Open thread for night owls: 'Rebuilding the
Dream' lands in Milwaukee

post from Daily Kos on 29 June 2011 11:57:36 PM. © Daily Kos

At the Campaign for America's Future, Terrance Heath writes Milwaukee: Rebuilding The Dream:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus's "Speakout For Good Jobs" tour rolls into Milwaukee, Wisconsin, tonight, on what could hardly be a more auspicious day for workers in that city, as Gov. Scott Walker's bill stripping the state's public workers of almost all collective bargaining rights goes into effect. Walker's assault on public workers is only the most recent chapter of a story of decline much like Detroit's.
According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, Milwaukee only just missed being among the top 10 metropolitan areas that have lost the most jobs since 2000. Fifty-three of the nation's 100 metropolitan areas have lost private sector jobs in the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Forty-seven gained jobs.) With 73,900 private sector jobs lost between May 2000 and May of this year ? a 9.5% decline ? Milwaukee comes in 11th. (Earlier today, the BLS reported that the Milwaukee metropolitan area had an unemployment rate of 8% in May.)
Many of those jobs were lost in a recession that's left millions of Americans unemployed. According to the Department of Labor, Milwaukee lost 50,000 jobs in 2009 ? ranking third after Las Vegas and Detroit, among the nation's largest cities with the most job loss.
Like Detroit, Milwaukee has been hit hard both by the recession and the decline of manufacturing. The city has lost 56,000 manufacturing jobs, and those losses are a big reason why 34% of African American men in Milwaukee are unemployed. ...
The news from Milwaukee is not all bad, though. ... there are people and organizations doing the right thing in Milwaukee and cities like it.

At Daily Kos on this date in 2007:

If you followed the race to map the human genome, it was hard to avoid the name J. Craig Venter. Venter is one of those scientists who other scientists love to hate. Brash, self-aggrandizing (one of the five human DNA sequences used in mapping the genome was his), and irritatingly successful both in developing techniques that sped up the process of mapping and in grabbing patent rights on the sequences his companies have uncovered, Venter has been seen as both hero and villain. He sometimes seems like a character from an old Heinlein novel -- the kind of multi-talented millionaire genius who is out to rule (or ruin) the world.
Yesterday, Venter's team -- naturally located at the J. Craig Venter Institute -- moved a step toward something both utterly intriguing and absolutely unsettling. They took a big step toward creating artificial life.

Top Comments can be found here. High Impact Diaries can be found here.

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-owls:-Rebuilding-the-Dream-lands-in-Milwaukee

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Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 29 June 2011 11:30:22 PM. © Crooks and Liars

enlarge Credit: Driftglass

The Iron Loony, who, let's face it, needs the debt ceiling debate to be over with so the Federal Government can once again "focus on showering the Bachmann clan with subsidy cash." h/t Sauer Kraut.

Open thread below...

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http://crooksandliars.com/driftglass/open-thread-55

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Late Night: Legalizing Gay Marriage in New York
Dooms Gay Marriage in New York

post from Firedoglake on 29 June 2011 11:04:29 PM. © Firedoglake

The legalization of gay marriage in New York has inevitably doomed gay marriage in New York and is a devastating defeat for liberal gay rights activists. If you failed to grasp this truth through intuitive ratiocination that is because you lack the[...]

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Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan could reach $4
trillion

post from AMERICAblog News on 29 June 2011 11:00:47 PM. © AMERICAblog News

That is an obscene amount of money. It's also the sum of money the President offered to recoup with his deficit reduction plan. We wouldn't even need a deficit reduction plan had George Bush not gotten us into these wars (though, I will say I thought Afghanistan was necessary - Iraq, not so much).

HuffPost:

The United States will have spent a total of $3.7 trillion on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, costing 225,000 lives and creating 7.8 million refugees, by the time the conflicts end, according to a report released on Wednesday by Brown University.

The report estimates the U.S. government has already spent between $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion...

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With William Bell

post from Crooks and Liars on 29 June 2011 11:00:38 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Title: I Forgot To Be Your LoverArtist: William Bell

Here's a sexy Stax classic that gives a whole new meaning to the term 'hump day'. Got a sexy groove you want to share?

