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Biggest strike for 100 years – union chief

June 17, 2011 No Comment

Pensions revolt won’t be like the miners – because we’ll win, says Unison general secretary Dave Prentis The leader of the largest public sector union promises to mount the most sustained campaign of industrial action the country has seen since the general strike of 1926, vowing not to back down until the government has dropped its controversial pension changes. Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison – which has 1.4 million members employed by the state – described plans for waves of strike action, with public services shut down on a daily basis, rolling from one region to the next and from sector to sector. He said there was growing anger over a public sector pay freeze that could trigger more disputes further down the line and that the changes would unfairly penalise women, who form the majority of low-paid public sector workers. “It will be the biggest since the general strike. It won’t be the miners’ strike. We are going to win.” In an interview with the Guardian, Prentis – who also chairs the public sector group at the TUC – repeatedly insisted that he still hopes to negotiate a settlement with the government through talks that are currently under way. But the prospect of a resolution looks increasingly remote after the government unilaterally set out details of the new public sector pension scheme on Friday, pre-empting the conclusion of the talks. Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the TUC, called the move “deeply inflammatory”. Prentis said: “I strongly believe that one day of industrial action will not change anyone’s mind in government. We want to move towards a settlement. The purpose of industrial action is not industrial action, it is to get an agreement that is acceptable and long-lasting. But we are prepared for rolling action over an indefinite period. This coalition has got to open its eyes and see that in just reacting to a Daily Mail view of the public sector they are walking into a trap of their own making.” Prentis also called on the Labour party to support the unions’ battle against the pension changes, saying that remaining silent will “become an issue”. The government has confirmed that it will raise pension contributions by 3.2 percentage points, increase the retirement age to 66 and move to a career average scheme to replace the more generous final salary version. Ministers argue it is unfair for other taxpayers to pay for more generous schemes for public employees than they might get in the private sector. The unions say it amounts to an additional tax on public sector workers, with their additional contributions – a de facto pay cut – being used to reduce the deficit rather than fund pensions. It comes on top of job cuts, a pay freeze and controversial plans such as those for the NHS. Prentis said that while pensions were the focus of the unions’ industrial dispute – and the only issue that they could legally jointly strike on – his members were equally angry about the coalition’s deficit reduction programme and its effects on the public sector. “You can’t just look at what’s happening around pensions as a single issue. All our members provide public services. You look at what this coalition has decided to do to reduce the deficit and it’s decided that most of the deficit reduction programme will be at the expense of our public services,” he said. “The people that we represent are facing redundancy, a two-year pay freeze, while inflation is 5% and gas prices are going up 20%, and they are desperately worried about privatisation of the services they have committed their working lives to.” He accused the government of trying to “soften up” public sector workers’ rights to pave the way to privatising elements of the state. Referring to a consultation that could remove state employees’ rights to keep their public sector pensions if their service is outsourced to the private sector, he said: “It means that cowboys that we used to have in the 1980s can put in bids that will always undermine the public service bid and they will get the contract not on the quality of work but because they are cheapest. It’s just to soften the way for privatisation.” Turning to Labour, to which Unison is affiliated – individual members have an opt-out – he said: “We want our Labour party to be the voice of opposition. We’re worried that some of the senior people in the party still have to make statements as if they are in power, not opposition.” Prentis added: “I’ve got a lot of time for Ed Miliband. He’s new, he’s only been there for eight months and he will improve – and we’ve got to give him time to do that – but the way in which certain elements in the party are not uniting where we need them to be is not helping. If the Labour party stays quiet that will be an issue. This isn’t a kneejerk reaction, this will be a long programme of action and we will expect the Labour party to support that.” Unison is one of Labour’s largest donors, giving £423,000 in the past year alone. Prentis said he had full support from his members and they were now recruiting support for the campaign outside the workplace, sending representatives into community groups to garner support. A motion at the union’s conference next week would formalise this campaign, recognising that traditional workplace union recruitment is falling. Angela Eagle, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “What we are seeing today is the latest calamitous episode of this government’s completely chaotic way of running the country. “Today, Danny Alexander [the Treasury chief secretary] has made an announcement about the retirement age whilst they are in the middle of negotiations with the trade unions. If they are serious about reforming public sector pensions and serious about getting this proposal agreed then Danny Alexander has gone about it in the most incompetent way imaginable.” She added: “Strikes are always a failure on both sides. Everyone agrees public sector pensions need to change as people live longer. But the government should be getting round the table and talking changes through. Instead we have got another bout of mismanagement and chaos.” Trade unions Public sector pensions Public sector pay Public sector cuts Public services policy Public finance Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk

Olbermann tells Fallon about Boehner sex scandal ‘rumors’

June 17, 2011 No Comment

Click here to view this media Keith Olbermann says Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) isn’t the only one in Congress having inappropriate relationships. There have been rumors of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) having affairs for years, according to the Current host. “You know what’s next, right?” Olbermann asked Fallon. “Something with John Boehner. Boehner. B-O-E-H-N-E-R. You know what his nickname is? Is — is ‘boner.’ He answers to that.” “All sorts of rumors about him too,” the liberal host continued. “Oh, yes. For a long time.”

Olbermann tells Fallon about Boehner sex scandal ‘rumors’

June 17, 2011 No Comment

Olbermann tells Fallon about Boehner sex scandal ‘rumors’

June 17, 2011 No Comment

A Shout For Vitter Out Only Helps the GOP Get Away with Plunder

June 17, 2011 No Comment

enlarge So yeah, David Vitter is a scumbag. Not because he slapped on a diaper to play Baby Huey with a bunch of hookers, but because he voted yes on the GOP plan to kill Medicare. In the wake of the Weiner fiasco, wounded outraged liberals have stormed the Internet to demand their own eight inches of flesh: What about Vitter!? #VitterMustGo! But there is a reason some wise person named Mahatma once said: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Blind serves the GOP as they goose step about demolishing Planned Parenthood and unions, plundering jobs and any hopes for the survivability of an American middle class. The more they can saturate the airwaves with noise about penises and diapers, the easier it is for them to murder everything liberals hold dear. Why do you think Fox News deliberately slings nonsense after nonsense—Ground Zero Mosque, Don’t Touch My Junk, terror babies, socialists, Mau Mau, birth certificates, NPR, some guy named Common, Death Panels, Weiner, Weiner, neener-neener Weiner? Because every time the media takes a breath to spotlight what the GOP is actually doing—i.e. killing Medicare—the public wises up and smacks them with a huge defeat like last month in NY-26. enlarge Yelling Vitter Vitter Vitter instead of Boehner Where Are The Jobs, instead of End Big Oil Tax Giveaways, instead of Quit Your War On Uteri, instead of The GOP Killed Medicare, actually abets Fox and the corporate Koch machine. Sure demanding a scalp in return for Weiner’s feels good. Maybe it is even just. But so what? Weiner was pushed out by his own reckless lies, an irresponsible tabloid media and the political calculations of his own party. You’re angry about that. Fine. But don’t retaliate by aiding the side Weiner vehemently railed against. Don’t help the GOP generate more obfuscations for their devious schemes. Weiner is gone. And maybe a better response would be for us to take up his work ourselves: the brash and relentless calling out of each and every policy cruelty of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the GOP. Vitter’s constituents voted him back into office last year. And no matter how much you spit his hypocritical name on Twitter, a jobless America is not going to vote on hookers & diapers in 2012 unless it is their own hookers but more likely diapers that they can no longer afford. They will vote, however, against a party that killed Medicare. IMHO.

Thom Hartmann and Leo Gerard at Netroots Nation on Making Goods in America Again

June 17, 2011 No Comment

Thom Hartmann, broadcasting from Netroots Nation 11, sat down with the United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard. The two discussed the need to have a buy American, build in America program to get Americans back to work again and how any efforts to do that ended up being stifled in the Senate during the first two years of Obama’s presidency. As they noted, Nancy Pelosi managed to get a lot of good bills passed in the House that would have put countless numbers of Americans to work, only to see them die a slow death in the Senate with filibuster after filibuster. And sadly as they pointed out, all that we’ve got coming out of the House now is one bill after the other demanding more tax cuts for the rich. Gerard expressed his hopes that Republicans get wiped out in the House the next election and said he’s going to do all he can to see that that happens. If the Democrats wise up and adopt his rhetoric on protectionism meaning protecting American jobs, perhaps they will.

