The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.
*Summary*

Highlights from our latest update of the statistical record of President Obama’s time in office:
· Under Obama, the economy has added 7.2 million jobs, and the unemployment rate is now lower than the historical median.· The number of job openings is up to its highest point in 14 years, and the number of long-term jobless has now dropped below where it was when Obama took office.· Real weekly earnings are up 3 percent. But the number of persons receiving food stamps remains stubbornly high.· The administration says 16 million have gained health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act. But the National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 37 million others still lacked coverage last year.· The US increased its domestic crude oil production last year by more than it has in over 100 years. The U.S. now relies less on imported oil than it has since the Nixon administration.· The clock has run out on Obama’s promise to double U.S. exports in 5 years. They went up only 39 percent.
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*Analysis*

As we do every three months, we offer here a fresh update of selected statistical indicators of what has happened since Barack Obama first took the oath of office in January 2009. Some are positive and some are not, but all are from sources we consider solid and reliable. And as usual, we caution that no single number or collection of numbers can tell the entire story.

*Jobs & Unemployment

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*Number of Jobs –* The jobs figure for March stands 835,000 higher than we reported three months ago. The economy has now added 7,206,000 jobs since Obama first took office.*

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*Unemployment Rate — *Meanwhile the unemployment rate ticked down another tenth of a point, to 5.5 percent. That’s a decline of 2.3 percentage points since the recession-plagued month of January 2009, when the president first took the oath of office.

Historically, the jobless rate is now a bit better than it has been most of the time since 1948. The historical median is 5.6 percent.

*Long-term Unemployment –* February also saw the number of long-term unemployed — those who have been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer — drop below the level Obama inherited. The number went down to less than 2.6 million in March, which is 136,000 fewer than when the president first took office and less than half the 6.8 million figure chalked up in April 2010.*

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*Job Openings –* The number of job openings rose in January (the latest month on record) to just under 5 million, the highest level since January, 2001. The number of openings has gone up 81 percent since the month when the president entered office.

*Business Startups* — New businesses are opening at a rapid pace. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 220,000 “births” of new establishments in the three months ending last June, the most recent period on record. That’s an increase of just under 18 percent compared to the quarter just prior to Obama’s first inauguration.

On the other hand, the number of business establishments shutting down permanently — business “deaths” — has gone down by just over 18 percent. The most recent figure is for the third quarter of 2013, because the BLS must wait a year before counting any shutdown as a permanent closing. Establishment birth and death figures are adjusted to compensate for seasonal variations.

* Prices & Wages*

*Consumer Prices –* Overall inflation in consumer prices has remained moderate over Obama’s first six years, rising by only 11 percent between January 2009 and February, the most recent month for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the Consumer Price Index. The average yearly rise under Obama of 1.9 percent is well below the post-World War II average of 3.7 percent. And thanks mainly to falling fuel prices, the CPI has actually dropped 0.8 percent since our last report.

*Real Weekly Earnings –* As a result, the purchasing power of weekly paychecks took another big jump since our last report. The BLS measure of average weekly earnings for all workers, adjusted for inflation and seasonal factors, was 3 percent higher in February than it was when Obama first took office.

Most of that gain is recent. Real weekly earnings have gone up 2.5 percent since fuel prices started dropping last June.

*Gasoline –* The national average price of regular gasoline has rebounded somewhat since the plunge that took it down to just over $2 a gallon in January. As of the week ended March 30, it stood at $2.45, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That’s 33 percent higher than the unusually low point at which it stood on Inauguration Day 2009, but also 32 percent lower than it had been at the end of March 2014.

* Food Stamps*

The number of persons receiving food stamps edged down only slightly since our last report despite the rapidly improving economy. As of December, the most recent month on record, nearly 46.3 million Americans were receiving the food aid, now known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance.

That’s only 3 percent below the record level set three years earlier, in December 2012, and nearly 45 percent higher than it was when Obama took office in 2009.

Nevertheless, Obama does not quite qualify for the label that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich came up with during his 2012 run for the Republican presidential nomination. Gingrich called Obama the “food stamp president” and claimed he had added more recipients to the rolls than any previous chief executive. But that was not true at the time , and only later did the gain under Obama exceed the number added under his predecessor. Now, however, the title has gone back to George W. Bush; 14.7 million were added to the rolls during his time in office, and 14.3 million were added during Obama’s.

*Home Ownership*

The rate of home ownership has slipped again since our last report, to its lowest point in more than 20 years.

As of the final quarter of 2014, the percentage of U.S. households who owned their own homes was 64.0 percent, according to the most recent release from the U.S. Census Bureau. That is lower than at any time since the third quarter of 1994.

Home ownership peaked at 69.2 percent in 2004, but it has declined 5.2 percentage points since then. Most of the decline — 3.5 percentage points — has taken place since Obama first took office.

* Profits & Markets*

*Corporate Profits — *Corporate profits have soared under Obama, smashing all previous records.
After-tax corporate profits have slipped a bit since the record level reflected in our last report. However, they were still running at a yearly rate of over $1.8 trillion in the final three months of 2014, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

That was an increase of 174 percent over the recession-plagued quarter six years earlier, just before Obama entered office. And it was also 30 percent higher than the best quarter prior to his taking office, which was the third quarter of 2006.

The highest profits ever recorded were in the third quarter of 2014, when they were running at a yearly rate of just under $1.9 trillion.

***Stock Markets *–* *Stockholders continue to do quite well under Obama. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was 157 percent higher at the close last week than it was the day Obama took office. Other stock indexes show similarly robust gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also has more than doubled, rising 123 percent during Obama’s tenure, and the NASDAQ Composite index has tripled, rising 239 percent.

*Obamacare*

Information about the effects of the Affordable Care Act continues to accumulate. The verdict so far: Millions have gained health insurance, but the percentage of the uninsured has declined by only about a third.

The administration, based on extensive polling by the Gallup organization, states that 16 million persons have gained coverage as a result of the law, the main provisions of which took effect last year. The claimed total includes an estimated 14.1 million adults who gained coverage since the start of the first open enrollment period in October, 2013, plus an estimated 2.3 million young adults age 19 through 25 who previously gained coverage after the law began requiring that insurance plans allow children to remain on their parents’ plans until age 26.

Those figures are roughly consistent with recent findings by the National Center for Health Statistics, which estimates that only 11.9 percent of all Americans lacked health insurance at the time they were interviewed last year, down from 14.4 percent in 2013. However, that still left an estimated 37.2 million without insurance coverage, more than twice the number the administration figures have gained insurance.

The NCHS findings are preliminary, based on interviews conducted during the first nine months of 2014.

*Federal Debt*

The federal debt has continued to swell since our last report. The debt owed to the public now exceeds $13 trillion, an increase of 108 percent since Obama first took office. The debt has also gained dramatically even when measured as a percentage of the nation’s economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP).
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the debt at the end of this fiscal year will amount to 74.2 percent of GDP, up from 52.3 percent at the end of fiscal 2009, which was the last budget year in which spending and revenue levels were mostly determined by Obama’s predecessor.

CBO projects that the FY 2015 deficit will come in at $486 billion, about the same as last year’s $485 billion deficit and about one-third of the $1.4 trillion deficit racked up in FY 2009.

But while CBO projects that deficits would decline slightly for the next few years under current taxing and spending policies, the annual shortfalls will resume their upward path fairly soon. In 2019, unless something is done, the debt will begin growing again as a percentage of the economy. By 2025 CBO estimates that the debt would amount to 77 percent of GDP, and interest payments would consume 13 percent of all federal spending (up from 6 percent this year).

Total debt, counting money the government owes to itself, currently stands at nearly $18.2 trillion, up 71 percent under Obama.

* Energy*

*U.S. Crude Oil Production –* The historic boom in U.S. crude oil production has continued to accelerate under Obama. In fact, 2014 saw the largest increase in domestic petroleum production in more than a century.

In the fourth quarter of last year, the U.S. produced nearly 83 percent more crude oil than it did in the three months before Obama began his presidency.

*Oil Imports & Dependency* — With domestic production surging, U.S. reliance on imported oil has been cut by more than half. Under Obama, as of the October-December quarter of 2014, net imports were down 59 percent.

And as a result, the U.S. imported only 26.5 percent of the petroleum and refined products that it consumed in 2014, the lowest level of dependency on imports since 1971. That was in the Nixon administration, before the first Arab oil embargo of 1973/4.

To be sure, the U.S. oil boom is due mainly to advances in drilling technology rather than to any change in government policy. The decline in dependency on imports actually began in 2006, after peaking at 60.3 percent the year before. But the trend has continued and accelerated under Obama.

*Wind & Solar –* Electricity generated by wind and solar power in the most recent 12 months on record (ending in January) was 252 percent higher than the total for 2008.

The increase in solar power in particular has been spectacular. The US generated nearly 22 times more electricity from solar power in the most recent 12 months than it did in the year before Obama took office.

These trends are partly due to large federal tax subsidies for wind and solar generation, all supported by Obama. But several states, independent of federal policy, have also imposed renewable energy standards that require electric utilities to generate a certain portion of their power from wind or solar. Market forces have also been at work; the price of an installed photovoltaic panel has dropped by 63 percent since the end of 2010, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The U.S. produced 4.9 percent of all its electricity from wind and solar last year, up from 1.4 percent in 2008. But coal still accounted for the biggest share — 39 percent — followed by natural gas at 28 percent and nuclear power at 19 percent.

*Unfulfilled Promises*

*Exports –* In January 2010, the president said in his State of the Union address, “We will double our exports over the next five years.” But Obama didn’t even get halfway to that goal before the clock ran out.

As of the final quarter of 2014, according to the most recent report of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. exports of goods and services have gone up by only 38.6 percent since Obama took office — and by only 34.7 percent since he uttered the promise.

Obama (and most economists) did not foresee the economic sluggishness of the world economy over the past five years. That has held down the ability of U.S. trading partners to buy its goods and services.

Japan was in a recession last year, for example, and Italy is still in the longest recession in its history. While the U.S. economy grew by 2.4 percent last year, the total growth of all 34 member countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development was 1.8 percent, according to OECD data.

*Car Mileage –* In his 2013 State of the Union Address Obama said “We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas,” which was not true. What he meant was that the administration was doubling the efficiency that it would call for in the future, putting in place requirements that cars and light trucks average 54.5 mpg by model year 2025.

We said at the time, “it remains to be seen whether automakers can produce — and consumers will buy — vehicles that achieve such a doubling of average mileage a dozen years from now.” And now low gasoline prices have led car buyers to temper their enthusiasm for smaller, more efficient cars and trucks, stalling progress towards Obama’s goal.

