If  the new health care reform law is repealed—and today, Republican lawmakers are taking their first step toward repeal—more than 129 million Americans would be put at risk of  losing their health insurance.

Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat—contrary to popular belief, mimes can talk. The silent mime we’re all accustomed to is just one form of the ancient theater art. Not only do mimes talk, they sing and dance in the legendary San Francisco Mime Troupe’s “Posibilidad, or Death of the Worker.”

Be careful what you wish for, it might come true—with lots of bad consequences.  The leader of a Big Business group says CEOs and other corporate leaders joining the Republican call for the repeal of health care reform should heed that warning.

California’s paid family leave law “has been remarkably successful” and received high marks from both employers and workers, according to a new study released yesterday by researchers from UCLA/City University of New York (CUNY) and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

While House Republicans have put a vote on health care reform repeal on hold in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others Saturday in Tucson, they haven’t backed off their threat to repeal a law that eventually will provide health coverage for 30 million people.

In less than two minutes, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO has provided a wonderfully entertaining history of the union movement in a fun and easy to understand animated video. It’s something for adults and kids.

In a bitter battle late last year, Republicans in Congress filibustered an extension of the emergency unemployment insurance (UI) program for more than 1.4 million long-term jobless workers—and they didn’t approve the bill until they won an extension of Bush tax cuts for the rich.

Last week, we highlighted a move by House Republicans who are so incensed at the word “labor”—because some folks might complete the phrase with the word “union”—that they ripped out the word “labor” from the name of the House Education and Labor Committee.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that Saturday’s Tucson, Ariz., assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and the murder of six of her constituents:

serves as a terrible reminder to all of our political and civic leaders about the need to end the use of appeals to violence in our political rhetoric. We must find ways to passionately debate and even disagree with each other without using words that can give unstable individuals an incitement to engage in violent acts.

In Florida, Gloria’s daughter, like so many young people today, returned home from college “with a BA degree and no job.”