A Valentine Story: Republicans + Teabaggers

I've always felt that teabagger candidates and protesters were out of touch with mainstream Americans, but now we have a poll showing just how far off the cliff they've fallen. Or, as this HuffPo article put it, this DKos/Research 2000 poll of more than 2,000 self-identified Republican voters illustrates the incredible paranoia enveloping the party. Some results:

39 percent of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached, 29 percent are not sure, 32 percent said he should not be voted out of office.

36 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States, 22 percent are not sure, 42 percent think he is a natural citizen.

31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a "Racist who hates White people" -- the description once adopted by Fox News's Glenn Beck. 33 percent were not sure, and 36 percent said he was not a racist.

24 percent of Republicans believe Obama wants "the terrorists to win," 33 percent aren't sure, 43 percent said he did not want the terrorist to win.

23 percent of Republicans believe that their state should secede from the United States, 19 percent aren't sure, 58 percent said no.

53 percent of Republicans said they believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama.

Talk about being disconnected from reality. The media really needs to start getting tough with this group and their enablers. When high profile Republicans are quoted in newspapers saying they don't know "whether President Obama is a citizen of the United States or not," and candidates for office devote their time speaking to tea party crowds, they validate this kind of irrational, paranoid thinking, and by extension make themselves look irrational too.

Broadband Suffers From Lack Of Big Government

Yet another area where the U.S. trails the rest of the world. Via Paul Waldman at TAPPED:

But a new report on global broadband shows that the country that invented the Internet, the microchip, and most of what makes our global digital village possible ranks a pathetic 18th in broadband speeds. The top spot is taken, as usual, by South Korea, where their smoking fast connections give them an average speed over three times as fast as what our pokey little modems give us. We also don't score too well when it comes to broadband penetration (the proportion of households that have broadband, as opposed to the actual speed people are getting). Our slow broadband is also really expensive. So that's nice.

We trail countries like Romania, Sweden and the Czech Republic. And on a year-to-year basis, all the countries in the top 10 saw a boost in speed. Ireland topped the list with a 73 percent gain. What about the United States? We were hit by a 2.4 percent decline in speed.

Waldman says they are multiple reasons we lag so far behind, but "the most important one is probably that we don't have enough big government. With a combination of public infrastructure investments and regulations forcing ISPs to share lines, other countries have driven down prices and driven up speeds."

Republicans have been too busy giving tax breaks to the rich and taking care of their corporate cronies over the past couple of decades to care about our public infrastructure. Thankfully, the stimulus bill President Obama signed in February provides $7.2 billion for projects that will increase the spread of broadband. He also instructed the FCC to come up with a plan to achieve universal high-speed access.

Those are good first steps, but something also needs to be done about bringing the price down or making it available for free to low income individuals. Voters depend on the media for information about our democracy and that information shouldn't be limited only to those who can afford to buy it.

National Tea Party Convention Embraces Right-Wing Media

The teabaggers appear to be playing by the George Bush/Republican playbook. Via Think Progress:

Having previously announced that the National Tea Party Convention would be closed to the press, organizers announced yesterday that they would reverse course. However, the Nashville Post reports that only five media organizations will receive credentials for the entire convention, and they all conveniently happen to be right-wing outlets:

The five approved outlets are: Fox News, Breitbart.com, Townhall.com, World Net Daily and The Wall Street Journal. All five are widely considered to be Right-leaning organizations.

The press release explains that the requests for credentials have been overwhelming and that to preserve the nature of the event they are limiting press availability.

They also used the excuse that as "we have set expectations that this is a working convention, we have tried not to make it a media event.”

Right...because Fox News is always so circumspect and diplomatic when it reports the news and they would never turn any event into a media circus.

A media event is exactly what the teabaggers wanted, and by inviting only these right-leaning organizations their message will be tightly controlled and scripted. Ironically, their website currently claims they believe in "Free Speech." I think they should change that to reflect what they really mean - "Free Speech as told by right-wing media outlets."

