SoCalDem
SoCalDem's JournalA different "Southern Strategy"..(while most of us were not paying close attention)
http://www.conway.com/geofacts/pdf/44017.pdfIt's a pdf file, but is very enlightening.. It's from 1998 and is a rather interesting article..
All about those wonderfully viable southern states without unions and with great tax abatements.
Corporate interstate cannibalism at its finest
Need a new manufacturing location
close to your best customers, with a
good labor environment and low operating
costs? A regional headquarters
site with the high quality of life needed
to convince some of your firm’s best
staff to relocate? Or perhaps a distribution
center in a major population center
with interstate and rail access?
Whatever your real estate and facility
needs, the diverse Southeastern United
States probably has the answer. In fact,
the region attracted some 1,583 new
and expanded plants, offices, distribution
centers and other facilities in 1997.
The Southeast, with a population of
almost 43 million, includes seven states
(Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Mississippi and Te n n e s s e e ) .
It covers approximately 334,098 sq.
mi./752,500 sq. km. (see accompanying
m a p ) .
Southeastern business climates generally
are warm, and many of the states
in the region offer competitive incentives
packages to help attract large investments.
Those with weaker incentives
are working to upgrade them.
snip for the details
Joe asks "How did Alabama get car companies?"...easy answer enclosed
Of course he KNOWS. but he delights in his smarmy, beady-eyed, cynical innocent- act..
Alabama blew through pension funds & raided state coffers to woo car companies..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021962929
What republican union members can learn from Michigan & Wisconsin
Union members who call themselves republicans, and who don't mind electing republicans because they agree with them on "social" issues or who think that republicans just want to cut their taxes, are sadly mistaken, and have been proven wrong once again.
There is a saying about "serving two masters" and how it's impossible.
The union-busting/voter suppression we see happening all over the upper midwest is living proof that many republican union people need to soul-search.
What is more important?
Keeping some woman, somewhere...a woman you will never meet..from having a legal (so far) abortion?
Lowering (keeping low) taxes for your bosses?
Keeping "illegals" from seeking a better life in the US...at ANY cost?
Keeping people who love each other from marrying, if they do not adhere to "your" beliefs?
Keeping people on "the other team" from voting, so you can have a snickering good ole time watching them stand in the rain as they wait to vote?
Drying up public school money as public school teachers (union teachers, that is) are demeaned and made out to be responsible for school failure?
Feeling relatively secure because YOU happen to have a good union job with benefits. and caring little or nothing about the walmart workers/service workers slog away with sub-par wages?
...............................................
If you are a republican union member who votes republican because of the above-mentioned (and others, to be sure), you are largely responsible for putting people into power who do NOT have your best interests at heart, and who will stab you in the back, the first time they get a chance.
To the republican hierarchy, you are an anomaly..a clever tool to be used against your "own kind"..a wedge they can use to split the loyalty that's always a part of unions. You are their labor-ish Hermann Cain..their labor-ish Marco Rubio.. their "token working slob"..
Tokens are meant to be used...and they rarely miss an opportunity to use you.
Without a living wage, most of the precious social issues become moot. If your family is living in your sister-in-law's basement, you probably don't spend much time agonizing about abortions, or guns, or low taxes, or gay marriage.
Michigan is at the forefront now, because this is recent, but it;s been a relentless march to DE-UNIONIZATION for decades , and this is the latest skirmish.
Pols love to remind us all about how great the economies USED to be in the "rust belt" states. Remember what helped do them in??
RIGHT TO WORK (for less) states in the "sun-belt" states of the south. They were eager to gut the workforces of the northern states. Once air conditioning was widely in use, there was little or no impediment to bailing on the older facilities (and their workers) up north, and heading south. Few people remember that a lot of this happened during the time when the EPA came to be, and a lot of these older factories were being pressed to "clean up their act". Many/most chose to leave the mess behind and head for "friendlier territory", where out-of-the-way locations with fewer (if any) "regulations" were in place to hold them accountable for their mess.
States often used their meager state tax coffers to sweeten the deal, but those governors only saw the "jobs-created" numbers so they could win re-election. They often paid for the infrastructure necessary to woo companies..they offered tax-holidays..they robbed state welfare/school/etc funds to get the money.
$25 hr jobs lost up north, swapped for $10hr jobs down south...... just interstate cannibalism, but when articles are written in the papers and news stories reported on tv, those "details" are rarely mentioned.
