On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill to ban mandatory pre-employment credit checks. Josh Eidelson, in Salon:
… Warren’s bill, the Equal Employment for All Act, would make it illegal for employers (outside national security jobs) to require that job applicants disclose their credit history. Warren’s Senate bill is co-sponsored by six Senate Democrats, including Vermont’s Patrick Leahy and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, and is based on a bill Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., introduced in 2011 in the House. “A credit score,” Warren argued, “should not be used as a way to cut people out of the job market.”…
Warren spoke on a call hosted by the progressive think tank Demos, which previously released a report offering evidence credit checks “can create an untenable Catch-22 for job seekers: They are unable to secure a job because of damaged credit and unable to escape debt and improve their credit because they cannot find work.”…
Asked about her bill’s prospects for passage, Warren said she understood “how difficult it is to get a bill through the United States Congress,” and had “no illusions,” but “I know that nothing happens if you don’t take the first step.” She added, “People told me it wasn’t possible to get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through, and yet we did it.” Asked if she’d reached out to Republicans for support, Warren said, “We’re in the middle of talking to lots of people.”
Petitions supporting the bill are posted at both Warren’s website and that of the PCCC.
More good news today from Greg Sargent at his Washington Post blog, “Dems plan big Christmas push on unemployment benefits“:
To the degree that it gets discussed by the Washington political classes at all, the expiration of unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans just after Christmas is already being treated as a fait accompli — there is no way “Congress” will ever act to renew them, after all.
But Democrats and liberal groups are still not giving up. They are planning a concerted, multi-faceted push over the break designed to pressure Republicans — not Congress; Republicans — to agree to renew the benefits. This comes after Harry Reid announced that a vote on extending UI — which Republicans continue to resist — will take place when the Senate reconvenes in January…
House Democrats are planning a big push in local media, with the goal of using local coverage to dramatize how constituents in Republican districts will be impacted by the expiration of benefits. This is hyper-granular stuff: I’m told Ways and Means Committee Dems are collecting county-by-county data on the number of people who will be kicked off benefits, and pushing local press outlets to reflect these numbers in their coverage.
The idea is to make it harder for individual lawmakers to escape the direct consequences, in their districts, of failing to renew benefits, bringing it home. The goal is to inspire more press coverage like this, this, and this…
Meanwhile, labor unions are planning events in states, and liberal groups are planning polls on unemployment benefits in both marginal districts and nationally. Results should be released next week…
Many more details of tactics & strategery at the link.
aimai
God I love her. I’m so, so, proud she is my Senator. Step it up, Senator Markey! You’ve got big pumps to follow.
gwangung
OK, I can get behind these efforts without reservation.
Gatchaman
Gee, I guess they should have made UI benefits part of the budget deal. Maybe making Ryan look all bipartisan was more important…
I try not to get too angry or cynical. But it seems that making UI benefits a fight to generate contributions over is the true goal. From what I read they didn’t put up a fight to get them in the budget deal.
Omnes Omnibus
Good. Good for them. These are good policy proposals and they should play well with the public. A great way to be starting out an election year.
WereBear
Is our Democrats learning?
PurpleGirl
How about including some of the people who’ve lost benefits in the past and are still unemployed? I won’t ask for retroactive benefits but just restarting them now would go a long way to help me and others like me who still haven’t found jobs.
Cassidy
Sellout. No bill to abolish the NSA and make the day Snowden dropped his stolen documents a national holiday? Where are her priorities.
bewley
@Omnes Omnibus: Screw the public, they like “Duck Dynasty” and “Honey Boo Boo”, talk about braindead television.
What the credit score of an individual had to do with qualifications, competence, and a nose to the grindstone attitude always baffled/frustrated me.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Obummer will insist on chained CPI.
kc
God bless Senator Warren.
different-church-lady
One of these days people are going to wake up to just how badly professional HR organizations are fucking over the American job market with idiotic and capricious concepts like “credit = job performance” and “people over 50 are unemployable.” Herd mammals who will follow any idiotic trend MBA America fabricates.
Jewish Steel
I drink hot chocolate, wear pajamas and I’m a total badass.
I felt like you guys should know that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jewish Steel: I am wearing pajamas right now. No hot choco at the moment though. Of course, my badassery is legendary.
WereBear
Except their purpose is to create an excuse for not hiring. By creating a blanket reason for not hiring large swathes of the workforce, they hope to hide the fact that they are, in fact, job destroyers.
MomSense
@Jewish Steel:
How disgraceful!
/wingnut
WereBear
@Jewish Steel: I feel a very sensitive action movie idea forming!
