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“The U.S. fabrication industry could [not] put a project like this together.” Right… ANYMORE!

Or ever again…? Gah!

Depressing post from Balloon Juice:

The new Oakland Bay bridge is being pre-fabricated in China by workers earning $12 for a 16-hour day, working at times 7 days a week:

“I don’t think the U.S. fabrication industry could put a project like this together,” Brian A. Petersen, project director for the American Bridge/Fluor Enterprises joint venture, said in a telephone interview. “Most U.S. companies don’t have these types of warehouses, equipment or the cash flow. The Chinese load the ships, and it’s their ships that deliver to our piers.”

He’s absolutely right: As long as government—which, after all, builds all the bridges—can outsource major projects like this to the lowest-bidding, most exploitative employer in the entire world, we’re not going to have an local industry able to build new bridges. Such is the monumental, self-serving stupidity of our Galtian/governmental confluence.

Thanks, state government ‘patriots.’

From the comments of that post: MikeBoyScout – June 26, 2011 | 10:13 am · Link

Ambridge, Pennsylvania where today about 16.4% of families and 17.8% of the population were below the poverty line.

American Bridge attracted thousands of immigrants who came to fulfill their dreams of work, freedom, and peace. The steel mills became the focal point of the town. Most of the employees were relatives of relatives and the small town grew, with wards separating the town into ethnic sections.

With the growth of the steel mills, Ambridge became a worldwide leader in steel production.[citation needed] The borough became known for bridge building, metal molding, and the manufacture of tubes (large iron pipes). During World War II, the American Bridge Company fabricated steel for the building of LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks). The steel was then sent by rail to the adjacent American Bridge naval shipyard in Leetsdale, PA where the LSTs were built. The area was also home to several other steel mills like Armco, the pipe mill which manufactured oil piping, and A.M. Byers, a major iron and tool fabricator. Eventually competition by foreign steel producers began to cause the share of the steel market for U.S. manufacturers to dwindle. With the shift of steel production overseas, the Ambridge Bridge Company ended operations in Ambridge in 1983. The legacy of American Bridge can be seen today from coast to coast, from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

But wait. Michele Bachmann has a solution!

You see? Americans, too, could proudly earn $12 a day for 16-hour workdays!

I’ll say it again: Watch The Company Men. The ending of this movie is really going to be the only solution for America.

… Captive student workers protest in… China, India, Mexico? NO! In Pennsylvania at the Hershey plant! FOREIGN STUDENTS PAID UP TO $6,000 TO BE IN A U.S. SPONSORED CULTURAL-EXCHANGE PROGRAM, working at Hershey’s chocolate plant in Pennsylvania. Mandatory company housing costs left them with $40-$140 a week after 40 hours of work, and they were threatened with deportation if they complained. Yeah, that seem like a legit foreign cultural-exchange program IN AMERICA, doesn’t it? Corporations are people, too! From the LATimes:  The National Guestworker Alliance filed a complaint Wednesday on behalf of 400 international students who had apparently paid $3,000 to $6,000 to participate in a U.S.-certified cultural exchange program. The complaint, sent to the U.S. Department of State, says the students were exploited by Hershey Co. and that the company takes unfair advantage of the program. The students also launched a protest at the plant. Those protests were continuing Thursday, with the students, labor leaders and Pennsylvania workers who have joined the fight rallying in downtown Hershey, according to an email alert the alliance sent to The Times The organization, which helped organize the protests, has dubbed their efforts the Justice at Hershey’s Campaign. The students, who hail from countries such as China, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Mongolia, Ghana and Thailand, were recruited at their universities to participate in the U.S. State Department J-1 visa program, described on a U.S. State Department website as an Exchange Visitor Program. The program leads to a three-month visa that allows students to work in the United States while learning about American culture and improving their English skills. The goal of the program, according to the State Department’s site, is to foster “global understanding through educational and cultural exchange.” Instead, says a representative of the National Guestworker Alliance, students who wound up at the Hershey’s plant were living in “economic captivity,” forced to pay for mandatory company housing that left them with $40 to $140 a week for 40 hours of work. “They were desperate and feeling isolated,” the organization’s communications director, Stephen Boykewich, said in an interview with The Times. According to the complaint, conveniently made available to media, when the students complained about the violations of U.S. law, “they were threatened with deportation and other long term immigration consequences to remain quiet about the violations.” HERSHEY’S RESPONSE: it’s the subcontractor’s fault! (LA Times)
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Captive student workers protest in… China, India, Mexico? NO! In Pennsylvania at the Hershey plant!

