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Massey and Goldman Under Criminal Investigation Despite Requirement to Look Backwards, What About the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
By David Swanson
War makers, torturers, warrantless spyers, and all sorts of other categories of criminals are still off the hook. But there is a bit of "looking backward" going on. Two out of the three people whom we at StopTheChamber.com have asked for criminal investigations of are now under investigation. We're wondering about the third, the big one, the one that ties the other two and so much more together.
Email this Blog entryHappy May Mission Accomplished Downing Street Minutes Impeachment Is Off the Table Day
May Day (tomorrow) sums up our history. No longer is it May Day (Year 124) (although it is in Richmond VA, and they beat back the requirement that they hire mercenary guards in order to hold events). This is Mission Accomplished Day Year 7 and Downing Street Minutes Day Year 5 and Impeachment Is Off the Table Day Year 4. How's that letting Bush and Cheney's crimes become standard practice working out for you? Yeah, me too.
Prisoners Shoveling Snow in Snowpocalypse
By David Swanson
Walking through Charlottesville, Va., today I saw a sight that is increasingly common in the United States: men in prison uniforms, watched by guards, out working in public, in this case shoveling snow. I asked them if they were being paid for their work, and they just laughed.
A short while later I ran into a city official who was clearly familiar with the prisoner snow-shoveling program. He told me it was nothing new, part of "work release," gave the prisoners a chance to get outside, and that the prisoners were paid.
I pointed out that when asked if they were paid they laughed at me.
Then this official explained that he meant they were paid about 25 cents an hour.
What Trumka SHOULD Threaten
Every election cycle, the labor movement alone dumps enough money into the corporate media through the campaigns and PACs that it could have instead created a new television network that would actually report the news all year long through every future election cycle. Rather than threatening to possibly not succeed in persuading working people to vote for corporate candidates, Trumka should threaten to defund the corporate media election bonanza and give us real news.
War and Military Spending Means Fewer Jobs, Perriello Claims Opposite
By David Swanson
The evidence is clear that there is nothing Congress can do to produce fewer jobs than borrowing money and spending it on wars and the military. Even cutting taxes produces more jobs. Investing in nonviolent industries, in education, in energy, in transportation, in infrastructure produces more jobs and does more for the economy.
But my representative, Tom Perriello, said in an Email today:
I supported the Defense Appropriations Bill, which also included three of my requests for companies in the 5th District that will create jobs in the important areas of defense technology and intelligence. While working to enhance our national security, these companies in Martinsville, Buckingham County, and Danville will also have the opportunity to provide skilled, good-paying jobs to local residents.
This is one step forward and three steps back, while funding the slaughter of human beings in distant lands, and Perriello knows it.
They Should Get a Union
By David Swanson
"If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. It's that simple. We need to stand up to the business lobby and pass the Employee Free Choice Act. That's why I've been fighting for it in the Senate and that's why I'll make it the law of the land when I'm president of the United States." --Barack Obama
U.S. Chamber Of Commerce To Sue Itself For Fraud And Self-Parody?
Washington, DC: On Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter (http://tr.im/CQCf) to an internet provider threatening legal action if it did not shut down the Yes Men parody website, (http://tr.im/CQCu) because the website falsely portrays the Chamber’s position on global warming. However, in its letter, the Chamber falsely inflated its membership by 1,000 percent and falsely alleged copyright infringement. http://tr.im/CQFu The Yes Men lawyers strongly opposed this take-down demand and the site remains up at www.chamber-of-commerce.us.
Bricks in the Chamber Pot of Commerce
By David Swanson
The US Chamber of Commerce blew a mere $39 million on lobbying in Washington in the past three months. Lobbying for the promotion of global warming, the denial of healthcare, the further deregulation (if possible) of the financial "industry", blockage of the right to unionize, the lowering and elimination of minimum wage laws, maintenance of tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, and protection of the "right" of corporations to bribe politicians. Money well spent: all minority positions, all adhered to by our government.
How ACORN Used to Show Up in the News
The Fight for Higher Minimum Wage
CNN Financial: CNN Money Morning
April 3, 2002
Guest: David Swanson
Host: David Haffenreffer
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNNfn ANCHOR, MONEY MORNING: Most Americans would agree that the national minimum wage of $5.15 an hour isn't really a living wage. But more individual cities and counties are joining a living wage movement. And joining us now with more on all this is David Swanson . He is with an advocacy group for lower income Americans known as ACORN. Welcome to the program.
DAVID SWANSON, ACORN: Thank you.
Oh Ohio
By David Swanson
Ohio may be trailing Michigan and a few other states in official unemployment statistics, but in all of these states the truth is worse than we're told, and it's visible. Unemployment rates do not include those who've given up looking for work, those with an insufficient part-time job, those who have figured out that they would pay more for childcare than they would earn working, those in prison, or those working for less than a living wage.
