ELECTRIC CARS ? You Bet`Cha !

Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm

Former governor of Michigan; host, 'The War Room' on Current TV; columnist, Politico; faculty member, UC Berkeley

 

Electric Vehicle Naysayers: Get Over It, Support American Jobs

Posted: 11/27/2012 11:00 pm

When I was governor of Michigan, we worked with private companies and the legislature to apply for federal government stimulus grants to be the place where the electric car, and its guts, the battery, would be built. Amazingly, we received 12 grants worth $1.35 billion -- more than half of the total awarded nationally. For just the lithium-ion battery alone, we were able to attract 18 companies to the state to build the various parts, with a potential boost of 63,000 jobs. That's 63,000 jobs!

I know the only reason those jobs were even possible is because the federal government, led by our president, made a commitment to battery technology. But as we've heard, there are huge challenges facing the industry. If we don't get this right, we'll lose a lot of those high paying, advanced manufacturing jobs. Forever.

That's where the government can do even more, with policies to encourage demand. George W. Bush created a tax break for SUVs, we should extend the one we have for electric cars. We need tax credits for these early electric vehicles until the price of making an electric vehicle comes down to the price for making a regular internal combustion engine. Not a permanent commitment -- but a glide path to energy independence, to jobs, to national security, to reducing climate change.

Anti-Obama partisans and those who are beholden to the oil industry need to get over it: Get over the election. Get over it, Rush Limbaugh, and support American products and American jobs. Get over it, Neil Cavuto, and support the great American manufacturing sector. Quit aiding and abetting our economic competitors, and start and abetting our economic growth.
The progress in electric cars is a true American success story. Those who want General Motors or electric vehicles to fail are motivated by nothing but partisan politics. Come on, you naysayers. Let's innovate, and support the innovators -- yes through government policy. Let's manufacture, and support the manufacturers. Let's win the race for clean energy jobs, and support those job providers.

Those who know me know about my love affair with my Chevy Volt. And I take no small degree of pride knowing it was all built in America, at the hands of about 1,000 U.S. workers in Hamtramck, Michigan. Although it's a green product, it doesn't get any more red, white and blue than that.

Originally aired on "The War Room with Jennifer Granholm." "The War Room" airs weeknights onCurrent TV. Follow Jennifer Granholm on Facebook and Twitter, and "The War Room" onFacebook and Twitter.

 Gov. Jennifer M.  Granholm 

Corporate Greed...You Bet`Cha !

'Fix the Debt' CEOs Sit on Massive Retirement Funds While Pushing for Retirement Cuts for Working Families

Nov 27, 2012 Kenneth Quinnell | Corporate Greed

We have five weeks to tell Congress to let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the CEOs who make up the "Fix the Debt" campaign sit on massive retirement funds of their own while calling for the retirement programs that working families rely on to be cut as part of a deficit-reduction package. Furthermore, those same CEOs have been shortchanging pension funds for working families at the corporations they run.

READ MORE AND COMMENT »

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike." !  Adolph Hitler - 

May 2,1933

 "Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Members of Congress & Medicare/Social Security Cuts !

CUT US, CUT YOURSELF !

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Members of Congress who vote for Social Security and Medicare cuts should not be allowed have privileged health insurance. Our representatives work for us; if they cut our benefits, they should not be allowed to have special insurance and perks. They should live off of Social Security like their constituents do.That's why I created a petition on SignOn.org which says:

We want members of Congress who vote to cut Social Security or Medicare to give up their privileged health insurance and pensions and survive on Social Security like their constituents do.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks for all you do,

Underdog = Don Jones

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike." !  Adolph Hitler - May 2,1933

 

 

"Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nov 27, 2012 Jackie Tortora | Political Action/Legislation

sh tax cuts for the richest 2% expire and reject any benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Visit www.aflcio.org/ProtectOurFuture for all the information you need on the upcoming budget showdown. 

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid aren't just numbers on a budget line, they're vital family protection lifelines for working people. 

Did you know 55.4 million Americans across the United States receive monthly Social Security checks, including 8.6 million workers with disabilities and 4.4 million children? A total of 48.7 million Americans get their health care coverage from Medicare and 64.4 million Americans get their health care coverage from Medicaid, including 29.8 million children and 4.2 million seniors.

