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Friday, January 27, 2012

Gingrich under fire from conservative media

by Beth Fouhy
NEW YORK — Forget the so-called liberal media. Right now Newt Gingrich's most ardent critics are conservative pundits and columnists, many of whom have launched aggressive campaigns to discredit him and trip up his run for the Republican nomination.
This crew has largely been lukewarm about Gingrich's chief rival, Mitt Romney, considering him too moderate. But their open criticism of Gingrich is evidence that for all their misgivings about the former Massachusetts governor, they see him as a much stronger contender against President Barack Obama.
To hear columnists Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer and the conservative media aggregator Matt Drudge tell it, Gingrich is an inconsistent conservative who didn't fully support President Ronald Reagan and whose undisciplined nature mirrored that of President Bill Clinton, who was Gingrich's Democratic adversary in the 1990s.
The conservative media hits against Gingrich have come with force just as the GOP establishment seems to be rallying around Romney in earnest, perhaps out of fear that Gingrich may end up winning the nomination.
On Thursday, Romney's campaign released a scathing open letter from the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, Bob Dole, who served as Senate Republican leader when Gingrich presided over the House. In the letter, Dole glowingly endorses Romney and repudiates Gingrich.
"If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices," Dole wrote. "Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway."
Jacob Heilbrunn, in the conservative-leaning magazine The National Interest, mused that Gingrich "is essentially bragging that his prime credential to become president is that he's willing to debate for hours and bring a knuckle-duster. This is evidence of his sober judgment? This is supposed to induce swing voters to back him?"
Conservative radio titan Rush Limbaugh also weighed in, seemingly to defend Gingrich from some of the attacks. But, in doing so, he also vividly outlined many of the critiques against Gingrich from other conservatives.
Conservatives "are raising questions here about Newt and his mendacity, his forthrightness — it's incredible," Limbaugh marveled on his show Thursday.
Gingrich stormed to a decisive win over Romney in the South Carolina primary last week fueled in part by two well-timed attacks on the news media. Both came during nationally televised debates, guaranteeing maximum exposure.
In a CNN debate, Gingrich pushed back at anchor John King when King questioned him about an interview Gingrich's second wife, Marianne, had given ABC News. In the interview, Marianne Gingrich suggested her husband had asked her for an open marriage so he could carry on with a mistress, Callista Bisek, now his third wife.
"I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that," Gingrich said. "I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans."
The audience rose in a standing ovation.
Gingrich also told King that his campaign had given ABC News the names of friends who would vouch for him but that the network had rejected the offer. On Wednesday, a Gingrich spokesman acknowledged that the claim was a mistake and that the campaign had offered only Gingrich's two adult daughters to defend him.
Gingrich drew raves at another Fox News debate before the South Carolina primary when asked about his oft-stated assertion that Obama is a "food stamp president." He angrily denied the statement had anything to do with race.
Mark Jurkowitz of the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism said Gingrich had tapped into longstanding resentment of many conservatives against mainstream news outlets.
"Running against the elite media — we've seen now for a good 30 years — certainly has resonance among Republican base voters. In conservative circles, there's been the perception that the media are tilted against them," Jurkowitz said.
Brent Bozell, founder of the conservative Media Research Center, announced Thursday that his group was set to spend $5 million on an advertising campaign to expose media bias in the 2012 election.
"You have a left-leaning media that's out of control. You've got to corral them," Bozell said in a news briefing, promising radio ads, billboards and an "unprecedented" effort in social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.
Gingrich, for his part, promised in his South Carolina victory speech to keep up his attacks on the media. But the hits he took this week while campaigning in Florida came from other conservatives.
By Thursday, Gingrich was disparaging the Commission on Presidential Debates, suggesting he might not participate in debates the commission organizes if he becomes the Republican nominee.
"We've had enough of newsmen deciding what the topics would be," Gingrich told supporters in Jacksonville, many of whom waved "Don't Believe the Liberal Media" signs.
Later, Gingrich was asked about the attacks from conservative pundits, particularly from the American Spectator's Emmett Tyrell, who wrote that Gingrich has had "private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out."
Gingrich tried to turn such criticisms to his advantage, suggesting they represent "establishment" thinking.
"Tyrrell has to write whatever Tyrrell wants to write," Gingrich said. "There's the Washington establishment sitting around in a frenzy, having coffee, lunch and cocktail hour talking about, `How do we stop Gingrich?'"
While Gingrich relishes bashing the media "elite" in public, he is friendly with the reporters who cover his campaign and makes himself available for media questions daily on the campaign trail. He seems to relish the back-and-forth with journalists, sometimes labeling questions he dislikes "bizarre."
At a campaign stop in South Carolina, he wished a reporter covering his campaign a happy birthday, and he typically stops by to chat with reporters at dinner after a day of campaigning.
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Associated Press writers Brian Bakst in Jacksonville, Fla., and Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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Follow Beth Fouhy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/bfouhy

