Foam on the Beaver River indicating pollutants. To start slide show, click HERE
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Great Recession: Hard Times in Graphs and Numbers
Put This Neoliberal Warning Label on Blue Dogs, the GOP and Other Wavering Centrists
10 Ways Right-Wingers Will Try
to Wreck Any Economic Recovery
By Isaiah J. Poole
Beaver County Blue via Blog for Our Future
Dec. 27, 2010 – Conservatives have a legislative agenda for 2011 that will hurt your ability to get or keep a job, your neighborhood’s ability to recover from the recession and this country’s ability to regain its footing in the global economy.
To keep conservatives from enacting policies that will kill a nascent economic recovery, progressives will have to organize against these top 10 economy killers.
1. Repeal of Health-Care Reform
Republicans have placed "repealing Obamacare" at the top of their legislative agenda for 2011. If they succeed, the economy is going to come down with multiple serious illnesses—at least 24, according to a report released this month by Rep. Peter Stark of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Among them: a $143 billion increase in the deficit by losing the savings the reforms created, an increase the number of uninsured by 30 million people, an end to free preventative care services and the loss of the requirement that insurance companies devote the bulk of premium payments to health care costs rather than expensive advertising and executive perks. While a Virginia judge is a conservative hero for blocking health-care reform’s requirement that people buy private insurance, conservatives are silent on the fact that if that requirement goes, the reform’s mandate that insurance companies cover preexisting conditions is unsustainable.
We’ll be back to uncontrolled cost increases in private insurance. But, as the state of our health compared to other leading nations continues to decline, conservatives will at least be able to say that they maintained the United States’ global leadership as the nation that spends the most on health care and gets the least.
2. Diminish the Federal Government’s Ability to Support Job-Creation
Conservatives are poised to execute a strikingly broad assault against federal spending, particularly programs that help jump-start and steer the nation’s job-creation engine. It includes the expected targets—such proven programs as Community Development Block Grants—as well as some new ones, such as the Small Business Administration (there goes all that Republican fealty to "small business") and even the requirement that the Federal Reserve take employment impact into account when it sets monetary policy.
Exposing the Banksters: One Picture, One Thousand Words Dept:
Why a Financial Transaction Tax to Fund Green Energy Jobs Makes Sense
Male Workers in Trouble: When Clinging to an Old Sanctuary Becomes a Trap
Mancession: Gender, Occupational Segregation,
and the Structural Transformation of Capitalism
Nancy Folbre Interviewed by Paul Jay
Paul Jay: Nancy Folbre, in her blog on the New York Times, wrote the following: "The Great Recession has sometimes been dubbed the Mancession because it drove unemployment among men higher than unemployment among women." So how is this affecting families? How is this affecting the future outlook for the population as a whole when it comes to unemployment? What might be the social consequences of men being more reliant on women for family support? . . .
Nancy Folbre: Male unemployment is significantly higher than female unemployment now. That’s not terribly surprising — typical in recessions for men to be more affected, because they’re employed in more cyclical industries like manufacturing that go up and down more than other industries. But –.
Paul Jay: As opposed to service sector, like nurses.
Nancy Folbre: Right. But the more disturbing trend is a longer-term decline in manufacturing employment. If you look at the last ten years, even counting the boom years, employment in that sector has declined. And that’s one of the factors that are driving higher unemployment among men.
Continue reading Male Workers in Trouble: When Clinging to an Old Sanctuary Becomes a Trap
Michael Moore Posts Bail for Wikileaks Head Julian Assange
Why I’m Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange
(A statement from Michael Moore)
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Friends,
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.
Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.
We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.
Continue reading Michael Moore Posts Bail for Wikileaks Head Julian Assange
Beaver County Solidarity in Hard Times
Hot soup in Aliquippa
Growing Demand in Western PA’s
Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens
By Patti Conley
Beaver County Times
Dec. 11, 2010 – Seven days a week, anyone who is hungry can sit down at a soup kitchen somewhere in Beaver County. No questions asked.
