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LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER
Week of February 8, 2009
The link to this electronic newsletter is being e-mailed to 7,500+
Jefferson County Democrats
We hope you will forward the link to your own e-mail list.
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CLICK HERE FOR CURRENT LIST OF EVENTS
Updated on a regular basis
Bulletin Board:
- The Louisville/Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee meets the 4th Wednesday of every month at 5:00 pm at Democratic Headquarters,
- 640 Barret Avenue .
For Obama And GOP, Questions Of Perception, By Charlie Cook
Here are two questions to ponder over the table in the Rayburn Cafeteria. The first is whether, over the next couple of months, President Obama's job approval numbers are tethered to successes and failures, or are they more conceptual -- such that two-thirds of Americans are either optimistic or hopeful about his presidency and are likely to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The second question is whether the strategies employed by congressional Republicans will help or further isolate them from swing voters.
The gap between the 53 percent of the vote that Obama received on Nov. 4 and his job approval ratings in the mid-60s is hardly unusual. Honeymoons are the norm, not the exception, and it still speaks to a reservoir of goodwill that he is enjoying.
But looking forward, there is a tug of war between the hope of those who support him or fervently want him to succeed and the gravitational pull downward that a deep and worsening recession inevitably causes.
The tiebreaker events are more likely to be related to how he, his administration and Democrats in Congress perform. Are their policies seen as sound and their performances as competent, or not?
With a two-thirds approval rating, Obama is very likely at or near the top of his trading range, and his ratings are likely to go down. The key question is whether it will be gradual, a settling down to more mortal levels, or will it be more precipitous, suggesting a shorter honeymoon than Democrats hoped?
Presidents and their administrations are made up of mortals and thus are going to make mistakes. Do voters see these as normal shakedown cruise mistakes or as more of a pattern of ineptitude and faulty initiatives? That's the first, $64,000, question.
The other big-money question is whether Republicans are helping or hurting their own cause. While last year's election results and the GOP's gradual slipping over the last few years in party identification numbers certainly established the degree of their problems last year, current polling suggests that things have not gotten any better.
A CNN/Opinion Research national poll of 1,245 adults conducted Jan. 12-15, with a 3-point error margin, asked, "Do you think the country would be better off if the Republicans controlled Congress, or if the Democrats controlled Congress?"
It found a Democratic preference of 56-31 percent. A more recent poll of 800 registered voters conducted Jan. 21-24 by Financial Dynamics for the Hotline and Diageo -- with a 3.5-point error margin -- asked whether voters would prefer a Democrat or Republican for Congress in 2010, and found a similar Democratic advantage, 46-22 percent.
While the 111th Congress will be only a month old this week, these numbers suggest that the Republican Party base has contracted or narrowed to the point of extreme isolation, raising questions of the wisdom of their "don't give an inch" strategy.
While liberal friends suggest a futility of reaching out to GOP members of Congress for support -- pointing to the zero GOP votes that the economic stimulus package received in the House -- arguably Obama won the perception fight.
Swing voters know he reached out for Republican support and was rebuffed by the GOP. For most voters who aren't Rush Limbaugh listeners, Obama won that exchange.
This week, the Senate is debating its stimulus package, and it looks increasingly likely that the legislation will be changed fairly substantially to address concerns that it was too porked up in the House. It's not uncommon to witness Democratic senators score points at the expense of their House colleagues, and, let's face it, with some justification. Clearly, some Democrats saw the measure as a cross between Christmas and Mardi Gras: a vehicle for getting long-denied goodies, not the emergency legislative measure it was intended to be.
A decent bet might be that we will begin to see Obama utilize his own variation on triangulation, setting himself and his administration as equidistant between Republicans on the far right and Democrats on the far left. This would allow him to score points at the expense of each side's more extreme elements by inviting lawmakers to join him in the middle. With few congressional Republicans left from swing states and districts, that center ground will necessarily be made up of more Democrats than Republicans, but he will work hard to ensure that there are just enough from the GOP side to show compromise.
There is no doubt congressional leaders of both parties will mock this scenario, and the Obama White House will be scoring points at their expense.
On the one side, Democratic leaders will moan and groan but generally go along with it. On the other side, Republicans will be forced to choose between too often being irrelevant to the process on the one hand and not standing for anything on the other.
It's a lousy situation to be in, but for now there is no way out. Republicans on their own have little credibility today, and their success has become contingent upon Obama's failure, something they have little control over.
