Censored Whig Letters

http://www.toysmadeinamerica.com/

In response to my column, Buying American-made Toys, I was sent this link. Democrats, progressives, patriots and labor leaders need to add this link to all our websites and newsletters.

DEB KOZIKOWSKI provided the link. Here is some information from the Rural Votes.com website about her:

“A former elementary educator, Deb serves as CAP Chair for the National Writers Union, United Auto Workers, Local 1981. She has broad background as a business and technical writer and small business consultant as well as a long career in real estate. In 2004 she served as liaison between the Kerry Campaign and Rural Leaders for Kerry and was a co-founder of the DNC’s Rural Working Group. A lifelong resident of western Massachusetts, Deb currently serves as Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and is a member of the Executive Board of the Association of State Democratic Chairs.”

———————————————————————————————————

EDITOR’S NOTE: Another link.

American Made Toys
http://www.usmadechildrenstoys.com/

Buying American-made Toys

I did not buy any toys for the many children in my life this year. Admittedly, money was very tight after the economy collapsed from eight years of Republican mismanagement. However, the main reason I did the scrooge thing this Christmas is that I simply refused to buy Chinese made toys for the American children I love so dearly.

The American children I love so dearly need to inherit, from all of us, a nation with a strong manufacturing base. These children need to grow up in an economy that will pay good wages to all our citizens and that actually makes things. Buying cheap junk made in third world nations for Christmas presents is not doing these children any favors.

I cannot understand why no American toy companies are making toys in America. Obviously, the greed of the corporations and American governmental trade policy has combined to destroy toy manufacturing in this nation. If both our corporate leaders and government officials cannot change their behaviors and start making toys in America, we should boycott completely imported toys and change our elected leaders at the first opportunity.

Making toys in low wage nations does fatten the bottom line of corporations at the expense of the future of the American economy. It helps pay the outrageously bloated salaries of corporate CEO’s but actually does little to reduce the cost to consumers. It often means shoddy and unsafe toys are being given to our children. The corporate CEO’s need to curb their greed and start thinking about the future of the American economy!

One of the first things we can do, starting right after the beginning of the New Year, is to visit as many retail stores as possible and file written complaints about the non-availability of American-made toys this past Christmas. Every Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target and toy store in America should be getting hundreds or thousands of complaints from patriotic Americans. We owe it to our children to demand that the toys that we buy for them actually contribute to a better future for them when they become working adults.

Imported toys do not contribute to a better future for today’s children. They do not contribute tax revenues to provide healthcare and better schools in the way American-made toys do. They do not provide decent paying jobs for their parents in the way American-made toys do. They are certainly not as safe as American-made toys.

American-made toys help pay the national debt and reduce the trade imbalance with foreign nations by reducing imports. American-made products help build the American economy. They help pay for our police forces, emergency services and military.

Retailers who do not sell American-made toys should be boycotted. Toy companies who do not manufacture toys in America should be boycotted. Toy imports should be taxed heavily. Imported, cheaply-made, often unsafe toys are not in the national interest. Our governmental policies should reflect clearly that reality.

Toy companies need to hear from consumers that Americans want to buy toys made in America. I urge consumer groups, labor unions, church groups, political activists and patriotic individuals to organize efforts to get this message to the toy companies. Our political leaders need to hear the same message.

We can all circulate petitions at work and in our communities. We can all write members of Congress and President Obama. We can write our local newspapers, blog on the Internet and call radio stations. A little picketing of toy stores, Wal-Marts, corporate headquarters of toy companies and Congressional field offices might help us deliver the message that American-made toys are one of the many changes we need to make in the American economy.

I will certainly be talking about this subject on my Democratic Talk Radio program in 2009. I hope other patriotic talk radio hosts regardless of ideology will join in these efforts along with writers and grassroots political activists. We owe it to the children of America.

Greedy, unpatriotic corporations should not be forcing me or you to choose between disappointing the children we love or being unpatriotic consumers mortgaging the economic future of those same children. We are willing to buy American.

