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The Starting Line – Bain Owned Plant Drops US Flag as US Workers Forced to Train Chinese Replacements

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Presidential candidate Mitt Romney loves to berate the Chinese on the campaign trail. He portrays himself as the candidate that will stop Beijing from “cheating” that will stem the flow of jobs being exported to Asia from the United States. Yet an Illinois company that he has large investments in is forcing soon to be laid off workers to train their Chinese replacements even as Romney continues to claim that his programs will revive the economy and create jobs.

To make matters worse, the U.S. flag that has always flown in front of the company’s Freeport , Ill. headquarters was removed just as the Chinese trainees arrived. The facility, which is non-unionized, employees 170 people.

Workers at the Sensata Technologies plant set up camp in an adjacent fairground over a month ago, hoping to draw more attention to their cause. About a dozen people have been there round the clock even as temperatures outside have rapidly declined. The encampment is a nod to both the “Hoovervilles” of unemployed workers that sprung up during the Great Depression and the Occupy Wall Street movement.   [Read more…]

Colonizing Greece: A European Union Strategy?

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Commentary and photographs by Jim Bliesner, SDFP Correspondent reporting from Greece

Skopelos, Greece. Oct. 14, 2012. Greece as a civilization is over 7000 years old in one form or another. It has experienced thousands of transformative influences, some self-generated others external. It now sits in a pivotal position in the economic roulette game being played by the European Union (E.U.) and the G-7 (United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Canada whose finance ministers meet annually to discuss economic cooperation/intervention).

The E.U., the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank, frequently referred to as “the troika” in Greece, has been engaged in a multi-year experiment focused on keeping the European Union together as a global economic force. Various countries of the E.U. coalition have erupted with economic turmoil as a result of the bank excesses in the USA and sub-prime mortgages in 2008-09. Most of the countries in the E.U. basked in the spending spree, bought bad investments and made a few of their own. The troika is commissioned to respond by its charter.

The fly in the ointment at the moment is Greece, representing about 3% of the total E.U. economy.   [Read more…]

Video Picks of the Week: The Avenging Uterus, Hellfire with Deer Heads, and the Science Guy

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The extreme right wing depiction of science as a conspiracy of elitist lies used to undermine the authority of the family and biblical truth while promoting a dangerous liberal/socialist agenda has been given an undeniable legitimacy within mainstream Republican politics. Climate change denialism. The assault against women’s reproductive choice. Creationism. We speak constantly about providing a quality education for our kids that will enable them to be productive and competitive in the world, yet we elect a growing number of people to public office whose policies are dangerously, ignorantly anti-science. Do you think there will be consequences?   [Read more…]

Powerful Court Quietly Takes Marijuana Case That Could Shatter Federal Prohibition Laws

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Alternet / By Steven Wishnia / Oct. 11, 2012

For the first time in two decades federal courts will consider the science behind medical marijuana — and today there is more evidence than ever.

Once again, medical-marijuana advocates are taking to the courts to eliminate the biggest barrier to legal use—the federal law that classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug with no valid medical use.

On Oct. 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the federal appeals court that usually handles cases involving government regulations, will hear oral arguments on Americans for Safe Access v. DEA. It will be the first time in almost 20 years that federal courts have considered the science of medical marijuana, says ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes.

  [Read more…]

The Starting Line— DeMaio ‘Malarkey’ Fails to Stick in Mayoral Contest

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DeMaio Was for Pension Bonds Before He Was Against Them

City Councilman Kevin Falconer and other local backers of Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio pressed forward yesterday with attacks aimed at challenger Congressman Bob Filner.  Earlier in the day they were beating the drum about Filner’s earlier advocacy of pension obligation bonds as a solution to San Diego’s financial crisis. The Congressman has maintained in recent statements that voter approval of last June’s Proposition B makes the bonds unnecessary.

The DeMaio campaign went silent on that subject when local Dems unearthed evidence that the City Councilman also had a past history of supporting such bonds.  A 2004 report from DeMaio’s Performance Instititute (funded by U-T San Diego publisher Doug Manchester), DeMaio offered a blanket endorsement of the reforms proposed by the City’s Pension Reform Committee, which included issuance of $600 million in pension obligation bonds to address the City’s unfunded pension liabilities…

Having failed at this round of attacks, the DeMaio campaign shifted gears, calling a press conference outside his campaign headquarters in Murphy Canyon to denounce Congressman Filner’s participation in Congressional junkets funded by “special interests”. (Oh, so much more inside….)   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Local Labor Activist Banned from All Walmart Stores

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Skirmishes between Walmart and labor groups continued yesterday, as 200 angry protesters showed up at a meeting of investors and analysts earlier today at Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

Here in San Diego local AFL/CIO leader Lorena Gonzalez paid her first visit ever to a Walmart, visiting the College Grove store with a letter for the store manager asking the retailer to improve employee pay and benefits, and require store contractors to pay a living wage.

