Brunner shares Johnson's call for a 'meat ax' to cut federal spending

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snip

Brunner shares Johnson's call for a 'meat ax' to cut federal spending

In Backroom

12:46 am on Thu, 05.31.12

St. Louis businessman John Brunner, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, is embracing much of the message from U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who told local Republicans that their party needs to “take a meat ax” to the federal budget should the GOP win control of the U.S. Senate this fall.

Among other things, Johnson says that the rising costs of entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare need to be reined in for future retirees.  Among the possible options: increasing the eligibility age and perhaps imposing means-testing, which would curb benefits for those with higher incomes.

Brunner called Johnson’s ideas “a common sense approach” that could help address the federal debt and the budget deficits.

Johnson, a successful businessman with tea party ties, was in town to help Brunner raise an estimated $50,000 at a fundraising event Wednesday in Clayton that was cohosted by some of region’s best-known Republican businessmen.
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Judge gives prelim OK to Syngenta deal : Benton

Judge gives prelim OK to Syngenta deal : Benton

click link above

BENTON — A federal judge gave a preliminary stamp of approval Wednesday to a $105 million settlement agreement proposed by parties in an alleged water contamination lawsuit.
The lawsuit was brought by more than 20 Midwestern public water suppliers, including the Illinois municipalities of Greenville, Coulterville, Evansville, Farina and Gillespie, against the Swiss-based conglomerate Syngenta.
The lawsuit alleged Syngenta sold atrazine to farmers knowing the weed killer had the potential to run off crop land and into bodies of water such as those used by the water providers to draw raw water.
The water providers asked that Syngenta be held liable for costs to test and monitor water for atrazine levels as well as costs relating to removal of the herbicide from water.
In a statement announcing the proposed settlement last week, Syngenta denied any liability and said the agreement was entered “in order to end the business uncertainty and expense of protracted legal proceedings.”

Broken Promises: Romney's Massachusetts Record

Meet Mitt Romney's billionaire backers - The Last Word (May 29th, 2012)

Personal - Obama for America 2012 Television Ad

Save American Jobs

The ED Show - Voter suppression in Florida could swing presidential elec...

Steelworkers remember martyrs, fight for living » peoplesworld

Steelworkers remember martyrs, fight for living » peoplesworld
 
click for story

I went to this event with Granite City soar folks   Is was impressed

snip

The Republic Steel mill in south Chicago is sacred ground for the American labor movement. The mill is empty and silent now, the fields around it a vacant lot, but the land has been hallowed by the blood spilled in the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937, when police fired on a peaceful picket line, killing 10 and wounding dozens of others.

Seventy-five years later, on May 26, across the street from Republic Steel, labor leaders, academics, rank-and-file activists and elected officials gathered at a commemoration and rally organized by the United Steelworkers under the title, "Fighting for Workers' Rights: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow."

The Julian Assange Show: Occupy Movement (E7)

CEOs Paid Big $ After Bankrupting Companies

Haymarket Martyrs--Origin of International Workers Day pbs

Paul Krugman's alien invasion strategy (Real Time with Bill Maher)

Study: One in 10 U.S. Veterans Has No Health Insurance - New America Media

Study: One in 10 U.S. Veterans Has No Health Insurance - New America Media

click link for full

snip

 There are currently around 13 million veterans between the ages of 19 and 64 living in the United States. Some 17 percent of those without insurance report suffering from service-related disabilities or functional limitations, while 41 percent say they have unmet medical needs. Another 34 percent say they have delayed care due to cost, the report notes.

With two wars winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the findings also showed that one in four uninsured veterans served between September 2001 and 2010.

The report is the first to examine rates of health insurance among veterans on both the national and state level. There are several states with more than 14 percent uninsured – Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. On average, uninsurance is higher among those that have “taken only limited steps toward implementing exchanges under the ACA,” according to the report.

Texas and California are each home to more than 100,000 uninsured vets, the study found.

While the authors of the report say more aggressive implementation of the ACA would help ameliorate the problem, J.P. Tremblay, spokesperson for the California Department of Veterans Affairs, says the real issue is making sure vets understand the benefits available to them through the VA system.

“Many don’t know,” says Tremblay, who explains that when returning home, soldiers “get a week of transition services” – meaning they sit in a class while someone lectures them on accessing benefits. The problem, he says, is that most are only thinking of one thing, and that’s “getting home.”

