Washington Post

This week, committees on both sides of Capitol Hill  will plumb the conundrum of Chinese currency manipulation. The conundrum isn't that -- or why -- China is manipulating its currency: By undervaluing it, China is systematically able to underprice its exports, putting American (and other nations') manufacturing at a significant disadvantage. The conundrum is why the hell the United States isn't doing anything about it.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will march up to the Capitol to explain the administration's position, which, thanks to increasing pressure for action, may be growing tougher. There are certainly plenty of senators and congressmen -- and Main Street Americans -- who'd like to see the White House place some tariffs on the underpriced Chinese imports. If the administration doesn't act, Congress may just consider mandating some tariffs on its own.

Read More

On Labor Day 2010, the state of America's workers is appalling.

Millions have lost their jobs. Millions have had their lives put on hold or thrown into reverse.

Granted, it's a global recession. The state of the world's workers -- at least in the advanced democracies -- should be equivalently appalling. But it's not. The Great Recession has taken a far greater toll on our nation's workers than on workers in similar countries, even those whose economies have dipped more steeply than ours.

Read More

Of all the groups in the Democratic orbit, it is labor that has assumed the most demanding role in this year's midterm elections: keeping the white working class from flooding into the Republican column.

"When our canvassers call on our members on their doorsteps, they hear Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly in the background," says Dan Heck, who heads a massive union-sponsored program in Ohio devoted to persuading its members to vote this November for candidates who would mightily displease Beck and O'Reilly.

Read More

Who's afraid of a little egg? Of late, anyone who eats them, at least since the announcement of massive recalls of the salmonella-tainted spheroids.

The deregulated chickens have come home to roost. The Food and Drug Administration, the New York Times reported Wednesday, considered mandating the vaccination of chickens with anti-bacterial shots -- and decided against it. Instead, the vaccinations are merely recommended. In Britain, where such vaccinations have been required for egg vendors who wish to put an industry-standard label on their eggs, the incidence of salmonella in eggs has dropped 96 percent.

Read More

Not to be difficult, mind you, but what is it that the Democrats see themselves running on in the next 75 days -- or, for that matter, the next two years? Health-care reform? Since many of its benefits don't kick in until 2014, it exists in the minds of millions of Americans chiefly as a nebulous threat. Financial reform? A major achievement, but largely negated by the public's perception that the Obama administration, like its predecessor, moved heaven and Earth to bail out the banks. The economy? The evidence is overwhelming that the Obama stimulus saved millions of jobs, but the economy is still the worst we've seen since the Depression, and there are almost no signs that it's going to get better.

Read More

As Lindsey Graham  and his fellow Republicans explain it, their sudden turn against conferring citizenship on anyone born in the United States was prompted by the mortal threat of "anchor babies" -- the children of foreigners who scurry to the States just in time to give birth to U.S. citizens.

The Republican war  on the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause is indeed directed at a mortal threat -- but not to the American nation. It is the threat that Latino voting poses to the Republican Party.

Read More