This video posted at request of Beaver Falls resident Steve Kislock
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
Letter on new Health Care Law by Michael Moore
The Great Thing About the Health Care Law That Has Passed? It Will Save Republican Lives, Too
(An Open Letter to Republicans from Michael Moore)
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
To My Fellow Citizens, the Republicans:
Thanks to last night’s vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.
Thanks to last night’s vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.
Thanks to last night’s vote, after your cancer returns for the third time — racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive — your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.
Continue reading Letter on new Health Care Law by Michael Moore
EPA Will Study Shale Drilling Impact on Water Pollution – Rep. Vitali says suspend permitting now!
EPA to study water pollution from Marcellus shale drilling
Thursday, March 18, 2010
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
All the drilling, water withdrawals and water pollution associated with the rapid recent development of Marcellus shale gas in Pennsylvania and four other Appalachian states has attracted the attention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA announced today that it will conduct a comprehensive $1.9 million study to investigate “the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing may have on water quality and public health.”
The fracturing, or “fracking,” is a process that injects millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and sand into a gas well under great pressure to create horizontal and vertical cracks in the thick black shale lying 5,000 to 8,000 feet beneath three-quarters of Pennsylvania and parts of New York, Ohio, Maryland and West Virginia.
Cong. Kucinich: I will vote for the President’s bill and keep fighting for Medicare for All
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
Michael Moore to Dennis Kucinich: Thank You
Maternal Death Rate in US has CLIMBED 100% in last 20 years
Amnesty International: U.S. Maternal Health Is in “Crisis”
by Angry Mouse
Mon Mar 15, 2010 at 04:46:04 PM PDT
Those brave members of Congress who believe the biggest problems in health care are government-funded abortions, death panels, and lawsuits might want to take a look at this problem:
The report, titled “Deadly Delivery,” notes that the likelihood of a woman’s dying in childbirth in the U.S. is five times as great as in Greece, four times as great as in Germany and three times as great as in Spain. Every day in the U.S., more than two women die of pregnancy-related causes, with the maternal mortality ratio doubling from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 births in 2006.
…
“In the U.S., we spend more than any country on health care, yet American women are at greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes than in 40 other countries,” says Nan Strauss, the report’s co-author, who spent two years investigating the issue of maternal mortality worldwide. “We thought that was scandalous.”
Continue reading Maternal Death Rate in US has CLIMBED 100% in last 20 years
Cong. Kucinich Explains Current Healthcare Bill
Latest health care reform bill leaves Americans vulnerable to insurance companies: Dennis Kucinich
By Plain Dealer guest columnist
March 14, 2010, 3:01AM
View full sizeFile photoU.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich / U.S. Representative
President Barack Obama is in northern Ohio on Monday to campaign for his health care plan, and I will be here to welcome him. I have met with the president three times to discuss how we can work together to address the serious deficiencies in our health care system. Even at this late date, I am hopeful that the White House will be able to reinstate key reforms that passed the Education and Labor Committee on which I serve.
Unfortunately, the president’s plan, as it currently stands, leaves patients financially vulnerable to insurance companies. It requires all Americans to buy private health insurance policies, while failing to ensure those policies do what they are supposed to do — protect people from financial catastrophe caused by injury or illness.
Continue reading Cong. Kucinich Explains Current Healthcare Bill
LAST MAN STANDING for Healthcare Reform: Dennis Kucinich. Progressives: Stand by Your Man!
by Randy Shannon
MoveOn.org is demonstrating at Dennis Kucinich’s Cleveland office. The President brought him to his rally in Ohio to twist his arm.
Along with 76 other so-called Progressive Democratic Congresspersons, Dennis Kucinich signed a pledge not to vote for a healthcare bill that did not contain a public option to control the runaway premiums that people would be forced to pay by the insurance mandate.
Now there is one single Congressman out of that 77 who has the guts and the principle to stand by his pledge to the American people. Dennis Kucinich remains unbought and unbullied, hated by Rahm Emanuel and the insurance lobbyists. While Obama and the Democratic leadership were just funnin’ about the public option, Kucinich was serious.
If the healthcare vote comes down to one vote difference, then Dennis Kucinich’s vote can easily be moved to the yes column by adding the public option. 51 Senators have said they would vote for the public option in reconciliation, a majority. The White House and the the Congressional leadership have sold out to the insurance companies. Only Dennis Kucinich can force them to include the public option.
Help him by joining with thousands of others across the nation who are sending donations to Dennis through the Firedog Lake blog. Join with others who are canceling their affiliation with MoveOn.org. If you want to help go to the link at the end of the article below to contribute. Even $5 will send the message.
donate to Dennis Kucinich to send a message that progressives have not become a tool of corporate America.
