Here’s a strange cause Republican congressman Joe Walsh has taken on. He is advocating for a visa for Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the Gujarat province of India. Modi was banned from coming to the United States under the Bush Administration due to an immigration law prohibiting foreign officials who “who have committed particularly severe violations of religious freedom”Ai??from receiving visas.Ai??”Instead of denying him a visa, we should be inviting him to apply,” said Walsh.

It’s odd that Walsh would take on Modi’s cause. The Indian official is a pariah to human rights groups. In 2002, a string of deadly riots broke out in Gujarat that ended with the massacre of hundreds of Muslims by Hindu nationalists. AAi??resulting investigation by organizations such as Human Rights Watch concluded that Modi at least turned a blind eye to the riots and may have even played a role in inciting them.Ai??Since then, he has worked to avoid international scrutiny, and actually called off a 2005 visit to the United Kingdom after some rights activists decided to seek a warrant for his arrest. He has also dragged his feet in complying with compensating refugees from the riots, and even derided Muslim refugee camps near Gujarat as “child-breeding centres.”

But like so much in American politics, Walsh’s actions make sense in the context of money in politics. Last month, a small right-wing Indian-American organization called The National Indian American Council (NIAC) announced that it was reviving itself Ai??and would soon be forming both a Political Action Committee (PAC) and a Super PAC. In a Daily Caller article about the revival, NIAC named two candidates it would be enthusiastically backing: Reps. Allen West (R-FL) and Joe Walsh. In the article, NIAC …

Workers at a Sensata industrial plant in Freeport, Illinois recently found out that their jobs will be outsourced to overseas workers in November. It turns out that Sensata is owned right now by Bain Capital — the company Mitt Romney built his fortune from.

So rather than sit by and allow their jobs to be outsourced without a fight, the workers at this Sensata plant yesterday set up “Bainport” — a protest tent camp meant to draw attention to their plight and hopefully get Romney to speak out against the outsourcing occurring there.

“My name is Bonnie Borman. I’ve worked at Sensata for 23 years,” said one of the workers in an uploaded video. “We’re here today setting up can’t because we’ve tried everything we can to get into contact with Mitt Romney and have him try to help us save our jobs. We’ve went to offices, campaign offices and locked out. We’ve went to Tampa and didn’t get any response. So we’re going to camp here outside the Sensata factory hopefully until we get some response.”

Watch it:

You can learn more about Bainport and the plight of the Sensata workers by going to a website they’ve set up here.

Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau released a new report titledAi??Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011.Ai??The report has some shocking statistics about how much work must be done to ensure a strong and secure middle class in the United States.

The Economic Policy Institute used the Census data to put together its own report thatAi??contextualizesAi??some of this data. Here’s some important facts from their report, titled State of Working America:

Nearly A Fifth Of American Children Are In Poverty:Ai??The report finds that 21.9 percent of children under the age of 18 are in poverty (the poverty threshold for a family of four is $22,811).
Millions of Americans Depend On Social Security To Be Kept Out Of Poverty:Ai??EPI estimates that 21.4 million Americans were kept out of poverty thanks to this social insurance program.
Unemployment Insurance Is Keeping Millions Out Of Poverty:Ai??2.3 million people kept out of poverty in 2011 by unemployment insurance.
Incomes Fell For Many Middle Class People From 2010 to 2011: There was a negative 1.7 percent change in average household income between 2010 and 2011 for the middle 20 percent of earners. Meanwhile, the top 5 percent saw a gain of 5.1 percent.

Read the full report here.

Late last night, CTU President Karen Lewis and Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale both said there were major strides made in negotiations yesterday and that students could be back in school by Friday. Meanwhile, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a left-leaning political activism group, has been urging Chicago residents who support the teachers to call on their elected officials to do the same.

(Photo credit: Flickr user Bonnie Brown)

The nation’s eyes are focused on Chicago as 29,000 teachers and support staff remain on strike in a protest against substandard schools and reneged pay raises.

