Peter Harriman
Argus Leader - South Dakota
February 19, 2010

A federal court ruling from eastern Washington earlier this month could shore up the legal foundation under country of origin meat labeling, or COOL, which faces a challenge from Mexico and Canada at the World Trade Organization.
 
That's the opinion of the cattle industry group R-Calf and Sen. Tim Johnson, a longtime COOL proponent.
 
However, a meat industry spokesman insisted the ruling from the Washington Easterday Ranches case has no effect on the WTO complaint against COOL.
 
"It's a completely separate legal process," National Meat Association spokesman Jeremy Russell said.

The following comes to us from the AFL-CIO Working Families e-Activist Network which can be accessed here.

The Whirlpool Corp. is closing a refrigerator manufacturing plant in Evansville, Ind., putting more than 1,100 people out of work. Even worse, Whirlpool will continue to produce these refrigerators, but not inEvansville and not anywhere else in America. They are planning to manufacture them in Mexico, where weaker labor and environmental laws make them “cheaper” for Whirlpool to produce.

This is outrageous and unacceptable, especially in light of Whirlpool’s profitability and the $19 million dollars in economic recovery money Whirlpool recently received from the federal government as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Those are OUR economic recovery funds, not Mexico’s.

To protest Whirlpool’s decisions and demand good jobs in America, I’m heading to Evansville next Friday to rally and march with local workers and labor leaders—and I’d like you to join me. No, I’m not asking you to join me in person, but I would like you to sign a petition in solidarity with the Evansville workers for me to deliver to Whirlpool’s management.

Click here to sign our petition to Whirlpool: Keep It Made in America: Save Our Jobs.

Too many people have lost their jobs. Too many jobs have been sent overseas. Enough is enough. Whirlpool’s management can’t take our money, shut down our factories and lay off our workers. It’s not acceptable—and together we’re going to deliver a loud and clear message to Whirlpool: Keep It Made in America and Save Our Jobs.

Sign our petition today.

Tell your friends to sign the petition in solidarity.

Together we will fight against corporate greed and for good jobs. Together we will rebuild the American economy, because everyone deserves a good job NOW!

In solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
AFL-CIO President

P.S. Please sign the petition today. Our power is in our numbers. Together we can make a difference.
 
 
If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Working Families e-Activist Network.

The following is a press release from the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a unique non-partisan, non-profit partnership forged to strengthen manufacturing in the U.S. AAM brings together a select group of America's leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers.

Washington, DC, February 18, 2010.  U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will award the City of Tucson, AZ with $63 million in federal stimulus funds today for the construction of a four-mile, $150 million modern streetcar system that will utilize streetcars manufactured by United Streetcar, LLC in Clackamas, OR.  The streetcars are the first to be manufactured in the United States in 60 years, and thanks to Buy America policies, are spawning a domestic supply chain that is supporting good, middle-income jobs across America.

By JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID BARBOZ

Published: February 19, 2010, New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO - A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation.

They also said the attacks, aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and capturing e-mail of Chinese human rights activists, may have begun as early as April, months earlier than previously believed. Google announced on Jan. 12 that it and other companies had been subjected to sophisticated attacks that probably came from China.

Computer security experts, including investigators from the National Security Agency, have been working since then to pinpoint the source of the attacks. Until recently, the trail had led only to servers in Taiwan.

If supported by further investigation, the findings raise as many questions as they answer, including the possibility that some of the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources.

Tracing the attacks further back, to an elite Chinese university and a vocational school, is a breakthrough in a difficult task. Evidence acquired by a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school.

The revelations were shared by the contractor at a meeting of computer security specialists.

The Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School, according to several people with knowledge of the investigation who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inquiry.