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The president also took a jab at Rick Santorum for calling him a “snob” because Obama dared to suggest that all Americans should have a chance to attend college. In his address to union members, Obama said that rescuing the auto industry helps the middle class move forward and “raise kids and maybe send them, yes, to college.”
http://veracitystew.com/?p=31350The president also took a jab at Rick Santorum for calling him a “snob”... more
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Elisa would still be working as a waitress without Obama's auto bailout. She comes from a long line of family members who have worked in the auto industry. Take the time to listen to her story...
http://veracitystew.com/?p=31290Elisa would still be working as a waitress without Obama's auto bailout. She... more
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YouTube description (afscme): Mitt Romney's recent pandering speech in Michigan sounded awfully familiar. Just as Will Ferrell's character Ron Burgundy in the movie Anchorman might have asked, "Mitt, are you just naming things you see in the state and saying you love them?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002336112
"Now "That's" some Heavy Pandering right there!!!"YouTube description (afscme): Mitt Romney's recent pandering speech in Michigan... more
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KB723
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By Kenneth Quinnell
Members of the United Auto Workers expressed extreme displeasure with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comment that rather than bail out the auto industry, "we should have let Detroit go bankrupt." They said that Romney doesn't understand that the bailout didn't just save companies and jobs, it saved careers and families. They went further to say that when conservatives like Romney attack unions, what they are really attacking are working people.
The full press release:
UAW members reacted strongly to Mitt Romney's claim that "we should have let Detroit go bankrupt," when the economy and the auto industry were about to collapse.
"He's trying to rewrite history and attack President Obama and the UAW for successfully saving the auto industry," said UAW President Bob King. "He is misleading voters about the president's bold and decisive rescue of the auto industry and about sacrifices made by workers. But voters deserve the truth."
Even prior to the emergency rescue loans, UAW members made deep sacrifices beginning in 2005 to save the company, giving up pay increases, overtime pay, holidays, agreeing to a reduced pay and benefit structure for new hires, and other concessions. President Obama demanded additional concessions and shared sacrifice from both labor and management in exchange for the loans.
In return, America's carmakers retooled to create the energy-efficient cars of the future and repaid their outstanding loans years ahead of schedule.
Rescuing the auto industry saved more than 1.4 million jobs up and down the supply chain.
"There's not a person in Michigan who doesn't have a sister or brother or cousin or friend who is tied to the auto industry," said Stacie Steward, a UAW Local 1700 member and an electrician from Chrysler's Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) in Sterling Heights, Mich. "Every Michigan citizen should be appalled by what Mitt Romney said."
"It's an attack on American workers," said Jeff Klayo, also of Local 1700 and from SHAP, which was scheduled to close before Chrysler received the loans. "We're out there trying to get the American dream. We're trying to keep our jobs, for a good wage for our family, put food on our table, pay our taxes, continue to work for the company and get the rewards.
"If the company's successful, we can be successful. If the company takes a downturn, we take a downturn with it," he added.
"The president's rescue loans helped the auto industry survive the darkest hour of its history and return to thriving operations today," said King. "These workers from SHAP are evidence. They, along with hundreds of thousands other workers who depend on the auto industry for jobs, were facing a very uncertain future, but today, they are making the Chrysler 200, one of Detroit's new, hot-selling models. UAW members completed negotiations with the domestic automakers this fall with a strategy to make the company successful and to share in its success. And that strategy paid off."
"Americans deserve to know the truth," King added. "The emergency loans worked. GM is once again the world's top carmaker. Its 2011 profit was its largest ever. The auto industry added more than 200,000 jobs in the last two-and-a-half years, and 2011 was the strongest year of industry job growth since 1994. Demand for their cars is going up, so GM, Ford and Chrysler are starting to run three production shifts a day at many plants. Added shifts and new facilities mean jobs for thousands more workers in Michigan, Ohio and other places across the country."