As the Chicago Teachers Union soldiers on, it’s important to remember the plight of teachers nationwide. The New York Time’s Catherine Rampell has put together a few charts showing that American teachers work longer for less pay than teachers in most other developed countries.

Rampell notes that the “average primary-school teacher in the United States earns about 67 percent of the salary of a average college-educated worker in the United States. The comparable figure is 82 percent across the overall O.E.C.D. [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development].”

Here’s a chart showing the ratio of salary between middle school teachers compared to full-time, full-year college-educated workers. American teachers fair better than those in Estonia, but are worse off than the average of rich countries in the OECD:

Next, let’s take a look at teaching hours. As you can see, Chile and Argentina are the only countries where teachers work longer hours:

If Chicago’s teachers succeed, they may inspire other educators to follow suit. By the looks of these numbers, they certainly have something to protest over.

Rep. Jon Brien

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a powerful corporate front groupthat lets Big Business draft legislation to pass in state legislature. Most of its allies are Republicans, but a few are Democrats, too.

Rhode Island state representative Rep. Jon Brien is one of those Democrats. He even serves on ALEC’s board. But Brien received some bad news late yesterday, as a firefighter who challenged him in his Democratic primary defeated him by 50 votes.

Stephen Casey, an area firefighter, will be replacing Brien on the Democratic ticket this fall. “I’m not surprised,” he told the press during a victory celebration. “We worked hard. Weai??i??re in a climate that people are looking for new ideas and new people to help out at the State House.”

According to a local press report, Brien’s reaction at his planned victory party was a little different. He “stared at a placard listing the poll numbers with an expression of grim disbelief.”

Take action with PCCC and tell Democrats to dump ALEC.

Photo credit: Flickr user Global Mitch

There’s one news outlet that has been very unsympathetic to the striking teachers and staff in Chicago, to say the least. Fox News has been blasting the Chicago Teachers Union since the strike began; host Greta Van Sustern proudly proclaimed that “CHILDREN LOSE!” on her blog as teachers began their actions.

But in its spree of teacher-bashing, there’s one very serious conflict of interest that Fox News has failed to disclose.

Let’s start in 2010. That’s when Fox News’s parent company, News Corporation, acquired the education technology company known called Wireless Generation by purchasing a 90 percent stake in the company. Soon afterwards, former New York City schools chief Joel Klein — who had a history of warring with unions — became head of the education division at News Corp.

News Corporation’s involvement in a hacking scandal eventually lost Wireless Generation its planned contract with the state of New York.

But in May of 2012, the education technology company found another willing buyer — the city of Chicago. The Board of Education of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) — the district Ai?? that CTU is striking against — approved the purchase of education technology services from Wireless Generation. Here’s a snapshot from the Board’s agenda meeting:

If you click on the two agreements listed, you’ll see that they’re for $1,700,000 each.

We contacted Wireless Generation to see if they have any other contracts with CPS, but we have yet to get a response.

Americans want to trust the media and hope that it can provide thoughtful and accurate information that is uncorrupted by secret conflicts of interest. Fox News is betraying that …

Photo credit: Flickr user juggernautco

Rahm Emanuel is having a bad week. His anti-worker antics — like forcing the cancellation of a promised 4 percent pay raise — have brought about a massive teacher strike, and tens of thousands of people are marching against his policies.

But there is one group of people that have fallen in love with Rahm’s policies: Republicans and the far-right. Here’s a short and far from comprehensive list of some of the praise he’s gotten:

The Washington Examiner:Ai??The teachers union is waging a “small war againstAi??Mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.” [9/10]
Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan: “I’veAi??known Rahm Emanuel for years. Heai??i??s a former colleague of mine. RahmAi??and I have not agreed on every issue or on a lot of issues, but MayorAi??Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacherai??i??s union strike isAi??unnecessary and wrong.” [9/10]
News Corporation Owner And Fox News Kingpin Rupert Murdoch: “Three cheers for Rahm Emanuel standing up in Chicago.” [9/11]
Former Republican Presidential Contender Mayor Rudy Giuliani:Ai??”I hope he wins.” [9/11]

It’s clear whose side Rahm is taking — Rupert Murdoch and Paul Ryan’s.

