Day: August 24, 2008

Bush Calls Phelps

President Bush telephoned U.S. swimming phenom Michael Phelps, who recently became the most prolific Olympic champion by winning an eighth gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.

Bush made the call from his ranch at 6:20 a.m. in Texas, 7:20 p.m. in China.

An aide said the president told Phelps: “Laura and I are proud of you. Our family is proud of you, but most importantly, America is proud of you. We’re excited for you. You handled yourself with humility. Give your mom a big hug for me. 41 and I were honored to get a picture with her. If you can handle eight gold medals, you can handle anything.”

And at 9:30 Bob Blundy delivered a pepperonis pizza, and a bout 23 car went past his hotel and and he lost one sock–look a pig on the corner hitching–my point is–WHO CARES!  In 5 years no one will remember his name–only the sports announcers they have nothing else to say.

Could Powell Be In The Game?

Retired Gen. Colin Powell is among the potential running mates who have been considered by John McCain, campaign advisers told Politico.

Powell was among the possible vice presidential choices the Arizona Republican senator was thinking of when he said he would not rule out a supporter of abortion rights, a key adviser said.

Campaign officials say McCain has told them not to discuss the process.

Powell, who was President Bush‘s first secretary of state, would add celebrity to the ticket, as well as reinforce McCain’s strength as a potential commander in chief, which his campaign considers to be one of his chief assets.
But outside advisers say they believe former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a McCain rival for the Republican nomination, is the leading candidate.

McCain plans to announce his choice Friday in Dayton, Ohio.

Obama Wants To Fix Primary System

The presumptive Democratic nominee wants to clean up the nation’s primary (and caucus) mess for the next go-round four years from now.

A message to that effect was issued by Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign Wednesday, calling for a so-called Change Commission that will settle caucus rules, cut the number of superdelegates and develop a system of primaries and caucuses that attempts to avoid this year’s confusion.

The Obama campaign suggested its commission could draw up a system — one with a pre-window for some states to hold primaries or caucuses in February 2012 and all the rest relegated to elections no earlier than the first Tuesday in March of that year.

Iowa and New Hampshire will demand to be part of the early mix — and could be — as national officials seem loath to alienate those states. But two top Michigan Democrats — U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and National Committeewoman Debbie Dingell — who have agitated to break those states’ monopoly on first-in-the-nation status said Wednesday they’ve been assured no state will get an automatic preference.

Obama, however, supports Iowa and New Hampshire keeping their first-in-the-nation status. Accomplishing that may not be part of the commission’s job but, if he wins the presidency, his opinion is likely to count for a lot.

Would it not be a lot easy to have Regional primaries, 3 or 4 weeks, and then move on tyo more important stuff?

Obama’s Market Populism

An article from the Seattle Times and takes a good simplified look at Obama’s economic positions.

Barack Obama calls himself an economic pragmatist. In a long interview with The New York Times he says he is for “what works” — a statement safe but not revealing. What he often sounds like, though, and what we would like him to be, is a market populist — a champion of a bubble-up capitalism in which wealth creation is spread among more people.

A philosophy like that has to keep a close eye on what works. With each economic proposal, Obama should ask: Does it promote jobs or snuff them out? Does it promote education, job training, research and other ways for people to raise the value of their work?

Democrats have been good on the education part. Obama is for increasing the tax credit for college tuition, and it is a fine idea. He also has an intriguing idea to lower the job-killing payroll tax: a credit for the first $8,100.

Democrats have been less good on other taxes. Obama has proposed to raise the top personal income tax from the current 35 percent to 40 percent or so, to raise the capital-gains tax from 15 percent to 25 percent, and to freeze the top rate of the estate tax at 45 percent of assets.

Obama’s populism should focus instead on the distinction between kinds of business, asking of each proposal: Does it tend to concentrate wealth in behemoth corporations or spread it in smaller, more flexible and family-owned business? Does it promote long-term investment instead of quick gain?

