Category: Class War

My local paper

~ susie

Brendan points out this editorial in yesterday’s Daily News:

HERE’S SOMETHING IMPORTANT to know about President Obama’s 2012 budget: It has absolutely no chance of passing.

But his proposal – all 2,304 pages of it – tells a sad tale. In fact, it’s pretty much a horror story.

Remember, even when the president had an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress to work with, he couldn’t get his fiscal 2011 budget through. The federal government is operating only because Congress passed a “continuing resolution” (CR) in December. It’s due to expire March 4.

And House Republicans are demanding $100 billion in federal spending cuts this year in exchange for passing another CR to keep the government open. If they don’t get what they want – and Obama has threatened to veto the CR because the cuts are too deep – Republicans say they will shut government down.

Many of the Republican proposals are quite insane- slashing community policing, NASA, Amtrak, and research into alternative energy. In addition, the cuts would reduce food-safety inspections and weaken protections for clean drinking water. A proposed $1.7 billion cut to the Social Security Administration would shut it for 20 days, meaning the checks wouldn’t be mailed. Especially telling: a proposed $747 million cut to the Women, Infant and Children program that provides nutritional food to pregnant women. Now there’s an example of conservatives’ fierce love for the unborn.

It is against this frenzied anti-government backdrop that Obama unveiled his proposed budget, and the theme couldn’t be clearer: Just a few weeks after extending tax cuts for rich people – adding $868 billion to the deficit – Obama wants to get it back from poor people.
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Finally

~ susie

As the crowds of protesters grow to more than 30,000, Obama finally gets out in front of the Wisconsin union movement and actually takes a side:

President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin’s broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits while planning similar action in other state capitals.

Obama accused Scott Walker, the state’s new Republican governor, of unleashing an “assault” on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would nullify collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

The president’s political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.

Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.

By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were working to organize additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Under Walker’s plan, most public workers – excluding police, firefighters and state troopers – would have to pay half of their pension costs and at least 12 percent of their health-care costs. They would lose bargaining rights for anything other than pay. Walker, who took office last month, says the emergency measure is needed to save $300 million over the next two years to help close a $3.6 billion budget gap.

“Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions,” Obama told a Milwaukee television reporter, taking the unusual step of inviting a local station into the White House for a sit-down interview. “I think everybody’s got to make some adjustments, but I think it’s also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens.”

The White House political operation, Organizing for America, got involved Monday, after Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, a party official said.

The group made phone calls, distributed messages via Twitter and Facebook, and sent e-mails to its state and national lists to try to build crowds for rallies Wednesday and Thursday, a party official said.

Solidarity

~ susie

And this is why I love Athenae:

I’ve seen a lot of comfortably situated loudmouths today asking, “Why should you be protected from losing your job, if I’m not?”

I wish they asked the question, “Why don’t I have protection from the most capricious employers, from the whims of shareholders, from bosses who would rather steal than steward?”

I wish they asked the question, “Seeing these people united, how can I go on alone?”

I wish they asked the question, “Who will be there for me when someone rips the world out from under me?”

They say, you shouldn’t be safe if I’m not.

Thirty thousand people in Wisconsin say, I am not safe if you’re not.

Kabuki

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

This is happening in every state with a Republican governor. You’d think some reporter would connect the dots:

Wisconsin’s new Republican governor has framed his assault on public worker’s collective bargaining rights as a needed measure of fiscal austerity during tough times.

The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures — service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money — rolling back worker’s bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker’s doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state’s fiscal bureau — the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office — concluded that Wisconsin isn’t even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

“Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control,” says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future — a public interest think tank. “He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts… so he could rush through these other changes.”

“The state of Wisconsin has not reached the point at which austerity measures are needed,” Norman adds.

The follower

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Even though cable news shows and political pundits swoon all over NJ Gov. Chris Christie, Dean Baker is exactly right: Christie displays “follow-ship”, not leadership. He is completely a creature of the Republican establishment. Yet he likes to paint himself as a regular guy — and even an outsider.

“Outsider”? Don’t make me laugh.

Married to an investment banker, he worked as a securities lawyer and then as a lobbyist representing the Securities Industry Association, Wall Street’s trade association.

Appointed as a U.S. Attorney with no prosecutorial experience, his appointment was approved by Karl Rove because Christie, his stockbroker brother Todd and their wives donated a half-million dollars to Bush’s campaign. Todd also spread some cash compost around the Republican Governor’s Association, which used to money to run ads supporting Christie’s gubernatorial race.

Oh yeah. About Todd: He was one of 20 specialist stock traders charged with civil fraud for cheating customers. Funny thing, though: 14 of those traders were also charged criminally, many for lesser infractions than Todd Christie. But we can rest easy, since Gov. Christie assures us his brother got no special treatment — even though he awarded a lucrative, no-bid state contract to the federal attorney who investigated his brother after his brother was cleared. Christie insists there was no connection, and I’m sure he wouldn’t lie, right?

You got a problem with that?

POLITICO’s blog, The Arena, recently asked:

In a Wednesday afternoon speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C., New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called for raising the retirement age on Social Security. His willingness to tackle politically delicate entitlement programs follows his approach in New Jersey of taking on teachers’ unions and other groups. Can Christie portray himself as a teller of difficult truths and become a credible White House candidate in 2012 or 2016? Or will his YouTube-friendly shtick soon wear thin and render him largely irrelevant in Democratic-leaning New Jersey?

The fact that Gov. Christie is willing to do whatever Wall Street and the elite media tell him does not suggest that he has strong leadership qualities. If he had strong leadership qualities, he might take a moment to look at the Social Security trustees report himself, or at least talk to someone who had.

He would discover that the program can pay 100 percent of all scheduled benefits through the year 2037 and nearly 80 percent of scheduled benefits after this date for the indefinite future. After 2037 retirees would always get a larger benefit than current retirees even if Congress never does anything.
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Of course he did

~ susie

In the old Knight-Ridder ethics code, there was something about sources taking you to lunch: It was “assumed” that your level of integrity was such that is wasn’t for sale “for the price of lunch.” Hah! Reporters love free food, and of course the flattery that goes along with it can certainly smooth things along; they’re human beings, after all:

A former health insurance insider turned whistleblower says that he was not only surprised at how “easy” it was to manipulate members of the news media over the years, but also reveals that he routinely “wined and dined” reporters from major news outlets – including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – in return for favorable coverage.

In his new book Deadly Spin, Wendell Potter describes how his chief function as a senior public relations officer at two of the largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States – Humana and Cigna – was to “perpetuate myths that had no other purpose but to sustain those companies’ extraordinary high profitability.”

But in an extended interview with Raw Story last week, Potter went further, revealing that he lunched with reporters at major media outlets for years – including journalists at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal – as well as those from local and regional media, in most cases picking up the tab, which he says directly resulted in positive coverage of the companies he represented.

In an email to Raw Story Sunday night, New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha responded, “The claims are unsubstantiated and absurd since no names of reporters, examples of stories or other pertinent facts are provided to support these claims.”

Wall Street Journal spokeswoman Ashley Huston declined comment.