Surprise! Hillary Clinton's Big Campaign Speech Didn't Mention The Trade Deal

Hillary Clinton paid lip service to just about every issue dear to progressive voters in her presidential campaign kickoff on Saturday, from paid sick leave, to LGBT rights, to climate change and student loan reform. But one issue she notably omitted from her speech to supporters at New York City's Roosevelt Island was the pending trade legislation that roiled Democrats in Congress merely a day prior.

The pressure on Clinton to clarify her stance on the controversial trade deal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, has grown in recent weeks as former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) -- her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination -- have repeatedly urged her to do so. The issue came to a head on Friday, after President Barack Obama suffered an embarrassing defeat when House Democrats spurned his last-second personal appeal and voted against a measure that would have granted him the authority to fast-track the sweeping trade deal though Congress.

Senate's Temporary Offices Could Cost Taxpayers Almost $25 Million

OTTAWA - Finding temporary offices for the Senate could cost taxpayers an extra $24.5 million — even more than the latest big-ticket audit of expenses in the upper chamber.

And it's all because of one city block.

The cost of temporary Senate offices in downtown Ottawa could surpass the $23.6-million audit by nearly a million dollars if the Senate doesn't agree to extend its search boundaries by a single block, an internal government document shows.

These Carwashers Were Being Paid as Little as $125 a Week

It only takes a few minutes for New York City motorists to sweep through a carwash; it may take weeks for the guy wiping your hubcaps to see his first paycheck. That’s why the New York City Council just pushed through landmark legislation to revamp labor protections in one of the city’s least-regulated industries and pave the way for unionization.

The new licensing rules aim to prevent the wage theft that drives one of the classic little luxuries of urban life. Carwashes are known as a “runaway” industry (think nail-salon equivalent for car lovers) running on the exploitation of immigrant workers. The carwasheros campaign, supported by community groups and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and United Food and Commercial Workers, exposed the brutal labor conditions in a survey of local workers, which showed wages could run as low as $125 per week, “with some working as high as 105 hours.” The majority earned less than minimum wage and were often denied overtime. The murky tipped-wage system has allowed employers to pay a lower base wage and leave it to impoverished workers to earn the rest off of discretionary tips.

How to Dump Tenants and Make a Fortune

It is 7:45 am, and 18 real-estate professionals are gathered around a conference table in downtown Manhattan, a hairbreadth from Wall Street. They are agents, insurers, asset managers, investors—there is even an architect who uses her allotted 30 seconds of introduction to mention her knack for creating spaces with high-end finishes on economical budgets. Everyone is here to listen to Simon Moule speak.

The topic, as described by the invitation, is “making sense of NYC Rent Stabilization Laws,” and Moule is a guru when it comes to understanding what he describes as “millions of rules.” The people in this room seek understanding with a specific endgame in mind: increasing capitalization of a building, if not a portfolio of buildings. As the lawyer who introduces Moule puts it: “If you know the rent laws, that’s where the juice is. You can really squeeze as much as possible out of a building.”

‘Fast Track’ Would Hand the Money Monopoly to Private Banks—Permanently

It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.                                                                                                                — Attributed to Henry Ford

In March 2014, the Bank of England let the cat out of the bag: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it. So wrote David Graeber in The Guardian the same month, referring to a BOE paper called “Money Creation in the Modern Economy.” The paper stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong. The result, said Graeber, was to throw the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window.

New Emails Reveal Friendship of Koch Lobbyists and Financial Regulators

Recent emails, released to the public Friday, have revealed the close bond between Koch lobbyists and regulators at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The commission was created in 1974 to stop manipulation and abusive practices in derivatives and commodity trading, one of the key components of the 2008 financial meltdown. The emails revealed by The Intercept show the Koch Industries Inc. lobbyists pressuring regulators to review ways to change regulatory policy. The correspondence also gives a glimpse of the friendship between the lobbyists and regulators, with both sides expressing pleasure in getting together.

Guatemalans Are Taking Their Democracy Back

Guatemalans are clamoring for change, pouring into the capital city's central plaza on a weekly basis. From massive national mobilizations down to local consultations, defending territories from extractive industries, people all over Guatemala are taking action to take their country back from transnational corporations and the political, business and military elite.

The historic protests at the national level stem from a groundswell of outrage and indignation over revelations of widespread corruption within the highest levels of government. Guatemala prosecutors and the UN International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala cracked down on two major corruption rings within the National Tax Office and the Guatemalan Social Security Institute in April and May. The heads of both institutions have been arrested, along with the president of the country's central bank and dozens of others inside and outside the government.

Bernie Sanders's Family-Friendly Agenda Crushes the Competition

Earlier this week, Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released his Family Values Agenda, a package of policy proposals aimed at expanding employees’ rights to paid time off. The agenda, which includes paid leave for sickness, vacations, and newborns, is the only program of its type announced so far by any candidate in the nascent presidential contest. If implemented, it would represent a significant leap forward for the United States—but only take us halfway to where we need to be.

State Rep Suggests Abortion Is To Blame For California Drought

Scientists are still exploring the causes of California's historic drought, but one local lawmaker thinks it might all come down to one thing: God's wrath over abortion.

While speaking at the California ProLife Legislative Banquet last week, California Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R) suggested a theory that the state's worst drought in 1,200 years may be divine retribution for California providing women with access to abortions, RH Reality Check reported.

Logging Plans Could Rekindle BC's War in the Woods

Eight months ago, a hiker and friend of our organization found new surveying tape in the central Walbran Valley. There, centred around the iconic Castle Grove, stands one of the largest intact tracts of unlogged old growth rainforest on southern Vancouver Island.

The area was ground zero for B.C.'s war in the woods more than 20 years ago. Grassroots action swept the province and saved ancient forest in the nearby Carmanah Valley and in other parts of the Walbran.