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Charlie Cook's "Off To The Races" is published each Tuesday by National Journal Group Inc. For more information about National Journal Group's publications, go to
http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/
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Congressman John Yarmuth Representing Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District PRESS RELEASE |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 4, 2009 |
MEDIA CONTACT Stuart Perelmuter 202.225.5401 |
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Yarmuth Hails Historic Children’s Health Coverage Expansion Becoming Law President Obama signs law to insure 11 million kids, 115,000 in Kentucky
(Washington, DC) Today, the long battle to insure many of America’s children was won. Just hours after Congress passed a State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) Reauthorization for the third time in two years, President Obama signed the bill into law. The five-year reauthorization will provide health insurance for 115,000 Kentucky children, 47,000 of whom are currently uninsured.
Congressman John Yarmuth (KY-3), an early cosponsor and strong advocate for the bill, praised the new law. “In this great nation, a sick child should never have to go without potentially life-saving care,” the Louisville lawmaker said. “We have taken a huge step forward, both in meeting our moral obligation to our children and in giving the youngest generations a chance to grow up healthy so they can build strong, successful lives.”
SCHIP was created in 1997 to provide health care coverage for children in families who cannot afford insurance but do not qualify for Medicaid. Over the last decade, it has proven to be a very successful and cost-effective program for providing health coverage.
The new law is nearly identical to legislation passed twice by the last Congress but vetoed both times. It is expected to provide health insurance coverage to 11 million children, including 4 million who are not currently covered.
“By reaching kids with less expensive, preventative care and giving them the opportunity to see a doctor before health problems grow into crises, we will save millions of taxpayer dollars by cutting down on costly emergency room visits,” Yarmuth added. “With millions of American families losing jobs and the health care benefits that come with them, this law is needed now more than ever.”
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Today, American Rights at Work, the national workers’ advocacy group, launches a new ad campaign to cut through the dishonest spin about the Employee Free Choice Act, a vital bill to restore the freedom to form unions and bargain and make the economy work for everyone.
The broadcast and print ads, set to launch Sunday, will push back on a massive and misleading corporate campaign, in which anti-worker front groups are blanketing politicians, journalists and the public with falsehoods about the Employee Free Choice Act.
Noting the connection between corporate greed, the stagnation of workers’ benefits and wages and the economic crisis, the new ad exposes the corporate disinformation campaign for what it is: a desperate attempt to maintain control and prevent workers from having the freedom to bargain.
Their new scheme to keep wages low? Spreading lies about the Employee Free Choice Act. The truth is, the Employee Free Choice Act absolutely protects workers’ right to choose a secret ballot election, but the choice would be the workers’, not their bosses’. That’s the secret Big Business doesn’t want you to know.
Part of a series that American Rights at Work launched nationally this month, the TV ad will be accompanied by print ads in Washington, D.C.-area publications. The corporate campaign is already in high gear—even companies that received taxpayer bailout dollars are dumping time and money into trying to stop the Employee Free Choice Act.
Congress needs to listen to the facts, not the big-dollar smear campaigns aimed at keeping corporations in charge. They need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
In case you missed it, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka was interviewed on ABC’s “World News Tonight” this past weekend and he made it clear that CEO’s taking nearly $20 billion in bonuses while the economy is tanking isn’t the American way. Here’s what Trumka said:
Giving themselves $20 billion for the worst year we’ve had since 1929 flies in the face of anything that make sense.
Trumka pointed out that the financial industry collapsed in part because of excessive executive pay. With executive bonuses tied to revenue, executives had an incentive to take big risks, such as granting home mortgages for risky borrowers who later defaulted.
All of that contributed to the collapse. We need to rein that in. We need to re-regulate them and we need to arm investors with the tools to be able to control companies and manage this risk so investors don’t get hurt in the long term.
Click here to see a video of the full ABC report.
US House Resolution 226 - suppression of the fairness doctrine. A call to action:
While the new administration and US
Legislature (with significant bi-partisan support) are attempting to hit the
ground running with an appropriate sense of urgency and the pragmatic
non-partisan solutions this moment in our nation's history requires, there
are still those among our representatives that choose to hit the ground
digging, building a bunker and fortification to protect their narrow agenda
and self interests rather than represent our commonwealth or our nation.
Regrettably, it appears that two of our state's own US house members (Brett
Guthrie, R-KY-2, and Geoff Davis, R-KY-4) are among those entrenched in
protecting a narrow non-representative agenda and not ready to lend a hand
towards steering a nation beyond the divisive partisan poisoned politics of
the past several decades. Congressman Davis and Guthrie's early record in
the 111th congress suggests that they do not understand that we need to get
past the divisive culture an
d
partisan wars of the past. They do not recognize that the urgency of our
dire state and national condition does not benefit from entrenched
partisanship and the stale old battle lines. They fail to acknowledge that
at this crucial moment in history that non-partisan solutions and grand
bargains are required and that the electorate has endorsed and is demanding
a new direction, a new political environment, new responsibility, openness
to ideas and a transparent and effective government.
