Friday, December 09, 2005

Best of the Rest

Too tired to write anything myself, so I'll steal from others.

Matt Stoller at MyDD describes a Microsoft worker's blog:
The Mini-Microsoft blog is legendary at Microsoft. 'Mini' as he is known among employees is a very even-keeled yet frustrated guy who is fed up with the bureaucracy, incompetence, and spin he sees every day where he works. He writes the blog, and over the past year or so it's developed an important following.
Labor Blogger Runs For Senate: Labor Blogger (and former National Writers Guild President) Jonathan Tasini has decided to run for the Senate against Hillary Clinton, basing his campaign on opposing her support for the war in Iraq.

Nathan Newman reports on a Zogby poll that says that more American think that Wal-Mart is bad for the country than those who think the giant corporation is good for the country.
Even more to the point, the number of regular shoppers at Wal-Mart has fallen significantly. A the beginning of 2005, 69% of the population shopped at the company at least once or twice a month. That dropped to 51% by November.

Here's the shocking finding-- progressives have been able to create a significant shift in public opinion and shopping habits, a testament to the strong coalitions built in the last year.
David Sirota points to an article in Hotline about Business and Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) plans for the next election, noting that the headline: "Business To '06 Candidates: Wise Up Or Prepare To Lose" basically means that "the barons of Big Business can now brazenly go on record telling lawmakers that they either must sell out their constituents, or be spent into the ground."

But David missed the line that sends chills up my spine. Although BIPAC Senior Vice President Bernadette Budde isn't sure which party will control either House of Congress after the next election, but
"If the business community does its job, there will probably be a pro-business, pro-growth [majority] in Congress regardless of which party is in control," Budde said.
Let's hope not.