July 15, 2022

Blast from the past — A suddenly visible group called Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights is drawing second thoughts from other groups that are fighting the effects of the overturning of Roe v. Wade a century — oops, just a few weeks ago. The better-known pro-choice groups “say it’s a front for the Revolutionary Communist Party, a fringe far-left group dating back to the 1960s with a reputation for latching onto social movements for its own benefit,” reads an article in the Daily Beast. Chairman Bob, like Keith Richards, ageless …

AIPAC in our backyard — The American Prospect tracks the huge leap in influence and spending by AIPAC in both a Michigan race and right here in our backyard, PG County’s super-blue 4th CD (Maryland) contest between Donna Edwards and Glenn Ivey for the Dem nomination, which essentially guarantees victory in the general election. In both cases, AIPAC is covertly defending Israeli apartheid policies by bringing bogus, unrelated charges with super-high ad spending against progressives who oppose those apartheid policies. 

NYC DSA is engaging in organized “co-governance” with its six elected members in the state legislature: “Following its victories in the 2020 elections, NYC-DSA created a dedicated group known as the Socialists in Office committee (SIO) to coordinate with its elected officials.” Here’s how one of those recent New York legislative victories was won. The co-governance concept, around for a few years, is gaining traction: “Across the country, movements are increasingly demanding that elected officials adopt the concept of co-governance,” we read in this recent account.

Why isn’t the growth in new jobs reducing inflation and staving off recession? One answer from columnist Peter Coy in the NYT: “Labor productivity as officially measured did take an enormous leap at the start of the Covid pandemic. … It’s clear now, though, that most of the increase was from a change in the mix of workers. Huge layoffs in leisure, hospitality and other low-wage sectors early in the pandemic skewed the labor force toward workers who earn higher wages and tend to have higher labor productivity (at least as conventionally measured). The temporary skew in the average skill level of jobs accounted for 71 percent of labor productivity growth in the second quarter of 2020, according to BLS research. Now that all those low-wage workers are coming back, it makes sense that productivity growth would slow down or turn negative.”

Now that major corporations (many with overseas ties) have tentatively become greenwashy ESG fans, the GOP has reacted with outrage against their former steadfast allies in the capitalist ruling class, the WaPo reports.

Maryland: Progressive news you can use — State government “hollowed out” in Hogan era, study says. How does a well-designed state government fight its way through a pandemic, an unemployment crisis and other mortal perils in the early 2020s? Generally, by staffing up the state government with enough employees to meet the crisis. Well, crisis, meet Gov. Larry Hogan, who has kept his GOP dogma infused into his two-term mismanagement of state agencies with (often openly expressed) disdain for public employees, especially those in unions. For the GOP, and hence for the inexplicably popular Hogan, public employees should be kept sparse and under-supported to get the best out of them. Now the public sector, including a nonpartisan agency of the state government, has responded with a damning assessment. (Maryland Matters) (The Progressive News You Can Use blog roundup appears Mondays on the Progressive Maryland BlogSpace.)