(Photo credit: Flickr user soukup)

Reuters/Ipsos just released a new poll that looks at the attitudes of southern white voters. The results were in some way unsurprising. 69 percent of working class and middle-class southern whites oppose the Affordable Care Act, for example.

But check this result out. Among poor and middle class southern whites, the group “agreed by more than 4 to 1 with the statement: ‘The wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes.’”

America’s a progressive nation, sometimes it just doesn’t know it. (Hat tip to The Nation’s George Zornick for locating the poll.)

Rhee’s organization has been intent on fighting teachers unions, even by parroting false figures. (Photo credit: Flickr user angela n.)

Anti-labor education activist Michelle Rhee likes to say that she isn’t partisan — even though she has worked with Republican governors to crush unions.

Today, the New York chapter of her advocacy organization — Students First — parroted talking points from the Heartland Institute, a global warming denying corporate front group.

In response to concerns from Chicago parents and teachers that students are being packed into over-sized classrooms, the StudentsFirstNY Twitter account retweeted a Heartland Institute advocate claiming that the average class size in Chicago is 16 students:

This statistic is wildly lower than any credible estimate of class sizes in Chicago. So we decided to look into it.

If you go to the page from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) dealing with Chicago, you’ll find that it actually doesn’t list class sizes. Rather, it has a teacher-to-student ratio. That ratio is 16.44 — this is presumably where the Heartland Institute staffer got the number from.

The problem is, a teacher-to-student ratio is not the same thing as class size. The districts and states that report data to the NCES label a variety of support staff and tertiary individuals as teachers, including a lot of people who do not have sole responsibility for a classroom. The NCES itself admits that this ratio is not the same as class size. Check out this page of “Fast Facts” — you’ll see that NCES numbers show a teacher-pupil ratio of 15.4 in 2009 but class sizes between 20-23 over roughly the same time period. Simply put, the Heartland Institute …

A new poll just released finds that the 29,000 teachers and support staff of the Chicago Teachers Union that just went on strike have a lot of support from the city of Chicago:

In the live survey done by McKeon & Associates, a Joliet-based opinion polling company, 47 percent [of registered voters] support the strike, 39 percent oppose it and 14 percent didnai??i??t know. The poll has a margin of error of 3.8 percent.

These poll numbers should serve as a warning to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other city officials who so far have not been willing to offer a fair deal to Chicago’s teachers and the students and schools they are fighting for.

Yesterday, we reported that in addition to overfilled classrooms and leaky roofs, one of the issues that brought Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) to the point of striking is the widespread lack of air conditioning in schools. During a heat wave this summer, 21 summer schools without air conditioning actually cancelled classes out of concern for their studentsai??i?? health.

On Twitter, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system responded to our reporting on the air conditioning situation:

In a follow-up tweet, CPS insisted that “in extreme heat we make sure multiple fans are on, cold water’s available & move students to cooler areas.”

First of all, it’s important to note that no one is calling for the air conditioning problems to be solvedAi??tomorrow. The teachers of the CTU understand that these things take time and money.

The problem is that the Chicago Public Schools have been avoiding the issue by sidestepping it in negotiations and making no substantiveAi??commitments. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel even callously dismissed teacher, student, and parent concerns about lack of air conditioning.Ai??ai???Itai??i??sAi??71 degreesAi??outside,ai???Ai??he said, either forgetting that summer will come around again or intentionally mimicking the non-credible arguments used by climate-change deniers during the winter.

While CPS is complaining about money concerns, it is also laying the groundwork to shift as much as $70 million away from the public system and to charter schools (which just happen to be mostly non-unionized). It also is planning to significantly lengthen the school day (without properly compensating teachers for the extended day). The city has used Tax Increment Financing to take money out of property tax funds and use them to funnel millions of dollars to wealthy property developers in a scheme the Chicago Reader has …

Rep. Bill Young (R-FL)

In July, Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) had a very rude reply to a constituent who asked him about raising the minimum wage. “Get a job,” Young told him.