The Very Best Of William Bell

Price: $9.49 (As of 06/29/11 06:17 pm details)

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http://crooksandliars.com/jared-shade-reynolds/cls-late-night-music-club-w-3

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Two sets of safety records at Upper Big Branch
mine

post from Daily Kos on 29 June 2011 10:55:03 PM. © Daily Kos

Child coal miners Next up, bringing back child labor? There are no words:

Federal mine disaster investigators disclosed a few pieces of new information Tuesday night from their year-long look at the April 2010 deadly Upper Big Branch mine explosion. They said that:
? Mine owner Massey Energy kept two sets of records that chronicled safety problems. One internal set of production reports detailed those problems and how they delayed coal production. But the other records, which are reviewed by federal mine safety inspectors and required by federal law, failed to mention the same safety hazards. Some of the hazards that were not disclosed are identical to those believed to have contributed to the explosion.
? Portions of the Upper Big Branch mine hit by the explosion were not treated for excessive and explosive coal dust because the entryways or tunnels in those areas were too small to accommodate the machine used to spray the material that neutralizes coal dust.

If this isn't considered criminal, it damn well should be.

(h/t Something the Dog Said. See his diary for further discussion.)

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cords-at-Upper-Big-Branch-mine

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Wednesday Stuff

post from The Liberal Doomsayer on 29 June 2011 10:30:00 PM. © The Liberal Doomsayer

Gosh, look what the right-wing's supposed economic genius is up to. Wonder if the bloom is off the rose for our Beltway media's fair-haired boy?...

video details and more

...and I would have put down Laura Meckler of the Murdoch Street Journal a little less politely, but the net effect is the same; good job, Mr. President (and leave it to the AP to come up with this total non-story...I'll trade a "gaffe" like this for the almost-weekly pratfalls of Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History)...

video details and more

...and more like this...a lot more...

video details and more

...and this is a video that's probably more appropriate for the fall or winter, but don't expect me to be able to remember it for that long.

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Bristol Palin: Michele Bachmann's just copying my
mom

post from Daily Kos on 29 June 2011 10:25:02 PM. © Daily Kos

This just might be the dumbest, pettiest attack from a Palin yet?which is really saying something.

"I think [Michele Bachmann] dresses a lot like my mom," Bristol tells me. "But a lot, a lot of women have done that the last few years. I do think it's odd, you know, seeing people with red blazers with their hair up with glasses."
Bristol added a giggle before continuing her thought about Bachmann, a Congresswoman from Minnessota. "I don't know if she's wearing glasses but you want to be hummmm, do you think that people don't notice you're dressing like my mom?"

Uh, Bristol? I know you and your mom have trademarked your names for "educational" purposes, but I don't think your mom invented that whole wearing red thing. In fact, I'm sure there are at least a few women who embraced red jackets first.

Like Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:

REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

And First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State/long-time wearer of red/troops-supporter Hillary Clinton:

REUTERS/POOL

And the once and future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, seated with Assistant to the President/Future Senator of Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren:

REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang

And of course this woman, who was already "copying" the Palin look on Super Tuesday in 2008:

REUTERS/Jason Reed

Nice try, Bristol. But, true to Palin family tradition, this latest word salad is just another FAIL.

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e-Bachmanns-just-copying-my-mom

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The Democratic Dividing Line: Not Ending Safety
Net Programs, Just Cutting Them

Maybe you think those leading Democrats aren't being sincere about this. I actually am fine thinking that they are. Because this has now become the dividing line in American politics: one side wants to destroy the safety net, privatize everything, kill[...]

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President compares GOP to children

Good. Hit them. Hard.

From HuffPost Hill:

PRESIDENT OBAMA CALLS FOR DEBT CEILING DEAL, COMPARES REPUBLICANS TO CHILDREN - At his first press conference since March, President Obama urged lawmakers to break the impasse over the debt ceiling and warned of dire economic consequences if an agreement is not reached. "If everybody else is willing to take on their sacred cows and do tough things in order to achieve the goal of real deficit reduction, then I think it would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that, 'The tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we're not willing to come to the table and get a deal done,' or, 'We're so concerned about protecting oil and gas subsidies for oil companies that are making money hand over fist, that's the reason we're not going to come to a deal,'" he said. Taking a page from -- well -- The Game, the president tried to cajole Republicans into doing things his way by playfully insulting them. "Malia and Sasha generally finish their homework a day ahead of time," he said. "They're not pulling all nighters. They're 13 and 10. You know, Congress can do the same thing. If you know you've got to do something, just do it."