Contrary to Arianna Huffington’s Claims, Turns Out Rahm Emanuel Talked to Blago’s Guy After-all

by Scott Creighton

***UPDATE*** I am not going back to Huffington Post. She is getting all kinds of press for her recent article “Character is Destiny” where she argues that in the end, the character of Rod Blagojevich is what set this in motion. That’s a fascinating theory coming from a “liberal journalist” who married a homosexual oil tycoon millionaire friend of the Bush family and then settled her plagiarism case out of court, when she stole another writer’s work and put in her book claiming it as her own. Is that “character” befitting the “destiny” she has received? And yet, somehow she is on MSNBC and CNN… and oh yeah, BTW she just signed a deal to work for Fox on a tv show. Yeah that’s just the kind of “character” we need in Washington.

I guess there was a reason that Rahm Emanuel didn’t want to respond to journalists about whether or not he had been in communication with the Governor’s office in Illinois about filling Obama’s Senate seat; he didn’t want to get caught in another lie. Turns out, he has been talking with Harris since the day before the election.

“… communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wiretaps. Another source said that contact between the Obama camp and the governor’s administration regarding the Senate seat began the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, when Emanuel made a call to the cell phone of Harris.”  ABC News

The Auto Industry Bailout Failure Was Not A “Red VS Blue” Divide. It’s Worse Than That

by Scott Creighton

***UPDATE*** After watching Chris Dodd’s 1:00pm press conference this afternoon, I am suddenly struck with a different impression. It seems that, yes, certain republican Senators were demanding what they all called a “date certain” for the restructuring of the UAW pay and benefit plan to match those of the non-union workers in the southern states Toyota and Honda plants. A substantial financial hit they (the families of the workers)  would have to take sometime in March of next year. While the Dodd Plan would put that hit off till possibly 2011 or a little sooner, the sticking point turned out to be, like I explain below, that single issue.

But he (Dodd) suggested it may be more of a political ploy. Everyone is praising the Bush administration for offering to step up here and float the Auto industry with a loan from the TARP money. That’s all well and good if they do it with the remaining TARP funds from the first $350 billion dollar payment.

However; it looks like, from what Dodd was saying, the Bush administration is going to claim there isn’t enough left of that money, and so the Democratically controlled congress will have to hand over the other $350 billion dollars, now, in order to save the industry and keep these jobs.

If that is the case, it is possible that these republican hold-outs are doing this in order to help the Bush administration get their hands on the second payment of the TARP money, after Bush’s appointees clearly squandered the first half by handing it over to banks without the oversight they promised and without forcing the banks to use the funds to ease the credit freeze. And if so, they are literally holding the auto industry hostage to do it. If this is the case, this is the most blatant example of this administration creating another crisis and using it to further their corrupt agenda.

Original Story:

When is comes to yesterday’s failure of the proposed Auto Industry bailout plan, once again you are not getting the complete picture from the MSM; and there is a reason for it.

It is being reported by a few sources now that the final holdup on the deal wasn’t that the republicans wanted the workers to take reductions in wages that the democrats didn’t (both sides wanted the same reductions in wages and benefits from the workers), the only question left unresolved on the table, was “when?”.

“Both sides agreed wages should drop to the levels of foreign competitors, but Republicans wanted a deadline of 2009. Democrats insisted on a date of 2011, when current worker contracts expire.” Democracy Now

Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead

(“… the Senate said, we’ll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care.” “…the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America.”)

by M. Moore

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers start building only cars and mass transit that reduce our dependency on oil.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers build cars that reduce global warming.

They could have given the loan on the condition that the automakers withdraw their many lawsuits against state governments in their attempts to not comply with our environmental laws.

Homelessness rising as economy slides: report

from Reuters, by Jason Szep

Homelessness and demand for emergency food are rising in the United States as the economy founders, a report said on Friday, and homeless advocates cautioned many cities were not equipped for the increase.

A survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors showed that 19 of 25 cities saw an increase in homelessness in the 12 months to October, while four reported a drop and two cities lacked enough data for conclusive results.

read the rest of the Reuters story here.