In my previous post I wrote about the disclosure that, for a price, investors can get access to the University of Michigan consumer confidence index a few minutes before the usual 10 am release time. In fact, high-speed traders pay to get access just two seconds earlier than everyone else

It’s not exactly front-page news that money from business groups have a big influence in judicial elections these days. State supreme court elections have become more contested, more nasty and much more expensive over the past decade as business groups have sought to make state courts more friendly to industry

In February 50,000 people marched on the freezing Washington Mall to tell President Obama that he must reject Keystone XL and move forward on climate. Since then, Sierra Club activists and our partners have met President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry at more than 20 events around the nation to repeat the message. Hundreds of people demonstrating the escalating public opposition to Keystone XL – from 200 in Chicago, to 500 in New York City, and 1,000-plus in San Francisco.

150 Arrested Protesting North Carolina’s Attacks on Workers, Poor June 05, 2013 / samantha Remember the dramatic, aggressive attacks on workers by legislatures in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan?

A measure of US consumer confidence jumped to its highest level in almost six years in May, lifted by rising home prices and record stock market gains.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich.

By Nathaniel Batchelder, Director, Oklahoma City Peace House, www.okpeacehouse.org   Nancy Zorn and Stefan Warner are two Oklahoma City activists with the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, arrested for nonviolently protesting construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.  Opposition to the pipeline and development of the Canadian tar sands is based on a long-range view of tar sands development and its threat to sustainability on earth. A major concern is the huge contribution tar sands oil is projected to make to global warming and climate change.  Ninety seven percent of climate scientists agree that the primary cause of global warming is the rising atmospheric concentration of CO2 and methane resulting from human activities

Our story so far: Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff have been telling us for the past few years that high levels of government debt are bad for future growth. But is that true?

Workers outside Arby’s on S Michigan chanting Fired Up! (Photo: @Molly_O/ Twitter) In the seventh action in just eight weeks across the United States, fast food workers in Seattle are walking off the job Thursday joining a sweeping movement of low-wage workers who have been “pushed to the edge and are now taking a stand.” read more

Jobs. They are supposedly the foremost concern of every Democrat and every Republican , and they are certainly the greatest concern for the 20 percent of American workers who are unemployed or underemployed, and the millions of people who have dropped out of the labor force altogether. But you wouldn’t know it from Congress’ lack of urgency to confront and end $85 billion in across-the-board sequester cuts this year, despite the fact that these cuts are already reducing employment and shrinking gross domestic product , and straining state budgets as a loss of federal grants makes it more difficult to fund vital services.