Warning: GOP, Tea Party and Blue Dog ‘Solutions’
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Kucinich: We Are Losing Our Nation to Lies About the Necessity of War
WASHINGTON – Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement on the floor of the House concerning an expected vote on a $33 billion supplemental war funding bill:
“In a little more than a year the United States flew $12 billion in cash to Iraq, much of it in $100 bills, shrink wrapped and loaded onto pallets. Vanity Fair reported in 2004 that `at least $9 billion’ of the cash had `gone missing, unaccounted for.’ $9 billion.
“Today, we learned that suitcases of $3 billion in cash have openly moved through the Kabul airport. One U.S. official quoted by the Wall Street Journal said, `A lot of this looks like our tax dollars being stolen.’ $3 billion. Consider this as the American people sweat out an extension of unemployment benefits.
“Last week, the BBC reported that “the US military has been giving tens of millions of dollars to Afghan security firms who are funneling the money to warlords.” Add to that a corrupt Afghan government underwritten by the lives of our troops.
“And now reports indicate that Congress is preparing to attach $10 billion in state education funding to a $33 billion spending bill to keep the war going.
“Back home millions of Americans are out of work, losing their homes, losing their savings, their pensions, and their retirement security. We are losing our nation to lies about the necessity of war.
“Bring our troops home. End the war. Secure our economy.”
See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/djkucinich
Green Jobs Now! Dept: Steelworkers, Wind Energy Group Join Forces
Steelworkers, wind energy group join forces to create jobs
by: Mark Gruenberg
People’s World
June 29 2010
Photo: Workers finish a turbine blade at the Gamesa plant in Pennsylvania. PW/Teresa Albano
WASHINGTON (PAI) – The Steelworkers union and the American Wind Energy Association have signed an agreement on working together to develop the wind power industry, emphasizing the need for alternative energy devices – windmills and wind turbines generating electricity – produced by U.S. workers in U.S. factories.
Key parts of the pact include lobbying for a national standard ordering U.S. utilities to purchase a set percentage of their power from renewable sources – wind, solar, hydro, etc. – and for tax incentives to ensure the parts for the wind turbines and associated power plants and transmission lines are manufactured here, not overseas.
“We expect this framework will help advance the promise of green jobs being key to our future. The nation cannot continue to fall behind other countries on clean energy manufacturing,” said Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.
Continue reading Green Jobs Now! Dept: Steelworkers, Wind Energy Group Join Forces
Support the TSA Workers June 24 at Noon! Rally at Main Terminal 4th Floor.
Regional Industry Is Getting Benefits From Obama Manufacturing Stimulus Programs
Obama touts Stimulus Payoff
at Ohio Seamless Tube Plant
By DAVID SKOLNICK
skolnick@vindy.com
Youngstown Vindicator
President Barack Obama didn’t come to V&M Star with money for economic development in the Mahoning Valley or an offer to provide assistance to help the area’s struggling economy.
But Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams said Obama is helping the Valley.
Just by coming to the area Tuesday to highlight V&M’s $650 million expansion draws national attention to what’s happening here and what the area has to offer to businesses, Williams said.
“There’s this notion that a city like Youngstown is to be written off; our better days are behind us,” he said. “I refuse to believe that.”
Obama, a Democrat, talked about areas like the Valley with long-standing financial struggles collaborating as a region, and receiving state and financial help to progress.
“He talks of communities like Youngstown moving from surviving to thriving,” said Williams, a Democrat. “For years, we’ve been barely surviving. At some point in the future we’ll be out of survival mode. I do believe this community can indeed thrive.”
Continue reading Regional Industry Is Getting Benefits From Obama Manufacturing Stimulus Programs
Be Sure to Vote Today!
4th CD Progressive Democrats of America activists greet Joe Hoeffel, Candidate for PA governor, In Vanport
Don’t Miss Anne Feeney in Ambridge, April 28
Pittsburgh Rallies for Jobs, and Against Corbett ‘States Rights’ Law Suit
Rallies Feature
Fight for Jobs,
Defense of Health Care
By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue
“Soooouuuuweee! Yipyipyip!” is not a usual sound you’d expect to hear bouncing of the granite walls of downtown Pittsburgh’s financial district. Farm folks, however, would recognize it immediately as a way to get the hogs scrambling over to the trough to feed.