The store manager refused to even shake hands with Gonzalez, keeping hands in his pockets as she asked him to accept the letter.

He responded with a notice banning Gonzalez from ever setting foot in any Walmart store, and called the police.   [Read more…]

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Lies

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by Norma Damashek/NumbersRunner

A) Some liars lie for self-protection.  Consider political cover-ups.

B)  Some liars lie to whitewash things they say (or write) whenever they get loaded.  Consider the congenital lushes you’ve known.

C) Some liars lie because of a pathological affliction that compels them to create false/ fabricated/ fallacious responses to just about everything.  Consider the manchurian (I have a friend who calls him manchesturian) candidate Carl DeMaio.

Let’s explore this more closely.   [Read more…]

How Gloria Romero Became the Face of Proposition 32

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by Matthew Fleischer/Frying Pan News

“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” Gloria Romero tells me on the phone. “It’s flowing to both sides. Government isn’t about drawing lines. It’s not about saying you’re on that side and you can’t come over.”

Her voice is friendly, somewhat placid, but it’s clear Romero is not thrilled with having to answer questions about her political alliance with the Koch brothers and other wealthy supporters of Proposition 32, and she conspicuously avoids bringing up their names. When pressed about the Kochs and the money behind behind Prop. 32, she falls back upon her experience in Sacramento.

“I have sat in the belly of the beast,” she says. “I have seen the realities of money and its influence.”

With Election Day still one month away, the battle to pass Prop. 32 has seen its share of political shockers, including the sudden injection of $4 million of Koch brother money to the Yes on 32 campaign, along with millions more from Charles Munger Jr. But nothing has been more surprising than the decision of Romero, a former California State Senate Democratic majority leader, to serve as the measure’s frontwoman.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Walmart Walkout Widens to 12 States, Black Friday Walkout Threatened

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Walkouts at the worlds’ larger retailer spread to at least twenty eight stores in twelve states yesterday, with unprecedented protests against company treatment of employees and working conditions expected to continue today at the annual Walmart investor meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Dan Schlademan, director of the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Making Change At Walmart campaign, said job actions took place in Dallas, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay area, Miami, the Washington, D.C., area, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Chicago and Orlando.  There were also reports of walkouts in Kentucky, Missouri and Minnesota.

The New York Times has posted an article saying that disgruntled Walmart employees, joined by labor unions and community groups, might stage a combined protest and educational campaign the Friday after Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.   [Read more…]

The Scramble for Parks, Street Repairs, Fire Station, Street Lights and Sidewalks: City Heights Capital Improvements in the Time of Austerity

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The list does not include the pressing infrastructure need for wireless hubs throughout City Heights. Councilman Tony Young stated in a budget committee meeting earlier this year that he would like to see wireless access made available to the surrounding communities using our public libraries as a broadcasting source. He quickly discounted the possibility unless the City found a private partner.

Councilman Young knows that his district as well as the other low income districts constitute the have- not side of the digital divide. While the city as a whole ranks high in internet connectivity, there are whole sections of the city in which families do not have computers or are unable to afford monthly internet access fees. There are large swaths of the population who are not computer literate. City Heights is one of these communities.   [Read more…]

DeMaio and Co. Gin Up Pension Controversy

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Local Republican cabal refuses to take “Yes” for an answer in attempt to refight pension battle they’ve already won.

Republicans in this town must be getting desperate. How else do you explain Republican strategist Tony Manolatos putting together a press conference to bash Democratic mayoral candidate Bob Filner on something that has been settled policy for quite some time, and to my knowledge has not changed since the primary election last June.

I’ve covered the issue here and here. Filner had his own pension reform plan that he touted during the primary campaign. That plan included refinancing the city’s pension debt in order to take advantage of historically low interest rates and to lower the city’s debt payments, thereby freeing up funds for other vital city functions. But ever since Prop B won at the ballot box in June, Filner has accepted defeat on that measure and assured the voters of San Diego that he would follow their will and implement Prop B.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line –It’s Official in California; Let the Voting Begin

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Today marks the official start of ‘election month’ here in California. Mail in ballots are being mailed to people who have opted into voting by mail, something that 65% of voters did in this year’s primary elections.  I don’t care how or when you do it, but you need to vote.

I do care who or what you vote for.  Here’s a shameless plug for our Guide to the Ballot Propositions that explains why you should agree with me. And we have a easy-to-use link that will take you to all of San Diego Free Press’s election news & opinions.

The best reason to vote by mail… If you think you see soon-to-be Judge/Birther Gary Kreep lurking near your polling place, you’re not hallucinating.  Kreep is donating his legal skills to the Election Integrity Project, the local tea party front group seeking to ‘prevent fraud at the polling place’.

Now if we could only come up with an ‘app’ that turns off all those paid political ads once you’ve voted…   [Read more…]

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