The challenge to Wall Street and corporate America is simply stated, “Are you willing to manufacture and sell us the American-made products we want to buy?” Those companies smart enough to accept the challenge will certainly have a ready and willing market of patriotic Americans who love our children.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com) . Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish or reproduce without prior approval.

Democratic Talk Radio 2008 Villain & Hero Awards

Political villains were rampant in 2008. It was impossible to give a single award for the injustices committed for solely political reasons this past year. For the first time ever, Democratic Talk Radio was unable to even narrow the infamous winners to just two. We have selected three “Villains of 2008” to share the award.

Our first choice is obvious. Fox News wins the first 2008 villain slot for their disinformation campaign against ACORN. The efforts of Fox News to provide political cover for Republican efforts at voter suppression during the 2008 elections were, in the opinion of Democratic Talk Radio, the lowest thing ever done by Fox News.

The second winner for 2008 political villain is George McGovern. Fans of Democratic Talk Radio may be surprised by this choice. Frankly, we never expected to be giving a former Democratic Presidential candidate a villain of the year award. However, McGovern has lent his name to the Right-Wing, corporate effort to undermine workers’ right to unionize. George McGovern has allied himself with the anti-worker efforts to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. His TV commercials are frankly an open act on working Americans. McGovern has disgraced himself by joining with the most anti-working class political forces in America and misleading the American public on the nature of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Senate Republicans out to destroy the American auto industry and the United Auto Workers union are our third villainous winners. Senator Corker of Tennessee, Senator Shelby of Alabama, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Vitter of Louisiana and their fellow Senate Republicans put the interests of foreign corporations over the interests of the American economy. Since all were opposed by the United Auto Workers in previous elections because of their militantly anti-worker voting records, their efforts are obviously motivated by personal political considerations that directly undermine the national interest. These Senate Republicans have sided with foreign companies to drive down the wages and healthcare benefits of American workers.

The hero of the year selected by Democratic Talk Radio is Al Franken. The American nation should be delighted at his political courage and determination. By insisting that all the votes be counted in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race, Franken has set a good example for all candidates running for office and for American voters. American Democracy has been strengthened by his resolve.

Al Franken will be a great asset should he eventually prevail when all the votes are finally counted. Norm Coleman has been very aggressive in his attempts to undermine a free and fair counting of the ballots.

For more information, contact Stephen Crockett at 443-907-2367.

UAW busting, Southern style

Foreign carmakers are enlisting the help of GOP senators from states in the South to break the union.
By Bruce Raynor

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-raynor18-2008dec18,0,4066838.story

The foreign nonunion auto companies located in the South have a plan to reduce wages and benefits at their factories in the United States. And to do it, they need to destroy the United Auto Workers.

Last week, Senate Republicans from some Southern states went to work trying to do just that, on the foreign car companies’ behalf. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Bob Corker ( R-Tenn.) and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) — representatives from states that subsidize companies such as Honda, Volkswagen, Toyota and Nissan — first tried to force the UAW to take reductions in wages and benefits as a condition for supporting the auto industry bailout bill. When the UAW refused, those senators torpedoed the bill.

They claimed that they couldn’t support the bill without specifics about how wages would be “restructured.” They didn’t, however, require such specificity when it came to bailing out the financial sector. Their grandstanding, and the government’s generally lackluster response to the auto crisis, highlight many of the problems that have caused our current economic mess: the lack of concern about manufacturing, the privileged way our government treats the financial sector, and political support given to companies that attempt to slash worker’s wages.

When one compares how the auto industry and the financial sector are being treated by Congress, the double standard is staggering. In the financial sector, employee compensation makes up a huge percentage of costs. According to the New York state comptroller, it accounted for more than 60% of 2007 revenues for the seven largest financial firms in New York.

