Minimum/living wage-Healthcare

Chicago has passed a living wage ordinance. Mayor Daley is looking like he may give in to fear tactics.

Daley tipped his hand one day after Target pulled out of a 32-acre shopping mall at 119th and Marshfield and hinted strongly it would cut and run from the North Side's Wilson Yards project as well....... Businesses don't have to be in Chicago. . . . If they don't feel welcome, they'll go someplace else. . . . They can build on the other side [of the city limits]. . . . They're going to get our customers anyway," Daley said.

And when all those low wage jobs are in cities around Chicago what do you think that is going to do to those areas. I mean ,especially today, people can't drive everyday 20 or 30 miles both ways for a low wage job. The poor will be in or as close as they can get to the suburbs or you will have very unskilled(teenagers) labor serving you. Lets also look at it the way a crafty entrepreneur would look at it. A shortage of these stores in Chicago would imply strong demand. It would help people avoid driving many miles to get the goods they are looking for, wasting gas and time. They might even be able to add a percent or two to the price without swamping the inconvenience of travel. Business would be boffo! Your labor poll is much larger because more people would likely want to and find it economically feasible to work there. Result....pick of the better, more productive employees.
From the political standpoint higher wages reduce welfare roles and actually makes employment easier.
Now the down side of this potential plan...10 dollars an hour and 3 dollars in other benefits. That is in the vicinity of 20 thousand a year in wages and 6 thousand in benefits. While this is certainly not an ungodly wage and in the ballpark as far as cost of health insurance it may be a bit much. I am pro small business(although box stores are certainly not that). Maybe 8 dollars would be a better starting point. The insurance thing is another matter completely. It seems to me that the large companies could almost start their own insurance companies and make it work..maybe not. Could we pool businesses, large and small together to make it more affordable? If people are going to whine about "socialism" when we talk universal health care then they are going to have to come up with another answer. Right now people with insurance are filling the gap of the uninsured. In other words you(if you are insured) are paying for the health care for Walmart and Targets' employees. Shouldn't they pull their boot straps and be personally responsible for their employees? Why should you have to pay so they can have another billions in profits? It seems to me universal health care is the answer. That takes the burden off business and makes sure everyone personally pays in for their own health care. A majority of America seems to agree with this according to polls but there are still the leftover "red scare" people out there. I say they should find their own solution to the problem if single payer doesn't satisfy them. They just look impotent to me. Do something and quit whining!

Commies Crumble

Forward..Into The Past

Just looking at this picture of Fidel and Raul. Talk about a day that is about over. I don't know what the future holds for Cuba right now but you can be pretty sure neither one of these guys will be a part of it for long. They are most certainly Cubas' past. Now if we could only quit sending our billions and our jobs to China. I guess they aren't "real" communists? Besides they are buying our debt and supporting us these days. That is a very sad thought. Oh American leadership, where for art thou?

Reading Room

Well, I've just spent several hours trying to input my tape player into my computer. It didn't work like it was suppose to but finally worked in a way it shouldn't have worked. All I can say is persist with every option until you find the answer. I then spent several more hours editing a demo tape to the proper length. Decided it was time to try something different. I hope someone appreciates all the work I am willing to do to. Just think what I could do as an employee! Damn straight..don't quit until I come up a winner!
Anyway, didn't get a chance to write today so I'll leave you with some pertinet stuff to read.

Let's just sell off the entire country to foreigners. Whatda ya say? Anyway whatever is left. I suppose this could be a plus cuz if it gets blown up it up it belongs to someone else anyway. I am still quite uncomfortable with it though.

Just in case you forgot..the occupation and the civil war continue unabated..as do the deaths of our servicemen and women and your tax dollars being shipped overseas.