As of March, according to the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, the average EPA city/highway sticker mileage of light duty vehicles sold was 25.4 miles per gallon, exactly the same as those sold in the previous March. In fact, the average for the first six months of this model year (October 2014 through March 2015) is also exactly equal to the mileage recorded during the preceding 12 months — 25.3 mpg.

The March average is 21 percent higher than it was when Obama first took office — still a long way short of “doubled.”

*Guantanamo –* Since our last report, 5 more prisoners have been released from the U.S. detention facility for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. But 122 prisoners remained, a figure that is still not quite 50 percent lower than it was at Obama’s first inauguration. Obama ordered the facility closed two days after he first took office, but he is not quite halfway to fulfilling that promise.

*Military War Deaths*

Despite the fighting raging in the Middle East, no U.S. military men or women have been killed there since our last report. The total who have died in the Iraq conflict since Obama took office still stands at 267, and the number of U.S. military fatalities in the Afghanistan conflict remains at 1,726. The U.S. formally ended its combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, but thousands of U.S. troops remain there.

– by Brooks Jackson

*Sources*

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 3 Apr 2015.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Unemployment Rate, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted Data extracted 3 Apr 2015.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Number Unemployed for 27 Weeks & Over, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 3 Apr 2015.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey: Job Openings, Seasonally Adjusted” Data extracted 1 Apr 2015.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Private sector establishment births and deaths, seasonally adjusted.” 12 Feb 2015.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Consumer Price Index – All Urban Consumers.” Data extracted Data extracted 1 Apr 2015.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Average Weekly Earnings of All Employees, 1982-1984 Dollars.” Data extracted 1 Apr 2015.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices (Dollars per Gallon).” Data extracted 1 Apr 2015.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Data as of Dec 5, 2014).” Data extracted 3 Apr 2015.

U.S. Census Bureau. “Time Series: Seasonally Adjusted Home Ownership Rate.” Data extracted 1 Apr 2015.

Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. “Corporate Profits After Tax (without IVA and CCAdj) (CP).” Data extracted 1 Apr 2014.

Congressional Budget Office. “An Update To The Budget And Economic Outlook: 2014 To 2024 — Aug 2014 Baseline.” 27 Aug 2014.

Google Finance. “S&P 500.” Historical prices. Data extracted 2 Apr 2015.

Google Finance. “Dow Jones Industrial Average.” Historical prices. Data extracted 2 Apr 2015.

Google Finance. “NASDAQ Composite.” Historical prices. Data extracted 2 Apr 2015.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. “Health Insurance Coverage and the Affordable Care Act.” 16 Mar 2015.

Martinez, Michael E. and Robin A. Cohen. “Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January – September 2014.“ National Center for Health Statistics. 15 Mar 2015.

U.S. Treasury. “The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It.” 7 Jan 2015. Data extracted 3 Apr 2015.

Congressional Budget Office. “March 2015 Baseline” from “Updated Budget Projections: 2015 to 2025” 9 Mar 2015.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. “U.S. oil production growth in 2014 was largest in more than 100 years.” 30 Mar 2015.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. “U.S. Crude Oil Production.” Short Term Energy Outlook. 10 Mar 2015. Data extracted 1 Apr 2015.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Table 3.3a. Monthly Energy Review.” Mar 2015.

U.S. Energy Information Administration. Electric Power Monthly, “Table 1.1.A. Net Generation from Renewable Sources: Total (All Sectors), 2005-January 2015.” 27 Mar 2015.

Solar Energy Industries Association. “Renewable Energy Standards” Undated Web page, accessed 1 Apr 2015.

Solar Energy Industries Association. “36% of All New Electric Capacity in 2014 From Solar” Dec 2014.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Affairs. “Table 1. U.S. International Transactions: Exports of Goods and Services.” 19 Mar 2015.

Spence, Michael “Five Reasons for the Slow Growth of the Global Economy.” Huffington Post. 5 Jan 2015.

BBC News. “Japan comes out of recession but growth still disappoints” 16 Feb 2015.

Totaro, Lorenzo and Alessandra Migliaccio “Italy’s Economy Fails to Rebound” Bloomberg News. 13 Feb 2015.

Sivak,Michael and Brandon Schoettle “Average sales-weighted fuel-economy rating (window sticker) of purchased new vehicles for October 2007 through March 2015” University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. 3 Apr 2015

New York Times. The Guantanamo Docket. “A History of the Detainee Population.” 14 Jan 2015.

iCasualties.org “Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan; Afghanistan Coalition Military Fatalities by Year.” Data extracted 3 Apr 2015.

iCasualties.org. “Operation Iraqi Freedom; Iraq Coalition Military Fatalities by Year.” Data extracted 3 Apr 2015. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.

(Screenshot of video from International Brotherhood of Teamsters)

A picket line of truckers in Long Beach, California, in 2014. 

This article appears in the Spring 2015 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.

In 1999, while he was working at a local immigrant service center in Los Angeles, Victor Narro began encountering a particularly aggrieved group of workers. They were the men who worked at carwashes, and their complaint was that they were paid solely in tips—the carwashes themselves paid them nothing at all.

At first, the workers came by in a trickle, but soon enough, in a flood. Narro, whose soft voice and shy manner belie a keen strategic sensibility, consulted with legal services attorneys and discovered that while every now and then a carwash was penalized for cheating its workers, such instances were few and far between. “There were no regulations overseeing the industry,” Narro says. The state’s labor department conducted no sweeps of the carwashes to investigate what looked to be an industry-wide pattern of violations of basic wage and hour laws. When Narro took a new job at UCLA’s Labor Center, he had researchers survey L.A. carwashes. They reported that roughly one-fourth of the industry’s 10,000 workers were paid only in tips.

The workers who did get a paycheck weren’t raking it in, either. Wage theft was the norm in the industry, and the carwasheros (as the workers, almost entirely Mexican and Central American immigrants, have come to be called) had little recourse—especially since so many were undocumented. Oscar Sanchez, a tall, sober-faced carwashero who came to Los Angeles from Guatemala in 2000, recalls working a 10-hour day and routinely getting paid for five hours. Workers at his carwash, in South Central L.A., got no lunch breaks; the owner would “bring us burgers and we’d have to wash cars and eat at the same time.” The owner also had a mini-mart on the property, and rented the two rooms upstairs as living quarters for four of the workers—one of them Sanchez. “She wouldn’t pay us on time, but she demanded the rent on time,” Sanchez says. “When we fell behind, she said she couldn’t pay us because we owed her rent.”

Under California law, employers in a few industries in which wage theft was endemic—farm labor contracting, garment work, and construction—were required to register with the state and post surety bonds every year to cover any back-pay settlements and penalties that authorities assessed on them. Armed with data from his researchers, Narro asked legislators to get carwash owners added to the list. The bill, signed into law by Governor Gray Davis, required owners to register with the state and to post a $15,000 bond to cover labor-code violations.

But the new law changed nothing. Davis’s successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had no interest in strengthening it when it came up for renewal at two-year intervals. “We’d win cases, but we were still swamped with violations,” says Narro.

In 2006, the national AFL-CIO had established a partnership with a union of day laborers, and Narro reasoned that the Federation might be interested in trying to foster a union of carwasheros, too. He approached the AFL-CIO, which responded enthusiastically and sought out an established union willing to undertake the campaign. The United Steelworkers—which had expanded into other sectors as the U.S. steelmaking industry continued to shrink—took up the cause. Steelworkers Local 675, an L.A.-based union that chiefly represented oil refinery workers, agreed to undertake the campaign and welcome the carwasheros into the local. “If you can’t make steel,” says Dave Campbell, the local’s secretary-treasurer, “you might as well wash it.”

In 2008, the AFL-CIO and the Steelworkers commenced their campaign. The Federation staffed the carwasheros’ worker center, named CLEAN, with organizers under the direction of Justin McBride, a veteran of multiple union campaigns. The Steelworkers loaned organizers to the effort and announced it would negotiate contracts and service the new members.

By 2013, however, the campaign had stalled. Of the estimated 500 carwashes in Los Angeles County, just four had gone union. Part of the problem was that the industry itself was fragmented. CLEAN’s research determined that the 500 carwashes had 450 different owners; no one owned more than five. Worse still, a number of carwashes seemed to be operating like Walter White’s carwash in Breaking Bad—less as a business than as a money-laundering operation. Finally, no individual carwash employed more than a handful of workers, which made organizing both costly and labor-intensive.

To succeed, a completely new strategy was needed. In 2013, with the carwash law set for renewal, McBride proposed to greatly increase the bond carwash owners had to post—unless they established a formal grievance procedure, the kind that, by law, can only exist under a union contract.

Schwarzenegger had by then returned to Hollywood, and his successor, Jerry Brown, had long supported the cause of low-wage workers. Brown’s labor commissioner, Julie Su, had begun sweeps of carwashes that routinely turned up violations. Democrats, following the 2012 elections, had two-thirds majorities in both houses of the legislature. The stars were aligned for McBride’s proposal, though he had “to compile data showing that the $15,000 bond was inadequate” to protect workers, says Caitlin Vega, the state AFL-CIO’s lobbyist who was shepherding the bill that codified McBride’s proposal. Fortunately, she adds, “Justin is very good at math.”

In a rather elegant solution, the bill that passed the legislature and that Brown signed simply added a zero to the $15,000. (It also eliminated the original act’s two-year sunset provision.) Starting in January 2014, carwash owners would have to post a bond of $150,000—unless they agreed to let their workers go union.

As the new year dawned, Labor Commissioner Su and Los Angeles City Attorney Michael Feuer convened a raucous meeting of more than 100 L.A. carwash owners to explain the new statute. “We heard some complaints about the law,” Su says, but the purpose of the meeting was to make clear both the terms of the law and Su and Feuer’s intention to enforce it with ongoing and widespread inspections.

Several months later, 16 carwashes announced they were going union. Today, Local 675 represents workers at 25 carwashes in Southern California. The unionized carwasheros work under contracts that their union representative, Manuel Ramirez, acknowledges are “very basic.” They make roughly 2 percent above minimum wage, they have shaded places where they take their breaks, they have lunch breaks, fresh water, time clocks, regular paychecks— the merest basics of a work relationship, but ones routinely denied their nonunion brethren. The unionized carwashes are chiefly those that couldn’t afford the new surety bond, located disproportionately in the poorer sections of the city. Still, both the new law and the increased inspection regimen have improved conditions across the industry. “Now,” says Narro, “hardly any carwasheros are paid only in tips.”

