Earlier this week we presented you with the “most social” cities and businesses in America, according to NetProspex, a sales and marketing database company. It’s impressive to see so many people and places adopting social media practices, but alternatively, which areas of the country aren’t so savvy with social networks? To find out NetProspex devised a “social index” (NPSI), which considers “social presence,” measured by “the number of employees with social media profiles across Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook using a corporate email address,” and “social connectedness,” according to “the number of connections across social networks, including Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections”. The NPSI methodology is up for interpretation however, depending on one’s definition of “social”. For example, residents of New Orleans, and other areas of the gulf, took to social media outlets during times of crisis, yet NetProspex recognizes the city as one of the nation’s “least social”. Further, Loyola University of New Orleans is noted for its use of Foursquare on campus, and Tulane University experimented with location-based games on its campus by partnering with SCVNGR. Nonetheless, NetProspex’s data is focused on businesspeople, and so in that sense it does reveal some interesting findings about which locales have the most, or least, engaged social media users working at companies in the area. It’s important to note that social media is being used in cities across the country in order to help re-establish public trust and citizen participation in local government. For example, Newark, New Jersey’s Mayor Cory Booker used Twitter this past winter to track down which streets in the city needed the most assistance after severe blizzards. However, despite one man’s efforts, social media can only be truly effective when the public community is able and willing to engage with it. Check out the list of “10 Least Social Cities,” according to NetProspex, below, then see their list of the “most social” cities. Do you think social media provides value to local communities?
Continue reading …I caught Sherrod Brown talking economic sense for the United States the other day and the need to restore our manufacturing base and do something about putting Americans back to work. Here’s Thom Hartmann on Russia Today addressing the real problem with our economy as well — the jobs crisis. From Thom’s You Tube Channel: So raise the damn debt-ceiling – and get on with addressing the real crisis in America – the crisis created by our insane so-called Free Trade policies and treaties, and greedy corporate CEOs with too much power. Amen brother. It would be nice to see the politicians having their phone lines burnt up over this issue as well instead of just for calls for all of them to compromise with GOP hostage takers on the debt ceiling.
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Pedro Almodóvar made him a star. But then Hollywood beckoned and actor abandoned mentor. Twenty years on, they’re back together – and boy does it feel good… Three decades ago, an impoverished young actor named Antonio Banderas was sitting with friends outside Madrid’s National theatre when a curious figure happened by. The new arrival sported a
Continue reading …While our media is focusing on this debt ceiling debacle and debating whether our politicians might willingly default on America’s debt through this crisis of their own making, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was on the Senate floor this week discussing the real crisis in America — the jobs crisis. With Release of New Study Showing Record Concern Over State of the Manufacturing Industry, Brown Sends Letter to President Obama Urging Greater Focus on Needs of Domestic Manufacturers : Focus Groups Show Americans Want Washington to Focus on Bringing Back Manufacturing Jobs, See Manufacturing as Key to Economic Strength, and Strongly Support the Implementation of a National Manufacturing Strategy July 28, 2011 WASHINGTON, D.C.—With the release of new poll today showing that Americans believe that the strength of the economy is strongly tied to the strength of our manufacturing industry, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to devote greater attention to the needs of domestic manufacturers as he spearheads a consolidation and reorganization of the Administration’s trade agencies. The study, conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing, showed that Americans want Washington to focus on bringing back manufacturing jobs; that they see manufacturing as key to our nation’s economic strength; and that they strongly support the implementation of a National Manufacturing Strategy. Brown is the author of the bipartisan National Manufacturing Strategy Act of 2011, legislation aimed at bolstering the competitiveness of the American manufacturing industry. The goals of the Strategy are to increase manufacturing jobs, identify emerging technologies to strengthen U.S. competitiveness, and strengthen