ProgressiveDem

FYII, Thursday, March 11, 2010

Kaz — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:37:00 GMT

WWII "fly girls" WASPs honored with highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal.

Netanyahu's message to Obama and Biden.

How Social Security works for people with disabilities.

Patrick Kennedy calls press "despicable" for not covering Afghan was resolution; "the first major congressional debate about U.S. military operations in Afghanistan since lawmakers authorized the invasion of that country in autumn 2001." Rep. Alan Grayson's brief remarks in that debate. The House vote on removing US armed forces from Afghanistan.

Say what? FDIC thinks its a good idea for pension funds to bail out failed financial institutions.

What does Wall Street actually produce besides financial catastrophe?

Another in the growing list of cases of Bank of America foreclosing on the wrong house (including, in this case, holding a pet parrot hostage in the dispute) and then when sued insisting it acted reasonably.

Anything you tweet can be used against you.

Corporate welfare at its finest: $100 billion plus student loan industry bailout.

Not the Party of FDR, Truman, Kennedy & Johnson: Capitol Hill and White House Now Filled With Wussacrats and DINOs

Kaz — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:33:00 GMT

Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House have become DINOs of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Rather than the traditional party of the people and the party of the 21st New Deal, it is often indistinguishable from the GOP, the greed over people Republicans.

The spinelessness of the Obama administration, spun as "bipartisanship" aka caving to GOP obstructionists which has been proven to be damaging to regular Americans, has earned them the appropriate name, Wussacrats.

That apparently permanent minority invertebrate mind set has been the reality in both chambers of Congress since the the mid 1990's and continues among Democrats even though now in the majority.

DINO Wussacrats also describes both the Clinton and Obama presidencies, the former famous for "triangulation" aka out GOPing the Repugs, and the latter embracing the process and filling his administration with former DINO Clintonites.

As Michael Moore said: "Democrats are in for an ass-whipping of biblical proportions in November if they don't get off the dime and do the job they were sent there to do," he said on The Rachel Maddow Show. "Don't they see that?"

Jim Hightower weighs in (from AlterNet): "Yes, America needs a new Viagra, specifically targeted to stiffen backbones -- in particular, the limp backbones of Barack Obama's team, as well as the flaccid spines of Democratic congressional leaders. Where's the drug industry when we really need it?

"The Obama-ites seem incapable of firm stands. They excite us by boldly addressing our economic woes, then they seduce us by proposing stout actions. But when it comes time to follow through -- it's droopsville.

"Take America's job crisis. Obama and the Democrats eloquently empathize with the plight of struggling families who are falling out of the middle class. They point out that after Wall Street banksters crashed our economy and created the Great Recession, which began in December 2007, the number of jobs available to Americans has plummeted by more than 8.4 million. Since then, another 2.7 million jobseekers have come into the workforce. That leaves us in a hole that is 11.1 million jobs deep.

"The White House and Congress correctly note that our economy must not merely stop losing jobs, it must create more than 400,000 new positions a month for the next three years just to get us out of this hole. Nothing is more important, they tell us, blowing kisses of compassion and promising satisfaction.

"Sure enough, after a lengthy romancing of their Republican colleagues (who are devout believers in an abstinence-only job-creation policy), the Democrats finally made their move last week. With the support of five GOP senators, the "jobs, jobs, jobs" bill passed in both houses of Congress.

"But ... what a letdown. To win those five Republican senators, Democratic leaders shriveled their job investment program from a robust $266 billion to a frustratingly puny $15 billion.

"In fact, the Democrats' response is even weaker than it appears. Rather than directly creating jobs that pay workers, the $15 billion is going into tax breaks for businesses. The convoluted hope is that the money will "encourage" the recipients to hire a few people who're suffering from long-term joblessness. This trickle-down approach is even more pathetic than trying to fight a house fire with a squirt gun, for it doesn't even put the squirt gun in the hands of the people caught in the fire.

"What the Democrats have done is to pass a do-nothing Republican bill, a reality that was blurted out by Sen. Orrin Hatch, one of the five GOPsters to vote for it: "This is a conservative approach to help put our economy back on track through tax relief, not government spending."

"What a fraud. And an insult. Remember when Wall Street bankers shouted "Fire!" two years ago? Both parties rushed to the rescue, not with "conservative" tax relief, but with trillions of public dollars that they put directly in the hands of the same Wall Street arsonists who started the fire.

"We expect pious Republicans to consider millions of struggling American workers to be less worthy than a few greedheaded bankers, but not the Party of Roosevelt. Yet one Democratic leader said of this feeble bill, "Better something than nothing."

"Maybe they're fooling themselves -- but not us, and certainly not the jobless. This bill is nothing. And if Democrats don't stiffen their spines, they'll be nothing, too."

More FYII, Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Kaz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:02:00 GMT

Labor's view of Obama and the Democrats: "disappointing, disillusioning, and unengaged."

Time for workers to say enough: Ten steps to take to stop manufacturing plant closures (like Whirlpool, that took taxpayers stimulus monies) and stop job elimination.

Don't ask, don't tell not just about gays but might have been US military's philosophy for decades long carcinogenic contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.

US hubris and narcissism ongoing regarding Iraq where the US created a mess and those media cheerleaders who supported Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq now backpedal from their phony "regret" of that unlawful transgression....give them an Oscar for hubris.

Obamacare bill not reform but "catering to the big players in the medical-industrial complex."

Corporate profit before people's health and safety a continuing reality; food product company ignores salmonella at its plant and knowingly continued selling its product says FDA.

Super rich try to scuttle estate tax with lies so they can continue not paying their fair share of taxes.

Yet another warning about Wussacrats needing a backbone to add to the stack....since they were a minority on Capitol Hill (from the mid 90's until 2006) these mostly DINOs continue their lack of a spine. Now we also have a DINO Wussacrat president and administration...just what we needed: more invertebrates claiming and pretending to be Democrats.

Whiny, corporatist right wing GOP Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who thinks he should be immune from criticism.

Not to excuse Democrats' ethics problems, but "The Republican list of ethics problems was seemingly endless, and, unlike Democrats, the GOP actually tried to shield their members from repercussions."

Two Separate Americas Continue To Exist in This Country

Kaz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:59:00 GMT

What to make of some the Pollyanna statements about the meager uptick in hiring.

Take it with a hefty dose of salt and the following bucket of cold water reality.

From Roger Bybee at Working In These Times: "The latest unemployment report, showing an unemployment rate stuck at 9.7% in February, offers ambiguous signals about the pace and breadth of the recovery.

"But more fundamentally, the figures simultaneously show a drastic slowing of job loss—35,000 Americans lost their job last month, compared to 650,000 one year earlier—combined with the troubling persistence of long-term unemployment.

"The United States even added 1,000 manufacturing jobs in a sector that has been hammered not only by the recession, but by the persistent off-shoring of job to low-wage nations like China and Mexico. But this gain is tiny compared with the 5.6 million jobs in manufacturing lost since 2000, representing 32% of the nation's industrial employment.

“ 'It’s almost two separate Americas,' said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. One America is experiencing normalcy, while the other remains locked into the worst conditions seens since the Great Depression. “ 'They have been left behind, and their problems are not solved by recovery.' ”

"One indicator of the persisting crisis: males between the ages of 25 and 54—in their primary erning years—have a 19.4% unemployment rate. The picture is far worse among African American and Latino workers.

"The Times outlined a set of grim statistics that reveal ongoing long-term unemployment, and bleak prospects for bringing back high-wage manufacturing jobs given America's de-regulated policy toward the export of jobs...

"....Janesville, Wis., where General Motors closed down a huge assembly plant and wiped out the last 2,800 jobs there after years of relocating work to Mexico, is a community already stretched to the limit by high unemployment, foreclosures, families running short of food, increasing homelessness, and high levels of spousal abuse.

"Of course, the suffering is not limited to blue-collar communities. A professional woman in Georgia recently wrote me an e-mail detailing her bleak situation. She held an important human-relations job in a company before she was seriously injured in an auto accident.

" 'I had worked almost eight years at a job … that I loved and been promoted three times," she writes. "When I came back to work from disability, I had a new boss and I was laid off.'