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Tell Congress: Only people are people. End Citizens United Supreme Court Decision

Tell Congress: Only people are people.

We deserve a country where our elected officials are not bought and paid for by big corporations.
But the Citizens United vs. FEC Supreme Court decision overturned over a century of precedent and opened the floodgates for unlimited amounts of corporate money to flow into our political system.
Shockingly, the court came to this decision based on the notion that a corporation is legally a "person" entitled to First Amendment rights, and by equating a corporation's right to spend unlimited amounts of money influencing an election with our right to free speech.
Tell your senators and member of Congress to support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and end corporate personhood.
Even before the Citizens United decision, we too often saw the interests of Main Street subverted in favor of the interests of Wall Street.
But with the Citizens United decision now the law of the land, large corporations have the power to spend unlimited amounts of money from their general treasuries to buy elections.
To put things in perspective, the roughly $745 million Barack Obama raised to run for President in the 2008 election cycle (which was the most money raised by any candidate ever to run for office in the U.S.) is dwarfed by the $45 billion in profits a single company (ExxonMobil) made in 2008.
What's more, Citizen United opened loopholes that allow corporations to hide their campaign expenditures by laundering the money through non-profit advocacy organizations.
Tell your senators and member of Congress to support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and end corporate personhood.
Unfortunately, because Congress cannot pass a law that supersedes a Supreme Court ruling, it may take a constitutional amendment to undo the worst aspects of the Citizens United decision and end corporate personhood.
Clearly, the bar to successfully amending the Constitution is very high. But with 85% of the public opposed to the Citizens United decision, there is a potential for a broad coalition of Democrats, Republicans and Independents who all want to restore our democracy.
And let's remember, the stakes are too high to allow inaction on this issue. It's no exaggeration to say that the Citizens United decision fundamentally threatens the integrity of our democracy.
We need a government of, for and by the people. And sadly, we might need to work really hard to re-establish the common sense and democratic view that only people are people, not corporations.
Your senators and member of Congress need to hear from you, regardless of where they stand on this issue. We need to show them that their constituents are part of a broad movement demanding action -- not only to convince them that overturning Citizens United is the right thing to do, but also that it's possible.
Today, take a step to be part of that movement.
Tell your senators and member of Congress to support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and end corporate personhood.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

STOP SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) !

... or else you could find many of the sites you use on a regular basis permanently closed to you. And maybe find your sites closed to many of your regular visitors.

The Basics

SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) is a bill currently in the US Congress that would allow the US Government to add sites to a blacklist, preventing anyone in the United States from accessing them. The stated goal is to limit access to pirate ("warez") sites, and sites that sell counterfeit physical products. Fake Rolexes, designer clothes, prescription drugs, etc.

The intent of the bill is something we strongly support. Piracy affects those of us in the Warrior group more than most, as a lot of us make our livings selling our own intellectual property. Our membership includes tens of thousands of authors, musicians, graphic designers, photographers, programmers, copywriters, videographers, public speakers and others, from nearly every creative field.

We feel the impact of digital thievery first hand.

This bill is not the way to handle the problem. It is a disaster in the making.

It would damage the Internet's basic security infrastructure, possibly require ISPs to monitor every site you visit, and make the operation of any website that contains user-generated content (blogs, forums, digital marketplaces, and social media sites) too risky for investors and new developers.

Wikipedia has posted a good basic summary of the potential problems. Read it. It is frightening. And you need to be scared.

How It Would Work

Here's the simple version: If the Justice Department or any copyright holder accused a site of "encouraging or facilitating" piracy, the government could order that site removed from US-based search engines and ad networks, forbid payment processors from handling transactions for them, and require ISPs to block access to those sites by their customers.