Violet
@different-church-lady: I think it’s the MBAs that are fucking up America.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar black bear looking puppehs.
Omnes Omnibus
@jeffreyw: Are you sure it isn’t an actual bear?
? Martin
Huh. Brian Boitano is gay. Totally did not see that coming.
I guess we know slightly better now what Brian Boitano would do.
Roger Moore
@Gatchaman:
Or maybe they tried to get UI included and the Republicans said no. Like it or not, the budget requires Republican votes to pass, and that means making concessions to Republican demands. If you don’t want Republicans in charge of the budget, do something to get them out of control of the House.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
FTFY.
Omnes Omnibus
This is one of the reasons I think Warren should stay in the Senate. She is in a place where she can do well and do good. We need good senator and representatives too.
jeffreyw
@Omnes Omnibus: Not at all sure, but I’m thinking there would have been more buzz at the shelter if it were.
Eric U.
@Violet: they’ve been doing it for years. I figured this out in the ’80s when some genius MBA’s decided that shutting down one my favorite chain stores was more profitable than keeping it open. The stores were making money, it defies logic that shutting them down could be more profitable. I should look on the business school’s curriculum for classes about how to shut down a business and make more money, because that seems to have happened a lot since then. And shelling out real companies to make them into a imported “brand” is a similar horrible thing that they have been doing for a while now
gnomedad
OT: there’s that number again.
27 Percent of Surgeons Still Think Obamacare Has Death Panels
Litlebritdiftrnt
OT but my husband’s high school is live streaming their Christmas Concert tonight. Who’d have thunk it?
http://www.highschoolcube.com/event/west-columbus-holiday-concert-332625
For one I don’t have to drive two hours to see it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jewish Steel:
We’ve always known that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is totally a bear cub, not a puppeh.
ETA: Don’t care about buzz at the shelter. It is a bear.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Inorite? I have seen both bear cubs and puppies, and that thing is a bear cub.
? Martin
@Eric U.:
Myth of profit vs profit margin. It’s amazing how many business decisions appear to be centered around preserving profit margin at the expense of profit. I can only assume that their bonus is based on boosting margin, not on overall profitability.
Mike in NC
@PurpleGirl: Unfortunately, the unemployed in several states run by Republicans have already been cut off from extended UI benefits.
GxB
@gnomedad: Having met (and dealt) with more than a few surgeons in my day, that number looks awfully low actually.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. It is a bear.
different-church-lady
@Violet: Absolutely, but the HR people are specialists in fucking up employment specifically.
Anyone with an MBA should be met with a level stare and the words, “Why don’t you find something useful do to instead of whatever the fuck it is you do now?”
WereBear
@jeffreyw: I so want one of those!
Pogonip
@Jewish Steel: Just as I always suspected. Are they footie pajamas?
I’ll vote for Warren for Empress should she run for that position.
Judge Crater
Good for her. Corporate America now has its objective to squeeze working Americans out of every dollar possible. We really are at a tipping point where the “free market” capitalists will use any device in order to inflate their bottom line. Dickensian England is the most appropriate analogy. The “makers and the takers” is the most corrosive world view to gain acceptance in the last 50 years. It’s hard to see where this will all end, but we can only hope that Senator Warren will somehow prevail in the long run.
Botsplainer
I blame the movie “White Christmas” for a lot of our issues.
“What can you do with a General when he stops being a General” was never a real problem. Those guys had wingnut sinecures and a free lunch from sea to shining sea.
PurpleGirl
@Eric U.: They were worth more if the store owned the building and the land it was on and those could be sold for more money than the store’s retail profit.
kc
@Botsplainer:
Yeah, but come on, the old dude sunk his entire pension into the inn. You heartless bastard.
PurpleGirl
@Mike in NC: I was cut from extended benefits when NYS’s allover rate went below the national rate. NYC still had a high rate but it was the statewide rate that mattered.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: Bullshit. If the R’s want to shut down the govt over not extending UI, then force them to do that very thing.
They had nothing. Nothing. Not a god damn thing left in their arsenal.
Now Patty Murray wants to crawfish and talk shit about how bad the military pensioners are getting fucked, and how no UI is hurting people?
Well, guess the fuck what? The D party now owns that. Not the R’s. The Democratic Party has negotiated, bargained, voted and approved cuts to military pensions AND left UI completely unaddressed.
It is the absolute height of irresponsibility to agree to a deal with fucking hostage takers and then turn around and tell the hostages, “Whoops, maybe next year?”
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: The shelter is trying to pawn off the Major Cuteness while they can! In a couple months, either his ears will stand up properly (like his — I’m guessing — sled dog parent) or flop over completely (like his — another guess — black lab parent). He’ll look much less ursine once that happens… but he’ll still be cute, of course.
