Discriminatory legislation seeks to strip workplace protections for LGBT workers

  Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee added an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, that would rescind important existing workplace protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, employees of federal contractors. This harmful legislation would gut a 2014 executive order issued by President Barack Obama that added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of classes protected from discrimination by any company or entity receiving $10,000 or more in federal contracts per year. In total, President Obama’s executive order enhanced workplace protections for 28 million people, or roughly one-fifth of the American workforce.

Sally Steenland: Sequestration hurts all of us, not just our most vulnerable

  It’s Day 90 of sequestration—the across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect March 1, which the Obama administration predicted would be devastating and conservatives insisted wouldn’t be so bad. Three months in, it’s worth asking how harmful the phased-in cuts have been—although that depends on whom you ask.

  When sequestration cuts furloughed air-traffic controllers in April, airline travelers rose up in fury. Congress responded with a quick legislative fix that “unfurloughed” the controllers and returned flight delays to annoying, rather than infuriating, levels.