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LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER
Week of June 5, 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:
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Governor Beshear has unveiled his budget proposal.
Kentucky is facing the largest budget shortfall in modern history. It is the third year in a row the state will be faced with revenues that don't meet projected needs - also an unprecedented occurrence.
Governor Beshear's plan represents a common-sense, compassionate approach that will help fulfill the two goals he has set for his administration: helping people survive and positioning the state for progress when the economy does inevitably turn around.
Three key elements of the plan:
How will it be paid for?
Highlights of the plan include:
Despite the pain that additional spending reductions and program cuts will foster, Governor Beshear said Kentucky is much more fortunate than most states, many of which have laid off scores of police, teachers, state and university employees, while also severely cutting basic and human services programs.
This is a tough time for Kentucky. Under the governor's plan the burden and sacrifices are fairly shared. The governor's leadership sustains our confidence that we will weather this storm together and be stronger for it.
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Paid for and authorized by the Kentucky Democratic Party PO Box 694, Frankfort KY 40602 • (502) 695-4828 • www.kydemocrat.com Contributions or gifts to the Kentucky Democratic Party are not tax deductible. |
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OFF TO THE RACES
Enough With The Selective Outrage, By Charlie Cook
Someone recently asked me what, after all these years around politics -- 25 years of covering politics, 37 years involved in one way or another -- I liked best and what bothered me the most.
To my alarm, I found myself exhibiting far more passion in delineating what I didn't like: the increasingly hateful tone of the discourse, the hypocrisy of selective outrage and the feigning of disgust over behavior of an opponent while turning a blind eye when it occurs in one's own party.
To be sure, one can go back to the earliest days of our country to find hateful behavior in the discussion and execution of American politics. But there is far more today than when I worked on my first campaign as a senior in high school in 1972 or worked on Capitol Hill while attending college starting in 1973.
People rarely stop at simply disagreeing now. For many, if someone has a different position on an issue, it isn't enough to think them wrong -- they must be stupid; they must be corrupt; their motives must be questioned. Just believing someone is wrong isn't sufficient anymore.
Disclosure and embarrassment were once considered enough punishment. Now, we want investigations, "truth commissions" and punishment, what some have come to call the criminalization of the political process. It isn't enough to beat someone. You must try to throw them in jail or, at the very least, cost them a fortune in legal fees. The fact that neither side can afford that level of scrutiny seems lost on many.
The problem with this, beyond simply being narrow-minded, is that it makes it harder for those individuals to work together on some other issue where they might actually agree. The way Capitol Hill and politics is supposed to work is that while we may disagree on X today, we might agree and work together on Y tomorrow.
But the growing relish and intensity of ad hominem attacks makes such a scenario more difficult to achieve, leading Congress to become increasingly dysfunctional, regardless of which party is in charge.
The second is selective outrage. The most recent example was the attack by the Republican National Committee on President Obama and the first lady for flying to New York "at taxpayers expense" for dinner and a play. Let's just put aside for a moment the fact that presidents aren't really allowed to just hop on the Metroliner on their own dime to go to New York.
I don't recall the RNC taking a position on former President George W. Bush's 77 trips to Crawford, Texas, covering all or part of 490 days -- whenever you see these kinds of numbers, you know they come from CBS Radio's Mark Knoller, the semiofficial keeper of all White House statistics -- while Bush was in office. Or for that matter, the 11 trips to Kennebunkport, Maine, which covered another 43 days. For those slow at math, that's 533 days out of 2,920 in office. And those were generally flights on the 747 version of Air Force One, not the three much smaller, and less expensive, Gulfstream jets used to ferry the first couple, staff, security and press on this past weekend's trip.
During the eight years of Bush's presidency, this column never criticized his travel, and it wouldn't now, except that his party is attacking his successor for a pattern of personal travel that, at least so far, has been considerably less costly to the taxpayer.
Now the question is whether the RNC staffers responsible for putting out this release do not remember their last president's travel patterns, do they think we won't recall or do they simply have no shame?
To be bipartisan about all of this, there is a deafening silence from Democrats as the stench of scandal increases around some members of the House Appropriations Committee, most recently Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and members of his staff who have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.
We don't hear quite the uproar from Democrats that we heard when former Reps. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif., Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and others received similar invitations from authorities. Sure there is the "presumption of innocence until proven guilty in court" refrain, but Democrats didn't seem to care so much for that presumption back when it was Republicans in the hot seat.
Sooner or later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is going to have to deal with the problem of House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., choosing between one of her earliest and most loyal backers and the reform message that Democrats ran on in 2006 when they recaptured the House.