Let's consider how that might apply to this forum... There are currently over 335,000 pages on this site. If just one of those pages contained a single post promoting an illegal download, or one WSO seller has used graphics or code from a copyrighted product without permission, or we miss just one Chinese spam for counterfeit goods, we could be blocked.

Would it matter that we actively look for and delete those posts? Maybe, but only after the process had begun. And we'd probably never know about it until the block was in place.

The amount of time that it would take to correct such an unjustified blocking would cause permanent damage to any interactive site. Shifting the membership away from a destination for that long nearly guarantees the site would never recover.

Along with that, there is no requirement that payment processors re-accept a site that has been blocked this way. You know how these guys work: They don't care if the site is eventually found innocent. They'd label it as "high risk," and never deal with it again. And they'd probably start creating whole new categories to lock out, just to avoid the headaches.

"You let visitors post on your site? Sorry. We don't accept interactive services in our network."

And, unless the ISPs are working from a centralized and regularly updated database, it's unlikely most of them would ever remove the blocks once they were in place.

Mistakes would almost certainly be fatal to the target sites. We're talking about legitimate sites that provide real value for their visitors and real incomes for their operators and their families.

It is unclear at this point whether the legislation would affect sites based in the US, or if it applies only to "foreign" sites. Even if it doesn't start out applying to sites hosted in the United States, do you really think it will stay limited to "offshore sites" for long?

And how do we justify sitting by while our friends around the world are subjected to this potential for arbitrary blocking within the US?

Don't Think This Will Affect You?

Maybe you aren't involved in a market where this would seem to matter, and you're not interested in the principle of the thing. Consider a few possible examples that might make the reach of this Congressional folly clearer.

Any blogs you like? Keep in mind how many of them are hacked every day. One of the main activities for those hackers is pointing the victim sites to online shops selling illegal drugs.

*POOF*

Gone.

Hang out at any scrapbooking sites? A lot of them let the members share their original page themes and other digital scrapbooking elements. If one clueless designer uses graphics from a catalog or other copyrighted source, your fun little hobby community could be taken away from you. And the site owner could lose their income.

Use shareware or freeware? Legitimate software libraries, like CNet's, would be prime targets. After all, it only takes one mistake.

Do you surf using proxies to protect your privacy? Forget that. It's only a matter of time before that's marked as a refuge for pirates and they're blocked.

Have you ever tried to keep track of which sites are pirating your products? If you live in the US, you can forget that, too. Once they hit the blocklist, you can't see them. Which means you can't take any action to reduce the damage.

That's just the tip of the virtual iceberg.

The real damage will begin when the pirates implement new systems for distributing their warez. Evading a domain-based list is child's play for experienced people, and pirates really don't care if it's illegal. If they did, they wouldn't be pirates.

And it won't just be the traditional pirates who join in. Anyone who's studied history knows that prohibition just romanticizes the suppliers and users, and creates networks dedicated to serving that "heroic" image.

And, of course, there's the problem of retribution. If the US starts arbitrarily blocking access to foreign sites from within our country, how long do you think it will be before other countries develop similar approaches to advancing their political goals, and block their citizens from accessing sites they don't deem suitable?

At that point, it isn't even nominally about piracy any more. It's about politics, pure and simple. If you doubt the temptation, consider how quickly nations in the Middle East tried to block their citizens from accessing western social networks at the first sign of unrest over the past few years.

Think about how this would look to the world after all our comments about the Chinese "Great Firewall."

If you believe our bureaucrats would be careful enough to only list sites that existed for the sole purpose of piracy, remember: These are the same bureaucrats who listed a then-sitting US Senator (the late Edward Kennedy, of MA) on our anti-terrorist "no fly" list.

What's your recourse if someone accuses you of "encouraging or facilitating" piracy and you're found to be innocent? Good luck with that. The only way you could get any satisfaction there would be if you could prove they wilfully and knowingly made false allegations.

Ask your lawyer what the chances are of proving that. Be prepared from them to laugh and say "Zero."

This is the single most dangerous piece of legislation to regulate the Internet that has ever had any real chance of becoming law in the US.

What Can You Do?

