Gains Momentum In Last Week Of CD8 Special Elections, Outraises Lesko
Tipirneni Gains Momentum In Last Week Of CD8 Special Elections, Outraises Lesko
The democrat gained her financial advantage mostly through small donors, but also recently received support from...
The democrat gained her financial advantage mostly through small donors, but also recently received support from healthcare activist Ady Barkan, who launched a six-figure ad campaign supporting her bid for congress. Barkan’s group, Be A Hero plans on supporting Democratic candidates across the nation, starting with Tiperneni’s campaign in CD8.
Read the full article here.
Meet the Two Women Who May Have Gotten Through to Senator Jeff Flake
Meet the Two Women Who May Have Gotten Through to Senator Jeff Flake
In a video seen and heard round the Internet on Friday morning, two women cornered Republican Senator and judiciary...
In a video seen and heard round the Internet on Friday morning, two women cornered Republican Senator and judiciary member Jeff Flake in a Senate elevator as he made his way to the judiciary hearing that would determine whether Brett Kavanaugh’snomination would move forward. One demanded, “Don’t look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me, that you will let people like that go into the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies.”
Read the full article and watch the video here.
Austin Passed a Landmark Paid Leave Policy. Will Texas Republicans Undermine It?
Austin Passed a Landmark Paid Leave Policy. Will Texas Republicans Undermine It?
It can have a chilling impact on the introduction of policies that have the potential to be pre-empted,” said Sarah...
It can have a chilling impact on the introduction of policies that have the potential to be pre-empted,” said Sarah Johnson, director of Local Progress, which was involved in advocating for the legislation. But Austin decided to take a different approach. The city “realiz[ed] their power and [fought] back and [went] on offense despite that.
Read the full article here.
The pressure's on the Federal Reserve to make a diverse pick for Atlanta post
The pressure's on the Federal Reserve to make a diverse pick for Atlanta post
The selection of a regional Federal Reserve bank president normally takes place in relative obscurity, followed only by...
The selection of a regional Federal Reserve bank president normally takes place in relative obscurity, followed only by local business leaders, financial executives and analysts who track monetary policy.
But amid concerns about a lack of diversity at the highest levels of the nation’s central banking system, great attention is being focused on who will be chosen as the next head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
The search is being watched closely by members of Congress and advocacy groups that have complained publicly in recent months that the Fed’s top leadership is nearly all white.
The Atlanta region, which has a large African American population, presents the perfect opportunity to start changing that, they said.
“This would be historic,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who would like the Fed to make the next Atlanta chief the first African American to lead one of the 12 regional banks. “It would be very important, and it’s long overdue.”
As the Fed has taken on a larger role in the economy in the wake of the Great Recession, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity among key decision-makers has sparked concerns that monetary policy decisions haven’t taken into account the higher unemployment rates among African Americans and Latinos.
“Communities of color have not yet experienced full economic recovery,” said Shawn Sebastian, field director of Fed Up, a campaign by labor, community and liberal activist groups that wants the Fed to enact pro-worker policies.
“As a really important economic policymaker, the Fed needs to actually reflect America,” he said.
Leading African American lawmakers have called on Fed Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank, and the Atlanta Fed to conduct a broad search.
Fed officials have promised to do that. But they’ve made no commitment to a diverse appointment for a complex job that includes overseeing about 1,700 employees in the Atlanta region and participating in monetary policy deliberations in Washington.
During an October webcast on the search, Tom Fanning, chairman of the Atlanta Fed’s board of directors, was asked whether the bank had “a special opportunity” to break the regional bank “color barrier.”
“That would be a great thing. We’re all for it,” he said. “We want the best person as well.”
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Fanning, chief executive of Atlanta-based energy firm Southern Co., is leading the bank’s search committee. The committee is reviewing candidates and doesn’t have a timetable for a decision, Atlanta Fed spokeswoman Jean Tate said.
The five sitting members of the Board of Governors and 11 of the 12 regional bank presidents are white. Since the central bank was created in 1913, three African Americans have served as governors, but there have been no Latinos. There never has been an African American or Latino regional Fed president.
“They just need more diversity,” Waters said.
Regional Fed presidents rotate onto the Federal Open Market Committee, where they join Fed governors in setting the level of a key interest rate that affects business and consumer loans.