It would seem to me that Murtha's days are numbered, politically or legally speaking. The question is how long will it take and how bad will he make his party look before he's gone? Voters aren't likely to distinguish between scandals involving Jack Abramoff and the now-defunct PMA lobbying group; it smells the same to them.
It would seem that when Democrats talked about draining the ethical swamp on Capitol Hill a few years ago, they must have been talking just about the Republican end.
It's watching these kinds of things that make long-time observers cynical and jaded. There is so much to be faulted and so much hypocrisy from each side that it would strike me as difficult to, over a long period of time, see either side as that of truth, justice and prudence. It comes down more to which side is the lesser of two evils, the sides changing with some degree of regularity.
Here Come the Big Lies About Health Care Reform by Mike Hall
We noted a few days ago how the private insurance industry was set to unleash its attack dogs on health care reform to try to kill a public health insurance plan option as part of President Obama’s health care reform initiative.
Those dogs have started to bark.
Yesterday, the fake group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP)—another one of those astroturf names meant to appeal to All of Us—launched a $1.7 million TV ad campaign claiming we may all die if Obama’s health care reform proposals are enacted.
The ads don’t even skirt the neighborhood of the truth, but then, as Robert Borosage wrote last week, the health care industry has a long history of “trying to scare the hell out of Americans” when it comes to health care reform.
The ads conjure up the boogeyman of a “government-run” health care system where patients will die as their cancerous tumors grow to fatal stages while they wait months to receive care. Scary stuff. Phony, but meant to scare us all.
A public health plan option has won the endorsement of major health care groups and many senators and representatives and is a key component of the AFL-CIO’s health care reform principles.
It would provide workers who have private insurance and those without insurance a choice in coverage: Stay with their private plan or choose the public plan option. It would also—which scares the hay out of the private insurance industry—provide some competition for an industry that has secured a near-monopoly of the market and recorded record profits, while we are paying more for less care.
The Wall Street Journal reports that another group, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, is buying air time for a 30-minute Sunday morning infomercial featuring “horror stories” about the Canadian and British health care systems and warning the U.S. government is about to take over health care here.
Like AFP’s campaign, that message doesn’t even have a nodding acquaintance with the truth. But a key Republican strategist says the truth doesn’t matter when it comes to fighting health care reform. BTW, most Republican lawmakers have decried a public plan option with strikingly similar, and just as phony, arguments.
Think Progress reports that lies about health care reform are not going to go away anytime soon.
In an interview with The New York Times, conservative pollster Frank Luntz admitted that he would continue raising the false specter of a ”Washington takeover” of health care—whether or not that was Obama’s actual proposal. “I’m not a policy person. I’m a language person,” Luntz said.
Click here for a detailed look at the blueprint for the propaganda campaign against health care reform.
The truth may set you free, but a big lie just might protect Big Health Insurance Companies’ big profits.
If you lost your job today, would you know where to turn for help? The new online Unemployment LifeLine from Working America and the AFL-CIO is a one-stop resource center to guide jobless workers to local services and advice from others coping with unemployment.
YOUR COMMENTS
DAILY GRILL
I think Republicans need to take [Sotomayor] on in the appropriate
fashion, which is about her judicial philosophy, her record on the court,
her writings and her statements." -- Karl Rove, 5/28/09 on Fox News
VERSUS
"[Sotomayor is] sort of a schoolmarm." -- Rove,
5/26/09
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"I know that a lot of folks want to do the knee jerk, you know, "Let's
start slammin' and rammin'." But I think we really need to take a step back
from this and deal with two things: One the historic aspect of it, okay,
acknowledge it. But then move on to the substance of the conversation about
what his woman believes." -- RNC Chair Michael Steele,
5/29/09, on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination
VERSUS
"[Sotomayor is] not a bell ringer...the
word on the street is that she is rather abrasive. And that's the one thing
the Supreme Court is not. Is a place for abrasive personalities." -- Steele,
5/08/09
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"[Unions] cripple the system that makes a company work." -- MSNBC's Mika
Brzezinski,
6/03/09
VERSUS
"[GE] made more than $18 billion in 2008. ... All that despite (or, perhaps,
because of) the fact that 13 different unions represent GE workers. Oh, and
GE owns NBC-Universal, which owns MSNBC, which pays Joe Scarborough [and
Mika Brzezinski] a handsome salary." -- Media Matters's Jamison Foser,
6/03/09
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"[President] Obama Says U.S. Is a 'Muslim Country.'" -- Fox Nation,
6/02/09
VERSUS
"[O]ne of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the
number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in
the world." -- Obama,
6/01/09
Quotes of the Day
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Recent Senate Votes
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NONE THIS WEEK
Right-Wing Hate Rears Its Ugly Head
The radical right wing has launched a vicious campaign of racist and
sexist attacks against Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's selection to
replace the retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Sotomayor's
"compelling
life story" involves a brilliant legal career after being raised in a
South Bronx public housing project by parents who moved from Puerto Rico.
Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University
summa cum laude, edited the Yale Law
Journal, then served as a "fearless
and effective"
New York City prosecutor and corporate lawyer before being appointed to
the bench by President George H. W. Bush in 1992. "Since joining the Second
Circuit in 1998, Sotomayor has
authored over 150 opinions," only
three of which have been overturned by the Supreme Court's conservative
majority. During her time as an appeals judge, "her
influence has grown significantly." Public reaction to the nomination of
the first Latina and third woman to the nation's highest court is "decidedly
more positive than negative." Former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon
remarked, "If Republicans make a big deal of opposing Sotomayor, we will be
hurling ourselves off a cliff." However, "the
same right-wing extremists who drove the country into the ground,"
Salon's Glenn Greenwald writes, "continue to attack Sonia Sotomayor with
blatant and ugly stereotypes." Right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan called
Sotomayor an "affirmative
action candidate," and Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes claimed she
"has
benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously." As
hate-radio extremist Glenn Beck described the nomination: "Hey,
Hispanic chick lady! You're empathetic ... you're in!"
'SORT OF A SCHOOLMARM': Right-wing
extremists have also launched vicious attacks on her intelligence,
temperament, and demeanor. Karl Rove, President Bush's "political brain,"
has led the sexist slurs, claiming that Sotomayor is "not
necessarily" smart and has acted "like sort of
a schoolmarm" on the Second Circuit. "I'm
not really certain how intellectually strong she would be," he opined on
Fox News. In the Wall Street Journal,
Rove argued she is one of those judges selected "for their readiness to
discard the rule of law
whenever
emotion moves them." Citing
anonymous attacks promoted by the New Republic, Weekly Standard
executive editor Fred Barnes said that Sotomayor was "not
the smartest." The New York Times writes that "to detractors, Judge
Sotomayor's
sharp-tongued and occasionally combative manner -- some lawyers have
described her as 'difficult' and 'nasty' -- raises questions about her
judicial temperament and willingness to listen." But a fellow Second Circuit
judge, Guido Calabresi, "kept track of the questions posed by Judge
Sotomayor and other members of the 12-member court" and found that her
"behavior was identical." "Some lawyers just don't like to be questioned by
a woman," Judge Calabresi added. "It
was sexist, plain and simple."
MEDIA -- FOX NEWS EMBRACES RIGHT-WING THEORY THAT OBAMA IS FORCING GOP-OWNED CAR DEALERSHIPS TO CLOSE: Citing a handful of right-wing bloggers Wednesday afternoon, the Washington Examiner reported ominously, "Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted Chrysler dealers who contributed to Republicans" for closure. Not to be outdone, Fox and Friends hosted conservative blogger Michelle Malkin yesterday morning to play up the conspiracy theory. "Believe me Steve, over the last several years, we've all documented the Obama-Chicago-gangland tactics that certainly make this a possibility," Malkin said. Malkin's speculative hysterics were apparently enough to pique the interest of Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett. As he's done with other right-wing conspiracy theories, he asked the White House for its response to the charges. "There is some concern in the blogosphere that of the Chrysler dealerships being closed, a disproportionate number appear to be in which the operators contributed to Republicans." As Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained to Garrett, it is Chrysler -- not the federal government -- that is in charge of selecting which dealerships will be closed. Further, as Nate Silver explained in a post that was published just hours after the Examiner's initial report yesterday, "There is just one problem with this theory. Nobody has bothered to look up data for the control group: the list of dealerships which aren't being closed." Silver explained, "It turns out that all car dealers are, in fact, overwhelmingly more likely to donate to Republicans than to Democrats -- not just those who are having their doors closed." In all, Silver found that "88 percent of the contributions from car dealers went to Republican candidates and just 12 percent to Democratic candidates," while, the list of Chrysler dealerships being closed "gave 92 percent of their money to Republicans -- not really a significant difference."
