STONE SOUP MUSINGS

• Holiday Shopping Tips for Progressives

  Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I wanted to pass along a few shopping tips before heading out to spend the holiday with family and friends.
  
  If you're picking up a bottle of wine for your host or guests, consider buying Wine Spectator’s 2009 Wine of the Year: Columbia Crest’s Cabernet Sauvignon' [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 8:00pm EST
  

• Sen. Carl Levin is The Real Deal

  The Republican Party is staking its future on people like Sarah Palin for commonsense solutions to our nation's problems. Meanwhile, Democrats don't have to look any further than Sen. Carl Levin. This is his commonsense approach to paying for the war in Afghanistan.
  Higher-income Americans should be taxed' [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 3:22pm EST
  

• The Stock Market is Up, I'd Rather Have a Job

  Robert Reich has an article on the disconnect between stocks and jobs that asks a great question: How can the stock market hit new highs at the same time unemployment is hitting new highs? Simple. The market is up because corporate earnings are up. Corporate earnings are up because [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 1:49pm EST
  

• Health Care Reform: Keep It Separate From Religion

  Thank you for respecting a woman's right to choose, Congressman Schauer, and for also having the courage to say what many women think - "The government doesn't belong in the room when these very personal, private decisions are being made." And neither does the religious right, Council of Catholic' [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:34pm EST
  

• Health Care and Gay Rights Helped by Yesterday's Election

  Regardless of Republican gloating, I'm not reading too much into yesterday's election. They picked up a couple of governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, but Democrats picked up two seats in Congress, and those two seats might just make the difference in getting health care reform passed.
  
  Via [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 4:21pm EST
  

• Health Care Bill is a Pro-Life Issue Too

  In this FDL Action Health Care Update, I read that Bart Stupak is threatening to block the House health care bill from passing over the issue of tax dollars for abortion. He wants to vote his conscience and strip abortion-related provisions out of the House bill, in [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 12:09pm EST
  

• Good Corp, Bad Corp

  Kudos to the Country Fresh Dairy in Grand Rapids for respecting the hard work of their employees. On October 3, Local 386 members employed at Country Fresh Dairy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, ratified a new contract. The new agreement increases wages and pension benefits, while protecting health care [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 2:54pm EDT
  

• Opting In, Opting Out, Why The Next Election Is Vitally Important

  As Cordelia Lear pointed out at Blogging for MI yesterday, the opt-out choice that allows states to withdraw from the public option is no panacea. Read what she says about Mike Bishop and Andy Dillon to understand why opt-out is a bad idea, but it's basically because the public' [...]
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  Posted: October 27, 2009, 12:26pm EDT
  

• Mainstream America Is Not Red

  The Democracy Corps released a survey last week about conservative Republicans that highlights how they're a world apart from most of us. I know, shocking! These voters identify themselves as part of a ‘mocked’ minority with a set of shared beliefs and knowledge, and commitment to oppose Obama that' [...]
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  Posted: October 20, 2009, 9:00am EDT
  

• Mike Rogers Defends Wasting $700 Billion Annually

  Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) receives a lot of money from the pharmaceutical, health and insurance industries, which probably explains why he's pushing false information about health care reform. While speaking at the Michigan Business and Legislative Forum last week, where he repeatedly bragged that he had read' [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 2:39pm EDT
  

• The Bible Has a Liberal Bias

  Just when I thought conservatives couldn't get any crazier, I read about some men who think the Bible needs editing, not just for accuracy, but because it's too liberal. They're the inspiration behind the Conservative Bible Project: Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations.' [...]
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  Posted: October 06, 2009, 2:30pm EDT
  

• The White House Fact Checks Glenn Beck

  The Michigan Chamber of Commerce's keynote speaker lied in an attempt to discredit President Obama's efforts to bring the 2016 Olympics to our country and the White House called him and Fox News on it. As they point out, "hosting the Olympics has been a source of pride" [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2009, 4:46pm EDT
  

• We Should All Stand Up For Insurance Companies

  After all, Michigan Rep. Dave Camp is standing up for insurance companies and, along with fellow Republicans, has "mounted a ferocious defense of the market's right to continue burning through taxpayer dollars."
  
