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I realize that, when you’re talking about this publication, you’re talking about the pre-eminent propaganda tool of the “pay no price, bear no burden” investor class, but some ripe fertilizer is too pungent to ignore.
And that is the best setup I can come up with for the following dreck from Daniel Henninger yesterday (here)…
The Senate passed a $15 billion "jobs bill." Its proudest piece is a tax credit for employers who hire a person out of work at least 60 days. The employer won't have to pay the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax for what remains of this year. If the worker stays on the job at least a year, the government will give the employer $1,000.
As to the earlier $787 billion stimulus bill, Vice President Joe Biden praised it in Orlando this week as an engine of job creation, while he stood before a pile of broken concrete and asphalt. The subject was highways.
Finally, Barack Obama's government now may force companies to raise wages and benefits by squeezing their federal contracts if they don't.
Maybe there's a better way.
***
Let's bring back the robber barons.
OK, so…by giving a tax credit to employers to encourage hiring, Henninger believes that “force(s) companies to raise wages and benefits”?
And by the way, as noted here, Henninger con-vee-niently failed to note that Biden was highlighting “part of a $20 million project to expand a 3.8-mile stretch of U.S. Route 27 from four to six lanes. It will create between 20 and 50 jobs at different stages.”
But of course, if you’re Henninger, why should you let the facts get in the way of your talking points?
What I really objected to, though, was Henninger’s typically rose-colored look at the people who fueled America’s industrialization during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and for the purposes of this post, I’m going to highlight James Hill, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller, individuals who came to control the vital industries that fueled this country’s growth.
As Wikipedia tells us here, Hill was a railroad magnate who managed to build lines all across this country during The Industrial Age, often doing so on the backs (literally and figuratively) of his work force. So much so that…
…his hard micromanaging practices…eventually led to a railway-wide strike and the workers' unionization under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs. Hill and Debs agreed to arbitration by other business owners led by Charles Alfred Pillsbury. The result was restoration of the workers' wages to pre-(1893) depression levels.
And as far as Andrew Carnegie (steel) was concerned (here)…
The Homestead Strike was an industrial lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. It is one of the most serious labor disputes in US history. The dispute occurred in the Pittsburgh-area town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company.
The AA was an American labor union formed in 1876. It was a craft union representing skilled iron and steel workers.
The AA's membership was concentrated in ironworks west of the Allegheny Mountains. The union negotiated national uniform wage scales on an annual basis; helped regularize working hours, workload levels and work speeds; and helped improve working conditions. It also acted as a hiring hall, helping employers find scarce puddlers and rollers.[1]
And as Wikipedia tells us, “puddling” was a means of manufacturing high-carbon and low-carbon steel, considered an art for that time.
And finally, I give you the Rockefellers, who owned the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, a mining company involved in the “Ludlow Massacre” (here) which was the culmination of the 1913-1914 mining strike organized by the United Mine Workers of America (20 people, including 11 children and 2 women, were killed). In response, the so-called Colorado Coalfield War led to the deaths of anywhere from 69 to 199 people.
The UMWA tried to achieve recognition by the mining companies to address grievances; even though they failed to do so…
…the (1913-1914) strike had a lasting impact both on conditions at the Colorado mines and on labor relations nationally. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. engaged labor relations experts and future Canadian Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King to help him develop reforms for the mines and towns, which included paved roads and recreational facilities, as well as worker representation on committees dealing with working conditions, safety, health, and recreation. There was to be no discrimination against workers who had belonged to unions, and the establishment of a company union. The Rockefeller plan was accepted by the miners in a vote.
So it can be argued that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (from a family that primarily made its fortune in oil, let’s not forget) ended up doing the right thing by his work force, but it took a strike to do it, as well as the deaths of scores of mine workers.
With all of this in mind, I can tell Henninger to keep his “robber barons.” Just because he works for one doesn’t mean the rest of us should be forced to do so also.
(And speaking of “three strikes,” I should note that the Phils edged the Yanks 3-2 in Grapefruit League play today – yaay!)
(I’ll try doing something a bit different here – let’s see if it works…)
The New York Times reported the following yesterday (here)…
In his speech before about 300 people at Savannah Technical College, the president urged Congress to approve a $6 billion proposal to provide cash rebates to homeowners who replace windows, insulate or install energy-saving heating and cooling systems. The so-called cash-for-caulkers initiative — modeled after the popular cash-for-clunkers program for old cars — would offer rebates directly at stores.
Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, said it was refreshing to hear Mr. Obama set aside health care — even briefly — to discuss the economy, even if the two parties do not see eye to eye on all of the proposals to create job growth.
