Dear Mr. President:
Remember Ashley!!!!! I remember listening to you speak and telling the story of Ashley, the young lady from Florida that ate mustard sandwiches to help her family save money to pay her mother’s medical bills. I remember your passion when you spoke about helping Ashley and helping other families that were in financial ruin because of mounting debt due to medical bills. I remember the chills running up my spine and my eyes feeling a little watery because we were finally going to get government for people - not big business. I met Ashley at a local organizing rally in Highland Village, TX and heard her tell her story and felt her enthusiasm for CHANGE. Please make sure that the healthcare legislation would pass the Ashley test?
Mr. President, have faith. You were divinely placed in this position to boldly do the right thing for the people. Be bold and demand boldness from the other government leaders.
We all are counting on you.
Best regards,
C. Major Greene
http://tonyspoliticalworld.blogspot.com/
Texas pays unemployment benefits to a lower percentage of its jobless population - 31% than any other state except South Dakota. On Wednesday, July 15th 2009, Texas officials announced they had indefinitely postponed a 13-week extension of unemployment compensation approved by state lawmakers in late May.
Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers, said "it seems like Texas is more worried about one worker getting a check in error than getting the benefits out quicker."
Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken, a former state Republican Party Chairman appointed by Governor Rick Perry to lead the workforce commission called the criticism "incredibly unfair." Unlike regular unemployment compensation, people who apply for extended benefits have to be willing to take a job that is below what they would normally be willing to do."
Most states are still implementing their unemployment claims under rules adopted in the 1980's when laid-off workers filed in person at state offices or by mail. Now claims are filed over the phone or online. To speed the start of the extended benefits program the commission "may recruit technicians versed in its old German-made data programs that run on mainframe computers." Pauken said.
You have to wonder if these computers are used to help count the actual number of unemployed in Texas.
June 6th is the kickoff of the National Healthcare initiative. Join in by hosting a house party to share your stories and plan for the National day of service the end of June. President Obama's key initiatives are to Reduce Costs, Guarantee Choice and Ensure affordable care for all.
To Hosthttp://my.barackobama.com/ page/content/hckickoffhostTo pledgehttp://my.barackobama.com/ page/content/ organizingforhealthcareTo give a storyhttp://my.barackobama.com/ page/s/HCstory
I though I would post this on here, It's my story and opinion I offered to the President's cause. I hope someone listens.
I am no longer covered under my parents' insurance plan, though I am still a college student. They failed to send a cancellation notice, and instead sent us a bill for my blood work and doctor's visit, totalling about $500. That may not seem like much, but to a poor college student, paying my own way through university with a part-time job, it was a lot. It was definitely a lot to have been forced upon me with no notice. My father and I fought with the company for months before they finally sent a cancellation notice for a later date, thus covering the disputed costs. It was an unnecessary struggle I do not wish to repeat. The result is now, I cannot afford to go to the doctor and when I got flu like symptoms a month ago, all i could do is rest and wait it out. Thankfully it went away after a week. That is now how I must operate. One thing my family is concerned with is that I have a thyroid problem, which left unattended could worsen my general health in the long run. That's what the disputed blood work was testing. However, even if I wish it, I cannot afford to do anything about that situation. Even before I had to worry about my lack of health coverage, the idea of profiting off of health offended me deeply. I am against the idea of insurance which adds middle-man bureaucracy only concerned with how wide their profit margins can grow. Health care should be a right and not a privilege for the wealthy. I support the idea of a single payer system, where my taxes are raised to pay for my health care. I believe, in this system, it would be easier to implement a PREVENTATIVE health care system which would save us more costs preventing serious illness early. Please, Congressmen and women, for once consider what is best for our society as a whole, regardless of concerns about re-election bids being affected. If re-election is your main agenda, then you are not truly representing the people. I implore you to create a system to benefit the future of America. That's for what your elected position is meant.Power with inaction, isn't power at all. Thank you, and I hope to the fruits of your labor soon. A deeply concerned citizen, Lindsey Allen,
Denton, TX
Employee Ranking Becoming A Numbers Game
Data mining has a new market. HR departments and managers can monitor and evaluate employee performance and behavior with sophisticated software. The same mathematical geniuses who invented the algorithm for financial derivatives (“the Quants”) are hard at work analyzing employee digital trails, schedules, interests and expertise.
Cataphora, a Redwood City, (Calif) is currently completing a mathematical analysis of work at an undisclosed Internet company. By analyzing corporate communications-chunks of data that are repeated and copied in e-mails and chats. The employee who gets repeated most often shows up in a chart consisting of dark blue circles. Others pass on information more often and they are represented as bright red circles.
SuccessFactors a Bay Area software company is marketing Performance and Talent Management in a box. Stack Ranker is “Designed to be easy for anyone to use but powerful enough to uncover critical insights”. The company claims to sort the top players and low performers in Real Time! A claim on their website:
“Visually rank your talent - Instantly identify your top-ranked players so that you can optimize your team by cultivating your best people. Or quickly identify low performers to let go during difficult times.”
Researchers at MIT are focusing on the latest sensor technology to monitor workplace behavior By “Using high-tech badges that transmit data on an individual’s gesture, eye movements, voice levels and even proximity to other people”. Professor Alex Pentland claims the technology goes beyond anything captured in a typical personality test. “You can suddenly look at hundreds of people on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis.”