Now, facing the fallout from these remarks, Young is simply just skipping meetings with constituents. There was a candidates forum held recently that actually took place in the very same building that his district office is in, yet he failed to show up. The Florida Consumer Action Network (FCAN) interviewed some of Young’s constituents about his no-show status. Here’s one constituent:

TERRIE WEEKS, CONSTITUENT: We’ve tried to get meetings with Bill Young for years and years. Friends of mine, other citizens have wanted to meet with Representative Young to discuss other issues that are of concern to them. It’s impossible to do.

Watch FCAN’s video:

Before insulting other people about their jobs, Young should try doing his by showing up and meeting with constituents.

A Chicago Teachers Union action. (Photo credit: Flickr user JeanPaulHolmes)

Chicago’s 29,000 public school teachers and support staff aren’t just on strike to defend their own wages and benefits. They’re also fighting for better schools for the communities they live in. Click here to learn about why Chicago’s teachers are on strike.

Here’s five facts — from a well-researched early 2012 CTU report — that you need to know about the abominable state of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system — facts that Mayor Rahm Emanuel would rather you didn’t know:

Class Sizes Are Among The Largest In The State: Chicago’s kindergarten class sizes in particular are larger than 95 percent of classes across the state. Sometimes kids are sitting in classrooms with 40 students for months as the city drags its feet on lowering class sizes. Right outside of Chicago, in the Matteson School District, the average class size is between 16 and 23 for most of a child’s education.
Students Lack Access To Arts And Music Education: Instruction in the arts and music is essential to educating gifted and responsible children. But only 25 percent of Chicago public elementary schools have both art and music instructors.
There Is A Severe Lack Of Social Workers And Counselors:Ai??Over 15,000 homeless children attend Chicago public schools. Yet there are only 370 social workers for the entire district. You do the math. Each social worker, if dedicated totally to homeless children, would have a caseload of 42 kids. Meanwhile, each school has only one counselor, meaning that schools with up to 1,200 kids have only one adult offering intensive counseling services.
160 Schools Don’t Even Have Libraries:Ai??Libraries give kids, especially impoverished kids, access to information that they’d never otherwise be able to attain. …

(Photo credit: Flickr user MSVG)

Chicago’s teachers aren’t fighting just for their own wages and benefits. They’re on strike for better schools for students, too. One of the Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) demands is to install air conditioning in schools, particularly poorer ones that may lack these amenities.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel (whose net worth is estimated at $14 million) downplayed these teacher concerns on behalf of poor children.Ai??”It’sAi??71 degreesAi??outside,” he said. “You don’tAi??go onAi??strikeAi??for air conditioning.”

But lest the mayor forget, seasons change. Earlier, in July, there was a heat wave so severe that school officials decided to cancel classes at 21 schools one Friday that were serving summer school students. The reason why? They lacked air conditioning. The heat wave this summer was so intense that there were actually a number of deaths attributed to it in the city.

CTU is fighting for everyone in the city — teachers, students, parents. Mayor Emanuel may feel comfortable with the fact that some of his city’s schools without air conditioning can get so hot that officials canceled school to protect the health of their students, but the CTU isn’t.

If the strike ends up getting air conditioning installed in these boiling schools, the kids will be the first ones to benefit as a result.

Far-right activists as well as even a few mainstream journalists have made wild claims about how much Chicago’s teachers earn. Nightline’s Terry Moran even claimed that the Chicago Teachers Union is doing “much damage” to the profession by striking, and then went on to say that teachers in the city earn an average of $74,000.

