While the rest of American journalism real and imagined races to cover the break in the logjam on judicial nominees in the Senate, we’ll look northward to the Constitution State, where a great study came out of the University of Connecticut Department of Public Policy. It found — are you sitting down? — that the press and the public have widely divergent views on issues surrounding the freedom of the press and on politics as well.

Among the highlights of the study:

– Only 3% of journalists polled said the US press has too much freedom, as compared to 43% of the public who felt that way.

– 95% of the journalists strongly agreed that newspapers should be allowed “to publish freely without governmental approval of a story”, while only 55% of the public agreed.

– When asked whether reporters should be compelled to reveal their sources before a grand jury, 8% of reporters said yes while 57% of the public said yes.

– Last but not least, 68% of those surveyed said they supported John Kerry in the last election while only 25% supported George Bush.

Like we said, a big shockeroo. It certainly explains the rise in the internet and the blogs, where people can read real opinions posted by real people without any filter and where biases are often clear and flown like a flag.

Here’s a link to a summary of the study. Makes for some interesting reading. It should be a wake-up call to every member of the mainstream media, as if the Swift Boat Veterans and Dan Rather weren’t enough……

By the way, those of you who aren’t receiving our (free) HR Policy newsletter, “Workplace Watch“, you should be. Once they threw off their old stodgy writing style, they really took off. Looks nice, too. Here’s the latest edition, just hit newsstands last week. And, don’t think it’s all stuffy HR news, either, there’s really some useful stuff in here, too. For example, in this month’s issue, you’ll find a list of some of the world’s best — or maybe worst — excuses for missing work, from “I was sprayed by a skunk”, to “Someone slipped drugs in my drink last night” (we hate when that happens…).

Check it out. If you want to subscribe, just e-mail Chris Tampio.

Here’s a great website for the megalomaniacs among us, the grandiose and the delusional. It’s called “NationStates” and it allows you to set up your own country, whether it be a republic, rogue nation, oppressed peoples, whatever. You choose the country’s name, motto, flag, national animal, currency and the type of govenment. If you want, you can enter your e-mail address so it’ll bug you every day or so with pressing issues of state. This would be for those who need to kill time — but never at work, of course.

Our favorite was clicking on “See the World” on the main page and then just scrolling through the names of the countries — like the “Holier Than Thou Empire of Feminist BioEngineering, a “Father Knows Best”-type of govenment — and the mottos — “One nation in very cozy sweaters”, for the Matriarchal Family of Mater, listed as a “Psychotic Dictatorship”. Some of this stuff was laugh out loud funny.

Anyway, you get the idea. Set up your own counry, fly your flag, spend your drachma. Thanks to Joanna Pacori for tipping us off to this very fun and funny site.

Under that headline ran a pretty good article from our friend Aaron Bernstein over at Business Week. However, he’d be disappointed if we didn’t point out that the word we have is that AFT President Ed McElroy has already switched sides from Sweeney to the dissidents (the article notes it only as a possibility). More importantly, one of our labor skates commented to us via e-mail on the article saying, “Why does [Bernstein] keep talking about Sweeney’s vaunted political machine? The Republicans control everything!”

Good point. Bernstein is not alone, however. Both Tom Edsall of the Washington Post and Steve Greenhouse of the NY Times buy into that same canard. Under Sweeney, the Democrats have slowly seen their margins decline, and now control neither house of Congress nor the White House, in spite of hundreds of millions of Sweeney’ members’ money down the political rat hole. If these guys think that’s success, they must think we’re gods.

More chit-chat from the AFL-CIO: look for somebody like Wilhelm to maybe move to put Richard Bensinger on the ticket as Secretary-Treasurer. You may recall that Bensinger was the AFL’s organizing director, left after a spat with Sweeney & Co. Sweeney was mad because Bensinger was actually having some success at organizing, reversing Sweeney’s legacy. Guess that made him uncomfortable. Bensinger also wanted more resources dedicated to organizing, got crosswise with Sweeney over that.

Since leaving, he’s been out there quietly working with some of the more progressive unions intent on organizing. If any candidate to replace Sweeney wants to be viewed as serious about organizing, having Bensinger on the ticket sure makes the point. Thus far he’s been a behind-the-scenes guy, but he might emerge in a more active role before all is said and done.

Stay tuned….

