GOP Targets Unions, Specter Wavers

Update: NYT: After Party Switch, a Senator’s Confused Alliances

As Tom Harkin works to move "Sen. Arlen Specter back to the pro-union side on the stalled Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) (The Politico)," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and the GOP are hitting unions like punching bags.

From Sen. DeMint in Human Events:

... That's why it's vital you sign our petition urging the Congressional leadership to OPPOSE the union bosses' Card Check Forced Unionism Bill -- and the rest of Big Labor's agenda -- IMMEDIATELY.

You see, there's not much time. At the very top of the Congress's agenda is the union bosses' Card Check Forced Unionism Bill. And the Organized Labor czars wouldn't have it any other way. You see, passage of the so-called 'Card Check' Bill is all that stands between the union bosses and total control over hundreds of thousands of America's small businesses . . .

So we have a new Democratic senator who has vowed to use the filibuster to stop labor reform. Let's hope Harkin's outreach precedes dumping Specter, and the filibuster too while we're at it.

Specter's latest position on EFCA: "I’m opposed to giving up the secret ballot or mandatory arbitration as they are set forth in the bill, but I do believe that labor law reform is past overdue." So, Specter's not going to support the fulibuster then? Who knows?

Earmarks No Good? Tell That to Janesville

Update: Mike Madden in Salon - "President Obama urges pork reform and signs a bill with earmarks in it on the same day. Republicans make an unconvincing show of outrage."

From today's State Journal: "U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl D-Wis., added $951,000 to the federal Omnibus Appropriations Bill for Black hawk Technical College to provide job training and placement services for former employees of General Motors in Janesville and it supplier companies."

The horror ... because the job training and placement services are an earmark, according to Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) and of-course the ever-foolish John McCain.

Reads Feingold's statement:

By passing the omnibus spending bill today, which included more than 8500 pet projects costing taxpayers $7.7 billion, Congress failed to show the American people that it is committed to spending their money wisely. When Congress passed the economic recovery bill to create or save millions of American jobs, it did so without including a single earmark. Congress should have done the same thing with this omnibus spending bill and it should do so with all future bills. The president should veto the omnibus, send it back to Congress to be cleaned up and make it clear to Congress that pork-laden bills like this are no longer welcome.

And from Paul Ryan's op-ed in Racine Journal Times: "If we can’t get this issue right, how are we ever going to tackle the more pressing challenges we now face? "

More "pressing" than helping autoworkers get a new job? Mere "pet projects"? Earmarks are less than one percent of the spending bill, and the projects are needed.

You would think that Wisconsin's Feingold and Ryan would know better than to throw more barriers in the way of helping these workers who lost their jobs at GM. Both Ryan and Feingold have intimate links to the community.

But they choose to join McCain and spout this nonsense that dedicated, federally-funded projects are the main problems facing Americans. Ridiculous.

And thank you Herb Kohl for your common sense on the issue!

- See also McCain's Nuts, Feingold and Ryan Following.

via mal contends

McCain's Nuts, Feingold and Ryan Following

Update: Herbert: "Freaking out over earmarks is like watching a neighborhood that is being consumed by flames and complaining that there is crabgrass on some of the lawns."

Sen. John McCain is like a man on the Titanic complaining to the bartender that there’s not enough vodka in his drink as outside the iceberg approaches.

Reads a fundraising e-mail from McCain complaining about “pork” in a big spending bill (now blocked by Republicans threatening a filibuster in the U.S. Senate) as McCain seeks reelection in 2010:

My Friend, … I have called on the President to take a principled stand and veto the bill if it is sent to him, but unfortunately, he appears ready to sign it into law, which is nothing more than politics as usual.

(I)n nearly 30 years, I have never witnessed the type of alarming and irresponsible spending as I have seen in Washington over the past few weeks. I am appalled to see this legislation being rushed through the Congress while containing so many egregious earmarks. It is unconscionable that while we are asking Americans to do more with less in these trying economic times we are about to spend $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa, $2 million for the promotion of astronomy in Hawaii ...

"(N)ever witnessed?" Was McCain in Congress the last eight years? "Alarming ... spending?"

Unfortunately, Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) are joining McCain and spouting this nonsense that dedicated, federally-funded projects are the main problems facing Americans.

Ridiculous. Did you guys happen to read the newest jobs report? Do you know that the Dow has lost some 50 percent of its value over the last few months? Do you know that a world-wide depression is a distinct possibility, if we're not already there?

Feingold and Ryan are embarrassing themselves by teaming up with the self-promoting McCain who is proving again that he really doesn't care about the American people.

Maybe Feingold and Ryan can go tell the folks in Janesville that what they need to be really concerned about is helping our Iowa neighbors who are sick about pig farms (not pleasant). And that workers' losing their jobs as America heads into an uncertain future have to take a backseat.

McCain, Feingold and Ryan are not helping by working against a primary lever to stave off an economic catastrophe, distracting us with a ludicrous diversion that constitutes about one percent of a spending bill.

They are now part of the problem obstructing critical efforts to help Americans.

- via mal contends

Ditch the Filibuster by Spring

Robert L. Borosage, Co-Director of the Campaign for America’s Future, surveying the fights to come writes of the Employee Free Choice Act that the "business lobby promises Armageddon if the Employee Free Choice Act moves forward."

And you can bet that the Employee Free Choice Act will get filibustered.

After all, we elected Obama and a Democratic congress so that this once-in-a generation shot at labor reform and other major initiatives can be decided by the whims of Sen. Mitch McConell (R-Kentucky). Right?

Right.

Here's a prediction, McConell backs down or we blow up the filibuster all together or at least lower the number of senators needed for a cloture vote to 55 votes.