That just isn’t true. To fact check this claim, I went to the best source available to the public: the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS has data from May 2011 for the Chicago metropolitan area that breaks down the average salary for teachers. Across the profession, teachers in the area were earning an average salary of $56,720. Keep in mind that a median salary would probably be a more accurate picture of what teachers actually earn (veteran teacher salaries will be dragging the number upwards) but that this number is not available. The number is also dragged upward because a number of university staff are included in this calculation (they earn more than public school teachers). We spoke with a BLS official earlier today to confirm the veracity of these numbers.

If you look at the different subsets of teachers, some earn as little an average salary as $44,480 (foreign language teachers). Ai??Also keep in mind that the cost of food and living is well above the U.S. average in Chicago.

The only way Chicago’s teachers and students will win this struggle is by not letting misinformation turn the tide of public opinion.Ai??Use the Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit buttons on this page to spread the word. (Thanks to labor journalist Doug Henwood for pointing us in the right direction to look for these figures.)

A liberal political group is criticizing Ann Romney’s comment that she and her husband “have not had a financial struggle in our lives.” The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is launching online ads, first set to run in Ohio, that highlights Ann Romney’s quote and suggests it shows that she and husband Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee, are out of touch with middle-class voters.

A Chicago Teachers Union action. (Photo credit: Flickr user JeanPaulHolmes)

At 10 PM central standard time last night, 29,000 Chicago teachers and support staff declared that they are going out on strike (read about their grievances and how you can help them here).

On his blog Teacher X, Chicago Teacher Xian Barret explains one of the most important things to understand about the teacher strike: it’s not just about teachers, it’s also about defending kids. Here’s an excerpt from his blog post, where he responds to Chicago Public Schools administration claiming that a strike hurts kids:

When you make me cram 30-50 kids in my classroom with no air conditioning so that temperatures hit 96 degrees, that hurts our kids.

When you lock down our schools with metal detectors and arrest brothers for play fighting in the halls, that hurts our kids.

When you take 18-25 days out of the school year for high stakes testing that is not even scientifically applicable for many of our students, that hurts our kids.

When you spend millions on your pet programs, but thereai??i??s no money for school level repairs, so the roof leaks on my students at their desks when it rains, that hurts our kids.

When you unilaterally institute a longer school day, insult us by calling it a ai???full school dayai??? and then provide no implementation support, throwing our schools into chaos, that hurts our kids.

When you support Mayor Emanuelai??i??s TIF program in diverting hundreds of millions of dollars of school funds into to the pockets of wealthy developers like billionaire member of your school board, Penny Pritzker so she can build more hotels, that not only hurts kids, but somebody should be going to jail.

If you want to learn more about the …

Ryan is now campaigning for the vice presidency, putting himself first in line to be president, a job he says he didn’t want. (Photo credit: Flickr user monkeyz_uncle)

The vice presidential pick is often viewed as more about politics than substance, but as the Americans who groaned at the choice of Sarah Palin in 2008 know, the vice president is just a heartbeat away from the presidency and must be ready to serve.

Is Paul Ryan ready for the presidency? He certainly didn’t think so in 2010. He even explicitly ruled it out. In an interview with The Weekly Standard, he said he wanted to be a “normal person” and that it would be too taxing to run for and serve as president:

But the 40-year-old congressman hasAi??consistently tried to quashAi??the notion that he might run for president and did so again last night during the $50 per person fundraising cruise on Lake Geneva. “No, no there isnai??i??t,” Ryan replied when asked if there’s any chance he would run for president.

“I want to be a normal person,” Ryan continued. “Other people can run for that thing. Other people canai??i??t do this,” he said, pointing to one of his three young children sipping a kiddie cocktail.

What changed Ryan’s mind? Does he really think he’s ready for the presidency when as little as two years ago he was much more interested in being, as he called it, a “normal person”?

Interestingly, Ryan may not be qualified for the presidency if you look at criteria laid out by his running mate earlier this year. Romney said at a campaign event in May that a “president has to spend at least three years working in business before he can become president of …

During a press conference tonight the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) announced that it will be going on strike, its first action of the sort in 25 years.

