Fresh audio product
Just posted to my radio archive: March 30, 2017 Jodi Dean on why the temptations of populism should be resisted • Jane McAlevey, author of No Shortcuts, on real organizing, not fake organizing
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Just posted to my radio archive: March 23, 2017 Chris Arnade on his travels through the busted heartland of America (Guardian author page) • James Livingston, author of No More Work, on how jobs suck and we should all get free money
Varieties of unemployment
This is the first in a series of lbo-news posts about the state of the U.S. job market. On March 10, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the employment report for February showing a robust job market, Donald Trump finally liked the numbers. His press agent, Sean Spicer, quoted him as saying “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.” Trump himself retweeted Matt Drudge’s gloss on the news that employers added 235,000 jobs in the month as proof that America was already “GREAT AGAIN.” That was… Read More
Never demand.
Matt Bruenig already wrote about this (now deleted) tweet from Paul Waldman, which was a response to one from Bernie Sanders… …and before typing any more, I must confess to feeling guilty about writing a second blog post (god knows there are probably more) about a tweet. But, onwards. As Bruenig writes, “The difference between Obamacare and AHCA is 24 million uninsured people while the difference between single-payer and Obamacare is 28 million uninsured people.” Obamacare, with all its omissions and cost-shifting, isn’t innocent of monstrousness. There’s a point about political strategy… Read More
How unpopular is Trump?
Trump’s low approval ratings have gotten notice, but the closer you look the worse they are. At the risk of engaging in wild psychoanalysis, this must be very hard on a pathological narcissist, assuming he’s been fully briefed on the issue. Here’s a graph of the history of Gallup’s presidential approval question. They started asking the question—“Do you approve or disapprove of the way X is handling his job as president?”—in 1942. But timing was patchy at first, and didn’t approach a monthly schedule until around 1950. Polling has been daily since Obama… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just posted to my radio archive: March 16, 2017 Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on Ryancare, Obamacare, and the prospects for single-payer • Cinzia Arruzza on the women’s strike
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Just added to my radio archive: March 9, 2017 Yanis Varoufakis back on BtN for the first time in over two years! He discusses the interminable eurocrisis, austerity, Brexit, the nationalist international (Trump, Le Pen, etc.), and DiEM25, among other things. The full Varoufakis–Ali–et al. debate is here. The version of this show that ran on KPFA was truncated because the station is fundraising. Please donate and keep this worthy enterprise going. If you do, please mention Behind the News!
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive: March 2, 2017 Mark Blyth on neoliberalism and global Trumpism (the Guardian/Observer article on Mercer and Cambridge Analytica he talks about is here) The version of this show that ran on KPFA was truncated because the station is fundraising. Please donate and keep this worthy enterprise going. If you do, please mention Behind the News!
LBO News from Doug Henwood 