Think Fast
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) is "circulating the outlines of sweeping health-care legislation that would require every American to have insurance and would mandate that employers contribute to workers' coverage." The proposal, which includes a separate public option, also "calls for opening Medicaid to those whose incomes are 500 percent of the federal poverty level, or $110,250 a year for a family of four."
On a conference call with Organizing for America volunteers yesterday, President Obama said it's now or never for health care reform. "If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done," Obama said, urging callers to "work in your communities" to build support for reform. "[W]e've got to get it done this year," Obama repeated.
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has been criticized as an "anti-gun radical" for a ruling that concluded that "the Second Amendment does not prevent state and local governments from restricting arms ownership." Yesterday, however, "a panel of conservative luminaries on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit reached the same conclusion."
Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that the nation must do more for the mental health of American soldiers, warning that statistics show "there are going to be more [troop] suicides this year than last." Mullen said that "the military lacks the number of mental health professionals necessary to help returning or soon-to-deploy troops deal with the high stress of war."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has issued an order for the House to "begin posting representatives' expense reports online, giving the public easy access to records of the millions of dollars lawmakers spend on staff and items such as catering, cars, computers and TVs." Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said that "he would introduce a bill requiring the expense records be posted online in the Senate, as well."
HUMOR
"Have you been following this North Korea situation with
Kim Jong-Il? You know Kim Jong-Il? The guy is nuts. And he's apparently
threatening nuclear missiles and so on and so forth. And he's getting to be
a little older, so now he's appointed his son to take over for him when he
steps down. And his son's name is Kim Jong-Un. That's his name, Kim Jong-Un.
And I think the son is weird also, because he's already announcing plans
that he's going to turn North Korea into a disco." --David Letterman
"Everybody thinks about it, you know, having a son who will one day take
over. But this Kim Jong-Un may not be that smart, because a couple of times
a day he asks people over there, 'Uh, so is this North Korea or South
Korea?'" --David Letterman
"Talk about a guy who won't go away. How about
Osama bin Laden? I mean, come on. Come on with this guy. And there's
another one of those aggravating tapes that he sends out from time to time
and they put them on the Al Jazeera network. There's a new tape and people
say, 'Well, how do we know this is a current tape?' Well I'll tell you how
you can tell that this is a current tape. At the end of the tape, he wishes
Jay luck on the new 10 p.m. show." --David Letterman
"And in the new tape, it's a long, crazy man, lunatic rant condemning
President Obama. Oh no, wait a minute, that's
Cheney. That was Cheney doing that." --David Letterman
"Very strange tape from Osama bin Laden. He claims that 'American Idol' was
fixed, number one. And then he demands the release of Phil Spector." --David
Letterman
"How about that Dick Cheney? He's really quite busy here lately. He's
talking. He says now that Saddam Hussein, listen to this, think about this,
Saddam Hussein, who used to be the guy running the show there in Iraq, said
Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Whoa. And to get that
information, Cheney admits that he had to waterboard himself." --David
Letterman
"Yeah, Cheney's all hot about it. He says America is now less safe. He said
Obama is making America less safe. And then to prove his point, Cheney shot
a hunting buddy in the face. That's exactly what he did." --David Letterman
"But now -- and this could be pivotal -- President Obama is in Saudi Arabia.
Were you aware of that? Yep, he's in Saudi Arabia. He spent the night at
King Abdullah's ranch. He has a ranch there. It's the Lazy Camel." --David
Letterman
"Think about this. Obama is in the Middle East trying to straighten out the
world, trying to make things better than they were. And talk about pressure,
talk about a guy who's being busy, talk about a guy, every move is being
scrutinized. Meanwhile, on the other hand, you have
John McCain. He's at a bakery waiting for his number to be called."
--David Letterman
"And Obama, you know, when he travels, it's a big deal. He arrived at the
Saudi Arabia airport there with a plane load of staff, a plane load of
press. I'm telling you, this is costing more than a date with his wife
Michelle." --David Letterman
"But listen to this. Now, I knew this was going to happen. They do this to
everybody. They start digging around and they get these reporters and they
go nuts and they want to write books and they publish newspapers. And I
think, well, why don't you just mind your own business? That's what I think.
And they found out now that back in 2000, there was some marital tension in
the Obama marriage. Some marital tension. Hey, but, I mean, come on, who
hasn't had a little marital tension? Am I right? Yeah. I am the epitome of
marital tension. Just take a look at me. Take a look at the wreck I am."
