Click here to view this media Under Gov. Rick Perry (R) this year, Texas slashed state funding for the volunteer fire departments that protect most of the state from wildfires like the ones that have recently destroyed more than 700 homes. Volunteer departments that were already facing financial strain were slated to have their funding cut from $30 million to $7 million, according to KVUE . The majority of Texas is protected by volunteer fire departments. There are 879 volunteer fire departments in Texas and only 114 paid fire departments. Another 187 departments are a combination of volunteer and paid. For that reason, aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could be more important than ever to the state where wildfires have recently been raging. At a press conference Monday, Perry promised to seek federal disaster relief and said that FEMA would be in the state by Wednesday. While the Texas governor has been highly critical of FEMA in the past, he told CBS’ Erica Hill Tuesday that now was not the time to worry about reforming the agency. “The issue is taking care of these people right now,” Perry insisted. “We can work our way through any conversations about how to make agencies more efficient, how to make Department of Defense equipment, for instance, more available. There are a lot of issues we can talk about, but the fact of the matter is now is not the time to be trying to work out the details of how to make these agencies more efficient. Let’s get people out of harm’s way.” Click here to view this media
Continue reading …Financial Times: State Prosecutors to Offer Bankers Grant of Immunity From Serious Charges
September 6, 2011 No CommentI don’t think anyone’s surprised. The powers that be have already decided to let the banks off with a slap on the wrist and an exemption from serious criminal prosecution. Who wouldn’t take that deal? Big US banks in talks with state prosecutors to settle claims of improper mortgage practices have been offered a deal that is proposed to limit part of their legal liability in return for a multibillion dollar payment. Pocket change! One round of yearly bonuses! The talks aim to settle allegations that the companies – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial – illegally seized the homes of delinquent borrowers and broke state laws by employing so-called “robosigners”, workers who signed off on foreclosure documents en masse without reviewing the paperwork. State prosecutors have proposed effectively releasing the companies from legal liability for allegedly wrongful securitisation practices , according to five people with direct knowledge of the discussions. Some state officials have expressed concern that they have offered the banks far too broad a release from liability. Others say the broad language was perhaps inadvertently crafted and will be tightened as negotiations continue. Participants on both sides stressed the talks remain fluid. “Perhaps inadvertently.” Heh. What a sense of humor! Still, the banks called the states’ counterproposal, sent to the lenders about a month ago after the companies initially requested an in effect grant of immunity from a raft of alleged civil violations, a “non-starter”. A “non-starter”. You have to love their audacity! They say the proposals from the state prosecutors will need to be expanded before the banks are willing to reach an accord with government agencies that will involve a probable payment ranging anywhere from $10bn to perhaps as high as $25bn. The two sides will meet again this week to iron out their differences. They are close to an agreement on future standards governing the servicing of home loans, yet remain far apart on other issues, such as legal liability claims, compliance and enforcement , and the amount of cash it will take to settle the allegations. It’s pretty simple. They want no liability, no compliance and no enforcement. What’s to negotiate? They’ve said what they want, now the prosecutors have to give it to them! The worry over the states’ counterproposal stems from its treatment of loan documents. The term sheet proposes to release the banks from legal liability over how mortgage documents were maintained, prepared and transferred , people familiar with the matter said. Though the counteroffer attempts to release the banks from liability with respect to home repossessions, and explicitly states that the release does not include securitisation claims, the language is broad enough in that it could prevent state officials from bringing securitisation claims in the future should they sign up to the agreement. At the heart of securitisation claims, which involve missteps in how home mortgages were bundled into bonds, are allegations that the banks did not properly maintain and transfer documents from one step in the complicated chain to the next. If banks are released from liability regarding documentation practices, some industry officials believe they would be able to evade state lawsuits directed at how they bundled the loans into securities. “Documentation practices”? They mean the rampant fraud, misleading claims and illegal home repossessions, even of people who never even had mortgages. Why should the banks have to suffer? Banks consider accountability of any sort to be a “non-starter.” The attorneys-general of New York, Delaware, Massachusetts and Nevada are probing such securitisation matters, and have already indicated to the other states that they did not agree with the counterproposal .