“As long as we’re talking about jobs, it’s a positive thing,” Mr. Kingston said. “It will really hurt the tone by shoving health care through. It will spill over to other very important issues, and it’s going to be harder for us to get other things done.”
Oh, and in the matter of health care “spill(ing) over to other very important issues” (as if health care somehow isn’t an important issue also), this tells us that the National Association of Free clinics (the amazing Nicole Lamoureaux’s organization) is coming to the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta on March 27 from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
And as far as Kingston is concerned, this tells us that he said the Dems’ “honeymoon” after the ’06 Congressional win “would explode on them like an IED” (nice), this tells us that he said our health care system “worked well” to Georgian Jim Parker even though Parker went bankrupt paying for his treatment, and here, Kingston claimed that the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington was “a partisan 527 organization” (referring to the section of the tax code designating that status) when, in fact, CREW is a nonpartisan and nonprofit (501)(c)(3) organization (and there are too many Kingston lies documented here from a 2008 appearance on “Real Time” to summarize in one sentence).
Oh, and by the way, I still can’t find a trace of Kingston’s flag lapel pin (here).
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In the tradition of the Bush administration, Dana Perino has a devotion to the people of Africa.Sure, just like “in the tradition” of Bushco’s “devotion” to screwing over working families, the unemployed, women seeking family planning services, etc., as noted here.
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I give you Dem U.S. Senator Bob Casey from our illustrious commonwealth (here, last May)…“Improving our health care system to increase quality and improve affordability is the ultimate and long-neglected goal,” said Sen. Casey. “A public option can help this effort by increasing competition in the market and maintaining patient choice.”And I give you Casey from last November (here)…
He supports the public option to increase competition and reduce costs.Funny thing, though – it seems that Casey was asked to support the public option here last June, but failed to do so.
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I think the best way to respond to this nonsense is to click here and toss some bucks in the general direction of Dem challenger Kendrick Meek. Let our corporate media preoccupy itself with the teabagger nonsense while Meek flies "under the radar," hopefully to victory.
As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week (and I also posted here).National debt limit. Members voted, 217-212, to raise the U.S. debt limit by $1.9 trillion to $14.29 trillion. The measure was then joined to a "pay as you go" bill (below) and sent to President Obama.Well, at least the Dems authorized a vote on raising the debt limit, as opposed to the Repugs; as noted here from 2006…
A yes vote was to raise the federal debt limit.
Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).
Voting no: John Adler (D., N.J.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).
Few lawmakers, though, wish to be on record as authorizing more debt -- the House goes so far as to hike the limit automatically. And Senate Democrats are telling their Republican counterparts not to expect any help from them, particularly in an election year.So, Bushco as usual told the Repug congress to jump, and they asked “how high?”
If any amendments are attached to the Senate's debt measure, the House would be forced to vote on raising the limit -- the last thing many lawmakers seeking re-election want to be on the record as doing.
Treasury Secretary John Snow wrote congressional leaders last week, imploring them to immediately raise the $8.2 trillion debt limit. The House has put the new limit at $9 trillion.
"Pay as you go." Members passed, 233-187, a rule under which tax cuts or entitlement spending hikes must be offset. If they are not offset, 60 Senate votes and a House majority would be needed to approve them.And this party-line vote tells you how serious the House Repugs are about sound money management anyway.
A yes vote was to enact "pay as you go."
Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.
Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.
Cybersecurity programs. Members authorized, 422-5, $396 million in National Science Foundation grants to boost cybersecurity research and instruction at universities.And by the way, let it be known for the record that the five idiots who opposed beefing up our cyber security were Paul Broun, Jeff Flake, Louie Gohmert, Jim Sensenbrenner and Ron Paul (noted here, and I don’t have to point out their party affiliation, do I?).
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.
SenateThis week, the House debated the 2010 intelligence budget and whether to end the health-insurance industry's antitrust exemption (they did). The Senate (all together now) took up a jobs bill (don't get me started - I was quite rightly mad at Bunning earlier for preventing the extension of unemployment benefits, but if it had been in this bill to begin with, Bunning wouldn't have been able to do anything, right?).
Patricia Smith confirmation. Senators voted, 60-37, to confirm New York Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith as the Department of Labor solicitor. This followed the GOP's nine-month delay of her nomination.
A yes vote was to confirm Smith.
Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and Arlen Specter (D., Pa.).
Martha Johnson confirmation. Senators voted, 82-16, to end a GOP filibuster against the nomination of Martha N. Johnson to head the General Services Administration. She was then confirmed, 96-0, eight months after she was nominated.