Republicans, the presumptive pro-business party, have too often become the pro-big-business party. Here is where Obama can stake out a difference. If he has to raise taxes, raise them on passive earnings rather than active business. He proposes, for example, to make publicly traded partnerships pay corporate income tax. Whether this is a good idea we are not sure, but the thought is correct: It does less harm to squeeze a passive investor than an active owner.

Seniors Hit The “Doughnut Hole”

In 2007, about 3.4 million Americans enrolled in the Medicare Part D drug plan reached a gap in their prescription coverage known as the “doughnut hole,” leading some of them to stop taking prescribed drugs, says a Kaiser Family Foundation study released Thursday.The analysis of data found that 26 percent of Part D enrollees who filled any prescriptions in 2007 reached the coverage gap. This includes 22 percent who were stuck in the gap for the remainder of the year and 4 percent who eventually received catastrophic coverage.

When they applied this estimate to the all Part D enrollees, the study authors concluded that last year about 3.4 million beneficiaries (14 percent of all Part D enrollees) reached the coverage gap and faced paying full cost for their prescriptions.

Enrollees prescribed drugs for serious chronic conditions had a much higher risk of a gap in coverage under the Part D plan. For example, 64 percent of enrollees taking medications for Alzheimer’s disease reached the coverage gap, along with 51 percent of those taking oral anti-diabetic medications and 45 percent of those taking antidepressants.

The data analysis didn’t include beneficiaries who receive low-income subsidies, because they don’t face a gap in coverage under their Medicare drug plan.

Women Taking On The Trades

Non-traditional occupations, like auto service or auto repair, are those in which women comprise 25 percent or less of the total employment. According to Department of Labor statistics for 2006, only 1.6 percent of those working as automotive service technicians or mechanics were women. That’s 14,000 women compared to 861,000 men in that profession.

Brittany Johnson, a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning student at Platt Technical High School in Milford, said she always knew she wanted to do something a little bit different and, after going through the school’s exploratory program, said she loved the HVAC program.

She said she didn’t necessarily receive criticism from the boys but they did give her a little bit of a hard time. “It was more of the ‘boys will be boys’ type of criticism so I knew they were just kidding around.” Johnson said. “You shouldn’t worry about the boys; you should just do whatever shop you want to do.”Nancy Roman, a junior at Platt Tech, is in the culinary curriculum but took plumbing classes at the school.

“Some people didn’t think I would be able to do some of the things like plumbing but I got the highest grade,” Roman said. “The boys were surprised but not critical because they asked me for help.” There are many jobs and opportunities students are unaware of until they go through the exploratory program, said Debra Anderson, guidance coordinator for Emmett O’Brien.

These types of exploratory courses are usually the best way for girls to discover if they would like a non-traditional career. There are also summer intern programs like those run by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. in Stratford.

She said the girls have to prove themselves and work harder than the boys, otherwise they will not get the respect they deserve. “You always have something to prove as a female, I’ve just come to accept it,” said Amiot, who will be spending the next year on a sabbatical, working to help certify four automotive programs at technical high schools in Connecticut.

This could be excellent news for the labor movement–women could become the majority in the movement–You Go Girls!

Professor’s Pre-Convention Look

Just a quick look at the up coming convention.  About the only thing that I like about the Democrat situation is the Biden addition.  At least he chose one of the few non-millionaires in the Senate.

With the Democratic National Convention set to convene in Denver, Colorado next week for the formal nomination of Senator Barack Obama, the party and its presidential candidate have made it clear that they will present no genuine alternative to the politics of aggressive war and social reaction that have prevailed in America over the whole past period.

Having won the Democratic primaries through an amorphous appeal to the desire for change and a disingenuous attempt to cast himself as an antiwar candidate, Obama has over the past few months voted in favor of police-state spying, fully embraced militarism, and given assurances to Wall Street that its profits will remain sacrosanct, no matter how severe the crisis confronting millions of working people.

The Democratic convention itself—a carefully scripted and corporate-funded media extravaganza—is to be the culmination of a systematic shift to the right by the Obama campaign.

