washingtonpost.com — Struggling U.S. automakers are launching a round of severe cutbacks as they wait for a government rescue, with Chrysler saying yesterday it will idle all 30 of its U.S. factories for one month. Chrysler’s plants will furlough 46,000 workers, as a planned two-week holiday shutdown is extended to a month and possibly longer. [...]
Archive for December, 2008
18 Dec
Torture
thinkprogress.org ADMINISTRATION — CHENEY: IT ‘WOULD HAVE BEEN IMMORAL’ FOR US NOT TO TORTURE: Earlier this week, Vice President Cheney admitted to personally authorizing the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees. In a new interview with the Washington Times, Cheney stridently defended the program, saying, “I feel very good about what we did,” adding [...]
18 Dec
Bush’s Counterterrorism Record: 0 for 1
By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Thursday, December 18, 2008 Has President Bush kept America safe? The only conclusion supported by the facts at our disposal is no. Bush yesterday tried once again to take credit for the absence of a major terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001. “While there’s room for honest and [...]
18 Dec
LaHood Accepts Transportation Secretary Job
washingtonpost.com CABINET Rep. Ray LaHood R-Ill. addressing a Republican rally at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, Ill., in 2007. (Seth Perlman / Associated Press) By Paul Kane and Philip Rucker Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) last night accepted an offer to become President-elect Barack Obama’s transportation secretary and the nomination will be made official in coming [...]
18 Dec
Mary Schapiro Chosen to Head SEC
washingtonpost.com CAST OF CHARACTERS By Amit R. Paley President-elect Barack Obama has chosen a veteran financial regulator as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the beleaguered overseer of Wall Street that has been pilloried for failing to prevent the global economic meltdown, senior Democratic officials said yesterday. The selection of Mary L. Schapiro, [...]
18 Dec
Did America Get Punk’d on the Bailout?
By David Sirota, Campaign for America’s Future. Posted December 18, 2008. The answer is yes … now here’s what to do about it. When I went on Rachel Maddow’s show on Tuesday, she asked a question about the bailout that is really the question of our time: Did we get punk’d? As progressive bailout critics [...]
17 Dec
New Poll Shows 63% Are Already Hurt by Downturn
By Michael A. Fletcher and Jon Cohen Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, December 17, 2008 The deepening recession has eroded the financial standing and optimism of a broad swath of Americans, nearly two-thirds of whom say that they have been hurt by the downturn and that the country has slipped into long-term economic decline. A [...]
17 Dec
Bush Tries to Whitewash History; Portrays Himself as a Victim
By Matthew Yglesias, The American Prospect. Posted December 17, 2008. Even after all this time, Bush views the Iraq War with regret not over anything he did, but rather, over something that was done to him. It’s tiresome to need to point this out at this late date but, yes, George W. Bush and his [...]
16 Dec
Majority of Public Opposes Auto Rescue
Poll Finds Most Blame Industry for Problems, Believe Failure Won’t Hurt Economy By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, December 16, 2008 Most Americans continue to oppose a government-backed rescue plan for Detroit’s Big Three automakers as majorities blame the industry for its own problems and are unconvinced failure would hurt [...]
16 Dec
Obama Picks Chicago’s Schools Chief For Cabinet
Arne Duncan is a friend and basketball partner of the president-elect’s. (Charles Rex Arbogast – AP) By Anne E. Kornblut and Philip Rucker Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, December 16, 2008 President-elect Barack Obama will nominate Chicago schools executive Arne Duncan as his education secretary at an event in the city today, transition aides said, [...]
16 Dec
The window and door factory By James Carroll December 15, 2008 ‘WE’RE HERE and we’re not going anywhere,” said the protest leader last week, “until we get what’s fair and what’s ours.” With that, 200 laid-off workers began the occupation of the Republic Windows & Doors factory on Chicago’s North Side. The company owners, perhaps [...]
16 Dec
Man Throws Both Shoes at Bush, Calls Him a ‘Dog’
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet at 11:31 AM on December 14, 2008. Bush’s visit to Iraq isn’t received with rose petals. From Edwin Chen at Bloomberg: President George W. Bush ducked two shoes thrown at him by an unidentified man during a press conference in the Iraqi prime minister’s office. Bush wasn’t hit by the [...]