A quick look at their positions, co-sponsorships, and voting record in these early days of the 111ht congress support my suggestion that they just don't get it.
I will discuss one example presently – co-sponsorship of HR 226.
Despite the tragic results of the previous eight years of rule by executive decree, stove pipe decision making and shredding of the basic tenets of our constitution - made possible to a great degree by the systematic silencing and or slandering of any and all voices of opposition – (no matter the experience, esteem, moderate nature or true patriotism of those opposition voices); Congressman Guthrie and Davis are cosponsoring House Resolution 226 that seeks to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from enacting any regulation that might promote the free marketplace of ideas and opinions. Specifically it seeks to ensure that the FCC can not reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine" which was suspended during the early years of the radical rights's rise in the mid 1980's. HR 226 reads –"Commission shall not have the authority to prescribe any rule, regulation, policy, doctrine, standard, or other requirement that has the purpose or effect of reinstating or re-promulgating (in whole or in part) the requirement that broadcasters present opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance, commonly referred to as the `Fairness Doctrine'".
It is no surprise that this would be a first order of business for those entrenched in a narrow radical agenda. It was this suspension of the Fairness Doctrine and the suppression of equal access to our airwaves, consolidation of the media, and a suppression of free speech, that enabled the radical right to consolidate its power and reshape the political and social landscape into the social, economic and political ruble that the right's revolution has left us. Their message of radical partisanship and an agenda serving the select few can only flourish in a vacuum devoid of open thought and exchange of ideas that is the right wing propaganda machine. There is a continued strength of this well funded, focused, and disciplined machine; despite being thoroughly discredited by the culminating collapse of the past year. The narrow self serving agenda which is represented by the radical right depends on the continued suspension of the open exchange of ideas promoted by the Fairness Doctrine. Congressman Guthrie's and Congressman Davis' co-sponsorship of HR 226 represents their endorsement of the continued suppression of free speech and exchange of ideas.
Let Congressman Guthrie and Davis know that we do not fear the open and free expression of ideas. Let them know that the strength of a free people and a truly representative democracy require protection and the free exercise of all voices. If their tired discredited dogma and narrow ideology that has brought our nation to our current broad based national crises can survive in a free marketplace of ideas, so be it. If it requires the continued suppression of a balanced and open marketplace of ideas as an artificial life support, then let their radial right ideology die a natural death and take its place in history with the multitude of other failed ideologies which have sought to favor the few and suppress the democratic process.
Congressman Guthrie and Congressman Davis; It is time to lead, follow, or get out of the way. Clinging to the failed ideologies of the past, propped up via the suppression of free and fair expression, will not serve the commonwealth of Kentucky or our Nation.
Ron Leach
Hardinsburg, KY
DAILY GRILL
"I have it maybe that there's 142 people who really will get a job." --
CNBC's Jim Cramer,
2/3/09, on the economic recovery package
VERSUS
"The Congressional Budget Office says Obama's economic stimulus
package of spending programs and tax cuts would create 1.2 million to 3.6
million jobs." -- USA Today,
2/3/09
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"You said that nine U.S. attorneys were fired for partisan political
reasons. That's not what the report said. Quite the opposite."
-- Former attorney general Alberto Gonzales,
2/3/09, on a Justice Department Inspector General (IG) report
VERSUS
"The evidence we uncovered in our investigation demonstrated that the
real reason for [U.S. Attorney David] Iglesias's removal were the complaints
from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists." -- DOJ IG
report,
9/08
Quotes of the Day
THINK PROGRESS: Bill Kristol: "GOP should unite against economic recovery package now to help defeat health care reform later."
Recent Senate Votes
Confirmation of Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury -
Vote Confirmed (60-34, 4 Not Voting)
The Senate confirmed Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury.
Sen. Mitch McConnell voted NO
Sen. Jim Bunning voted NO
Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 -
Vote Passed (66-32, 1 Not Voting)
The Senate voted to reauthorize and expand the State Children's Health
Insurance Program.
Sen. Mitch McConnell voted NO
Sen. Jim Bunning voted NO
Recent House Votes 
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 - Vote Passed (250-177,
6 Not Voting)
The House gave final approval to this wage discrimination measure.