  Camp is also standing up for the pharmaceutical/health products/health professionals industries that donated money' [...]
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  Posted: September 24, 2009, 11:24am EDT
  

• Right-Wing Extremist Shapes Glenn Beck's Worldview

  I wonder if the MI Chamber of Commerce knows this. According to TPM, a right-wing extremist heavily influences Glenn Beck. They point to a fascinating article in Salon which "reveals that a book by a Mormon "historian" deemed too extreme even by the modern conservative movement -- which" [...]
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  Posted: September 17, 2009, 2:48pm EDT
  

• Our Nation's Lost Decade

  If you feel like a hamster on a wheel getting nowhere fast, there's an explanation for it according to this NYT's op-ed columnist. For average Americans, the last 10 years were a lost decade. At the end of President George W. Bush’s eight years in office, American households had [...]
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  Posted: September 17, 2009, 11:51am EDT
  

• Max Baucus Delivers - For the Insurance Industry

  Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus finally released his health care plan after months of haggling. I'm not too impressed, especially on the matter of affordability. It would extend benefits to millions of people who are uninsured by broadly expanding Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, and by' [...]
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  Posted: September 16, 2009, 3:30pm EDT
  

• Protest Racism, Glenn Beck and the MI Chamber of Commerce

  Today, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce is hosting keynote speaker Glenn Beck at their 2009 "Future Forum" even though 62 companies have withdrawn their ads from his show, and he's now lost over 50 percent of his ad dollars. Major corporations dropped Beck because his extremist views [...]
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  Posted: September 15, 2009, 10:16am EDT
  

• More Advertisers Drop Glenn Beck; The MI Chamber of Commerce Stands by Their Man

  Six new advertisers have pledged not to run ads on Glenn Beck's show, bringing the total to 62. ColorOfChange.org today confirmed that six new companies whose ads aired recently during Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck program have pledged to not to run ads on the show going forward. The [...]
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  Posted: September 10, 2009, 12:01pm EDT
  

• What About Tort Reform?

  Tort reform is getting lots of attention. It was brought up at Gary Peters' and Pete Hoekstra's town hall meetings yesterday. I don't know what either gentleman said in response, but I hope they pointed out that in 2004 the Congressional Budget Office pegged the costs of malpractice' [...]
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  Posted: September 02, 2009, 3:00pm EDT
  

• No Word Of Thanks From Foreign Automakers For Cash For Clunkers Program

  Cash for Clunkers was a real bonanza for foreign automakers. Toyota's market share was 19.4 percent, Honda's was 13 percent, Nissan's was nearly 9 percent and Hyundai's was 7 percent. (Ford sales topped 14 percent, GM reported 17 percent and Chrysler's share was 6.6 percent.)
  
  Correct me if' [...]
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  Posted: August 31, 2009, 3:38pm EDT
  

• The "Real Death Panels"

  Americans United for Change takes on the "death panel" myth conservatives continue to push by pointing to the real culprits. Hint: It's not the government. Americans United for Change unveiled a new television ad today called “Real Death Panels” that turns the table on the thoroughly debunked myth' [...]
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  Posted: August 27, 2009, 11:22am EDT
  

• Republicans Using Seniors for Partisan Purposes

  Sen. Grassley is making up excuses as he goes along. He's the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and his group recently decided to exclude end-of-life counseling from the House bill because, in Grassley's words, "We should not have a government program that determines if you're going'" [...]
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  Posted: August 24, 2009, 2:36pm EDT
  

• Health Care and Personal Responsibility

  Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson asked a provocative question in his column today: Do we all have the same right to health care?
  
  What about these men he saw last weekend at the Woodward Dream Cruise? ...a trio of well-fed spectators wedged into identical lawn chairs on the [...]
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  Posted: August 20, 2009, 1:05pm EDT
  

• Just Say No to DNC Donations

  The Democratic National Committee called me this morning and asked if I could contribute $100 dollars to help move the Democratic agenda forward. This was my not too lady-like response: I will not contribute another dime to Democrats until they get their shit together on passing health care reform that [...]
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  Posted: August 18, 2009, 12:00pm EDT
  

• Health Care Debate Takes Compassionate Turn

  What two words have been missing from the health care debate on the right? Compassion and religion. The party of compassionate conservatism has always been quick to use religion when it served their purpose in the past, but curiously, neither word has been mentioned often in relation to health care [...]
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  Posted: August 12, 2009, 12:40pm EDT
  

