Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that initial weekly jobless claims declined slightly to 472,000. Initial claims need to fall into the 300,000s for the unemployment rate to decline, economists say. That means many economists expect the unemployment rate for August, due to be released tomorrow, will increase beyond the current rate of 9.5 percent. The BLS also revised last week’s claims up from 473,000 to 478,000.
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Weekly Job Claims Remain High
Romer on Why the Government Should Do More
I highly recommend that anyone with interest in economics read the full text of the speech (PDF) Christina Romer, outgoing head of the Council of Economic Advisers, gave yesterday. It is personal and hardly academic — very easy to get through — and both the best full-throated defense of Obama’s policymaking and the best argument for why the government should do more I’ve seen.
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Latest Poll Shows Vitter Ahead by Double Digits
The latest Rasmussen Reports poll shows Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) leading opponent Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) by double digits in the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana.
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Just How Old Are the Country’s Oil and Gas Pipelines?
That’s the question that Carl Weimer — executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit group that advocates for fuel transportation safety — sought to answer in going through records at the agency responsible for pipeline safety, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
Weimer came up with some interesting results. More than 70 percent of natural gas and hazardous liquid (including oil) pipelines were built before 1979.
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Is the GOP Taking the Wrong Tack on Immigration?
This morning, I attended a panel called “Can Conservatism Survive Mass Immigration?” The question posed to the panelists, most of whom were conservatives, is whether Republicans could still perform well with voters — particularly Latinos — with their current rhetoric and policy on immigration. The short answer, according to panelists, was no: Immigrants will likely continue to overwhelmingly gravitate toward Democrats, leaving Republicans in a lose-lose situation for nearly all policy prescriptions.
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Attendance at Oil Industry Rallies in Texas Falls Short of Expectations
Our sister-publication, The American Independent, reports that attendance at oil industry-sponsored rallies in Texas today fell significantly short of what was expected. Only 80 people showed up to a rally in Corpus Christi and several hundred attended a similar rally in Houston, Patrick Brendel reports. Organizers had estimated that 5,000 people would show up to the Houston rally.
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Opting Out of Immigration Enforcement
Part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s much-touted strategy switch has been to focus on deporting illegal immigrants deemed dangerous rather than undocumented people quietly living in the U.S. But immigrants rights groups argue that some of the agency’s enforcement programs, most notably Secure Communities, too often sweep up non-criminal illegal immigrants — and that ICE has been too vague about the process for local jurisdictions to opt out of the program.
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The Long Journey of the Katrina Trailers
FEMA Trailers, Some Dangerous, Used in Wake of Katrina Now Resold Across the Country
FEMA trailers, once concentrated around New Orleans, now blanket the country, uncounted and mislabeled in dealers’ lots, back lawns and sites for oil spill cleanup.
Top stories
Gulf Coast Workers Seeking Compensation Face Long Waits, Despite Big Promises
“I’ve given them everything you could possibly want, pay stubs, tax returns, everything,” says one engineer. “It’s not that I don’t have supporting documents. It’s that nobody has even looked at my documents.”
Workers Rebuilding New Orleans Face Rampant Wage Theft
“New Orleans is a city that recognizes that day laborers did participate and did come to the rescue in terms of reconstruction,” says Jacinta Gonzales of the Congress of Day Laborers.
Investigation Reveals Undocumented Workers, Unsafe Conditions in Mich. Oil Spill Cleanup
Photographs show undocumented workers, who were paid in cash and bused in from Texas, covered in oil and mud while receiving food and water.
Nearly 94 Percent of Gulf Coast Claims Remain Unprocessed
The total number of claims to date is 31,225. Of those claims, only 1,935 — just over 6 percent — have been paid.
Who Gets to Rebuild New Orleans?
“We’re dealing with local contractors on a daily basis and they’re not getting the work,” says Barry Kaufman of the Construction and General Laborers Union Local 689. “There are more out-of-state contractors in here than holes in cheese.”
A Flood of Money Slow to Fix New Orleans Schools
“The capacity to find a facility is not tied to school performance,” says one New Orleans school principal. “I understand that, but I really wish there was a clearer path.”
