FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #31 Buerkle Is For Jobs

And who isn't? Platitudes, empty platitudes. Buerkle has created no jobs here, nor would she if she goes back to Washington. And she hasn't fought for jobs that have been lost.

What she has done is supported legislation that sends jobs overseas. And taken advantage of Welch Allyn's decision to downsize. 

She doesn't give a damn about her constituents, even the folks who vote for her because they think she is smart, kind and compassionate.  She cares about power, money, status, and herself. Vote for her at your peril. Go ahead, vote against your own self-interest. 

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #28 Less Public Sector Jobs is Good

Blue Sky Girl appreciates today's letter to Syracuse.com!

To the Editor: 

Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle is once again quoted asserting - as does Mitt Romney - that ''government doesn't create jobs.'' It is mind-numbing to think that two folks who have spent years - and millions of dollars - pleading to be hired by the taxpayers can suggest something so abysmally asinine. 

Who do these folks think teach our children, police our streets, put out fires and help care for our elderly? Who ensures clean water comes out of our faucets, and spares most of us from a septic tank or an outhouse? Who is there in a disaster, and protecting us against attacks and in times of war? 

You might wonder how Mitt Romney can promise us 12 million new jobs when he has spent the past six years trying for a job in the sector that supposedly doesn't create any. 

On Election Day, I suggest leaving Romney in the private sector and hauling Buerkle away from the public trough. If you can't figure out what government does - or who issues your paycheck - you shouldn't be in it. 

Edward Servatius 
Syracuse 

Thank you, sir!

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #24 Ann Marie Wants Jobs for Our Region

This is the BIG LIE. Every move AMB has made in Washington has played to the hand of big business, moving jobs offshore and removing protections for workers. 

Loyalty to the workers of this congressional district is the LAST thing she feels. Loyalty to AMB, her power and the 1% is where her heart resides.

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #23 "More Jobs, Less Government"

So say her signs. 

Offshore jobs? Trade agreements? Yes indeed. Jobs at home? Not so much. 

How about retraining for displaced U.S. workers? Definitely not. AMB voted against the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act.

What a gal!

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #5 Supports Local Job Creation

Our Gal says she wants to reduce government interference in order to ease creation of jobs in her district. Why then did she vote to reduce taxes for companies that outsource jobs overseas?

FORTY LIES IN 40 DAYS: #3 Jobs Creator

Her declarations notwithstanding, Buerkle has yet to create or even vote for a single new job in her district.

Buerkle's Bad Faith Statement on Job Creation

Ann Marie Buerkle, HR NY-25, likes to make broad critical statements about the US Senate. 

Her own dear House is forever blameless. For instance, they in the House are working their tails off to come up with bills that will get us jobs, jobs, jobs! According to Buerkle at her town hall meeting in Clay last Thursday, the House has come up with "something like 12 jobs bills."  

And you know what? That darned Senate tabled them all!

Funny thing: all the Republican-controlled House "jobs" bills favor big business, wealthy people, and off-shore manufacturing. 

These bills would also gut everything from health insurance to public investments in education, public health, environmental safeguards, infrastructure, energy, and science and technology research and development, all of which Republicans see as bad investments. 

Good bye to the minimum wage and hello to union-busting. Middle America, get used to things getting a lot worse. 

The prizes and the winners, of course: greater profits for the folks at the very top and perpetual power to the conservative forces in Washington who hope to catch some golden crumbs when they retire (because we know they are not allowed to snack on those delicious golden crumbs while they are still in office.)

There are two great articles right now that examine the Republican agenda on jobs:

The GOP's Mythical Jobs Agenda on Think Progress on August 26, 2011, by Adam Hersh an economist at the Center for American Progress Action Fund

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/26/305252/gops-mythical-jobs-agenda/

5 Worst So-Called Job Creation Ideas From the GOP on Alternet on August 30, 2011, by Sarah Jaffe of Alternet

http://www.alternet.org/story/152232/5_worst_so-called_job_creation_ideas_from_the_gop/

Questions for Ann Marie Buerkle's Next Town Hall Meeting, and the One After That...