• Reverse the Bush-era Tax Cuts

  A group of rich people, who call themselves Wealth for the Common Good, have started a campaign calling for an immediate rollback of President Bush's tax cuts. I can already hear the cries of protest from people like Mitch Albom, Mike Bishop and other defenders of the' [...]
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  Posted: August 10, 2009, 11:25am EDT
  

• Michigan Highest Ranked State in Cash for Clunker Voucher Requests

  Jalopnik reports that domestic car-producing states who have a large stake in the industry are where most Cash for Clunker vouchers are being requested, and Michigan leads the pack. According to data from the NHTSA, Michigan is the highest-ranked state in terms of spending with $34,420,500 in voucher requests [...]
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  Posted: August 05, 2009, 9:46am EDT
  

• The Time for a National Manufacturing Policy was Yesterday

  Employees of the Lordstown General Motors plant in Ohio are banking on the Chevy Cruze to keep them working. We should be cheering them on too. Why? Because Lordstown's story is being told in auto communities across the nation. "The last eight months have been so chaotic," said Lordstown' [...]
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  Posted: August 04, 2009, 1:11pm EDT
  

• Health care reform would help consumers too

  Health care reform is about more than helping the uninsured. President Obama is on the road today talking about reform and how it will help consumers. These are the highlights: No Denials for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurers would be banned from refusing coverage based on medical history.
  
  No Huge [...]
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  Posted: July 29, 2009, 3:14pm EDT
  

• Mitch Albom defends the richest 1 percent

  Did you catch Mitch Albom's column in the Free Press defending rich people from having to pay more in taxes in order to fund health care reform? Prepare yourself to gag: In explaining why it was OK to sock a new 5.4% tax on the highest earners in this [...]
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  Posted: July 29, 2009, 12:22pm EDT
  

• Racial profiling or not, the Cambridge police were wrong

  It's probably safe to say President Obama could have been more tactful last night. "The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody [Skip Gates] when there was already proof that they were in their own home." Tactful or not, police officers are no different from the rest of us [...]
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  Posted: July 23, 2009, 12:36pm EDT
  

• Americans continue to lose health care

  Americans can't afford to wait another year, another month or another day for health care reform. According to Families USA: With each passing week that meaningful health care reform is not enacted, more families in every state are losing health coverage... Families USA based its state numbers on national' [...]
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  Posted: July 22, 2009, 1:32pm EDT
  

• McCotter Makes Fun of Dems Health Plan

  Republicans think the Democrats' health care plan is a Faustian web of Washington bureaucracy. To make their case they're doing exactly what they did in 1994, when President Clinton unveiled his plan, they're circulating a chart with lots of pretty colors, boxes, lines and acronyms. It's meant' [...]
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  Posted: July 16, 2009, 1:59pm EDT
  

• Dave Camp Needs a Fact Checker

  (h/t Wonk Room)
  
  Dave Camp (MI-R) should get his facts straight before opening his mouth on national television. He appeared on CNBC yesterday to discuss the House Democrats health care legislation that proposes a surtax on wealthy individuals in order to finance a portion of the [...]
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  Posted: July 15, 2009, 11:00am EDT
  

• Fear is not having health insurance

  Did you catch the ABC News story about security breaches at 10 randomly tested federal buildings today? Sen. Lieberman called it "stunning" and "shocking." He also said: "If a terrorist group just did that in two or three federal buildings, it would not only really hurt some people; it" [...]
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  Posted: July 08, 2009, 1:29pm EDT
  

• Increase the Train Fund, Give the Work to Detroit

  A journalist writing in The Atlantic argues that the relative chump change being thrown at high speed rail (AIG and Citibank got 55 times as much, roughly $460 billion vs $8 billion) could become diluted across so many states that no one "will end up with a top-of-the-line system" [...]
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  Posted: June 19, 2009, 1:38pm EDT
  

• Who Do Americans Trust On Health Care Reform?

  Gallup asked Americans who they trust to make the right recommendations on health care reform. Guess who came in last. Republicans. Behind insurance companies!
  