--David Letterman
"Rush
Limbaugh said today he might change his mind about something. I'm like,
what?! He said he might support President Obama's nominee for the Supreme
Court. Wow! Sounds like someone got a new prescription." --Craig Ferguson
"Osama bin Laden put out a new audiotape today. I'm like, you're a bit
behind the times, you know. We don't use the audiotape. Everyone is on
Twitter
now." --Craig Ferguson
"Experts say the tape was recorded recently, because it's mostly just
ranting about how Susan Boyle got robbed. 'She has the voice of an angel,
dammit. You will pay for this!'" --Craig Ferguson
INTERESTING
Kentucky Democrats are abuzz over their party’s chances to grab Sen. Jim Bunning’s seat next year.
“Bunning is widely considered the most vulnerable incumbent of the cycle,” wrote John McArdle in Roll Call.
The Kentucky senate race will doubtless attract national attention next year. It’s big news when a Republican senator seems to be in big trouble in a Red State. Bunning is also feuding with the GOP Senate minority leader, who happens to be Kentucky’s senior U.S. senator.
Once allies, Bunning and Sen. Mitch McConnell have become “Kentucky’s latest version of the Hatfields and McCoys,” according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the state’s largest newspaper.
Bunning claims McConnell wants him to bow out, evidently because McConnell thinks Bunning will lose. Apparently, other Republicans also believe Bunning should step aside for a stronger candidate.
The 77-year-old Bunning vows he’s running.
So far, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, who Bunning barely beat in 2004, and Atty. Gen. Jack Conway are the only big-name Democrats who want Bunning’s job. Darlene Fitzgerald Price, a retired customs officer, declared her candidacy in the May, 2010, primary before Mongiardo or Conway said they were running. But she has little chance against Mongiardo and Bunning.
“I think this election is ours to lose,” said State Rep. Will Coursey, a Benton Democrat. “We think Bunning is beatable.”
Pundits say the Democrats are in excellent shape to best the cantankerous Bunning, an ultra-conservative – even by Kentucky standards -- who is given to making strange statements. (On the campaign trail in 2004, Bunning said Mongiardo, whose ancestry is Italian, looked like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons.)
Coursey calls Mongiardo and Conway “great candidates,” adding, “…I think we can’t go wrong either way.” More than a few Bluegrass State Democrats agree. But some party leaders are choosing sides.
Gov. Steve Beshear is for Mongiardo. The state’s two Democratic U.S. representatives – Ben Chandler and John Yarmuth – are backing Conway. State House Speaker Greg Stumbo is on the Conway team. So are Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson and State Auditor Crit Luallen.
Labor Secretary J.R. Gray, a former union official and veteran state representative -- Coursey succeeded him -- is for Mongiardo. That’s important because organized labor is a big part of the Democrats’ base in Kentucky, which is not a right-to-work state.
Mongiardo – dubbed “Dr. Dan” because he is a physician -- and Conway are considered union-friendly. The state AFL-CIO endorsed them both when they were elected in 2007. This time, the labor group hasn’t weighed in behind either candidate and might not.
“We expect to see a lot of Dr. Dan and Jack Conway between now and next May,” said Jeff Wiggins, a Steelworker and president of the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO. But Wiggins, who is on the Kentucky AFL-CIO Executive Board, cautioned, “It’s way too early to tell” who – if anybody – the state labor federation might endorse in the Democratic primary.
“But we for sure won’t endorse Bunning or any of the other Republicans who are supposedly interested in Bunning’s seat,” Wiggins said. “Bunning is one of the most anti-union senators in Washington. None of the others are our friends, either.”
Dr. Rand Paul, Trey Grayson, David Williams and Cathy Bailey are mentioned as possible GOP primary candidates.
Paul, an ophthalmologist, is the son of former congressman and unsuccessful presidential candidate Ron Paul. Grayson is Kentucky secretary of state and Williams is state senate president. Bailey is a former U.S. ambassador to Latvia.
The filing deadline for the May primary is months away.
Even so, no other Democratic heavyweights seem inclined to join the
Mongiardo-Conway bout, which Coursey hopes won’t be too bruising. “We
don’t need to bloody ourselves up,” he said.
But early evidence suggests they may duke it out. The Mongiardo camp has thrown what looks like the first punch.
“The lieutenant governor would welcome the opportunity for Democratic voters in Kentucky to compare their records, their values and their stands on the issues and make a determination, and we are confident what that decision will be,” McArdle quoted Kim Geveden, a Mongiardo campaign consultant.
In Kentucky, “values” means social issues like abortion, gun control and gay marriage.