At Goldman Sachs, for example, employee compensation made up 71% of total operating expenses in 2007. In the auto industry, by contrast, autoworker compensation makes up less than 10% of the cost of manufacturing a car. Hundreds of billions were given to the financial-services industry with barely a question about compensation; the auto bailout, however, was sunk on this issue alone.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger realized that the existence of the union was under attack, which is why he refused to give in to the Senate Republicans’ demands that the UAW make further concessions. I say “further” because the union has already conceded a lot. Its 2007 contract introduced a two-tier contract to pay new hires $15 an hour (instead of $28) with no defined pension plan and dramatic cuts to their health insurance. In addition, the UAW agreed that healthcare benefits for existing retirees would be transferred from the auto companies to an independent trust. With the transferring of the healthcare costs, the labor cost gap between the Big Three and the foreign transplants will be almost eliminated by the end of the current contracts.

These concessions go some distance toward leveling the playing field (retiree costs are still a factor for the Big Three). But what the foreign car companies want is to level — which is to say, wipe out — the union. They currently discourage their workforce from organizing by paying wages comparable to the Big Three’s UAW contracts. In fact, Toyota’s per-hour wages are actually above UAW wages.

However, an internal Toyota report, leaked to the Detroit Free Press last year, reveals that the company wants to slash $300 million out of its rising labor costs by 2011. The report indicated that Toyota no longer wants to “tie [itself] so closely to the U.S. auto industry.” Instead, the company intends to benchmark the prevailing manufacturing wage in the state in which a plant is located. The Free Press reported that in Kentucky, where the company is headquartered, this wage is $12.64 an hour, according to federal labor statistics, less than half Toyota’s $30-an-hour wage.

If the companies, with the support of their senators, can wipe out or greatly weaken the UAW, they will be free to implement their plan.

But their plan will not work. The Bush administration is likely to keep the Big Three alive long enough for President-elect Barack Obama to construct a real solution. Democrats and even most Republicans understand that a nation that has already lost 2 million jobs this year cannot afford to put at risk 3 million more.

What the economy needs now is rising wages so the country can get on the path of wage-driven consumption growth. That means stronger unions. Indeed, I believe eventually it will mean the unionization of the entire U.S. auto industry.

Bruce Raynor is the general president of Unite Here, a union of 465,000 workers in the apparel, textile, laundry, food service, distribution, hotel and gaming industries.

Edwards: Collapse of auto industry would threaten thousands of Marylanders

By Danny Reiter
PolitickerMD.com Reporter

Dec 11, 2008

U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Fort Washington) said Thursday that if Congress doesn’t step in to assist the ailing U.S. auto industry, over 2,000 Maryland workers could face unemployment…..

Click on link to read the rest of the article.

http://www.politickermd.com/danielreiter/4302/edwards-collapse-auto-industry-would-threaten-thousands-marylanders

Obama, Biden to hold event in Baltimore before inauguration

By Paul West

December 15, 2008

WASHINGTON

President-elect Barack Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families will hold a pre-inaugural event in Baltimore on Saturday, Jan. 17, as they travel to Washington by train for the swearing-in ceremony the next week, it was announced today.

The presidential inaugural committee said that the Baltimore appearance would be “in the tradition of past presidents-elect,” who have staged a variety of events on their way to Washington to begin their administration.

According to the committee, the Jan. 17 events are in keeping with the theme of the inauguration –”Renewing America’s Promise” — and will feature cities with historic connections to that theme: Philadelphia, where the country’s promise was realized in the signing of the Declaration of Independence; Baltimore, “where that promise was defended, then immortalized in our national anthem”; and Washington, the nation’s capital, where four days of inaugural celebrations are to be held next month….

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/politics/bal-obama1215,0,3717294.story

For some Senate Republicans, a vote against the bailout was a vote against the United Auto Workers, and against organized labor in general.

By Jim Puzzanghera
December 13, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-gopunions13-2008dec13,0,1950236,full.story

Reporting from Washington — The congressional push to help U.S. automakers was generally cast in terms of protecting the reeling national economy from another body blow — the collapse of one or more of Detroit’s Big Three.

But in killing the stopgap rescue plan worked out by President Bush and congressional Democrats, conservative Republicans — many from right-to-work states across the South — struck at an old enemy: organized labor.

“If the [United Auto Workers], which is perceived as one of the strongest unions in the country, can be put under control, that may send a message across the whole country,” said Michigan State University professor Richard Block, a labor relations expert.

