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Responding to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report that the nation’s unemployment rate rose from 4.8 to 5.1 percent in March. Economic Policy Institute economist Jared Bernstein dissects the current unemployment trends and discusses the remedies that progressives need to be pushing for in the coming months.

RELATED: Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief: "Reading the Vital Signs in the Jobs Report."

Forty years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., much of his economic justice agenda remains unfulfilled, according to a report coauthored by William Spriggs, the chairman of the economics department at Howard University. In this interview, Spriggs discusses how the appearance of economic progress in some areas is distracting the nation from serious underlying problems that foster continued racial disparities.

Donna Edwards shocked the Democratic party establishment on February 12 when she defeated an entrenched incumbent, Rep. Al Wynn, in the Maryland Democratic primary. But it was a sweet victory for the progressive coalition that backed her candidacy, and validation that the combination of a skilled candidate, a compelling message and the concerted support of labor leaders, environmentalists, women's groups and antiwar activists can overcome a candidate supported by and beholden to corporate interests.

In this interview, Edwards explains how she won her primary, what lessons her campaign holds for the progressive movement, and issues a challenge to "believe in and invest in our own politics"—which she says progressives have not always done in the past.

Edwards will be speaking at the opening session of Take Back America 2008 in Washington March 17.

On my LiberalOasis Radio Show—heard on Western Massachusetts' WHMP-AM and throughout the podcastosphere—Toby Chaudhuri of Campaign for America's Future offers a preview of "the progressive convention," Take Back America 2008, that starts in Washington March 17.

(This podcast is also available via iTunes and as an XML feed.)

Incredibly, President Bush on Friday tried to soft-pedal news that the economy has lost jobs for two months in a row. Not so Jared Bernstein, economist at the Economic Policy Institute and one of the panelists at Take Back America 2008, who in an interview with OurFuture.org calls the latest jobs report "as recessionary a report as I've seen since the last recession" in 2001 and 2002.

Speaking at the White House, Bush said, "It's clear our economy has slowed, but the good news is, we anticipated this and took decisive action to bolster the economy, by passing a growth package that will put money into the hands of American workers and businesses."

The reality, as Bernstein states in this interview, is that today's jobs report confirms that the economy for working-class people, which was never that great to begin with, has veered into a state that is too far gone to be fixed by a one-time check of a few hundred dollars and some business tax cuts.

Bernstein will be one of the presenters at Take Back America 2008. He will be detailing the impact of Bush administration economic policies on working families and help progressive activists shape a message that will rebut the ideological arguments conservatives will make as the economy continues its downhill slide.

Progressives need to move now to reframe the debate over the Iraq war and to connect it to the debate about the economy, says Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice. Cagan will be a panelist at this year's Take Back America conference March 17.

In this interview, Cagan says it is important to challenge efforts by conservatives to divert attention from the grave error of invading Iraq and focus on the need to achieve "victory" there. She also calls on activists at the Take Back America conference working on such issues as health care, housing, jobs or Social Security "to make the connection between these struggles and our struggle to end the war in Iraq."

At the end of the Take Back America conference, United for Peace and Justice will join a series of demonstrations in Washington in connection with the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

This radio spot asks Rep Ney to "come clean" with the bribery investigation that connects him to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and ran throughout his southeastern Ohio district on WWVA-AM, WHBC-FM, WKOV-FM, WHTH-AM and WNKO-FM.

Podcast interview with filmmaker Robert Greenwald about his new film, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

Podcast interview with Dee Esry who's family-owned grocery store was put out of business when Wal-Mart came to town.

Dr. Kendall Parker: "I have invested my life into working in an underservered area... I would like all the possible dividends to come to the people that I'm trying to provide health care service to."