Tremblay says the ACA is in many ways modeled after the VA system, which he describes as “top notch,” adding that all returning vets are guaranteed coverage for the first five years. The challenge, he says, is “getting into the system.”

Paul Krugman Laughs At & Shatters Peter Schiff & Ron Paul's Gold Standar...

Paul Krugman: Egos and immorality

Paul Krugman: Egos and immorality

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In the wake of a devastating financial crisis, President Obama has enacted some modest and obviously needed regulation, he has proposed closing a few outrageous tax loopholes and he has suggested that Mitt Romney's history of buying and selling companies, often firing workers and gutting their pensions along the way, doesn't make him the right man to run America's economy.

Wall Street has responded — predictably, I suppose — by whining and throwing temper tantrums. And it has, in a way, been funny to see how childish and thin-skinned the Masters of the Universe turn out to be. Remember when Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group compared a proposal to limit his tax breaks to Hitler's invasion of Poland? Remember when Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase characterized any discussion of income inequality as an attack on the very notion of success?

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-egos-and-immorality/article_68a2e27a-2261-5980-834e-354c49b5453a.html#ixzz1wGvCNIXT

Seventy-five years since the Memorial Day Massacre

Seventy-five years since the Memorial Day Massacre

click link for story

snip

On May 30, 1937, Memorial Day, Chicago police opened fire on unarmed workers demonstrating against Republic Steel in the midst of the “Little Steel” strike of 1937, killing 10 people and wounding dozens more. Most of the workers were shot in the back as they fled. Another 28 were injured by police clubbing, 9 of them permanently disabled.

In the wake of the massacre, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt—a Democrat and purportedly a “friend of labor”—pointedly refused to condemn the murders or intervene in the strike in favor of the steel workers’ union federation, then called the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), which had backed him in the 1936 elections. (The following year, the CIO would be transformed into the Congress of Industrial Organizations.) Roosevelt instead issued his infamous “plague on both your houses” remark, largely blaming the workers for the violence.

Simpson on need for compromise

must have rocks in my head. no compromise on social security, go giving of ground on medicare and no surrender on raising the taxes of the rich and corporations. simpson, get back on your meds and quickly; you sound insane and that is something you did rarely as a politico and a poor politico at that

Cenk Uygur Blasts Congressman Joe 'Tea Party Whore' Walsh And Friends

History of Unions -Inheritance

from site I took this from: We made this film in 1964 for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. We are making it available in its entirety to the public now because we are concerned about the current attacks on Unions and workers. We hope that the film will remind the public of why Unions are so vital to our country. The Inheritance shows what life was really like for immigrants and working Americans from the turn of the century through the fight for civil rights in the 1960s. This stirring history of our country shows their struggle to put down roots, form labor unions, survive wars, and finally, create a new and better life for themselves and our nation. ----- -- this segment has the Chicago Republic steel strike. If this is correct, all ten of the demonstrators killed were shot in back by Chicago police note: newsreels of the even were censored and unavailable to the public for a long time. -----

Leo Gerard at Good Jobs, Green Jobs Midwest

Punished for supporting OWS? Police captain Ray Lewis talks to RT

The Republic Steel Strike

The Republic Steel Strike

click link for full story.  Historical story of Republic steel strike of 37

snip Carrying American flags and singing union songs, the marchers-- men, women and a few youngsters--formed a long line as they crossed the grassy field.

Their destination was the main gate at Republic Steel's South Chicago plant on the city's Southeast Side, but facing them were about 150 Chicago police. It was a hot and sticky Memorial Day that soon would get even hotter.Beyond the police was the massive steel plant, the only one in the Chicago area that had stayed open during a bitter nationwide showdown between a number of steel companies and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, which was trying to unionize the plants.

A combative mood was in the air. The nascent steelworkers union was determined to win a contract. The owners were equally determined not to surrender to the union. Swinging riot clubs, the police had turned back another group of demonstrators two days earlier. Eighteen marchers had been injured.

Pressure on the picket line

Pressure on the picket line

click link for full story

 

 snip

 

By Alejandra Cancino, Chicago Tribune reporter

May 27, 2012

Almost every day for nearly three weeks, Jon Butler rallied with fellow union strikers on the picket line.

Butler was among roughly 800 union members who walked out of the Caterpillar Inc. plant in Joliet on May 1, rejecting a proposed six-year contract that would freeze their wages, double health care premiums and eliminate pensions and seniority rights.