 

Photo courtesy of USW Local 675

Though the longest of long shots, the carwashero campaign has unionized two dozen Los Angeles–area carwashes—with the crucial assistance of state government.

*THE VICTORIES OF THE CARWASHEROS*, limited though they be, are a clear example of what Rutgers University sociology professor Janice Fine terms “regulatory unionism”—the enactment or enforcement of laws that not only better workers’ lot but also enhance their ability to organize in their workplace. The latter, of course, was the intent of the National Labor Relations Act, the federal law passed in 1935 that created a clear process through which workers could form unions. Over the past four decades, however, the NLRA has largely become a dead letter, as employers have found multiple ways to violate the terms of the act with impunity.  

Though Obama labor officials have improved enforcement efforts, conservative pressure at the federal level has thwarted all efforts to strengthen the NLRA itself. But with the heightened profile of the economic-inequality issue, the burgeoning of low-paying jobs, and the demonstrations of low-wage workers for higher wages and greater justice, state and city governments have proved more responsive to the new proletariat’s plight. With the lion’s share of major American cities now firmly in liberal control (25 of the nation’s 30 largest cities currently have Democratic mayors), municipalities have raised the local minimum wage and required employers to provide their workers with paid sick days and, for part-time retail workers, an advance schedule of their hours. Only seven states, however, have Democratic governors and Democratic control of both houses of the legislature, so the number of such pro-worker statutes emerging from statehouses is smaller.

But the one thing that progressive states and cities have generally not been able to do is enact measures that help workers organize into unions. The NLRA specifically preempts most such endeavors. That’s why the case of the carwasheros is so remarkable.  

Nonetheless, the carwasheros’ victory illustrates one of the three ways in which cities and states can currently boost not just worker income but worker power. These paths, to be sure, are narrow—but not so narrow that they can’t accommodate more campaigns from creative strategists and dedicated workers. The three paths are:

· Using a city or state’s purchasing, financial, regulatory, or wage-setting power to foster worker organization;
· Giving worker organizations the authority to help enforce and monitor city or state labor ordinances; and
· Cracking down on the misclassification of workers so that those mislabeled as “independent contractors” can become unionizable employees.

 

*THE FIRST STRATEGY, PIONEERED* by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) and copied in multiple cities, is to condition city approval of new projects seeking tax abatements, public funds, or other municipal assistance on those projects meeting labor criteria that benefit the city’s residents: the payment of living wages, the hiring of women and minorities, the adherence to environmental standards—and the ability of workers in the project to join unions.

No one has done more to foster unionization through such policies than Madeline Janis, LAANE ’s founding director and now the head of Jobs to Move America, which seeks to bring the manufacture of rail cars and buses—an industry almost entirely offshored in recent decades—back to the United States and back to unionized American workers. In 2008, Los Angeles voters levied a tax increase on themselves to fund the construction of an ambitious rail system. When L.A.’s transit authority began looking for a rail-car manufacturer, however, virtually all were overseas. Even more problematically, the federal Department of Transportation conditioned its considerable financial support for such transit projects on conventional lowest-bidder criteria. Janis managed to persuade the department to add a “best value” criterion that gives points to bidders who hire veterans and workers from neighborhoods with high poverty rates. Able to choose a bidder by those criteria, the L.A. agency selected a Japanese manufacturer that pledged to build a factory in L.A. County and, with further prodding from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, not to oppose its workers’ efforts to unionize. Transit agencies in Chicago and Maryland have now adopted contract criteria similar to those in Los Angeles.

LAANE and its many offshoots have most often been founded and, initially, funded by their cities’ hotel unions—locals of UNITE HERE. Beginning in the 1990s, that union succeeded in conditioning many city governments’ approval of new hotel projects that sought some form of financial assistance on the hotels agreeing to let their workers choose whether to join a union. A new wrinkle in this strategy appeared in 2005, when the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) won the approval of voters in Emeryville—a small city wedged between Berkeley and Oakland—to require a minimum wage, higher than California’s, for employees of that city’s hotels, on the theory that the local taxpayers’ support for public infrastructure around the Bay Bridge was really the key to the hotels’ success and, indeed, existence. LAANE followed up in 2007 by persuading the Los Angeles City Council to enact a similar ordinance for the hotels lining Century Boulevard, the approach road to LAX, and again last year, when it convinced the city council to set an hourly wage of $15.37 for workers at every hotel in the city with at least 150 rooms.

Each of these statutes contained one crucial “supercession” (or escape hatch for employers): They allowed hotels that reached collective-bargaining agreements with their workers to waive the wage requirement if their employees, through their contracts, agreed to it in return for other benefits. With this option clearly serving as an incentive to unionization, UNITE HERE was able to organize the large hotels of Emeryville and five of the 12 hotels on L.A.’s Century Boulevard. The citywide Los Angeles ordinance, which covers 63 hotels, many of them already unionized, takes effect later this year.

Such “carve-outs,” as they are also called, not only can pressure owners and managers but also give workers some choices in the bargaining process. “Collective bargaining supercession cuts both ways,” says Ken Jacobs, who chairs the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Berkeley. The waitstaff in some Bay Area hotels, he says, made enough in tips to trade away a higher legislated wage in return for better benefits. When unions are strong, supercession can work to employees’ advantage; when unions are weak, it may not.

When San Francisco enacted the nation’s first Retail Workers Bill of Rights late last year, requiring managers to provide their employees with their work schedules two weeks in advance, the city’s leading unions of retail workers, for instance, chose not to lobby for an exemption for retail establishments that had union contracts. For one thing, the vast majority of the city’s retail outlets had no such contracts and the union, even with a carveout, believed it lacked the capacity to organize them. For another, a number of the union’s existing contracts contained no such provision for advance scheduling; many of its own members would plainly benefit from a straight-up application of the law. The bill was enacted with no supercessions. “If your union doesn’t have much leverage,” says one labor lawyer, “you usually want just a law that sets a standard.”

Jacobs argues that even without carve-outs, such laws still advantage unions. “From an organizing perspective, setting a $15.37 wage for all large hotels reduces the differential between union and nonunion hotels, which has grown very large as the cost of health benefits has gone up. You have to raise wages across the board to narrow the difference in labor costs between union and nonunion establishments. Legislating labor standards can be a way to reduce one of the barriers to unionization.”

 

*THE SECOND FORM OF CITY* or state policy that enhances worker power is giving worker organizations the authority and funding to monitor and educate workers about the labor-standard laws that those governments enact. In 2007, San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring employers to provide their employees with health insurance and paid sick days. Last year, the council established advance scheduling for retail workers, and city voters enacted a $15 minimum wage. The city’s office of labor standards enforcement, says Donna Levitt, its manager, has recognized that “workers feel more comfortable going to a community group than a government agency” when they experience mistreatment on the job, and has contracted with and funded a range of community-based organizations, most of them rooted in particular minority communities, to augment the office’s own outreach and monitoring efforts.

The most notable success these efforts have achieved came at Yank Sing in Chinatown—the James Beard Award–winning establishment considered one of the nation’s foremost (and highest-dollar) dim-sum restaurants. In 2013, some Yank Sing workers, who were protesting pervasive wage and hour violations, approached the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), one of the groups with which the city had contracted to monitor labor standards. Interviewing workers in their homes, CPA identified a number of worker-leaders who persuaded nearly 100 of the restaurant’s 280 employees (virtually all of them Chinese immigrants) to file legal claims for back pay and to pressure management to end other abusive labor practices. The workers established a committee to negotiate with the owners, and the following autumn, in a process overseen by Levitt’s office, won a settlement awarding them more than $4 million in back pay and providing them health insurance (as required by city law) and vacations. Though they were already functioning in the manner of a union, the workers chose not to form one.

In fact, while there are a number of worker centers that organize workers to help monitor ordinances, and even collect dues from some of their members, few if any have been able to take the crucial step of helping workers form unions. The problem is that once workers’ organizations elect representatives to bargain over pay and working conditions with private-sector employers, they fall under the not-very-protective jurisdiction of the NLRA—and thus become easy prey for employers seeking to retain nonunion status.

What’s the most, then, that worker organizations helping enforce labor standards can do? One labor leader, speaking on background, criticizes the San Francisco model of funding multiple worker centers for fragmenting the already attenuated power that such organizations wield. If the city funded just one omnibus group that also received dues payments from members, he argues, that group might amass enough resources to become a force in city politics—still not a union, but something more than a monitor, and a more forceful advocate for workers’ interests.

 

(AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

Five days of striking by truck drivers shut the massive ports in Long Beach, California, in 2014. A federal court later ruled that Green Fleet drivers weren’t independent contractors but actually employees.

*THE THIRD WAY THAT CITIES* and states can build worker power is to stop the illegal practice of worker misclassification. Over the past several decades, many U.S. companies have relieved themselves of the obligation to provide their workers with benefits or pay them an adequate wage, through the expedient of declaring their workers not to be their employees. One common practice is to contract with employment agencies that claim the workers are formally theirs, even though the workers may labor for years at the same company. (Such practices are the norm at the massive warehouses of retailers such as Walmart, and at the factories of Japanese auto manufacturers in Southern states.) Another dodge, prevalent in trucking, is to claim drivers are independent contractors even though they work for just one company, a notable example being the case of the port truckers who move containers from the nation’s harbors to retailers’ warehouses.

Byron Monzon, who has worked as a port trucker for the past 13 years, has actually had weeks where he drove full time and ended up owing the company. As Monzon explains, the company routinely deducts from his paycheck all the expenses for which he, as an “independent contractor,” is held responsible: gas, maintenance, tires, insurance. Despite this, the port truckers’ loads, routes, and hours are set by their trucking company, and they are expressly forbidden to use their truck for any other company, or purpose.

Since the 1980s, a range of unions have sought ways to have those mislabeled truckers (estimated at 50,000 nationally) legally redefined as employees. Nearly a decade ago, the Teamsters, LAANE, and a number of environmental and community groups initiated a joint campaign at the adjoining ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where 40 percent of the nation’s imports arrive, mainly from Asia. While the groups won stricter emissions standards for trucks, it wasn’t until two years ago that their efforts to reclassify and organize truckers began to show some movement.

What made the difference—just as with the carwasheros— was in large part a supportive state labor commissioner. For years, individual workers had gone to court alleging wage theft—fruitlessly, since their status as independent contractors meant they weren’t protected by wage and hour legislation. But with the election of Brown as governor and the appointment of Su as his labor commissioner, the state’s labor department began to rule that the truckers fit the legal description of employees. At that point, says Roxana Tynan, Janis’s successor as LAANE’s executive director, the Teamster-LAANE strategy shifted to “focusing on ever larger numbers of wage and hour violations, building up a big penalty for the trucking companies.”

