Tag Archives: union “thugs”

Wildfires and the GOP: when those who want less government still want essential public services

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Charles P. Pierce points out an interesting (or maybe sad? pathetic?) bit of Republican hypocrisy regarding the High Park Fire in Colorado and federal firefighters (i.e. government parasites):

I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but, contra Willard Romney, I think both Colorado and New Mexico could use some more firefighters right now. That is certainly the opinion of the Colorado congressional delegation, which has dispatched a letter to the federal government appealing for more help. The delegation includes Rep. Scott Tipton (R -3d CD), Rep. Cory Gardner (R-4th CD), Rep, Mike (Stuck In A Groove) Coffman (R-6th CD). (As it happens, Gardner’s district is the one most directly affected by the wildfires.) Needless to say, but we’ll say it anyway, all three of these folks voted for the Paul Ryan budget, which would cut the daylights out of things like federal firefighting programs, which already are pretty imperiled.

Maybe the Republican delegation from Colorado should discuss their concerns with Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney — let their party leaders explain why it’s a good idea to have fewer firefighters? Especially Romney, who has a long history of hating on firefighters:

Mitt Romney came under fire this weekend from Democrats after he suggested that we shouldn’t hire more firefighters. Then top Romney surrogate John Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire, doubled down on Romney’s firefighter comments today, telling MSNBC they were not a “gaffe.” This is hardly the first time the presumed GOP nominee has tangled with firefighters. In fact, he has a long, bitter history with them. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney often ended up sparring with firefighters and their unions. He proposed stripping collective bargaining rights for firefighters and police officers in a city that needed a state bailout, and cut funding to a fire station to be built on the site where six firemen died. He also proposed tripling the state police budget to deal with homeland security concerns in the years after 9/11, but didn’t offer a dime for firefighters, angering many at the time.

Sarah Palin has a Twitter-Tantrum at AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

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Palin is USUALLY having a tantrum on Twitter:

Trumka went to Anchorage, Alaska — Palin’s political backyard — to deliver a speech in which he is expected to criticize Palin’s language, which he says could incite violence from her supporters.

“And down in Tyler, Texas, she’s talking about — and I quote — ‘union thugs.’ What? Her husband’s a union man. Is she calling him a thug? Sarah Palin ought to know what union men and women are,” Trumka will say. “That’s poisonous. There’s history behind that rhetoric. That’s how bosses and politicians in decades past justified the terrorizing of workers, the murdering of organizers.”

Palin responded on her widely-followed Twitter account, saying:

Know our hardworking union friends (esp from my days as an IBEW sister, Todd IBEW & USW brother) aren’t sheep, they’ll ask: Trumka’s motive?
 
Think Trumka’s frustrations r w/Obama, not me (high unemplymnt, deals w/Obama&his subsequent broken promises)so understandable Rich’s ticked

AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale quickly fired back, saying that she undermined her message by resigning as governor last year.

“Basically, she’s having a temper tantrum, putting her hands over her ears and yelling ‘la la la la la, I can’t hear you,’ ” Vale said. “Because if she had actually read the speech the motivation and message are crystal clear. She left working families in Alaska behind when she tried to trade up to Fox News and the Tea Party. We understand that she wants to keep up her faux populism and image as caring about ordinary people but her actions, policies and candidates she supports speak way louder than her tweets.”

IBEW “sister” my ass.