Remember when Republicans tried to block Hilda Solis?
Well, they're at it again. It began when a Republican committee member put a last-minute "hold" on the confirmation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to be our next Health and Human Services Secretary. And now, while Sebelius awaits a final vote in the Senate, extremist outside groups are demanding that Senators block her confirmation.
Please click here to urge the Senate to vote immediately on Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
The American seamen who fought off a pirate attack cite their union membership in the successful defense of their ship.
The American crew members of the Maersk Alabama - a ship recently hijacked by Somali pirates - regained control of the ship. The seamen specifically cite their union membership as a reason for how they were able to beat the pirates.
In an interview with NBC, the ship's Third Engineer, John Cronan, said this about their efforts:
"We are American seamen. We are union members. We stuck together, we did our jobs. And that's how we did it."
Insurance giant AIG is the poster child of corporate irresponsibility. It gambled on the housing market and lost, big time. That's why the government had to dole out nearly $200 billion in bailouts just to keep the company afloat.
But word broke yesterday that despite being crowned the "Bailout King," AIG is going to pay out more than $400 million in bonuses.
We've had enough. On Thursday, March 19, thousands of people nationwide will demonstrate outside major banks and demand real change. We want you to join us.
Watch this video about our actions and sign up to attend a demonstration near you:
Click here to join: http://www.TakeBackTheEconomy.org
The outrage doesn't stop at the bonuses. We finally found out how AIG has spent its bailout funds - it gave billions of dollars to other bailed out banks, including banks like Bank of America and Citigroup that are actively organizing against change for working families.
Just last week it was revealed that Citigroup organized a call to "build opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act." Bank of America did the same thing just days after it received its first bailout from the government.
We have major banks and financial institutions taking government money with one hand, and slapping working people in the face with the other. The very same people who destroyed our economy are now actively working to prevent its recovery.
Enough. Join our demonstration against corporate excess on Thursday.
http://www.TakeBackTheEconomy.org
It's up to us to take back our economy. We hope you'll join our efforts.
Thanks for all you do.
In solidarity,
Michael Whitney
Change that Works
SEIU.org
I said here that there was going to be yelling and screaming about the Stimulus bill. The longer it goes the more the right can find things that look and sound bad. I admit when I just see a listing of things in the Stimulus bill I wonder about some of the items.
CNN Money has a report on the part of the Economic rescue plan for the unemployed and it seem excellent. We need more reports like this on the other parts of the bill.
The part of the bill to help the unemployed will increase and extend unemployment insurance. It will expand coverage to more low-income and part-time workers. It offer help with subsidizing health care insurance coverage and it will put more money into the state enemployment funds that are running out of money. It sounds like an excellent plan.
Russell my grandson was working at CompUSA until they went out of business. He put applications every place and never even heard from anyone about a job. We were wondering why no one was ever calling him for an interview. I guess we did not know how bad the job market was at the time.
The stimulus bill will give Russell a little extra each week on the check he gets from the state. The bill will extend the time he can get money until December of 2009.
I think that will be a big help for many unemployed Americans.
I did not go into the part of the bill about health insurance but that part also sounds excellent. One small part of the bill is that people who are 55 years of age or older and lose their job and have been working for their company for at least 10 years could extend the Cobra coverage until they are 65 and get Medicare. Now that is not going to help everyone. What about someone that has not been working for the same company for ten years? Also Cobra can cost $1000.00 a month. Now part of the bill says that many people can get 65% subsidizing of Corbra for one year. Yes, having the government pay $650.00 each month for one year so you have health care for your family is better than you having to pay $1000.00 a month but how many people that do not have a job can even afford $350.00 each month.
I also do not see how an older person without a job can afford to pay $1000.00 a month, that is the family rate I think, for health insurance for ten years. Of course we hope that the job market is not going to be bad for ten years.
“It is not every day that you meet someone who had a hand in as many civil liberties battles as Charles "Chuck" Morgan, Jr. Chuck was one of the most influential and admired leaders in the history of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was a "larger-than-life" individual who had a profound impact on both the ACLU and civil rights and civil liberties in America.
It is with much sorrow that we say good-bye to a dear friend of so many years. Chuck passed away yesterday at the age of 78 in Destin, Florida. He is survived by his wife Camille and son Charles, a restaurateur, journalist and political activist…”
I do not like the idea of giving money to the big three automakers. I think we do not have much choice. We need to save them. We can not afford to have them go down at this time.