The penalties indeed grew bigger. This year, a court upheld a state labor department ruling that seven drivers for Pacer Cartage were actually employees, and ordered that they receive $2 million in back pay and penalties. A 2014 report by LAANE and two other groups estimated that the total amount of back pay—excluding penalties— that California trucking companies owed the port drivers was roughly $850 million.

Emboldened by the settlements, more and more port drivers have filed misclassification actions with the state labor commission; to date, they’ve won every one. Since the cascade of rulings has not in itself been sufficient to build unions, however, the Teamsters have also called a series of one- and two-day strikes against targeted trucking companies—a considerable risk for the drivers, since there’s no law against firing an “independent contractor” for striking.

The strikes have proved a stunning success. By picketing the companies’ trucks at the port terminal gates where trucks line up, the striking drivers were able to stop the flow of trucks into the terminal yards—compelling the terminals to announce they’d no longer do business with those companies. And in a groundbreaking decision, a federal appellate court ordered one company, Green Fleet, to rehire two “independent contractors” it had discharged for striking, on the grounds that the drivers were really employees and thus protected by labor law.

Confronted with mounting financial penalties, unfavorable legal rulings, and business shutdowns, some companies have begun to acknowledge that they are actually employers. Last September, Shippers Transport Express, one of the largest companies that drivers had sued, told its drivers it would acknowledge their status as employees, and this February, it signed a contract that entitled them to a $21 hourly wage, paid sick days, and employer-provided medical, vision, and dental care. The Teamsters are currently in negotiations with other companies that would still have to make good on drivers’ back-pay claims, but could waive the additional penalties if the drivers agreed—provided the truckers were deemed employees and could vote on whether to join a union. A bill currently pending in the California legislature would exempt companies from such penalties if they made good on the worker’s claims and reclassified them as what they are—employees.

 

*ALL THREE OF THESE PATHS* to worker power require clear-eyed strategies, a core of crack organizers, and workers willing to take some considerable risks—the more so since all these endeavors involve workers who are largely immigrants, many undocumented. But they also require the political support of state or local governments. In that sense, they conform to what former organizer Rich Yeselson terms a strategy of “fortress unionism”—of continuing to keep unions strong in those locales where they already have some support, in the bluest cities and states.

But nothing about these endeavors resembles a “hold the fort” strategy. On the contrary, they rely on organizing the immigrant populations that have transformed American cities, in coalitions with other progressive groups, to elect local and state governments concerned with the plight of low-wage workers. They necessitate the painstaking worksite, home-visit, and community organizing always required to build unions, this time in industries where state or local government may have just enough authority to empower workers, the deficiencies of the NLRA notwithstanding.

Absent changes in the NLRA, absent a sea change in the nation’s balance of political power, these will remain niche campaigns—but niche campaigns may be the best labor can do just now. They offer a hopeful new model in a larger labor environment that often feels hopeless. “The movement is changing,” says California AFL-CIO lobbyist Vega. “Increasingly, we’re focused on the fight of low-wage workers for basic justice—super-exploited workers who in the face of every kind of abuse and intimidation are brave enough to fight back. For people in today’s union movement, that’s what inspires us.” Reported by The American Prospect 18 hours ago.

The solution for swift and comprehensive HIPAA compliance is contacting Flat Iron Technologies, LLC, one of North America’s leading providers of consulting services and HIPAA policies and procedures toolkits for local and state agencies and municipalities.

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) April 06, 2015

Numerous local and state agencies and municipalities throughout North America have to comply with HIPAA, the nation’s largest, most comprehensive, and well-known healthcare compliance legislation. Furthermore, such agencies face the exact same challenges and issues currently experienced by private sector healthcare entities, such as time constraints and budgetary issues. The solution for swift and comprehensive HIPAA compliance is finding a firm that specializes in governmental healthcare initiatives, somebody who can provide industry leading compliance services, along with professionally developed policy documentation. That firm is Flat Iron Technologies, LLC, one of North America’s leading providers of consulting services and HIPAA policies and procedures toolkits for local and state agencies and municipalities.

Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 requires extensive resources and the professional acumen from a proven consulting firm like Flat Iron Technologies, LLC. Visit hipaapoliciesandprocedures.com today to learn more about the very best HIPAA policies and procedures – and other supporting documentation – available for instant download today for local and state agencies and municipalities.

When it comes to offering proven, scalable, and high-quality HIPAA and healthcare solutions for today’s complex local and state agencies and municipalities, turn to the experts at Flat Iron Technologies, LLC. Remember that such agencies are not immune from HIPAA compliance, so the time is now for putting in place all mandated HIPAA policies and procedures, training material, risk assessments, and so much more. Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.

As the April 15 tax deadline nears, people who got help paying for health insurance under President Barack Obama's law are... Reported by Deseret News 17 hours ago.

Leadership Team Expansion Reflects Agency’s Growing Health Care Practice

Austin, Texas (PRWEB) April 06, 2015

Crosswind Media & Public Relations, one of the leading communications firms in the Southwestern U.S., has announced the promotion of Angela Shubert to vice president of health care services. Ms. Shubert will lead and develop all communications and media strategies for Crosswind’s health care clients, and drive strategic growth initiatives for the agency.

“Angela’s dynamic background and expertise in health care policy and her experience working with key stakeholders, including the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, health care providers, consumer advocacy organizations, the health insurance industry and business associations, has helped strengthen Crosswind’s presence in the health care sector,” said Thomas Graham, Crosswind president and CEO.

“She has the ability to identify critical issues in all aspects of the health care industry, from the latest advancements in biotechnology, to global health challenges, to public health and prevention strategies and best practices for patient engagement, while mining the business end of our health care clients,” Graham said.

Ms. Shubert began her career in Washington, D.C. on the cusp of health reform, where she lobbied on a range of consumer health care issues for a nationally respected nonprofit organization. She went on to lead the government affairs portfolio for a national association representing more than 15,000 specialty practice nurses, enhancing the organization’s visibility and strengthening their influence with federal policymakers. Ms. Shubert worked closely with bipartisan Members of Congress to write and introduce a bill aimed to increase health care access in schools for our nation’s children. She also advocated on behalf of several key provisions in the Affordable Care Act. Prior to joining Crosswind, Ms. Shubert provided strategic counsel to a Texas-based business association to help its business members navigate the changes in the new healthcare law.

“Our health care clients are in a better position today to tell the stories that matter, and we’re a stronger agency in the healthcare industry because of Angela’s leadership both nationally, and in Texas,” Graham said.

Ms. Shubert received her Bachelor of Arts with double majors in journalism and government/international affairs from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

About Crosswind
Crosswind Media & Public Relations is one of the leading firms in the Southwestern U.S., and ranks among the top 50 firms nationally. Headquartered in Austin, TX, the agency has offices in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Boston and New York. While Crosswind’s roots are in Texas, it has a global reach, serving corporate, public agencies and national governments across 5 continents. Crosswind provides expert counsel in public engagement; crisis and reputation management; executive positioning and media training; digital, print and broadcast media relations; text, video, photography, audio and event production; website creation, tracking and maintenance; and social media engagement. For more information, go to crosswindpr.com, or email info(at)crosswindpr(dot)com. Reported by PRWeb 17 hours ago.

OAKLAND, Calif., April 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Kaiser Permanente received the highest customer loyalty ranking in the health insurance category based on the Satmetrix® 2015 Net Promoter® industry rankings, the company announced today. Kaiser Permanente received a Net... Reported by PR Newswire 14 hours ago.

Sixteen months before the Republican convention, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is a slight favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination. Given that Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination, Bush vs. Clinton should be an interesting race. Although Jeb Bush is a typical right-wing Republican, he will attempt to soften his image and portray himself as a "compassionate" conservative, as did his brother in 2000.

The latest CBS News poll shows that 51 percent of Republican respondents "would consider voting for" Bush as the Republican nominee. (The next five were Mike Huckabee [42 percent], Rand Paul [39 percent], Marco Rubio [39 percent], Ted Cruz [37 percent], and Scott Walker [35 percent].)

Bush is the frontrunner among the business-conservative wing of the GOP, ahead of his principal competitors for this segment: Walker, Christie, and former Texas Governor Rick Perry. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is the favorite of the Christian-conservative wing of the GOP, ahead of his principal opponents: Senator Rubio, Senator Cruz, former Senator Rick Santorum, and surgeon Ben Carson. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is the favorite of the GOP's libertarian wing.

After their respective conventions conclude, both candidates will try to claim U.S. political middle ground. Clinton will attempt to establish that she is not as liberal as most Democrats. Bush will try to prove that he is not as conservative as mainstream Republicans.

Out here on the left coast, we understand that Hillary Clinton is not a liberal. She is a third-way Democrat, that's why most of us aren't very enthused about her.

Although he'll try, it's unlikely that Jeb Bush can differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton on foreign policy. Moreover, Americans are focused on domestic policy; the latest Gallup Poll indicated that Americans continue to be primarily concerned with jobs and the economy, as well as government and health care.

Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush differ on most domestic issues. On economic inequality, Bush talks about the skills gap and the education gap. Award-winning economist Thomas Piketty observed that if Republicans, such as Jeb Bush "are really serious about the skill gap and the education gap, then they cannot at the same time cut the tax on the rich."

When Bush was governor of Florida, he became an advocate of charter schools. Political writer Alec MacGillis observed that Jeb Bush's education reform program, "was of a piece with his larger agenda to privatize state-run services, from prisons to Medicaid." Bush pushed "school choice." As a result, "by 2002 for profit-companies were managing three-quarters of the state's newly approved charter schools," which were "free of public oversight and collective-bargaining agreements," and spent "about two thousand dollars less per student than traditional public schools."

On job creation, Clinton supports increasing the minimum wage and federal job creation plans. Jeb Bush called for the elimination of the Federal minimum wage, "We need to leave it to the private sector." Bush is not in favor of Federal job creation plans and opposed the 2009 stimulus package. A 2002 analysis of his term as governor found, [Bush] championed tax cuts that chiefly benefited business and the wealthy, trimmed the state's payroll, [and] stripped job protection from thousands of mid-level civil servants... while Florida led the nation in job creation, much of that was in low-paid service industry jobs that left many Floridians without health insurance and scrambling for affordable housing amid a real estate boom that helped fuel business-friendly tax breaks.
As one would expect, Clinton supports the Affordable Care Act. Bush referred to Obamacare as a monstrosity; he wants to repeal it, and have the government provide only catastrophic coverage.