Rep. Brett Guthrie voted NO
Rep. John Yarmuth voted YES
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - Vote Passed
(244-188, 1 Not Voting)
The House passed this $819 billion bill providing for additional 2009 fiscal
year appropriations.
Rep. Brett Guthrie voted NO
Rep. John Yarmuth voted YES
HUMOR
"Welcome to 'The Tonight Show.' You sound happier than
Barack Obama when he found out
Joe Biden and
Hillary Clinton both paid their taxes." --Jay Leno
"I think Barack Obama is a genius. I think this is part of the plan. Do you
ever notice when Barack Obama nominates someone, the first thing they do is
pay their taxes? He's found a way to pay off the deficit. Nominate every
single person in the country one at a time, until they pay off the deficit."
--Jay Leno
"As you know, Tom Daschle withdrew his name to be in Obama's cabinet, due to
IRS problems. Yeah, he said, 'I will not be a distraction.' See, distraction
is Washington talk for, 'Uh-oh, there's a lot more crap you don't know about
yet.'" --Jay Leno
"Wasn't it just a couple months ago, these people were making fun of Joe the
Plumber for not paying his taxes?" --Jay Leno
"Daschle says that his problems with the IRS were unintentional. Well, of
course they were unintentional. He never intended to get caught." --Jay Leno
"I guess the Democrats think IRS means, 'I'm really sorry.'" --Jay Leno
"And you know that woman here in California who just had the eight kids and
has six more at home?' Well, today, Tom Daschle proposed to her. He's not in
love, he just needs the deductions. 'Please marry me, please!'" --Jay Leno
"The White House issued a statement today saying that the reason their
nominees are having such trouble is that the new White House has set the bar
very high. See, that shows you what's wrong with politics in this country.
That's what the government considers setting the bar high, having to pay
taxes like everybody else in America." --Jay Leno
"And today, President Obama announced a salary cap of $500,000 for
executives at banks and companies that have received taxpayer bailout money.
And you know — it is good. But I'll tell you something, you can tell a lot
of these CEOs don't get it. They said, 'Well, that's $500,000 a month,
right?'" --Jay Leno
"And Wells Fargo, who got almost $25 billion in bailout money, has canceled
a pricey 12-day corporate trip to Las Vegas. And I think they learned their
lesson, because they really scaled things back. They're not doing Vegas
anymore. Now, it's a one-day pie eating contest in Laughlin." --Jay Leno
"And Citigroup, who received a huge bailout from the government, owns the
naming rights to the New York Mets' new stadium. It is currently called Citi
Field, but because of Barack Obama's crackdown on the Federal bailout money,
Citigroup will legally have to change the name of the stadium to Money
Grubbing Bastards Field." --Jay Leno
"Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi recently said that every month that we do not have an
economic recovery package, '500 million Americans lose their jobs.' I think
the Botox is starting to seep into her brain." --Jay Leno
"And the US Postal Service says they may cut postal service from six days to
five days a week. They say they're losing money because people aren't using
the postal service as much as they used to. If you'd like to complain, you
can e-mail the complaint to uspostalservice.com." --Jay Leno
The new US energy secretary predicts agriculture in California will
disappear in this century because of global warming. He said people in
California will no longer grow crops, except those who are growing them in
their basements, attics, and garages." --Jay Leno
"Either today or yesterday, Barack Obama said Americans are
'sick and tired' of people 'being rewarded for failure.' Is he talking about
me?" --David Letterman
"I'm sorry you folks weren't here last night, because you missed a big show.
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was here. You know, it's funny. The
audience really liked him, but they impeached me." --David Letterman
"But it was fun to have
Rod Blagojevich on the program, because for one night, I was not the
creepiest guy on the show." --David Letterman
"Ladies and gentlemen, while you were applauding that joke, another Obama
nominee dropped out." --David Letterman
"Have you been following this? Obama has now lost two nominees because of
tax trouble. So good luck to the new Health and Human Services nominee,
Wesley Snipes." --David Letterman
"Former Senator Tom Daschle from South Dakota had to withdraw because he
forgot to pay taxes. You know, I believe the guy because in South Dakota,
there are so many distractions." --David Letterman
"How about that
Dick Cheney? He's out of office, but he's still chomping at the bit. You
know what I'm talking about? Daschle embarrasses Obama so today Obama gets a
call from Cheney, 'Hey, let me waterboard him.'" --David Letterman
"I was stunned by the Daschle story because we don't expect Democrats to
cheat on their taxes. No, we expect Democrats to cheat on their wives.
