http://www.theittlist.com/ The ITT List is a weblog run by the editors and staff of In These Times magazine. en nezua@themediaconsortium.com 2009-11-12T15:51:25+00:00 This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/aIHilrYNhA8/ After 30 years, commentator Lou Dobbs—infamous for his tirades against undocumented immigrants—has left CNN, as TPM reports. Dobbs employed disturbing, dangerous, and dated language to slur immigrants, often equating them with disease and infection. There is a connection between this type of demagoguery and violence. Clearly, the organizing efforts of groups like Basta Dobbs have borne fruit, as even Dobbs admits. GRITtv recently covered the "way the mainstream media equates 'Latino' with 'immigrant'" and Latino organizing efforts to correct this perspective. "Over the past six months, it's become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country, and… Nezua 2009-11-12T14:51:25+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_diaspora_deporting_dobbs/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/j-mM9xGcHIY/ A clique of anti-choice Democrats in Congress joined forces with Republicans to write abortion access out of the House's health care reform bill last Saturday. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) wants to force women to choose between affordable health insurance and abortion coverage, even if they pay for abortion coverage with their own money. Pro-choice Democrats and women's health activists are up in arms over the eleventh hour deal. Ellie Smeal of Ms. Magazine denounces the Stupak amendment as a betrayal of women: Millions of poor and middle-class women would be denied abortion coverage and millions more would lose the coverage they… Lindsay Beyerstein 2009-11-11T18:29:34+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_pulse_the_stupak_setback/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/QirGV7VxYxc/ On Friday, we learned that the U.S. unemployment rate officially broke 10% for the first time since the early Reagan years. This is about as bad as it gets for a modern, developed economy. No economic force takes a heavier toll on a society than rampant joblessness, and few personal setbacks take a deeper psychological toll than being out of a job for months on end. If Congress and President Obama don't do something to create jobs fast, both are going to pay a hefty political price when next year's mid-term elections roll around. So how bad is it? In October,… Zach Carter 2009-11-10T15:50:54+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/hed_weekly_audit_the_unemployment_epidemic/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/KagjIriq478/ Senate Democrats in the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) finally squelched Republican boycotts and passed a version of the climate bill yesterday morning. Last week, Republican Senators refused to show up to committee hearings in an attempt to stall the bill. Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo notes that EPW has now set "the stage for other panels to amend the legislation." To no one's surprise, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) immediately complained about the legislation on Fox News. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) was the lone Democrat that did not vote, which Inhofe interpreted as a sign that the bill is… Raquel Brown 2009-11-06T18:10:35+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_mulch_the_grown_ups_are_back_in_charge/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/eAlCmDLyEzY/ While many pundits and political analysts are musing about what Tuesday's mixed bag election results mean for Obama administration, New America Media reports that "there's another trend to watch; the surprising prominence of immigration politics." Even in states where other concerns "like small farms and forestry management" are far more immediate, "immigration has become a litmus test issue for the conservative movement," and the expectation is, oddly, a "lockstep" goal toward opposing legalization. One has to wonder how the self-destructive choice to oppose immigration at any cost came about. ColorLines' Leticia Miranda asks "What's next?" now that the infamous Hutto immigration… Nezua 2009-11-05T15:57:50+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_diaspora_immigration_impacts_everything/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/XsTvOfiFxsY/ The House released a final version of the health reform bill. It has a public option all right, but not the robust version progressives were hoping for. The public plan would only cover 2% of Americans and premiums will cost more than anticipated. Meanwhile, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) continued to threaten to join a Republican filibuster of a health care bill with a public option. A lot of people still think he's bluffing. Realistically, the public option probably faces more serious threats from inside the Democratic caucus. It's been whittled down at an alarming rate. Nick Baumann of Mother Jones asks… Lindsay Beyerstein 2009-11-04T16:19:13+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_pulse_problems_with_the_public_option/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/knDpxod6gS0/ Last week, President Barack Obama released key legislation designed to fight the banking industry's too-big-to-fail problem. But Obama's plan doesn't actually address too-big-to-fail at all. It reinforces a broken system in which economically dangerous companies are bailed out whenever they drive themselves to the brink of failure. If we want the economy to support all people, we have to break up the big banks and start treating the creation of good jobs as an economic priority on par with Wall Street rescues. The editors of The Nation break the political debate over banking into three camps: The first camp is composed… Zach Carter 2009-11-03T15:33:41+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_audit_too_big_to_fail_is_just_too_big/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheITTList/~3/MpDWiIDJM98/ This week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held three hearings on the Kerry-Boxer clean energy bill and, as David Roberts reports for Grist, Republican Senators had an “adolescent tantrum” about the cost of emission reductions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Energy Information Administration (EIA) and other organizations have extensively debunked this line of debate. Aaron Wiener agrees that the committee’s hearing was a “fairly one-sided debate” in The Washington Independent. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has already threatened a Republican boycott of the Committee’s markup of the Kerry-Boxer bill, which would prevent the quorum needed to… Raquel Brown 2009-10-30T15:14:16+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_mulch_throwing_tantrums_over_kerry-boxer/ http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_diaspora_legislating_hate/ Anti-immigration groups and pundits cling to phrases like "Illegal Alien" because they only focus on foreignness and danger. These extreme factions are all about casting immigrants as what ails our society, conjuring up demons upon which to focus national ire, and perpetuating a subhuman category of being. It's a convenient distraction from things that are actually endangering our nation. A new web-only series from ColorLines called "Torn Apart by Deportation" is the perfect antidote to people like CNN's Lou Dobbs. The stories in this series are thoroughly investigated, not sensationalized, and haunting. "Torn Apart" reveals how the push against immigrants in… Nezua 2009-10-29T14:39:22+00:00 http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/weekly_pulse_joe_lieberman_and_the_opt-out_revolution/ Progressives rejoiced when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this week that the final Senate health care bill would include a public option. The announcement was a major victory for left-wing Democrats. Better yet, it would be a public option without a trigger. Earlier proposals called for a triggered public option which would only take effect if private insurers failed to bring down costs on their own. Under the opt-out compromise, the public option would come on line automatically (albeit not until 2013), but states would later have the option of quitting. The jubilation was short-lived. Alex Koppelman of Salon explains:… Lindsay Beyerstein 2009-10-28T14:53:31+00:00