MomSense
@jeffreyw:
My kids wantthat bear cub err puppeh!
I am now being bombarded with questions and they want to know where the shelter is!
Botsplainer
@kc:
Big kitchen, lots of quaint rooms, dance floor, decent bar – yeah, Waverly is sure hurting.
And what’s with Bob asking the train station red hat if they can handle all the special trains? He should’ve given thought about it first – it was a little late by then (not that a red hat was an authority).
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree.
ruemara
@Gatchaman: Jesus Christ. You do understand that sometimes, the only way around an obstruction is a new path? There wasn’t going to be any bill with UI extension, which meant the disaster known as the sequester would still be in effect. Nothing that isn’t in an omnibus bill can’t be submitted later as an individual bill. Which is what’s happening now.
kc
@Botsplainer:
I know, I know, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhiWaRceynk
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
Yes, they did have nothing. If they did nothing, then we got the second round of sequestration cuts, which don’t give UI and cut the rest of the government even worse than the first round. Please explain the political tactics that get UI extension through the real-world Congress right now. Until you can do that, complaints about not getting UI with the budget agreement are bullshit.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: How about telling them UI is on the table or they can own the whole deal? Why did the D party take ownership of this?
What did we get? No govt shut down? They got their ass handed to them last time they tried that. No hostages were hurt in this deal? Bullshit.
We acceded to their number to begin with, then said, “Ok, a slight backing off of the sequester, we’ll return funding to the DoD, but get nothing for our constituents. Deal?”
Now, no matter what deal gets put forth going forward, it’s on their terms.
Corner Stone
No new revenue, no stimulus spending, no UI, military pension cuts, some stupid airline “fees” people keep trying to tell us are really tax increases.
Wow. Really…really…Lord I just can’t even with some people.
Pogonip
@jeffreyw: What a cutie. If we were home enough to have a dog I’d be making arrangements right now. I am one of the minority that loves BBDs.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Corner Stone:
I’ve seen it framed as “Every single Democrat and 12 Republicans” voted (blah blah blah.)
Keith G
There is support, even a hunger, for common sense progressive legislation like Warren’s employment bill, UI extension, and an increase in the minimum wage.
What is needed (and has often been absent) is a top down, high energy push from Democrats to continually get their ideas out early and strong and to manage the narrative.
Steve in the ATL
At the companies where I’ve worked, HR has always tried to get jobs filled. Most of the BS rules come from the MBA crowd that infests management commitees. HR and hiring managers will be as flexible as they can be when they have a candidate with the right skills.
burnspbesq
OT, but muy importante: the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state law that in effect exempts fracking operations from local zoning laws violates the state Constitution.
The court also vacated and remanded a lower court ruling that the so-called “doctor gag rule” doesn’t violate docs’ free speech rights.
Doctor gag rule? Yes, the Pennsylvania legislature actually passed a law that made it a crime for doctors to tell patients about the potential effects of exposure to the chemicals found in fracking fluids, and the governator signed it.
You Pennsylvanians have some splainin’ to do.
A Humble Lurker
@Corner Stone:
Because that’s worked so far with the sequester?
Seems to me this way they get to publicly lobby Republicans to pass UI before Christmas, placing the onus squarely on them.
Betsy
@ruemara: but I di’unt get a flying unicorn with extra sparkle on it! Uhhhhhh!
Villago Delenda Est
@Judge Crater:
The irony here is that the “makers and takers” analogy is 180 degrees out of phase with reality. The self proclaimed “makers” are all vile parasites who deserve not the slightest quarter.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Corbett needs to be force fed fracking fluid to demonstrate how harmless it is.
Corner Stone
@A Humble Lurker: Wow.
Ok, let me explain this slowly because you’re very special to me.
The D’s had all the “onus” they were ever going to have. They gave it away. For nothing.
The D’s got nothing. They now get to own the cuts coming down the pipe.
No one, and I mean no freakin person alive, will ever hear that the “onus” of UI extension is on the R’s. All they will ever hear is that the D’s are harming our military retirees.
Do you, in your least stupid moment, ever really think the people with no UI extension are going to say, “Yeah, but the R’s wouldn’t let them! All they would agree to was DoD spending being restored! I’m cool with that.”
The D party owns this now. Any individual who says this was a deal we had to do lacks any objective reasoning skills or logic.
Corner Stone
@Betsy: Squeeeee!! You said “unicorn”!!
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: No, but when a bill to extend UI benefits gets pushed by the Dems as is happening and the Republicans oppose it in lockstep, who gets the blame? A single issue vote – extend benefits or not. Hard to sidestep that. It may be cynical, but the Dems are using Republican intransigence to their advantage.