  
  Why don't Americans trust Republicans? Possibly because they continue to peddle' [...]
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  Posted: June 17, 2009, 1:23pm EDT
  

• The GOP's One Unforgivable Sin

  Sen. John Ensign's confession that he had an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff is a good news/bad news story. It's good news for Romney, Gingrich, Palin and other Republicans hoping to unseat Obama, but it's bad news for a party that continues to lose [...]
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  Posted: June 17, 2009, 12:00pm EDT
  

• A.M.A. Opposes Public Health Care Plan - Again

  Joining Big Pharma and the insurance industry, the AMA announced it is opposed to public health insurance. "The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs," read an [...]
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  Posted: June 11, 2009, 1:05pm EDT
  

• Auto Industry Problems Prolong Nation's Misery

  The NY Times has an article about our state's efforts to remake ourselves without "King Auto" that touches on things most of know - film incentives, green jobs, battery production, and worker retraining. It also touched on the fact that our problems are impacting the country as a whole.' [...]
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  Posted: June 10, 2009, 3:48pm EDT
  

• Follow G.M. Restructing on the Web

  I'm still recharging my batteries and taking a break from blogging, but I thought I'd pass along a few links regarding GM that I thought you might find useful.
  
  You can follow the GM bankruptcy proceedings online at GM Reinvention.com. The website answers questions about their restructuring and [...]
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  Posted: June 01, 2009, 3:49pm EDT
  

• Taking a break

  William Wordsworth's sonnet, "The world is too much with us," reflects his longing for a much simpler time. I long for that simpler time too.
  
  As many of you know, I lost my mother in February, welcomed a new granddaughter into the world in April, and have been' [...]
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  Posted: May 19, 2009, 9:27am EDT
  

• A High Stakes Game of Chicken

  Remind me never to play poker with President Obama. I have a feeling he's good.
  
  After receiving $25 billion in taxpayer-funded TARP funds, greedy J.P. Morgan Chase decided to play hardball with the auto task force when it came time to negotiate over debt recovery before and during' [...]
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  Posted: May 15, 2009, 8:42am EDT
  

• The Crime No One Talks About - Wage Theft

  I haven't had much time to read lately, but Kim Bobo's book, Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid - And What We Can Do About It, will be the next one I pick up. Bobo is the Executive Director of Interfaith [...]
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  Posted: May 14, 2009, 11:10am EDT
  

• Buy It Here; Build It Here

  USW President Leo Gerard is a soft-spoken man, but he has some blunt words about General Motors restructuring plans: The proposition General Motors has presented to the United Auto Workers and American taxpayers in its latest restructuring plan is simple: You must pay for your own execution.
  
  GM, [...]
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  Posted: May 13, 2009, 10:47am EDT
  

• Michigan Has Become a Buyer-Beware State

  Michigan has a dirty little secret and it's driving people out of our state. Lindsay Duneske said she discovered how weak Michigan's Consumer Protection Act has become after the company that built her new home in Milan kept putting off needed repairs.
  
  She said she and her husband [...]
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  Posted: May 12, 2009, 12:25pm EDT
  

• Passing the Healthy Families Act is Sensible

  The swine flu (aka H1N1) appears to be milder than experts initially anticipated, but what if it had turned out to be much worse? What if people felt early symptoms coming on and had to chose between staying home from work or going in and exposing their coworkers? That could [...]
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  Posted: May 06, 2009, 9:20am EDT
  

• Washington Has Public Health Care, So Should We

  Forty-eight million Americans now lack health insurance and 73% of voters want a choice of a private or public health plan. Support for that choice is bipartisan too - Democrats 77%, Independents 79%, and Republicans 63%.
  
  With that kind of consensus, you'd think health care reform would' [...]
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  Posted: May 05, 2009, 9:20am EDT
  

• Greedy Hedge Funds Stomp Feet and Pout

  Wizardkitten asked if hedge funds were trying to force Chrysler into bankruptcy and Jonathan Tasini answered: American Car Industry Held Hostage by Greedy Hedge Funds ...in a blazingly short amount of time, the Administration has forged a deal that could save thousands of jobs at Chrysler--the major banks [...]
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  Posted: April 30, 2009, 11:21am EDT
  

• Heatlh care reform still important to majority of Americans

  A majority of Americans continue to say they would pay higher taxes if it meant health insurance for everyone, and health care is second only to the economy as a major domestic concern, so it makes perfect sense that a conservative group is launching a $1 million ad [...]
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  Posted: April 28, 2009, 12:42pm EDT
  

• Republicans Turn to Newt for Salvation

  Michigan Republicans are stuck in the past, Saul Anuzis is stuck in the past, and so is Saul's new boss - Newt Gingrich. I'll let Matt Yglesias explain: Somehow or other the conservative movement has gotten so intellectually bankrupt that the lunatics running the asylum think that [...]
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  Posted: April 22, 2009, 12:59pm EDT
  

