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BushWatch: 3.5 Days and Counting…
More than 20,000 AFL-CIO union volunteers are planning to heed President-elect Barack Obama’s call to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.
In our retrospective of eight years of BushWatch this week, we’ve looked back at the outgoing president’s more egregious vetoes, executive orders and decisions on the economy, workplace safety, health care, workers’ rights and other issues. Click here, here, here and here for parts one through four.
Today we present a potpourri—a grab bag of sorts—of randomly bad actions highlighted on BushWatch:
- As part of a last-minute push to implement a slew of new federal regulations before leaving office, the Bush Labor Department issued new rules that make it more difficult for workers to use family and medical leave.
- The Bush administration’s National Labor Relations Board ruled in 2007 that employers can bar workers from sending union-related e-mail at work. That’s the modern-day equivalent of blocking workers from talking around the office watercooler or using the break room bulletin board.
- Bush lobbied hard for a free trade agreement with Colombia, the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists, with more than 2,600 murdered since 1986, including more than 500 under the watch of current President Alvaro Uribe. The legal system has done little to bring the murders to justice. But just this week, Bush presented Uribe with the Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor.
- Bush appointed Gerald Reynolds, an outspoken opponent of affirmative action, to chair the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that investigates complaints of civil rights violations. Reynold’s appointment, said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, “effectively brings to an end the Civil Rights Commission.
At noon on Jan. 20, we will cheer the end to the Bush administration and our long national nightmare. Check back Tuesday, Bush’s last (half) day in office for our final goodbye to BushWatch.
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“At noon on Jan. 20, we will cheer the end to the Bush administration and our long national nightmare. Check back Tuesday, Bush’s last (half) day in office for our final goodbye to BushWatch.”
It is essential, if this AFL-CIO NEWS BLOG is to have any serious educational value to working people, that as you say “our final goodbye to BushWatch” that you immediately start a new column called “ObamaWatch”.
After Obama is actually elected …. WATCH OUT! Obama’s POLICIES and ACTIONS must be critically judged in terms of the of the desperate needs of working people of this country.
Dry all those hysterical tears! Put away all the rheorical babble! The economic survival of working people is now on the line! Obama’s election does not bode well at all for the future of working people in this country or around the world.
This article highlights these concerns:
From Bush to Obama: On the eve of a “seamless transition”
By Patrick Martin
17 January 2009
“Three days before the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States, the distinctions have largely been effaced between the outgoing and incoming administrations.”
George W. Bush is, as even the corporate-controlled media admits, the most hated and despised president in American history. Barack Obama is, at least according to the opinion polls that measure popular moods, the beneficiary of a temporary honeymoon period in which hope outweighs experience and many are inclined to “give him a chance.”
Far more decisive than these illusions are the policies of the Obama administration. There is ample reason to believe that popular opposition to Obama will grow rapidly, and that anger and outrage over the gross deception involved in the electoral process will add fuel to the fire. While millions voted for the Democratic candidate in a repudiation of the Bush administration’s program of war, repression and favors to the wealthy, the actions of Obama demonstrate the fundamental unity of the two big business parties, which are both instruments of the same corporate ruling elite.”
Read the full article and details here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/obam-j17.shtml
GWB has greatly damaged this countries financial foundation through incompetence, cronyism, willful disregard of regulations, and corruption. I can only hope he fades into the sunset and stays there.
You can see the destruction he has caused by visiting http://layofflist.wordpress.com/ and seeing the daily job destruction that GWB has left the next administration. You can also read about government manipulation of unemployment numbers along with other economic news.
Go union!