If you live in the US, contact your Senators and Representatives and encourage them to vote against SOPA (H.R. 3621) and PIPA, the Senate version (S. 968).

When you contact them, be calm, clear, and concise. Tell them that you support the goal but oppose the legislation, because of the damage it will do to small businesses and the security of the Internet in general.

If you feel the need to cite a source for them, point them to the Wikipedia article, which lists a number of US government studies and reports that show just how much damage the legislation could do.

And be clear that you don't want to see an edited version of the bill passed. This thing is not just poorly implemented. The concept itself is flawed and dangerous.

Emails count a little. Phone calls and faxes count more. A short, clear printed letter mailed to them counts the most.

If you're contacting your representative, mention H.R. 3621 (SOPA). If it's your Senators, the bill number to mention is S. 968 (PIPA).

You can find the contact information for both Senators and Representatives at Contacting the Congress. Just select your state, type in your zip code, and click the "Submit It" button.

When contacting them, be sure to either mention your name and address to the person you speak with on the phone or include it in your correspondence. They want to know you're actually one of their constituents.

Remember to be polite, clear, and brief. These folks are trying to protect your interests. Most of them simply don't understand the potential problems the bill would create.

Calling them, or typing a brief letter and putting a stamp on it, will probably take less time than you were about to spend in this forum today. And it could make a huge difference.

If every US citizen who reads this takes that few minutes' worth of action, we can generate a ton of pressure against the bill. If we all just leave it to everyone else, we're likely to be stuck with this as law, along with all the problems it brings.

It's up to you. Choose wisely.

Friday, January 13, 2012

AFGE Week In Review January 13,2012

Jan. 13, 2012
AFGE President John Gage Responds to Obama’s Agency Consolidation Plan: AFGE National President John Gage today issued the following statement in response to President Barack Obama’s proposed consolidation of business and trade agencies:
“I welcome President Obama’s decision to reinstate the Small Business Administration’s status as a Cabinet-level agency – a position it held during the Clinton administration. This signifies the president’s confidence in Administrator Karen Mills and the thousands of hard-working federal employees who serve America’s small business owners.

AFGE represents employees at four of the trade- and commerce-related agencies and offices that I understand would be consolidated under the Obama administration’s plan. We represent 2,200 employees at SBA, nearly a hundred each at the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and about two dozen at the Trade and Development Agency.

We are eager to review the details of the president’s consolidation plan and determine how it will impact the employees we represent and the services we deliver to the American people. I do take issue, however, with the notion that most of government is inefficient and that cutting federal workers will somehow solve the problem. Federal employees and supervisors are only carrying out the work that has been created by Congress and elected officials, who have mandated these various layers of bureaucracy largely for political gains.”
AFGE President John Gage Responds to Proposed 0.5% Raise: AFGE National President John Gage has issued the following statement in response to the Obama administration’s proposed 0.5% federal employee pay raise for 2013:
“After freezing federal employee’s salaries for two years, the Obama administration is proposing a miniscule half-percentage point increase in their wages next year. It’s less than half of the 1.2% nationwide adjustment employees are entitled to next year under the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, which was signed into law by the first President Bush in 1990. The proposal also effectively freezes locality pay for another year. The fact is, this increase is well below the rate of inflation of 3.6%, and will be wiped out by higher costs for health care, groceries and other essential needs.

“Federal employees aren’t overpaid government bureaucrats. They are the aircraft mechanics and commissary workers at local military bases, the nurses at the local VA hospital, the men and women guarding our borders and the claims representatives who process Social Security and disability benefits. Especially in these tough economic times, we must ensure that all workers are provided with fair and meaningful wage increases to prevent them from falling further behind. I urge Congress to approve a meaningful pay raise that will allow these employees to provide for their families.

“Having said that, we’re hopeful that this is a positive step that spells an end to the barrage of attacks on pay and benefits for working people and serves as an acknowledgement that attacking the jobs we have won’t create the new jobs we need.”