"Even with college credentials and a professional expereience, she is finding work impossible to find. "I live in the highest unemployment county in Georgia," she says. " 'Job fairs turn people away at the door, because there are so many of us trying to find work.' "

FYII, Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Kaz — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:45:00 GMT

When Democrats stay true to their party's principles rather than becoming Wussacrats, they win GOP votes, too.

Many people have noticed the continuing hypocrisy of this president...on the stump, Obama decries the greedy actions of the for profit, private health insurance corporations, yet as one wise blogger asks: "If the private insurance industry is so evil, why would you ever possibly force me to be their customer?"

Updating political dictionaries; e.g. "Treason" refers to Democrats criticizing a Republican administration during a war while "Patriotism" refers to Republicans criticizing a Democratic administration during a war.

Democrats need too remind everyone, especially members of the GOP and those living in states and congressional districts represented by GOP elected officials that: The national debt doubled under George W. Bush and tripled under Reagan. George W. Bush had the worst job creation record in 60 years. Taxes are historically low and have been for twenty years.

DOJ's "anti-trust concerns" decision about ES&S's purchase of Diebold (giving it a virtual voting machine monopoly in the US--- presence in 90% of the states) does nothing "to ensure the accuracy or ability of citizens to oversee their own elections run on unobservable, easily manipulated, oft-failed electronic voting systems..."

Economic inequality increases: while unemployment and poverty continue to rise, number of "they're in the money" millionaires rose by 16% last year.

It's not enough that the Obama administration followed Dubya's lead in bailing out the financiers while essentially telling regular Americans to go pound sand, is Obama's myopia about bipartisanship putting Americans at massive financial risk (in addition to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl risks) regarding nuclear expansion?.

Japan's dog washing machine more popular with owners than dogs...maybe owners should try out the machine on themselves, first.

FYII, Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Kaz — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:21:00 GMT

"...letting bankers do what they want is a recipe for disaster..." No kidding.

Iraq's parliamentary elections are over and, as in 2005, when tens of thousands of Iraqis braved suicide bombers to vote, this time tens of thousands braved mortar fire to "give the West its 'democracy.' "

ACLU ad challenges military commissions questioning whether Obama has morphed into Dubya.

Offshoring jobs and firing American workers OK with the Wusscrats on Capitol Hill.

Afghan conflict: a deliberate manipulation of perceptions with propaganda by US military.

Israel plays the US for a fool, as Biden is in Israel brown nosing...the VP should explain this.

Right wing witch hunt aided and abetted by the reactionary GOP on Capitol Hill and their myopic, Wussacratic enablers.

Complicit in our own enslavement?

A second bumbling, female Democratic Secretary of State....shameful.

Obama and his administration's view of the Democratic base: trained seals and doormats.

Despite The Recent Financial Meltdown, Some States Play With Public Pension Funds Money At The High Risk Wall St. Casino

Kaz — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:16:00 GMT

It's as if the economic meltdown never happened....at least in the myopic eyes of some states.

They are willing to again act like Las Vegas gamblers with public pension funds and play in the Wall Street casino that caused the financial catastrophe.

People should be very, very concerned by this news.

From the NY Times: "States and companies have started investing very differently when it comes to the billions of dollars they are safeguarding for workers’ retirement.

"Companies are quietly and gradually moving their pension funds out of stocks. They want to reduce their investment risk and are buying more long-term bonds.

"But states and other bodies of government are seeking higher returns for their pension funds, to make up for ground lost in the last couple of years and to pay all the benefits promised to present and future retirees. Higher returns come with more risk.

“ 'In effect, they’re going to Las Vegas,' said Frederick E. Rowe, a Dallas investor and the former chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board, which oversees public plans in that state. “ 'Double up to catch up.' "

"Though they generally say that their strategies are aimed at diversification and are not riskier, public pension funds are trying a wide range of investments: commodity futures, junk bonds, foreign stocks, deeply discounted mortgage-backed securities and margin investing. And some states that previously shunned hedge funds are trying them now."

These states seem determined to Ignore the age old advice that the odds are always with the house, apparently resolved to commit fiduciary irresponsibility by deliberately gambling with public funds in many unregulated, exotic and murky financial areas, disregarding the financial debacles of the 1980's (e.g. Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky) and the recent massive financial disaster in this country.

More FYII, Monday, March 1, 2010

Kaz — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:02:00 GMT

A war criminal continues his obscene rantings.

"Ending private insurance's chokehold on health care."

Those forgetful aka prevaricating Republicans who loved reconciliation when they controlled Congress.

"GOP to the Unemployed....drop dead."

1,000 US military death in Afghanistan, a sobering statistic, as 30% of those troops dying in Afghanistan have been veterans of the Iraq conflict.

DINO shill for Big Business and Wall Street, Senator Blanche Lincoln of AK, has a Dem primary opponent.

Why the US Ceased To Be a Manufacturing Powerhouse and the Unemployment Crisis Gets Worse

Kaz — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:58:00 GMT

When did this country cease to be a manufacturing powerhouse? When it ceased producing what its people consume.

So says Richard McCormick, editor and publisher of Manufacturing & Technology News, in an interview by Leo Gerard, President of the USW, the United Steelworkers.

Here are a few excerpts from that interview that shed light on the economic crisis and unemployment disaster.

McCormick states: "The loss of the manufacturing sector’s political influence also occurred with the rise of the finance sector, which became the dominant force in political gift-giving. The Wall Street financial sector does not give one-half hoot about American jobs.

"The loss of America’s industrial capability also coincided with the persistent selling of economic ideology to the American public and its politicians that the country would be a lot more prosperous getting rid of crappy manufacturing jobs and creating jobs in the service and “knowledge” sectors. That grand experiment in creating a “post-industrial economy” just suffered a monumental collapse.

"Americans have allowed the big corporate multinational companies and their agents to take control of their political system. It remains to this day a system that is stacked against American workers and American taxpayers.

"The U.S. government continues to craft policies that are beneficial for companies that outsource jobs.

"A friend of mine works at the Commerce Department. He says that free trade is a farce. The United States has tariffs of 2 percent or 3 percent on incoming products. Yet the United States trades with countries with tariffs that are 10 times higher. Is that free trade? He has a simple solution to the U.S. trade crisis: hold up a mirror to any nation trading with the United States. Whatever their tariffs are on U.S. products entering their country, that is what the U.S. tariff should be on their products entering America.

"The United States government lets American companies that have set up shop in China get away with not having to abide by American standards – even though their products are being sold in the United States.

"It is morally wrong.

"Any foreign product sold in the United States should be required to be produced under the same conditions as is required for producers of the same product in the United States."

Leo Gerard asks: "When I go to Washington, what I hear is that we don’t need manufacturing. That’s old and dirty. So many politicians say the U.S. can move to a financial and service economy. You disagree with that. Why?

McCormick replies: "I hear it too, though a little less often, thank goodness. This argument is what has led to the demise of the United States. People are just starting to realize that as manufacturing goes offshore, high-end jobs in design and research and development go with it. When a plant closes, the supply chain disappears. This supply chain includes materials and parts producers, software providers, like CAD (computer-aided design), ERP (enterprise resource planning) and dozens of other high-tech equipment providers, machine tool companies, maintenance, accounting, packaging – the list goes on to include such things as the local restaurants, janitorial services and those dependent on the plant’s tax revenues, like librarians, county clerks, police officers and teachers. These are service jobs, all of which depend on manufacturing. One manufacturing job supports 15 other jobs. No other category of job has such a high multiplier. The United State must do whatever it can to start creating manufacturing jobs."

Read the rest here.

FYII, Monday, March 1, 2010

Kaz — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:20:00 GMT

Chile's quake 500x more powerful than the recent one in Haiti; hundreds are killed and the death toll rises and 2 million people are displaced; but the danger of an after quake Pacific tsunami thankfully didn't materialize.

In secret talks, US bankers, the crooks who helped cause the economic meltdown, reacted furiously to any "socialist" attempts to decrease their pay.

How private contractors continue getting rich at the government trough: "U.S. State Department has completely failed to do any serious oversight of the private contractors to whom they paid 1.6 billion dollars to provide police training at dozens of sites around Afghanistan."