New Orleans Landfills, Prone to Flooding, Remain Controversial – and Possibly Dangerous – for City Residents
“We should have learned from Hurricane Betsy with Agriculture Street and we didn’t,” says Darryl Malek-Wiley, a field organizer for the Sierra Club. “We should have learned from Katrina and we didn’t. Now we’re doing it again with the Gulf oil spill.”
As Tea Partiers Descend on Washington, Ideological Divides Apparent Between Grassroots and Organizers
“We can disagree on politics,” Glenn Beck told a crowd of thousands, but all agree “God is the answer.”
Will Meek Make It?
Asked why Democrats should support him rather than Meek, Gov. Charlie Crist replied, “I can win.”
Social Security Cuts Threaten to Hurt Low-Income Americans More
The hardship of raising the retirement age falls disproportionately on low-income workers who work in physically demanding professions, and have not shared in life-expectancy gains.
Ex-MMS Director Advises Oil Spill Commission on Reforming Industry Oversight
The commission should call for a “comprehensive overhaul” of offshore drilling regulations that improves communication within MMS, requires “double and triple checking” of drilling activities, and updates standards for environmental review, Birnbaum said.
Rick Scott Wins Republican Nomination for Florida Governor
Scott, who has never held elected office, ran on his business experience as a former health care executive despite the fact that he was forced out after his company paid $1.7 billion to the U.S. government for Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
In Florida, Meek Wins Democratic Nomination for U.S. Senate
Meek faces an uphill battle in the general election as polls consistently put him behind Republican candidate Marco Rubio and independent candidate Gov. Charlie Crist.
With Loss of COBRA Subsidy, Newly Unemployed Face Tripling of Insurance Costs
For the average worker who has lost her job since May 31, the cost of COBRA has tripled. And that’s likely to mean hundreds of thousands of families dropping out of health plans altogether.
Control of Oil Spill Compensation Fund Shifts to Independent Administrator
“There will certainly be cases, it seems to me, where the Feinberg claims process will not pay,” says law professor Ed Sherman. “A seafood restaurant in Idaho that didn’t get Gulf oysters for a period of time faces an uphill battle.”
Good Government Groups Raise Questions About New White House Ethics Czar
“Bob Bauer doesn’t have the DNA to be an ethics czar,” says Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation.
In Louisiana, Candidates Fight For – And Over – Oil Jobs
“The moratorium is the biggest issue that has cropped up in the reelection campaign,” says the Louisiana Republican Party’s Aaron Baer.
The American Independent News Network:
- Buck talks gays, dope and student loans off camera at CU
- Buck, Bennet split on personhood’s impacts on contraception
- Political science prof uncovers MO behind Maes’ undercover cop claims
- Read Jeff Greene’s libel complaint against the Times and Herald
- Spill recovery task force voices frustration with Feinberg’s claims process
- Orlando homeless advocates win temporary victory in public feeding case
- Branstad’s call to deny education to illegal immigrant children gets national attention
- BP tripled ad spending after oil spill
- Lange attempts to distance himself from American Future Fund ads
- Grand Traverse Band joins lawsuit to block Asian carp
- Weekly jobless claims remain high
- Govt. wants psych evaluation of Hutaree defendant
- Pawlenty fundraises off ‘ObamaCare’ executive order
- Attorney General asked to investigate Bachmann’s state fair ad
- MPR: Bachmann ad wrong on corn dog tax
- No penalties for understaffed private prisons
- Illegal immigration drops by 57%
- GOP takes historic lead in generic ballot polling
- NC: Attack ads decry film tax credits, while ad funder’s company executives approve of film industry’s potential
- NC: Wake County School Board engages in spending spree after claims of fiscal responsibility
- Real Jobs NC mailer omits mention of Republican support of ‘wasteful’ spending
Blogroll
- The Huffington Post
- Talking Points Memo
- TPMMuckraker
- Pro Publica
- The Raw Story
- The Plum Line
- Matthew Yglesias
- Small Wars Journal
- Abu Muqawama
- FiveThirtyEight
- Daily Kos
- Open Left
- Think Progress
- Real Clear Politics
- The Big Picture
- Consumerist
- Andrew Sullivan
- Eschaton
- Crooks and Liars
- Grist
- Capital Eye
- Taxpayers for Common Sense
- Open Congress
- Ben Smith
- Michael Calderone
- Political Animal
