This is pretty awesome -- organizers try to deliver a petition to reinstate Walmart workers who were fired for trying to unionize. It turns into a step team Flash Mob. This is about 6 minutes long:
UFCW Local 1208 is on Facebook, so you can follow their efforts to get justice.
DHSS kicked off the official enrollment campaign for the Delaware Health Exchange at the LACC on Monday. Delawareans should be able to view the available plans, enroll in plans and assess their eligibility for subsidies or Medicaid starting on October 1, via the Choose Health Delaware website. This should mean that starting soon, Delawareans should be bombarded with information about insurance coverage through a variety of media and venues. In addition, the ACA has provisions for hiring groups and individuals to help do outreach about the program and eligibility as well as other individuals (Navigators) who assist those who want or need help working with the website. Today's NJ has an article on the beginning of the outreach here:
The RightOnLine conference probably produced many moments of Derp, but this one, by Bill Whittle (advertised as conservative writer and TV editor), has emerged as one for the ages. One of the real holy grails for the conservative movement is to find some way to get their narratives captured by the "popular culture". Even though they widely disdain much of the "popular culture" -- not just because they think its politics are all wrong, but also the reason why the Kids Are Not All Right. But Mr. Whittle has a new theory -- that the show Family Guy is the reason why the GOP can't get its message heard. Family Guy.
This didn't get alot of press, except from WDDE -- but Delaware's workmans compensation rate-payers now have an advocate and watchdog. The Ratepayer Advocate position was one of the recommendations of the Workers Compensation Task Force that was charged with taking a hard look at excessive increases (26% over two years) in workers compensation rates -- made especially critical by the fact that the Insurance Commissioner seemed ready to approve another set of increases without regard for the ratepayers. Lt. Governor Matt Denn headed up this commission and he and this group were able to submit to the Governor a set of reform recommendations that built on the reforms that Denn implemented when he was IC. So basically, the Governor and the GA asked Matt Denn to take up the work of reducing the impact on ratepayers -- the job that the IC is *supposed* to do. Mr. Fred Thompson has been named to the position and he is a former Deputy Insurance Commissioner.
Happy Labor Day! Hope that you and yours are enjoying this holiday meant to celebrate the achievements and contributions of the American worker. Unfortunately, too many of us no longer remember what this holiday is meant to commemorate and a disturbing number of us are specifically disdainful of many of our fellow workers, even as we might be a slightly better off version of labor. This holiday was created by Labor Unions and today, Labor Unions are not only at an ebb (as employers have been able to buy their own government influence and the unions themselves succumbed to various unhealthy tendencies), but are disdained by people who have specifically benefited from their work.
Paul Krugman provides the Must Read piece of the day....
The Poor People's Campaign was the effort that Dr. King was involved with organizing when he was assassinated. This campaign was designed to focus on the needs of the nation's poor people -- of all races and nationalities. In 1968, King was traveling the country raising awareness of this campaign for economic justice, which was supposed to occur in the spring. Dr. King was assassinated in April, and even though the People's Campaign seemed to be derailed, it started on Mother's Day -- with thousands of people converging on Washington, DC. Resurrection City -- the tent city -- was created on the mall and the protest continued for almost six weeks. The occupation ended in violence and the campaign for economic justice failed. Today's question is what might have been different if Dr. King lived to see this through?
I'm still watching this on Netflix, so people are sending me Breaking Bad material (spoilers or no) -- this one is especially hilarious when Pollos Hermanos shows up. About 4:30 long:
Gov. Jack Markell was off on vacation and could not attend. Lt. Gov. Matt Denn gave a speech that was particularly critical of the Delaware Republican Party. He noted for the crowd that Republicans hold just one statewide office – Tom Wagner is the elected state auditor – and are in the minority in both houses of the General Assembly. He blamed that partly on policies that he said alienated minority communities and opposition to gay marriage.
“The Republican Party seems to be doing its part to make it easy for us to win elections,” Denn said.
“I feel guilty being here,” Denn joked. “I’m a proud Democrat. But I’m also a straight white guy. I’m pretty much all the Republicans have left.”
Buzzfeed has reported on the NRA's efforts to build a database of possibly tens of millions of gun owners from data they were able to obtain from states on gun and hunting permit owners. Interesting, yes? This is the same NRA that manufactures its outrage over the press publishing the publicly available list of people with gun permits. The NRA specifically fundraises off of manufactured fear that the government is creating lists of gun owners in order to seize those guns, or some such. As if the government didn't outgun these gun owners anyway. But here is the NRA specifically building the database it accuses the government of trying to do -- so where *is* all of the conservative outrage on this data collection effort that is being done without the permission of those gun or hunting permit owners?
![Labor Day Open Thread [9.2.13]](https://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/laborday.jpg)