Why are these 29,000 teachers and school workers going on strike in the nation’s third-largest public school district?

Because they want what all workers want: fair pay and decent working conditions. They also want what all teachers want — to serve their students to their best of their abilities.

Here’s a few things you need to know about the strike, and why the CTU is right and Mayor Rahm Emanuel — who has failed to fairly bargain with the union — is wrong:

Powerful Outside Interests Worked With Rahm To Cripple CTU’s Ability To Strike (They Failed):Ai??Last year, outside education privatization groups like Stand for Children worked with the city council and mayor to raise the strike threshold limit to 75 percent — meaning that 3/4 of teachers had to vote to strike. Jonah Edelman, who works for the group,Ai??braggedAi??during the Aspen Ideas Festival that they had essentially eliminated teachers’ ability to strike. But in June,Ai??nearly 90 percentAi??of CTU members voted to authorize a strike, easily surpassing the barrier that the city and education privatization groups had placed on them. But outside groups haven’t stopped taking aim at union rights. They’ve even paid protesters to demonstrate against CTU.
Rahm Refuses To Pay Teachers What They Were Promised:Ai??Being a teacher takes hard work, and it’s one of the mostAi??poorly-paid professions relative to the work load.Ai??The leadership of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) had agreed to offer teachers a four percent raise last year, but Mayor Emanuel canceled this agreement. The district has refused to address this raise in negotiations. While gutting teachers’ …

Christopher Fallon

RepublicanAi??MassachusettsAi??Senator Scott Brown is in a tough race against progressive champion Elizabeth Warren. On Friday, Brown rolled out an endorsement by state representative Chris Fallon. “We know where your heart is, and your heart is with the people of Massachusetts – particularly, the people of Malden,” said the state rep. of Brown.

But Fallon and Brown’s hearts have been in very different places, when it comes to an issue the people of the state should be very concerned about: union rights.

Last year, there was a rollback of labor rights in the state, as some municipal employees faced cutbacks in their right to collectively bargain over health care. Although the majority of Democrats and Republicans in the state house voted to support this rollback of rights, Fallon was one of a minority of Democrats who opposed the changes and proudly stood with organized labor.

Meanwhile, Scott Brown has proved antagonistic to labor unions. He backed Scott Walker’s budget that decimated public employee collective bargaining in Wisconsin, calling it the “will of the people.” At the height of the battle over bargaining rights in the state, he appeared on MSNBC and actually praised Scott Walker. Watch it:

Brown started his anti-union record very early after being elected. He even demanded to be seating as soon as possible to stop the nomination of pro-union Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.

With the endorsement of Brown, Fallon is turning his back on an important constituency that he stood with in the past. It’s important forAi??MassachusettsAi??voters to not let Fallon’s endorsement whitewash Brown’s record (and it’s important for Fallon’s district to remember this next time he’s up for re-election).

(For the record, Brown actually lost much more high-profile support over his …

The Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) is out with a new report that finds that more and more Americans are in “bad jobs” — that is, jobs that offer weak pay and benefits.

Here are a couple of the report’s findings that are particularly shocking:

– Less Jobs Offer Health Coverage:Ai??The report notes that “46.7 percent of jobs did not haveAi??health insurance in 2010, up from 30.2 percent in 1979.” Here’s a graph from the report illustrating this:

– Less Jobs Offer Retirement Plans: CEPR writes that byAi??”2010, the share of workers not participating in Ai??a retirement plan at work stood at 54.5 percent, up from 48.3 percent in 1979.” Here’s a graph from the report illustrating that statistic:Ai??

The report also finds that overall pay has actually increased for most workers, but only by tiny margins: “In 2010, 52.8 percent of workers were in jobs that paid less than $37,000 per year,Ai??down from 59.4 percent in 1979.”

Cumulatively, these numbers paint a picture of America that is failing to live up to the promise of hard work. It’s important to remember that even as benefits are declining for workers, labor productivity has continued to grow over time. This means that Americans are producing just as much or more, but getting less for it. It’s going to take one heck of a progressive movement to turn this sad situation around.