Ms. Buerkle, you promised us honesty and transparency during your campaign. You promised that you would try to find common ground. The election results indicate that you won by only a very small margin, so it is safe to assume that there are a great many people who would like to know you share their concerns about where this country is headed. 

Now that you have gotten your feet wet in Washington, would you be so kind as to answer some questions for us?

• You talked repeatedly about job creation and job recovery during your campaign. Since the election you do not talk about jobs. Why?  

• What are your plans, and your party's plans, for job recovery?

• Since you personally benefitted during your campaign from NPR public radio and PBS television, how can you now vote to defund public broadcasting? 

• Do you personally listen to or watch public broadcasting?

• What are you doing to keep several hundred jobs in NYS which are part of the 1200 jobs in the Northeast that National Grid is eliminating? Or do you support eliminating those jobs? Do you know why they are being eliminated?

• Do you subscribe to the idea that President Obama is not an American-born citizen? Do you need to see his birth certificate before you believe he was born on US soil?

• What do you think about what is happening in Wisconsin?

• Knowing what you do, from your multi-faceted career and volunteer experience, 
• about the needs of people and families without health insurance; 
• about people who need to be represented by an attorney and lack the funds to afford one; 
• about women (and men) who have experienced domestic abuse; 
• about the importance of family planning and reproductive health,                      

             then how do you justify cutting funds to or eliminating programs that help the neediest among us?

• What is your position on nuclear power?

• How do you respond to the idea of the threat that the nuclear power plants near Oswego and Rochester pose either by terrorists or by natural disaster?  We think about how relatively easy it might be for a terrorist group, domestic or foreign, to crash a plane into a plant or for employees and contractors to infiltrate a plant over time. Do you think continuing generation of electricity using nuclear power is sustainable given the enormous costs in treasure, safety and security?

• Why did you accept a large collective contribution from Paul Singer and several of his employees at Elliott Associates and Elliott Management, both powerful hedge funds? Do you know that Paul Singer is a modern-day robber baron who crushes whole countries for profit?

• Do you understand the importance of the separation of church and state in a democracy? Would you be willing to describe and discuss its importance so that we are all clear about this judicial and Constitutional concept?

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs...Will Ann Marie Buerkle Take Credit for Recent Job Increases Nationally?

Jobs, jobs, jobs...that was the rallying cry by Republicans, Conservatives and Tea Partiers all over the land leading up to the November election. Jobs was a major plank in Ann Marie Buerkle's platform...get government out of the way so more jobs can "grow."

But events in Wisconsin have shown the true colors of the Evil Empire to be quite different.

Their view of "jobs, jobs, jobs" does not include health insurance, benefits, pensions or even a living wage. Or reasonable work hours.  It would break up unions. It would further limit the ability of people to organize in the workplace. (Ask any Wal-Mart worker.)  It would seek to lower the minimum age requirements. 

The Evil Empire can only thrive on low wages, poor schools, and a greater and greater gap between the rich and the rest of us.

The Evil Empire will take 1200 well paying National Grid jobs out of the Northeast without a moment of conscience.

What Buerkle and people like her mean when they talk about government being too big is that rich people want the government to get out of the way of them making more money. Ann Marie is a mouthpiece for people even she may not comprehend are in the driver's seat.

If Ann Marie Buerkle can identify with real working people, then now is the time for her to retreat from the Republicans, the Conservatives, the Tea Partiers. Now is the time for her to speak out for working people. We need her voice and her compassion. Now.

Blue Sky Girl's Wish: Angry Voters Will Read This Speech by Michael Moore in Madison on Saturday

America Is NOT Broke ...the Madison speech by Michael Moore


Delivered in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday, March 5th, 2011. Video available here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw


America is not broke.


Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.


Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.


Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.


And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we'd have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic -- and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.


I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here's what I learned: Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don't pay their fair share of taxes, the state can't function. The schools can't produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs.  That too caused a reduction in tax revenue. Everyone ended up suffering because of what the rich did.


The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the country is broke is repeating a Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies of the decade: 1) America is broke, 2) Iraq has WMD, and 3) The Packers can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.