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

My apologies to Bob Marley for stealing a line from his song for my title, but it so perfectly fits how I feel. Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and now Ed Schultz. They're like sunshine breaking through the fog. We've been fed misinformation from an industry dominated by conservative voices for far too long, and I feel like the dark clouds are finally starting to lift.

In case you're not familiar with him, Schultz has one of the top-rated progressive shows on radio, “The Ed Schultz Show,” which airs live weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. with a weekly audience of more than 3 million listeners on 100 stations across the country. He's an avid voice for the middle class and Ed is now on MSNBC. “The Ed Show” airs Monday through Friday from 6-7 p.m.

Yesterday, Schultz featured SEIU's Stephen Lerner to talk about the importance of employee free choice and Ed didn't hold back. He said he has an issue with centrist Democrats who aren't going to bat for the middle class. Me too.

Here's video from last night's show to give you a sense of Ed's tenacious style.

We have inherited a deep and dire economic crisis

The bad news just keeps on coming. The Labor Department reported today that the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose to 626,000, from last week's figure of 591,000.

As President Obama put it in an editorial in today's WaPo:

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression.

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

At some point we may not be able to reverse the crisis. Do the Republicans bent on obstructing the stimulus package understand the seriousness of our situation? It doesn't appear they do, or why else would they keep pushing tax cuts that major economists have already discredited? They're playing Russian roulette with our country and hoping Obama fails so they can score political points. Are the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans that inconsequential to them?

And it's not just Republicans putting our country in danger. The media shares a lot of the blame too. They promote Republican talking points as the truth and focus on stories that seem rather inconsequential compared to what's going on around us.

As John Cole put it:

Our media is simply failing us. Why have they not asked the Republicans how tax cuts are going to provide jobs? Why are they not laughing openly when the Republicans bring up capital gains tax cuts as part of a stimulus package. Why are they not asking the Republicans to explain how infrastructure spending is not stimulus? Why are they pretending this woman’s minor tax oversight is on par with outing a CIA agent or letting tens of thousands of people soak for a week in New Orleans. Why are they gleefully reporting about Joe the Plumber giving economic advice to the House republicans while their colleagues are writing about the Republicans being unified in opposition to the stimulus and putting two and two together and realizing that the opposition to the stimulus from Republicans is based on the deep thoughts of a drug addled radio host and a guy who installs toilets?

And why is the media not reminding people that President Obama voted against the war in Iraq, a war that likely will cost us $3 trillion dollars? He had the intelligence to look at the facts and do the right thing then, so we should be trusting him to do the right thing now.

Time is of the essence. Asking the right questions and doing the right thing might not be popular or sell many television ads, but it just might save our country from a crisis we may not be able to reverse. Is that a chance the media and Republicans are willing to take?

Must See TV: No Reservations (Detroit)

Hmm... From my keyboard to Anthony Bourdain's ears maybe? This is what I wrote in December 2007:

Just in case Anthony Bourdain is looking for a place to shoot next, I'd like to recommend Michigan. From pierogies in Hamtramack to pasties in the U.P., we have plenty of food and culture - and "no reservations" are required.

And this is what the Free Press wrote today:

Chef and culinary adventurer Anthony Bourdain, visiting Detroit this week to film part of an episode for his Travel Channel series “No Reservations,” says “the city fathers are not going to be happy” with the places he has chosen to feature in the show. [...]

“I’m not interested in places where we sell each other cheeseburgers,” he said. “I’m interested in places where people make things, and where Mom and Pop businesses grow up around those businesses to feed the people who make the things. … And Detroit is full of those,” he said.

Among the places he visited, he said, are Hamtramck’s Polonia restaurant, where he had “fantastic” duck’s blood soup, and Family Donut Shop, where he tried paczki as well the phyllo-wrapped pastries called bourek.