Secretary of Labor Solis a gem in Obama's usual cow pie selections of high level officials.

A recent study "found little evidence to support allegations of fraud, nor to conclude that most Iranians view President Ahmadinejad as illegitimate" contrary to mainstream media blather.

Greece, Goldman Sachs, and derivatives, those exotic financial instruments that Bernanke, Obama and his economic team, and Congress don't want to regulate.

Right wing terrorists, the "obssesed and deranged" coddled by GOP politicians, seem to be making a comeback

Democratic Party and Labor Still Don't Get It: They Must Be 21st century New Dealers Fighting for Economic Justice for Hardworking People

Kaz — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:42:00 GMT

The Democratic Party better get its act together and quit kowtowing to DINOs in the White House and on Capitol Hill. There should
be no DINOs in the party, period.

And the Democratic Party better get serious about the jobs crisis, now.

While organized labor is doing better than the Dems at highlighting the massive unemployment disaster, it needs to pressure the Democrats much, much more.

If not, the Dems and labor will lose public support big time.

Roger Bybee at In These Times writes:

"The last time that banks and corporations subjected hard-working Americans to this level of misery, the people responded by flocking in droves to the vibrant industrial union movement and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's efforts to establish a measure of economic justice in America.

"But more than 70 years later, working people are turning off to both the labor movement and the Democrats. It would appear that ordinary Americans are feeling that the forces they once counted upon in tough times—labor and the Dems—are not there to protect their most vital interests.

"A new survey by Pew shows an astonishing drop in public support for labor since the Great Recession's start, as Akito Yoshikane pointed out on this site yesterday.....

"While other polls and coffee-shop conversations all reveal that Corporate America—especially banks and health-insurance companies—is more despised than at any time in living memory, it seems clear that working people have expected far more action in their defense from the both Democrats and labor.

".....leading Democrats seem unwilling to frankly acknowlegde the extent of deeply-rooted unemployment and long-term human wreckage, as detailed here, here and here.

"So we are witnessing a parade of top Obama officials like Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner and Democratic Party hacks working to convince the American people that the economy is on the mend.

"It seems that the top Democrats are rolling out much the same message that they used so disastrously in 1994. As progressive activist Steve Cobble put it, the message amounted to, 'You're actually doing better than you think you are,' words that served only to inflame workers whose real wages were falling and who were watching more jobs relocated to Mexico.

"The absence of urgency about jobs begins at the top with President Obama, who still declines to push for a massive public-works program to create jobs.

"President Obama's address to the Business Roundtable—the elite of the elite of Corporate America—was anything but a declaration of a national jobs emergency and a call for major corporations to end their policies of job destruction and the off-shoring of work to Mexico, China, India, and other low-wage nations. At this point, it appears that only an electoral wipeout or fierce pressure from labor will alter Obama's cautious, complacent course. Obama offered only a mild explanation of his economic policies.

"The main cause of labor's decline in popularity, while complex, is its too-close embrace of the Democrats, I would argue. The union movement has increasingly shifted its resources to lobbying Congress and state legislators, and has been tainted by its association with the Obama Administration's sleazy backroom deal-making with the insurers, drug companies, and job outsourcers. At the same time, labor has not left a visible impression of relentlessly fighting plant closings, foreclosures, and evictions at the local level across America.

"As a consequence, the public has been feeling cut adrift, with once-reliable allies no longer battling on their side. New AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, despite making the right moves in his short tenure, must directly combat the public's perception by turning up the heat on the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats by mobilizing working people in the communities where they live."

FYII, Friday, February 26, 2010

Kaz — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:12:00 GMT

"Social Security works for women; Social Security works for America."

How many times does it need repeating? It's not the debt: that's the least of our worries.

US military intelligence spied on domestic groups like Planned Parenthood in 2002.

Using money as leverage for the common good.

The continuing question: Why don't the Dems force the GOP to have a real filibuster? as Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), a GOP dimwit, says "tough shit" to unemployment benefits.

"....many of the most damaging acts inflicted on the country by Washington are enacted by bipartisanship....the harmonious joining together of Republicans and Democrats is ongoing when it comes to such terrible legislation as the extension of the Patriot Act, an abusive, destructive rights violating monstrosity of the Bushite era.

Glenn Beck and his ilk: tyranny's hideous image within our midst...it is happening here.

More FYII, Thursday, February 25, 2010

Kaz — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:31:00 GMT

Instead of states and localities being helped by the federal government, they are being scammed and defrauded by the financial industry with an exotic instrument: interest rate swaps that make big bucks for the banks and bankrupt everyone else.

A dismal situation: What happens when the poor get poorer?

No surprise....GOP health care plan (what an oxymoronic phrase) worse that you think.

Another GOP hypocrite, Mitt Romney, and the myth of his jobs creation as MA guv.

The International Olympic Committee—that sewing circle of monarchists, extortionists, and absolved fascists—likes to hide behind the pretense of nobility...in the hands of the IOC, the Olympics are a fraud.

Obama administration on Consumer Financial Protection Agency: one step forward, two steps back. BTW, why hasn't Geithner been fired yet?

Obama Continues To Disappoint Workers and Organized Labor, More Anti-Worker Incidents Occur

Kaz — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:27:00 GMT

With the unjust and huge unemployment numbers, there's nothing like some anti-worker news to show the extent of that anti-labor injustice.

That this is happening during a so called Democratic administration's term is shameful and makes a damning statement about the corporatist DINO White House.

One of the stories highlights the consequences of Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan's education policy: which is like Bush's, only worse.

From James Parks at the AFL-CIO Now Blog: "In the middle of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, more than 90 dedicated professional educators find themselves put out into the street. On Feb. 23, the Central Falls, R.I., school trustees fired the entire teaching staff of Central Falls High School, supposedly because of declining test scores at the school, which is located in Rhode Island’s smallest and poorest city.

"In all, 93 persons were put in the street—74 classroom teachers, plus reading specialists, guidance counselors, physical education teachers, the school psychologist, the principal and three assistant principals. Negotiations over ways to improve the school between teachers and the school superintendent broke down when school officials insisted that teachers add new duties, some without any extra pay at all.

"In a rally before the trustees meeting, some 500 union members and community supporters called on the board to reconsider its decision...."

However, there is more to the story.

From the Providence-Journal: "Jim Parisi, field representative for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, said Gallo was punishing teachers. “It is never acceptable to threaten anyone’s job as a bargaining tactic. Not in this state,” he shouted.

"U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has taken notice.

“I applaud Commissioner Gist and Superintendent Gallo for showing courage and doing the right thing for kids,” Duncan said Tuesday night."

So the Obama administration's so called education "reform" condones and applauds firing all the teachers.

As Danny Weil wrote last year: "Arne Duncan is part and parcel of an educational movement that we are increasingly witnessing in New York, Washington D.C., New Orleans and Chicago, Texas and elsewhere: a movement towards centralizing decision-making regarding public schools in the hands of an elite autocracy

"....a neo-liberal turn that goes beyond issues regarding the private operation of individual charter schools and instead twists and turns its way right into the heart of privatizing the public urban sphere in entirety, while making the government simply a boardroom or ‘secret parliament’ for powerful corporate interests.

"The Obama education policy differs little from the Bush administration’s policy of hitching student and teacher performance to what many in the educational community and beyond call inauthentic assessments that actually force teachers to teach to the test and do little to encourage critical thinking or collaborative problem solving. Nor does the Obama policy seem to differ much in setting goals for the rapid expansion of charter school networks and non-profit and for-profit ‘providers’ to run them. Where it is more far-reaching than the Bush educational plan, however, is in its commitment to expand the charter school market by forcing all the states in the nation to pass legislation for the creation of charter schools."

If firing 90 teachers from one high school isn't extremely anti-labor enough, this should put the icing on the cake: company threatening workers who protest a plant closing.

From Dave Johnson at Blog for Our Future

".....what's this? Whirlpool Threatens Workers: Protesting Plant Closure Risks 'Future Jobs'

" 'A major corporation planning to shut down a factory in Indiana has warned its union workers that they'll endanger their future job prospects if they protest the plant's closing.