Romney seems to care more about appeasing his allies in the business community than helping out actual working Americans. Good to see that working Americans are fighting back against the lies that Romney and other conservatives are spreading about them.
http://crooksandliars.com/kenneth-quinnell/united-auto-workers-criticize-rom
"I am thinking Romney is going to get his Ass handed to him in his own State!!!" =)By Kenneth Quinnell
Members of the United Auto Workers expressed extreme... more
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February 17, 2012 12:17 PM
Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are in a statistical dead heat in the next big primary state, Michigan. CBS News political director John Dickerson spoke Friday with Susan Page, Aaron Blake and Jake Sherman on what happens if Romney doesn't win his home state.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7399151n
"So what If, other than a bit of Egg in his Face??? They did mention Jeb Bush, how do you folks feel about that???" =)
Please click link to view...February 17, 2012 12:17 PM
Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are in a statistical dead... more
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KB723
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On January 20 the progressive think tank Michigan Forward and the Detroit branch of the NAACP sent a joint letter to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder expressing concern over Public Act 4, the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act. Signed into law in March 2011, it granted unprecedented new powers to the state’s emergency managers (EMs), including breaking union contracts, taking over pension systems, setting school curriculums and even dissolving or disincorporating municipalities.
Under PA 4, EMs, who are appointed by the governor, can “exercise any power or authority of any officer, employee, department, board, commission or other similar entity of the local government whether elected or appointed.”
What are the qualifications for such a powerful office and the six-figure salary that accompanies it? Not much: PA 4 requires “a minimum of 5 years’ experience and demonstrable expertise in business, financial, or local or state budgetary matters.”
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The outcome of the citizen referendum and the constitutional challenges may well determine if laws like PA 4 remain unique to Michigan or become the national standard for dealing with impoverished urban areas. With the Indiana Senate having just passed an emergency manager bill of its own, we may be heading down that path.
*********************************************************************************************************On January 20 the progressive think tank Michigan Forward and the Detroit branch of... more
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By David Edwards
Thursday, February 16, 2012 14:43 EST
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney suggested to a group of business people in Michigan on Thursday that entrepreneurs should ask their parents for money instead of using loans from the federal government.
In a speech to the Greater Farmington Area Chamber of Commerce, the former Massachusetts governor blasted the Obama administration for trying to jump start renewable energy with government loans to companies like Solyndra.
“When the president says I’m going to take your money and give it to Tesla and Fisker, two new car companies, which by the way, Fisker now builds their cars in Finland, that’s not good,” he explained. “When he takes $500 million and puts it into Solyndra, that’s not good. That’s not good for American enterprise and innovation.”
“The president wanted to encourage solar energy and he thought by taking $500 million and giving it as a loan to a company would do that,” Romney continued. “It did just the opposite. Not understanding the private enterprise system explains why he doesn’t understand that.
“Because my guess is that there are about 100 or more entrepreneurs in America that have ideas for solar energy, and they’re trying to go out and get funding for their business, for their startup for their ideas. Going to venture capitalists and angels and their parents to try and get funding.”
Although the Obama administration did approve funds for Solyndra, the loan process began under President George W. Bush’s administration.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/16/romney-entrepreneurs-should-just-ask-parents-for-money/
Watch this video from CNN, broadcast Feb. 16, 2012.
"So should I give up on my Glass Work and start building Guns???" Speaking of Taj Majal, will I ever be able to visit the embassy our Tax Dollars built in Iraq???By David Edwards
Thursday, February 16, 2012 14:43 EST
Republican presidential... more
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Romney, the once inevitable nominee, can only suffer so many stumbles. He was Newtered in South Carolina, and was splattered by Santorum in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Now it all hinges on his native Michigan just a few years after he told the American Auto Industry to drop dead.
http://veracitystew.com/?p=30481Romney, the once inevitable nominee, can only suffer so many stumbles. He was Newtered... more
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You can now download Hot Party Songs from the OurStage Mardi Gras "Show Us Your Hits" Song Competition. Jelixa - the Beta Music artist is one of the chosen artist to have her song "What You Need To Know" selected for the Mardi Gras party song playlist.