Clinton believes global climate change is real and would reduce carbon emissions via government regulations. Bush responds, "I'm not a scientist."

On immigration, Jeb Bush has a more humane attitude towards undocumented immigrants than do most Republican candidates; Bush said, "Immigration is not a felony but an act of love." Clinton supports immigration reform and a "pathway to citizenship."

Jeb Bush is conservative on social issues. He was an early supporter of the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. "I think Gov. Pence has done the right thing." Real Clear Politics observed: "During his governorship, Bush asserted himself frequently on hot-button issues that highlighted his staunch social conservatism, particularly in opposing embryonic stem cell research and abortion rights... Bush began a nearly two-year fight to keep alive Terri Schiavo."

A recent New York Times article preicted that Jeb Bush plans to run on a "unifying" message. It's reminiscent of the claim of his brother, George W. Bush, that he would be "a uniter not a divider;" that he was "a compassionate conservative."

Nonetheless, on an issue-by-issue basis, Jeb Bush is a staunch conservative. He's not any more compassionate than Dubya was. Reported by Huffington Post 13 hours ago.

Hillary Clinton will launch her presidential campaign soon, leading some to speculate that she will run for president. Ernest Moniz says the Iran framework is a "forever agreement," which sounds like the U.S. gave Iran the other half of its heart charm bracelet. And President Obama couldn’t calm a group of kids about nearby bees, making it the second time in as many weeks the president has been unable to pacify a rowdy and disrespectful group of children about an overhyped existential threat. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, April 6th, 2015:

*CLINTON CAMPAIGN WILL START SMALL* - But will Hillary run? AP: "Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to launch her campaign for president sometime in the next two weeks and will initially focus on intimate events, rather than soaring speeches to big rallies, as her team looks to put her in direct contact with voters in states with early primaries or caucuses. The goal, according to two people close to the Clinton organization, is to make Clinton's second run for the White House more about voters and less about herself. While it appears at this moment that Clinton will not face a tough primary challenge in 2016, she is aiming to show voters she plans to earn their support and won't take the Democratic Party's nomination for granted. *The strategy is also aimed at playing to what Clinton allies see as her strengths. Friends and advisers have long said she is more at ease in small group settings and one-on-one conversations* where she can display her policy expertise, as well as personal warmth that she sometimes struggles to convey in front of larger crowds." [AP]

*Meanwhile, Joe Biden will address senior Gay Mafia capos*: "On April 30th, some of the biggest philanthropists involved in this fight will gather in Dallas for 'OutGiving,' an annual conference organized by Tim Gill, the founder of Quark and an important behind-the-scenes figure in the gay rights movement, who over the last decade has worked to organize the political strategy for a large group of wealthy gay donors... On May 2, Biden will be a keynote speaker (per the Vice President's office, reporters will have an opportunity to cover his remarks... *For Biden, it’s a chance to soak up some love as the Obama administration draws to a close and attention turns to Hillary Clinton. And if Clinton should get beamed up by an alien spacecraft or is otherwise incapacitated, Gill’s network will be a invaluable fundraising source*, should Biden make his own run for the White House." [Bloomberg]

*MONIZ DISCUSSES IRAN FRAMEWORK* - If Ernest Moniz looked just slightly more evil, he'd make a great Bond villain, what with the hair and his access to uranium. The Hill: "The nuclear deal negotiated with Iran is a “forever agreement” that will last well beyond the next decade, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Monday from the White House briefing room. Moniz, who played a key role in negotiating the nuclear pact in Switzerland, said the framework agreement provides for intrusive inspections that would ensure Iran is not racing to build a nuclear weapon. Many of those conditions would last for 25 years or more, he added, well beyond the 10-year limits on Iran’s ability to construct centrifuges. 'It’s not a fixed-year agreement; it’s a forever agreement,' Moniz told reporters at the White House. 'The access and transparency is unprecedented,' Moniz said." [The Hill]

That time President Obama tried, and failed, to calm children who were frightened by bees. He also tripped over a girl. Thanks, Obama.
Float like a butterfly, harmlessly invade your personal space like a bee.

*Haircut*: Elise Foley (h/t Elise Foley)

*DAILY DELANEY DOWNER* - Kansas welfare recipients will be unable to get more than $25 per day in ATM cash withdrawals under a new law sent last week to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's desk by the state legislature. The bill also prohibits welfare recipients from spending their benefits at certain types of businesses, *including liquor stores, fortune tellers, swimming pools and cruise ships*. "We're trying to make sure those benefits are used the way they were intended," state Rep. Michael O'Donnell (R) said, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. "This is about prosperity. This is about having a great life." [HuffPost]

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It's free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

*SUPREME COURT WON'T HEAR NORTH CAROLINA VOTING RIGHTS CASE* - Now all those thousands of elderly black women who are meeting in secret to strategize how best to vote 5,000 times each will have to figure out a new approach. Reuters: "*The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review the legality of new Republican-backed voting restrictions in North Carolina that were part of a law opponents argued was aimed at making it harder for voters who tend to favor Democrats to cast ballots.* The court rejected the state's appeal of an October decision by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that parts of the 2013 law should be provisionally blocked while litigation continues. The law put in place a requirement that voters show certain forms of photo identification in order to cast a ballot as well as other provisions. At issue in the current case are the sections of the law that barred same-day voter registration and provisional voting for voters casting ballots outside their normal precincts." [Reuters]

*ME LLAMO JEB* - A Jeb Bush/Elizabeth Warren ticket would not only unify the country, but break a lot of racial barriers. Times: "In a 2009 voter-registration application, obtained from the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, Mr. Bush marked Hispanic in the field labeled 'race/ethnicity.' A Bush spokeswoman could offer no explanation for the characterization. However, Mr. Bush took to Twitter late on Monday morning to call the situation a mistake. 'My mistake! Don’t think I’ve fooled anyone! RT @JebBushJr LOL - come on dad, think you checked the wrong box #HonoraryLatino' [Bush tweeted in response to his son]." [NYT]

Wait, Jeb Bush is white?

*CHRISTIE TO MAKE NEW HAMPSHIRE SWING* - Granite State representatives place a premium on retail politics, so Christis is going to have to go door-to-door, yelling at as many people as possible. Scott Conroy: "Christie is set to begin his longest campaign-style sojourn this year when he sets out April 14 on a four-day swing through the first primary state in the nation, The Huffington Post has learned. *The extended New Hampshire visit will feature private gatherings and public retail stops around the state, punctuated by a pair of town hall meetings that the New Jersey governor’s political action committee is billing as the kickoff to a 'Tell it like it is' town hall tour.* Christie’s schedule is still to be finalized, but the first town hall meeting will be held at the Lions Club in Londonderry on Wednesday, April 15. Additional events will take place in Manchester, the Seacoast Region town of Newmarket and elsewhere. Christie will hold a second town hall meeting on April 17. " [HuffPost]

*SENATE DEMS LOSING PATIENCE WITH SEC* - They should re-introduce Blanche Lincoln's Dodd-Frank derivatives amendment, just to freak everyone out. Zach Carter: "Senate Democrats are losing patience with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the agency's failure to implement a new CEO pay rule. Democrats have been pushing the SEC for nearly five years to move forward with the rule, which Congress required the agency to develop under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The rule would mandate that companies publicly disclose the ratio of their CEO's pay to the median earnings of workers at the firm. *More than three years after Dodd-Frank passed, the SEC finally proposed the rule in September 2013. But the agency has refused to finalize it for more than 18 months -- about nine times longer than the standard 60-day comment period*...Fifteen Senate Democrats, including Franken and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), signed a letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White in December, calling on the agency to finalize the rule by March 31, 2015." [HuffPost]

*HUGE BLIND SPOT IN KING V. BURWELL LAWSUIT* - Jeff Young's look at Alabama: "The Bentley administration, the Alabama legislature and the governor’s Alabama Health Insurance Exchange Study Commission weighed many of the same issues their counterparts in other states did. How would they finance the exchange's operations? Should a state agency or some other entity manage a new marketplace? How heavily should insurance companies be regulated? Would it better for Alabama to exert at least a little control over Obamacare, or to just let the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services do the work? One thing they didn’t seem to consider was whether Alabamians would be able to receive subsidies to make their health insurance more affordable if the state defaulted to a federally operated exchange, according to documents and interviews with principal figures in the debate. *The absence of consideration of that critical provision is remarkable in light of judicial and political developments over the past year*...The plaintiffs in King v. Burwell, and their allies, want the Supreme Court and the American public to believe not only that the precise wording of the Affordable Care Act -- the phrase 'established by the State' -- makes these subsidies permissible only in state-run exchanges, but that this was the clear intent of Congress and was fully understood by state officials when they were deciding which path to choose." [HuffPost]

*BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR* - Here's a baby elephant.
Things we saw over Easter weekend: A paid Albany Times Union obit for Jesus Christ.

*COMFORT FOOD*

- "Sesame Street," forever the greatest show on television, ran a "Game of Thrones" parody.

- A 1985 New York Times column that was not terribly kind to laptops

- "Disorderly Goat In Custody After Headbutting Door In New Jersey"

*TWITTERAMA*

@TPCarney: There are a lot more places in that ambiguous kind-of-a-country zone than I had realized.

@elisefoley: “Thank you, Mr. Chair” is what I say when I get up from my desk.

@SteveRushin: Baseball. One inning into the season and everyone looking at their phones.

*Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com) or Arthur Delaney (arthur@huffingtonpost.com). Follow us on Twitter @HuffPostHill (twitter.com/HuffPostHill). Sign up here: http://huff.to/an2k2e* Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.

Several students who withdrew from Yale University for mental health reasons told the school's paper recently they felt utterly abandoned by their own school, and this is just the latest criticism of the Ivy League school's withdrawal policy.

“I withdrew and they washed their hands of me,” Ray Mejico, a student who withdrew from Yale in February, told the Yale Daily News (YDN) last week.

Students who withdraw for mental health reasons must complete two courses while away from Yale and receive at least a "B" in the courses. They must also demonstrate that they are "constructively occupied" during their time off from Yale in order to re-enter the university.

"Constructively Occupied" was the name of last week's YDN article, and this requirement in particular angers some students. Critics say it's ambiguous and disregards what students say should be their main objective during their time off — focusing on their mental health.

The student outrage over Yale's withdrawal policies is not isolated to the recent YDN article. Students have spoken out about the policy in the past, including one who said the university forced her to withdraw with no guarantee of return. The Yale College Council, a student-led council that works on undergraduate policies, submitted recommendations for improvement of withdrawal policies last spring.