But that was the point of the April 1 rally called by the area’s AFL-CIO leaders demanding a massive jobs program. They were trying to focus the attention of political leaders on Wall Street and the need to tax its billions, especially given the huge public bailout, to finance a new green manufacturing and clean energy industrial expansion.
“Labor creates all their wealth to begin with,” declared Rev. Ken Love, a Presbyterian minister, to the crowd of about 50 at the City-County Building. He pointed to a large chart showing the billions in profits and bonuses, along with the billions in bailout money, gathered by the largest Wall St investment banks over the past year. “All that wealth came from us, but it’s not being used it our interest. Now’s the time to use it to create new jobs.”
Continue reading Pittsburgh Rallies for Jobs, and Against Corbett ‘States Rights’ Law Suit
Steelworkers Elaborate on Worker-Ownership Jobs Effort
Photo: Worker-Owner at MCC Coop
The Mondragon Alliance:
The Goal Is to Create Jobs
By Putting People First
By Rob Witherell
United Steel Workers
Keynote Speech at Western Mass.
Jobs with Justice Conference
March 6, 2010
— An official unemployment rate of 10%
— A real rate of unemployment and underemployment of 17%
— Millions of good paying jobs lost, including 2 million manufacturing jobs in the past year alone
— Stagnating wages
— Frozen pensions and inadequate 401(k) plans
— Sky rocketing health insurance costs
— Millions of people without health insurance
— Millions of people falling into poverty
— Millions of people receiving food stamps to feed their families
— Millions of people homeless and millions more struggling to stay in the homes they have
In the middle of the worst recession we’ve seen in the past 70 years, conservative politicians in Washington, DC are defiantly putting the purity of their ideals before the reality of the painful consequences. Congress is not a high school debate club. People need help, not talking points.
Wall Street executives, who were part of creating this crisis, were the first ones with their hands out, asking for help from Main Street taxpayers. We gave them billions and billions of dollars. As panic began to recede, they gave some of those billions back rather than have to live with the few strings attached. These fat cat executives are trying to avoid accountability and transparency, regardless of the cost. The millions of dollars in bonuses being paid again to executives, while insulting to the rest of us, are less harmful to our economy and our communities than the fact that little has changed in how Wall Street works. Years of increasing deregulation have left us with a Wild West of finance where anything goes. Continue reading Steelworkers Elaborate on Worker-Ownership Jobs Effort
Beaver County Adds Its Voices on Insurance Reform
Street Heat in Aliquippa:
Congressman Altmire
Pushed to Change Stand,
Abandon Insurance Bigwigs
By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue
McLean Street in Aliquippa got plenty of heat of the sunny afternoon of March 16, as opposing rallies on the issue of health care gathered out the office of Jason Altmire, the 4th CD’s Democratic ‘Blue Dog’ representative in Congress.
Photo: Steve Kislock
The first rally was at noon, when a crowd of 120 people, organized largely by trade unions, retiree groups and health care workers and activists made a last-ditch effort to get a ‘Yes’ vote on the current insurance reform proposal. But at 4pm, a crowd of more than 300 GOP, Tea Party and anti-reform forces showed up demanding a ‘No’ vote. Earlier, the anti-reformers had tried to disrupt the progressive rally with a horn-blasting truck behind the speakers stand, but they were shooed away. “Remember to turn in your Medicare card,” shouted one of the rally attendees to the departing horn blasters. Both efforts got wide coverage in regional media.
Altmire wasn’t present. But if he is at all astute and his staff took careful notes, one critical political fact will stand out: those calling for a ‘Yes’ vote were the hard core of his most active supporters in the past, while those calling for a ‘No’ vote are largely unlikely to vote for him over a Republican no matter what his vote is on this issue.
Continue reading Beaver County Adds Its Voices on Insurance Reform
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 