'. . . Activists planned a high-profile protest for this Friday, with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka visiting the plant for the first time. But Whirlpool says the effort is futile -- they are fully committed to shutting the plant down. The company, however, still seems quite wary of the potential for bad publicity. In a memo sent to its employees and passed along to the Huffington Post, [link added] Paul Coburn, division vice president for Whirlpool's Evansville Division, offers a fairly explicit warning to his workers: If they join Trumka's protest they would seriously risk future employment opportunity.

"Threatening workers who show up at the protest that they risk future employment? Click through to read the entire report and to see Whirlpool's letter."

FYII, Thursday, February 25, 2010

Kaz — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:23:00 GMT

Sunlight Foundation introduced a great way to watch the live health care follies: when a politician starts speaking,,,,Sunlight shows their top campaign contributors. E.g. Sen. Tom Coburn had the floor..his top career industry donor has been health professionals, who've given the Oklahoma lawmaker $984,889.

As House voted to kill health care industry's anti-trust exemption, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) "offends" GOP members with the facts. How can you offend greedy hypocrites?

Unemployed people are organizing.

Is Obama trying to prove he's an honorary member of the Wall Street crooks club? Keeping Bernanke at the Fed was nuts. Ben was asleep at the wheel and helped cause the economic meltdown with its massive unemployment and now he wants another chance to do it again. Bernanke was part of the problem and not the solution.

What a Tory win in the UK would mean: fat cats and evangelicals....could have been written about the GOP, the Bush regime and DINOs in the White House and Congress.

Little things mean a lot: smokeless stoves a boon to village women in Pakistan.

More FYII, Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Kaz — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:55:00 GMT

Stealing from the government, Blackwater even uses South Park alias.

Canadians respond to ice hockey loss to US.

"There is no Social Security crisis; Social Security works for America."

Appalling that some in the GOP think that terrorist suicide attack on IRS office in Austin that killed an innocent victim was justified.

The Reagan years: treason and deliberate economic incompetence.

Senatorial Hypocrites "Astounded" by Contractors Outnumbering Federal Work Force at DHS

Kaz — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:16:00 GMT

Capitol Hill seems to be filled with elected Casablanca Captain Renaults, absolute hypocrites like Lieberman and Collins who are "astounded" that contractors outnumber full time federal work force at the Department of Homeland Security.

From CNN: "The Department of Homeland Security has more contractors working for it than full-time employees, a situation two members of Congress said Tuesday was "unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable."

"Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and ranking Republican Susan Collins said they were "astounded" to learn there are more than 200,000 contractor employees at the department.

"The civilian work force of Homeland Security numbers 188,000, according to an estimate provided to the senators by Homeland Security.

"In a letter sent Tuesday to the agency's Secretary Janet Napolitano, Lieberman and Collins said the figure "raises the question of whether DHS itself is in charge of its programs and policies, or whether it inappropriately has ceded core decisions to contractors."

Who the hell increased exponentially the number of private contractors who proceed to rip off the government? GOP regimes who handed a no questioned asked cash cow to their cronies.

The criminal Bush regime's goal was to privatize government; another way of enabling crony contractors to make out like bandits doing work for the government more expensively and often less effectively than utilizing more economical, experienced Civil Service employees.

A great portion of US intelligence is outsourced to private companies with no public accountability. In fact, "the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] found that 'those same contractors recruiit our own employees, already cleared and trained at government expense, and then 'lease' them back to us at considerably greater expense."

Look at the terrible problems caused and crimes committed by Pentagon, State, and other departments and agencies' reliance on unaccountable private mercenary companies like Blackwater now Xe have resulted in crimes committed by these same so called "security" corporations.

Unfortunately, many of these contractors are a part of Washington's revolving door, including former high ranking military double dipping at the government trough while receiving a generous pension and health care coverage and other benefits.

Government's massive utilization of contractors has become a scandalous scam and fraud; and they are more expensive (those ubiquitous cost plus contracts are infamous) and more often much less effectual than Civil Service workers; a losing situation for regular hardworking Americans.

Time to end this fraud and horrific waste of taxpayers' hard earned money.

FYII, Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Kaz — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:21:00 GMT

Not for the first time or the last time, Marja campaign in Afghanistan launched for PR purposes: to influence domestic US opinion.

There's the happy talk about GM crops, then there's the reality.

Many Democrats from coal producing state ignore logic and science.

No surprise....US plans for not leaving Iraq (or Afghanistan, or Pakistan.....)

Vermont reactor shutdown might throw a monkey wrench into Obama's woodenheaded plans, aka hack move to build more nuclear reactors using billions in taxpayers' money to make energy companies richer and put Americans' health and safety at risk.

The "new GM" northern strategy: go non-union.

Obama's Health Care Follies: US Will Continue Shamefully Trailing Other Industrialized Nations' Universal Health Care

Kaz — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:59:00 GMT

After watching the finesse and experience of Canada and Great Britain's men and women's curling teams in action, it's no wonder that the US men's and women's teams have sunk like stones.

I wonder how many of those watching these events realize that most of the countries represented at the Winter Olympics have universal health care, but not the United States.

And the Rube Goldberg health care follies that the DINO Obama administration unveils tomorrow is indicative of just how shamefully and tragically the US continues to miserably trail other industrialized nations in quality affordable health care for all.

The reality is that the corporatist White House and Congress, led by spineless Wussacrats, are deceiving and betraying regular Americans and consigning tens of thousands yearly to unnecessary death because of lack of health care.

Obama and the majority Democratic Congress continue to prove they're not real Democrats by slapping ineffective band-aids on a gaping wound and calling it a success or claiming that it's the best they can do while they and their GOP hypocritical colleagues are covered by top notch health care provided by the government.

Physicians for a National Health Care Program explain the reality at CommonDreams: "President Obama's health care proposal, preserving as it does a central role for the for-profit, private health insurance industry, is incapable of achieving the kind of universal, comprehensive and affordable reform the country needs, a spokesman for a national doctors' group said Wednesday.

" 'Regrettably, the president's proposal is built on some of the worst aspects of the Senate bill,' " said Dr. Quentin Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 17,000 doctors who support single-payer, Medicare-for-All approach to reform. Young's statement comes on the eve of the president's bipartisan summit in Washington.

" 'For example, the president's proposal would ship hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies,' Young said. 'And to help finance this, it would impose a new tax on health benefits of workers, especially those in high-cost states'

" 'Its individual mandate would force millions of middle-income uninsured Americans to buy insurers' skimpy products - insurance policies full of gaps like ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums. Such policies already leave middle-class American families vulnerable to economic hardship and medical bankruptcy in the event of a serious illness like cancer,' continued Young, citing a recent study.

" 'Even so, at least 23 million people would remain uninsured,' he said. 'We know that being uninsured raises your chance of dying by about 40 percent,' he continued, citing another recent study. 'That translates into about 23,000 unnecessary deaths each year. As physicians, we find this completely unacceptable.' "

More FYII, Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Kaz — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:14:00 GMT

"Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act" on Tuesday. If passed, the act would force the United States to phase out its controversial use of private security contractors in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan."

Tom Friedman's fact free propaganda continues to roll on....unrelenting idiocy on parade to fool some of the people all of the time.

"Deja vu Iraq all over again...a new director general of IAEA more malleable and naive than his predecessor may provide new grist for the same old spin on Iran's spreading misinformation.

Re: torture memo authors John Yoo and Jay Bybee and "mens rea" or guilty mind...."had the same compelling motivation in rendering false legal advice. Each sought a specific high office that the recipients of the memos were able to give to them...." or quid pro quo.

John "brown nose torturer" Yoo, argued that the president was God, especially Dubya, with omnipotent, imperial power to order the deliberate massacre of civilians or the crushing of a detainee's child's testicles and contended in a public debate that the legality of crushing a child's testicles "depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that."

Typical Americans Face More Massive Unemployment, Widening Economic Inequality, and Unfair, Regressive Taxation

Kaz — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:29:00 GMT

No wonder regular Americans' anger is increasing to the boiling point. They have become Washington's punching bags.

