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Patriot Coal, a massive coal company that operates mines along Appalachia and the Illinois Basin, moved recently to get out of its collective bargaining agreements it has with its unionized workforce represented by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). A judge recently ruled that the company will be allowed to this, essentially giving it the ability to abandon its responsibility to workers who spent their whole lives working for the company. As many as 20,000 workers are expected to lose long-term health benefits.

Yesterday, the workers decided they weren’t going to allow their retirements to go down without a fight. Hundreds of protesters rallied outside a Henderson, Kentucky courthouse. 15 protesters were arrested, including workers from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois.

“If there is no justice, Peabody, you will have no rest, you will have no peace,” said Dan Kane, who serves as the the United Mine Workers’ secretary-treasurer, at the rally. “You may depend on the poisonous words of a judge to let you out of a debt, but let me tell you, we’ll decide when it’s over, and it ain’t over yet.”

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After the passing of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) will first appoint someone to replace him temporarily and then will be in charge of holding a Senate election for a permanent replacement.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and NJ Working Families Alliance have launched a petition and online ads calling on Christie to hold the Senate election during the November 5th gubernatorial election this year. Here’s a portion of a PCCC email sent today arguing for a November 2013 Senate election:

New Jersey deserves representation in the U.S. Senate that is chosen by the people — as many New Jerseyans as possible — in a way that does not waste millions of taxpayer dollars that could be spent on education and jobs.

Can you sign our petition with the NJ Working Families Alliance urging Governor Christie to allow voters to elect a senator duringAi??the general election onAi??November 5, 2013?

It’s been reported that the governor could push the special election to 2014 in order to depress voter turnout when he is on the ballot in 2013.

Or, he could waste millions of taxpayer dollars on a special election one month before this year’s general election.

Again, this would be so that fewer voters participate in both elections and Republicans have a better chance.

And here’s a snippet from a New Jersey Working Families Alliance email today:

New Jerseyans deserve to elect their senator this year in a way that ensures maximum participation and doesn’t waste public dollars that should be going to creating the jobs this state desperately needs.

Indeed, New Jersey’s 2009 gubernatorial election hadAi??a turnout rate of around 46 percentAi??– and this was in a governor’s race with historically low turnout. In 2010, this dropped toAi??a turnout rate of 37.8 percent.

UPDATE: Christie has announced that he will be holding …

News broke last week that President Obama will be nominating former Bush Deputy Attorney General to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Comey’s nomination has stirred a debate about civil liberties and the surveillance state, but one issue that has not arisen is what he plans to do about the bureau’s approach to financial fraud.

As former S&L crisis regulator William K. Black notes, the FBI’s staff dedicated to pursuing white collar crime have been greatly reduced after 9/11. Around 500 FBI white collar crime specialists were shifted to national security functions. As Black says, that was “quite understandable. But what’s not understandable is the administration refused to allow the FBI to replace those folks.”

Check out this 2008 infographic from the New York Times laying out the decline in the FBI’s capacity to pursue white collar crime:

As Comey will be faced with a Senate confirmation hearing, Senators should ask him if he plans to reinforce the FBI’s financial crimes investigators.

The right to vote is under attack. From discriminatory “voter ID” laws to inconsistent and unequal provision ballot counting techniques, many voters around the country — especially those from low-income or minority backgrounds who are most targeted by voter suppression — are asking whether they even have this right anymore.

To rectify this, freshman congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI) along with fellow congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) has introduced a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to a vote. It reads simply as follows:

SECTION 1: Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.

SECTION 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.

Want to support this proposed amendment? Call the Congressional Switchboard atAi??(202) 224-3121 and ask your Member of Congress to support the Pocan-Ellison amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote.

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Last night, almost a hundred Montanans attended anAi??early organizing meet-up in Missoula. Among the attendees were progressive Democratic State Representative Ellie Hill,Ai??Pat Noonan, Bryce Bennet, and former Democratic congressman Pat Williams.

The gathering attracted the support of 75 additional Montanans, who signed a petition in support of a Schweitzer run for Senate. Additionally, the house party raised over $1059 to put towards Schweitzer’s run that he would get on day one of his campaign.

Here are some pictures from the event:

Click here to join our Draft BrianAi??SchweitzerAi??for Senate campaign.

(OrAi??donate $3 that Brian will receive on Day OneAi??of his campaign, so he can hit the ground running.)

Jason Furman

Bloomberg reported late yesterday that President Obama plans to nominate Harvard economist Jason Furman as his next head of his Council of Economic Advisers.