the manufacturing sectors in which the U.S. is most competitive. “The recovery of our manufacturing industry is critical to our country’s economic recovery. Historically, the manufacturing sector has provided Americans with good-paying, stable jobs—a reliable pathway to the middle class. It’s no wonder that with factories closing down and jobs going to China and Mexico that Americans think that Washington isn’t doing enough to save this vital industry,” Brown said. “But the good news is that we can work to reverse the damage—by closing loopholes for companies that ship jobs abroad and giving businesses strong incentives to Make It In America. We should be vigorously enforcing our trade laws—particularly with countries like China—and cracking down on currency manipulation and duty evasion. And finally, as one of the only developed nations without one, we must implement a National Manufacturing Strategy. A complete economic recovery requires a sustained strategy to ensure long-term job growth and job creation.” According to the American Alliance for Manufacturing, the study included eight focus groups nationwide, as well as a random national survey of 1,202 likely voters. The study found that across the partisan spectrum, Democratic and Republican voters ranked job creation and rebuilding the nation’s manufacturing base at the top of their list of priorities. In addition, 94% of voters say creating manufacturing jobs is either “one of the most important” things government can do or “very important;” 90% support Buy American policies “to ensure that taxpayer-funded government projects use only U.S.-made goods and supplies wherever possible;” and 95% favor keeping “America’s trade laws strong and strictly enforced to provide a level playing field for our workers and businesses.” Earlier this month, GAO released a report—requested by Brown and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) — entitled Office of Manufacturing and Services Could Better Measure and Communicate Its Contributions to Trade Policy . At the time of requesting the report, Brown was serving as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Banking, House, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy, where he chaired nine hearings on the state of American manufacturing industry. A copy of the GAO report can be found here . A full copy of the letter to the President is below. Dear Mr. President: In your State of the Union address, you called for consolidating and reorganizing the Administration’s trade agencies. To that end, you tasked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to examine the consolidation of export and trade offices managed primarily by the Office of U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department. During this process, I urge you to ensure that this reorganization focuses not only upon export-related efforts but also the non-export policy needs of domestic manufacturers. Currently, the Office of Manufacturing and Services (MAS) is the designated office for supporting the Secretary of Commerce in his role as the federal government’s chief advocate for American manufacturing. This office is within the International Trade Administration (ITA) and primarily supports sectors that have a direct connection to exports or impact trade flows. With more than 90 percent of the world’s customers outside the United States, this focus on exports is clearly a central plank in a national manufacturing strategy and efforts. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), in a report I requested, found that MAS set an internal goal for 75 percent of its resources to support the National Export Initiative (NEI). This singular focus upon exports is of great concern, especially when greater challenges face the manufacturing sector than export barriers, including: tax issues; access to credit and financing for viable producers; workforce training; and regulations. These challenges take on new urgency considering that from 2000-2009, fifteen of the nineteen aggregate-level U.S. manufacturing sectors shrank in output while manufacturing jobs fell by 6.1 million, or 34 percent. You have given manufacturing policy significant attention, as outlined in the December 2010 “Framework to Revitalize American Manufacturing” and as evident in your recently announced Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. Further, your efforts to restructure the auto industry have saved thousands of jobs in my state and throughout the country, and now we are seeing new jobs created in the auto sector. I fully support and encourage your efforts, but request that you consider a comprehensive and sustainable structure within the Commerce Department to serve as the voice for domestic manufacturers and the integrator of Federal agency manufacturing efforts within yours and future Administrations. I have proposed legislation that will help to achieve these goals, which with your support has the potential to create a more cohesive and coordinated approach to promoting U.S. manufacturers.