AFGE Urges DoD to Shift Budget-Cutting Focus to Contractors: AFGE is urging the Defense Department to take a balanced approach to spending reductions that subjects private contractors to the same cost-cutting scrutiny that has already been placed upon the civilian workforce. The Pentagon has pledged to cut $450 billion in spending during the next decade. In addition, the department may have to cut another $500 billion during the next decade to comply with a sequestration mandate. DoD has arbitrarily capped the civilian workforce at 2010 levels, which means cutting tens of thousands of civilian positions. It is also pursuing cuts in military retirement pay and other employee benefits. At the same time, defense spending on service contractors is growing at an alarming rate. The department spent $121 billion on service contracts in fiscal 2010, nearly twice as much as originally budgeted, according to an inventory of service contracts cited in a recent letter from several members of Congress on the House Appropriations Committee to the Pentagon.

“We understand that the law requires sacrifices, but it is wrong for civilian workers to shoulder the entire burden,” AFGE National President John Gage said. “Tens of thousands of civilian jobs are slated for elimination, despite strong evidence that having civilians perform these jobs is the most cost effective strategy. Meanwhile, the department continues to increase spending on contractors, even though they are more costly and less accountable. There is no budgetary or strategic rationale for excluding DoD’s vast contractor ‘shadow workforce’ from the cost-cutting measures that the military and civilian workforces are facing.”

“The main issue this country is facing is a lack of jobs. Cutting military and civilian jobs and hacking away at their benefits hurts the economy and does nothing to spur job creation,” Gage added.

Inmates Assault BOP Officers in Seattle, Coleman: AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals (CPL) today reiterated its call for more resources and manpower following two inmate assaults on officers the first week of the new year. The first incident occurred Jan. 3 at the Federal Detention Center – SeaTac in Seattle, Wash., when two inmates attacked and assaulted a correctional officer who was working alone during morning rounds. The officer, an Iraq war veteran, has been hospitalization for treatment. The FBI is investigating the incident. The assault in Seattle was followed up by another incident days later at the United States Penitentiary – Coleman in Florida where two correctional officers were assaulted by inmates inside the facility. CPL pointed to BOP’s inadequate staffing and funding levels as a major reason for the uptick in violence throughout the nation’s prison system.

“We’re outraged to learn of more assaults against staff,” said CPL President Dale Deshotel. “Sadly, these types of attacks – one where a staff member is unarmed and frequently working alone – happen far too often throughout the federal prison system. This is a safety issue and must be addressed immediately.”

BOP correctional officers and other staff members inside federal prisons are unarmed, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by inmates with homemade weapons. For years, AFGE and CPL have fought not only for additional staffing and funding at BOP but also for protective equipment such as stab-resistant vests. The need for additional resources can be seen with the countless violent outbreaks occurring at BOP facilities across the country. A correctional officer can be responsible for supervising as many as 150 inmates at once and is unarmed inside the facility. Low staffing levels and a more aggressive inmate population have led to a spike in violence – something AFGE says cannot continue.

AFGE Fights Proposed Closure of Historic Hot Springs VA Hospital: AFGE strongly objects to the proposed closing of the historic Hot Springs, South Dakota VA Medical Center. The Department of Veterans Affairs has proposed shuttering this facility, which is part of the Black Hill Health Care System, covering South Dakota, and portions of Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. The dismantling of this facility would force veterans to attend other facilities in the network that are between 50 and 100 miles away or be pushed to private sector health care centers that may lack the expertise in treating veterans.

“Hot Springs is a veterans’ town and our VA facility has served America’s heroes for more than 100 years. The proposal by the agency to close the doors of this veterans’ care center, on top of its already diminished capacities, is an outrage,” said Patrick Russell, president of AFGE Local 1539. “This has become a pattern with the VA, where we are finding the agency systematically closing its in-patient care facilities, in order to solely operate outpatient clinics and be in the business of managing contracts with the private sector.  This is no way to care for our nation’s vets.”

AFGE members, the American Legion, veterans, community members and other supporters have mobilized grassroots efforts in Hot Springs to petition the agency to keep the facility open to area veterans. The historic facility has been the ideal location to treat those with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions, given its small town atmosphere.