The "city fathers" may not be happy, but Hamtramck and other suburbs are "Detroit" in my mind. We're all one big family.

And although I'm not too crazy about the title of the three-city episode featuring Baltimore, Buffalo and Detroit, the “Rust Belt show, I have no doubt Bourdain will portray us realistically, rust and all. That's what I love about his show. He gets down and dirty and shows us the heart of the areas he visits.

BTW, it's due to air early next summer.

Republicans Enable Domestic Terrorism

A blogging friend of mine has a post that I wanted to bring to peoples attention: How McCain-Palin are Fueling the Flames of Domestic Terrorism

The post was written by Donald Bortz (we know him as DJ), a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He spent 6 years of his life fighting terrorists and he's not happy - rightly so - about the tone of the McCain/Palin campaign and their followers.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism as The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Right-wing terrorism isn't a new thing. Tim McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Eric Rudolph killed and wounded hundreds of people. The Army of God is still in existence. But this is the first time that not only has a wave of domestic terrorist attacks have been perpetrated against a Presidential campaign, but this is the first time his opponent has condoned it.

We've had several attacks over the weekend. At an Obama rally, over 30 cars had their tires slashed. A black bear was shot and dropped at Western Carolina University with Obama signs stapled to his head. People had their lives threatened for putting Obama signs on their lawn. And a woman was assaulted for knocking on doors for Obama.

DJ just touched upon some of the incidents - there have been other ones - but he sums up the reason behind these attacks like this:

This is what happens when you tell your supporters that your opponent is a terrorist. This is what happens when you condone having your supporters scream "kill him!" and "terrorist" at your rallies.

Why isn't the Republican leadership condemning this behavior? Do they want their candidate to win so badly that they're willing to look the other way? Someone is going to end up dead.

As for McCain, DJ nails the reason he continues to defend these attacks.

Because he doesn't want to go against his base. He tried once to stop the hate that he helped create, and he was booed for it. He's more scared of what his base thinks of him than he is of preventing domestic terrorist attacks. It's sad that a war veteran is so unwilling to put country before political aspirations.

If someone does end up hurt or dead before election day, the McCain campaign, Republicans and media will be responsible. They were quick to condemn terrorism in the Middle East, but they're enabling it here at home.

Pocketbook issues and landslides

I came across something interesting as I read about McCain's visit to Michigan yesterday. In case you didn't know, McCain met with about 250 invited guests, mostly small-business owners and auto industry employees, to talk about pocketbook issues facing businesses and individuals. The Detroit Free Press gave this account of one person's opinion following the meeting.

Rich Keenan, 48, of Canton said he would never vote for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. But he also was wary of McCain's vote against tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush and the environment. [...]

By the end of the discussion, Keenan said he was closer to a vote for McCain.

I was curious to see how the national media described the meeting so I checked out the Washington Post. This is their description [emphasis mine]:

But a day after a top McCain economic adviser dismissed the nation's struggles as a "mental recession," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's message landed with a thud, as workers sat in stony silence. [...]

But the 100 or so in the crowd sat on their hands throughout most of McCain's speech, especially during his remarks about the need for free trade -- a policy that is generally reviled in manufacturing areas.

That's quite a bit different from the description in the Free Press. However, that's not what I found so interesting. Near the end of the Post's article was this [emphasis mine]:

With most Americans blaming President Bush for their troubles, McCain faced an uphill climb even before his campaign's recent miscues. Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis-based economic forecasting firm, will release a report next week that factors in such variables as the growth rate of real disposable income, unemployment rate, real oil price increases, the power of the incumbent party as well as the impact of party fatigue to forecast the outcome of the election. The result projects a victory of more than 10 percentage points for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, said Chris P. Varvares, the firm's president.

"How do you define a landslide?" he asked.