The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn't work, they've got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:


1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day -- this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart -- because you -- yes, you, too! -- might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don't rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.


2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it's Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin' awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. "Here! Take our money! We don't care. We'll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!"


The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).


Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone who tells us America is broke and broken. It's just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!


So how do we make this happen? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.


Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois -- whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn't be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more -- something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job -- their $19,000 a year job. That's how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilot who flew me here to Madison today. He told me he's stopped hoping for a pay increase. All he's asking for now is enough down time so that he doesn't have to sleep in his car between shifts at O'Hare airport. That's how despicably low we have sunk! The wealthy couldn't be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They had to take away his sleep. They had to demean him and dehumanize him and rub his face in it. After all, he's just another slob, isn't he?


And that, my friends, is Corporate America's fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement -- a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don't understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. "Why are they all standing out there in the cold?" I mean, there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!


"There's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you ...?"


America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!


Madison, do not retreat.  We are with you. We will win together.

Ann Marie Buerkle Not Interested in Saving National Grid Jobs?

Ann Marie Buerkle was all about jobs, jobs, jobs last summer. I well remember how she went on about 5 of her 6 kids leaving CNY in pursuit of jobs in greener pastures. 


Yet we haven't heard how she plans to try to avoid the 1200 layoffs at National Grid within the next month or two. How about a collaboration with other House members from the north east?  The cuts were announced at the end of January, and we fully expected that Buerkle would come up with a plan. And now she has had over a month to do so.


What's up with that, Ann Marie? What will you do for the many National Grid employees in the 25th Congressional District who are about to lose their jobs?

For your reference, from Syracuse.Com:

National Grid to cut 1,200 jobs in U.S.

Published: Monday, January 31, 2011, 11:35 AM     Updated: Monday, January 31, 2011, 11:39 AM

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- National Grid announced today that it will eliminate 1,200 positions from its U.S. work force under a restructuring plan designed to save $200 million a year. Company officials could not immediately say how many of those jobs will be cut from Central New York.

“The impact of these changes will be felt everywhere,” a company spokesman said. “However, we are too early in the process to pinpoint impact to any specific regions. The positions are in management and administrative roles.”

The British-owned utility also plans to install five new regional presidents to oversee portions of the U.S. business in hopes of improving relations with state regulators and with local customers. Kenneth Daly will be the regional president overseeing New York operations.

Sunlight on Ann Marie Buerkle's Dark Support of Bills that Would Cut Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs

From The Washington Post this morning:

Posted at 6:00 AM ET, 01/31/2011

DCCC targets 19 with first media offensive

By Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza

In the first major media salvo of its effort to reclaim the House in 2012, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching an advertising campaign against 19 targeted Republican incumbents.

The radio ads, web ads, phone calls and e-mails are aimed squarely at Republicans in mostly Democratic-leaning districts. The message is that these members want to cut spending at a time when it could lead to further job losses.

"But Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle supports a plan in Congress that would cut education by 40 percent," says one radio ad. "And her plan would cut science and technology research by 40 percent, too. Research and development is how we get the new products that create new jobs."

The radio ads will begin running Monday and run through the week during drive time.

The targets are Buerkle and 18 of her colleagues: Reps. Lou Barletta(Pa.), Charlie Bass (N.H.), Steve Chabot (Ohio), Chip Cravaack(Minn.), Bob Dold (Ill.), Sean Duffy (Wis.), Blake Farenhold (Texas),Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Nan Hayworth (N.Y.), Joe Heck (Nev.),Robert Hurt (Va.), Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), Pat Meehan (Pa.),Dave Reichert (Wash.), David Rivera (Fla.), Jon Runyan (N.J.), Joe Walsh (Ill.), and Allen West (Fla.).

Almost all of these members come from districts that Obama won in 2008, and the DCCC appears to be doubling down on the president's popularity in those districts. The president has seen his approval ratings increase recently, as optimism about the economy returns.

The media blitz is a part of the DCCC's "Drive for 25" -- the slogan it chose for its attempted return to the majority. If Democrats are to win back the majority, they will need to win many of the 19 districts featured in this media campaign.