Not So Easy Rolling on the River for Arkansas Republicans
AFL-CIO Field Communications staffer Cathy Sherwin sends us this report from Little Rock, Ark.
When local politicians and party donors began boarding the paddle wheeler Arkansas Queen Friday night for a fundraiser with Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus they were met by a large group of community, faith and union activists.
While the politicos scurried up the gangplank, the Arkansan activists had a simple and loud message for Priebus and company:
Don’t Let the Politicians Cruise While Working Families Lose!
The group was protesting Republican deficit reduction and debt ceiling proposals to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other essential working family programs while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy.
Arkansans Bear the Heat to Bring the Heat on Social Security Cuts
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It was 105 degrees in Jonesboro, Ark., yesterday, but about two dozen local activists, retirees and union members braved the scorching summer sun to put a little heat on Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark) for his vote to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as part of the House Republican budge.
The gathered outside Crawford’s district office with homemade signs that they waved at passing traffic and from the number of return honks, it looks like they built a lot of community support against the cuts.
After the group had been outside for a while, one of Crawford’s aides invited them inside to talk about their concerns. Afterwards Keisha Miller (see video below) whose grandfather receives both Social Security and Medicare and is failing health told Blue Arkansas’s ArDem:
Activists Get Social Security Commitment from GOP Lawmaker. Will He Keep It?
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Last week when Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) was back home in Little Rock for a campaign fundraiser, he was met by more than a dozen local activists from Arkansas Community Organizations (ACO).
They wanted to know that since he voted for the Republican budget that privatizes Medicare and guts Medicaid, if he supported recently introduced legislation by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) that would privatize Social Security. Max Brantley on the Arkansas Blog points out that:
Griffin said in 2010 that he didn’t support privatized Social Security, but since he’s voted to privatize Medicare, demonstrators were interested in getting a new commitment on Social Security from the Republican congressman from Little Rock.
Wisconsin State Employees Inspire Other Workers
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The strong stand for the middle class by workers in Wisconsin is drawing support and inspiring workers across the country. In Detroit, members of the striking Detroit Symphony Orchestra linked their protest last night at Mayor Dave Bing’s State of the City address to the struggles in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and other states.
”It’s pretty clear there is a war on the middle class, from musicians of the Detroit Symphony to city workers in other unions,” violinist Joe Goldman told the Associated Press.
The only way to fight back is for people to join a union and work together.
Hundreds of workers, community and religious activists joined in a “We Are One” rally at the Wisconsin governor’s office in Washington, D.C. in solidarity with the teachers, firefighters, nurses, construction workers and all who are under attack by governors and state legislatures. Click here to see photos from today’s protest.
Lincoln Parked on Wall Street, Working Families Drive Halter Bid
One week from today, Arkansas voters will have a choice between two-term incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her long record of corporate coziness or Lt. Gov. Bill Halter and his progressive agenda based on the interests of working families.
The June 8 U.S. Senate Democratic primary run-off is firing up working families and union voters across the state. These are the same voters who mobilized and turned what was supposed to a Lincoln slam-dunk in the Senate primary to a near dead heat race and ultimate run-off election.
Lincoln lost working family support over her votes to send jobs overseas and support bad trade deals. She also has been strongly funded by corporate cash and reversed her support for the Employee Free Choice Act.
Blanche Lincoln, The Senator From Virginia
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This is a crosspost from Blue Arkansas.
Nice house, right? Certainly nicer than almost anything you see regularly here in Arkansas. Guess who owns it. That’s right, Blanche Lincoln. (It’s in her husband’s name.) And guess where it’s located. Helena? Nope. It’s located in Arlington, Virginia. That’s right, Senator Lincoln, the person who’s spent her whole campaign trying to scare people about Bill Halter being rich and childishly calling him “Dollar Bill,” has a home worth over 2 million bucks IN VIRGINIA! Read the rest of this entry »
Blanche Lincoln Got $1.3 Million from Wall Street
Speaking yesterday to members of the Machinists, Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter didn’t mince words about why Big Banks haven’t been held accountable by Congress: Washington insiders like Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln have failed to pass financial reform legislation because they owe Wall Street.
Halter, who’s challenging Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the state’s Democratic primary, said that while taxpayers put $700 billion into a bailout for these Wall Street investment banks and commercial banks,
you and I wake up to see front-page headlines about Wall Street investment bankers and investment executives pulling down literally tens of billions of dollars in bonuses at the same time this is going on.
Hey, Blanche Lincoln: We Take Care of Working Families and We’re Union
In Arkansas, where Sen. Blanche Lincoln has been attacking working families and their unions in her re-election for the Senate seat, working families are coming out strongly for Lt. Gov. Bill Halter as their choice in the Democratic primaries. Lincoln, who took $576,900 in labor donations throughout her political career, has supported the exportation of more than 19,000 jobs from Arkansas by her backing of trade agreements that don’t include safeguards for U.S. jobs.
In a video clip by Communications Workers of America (CWA) locals 6507 and 6508, a union member puts it this way:
Blanche Lincoln is bad for working families. Bill Halter supports working families. That’s why we’re working so hard to get him elected. We think it’s time for a change in Washington.
Meanwhile, members of AFGE Local 2054 take on Lincoln’s attacks against Halter, whom she describes as taking money from big unions in Washington, D.C. In a video clip, the group of health care workers and other public employees sends a message to Lincoln in unison:
Blanche Lincoln, we take care of America’s working families right here in Arkansas. And we’re union.
Lincoln Attacks Arkansas Working Families; Families Don’t Blanche
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) who this week launched a television ad slamming working families as “outside interests” is continuing her descent into “yet another hypocritical, flip-flopping D.C., politician,” says Arkansas AFL-CIO President Alan Hughes.
Lincoln in recent months has piled up a Senate record opposing working families–including voting to send jobs overseas via bad trade deals, reversing her initial support for the Employee Free Choice Act and opposing health care reform legislation with a public health insurance option. Arkansas unions now have endorsed Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D.) in the upcoming U.S. Senate primary. Says Hughes:
Lincoln has ignored the interests of working people in Arkansas too many times. It’s easy for her to try to paint opponents as outsiders, but working-class voters in Arkansas can see as well as anybody that she has turned her back on us. Read the rest of this entry »
Arkansas Workers: We Need Jobs Now
Workers across the country are sending a strong message to state and national political leaders that jobs are priority No. 1. Yesterday, activists in Arkansas told a press conference at the state capitol in Little Rock that drastic cuts in state services could come unless Congress approves a jobs bill that gives aid to cash-strapped state and local governments.
At the press conference, Jobs for America Now, a coalition of union, religious and activist groups, released a report showing that Arkansas may have to make some disastrous cuts in services unless it receives more federal assistance.
According to this report, economists predict that without federal assistance to state and local governments with budget shortfalls, 900,000 Americans could lose their jobs in fiscal year 2011, and 3 million will lose their jobs by 2012.
