L.A.-Long Beach harbors strike enters second week - CBS News
Union members counter that the issue involves management's desire to outsource jobs to places such as Taiwan and China, where shippers can pay lower wages for work that can be done on computer.
"It's important to us to keep those jobs here in the United States. We're fighting against corporate greed," Merrilees said.
It was a courageous stance on the part of Costas. And he was right:
Bob Costas' "Sunday Night Football" halftime commentary supporting gun control sparked a Fox News Channel debate Monday on whether NBC should fire him and a Twitter storm involving Ted Nugent, Rosie O'Donnell, Herman Cain and many more.
The NBC sportscaster, who frequently delivers commentary at halftime of the weekly NFL showcase, addressed the weekend's murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher.
Costas said that the shooting has invoked the "mindless sports cliche" that "something like this really puts it all in perspective."
[...]If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."
Belcher shot and killed Perkins, the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, on Saturday morning, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide in the parking lot of the team's practice facility.
Solar power works and will be the future. This flight will prove it:
Full transcript. Excerpt below:
GREGORY: Mister Secretary, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS. Thanks for having us at the
Treasury Department.
MR. TIMOTHY GEITHNER (Treasure Secretary): Good to see you.
GREGORY: You-- you’re the president’s lead negotiator to avert the fiscal cliff. You have been Capitol Hill. You presented the president’s offer. And it immediately was not received well. It was called by Republican leaders unserious. They’ve accused that president and you of wasting precious time here to avert the fiscal cliff. Was this the intended effect, the president’s first offer?
MR. GEITHNER: That's like the normal political theater of this place. You know, what we’re trying to do is to make it more likely, we come together on a good agreement for the American people. It extends tax cuts for the middle class, brings our long-term deficits down. Tough spending savings is-- is part of that, and-- and invest in things that matter to the American economy, like infrastructure, things to help get Americans back to work. And-- and we think we can do that. We have a good chance of do it now and it’s very important we do that. And I think we’re going to get there, David.
GREGORY: Do you think we’ll get a deal by the end of the year?
MR. GEITHNER: I do. I do because the only thing standing in the way of that would be a-- a-- a refusal by Republicans to accept that rates are going to go-- have to go up on the wealthiest Americans. And I-- I don’t really see them doing that.
Full Transcript. Excerpt below:
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.
We will take you around the world today starting with Egypt. The nation has erupted. We'll explain what the power struggle between the president and the courts means for the rest of the Arab world and the world at large.
Then, China's new leaders, we know their names, but just who are they and what can we expect from them. Is Xi Jinping China's Gorbachev or will he take a hard line?
Finally, the Black Swan; it was a best-seller that some say predicted the economic crisis. Its author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, on his fascinating new book.
Also, the next phase of Europe's crisis, which nations might find themselves split apart? I'll explain.
But, first, here's my take. Yasser Arafat's body has been exhumed for investigation, bringing back memories of the unpredictable Palestinian leader and the Middle East in which he operated.
The news broke at a time when a conventional wisdom began to take hold that the Middle East today is much more dangerous, unstable, violent and anti-American than before. So let's take a look at the facts.
In the 1980s, the newly empowered, radical Islamic Republic of Iran unsettled the region with its promise to spread its revolution elsewhere. Lebanon was in the midst of a bloody civil war that engulfed not only itself but also the Palestinians and Israel.
Iran and Iraq fought a gruesome war with over 1 million casualties. Hezbollah attacked U.S. armed forces directly, forcing a humiliating withdrawal from Lebanon. A CIA station chief was tortured and killed, and U.S. secrets and interests compromised. And that was just in one decade.
CANDY CROWLEY, HOST: Let me ask you, the reaction to your going up on the Hill and saying, hey, this is basically the White House position, has been Mitch McConnell saying, I - I think it was just demeaning for them to ask the Treasury secretary to come up here and give a proposal like this.
And by this, we have people saying it's a sham, it's, uh, you know, ridiculous. It's a non-starter.
When you went up there, you didn't think Republicans were going to go, good idea?
TIMOTHY GEITHNER, TREASURY SECRETARY: You know, what we're trying to do is get these guys to come together, reach an agreement that's good for the country and good for the economy.
CROWLEY: And by these guys, you mean you - you all...
GEITHNER: The Republicans...
CROWLEY: - and the Republicans.
GEITHNER: - and Democrats together.
CROWLEY: And the White House?
GEITHNER: That's what we're trying to do.
And what we did is put forward a very comprehensive, very carefully designed mix of savings and tax rates to help us put us back on a path to stabilizing our debt, fixing our debt and living within our means.
We've been very detailed about how to do that, both from the spending side and the revenue side. And we think this is a good plan for the country. And it - and it does the most important thing, Candy, which is that it gives 98 percent of Americans the certainty they) their taxes aren't going to go up. And it gives us the chance to make sure we're protecting Medicare for future generations and it gives us the ability to lock in a set of carefully designed reforms that put us back on a path to fiscal balance.