Thom Hartmann and Leo Gerard at Netroots Nation on Making Goods in America Again

June 17, 2011 No Comment

Sex selection and the rise of Generation XY

June 17, 2011 No Comment

A new book explores western involvement in what has become a scourge of the developing world: sex selection of babies In 1979 China signed a $50m four-year deal with a UN body designed to help it control its spiralling population through family planning. It was the largest foreign aid package Beijing had accepted in almost 20 years. But the funds became entwined in China’s one-child policy that was just taking hold, and instead of sponsoring an education drive for small families, the money was used to pay for posters in Chinese villages proclaiming “You can abort it! But you cannot give birth to it.” The story of the complicity of the UNFPA, the UN’s main population agency, in the tyranny of China’s forced abortion policy is just one of the examples given in a book that explores western involvement in what has become a modern scourge: sex selection. Unnatural Selection by Mara Hvistendahl charts how the trend towards choosing boys over girls, largely through sex-selective abortions, is rapidly spreading across the developing world. While the natural sex ratio at birth is 105 boys born for every 100 girls, in India the figure has risen to 112 boys and in China 121. The Chinese city of Lianyungang recorded an astonishing 163 boys per 100 girls in 2007. The bias towards boys has been estimated to have caused the “disappearance” of 160 million women and girls in Asia alone over the past few decades. The pattern has now spilled over to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, the Balkans and Albania, where the sex ratio is 115/100. The unnatural skewing towards male populations has become so pronounced in recent decades that Hvistendahl, a writer for Science magazine, says it has given rise to a new “Generation XY”. She raises the possibility that with so many surplus men – up to a fifth of men will be single in northwestern India by 2020 – large parts of the world could become like America’s wild west, with excess testosterone leading to raised levels of crime and violence. “Historically, societies in which men substantially outnumber women are not nice places to live,” Hvistendahl writes. Already, the relative shortage of women in countries like China and Taiwan has helped create new markets in women. They include arranged wedding agencies that set up marriages between South Korean men and foreigners, often women from poorer nearby countries like Vietnam, that now account for 11% of all marriages in South Korea. There is also a booming trade in trafficking of women for prostitution out of Vietnam and a growing practice of child marriage in China, where wealthier families secure wives for their sons early by effectively buying young girls for their sons. Much of the literature on sex selection has suggested that cultural patterns explain the phenomenon. But Hvisten dahl lays the blame squarely on western governments and businesses that have exported technology and pro-abortion practices without considering the consequences. Amniocentesis and ultrasound scans have had largely positive applications in the west, where they have been used to detect foetal abnormalities. But exported to Asia and eastern Europe they have been intricately linked to an explosion of sex selection and a mushrooming of female abortions. Hvistendahl claims western governments actively promoted abortion and sex selection in the developing world, encouraging the liberalisation of abortion laws and subsidising sales of ultrasounds as a form of population control. “It took millions of dollars in funding from US organisations for sex determination and abortion to catch on in the developing world,” she writes. Even now, when the pattern of sex selection has been well documented and the prospect exists of the developing world accommodating tens of millions more men than women, the UNFPA is refusing to face up to its mistakes and confront the problem, she says. “The effects of the major UN agency tasked with population advocacy distancing itself from the issue of sex selective abortion are immense,” she writes, noting that the agency’s foot-dragging has discouraged other global funds from engaging with the crisis. Population China India United Nations Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk

Rep. Luis Gutierrez at Netroots: Latinos want to vote for President Obama, but being taken for granted will kill their turnout