Here's just one example:
Alabama's $158 Million for Honda..(from 1999 article)
Posted by SoCalDem in General Discussion
Fri Dec 12th 2008, 06:59 PM
http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/incentive/ti9906.htm
Alabama's $158 Million for Honda: Initial Embrace
Marks Dramatic Shift from 1993's Mercedes Tiff
What a huge difference seven years make: That's the dominant theme thus far in the aftermath of the $158 million incentive package that Alabama put together to land Honda's $400 million, 1,500-employee plant. Honda (www.honda.com ), with a substantial assist from Alabama's incentives, will build a massive, 1.7-million-sq.-ft. auto production facility on a 1,350-acre tract in Lincoln, a city some 35 miles east of Birmingham. The upbeat mood that's greeted the announcement stands in stark contrast to the brouhaha of 1993, when the state provided $253 million in incentives and tax breaks to land the DaimlerChrysler investment in Vance, Ala., some 30 miles west of Birmingham. Though it ultimately yielded the first U.S. Mercedes-Benz plant, which now employs 1,700, that deal landed in hot water only months after it was forged.
'Look at Mercedes'
While scattered rumblings over the Honda deal have surfaced, the initial reaction among the huge majority of Alabamans seems overwhelmingly positive. Most seem to agree that the new Honda plant will provide an infusion of robust economic health - the same kind that ultimately came from DaimlerChrysler's Alabama plant in Vance. "Look at what Mercedes has done in Alabama, with Alabama workers. This plant will be even larger than Mercedes, and will end up costing the state less," County Commissioner Paul Manning said at a recent meeting of the St. Clair County Commission that was held shortly after Honda's Alabama announcement. St. Clair County adjoins Talladega County, where the Honda facility will rise in Lincoln, a small town with a population of some 3,600.
snip...
Good for All of Alabama?
To land Honda, Alabama committed to a total of $102.7 million in incentives to buy the land and prepare the site for construction, plus training the plant's employees. In addition, Honda will receive $55.6 million in tax breaks,
snip...
Samuel Addy, interim director of the University of Alabama's Center for Business and Economic Research, has calculated 20 years will pass before Alabama possibly breaks even if some large Honda suppliers follow the company to the region (which, given the just-in-time nature of auto manufacturing, seems likely). But despite the lengthy payoff, Addy calls the state's second auto plant "a great boon" for Alabama, which may establish it as an rising center for heavy industry locations.
In addition, the Alabama House of Representatives unanimously approved the incentive package for Honda shortly after it was announced by Gov. Siegelman.
1999's Big Differences
Things were quite different in 1993, when the state provided $253 million in incentives and tax breaks to land the DaimlerChrysler investment in Vance. Soon after, state school officials refused to hand over education funds to bankroll the Mercedes incentives. As a result, Alabama was tardy with a $43 million incentive payout due Mercedes in the agreement forged by then-Gov. Jim Folsom. That forced the state to raid Alabama's pension fund to make good on the incentives, with Alabama taking out a loan, with a 9 percent interest rate, to recoup the pension funds.
...............................................................................
411 million in cash-outlay alone for 3200 jobs = $128,437.50 spent per job
Durham, a Republican Party fundraiser....50 year prison sentence (woweeeeeee! )
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-30/ex-national-lampoon-ceo-tim-durham-gets-50-years-prison.html?cmpid=otbrn.leaders.storyEx-National Lampoon CEO Tim Durham Gets 50 Years Prison
By Andrew Harris & Howard Smulevitz - Nov 30, 2012 2:58 PM PT
Timothy S. Durham, the onetime chief executive officer of National Lampoon (NLMP) Inc., was sentenced to 50 years in prison for defrauding investors in an unrelated company he partly controlled. “I found no sincere remorse,” U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson in Indianapolis said today before imposing punishment on Durham, 50. She said the former Fair Finance Co. CEO exhibited deceit, greed and arrogance.
Timothy S. Durham , the former chief executive officer of National Lampoon Inc., was sentenced to 50 years in prison for defrauding investors in an unrelated company he partly controlled. Photographer: Joe Vitti/The Indianapolis Star via Getty Images
snip
Durham, who was also the CEO of Indianapolis-based buyout firm Obsidian Enterprises Inc., and an accomplice, James Cochran, 57, were convicted in June of taking money raised from Fair Finance investors, spending it on themselves and lending it to other entities they controlled. A third man, Rick Snow, 49, was convicted of helping to deceive investors about the company’s financial condition.
The three squandered $208 million of investors’ money, according to U.S. Attorney Joseph Hogsett in Indianapolis.
snip
Durham, a Republican Party fundraiser, resigned from National Lampoon in January. The Los Angeles-based media company wasn’t named in the government’s charging documents.
The case is U.S. v. Durham, 11-cr-00042, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Indiana (Indianapolis).
we need a new union.. a national hourly wage union
that spans ALL forms of employment.
Anyone who punches a time-clock or fills out a time card
What many don't know about republicans.. They LOVE infrastructure
Well.. NOT the kind of infrastructure we usually think about when WE hear that word.