Throw the bums out is aimed at both the GOP and the Democrats. It's well deserved.

Nothing is being done to effectively overcome and fix massive unemployment, the widening chasm of economic inequality, and unfair, regressive taxation, as the richest of the rich and corporations that control government have turned it into a mechanism to serve the wealthy oligarchy, relegating typical Americans to serfdom.

Basically the corporatist White House and Capitol Hill, with its inadequate, meager stimulus and stingy jobs bill are telling those Americans bearing the brunt of this staggering economic inequality and huge unemployment burden to suck it up and keep struggling, while the economic meltdown criminals and their Bushite/Obama enablers get wealthier on the backs of those same struggling Americans.

From Robert Borosage at Campaign for America's Future:

"Yes, there is a class war, Warren Buffett once said, and my class is winning. The IRS study of taxes paid in 2007 makes his point. The top 1% of taxpayers averaged about $138 million in income, and paid taxes at a rate of 16.6%.

"As Buffett says, their secretaries pay a higher rate. No wonder Republicans and conservaDems like the much regretted Evan Bayh are fighting to lower the estate tax rate as part of a "jobs" bill. These folks will have a lot to put in the estate that's never been taxed as income.

"Ah, for the extremist liberal days of Ronald Reagan when capital gains were taxed at the same rate as income.

And David Sirota sheds more light on unfair, regressive taxation in which the richest get richer as the rest of us struggle to keep jobs with stagnant wages.

"Pulitzer Prize-winning Tax Notes reporter David Cay Johnston has a big scoop (subscription required):

" 'The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low, newly disclosed tax data show.
'In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16. (For the report, see Tax Analysts Doc 2010-3372 .)
'The figures came at the peak of the last economic cycle and show that widely published reports in major newspapers asserting that the richest Americans are losing relative ground and "becoming poorer" are not supported by the official income data.
'The long-term data show that under current tax and economic rules, the incomes of the top earners rise when the economy expands and contract during recessions, only to rise again. Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show.' "

"I can't say I'm surprised, but I can say I am sickened. At a time when both Republicans and the Obama administration want us to believe our deficit problems should be solved through "reforms" (read: cuts) to Social Security and Medicare, we should be having a discussion about out of control defense spending and the ultra-rich watching their tax rates decline."

Meanwhile Mike Elk reports: "Earlier today, I learned from trusted sources on the Hill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will propose only a 15-day unemployment and COBRA extension.

"Such a move is absolutely pathetic and unacceptable. About 1.2 million million Americans are expected to lose their unemployment benefits at the end of the month. While a 15-day extension will allow people to continue receiving aid, hundreds of thousands of people will still receive notices from state unemployment offices saying that they will stop receiving aid."

These senatorial hypocrites (most of whom are millionaires and multi-millionaires) who receive six figure salaries, top of the line health care and other benefits thanks to the taxpayers are consigning hardworking people to 21st century serfdom.

At the same time, these senatorial hypocrites take money from their corporate handlers and crony Wall Street casino gazillionaires that cost these hardworking Americans their jobs.

Economist Dean Baker reminds us that the Federal Reserve may be breaking the law, under Obama's re-confirmed economic meltdown and unemployment enabler, Ben Bernanke. (What does that say about Obama?)

"The mistakes of Bernanke, along with Alan Greenspan, in allowing the housing bubble grow to dangerous levels are the main reason that the country is stuck is suffering from high unemployment. Millions of people are out of work not because they lack the skills or willingness to work hard. They are out of work because Ben Bernanke messed up in managing the economy. But Ben Bernanke still has his job.

"Is the Fed breaking the law? That is a question that members of Congress should be asking. The Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment Act, which governs the Fed's operation, requires the Fed to pursue price stability and full employment, which is defined as 4% unemployment. It would be hard to maintain that current policy is consistent with these goals.

"At this point the Fed is explicitly discussing its plans for an exit strategy, moving away from its policy of quantitative easing. This means we should anticipate a general upward movement in interest rates in coming months, although the speed of this movement is not clear.

"This is troubling because the economy is expected to remain very weak by almost everyone, including the Fed itself. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the unemployment rate will average near 10% in 2010, 9% in 2009, and 8% in 2012. Unemployment is not projected to fall to 5% until 2015. If the Fed is retreating from its quantitative easing and allowing interest rates to rise, its policy will be doing little to push down the unemployment rate more quickly.

"Unfortunately, more quantitative easing or the targeting of a higher inflation rate do not appear to be on the Fed's agenda. Its sole concern appears to be ensuring that inflation does not begin to accelerate. This is not only perverse given the fact that inflation is slowing and is expected by nearly everyone to continue to slow for the next several months, it also would appear to violate the law governing the Fed's conduct.

"The Fed does not have the option to ignore the full employment part of its mandate, as it appears to be doing at present. Congress should carefully question the Federal Reserve Board chairman, Ben Bernanke, when he gives his semi-annual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony this week. He should be forced to explain how doing nothing to counteract the five years of high unemployment projected by the Fed and others is consistent with its mandate to promote full employment."

FYII, Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Kaz — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:26:00 GMT

Drug industry hooks physicians early: more than half of medical residency programs accepted drug industry financial support.

The Bushite/CIA torture-rendition regime's tentacles extended into Capitol Hill.

Obama's Bushite-Iran Contra scandal holdover, Bob Gates, wants Europe to bankrupt itself with military spending just like the US.

The reality of the so called "public option": "a feeble public insurance plan to the insurance market has been but avery poor excuse to support 'insurance reform' that will criminalizethe uninsured, divert billions of tax dollars to subsidize unaffordableprivate insurance premiums and protect pharmaceutical industrysuper-profits."

Bye-bye to Bayh, the Indiana "drama queen...an embarrassment to his constituents, his party and an affront to democracy."

RIP Alexander Haig who enthusiastically defended the rape and murder of four American nuns in El Salvador.

Elected Radical Right Wing Republicans Expose Their Disdain for Women and Regular Americans

Kaz — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:04:00 GMT

It's the last Monday in February, and we continue being assaulted by right wing nut Republicans, especially the elected kind.

However, that also begs the question: what does that say about the voters who cast their ballots for these destructive denizens of, in the following examples, state and federal legislatures?

From Right Wing Watch: "Last week we noted how Pat Robertson, Jonathan Falwell, and other right-wing activists in Virginia are targeting Gov. Bob McDonnell and other top elected officials to cut off any state funding for Planned Parenthood.

"During a press conference unveiling the effort last week, a state legislator declared that God punishes women who have had abortions by giving them disabled children later:

"Western Prince William Del. Bob Marshall, R-13th, says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.

"He made that statement last Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood.

“ 'The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,' " said Marshall, a Republican.

"Marshall was among more than 20 people, mostly Christian pastors and clergy, who gathered for the press conference in the General Assembly Building...."

How completely shameful, intolerant, hateful, and hypocritically un-Christlike.

Meanwhile, from ThinkProgress, there is the GOP senatorial hypocrites doing their best to screw regular Americans.

"Yesterday, CNN released a survey showing that “Americans overwhelmingly believe that the government is broken.” In all, 86 percent of respondents said the government is broken, an increase of eight percentage points since 2006. In a town hall meeting on Friday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said that the broken nature of Congress was a good thing, declaring, “I love gridlock”:

"Coburn then segued into his relationship with the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate.

“ 'I get along well with Harry Reid,' " Coburn said, saying they have a great relationship.

"However, Coburn said the media never reports that because “that doesn’t sell newspapers.”

"He went on to say that he is for gridlock in Congress.

“ 'I love gridlock,' ” Coburn said. “ 'I think we’re better off when we’re gridlocked because we’re not passing things.' ”

"Coburn — the Senate’s “Dr. No” — believes that “charges of obstructionism are a mark of honor he will wear as proudly,” according to a New York Times profile from last October."

FYII, Monday, February 22, 2010

Kaz — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:28:00 GMT

"Why are the representatives of Washington, civilian and military, always so tone deaf when it comes to other peoples and other cultures [Afghanistan, for instance]....that they, and only they, have the right answers, when at home they seem to have none at all?"