READ MORE AND COMMENT »

TENNESSEE NEWS FROM The HOUSE ! SECEDE ?

Contact Sean Braisted Telephone 615.741.1100 ext. 44424 Cell 615.200.8693 Email sean.braisted@capitol.tn.gov Website http://www.tnhdc.com

November 26, 2012

Chairman Turner calls on Legislators to Reject Secession

Chairman Mike Turner is asking that legislators reject the calls by some to secede from the union following the November elections

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – On November 10, 2012 a petition was submitted to the White House calling for the State of Tennessee to be allowed to withdraw from the United States of America.

“As State Representatives we owe it to the men and women who died fighting to protect and preserve our union to speak out against this destructive movement,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner. “I am proud to be an American, and I hope my fellow legislators feel the same.”

The Tennessee Constitution states that all officers of the state shall “take an oath to support the Constitution of this state, and of the United States”. The Supreme Court in Texas v. White declared that secession was an unconstitutional act.

“We took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and I intend to uphold that oath,” said Turner. “If any Representatives join or have joined the call for secession, I intend to seek their removal from office.”

 If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Press Secretary Sean Braisted at 615.741.1100 ext. 44424 or email at sean.braisted@capitol.tn.gov.

"Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!
Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Fiat Lux

WAL-MART - PART TIME NIGHTMARE !

Alan Grayson

U.S. Congressman-elect for Florida's 9th District

My Thanksgiving: A Turkey Sandwich at Walmart

Posted: 11/24/2012 6:57 pm

Follow

Wal-Mart , Walmart Black Friday , Walmart Black Friday Strike , Walmart Employees ,Walmart Strike , Walmart Unions , Business News

I did not spend Thanksgiving evening with my wife and my five children. I spent it, instead, handing out turkey sandwiches to workers in Walmart. And showing my support for one brave soul who walked off the job in protest against exploitation. 

Walmart "associates" make an average of just more than $10 an hour. That means that if they manage to get a full 40 hours a week -- and many don't -- they get paid $1,700 a month, before taxes. Somehow, that is supposed to pay for their food, shelter, clothing and medical care, and that of their children. Quite a trick. 

In state after state, the largest group of Medicaid recipients is Walmart employees. I'm sure that the same thing is true of food stamp recipients. Each Walmart "associate" costs the taxpayers an average of more than $1,000 in public assistance. 

How underpaid are Walmart employees ? This underpaid: if every one of them got a 30 percent raise, Walmart would still be profitable. 

Walmart employees in the United States are not unionized. Walmart has used every trick in the book to prevent its employees from organizing. In 2005, in Canada, Walmart closed a store that had voted to go union. Recently, in Orlando, Walmart fired an employee who had just talked about unionizing. When he came back into the store, many days afterward, to say hello to his former colleagues, they handcuffed him. 

It's time to do something about this. 

So on Thanksgiving, knowing that Walmart employees were missing dinner with their families, we walked into the local Walmart and handed out dinner to them. We gave them a paper bag that had three things in it: (a) a turkey sandwich, (b) a bag of chips, and (c) a letter explaining their right to organize. 

There were two points to this. One was to inform the workers of their rights. And the other was to demonstrate to them, vividly, that they are not alone. 

The Walmart manager had the police escort us out of the building. For handing out sandwiches. And for showing Walmart employees that they are not alone. 

One brave "associate," who had had enough of this mistreatment, walked out with us. Which is her right, under the law, to protest Walmart's unfair labor practices. In fact, a while back, 200 employees walked out of a Walmart store, all at the same time. That really shook up the bosses.

By the way, she made sure that she finished serving her customer before she left. She's that kind of person. WalMart actually could use a few more like her. 

I showed my support. I gave her a hug. 

And so it begins. Walmart accounts for more than 10 percent of all of the retail sales in the United States. It is the largest private employer in the world, with more than two million employees. And even though those employees comprise barely 10 percent of its cost of doing business, Walmart exploits them mercilessly. Now Walmart employees are starting to organize, starting to fight back. 

Who will win? I don't know. But I do know whose side I'm on. And I know that I'm not alone. 

Courage, 

Rep. Alan Grayson

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike." ! Adolph Hitler - May 2,1933

 "Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

 

MEDICARE = SOLUTION NOT PROBLEM !