It'll be interesting to see if McCain really loses by a large margin. The latest Pew report has Obama leading McCain 48% to 40%, which isn't a landslide, but give McCain and his advisers a few more weeks and that margin should grow. Voters are quickly being turned off by their flip-flops, insults and jokes.

Democrats waste money on biased media outlets

Could you imagine the media treating McCain this way?

The major news networks are considering cutting back on DNC coverage because Barack Obama will be giving his speech at a separate venue [Invesco Field], thereby increasing their production costs.

You still don't believe the media is biased against Obama? Maybe this fact from The Jed Report will convince you:

Earlier this year, the NFL and NBC announced plans to reschedule the football season opener so as not to conflict with John McCain's convention appearance. If the networks news divisions can't manage a similar degree of flexibility, it will be an outrage.

And a real display of bias.

We all suffer when journalists lower the bar

Christine is right, professional journalists should set a higher standard, and I'm not pointing a finger at any one journalist, I'm pointing a finger at all of them. People like Bob Schieffer, Rick Klein and others criticized General Wesley Clark (and his defenders) for attacking John McCain’s military service record when he actually only questioned the relevance of McCain’s combat experience as it relates to being president. A good journalist would have handled it differently according to the Columbia Journalism Review:

Clark’s comments may (or may not) have been impolitic. But that has no bearing on their validity or lack thereof — which is how the news media should be evaluating them.

In fact, if the media had bothered to look a little, they would have found that McCain himself has argued that military service is not sufficient alone to qualify a person to be president. The Wonkroom found these McCain statements:

During an interview with National Journal, John McCain was asked if “military service inherently makes somebody better equipped to be commander-in-chief.” McCain said, “Absolutely not…I absolutely don’t believe that it’s necessary.” [National Journal, 2/15/2003]

I believe that military service is the most honorable endeavor an American may undertake. But I’ve never believed that lack of military service disqualifies one from occupying positions of political leadership or as Commander and Chief. In America, the people are sovereign, and they decide who is and is not qualified to lead us. [American Legion Speech, 9/7/1999]

Earlier this year at Washington’s Gridiron Club, where humor is the required fare, McCain lay bare what underlies his candidacy. Wearing a jacket outlandishly festooned with dozens of fake military medals, McCain said, “The question I ask myself every morning while shaving in front of the mirror is: OK, John, you’re an incredible war hero, an inspiration to all Americans. But what qualifies you to be president of the United States?” [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11/7/1999]

In fact, there's reason to believe McCain even questioned his own military accomplishments or lack thereof. The NY Times wrote in 2000 that McCain did a little soul searching back in 1979 and lamented that he would never make admiral like his father and grandfather. The Times said...

...he had always dreamed of doing something great, of imprinting his name on the history books, but at age 42 he found himself with a stuttering military career and no base from which to go into politics.

Shortly after that soul searching, McCain found a way to jump start his political career. He met Cindy at a cocktail party, divorced his first wife the following year, and then married Cindy, heiress to the one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the country. It was her father's business and political contacts that helped McCain gain a foothold into Arizona politics, and McCain's war hero status helped give him name recognition.

The media was so busy slamming Wesley Clark that they failed to mention those points. They also failed to mention that the General had actually been shot four times in Vietnam, and left the country on a stretcher. If anyone had a right to question McCain's military service, Clark did. A good journalist would have mentioned that.

In fact, a good journalist would have quoted McCain from an interview on NPR on May 1, 2004, when he said, “some of our greatest presidents have not [had military experience]. … And all of them turned out to be fine commanders in chief.”

(Cross-posted at Blogging for Michigan.)

Craig Ferguson on Fox News

"Late, Late Show" host Craig Ferguson was chosen to entertain at the annual White House correspondents' dinner in Washington this year. That's the same dinner where President Bush joked about WMDs hiding under furniture in the Oval Office in 2004. It'll be interesting to see how his routine goes over, especially with the Fox News reporters.