A yes vote was to advance the nomination.
Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Lautenberg, Menendez and Specter.
And now, I give you Bunning’s latest embarrassment (here – h/t Atrios)…Bunning’s mental competency was questioned here in 2004 in his Senate campaign against Daniel Mongiardo, in which Bunning used a teleprompter during a debate (hmmm, criticizing a politician for using a teleprompter…sound familiar?), criticized Mongiardo’s campaign for an alleged attack on Bunning’s wife that never took place, and also compared Mongiardo's appearance to one of Saddam Hussein's sons. And oh yes, this references the famous “civil liberties don’t mean much when you’re dead” quote (though other wingnuts have spoken those words also, it should be noted). Also, he opposed naming R. David Paulison as head of FEMA after Katrina (post-Mike Brown) here because the agency hadn’t yet developed “a suitable appeals process for property owners whose flood insurance claims are rejected” (ummm…and wouldn’t it be easier to do that with someone actually heading up the agency?). He also voted to extend amnesty to Iraqis who murdered our troops (one of 19 Repug senators to do so, noted here). He was also the only Senator not to bother to vote one way or the other on health care reform here (one of the 21 votes Bunning missed for that month).
Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is single-handedly blocking Senate action needed to prevent an estimated 1.2 million American workers from prematurely losing their unemployment benefits next month.And as a symptom of our corporate political-media-industrial complex’s almost fetishistic preoccupation with deficit reduction, it should be noted that Bunning supposedly doesn’t object to the extension, but only that it might add to the deficit unless it is paid for with stimulus funds.
As Democratic senators asked again and again for unanimous consent for a vote on a 30-day extension Thursday night, Bunning refused to go along.
And when Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) begged him to drop his objection, Politico reports, Bunning replied: "Tough shit."
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Nevertheless, Mr. Obama tops his predecessor in total output. He has given 43 press conferences of various degrees, six of which were solo White House sessions, (Mark) Knoller (of CBS Radio) said. During the same period, Mr. Bush gave 24 press conferences, of which four were formal, solo White House sessions.Here, by the way, is more from Eric Boehlert of Media Matters about how our august corporate, somnambulant media revived itself as soon as a Democrat took over An Oval Office after Commander Codpiece departed.
While young adults remain decidedly more liberal, the survey found the Democratic advantage among 18-to-29 year olds has substantially narrowed _ from a record 62 percent identifying as Democrat vs. 30 percent for the GOP in 2008, down to 54 percent vs. 40 percent last December. It was the largest percentage point jump in those who identified or leaned Republican among all the voting age groups.For the millionth time, I know of no organization called the “Democrat” Party, but clownhall.com isn’t going to mend its ways purely because I wish it to, I know.
Michael Dimock, associate director for research for the Pew Research Center, said some Democrats confused young peoples' attraction to President Obama and their distaste for Bush administration policies with lasting loyalty to the Democratic Party.Yep, as opposed to some newfound supposed love for the Repugs, that would explain a thing or two to me also, though Eli Pariser of Moveon.org notes that the Repugs have succeeded somewhat in “(moving) themselves away from George Bush.”
"The plurality of young people are independent," Dimock said. "Democrats never really closed the deal with young people through this period."
…
Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, said Obama's dropping approval level among the youngest generation of voters was probably tied to the high unemployment rate, which has hit younger workers even harder than older populations.
Now that the Navy has made its command military decision to broaden seaborne career opportunities for females, land-based Congress, which itself has woefully few career women, has 30 days -- no, make that 28 now -- to interfere. After all, cramming 118 young male sailors in a long metal tube driven by nuclear fission armed with warheads that could end humanity and submerging all that in 400 feet of deep ocean for 90 straight days with two women, what could possibly go wrong there? They're professionals first.I’m surprised that Malcolm didn’t try some Curl-esque idiocy here about a “seaman.”
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Your “Road Map,” we should explain, is a somewhat alarming document that proposes, in 600-plus pages, erasing the federal deficit by radically restricting the government’s role in social programs like Social Security and Medicare. The president described it as “a serious proposal.”In response, I give you the following from Matt Yglesias here…
Right. And then the next day his budget director starts ripping me and then the day after that the entire Democratic National Committee political machine starts launching demagogic attacks on me and my plan. So when you hear the word “bipartisanship” come from the president and then you see his political machine get in full-force attack mode, it comes across as very insincere.
