By Arise Chicago

A city council committee Tuesday approved an ordinance that would create an Office of Labor Standards to enforce laws governing workplace issues such as the minimum wage, sick time provisions and other worker protections. The proposal moves to the full council for a vote next Wednesday. If approved, Chicago would follow cities including New York, Seattle and San Francisco in creating such an office.
The pending ordinance is the result of a two-year campaign led by local workers’ rights organization Arise Chicago.
“From my experience I’ve learned that just passing laws is not enough. Many workers are suffering from wage theft, discrimination, harassment, and other abuse that causes both physical and moral pain, and damages workers’ dignity,” Arise’s Martina Sanchez told councilmembers at Tuesday’s committee hearing.
Sanchez was a leader of the Earned Sick Time campaign, spurred from her own experience of living without paid sick days. When her husband was hospitalized and she stayed with him, their household lost both incomes.

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Posted on October 24, 2018

By Jessie Eisinger and Paul Kiel/ProPublica

Tax evasion is at the center of the criminal cases against two associates of the president, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. The sheer scale of their efforts to avoid paying the government has given rise to a head-scratching question: How were they able to cheat the Internal Revenue Service for so many years?
The answer, researchers and former government auditors say, is simple. The IRS pursues fewer cases of tax evasion than it did less than 10 years ago. Provided you’re not a close associate of President Donald Trump, there may never be a better time to be a tax cheat.

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Posted on October 22, 2018

By Jake Johnson/Common Dreams

It has been nearly a full year since the Republican Party rammed through its transparent scam of a tax bill in the face of massive grassroots resistance, and the results have been almost precisely what nearly every analyst predicted: Record profits for the rich and massive corporations, little to nothing for American workers.
Among the greatest beneficiaries of the GOP’s bill have been America’s six largest banks, which this week reported soaring third quarter profits and – according to the Not One Penny coalition – have already raked in a over $9 billion in extra profits as a direct result of President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax law.
“These latest filings show that big banks have stopped at nothing to make more money – and that the GOP’s tax law gave them license to put profits over people,” Not One Penny spokesperson Ryan Thomas said in a statement on Thursday, highlighting the enthusiastic earnings reports of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.
“These six banks have constantly chosen to use these tax breaks to enrich their shareholders and executives while laying off employees and exploiting consumers,” Thomas noted, pointing to the explosion of stock buybacks since the GOP tax bill became law. “These shameful actions – and the Republican tax law that permitted them – indicate just how rigged the system is against working people and the middle class.”

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Posted on October 18, 2018

By Robert Weismann/Common Dreams

Note: On Wednesday, USA Today published an Op-Ed by President Donald Trump that included several falsehoods about single-payer health care.
Lies and deceptions from Trump are nothing new. Lies and deceptions from Trump about Medicare-for All are new, so it’s worth correcting his USA Today column attacking such a system.
One reason his attacks on Medicare-for-All are new is that he probably has supported it in the past. But whatever, there’s no reason to think Trump particularly believed what he said then, or what he says now. On to the major lies and deceits:

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Posted on October 11, 2018

By Public Citizen and Citizens For Responsibility And Ethics In Washington

President Donald Trump has exposed serious shortcomings in executive branch ethics laws that threaten our democracy and must be addressed, according to a report issued by Public Citizen and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The report outlines specific policy reforms, ranging from requiring that presidents divest assets that pose a risk of conflict of interest and disclose tax returns and other detailed financial information to implementing a broader nepotism law and banning preferential treatment in security clearances for a president’s family member.
Trump differs starkly from all of his modern day predecessors – and likely all presidents in U.S. history – due to the breadth of his assets, his refusal to divest himself of those assets and his disregard for avoiding conflicts of interest as a check on government corruption, the groups said.

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Posted on October 9, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

“After about two hours of closing arguments, jurors [in the Jason Van Dyke trial] were instructed on the law by Judge Vincent Gaughan and sent back at about 12:30 p.m. to begin deliberating what will be one of the most closely watched verdicts in Cook County history. If no verdict is reached Thursday, it is believed the jurors will be sequestered at a nearby hotel before resuming discussions Friday,” the Tribune reported late Thursday.
No verdict was reached and, indeed, jurors were sequestered overnight. Deliberations are expected to continue today.
“Van Dyke, 40, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and one count of official misconduct.
“Jurors, though, will have the option to instead find Van Dyke guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. To do that, they would need to find that Van Dyke’s claim he feared for his safety when he fired 16 shots at McDonald was unreasonable.”
After reviewing coverage of the trial, I believe Van Dyke will be found guilty, one way or another. At least it’s obvious to me that he should be found guilty. But you never know what a jury will do.

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Posted on October 5, 2018

By Jon Queally/Common Dreams

Recognizing that his 10,000-word essay was potentially “a lot” for some consumers, Nathan J. Robinson, editor-in-chief of Current Affairs magazine, has created a video version with the same title – “How We Know Kavanaugh Is Lying” – for those who might find it easier to digest.
Robinson first published his essay on Saturday, after the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but the video version was posted online Monday evening.
If you have 15 minutes and want to hear a good explanation of why Kavanaugh proved himself a liar whereas Ford came out of her testimony more credible than even before she went in, watch this:

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Posted on October 4, 2018

By Jake Johnson/Common Dreams

With the nation’s attention rightly transfixed by the Senate GOP’s monstrous efforts to ram through a Supreme Court nominee who has been credibly accused by multiple women of sexual assault, House Republicans on Friday voted overwhelmingly to approve another $3 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans just weeks before the November midterms.
“Today the GOP doubled down on last year’s giveaway to the donor class known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement following the 220-191 vote. “Tax Cuts 2.0 gives nearly $3 trillion to the wealthiest Americans, and will become yet another excuse for Republicans to slash Medicare and Social Security.”
“In less than a year, House Republicans have handed out trillions of tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations,” added Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee. “Now, middle class families are on the hook for higher health care costs, and Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block.”
Three Democrats – Reps. Conor Lamb (Penn.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) – voted for the GOP-crafted measure, which would permanently extend the individual tax cuts under the current Republican tax law.

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Posted on October 1, 2018

By Jake Johnson/Common Dreams

As Amazon works to combat its public image as a starvation-wage employer by doling out mere pennies in pay hikes and deploying an army of workers to sing the company’s praises on Twitter, a video leaked on Wednesday revealed that the trillion-dollar company is continuing to work feverishly behind the scenes to crush any attempts by workers to unionize and bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions.
The 45-minute training video – which, according to Gizmodo, was sent to managers of the Amazon-owned Whole Foods last week – instructs company leaders on how to detect “early warning signs of potential organizing,” which include workers “suddenly hanging out together” and using “union words” like “living wage.”

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Posted on September 27, 2018

By Andre Perry/The Hechinger Report

At 3 p.m., when most schools let out, some kids will stay back to attend an after-school program, some will be picked up by parents, relatives or paid caregivers to be taken home or to a soccer or swim class, and some others will hang out, on a street corner, or in the playground nearby with friends, or in an empty home. If you are a working parent with regular office hours, the group that your child belongs to depends on how much you can afford to pay for after-school care.
Unfortunately, the free, public part of education ends when the bell sounds.
Turns out that most of those who can’t afford to pay private school tuition can’t dole out funds for after-school programs either. In 2016, the online education news outlet Chalkbeat reported that only 18 percent of children nationally are served by before- and after-school programs. Many have no choice but to leave children in settings that won’t teach them skills that will help them get to college or snag a high-paying job.

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Posted on September 19, 2018