• Hate Crime Legislation Vote Later This Week

  I don't keep up with gay rights as much as I should, so I was surprised to read that Deb Price now writes the first nationally syndicated column on gay issues. Good for her. I only know her work in the Detroit News. (Does anyone else find it' [...]
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  Posted: April 20, 2009, 3:09pm EDT
  

• One Corporations Way of Stimulating the Economy

  They're putting more money in their employees paychecks.Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. announced wage increases effective immediately for all full-time, hourly workers earning up to $13 an hour. For some employees, the pay hike can mean more than a $2 an hour raise.
  
  The company also said it was' [...]
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  Posted: April 16, 2009, 12:35pm EDT
  

• Stabenow and Peters Talk Bankruptcy on "The Ed Show"

  Sen. Debbie Stabenow was on the Ed Show Monday night and Rep. Gary Peters was on last night. They discussed a possible GM bankruptcy, which could jeopardize the pensions of 670,000 retires, with 335,000 seeing benefit cuts.
  
  Both lawmakers agreed that bankruptcy should be a last resort, [...]
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  Posted: April 15, 2009, 8:39am EDT
  

• Job Creation: Green Investment vs. Defense Spending

  Republicans believe government spending does nothing to create jobs, unless we're spending money on defense. Actually, we're better off spending money on green investments according to Robert Pollin, professor of economics. In fact, the green-investment agenda is a highly effective engine of job creation, much more so, for [...]
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  Posted: April 14, 2009, 12:33pm EDT
  

• Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

  My apologies to Bob Marley for stealing a line from his song for my title, but it so perfectly fits how I feel. Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and now Ed Schultz. They're like sunshine breaking through the fog. We've been fed misinformation from an industry dominated by conservative [...]
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  Posted: April 09, 2009, 12:33pm EDT
  

• Save American Jobs: Boycott Chase Bank

  This is cross-posted from Emptywheel. Marcy Wheeler is asking everyone to help save American jobs by boycotting Chase Bank. JP Morgan Chase wants to push Chrysler into bankruptcy so it can jump the line ahead of retirees and US taxpayers to get paid back.
  
  If JP Morgan [...]
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  Posted: April 08, 2009, 1:41pm EDT
  

• Unions Can't be Blamed for Job Losses

  How do the right-to-work cheerleaders explain this? Using the February numbers, five of the 10 states with the biggest growth in unemployment are in the South.State and percent increase in jobless rate since recession began (with current unemployment rate in parentheses)
  
  1. North Carolina: +6 (10.7% -- [...]
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  Posted: April 07, 2009, 9:38am EDT
  

• Finally, Something That George Bush Did Right

  By running our economy into the ground, he inadvertently reduced traffic fatalities. Less money in the pockets of Americans means fewer highway deaths. As the economy slid deeper into recession and gas prices reached $4 a gallon last year, the number of people killed in auto accidents hit its [...]
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  Posted: April 06, 2009, 10:45am EDT
  

• Made in Michigan

  My daughter and son-in-law wanted to do something to help stimulate our economy and this is what they came up with:
  
  
  Meet their little stimulus package - Alexis Michelle (a.k.a. Lexie). She was born in a Michigan hospital on April 2, 2009 and weighs [...]
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  Posted: April 03, 2009, 9:00am EDT
  

• More on that "surgical" bankruptcy

  An auto bankruptcy could cost one-third of the three million people employed in the industry and shave four percentage points from our GDP according to a Deutsche Bank analyst. I guess that's why Obama called it a "surgical bankruptcy" in his address on Monday. Losing that many people would' [...]
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  Posted: April 01, 2009, 10:32am EDT
  

• Maybe it's time to talk about the "B" word

  Like DJ, I'm feeling a combination of anger and fear about our auto industry's future, but I also feel a sense of resignation. How much longer can we continue this way? We're dying slowly, one excruciating job loss at a time, and it's like torture. I'm beginning to think' [...]
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  Posted: March 31, 2009, 9:25am EDT
  

• G.M. Worker Loses Job, Writes Song

  This is a bittersweet story from the Flint Journal. Greg Miles worked for General Motors' Grand Blanc Weld Tool Center for three decades, and then a few weeks ago he learned that his job had been outsourced to a foreign country. What did he do? He wrote a song,' [...]
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  Posted: March 25, 2009, 1:46pm EDT
  

• FedEx Blackmails Congress

  This smacks of corporate terrorism. (h/t TPM)FedEx could cancel contracts for $10 billion in American-made planes if Congress makes it easier for unions to organize the delivery giant's workers.
  