For its part, Yale says it has a robust mental health system that makes withdrawals infrequent. During a forum on mental health and counseling, the school's counseling director told students the majority of medical withdrawals are voluntary, according to the YDN.

Few, if any, students are forced to withdraw for medical reasons in a given year, Yale University spokesperson, Tom Conroy, told Bloomberg in February.

“That is, in part, a reflection of all the supports provided within the residential college system and by Yale’s health professionals, who provide counseling to all students free of charge,” Conroy said.

Several students who spoke to YDN described the withdrawal process as isolating. Immediately, they lose access to many benefits they had while on campus like access to buildings on campus, extracurricular activities, or even their Yale health coverage.

The loss of this last benefit was particularly distressing for Mejico, the student who withdrew from Yale in February. Mejico, who has struggled with depression since high school, received full financial aid from Yale while he was a student. But upon withdrawing, he told YDN, he also lost his health insurance.

He has to apply for Medicaid, which he said is unlikely to cover the therapy he needs before Yale will readmit him.Some students say the main problem with Yale's policy is rigidity.

While they can withdraw at any time, they have to request a so-called leave of absence by the 10th day of the term.

A leave of absence doesn't carry the same requirements that a withdrawal carries like having to take two courses at another college or show up for an on-campus interview to return to school.

Students on campus argue that Yale's 10-day window for leaves of absence should be expanded, pointing to Harvard's leave of absence policy as an example of a more reasonable strategy.

Harvard's policy, by contrast, provides students a longer window of time to decide if they need to take a leave of absence. Students have until the seventh Monday of the term to request a leave of absence. And even students who request after the seventh Monday can be granted a late term leave of absence.

However, English professor John Rogers, who was on a committee to review the withdrawal policies, told a forum of students that Yale's policy is similar to that of other Ivy League schools, YDN previously reported. Yale's policy seems different because it uses the word "withdrawal" to distinguish leaves of absence from temporary departures that occur longer into the semester, according to Rogers.

Perhaps a smaller change might be a potential first step towards improving Yale's withdrawal and readmission process. A lack of communication was the refrain that loomed over students' complaints in the YDN article. Students said they aren't told when decisions will be made about their readmission status in a process already fraught with anxiety.

“I’m kind of mad at Yale all the time. I want to respect their decisions, but I have not seen any reason to, because they haven’t explained any of the reasons behind any of their decisions,” Eugenia Zhukovsky, who withdrew from Yale last semester, told the YDN.* *

In the meantime, Yale is continuing to work with groups on campus to better understand criticisms and potentially improve upon the withdrawal policy.

"We understand the concern from students, which is why the Dean has convened a committee to review the issue. This committee will seriously consider input by the Yale College Council," a spokesperson from Yale told Business Insider.

Disclosure: The author of this article is a Yale University graduate.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This is what happens to your brain and body when you check your phone before bed Reported by Business Insider 11 hours ago.

By: Cari Nierenberg, Contributing writer
Published: 04/06/2015 08:03 AM EDT on LiveScience
Buying breast milk online in order to nourish a baby with important nutrients that are not available from formula may not always be the safest choice, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that one in 10 samples of breast milk that they bought over the Internet and tested contained genetic material from cow's milk. They said it was likely that the cow's milk was intentionally added to human milk, to stretch its volume.

"Purchasing breast milk online is not a good idea and introduces too many risks for infants," said lead author Sarah Keim, a principal investigator at the Center for Biobehavioral Health at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Cincinnati.

Giving babies breast milk that contains even small quantities of cow's milk could be harmful because some infants may have problems tolerating cow's milk, or they might have an allergy to cow's milk protein.

Cow's milk itself is not a risky substance, but pediatricians strongly advise against giving it to infants under 12 months of age, Keim told Live Science. [Video: 5 Breastfeeding Myths Debunked]

In the study, published online today (April 6) in the journal Pediatrics, the researchers obtained 102 samples of breast milk purchased from "milk-sharing" sites for anywhere from 50 cents to $3 per ounce, Keim said.

The analysis found that 10 percent of the breast-milk samples tested contained bovine DNA, meaning it was not 100 percent human milk but rather was tainted with cow's milk products.

The researchers noted that their analysis was not able to determine whether the adulterated breast milk contained cow's milk itself or another product, such as cow's-milk-based infant formula.

The researchers estimated that 10 of 11 adulterated breast-milk samples contained at least 10 percent cow's milk.

*Shopping for breast milk*

Keim said that cow's milk was found in more breast-milk samples than she had expected. But she also said that nothing surprises her anymore when it comes to the quality of breast milk sold online.

She and her research team have done several other studies of breast milk purchased on the Internet, and those analyses have found high bacterial counts in samples bought online that may be a result of poor collection, storage or shipping practices.

When breast milk is exchanged for money, the seller may have different motivations than a woman who may donate her extra milk to a breast-milk bank or share it with a friend or family member without receiving payment, Keim said.

Women may turn to the Internet to buy breast milk from strangers if they can't produce enough milk to meet their infants' needs or if they have adopted a baby. Milk-sharing websites contain thousands of listings fromwomen who want to buy, sell or donate their breast milk, and these classified ads may even include personal information promoting the sellers' diet and lifestyle habits (i.e., vegetarian, nonsmoker, eats organic, no alcohol).

Although these websites post suggested guidelines for women about safely collecting, storing and shipping breast milk, they don't test the breast milk itself or screen the participants. Unlike breast milk sold online, human breast milk banks, which supply breast milk for sick babies, have stringent criteria for donors and even pasteurize human milk.

Keim said that the current generation of new mothers seems more interested in nursing their babies than previous generations, but she added that mothers who are having difficulty breast-feeding or who are not making enough milk may not always get timely lactation support.

*Changing attitudes*

Renee Sullivan — founder and director of The Moms Groups, which are support groups for new and expectant moms in the New York metropolitan area — said that, although buying breast milk online was once a popular conversation in her groups between 2008 and 2012, there has been dead silence on the topic in the past few years. She considers buying breast milk online a risky proposition.

Sullivan, a parent and lifestyle coach who was not involved in the research, said she's seeing a new motherhood landscape these days that may lessen women's desire to purchase breast milk via the Internet.

She pointed out several major trends that may be reducing some mothers' motivation to breast-feed and also dramatically changing their attitudes toward buying breast milk online.

One of these trends is that breast pumps are now typically covered by health insurance plans, making them more widely available to nursing mothers who need them. Sullivan has also noticed that a fear of germs is frequently coming up in conversations in her groups, so she suspects this fear would make mothers hesitant about purchasing breast milk from someone they didn't know.

Although Sullivan breast-fed her own son, she told Live Science that some new mothers in 2015 are feeling less pressure to breast-feed than in years past.

It's human nature for a mother to want to give her absolute best to a child, some women are deciding it's OK to exclusively nurse for a shorter period of time and give their infants formula because they need to return to work, Sullivan said.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

· 7 Baby Myths Debunked
· Does Breastfeeding Make Breasts Sag?
· 11 Facts Every Parent Should Know About Their Baby's Brain
· 5 Breast Feeding Myths Debunked | Video

Copyright 2015 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the availability of its newest cloud offering, Adobe Document Cloud, a modern way to manage documents at home, in the office and across devices. Document Cloud addresses the waste and inefficiency associated with document processes. Whether it’s school permission slips, health insurance forms or complex enterprise document workflows, Adobe is transforming how people and businesses get work done. At the heart of Document Clou Reported by Business Wire 6 hours ago.

Newspapers are experiencing sharp declines, but Forrest Broman, CEO of The International Educator, a newspaper covering international school news and developments in international education, reports solid growth and a banner April issue.

Hynannis, MA (PRWEB) April 07, 2015

In a time when magazines and newspapers are struggling to maintain their advertisers and their audience, one publication is bucking that trend. The International Educator, a quarterly newspaper covering news, events and developments in the field of international education, has been experiencing solid growth in both areas, and according to TIE CEO, Forrest Broman, the April issue is the publication's largest issue yet.

Perhaps there is no more obvious barometer of a publications' health then the number of advertisers that grace its pages. This directly translates into the thickness of a publication, and judging by the most recent April issue of The International Educator, or TIE, as it is known, the paper has never been healthier or heavier.

The April 2015 issue has 364 international school advertisers, up 7% versus last April's issue, which represents an all time high in the publication's 29-year history. Subscriber growth has been equally robust with a 7% increase for the first quarter of 2015.

"We have had so many new school advertisers come onboard for the April issue that we had to turn some away," said Julie Thrasher, Director of School Advertising for TIE. "We are at the point where we have to rethink the overall size of this publication because at 100 pages we want to balance the ratio of edit to advertising, and growing too big comes with its own challenges," explains Thrasher. This is an enviable position to be in considering other print publications in recent years have become so thin that they are mere shadows of their former tomes.

Much of the growth in school advertising mirrors the growth of the international school market, overall. According to ISC Research, a U.K.-based organization that tracks the international schools market, 65 English-medium international schools opened up in March alone and 749 new schools opened their doors in the past year. "Our goal is to get the word out to as many teachers as possible about the thousands of international schools located around the world. The opportunities for professional and personal growth are tremendous," says Forrest Broman, President and founder of TIE.

The international school market serves over 4 million K-12 students from virtually every country in the world. TIE seeks to match teachers with these international schools where they are needed to teach every subject and grade level in English at private schools around the world. "The opportunities are virtually endless,” says Broman. “Many teachers are able to save money because these positions often include free housing, tax-free salaries, free round-trip air transportation to and from the host country, health insurance and other benefits that make these packages very attractive for any teacher who has a love of travel and adventure,” explains Broman.

The International Educator (TIE), based in Hyannis, MA, is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing links among teachers and international schools worldwide. In publication for over 25 years, TIE is a quarterly newspaper featuring the latest in international school news and developments for K-12 educators around the world. Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Accenture research estimates 6 million people enrolled in private health insurance exchanges for their 2015 employer benefits. Reported by Business Wire 1 day ago.

Reported by MarketWatch 1 day ago.

Leonidas is the 2015 Military Pet of the Year and Dogs on Deployment Mascot

Boise, Idaho (PRWEB) April 07, 2015

Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC, a leading U.S. pet health insurance agency, and the nonprofit Dogs on Deployment announced together today that the 2015 Military Pet of the Year and Dogs on Deployment Mascot, Leonidas, is now protected with pet insurance from Pets Best. Dogs on Deployment is a nationwide nonprofit that connects military service members with volunteers to board their pets for free when they are deployed.

