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Trans-Atlantic Rifts

By Christoph Pauly and Christoph Schult Spiegel Online
Consumer watchdogs, Internet activists and European farmers are gearing up to fight the planned trade agreement between Europe and the United States. Many in Europe are worried that politicians will make backroom deals at the expense of consumers.

What’s So Bold about $9.00 an Hour?

By Colin Gordon and John Schmitt Dissent
The takeaway from all of this is simple: even the low benchmarks suggested here (one half the average production wage, the poverty level for a family of two, simply recapturing the minimum’s 1968 value) come in at more than $9.00. The benchmarks that actually sustain the value of the minimum or tie it to economic growth over time come in at close to twice that.

Scalia's Weird VRA Spat

By Scott Lemieux The American Prospect
After today's oral arguments on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it seems unlikely that the Supreme Court's conservative wing will want to uphold the landmark win for civil rights.

Elba Esther Gordillo – Mexico's Famed Union Boss – Accused of Embezzlement

By Jo Tuckman in Mexico City The Guardian
She is known simply as The Teacher, a union boss of such legendary influence that she was credited with putting a president in office and, until this week, so untouchable she flaunted her apparently dubious wealth with abandon. Now Elba Esther Gordillo is behind bars over the alleged embezzlement of stratospheric amounts of union funds.

Growth of Income Inequality Blocks Recovery

JACK RAMUS Talking Union
Growing income inequality—approaching now obscene levels—is not simply a ‘moral outrage’. It not only represents a gross violation of historically held American values or reasonable equality for all. It is a condition that has served, and continues to serve, as a major cause of the lack of sustained economic recovery in the US now for five years—as well as a major factor in explaining why the US continues today to drift toward another ‘double dip’ recession.

Media bits and bytes - Grab Bag Edition

Published by Portside
Don't Unlock Your Cellphone; Cable Soon to be Obsolete; Time-Warner Divorces Time Magazine; Minority Media Ownership Way Down; Hewlett Improves Conditions for its Chinese Workers; Amazon Polices Immigrant Workers with Neo-Nazi Guards; FCC Building Free Universal WiFi - Not!; Still No TV Cameras for SCOTUS; Technology & Democracy; Clicktivism & Unions; Journalists Under Attack; Zombies Hack Emergency Alert System; More