FOREIGN STUDENTS PAID UP TO $6,000 TO BE IN A U.S. SPONSORED CULTURAL-EXCHANGE PROGRAM, working at Hershey’s chocolate plant in Pennsylvania. Mandatory company housing costs left them with $40-$140 a week after 40 hours of work, and they were threatened with deportation if they complained. Yeah, that seem like a legit foreign cultural-exchange program IN AMERICA, doesn’t it? Corporations are people, too! From the LATimes: 

The National Guestworker Alliance filed a complaint Wednesday on behalf of 400 international students who had apparently paid $3,000 to $6,000 to participate in a U.S.-certified cultural exchange program. The complaint, sent to the U.S. Department of State, says the students were exploited by Hershey Co. and that the company takes unfair advantage of the program.

The students also launched a protest at the plant. Those protests were continuing Thursday, with the students, labor leaders and Pennsylvania workers who have joined the fight rallying in downtown Hershey, according to an email alert the alliance sent to The Times

The organization, which helped organize the protests, has dubbed their efforts the Justice at Hershey’s Campaign.

The students, who hail from countries such as China, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Mongolia, Ghana and Thailand, were recruited at their universities to participate in the U.S. State Department J-1 visa program, described on a U.S. State Department website as an Exchange Visitor Program. The program leads to a three-month visa that allows students to work in the United States while learning about American culture and improving their English skills.

The goal of the program, according to the State Department’s site, is to foster “global understanding through educational and cultural exchange.”

Instead, says a representative of the National Guestworker Alliance, students who wound up at the Hershey’s plant were living in “economic captivity,” forced to pay for mandatory company housing that left them with $40 to $140 a week for 40 hours of work.

“They were desperate and feeling isolated,” the organization’s communications director, Stephen Boykewich, said in an interview with The Times.

According to the complaint, conveniently made available to media, when the students complained about the violations of U.S. law, “they were threatened with deportation and other long term immigration consequences to remain quiet about the violations.”

HERSHEY’S RESPONSE: it’s the subcontractor’s fault! (LA Times)

[image: politicaldirtylaundry] … Here’s Some Advice for Mitt Romney – Matthew Dowd — Let go of the bitter fight with Rick Santorum and understand the key strategic imperative is to unite the party. Being bigger than Santorum will show how confident you are and how generous you can be. Don’t run any more negative ads against Santorum; let it be OK for him to win his home state and possibly save face. Tell your staff to quit attacking him and his campaign. Choose either to be all positive about yourself or to only contrast yourself with Obama. This will show how smart your campaign is and how able you are to adapt to a new moment. It is Easter, by the way, and as many folks of faith celebrate a new beginning and the power of compassion. Adopt this same sentiment. 
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[image: politicaldirtylaundry]

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Here’s Some Advice for Mitt Romney – Matthew Dowd — Let go of the bitter fight with Rick Santorum and understand the key strategic imperative is to unite the party. Being bigger than Santorum will show how confident you are and how generous you can be. Don’t run any more negative ads against Santorum; let it be OK for him to win his home state and possibly save face. Tell your staff to quit attacking him and his campaign. Choose either to be all positive about yourself or to only contrast yourself with Obama. This will show how smart your campaign is and how able you are to adapt to a new moment. It is Easter, by the way, and as many folks of faith celebrate a new beginning and the power of compassion. Adopt this same sentiment. 

