President Obama will sign the JOBS Act today, a bill that sprung from his own Jobs and Competitiveness Council, a group with 19 corporate executives and 2 labor officials. Dealbook reports that Wall Street companies have begun to scour the bill for provisions that they can use to their advantage. Because that’s how it works, right? Congress writes the legislation, and only afterwards does Wall Street look to see how it benefits them! They never try to influence the process or write the legislation themselves, that would be untoward.

Brad Plumer has a well-reported article about the domestic auto industry’s comeback, and how it derived from ending the failed business model of selling more and more gas guzzlers, and responding to consumer desires for lighter, more fuel-efficient cars. The key is the right support and nudges from a government that actually cared about their survival and in what form.

As Swopa pointed out, a US district court judge overturned two provisions of Act 10, Scott Walker’s anti-union law in Wisconsin.

The judge, Obama appointee William M. Conley, did not touch the provision most associated with the law, which removes all collective bargaining rights except circumscribed increases in pay for most public employees. However, Conley did strike down the measure that forced unions to annually re-certify with an “absolute” majority of all workers, and the “automatic dues” ban, which stopped union dues from being taken out of worker paychecks. Conley said in his opinion that the exemption for public safety workers from the rules (remember that these unions mostly supported Walker’s election back in 2010) made it so that the state was picking and choosing among workers to punish, violating equal protection laws.

Political reporters go entire careers hoping for the opportunity to cover some world historical story, to be present at a moment history is truly being made. Even journalists who pour their careers into public events, who cover the leading stories all over the globe, can never have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a story and be there as it grows to skyscraper proportions.

John Nichols is one of the fortunate few, and he chronicles the experience in Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street.

Cory Robin and I go way back. We were in a political discussion together where the hot topic was the WTO protests in Seattle—the “Occupy” movement of 1998. Since then, I’ve always been a deep admirer of his essays; if he’s saved his emails from the intervening fifteen years, I’m sure he’d find a bunch from me praising his various pieces from the London Review of Books when they came out. I was thrilled to learn he was collecting his pieces into a book. I was even more thrilled when I read it and saw how he was able to link them together into a coherent argument which—well, read my blurb on the book…

To commemorate the first anniversary of the overthrow of the dictatorship, activists in Egypt called for a general strike earlier this month. But compared to the massive uprising of 2011, the response on the ground was muted. The military regime that has succeeded Hosni Mubarak was predictably dismissive of the anti-government “plotters,” and even activists acknowledged what seems to be a sort of protest fatigue.

But a year ago, when the Arab Spring was still fresh, labor activists were on the frontlines across Egypt, leading a massive wave of strikes and demonstrations.

You may have heard about Politico’s gaffe of the year (at least so far), when a reporter claimed that the Wisconsin state flag, which has the year of the state’s founding, 1848, on it, was actually the flag of the “Wisconsin local 1848″ union. This has now become a rallying cry within the labor movement, particularly as they head into recall elections in Wisconsin that could depose Scott Walker and give the state Senate back to Democrats.

The term “banana republic” has become a cliche to describe economic imperialism throughout history, but the legacy of colonialism persists in Latin America today. The tradition of predatory capitalism echoed in the recent death of Miguel Angel González Ramírez, a member of the Izabal banana workers’ union SITRABI in Guatemala.

I found this cartoon (1948) predicting the future from over 60 years ago. Amazing insights at to what we are facing now in this political cycle. Enjoy! What’s on your mind tonight?

Mitt Romney, struggling to regain the lead from Rick Santorum in national polls and facing a serious deficit in the key primary state of Michigan, has doubled down on his position against the auto industry rescue, arguing that the industry should have gone through a “managed bankruptcy,” mainly to squeeze out the United Auto Workers.