  In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the Memphis-based company disclosed that purchases of Boeing 777s are contingent' [...]
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  Posted: March 24, 2009, 1:40pm EDT
  

• Tweet Responsibly

  In keeping with Blogging for Michigan's Twitter Tuesday theme, I thought I'd remind everyone to tweet responsibly, or risk having this happen to you. A recent tweet by one would-be Cisco employee proves that when it comes to placing a permanent black mark on your resume via the [...]
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  Posted: March 24, 2009, 9:21am EDT
  

• Americans View the Rich With Rising Skepticism

  F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me."
  
  That segue leads me to an article I read in the LA Times about Americans attitudes toward the wealthy. For decades they've been held up as examples of what' [...]
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  Posted: March 19, 2009, 1:25pm EDT
  

• Gallup: Majority Support Employee Free Choice Act

  The latest Gallup Poll shows that 53 percent of respondents favor a new law that would "make it easier for labor unions to organize workers" versus 39 percent of respondents who oppose such a law. This is amazing support considering the efforts big business is taking to fight it.
  [...]
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  Posted: March 17, 2009, 9:15am EDT
  

• Airplane Foreclosures Skyrocket

  How dare these people take out risky loans they knew they couldn't afford? Mr. Hill is an airplane repo man, one of the best and busiest in the business. With the economy sinking and the general aviation industry suffering, Mr. Hill is working flat out as he makes his way' [...]
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  Posted: March 14, 2009, 10:49am EDT
  

• Obama on education and chewing gum

  President Obama delivered a speech before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce this morning that accomplished two things at once. First, he answered Republican critics who think he isn't focusing on the economy enough. I know there are some who believe we can only handle one challenge at a' [...]
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  Posted: March 10, 2009, 2:50pm EDT
  

• Republican CEO Says "Yes" To Socialism

  Limbaugh won't be happy when he hears this. The CEO of a construction company awarded the first recovery project from the stimulus package is a big Republican donor. (h/t HuffPo and ProPublica)The selection of the company, American Infrastructure, was announced by Obama at a news conference highlighting how stimulus' [...]
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  Posted: March 06, 2009, 10:00am EST
  

• Takin' It To The Streets

  This goes out to DJ, who's angry with conservative ideology that favors the rich over the poor and middle-class, and to Bruce Fealk, who wonders why Republicans "want to be so unpatriotic as to think Americans shouldn't earn good wages, have access to health care and a decent" [...]
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  Posted: March 05, 2009, 10:14am EST
  

• I'm Thankful for Socialism

  Republicans can't whip people into a frenzy over Iraq, terrorism, gay rights or abortion anymore, so they've settled on a new target - socialism. For some reason, they're under the impression that Americans are just genetically opposed to it. That's because Republicans sit on their high horses, out of [...]
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  Posted: March 04, 2009, 10:00am EST
  

• Goodbye Mom

  My mother died today after a long struggle with Alzheimer's, the disease they refer to as the "long goodbye" because the person leaves this world mentally long before their body passes on.
  
  “Sisu” is the perfect word to describe my mom. Roughly translated from Finnish, sisu means perseverance' [...]
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  Posted: February 24, 2009, 5:13am EST
  

• Creating jobs in America is the whole point

  Following up on my earlier post about the "Buy American" provisions in the stimulus package - provisions designed to stop the bleeding of jobs and to create new jobs here in America - is a post from Robert Reich that admonishes us not to "confuse American companies with" [...]
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  Posted: February 19, 2009, 1:25pm EST
  

• Republicans Say No to Largest Tax Cut in History

  Republicans not only voted against creating jobs when they voted no on the stimulus plan, they also voted against one of the biggest tax cuts in history. Robert Schlesinger at US News gives us the lowdown. Steven Waldman, a former U.S. News editor (well before I wandered these halls), [...]
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  Posted: February 18, 2009, 12:13pm EST
  