An image of Vanzant from Occupy Our Homes

The Reverend Michael Robert Vanzant is the outreach pastor for Faith Temple in Washington, D.C. He was actuallyAi??thrown out of his original church due to the fact that he was a gay man. So that’s why he started Faith Temple, which is inclusive to everyone.

Two years ago, he had to leave his job as a Metro employee because of a disability. Bank of America had been refusing to work with him to modify his mortgage and he is being threatened with eviction. To make matters worse, Vanzant just suffered a minor stroke and is currently being hospitalized. Things looked dire.

That is, until Occupy protesters got involved. Yesterday, dozens of protesters marched on the U Street location of a Bank of America. “Success today would be if Bank of America calls him and gives him his home back,” said Occupy organizer Mike Haack. “More realistically, this will put Mr. Vanzant on Bank of Americaai??i??s radar.”

Late Thursday afternoon, following the rally, Occupy protesters announced that “Bank of America had reached out to Vanzant after the rally to schedule an appointment to discuss the pastorai??i??s mortgage.”

While this isn’t a guarantee that Vanzant will be able to keep his home, it does mean that the Occupy movement is succeeding in getting Bank of America to the negotiating temple. You can help by calling the Bank of America Home Loan Office atAi??202-797-4940 or the Loan Modification Office atAi??800-669-6607 and asking them to work with Vanzant so that he can keep his home.

A community? Or a Washington, D.C. PR firm?

In November, voters in two cash-strapped California towns — El Monte and Richmond — will go to the polls and decide the fate of a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks. The tax would have two benefits: raising money for the cities and reducing the consumption of unhealthy sodas.

But residents of Richmond have been met with a barrage ofAi??propagandaAi??against the tax. Here’s a billboard that a group calling itself the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes is running. It features a “Richmond resident” warning that the tax would hit the “poor and working people hardest.”

Whatever the merits of this argument, it’s interesting to look into whether it’s actually poor or working people that put up this billboard. The website listed on the board features arguments against the soda tax and urges Richmond residents to vote it down. The website notes that it is partially funded by the American Beverage Association — soda companies — but also claims to represent “thousands of Richmond residents, labor and businesses against unfair taxes.”

But let’s take a look at who really built this website and the public relations campaign designed to take down this soda tax. We did a domain search forAi??http://www.norichmondbeveragetax.com/. It’s registered as a GoDaddy address. The domain is registered byAi??Goddard Claussen Public Affairs — a public relations firm based in Washington, D.C — far away from the town of Richmond, California.

Goddard Claussen recently became Goddard Gunster. Its founding partner is Ben Goddard, who famously crafted the 1993-1994 “Harry and Louise” ad campaign that killed health care reform efforts under the Clinton Administration.

It is perhaps fitting that the same folks who helped kill a program to make Americans healthier are …

ThinkProgress points to a recent speech by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) where he assailed new nutritional standards in schools. King complains that there are parents coming up to him telling him their kids are starving:

He said parents have approached him and have said things like ai???My kids are starving in school.Ai??My kids are being rationed on calories.”

Whatever one’s opinion is about the nutritional standards, it’s hard to take King’s words about child food safety seriously. In July, the congressman moved along with many of his Republican colleagues aggressively to cut food stamps. These cuts would’ve withheld as much as aid for 2 million Americans. He tried to justify these cuts with the following fear mongering:

ai???I know there are people that can’t do anything about it in the short term, but we also know that there are many more that are gaming the system, and we know that these EBT cards are being sold at a discount and traded off for alcohol and tobacco and illegal drugs.”

So if King is willing to push for huge cuts to food stamps, he’s probably not concerned about child hunger. So why all the fighting against nutritional standards? It could be that two of his top ten donors are the crop and agricultural services industries, which specialize in pumping high-fructose corn syrup and other unhealthy products into Americans’ diets.