The Republicans, some of them, are willing to destroy the big three American car makers if they can put a stake through the heart of the labor union movement. This would be a repeat of PATCO for Republicans.
In 1981 the PATCO union went on strike. President Reagan fired the 11,345 air traffic controllers and decertified the union.
Republicans and anti-labor, anti-union people loved it and loved President Reagan for doing it. It sent a message to big corporations that it was open season on the union movement and unions got hit time and time again over and over again because of it.
The United States still has major problems with air traffic control, even now, because of the actions of President Reagan. The air traffic controllers got a new union in 1987 called the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).
If the Republicans can hit hard the UAW union now this will be a another big win for anti-worker/union Republicans.
I noticed on TV that the Republicans that are anti-union and do not want to help the auto makers are the ones that have non-American car makers in their states. They are willing to hurt the United States in order to help the non-American car makers in their states. The main thing they want to do is deal a PATCO type blow to the UAW.
President Bush can get a few points, and he needs them, with the right and hard core Republicans if he can fuck the UAW union members. Right people are waiting to see President Bush will use some of the money set aside to bail out banks and Wall Street firms to loan to automakers to keep them out of bankruptcy.
Right now the people around him are telling him this is his chance to be like President Reagan. This is his time to pull off a PATCO type anti-worker attack.
They will be telling President Bush to go down in history with the great President Reagan.
What will President Bush do?
I am late paying my phone bill. Since I get money only once each month I am often late paying the phone bill. I called last week to pay the bill and could not talk to the office. I need to talk to the office to pay using a debit card. In the past I never had a problem or a delay talking to someone.
Today early I made an attempt and the same thing... I got a recorded message that they could not connect me to someone.
I did a search on the Internet. I was thinking maybe their was a fire or union problems or something. Found nothing.
What I did find is that AT&T is moving their call centers back to the United States. That is making hundreds of new jobs here in the United States. They also seem to work pretty well with the union and that is a surprise.
It looks like the starting pay is about $12.00 an hour. At least that is what I saw for jobs in Las Vegas.
I have not got a late payment statement from them or a phone call. I have Internet service and phone service from Bell South/aka AT&T. In a day or two I am going to get Comcast Internet and phone service. I will drop the AT&T phone service but plan to keep the Internet service for at least one month. I will let Russell and Ken use the AT&T (1.5M down) Internet and I will use the Comcast (6M down). It will be interesting to see how fast my Internet service is when I am the only one using the service. I think Russell downloads a lot of movies and TV shows.
If it works out well for me I may keep AT&T for Russell and Ken for six months and then Comcast is going to charge me more for the Internet service and I will cancel AT&T.
I do very little that requires much band width but the AT&T Internet service seems very slow.
I notice the slow speed most when I try and upload a video to YouTube three or four times a week and it takes forever to get it uploaded.
I was just telling Russell about the AT&T call center and that they are moving them back to the United States and he said that two guys from CompUSA had gone to work for AT&T at $12.50 an hour.
I think it is a good sign that AT&T is bring those call center jobs back to the United States.
I wonder why they are doing it.
U.S. auto workers do not make $70.00 an hour. I repeat they do NOT make $70.00 an hour. That is just crap put out by the anti-worker union hating right. The Republicans and the right hate the hourly working man for some reason. They hate workers. They hate teachers. They hate unions.
“NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Record gas and higher food prices took the government's key inflation measure to the biggest annual jump since 1991, fanning fears that inflation pressures were much worse than expected.
The Labor Department reading is also another sign, along with mounting job losses and declining home prices, of the economic pain being felt by Americans as prices outstrip increases in paychecks…”
That is bad news. I hope you belong to a union and you have a cost of living clause in your contract. Back long before many of you were born I worked for the KW Dart Truck Company. I was a welder. I was a member of the UAW union. For years we had a cost of living clause in the union contract. The cost of living was very low each year. We voted it out of the contract. Then the cost of living started going up each year. We got a pay raise each year but the cost of living made it much smaller.
The Social Security program and others have a built in cost of living index. That means that next year they will pay out more money. That is good for someone like me. The only income I have is SS.
It may not be good for the United States.
The cost of living is going up and the value of the dollar is going down.
President Clinton is looking like a great president right now.
You do know that if we had listened to President Carter during his term from 1977 to 1981 we would have no problems with higher oil? Old Jimmy is not looking so bad right now.
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