Continue reading …England riots to cost taxpayers at least £133m in policing and compensation
September 6, 2011 No Comment
Cost of compensation and policing starts to emerge as Boris Johnson says prisoners must not be abandoned The riots in England will cost more than £133m in policing and compensation for businesses hit by the violence, the home affairs select committee has been told. London’s mayor Boris Johnson also told the committee that the huge numbers jailed after the unprecedented inner-city violence must not be abandoned in prison, but helped to turn their lives around. Johnson said he agreed with the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, who wrote a Guardian article on Monday revealing that almost 75% of the adults charged across the country with riot offences had previous convictions. He blamed a “feral underclass” and a broken prison system for failing to rehabilitate them. “One thing I do think the justice secretary is right to highlight is the importance, if you arrest such a huge number of people as we have and you put them into the criminal justice system, then you cannot simply abandon them … you have to make sure they are educated in there,” he said. But while the prime minister, David Cameron, has stressed emphatically that gangs orchestrated the riots, the committee was told by the Metropolitan police that the latest analysis suggested just 19% of those arrested had any gang affiliations. Current analysis also shows that only 21% of those arrested were under 18. For the first time a clear picture emerged of the costs of the rioting: in London, the bill for policing has reached £74m, and the cost for police forces outside the capital is set to exceed £50m. This includes a bill for Manchester of around £10m – made up of £5m in policing and potentially the same amount in payments under the 1886 Riots Damages Act (RDA) to individuals whose properties are damaged by rioting. Johnson revealed that in London the Metropolitan Police Authority had already received 100 applications for compensation under the RDA, totalling £9.3m – a figure which is likely to increase – bringing the cost of the riots to around £133m. Sparked by the fatal shooting by police of 29-year-old Mark Duggan in Tottenham, north London, the riots are now the subject of several inquiries, including the home affairs select committee hearings, an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and internal reviews by the Metropolitan police. The committee was told that the assistant commissioner Lynne Owens is evaluating the police response in Tottenham after Duggan’s death, particularly the events outside the police station on the Saturday night when the dead man’s family gathered in the hope of speaking to a senior officer. The family heard about Duggan’s death from a news report rather than from the police, and had arrived at the station demanding answers. Godwin said: “There was some confusion in terms of who was going to tell his family. We regret that. A commander has been to see the family to apologise. We need to look at the whole management that took place in Tottenham. Good decisions were taken and there were some misunderstandings and we need to get to the bottom of it.” Godwin said the relationship between the Metropolitan police and the IPCC needed to be examined – referring to an apparent blurring of roles as to who has the duty to inform the family in a police fatal shooting. However, in written evidence the IPCC said it was never its duty to inform a family of a death. Godwin – who is one of four candidates for the post of Metropolitan police commissioner – told the committee he wished he had had more officers on duty when the riots erupted in Tottenham, on the Saturday evening, before spreading across the capital: “Sometimes you realise how thin the blue line is,” Godwin said. “The debate … would have been different if people had been left in hospital after being seriously injured by baton rounds. I take pride in the fact that we filled up prison places instead of hospital beds, and I think that’s the British way,” he said. UK riots London Boris Johnson Crime Police Prisons and probation UK criminal justice Sandra Laville Vikram Dodd Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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News of the World’s former legal manager, Tom Crone, contradicts News Corp executive’s evidence to select committee James Murdoch knew about an explosive email that would have proved that phone hacking at the News of the World was not confined to “one rogue reporter”, MPs have been told. The former legal manager at the now-defunct tabloid, Tom Crone, openly contradicted evidence given by Murdoch to a parliamentary committee in July by telling the same committee today that he was “certain” he told the News International chief of the existence of this email during a meeting in 2008. According to Crone, the meeting lasted 15 minutes and was also attended by the then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, who concurred with the former legal affairs manager’s versions of events. Murdoch immediately