This is how Ferguson views the station:

Judge the candidates by their enemies

When the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce promised to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business (Edwards, Obama and Huckabee), I told myself those candidates must pose a real threat to the status quo to draw that kind of attention.

When Fortune Magazine recently made the claim they believe John Edwards is the only candidate who will stand up to corporate America, I sat up and took notice. Corporate America is the media and their message was clear (at least to me) - Edwards is the enemy.

I don't know if my method of choosing who I believe to be the best candidate is scientific or not, but I felt reassured when I read this from David Sirota.

With so much campaign rhetoric and propaganda swirling around, how do you really find out where any of these candidates are coming from on the issues? Over the years, I've figured out a decent method: Judge them - at least in part - by their enemies. Enmity cuts right through all the B.S. Who is afraid of a given candidates indicates whose interests that candidate truly threatens.

By this standard, this week has given us two pretty exemplary signals. First, Reuters reported a story under the headline "Corporate Elite Fear Candidate Edwards." The piece details how Wall Street moneymen and K Street lobbyists are frightened about Edwards populist, power-challenging message against greed and corruption.

Now today, the Club for Growth - a notorious corporate front group in Washington - has issued this press release bemoaning "Mike Huckabee's Liberal Record." It provides the details of an event in which the major players in Washington's conservative Establishment will berate Huckabee for having the nerve to stop health care cuts and invest in public infrastructure during his tenure as governor of Arkansas.

Sirota isn't endorsing either of these candidates, but he's making the point, "When the forces of money, power and corruption attack, it means candidates are probably doing at least something right."

Edwards is still my choice, and while I'm no fan of Huckabee, it does make me laugh to just think about a "Republican populist" being targeted by a corporate front group. I never thought I'd live to see the day.

About those speeding Iranian boats, Charlie

I wonder what Charlie Gibson has to say about this story after he so willingly acted like a propagandist for President Bush?

From ABC News:

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship. [...]

The Navy never said specifically where the voices came from, but many were left with the impression they had come from the speedboats because of the way the Navy footage was edited.

Today, the spokesperson for the U.S. admiral in charge of the Fifth Fleet clarified to ABC News that the threat may have come from the Iranian boats, or it may have come from somewhere else.

We're saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there," said the spokesperson. "It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by.

Yipes, I sure am glad Charlie's not in a position to push "the button" based on someone else's hearsay.

UPDATE: Juan Cole has a post that explains this incident in great detail. He said it's looking more and more like a serious error if not a Republican Party fabrication. Imagine that.

Charles Gibson - Propagandist

Did you happen to see ABC World News last night? Charles Gibson introduced a segment of film showing Iranian swift boats confronting our naval ships in the Persian Gulf, and he went on to report that Bush called the incident an "act of provocation." Gibson should have stopped there and let the film roll, instead he went on to say "provocation was an understatement," as the film would show. (I couldn't find a transcript or video of that clip. I'll keep trying.)

The minute those words left Charlie's mouth my husband and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Iran was trying to provoke the US Navy and we were completely innocent? I don't think so.

Neither does David Lindorff, investigative reporter, who asked, What Is This ‘Iranian Provocation’ BS?

Not one news story about this week’s latest chapter in the administration’s ongoing effort to gin up a crazy war with Iran–the so-called “provocation” caused by Iranian naval speedboats approaching within 200 meters of a US destroyer–mentioned that the US, which sits some 7500 miles away from Iran, has sent a whole fully-armed armada into the Persian Gulf just off Iran’s coast.

Or that the Vice President actually flew out to an aircraft carrier that was part of that US armada, and threatened, from the flight deck, to have the US massively attack Iran.

Just who is provoking whom where?

See my point? Now consider this:

Imagine, for a moment, that Iran had sent its navy to patrol in the Gulf of Mexico, in international waters just off of the coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and that its leader flew out to one of those ships and threatened to take out America’s oil infrastructure.

How do you think the US government would react? How do you think the American people would react?