Obama Recess Appoints Labor Board: President Barack Obama has recess-appointed Sharon Block, Terence Flynn, and Richard Griffin to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), bypassing the approval of right-wing lawmakers in the Senate who would likely stall the nominations as they previously did with other nominations. The three NLRB appointees will allow the five-member board to continue on with a quorum after board member Craig Becker’s term came to an end last week. The independent labor board conducts union elections and investigates unfair labor practices.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, “We commend the President for exercising his constitutional authority to ensure that crucially important agencies protecting workers and consumers are not shut down by obstructionism.  Working families and consumers should not pay the price for political ploys that have repeatedly undercut the enforcement of rules against Wall Street abuses and the rights of working people.”
Obama’s recess appointments infuriated right-wing lawmakers despite the fact that President George W. Bush made a total of 171 recess appointments and President Obama had made only 28 recess appointments as of December 8, 2011, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Obama Taps OMB Chief to Become White House Chief of Staff: Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew has been tapped by President Barack Obama to become the White House chief of staff. Lew, who was Bill Clinton’s OMB chief, will replace Bill Daley, former banker and Clinton’s commerce secretary, at the end of this month.
AFGE Wins Ground Rules Agreement, Ready to Move Forward with Contract Negotiations at TSA: AFGE is one step closer to bringing home a collective bargaining agreement for 44,000 TSA officers after the union on Wednesday won an agreement with TSA on ground rules that govern the actual contract negotiations.
AFGE and TSA negotiators signed the ground rules agreement at about 5:40 p.m. on Jan. 11, paving the way for contract negotiations. This was a major step forward after TSA had been reluctant to adopt standard ground rules and practices used across the government. AFGE insisted that TSA do the right thing and our persistence paid off when management finally agreed to our proposals. For example, management originally refused to provide AFGE with advance notice of changes to work rules subject to bargaining, saying they couldn’t ensure they would always be able to do that. Other agencies, of course, readily agree to such a provision and comply without difficulty. But not TSA. After endless debate over how quickly they could provide such notice, they finally agreed to give notice “as soon as practicable.” It may seem like a small point, but it should give TSOs a sense of why TSA foot-dragging delayed the ground rules.

TSA Relents on Radiation, AFGE Proposes Joint Committee to Provide Dosimeters: After years of pressure from AFGE, TSA management finally relents and makes plans for issuing radiation dosimeters for TSA officers. Members around the country have expressed concerns for years about the level of radiation they are exposed to from screening equipment. The European Union recently banned certain types of scanners due to radiation concerns. Thanks to AFGE’s advocacy about this issue from the beginning, we will finally be able to give the officers what they really need – concrete information on the level of radiation exposure they are experiencing at work.
AFGE is also proposing a joint union-management committee to implement TSA’s new radiation monitoring program following the agency’s announcement of its plan to purchase personal and area dosimeters to be used at certain federalized airports. Specifically, TSA is seeking vendors who can provide individual and area dosimeters as part of the agency’s ongoing study to detect ionizing radiation and assess risk to employee health and safety. It will be a two-year contract worth $150,000.

“We would like to see TSA implement a comprehensive radiation safety and monitoring program to provide dosimeters to assess employee exposure over time as well as provide training and education on radiation and its possible health effects,” said AFGE President John Gage in a Jan. 11 letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole.

Application Period Now Open for AFGE’s JNS Family Scholarship: Each January, AFGE members and their dependents are eligible to apply for the John N. Sturdivant (JNS) Family Scholarship. This scholarship, administered by the Federal Employee Education and Assistance Fund (FEEA), offers twenty five awards in the amount of $2,000 each on a yearly basis. 
Applicants must be enrolled or plan to enroll in an accredited college or university in a course of study that will lead to a two-year, four-year or graduate degree and have at least a 3.0 grade point average on a 4.0 scale.  Applications are accepted from January - March of each year and completed application packages must be postmarked no later than March 30, 2012.  For other requirements and to access the JNS Family Scholarship Application Form, click here.  Please note that those attending the National Labor College will not qualify for the JNS Family Scholarship as AFGE offers a separate scholarship program for this institution.

For more information, contact Carolyn Williams at 202.639.6406 or visit the AFGE Education website at http://education.afge.org.

AFL-CIO to Host Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance in Detroit: Hundreds of labor and civil right activists are expected to gather at the AFL-CIO’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference to honor Dr. King’s legacy in Detroit, Michigan on Jan. 12-16. Featured speakers and awardees include Rep. Hansen Clarke, Rep. John Conyers, national radio host Joe Madison, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, UAW Pres. Bob King, U.S Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker. A series of workshops will be provided on important issues like voting rights, protecting public education, and organizing for job-creating legislation. Click here for more information.

