Also published on Alternet at www.alternet.org

The City of New Orleans raised its minimum wage by public referendum the day before the Superbowl. The City Council, the state legislature, and New Orleans’s monopoly newspaper (or, rather, infotainmentpaper) all fought against the increase. Front groups for hotel and restaurant owners vowed to continue the fight in court after the vote. Any public respect for democracy or even analysis of why the people had voted for a higher minimum wage was read more

Also published on BuzzFlash at www.buzzflash.com and on Democratic Underground at www.democraticunderground.com and on BartCop Reader at www.genslab.com/bcreader on March 26, 2002, and on www.makethemaccountable.com.

This past week, I sat in the audience and watched two performances in Washington, D.C. The first, a debate at the National Press Club, got me laughing and cheered me up. The second, a comedy show at the Improv, depressed me deeply.

The debate, sponsored by the American Prospect magazine, read more

Also published on Democratic Underground at www.democraticunderground.com

David Brock’s “Blinded By the Right” is an apolitical book, and while it denounces and apologizes for the “conservative movement” that replaced politics with sex scandals, it does not make a political apology.

Brock does not say he is sorry that people died and suffered in the richest country on the planet because they had no health insurance. He does not say he regrets seeing families booted read more