OurStage is a music promotion website that has played a tremendous role in providing independent musicians and labels the necessary World Wide exposure to boost their careers and music sales. You will find song competitions and live performance opportunities going on at OurStage all the time, that's how Jelixa the "Beta Music" artist became one of the chosen ones to have her Party Song "What You Need To Know" on the Mardi Gras playlist....and guest what, you can download her song and others for free by clicking on the following link....
http://www.ourstage.com/go/showusyourhitsdownloads
Enjoy the hot tunes on the playlist!
Michael BellYou can now download Hot Party Songs from the OurStage Mardi Gras "Show Us Your... more
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Last night we posted a video here on Addictinginfo that showed a very cool, confident and forgiving lesbian mom encouraging her homophobic mayor to leave the “dark-side” and move into the light of tolerance and respect.
Today, we learned that Mayor Janice Daniels of Troy Michigan, who told the world on her Facebook page last week that she couldn’t be a fan of New York now that “queers can marry there,” has lost her job with Century 21 Real Estate. For the record, Daniels has publicly apologized for her mean-spirited, homophobic comment. But apparently, not all the damage her comment inflicted on her good name and reputation can be repaired with an apology. Her boss at Century 21 indicated that he can have, “no one in his company, either employee or independent contractor, who would be capable of such insensitivity to the LGBT community, or to anyone for that matter.”
http://tinyurl.com/7zd65yuLast night we posted a video here on Addictinginfo that showed a very cool, confident... more
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LOrion
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The fate of the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, an entity ostensibly tasked with keeping a list of the state’s private home health providers, may have seemed sealed in May when state lawmakers axed its funding from the 2012 budget. Yet even without state funding, this unusual government entity continues to exist past its Sept. 30 expiration date — and collect dues for a government-sector union.
“The union dues are still being withheld and are being sent to the MQC3,” according to Angela Minicuci, public information officer for the Michigan Department of Community Health, in an email sent to the Mackinac Center. “The MQC3 still exists and they are working to get funding for the home help registry.”
Minicuci did not elaborate on how a defunded agency continues to operate.
“For the state to operate a dubiously formed government entity that has been defunded by the Legislature seems unprecedented,” said Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation. “But such shenanigans aren’t entirely surprising given the origination of this agency and the machinations to preserve it for the sake of skimming ‘union dues’ from independent contractors.”
Wright was referring to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Mackinac Center that point to behind-the-scenes legislative efforts to keep the council operating by other means. Among the documents, emails indicate that Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw Twp., was particularly focused on maintaining MQCCC.
The MQCCC was created in 2005 through an interlocal agreement between the Michigan Department of Community Health and the Tri-County Aging Consortium. The council kept a registry of home care providers, but its main function was to be the so-called government “employer” for some 45,000 private home care aides. Through this arrangement, these independent contractors were compelled to become dues-paying members of SEIU Healthcare Michigan. The union has had a collective bargaining agreement with the MQCCC since 2006, collecting $6 million in annual dues from Medicaid subsidies paid to the home care providers. The council effectively runs the program for SEIU and passes the union dues from the state to the union.
The Mackinac Center recently learned from the council’s executive director that even though the MQCCC would no longer be funded this year and would soon close its doors, MQCCC officials believed the collective bargaining agreement would remain “in force between us and the union.” A copy of the agreement shows a Nov. 15, 2012, expiration date.
That prompted a Mackinac Center inquiry into what was happening behind the scenes that would keep a defunded government entity operating.
Among documents obtained from the Michigan Department of Community Health were more than three dozen emails from between April 5 and Sept. 13 discussing ways to keep the agency afloat. The biggest champion of creative financing for the council appeared to be Sen. Kahn. According to the documents attained by the Mackinac Center, Sen. Kahn began by proposing an above-the-board supplemental appropriation for the MQCCC. When this was rejected by the House, he suggested hiding the funding by avoiding an explicit designation identifying what it was for or putting the amount into another budget entirely. When those attempts failed, Sen. Kahn proposed taking five cents per hour from each health care provider to allow the continued existence of the faux employer, which would allow the union to keep collecting millions of dollars in annual dues.