WE tend to think about bridges, health care systems, electrical grids, roads, school systems, monetary systems..stuff like that.....stuff we should all pay for via taxation, since we all use them..
Republicans love infrastructure too, but their version of it is about "party-building".
Their infrastructure involves "seeding" city-councils, school boards, state legislatures, etc with their own little "seedlings". They nurture these seedlings with lots of love & media-nutrition, so they can be transplanted into state legislatures, and then onto the federal stage or into the governor's mansions on the way to big federal jobs.
THIS IS INFRASTRUCTURE , and they know how to do it. They know where the money is when they need to whip up national frenzy that translates into votes. They know when to "release the Krakken" (See Tea-Bag Summer of '09).
We err when we accuse republicans of being against infrastructure. They are very "into" infrastructure....their own version of it..
Dems often fail to even field opponents to many of these local/lowly-state offices, so we don't "waste" money on losing races.
This needs to end. We need to fight for EVERY "lowly" race. Governors matter..attorneys-general matter..secretaries of state matter..school boards matter..
When republican infrastructure wins, real infrastructure loses.
..."Republican governors could redraw boundaries ...add at least another 15 members"...
Although the prediction that these 2010 wins would make it all but impossible for Obama to win in '12, was incorrect, it took a LOT of money & effort to overcome the shenanigans....and it took a lot of court fights too.
Republicans are relentless and cunning, and they did fulfill their goals of "being in charge" once again when it's time for redrawing those boundaries. They also saw to it that the secretaries of states in place were active in changing rules & regs to provide the most voting chaos possible.
There won't be another census until 2020, but part of any long-term plan for us should be to fight them toe-to-toe when it comes to sitting governors/secs of state.
We cannot afford to be complacent, and just hope that "the people" will elect a "fair" republican in those "blue" states that repeatedly seem to elect republican governors (Calif 
)
This is an old article, but Ole Hayley lays it out pretty bluntly..and it pretty much came to pass again in '12.. (except that Obama won)
http://www.npr.org/2010/11/08/131158449/gop-s-sweet-wins-in-governors-races-may-pay-off
The RGA also focused on governors' races in the 15 states, including several of the bellwethers, that will gain congressional seats through reapportionment next year. In many, governors will oversee the once-a-decade redrawing of new congressional district boundaries based on census data. Reapportionment, in which representation in Congress shifts to reflect population changes across districts, is a key element to controlling the House, as well as the success of any president's agenda.
snip
Republicans won the governors' races in 11 of the 15 states slated to receive more seats in Congress. The RGA believes that Republican governors could redraw boundaries that might add at least another 15 members to the Republican House majority. "We wanted to control that process to ensure the Democratic governors didn't draw their members back into the majority in the House," says RGA Executive Director Nick Ayers. "That was our biggest pitch and plea to our donors — that if we can take presidential swing states, get Republican governors in there, we can build a Republican infrastructure."
snip
Retirement Living Information Center (helpful resource I just found)
This looks like a great place to research information about where you live or may want to live later on..
Many of us cannot afford to relocate, but for those in their planning stages, this might help
http://www.retirementliving.com
Hi Haters: You Won’t Believe These Ridiculously Racist Tweets About Obama From Election Night
If their pics are to be believed, these are not necessarily angry old white men..
Romney people blew that whistle and then blew it some more.. then got out the bullhorn..
These folks do not just fade away after elections..
The website that collected these have included their twitter info too.. I wonder how many of their bosses have already been told 
A Gallery Of Racist Tweets About Obama
Read more @ http://bossip.com/676317/a-gallery-of-racist-tweets-about-obama3920/#mOZ5FLrxOWXpQXiO.99
Anyone know how these two recounts (House) in Ohio are going?
http://www2.ohio-votes.com/news/2012/nov/27/gop-leads-2-ohio-house-races-headed-recounts-ar-1254960/GOP Leads In 2 Ohio House Races Headed To Recounts
By: Associated Press | NBC4
Published: November 27, 2012
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Two tight Ohio House races are headed to recounts after official tallies put the Republican incumbents ahead of Democratic challengers.
Democrats are hoping that the official canvass required to be completed by Tuesday will give them at least 40 seats. That blocks the GOP majority from easily placing ballot issues before voters. Three races were too close to call on election night.
Democrats are claiming a Columbiana County seat, giving them 39 seats. Two GOP incumbents lead in the other races. But with a spread less than a quarter of a percent, an automatic recount will take the process into December.
Rep. Al Landis of Dover has a 14-vote edge over Democrat Joshua O'Farrell of New Philadelphia. Rep. Mike Dovilla of Berea leads Democrat Matt Patten of Strongsville by 119 votes.
https://secure.ohiodems.org/page/contribute/recount
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