He’s being schooled all right….
February 11, 2009
Obama: Caterpillar will rehire if stimulus passes
Tuesday March 17, 2009
Caterpillar lays off 2,454 workers in 3 states
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Caterpillar Inc. announced a fresh round of job cuts Tuesday, laying off more than 2,400 employees at five plants in Illinois, Indiana and Georgia as the heavy equipment maker continues to cut costs amid the global economic downturn.
Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of mining and construction equipment, has seen its sales wither as the sluggish world economy and credit crises weaken demand for its products used to build everything from houses to highways. The company had expanded dramatically in recent years, helped by a building boom in developing countries.
No word yet if White House spokesman Robert Gibbs will blame Rush Limbaugh or Jim Cramer for today’s layoffs.
UPDATE: Welcome mighty Hub Blog readers. I’ve added a special Manny Ramirez category just for you. Enjoy!
Frank McCourt may own the Dodgers, but he is a Boston guy. He should have known better than to lay down with a dog like Manny Ramirez.
Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez exits with sore hamstring
Bat in hand, Manny Ramirez strolled into the Dodgers’ clubhouse before Sunday’s game, looked at the lineup card and saw he was listed to play his normal position of left field for the first time this spring.
“Left field?” he said, tongue firmly in his cheek. “Are we trying?” Then he walked away and joked, “We’ll get ’em tomorrow.”
Manny is expected to take the next week off.
David Frum spent his morning on Meet the Press and his evening with us on Pundit Review Radio. We talked about his recent Newsweek cover story “Why Rush is Wrong: The party of Buckley and Reagan is now bereft and dominated by the politics of Limbaugh. A conservative’s lament.”
I really support what he is doing. He is not saying that Republicans should abandon their conservative beliefs. He is saying they need to evolve and adapt to the changing public policy and demographic landscape. This is a new era and Republicans need to find new ways to communicate core ideas in a meaningful way that connects with the public.
“The customer is right. If I’m selling tube socks and the customers aren’t buying tube socks, its not because the customers are idiots, its because they don’t want tube socks. I need to understand that and think about how I can connect with them.”
This is certrainly a hot topic. We had full lines and took some really good calls, starting with one from local writer and blogger DR Tucker.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
Tonight, Bruce told us about Staff Sgt. Luis Rosa-Valentin. The following comes from the Killeen Daily Herald,
Luis Rosa-Valentin got something Tuesday morning he’s wanted since arising from a coma nearly a year ago.
“Sgt. Rosa! Rejoin your formation!”
Steadied by a friend, he rose from his wheelchair and stepped onto the brown grass toward 200 uniformed soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team. Excited chattering came to a halt as heads turned and a knowing silence fell over the crowd.
This audience knew what was happening. People were more than willing to forgo their reunions for a few minutes so one soldier could have his.
Staff Sgt. Luis Rosa-Valentin was there to check on his guys.
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
One of the most enjoyable posts I have done in the nine years of blogging here at Pundit Review was titled “Where in the world will Matt Lauer’s carbon footprint end up? “. This post was a week long trip around the world with Matt Lauer and the other eco-hypocrites from NBC News. Matt’s trip, which took place during NBC’s much hyped Green Week, took Matt from New York City to Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, Laos, Turkey and finally to the Republic of Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.
A conservative estimate of Matt’s trip showed that he burnt about 30 tons of CO2 in five days. As I said at the time,
It would take the average American nearly three years to generate as much carbon emissions as Matt Lauer and NBC did in four days…Thankfully, the earth has a full year to recover, and so do viewers, from the hypocrisy.
It looks like the planet has caught a break thanks to the global economic crisis.
Matt Lauer staying home because of the economy
NEW YORK (AP) – Where in the world is Matt Lauer? Staying home this year. In a nod to the economy, the “Today” show is putting off its annual mystery trip where Lauer is sent to exotic spots such as the Taj Mahal or the Pyramids. Instead, NBC’s morning show team will be spending a week in May exploring affordable vacation spots in the United States.
I’m sad for the blog, because I was looking forward to following Matt around the world again, but I’m happy for Mother Earth and for viewers who won’t be subjected to another Green Week of hypocrisy on the Today show.