Geveden’s challenge, “signaled that their campaign is likely to paint [Conway]…as a Louisville liberal,” columnist Al Cross wrote in the Courier-Journal. For a long time, there was a strong anti-Louisville bias among Kentucky voters. That’s changed. McConnell is from Louisville.
But “liberal” is still largely synonymous with “leper” in Kentucky politics. Kentucky is among the reddest of the Red States. Many, if not most, Bluegrass State Democrats are among the bluest of the Blue Dogs. A lot of them vote Democratic in local elections, but also cast ballots for Republicans such as Bunning, McConnell and John McCain.
Mongiardo, from Hazard, population about 4,800, may indeed try to paint Conway as a liberal from the state’s largest city. If he does and Conway wins anyway, Mongiardo, however unintentionally, will have given the Republicans more ammo to shoot at Conway in November.
Of course, no matter who wins, the GOP will slam the Democrat as – you
guessed it – a “socialist.”
Anyway, Ronald Reagan – not one of my favorite presidents -- used to talk about “the Eleventh Commandment -- Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
The Mongiardo – and Conway – campaigns would do well to modify Reagan’s admonition to say “any fellow Democrat” and agree to stick by it between now and next May.
When candidates beat up on each other in a primary fight, it can cost their party the general election, the one that counts.
WHERE ARE THE PUBLIC
WORKS JOBS FOR MILLIONS OF ‘FORGOTTEN PEOPLE’, BY HARRY KELBER
The legions of unemployed have become the “forgotten people” of the 21st
century. With 13.7 million people out of work, it should be considered a
national emergency, requiring immediate government attention, like the banks
and A.I. G. have been receiving. Yet, creating jobs for hard-pressed
Americans is still very low on the priority list of the Obama
administration.
The number of long-term unemployed (those who have been jobless for 27 weeks
or more) has soared to 3.7 million, but this shocking statistic stirs almost
no emotion, so anesthetized have we become to the miseries of the poor.
Indeed, the unemployed are treated like social outcasts, who do not have a
collective voice. Columnists and commentators rarely write about the jobless
— a dull subject — preferring more “sexy” ones of public interest.
When Congress approved the $787 billion stimulus package and President Obama
promised to create 3.5 million jobs (his goal was once 2.5 million jobs) the
unemployed were encouraged; help was on the way. But even a fraction of
those pledged jobs have yet to appear. In fact, General Motors will
eliminate 21,000 more jobs, not counting the layoffs in companies that
depend on the auto industry.
Despite the continuing flood of layoffs, the mood in the White House and
Wall Street has become upbeat. “Glimmers” of recovery are dutifully reported
and many economists see the recession moving into recovery mode by the end
of 2009.
But even if we’re on the path to recovery, mainstream economists agree that
layoffs will probably continue to the end of 2010, because companies will be
restructuring to meet new economic conditions. Many more companies will
disappear, eliminating the jobs that workers once had.
What may very well happen is that President Obama, focused on major domestic
and foreign policy issues, will turn over the unemployment problem to
private industry, which will try to cut labor costs by hiring fewer workers
at lower wages.
So what are the millions of unemployed to do? How are they to survive? What
happens to working families when there are no bread-winners to bring home a
paycheck? Does anyone care?
Will the Labor Movement Fight for the
Unemployed?
It is a sad fact that top labor leaders have rarely made statements about
the unemployed or initiated some action in their behalf, even when the
number of jobless workers reached 5.7 million since the start of the
recession in December 2007. Nor has the labor press shown much interest in
highlighting the unemployment issue as a prime concern of working families
that organized labor should address.
How can labor help he unemployed? Here are some suggestions — and I’m sure
union members can add others:
• We should have an oversight committee to monitor the number of public
works projects that have been created, and the number of people put to work.
• We should insist on increasing the number of infrastructure projects and
speed up the tempo of hiring the necessary work force.
• We should demand that the Obama administration appoint a “czar,” who would
have overall responsibility for creating and preserving jobs.
• We should open up discussion whether we need a second economic stimulus
package, if the first one is not creating a sufficient number of jobs.
Remember, the banks and A.I.G. went back to the government for additional
bailout money — and got it.
• And very important, we must establish close relations with the
unemployed, to involve them in the struggle for fair treatment of America’s
working class.
Buy American Mention of the Week, By Roger Simmermaker
None this week
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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
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This newsletter will carry, in this space, any Democratic candidates' notice of events or communications (250 words or less) to our readers that the candidate provides to the editor at rcrider@insightbb.com
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Charles Horton, Treasurer - Tim Longmeyer, Chairman