dismissed Crone’s claims in a robust statement. He said he stood by his original testimony to the select committee and had not been aware that phone hacking extended beyond the former royal editor Clive Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, both of whom had been convicted and jailed in relation to phone-hacking charges more than a year earlier. “Neither Mr Myler nor Mr Crone told me that wrongdoing extended beyond Mr Goodman or Mr Mulcaire,” said Murdoch. He added: “As I said in my testimony, there was nothing discussed in the meeting that led me to believe that a further investigation was necessary.” The continuing war of words between Murdoch and his two former executives almost certainly means he will be recalled to appear before the committee for a more forensic scrutiny of his original evidence. The culture, media and sport committee was today taking evidence from Crone and Myler and two other former News International executives as part of its investigation into allegations of “cover-up” of the scale of phone hacking at the Sunday paper. Crone said it was made clear to Murdoch during the 15-minute meeting what the email “was about” and “what it meant”. He said the email was documentary evidence that at least one other reporter was aware of phone hacking and that this was why they needed to settle out of court with the former Professional Footballers’ Association boss Gordon Taylor, who had taken civil action against the publisher in relation to the alleged interception of his voicemails by the paper. The email only emerged during the process of discovery by Taylor’s lawyers. “Up to then there was no evidence that News of the World were implicated. The first I saw of that was that was the ‘for Neville’ email which reached us in spring 2008. We went to see Mr Murdoch and it was explained to him what this document was and what it meant,” said Crone. It was at that meeting that Murdoch authorised Crone to reach a settlement with Taylor, who was eventually paid £425,000, the committee heard. Crone also insisted that there was no “cover-up” by the company, as the email had been provided to them by the Metropolitan police after it was seized from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed with Goodman in 2007 for hacking into the phone messages of members of the royal household. A confidentiality clause included in the settlement was insisted upon by Taylor’s lawyers to avoid sensitive information about his personal life becoming public, said Crone. He said the size of the payout to Taylor was “good legal management” designed to avert further litigation from other public figures who had been named in Glenn Mulcaire’s court case and was not about buying his silence. In a bruising clash with committee member Tom Watson – the Labour MP who has led the charge over phone hacking – Crone denied that Murdoch demanded a confidentiality clause and authorised the large financial settlement in order to prevent the exposure of “widespread criminality” at the News of the World. The former legal manager said his priority was to avoid cases being launched by four other individuals whose phones Mulcaire had admitted hacking. “The imperative or the priority at the time was to settle this case, get rid of it, contain the situation as far as four other litigants were concerned and get on with our business,” said Crone. Crone also said that the former editor of the paper, Andy Coulson, was keen to keep Goodman employed even if he was convicted and jailed for phone-hacking offences. And MPs were told that Goodman received a payout of about £240,000 despite being found guilty and being jailed for the offences in 2007 because of a “sense of family” towards staffat News International. The former head of legal affairs at News International, Jon Chapman, said the former chief executive of the company, Les Hinton, had “wanted to do it on compassionate grounds because of the Goodman family”. Chapman separately admitted that Rupert Murdoch had got it wrong when he said legal firm Harbottle & Lewis had made a “major mistake” when it did not report any evidence of illegal activities at the News of the World. However, he defended his former paymaster by saying he had not been properly briefed on Harbottle & Lewis’s review of internal emails. •
Continue reading …As States Privatize Medicaid, More Money For Corporations and Less Money For Patient Care