Do you think the US would send naval vessels out to provokingly sail close to Iranian ships? Do you think the US might do more than that and maybe sink those ships? (Especially if at that very moment Iranian special forces were operating inside the US, creating havoc and supporting subversive elements, as US special forces are already doing in Iran.)

I'm pretty certain we'd bomb them into oblivion (that's been our MO in the past), but here's the part that Charles Gibson might care to consider:

I’m not saying that Iran’s decision to move aggressively to challenge US naval power off their shores is necessarily the wisest move, but at least American journalists and editors ought to have the decency and ethics to point out to readers and viewers that it is the US, not the Iranians, that are provoking things here. [emphasis added]

That's the same point Ron Paul futilely tried to make during the ABC News New Hampshire Debate last weekend. Ironically, Charles Gibson moderated that night and allowed the debate to turn into a free for all. It was like watching a panel of guests on Fox News beat up on each other the way the Republican candidates shouted over Ron Paul and refused to let him talk. This is what Paul tried to say that night:

PAUL: I'm as concerned about the nature of the threat of terrorism as anybody, if not more so. But they don't attack us because we're free and prosperous.

And there all radicals in all elements, in all religions that will resort to violence. But if we don't understand that the reaction is, is because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, we have bases in their country -- and we haven't done it just since 9/11, but we have done that a long time.

I mean, it was the Air Force base in Saudi Arabia before 9/11 that was given as the excuse.

If we don't understand that, we can't win this war against terrorism.

I'm no fan of Ron Paul, but I agree with him on this point, and it bothers me to no end that the media willingly portrays the U.S. as an innocent victim. I've also lost all respect for anchors like Gibson because, as Lindorff summed it up, "our domestic news organizations are playing the willing propagandists here as willingly as did Pravda or TASS in the old Soviet Union." I thought our country and the people who represent us were better than that.

(Cross-posted at BFM)

Detroit's newspapers continue downward trend

Jack Lessenberry has the statistics to prove what Detroit-area readers think of the Detroit News and Free Press:

In July 2006, the Detroit Free Press circulation was 315,519. Over the last year, as the paper became more and more Gannettized, that dropped to 305,137. That's a loss of more than 10,000 customers.

The Detroit News, which was pretty much destroyed by two decades of Gannett ownership before being partially liberated in 2005, lost subscribers too, but only a third as many. It now sells 192,722 copies a day. (Twenty years ago, before being combined in a competition-killing monopoly business agreement, each paper had more than 600,000 subscribers.)

For an even clearer indication of the marketing genius of Gannett, the all-dominant partner in the Detroit newspaper partnership, consider the circulation of the Sunday paper, which is purely a Gannett product, except for a News editorial page stuck in. It fell fastest of all, from 652,000 last year to 625,000 this year.

That's a pretty steep decline by most people's standards. I realize our economy is struggling and people's wages have fallen, but a paper is still a cheap form of entertainment compared to a movie, sporting event or dinner out. The fact that people aren't choosing to spend whatever discretionary money they have on a Gannett newspaper subscription says one thing - it isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

It's all in the message, Gannett, and the message your writers send (especially at the Detroit News) is that Michigan sucks, Michigan's workers suck, Michigan's governor and Democratic leaders suck, and all union households suck. And so do all African Americans, women, homosexuals, Arabs and children.

Do you see the problem, Gannett? Apparently not. Lessenberry has the details:

How did the Gannett-controlled Detroit newspaper partnership respond to this staggering vote of no confidence? By getting rid of all their circulation customer service staff! In a memo they sent to the soon-to-be-axed employees, the corporate monster announced, "Our customer service operation will be consolidated into a Gannett regional call center in Tulsa, Oklahoma." That change, which becomes effective Oct. 14, "will mean the elimination of most customer service positions." However, wage slaves take heart. There will be "retention of a few part-time jobs."