Such antipathy to unions was an undercurrent through the weeks of negotiations leading up to Thursday’s Senate vote rejecting the plan.

Handing a defeat to labor and its Democratic allies in Congress was also seen as a preemptive strike in what is expected to be a major battle for the new Congress in January: the unions’ bid for a so-called card check law that would make it easier for them to organize workers, potentially reversing decades of declining power. The measure is strongly opposed by business groups.

“This is the Democrats’ first opportunity to pay off organized labor after the election,” read an e-mail circulated Wednesday among Senate Republicans. “This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.”

One of the leading opponents of the auto bailout, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), said: “Year after year, union bosses have put their interests ahead of the workers they claim to represent. Congress never should have given these unions this much power, and now is the time to fix it.”

Of course, for Democrats’ part, they were fighting for one of their most loyal supporters in backing the $14-billion bailout.

The UAW, which represents about 150,000 employees of the Big Three, delivered campaign contributions and foot soldiers to help elect Barack Obama president, especially in crucial states such as Michigan and Ohio.

What lent a bipartisan gloss to Senate Democrats’ effort was the fact that party leaders had negotiated for days with the White House and made a string of concessions that toughened the bill and won active support from the Bush White House.

Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), a strong auto industry supporter, acknowledged that some of his colleagues simply did not want to help the UAW.

“We have many senators from right-to-work states, and I quite frankly think they have no use for labor,” he said. “Labor usually supports very heavily Democrats and I think that some of the lack of enthusiasm for this [bailout] was that some of them didn’t want to do anything for the United Auto Workers.”

One major car dealer said conservatives let political ideology get in the way of protecting the country’s interests.

“Being a Republican myself, I feel very betrayed by the Republican Party right now,” said Beau Boeckmann, vice president of Galpin Motors Inc. in North Hills. Galpin has the nation’s largest Ford dealership as well as lots where it sells eight other foreign and domestic brands.

The anti-union sentiment rose to the surface in the final desperate hours of negotiations. Republicans insisted that the UAW agree to cut its wages to be competitive with foreign companies such as Honda, Toyota and BMW by a set date.

UAW officials and their Democratic allies balked, saying the autoworkers were being told to make sacrifices that had not been demanded of other industries receiving government bailouts.

“We could not accept the effort by the Senate GOP caucus to single out workers and retirees for different treatment and to make them shoulder the entire burden of any restructuring,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said, arguing the union had gone further than any other stakeholder in making concessions to help the companies avoid bankruptcy.

But DeMint argued that the unions had helped create Detroit’s plight.

“It is no coincidence that the healthy automakers in the United States are located in ‘right-to-work’ states and are not unionized by the UAW,” he said. “Right-to-work” states bar agreements between trade unions and employers making membership or payment of union dues or “fees” a condition of employment, either before or after hiring.

Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), a labor ally, said Friday that Republican senators who opposed the bailout might have “wanted to crush a longtime political rival, the United Auto Workers,” without concern for the economic consequences.

Democrats lauded the UAW as a hero in the bailout process for agreeing to new concessions on top of major ones given in 2005 and 2007. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) called the union “courageous” just before the House approved the bailout Wednesday.

But some Republicans framed the UAW as the villain, criticizing what they called lavish wages and benefits that they said had driven General Motors, Chrysler and, to a lesser extent, Ford to their knees.

“I’m sure that I’m going to be asked, ‘Congressman, I work at Honda’ or ‘I work at Mercedes. I get $40 an hour. Why are you going to take my tax dollars and pay it to a company that’s paying their employees $75 an hour?’ ” Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said last month.

That wage figure — widely used by opponents of the auto industry bailout — is not in fact the wage paid to current workers. It is an approximation of the costs of salaries and benefits for current and retired workers. After wage concessions in recent contracts, the UAW says its workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler plants range from $33 an hour for skilled trades to $14 an hour for new hires.

Precise wages and extrapolated benefits costs for U.S. workers at nonunionized foreign companies, such as Honda and Toyota, are difficult to ascertain, but Block estimated salaries for current workers are approximately the same.