September 6, 2011 No CommentNow remember, Medicaid is the default option for the Affordable Care Act. So if more and more states privatize it, those who are enrolled in those states will get significantly less money allotted to their care: There have long been moves to privatize the management of Medicaid, but with shock-doctrine austerity hawks making as much mileage from their budget crises as possible, this year has seen an especially strong push to privatize the heath care of low-income and disabled Medicaid users at a state level. All across the country in states like Texas, New York, Louisiana, Florida, Illinois, South Carolina and Kentucky, state governments are stealthily privatizing Medicaid by handing over the money they get from the federal government to private contractors — sometimes with minimal savings to the states themselves. It’s all part of a broader trend called “managed care” or “co-ordinated care” — deceptively bureaucratic terms for a turn with sometimes deadly consequences for Medicaid patients. Figures recently published by the Commonwealth Fund, show that the percentage of people receiving Medicaid who are signed up through publicly traded HMOs has increased nationally from 19.6 percent in 2009 to 27.1 percent in June this year. This is set to increase this year by at least 1.7 million new people, bringing Medicaid patients in privatized health plans to a record 29.8 percent. In June, California began moving 380,000 older and disabled patients into private plans, while New York will begin moving 1.5 million patients into managed care in October. Further south, Florida is looking to move most of its 3 million Medicaid enrollees into private plans. And with the Affordable Care Act (the recent health care reform law) expected to raise Medicaid enrollment by 16 million by 2019, the Commonwealth Fund concluded that “given recent patterns in state contract awards to managed care plans, it is reasonable to anticipate that plans operated by publicly traded companies will enroll the majority of the expanded Medicaid population.” As a result, the Washington Post reports that insurers expect $60 billion in new annual revenue from this market after 2014. As usual, Republican governors are leading the way when it comes to trading public programs for private profits. The most severe move is in Louisiana, where managed care is being brought in without the approval of even the State Legislature. There, Governor Bobby Jindal is unilaterally turning over $2 billion in tax money to contractors to run the Medicaid system, while the savings projected to the state are only $135 million. In a state as poor as Louisiana, even that relatively small savings might seem significant, though the true cost to the state may end up being much greater. Research on the over-65 Medicare system has shown that private sector health care is a significantly less efficient use of public funds. A 2009 report delivered by the Bart Stupak-chaired Energy and Commerce Committee found that Medicare spends less than 1 percent on administrative costs and 98 percent on health care, while HMOs eat up 15 percent of their revenue on profits, marketing and other corporate expenses. As with Medicare, the privatization of Medicaid through managed care is likely to result in a significant reduction in public moneys spent on health care .
Continue reading …Click here to view this media About the time I think I’ve heard the worst of what anyone can say or do, Charles Koch ratchets it up a notch. This recording was made in June at a secret meeting in Vail, Colorado with right-wing donors. Here’s the relevant transcript [ Full transcript available at The Brad Blog ]: KOCH: But we’ve been talking about — we have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country. So, I’m not going to do this to put any pressure on anyone here, mind you. This is not pressure. But if this makes your heart feel glad and you want to be more forthcoming, then so be it. He goes on to recognize a list of donors who have given a million dollars or more to right wing causes, which largely squares with the list published by ThinkProgress last year , but includes a few new names like Charles Schwab, Paul Singer (the hedge fund mega-giver), and John Templeton, Jr. Perhaps one of the other more remarkable laments on the part of the billionaire Koch family was this one, made later on, in response to Fox News’ Judge Napolitano’s remarks about how the government fears fear, but they should really be fearful. In response, Charles Koch says 99.9 percent of the media is against them (meaning the right wing, I assume), but that Napolitano is one of the “bright stars.” Click here to view this media JUDGE ANTHONY NAPOLITANO: … So what does the government fear the most? I think the government fears fear. I’m afraid the government is going to take the property and the freedom of everybody in this room. The government should fear that we will take its power away from it and put it into the hands of worthy custodians of our freedom. Jefferson articulated this when he said, “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.” Thank you and God bless you, my friends. [applause] CHARLES KOCH: You know, Judge, I wish I had said that. [laughter] I’m workin’ on it. But, you know, we’ve talked about our competitive disadvantage, how we’re overwhelmed in a number of areas, but we have — and one of those areas, of course, is the media — and we’re overwhelmed. The media’s ninety-plus percent against us. But we have a few bright stars and Judge here is one of ‘em. So we thank you so much. [applause] Not only for being with us tonight but what you do every day in defending our free society. [ full transcript ] This is what we’re fighting right here: U.S. billionaire oligarchs who think the elected President of this country is Saddam Hussein. Oligarchs