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This week on Uprising:

* Debate Over the Debt Ceiling Riddled with Inaccuracies, Misstatements
* Latest Jobs Report Masks Worse Unemployment Among Women, Youth, and Minorities
* Black Agenda Report on Political Organizing Through the Internet
* Despite Little Coverage, Fukushima Still Poses Great Danger, Warning Sign for U.S.

* * *

Debate Over the Debt Ceiling Riddled with Inaccuracies, Misstatements

Republicans met with the Obama Administration again this past week as the President continues to push hard for a compromise budget deal to secure GOP approval on the debt ceiling. House GOP members last Sunday refused a so-called “grand deal” from the White House, a package that would cut projected deficits by $4 trillion over the next 10 years. Republicans balked over tax increases in the proposal, including taxes on big corporations and wealthy Americans. Speaker of the House John Boehner toed the party line explaining the impasse thus: “The American people will not accept – and the House cannot pass – a bill that raises taxes on job creators.” At a press conference during the week the President was tight-lipped on negotiation specifics, but repeatedly admonished the recalcitrance of his opponents. He said a budget with all cuts and no new revenues would not be fair, and refused a one-sided deal. He also acknowledged anger from his party and base over his compromises saying, “I am prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done.” Democrats vowed to filibuster any vote on a budget that included cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and organized labor has also spoken out vehemently against that possibility. What is missing in the debate is clear-cut analysis clarifying the facts and figures, as well as the political and historical context over the debt ceiling. Dean Baker, at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is one of the few providing that analysis – he believes financial journalists are in particular currently failing the public. He writes, “If politicians knew that they would pay a political price for making things up about the budget and the economy, then they would be less likely to do it.”

GUEST: Dean Baker, is the co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

Find out more at www.cepr.net.

Latest Jobs Report Masks Worse Unemployment Among Women, Youth, and Minorities

The Department of Labor last week released a dismal jobs report for the month of June that offered little hope for a quick recovery from the Great Recession. The nation’s unemployment rate continues to hover around 9 percent. But the numbers mask an even more painful picture for women, youth, and minorities. Of the 378,000 government jobs lost since the so-called recovery began, 72% were held by women: many of them teachers, nurses and home health care workers. Young people have also been hard hit. Those between the ages of 16 and 19, are suffering from a greater than 24 percent unemployment rate. For Black youth in the same age range, the numbers top 40 percent. Before the 2008 meltdown, summer jobs were a “rite of passage” for young people, an opportunity to ‘beef-up’ their resumes with real-world experience. But our guest, Jamilah King, who writes about labor, gender and youth issues for the Nation.com, ColorLines.com and other outlets, says summer jobs have become an “urgent necessity” for young people who need the work to pay school costs and supplement family incomes. King says that more than 1.6 million graduates are in “deep stress,” burdened by hefty school loans with little available except for unpaid internships or very low paying jobs. Many of the jobs that are available to young people are in the image-conscious service and retail industries that require conformity in looks and behavior, making young workers, according to King, “more vulnerable than ever to the biases of their employers.”

GUEST: Jamilah King is the news editor at Colorlines.com.

Read Jamilah King’s blog at http://colorlines.com/archives/author/jamilah-king/

Despite Little Coverage, Fukushima Still Poses Great Danger, Warning Sign for U.S.

Radioactive material has been found contaminating various sectors of Japanese infrastructure in the wake of the March 11th nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The impact is being felt all over Japan. The Japanese government has confirmed that contaminated beef was found on the domestic market and that some of it was already consumed. The beef was shipped to 11 prefectures all over Japan and was thought to originate from a Fukushima cattle farmer who ignored orders to avoid contaminated feed. The Japanese government is calling it an isolated incident. But new reports of high levels of radioactive Cesium have just been found in waste incineration plants northeast of Tokyo, more than a 100 miles from Fukushima. A major problem facing Japan is where to store all the contaminated materials, especially the millions of gallons of water, now radioactive, that have been used to cool the reactors. Authorities earlier this year already dumped radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean despite outrage from residents, environmentalists and other nations. Here in the United States, little is mentioned in the news media of the ongoing impact and consequences of the accident. The United States has the greatest number of nuclear reactors and in fact, this week, the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission is weighing significant changes to the regulations that govern the nation’s more than 100 plants. The changes were recommended this week by a task-force set up to review nuclear safety in the wake of Fukushima. The NRC will hold a public hearing next Tuesday with the task force. While Americans may assume that a nuclear disaster the size and scope of Fukushima is highly unlikely here, nuclear industry watchdogs warn of a number of disturbing vulnerabilities in U.S. plants. A lack of media coverage of the Fukushima disaster has done little to educate the American public about the imminence of such accidents.

GUEST: Anne Landman, Managing Editor at the Center for Media and Democracy

Read Anne Landman’s article here: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/06/10851/
what-happened-media-coverage-fukushima

Find out more at www.PRWatch.org

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.” — Oscar Wilde