Continue reading …The ‘Job Creators’ myth: Our corporate masters are aiming for the Latin American model of oligarchy
July 29, 2011 No Commentenlarge Credit: David Horsey/Seattle P-I Anyone remember what it was like to work in the late 1990s? The memories are fading fast as the years of persistent joblessness pile up — years that began well before the big crash in 2008, when it was already self-evident that the Bush administration’s claims that massive tax cuts for the wealthy were the sure route to full employment were an epochal load of hooey. Now even that seems like a quaint and distant memory. In 1998, it was a workers’ market: Everyone I know had a good job, and a lot of them were in the tech sector. Good benefits were a given, as were good salaries. If the working conditions sucked, there was always someone else who offered a better environment and maybe better pay too. That was before the tech bubble burst in 2001. I spent that year working in investment journalism in a newsroom that primarily revolved around the stock market. I remember remarking on a number of articles we published in which corporate honchos bitched bitterly about the fact that they had lost the ability to control their workers, to ignore their workplace demands, and to short-change their benefits, or whatever other steps they might take to shore up their corporate bottom lines and make their shareholders happier. I remember thinking at the time that the economic tides would inevitably turn, and the next time these folks wound up on top and it became, once again, an employer’s market, they would make certain that they never found themselves in that position again. We used to joke, back in the ’90s, that a recession was the Republican way of shortening the lift lines. It’s a truism that the wealthy despise having to share too much of their space with too many other people. And in the late ’90s, they were having to share their space with a whole lot of freshly well-to-do people. Well, that isn’t an issue now. Problem solved. I imagine the wintertime lift lines at Sun Valley are pretty wide open these days. Because the reality, of course, is that while the average CEO now makes (as of 2009) only 263 times what his average worker makes (down from a high of 525 times in 2000), they almost never in fact take the windfalls they reap from those huge tax breaks and actually invest the money in employing people. Instead, they ratchet up their bonuses and salaries another notch or two, buy another yacht or another condo in the Bahamas, and tuck the rest away in a tax-free account in the Caymans. They’re currently proving , by sidelining all this cash, that giving them tax breaks doesn’t do a damned thing for job creation — perhaps it does exactly the opposite. Moreover, they continue reaping large salaries while worker payrolls are slashed. Now people just cling to whatever jobs they can, keep their heads down, and count their lucky stars if they still have work. Either that, or they join the ranks of the eternal jobless. A year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the ongoing hoarding of large sums of cash by corporate CEOs was “not sustainable” . But instead, not only have they sustained it, the hoarding and resulting joblessness have soured whatever faint signs of a recovery we saw in 2000-2010. Another bit of conventional wisdom we keep hearing is that 9 percent unemployment may be with us for quite awhile. They seem to be institutionalizing the joblessness — and are quite content to do so. This was what my late friend Frank Church used to tell me: One comment in particular, however, stands out in my mind these days. We were talking about America’s future, and where the conservative cadre that was then taking over the Republican Party intended to take us. His expression darkened, and it was clear that he had a good deal of foreboding in this regard. “What I fear most,” he said, “is the Latin Americanization of America.” He wasn’t concerned, of course, with the arrival of Latinos on American soil (or what Pat Buchanan calls “Meximerica”) except insofar as that could be manipulated to achieve this end. What he feared was that corporatist conservatives, if given free rein, would turn our standard of living into what you find in Latin America. That working Americans would one day be reduced to the level of near-serfdom that is the common way of life for millions of Latinos. During the Clinton years, of course, this fear looked farther and farther remote — everyone’s wages were rising, jobs were being created by the millions, and our standard of living was never healthier. I began to think that we had staved off Church’s specter, perhaps forever. But then, I never imagined the Bush years, either. The Latin American landscape is largely an oligarchy: a land ruled by the wealthy, for the wealthy, and at the expense of ordinary working people, who are left to fend for themselves for whatever scraps the ruling elite deigns to toss them. The ruling elite in the United States like that model. That’s how America used to be, after all, a century ago: eighty-hour work weeks were the norm, there were no vacations or weekends or health benefits, no workers’ organizing rights. Child labor was common. There was no Great American Middle Class then, no consumer society. It was an oligarchy then. They’ve even been explicit about wanting America to be driven to second-class status. Take Paul Broun the other day: Well, Andrea, the thing is when someone is overextended and broke they don’t continue paying for expensive automobiles. They sell the expensive automobiles and buy a cheaper one. They don’t continue paying for country club dues. They drop out of the country club. We need to pay down the debt. That’s why they’re perfectly happy to wreck the economy in the hopes it will be blamed on President Obama: It suits their ends anyway. If the oligarchy has its way, the lift lines are going to be getting very short indeed.