That's how this is supposed to go!" --David Letterman
"Nation, last night, President Obama called his handling of the Tom Daschle nomination 'a mistake.' This is great news, because we all know that a president only admits to a mistake at the end of his term. So it is official: The Obama administration is over" --Stephen Colbert
"President Obama has asked the Senate to cut $50 billion from the
economic stimulus plan. Yeah, Obama says the government will no longer need
the $50 billion once everyone in his Cabinet pays their back taxes." --Conan
O'Brien
"Now that Tom Daschle has withdrawn his nomination, the White House is
thinking of replacing him with the CEO of Safeway supermarkets. That's true.
Yeah, the White House said they should be able to check him out quickly if
he has eight items or less." --Conan O'Brien
"President Obama is going to put a salary cap on execs working for
companies that take government bailout money. Finally, some accountability
in Washington. But I'm thinking if they are going introduce accountability,
shouldn't Obama start by making his own people pay their taxes?" --Craig
Ferguson
CONGRESS -- FLASHBACK: McCONNELL SAID
STIMULUS WON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEM 'GETTING OVER 60 VOTES': On
Wednesday, the House passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on a
244-188 vote, with
every Republican voting against the legislation. Now the bill moves to
the Senate for
debate and a potential vote next week. The Senate version of the
legislation is not entirely in sync with the House's version. McClatchy
reported last week that the Senate Finance Committee has already "added some
provisions
desperately sought by corporate America," such as allowing "some
companies to reduce taxes if they buy down their debt between late 2008 and
2011." The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups lobbied
heavily for the measure. Even with these
extra business provisions — which conservatives
have complained
are absent from the House bill --
nine out of 10 Republicans on the Finance Committee voted against the
draft. Just few weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
said that he doesn't think the economic recovery bill will have "any problem
getting over 60 votes." He also reportedly promised that Senate
Republicans "would
not filibuster against the stimulus package." On NPR yesterday, however,
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
issued a filibuster threat, saying that the recovery package would need
60 votes to pass. Will McConnell keep his word? Or will conservatives
continue to block the economic recovery while
advocating a return to Bushonomics?
LABOR -- OBAMA TO REVERSE ANTI-UNION BUSH
ORDERS: Today, President Obama will host labor leaders at the White
House, where he is expected to undo four anti-union Bush-era directives.
The orders that Obama will reverse include one that "allowed unionized
companies to post signs informing workers that they are allowed to
decertify their union." Another Obama order will prohibit federal
contractors from being reimbursed for expenses "intended to influence
workers' decisions to form unions or engage in collective bargaining." Labor
leaders were also on hand yesterday when Obama
signed his first major piece of legislation, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair
Pay Act, which bolsters workers' ability to bring pay discrimination
lawsuits. In an
interview with CNBC yesterday, Vice President Biden vowed to help labor
get "a fair share of the pie." Obama's orders will come at the end of a week
that has seen
another massive wave of job losses.
MOVING AHEAD ON AFFORDABLE HEALTH REFORM: The swift passage of children's health shows that comprehensive health reform is possible, despite the complexity of the problems. But we cannot stop here; the current economic crisis demands that we reform the broken health care system. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, has declared that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman points out, "F.D.R. was able to enact Social Security in part because the Great Depression highlighted the need for a stronger social safety net. And the current crisis presents a real opportunity to fix the gaping holes that remain in that safety net, especially with regard to health care."
RADICAL RIGHT -- LOYAL BUSHIES CREATE BUSH-CHENEY ALUMNI WEBSITE, AIMS TO 'HELP BUILD A LASTING LEGACY': Even before President Bush left office, he and his loyal Bushies were hard at work shaping his legacy, comparing him to Abraham Lincoln and claiming his failed policies were smashing successes. Work on his presidential library has also been increasing in recent months. The newest installment of "George Bush is a wonderful person" is now online: the Bush-Cheney Alumni Association website. All Bush employees, appointees, interns, campaign donors, and volunteers are eligible to join. The site's mission is to be "a forum in which alumni can stay connected and help build a lasting legacy for President George W. Bush and the Bush-Cheney Administration." The site contains a considerable amount of hagiography, with the highlighted "Bush Record Documents" compilations called: "Praise For President's Accomplishments" and "More Praise For President's Accomplishments." Many of the articles were written by conservative columnists or former Bush aides. These loyal Bushies have also set up several Facebook pages, including "Bush Cheney Alumni" and "Bush-Cheney Administration Alumni." Users on those sites have left comments such as: "Is it too soon to miss them?" and "Got a kiss from W yesterday at his farewell ceremony at Andrews :o(."