Bush lawyers get away with torture,as expected, thanks to veteran DOJ honcho, helping the Obama administration close the door on any "accountablility and justice for the Bush torture regime."

Conservative-led state governments are choosing the deficit peacock path, refusing to responsibly raise revenues and instead slashing their states’ social and infrastructure spending"....Virginia, Minnesota, and California, for example.

"European NATO allies are to urge President Barack Obama to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from European soil."

Deja vu all over again: winning even more hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

Did Toyota mechanical failures send an innocent man to prison?

Is this a great country or what? In key states, public option more popular than the Senate Rube Goldberg plan; ; no public option as Obama goes with Senate health care plan.

FYII, Friday, February 19, 2010

Kaz — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:11:00 GMT

Jobless people in Rhode Island accuse administration of not understanding the discouraging and destructive reality of unemployment figures.

Republican opposed to workers and policies to revive manufacturing in the US.

Texas right wing education curriculum turns some Texans into unscientific dolts...for them Flintstones wasn't a fantasy cartoon series, but reality.

CPAC conference reveals conservative agenda: love of torture and hatred of Obama

Apparent goal of inflammatory rhetoric by Hillary Clinton; promoting conflict and convincing Americans Iran a threat.

Cracking down on employers who try and cheat by passing off employees as independent contractors.

The hypocrisy from the right wing about the Austin suicide-terrorist; while recently elected MA senatorial twit shrugs off terror incident.

Obama and Crew Buy Into Deficit Fear Mongering to the Detriment of the American People in this Massive Unemployment Crisis

Kaz — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:29:00 GMT

Obama never lets the facts get in the way, especially as he jumps on the deficit fear mongering bandwagon.

More and more in every way, Obama acts like a Republican not a Democratic president.

In the midst of a massive unemployment crisis, he fobbed off leadership responsibilities to effectively correct the damage to regular Americans in this jobless crisis to a Wussacratic Congress so he could focus on a deficit commission which he created by executive order.

Obama appointed as co-chairs, former senator, Alan Simpson (R-WY) who attempted in the 1990's to slash Social Security benefits by pegging increases below the rate of inflation; and former Clinton chief of state, Ersking Bowles, described as corporate America's friend in the White House.

Obviously, this corporate controlled administration has become a part of the problem: "deficit scaremongering that is undermining economic recovery."

Obama and his crew have bought into the deficit hawks fear mongering (or were part of it all along).

The Center for Economic and Policy Research has issued a report that "corrects many of the misperceptions about the deficit that have brought the issue to the center of national debate."

"One such example cited in the report is that the worsening of both the short- and long-term deficit picture was driven not by a spendthrift Congress, but almost entirely by the economic crisis brought on by the collapse of the housing bubble. The small portion of the budget deterioration driven by legislative actions was primarily the result of increased defense spending associated with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As well, the study demonstrates that the true long-term deficit problem is skyrocketing health care costs and any meaningful attempt to deal with deficits would start with reining in health care.

"The study also refutes the notion that the budget deficit is the source of concern over the threat of foreign government ownership of U.S. debt. If budget hawks were truly worried over the prospect of foreign ownership of debt, they would focus on the trade defict. Given that the trade deficit is driven by a high dollar, this should be a focus of their attention, but the people raising this concern almost never discuss the over-valued dollar.

"These misrepresentations and others are more than diversionary arguments of no consequence. In a time when cogent, effective policies are needed to address the suffering stemming from the economic downturn, the tactics of the defict hawks distract the public and policy makers from the policies necessary to bring the economy back to full employment."

Stewardship of the Environment and Justice Demands Destroyers of Same Must Be Held Accountable

Kaz — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:26:00 GMT

Just read an article in The Guardian about the world's top firms causing $2.2 trillion in environmental damage.

An excerpt:

"The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.

"The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils."

And in the 21st century, environmentalists are still battling pollution and polluters, often moving two steps forward then being pushed three steps back by corporate polluters and corporate controlled government that fails to effectively respond to polluters and climate change.

Corporate irresponsibility and deliberate destructiveness aided and abetted by government.

There's an old song by Tom Lehrer called "Pollution," that should be played regularly...humor can make a point about the deadly serious.

Some of the lyrics:

"If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air.

"Pollution, pollution,
They got smog and sewage and mud.
Turn on your tap and get hot and cold running crud.

"See the halibuts and the sturgeons
Being wiped out by detergents.
Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly,
But they don't last long if they try.

"Pollution, pollution,
You can use the latest toothpaste,
And then rinse your mouth with industrial waste."

Listen to it here.

And replay the 1971 "Keep American Beautiful" public service ad with Iron Eyes Cody, but call it Keep America Beautiful and Healthy" or "Quit Killing Our Country, Its People, and the Planet" for good measure.

More FYII, Thursday, February 18, 2010

Kaz — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:36:00 GMT

Microsoft outsources general legal work to India.

Confidential document from the 1960s found in Vatican archives "that instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or face discipline — including expulsion from the church."

The White House and Congress fiddle as Rome burns: the desperation of the tens of millions of jobless discarded by the economic system.

US media replaying its role in the illegal Iraq debacle, this time with Iran.

Obama slaps environmentalists in the face.

Desperation of Job Seekers Is Heartbreaking

Kaz — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:32:00 GMT

The desperation of millions of job seekers is heartbreaking, yet the White House and Congress continue to fiddle while Rome burns.

Thanks to the Reagan administration, people receiving unemployment benefits must pay taxes after $2,400 in benefits.

Meanwhile, as job seekers pay tax on unemployment benefits that are used for such luxuries as food and toilet paper, new IRS data shows the richest getting richer and see their income tax rates dropping. It's absolutely appalling and sickening!

Roger Bybee at Working In These Times highlights the struggles, desperation, and anger of the jobless. Here are some excerpts:

"[Layoffs] are the opposite of life-giving; they literally deplete life… Layoffs diminish the ability to restart. You can have all kinds of people like spouses and friends say you are terrific, ... but in the core you say, I am not, and I have big evidence that I am not."

—Prof. Kim Carmon, psychologist, University of Michigan

"For anyone who has ever been out of work, Kim Carmon's statement captures your innermost feelings of worthlessness that "literally deplete life." Unemployment exacts both an enomrous toll on both one's self-esteem and physical health, as Prof. Peter Dreier and Dr. Harvey Brenner have documented, respectively.

"When I wrote last week about the plight of America's 4.8 million unemployed, it triggered some powerful responses from unemployed workers. They're excerpted below.

"The economic situation is especially dire for the 1.2 million jobless Americans who face a loss of benefits if long-term unemployment benefits are not extended beyond February 28. Many people, like this man who responded to my column last week, have already exhausted their benefits and are barely managing to scrape by:

I lost my job through no fault of my own when the economy went south. It’s a spit in the face to move up the ladder and then go from making $800 a week to $350 before taxes. My benefits recently ran out and I’ve still had no luck finding a job.

"The frustration of the jobless is now being intensified by Congress' inability to accomplish four relatively simple things:

Develop a jobs bill commensurate with the massive problem unemployment crisis we face.
Extend unemployment compensation benefits due to expire on February 28, along with the provision where the federal government covers 65% of otherwise-unaffordable COBRA health insurance payments.
Provide aid to state and local governments that are looking at a combined deficit of $142 billion for next fiscal year, starting July 1.
Remove the outrageous federal income tax on unemployment benefits, which kicks in after $2,400 in benefits. For many of the unemployed, that means the tax starts being collected after just six checks.

"Also lacking are aid to the ailing states and relief from the taxation of unemployment benefits, a holdover from the Reagan era.

"Another jobless worker wrote me to explain the desperation felt by people discarded by the economic system. They now have no financial resources left for their families and desperately hope that Congress will act to deadline to extend benefits:

" 'The media has the way to make a difference….like making the country aware that on Feb 28th over 2 MILLION people like me (I’m on my last FED tier extension) will have NOTHING LEFT and by June 18% of the population will make this economy something that we have never seen before. The country is on a road to the worst economic melt down we’ve ever seen….

