Best explanation of Rahm Emanuel's effect on the Democratic Party below

by: Susan H

Wed Sep 08, 2010 at 07:37:16 AM EDT

Rahm is unfit to represent Democrats in office," Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green said. "He's a cancer on the Democratic Party. Democrats' current 2010 situation is due to a weak Rahm Emanuel mentality that says water down real reform at the urging of Republicans and corporations, thus making Democratic reform less popular with voters than the real deal would have been. If Democrats had passed the overwhelmingly-popular public option and broken up the big banks when they had the chance, they'd be cruising for a landslide victory right now."

This is the heart of the matter: neo-liberals, DLCer's, like Rahm and yes, President Obama, as well as every Blue Dog in Congress and every Blue Dog wannabe like  candidate Rob O'Leary who adopt rightwing talking points as a given and are actively working to weaken bedrock principles of the Democratic Party such as Social Security need to really look at the effect of trying to chase down the 'mythical middle' the 'market based approach to politics' and examine what happened between '94 and 2006.

How many times are we going to let Rahm Emanuel lose a Congressional majority and reinstitute a '20 state strategy', before we figure out that that is the surest way to defeat, but more importantly an opportunity at true reform utterly lost?

He is on his second go round at ruining the Democratic brand ~ when are we activists going to wake up???

You seen the debate now vote

by: bowes3

Tue Sep 07, 2010 at 21:09:12 PM EDT

US and Dem Party needs more knowledge and fight like Michael Moore's and less attitude from Rahm E

by: Susan H

Tue Sep 07, 2010 at 08:42:44 AM EDT

Yup, the link's essay is exactly the recipe that would succeed, and  a message that people would respond to but Rahm doesn't want to hear it.

Rahm? He'd rather keep appealing to the mythical middle and Republican leaning Independents; newsflash genius: they just aren't that into you no matter how often you cave and get your 'boss' to cave to the radical right to win their love and votes.

Tell me again why this man is a Democratic President's Chief of Staff?

Thanks a Bunch, Senator Brown

by: LiberalAlice

Sat Sep 04, 2010 at 23:30:06 PM EDT

Then I read the HuffPo article about summer unemployment rates for youth:

Only 47.6% of people ages 16 to 24 had jobs in August, the lowest level since the government began keeping track in 1948, the Labor Department said Friday. By comparison, 62.8% of that age group was employed in August 2000.

Sure hope the Brown girls had work...

Traditionally, post Labor Day electorate focuses on political races

by: Susan H

Sat Sep 04, 2010 at 12:28:10 PM EDT

Now comes a ramped up effort to 'harvest' the last of the voters to get them to remember that Primary Election Day is September 14th 2010.

This is when campaigns dial it up a notch~ take time to enjoy the rest of this weekend, then head on back here for last minute pitches for favorite candidates.

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Corporate America's War on the Middle Class

by: Mullaley

Wed Sep 01, 2010 at 12:24:15 PM EDT

http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/...

IPS looked at the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis -- firms that eliminated a total of 531,363 American workers.  Those 50 firms eliminated over a half million jobs despite reporting a 44 percent average profit increase for 2009.

Another disturbing fact is the level of executive pay at those job-eliminating 50 firms. In 2009, the combined compensation of their CEOs totaled $598 million -- that is, an average of almost $12 million each.

The IPS also evaluated overall executive compensation of US-based firms:

"[A]fter adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century."

"American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s."

The Kansas City Star took a closer look at some of the CEOs and companies in IPS's report:

http://www.kansascity.com/2010...

"Fred Hassan, former CEO of Schering-Plough, presided over announced layoffs affecting 16,000 workers after a 2009 merger with Merck. He resigned after the merger, receiving "golden parachute" compensation in 2009 of more than $49.6 million to rank as the highest-paid layoff leader."

"The top five companies announcing the most layoffs for the study period were General Motors (75,733); Citigroup (52,175); Bank of America (35,000); Caterpillar (27,499) and Verizon (21,308). Among those top five, the biggest compensation package - nearly $17.5 million - went to Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon."

According to IPS, American CEOs make 263 times the average compensation for American workers, up from the 30:1 ratio in the 1970s. For comparison, the average compensation of a Japanese CEO is less than one-sixth that of their American counterpart and 16 times more than the average Japanese worker.

But on top of the lavish CEO pay at the expense of the American worker, many of these top-layoff firms received money from the taxpayer bailouts in 2008. Of these, IPS notes,

"American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault took home the highest 2009 pay, $16.8 million, a sum that included a $5 million cash bonus. American Express has laid off 4,000 employees since receiving $3.39 billion in TARP funding."

"These numbers all reflect a broader trend in Great Recession-era Corporate America," the IPS report says, "the relentless squeezing of worker jobs, pay and benefits to boost corporate earnings and maintain corporate executive paychecks at their recent bloated levels."

Courtesy of Think Progress.

Video from the 10th CD

by: bowes3

Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 23:11:39 PM EDT