Rising Health Care Costs: Medicare Is the Solution, Not the Problem

More Sharing Services

Nov 25, 2012 Joe Baker Action/Legislation

This is a cross-post fromThe Huffington Post, by Joe Baker, president of theMedicare Rights Center.

Although Election Day is behind us, Medicare remains on working people's minds. Medicare ranked third to the economy and federal deficit as an issue of extreme importance in deciding how people voted. For months now, pundits, candidates and policymakers have wrestled one another about Medicare's future. Taking place at town hall meetings and on editorial pages, these battles were mostly waged in fiscal terms. Medicare's sustainability, the fiscal slope and the cost of insuring the Baby Boomers are hot topics for debate. Attention will now turn from the candidates' promises to their actual proposals.

READ MORE AND COMMENT »

HEALTH CARE ~ HAPPY THANKSGIVING !

It's been four bumpy years to win and defend health care for all, and you have done what it takes to make sure it happened - phoning and writing elected officals, coming out to show grassroots support for health care reform, and making contributions to the cause. Because of your efforts, Obamacare is here to stay. Thank you. On Election Day, the American people made history, ensuring that the Affordable Care Act will be woven into the very fabric of our society. Obamacare will soon become a pillar of middle-class financial and health security alongside Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. You made this a reality.
But we cannot rest. The day after President Obama was re-elected, Republicans began gearing up to dismantle the ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – all so they can lavish tax breaks on the wealthiest Americans and big corporations. That's why we're still fighting.
You can stay up-to-date on HCAN's efforts by following us on Facebook, Twitter, or our blog.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Underdog = Don Jones

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike." !

 

Adolph Hitler - May 2,1933

 

 "Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Party of Entitled Rich Threatens Economy

Party of Entitled Rich Threatens Economy

Posted: 11/19/2012 6:41 am

Republicans, the party of the nation's entitled rich, are holding a knife to the throat of America's frail recovery.

The GOP sore losers have America up against a wall. Republicans don't care that the majority of the country voted for a candidate who promised to raise taxes on the rich. Republicans don't care that an even larger majority - 60 percent - told election day pollsters they wanted those taxes raised. Republicans don't care about majority-rule democracy at all. They're demanding ransom - extension of tax cuts for the rich. If Americans don't submit, Republicans will slash the nation's economy.

"Back away from your Social Security, your Medicare, your Medicaid," the Republicans are ordering. The GOP insists those crucial social insurance programs be sacrificed to prevent the entitled rich from once again paying the income tax rates that they did during the boom years of Bill Clinton. The party that lost the Presidency, lost seats in the House and lost seats in the Senate is willing to take down the economy, to eviscerate programs like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration rather than require the entitled rich pull their weight as citizens of the country that enabled them to live lives of unprecedented luxury.

The candidate Republicans chose as their presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, stated the party's position loud and clear last spring and reiterated it during a phone call last week with his millionaire financiers. Romney told funders in May that he had no intention of "worrying about" 47 percent of Americans who he described as moochers, citizens he slandered with the allegation that they refuse to "take personal responsibility."

In the phone call last week, Romney claimed that the Americans he referred to as government moochers all voted for President Obama because the Democrat gave them "gifts." Romney, a quarter-billionaire, described the administration's plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest as a "gift" to students. The Republican candidate born into wealth and pampered in private schools characterized as a "gift" the requirement in Obamacare that health insurance companies provide prescription contraceptives without co-payments.

The rich boy said President Obama bought women's votes for $10 co-pay forgiveness. But for Republicans, it's never the other way around. Romney and the GOP don't think they were buying the votes of the rich with their promise to add another 20 percent break on top of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest.

That's because they believe they're entitled. They derisively refer to the social safety net programs that prevent the nation's poor and elderly from being reduced to eating cat food as "entitlements." But it's the entitled rich - Romney, the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and their ilk - who demand that America give them "stuff" like tax breaks for sending jobs overseas, like tax loopholes for hoarding their assets in the Caymans, like government-paid roads and sewers and rail lines to their businesses.