Labor Beat: The Virden / Mt. Olive Monuments: Honoring Coal Miner History

did not have time to visit this memorial. it is on my list lot of labor history in Illinois

Union Maid - Pete Seeger

good to know that some of these folks still exist in the usw

The Most Dangerous Woman

How Are Companies Fined for Workplace Deaths?

Obama Says Romney's Full Of "Cowpies"

What Would've Happened Without The Filibuster

Extra: MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan—don't try politics with the banks, you'll l...

Dylan Ratigan says Wall Street went from opportunity-seeking culture to ...

Cranky Letter To Protesters From Alan Simpson

CHICAGO MEMORIAL DAY MASSACRE 1937

there will be a memorial saturday in chicago this weekend on this topic. many steelworkers intend to be there including members of Granite city soar and soar 11-3 from St. Louis

Hardball - Romney, GOP are running a 'campaign of falsehoods' against Obama

The ED Show - Major Republican rips into Romney's business experience

Poll Results: America Fundamentally Progressive

Who Spends More Democratic Or Republican Presidents?

Robert Reich - 7 Lies

Robert Reich: "The REAL Public Nuisance"

How To Buy A Politician

Debt Ceiling Debacle: GOP Backs Out Of Deal

King Of Bain (Police Parody)

President Obama Goes After Romney on Bain Capital Greed

Chicago Police Face Accusations of Entrapment, Brutality in Crackdown on...

Paul Krugman: Dimon debacle

Paul Krugman: Dimon debacle

click link above

snip

Anyway, it goes without saying that Jamie Dimon is no Jimmy Stewart. But he has, in a way, been playing Jimmy Stewart on TV, posing as a responsible banker who knows how to manage risk — and therefore the point man in Wall Street's fight to block any tightening of regulations despite the immense damage deregulated banks have already inflicted on our economy. Trust us, Mr. Dimon has in effect been saying, we've got this covered and it won't happen again.

Now the truth is coming out. That multibillion-dollar loss wasn't an isolated event; it was an accident waiting to happen. For even as Mr. Dimon was giving speeches about responsible banking, his own institution was heaping on the risk. "The unit at the center of JPMorgan's $2 billion trading loss," reports The Financial Times, "has built up positions totaling more than $100 billion in asset-backed securities and structured products — the complex, risky bonds at the center of the financial crisis in 2008. These holdings are in addition to those in credit derivatives which led to the losses."

And what was going on as these positions were being accumulated? According to a fascinating report in Sunday's Times, the reality behind JPMorgan's facade of competence was a scene all too reminiscent of the behavior that brought down firms like AIG in 2008: arrogant executives shouting down anyone who tried to question their activities, top management that didn't ask questions as long as the money kept rolling in. It really is déjà vu all over again.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-dimon-debacle/article_45b6b021-787e-5aeb-99ba-aea54fe3e32a.html#ixzz1vbP0txBO

'Professor Cenk' breaks down Bain Capital's buyout of GST, which it drov...

Krugman: Romney 'really does not understand the economy at all'

NATO Protests & Afghanistan Agreement

After a worker dies in Pennsylvania gas explosion, safety questions linger

looks like osha whitewashed affair. not news, osha whitewashing industrial killing

Occupy G8: Protest Confronts World Leaders at Camp David, Urging Action ...

old news with what is occuring in chicago

Billy Bragg's "Great Leap Forward"

How Rural America Got Fracked | The Nation

How Rural America Got Fracked | The Nation

click link for hell of a story


“It's huge,” said a US Geological Survey mineral commodity specialist in 2009. “I've never seen anything like it, the growth. It makes my head spin.” That year, from all US sources, frac-sand producers used or sold over 6.5 million metric tons of sand—about what the Great Pyramid of Giza weighs. Last month, Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Senior Manager and Special Projects Coordinator Tom Woletz said corporations were hauling at least 15 million metric tons a year from the state’s hills.

By July 2011, between twenty-two and thirty-six frac-sand facilities in Wisconsin were either operating or approved. Seven months later, said Woletz, there were over sixty mines and forty-five processing (refinement) plants in operation. “By the time your article appears, these figures will be obsolete,” claims Pat Popple, who in 2008 founded the first group to oppose frac-sand mining, Concerned Chippewa Citizens (now part of The Save the Hills Alliance).