… Santorum struggles to stay relevant as Romney and Obama begin face-off  – Romney has already launched the first of what is expected to be a barrage of attack adverts targeting Santorum’s record as a US senator from the state for 12 years. Romney has accused him of betraying conservative values by voting to raise the national debt and of being compromised by years in Congress. […] Romney commanded the most support among strong backers of the Tea Party movement and ran a close second to Santorum among voters who identified themselves as very conservative or as evangelical Christians. In early contests, such as South Carolina, Romney did badly with those groups. After Tuesday’s losses, Santorum pledged to defy pressure from “the Republican establishment and aristocracy” to drop out of the race and said he would keep going through the primaries in May. “Who’s ready to charge out of the locker room in Pennsylvania for a strong second half?” he said. But if Santorum loses the race in Pennsylvania, the pressure to step aside and allow the Republican party to concentrate on its campaign against Obama will intensify.
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Santorum struggles to stay relevant as Romney and Obama begin face-off  – Romney has already launched the first of what is expected to be a barrage of attack adverts targeting Santorum’s record as a US senator from the state for 12 years. Romney has accused him of betraying conservative values by voting to raise the national debt and of being compromised by years in Congress. […] Romney commanded the most support among strong backers of the Tea Party movement and ran a close second to Santorum among voters who identified themselves as very conservative or as evangelical Christians. In early contests, such as South Carolina, Romney did badly with those groups. After Tuesday’s losses, Santorum pledged to defy pressure from “the Republican establishment and aristocracy” to drop out of the race and said he would keep going through the primaries in May. “Who’s ready to charge out of the locker room in Pennsylvania for a strong second half?” he said. But if Santorum loses the race in Pennsylvania, the pressure to step aside and allow the Republican party to concentrate on its campaign against Obama will intensify.

… Rick Santorum Trails Mitt Romney In Pennsylvania, Poll Says – The notion that Santorum has a shot at the Republican nomination even with a victory in Pennsylvania was already a bit far-fetched. A loss there would likely convince even the most passionate backer that the gig is up. But the practical effect of poll numbers like these is greater then just providing a window into where the race currently stands. Santorum has a lot — personally and professionally — riding on his performance in Pennsylvania. And it’s not unreasonable to see him feeling intense pressure to bow out of the contest out of concern that he’d suffer an embarrassing loss.
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Rick Santorum Trails Mitt Romney In Pennsylvania, Poll Says – The notion that Santorum has a shot at the Republican nomination even with a victory in Pennsylvania was already a bit far-fetched. A loss there would likely convince even the most passionate backer that the gig is up. But the practical effect of poll numbers like these is greater then just providing a window into where the race currently stands. Santorum has a lot — personally and professionally — riding on his performance in Pennsylvania. And it’s not unreasonable to see him feeling intense pressure to bow out of the contest out of concern that he’d suffer an embarrassing loss.

U.S. Judges Admit to Jailing Children for Money

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, plead guilty in open court that they sentenced children to juvenile detention because they were paid off to do it by the PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare corporation that ran the private facilities.

[…]

The companies in question paid the two judges more than $2.6 million dollars to send children to detention.  The companies receive a stipend from the government for each inmate they house.  So as more children were sentenced to the detention center, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.

According to the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit group, teenagers were sentenced to detention for simple misdemeanors.

Pennsylvania Republican: Voter ID law is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win”

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.” – House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R), describing accomplishments of the Pennsylvania legislature at a Republican State Committee meeting in Pennsylvania this weekend.

Related: 

I believe that my duty is to follow my conscience and vote what I think is in the best interest of the country, and the political risks will have to abide.
Sen. Arlen Specter • On his decision to switch parties and support the Affordable Care Act, a switch he made in 2009 amidst controversy. The change cost him another term in the Senate — he lost a challenge to Rep. Joe Sestak in 2010, and Sestak lost to Pat Toomey in the general election. Specter managed to become the longest-serving senator in Pennsylvania history despite suffering numerous health problems — including two benign brain tumors in the 1990s, and two separate bouts of Hodgkin’s disease in the 2000s. Specter died of complications from non-Hodgkins lymphoma on Sunday. (via shortformblog)
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