The entitled rich and their political party don't seem to get the fact that they lost the election. Eighty CEOs have ponied up $37 million to make sure the so-called fiscal cliff problem is resolved their way. They're saying, basically, they're willing to give up one of the "couple of Cadillacs" they drive if the middle class just accepts cat food as its meat course. The CEOs, calling themselves the"Fix the Debt" coalition, claim they'll pay a secret amount more in taxes if the 99 percent suffers cuts to its social safety net and endures slashed government programs.

Republicans in Congress won't even go that far. Their legislation would give more to the rich and less to everyone else. They've proposed, for example, extending the estate tax cuts that benefit the richest 0.3 percent of American families when their millionaire relatives die, an estimated 7,000 people in 2013. At the same time, Republicans are demanding an end to child tax credit and earned income tax credit enhancements that help 13 million families get by, families that include 26 million children. Those 7,000 entitled rich people and their Republican representatives believe 26 million kids can always join the grandmas dining on cat food. Tastes like chicken, right?

Congress and the President are confronted with a deadline in these hostage negotiations. On Jan. 1, half a trillion in tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts are scheduled to take effect for the remainder of fiscal year 2013. It's called the fiscal cliff because many economists believe the combined effect during a weak recovery would shove the economy back down into recession.

Democrats don't want to risk damaging the economy. They've proposed extending the tax cuts for the 98 percent right now. The richest two percent would benefit from these breaks as well, receiving them on the first $250,000 of their earnings. Everybody gets something. This proposal passed the Democratic-controlled Senate. The Republican-controlled House refuses to even vote on it.

Republicans aren't talking about extending tax breaks for the 98 percent. Instead, they're threatening the economic life of the country if they don't get what they want - tax breaks for people who don't need them.

Law enforcement experts discourage paying off blackmailers and kidnappers.

President Obama is right to take that advice and refuse to pay the ransom Republicans are demanding to appease the entitled rich.

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike." ! Adolph Hitler - May 2,1933

 

 "Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

 

Follow Leo W. Gerard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/uswblogger

NO NEW TAX`S ~ PUT THE BUSH TAX CUTS BACK IN PLACE !

 sign our petition with Workers' Voice telling Congress not to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%.

We won the election.

No really, we won pretty much every big race. We won because the Democrats stood up for progressive values. We won a chance to make effective change.

Now we just have to make sure that change actually gets done. 
Right now, the same millionaires and billionaires who tried to buy the election have their sights set on extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans.

Sign our petition with Workers' Voice to tell Congress not to extend the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%.

We’ve got a lot of work to do, and the richest among us can afford to pony up and help.

In Solidarity.

Underdog = Don Jones

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike." ! Adolph Hitler - May 2,1933

 

 "Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Fiat Lux

REFORM the FILIBUSTER ~ NOW !

There are too many challenges that need to be met in the months ahead – creating new jobs, strengthening the middle class and immigration reform, to name a few.
That’s why Kirsten has teamed up with several other senators to reform the filibuster and ensure that the process doesn’t impede progress.
Kirsten and her colleagues are committed to seeing this through, but they need your help to do it. Reform is being debated right now and your voice is needed to send a message to both parties that you want this done now.
Click here right now to add your voice to Kirsten’s and demand filibuster reform. It’s time to stop the gridlock.

This has been put off long enough. It’s time to make it happen.

Thank you for all you do !
Underdog = Don Jones

“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike."! Adolph Hitler - May 2,1933

 

 "Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

WAL-MART ~ PAY A LIVING WAGE !

Why Walmart and Big Retailers Should Pay Their Workers More

Posted: 11/18/2012 4:07 pm

Henry Ford famously decided in 1914 to pay many of his workers the then incredible sum of five dollars a day, which was substantially higher than the prevailing wage at the time.

While that wasn't done specifically to enable Ford's workers to buy his cars (his primary objective was to reduce employee turnover), it did at times have that effect. More important, Ford's innovation, which shocked the industrialists of that era, helped kickstart America's high-wage, high-consumption economy and the creation of its vast middle class.

Nearly a century later, in the midst of a weak economy and rising poverty, my colleagues atDemos, a New York-based think tank, have made a compelling case that Ford's revolutionary approach to industrial wages should now be applied to America's retail sector.