Jerry Lausted, a retired teacher and also a farmer, showed me the tawny ridges of sand that delineated a strip mine near the town of Menomonie where he lives. “If we were looking from the air,” he added, “you’d see ponds in the bottom of the mine where they dump the industrial waste water. If you scan to the left, you’ll see the hills that are going to disappear.”

What happens if Mitt Romney becomes president?

When Mitt Romney Came To Town — Full, complete version

amazing this still on internet redo of previous post

Hardball: Walker's "Divide and Conquer" Strategy

How Did Mitt Romney Get So Obscenely Rich? Robert Reich Explains

Wall St. and Congress: Who Regulates Who?

Faux history for the GOP

Faux history for the GOP

click link

 I have looked at  his book, at least quotations.    it lies to be honest.

from article

Earlier this month, the evangelical writer David Barton’s new book, “The Jefferson Lies,” hit the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction. Barton isn’t popular, however, only with the ordinary American reader. On May 8, John Boehner authorized the use of Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol for a religious service to commemorate the first inauguration of George Washington. Among the speakers was Barton, who is revered by social conservatives because he argues that the nation was founded primarily by evangelical Christians on explicitly Christian teachings.

Barton — “one of the most important men alive,” according to Glenn Beck — is frequently criticized as a pseudo-historian by progressives and academic historians for his claims about the Founders. He is now facing scrutiny, however, from evangelicals. After Barton’s speech in the Capitol, John Fea, chairman of the history department at evangelical Messiah College, accused Barton of “peddling falsehoods” about Washington, and asked, “Is it time to gather Christian historians together to sign some kind of formal statement condemning Barton’s brand of propaganda and hagiography?”

James Lipton Teaches Mitt Romney How to be Human--

Disastrously Timed Filibuster Comments By Harry Reid

Nurses and Tom Morello Heal America, Tax Wall Street, May 18 in Chicago.

The ED Show - Romney picks the wrong bridge to nowhere

The Last Word - Planned super PAC attack against Obama

Hardball - Romney's economic plan is the same as George W. Bush's plan

The ED Show - Billionaire Entrepreneur argues he's not a job creator

Who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act?

Joseph Stiglitz on How the Iraq War Ruined the Economy

Romney's 'Positive' Day One Campaign Ad Takes Subtle Digs At Obama

Bernie Sanders "The Truth Is Wall Street Regulates Congress"

What does Mitt Romney think of unions?

ITC keeps steel tariffs in place - WeirtonDailyTimes.com | news, sports, jobs - Weirton, Hancock County — Weirton Daily Times

ITC keeps steel tariffs in place - WeirtonDailyTimes.com | news, sports, jobs - Weirton, Hancock County — Weirton Daily Times

click link above

snip


WEIRTON - The U.S. International Trade Commission is keeping tariffs on Japanese tin- and chromium-coated steel imports in place.

The ITC said Tuesday it would keep the duties on the Japanese imports in place, saying that "revoking the existing antidumping duty order on tin- and chromium-coated steel sheet from Japan would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury within a reasonably foreseeable time.

The announcement drew immediate applause from the United Steelworkers of America, who have long complained that overseas competitors have been dumping steel in U.S. markets at bargain-basement prices, decimating the U.S. steel industry.

USW President Leo Gerard said the ITC's 6-0 vote "sends a strong message for support of the domestic tin mill industry and the current anti-dumping order on imports from Japan."

Joe Biden goes after Mitt Romney at an event in Ohio

Austerity = Political Death For Incumbents

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Scott Walker, are you serious? Less pay because you're a woman?

Austerity Rejected: Cenk on Elections In France, Greece

Robert Reich: Public vs. Private Morality

Elizabeth Warren wants JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon to resign from NY Fed

Steel --for those union folks thinking about voting republican

Fake Democrat Rips Obama On Fox News Over Romney 'Enemy List'

Mitt Romney Bullied Gay Classmate?

How to rip apart Wisconsin -- By Scott Walker

Ken Neumann and Q&A, Westray - 050812

Occupy St. Louis Protestors Want Jury Trial « CBS St. Louis

Occupy St. Louis Protestors Want Jury Trial « CBS St. Louis

click link

from article


ST. LOUIS–(KMOX)–Some 25 members of the Occupy movement arrested for curfew violations in a downtown park last fall were in municipal court today.
Occupy attorney Joe Welch says he asked for — and got — permission from Judge Gordon Schweizter to have a jury trial, rather than a bench trial.

claire on colbert

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

'The conservative recovery': Why the US economy is not as bad as it seems

Obama Anti-Business? Record Corporate Profits Suggest Otherwise

Cenk on Legalized Bribery - Nuclear Industry Buys Senator Graham

Lynch was labor leader » The Commercial Appeal

Lynch was labor leader » The Commercial Appeal:

click link--

Leon Lynch was born in Edwards, Miss., but left the South with his parents to look for work. It led to the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Mill in East Chicago, Ind., where Mr. Lynch became a grievance representative for the United Steelworkers union.