The first indication of Sen. Kahn’s efforts came in a May 19 email from MDCH Deputy Director Nick Lyon to Nancy Vreibel, a staff member in Sen. Kahn’s office, discussing budget cuts to MDCH. Lyon wrote: “I also couldn’t work money back in for MQCCC; (Kahn) had asked about that.”
In July, an email from MDCH Director Olga Dazzo to several members of her staff and members of the Snyder administration revealed that Sen. Kahn and Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, hoped to re-establish a cash flow to the MQCCC.
“Senators Richardville and Kahn believe there is merit in funding MQC3,” Dazzo wrote. “Senator Kahn was hoping to restore these dollars in the budget but apparently did not have support from the House or Senate MDCH budget chairs.”
In the same email, Dazzo asked some pointed questions about the SEIU (Note: parenthetical statements appear in the original.):
1.“Does the lack of funding mean the state is no longer supposed to collect union dues for SEIU? (MQC3 basically runs the program for SEIU and passes the union dues from the state to the union).
2.“Do we want the SEIU to continue operating through their own funding or some alternative source of dollars?
3.“Is there a long-term strategy with respect to this issue and is it comparable to the daycare unionization issue in DHS? (which was ended).”
Dazzo also noted that legislation aimed at ending agreements like the one that roped home-based day care providers into a union might affect the MQC3: “There is legislation moving through the process (HB 4003 from Representative Opsommer) that, if passed, may negatively impact the ability to have a program such as this.”
In July, an unidentified party apparently raised the question of having the union fund the MQCCC. In response, Lyon correctly replied in an email, “It would be a conflict of interest to have the union pay.”
More at link and below.
http://www.mackinac.org/15943
http://current.com/community/93537599_seiu-siphons-dues-from-mich-medicaid-payments.htm#93537672The fate of the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, an entity ostensibly tasked... more
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Michigan Senator Responds To Pro-Bullying Legislation That Would ALLOW Bullying For ‘Moral Or Religious’ Reasons. Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer responds to Republicans gutting an anti-bullying bill by inserting language that specifically allows bullying to occur based on religious or moral reasons. THANK GOD we have people like her. She's a champion. I'd be proud to be in her district. Republicans and Christians, setting back humanity ONCE AGAIN.Michigan Senator Responds To Pro-Bullying Legislation That Would ALLOW Bullying For... more
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Beginning in August, the local utility company, DTE, started repossessing Highland Park’s street lights as a settlement for its $4M overdue electric bill, the result of almost a decade of partial payments. This leaves the small, blighted city’s 16,000 residents almost totally in the dark.Beginning in August, the local utility company, DTE, started repossessing Highland... more
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A "Suck You" Halloween Message from the Vampires at Rio Tinto/Kennecott Minerals: Suck the Anishinaabe and the Environment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8DZPyUFiB8
Happy Halloween from your friends at Rio Tinto - Kennecott.
We’re celebrating the holiday by blowing up a frickin rock
The Eagle is sacred you say – we think not.
When money’s at play – the Anishinaabe can rot
To the Indians we say – just go away - suck the tribe
To the elected we say - money’s at play – offer the bribe
Mass murder and what not – that’s how we roll.
The fun of raping Eagle Rock – right in the hole.
We’ve told our kids it’s no fun to camp
It’s more fun as a blood sucking vamp
To us the Upper Peninsula is a place to trash.
At Rio Tinto Kennecott – we’re monsters that mash.