A community schedule of meals, available online at http://www.bccan.org., lists the times when the 15 meals are available in churches from Beaver Falls to Aliquippa.
Such soup kitchens became a staple in the region 25 years ago when the steel industry stopped nourishing the area’s economy. Since then, soup kitchens and food pantries have filled food gaps for the chronically poor who are without jobs, benefits and money, and for those whose Social Security, disability and welfare benefits don’t stretch through the end of each month.
That was until recent months, when soup kitchen and food pantry staff said they began to see new faces at their tables and new names on food pantry applications, which are governed by income guidelines.
The nation’s rocky economy has delivered a direct blow to some middle-class Joes and Janes here in the Beaver Valley. An increase in local food pantry recipients brings home that point.
The Critical Battleground of Social Security
Study: Half of Seniors at Risk for Poverty
By James Parks
Progressive America Rising via AFL-CIO Blog
Here’s one big reason congressional Republicans and the deficit hawks are dead wrong about cutting Social Security [1] benefits: According to a new study, nearly half (47.4 percent) of all Americans between the ages of 60 and 90 will experience at least one year of poverty or near poverty and seniors of color are twice as likely to be affected.
The study by Mark Rank, a professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, shows that 58 percent of seniors between 60 and 84 will, at some point, not have enough liquid assets to allow them to weather an unanticipated expense or downturn in income.
But if you are a senior who is black or unmarried or have less than a high school education, the likelihood that you will be poor at some point increases dramatically. Rank found that although 32.7 percent of white older Americans will experience at least one year below the official poverty line, the percentage for black older Americans was nearly double at 64.6 percent.
Continue reading The Critical Battleground of Social Security
UE Workers Want to Takeover Gasket Plant
Boston-Area Union Will Block
Factory Auction to Save Jobs
By Jane Slaughter
solidarityeconomy.net
via Labor Notes
Nov. 29, 2010 – In a move to save factory jobs that evokes shades of the ’30s, the United Electrical Workers [1] are asking supporters to block a December 14 auction of presses and equipment from a plant south of Boston. The UE is calling for mass picketing and blockading of entrances to the 80-year-old plant if necessary.
Esterline Technologies Corp. of Bellevue, Washington, has refused to hold off on selling the equipment till another buyer can be found. The union’s request to buy the closed plant, which would create an employee-owned factory, has been ignored.
“They told us a year ago they did not want the presses or equipment,” said UE Local 204 President Scott Marques. “But they would rather junk them than sell them to us.”
The plant makes crucial door-seals and silicone gaskets for aircraft. Esterline is consolidating operations in Southern California and in Mexico.
Can the Democratic Party Survive the Blue Dogs? – A Case Study of PA 4th CD Rep. Jason Altmire
Can the Democratic Party Survive the Blue Dogs?
by Randy Shannon
Treasurer, PA 4th CD Chapter, Progressive Democrats of America
Depressing the Vote – Depressing Democracy
“The Money & Media Election Complex,” an article in The Nation magazine, discusses the unprecedented $4 billion spent on the 2010 election and its influence on voter turnout.
To those bankrolling the system, voter cynicism and apathy are welcome…Their interests are best served by narrowing the range of debate and participation, since that makes it easier to buy the government.
This article intends to show that the analysis quoted above is valid based on the role of Jason Altmire’s campaign in the PA 4th Congressional District.
Jason Altmire’s 2010 campaign organization was well funded by corporate donors. His message depressed voter turnout and helped defeat the Democratic ticket. Altmire’s recent 2010 victory prepared the ground for a stronger Republican challenge to the Democratic Party in 2011.
If the Democratic Party is to carry forward the legacy of the New Deal, it must work for unity around a message that aggressively fights for peace and prosperity for the working families of our district and against the Republican agenda of war and austerity.
Representative Jason Altmire Wins Close Race
Congressman Jason Altmire, a member of the Blue Dog caucus and the New Democrat coalition was returned to the new 112th Congress to represent the PA 4th Congressional District. He defeated Keith Rothfus, a Republican attorney supported by local tea party activists.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 
