Midwest Economic Recovery Great News For Obama
“From northern Michigan’s iron mines to Pennsylvania’s natural-gas fields, the industrial heartland of America is humming with jobs again as a region once left for dead recovers faster than the rest of the U.S.,” Bloomberg reports.
“The turnaround may shape this year’s race for the White House as President Barack Obama seeks to reverse Republican gains in the Midwest… The economies of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — all states Obama won in 2008 — have improved faster than that of the U.S. since the recession’s depth in April 2009, according to the Philadelphia Federal Reserve. Michigan is expected to lead all 50 states during the next six months.”
The loans Obama gave to the auto industry is a main reason Michigan is doing so well.
(Source: politicalwire.com)
Republicans will say they are worried about debt, and then vote for the King Of Debt, the #1 overall pick in the Debt Creators draft, the Debt Hall Of Fame first-ballot inductee, the Gordon Gekko of politics, Mitt Romney, to be President.
The hollowest of rhetoric, The GOP guarantee.
The Affordable Care Act Triumph
Much of the Affordable Care Act won’t take effect until 2014 — assuming it survives until then — but several provisions that have already been implemented are having a positive impact.
The health care law (1) is combating fraud and abuse, which in turns saves Americans quite a bit of money; (2) has brought coverage to 2.5 million young adults; (3) is delivering major savings to seniors on prescription drugs; (4) is giving a boost to small businesses through ACA tax credits; (5) has slowed the growth of Medicare spending; (6) has provided new treatment options for cancer patients; and (7) has offered new coverage protections for those with pre-existing conditions.
These are tangible, real-world benefits, making a meaningful difference in people’s lives. As Pollack and Anrig concluded, “Health reform has already improved the humanity and effectiveness of our health care system. President Obama is entitled, and obliged, to embrace his own signature domestic policy accomplishment.”
(Source: MSN)
Senate Votes To Stop Congressional Insider Trading
New York Times:
“In an effort to regain public trust, the Senate voted Monday to take up a bill that would prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks and other securities on the basis of confidential information they receive as lawmakers. The vote was 93 to 2.
This was in Obama’s SOTU. Pretty quick turnaround.
Pac-Man Hacked Onto a Touch-Screen Voting Machine Without Breaking “Tamper-Evident” Seals
J. Alex Halderman and Ariel J. Feldman, the academic computer science and security experts who hacked the Sequoia machine, this time with Pac-Man, report that “In 2008, the AVC Edge was used in 161 jurisdictions with almost 9 million registered voters, including large parts of Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia.” >continue<
(Source: truthout.org)
Prof. William Black:
Apple creates a criminogenic environment in its supplier selection process that leads it to, pervasively, hire criminal suppliers. Honest manufacturers cannot compete with firms that force their workers to work more than the maximum 60 hour work week and fraudulently refuse to pay them for the extra time they work. Firms that provide minimal safety protections also find it difficult to compete with fraudulent rivals. This is known as a “Gresham’s dynamic” in which bad ethics drives good ethics out of the workplace. The perverse dynamic is not limited to Apple’s suppliers. Any honest Western firm that seeks to compete with Apple’s suppliers will be driven to slash its workers’ wages, benefits, working conditions, and pensions while increasing their workload. I call this the “Road to Bangladesh” strategy.
The GOP On Self-Destruct Mode
“The traditional rationalization about intraparty smears is that it’s too early to dismiss the GOP’s chances; that it’s healthy for the party to battle with mud-flinging; that all this will be forgiven in the heat of August when the party embraces the man who would be king. However, the recklessness of Gingrich’s assault on Romney as Long John Silver, and the ruthlessness of the party’s Romney chorus screeching at Gingrich as the Undead, all this does reinforce doubts already in place with the independent voters, as well as creating a YouTube bonanza of clips for the Obama re-elect ops in Chicago.”
Republicans, old and young, can vote to cut their own throats for so long. The end of the GOP is near. The money/power grab of 2010 midterms is over. The 99% and OWS have the voice of the Nation now.
(Source: politicalwire.com)
(Source: cheatsheet)