Naturally, I am sure the flacks would tell you that service like this is has no relation to the fact that Gannett's stock price has fallen 42 percent over the last three years, or that rumors of a takeover of the company are sweeping Wall Street. I do have an idea to save Detroit's newspapers, however:

Heavily promote keeping pet guinea pigs. They constantly pee, and require massive amounts of newspapers to line the bottom of their cages. The newspapers are unwilling to do much about quality, but a few cheap summer interns could puff up the delights of pig ownership.

GUINEA PIG TRASHES NOLAN FINLEY EDITORIAL. Now that's a headline that just might tempt me to buy one of their papers!

Steelworkers union gets Wall Street attention

It's not too often a paper like the Wall Street Journal writes a positive story about a union (if ever), but as the AFL-CIO blog points out, even Wall Street can't help but admire success.

Today’s Wall Street Journal takes note of the United Steelworkers (USW) successful corporate strategies. As the Journal writes, the union’s

…strategy, rather than simply to pound the table for higher pay or threaten strikes, is to block takeovers, take sides in bidding wars and fight for board seats.

The paper cites the example of Brazilian steel corporation CSN, which maneuvered last year to merge with Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp.

The USW wanted what it considered a more union-friendly bidder than CSN, and found one in Chicago upstart Esmark Inc. Executives of Esmark promised that if they got hold of Wheeling-Pitt, there would be no union layoffs there. The union threw its weight behind Esmark, which then mounted a fierce proxy fight to oust the Wheeling-Pitt board. In November, it won handily.

“We turned the entire board over in one day—little old Steelworkers and little old Esmark,” says Ron Bloom, the steel union’s point man in the battle.

Bloom is the economic advisor and assistant to International Union President, Leo Gerard, and he's also a former Wall Street investment banker who joined the USW as a strategy advisor in 1996. His pedigree as a former Wall Streeter may be one reason the WSJ wrote about the union, but he definitely has some populist ideas that show concern and respect for those of us who worry about losing our jobs to outsourcing.

Here's a sample of some remarks Bloom delivered last year to the INSOL International Annual Regional Conference [pdf] [emphasis mine]:

We certainly acknowledge that we live in a global market economy, but we make no apology for our belief that the market does not adequately express the value of labor. This is the fundamental reason why workers act collectively—so that they can achieve more for themselves than the market would otherwise provide.

Now we happen to believe that this structure is an intrinsic part of a democratic and just society. But whether you agree with that or not, the fact is that in normal times, and even more so in an insolvency, when everything is both figuratively and literally up for grabs, you should expect that we will use our collective strength to protect what we have worked so hard to achieve.

I also cannot help noting that I find it more than a little incongruous to be told by someone making more in an hour than a pensioner receives in a month that pension benefits and the union who helped secure them are the cause of the company’s problem.

Amen.

Michigan Has Foreclosure Misery Company

Readers are increasingly turning to the Web for their news and abandoning print media. I can't speak for everyone else, but I read my news online because 75% of the time an article will leave me with unanswered questions and I end up searching the internet for answers. For example, this was a lead story in today's Freep:

Home foreclosure filings surged to record levels across metro Detroit in 2006, adding to the misery of a region already suffering the effects of a sagging job market, plant closures and layoffs. [...]

It's the repercussions of a bad economy -- and in stark contrast to other parts of the country that are growing," said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Bank in Ann Arbor. "It's unfortunate, but it's not surprising."

Ouch! Are we really alone in our single-state misery as the article implied? I did a quick search and soon found that Michigan has lots of company in foreclosure misery. From Yahoo [emphasis added]:

[T]he leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released year-end data from its 2006 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows more than 1.2 million foreclosure filings were reported nationwide during the year, up 42 percent from 2005 and a foreclosure rate of one foreclosure filing for every 92 U.S. households. [...]

Colorado documented the nation's highest state foreclosure rate for the year, one foreclosure filing for every 33 households... an 85 percent increase from 2005 and the eighth highest total among all the states.