Before his death Friday, Mr. Lynch, 76, had built a career that included more than 40 years as a union organizer, including his most prominent role as an international vice president for human affairs for the union. It made him the first black leader to serve among the senior ranks of any labor union in the  

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I will miss the man personally speaking

Romney Saved Auto Industry, Says LIAR Romney

Chomsky: “Jobs aren’t coming back”

Chomsky: “Jobs aren’t coming back”

click link for full story

snip

 
Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college. That changed dramatically in the 1970s. Until then, there had been no financial crises since the Great Depression. The 1950s and 1960s had been a period of enormous growth, the highest in American history, maybe in economic history.
And it was egalitarian.  The lowest quintile did about as well as the highest quintile. Lots of people moved into reasonable lifestyles — what’s called the “middle class” here, the “working class” in other countries — but it was real.  And the 1960s accelerated it. The activism of those years, after a pretty dismal decade, really civilized the country in lots of ways that are permanent.
When the 1970s came along, there were sudden and sharp changes: De-industrialization, the off-shoring of production, and the shift to financial institutions, which grew enormously. I should say that, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was also the development of what several decades later became the high-tech economy: Computers, the Internet, the IT Revolution developed substantially in the state sector.

Auto industry is back, no thanks to Mitt

ed show skill gap leo gerard usw

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Herman Cain Shout Out - Rally for Common Sense

Paul Krugman: 'We need a counterweight to the power of big money in this...

westray disaster

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stories of corporations all over the world not doing their jobs and exploiting workers pretty common

Why Wall Street hates Obama -- despite his policies

Stephanie Cutter: Get the facts on Mitt Romney, Big Oil, and the Koch Br...

american manufacturing msnbc dylan ratigan show 5-3-12

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


sorry for ads   still have not figured out how to do this sans ads

Robert Reich explains increasing division of wealth, calls Romney's tax ...

remember soar reunion this month

you folks already know the details.  get on the horn and get out the word. 

: Workers would have fewer rights without unions

Guest commentary: Workers would have fewer rights without unions

click link for full story from post dispatch

Romney's Gay Spokesperson Resigns

Weak Democrats just stand by and let FOX News 'crucify' the messenger

Union Label: Kip Phillips usw

AFL-CIO: Meet Mr. 1%

paul krugmann

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

May Day 2012

'The Young Turks' cover Occupy May Day from the streets as police move in

Politics, policy and practicality: The three levels of hell

Occupy sends a message to Congress

Occupy sends a message to Congress

click link for story and vid

Workers around the world mark May Day

Social Security, 1955

Steel Town 1944

Forward.

Mitt Romney: Extreme on Women's Issues

Paul Krugman: Wasting our minds

Paul Krugman: Wasting our minds

click link for story

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snip


Let's start with some advice Mitt Romney gave to college students during an appearance last week. After denouncing President Obama's "divisiveness," the candidate told his audience, "Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business."
The first thing you notice here is, of course, the Romney touch — the distinctive lack of empathy for those who weren't born into affluent families, who can't rely on the Bank of Mom and Dad to finance their ambitions. But the rest of the remark is just as bad in its own way.
I mean, "get the education"? And pay for it how? Tuition at public colleges and universities has soared, in part thanks to sharp reductions in state aid. Mr. Romney isn't proposing anything that would fix that; he is, however, a strong supporter of the Ryan budget plan, which would drastically cut federal student aid, causing roughly a million students to lose their Pell grants.
So how, exactly, are young people from cash-strapped families supposed to "get the education"? Back in March Mr. Romney had the answer: Find the college "that has a little lower price where you can get a good education." Good luck with that. But I guess it's divisive to point ou

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-wasting-our-minds/article_51c7d601-5325-5783-9b02-aa2ae4b1a952.html#ixzz1tcrctVlk

Occupy May Day Anonymous Protest (5-1-2012)

Flashpoint Radio April 30-Occupy May Day. FDA ok's over the counter poi...

Ex-CIA Head Defends Torture