The Big Three automakers have higher labor costs primarily because they have operated factories in the U.S. much longer than their foreign counterparts, so have many more retirees receiving pension and healthcare payments, Block said.

Even if UAW workers at GM took a 20% pay cut, it would only save the company about $1.1 billion annually because the company’s unionized workforce in the United States has decreased dramatically in recent years, to 55,000, he said.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) characterized the GOP opposition as “class-warfare assault by the Republicans.”

“They never ask about banker salaries. . . . They never asked they give money back,” he said.

When Congress convenes in January, the expanded Democratic majorities are expected to push for an Employee Free Choice Act, also known as the “card check,” under which companies would recognize unions if a majority of workers signed cards saying they favored a union. That would replace the traditional method of a secret ballot among workers.

Block and other analysts believe the looming fight added to the political maneuvering over the bailout.

“The opposition might be as strong, but it might not be as urgent,” Block said.

“If the public could be convinced the problem with the auto industry is the UAW . . . then it will be easier than otherwise to marshal public support against unions and their legislative agenda.”

Puzzanghera is a writer in our Washington bureau.

jim.puzzanghera@ latimes.com

Times staff writer Ken Bensinger contributed to this report.

By Warren Brown
Sunday, December 7, 2008; Page G02

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/05/AR2008120502198.html

It has happened repeatedly in the last several weeks — well-paid, well-known journalists questioning the wisdom of “bailing out Detroit,” of helping an industry whose union-represented workers have substantially better wages and benefits than other manual or skilled laborers, or, more precisely, who are better compensated than their nonunion counterparts working at foreign-owned rival companies building cars and trucks in the United States.

The questions are tinged with outrage and ridicule: Why should Americans who earn less, have inferior pension and health-care plans, help the United Auto Workers union? Why can’t the UAW be satisfied with the same pay packages given at Honda, or with an even less-expensive compensation agreement for workers at the Hyundai assembly plant in Montgomery, Ala.?

The queries often come from people who earn substantially more than the estimated $71,000 annually in wages and benefits paid to UAW members. They come from people who, having reached upper-middle-class status by virtue of their college educations and communication skills, certainly wouldn’t settle for earning less.

So, why are the questions being asked?

Might I suggest class bias?

There is a feeling in this country — apparent in the often condescending, dismissive way Detroit’s automobile companies have been treated on Capitol Hill — that people who work with their hands and the companies that employ them are inferior to those who work with their minds and plow profit from information. How else to explain the clearly disparate treatment given to companies such as Citigroup and General Motors?

Let us stipulate for the record that both Citigroup and GM have made their share of management errors. Citigroup made loans it should not have made and sold lots of commercial paper it should have trashed. But Congress offered barely a whimper of protest to the government’s emergency action granting Citigroup $25 billion in bailout money. Similarly, the Mob of Pundits seemed not to care much that many of Citigroup’s managers remained just as rich after the federal bailout as they did before receiving the government’s aid.

What Citigroup manager was dragged to Capitol Hill to publicly present a long-term plan for business profitability and viability? Did I miss something?

Now comes GM, Ford and Chrysler — supplicants all, companies that bet wrong on U.S. gasoline prices (the same error made by Toyota with its Tundra pickup, by the way) and that were as shocked as the rest of us by the fiscal carnage caused by bad loans made by banks such as Citigroup.

It apparently matters not that the domestic car manufacturers account for 3 million to 5 million U.S. jobs. It matters not that, despite some bad guesses on product development, they’ve remained engines of U.S. innovation. (Their work with biologically derived fuels and emergency communications systems are examples.) Nor does it matter that they pulled us through several wars and one terrorist attack (GM’s zero-percent financing plan after the Sept. 11, 2001, horror).

And, of course, it does not matter that the domestic manufacturers for decades have been operating in a country wide open to foreign competition, but bereft of anything resembling a sensible industrial or energy policy. That’s quite different from Japanese car manufacturers that have benefited mightily from financing and cooperation via Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

No. The only thing that matters is that Detroit’s automobile workers have earned enough money to allow their families to dream, to send their children to the colleges and universities from which many of their critics in the media graduated. How dare they!