Leonidas is a 3-year-old Afghan Kuchi mixed breed, born in the mountains of Afghanistan. As a puppy, Leonidas wandered into a United States Army compound and won the heart of U.S. Army soldier, Tim Johannsen.

“The bond created with a dog during war is indescribable,” Johannsen said. “He is my best friend and honestly the way he has changed my life is impossible to put into words.”

A leading sponsor of Dogs on Deployment for two years, Pets Best hopes to bring awareness to the nonprofit’s efforts. In its third year, the nationwide Military Pet of the Year and Dogs on Deployment Mascot Competition resulted in hundreds of contestants, votes and admirable dogs receiving recognition.

Pets Best supports the mission of Dogs on Deployment: to give military members peace of mind concerning their pets during deployment or other service commitments.

The Military Pet of the Year and Dogs on Deployment Mascot receives a free one-year Pets Best pet insurance policy, among many other prizes and benefits. Past winners have received national attention to bring awareness to causes in the military and pet communities. Johannsen and Leonidas plan to use the canine’s new title to raise awareness about rescuing dogs, or “battle buddies,” from overseas, seeking to educate military service members about responsible pet ownership while supporting the Dogs on Deployment mission as a whole.

The Puppy Rescue Mission is the group that assisted in bringing Leonidas and his sister Mittens to the U.S. to be reunited with Johannsen. Stray dogs and working contract dogs are commonly found in U.S. military compounds overseas and can help service members feel a little more at home.    

“If something were to happen to Leonidas in the next year, it is a feeling of relief to know that we will have financial help,” Johannsen said of Leonidas being protected by Pets Best.

Pets Best also protected Midas, the 2014 Military Pet of the Year and Dogs on Deployment Mascot.

“Pets Best recognizes the importance of keeping service members’ beloved pets safe while their owners are away protecting our nation,” said Chris L. Middleton, president of Pets Best. “We remain committed to supporting Dogs on Deployment in its efforts to care for the pets of the brave men and women who serve in the armed forces.”

About Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC
Dr. Jack L. Stephens, founder and director of Pets Best, founded pet insurance in the U.S. in 1981 with a mission to end euthanasia when pet owners couldn’t afford veterinary treatment. Dr. Stephens went on to present the first U.S. pet insurance policy to famous television dog Lassie. Pets Best provides coverage for dogs and cats. Dr. Stephens leads the Pets Best team with his passion for quality pet care and his expert veterinary knowledge. He is always available to answer questions regarding veterinary medicine, pet health and pet insurance. The Pets Best team is a group of pet lovers who strive to deliver quality customer service and value. Visit http://www.petsbest.com for more information.

Pet insurance coverage offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC is underwritten by Independence American Insurance Company, a Delaware insurance company. Independence American Insurance Company is a member of The IHC Group, an organization of insurance carriers and marketing and administrative affiliates that has been providing life, health, disability, medical stop-loss and specialty insurance solutions to groups and individuals for over 30 years. For information on The IHC Group, visit: http://www.ihcgroup.com. Additional insurance services administered by Pets Best Insurance Services, LLC are underwritten by Prime Insurance Company. Each insurer has sole financial responsibility for its own products.

Pets Best is a proud member of the North American Pet Health Insurance Association (NAPHIA).

About Dogs on Deployment
Military members nationwide confront a multitude of problems during their careers, and the last thing they need to worry about is their pet's care during their service commitments. Dogs On Deployment is a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit that provides an online network for service members to search for volunteers who are willing to board their pets during their owner's service commitments. Dogs on Deployment promotes responsible, life-long pet ownership for military pet owners by advocating for military pet owner rights, providing educational resources and granting financial assistance for military pet owners during times of emergency. Founded by military members, for military members, Dogs on Deployment aims to provide peace of mind for service members regarding their pet's care.

### Reported by PRWeb 22 hours ago.

This piece first appeared on Momastery. I've been asked these questions so frequently that I compiled a few answers here. Love.

*Q: You've been vocal in your support of marriage equality even though you are a Christian. Can you talk about that?*

Yes. I will, but I do so under protest. It makes me squirm that we are still talking about this, that a straight woman is being asked to discuss whether or not her gay sisters and brothers should or should not be granted their basic civil rights. As if we Christians are the morality police, the gatekeepers for God, the legislative branch of the government, the bosses of the world. My gay friends know they're fine and good and worthy of their rights even without knowing what I think. Even so - I will share my thoughts here with great anticipation for the Supreme Court's ruling this summer - after which I hope we'll need to discuss this less often.

One of the brilliant ideas that launched this country is that religions shouldn't legislate their interpretations of holy texts to citizens. It doesn't make sense to me to ignore this very American idea and call ourselves patriotic about it. But if we must, then I wish we Christians could come up with an actual tenant of Christianity to legislate, one that would serve the world - like gleaning or caring for widows and orphans or embracing the alien or turning the other cheek or turning all our weapons into plowshares or giving away our first fruits. I think it says a lot that we choose the rights of homosexuals to obsess over. It feels too easy. I'm not big on faith rules but if I had to choose one - it would be that every person must choose a faith issue upon which to hang her hat that requires HER to change - not somebody else.

It makes no sense to me that my gay friends cannot get married to each other because a certain slice of Christianity doesn't believe in gay marriage. And let's be clear, deciding that certain folks can get married and others cannot is not just a symbolic gesture. My married friends and I enjoy a host of government privileges and protections by virtue of being part of a government-approved marital unit. So when we do not support marriage equality, we support the government denying from gay families the rights we claim for ourselves, including rights to hospital visitation and emergency medical decisions; public housing access; certain inheritance rights and tax benefits; the right to residency and family unification under immigration law; and certain social security, retirement and health insurance benefits.

So, the first reason I support marriage equality is that I believe in the separation of church and state. I think if people don't believe in gay marriage, then mostly they should not get gay married. That should be enough of a stand to take. We should live out our particular brand of faith, sure - but we should never force our brand of faith upon anyone else. All violence starts with the desire to change others and then never, ever ends.

Having said that, I'll admit that I came to my stand on this "issue" through my faith, not in spite of it. I support equal rights for my gay neighbors not even though I'm a Christian, but BECAUSE I'm a Christian. In the Gospel Jesus makes it crystal clear that if we are going to take seriously only one of his suggestions- we should make it this one: love your neighbor as yourself.

I think there is a big difference between simply loving someone and loving someone as yourself.

For example: when a married Christian says that he loves gay people but can't support marriage equality, it strikes me as an incomplete kind of love. Because loving your neighbor as you love yourself, I think, must mean that you bestow every right you claim for yourself onto your neighbor. If you are free and you love your neighbor as yourself, you want your neighbor to be free, too. If you claim your right to be married, but deny it to your neighbor, then you are loving your neighbor just a little bit less than you love yourself.

This kind of talk upsets people, which makes me sad because I really, really don't like to upset people. Upsetting people feels wrong to me. But it feels more wrong to be quiet about freedom matters for fear of upsetting people. I have so many Christian friends who privately disagree with what is being preached from their pulpits about marriage equality, but they stay quiet so they don't rock the boat. What's ever going to change if we don't raise our hands kindly? If our kids see us sitting silently, they'll never know they have the freedom to ask questions. I get it, though. It's dangerous to disagree with "the church." You can get yourself crucified. People never get more riled up then when someone starts talking about God and freedom in the same sentence. It's like we Christians love the idea of grace, but we don't want it distributed indiscriminately- we want make rules about it and dole it out carefully and strategically. It's like we're worried that if everybody knows that she's loved and accepted by God - it will be Grace Anarchy! I want that. I want Grace Anarchy. I want people to be free to be who they are. It makes sense to me that the free-er people are, the BETTER people are. I believe in people because I believe in God. I think God knew what God was doing when God made each of us.

*Q: And so I suppose you agree that homosexuality is not a choice, then- but an inborn trait?
*
Yes, of course. Although I have a hunch that our sexual orientation is much more of a sliding scale with lots of grey than most of us are comfortable admitting. I think if we all got a little more cozy with our own grey areas we'd probably be more accepting of the gray in others. So, yes- I believe that gayness or straightness is inborn- but honestly I never understand why that is what we focus on. It makes me uncomfortable when people say: You're okay because you were born that way. That feels negative to me. Like, it's okay that you are this weird thing because God made you weird. I don't love that approach. For me, I don't care if you're a woman who wants to marry a woman because you were "born that way" or because you met this one person and everything you previously thought about your sexuality changed in an instant. I don't care. You are my neighbor and I trust you to choose your life and your love. I'm married and it's one of the best things to ever happen to me and if you want this wonderful thing too, then I want it for you.

*Q: How do you respond when people accuse you of picking and choosing what you believe in the Bible?*

Well, that theory suggests that there are two kind of Christians: Those who pick and choose what they follow in the Bible, and those who follow it all. I just tend to think that the two kinds of Christians are: those who admit that they pick and choose what to follow, and those who don't admit that. For example: most folks reference 1 Corinthians to prove that homosexuality is a sin, while ignoring the fact that the same book of the Bible says that women should wear head coverings and be silent in church. The strange thing is that when I bring that up, people say: well, that was written in a different time. You have to understand the context. It is so strange. Context is allowed to be considered when discussing women (progress! great!) but not when it comes to homosexuality. It doesn't seem right to pick and choose which scriptures we are permitted to consider the context of and which we are not. As a woman, it is important for me to say: Let's please not take hold of our freedom, but leave our gay brothers and sisters in prison. This is like the Bible underground railroad; as the church moves forward and frees oppressed groups one at a time, let each newly freed group go back for those still imprisoned. What good is our freedom if we don't spend it on those not yet free? Tweet: What good is our freedom if we don't spend it on those not yet free? @momastery http://ctt.ec/6jde1+

*Q: How do you interpret the scriptures about homosexuality? *

When these scriptures were written, there was no precedent for monogamous, consensual homosexual relationships. Many theologians agree that the original Hebrew word used here (the one that has been translated again and again by imperfect people) originally referred to the common ancient practice of taking child sex slaves. Many theologians agree that the original scripture writers were referring to child sex slavery as abomination. The abomination here is about abuse of power. It's about the abomination of people in in power abusing the vulnerable. (Read more about this here.) If you want to fight against the abomination referred to in these scriptures, don't picket a wedding of two grown people who love each other and want to start a family, join the work of courageous organizations who are fighting the very real abomination of the child sex trade across the world today.

