Not satisfied with simply lying that the Employee Free Choice Act takes away workers rights to a secret vote (it does not, as I have noted here: Employees have the right to request a secret-ballot vote if their employer recognizes a union based on union authorization cards. Under the NLRB's ruling in Dana Corp., 351 N.L.R.B. No. 28 (2007), employees can file a petition for decertification with the NLRB to obtain a secret-ballot election, provided that the petition for decertification is filed within 45 days after the employees are publicly notified of the "recognition" of the union.), an anti-union group from away, Employee Freedom.org, has begun running a radio spot here in Maine that compares labor unions to the Mafia.
Weeks ago, anti-union groups began a push poll against card check and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), obstensibly in support of GOP Sen. Susan Collins. It seems that their efforts are also targeting Chellie Pingree, who is running for our 1st District seat, as Collins Watch has flagged this video of Pingree being ambushed by card check obfuscators, and her deft reply:
Indeed, the EFCA is a complicated conversation, one that opponents want to boil down to the lie that secret voting is being eliminated, I debunked their bullshit here.
I found this opinion piece in the Bangor [Maine] Daily News today, and it really beggars the mind as why something so insipid would actually be printed in a daily paper. The author, Ken Fredette, uses previous political races to explain the disparity of two recent polls here, one showing the senate race between Democrat Tom Allen and GOP Susan Collins at 49-42 Collins, and the other showing her with a 25 point lead.
Fredette uses a comparison of the race between the young Barack Obama verse the elderly John McCain with the similar ages of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, but somehow forgets that Clinton was an incumbent and well liked president, whereas McCain - well, you know - nor is his point exactly clear.
In any case, please take a moment to read the piece, and then leave your own analogies with no basis in rationality in the comments. Have Fun!
In the midst of a hot summer day, with the next Federal election still 15 months off, a few residents of the Magnolia State sought to influence a senate campaign 2,000 miles away.
On that day, 30 June 2007, the following 26 people from Mississippi donated $56,400 to Susan Collins' re-election bid:
On the heels of Mike Lux putting the race between Rep. Tom Allen and Susan Collins as the 4th most important this cycle and with Collins holding only a 7 point lead in a recent poll (with Collins less than 50% for the first time), the DSCC has released this viral ad:
Knocking down the myth that Susan Collins is a moderate will be the hardest thing about this campaign, especially since the media in Maine seems intent on continuing to promote it. Ads like this help, and I urge you to help circulate it to those you konw with connections to the Pine Tree State. Thanks.
I'm not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be a Constitutional scholar.
So maybe some that are one or the other or both could weigh in on this:
How does the part of the FISA bill that would grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms for violating privacy laws jibe with this, from Article. I, Sectoin. 9.:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed
Just curious. I look forward to reading a spirited legal debate in the comments. Maybe this will even draw Armando out of retirement.
I heard this story on the BBC's World Service this morning:
MPs are calling for an advert showing two men kissing to be reinstated after it was pulled following complaints. More than two decades after the first gay kiss on teatime TV, a kiss is clearly not always just a kiss.
Twenty-one years after Britain's first gay kiss on primetime TV prompted condemnation from MPs, a show of intimacy between two men clearly still has the capacity to shock television audiences.
Heinz has withdrawn an advert for its Deli Mayo brand one week into a five-week schedule. It depicts a man with a New York accent and dressed like a chef, making sandwiches in a homely British family kitchen. After a schoolboy and girl - who refer to the wise-cracking chef as "Mum" - dash through to pick up their sandwiches, their harried father appears, seemingly late for work.
A quick heads up for those of you that don't subscribe to the New Yorker: this week's issue has this profile of Keith Olbermann, hero of the left. One snippet:
Olbermann chose his office, a corner office on the fourth floor of NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza headquarters, for its view. From his desk, he can look out the window and see, directly across Sixth Avenue, the studios of Fox News, the broadcast home of his rival Bill O’Reilly. "Sometimes I imagine that I hear a howl coming from there," Olbermann told me during a visit one afternoon. "I have been accused of having an obsession with him. I am a minor-leaguer compared to his obsession with me."
The Olbermann-O’Reilly feud, which is wholly Olbermann’s creation, began with a wisecrack in 2003, the first year of "Countdown." It evolved after Olbermann instituted a farcical segment called "The Worst Person in the World," in which O’Reilly, depicted as a pompous buffoon, was regularly cited. O’Reilly, the biggest draw of the highest-rated cable-news network, could only lose by engaging with Olbermann, but he could not resist.
In an interview on Democracy Now! this morning, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) spoke about the FISA bill that passed the House yesterday:
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe the legislation that the Senate is considering, is expected to pass by Friday?
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, this is a great blow to the rights of the American people. And much of the publicity has been about a very important aspect: giving these telephone companies immunity that cooperated with the President’s illegal program. We think that should be decided based on current law, not some kind of a retroactive immunity. But that’s essentially what this bill does.
Many of you are much more learned in the history of our Senate, and it is to you that I pose this assessment:
Please rate the chairs of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (known until 2003 without Homeland Security in its name). I am curious as to which of these senators truly took their charge to task - that is that they led vigorous investigations of the Federal government.