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Fox News's Steve Doocy and former CIA officer Michael Scheuer took the gossip site Gawker to task Friday for claiming to out the identity of the CIA officer responsible for orchestrating the bib Laden raid in May. “I think most of the media is anti-Agency, and they think it's fun to put people at risk,” said Scheuer. [VIDEO SOON] Scheuer also pointed out that the story was not getting nearly as much coverage as the Valerie Plame scandal. “I think it's much worse. Ms. Plame probably didn't have a lot of enemies around the world that remember going to come looking for them. But this fellow responsible for Osama bin Laden's death or in part for it is certainly at risk.” He further noted that the mainstream media has a history of bias against American intelligence services. “For example, you know, the Pulitzer Prize for treason, if I remember correctly, went to the woman at the Washington Post who exposed the Agency's black sites during the rendition program. So the media and the media establishment rewards this kind of conduct,” said Scheuer. Doocy also pointed out that there was no evidence that the individual highlighted by Gawker is even the agent in question. “Steve, the average high school yearbook staff has more integrity and common sense than Gawker or AP. They might have put an entirely mistaken personality on someone's bull's eye. It's an extraordinarily reckless unprofessional thing to do,” said Scheuer. “The news was bin Laden was killed. The officers in the military and the Agency responsible for that should have been congratulated, end of story. No one needs to know anybody who was involved in that operation.” A transcript of the exchange, which aired at 6:51 a.m. on Friday, follows.
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Type: Book Title: Beyond All Price See all customer reviews Product Description: *Beyond All Price is a historical novel, based on the life story of Nellie M. Chase, a Union nurse during America’s Civil War. She was strong enough to escape from an abusive relationship and resourceful enough to find a job as wardrobe mistress for a theater. The actress with whom she shared a room in a squalid tenement took an overdose of opium in an effort to escape a life of prostitution. Nellie joined the Union Army, because life in the midst of a war seemed safer than the one she had been living. * She found a home with the 100th Pennsylvania Regiment, known as “The Roundheads” because of their religious beliefs. Her skill and compassion led one of her patients to write, “Even here, amid the roar and carnage, was found a woman with the soul to dare danger; the heart to sympathize with the battle-stricken; sense, skill, and experience to make her a treasure beyond all price.” * She was equally at home managing a southern plantation full of abandoned slaves, a battlefield operating station, or a 600-bed military hospital. After the war, her deep-seated need to dedicate her life to a worthy cause continued to drive her efforts until she faced an enemy more lethal than war. Features: ISBN13: 9780982774502 Condition: New Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold! See the details
Continue reading …It’s going to be a strange sight to be sure: America’s tallest tower will be smack dab in the middle of the deserts of the Southwest, and for good reason. This skyscraper will not be an office building, but a massive solar energy complex, reports KNXV-TV . The tower, to be…
Continue reading …Rick Perry does a ‘Romney Flip’ on gay marriage and now wants a federal ban
July 28, 2011 No CommentAt first Rick Perry had no problem that gay marriage became legal in New York state, telling reporters that it was fine with him. But as soon as he was interviewed by the extreme religious right’s Family Research Council, he flip-flopped and announced he was against it . Texas Governor Rick Perry (R), one of the country’s most prominent defenders of the 10th Amendment, is making an exception when it comes to gay marriage. After initially telling reporters that it’s “fine with me” if states like New York legalize same-sex unions through their own legislature, Perry is pulling a 180 and calling for a Federal Marriage Amendment. Perry, who is flirting with a presidential bid, clarified his position to Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in an interview. “I probably needed to add a few words after that ‘it’s fine with me’ and that it’s fine with me that a state is using their sovereign rights to decide an issue,” he said. “Obviously gay marriage is not fine with me. My stance hasn’t changed.” Perry said he supported changing the Constitution in order to ban gay marriage, a position that he characterized as supportive of states’ rights even as it would overrule New York’s own decision on the matter. “The real fear is states like New York will change the definition of marriage for Texas,” he said. “That is the reason the Federal Marriage Amendment is being offered. It’s a small group of activists judges and really a small handful, if you will, of states and these liberal special interest groups that are intent on a redefinition, if you will, of marriage on the nation for all of us, which I adamantly oppose. Indeed, to not pass the Federal Marriage Amendment would impinge on Texas’ and other states’ right not to have marriage forced upon them by these activist judges and these special interest groups.” His latest statement represents a major about-face and may be a preview of how he might court social conservatives should he run for president. At a fundraiser in Colorado last week, Perry was extremely clear in his support for New York’s right to determine their own definition of marriage. Think Progress writes: Rick Perry Tosses Tentherism Under The Bus To Placate Anti-Gay Hate Group Perry’s claim that he supports states’ rights to govern themselves, while simultaneously supporting the anti-gay “Federal Marriage Amendment” is impossible to reconcile. The FMA provides that : Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups . So Perry’s position is that we should ram his anti-gay views down New York voters’ throats by rewriting the Constitution to make marriage equality illegal in all 50 states. The states can have any law they want, so long as Perry approves of them. Perry’s attempt to impose anti-gay bigotry on progressive states is also a stark contrast to his stance on economic issues. While Perry is perfectly willing to let the federal government force New York to discriminate against gay couples, he believes that Texas should have the right to flout Medicaid laws, ignore federal education laws and thumb its nose at environmental regulations . In other words, Perry doesn’t actually care one bit about the 10th Amendment — he doesn’t even care all that much about his own twisted tenther interpretation of the 10th Amendment — he just wants to force everyone to live the way he wants them to live. Does America really want another Governor from Texas elected as President? He certainly shares the flip-flopping quality that defines Mitt Romney’s political career. But his kowtowing to the religious right is straight out of George W. Bush’s playbook.