IRAQ -- AUDITOR: RECONSTRUCTION IN IRAQ WAS
A FAILURE: Today, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR)
Stuart Bowen will release a book, published by the bipartisan Commission on
Wartime Contracting, that "concludes that
the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq was a failure, largely because
there was no overall strategy behind it," the Washington Post reports. The
book, called "Hard Lessons," portrays "in colorful detail" the internal Bush
administration fights over responsibility for reconstruction, detailing "an
argument between Rumsfeld and Rice in the fall of 2003 during which each
said the other was in charge of supervising the Coalition Provisional
Authority." There are now
154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts
of interest, bid rigging, and theft from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The book is hardly the first reporting of the massive waste in Iraq funding:
In 2007, a SIGIR report found
$5.1 billion in expenses for Iraq's reconstruction were charged without
any documentation, and a Government Accountability Office report cited
another
$10 billion in wasteful or poorly tracked spending. Last year, the GAO
Comptroller testified that a "significant" amount of U.S. funds were being
funneled to Sunni and Shi'ite militias. Bowen said that many of the same
mistakes will likely happen in Afghanistan. "None
of the substantive changes in oversight, contracting and reconstruction
planning or personnel assignments that Congress, auditors and outside
experts proposed as the Iraq debacle unfolded has been implemented in
Afghanistan," the Post reports.
MILITARY
-- ARMY IN 1994: HUMVEES ARE A 'DEATHTRAP' AGAINST ROADSIDE BOMBS: According
to A Pentagon inspector general report, "Army and Marine Corps officials
knew nearly a decade before the invasion of Iraq that its workhorse
Humvee vehicle, was a 'deathtrap' even with armor added to protect it
against roadside bombs," USA Today reports. A 1994 study found that Humvees
"even with a mine-protection retrofit kit developed for Somalia remained a
deathtrap in the event of an anti-tank mine detonation." Despite this
knowledge, the military sent thousands of unarmored Humvees to Iraq after
the 2003 invasion. It wasn't until 2007 that the Pentagon started deploying
"significant numbers of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles,"
two-and-a-half years after
Marines in the field made an urgent plea for these better-protected
vehicles. In fact, in 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said
he had only recently learned about the benefits of MRAPs from reading a
newspaper article, even though the technology was
developed in the 1970s and the Pentagon had tested MRAPs in 2000. In
2005, then-Marine commandant Michael Hagee ignored a request to buy MRAPs,
deciding instead to
just "buy more armored Humvees." In fact, a USA Today investigation
found that as early as December 2003, Pentagon analysts sent detailed
information about the superiority of the [MRAP] vehicles to the Joint Chiefs
of Staff"; however, then-Joint Chiefs chairman Richard Myers said that
buying MRAPs "was
not on the radar screen when I was chairman."
RESTORING THE
TRUST OF WORKERS: Obama has
made clear that his Labor Department won't be anything like the one under
Bush. "Remember, this is supposed to be the Department of Labor,
not the Department of Management,"
he has stated.
Elaine Chao
-- Bush's Secretary of Labor who was confirmed in just 18 days -- made it
through
all eight years
of the Bush administration, causing such a drop in morale at the Labor
Department that staffers threw a "good-riddance
party" to cheer her
departure. She left behind a "deeply
troubled department" that
"spent eight years
attacking workers' rights,
strong workplace health and safety rules, and unions while they carried the
water for Big Business." Chao, of course, was also
a stalwart opponent of the Employee
Free Choice Act. Under
Solis, the Department of Labor will once again defend the rights of workers.
As a state senator, Solis authored the
first environmental justice law in
the nation, and she has
since said she is
committed to creating green jobs.
She also told the Senate that she would
address the retirement security
crisis; ensure that
workplaces are safe, healthy, and fair; and protect workers from job
discrimination
Think Fast
President Obama chastised Wall Street executives yesterday for distributing over $18 billion in bonuses in 2008. "That is the height of irresponsibility. ... There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to make bonuses. Now is not that time," Obama said.
Today, Exxon Mobil "reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago." Exxon's previous record was $40.6 billion in 2007.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has said he will "use all legal means available to confiscate Wall Street bonuses paid out at the end of last year." Dodd said the bonuses "are unacceptable at a time when the government is pouring tens of billions of dollars into banks to shore up the ailing financial market."
Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen said defense budget cuts may target spending on weapons. Mullen said he expects the entire federal government will come under pressure for budget cuts and "the Department of Defense is going to have to do its share. ... It's important for all of us in defense to look realistically at what our requirements are."