I think that if someone translates scripture to me in a way that seems to rub up against what I know about the God of love, it's my responsibility to start asking questions. We must work out our own faith with fear and trembling. We need to take scripture seriously enough to look hard and research and ask questions. Every time someone tells me that homosexuals need to repent and leave their life of sin I want to say: but repent means to RETHINK .Why do you read God's direction to repent and assume God is talking to someone else? What if God is talking to you? What if you are to rethink your ideas of who is in and who is out? I know when I read the direction to repent, I know it's meant for me. I feel constantly, just constantly, called to rethink. If we live in a constant state of repentance, that means we are always letting go of old ways of thinking to make way for the new. Behold, God says. I am doing a new thing! Repentance is the way of God, which means that if I want to follow God, I can't cling too tightly to my ideas about God. Ideas and beliefs about God are not God. Opinions and beliefs can become the idols that are hardest to let go. And so faith has to be more of a dance than a checklist.

I've had a lot of repentance to do lately. I used to be really angry at Christians who think differently than I do. God is working with me. I am softening. I have many conservative Christian friends who look at all of this differently and I have come to understand that they are good people. They are not hateful, they are just like me: doing the best they can with what they've been taught. It's good to be kind and humble about what we think we know. It's good to choose mercy over judgement in all cases. I'm working on it. My son said to me recently: "Mom, you're judgmental too, you just tend to judge judgy people." Dangit, I thought. Repent, repent. repent, Glennon. Walk humbly.

*Q: How do you talk to your kids about homosexuality?*

Early and often and badly.

Recently my 11-year old and I were talking about this and my five year old walked in and overheard us. She said: "what's gay?" And Chase said: "Well, it's like when a girl loves girls more than she loves boys." And Amma said," Oh, I'm definitely gay then." And I thought. Wait, Crap, Well - based on that definition, I might be gay, too. We need to tweak that, maybe.

So we don't talk about it perfectly. It's awkward and I'm always certain I'm saying all the wrong things. There's no script. After one family discussion about sexuality- I called a gay friend and said: "UGH. How do I talk about this? What do I say? I feel so awkward." And she said, "Well don't go blaming that on us. You're awkward about a lot of things." YES. That's true, I thought.

But we do talk about sexuality openly and often and we keep two things in mind:

First, we don't ever assume to know our kids' orientation. Recently, we were playing the Life board game and when each child landed on the "Get Married" space I was careful to say: "Congratulations! Should I give you a wife peg or a husband peg?" No assumptions until and unless they talk to us about it.

Secondly, our kids know that homosexuality (or heterosexuality for that matter) is not something to tolerate, but to celebrate. We tolerate traffic jams, we celebrate love and sexuality. They need to know that NOW. I often see loving, wonderful, courageous parents changing their "views" on homosexuality after their child comes out to them. That is some brave progress, and I applaud it, but it's not ideal. Many of my gay friends tell me they knew they were gay as children, long before they told their parents. How much better for a little one to know he's ALWAYS been accepted for whoever he turns out to be?

Most importantly, our minister, Dawson (that's him in the picture up top, officiating a wedding!) is our good friend and he's gay- so my kids aren't growing up with the idea that homosexuality and church are at odds at all. They just see their gay friend wrapped up in a vestment Sunday morning, being his brilliant, divine, human, hilarious self. They just watch Dawson preaching truth and love and freedom and then they feel him placing his hand on their little foreheads and blessing them: in the name of the Father/Mother, Son and Holy Spirit. They feel God through Dawson. So that's how we "talk" about it. We just love Pastor Dawson and he loves us. And as my kid see our church family not just "accept" pastor Dawson but be led by him -- they learn that church is a place for humans to be human, and then love each other in superhuman ways.

We just want to dance in the streets with God and Pastor Dawson.

It will be Grace Anarchy and we will all be free and it will be on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Love,
G Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.

As workers are increasingly asked to pay more from their own pockets for employer-sponsored health plans, there's a big shift happening in how businesses are planning to offer health insurance.About 6 million Americans with workplace coverage in 2014 received their health insurance through privately run health insurance exchanges, where employees can select coverage from a number of health plans — double the number from the year before, according to a new report from Accenture. Reported by Washington Post 18 hours ago.

Bernstein Liebhard LLP comments on media reports indicating that the list of insurance companies banning or limiting coverage for uterine morcellation has grown steadily since the FDA cautioned against the use of power morcellators in the vast majority of women undergoing hysterectomy or fibroid removal surgery.

New York, New York (PRWEB) April 07, 2015

More health insurers are considering bans or limits on coverage for uterine morcellation, in the wake of warnings from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the potential for power morcellators (http://www.morcellatorlawsuit2015.com) to spread and upstage undetected uterine cancers. According to one recent report, Aetna, Health Care Service Corp, Cigna and America's Health Insurance Plans are among the insurance companies now preparing new restrictions.*

“We’ve already seen numerous insurers change the way they cover uterine morcellation since the FDA first warned in April 2014 about the potential for power morcellators to spread gynecological cancers, and it appears that the trend has continued since the agency strengthened its warning last November. ** Considering the potential for serious harm, it is good news that insurance companies are taking steps to mitigate the risks associated with these types of procedures,” says Sandy A. Liebhard, a partner at Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationwide law firm representing victims of defective drugs and medical devices. The Firm is providing free legal consultations to women who were diagnosed with advanced uterine cancer following surgery with a power morcellator.

Power Morcellators and Cancer
Power morcellators are used in minimally-invasive hysterectomies and fibroid removal procedures to shred tissue so that it may be removed through a small abdominal incision. On April 17, 2014, the FDA issued a public alert which discouraged doctors from using the devices in gynecological procedures, due to their potential to spread undetected uterine cancers.** This past November, the agency went further and warned against the use of power morcellators in the majority of women who require hysterectomy and fibroid removals. The agency also asked morcellator manufacturers to add a new black box warning – the strongest possible safety notice – regarding this life-threatening complication to their labels.

In September 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based Capital BlueCross announced it would discontinue coverage for uterine morcellation effective November 1st.*** The prior month, Highmark, Inc., one of the nation’s largest Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance companies, disclosed that it would also end coverage effective September 1st. **** In Massachusetts, Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Harvard Pilgrim and Fallon Health have also subjected morcellation to coverage restrictions.***** Most recently, UnitedHealthCare announced that it would require preauthorization all hysterectomies, except those which don’t require the use of a morcellator.******

Alleged victims of uterine cancers that were spread via a power morcellator may be entitled to compensation for their injury-related damages. To learn more, please visit Bernstein Liebhard LLPs website, or call the Firm directly for a free, no-obligation case review at 800-511-5092.

*fiercehealthpayer.com/story/more-insurers-restrict-morcellator-use-hysterectomies/2015-04-06, FierceHealthPayer.com, per The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2015
**fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm424435.htm, FDA, November 24, 2014
***capbluecross.com/wps/wcm/connect/cbc-public/cbc/aboutus/press+room/news+releases/2014+news+releases/morcellatorcoveragediscontinued, Capital BlueCross, August 2014
****in.reuters.com/article/2014/08/02/highmark-procedure-idINL2N0Q80IY20140802, Reuters, August 3, 2014
*****telegram.com/article/20140809/NEWS/308099942/0, Worcester Telegram, August 9, 2014
******wsj.com/articles/biggest-u-s-health-insurer-tightens-rules-on-hysterectomy-coverage-1424990877, February 26, 2015

About Bernstein Liebhard LLP
Bernstein Liebhard LLP is a New York-based law firm exclusively representing injured persons in complex individual and class action lawsuits nationwide since 1993. As a national law firm, Bernstein Liebhard LLP possesses all of the legal and financial resources required to successfully challenge billion dollar pharmaceutical and medical device companies. As a result, our attorneys and legal staff have been able to recover more than $3 billion on behalf of our clients. The National Law Journal has recognized Bernstein Liebhard for twelve consecutive years as one of the top plaintiffs' firms in the country. Bernstein Liebhard LLP is the only firm in the country to be named to this prestigious list every year since it was first published in 2003.

Bernstein Liebhard LLP
10 East 40th Street
New York, New York 10016
800-511-5092

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING. © 2015 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, 800-511-5092. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

Contact Information:
Sandy A. Liebhard, Esq.
Bernstein Liebhard LLP
info(at)consumerinjurylawyers(dot)com
http://www.morcellatorlawsuit2015.com
https://plus.google.com/115936073311125306742?rel=author Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.

Members Enjoy Special Rates on ADP Services

ALEXANDRIA, VA (PRWEB) April 07, 2015

The Association of Pool & Spa Professionals (APSP) announces a new partnership with ADP, a national provider of payroll and employee management solutions, to offer its members discounted rates on health insurance, workers’ compensation insurance and payroll services.

“In my conversations with members, I hear repeatedly that health insurance and workers’ compensation are huge concerns to small businesses,” said APSP President and CEO Rich Gottwald. “We’re partnering with ADP to provide our members extensive discounts so they can spend more time running their business and less time on administrative tasks.”

ADP offers exclusive discounts to APSP members for services such as health insurance; payroll and tax filing; human resources; workers’ compensation; ADP Payment Solutions; Time and Attendance Solutions; Retirement Services; and Employer Tax Credit assistance.

“We are pleased to partner with APSP as we think ADP can provide significant value to APSP members, including both dealers and manufacturers,” said ADP Franchise & Affiliations Director Kevin Urch.

ADP is offering a series of free webinars to interested APSP members to learn how they can take advantage of the payroll and employee management solutions. “I think APSP members will be pleased with the ease of implementation and use, as programs can be tailored to meet their unique needs, and the high level of customer service that will be available on an on-going basis,” Urch noted.

To learn more about the entire suite of discounted ADP services for APSP members, contact Kevin Urch at 866-576-1095 or visit APSP.org/ADP.

•••

About APSP

The Association of Pool & Spa Professionals (APSP) is the world’s oldest and largest association representing swimming pool, hot tub, and spa manufacturers, distributors, manufacturers’ agents, designers, builders, installers, suppliers, retailers, and service professionals. Dedicated to the growth and development of its members’ businesses and to promoting the enjoyment and safety of pools and spas, APSP offers a range of services, from professional development to advancing key legislation and regulation at the federal and local levels, to consumer outreach and public safety. APSP is the only industry organization recognized by the American National Standards Institute to develop and promote national standards for pools, hot tubs, and spas. For more information, visit APSP.org.

Connect with APSP on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and AQtheMagazine.com Reported by PRWeb 17 hours ago.

OMAHA, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Benaissance®, is teaming up with GoHealth to provide greater health insurance options and education for employees who have experienced a job loss or other qualifying event. Reported by Business Wire 16 hours ago.