Photo taken at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, May, 2007
Meet Josh Beliell from Greenfield Indiana. This young man joined the military at age 27, six years after graduating from Purdue University and starting his career. He wanted to do something more and he joined the military in 2004 knowing full well that he would be heading off to combat. Josh lost both legs at the knee in an IED explosion in Iraq and was working hard in the physical therapy area when I met up with him.
Obama team considering plan in which vets would use private insurance for wounds
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.
Congratulations Obama administration. You’ve achieved two of your primary objectives in coming to Washington. The first was finding more effecient ways of “doing business” and “reigning in costs”. The second is your goal of bringing people from all sides of the aisle together. As the last president would say, Mission Accomplished!.
But the proposal would be “dead on arrival” if it’s sent to Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said.
Murray used that blunt terminology when she told Shinseki that the idea would not be acceptable and would be rejected if formally proposed. Her remarks came during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs about the 2010 budget.
Not surprisingly, veterans groups are also stunned by these plans,
Currently, veterans’ private insurance is charged only when they receive health care from the VA for medical issues that are not related to service injuries, like getting the flu.
Charging for service-related injuries would violate “a sacred trust,” Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Joe Davis said. Davis said the move would risk private health care for veterans and their families by potentially maxing out benefits paying for costly war injury treatments.
Ed Morrisey at Hot Air neatly sums up the absurdidty of this proposal,
Let’s see. The same administration that wants to give tens of billions of dollars to GM, Citigroup, AIG, and a host of other banks and manufacturers wants men and women injured in service to their country to pay for the medical care that arises from these injuries? In what universe does Shinseki and the Obama administration live, anyway?
And people used to complain that Bush didn’t care enough about veteran care – even though he increased the VA budget by 56% from 2001 to 2008. Bush never offered the notion that the nation should shirk its duty to those who gave their health for the defense of America, especially not in the same week in which his administration signed a record omnibus bill with 8,000 pork items in it. In fact, I don’t think any administration has ever signaled such a policy, mostly because previous administrations weren’t dumb enough to try it, let alone crass enough to consider it an area to save a little cash.
In May 2008, I interviewed Annette, a dedicated wife and care giver for Eric, who was severely wounded in Iraq. Annette was a very compelling guest, helping us understand the frustrations and consequences of dealing with an overwhelmed VA system. She is a relentless advocate for her husband Eric. We admire her tenacity to get the best possible care for him. After listening to her describe the challenges, everyone, liberal and conservative, should be saying WE HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THIS.
Certainly the VA is overwhelmed and changes need to be made to improve veterans care. We have had a spending orgy in Washington to stabalize the economy/banking sector. The numbers are staggering. Obama finally finds an area where we can be fiscally prudent and more effecient….on the backs of the men and women wounded in action. If there is one area of the federal budget where the public wouldn’t mind seeing an explosion of spending, it is in the medical care for the men and women fighting for us around the world.
This is change all right.
Here is the global warming climate change fanatics playbook in a nutshell,
“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen”
-Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
Unfortunately for the fanatics, that pesky cooling period we are in, combined with the relentless and ever increasing ‘end of days’ predictions are having an effect, and it’s not one that will make them happy,
Gallup: Increased Number Think Global Warming Is “Exaggeratedâ€
PRINCETON, NJ — Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated. This represents the highest level of public skepticism about mainstream reporting on global warming seen in more than a decade of Gallup polling on the subject.
I wonder if this has anything to do with those poll numbers?
Sen. John Forbes Kerry made another contribution this week by saying, Climate change delay is ‘suicide pact’
Prince Charles said last week that nations have, “less than 100 months to act†to save the planet from irreversible climate change.
Not to be outdone, this week Prince Charles said, “We are, I fear, at a defining moment in the world’s history, the threat of catastrophic climate change calls into question humanity’s continued existence on the planet.”
NASA’s James Hansen “believes CEOs of oil companies should be put on trial for committing high crimes on humanity and nature.”
And this post couldn’t be complete without a quote from the High Priest of Alarmism, Al Gore , “The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse — much more quickly than predicted. …there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months.”
So what conclusion, if any, should be reached from these encouraging Gallup poll numbers? Clearly, the public is suffering. Not from Global Warming Climate Change, but Algoreaphobia,