He has spelled out the real significance of his primary campaign rhetoric about an end to the war in Iraq, making it clear that his call for withdrawing “combat troops”—16 months after taking office—envisions leaving a “residual force” consisting of tens of thousands of US military personnel and mercenaries to continue the colonial-style occupation.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on August 14, Obama’s principal economic advisors presented a plan that would hike capital gains and dividend taxes for those making more than $200,000 a year to only 20 percent, from the current 15 percent. The Democratic candidate had been expected to nearly double the capital gains tax—returning it to the rate that existed under Reagan and Bush as well as during the first term of the Clinton administration—and increase the tax on dividends to 40 percent.

By ruling out any materially significant increase in taxes on finance capital, Obama and the Democrats have effectively precluded any measures to improve living standards, increase public spending or boost employment. A Democratic administration in 2009 will spell a continuation and deepening of the attacks on living standards as American capitalism continues to confront its deepest crisis since the great depression of the 1930s.

Obama has repeatedly made it clear that the real thrust of his domestic policy will be the demand for fiscal responsibility. Under conditions in which the budget deficit will be approaching $500 billion by next year and with continued massive military spending, this can only mean stepped up attacks on working people.

Today In Labor History

24 August

What many believe to be the nation’s first labor newspaper, The Mechanics Gazette, is published in Philadelphia, a direct result of a strike by carpenters demanding a ten-hour day – 1827

National Association of Letter Carriers formed – 1887

United Farm Workers Union begins lettuce strike – 1970

Rejects Taboo On Hot Sex

“What’s wrong with married couples having hot and holy sex?” is the question more and more pastors and Christian counselors are posing to believers.

Once regarded as a hush-hush topic in church, sex is increasingly being openly discussed and even promoted by an unlikely ally – Christian pastors. But this effort comes with strings attached – it’s only meant for married couples.

“People carry a lot of guilt from parents who said sex is bad,” said the Rev. Kerry Shook, senior pastor of the 15,600-member Woodlands Church outside Houston, according to ABC news. “We help them (couples) to have a healthy sex life. One of the things we cover in scripture is how to meet each other’s needs in bed.”

Earlier this year, popular emerging church leader Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle opened the floor up to questions about sex from the mainly young adult congregation. The open talks were part of his sermon series “Religion Saves and 9 Other Misconceptions.”

During his sermon on sex, birth control and abortion, Driscoll said God didn’t create sex only for procreation, but also for pleasure, comfort and protection within marriage.

“There are books … even from Christians who love Jesus that talk about all the pleasures and joys and the anatomical structure of the body and the ways to please your spouse and to have the most joy,” Driscoll said in response to an attendant’s question about pleasing one’s spouse. “And you know what? I would whole-heartedly encourage it.”

Pro-Clinton Protesters

Democratic Party leaders have spent weeks preparing a national convention this week that will burst with symbols of unshakable unity behind Senator Barack Obama.

But outside the convention arena in Denver, some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters plan to air their grievances against Obama, the party’s leadership, and the national media, whose coverage of the primary battle they considered sexist. Hundreds of disaffected Democrats from around the country plan to converge in the Mile High City to hold news conferences, protests, and vigils, threatening the party’s ability to present a united front against Republican John McCain.

Many Democrats say the success of the convention, and of Obama’s fall campaign, depends heavily on how well the party handles the complaints of Clinton’s loyalists, some of whom are still smarting from the long and bitter fight, are disappointed that she is not Obama’s running mate, and are insulted by reports that she was not vetted as a possible pick or consulted about his choice.

While many Clinton delegates say they will back Obama and do not intend to embarrass him, grass-roots activists planning protests outside the convention hope to disrupt the sense of unity party leaders are cultivating.

Puma PAC is among a multitude of pro-Clinton groups that formed online to protest a variety of issues, including perceived media bias and flaws in the primary process. In Denver, Murphy’s group plans to show the premiere of an unfinished movie, “The Audacity of Democracy,” and is cosponsoring a protest and candlelight salute to Clinton tomorrow. Another group, PUMA 08, will coordinate communication between its members and the press, and provide a home base for bloggers who support Clinton.