June 17, 2011 No Comment

Click here to view this media I took part in a small-group discussion at Netroots Nation this morning with Rep. Luis Gutierrez organized by the fine folks at America’s Voice , and afterward I managed to squeeze in a brief interview kind of summing up the discussion. The upshot: President Obama’s political team may well be endangering his ability to gain re-election by deferring action on immigration — not merely in passing comprehensive immigration, but in providing administrative relief for DREAM Act-eligible students , and laying off its draconian “Secure Communities” initiative — because it wants to tackle these issues in its his second term. As the congressman said: GUTIERREZ: That’s what he doesn’t understand, I think, is that people just won’t show up. And you know what? There’s nothing more, I believe, that the Republicans want, than to see us just kind of sit on our hands. ‘Cause guess what — they’re voting. They’re not staying home. You can say in the polls they’re 10 points behind, but they’re still going to show up the next day. Our folks? We need to be fed. C&L: Well, if you’re being taken for granted … GUTIERREZ: And we have been. And unfortunately, we have an administration who made us a promise about bringing about comprehensive immigration reform. Now, are there challenges this president — are there challenges the president of the United States could have been defeated on? Yeah. But you see, what they want is someone who goes down fighting. I would say that the congressman is talking about a lot of progressives from across a wide spectrum. But this is a significant case of short-sightedness. Latinos delivered the vote for Obama and Democrats in 2008 . They saved the Senate for Democrats in 2010 . And now the administration’s inaction threatens to wash all that down the drain — along with their own re-election chances. That’s plain stupid.

NBC Laments Weiner Resignation as ‘Sad Ending’ to ‘Bright, Promising Political Career’