This would be very bad news for progressives because of Furman’s advocacy for right-wing policies. Here’s five reasons why Furman shouldn’t be Obama’s top economic adviser:

He’s An Advocate Of Job-Killing “Free Trade” Deals:Ai??In an article in the Harvard Law & Policy Review, Furman criticized the growing opposition to so-called free trade deals — which have trade rules rigged in favor of big corporations and do not actually enact unfettered trade. He criticized this oppositionAi??as a “serious threat to our economic well-being” and offered support for more job-killing trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea (those agreements are expected to cost the United States over 200,000 jobs).
He Supports Wal-Mart’s Anti-Worker Practices: Ai??Furman wrote an article calling Wal-Mart a “progressive success story,” and praised the “progressive benefits of everyday low prices” — which are subsidized by the low wages of not only its American workforce but Chinese workers in factories earning as little as $120 a month. He said that the”mere fact that more than 1.3 million Americans work at Wal-Mart demonstrates thatAi??its compensation is at least as good as the alternatives” — despite the fact data shows that the company’s workers earn “12.4% less than retail workers as a whole and 13% less than large retail workers in general.”Ai??He dismissed criticism from progressives, saying, “Some have pointed to Costco (which has higher wages and more generous benefits), Ai??arguing that if Wal-Mart were more generous with its employees it would do better at attracting, Ai??motivating, and retaining them, increasing its total profits. I have no ability to judge whether or Ai??not this is true, …

The past six months has seen numerous one-day strikes by fast food workers across the country, in cities like Chicago, New York City, and Detroit. The point of these strikes is to draw attention to the low wages and little to no benefits that fast food and other retail workers receive.

Today, this strike wave hits Seattle, as workers at dozens of stores have started walking out.Ai??ai???Iai??i??m sick of seeing my co-workers and me essentially get pushed and pushed and barely be able to eat,” saidAi??Taco Bell employee Caroline Durocher to labor journalist Josh Eidelson. “And I think itai??i??s time that we pushed them back.ai???

Activists on the ground are taking pictures from the scenes of the strikes. Here’s a sampling:

Crowd chanting “we’ve got your back” (photo credit: @Molly_O)

Qdoba workers (photo credit: @GoodJobsSeattle)

Sign outside of a Taco Bell. (photo credit: @RaiseupMKE)

Arby’s workers on strike (photo credit: @Molly_O)

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Late last year, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) held a seven day strike that won more money for arts and music education, more compensation, funding for supplies and textbooks, among other concessions.

As the CTU strike was occurring, some commentators and Mayor Rahm Emanuel claimed that it would harm kids because it reduced the number of days they were in school. But if students were harmed, it certainly isn’t showing in graduation rates released today. Chicago Public Schools announced that it had record graduation rates this year, with 63 percent of high school students graduating. That’s up five percent from the 2010-2011 school year.

Unfortunately public education continues to face hurdles in Chicago — as the city moves ahead with plans to close almost fifty public schools. Check out our friends at Progress Illinois for updates on the continuing movement against the school closures.

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Since news broke that the IRS inappropriately audited a variety of grassroots tea party groups, Congress has started a number of investigations aimed at figuring out why the agency engaged in this behavior.

But a bigger question is, why did the IRS target such small, mostly grassroots organizations for audits and ignore massive political players? As the Conservative Intel’s David Freddoso points out, the median income of the groups targeted by the IRS was $16,700.

While the IRS was looking at groups with such a small budget, it ignored the groups with the most money. Here’s the top 3 501(c)(4)s from election 2012:

Crossroads GPS: Karl Rove’s dark money organization spent more than $70 million in election 2012, all of it undisclosed.

Americans For Prosperity:Ai??This Koch Brothers-founded organization spent over $33 million, mostly to attack Obama. It can be assumed much of this money came from the Kochs, but we actually have no idea where it came from exactly because it is not required to be disclosed.

American Future Fund: This pro-Romney group spent nearly $24 million, not a penny of it disclosed to the public.

Following the IRS revelations, there have been calls on capitol hill for increased scrutiny of how IRS grants social welfare tax status to groups. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) said that “we need to examine the root of this issue and reform the nationai??i??s vague 501(c)(4) tax laws,” and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) complained that “the lines blurred between [political organizations] and 501(c)(4), and [the IRS has not seemed] to have done anything about it.”

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Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and David Vitter (R-LA) have introduced legislation that would lay the groundwork for breaking up the biggest banks — a cause Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been fighting for since she took office.

To understand why this legislation is so important even though Congress already passed into law a financial reform bill, recall that the biggest so-called “too big to fail” banks on Wall Street are now actually bigger than they were during the financial crisis where they were bailed out.

Neil Barofsky, a New York University academic who served as the watchdog for the Trouble Asset Relief Program (the bank bailout), appeared on CNN last fall and explained how the banks are bigger than ever and that they continue to believe they’ll be bailed out if they fail:

BAROFSKY: If you just look at the map, the fact is the banks are 20 to 25 percent bigger than they were before the crisis. And that we haven’t changed the incentives. The way the incentives are “too big to fail” because of the presumption of bailout is it drives these institutions into taking more and more bigger and bigger risks. Again, the presumptions are they’ll keep the profits, and the taxpayers will eat the losses.

Watch it:

Weai??i??re launching a campaign to pass the Brown-Vitter bill that would break up the Big Banks. Click here to join.

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