So it's a it's a very good plan and we think it's a good basis for these conversations.
Source: Occupy The Polls:
Urgent Call to Action and Bloomberg’s Stealth Visit to an #OccupySandy relief distribution hub in the Rockaways -- http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/2012/12/01/bloombergs-stealth-visit/
New York City’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, stepped out of a helicopter midday Thursday in St. Camillus’ parking lot, ironically an Occupy Sandy relief distribution hub in the Rockaways, Queens. The visit had been kept under wraps and not listed on his official schedule.
Cold, mold loom as hazards in Sandy disaster zones - CSMonitor.com
City officials estimate at least 12,000 New Yorkers are trying to survive in unheated, flood-damaged homes, despite warnings that dropping temperatures could pose a health risk. Many families have returned to coastal homes contaminated with mold or filled with construction dust.
And we still have a President elected by the poor who can't even the utter the word "poverty:"
A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the number of poorest Americans continues to grow and county assistance experts say it's growing at an alarming rate.
[...]"These are families that are trying to survive on basically a hand full of food stamps alone but have no cash whatsoever which means they have no money to pay for rent. They have no money to pay for diapers, to pay for soaps, to pay for toilet paper or transportation. I think people don't necessarily understand that food stamps are only intended to provide 75 percent of the food that you need."
Frech adds, "cash assistance programs don't cover as many people as they used to. They're time limited now, a lot more families have been sanctioned. There are fewer programs out there for people who don't have children. The consequence in cutting back on our safety net programs has resulted in this."
The idea that we will be able to stay in Afghanistan until 2014 and be able to hold off the Taliban is foolish. And the politicians and Generals who think that we can have no business governing this great nation. Either that or they are lying to us:
Two explosions and shooting were heard at a U.S. base in the Afghan city of Islamabad on Sunday, a Reuters witness said.
The Taliban said they carried out an attack on the compound and inflicted casualties. NATO officials were not immediately available for comment.
We are well on our way to becoming a third world country. And that's exactly what the corporatocrats want:
A half-century ago, America's largest private-sector employer was General Motors, where full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of around $50 in today's dollars, including health and pension benefits.
Today, America's largest employer is Walmart, where the average sales associate earns $8.81 an hour. A third of Walmart's employees work less than 28 hours per week and don't qualify for benefits.
There are many reasons for the difference - including globalization and technological changes that have shrunk employment in American manufacturing while enlarging it in sectors involving personal services, such as retail.
But one reason, closely related to this seismic shift, is the decline of labor unions in the United States. In the 1950s, more than a third of private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today, fewer than 7 percent do. As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining clout to get a sizable share of corporate profits.
At the peak of its power and influence in the 1950s, the United Auto Workers could claim a significant portion of GM's earnings for its members.
Walmart's employees, by contrast, have no union to represent them. So they've had no means of getting much of the corporation's earnings.
Walmart earned $16 billion last year (it just reported a 9 percent increase in earnings in the third quarter of 2012, to $3.6 billion), much of which went to Walmart's shareholders - including the family of its founder, Sam Walton.
The wealth of the Walton family now exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40 percent of American families combined, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
Why do we put up with this. Working people in America are not allowed minimum increases in pay. And if they protest their employers fire them, move abroad, or file for bankruptcy. The CEOs who mismanage a company are given massive bonuses. Don't take it anymore:
Former George W. Bush political advisor and head of the pro-Republican Super PAC American Crossroads, Karl Rove, has claimed in the past that he drew virtually no salary in his position as chief fundraiser for the candidates his group supported. Rick Tyler, Republican consultant and political adviser to former Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin – a vocal opponent of former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the Republican primaries – does not believe it. In an appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews on Friday, Tyler charged that Rove made a significant amount of money for his work with Crossroads and has not disclosed his financial gains.
The government's response to the devastation in Staten Island after Hurricane Sandy is not good enough. And that is why the people of Staten Island lashed at a townhall meeting. This video really shows the terrible frustration of our fellow citizens. The lesson here: We can't trust the government (i.e., the Democrats and Republicans) to help us when we are in need:
How The Big Oil Lobby Secretly Funded 2012 Election Attack Ads | ThinkProgress
When Big Oil’s lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, ramped up its election-year spending, API President Jack Gerard said “This is not about political party.”
But in addition to its misleading multi-million dollar public campaign, API also funneled at least half a million dollars through groups that ran attack ads against Democratic candidates.
That’s according to disclosures reported by Lee Fang at The Nation, which show that API used membership dues to finance several dark money groups...
Parents Concerned About Potential Mold At Queens School Despite DOE Denial - NY1.com
- Can't trust the government. Mold is big problem in schools.
Record Low U.S. Birth Rate Parallels Japan
- People are to busy and tired to have kids. Also, individuals are putting off marriage until later in life. Not good for family life.
