The Washington Post reported yesterday that key senators in the "Gang of Eight" negotiations over creating a commonsense immigration process are developing plans to reduce family visas, a decidedly anti-family stance. 

The united labor movement’s immigration principles are straight-forwardly pro-family: “Family reunification is an important goal of immigration policy and it is in the national interest for it to remain that way.”

The latest episode of AFSCME TV describes how working families in the city are standing up to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D), who they say is siding with the wealthy and pushing policies that are harming the rest of the city's residents. In particular, they are upset Nutter closed libraries and schools and refused to negotiate with city workers, who have worked without a contract for four years.

Organizations representing flight attendants, air marshals and other concerned groups protested a new policy, announced by the Transportation Security Administration, that would allow small knives and other potentially dangerous items to be carried on to commercial flights. Labor and community groups say that allowing these items on planes breaks down one of the integral layers keeping the U.S. aviation system secure.

Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) President Veda Shook said:

Flight Attendants will not stand silently by as knives are re-introduced to the aircraft cabin. Flight Attendants serve as the last line of defense in aviation security, and we are responsible for ensuring the safety, health and security of everyone on board.

The "chained" CPI cost-of-living formula—which would result in a painful cut in benefits for Social Security recipients—was touted as good policy by White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling in an "Ask Me Anything" Reddit chat yesterday. 

Across-the-board budget cuts—called sequestration—will cost more than 750,000 jobs this year alone and many more jobs over the next decade. There is a simple solution to make this problem go away: repeal sequestration.

It's that simple.

Join working families on March 20 for a national day of actions at congressional offices and in our communities.

Find an event near you.

Democratic Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Alan Grayson (Fla.) and Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) will demand action on a one-sentence bill introduced by Conyers called the "Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013."

You can watch the press conference live at 12 p.m. EDT here or in this blog. 

Like many people who come from other countries to work in the United States, Juan José Rosales left his homeland in Mexico to make a better life for himself, trading the prospect of a better financial situation for a temporary amount of time away from. He said a recruiter promised him he would get between $7 and $8 an hour while working in the fair and carnival industry on an H-2B visa. And that's when things went wrong.

For today's health care read, check out these new stories from Think Progress and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP):

CBO May Have Undershot Medicare’s Future Deficit Reduction By Over $300 Billion

Projected Medicaid Spending Has Fallen by More Than $200 Billion

It's back. The Ryan–GOP budget that gives seniors "coupons" to pay for health care and guts Medicaid and public investment to enrich millionaires and billionaires was once again proposed by the House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) today. 

Are people really living longer? That depends...how much money do you have?

Media pundits and Washington elites love to point to their own lives and say, "Hey, we're living longer, why not raise the Social Security retirement age and Medicare eligibility age?"

What they fail to realize is that large gains in life expectancy are closely related to how wealthy a person is. Just look at the case of the two counties in Florida that Washington Post reporter Michael A. Fletcher examined in Research Ties Economic Inequality to Gap in Life Expectancy.