Continue reading …Today Raúl Grijalva, a tireless champion on behalf of America’s hard-pressed working families and an old and trusted friend of Blue America’s– our only endorsed candidate with a dedicated Act Blue Page — will be spending an hour with us here from noon to 1pm, PT, 3-4pm back East to help us understand the machinations of the debt ceiling debate roiling Washington– and the financial markets– of late. He’ll be answering questions in the live forum in the comments section below. Aside from representing a sprawling southern Arizona congressional district that encompasses everything from the western half of Tucson down to Nogales on the Mexican border and across to Yuma on the California border, Raúl is also the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (with Keith Ellison ). The Progressive Caucus is Congress’ largest, with 76 Members. In the Great Shellacking last year, when Democrats lost the House in a rout, the CPC essentially held it’s ground. While the conservative Blue Dogs lost more than half their members, the CPC only lost 4, all swept away by the refusal of Democratic and left-leaning voters to put their disappointment in Obama aside and turn out to vote. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Phil Hare (D-IL) and John Hall (D-NY) were the casualties. The Caucus picked up 3 new members at the same time: Karen Bass (D-CA), David Cicilline (D-CA) and Frederica Wilson (D-FL). I spent some time on the phone with Raúl yesterday trying to get a better grasp on what the Caucus does and what it hopes to accomplish. Unlike the Blue Dogs, it is not a fundraising powerhouse. They are hardly the darlings of the K Street lobbyists and power-brokers who distribute the legalistic bribes to the members and the organizations that doing their bidding. When the Murdoch scandal started to break, one of the first things we saw was that his PAC was donating heavily to the Blue Dogs. Find a scandal or an outrage in any newspaper and you’ll find a source of contributions to the Blue Dogs– though never to the CPC. Members dues, meager, go to pay a single staffer and for some office supplies. Raúl sees the CPC was a vehicle to unify Congress’ disparate progressive voices and to go beyond just unifying around individual votes. He has been working diligently to assert a kind of independence from the party leadership based on solidly progressive values and principles. “We’re often taken for granted,” he told me. “Leadership thinks ‘they have nowhere else to go’.” That’s why we’ve seen Pelosi, and especially Hoyer, making legislation and strategy more and more conservative to lure Blue Dogs and other conservatives, while basically ignoring progressives. But Raúl and Keith have forged together an inner core of nearly three dozen members who are serious about breaking away from playing the insider game that always leaves progressives coming up short. They are building relationships with grassroots activists and advocates for the progressive agenda around the country, groups dedicated to working families, education, the environment, equality, peace… all the issues that differentiate progressives from conservatives. And they are making their members available to the media and helping give them national visibility beyond their own districts. Raúl tells me that they even plan to utilize the CPC Pac to help elect progressives in districts held by Republicans and in open districts. Yesterday Raúl cut our chat short to get to a CPC meeting where they resolved to endorse Peter Welch’s H.R. 2663, The America Pays its Bills Act. The bill calls for a clean debt ceiling vote in order to end the Republican-created Default crisis. They also resolved that “failing a timely, satisfactory legislative agreement to end the Republican-created default crisis, the CPC urges the President to use his powers granted under section 4 of the 14th amendment to raise the ceiling.”
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