who buy their media yet whine that the media is against them. Oligarchs who view elections as the “mother of all battles.” I, too, view 2012 as the mother of all battles, but I wouldn’t dare call Charles Koch a deceased terrorist despot, would I? I’m digging more into the names Koch mentioned and will have more on that shortly. In the meantime, will someone please tell Fox News to ratchet down their whining over “hate speech?” Of course, it wouldn’t be a true Koch megameeting without some high-profile governors in attendance. Brad Friedman reports via Mother Jones : Several GOP governors made it to the Vail seminar in June, among them Florida’s Rick Scott, Virginia’s Robert McDonnell, and White House hopeful Rick Perry of Texas. News of the event slipped out after McDonnell put the trip on his weekend schedule ; neither Perry nor Scott initially disclosed the trip to their constituents. A Perry spokesman acknowledged his attendance only after the Austin American-Statesman tracked the tail number of a plane belonging to one of the governor’s top donors from Texas to Colorado. He described the summit as a “private gathering of business leaders.” I wonder where Scott Walker was. Perhaps he thought it would be bad form to be linked up with his benefactors publicly. Charles Koch is right about one thing: 2012 is a pivotal election. It’s about the Supreme Court and the heart of this nation. It will either belong to the oligarchs or the people, depending.
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Ken Clark says decision to allow sentencing to be televised will increase public confidence in justice system Judicial sentencing is to be televised, the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has announced. . The ban on filming in law courts will now be overturned, Clarke confirmed, as the government hopes to improve transparency and public understanding of the courts. The issue had been due to go for consultation with senior judges but in recent days Downing Street had moved to circumvent this consultation process and support the change. Announcing the decision on Tuesday, Clarke said: “The government and judiciary are determined to improve transparency and public understanding of courts through allowing court broadcasting. We believe television has a role in increasing public confidence in the justice system. “Broadcasting will initially be allowed from the court of appeal, and government will look to expand to the crown court later. All changes will be worked out in close consultation with the judiciary.” Filming will be of judges’ summary remarks only – victims, witnesses, offenders and jurors will not be filmed. The televising of court is currently banned by acts of parliament and so legislation will be required to allow cameras into court. A shift towards televising court has always been hampered by the spectre of OJ Simpson’s trial in the US which degenerated into prime-time entertainment. Television companies have been pressing for greater access to the highlights of court cases, and a consultation on the shift was undertaken by the previous Labour government but was eventually discarded. Now the present government has revived the plans, believing a judicial pronouncement should become more of a moment of public reckoning. Officials believe transparency would aid public understanding of the court process and the idea has gained momentum in the aftermath of the riots. After a Guardian report saying the prime minister was set to announce the change in the coming weeks, Clarke told Sky News on Tuesday morning he could see “no good reason” why television cameras should not be allowed in court to “record and give to the public the remarks of the judge”. By the afternoon, the government had decided to push ahead. Clarke also announced that new information on the performances of courts will be published in future to allow everyone to see how their local courts are working. This will include: • court-by-court statistics for the time taken for cases to be processed, from offence to conviction, allowing people to compare the performance of their local courts. • details on how many trials were ineffective and why they were ineffective. • anonymised data on each case heard at local courts and the sentences given. • details of how many people have been convicted or released from prisons in each area and how often they re-offended afterwards. From next May justice outcomes will be placed alongside crime data on police.uk so people can see what happens next after crimes are committed in their areas. When the country’s most senior court – the supreme court in Westminster – was opened in September 2009 it was fitted with cameras. As things stand it is the only court where footage is routinely available for broadcasters on request and has been televised live. It allows visitors to watch appeals and judgments on televisions around the building without sitting in the courtrooms, but it is seen to be a different case since supreme court hearings do not involve witnesses being cross-examined or juries. Cameras have been allowed in some Scottish courts under