Tweet of the Week: “Measured in dollars, fuel was America's top export in 2011. We're selling it because the price is good: an avg. $95 a barrel last year ~ WestWingReport

Brangelina Meets Obama: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stopped by the White House Wednesday to chat with the president.

Inside Government: Tune in now to AFGE´s "Inside Government" for a special discussion with Americans for Democratic Action National Director Michael J. Wilson. The show, which originally aired on Friday, Dec. 30, is now available on demand. Wilson addressed the benefits of collective bargaining and cited the recent four-year labor agreement between Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers as proof that the process works.MSNBC´s Ed Schultz, host of "The Ed Show," and U.S. Rep. Karen Bass were then featured as two of the program's top interviews of 2011. Schultz discussed the need for a strong middle class and proposed ideas to get Americans back to work, while Bass shared her views on the U.S. job market and celebrated the work of public servantsnationwide.
Listen LIVE on Fridays at 10 a.m. on 1500 AM WFED in the D.C. area or online atwww.federalnewsradio.com.

Quote of the Week:

AFGE Council of Prison Locals President Dale Deshotel on the union’s repeated calls for more resources to adequately fund and staff federal prisons:
“We’re outraged to learn of more assaults against staff.  Sadly, these types of attacks – one where a staff member is unarmed and frequently working alone – happen far too often throughout the federal prison system. This is a safety issue and must be addressed immediately.”



American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO 80 F Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001 | Tel. (202) 737-8700 | Fax (202) 639-6492 | www.afge.org

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Iran's Real Weapon Of Mass Destruction Is Oil Prices

     Oil prices jumped 8% last week after Iranian Vice-President Mohamad Reza Rahimi threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the rest of the world slapped an embargo on his country’s oil exports. Today, Reuters reports the European Union will do just that, with its diplomats agreeing in principle to halt Iranian imports.
There are lots of practical reasons to suspect Iran is bluffing. Not only would attacking shipping in the Strait be military suicide, but the regime needs the hard currency it gets from exporting 2.1 million barrels a day. Still, Iran is playing a powerful hand when it threatens to disrupt shipping through the narrow Strait and choke off what the Energy Information Administration estimates is 20% of the world’s traded crude.

Iran's Real Weapon of Mass Destruction is Oil Prices

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Oilpatch leading the tango with China: China Buying Up Canadian Resurces

 By Michael McCullough  | January 03, 2012  
     PetroChina's purchase of the 40% of the McKay River oilsands project it doesn't already own from Athabasca Oil Sands is just the latest example of China's national oil companies snapping up Canadian energy reserves. Coming after China National Offshore Oil's outright takeover of Opti Canada and Sinopec's bid for Daylight Energy in 2011, it shows the NOCs are ready to own and operate Canadian assets outright.
But the deal also gives a hint of who's really pursuing whom. It was Athabasca in this case that triggered a shotgun clause forcing PetroChina to buy its stake for $680 million (because this was part of the 2009 deal between the companies, the upsell does not require Investment Canada approval). Athabasca wanted the cash, it said, to pursue light oil opportunities—presumably with a shorter time horizon.

       "It's not just the Chinese who are eager to come in," says Wenran Jiang, a University of Alberta professor who organizes an annual Canada-China energy forum. The NOCs are being approached by lawyers and investment bankers not just from Calgary but from Houston and Melbourne too, seeking patient capital for long-timeline projects while equity prices for energy companies have been steadily sinking on stock markets despite the high price of oil. "They're swamped by these people," Jiang says.
Now that they're in the driver's seat at McKay River, it will be interesting to see how they proceed. Will they hire an all-Canadian management team or tap some of their internal expertise? One of the lingering fears about NOC investment is that companies might just sit on high-cost Canadian assets for years without developing them, as a hedge against higher energy prices.
Jiang expects the opposite. "The Chinese," he says, "are fast movers. It's the western companies that delay." He notes Sinopec's disappointment when French-based Total SA, the majority owner and operator of the Northern Lights oilsands project, pushed the in-production date there back to 2024. "That's totally frustrating to them," he says.
The Chinese are interested in our resources, no question. But the Canadian demand for patient capital is just as strong.
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