That’s great!!

Hope to be there.

am so very looking forward to this – thank you Jane !

have been a major Trumka fan since last summer when he addressed the issue of racism with his labor brothers and sisters –

he’s the real deal – can’t wait

I hope Trumka is turning out AFL-CIO members. This really is the civil rights battle of a generation. If we do not get a public option, the albatross of defeat will surely hang around this administration’s neck.

The Blue Dogs need to remember who elected them , the people!
I guess they feel they have a greater alleigence to the insurance companies than their constituants.
Of course the insurance companies contribute huge amounts of money to these guys campaign fund.
And if the voters vote them out of office ,there’s always a lucrative lobbying job with the same companies they are now defending. It’s a win -win situation for them they can’t lose !

“Goodybag”? I don’t want to know, but someone tell me anyway.

Trumka is intelligent, honest, and blunt.

Great catch for FDL.

Labor Heros. Hey it was a lot worse in the 20’s and 30’s when the American labor movement gained most of its power and reforms. I would love to see Labor lead us back into the streets.

On Rachel Maddow’s show Mr. Trumka said that insurance reform without a public option is simply a money grab for insurance companies.

He’s right, of course.

dead on right

Good news.
I wrote a Seminal Diary earlier this week, trying to call attention to what IMVHO was a torrent of bad information served up in an MSNBC “Morning Meeting” segment earlier this week about the motives, policies, and actions of Trumka and labor.

Ordinarily, I’m a fan of the new MSNBC “Morning Meeting” program’s efforts to inform and enlighten viewers about problems with our current economic system and the whole bogus “too big to fail” nonsense. So I was seriously peeved to watch how their ill-informed guests totally spun Trumka’s interview on the Maddow program.

It was very clear that the “Morning Meeting” so-called ‘experts’ do not grasp the very simple fact that you can have billions in capital, but if you don’t have great employees, you still can’t create wealth.

If there is any post over the weekend that can help some of us non-labor readers get up to speed on good questions to ask Mr Trumka about why labor has come to its views on health care, would someone please kindly leave a list of links?

(In case I can make it, the odds of asking an intelligent question, as opposed to an idiotic question, go up if I have a little background reading.)

Thanks, Jane, for doing this — very cool!

This is most excellent. If Obama wants to stay in office past 2012, he’d better heed Trumka and FAST.

2012? So what will President Bachmann and Vice President Wurzelbacher champion, in terms of healthcare reform? Sorry.. couldn’t resist.

Excellent. Mr. Trumka is a good guy. United we stand.

Just to reiterate, I’m kind of amazed to watch this health care discussion play out.

I don’t know much about unions in general — I don’t belong to one. But unions are not the group that I had expected to show leadership on health care. So it’s been very surprising to me to watch this twist with Trumka.

When I saw his Maddow interview basically thrown under a bus by a “CEO of the Women’s Forum” — who, I’m guessing does not know diddly squat about manufacturing or production processes — blather on about how unions are destroyed America’s economy, my brain exploded.

The unions, and Trumka, are showing leadership.
And someone’s getting out a few shivs, judging by that segment that I saw earlier this week.

As Pres. Obama might say, I think we’ve arrived at a ‘teachable moment’ and more of us might learn a little more about the value of unions and collective action than we’d expected to see come out of this health care debate.

Thanks again, Jane.

What does “signing up” at FDL for a town hall do? I just signed up for one and don’t really know what the signup entails or offers.

More of the same old crap from the right. Literally the same old tropes theyve been using for 70 years. Its a simple issue for me. In the old days, the republicans were more honnest about who they were working for. go back to the progressive era, and TR and read some of the language being used. the right wing is devoted to serving the interests of the 1%. sometimes its “free markets” sometimes its to stifle free markets in favor of established monoplolies. its ALWAYS to keep on thumb on the scale for the supply side class. no labor reform has EVER gone unchallenged by them including laws to prevent employers from locking their employees into the shops for the entire duration of a 12 hour shift (triangle shirtwaist factory vs NY). labor is not perfect, humans arent perfect so the right wing demand that they be spotless saints is absurd.Ill look for some links

false choice. you know it

I assume this wasn’t snark and will answer. Basically, Rahm goes around and bribes each individual with pet project money for their district or even worse literally bribes them with positions and family positions with various companies (pay-to-play if you will). On the other side of the goody bag is a stick to beat the shit out of them with if they don’t accept the ‘bribe’ such as a complete removal of all institutional support and a promise to support and fund a primary candidate.

God bless Richard Trumka.

This is how Barack Obama and Dems should be talking.

Words like “stranglehold”.

This is the kind of talk that can break the grip of the teabaggers. Wonkery no. Straight talk, yes.

I saw his interview with Rachel when it aired…it was teh Great!
This is exciting news for FDL

OT/quick request:

Could you re-post a link to Katymine’s toll-free DC switchboard numbers? I think Hoyer’s office(s) need a flood of angry calls from The American People. What an effing wanker. Unless the DC offices are closed over recess, too…

FunnyWheelieDiva

I hope no one feels too triumphalist about the prospects for the passage of a bill containing the PO, it is very much far from a done deal.

We should not worry about the motives of those representatives that oppose the passage of the PO, since their motives don’t matter. However they are not free to act in contravention of what we as the majority of the people want, and feel they can do so with impunity.

What is left for us is to act in a way that will accomplish our ends. The representatives from my district simply will not publicly declare their support of the PO. So we need to extract that commitment from them one way or another. Simple phone calls, although great, don’t seem enough to guarantee anything.

An escalation of approach seems warranted, for instance protests at their office or piercing exposes in local papers as to what interests are determining their opposition to the PO with a show of the number of people that want this measure passed.

My point is that the campaign to further our interests needs to esacalte so as to achieve a tangible commitment for the backing of the PO and to make it plain that not publicly doing so will incur real consequences at the next ballot.

I don’t know how realistic it is for us strategically threaten to primary selected House reps. There are sporadic reports in NY and CA about local groups getting reps to change their stance on healthcare with very specific primary threats. Didn’t the Workers and Families Party just do this to somebody in Westchester CO NY a couple of days ago?

dumb question: in theory if the House (with PO) and Senate (without PO) pass very different bills and the PO gets conferenced out, could, in theory, the president restore it with a signing statement? Not that I’m urging that strategy.. just wanted to know what the stakes would be. Obama has made quite a lot of use of signing statements recently.

No – he can use signing statements to exclude pieces of legislation not to include absent items.

What I mean by exclude is ignore … the clause or language remains in the signed piece of legislation but they choose not to enforce it or whatever else is called for.

thanks.

No worries – I guess I should go ask David W. (KargoX) just to make sure.

Would like to see Trumka do a road trip for the public option through Ohio (along the Ohio river) and Pennsylvania. Like he has the time.

They just reported some new numbers of the folks who support the public option on Hardball.

I think those numbers would be under “Obama too soft on health care reform”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/

52 support
46 no

Not sure where they got these numbers

Was so wonderul that Trumka gave well deserved praise during his rip roaring speech at NN09. That man can tell it like it is

Just to clarify, two points are relevant.

One is that the means we adopt to extract commitments for the PO apply equally to senators as to representatives. In fact ways need to be found to exert pressure on senators who are particularly obstructive, eg. Nelson, Bayh, Landrieu. In this regard publicising whatever conflicts of interest pertain to each is worthwhile, as a means to exert pressure.

The second is that to exert pressure is our only hope of achieving what we want. Getting convulsed by contortions of parlimentary possiblities gets you nowhere. If you are up front and truthful in exposing the interest that people are protecting you do a double service.