Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 5:20pm.
BuzzFlash Mailbag
BUZZFLASH MAILBAG Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts with other Mailbag readers by clicking here. You also may comment below; post articles yourself at BuzzFlash.net; or send urls for BuzzFlash to post to: www.buzzflash.com/contact/newstip.html. Subject: BUSH TO-DO George W. took his crew, To Iraq for a peek-a-boo. Where he found he was taboo, When he had to duck a shoe. George thought he was a savior, He did not expect this behavior. He looked for a warm howdy-do, Not a filthy flying shoe. He set all the natives free, By bombing cities merrily. So it is hard for him to understand, Why there's any hatred in the land. But when he came to take his bow, There is no love for him somehow. His war had caused hatred too, And he had to duck that shoe. Poor George, there's no respect, For a war and its architect. But only contempt and hullabaloo, And that filthy flying shoe. Linn Hamilton Houston, Pennsylvania
 Technorati Tags: BuzzFlash Mailbag Opinion Arne Duncan Bush Shoes Iraq Cheney Torture
Submitted by meg on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 4:20pm.
Analysis
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White
The standoff at Republic Windows & Doors finally ended last week. The Chicago company that said it couldn't get the money from its bank to pay its fired workers had no more excuses, and members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) Local 1110 left the factory they'd been peacefully occupying since the beginning of the month.
The enormous pressure applied by leaders all over the country, along with support from President-elect Barack Obama, opened the floodgates. Bank of America finally agreed to pay out a $1.35 million settlement to laid-off workers. JP Morgan Chase, which owns a minority share in the now-defunct company, pitched in an extra $400,000. The money went straight into two funds: one to pay workers the severance and vacation pay owed to them by Republic, and the other to try and write a new chapter in the story of the decades-old factory. Technorati Tags: Analysis bailout chicago echo republic windows bank of america illinois iowa union protest sit in work settlement
Submitted by Chad on Wed, 12/17/2008 - 11:52am.
Alerts
We have a Secretary of Agriculture: former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack is expected to get the post. Vilsack got some exposure with his brief run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. After he withdrew, Vilsack was named national co-chair for the Hillary Clinton campaign. He is a two-term governor of Iowa (1999-2007), the first Democrat in the post in 30 years. Vilsack will be the third governor in a row to run the department. In an essay on BuzzFlash from last week, we outlined some of the overhaul needed from the incoming Secretary of Agriculture. It would seem that Vilsack has the energy and interest to shake things up. But is he too wed to the ways things have gone in farm states such as Iowa? Technorati Tags: Alerts Chad Rubel Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack Iowa
P.M. Carpenter
THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
Caroline Kennedy must be asking herself one question and only one question these days: "Who will rid me of these troublesome malcontents?" You know who she means: those single-issue bellyachers of the modern political world, the plucky Clintonistas, whose one cause -- the greater glorification of Her Hillaryship -- can be advanced, or so they believe, only through the underhanded undermining of all who fail to prostrate themselves before their fallen idol. And that, of course, was Ms. Kennedy's unforgivable sin during the Democratic primaries, for which she now must pay. For it was then she possessed the unattenuated gall to publicly promote the candidate of her choice -- Barack Obama -- a dark transgression indeed. That sort of thing is r
Technorati Tags: P.M. Carpenter kennedy clinton new york senate
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 4:03pm.
BuzzFlash Mailbag
BUZZFLASH MAILBAG Want to join the conversation? Share your thoughts with other Mailbag readers by clicking here. You also may comment below; post articles yourself at BuzzFlash.net; or send urls for BuzzFlash to post to: www.buzzflash.com/contact/newstip.html. Subject: Shearing the American sheeple It was on the news last night. To make the big "bailout" palatable to the public, the Congress made a show of putting in strong wording that none of it could be used to enrich the bungling executives. Turns out, the White House added a small sentence saying this restriction would only apply to bailout packages that were bought by the government in "auctions." Hundreds of billions have been delivered to the financial institutions, not one by auction. Technorati Tags: BuzzFlash Mailbag Opinion Shoe Bush Madoff SEC Auto Bailout
Submitted by Chad on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 3:22pm.
Analysis
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Chad Rubel There is a lot of news coming from Detroit these days, mostly about the auto bailout and the ramifications if the Big Three don't get some help. We have relied primarily on the Detroit Free Press, though the Detroit News is the other major daily paper in the Motor City.
But now, two newspapers that have taken on more problems than your typical daily newspaper are about to take on yet a big blow. As part of the Detroit newspapers plan to cut 9 percent of their workforce, Detroit area residents will no longer be able to get 7-day delivery service of the paper.
The Free Press will be delivered Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays starting in March, while The News will be delivered Thursdays and Fridays. The papers still will be printed and sold at newsstands.
While newspapers across the country have suffered giant blows over classified advertising losses, among other problems, the papers really suffered as a result of a 30-month strike, starting in July 1995. Technorati Tags: Analysis
Submitted by christine on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 2:22pm.
Analysis
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman UPDATE: The shoe-throwing story is far from over. Now the Iraqi parliament speaker says he's resigning after legislators argued about the case. 1500 demonstrators took to the streets Wednesday in the Baghdad Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah to demand al-Zeidi's release. [chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld]
The shoe story won't go away. President Bush must take hold of this incident and redirect it -- or it could soon spin totally out of control. Technorati Tags: Analysis Bush Shoe Defuse Incident Zaida Protest Terrorism
Submitted by Chad on Tue, 12/16/2008 - 11:39am.
Be-Elected
So far we have had two sitting governors and one current senator grabbed to be a part of Barack Obama's cabinet. Well, add another senator with the pick of Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) to be Secretary of the Interior.
On the surface, it's good to get more Hispanics (up to two) in the Cabinet, and Salazar is well qualified. But a Senate seat in the West that the Democrats barely won in 2004 will now be a brighter target in 2010.
There is current speculation that Ken's brother John, a three-term Congressman, might be the replacement selected by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter. And that would bring the total of Hispanics in the Senate back to three. Of course, that leaves the 3rd Congressional District as a more prominent target for the GOP.
Republicans don't pick sitting officeholders for Cabinet positions. But Democrats seem to like picking current officeholders.
Technorati Tags: Be-Elected Chad Rubel Barack Obama Cabinet Democrats
P.M. Carpenter
THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
Here's a statistic, as reported yesterday by the Washington Post, that genuinely enrages and makes me want to fling a bleeping shoe or two at a certain someone: "Study groups have pegged total infrastructure repair needs at $1.6 trillion." OK, OK, enough with the shoe-throwing and substitute expletives already. But our holiday from reality is over, which itself is way overdue, and that's what merely one of the many infuriatingly outstanding bills looks like: an incomprehensibly immense figure that never needed to be. One point six trillion -- and that number, you may have noticed, is for infrastructure repair; which is
Technorati Tags: P.M. Carpenter infrastructure bush obama unemployment
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