'This is what really happens when someone loses their UI benefits. PAY ATTENTION::
No income - Can’t live no, nowhere to go, no way to look for work.
no mortgage payments-NO HOME.
no auto payments means No CAR!.
no buying any luxuries like food, shelter. necessities like toilet paper!! …

'I too am on unemployment and as of today 2/11 I have until this WED to find a job that I haven’t gotten yet or I’m moneyless. My last check will be $250.00 after that No income because congress isn’t willing to put everything else to the side and make unemployed people their ONLY PRIORITY!!! No days off, no holiday break no forgetting about us for the weekend we’ll still be here when you get back !!!

'Most people can’t pay anything now to stay afloat and will soon be living in a shelter if they don’t extend UI for longer than 6 weeks or whatever band-aid timeframe they think is acceptable. Stop taxing UI benefits, extend to the end of 2010, create a real job plan, and do it now please!!!!!!!!!!!

'If employers read this and are hiring I have 10 years of computer skills in web design(html, Flash), repair, upgrading, and audio production, 25 years in auto center management, and I I’m 42 yo male married, 2 kids in Pa. willing to go to NJ (if I can keep my car).' "

FYII, Thursday, February 18, 2010

Kaz — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:47:00 GMT

Consumer protection agency DOA in Senate; Dems who don't want to alienate Wall Street that filled their coffers will make sure the bill is toothless and weak and a few DINO senators, Mark Warner, Ben Nelson, and Tim Johnson will tread carefully because of their pro-corporate blue dogginess.

John McCain flip-flops so often that he can't remember what he has said or what he believes...pathetic.

White House press secretary refuses to go on record as to whether US and/or its allies are waterboarding or using other torture on captured Taliban leader.

Quick on the draw: Virginia legislature passes 20 gun bills expanding possession and ownership rights in the state.

How much more of this will occur in Afghanistan?: "Officers blamed in Afghan ambush that killed 5 US troops."

Bernie Kerik, former NYC police commissioner, Rudy Giuliani pal and Bush nominee to head Dept. of Homeland Security, gets 4 years in corruption case.

GOP Stimulus Hypocrites

Kaz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:58:00 GMT

All the GOP hypocrites, whining about the stimulus, voting against it in Congress, and yet, taking credit for it in their state and districts.

So deceitful, so anti-common good, so anti-workers and so Republican.

More FYII, Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Kaz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:41:00 GMT

To create jobs: protect manufacturing and rebuild aging infrastructure.

Corporate controlled White House not keen on raising $100 billion a year with a financial speculation tax on the Wall Street casino (0.25% fee on stock transactions. Derivatives swaps would be taxed at a rate of 0.02%.

Meanwhile, the shmos who "could not see the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy are convening in Washington this week to hatch new schemes to take away people's Social Security and Medicare in the name of 'fiscal responsibility.' "

Hypocritical Republicans: Stimulus was bad but we'll take the cash and credit anyway.

Highest inequality of wealth in US among industrialized nations increased as of financial crisis as richest 1% have captured wealth.

Temp jobs no longer a sign of recovery; aren't translating into permanent jobs anytime soon.

Dems Acting Like Hybrid Lemming Chicken Little Deficit Hawks

Kaz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:39:00 GMT

Obama insists on maintaining a disastrous woodenheadedness and apparently is throwing his lot in with the destructive deficit hawks.

And dunderheaded Democrats with their ignore-the-facts blinders are acting like hybrid lemming Chicken Littles.

Meanwhile, the media has become a cheerleader for deficit zealot fearmongering rather than researching and reporting the nuts and bolts reality.

Jonathan Tasini at Working Life writes: [Both Republican and Democratic parties] "hold the same view--that the fiscal deficits are a great danger and that "painful" cuts await us. If you argue over the same terrain, of course, you can't compromise

"But, they aren't dealing with the facts.

"THE FISCAL DEFICIT IS NOT AN ISSUE. The problem is what we view as our set of priorities and what we spend money on and how each of us contributes to society's welfare.

"The greatest challenge right now--the greatest crisis--is jobs. Period. We should not be holding back from spending more money to make sure people have work. I'd say we need another one trillion dollars for that task. Now.

"And the fiscal deficit? It would disappear pretty easily, and certainly be manageable, if we did two simple things:

"1. Reinstitute an ethos in America that people have to pay their fair share, not as a penalty, but as a cost of having a decent society. That means that the wealthiest people have to pay more--and Wall Street has to pay a transactions tax on its business because it cannot have a thriving business without a decent society with roads, education and all the infrastructure that makes Wall Street a profitable business ("profitable" should mean not obscenely greedy and outrageous pay).

"2. End the wasteful, immoral, tragic waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on foolish wars, with the most recent example Afghanistan. There was not a serious debate--by either party--over the $700-plus billion defense budget proposed by the president. Have we gone mad?"

Destructive Consequences of Regressive Taxation and Tax Giveaways for the Filthy Rich are Ruining the Lives of Working Americans

Kaz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:35:00 GMT

The corporate controlled White House, corporate controlled Capitol Hill, and the corporate controlled media constantly try and bamboozle the American people, especially when the people are disgusted, fed up, and angry with business as usual by their elected officials, especially in Washington; especially when they voted for change to promote and support the common good and got scammed by those who promote and support the wealthy few; especially when this country is "becoming a country of serfs ruled by oligarchs."

Well, government of, by, and for all the people has become government, of, by, and for only the wealthy few including corporations.

Which explains why Obama had the audacity to say that Americans don't begrudge Wall Street gazillionaires their wealth and bonuses. With all due respect, he's full of crap. Regular Americans are damn well are angry when these Wall Street crooks lie, cheat and steal causing an economic meltdown that cost us our jobs, living wages, and a decent life, and brazenly steal our money disguised as a euphemistic "bailout" with the help of their bought and paid for puppets in Washington.

Remember one of those biggest bamboozlements: gigantic tax cuts for the rich? It was promoted as trickle down economics, but was actually GOP enabled pissing on the rest of the 90% of Americans.

An unfair burden falls on regular Americans who continue paying for those tax cuts for the rich. And the wealthy aren't paying their fair share of taxes because GOP administrations and members of Congress cut their taxes and gave them other perks, aided and abetted by DINOs (Democrats In Name Only).

A repeat of history....serfs struggling under the burden of paying taxes because the oligarchs don't.

Dave Johnson at Blog for Our Future reminds us: "Today's new York Times has a front-page story (really an editorial) that promotes cutting the Social Security pensions of Americans and other things that we as citizens are entitled to.

" 'Many analysts say the president and Congress could send a strong signal to global markets by agreeing this year to a package of both long-term tax increases and spending reductions, especially in the popular entitlement programs, that would not take effect until 2012.' "

"Let's remember how we got here.

For decades following the depression and WWII the country had operated with a budget that was in or nearly in balance while maintaining our infrastructure and investing in our future. Past concentrations of wealth were decreasing, the middle class was expanding, and we led the world in growing prosperity.

"The trouble all started when we dramatically cut taxes on the rich. For decades the top tax rate was 90%. Then we cut it to 70% and then 50% dramatically from there all the way to around 30%. The budget immediately went completely out of balance. The tax cuts created a "structural deficit."

"At the same time as we cut taxes for the rich we raised taxes on everyone else, saying the money would be used to pay for peoples' retirement. However, that money instead was used to defer the damage caused by the tax cuts for the rich.

"And we started to dramatically increase the military budget. Today we spend about $1 trillion a year on military, veterans, intelligence, nukes, and the share of debt interest from past military spending -- more than every other country in the world combined.

"And we started cutting everything else back. We cut back investing in R&D, schools, transportation, you name it. We stopped even maintaining the existing infrastructure. The very investment that could have led to economic growth was cut because of those tax cuts.

"And now because the debt and continued borrowing -- caused by those huge tax cuts for the rich and huge increases in military spending -- has gotten SO bad, the corporate and media elite demand that we ... cut back the pensions of old people, further decrease infrastructure maintenance and investment, etc. ? As the SNL Church Lady used to say, " "Isn't that conveeeeenient?'

"They are trying very hard to keep the public from noting that we spend more on military than the rest of the world combined, and that the budget and economy worked so much better when tax rates at the top were very much higher. If you want to fix the borrowing you need to fix the cause of the borrowing. You need to get the money from where the money went."