Suck you………
This is ArchAngel: The Environmental Hitman
Evil is as Evil Does
This is ArchAngel: The Environmental Hitman does not encourage or promote violence against the evildoers – but we will expose them….A "Suck You" Halloween Message from the Vampires at Rio Tinto/Kennecott... more
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Earlier this year, I was contacted by a PR firm working for Dow Chemical to contribute a 60-second video for the Future We Create virtual conference on water sustainability the company launched yesterday. As a vocal advocate for strict regulation of toxic chemicals -- especially for food and farming -- I was surprised the company would approach me. Dow is the country's largest chemical maker, and profits handsomely from developing some of the world's most polluting products, many of which are widely used in industrial and consumer goods as well as agriculture.
In the video I submitted, which you can watch below, I stress that one of the greatest threats to clean water is chemical contaminants -- and that Dow Chemical has a long history of water pollution. The PR representative emailed to say "unfortunately we can't use your video," but that she would be happy to include me, still, if I would consider re-recording it. When we discussed what that would mean she said, no "fingerpointing"; they wanted a "positive, inclusive discussion."
I believe in inclusiveness and engagement, but I also believe we must pursue those principles within a context that is honest. To do otherwise is to participate in what is popularly called "greenwashing," painting a veneer of environmentalism on an otherwise unchanged product or practice -- a corporate strategy many of us are all too familiar with.
In this spirit, I felt it would be disingenuous to engage in a conversation about water sustainability, for a campaign paid for by Dow Chemical, without pointing out the direct relationship between Dow's core business products -- a source of its $8 billion in profit last year -- and toxins in our environment.
At the same time Dow launches this initiative, the company is actively fighting multiple lawsuits from communities who contend that their water has been polluted by the company, including from its hometown manufacturing plant in Midland, Mich. In 2007, the EPA detected the highest level of dioxin ever discovered in the country's rivers or lakes in waterways near Dow's global headquarters. Dioxin levels in some places were 1,000 times higher than the residential standard, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. A recent study found women living in Midland, as well as Saginaw and Bay counties, have significantly higher rates of breast cancer; dioxin was to blame. A class action lawsuit is pending.
"In the backyard of Dow's corporate headquarters, the company for decades through philanthropy, public relations, and politics has made the choice to push back at every regulatory level instead of addressing their dioxin contamination of 52 miles of freshwater and Lake Huron," said Michelle Hurd Riddick of the Saginaw Bay grassroots environmental organization, Lone Tree Council. "The company has mastered the art of greenwashing while poisoning a whole watershed and getting away with it."
Community members in another Midland -- Midland, Texas -- filed suit earlier this year against Dow and three other companies for contaminating groundwater there with hexavalent chromium. Barred from use in the European Union because of its toxicity, hexavalent chromium is a known carcinogen. The EPA's own hazard report notes that exposure, including through contaminated drinking water, "may produce effects on the liver, kidney, [and] gastrointestinal and immune systems."
Dow also continues to drag its heels and fight regulators in order to continue production of some of its most toxic and water-polluting products.
In 2000, for instance, the EPA announced it was phasing out approval of Dow's insecticide, and potent neurotoxin, Dursban, for new home construction in the United States because the product is linked to serious illnesses and even death in children. Five years later, the chemical was still in use in U.S. homes. And in 2003, Dow settled a $2 million lawsuit with the state of New York, the largest penalty ever in a pesticide-related case, for repeatedly violating an agreement about proper advertising of Dursban and making misleading safety claims.
Dow is also a leading manufacturer of Bisphenol-A (or BPA), used in numerous consumer products such as baby bottles, children's toys, and the linings of food cans. It's a particularly dangerous chemical, with proven toxicity even in low doses, especially in utero. The National Institutes of Health's National Toxicology Program has found the chemical may increase the risk of certain cancers and alter brain development. The chemical, a synthetic estrogen, has also been linked to reproductive and hormonal problems. New research is showing that a vast majority of Americans is exposed to low concentrations of BPA not only through consumer products, but from surface water, too.
More at the linkEarlier this year, I was contacted by a PR firm working for Dow Chemical to contribute... more
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