Think Progress

LABOR -- RIGHT-WING CORPORATE FRONT GROUP LAUNCHES 'NEWS' SITE TO SMEAR EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT:  Last Friday, the Workforce Fairness Institute launched EFCA Wire,  "a new 'news' site that's totally devoted to making the case against" the Employee Free Choice Act. As The Progress Report has noted, the Workforce Fairness Institute is nothing more than a corporate front group "founded by several longtime Republican operatives," and likely funded by anti-EFCA giants like Wal-Mart and Home Depot. In a recent interview with Fox News's Glenn Beck, one of those operatives -- former Bush and McCain advisor Mark McKinnon -- pushed the line that Employee Free Choice removes the secret-ballot option, a claim that even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board has begrudgingly admitted is false. Therefore, it's no surprise that EFCA Wire's main purpose is to promote yet another lie. According to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, the site will place "a particular emphasis on the damage [the Employee Free Choice Act] would allegedly do the economy." But estimates by the Economic Policy Institute show that Employee Free Choice would actually lead to higher wages, better benefits, and a more productive economy. On its first day, EFCA Wire's blatant dishonesty was already apparent. One prominently placed link boasted, "The Hill: 74% Oppose EFCA." However, The Hill was merely reporting on an anti-EFCA ad touting such skewed numbers. In fact, the most recent Gallup polling reveals that 53 percent of Americans support a law to "make it easier for unions to organize workers" -- which is exactly what the Employee Free Choice Act does.

RADICAL RIGHT: RIGHT WING'S FALSE CLAIMS THAT OBAMA WILL TAKE AWAY GUNS 'HAS HELPED FUEL THE PANIC BUYING OF FIREARMS': On Saturday in Pittsburgh, a gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire on police officers who were responding to a domestic disturbance call, killing three of them. Many bloggers have noted that the shooter, 23-year old Richard Poplawski, irrationally feared for "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon." In a presciently-timed op-ed, New York Times columnist Charles Blow warned of the disturbing escalating rhetoric of right-wingers like Chuck Norris, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and others. Blow writes, "They're [conservatives] apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their 'leaders' seem to be trying to mold them into militias. ... At the same time, the unrelenting meme being pushed by the right that Obama will mount an assault on the Second Amendment has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms. According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year. That's 5.5 million requests altogether over that period; more than the number of people living in Bachmann's Minnesota." The chart accompanying Blow's column shows the recent surge in interest in gun ownership quite clearly.

GLOBAL WARMING -- ICE BRIDGE HOLDING ANTARCTIC SHELF SHATTERS: An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice to two islands in Antarctica has shattered "and may herald a wider collapse caused by global warming," the BBC reported this weekend. Scientists say the collapse could mean that the Wilkins Ice Shelf -- roughly the size of Connecticut -- is on the brink of breaking up, which would be the largest slab of ice so far to disintegrate in the Antarctic. The Wilkins ice shelf has been stable for the last 10,000 years, until the early 1990s when it started to break up. "It's amazing how the ice has ruptured," said David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, of the ice bridge. "Two days ago it was intact," he said.  "The rapid retreat of glaciers there demonstrates once again the profound effects our planet is already experiencing -- more rapidly than previously known -- as a consequence of climate change," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. An international meeting of Antarctic and Arctic scientists will report in Baltimore today that "up to one-third of all Antarctic sea ice is likely to melt by the end of the century, seriously contributing to dangerous sea level rises."

Although nearly half of the American public say that they hold unfavorable views of Islam, 82 percent also believe that it is important for Obama "to try to improve U.S. relations with Muslim nations," according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Though the actual unemployment rate is at a high 8.5 percent, Americans feel an unemployment rate closer to 15.6 percent. The larger number includes "those who want a job but have stopped looking for work and those who want full-time positions but have to settle for part-time employment."

"Cities and counties are reporting a sharp increase in homeless families as the economic crisis leads to job loss and makes housing unaffordable," USA Today reports. The Department of Housing and Urban Development conducted a one-day count in January of the homeless and "of 56 places where figures were available, 35 reported an increase in homelessness; 12 had a drop."

A coalition of corporate lobby and trade groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, are increasing their efforts to block an "Obama administration proposal to raise taxes on overseas profits." Proponents of the Obama plan argue that current tax law "encourages American multinationals to add facilities and jobs overseas rather than expanding back home."

Today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will "propose cuts or delays in weapons programs in an effort to rein in defense spending that has risen 72 percent since 2000." In response, major defense contractors have been increasing their lobbying efforts in Washington in an attempt to “preserve their programs."

A suicide bomber "blew himself up at the entrance to a crowded Shiite mosque" just south of Islamabad yesterday, killing at least 26 people. It was "the third suicide attack in Pakistan in 24 hours, in a sign that the Pakistani Taliban are overwhelming the nation’s security forces."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is arming her diplomatic efforts with a new set of tools including Facebook, text messaging, and YouTube. The State Department has hired a new staffer whose job will be to "blend technology with diplomacy in an attempt to help solve some of the globe’s most vexing problems on health care, poverty, human rights and ethnic conflicts."

The U.N. Security Council met yesterday to discuss North Korea's rocket launch but "took no immediate action." The U.S, Japan, and South Korea said the launch violated resolutions banning missile launches by Pyongyang, but China and Russia "were not convinced that the launch...constituted a violation of U.N. rules."

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said yesterday that Cuba "does not fear dialogue" with the U.S. and praised Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) "for calling for a new U.S. policy of engagement” with Cuba. "We don't fear dialogue…[n]or do we need confrontation to exist, as some fools think," Castro wrote in an internet column. Dialogue "is the only way of procuring friendship and peace between peoples," he said.

And finally: Since his stints as a plumber, war correspondent, economist, and anti-labor crusader have had only mixed results, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is taking up a new cause: abolishing the IRS. In a video at IRSvote.com, Wurzelbacher says, "I'm here to ask my fellow Americans to join me to make this the last year we ever have to file a tax return. I'm going to give the American people the opportunity to vote the IRS out." Visitors can then "vote via the Internet, or by sending a text message or making a phone call to a 900 phone number. However, the site warns that they will be charged 99 cents a vote."