The committee has started nudging up the rate as the unemployment rate has fallen below 5%. But many liberals are worried the job market isn’t fully healed, pointing to higher unemployment rates for African Americans and Latinos.
Last spring, Waters was among 116 House members and 11 senators who wrote to Yellen criticizing what they called “the disproportionately white and male” leadership at the central bank.
“Given the critical linkage between monetary policy and the experiences of hardworking Americans, the importance of ensuring that such positions are filled by persons that reflect and represent the interests of our diverse country, cannot be understated,” said the letter, organized by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
At congressional hearings, lawmakers have pushed Yellen to do more to improve diversity among the regional bank chiefs.
The president nominates Fed governors, who must be confirmed by the Senate. Yellen and her colleagues on the Board of Governors give final approval for regional bank president selections, which are made by the board of directors of each bank.
“It’s our job to make sure that every search for those jobs assembles a broad and diverse group of candidates,” Yellen told Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) last winter after he pressed her to consider “getting an African American, for the first time in history, to be a regional president of a Federal Reserve bank.”
That was before Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart announced his resignation in September, effective Feb. 28.
Shortly afterward, Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, joined Conyers, Scott and Rep. John Lewis, another Georgia Democrat, in writing to Yellen and Fanning urging the Fed to “consider candidates from diverse personal backgrounds, including African Americans, Latinos and women.”
The letter said that “grave racial disparities exist across our nation in unemployment wages and income.” It also said that the unemployment and poverty rates for African Americans in the Atlanta region — Alabama, Florida, Georgia and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — were about double those for whites.
For the first time, the Atlanta Fed’s search committee has asked the public to submit names of potential candidates. The Atlanta Fed also has tried to make the process more transparent by posting details on its website, including holding the October webcast in which Fanning answered the public’s questions.
Asked about the importance of diversity for addressing “the special concerns of minority communities,” Fanning said he thought the Fed already did a good job on the issue, but “increasing our cultural bandwidth” was important.
“It is incumbent upon the person that gets this job to have the broadest perspective possible,” he said. “That’s why valuing diversity is really a critical component here.”
By Jim Puzzanghera
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Here's How The #AbolishICE Movement Really Got Started
"The demand to abolish ICE has existed almost since the beginning of ICE," Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of...
"The demand to abolish ICE has existed almost since the beginning of ICE," Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, told Refinery29. "Since its creation, there were organizations that were saying that the inclusion of ICE as an agency that is designed specifically to separate families, put people in detention, to deport them is a dangerous development in the way we as a country relate to migration."
Read the full article here.
The DNC Is Voting On Whether To Keep Superdelegates. Get Ready For Controversy
The DNC Is Voting On Whether To Keep Superdelegates. Get Ready For Controversy
PHILADELPHIA — Democrats are about to have a delegate fight of their own. Following the Republican’ controversy over...
PHILADELPHIA — Democrats are about to have a delegate fight of their own. Following the Republican’ controversy over bound and unbound delegates, the Democratic National Convention is about to go headlong into a conflict over superdelegates in its rules committee this weekend.
The DNC’s rules committee is expected to convene Saturday morning, where groups are planning to gather outside the city’s convention center and urge the party to end the superdelegate system.
According to a media advisory, the pre-vote press conference with rules committee members includes a formal petition delivery of more than 500,000 signatures collected by Democratic-leaning groups working to end the use of superdelegates at the Democratic National Convention.
A superdelegate is a party official or elected official who is free to cast a vote for any candidate for the presidential nomination at the party’s national convention, regardless of whom the voters of their state prefer. This is in contrast to a “pledged delegate” who must cast their ballot in accordance to the winner of their state party’s primary.
DNC rules committee members are expected at the press conference and include Aaron Regunberg, the amendment’s chief sponsor. Groups presenting the signatures will include: MoveOn.org, Demand Progress, Daily Kos, Social Security Works, Democracy for America, New Democrat Network, National Nurses United, The Other 98%, Courage Campaign, Progressive Kick, Credo, PCCC, Progressive Democrats of America, Center for Popular Democracy, Social Security Works, and Reform the DNC.
“This is a historic moment for the Democratic Party,” said Aaron Regunberg, Rhode Island state representative and rules committee member. “Saturday we vote on whether to end the undemocratic superdelegate system. It’s time to restore democracy in the Democratic Party.”