• Buy American, Buy Local

  In spite of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's opposition to the "Buy American" provisions in the stimulus bill, the progressive movement (i.e. unions, consumer groups, the blogosphere) won according to David Sirota. First, the Buy America provisions survived the conference committee and remain in the stimulus package. These' [...]
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  Posted: February 16, 2009, 1:57pm EST
  

• Americans want inquiry into "war on terror" tactics

  Our attention may be focused on the economic meltdown swirling around us, but we aren't suffering from amnesia and we're not ready to let the Bush administration off the hook. A new USA TODAY - Gallup Poll finds most of us favor investigating whether the Bush administration broke [...]
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  Posted: February 12, 2009, 2:03pm EST
  

• Americans approve of Obama's handling of the stimulus bill

  Republicans are feeling pretty smug about their Taliban-like disruptive tactics in opposing the president's stimulus package, but it turns out a majority of Americans see things differently. h/t Gallup The American public gives President Barack Obama a strong 67% approval rating for the way in which he is' [...]
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  Posted: February 09, 2009, 8:48am EST
  

• Wanna scare a Republican?

  Show him/her this op-ed - Please Raise My Taxes - written by Reed Hastings, CEO and founder of the highly successful Netflix: This week, President Obama proposed imposing a $500,000 compensation cap on companies seeking a bailout. It’s a terrible idea. We all want the taxpayers’ money returned, and [...]
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  Posted: February 06, 2009, 11:23am EST
  

• We have inherited a deep and dire economic crisis

  The bad news just keeps on coming. The Labor Department reported today that the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose to 626,000, from last week's figure of 591,000.
  
  As President Obama put it in an editorial in today's WaPo:By now, it's clear to everyone that' [...]
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  Posted: February 05, 2009, 10:16am EST
  

• We supported their war, tell them to support us

  Conservatives are busy calling Congress trying to block Obama's stimulus plan. The word on the street is that calls are running 100 to 1 against the plan. We know Michigan Senators Levin and Stabenow support creating jobs for Americans and setting our country on the road to economic recovery, but' [...]
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  Posted: February 04, 2009, 10:37am EST
  

• Denying the New Deal contributions

  Andrew Leonard at Salon has an interesting article criticizing the WSJ for their "increasingly shrill declarations that the New Deal absolutely, positively did not work," and he took particular exception with economists, Harold L. Cole and Lee. E. Ohanian, who made the following claim.The goal of the New Deal [...]
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  Posted: February 03, 2009, 12:15pm EST
  

• Republicans turn their backs on the middle class

  Joe Biden is right. It's time to put the middle class front and center. That's the goal of the Obama administration which seeks to put people back to work immediately and create economic growth, and long-term make sure the benefits of that growth reach the people responsible for it [...]
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  Posted: February 02, 2009, 3:35pm EST
  

• Jobless rolls climb, Republicans don't care

  Unemployment rolls continue to soar. The number of people remaining on the benefits roll after drawing an initial week of aid, or continued claims, rose 159,000 to a higher-than-forecast 4.776 million in the week ended January 17, the most recent week for which data is available.
  
  The Labor [...]
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  Posted: January 29, 2009, 11:05am EST
  

• Fair Pay Act Passes Senate

  Change is coming in the area of wage discrimination and it's long overdue. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the Senate yesterday.The Senate approved landmark worker rights legislation on Thursday that will make it easier for those who think they've endured pay discrimination to seek legal help. The [...]
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  Posted: January 23, 2009, 12:46pm EST
  

• Not so smart Republican economic calls

  Time Magazine looks back at what they see as Bush's biggest economic mistakes, adding that "by almost every measure — GDP growth, jobs, median incomes, financial-market performance — he stacks up as probably the least-successful President on the economic front since Herbert Hoover. ... As the decider in the'" [...]
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  Posted: January 22, 2009, 1:30pm EST
  

• Oh, My God

  That was House Minority Leader John Boehner's reaction yesterday after Democrats unveiled their $825 billion stimulus plan, which includes twice as much money for spending vs. tax cuts. He's not happy with the all the spending and told PBS NewsHour's Margaret Warner "that we need more in tax'" [...]
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  Posted: January 16, 2009, 1:01pm EST
  

• Dreaming of a large screen TV?

