Since 1990, organized labor has taken a half-billion dollars worth of workers' dues and has given it to national Democrats in the form of campaign contributions. In return, those national Democrats have aggressively pushed corporate-written trade pacts that undermine unions; worked with Republicans to defund uniformed unionized public employees;failed to use their 60 Senate votes to pass the Employee Free Choice Act;embraced school "reform" rhetoric crafted by corporate foundations that deliberately demonizes teachers unions; and refused to robustly support worker protests against the new GOP assault on collective bargaining -- despite explicit promises about putting on comfortable shoes and walking the picket line.......In a letter to his membership Tuesday, the president of the International Association of Firefighters announced that a unanimous vote of the union's executive board had frozen all campaign contributions to all federal candidates. Citing both the "extremist" Republican agenda and the refusal of Democrats to "stand up and fight for us," Harold Schaitberger said the resources now denied to federal candidates would be spent in states, where local Democrats have been much more willing to defend the labor movement.
Good. That makes me VERY happy.
While we're on the subject, I have a gripe with Rachel Maddow. I understand that she is extremely interested in political gamesmanship, but it is starting to piss me off that when she points out how great of an opportunity the Democrats have right now she doesn't (always) immediately follow by calling for the Democrats to actually fucking do something to fix our problems.
A minor gripe. She's still the only pundit I watch regularly.
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