In further violence, officials confirmed that about 45 Shiite Muslims were kidnapped over the past two weeks on the main highway to Syria and Jordan. The highway passes through Sunni insurgent strongholds west of Baghdad.....
.....it followed a crackdown by the British on Shiite militias that have infiltrated security forces in the city and threaten the authority of the government in Baghdad......Meanwhile, gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying employees of a power station to their homes in the Shiite district of Sadr City, killing five passengers and wounding six, police said.A car bomb killed seven people, six of them civilians, in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad and a flashpoint of Sunni-Shiite tensions. Three Iraqi soldiers were killed Tuesday evening when a suicide car bomber attacked a checkpoint in the northern city of Tal Afar, the Iraqi army said.An Iraqi journalist working for the Iranian government-run Al-Alam television was slain in western Baghdad. Adil al-Mansuri, an Iraqi in his 20s, was stopped by gunmen Monday and shot, according to a colleague, Aysar al-Yasiri.A Sunni Arab politician, Mohammed Shihab al-Dulaimi, was kidnapped Tuesday in Baghdad, his associates said. Al-Dulaimi is the spokesman for a coalition of political groups that rejected the results of the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.The other victims reported by police died in a series of shootings and bombings, mostly in Baghdad.......They'll be standing up anytime now. Our troops have done all they can do. Bring them home to their families and let the Iraqis settle this for themselves.

As most knew they would, the swiftboaters get together to smear John Murtha....Think Anne Coulter will be mad because they are people who "can't be criticized"?
Murtha is running for re-election against Diana Irey, a Washington County commissioner, who has been critical of Murthas comments about the war and what she sees as his lack of support for the troops.
Apparently Irey wants to support the troops by leaving them to die in somebody elses civil war. What a "patriot".

Iraqi reconstruction. I have questioned for some time why this is the first war where we have had an abundance of "private contractors". Didn't the Army Corps of Engineers do this in the past. What do you think?
It is a story of mistakes made, plans poorly conceived or overwhelmed by ongoing violence," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "And of waste, greed and corruption that drained dollars that should have been used to build schools, improve the electrical grid, and repair the oil infrastructure."
And why are we spending billions to rebuild an area that is bent on destroying it anyway? Could we spend this money rebuilding the American gulf coast instead? Please!?

Rush agrees with the jihadists.

Do you plan to vote for people who just make stuff up?

That theory -- that it was Hezbollah, not the Israelis, who brought down the Qana building -- is being repeated by right-wing pundits and bloggers everywhere. One is hard-pressed to find mention of this vast media-Hezbollah conspiracy in the Israeli press, but among the American pro-Bush movement, there is no bit of reality-denial too extreme to be rejected. ..... This reality-denying syndrome essentially prevents meaningful debate of issues among a substantial portion of our population. How do you have a meaningful debate over what the U.S. ought to do in Iraq with people who believe that things are going really well over there and who insist that Saddam really did have WMDs? How do you have a meaningful debate with people over the Israel-Lebanon war who insist that reports of civilian deaths in Lebanon are the by-product of a massive conspiracy/cover-up between the international media and Hezbollah rather than Israeli air attacks? And how do you have a meaningful debate with people who continue to insinuate that Saddam helped plan the 9/11 attacks?Meaningful political debates require agreement at least as to the basic facts comprising reality. For a substantial portion of the American population, that agreement is lacking, due to a desire to believe only those facts which comport with one's beliefs and the powerful, self-contained ideology-based media bubble which enables that desire. Those who live in the world where Iraq helped Al Qaeda plan terrorist attacks, Saddam had WMDs, things are going well in Iraq, and Hezbollah rather than Israel collapsed the apartment building in Qana, don't merely have different political views but really live in a different reality.

As linked in the above story, Michelle Malkin gets an "F" because she didn't do her homework...or at least didn't care what the actual truth was. Michelle is one of the large number of righie bloggers who doesn't allow comments. How will she ever learn.

Ya know..it's starting to look like they do this stuff on purpose.

On the lighter side..Triumph looks at global warming with some Republicans.

Hotties from the hill.

Coffee Table Now With Expresso

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. Aristotle

Open forum..you say it, we'll talk about it.