FYII, Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Kaz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:01:00 GMT

IOC's shooting the messenger, aka the press, will not correct the problems at the Olympics.

Various back stories on the CIA/Pakistani ISI capture of Talibam's No. 2 man.

It's not a "global arms trade" but a US global weapons monopoly that is "pimping weapons to the world."

With eyes wide shut, Obama jumps into the nuclear abyss, pledging "billions of taxpayer dollars for a relapse of the 20th Century's most expensive technological failure..." a dangerous, damaging boondoggle.

Get ready as Wall Street moves in for the kill. with help from the Obama administration.

Curling, "initially admitted to the Olympics as a way to democratize the Games," is a hugely popular sport.

Media corporate robots supporting senatorial corporate robots: "mainstream media has been giving Evan Bayh a big fat sloppy wet kiss for the last 24 hours."

So Far, Winter Olympics Both Boring and Malfunctioning

Kaz — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:15:00 GMT

The Vancouver Winter Olympics, at least in these early days, have been boring and/or malfunctioning.

From a dangerous luge run with apparent safety failures to an indoor speed skating venue where adverse ice conditions caused an hour later start.

Pairs figure skating is just one example of a veneer of a faux "isn't this wonderful" trying to disguise a missing spirit of energy and sparkle that seemed to have surrounded other winter games.

Top competitors in pair figure skating fell, stumbled, and bumbled exuding tension and obvious struggling effort, not joy and real enthusiasm for what they had been training for...competing in the Olympics.

Even the gold medal winners' program was riddled with errors, some of them, according to the experts, were beginners' mistakes, something surprising from a couple with 18 years of skating experience and major successes in world competitions.

But never fear, US figure skater, Johnny Weir, is bringing a dose of notoriety, that may inject some liveliness, no matter how unwelcome, into the games.

From Jonathan Turley: "U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir is the subject of an international outcry over his insistence on wearing real animal fur in his figure skating outfit — despite his prior promise to yield to demands that he use faux fur.

"The controversy began when Weir wore white fox fur on his shoulder at the nationals. He promised to wear faux fur at the Olympics since many Americans object to the use of real fur — but then changed his mind. He just says “I don’t like faux fur.”

"There may be room for compromise. For example, we could lock Weir in a ring with twenty white foxes and let them settle the matter like mammals. Now that would be a ratings hit.

"The other compromise would be for Weir to be able to wear real fur (and avoid that painful touch of faux fur on his shoulder), but the animal must be alive. Once again, that would be something to see. A double lutz with a live fox could be a new category for competition. Soon, the French would do Choctaw turns with live seals, the Germans could do Stag leaps with real stags, the Saudis could do camel spins with real camels, the Egyptians could do Arabesques with Arabian horses, the Australians could be sheep jumps with actual sheep, and the Russians could do Russian Splits with live minks. (We could draw the line at using actual Mohawks for Mohawk turns or corpses for death spirals). This could be the start of a new age in skating."

Then again, Weir may end up on his posterior, as did many other skaters on Monday night.

FYII, Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Kaz — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:11:00 GMT

Has the Olympics become an expensive farce? Women ski jumpers just might think so.

Loathsome smearing of those who dare to criticize Israel.

Those savvy bankers Obama admires so much are fraudsters.

Is the US becoming a country of serfs ruled by oligarchs?

As I noted yesterday, DINO Evan Bayh leaving is no great loss for Dems and others agree.

A summary of what can be done to checkmate the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows corporate money to flood the political process.

Single payer Medicare-for-All IS a jobs bill.

More FYII, Monday, February 15, 2010

Kaz — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:49:00 GMT

Cheney exposes Bushite torture conspiracy...instead of appearing on TV defending waterboarding, a war crime for which the US prosecuted Japanese commanders for using it on American POWs in WWII, he should be in the dock at the Hague.

Right to rent could be the answer to foreclosures.

This nation's founders were not fundamentalists and today's fundamentalists would have despised the founders.

The assault on Marjah....a successful "clearing" operation for US and media consumption but can they "hold and build" or is the US "being sucked into a prolonged and expensive commitment in Afghanistan because its forces will end up acting up in lieu of the Afghan government."

Snowstorms Made Plight of Hungry People, Especially Children, Even Worse

Kaz — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:45:00 GMT

That there should be hungry people in the United States in the 21st century is appalling. That one in four children live in poverty in this country is tragic and should be unacceptable.

While the series of snowstorms in the Mid-Atlantic state during the last two months was an inconvenience for everyone, it caused even more deprivation for the poor and hungry.

USA reported: "As back-to-back snowstorms shuttered schools for the week across the Mid-Atlantic states, parents fretted about lost learning time, administrators scheduled makeup days and teachers posted assignments online. But Marla Caplon worried about a more fundamental problem: How would students eat?

"The two snowstorms that pummeled the region, leaving more than 3 feet of snow in some areas, deprived tens of thousands of children from Virginia to Pennsylvania of the free or reduced-price school lunch that may be their only nutritious meal of the day. The non-profits that try to meet the need when school is not in session also closed their doors for much of the week, leaving many families looking at bare cupboards. And many parents working hourly jobs were unable to earn any money during the week, as the snow forced businesses to close.

"Caplon is a food services supervisor for Montgomery County Public Schools, where about 43,000 children are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Some also get breakfast, dinner and bags of staple foods to take home for the weekend. The snow days meant children would get none of that until Tuesday, because schools are closed Monday for Presidents Day.

" 'We've been bothered by this all week,' " Caplon said.

"So Caplon arranged for Manna Food Center, a local food bank whose board she chairs, to bring boxes of food Friday to two still-closed elementary schools. Officials used the school district's automated phone system to notify parents of the distribution.

"Student hunger during breaks in the school year is not a new a concern. The Agriculture Department runs a summer food program to help fill the gap, though it doesn't reach everybody.

"The storm-related school closures were arguably more problematic because the emergency assistance typically provided by food pantries was also unavailable."

Hunger in the US in the 21st century shouldn't exist.

A Brazilian bishop put it this way: "As long as l fed the hungry they said I was a saint. But when I began to ask why there had to be hungry people in this country, they called me a communist."

Sounds like he's describing US right wingers like the Republican Party, its racist and bigoted astroturf offspring, the Tea Party, and fundamentalist Christians.

On Presidents' Day, Words of Wisdom and Warning from the 4th President of the United States

Kaz — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:24:00 GMT

While we are still stuck in the quagmire that is Iraq, courtesy of the Bushite's illegal invasion and occupation of that country, bogged down in Afghanistan where Obama has expanded military presence and have sloshed over into Pakistan too, all costing trillions of dollars and digging us deeper into debt, it might be wise to ponder the words of the 4th president of the US.

H/T Jonathan Tasini at Working Life: "Words to remember on President's Day from James Madison: " 'Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.' "

FYII, Monday, February 15, 2010

Kaz — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:33:00 GMT

The US financial industry helped Greece hide its mounting debt with similar tactics used in the subprime mortgage crisis in the US.
Instead of bailing these Wall Street crooks out (and filling the Obama administration with their ilk) they should be in the slammer.

Paul Krugman says that lack of fiscal discipline was not the primary cause of the Euromess but rather the fundamental problem was hubris, the arrogant belief that Europe could make a single currency work despite strong reasons to believe that it wasn’t ready.

US rockets mistakenly kill 12 Afghan civilians, continuing to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

Quintessential DINO, Senator Evan Bayh, decides against re-election run. Ethics problems surrounding him and his wife may have been a strong incentive to retire. And to think Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder (members of Obama's VP search team) and Obama considered this greedy DINO a suitable VP candidate.

The Bush established imperial presidency, a prevaricating GOP and its media megaphones, and timid Wussacrats are institutionalizing never ending fear despite people in this country being in "vanishingly little danger from terrorism, but in significant danger driving to the mall...."

Spending taxpayers' money in a double digit unemployment economic meltdown in US....USAID has no mandated oversight in Afghan contracts...."federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan said that neither the military nor the federal civilian workforces have expanded to keep pace with the enormous growth in the number and value of contingency contracts in recent years......"