June 17, 2011 No Comment

As news broke Thursday morning of Congressman Anthony Weiner's upcoming resignation, congressional correspondent Luke Russert appeared on NBC's Today and sympathetically declared: “…this is really a sad ending, a lot would say, to what was once a bright, promising political career.” Moments later, NBC political director and chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd similarly touted Weiner's role in Democratic politics: “…he was serving as sort of the bombastic angry progressive, you know, trying to almost be the anti-Tea Party liberal in Congress taking on these folks. He'd become sort of a hero to the more progressive left, who were always upset that Democrats don't stand up for themselves. So here was the guy that had all this potential to become a huge political figure…” On Friday's Today, Russert again reported on Weiner's resignation and asserted that Republicans had “no chance” of winning a special election to fill the seat, a fate which they were “willing to accept.” Later on Thursday , fellow congressional correspondent Kelly O'Donnell remarked that Weiner's resignation announcement had “showed much of his strength as a congressman.” Here is a full transcript of the June 16 segment: 10:00AM ET MATT LAUER: And good morning, everyone. I'm Matt Lauer along with Ann Curry, a Democratic source with knowledge of the situation tells NBC News that Anthony Weiner, the Democratic Congressman from New York, has decided to resign his seat in Congress. This following a week of daily revelations, drip, drip, drip, none of those revelations good for Congressman Weiner. A series of text messages and photos between the Congressman and a series of young women across the country. NBC's Luke Russert's on Capitol Hill. He's got more on this. Luke, good morning. LUKE RUSSERT: Matt, after a nearly two-week saga that engulfed the Democratic Party, Anthony Weiner informed Nancy Pelosi last night while she was at the White House congressional picnic that he would, in fact, step down and resign as a member of Congress. This comes after nearly one week of his fellow colleagues calling on him to step down because they said he was a distraction to the party, prohibiting them – prohibited them from talking about issues they deemed to be important, such as the economy and health care. What can we tell you that happened this morning, Matt? Well, around 9:30 a.m. we saw staffers leaving Anthony Weiner's D.C. office up here on Capitol Hill. They left with their belongings, they would not say where they were going. The door was then locked and the office lights were turned out and then all phone calls made to Anthony Weiner's office would go directly to voice mail. So we can now report Anthony Weiner has stepped down and this is really a sad ending, a lot would say, to what was once a bright, promising political career. The youngest person ever elected to the New York City council back in the early '90s, elected to Congress in 1998. Somebody who had a $4 million war chest saved up for a possible run for Mayor of New York in 2013 has now resigned as a member of Congress and his political future is certainly unclear this morning. LAUER: Hey, Luke, I'm asking you to speculate a little bit here, but obviously this comes just about a day after his wife Huma returned from an overseas trip with her boss, the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and it came as Congress ramped up the pressure on Congressman Weiner. Do we know whether this was the result of pressure from his wife, pressure from his colleagues, or a little of both? RUSSERT: It's certainly a combination, Matt. And what we've heard from sources throughout this whole ordeal is that Anthony Weiner would not make any final decision about his political future until he had a face-to-face consultation with his wife. She arrived back here in Washington about 4:30 a.m. yesterday morning. We presume that that consultation did occur. Also, Matt, the timing on this is interesting. At 10:45 a.m. today Nancy Pelosi was slated to give a press conference, the first one that she was going to give since this scandal started. Well, we can now know that the announcement she would give this press conference went out last night, she obviously knew he was going to step down, which would make her more inclined to go before the cameras. Because if she had to go before the cameras and answer questions as to why he was still a member of Congress it would have proved somewhat politically difficult. So the writing was certainly on the wall these last few days and now it has occurred, Anthony Weiner no longer representing New York's Ninth Congressional District, Matt. LAUER: Alright, Luke Russert on Capitol Hill. He's been covering the story from the very beginning. Luke, thank you very much. ANN CURRY: Alright, let's bring in NBC's Chuck Todd. NBC's political director and chief White House correspondent. Chuck, good morning to you. TODD: Good morning, Ann. CURRY: Given that the already intense pressure on Anthony Weiner was about to intensify, did he really have any other choice? TODD: He didn't appear to, and he appeared to make this decision yesterday because it was last night, you know, the White House – President Obama, who by the way, was the most recent person in that interview with you, Ann, to call on Weiner to resign – it was at a White House congressional picnic last night Anthony Weiner called Nancy Pelosi and Steve Israel – he is chairman of the Democratic Campaign Committee, but also a member of the New York delegation, sort of one of the persons that's been a go-between between Pelosi and Anthony Weiner in this – and it was last night, yesterday evening, that Weiner called the two of them and said that he would be resigning this morning. CURRY: And given his ambitions and also his – the prospects that he once had, give us some sense about how steep this fall is. TODD: It's a pretty big fall. This is a guy who was a protege of Chuck Schumer. He's the senior senator from New York, very famous for being unafraid of going before any TV camera, having Sunday news conferences. He learned sort of at the foot of Chuck Schumer, this idea of being a little blunt, a little in your face, always knowing how to get media attention. And for Anthony Weiner, his eyes were on the mayoralship of New York City. He almost ran four years ago and thought he could beat – decided he couldn't beat Bloomberg when Bloomberg decided to run for a third term. He was getting this together to try to run again and he was serving as sort of the bombastic angry progressive, you know, trying to almost be the anti-Tea Party liberal in Congress taking on these folks. He'd become sort of a hero to the more progressive left, who were always upset that Democrats don't stand up for themselves. So here was the guy that had all this potential to become a huge political figure had he become mayor of New York City and now it's going to be tough for him where he goes next. Huma, his wife, very close to the Clintons, maybe they can help him out. But it's not clear where he goes next. Being a politician was what he thought he was going do for the rest of his life. CURRY: Meantime, I'm sure today you're going to hear a lot of relief from the Democratic Party members, but I wonder how you think this is all going to play out. Specifically, he's – now they need to have an election to fill his spot. How's – what is the timing? What is the – what is the thing that you would expect to happen over the course of the next couple of days. TODD: Well, it's a little bit awkward with what's going to happen in New York State because New York is supposed to lose two congressional districts and lawmakers in Albany have to figure out which ones they're going to get rid of. Now it probably means they will get rid of this one, but there will be, for – until now – between now and January of 2013, they'll have to have a special election and you'll see that and perhaps some familiar names to New York City folks may decide to run for that seat. But the seat's probably going to be gone and so that makes for an awkward waste of money, frankly, for the State of New York to do this. And, you know, the rest of this week is gone for the Democrats in trying to talk about Medicare, talk about the economy, but I think at this point they finally get to turn the page and go back to trying to beat the Republicans up over the Paul Ryan Medicare plan, which they believe they were getting traction on until this Weiner mess exploded. CURRY: Alright, well, Chuck Todd, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for your perspective. LAUER: So the headline once again. New York Congressman, a Democrat, Anthony Weiner has decided to resign his seat in Congress after this scandal, this sexting scandal kind of developed around him and because of him over the last couple of weeks. We're going have much more on this story throughout the morning on MSNBC and MSNBC.com and of course, a complete wrap-up tonight on NBC Nightly News.

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