Supporters of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders became frustrated with the superdelegate system, as they saw it as a way that damaged the Vermont senator’s candidacy during the party’s primary against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
“The super delegate system undermines the promise of one person one vote that is bedrock of democracy,” added Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of National Nurses United and rules committee member. “It was created to block the nomination of candidates who would challenge a political system that has for far too long been dominated by corporate interests and a wealthy elite. Ending this undemocratic selection process would be a strong step forward to making the Democratic Party more responsive to those thirsting for real change and a healthier America.”
By KERRY PICKET
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Black Community Seeks the Power of the Ballot
Source: Vox...
Source: Vox
For black communities in the United States, presidential election participation rates are strong and momentum is building.
In 2012, black voters showed up at the polls in the largest numbers (66.2 percent) and voted at a higher rate than non-Hispanic whites (64.1 percent) for the first time since rates were published by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1996.
Black Americans tend to vote Democratic in presidential elections. This was true by historic margins in President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 victories— 95 and 93 percent, respectively. And their turnout rate in 2016 could be an important factor in deciding the next president of the United States, especially in a tight race.
That's good news for black community leaders who want to ensure their voices are heard and hold future leaders accountable.
Civil rights leadership
The 2014 and 2015 cases of deadly police force against unarmed African-Americans have galvanized a tech-savvy generation of activists to inject new life in an age-old push for racial, economic and social equality.
More and more, movements such as Black Lives Matter are becoming international household names and are holding candidates accountable to specifically address and push for legislation on these issues.
One such organization, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), engages and advocates on behalf of African-American and black immigrant communities on issues of racial justice and immigrant rights.
BAJI's policy and legal manager, Carl Lipscombe, says part of the greater push nationwide to organize and bring to light instances of police brutality results from what he describes as a community-wide fear of "being killed when walking to the corner." He says these police cases are enhanced by the advent of social media and by the ability to capture events on camera that wasn't possible in the 1980s.
Lipscombe says candidates must do more than "throw a bone" if they expect communities of color to go to the polls in droves.
"It's not enough to just say we want free education for everyone," Lipscombe said. "We want to know how this is going to impact black people."
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate among blacks in the United States, at 9.4 percent, remains significantly higher — nearly double — than the overall rate of 5 percent nationwide.
Black wealth also has declined. The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, in coordination with the liberal research institution Center for Popular Democracy, reports that black workers' wages have fallen by 44 cents on the hour in the past 15 years, while wages of both Hispanic and white workers have increased by approximately the same amount.
African immigrant concerns
The Migration Policy Institute reports that black immigrants from Africa are better educated than the overall U.S. population, age 25 and older.
In 2007, 38 percent held a four-year degree or more, compared to 27 percent of the U.S. population. Yet, black immigrants earn lower wages and hold the highest unemployment rate in comparison to other immigrant groups, according to the Center for American Progress.
Bakary Tandia, case manager and policy advocate at African Services Committee, a Harlem-based agency dedicated to assisting African immigrants, refugees and asylees, says progress is necessary across all levels of government.
"Even if you take the case of [New York City Mayor Bill] de Blasio,” Tandia said, “he is a progressive mayor, but in his administration, I have not seen any African immigrant appointed or in a meaningful position, and the same thing goes at the state level, at the federal level."
New leadership
Grass-roots coordinators say anti-immigration rhetoric among some presidential candidates has fueled electoral participation, as well as greater community leadership.
Steve McFarland, whose organizing efforts include get-out-the-vote campaigns among disenfranchised communities in New York, says the immigration reform movement, combined with the work of Black Lives Matter, has produced a new generation of civil rights leaders.
"It doesn't look the way that it used to look," McFarland said. "It's not big organizations, but they can mobilize people, they have a clear voice, and they are winning changes across the country."
Ahead of the 2016 presidential primaries, there is good news for Democratic frontrunner and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. She currently enjoys an 80 percent favorability rating among adult blacks, the highest positive net rating of all candidates, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Clinton, who has met privately with Black Lives Matters activists, specifically addressed racial profiling in an October speech at Clark Atlanta University.
"Race still plays a significant role in determining who gets ahead in America and who gets left behind," Clinton said. "Racial profiling is wrong, demanding, doesn't keep us safe or help solve crimes. It's time to put that practice behind us."
3 days ago
3 days ago