Not sure how many of your have ever participated in the Race for the Cure, but for those of you who have not, it is one of the most inspirational events you can ever be a part of. There are thousands upon thousands of runners and walkers all converging peacefully on DC for a great and worthy cause, the fight against breast cancer. It is truly a chance to be part of something special. Those of you who’ve done it know what we’re talking about.

This year, the NAM will once again be fielding a team. If you’re not already part of a team, and if you’re thinking about taking part in the Race, please join us on Saturday June 4. It’s fun to have company along for the run or walk. And for those of you not in marathoner’s shape, not to worry — if you can walk, you will find lots of company (like tens of thousands) who will walk with you. The blogger-in-chief will be running as will the blogger’s apprentice. Registering is simple – follow this link. Click on the blue registration button on the left side and then on the red “Join an Existing Team” bar. You’ll see the NAM Team listed there. Deadline for on-line registration is May 30.

All team participants are encouraged to meet at the NAM South Lobby Entrance (1331 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.) the morning of the race and to gather back at the NAM for a post-race congratulatory breakfast.

Hope you’ll join us.

Here’s an entry that’s actually not about the AFL-CIO for a change. It’s a very funny video from today’s Mullings (by Rich Galen) of a copy of this week’s Newsweek suffering the same fate as they alleged (mistakenly, it turns out) was suffered by the Koran at Guantanamo. Just scroll down to the fourth bullet, the “Mullfoto of the Day – Newsweek Video Proving American Toilets Are Just Fine” and click on the link.

Here’s the daily dose of bad news for John Sweeney, this time from within his own building. As first reported in Jonathan Tasini’s Working Life Blog, here’s a letter from AFL-CIO employees — themselves union members — disgruntled over his mis-handling of the layoff of a third of the staff, announced while Sweeney was in Paris.

What’s extraordinary about the letters — one from AFL HQ staff, one from the Field staff (which apparently is being eliminated), is that they raise basic labor issues ignored by Sweeney & Co. in executing the layoffs. It’s another classic case of the AFL-CIO not being burdened by consistency, of the AFL-CIO disregarding the rules it advocates for employers, and of the AFL-CIO view that what’s good for the management goose apparently just isn’t necessary for the union gander.

Among their grievances is that Sweeney ignored the little matter of seniority throughout this process. How ironic that the mother ship of organized labor could toss seniority out the window. The employees also raise the issues of whether the layoffs had a disparate impact on people of color and older workers and whether managers were spared at the expense of Guild (union) members. Any of this sound familiar….? It’s either abject insensitivity, ignorance or arrogance. No good options there.

Here’s a link to the letter from the HQ staff and here’s the one from the Field staff.

An interesting day as the mainstream media scrambled to catch up to the latest shenanigans surrounding the AFL-CIO that was already on the blogs. The release of the new proposal from the dissidents caused this latest — and late — torrent. We posted the stuff from Jonathan Tasini’s Working Life blog yesterday. Today, here come the usual suspects with their stories of what was to the blog readers old news. Tom Edsall (Washington Post) did his usual credible job. The gray lady, the NY Times, looked grayer still today with their story. Others also weighed in, with decent efforts from William Glanz at the Washington Times and Josh Gerstein of the NY Sun, who actually broke some news last week with his good article about the Teamsters gathering in Las Vegas. No links here — you can find ‘em all on Google.

We did want to say thanks to Jonathan Tasini and to all our faithful blog readers who have kept us pretty consistently ahead of the beat reporters on this. It’s funny — in the NY Times report by Steve Greenhouse, he says John Wilhelm’s the guy, which — we reported a day or so ago — is less clear to us than ever now. However, Greenhouse goes on to hedge toward the end his piece that “several Wilhelm supporters said that if he declined to run, they would support Terence O’Sullivan, the laborers’ president.” The NY Sun’s Gerstein speculates that Harold Schaitberger of the Firefighters might be the dissidents’ — or the “third way” — candidate, but at this point, it’s all pretty volatile. No one has critical mass yet, and time’s a-wastin’. Someone will emerge soon.

The NY Times really should just steer their readers here to the blog, so they’d know this as it happens.

To you faithful readers out there we say, keep the info coming and we’ll stay ahead of the curve.

Apparently there’s now a sixth member — the UFCW — to be added to the Gang of 5. Here’s a link from UFCW President Joe Hansen, rejecting the AFL-CIO “Officers proposal” and endorsing “real reform” as embodied in the Gang of 5′s proposal released today. We hear there are more Gang members to come.

Drip…