Retail is an enormously powerful force in the U.S. economy. It hauls in more than $4 trillion in annual revenue and employs more than 15 million people. The problem, and it's a huge one, is that many of the sector's dedicated and hard-working employees are badly underpaid. The typical retail sales person earns just $21,000 a year, with cashiers earning even less -- just $18,500, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's not much of a gateway to the middle class.

In a rigorous new study, Retail's Hidden Potential: How Raising Wages Would Benefit Workers, the Industry and the Overall Economy, Demos describes the broad benefits that would be gained if the nation's largest retailers established a voluntary wage floor of $25,000 for full-time, year-round employees. Such a move would lift millions of people out of poverty, bolster the American economy and strengthen the retailers' own bottom line.

This would not be a heavy lift for the industry. Retail is booming and profitability reached a ten-year high in the first half of 2012. The largest retail firm, Walmart, earned nearly $16 billion in the last year alone. While the U.S. economy and millions of American families have been struggling, Walmart has seen its net sales grow by more than $70 billion since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007.

Retail employees, on the other hand, have been sinking in the quicksand of increased workloads and declining compensation. Productivity among retail workers rose by an average of 0.8 percent per year since 2008 while wages, on average, went down. America's largest retailers, those employing 1,000 employees or more, can well afford to pay their employees a minimum of $12.25 an hour, which is the base that the proposed $25,000 floor would establish.

According to the Demos study, the cost of the wage increases to major retailers would be $20.8 billion, which amounts to about one percent of the sector's $2.17 trillion in total annual sales. But the study also estimates that the increased purchasing power accruing to low-wage workers as a result of the pay raises would generate $4 billion to $5 billion in additional annual retail sales.

If the entire cost of the pay raises were passed on to consumers, shoppers would see an increase in retail prices of approximately one percent. What is more likely, however, is that just a portion of the increased cost would be passed on. "If retailers pass half the costs of a wage raise onto their customers, the average household would pay just 15 cents more per shopping trip -- or $17.73 per year," the study found. "If firms pass 25 percent of the wage costs onto their customers, shoppers would spend just seven cents more per shopping trip, or $8.87 per year."

That's a tiny price to pay for an initiative that would have a potentially revolutionary impact on the standards of living of millions of Americans and the economic prospects of the nation at large. The $25,000-a-year wage floor would lift more than 700,000 people out of the harrowing precincts of poverty. And it would boost the pay of hundreds of thousands more who currently are struggling just a notch or two above the official poverty line.

The increased spending anticipated from the pay hikes would give a badly needed boost to an economy that has been advancing only in fits and starts since the recession ended in June 2009. As the study explains: "U.S. corporations are cash-flush, but hesitant to make investments on products they are not sure will sell. As a result, their gloomy outlook becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy: firms do not expand production, keeping the job market slack, pocketbooks closed, and investments unappealing."

Low-wage workers who get a raise spend virtually all of it. A raise given to the lowest-paid workers in retail would result in a burst of consumer demand that, according to the study, could spur the creation of more than 100,000 new jobs. This is not a pie-in-the sky proposal. It is a sensible private-sector initiative that would transform the work experience of an industry that is projected to be the largest source of new jobs over the next decade. We should not buy into the idea that retail work has to be low-wage work. As Demos points out, "Low-wage jobs are not a business necessity but a choice." Employers like Costco and Safeway already pay decent wages and they're doing just fine.

There is a tendency as we look back through the comforting mists of memory to forget that the manufacturing jobs that lifted so many millions of Americans into the middle class in the 20th century started out as lousy jobs. They paid little and the working conditions were often atrocious, even life-threatening. The transformation of those jobs into well-paying, secure employment -- with benefits -- helped drive the American economy to heights that made it the envy of the world.

What's happening in the United States now is the opposite. Standards of living are declining as jobs that pay well become more and more difficult to find. The Census Bureau officially classifies nearly 50 million Americans as poor. One in every five American children is poor -- the highest child poverty rate in the industrialized world. One in every three African-American children is poor. If you add in the 50 million Americans who are trying to make it on pay that puts them just a whisper above the poverty line, you end up with the disturbing fact that nearly a third of the entire U.S. population is poor or near-poor.

The time to begin raising the compensation of workers in the vast retail sector is right now.

 “We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike." !  Adolph Hitler - May 2,1933

 

 "Democracy...is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch"!

Liberty...is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.