  This is something to consider if you're in the market for a new television, especially one of those behemoth plasma models. European Union countries are close to agreeing upon minimum energy performance standards for televisions, according to reports this week in the British press. It’s likely the largest plasma' [...]
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  Posted: January 15, 2009, 10:43am EST
  

• Must See TV: No Reservations (Detroit)

  Hmm... From my keyboard to Anthony Bourdain's ears maybe? This is what I wrote in December 2007: Just in case Anthony Bourdain is looking for a place to shoot next, I'd like to recommend Michigan. From pierogies in Hamtramack to pasties in the U.P., we have plenty of food [...]
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  Posted: January 09, 2009, 5:33pm EST
  

• Congress doesn't think much of American workers

  GM and UAW officials are holding meetings because, under terms of the bailout approved by the Bush administration, GM must bring its own hourly wage costs in line with those of Toyota and other Japanese automakers that operate nonunion factories in the United States. Aside from the fact that [...]
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  Posted: January 08, 2009, 12:55pm EST
  

• Bush's biggest (failed) domestic accomplishment

  At a recent lunch at the White House, President Bush cited his push to privatize Social Security as his biggest domestic policy accomplishment: On domestic policy, Bush was asked if he made progress in some areas for which he hasn’t and probably won’t get credit. Topping his list [...]
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  Posted: January 06, 2009, 5:37pm EST
  

• Economic laughs and realities

  The Financial Post has a compilation of "The best financial jokes of 2008" gathered from e-mail messages that made the rounds throughout the year.
  
  These were some of my favorites: "Get my broker, Miss Jones."
  "Yes sir. Stock, or Pawn?"
  
  The market may be bad, but I [...]
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  Posted: January 02, 2009, 11:22am EST
  

• Professor predicts end of U.S. in 2010

  If this Russian professor's prediction comes true, millions of northern Americans may soon have government health care.
  
  Prof. Igor Panarin, a former KGB analyst and dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats, has been predicting for the past decade that the U.S. will collapse [...]
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  Posted: December 29, 2008, 12:42pm EST
  

• So This is Christmas

  Merry Christmas everyone! My husband and I will be traveling to our daughter's house today so we can spend the holiday with family, but I wanted to leave you with a present first.
  
  I believe the spirit of Christmas is selflessness and love, and here in the Detroit area [...]
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  Posted: December 24, 2008, 7:44am EST
  

• Christmas trees should come with warnings

  Live or artificial? What kind of Christmas tree do you have at your house? We have family members with allergies so we always put up an artificial one, but I've always missed the pine scent and fun that goes along with picking out the "perfect" tree. Not anymore. After reading [...]
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  Posted: December 22, 2008, 2:24pm EST
  

• Labor Gets an Early Christmas Gift

  This is a good argument in favor of unions. h/t Kevin Drum

  Felix Salmon, after noting that FedEx has announced across-the-board pay cuts for just about everyone:
  
  There's been a huge shift in power in recent years from labor to capital: corporate profits have been rising much [...]

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  Posted: December 18, 2008, 3:50pm EST
  

• Thanks for nothing, senators

  Author and Free Press columnist Mitch Albom wrote a response to the senators who killed the auto loan deal last week and it's generating a lot of attention here in Michigan. (It's been recommended more than 1,000 times so far.) He pretty much expresses the collective outrage most of us [...]
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  Posted: December 15, 2008, 10:17am EST
  

• How will the Big 3's cries for help be answered?

  Tom Walsh has a very thoughtful column at the Free Press that reminds certain GOP senators of the Big 3's response after Hurricane Katrina:

  ...the automobile companies of Detroit did not harrumph that the Gulf Coast should have been better prepared.
  
  They didn’t sit back and wait for [...]

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  Posted: December 11, 2008, 6:49pm EST
  

• Recession taking toll on disabled Americans

  The rising unemployment numbers are hitting Americans with disabilities particularly hard. From US News & World Report:

  "People with disabilities tend to be the last hired and the first fired," says Rick Diamond, director of employment services at Disability Network/Lakeshore, a disability rights nonprofit based in Holland, Mich.
  
  [...]

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  Posted: December 09, 2008, 3:09pm EST
  

• The legacy of WWII veterans

  Today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the Flint Journal observed it by telling the story of one man who survived the attack, Staff Sgt. Ward Anderson of Chesaning.
  
  It was 7:55 a.m., Dec 7, 1941 and Anderson and some friends had just left church and were [...]
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  Posted: December 07, 2008, 6:48pm EST