Implicit in the criticism of UAW compensation packages is that union-represented automobile workers are being paid above their social class. Greedy, bad people. They are supposed to be satisfied with wages that cover only the basics — food, acceptable clothing and housing. They are not supposed to receive pay that allows them to aspire to or dream of more. They should be happy with the development of America’s Wal-Mart economy, one in which less-expensive skills, talents, products and services are imported to satisfy the American consumer’s insatiable lust for the highest-quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices.

That is what stuff-makers and other manual laborers deserve. Wall Street’s money people and well-paid journalists, on the other hand, deserve much better. They studied, went to college. They use their brains. They should be paid more.

So, let Detroit’s automobile companies slide into bankruptcy. We’ll lose a few million more jobs. But those of us lucky enough to remain employed will still be able to buy cars from Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota. Or, if we are doing quite well, we can snatch something from BMW, Porsche or Mercedes-Benz.

What the heck? If things get really rough, we can always catch a sale at Wal-Mart. Citigroup most certainly would be willing to finance our purchases at favorable interest rates. What a country! We once rejoiced in building things, innovating, racing to the top. Now, at least for the people who use their hands to make this country go, we’re celebrating a mad dash to the bottom.

Are we not better than this? Is this the America we want to be?

Is Senator Shelby a Threat to American Economy?

Senator Shelby (Republican-Alabama) has a very negative record when it comes to protecting the economic health of the American nation. He has routinely endorsed every major, so-called “free trade” deal that has been proposed for decades. Shelby has routinely stood in the way of government provided, universal healthcare proposal for decades. Now, Shelby (like most other Republican Senators with similar voting records) is blocking the federal bridge loans to the American auto companies designed to save the American auto industry.

The stakes are huge. A million auto worker retirees have their healthcare and pensions put at risk by Shelby’s unpatriotic and reckless actions. The ripple effect of not approving the loans could destroy one out of ten jobs in the American economy.

Political and economic pundits along with most officeholders have refused to link the economic crisis facing the auto industry to government policy. The situation facing the auto industry is more a result of bad government policy than bad management decisions. The attempt by politicians like Shelby to blame labor unions is factually wrong and, in my opinion, intentionally dishonest. Shelby and his Senate allies created this auto industry crisis by adopting economic policies that have crippled the American economy.

All industrialized nations except the United States has government provided, universal healthcare. Only in America, do we place the costs of workers’ healthcare and their families’ healthcare on the backs of employers. This puts our employers at a huge competitive disadvantage with foreign corporations.

At the same time, foreign governments have helped their auto manufacturing in terms of research and development (R&D) much more than the American government has in recent decades. Senate Republicans have routinely placed the profits of HMO’s, drug companies and insurance companies over the health of American manufacturing. Shelby has undermined both the personal health of hundreds of millions of American citizens and our industrial base for decades.

Our nation spends 17% of our total economy on healthcare. We have 47 million uninsured and many more underinsured citizens. Our industrial competitors in Europe, Asia and Canada spend only 8% of their economies on healthcare. They cover all their citizens healthcare needs.

Without government provided, universal healthcare, it is economic death for American manufacturing to open up our borders to so-called “free trade” with nations who provide such healthcare to their citizens. Shelby and his Republican Senate allies are trying to murder American manufacturing.

The auto industry bridge loans are badly needed. Failure to pass these loans would be more than just irresponsible. It would be a threat to our economic and military national security. We cannot remain a major military power without a vibrant industrial base especially in vehicle manufacturing.

We need to address the long-term government policies that created the current crisis after approving the auto industry bridge loans. We must either adopt government provided, universal healthcare by passing legislation like the Medicare For All Bill (HR 676) or ending tariff free imports in manufactured goods.

We need to adopt a Re-Industrialization Policy designed to restore our economic health in the world economy. We must end the political dominance of the economic elite in our federal government by replacing politicians like Shelby with economic patriots who actually care about working Americans and national security.

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

http://www.autoworkercaravan.org/

Please spread the word!