The Justice Department is "bracing for a broad doctrinal shift in policies from those of the Bush administration, department lawyers and Obama administration officials say." Under Eric Holder -- who is expected to be confirmed as Attorney General today -- the Department transition is "expected to be more stark than that of a transition from one party to another."
In an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) writes, "I am dismayed that legislation has again been introduced in Congress to prohibit forever oil and gas development in the most promising unexplored petroleum province in North America -- the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in Alaska."
Last night, Karl Rove delivered a speech at Loyola Marymount University in California. "One man loudly denounced Rove as a 'traitor' before he was escorted out. A woman held up a pair of handcuffs and said she would like to see Rove wearing them."
House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) said yesterday that he will introduce the Employee Free Choice Act "soon." Miller said that the bill will be "unveiled in a matter of days or weeks." Though Miller couldn’t say how many co-sponsors he has on the bill, he said that the process is "going very well." His committee will also be voting on Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor today.
INTERESTING
Pope Benedict XVI: Unions Critical to Improving Global Economy by Seth Michaels
This weekend, the leader of the Catholic Church said that in the face of a broad economic crisis, a strong union movement will be critical to recovery and rebuilding a fairer, more just market.
The Catholic News Service reports that Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the importance of unions at a meeting of the Confederation of Italian Labor Unions, Italy’s largest union federation, on Jan 31. Pope Benedict said:
The great challenge and the great opportunity posed by today’s worrisome economic crisis is to find a new synthesis between the common good and the market, between capital and labor. And in this regard, union organizations can make a significant contribution.
As the Catholic News Service reports, Pope Benedict said Catholic teaching is strongly in support of workers’ freedom to form unions and advocate for a better life for themselves, their families and their communities.
The Pope emphasized that the inalienable dignity of the worker has been a cornerstone of the church’s social teaching in the modern age, and said this teaching has helped the movement toward fair wages, improvement of working conditions and protection of vulnerable categories of employees.
He noted that his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had underlined labor as the key component in social questions and had described the labor union as an indispensable element of social life in modern industrialized societies.
Religious groups are playing a big role in fighting to protect workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain here in the United States. Organizations representing a wide variety of faiths have expressed support for the Employee Free Choice Act, and Interfaith Worker Justice has developed an Employee Free Choice Act toolkit to help congregations support economic justice and the freedom to form unions.
Buy American Mention of the Week, By Roger Simmermaker
There is no constitutional right to import
Now that the House of Representatives has passed, and the U.S. Senate is considering, an economic stimulus bill which includes a “Buy American” provision that pretty much prohibits purchasing foreign iron and steel for projects involving rebuilding America’s infrastructure, foreign countries across the globe are complaining as if to suggest our U.S. Constitution has it’s own clause that guarantees foreign counties’ right to import into the United States.
On the contrary, the U.S. Constitution specifically states that congress has the duty to “regulate trade with foreign nations.” That means we can choose to allow any percentage of imports in any industry into our country, including zero percent.
Some may call such a policy “isolationist,” which in retrospect considering the damage that free trade and globalization have inflicted upon our manufacturing industries, doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Consider what has happened to what some humbly suggest is still the sock capital of the world. Fort Payne, Alabama has held that distinction for a number of years, but many now say that Fort Payne’s claim to fame may only be rooted in the past.
Sock imports from China skyrocketed from less than 12 million pairs in 2001 to 264 million pairs in 2003 alone, putting downward pressure on domestic prices, to which free traders and free marketers shout “hallelujah!” Cheaper prices are better for consumers, they say, and help them to save money they can then use on other goods.
But the free trade/free market types fail to consider the wisdom of our founding fathers and other former statesmen held in high regard among the majority of the American people. Alexander Hamilton, for example, believed in a strong, protectionist U.S. economy where American workers were protected from cheap, foreign competition. Hamilton didn’t worry about whether we had the lowest prices in the world – he worried about having enough manufacturing jobs to employ Americans. After all, people who don’t have jobs don’t necessarily care if the store down the street is having a 70 percent-off sale because people without jobs can’t buy anything.
Given a choice, Hamilton believed, Americans would choose secure, higher paying jobs even if prices were a little higher over scarce, insecure jobs with lower pay and lower prices. If prices happen to go higher due to higher-cost domestic manufacturing, workers who are secure in their jobs can cut back on spending just like most Americans are doing now during the current economic crisis.