A Humble Lurker
@Corner Stone:
As opposed to the sequester, which is an unfocused bunch of cuts that doesn’t effect nearly as many people which was initially (and possibly still) labeled as Obama’s sequester?
Republicans have everyone and everything in their corner. If the issue is even slightly complicated, they have all they need to confuse the it. The UI thing is at least simpler, and harder to obfuscate.
Betsy
@Corner Stone: I am so glad you are not the chief of negotiations.
Betsy
@Corner Stone: troll
Omnes Omnibus
@Betsy: No. Asshole. Not troll. There is a difference.
And a preemptive “fuck you” to you CS. I am not defending you. I am pointing out a difference.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: And what? There is no “there” there any more!
Now we’re talking about process instead of people. This is bullshit.
The deal restored funding, in part, to the DoD but cut real money from real people. And left other people holding their johnsons.
It’s garbage. There is no defense for this deal.
Tell me what we got.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: GFY
Corner Stone
@Betsy: Oh, sweetie. It really hurts that you are holding your tiny little purple ponicorn so hard while you go to sleep and dream that President Obama hands you the towel when you exit your shower.
Corner Stone
@Betsy: Negotiate what, exactly? Tell me what we got.
Because, let me preempt you here, the hostages did get hurt in this deal.
If you want to make the case that our side now is focused on only killing some number of the most vulnerable, I am eager to hear this defense.
Please proceed.
Corner Stone
@A Humble Lurker: Ha! The sequester was relented to fund the DoD!
No research, no science, no grants, no stimulus. Nothing.
A Humble Lurker
@Corner Stone:
And…?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: There was no deal that didn’t do that. Choices then are shutdown or crappy deal and make hay politically. You disagree with the tactical decision. Fine. Dems decided not to have MSM headlines just before Christmas saying “Dems shutdown the government.” I can’t say that I blame them, especially since the are launching a campaign that will either fix the problems or staple the problems to the GOP’s forehead. Until there is a Dem majority in both the House and Senate, actual good budgets won’t happen. That sucks.
@Corner Stone: Hence the preemptive “fuck you.”
Corner Stone
There is no defense of this deal. Somebody please tell me something beyond “hostages”. Because a fuck load of hostages got hurt. Not to mention the abstract brand of the D party.
And the R’s have already started saying they “want” something for the next fight!
Fuck you!
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: THEY KEEP FUCKING DOING THIS!
Stop fucking selling this igloo man.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Okay. Please tell me the play you would recommend. I agree that it it is a bad budget. Do you close everything down over it? If so, how do you play it in the current media? If you have a viable way to do it, I am all ears.
Right now, they are going to jam the UI benefits issue into the GOP’s teeth. It will not redound to the GOP’s benefit.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: There was a very recent event that demonstrated exactly what cards the R’s have left to play.
They can come to the table or they can say No and hurt everyone.
We gave them their out. Now they can say they didn’t say No. They came and in “good faith” made a deal with Senate D’s and the WH.
This is the deal that was agreed to. What more do you want from us? Now Patty Murray and Harry Reid are going to try and change their deal? The deal they all signed on to?
They aren’t going to stick a god damned thing into the teeth of the R’s. It’s patently stupid to think so.
Paul Ryan now is seen as a statesman, the R’s seem reasonable for coming to common ground with the D’s, and now we get to look pretty pathetic and powerless. We get to try and tell everyone we didn’t want this deal after all? When Patty Murray has been overselling it at every press conference?
This goes back to at least the BCA in 2011. What a horrible deal and mistake that was, and we’re going to be paying for it for a long time.
WTF good is releasing the crushing sequester amounts for just the DoD?
The next step in negotiations will be how much to cut from SNAP. Not where to fund SNAP, but how much to cut. It will be somewhere in between their $40B and “our” $5B.
Corner Stone
People who keep trying to explain how no revenue is a good deal, because, because, because just sound more ridiculous each time. Each fucking time it’s an explanation. And when you’re explaining, you’re losing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I think the budget deal will disappear quietly into the background. The individual issues are newsworthy. People being fucked by UI? The Dems are pushing a fix. The GOP is opposing it. In any case, there real fucking solution to the problem is getting a D majority in Congress. Until then, the choices are shitty and shittier.
C.V. Danes
If you really want to change things, you need solid grass roots campaign to win over the mind of the masses. Using the issue of unemployment benefits to hit the Repubs where they hurt back home is a good strategy.
LAC
Jaysus Christ… I see corner stone has been in this thread like a drunk angry Santa.