2003-2004 : Susan M. Collins (R-ME)
2001-2003: Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)
Fred D. Thompson (R-TN)
Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)
1997-2001: Fred D. Thompson (R-TN)
1995-1997: Ted Stevens (R-AK)
1995 : William V. Roth (R-DE)
1987-1995: John Glenn (D-OH)
1981-1987: William V. Roth (R-DE)
1977-1981: Abraham A. Ribicoff (D-CT)
In light of recent reports in the New York Times and the BBC Jonathan Kaplan has this in today's Portland Press Herald reporting on Rep. Tom Allen's renwed criticism of Susan Collins' work as chair of the Senate committee tasked with overseeing all Federal contracts:
Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, on Friday used the recent reports to renew his accusation that Republican Sen. Susan Collins did not conduct sufficient oversight of private contractors providing services to U.S. troops in Iraq when she chaired the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee from 2003 through 2006.
"Sen. Collins should have been doing investigations, holding hearings and calling contractors on the carpet," Allen said in a phone interview that his campaign initiated. "These horror stories would be very much minimized if she had done her job."
Lost in the shuffle yesterday was this news brief in the Portland Press Herald:
The Pentagon’s harsh interviewing tactics against detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba cribbed from the U.S. military’s resistance training programs were "inappropriate," Republican Sen. Susan Collins said on Tuesday.
The Senate Armed Services Committee revealed at a hearing on Tuesday that top Pentagon lawyers began compiling lists of interrogation methods used by the military’s elite Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Schools in July 2002, much earlier than previously had been known.
"It seems that it was more logical for the (Pentagon) to go to the FBI for assistance than to try to figure out how the SERE techniques could be re-engineered for interrogation since that’s not at all what the purpose of the SERE techniques were," Collins said during the hearing.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that the Senate is just now getting around to investigating how SERE techniques were used on detainees held by our government at Git Mo and other places, since this was first reported in the media nearly three years ago.
On a gorgeous early summer morning, about 75 Mid Coast Dem's were joined by by their compatriots seeking office to officially open the Knox County Democratic Headquarters, located in Rockland.
Headlining the event was Rep. Tom Allen, and Chellie Pingree, winner of a six-way race seeking the 1st District seat vacated as Allen seeks to replace Susan Collins in the U.S. Senate.
Sorry for the quick diary, but with all the talk of a Obama/HRC ticket, I want to make sure that this gets some notice. From The Guardian:
Barack Obama should not pick Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential nominee, former president Jimmy Carter has told the Guardian.
"I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made," said Carter. "That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates."
Carter, who formally endorsed the Illinois senator last night, cited opinion polls showing 50% of US voters with a negative view of Clinton.
In terms that might discomfort the Obama camp, he said: "If you take that 50% who just don't want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don't think Obama is white enough or old enough or experienced enough or because he's got a middle name that sounds Arab, you could have the worst of both worlds."
Carter says that he would offer the same advice if the ticket were reversed, but one guesses not so vociferously.
A quick diary to add more to the growing UBS/John McCain story, MarketPlace reports this morning that the bank that caters to the very wealthy has warned some of its employees not to travel to the U.S., for fear that they might be arrested.
A couple of weeks back, a UBS banker was indicted on tax evasion charges, after it was alleged that he helped an American real estate developer to avoid taxes. Apparently, this was no rogue employee.
UBS has told members of its former private banking team responsible for rich US clients not to travel to America, the Financial Times reported.
The Swiss bank has also made lawyers available to the more than 50 bankers involved, many of whom have left UBS since it decided last November to wind down its cross-border private banking business for US customers.
In short, I'm disgusted with Hillary and Bill Clinton. They have been running a scorched earth policy that shows little regard to the Democratic party, or our nation for that matter.
It is a display of vanity like nothing I've seen before from American politicians.
Today, Hillary Clinton (HRC) had this to say:
People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa. My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it.
I'll remind HRC that in 1992, the New Hampshire primary wasn't held until 18 February, THIRTEEN DAYS later than the super-duper Tuesday primary held this year. Twenty-four states held their primaries that day, including California.
I'll also remind the Clinton's that in 1968, the New Hampshire primary wasn't held until 12 March, and the Bobby Kennedy didn't declare his intent to seek the nomination until AFTER that vote had taken place. RFK did win the California primary, which was held on 4 June that year (Kennedy was shot on 5 June, and died the following day).
Kagro X had this diary on Friday that links to the original video, an expose about Susan Collins tenure as chair of the Senate's HS&GA Committee, the one tasked with overseeing ALL Federal contracts. Watch the first video before you view this follow-up:
The important part is at the end, where the Collins campaign strategy is made clear: do not deny the truth, but attack the messenger that brings it:
Most importantly on this point, neither Sen. Collins nor Rep. Allen dispute the key facts we tried to establish: that waste, fraud, and abuse did occur in Iraq and that a lack of oversight was a factor.
Their dispute is about who's to blame, and what should have been done about it in Congress.
WGME-TV (Portland) has this five minute segment about Susan Collins' tenure as chair of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HS&GA) that you're going to want to watch:
Listen to how Collins responds to the charges that she did not do her job of investigating the theft and fraud that has come to define the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Collins " completely rejects" this claim, calls it "absurd," and is "stunned and appalled" and "embarrassed" that Allen would accuse her of such things.
But note that she says nothing refute the truth of the allegations. She does not cite her record to demonstrate that Allen is wrong.
No, the only thing she can do is attack her accuser.
I'll remind you of the other things Collins thought were more important than Iraq.