Alabama (the state whose senators who wanted Detroit to drop dead so they could continue subsidizing their foreign competition) has become the poster-boy state for opting to allow their textile manufacturers to die and replace them with foreign automakers that were heavily subsidized by local, state and national taxpayers. Few point out, however, states would have much less pressure to create so many jobs if they didn’t allow so many to be intentionally destroyed in the first place.
And now Tennessee is following Alabama’s lead as they witness the closing of R.L. Stowe Mills, a 108-year-old company that is shutting down textile mills across the country. But like Alabama, Tennessee thinks they have already begun implementing the answer: allow American companies to die and give away public tax dollars to foreign companies so they will relocate to their state to replace the bankrupt American ones.
Tennessee recently broke a national record for giving away the most taxpayer dollars in American history to attract German-owned Volkswagen to their state. VW decided they would build their first factory in America for a second time in Chattanooga (they closed their once-only factory in Pennsylvania in 1989) and secured over $500 million in tax breaks by pitting Tennessee against several other competing states.
Canada wants us to buy their steel since 40 percent of the steel sold in the United States currently comes from there. China wants us to buy their steel. Italy warns us of an impending trade war (wouldn’t an increase from 12 million pairs of imported socks to 264 million in two years mean we’re already in a trade war?).
But congress fails to realize we have the most to win in any trade war because we still have the most lucrative market and everyone still wants first and foremost to sell to us. Perhaps George Meany, the first president of the AFL-CIO after the American Federation of Labor merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, said it best, when he said, “Practically every country in the world…has some type of restriction has some type of restriction, some type of barrier, some type of subsidization for their own people, that gives their own manufacturers and workers an unfair advantage over the American worker…. When have we ever retaliated against the unfair barriers put up by these countries which go back many, many years? And if we are to have a trade war, if that's the only answer, I imagine if we had an all-out trade war we would do quite well for one simple fact: We have the market. We have the greatest market in the world right in this country.”
Thomas J. Donahue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, calls his opposition to the Buy American provisions in the economic stimulus bill “economic patriotism.” As the tired old refrain goes, Donahue claims such a provision would invite retaliation from trading partners (as if competitors in a trade war or any other kind of war can be called “partners”) causing us to be hurt more than our “partners.”
This type of speculation is the worst kind of defeatist attitude since it basically indicates those who support it believe there is absolutely no way America can ever enjoy a trade surplus. If we have free and open trade, three decades of recent history show we will suffer increasing and seemingly endless trade deficits. But we can’t restrict trade either because we’ll come out the loser because apparently the trade deficits will only get worse. So America is perpetually stuck, according to free traders like Donahue, with trade deficits and there seems to be no escape from this pre-destined fate because free trade obviously causes them and protectionism only makes them worse.
I wonder then, how does any nation (like protectionist China and protectionist Japan) manage to eek out trade surpluses? Why is it that China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increases annually at double digits while ours languishes between 2 and 4 percent? How did America manage to have trade surpluses after World War II up until 1975?
If we do as China wishes and buy their imported steel to fix and build America’s roads and bridges, (keep in mind China is upset because President Barack Obama recently had the gall to call them on their currency manipulation) we’ll be paying them back the money we borrowed from them to pay for the economic stimulus without actually getting credit for paying them back. After buying all that Chinese steel and sending much of the money we borrowed back to China for the payment of imported steel, we’ll still be in debt for the money we borrowed.
What we need to do is buy American steel from American steelworkers and American iron from American ironworkers. That way, workers in America will pay taxes to the U.S. Treasury, and from the coffers of the U.S. Treasury, we will pay China back the money we borrowed, settling our debt and ending with a balance of payments.
Securing the American market for the American producer is not protectionism or isolationism; it is simply common sense and financially-sound economic policy.
***************************************************************************
Roger Simmermaker is the author of How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism and writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website www.howtobuyamerican.com. Roger is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, has been a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Business Week among many other publications.
GOOD NEWS
Vice President Biden announced he will lead "a task force on the middle class" that will make sure that the benefits of economic growth "reach the people responsible for it."
"Some relief for homeowners facing foreclosure is in the pipeline," CBS News reports, after the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill last week to "allow bankruptcy judges to order banks to reduce mortgage payments."
Today, President Obama will extend health coverage to four million more lower-income children by signing legislation expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
VIDEOS
President and Vice President announce task force
America’s road to economic recovery will be driven by our middle class. Today, President Barack Obama created a task force specifically dedicated to strengthening our nation’s core -- our working families and small businesses -- and put Vice President Joe Biden in charge. READ THIS POST
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