Georgia and Nevada both reported one foreclosure filing for every 41 households in 2006, but Georgia edged out Nevada with a slightly higher percentage of households in foreclosure... Georgia reported a total of 75,975 foreclosure filings during the year, the sixth most of any state and a 67 percent year-over-year increase. Nevada foreclosures surged in fourth quarter, pushing the state's total for the year to 21,045 -- nearly three times the number reported in 2005.

Other states with foreclosure rates among the nation's 10 highest included Texas, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Utah and Tennessee.

Texas reported 156,876 foreclosure filings for the year, the most of any state and nearly 13 percent of the national total. The state consistently reported big foreclosure numbers throughout 2006... -- giving the state the nation's fourth highest state foreclosure rate.

Rising foreclosure activity in the fourth quarter pushed California's 2006 foreclosure total to second highest among the states. The state reported 142,429 foreclosure filings during the year, more than twice the number reported in 2005 and accounting for more than 11 percent of the national total. [...]

Florida foreclosure activity remained relatively flat in 2006, up just 2 percent from 2005, but the state's foreclosure total still placed third highest among all the states. [...]

Other states with 2006 foreclosure totals among the nation's 10 highest included Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado, New York and Indiana.

Detroit, Atlanta, Indianapolis report highest metro foreclosure rates

With an average of more than 10,000 foreclosure filings in each quarter, Detroit documented the highest annual foreclosure rate among the nation's 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas. Foreclosure filings in the city represented 4.9 percent of all households -- or one foreclosure filing for every 21 households. The city's foreclosure rate was 4.5 times the national average.

Atlanta's 2006 foreclosure total of 63,737 represented 4.4 percent of the city's households -- second highest among the top 100 MSAs and more than four times the national average. [...]

Indianapolis foreclosures decreased in the second, third and fourth quarters, but the city still documented the nation's third highest metro foreclosure rate -- with total foreclosure filings representing 4.3 percent of all households.

Other cities with foreclosure rates among the nation's 10 highest were Denver, Dallas, Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Memphis, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

All of that information came from one article, but there were plenty more to choose from:

Foreclosures climbed a whopping 64.6 percent in the nation's Northeast in 2006, fueled by a fourth-quarter filings scramble in metropolitan areas of New York and Boston, and across northern New Jersey.

Colorado had more foreclosure filings per household in 2006 than any other state, RealtyTrac, a California provider of foreclosure data, will report today.

Foreclosures in Fresno County more than quadrupled in the fourth quarter from last year... Statewide, the number of default notices — the first step in the foreclosure process — climbed a whopping 145% in the fourth quarter of 2006 from a year earlier to the highest level in eight years, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a real estate tracking service.

Mississippi ranks low nationally in foreclosures, but homeowners unable to pay their mortgages are on the rise. ... Mississippi foreclosure rates increased about 50 percent from the previous month and 130 percent from the previous year.

Mortgage defaults in California more than doubled on an annual basis in the last quarter of 2006.

"It's the economy, stupid." James Carville's famous slogan from the 1992 presidential election also explains why Kentucky's mortgage foreclosure rate is the fifth highest in the nation, economists and mortgage bankers say.

From the Cincinnati area: While Swain's circumstances are especially dire, similar foreclosure notices were tacked to the front doors of more than 10,000 homeowners in almost every neighborhood of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky last year. For the seventh straight year, foreclosure filings hit record highs not only here but in all of Ohio and Kentucky.

Florida chimes in: Foreclosures put added burden on association-run communities..."We're seeing a 100 percent increase in the number of files turned over to us [by associations] for lien and foreclosure," said Gary Poliakoff, whose Fort Lauderdale-based law firm, Becker & Poliakoff, represents 4,200 associations in Florida.

As long as newspapers continue to do only half their job, I'll continue to read my news online where it's more convenient to search for the rest of the story.