If you have the feeling you are being watched at work, you are. Companies may soon be able to size up both employees and job applicants by using database and mathematical modeling of human behavior with the same software that determines financial market functions.
As more Americans are idled, wages for the remaining workers continue to stagnate or are being driven lower by the oversupply of workers. It appears that businesses are shooting themselves in the foot. Lower wages, less spending, more layoffs, rinse, repeat.
Today at CNBC's news site:
“While job openings remain, employers are increasingly able to keep a lid on wages, further stretching consumers.
The latest jobs report showed wage growth slowed in January and February from its pace at the end of last year.
According to Adecco (a temp firm), many clients are looking to hire people at lower rates than in the past, with the biggest wage pressure at the lower end of the pay scale, he said, among people earning around $10 or $12 per hour.
Small business salaries posted their biggest drop last month since December 2004, according to SurePayroll, which handles payroll for 25,000 small businesses.
"Declining salaries make it easier for businesses to survive in the short term, but decreased consumer purchasing power is a recipe for disaster over the long term," said SurePayroll President Michael Alter.
U.S. small business paychecks average $31,317, down about $1,300 over the past year.”
I would like to see a bit more spending by people who wish Obama's stimulus plan to work. I realize we will have to buy things made in China, but it would be worth it just to shut Rush Limbaugh up!
I think I need a new shower curtain!
This was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign to start a nationwide "tea party" to protest the mortgage bailout plan by President Obama.
Rick Santelli Reports for CNBC live from the Chicago Board of Trade. On the February 19th, Santelli’s Rant:
"The government is promoting bad behavior!" Santelli cried "The president ... should put up a Web site ... to have people vote ... to see if they want to subsidize losers' mortgages!"
"This is America. How many of you people wanna pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? raise your hand!
I copied this excerpt from Playboys magazine reporters Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
(I don’t read Playboy, I found this on The Big Picture Blog, So, if you don’t want to go to Playboys’ site, I copied this very interesting story).
“What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.
As you read this, Big Business is pouring tens of millions of dollars into their media machines in order to destroy just about every economic campaign promise Obama has made, as reported recently in the Wall Street Journal. At stake isn’t the little guy’s fight against big government, as Santelli and his bot-supporters claim, but rather the “upper 2 percent”’s war to protect their wealth from the Obama Adminstration’s economic plans. When this Santelli “grassroots” campaign is peeled open, what’s revealed is a glimpse of what is ahead and what is bound to be a hallmark of his presidency.”
Rick Santelli’s rant seen here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA
Dallas Capitalist Tea Party Pictures
http://www.treygarrison.com/2009/02/scenes-from-the-capitalist-tea-party-atlas-shrugs-in-dallas/
If you can't volunteer on the 19th, there are multiple ways to help now and in the future. Please go to www.usaservice.org and sign up. FInd an event or host one yourself. This is just the beginning of the journey, and there is lots of work to do. President Elect Obama and your fellow neighbors need your help.
An Inaugural Gala to celebrate the incredible victory of President-elect Obama will be held on January 20 from 7-11 pm at the Plano Center off Spring Creek parkway; over 150 RSVP's so far and they are still coming in. Live Music with Memphis Soul Live, Dancing, Food, Cash Bar, along with live TV Coverage of Inaugural Events and more.
Come celebrate this historic moment.
Please go to www.obamacollincounty.com to learn more and to RSVP.
Let's celebrate our green builders, green realtors, and green companies. Join us in learning more about "green" entities here in Collin County, and how to be greener in your daily living.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpthl7
I have yard signs and would love to hand them out; please come participate in the mega canvas this Saturday and help get out the vote, and get visibilty for your yard at the same time!
LOCATION: Wal-Mart US 380 (University Dr) & Custer Road in McKinney (meet us on the South Side of the Wal-Mart parking lot near the L strip mall)
OBAMA SUPPORTERS PLEASE CONTACT YOUR AREA PLACES OF WORSHIP TO ADVISE THEM OF
EARLY VOTING "SOULS TO THE POLLS SUNDAY" ON OCTOBER 26, 2008 FROM 1:00-6:00PM.
THIS WILL ALLOW CHURCH FAMILES TO PROVIDE RIDES AND ASSIST THE ELDERLY WITH EARLY VOTING.
OBAMA WORKERS PLEASE VOLUNTEER AS GREETERS AND POLL WATCHERS ON SUNDAY OCTOBER 26, 2008 TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING RUNS SMOOTHLY FOR SOULS TO THE POLLS.
CONTACT YOUR LOCAL DEMOCRATIC GROUPS TO VOLUNTEER AS POLL WATCHERS. THERE WILL BE POLL WATCHER TRAINING CLASSES ALL WEEK SO CHECK YOUR COUNTY DEMOCRATIC WEBSITES.
Senator Obama needs us.
We have 2 weekends left to help get the vote out, and the time is now.
Not next month, but now.
We had an exceptional push for Voter Registration here in Collin County, over 23,000, yes thousand voters were registered between March and the beginning of September.
Now we need to get them to the polls.
The most effective way to reinforce this is by canvassing and talking to voters. If you aren't comfortable with that, you can be part of the first shift of dropping literature at Democratic doors. The doorknockers include pertinent information on the down ballot candidates and early vote locations and times; we are putting all the important information right in the hands of the voters.
Two weekends which will effect the next 4 years of our lives. Collin County needs all of us to step up and help.
12 hours of your time to change the next 4 years of your life.
Don't you want change?
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gsh953
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gsh97f