Paul Ryan has gone where I thought no Republican would dare to tread and put out an alternative budget proposal that would, in fact, balance the budget over the long term. Part of the program is draconian real cuts in all domestic programs—less money for Pell Grants, less money for local schools, less money for the FBI, less money for job training, less money for National Institutes of Health research, less money for food stamps, etc. And part of the program is cuts in Social Security—people work be getting what they’ve been promised. And part of the program involved Medicaid in a way I don’t really understand.Also, Ryan has called the health care reform legislation currently working its way through Congress as a “terrible” bill, which is not surprising given his awful alternative, as noted here.
But over the long haul the most important thing here is Ryan’s proposed cuts in Medicare.
…
Ryan is proposing to ration care for seniors. He’ll take the baseline level of per capita medical costs for seniors in 2020 and then draw a curve representing 2.7 percent annual growth and say that any costs above that won’t be covered. If grandma’s got a bunch of money, then she can spend her money. If not, then the plug is pulled.
…
If Obama’s efforts to create a viable regulatory framework in which individuals can buy private health insurance (a) pass congress, and (b) turn out to work well and be popular, then you can imagine a version of Ryan’s plan being put into place. But in the absence of that kind of reform, I just don’t see how you can do this, which is presumably why the implementation is delayed all the way to 2021 which helps Ryan avoid needing to think about implementation details.
Many Democrats now focus on curbing use of the Senate filibuster, even though they found the 60-vote threshold useful in preventing Mr. Obama’s predecessor from getting many conservative nominees to the federal bench.Well, if that indeed was the “focus” of congressional Democrats under President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, it should be noted that they failed miserably; this tells us that Number 43 managed to rank third in presidential judicial appointments between Bill Clinton (#2) and The Sainted Ronnie R (#1).
WASHINGTON — Within weeks of George W. Bush's inauguration, he revealed a systematic, aggressive and tightly controlled approach to making lifetime appointments to the federal bench.Also on the matter of judicial appointments, I thought this was a telling article, particularly the following…
The new president ejected the American Bar Association from the screening process, ending its half-century role of reviewing candidates' credentials before a nomination. Bush turned to lawyers who had been on Ronald Reagan's judicial selection team to help seek out prominent conservative thinkers. All indications were that Bush was trying to emulate Reagan, whose conservative mark on the bench has been deep and enduring.
By February 2002, President George W. Bush had nominated 89 judges to the lower federal courts. This week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy prodded President Obama, who has nominated just 42 federal judges to date, to "get up names as quickly as possible." President Obama promised to make this "a priority." He'd better.When indeed?
There are currently 102 vacancies on the federal bench. Of these, 31 constitute "judicial emergencies"—vacancies that have severely threatened a court's ability to handle its workload. Before the end of the year, there will be dozens of additional openings on the lower courts (20 have already been announced) and, in all likelihood, one and perhaps even two Supreme Court vacancies to fill. With an energized Republican Party, the loss of a filibuster-proof majority, and a scary-looking midterm election in November, Obama faces a difficult task in filling these vacancies this year. But this is it—when is he likely to have a better opportunity?
We should remember that Mike Fitzpatrick in the last year of his term was the first congressperson of his own party to publically repudiate George W. Bush's war policies.Of course, since this is a “vent” on the Op-Ed page, it must observe the approximately-25-word limit, which precludes proper sourcing (another reason why I think the whole “vent” thing is a dumb idea anyway).
The date was Jan. 20, 2009. Ted Kennedy, who was battling a brain tumor, collapsed at an inaugural luncheon - prompting many anonymous participants in our national conversation to rub their hands in glee and root for his death.And of course, Polman believes he is obligated to inflict some “yeah, well, the lefties do this stuff too” equivalency…
On the ABC News Web site, one commenter exclaimed, "Hot diggity damn! Maybe we're finally rid of him!" Another exulted, "And I thought nothing good would come of this day!"
But this was mere foreplay compared with the purrs of satisfaction that were posted online when Kennedy died seven months later. Many commenters were frankly giddy at the prospect that the late senator would dwell forever in a fiery climate.
When Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized with chest pains on Dec. 30, the left-leaning comment boards were jammed with celebrants:“Left-leaning comment boards,” huh? What thorough sourcing! And by the way, the answer is no; I don’t condone death wishes against anyone except Osama bin Laden, no matter how repugnant they may be.
"Garbage in, garbage out. Let him die."
"If he croaks, this is officially the greatest year in American history."
"Come on, 2009! Don't fail me now!"
And not all the trash-talkers were anonymous. Last spring, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, comic Wanda Sykes said of Limbaugh, "I hope his kidneys fail."
OK, she was joking, but the joke was symptomatic of our cultural illness. Incivility is rewarded; it's one big reason for Ann Coulter's success.