Polling Data

PRESIDENT BUSH – Overall Job Rating in recent news media/nonpartisan national polls

CBS/NY Times-7/21-7/25- Approve 36/Disapprove 55/ Unsure 9--- -19
NBC/Wall St. Jour. 7/21-7/24- Approve 39/ Disapprove 56/ Unsure 5---- -17
USA Today/Gallup7/21-7/23 -Approve 37/ Disapprove 59/ Unsure 4--- -22
Diageo/Hotline RV 7/20-23/ -Approve 38/ Disapprove 59/ Unsure 3 -21

CBS News/New York Times Poll. July 21-25, 2006. N=1,127 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults). RV = registered voters
"Is your opinion of George W. Bush favorable, not favorable, undecided, or haven't you heard enough about George W. Bush yet to have an opinion?"

7/21-25/ Favorable- 32/ Not favorable- 50/Unsure- 15

Diageo/Hotline Poll conducted by Financial Dynamics. July 20-23, 2006. N=800 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.5.

7/20-23 42 54 5

NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll conducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Bill McInturff (R). July 21-24, 2006. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.1.RV =

"All in all, do you think things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction, or do you feel that things are off on the wrong track?"

7/21-24/ Right track 27 /Wrong Track 60/Mixed 11/Unsure 2

USA Today/Gallup Poll. July 21-23, 2006. N=1,005 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.
7/21-23/ 33 65 2


CBS News/New York Times Poll. July 21-25, 2006. N=1,127 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
"As you may know, the federal minimum wage is currently $5.15 an hour. Do you favor or oppose raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over the next two years, or not?"

ALL adults Favor 85/Oppose 13
Democrats 94 5
Independents 84 12
Republicans 75 22

NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll conducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Bill McInturff (R). July 21-24, 2006. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.1.

7/21-24/ 76 20

There's more click on the headline for the link. My question is this, why are the people in the majority called the crazy fringe and the minority called mainstream by the right wing blogs, pundits, and wingnut talkers. What a bunch of bull!

Bail...Faster!

When a person considered far right just 20 years ago sounds like a moderate today you know the ship has tilted to the right till the water is running over the bough.

He didn't support invading Iraq. He says national security decisions are too often made for political gain. And he maintains that Tom DeLay used legal plunder for the immoral purpose of holding onto power.
A Democrat? No. His name is Richard Viguerie, a conservative icon and key architect of Ronald Reagans 1980 victory.....

...I recount a story of [former House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay (R-TX), late one night after dinner, he wants to light up a cigar and the manager says I'm sorry, Mr. DeLay it's against the law to smoke in a federal building. And DeLay says, I am the federal government.
Viguerie spares little in attacking DeLay.
DeLay is singlehandedly the primary person responsible for the most expansion of the government since [Democratic President] Lyndon Johnson, he remarks. Subsequent research by RAW STORY revealed that, according to the CATO Institute, President Bush has exceeded Johnson in terms of discretionary spending.....

I opposed the Iraq war, he says. It's just nation building, and it's just, you know, conservatives, true conservatives oppose America going in there, and now that we're in there I don't know how to get out......
Almost the entire leadership in my opinion should be changed, Viguerie says. They're all complicit in the problem. I think conservatives are in the similar position as the biblical Jews who had to wander in the desert for 40 years until the corrupt leaders had passed away. Then they can go to the promised land.

I can't say I agree with everything this guy says. Not by any stretch, but he sure makes more sense than the wingnut pundits and PNACeers that are running the Republican party now. This is the conservative I am use to. They are people that occasionally could make me feel true guilt and even convince me to modify my position now and then. The radical insane asylum candidates and their wingnut robots that go out and repeat their filth today make me feel nothing but pride that I have absolutely nothing in common with them. They disgust me and are a shameful stain on America and all that it USE TO stand for. By the way I see Dick Cheney and Tom Delay as ringleaders in this shameful enterprise.

Update..From someone far more insightful and with a longer memory than I.