On July 18 thousands of activists and dozens of organizations will converge on downtown Detroit to protest the privatization of the city’s assets and the disconnection of water to tens of thousands of low-income residents. The UN has called the shutoff a human rights violation. Demonstrators from around the country will rally in Hart Plaza at 1 pm, linking arms with the citizens of Detroit to protest the hostile corporate takeover by Wall Street banks and their ALEC-led political allies in the Michigan Statehouse, including Governor Rick Snyder.

July 18 marks the one-year anniversary of the announcement by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr that Detroit must file for bankruptcy—a decision that County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina immediately ruled violates the Michigan Constitution and state law and must be withdrawn. “I have some very serious concerns because there was this rush to bankruptcy court that didn’t have to occur and shouldn’t have occurred,” Aquilina stated. Orr and Snyder managed to circumvent her ruling, and the bankruptcy proceeded. The next few months will determine how successful they will be.

On July 4 the activist community of Detroit put out this call to action: “We call on activists everywhere to come to Detroit on Friday, July 18th, for a rally and march to fight the dictatorship of emergency manager Kevyn Orr, appointed by millionaire Republican Governor Rick Snyder, and backed by Wall Street bankers and the 1 percent. Under a state-imposed bankruptcy, the City of Detroit workers face severe cuts to their pensions and tens of thousand people face water shut-offs.

"The banks, which have destroyed Detroit's neighborhoods through racist predatory sub-prime mortgages and saddled the city of Detroit with fraudulent financing, continue to loot the people of Detroit. Detroiters have lost their democratic rights – 'elected' officials serve at the pleasure of the unelected Emergency Manager – and may be fired at any time.”

MADISON (WKOW) -- At least two companies that received financial awards from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) later outsourced jobs to foreign countries, with one of those companies receiving a second WEDC award after the fact. A 27 News investigation has uncovered that both the Eaton Corporation and Plexus Corporation received millions of dollars in financial awards from WEDC, only to later lay off workers whose jobs were taken by employees at the companies' foreign facilities.

In 2011, WEDC awarded Eaton Corp. with up to $1 million in tax credits if the company met job creation and retention goals at its manufacturing facility in Menomonee Falls. WEDC officials say the company has received $190,000 in tax credits so far. In April of 2013, Eaton laid off 163 employees at its Cooper Power Systems plant in Pewaukee and announced it was moving those jobs to Mexico. Less than a year later, WEDC awarded Eaton Corp. with up to $1.36 million in additional tax credits for a proposed $54 million expansion at that same Pewaukee plant. But on Wednesday, WEDC Spokesperson Mark Maley told 27 News Eaton Corp. "recently notified WEDC it will not seek any tax credits for this project."

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WEDC awarded Plexus Corp. of Neenah with tax credits of up to $2 million in 2011 and up to $15 million in 2012. Maley says Plexus has received $4.7 million in tax credits to this point. In July of 2012, Plexus announced it was laying off 116 workers from its Neenah facility. The U.S. Department of Labor has since ruled those employees, as well as all Plexus employees laid off since December of 2011, are eligible to receive federal Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits. Those benefits are only available to employees who were laid off because their jobs were outsourced to foreign countries.

Plexus Corp. did not identify where it relocated those jobs to in 2012, but also has offices and interests in the United Kingdom, China, Germany, Romania, Malaysia and Thailand.

Co-sponsor of Abstinence Only legislation, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) announced his unwed, 17 year old daughter is pregnant. Not long ago, Matt Lauer asked a female CEO if she could work and be a good mother. At the time, many people wondered why men are not asked the same type of question.

GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy's idea of a good father is a father who promotes abstinence only. In fact, Rep. Bill Cassidy co-sponsored the abstinence only bill in the US Congress which is titled "Abstinence Education Reallocation Act of 2013" ... hmmm ...

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It appears that teaching "abstinence only" in his home failed as GOP Rep. Cassidy's daughter is an unwed, pregnant teen going into her senior year of high school. GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy also supported Roy Blunt's 2012 "moral conviction" legislation.

Recall, Roy Blunt's 2012 "moral conviction" legislation exempted employers from providing any health coverage that went against their "religious beliefs or moral convictions." That meant, Blunt's 2012 "moral conviction" legislation exempted all employers who had a "moral" objection from: providing birth control coverage, allow bigots to claim a “moral” objection to providing health coverage for minorities; employers with "moral" disdain for single mothers could deny them maternity coverage; Scientologists could deny coverage for mental health care; and over 20 million women receiving coverage for preventive services would have lost that coverage.