tight restrictions since 1992. The appeal of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing was televised in 2002. Writing in the Guardian in December, the head of Sky News, John Ryley, suggested the trials of six MPs who were accused of misusing their parliamentary expenses were prime examples of public interest trials that would have benefited from being televised. Last month he renewed his call for televised sentencing in an open letter to Clarke Sadiq Khan, Labour’s shadow justice secretary, welcomed the announcement that certain aspects of court proceedings will be televised. “Allowing the broadcast of judges’ sentencing remarks could make the sentencing process more transparent and understandable,” he said. “However, it will be extremely important to ensure that careful controls are in place to protect jurors, victims and witnesses. We do not support the televising of anything that might make jurors, victims and witnesses vulnerable to intimidation. “Our criminal justice system relies on victims and witnesses coming forward to give evidence and nothing should be done to jeopardise that. “It is important that our justice system is open and accessible. If done well and responsibly, this could be an important step in achieving that.” Cameras in court Kenneth Clarke UK criminal justice Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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Following a run of downbeat economic data, the chancellor acknowledged that he would have to cut his forecast of UK growth George Osborne has signalled that the government would stick to its hardline deficit reduction strategy despite being forced to revise down his growth forecasts for the economy following the slowdown of recent months. The chancellor said the coalition’s tax increases and spending restraint had been designed to allow interest rates to remain low — a clear hint that he would back a second round of money creation from the Bank of England through the quantitative easing process. Speaking at Lloyd’s of London, the chancellor said: “We warned repeatedly that the recovery would be choppy. And we set in train a plan that was comprehensive and clear in its vision, but also flexible enough to withstand shocks along the way. “A plan for fiscal responsibility to bring unsustainable government borrowing under control, so that monetary activism can allow interest rates to stay lower for longer. The plan we have set out is designed in tough times for tough times. It is the rock of stability upon which any sustainable recovery depends and we will hold to it.” Following a run of downbeat economic data, Osborne acknowledged that he would have to cut his forecast of UK growth when he delivers his autumn statement to parliament on 29 November. He said recoveries from financial crises were slower and choppier than recoveries from other types of recession. “So, while we have all had to revise down our short term expectations over recent weeks, the only people who should be fundamentally re-examining their view of the world are those who thought that this time was different.” Most City firms believe that the economy — which has grown by a total of 0.2% in the nine months to June — will grow at barely more than 1% this year, and will continue to expand sluggishly in 2012. Weak surveys for manufacturing, construction and services in the past week have increased the pressure on the Treasury and the Bank of England to provide a boost to growth. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund and Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, have both warned this week of the dangers of governments cutting deficits too aggressively, but Osborne said his strategy had ensured Britain had remained insulated from the sovereign debt crisis affecting other nations. “We had an emergency budget last summer on our own terms – not this summer on the market’s terms – unlike so many other countries. We have been ahead of the curve. We have been a safe haven in the sovereign debt storm. We have delivered record low interest rates for families, businesses and taxpayers. We are not immune from what happens on our doorstep. But we can remain masters of our own destiny.” Osborne said ministers had always understood that there could never be a return to the “business as usual” conditions that existed before the financial crisis of 2007. “This government has never thought that this time would be different,” he said. “We understood right from the beginning that the world of the boom years had changed beyond recognition. We identified the problems and the risks – an overleveraged economy, an unsustainable budget deficit and a broken model of growth.” Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said: “It’s time George Osborne got out of his denial and admitted that Britain now faces a growth crisis. And he should listen to the head of the IMF and one of the largest investment funds in the world who have warned that cutting too far and too fast risks economic recovery. “Without strong growth and more people in work it will be harder to get the deficit down. That’s why we urgently need leadership from the chancellor on the world stage to agree a global plan for growth and a more balanced deficit plan here in Britain.” Budget deficit Economics Economic policy George Osborne Government borrowing Financial crisis Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Fox News contributor, Brad Blakeman Monday rebuked Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa Jr. for using “hate speech” at a Labor Day rally in Detroit prior to remarks from President Barack Obama. After presenting what appeared to be heavily edited video of Hoffa referring to Republicans by saying, “let’s take these sons of bitches out,” Fox News host Megyn Kelly gave Blakeman a chance to respond. “I think it’s thuggery at it’s best,” Blakeman replied. “It’s what unions are good at. It’s what we’ve seen in Wisconsin and other places, intimidation… This is the touchy feely act before President Obama arrives? I mean, these are the kind of remarks you’d expect out of Tony Soprano, not a union president. Well, I take that back. Hoffa presidency is the type of person you’d hear this type of rhetoric.” “When a union president says, ‘let’s take these sons of bitches out,’ it usually means somebody’s legs are going to get broken, somebody is going to disappear. Tea party people don’t use that kind of rhetoric.” UPDATE: From TPM — Teamsters President: ‘No Regrets’ After Fiery Speech Draws Right-Wing Criticism : Teamsters union president James Hoffa would say it all again if he could, he told TPM Monday. Hoffa riled up Fox News and the right wing Monday with a Labor Day speech in Detroit in which he called Republican members of Congress ” sons of bitches ” and said union workers are ready to “go to war” with the tea party next year and “take out” Republicans at the ballot box. Hoffa said he’d say the exact same words all over again. “I would because I believe it,” he said. “They’ve declared war on us. We didn’t declare war on them, they declared war on us. We’re fighting back. The question is, who started the war?” Read on… And as they noted in the TPM article, from Media Matters — Fox Doctors Hoffa Speech To Fabricate Call For Violence : Right-wing bloggers misled by dishonest Fox News video editing are attacking Teamsters President James Hoffa, Jr. for supposedly urging violence against Tea Party activists during a Labor Day speech. Conservatives are also attacking President Obama, who appeared at the event, for “sanctioning violence against fellow Americans” by failing to denounce Hoffa. But fuller context included in other Fox segments makes clear that Hoffa wasn’t calling for violence but was actually urging the crowd to vote out Republican members of Congress. During the segment that the bloggers have latched onto, Fox edited out the bolded portion of Hoffa’s comments: HOFFA: Everybody here’s got to vote. If we go back and keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these son of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong! Thank you very much! In an initial report on Hoffa’s speech at 1 p.m. on Fox News, Ed Henry reported that Hoffa said that “we’ll remember in November who’s with the working people” and “said of the Tea Party and of Republicans, ‘let’s take these sons of bitches out.’” Read on…
Continue reading …AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka appeared on ” Political Capital with Al Hunt ” (embed is coded incorrectly, so I’m substituting Trumka’s Labor Day message) to state unilaterally that the miserable state of the economy demands “bold” solutions and strong leadership from President Obama: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he wants President Barack Obama to propose a multitrillion- dollar job-creation program in his speech to Congress next week and that the president needs “another course” to boost his skills in negotiating with Republicans. “I’m hoping that he’ll be very bold,” Trumka said on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “He’ll stand up for the American worker and say, ‘This is what needs to be done to fix the problem, and I’m going to fight for it.’” Trumka, head of the largest U.S. union federation, has warned of waning enthusiasm for Obama from the labor movement, a critical part of his political base, ahead of next year’s re-election bid. Labor unions are disappointed in Obama’s tax-reduction agreement with Republicans last December that extended Bush-era tax cuts for even the richest Americans, and in continuing efforts to cut federal spending by $2.4 trillion amid the nation’s 9.1 percent unemployment rate. “I’d say he needs to take another course in bargaining to help out,” Trumka said in the interview. In the face of a net zero job growth report and such high unemployment rates, I don’t think you’ll find any argument among sentient beings that a bold plan is needed. But the problem lies with the GOP determining the needs and welfare of the country being secondary to any partisan advantage. Trumka’s fear of Obama’s negotiating skills are well based, with the opposing party not operating in good faith.
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