unemployment

The lack of job opportunities for veterans is expected to worsen as more soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan. The latest jobs report shows that unemployment among veterans jumped from 12 point one percent in May to 13 point three percent in June. President Obama said last week that job creation was directly tied to the looming debt ceiling deadline. On Monday, negotiations about the debt ceiling continued between Obama and congressional leaders. Republicans are refusing a proposal by Obama because they oppose the proposed tax increases.

"Poor people thought that they could only enter politics through different sorts of tactics. They had to be noisy, they had to get people's attention, they had to make trouble. I've come to the conclusion that they're right, that lots of people only have real power when they make trouble," says Frances Fox Piven, the most dangerous woman in America according to Glenn Beck. Frances and renowned public intellectual Cornel West held a "Fight Back Teach-in" this week that was streamed online to the public and to over 200 college campuses around the country. Their aim was to provide more information to counter the lies about the need for "austerity" for working people, and to help sustain the growing movement around the country fighting back for working people. Laura sat down with Frances and Cornel after the teach-in to talk austerity, Obama, poor people's movements, and why it's time for progressives to make some trouble.

"It's a targeting of workers' abilities to come together against big companies," says Columbia University professor Dorian Warren of the Walmart v. Duke case. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments from both sides on whether a class-action lawsuit that pits female employees since 1998 against the corporate giant Wal-Mart will be permitted. Plaintiffs say that the level of gender discrimination is so entrenched that is has become part of the corporate culture. A class-action lawsuit would ensure that workers have the resources and voice to take on an opponent as formidable as the world's largest retail chain. If the decision to block a class-action suit is made, workers will be left with individual lawsuits and few other options. And, more GOP maneuvering in Wisconsin: the state GOP, with Koch backing, have issued a FOIA request for the email address of several UW Madison professors. They would like to prove that state email addresses were used for illegal lobbying after professor William Cronon published a blog outlining the role of the conservative think-tank American Legislative Exchange Council in drafting legislation around the country.

"We have to change the balance here and the way you change the balance is a conceptual shift in what you see as the purpose of a nation. The purpose of a nation isn't to make the rich richer or to make the poor poorer, it's to make sure that you have a vibrant economy where there's room for everyone," says Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. Laura sat down with Rep. Kucinich in Madison March 12 after his speech at a rally hosted by The Progressive magazine and discussed the attacks on public sector workers and what a real economic democracy would look like--full employment, universal health care and education, and a commitment to peace.