Chicago Hyatt hotel allegedly turns heat lamps on striking workers; Hyatt heiress runs Obama campaign finance committee

Via Matt Stoller, here's one for the books. Obama's national campaign finance chair is Penny Pritzker, who is also part of the family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain. One of whose hotels has a strike.

So here's the chain:

Obama–>finance chair–>hotel heiress–>unions–>strike

Look at the endpoints. See a problem waiting to happen?

Now for what's actually happening in Chicago. Union employees at the Park Hyatt Hotel are on strike:

After 22 months of stalled negotiations, more Hyatt workers in downtown Chicago are on strike.

Hotel workers at the Park Hyatt at 800 N. Michigan Ave. kicked off a day-long strike Thursday morning to protest the working conditions of housekeepers. The strike coincides with housekeeper protests at Hyatts in nine other cities in the U.S., said Unite Here Local 1.

A one-day strike. And Hyatt, naturally, is not happy:

The Chicago-based hotel chain is the last hold-out in the city. Hilton's unionized hotel workers approved a four-year contract in March and two months later, Chicago hotels owned by Starwood reached a settlement with the union, affecting 1,200 workers, bringing along an additional 16 other hotels representing 2,000 workers who piggybacked on the Starwood contracts.

The Hyatt negotiations have been the most contentious, punctuated by protests and religious leaders pledging to boycott the hotel chain.

So what does Hyatt do? They allegedly turn on the heat lamps, a possibly illegal act. Mike Klonsky:

It was already approaching 100° at 8 a.m. when I arrived the Park Hyatt where, after 22 months of stalled negotiations, hotel workers were staging a one-day picket to protest the hotel chain's intolerable treatment of their housekeeping staff.

In case you didn't know, Hyatt is owned by the Pritzker family. Heiress, Penny Sue Pritzker chairs Obama's national campaign finance committee. She is also big player in Democratic Party politics as well as in the world of anti-union, corporate school reform and was recently appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to a seat on the Chicago school board.

Pritzker's response to the Park Hyatt strikers was to turn on the hotel's powerful heating lamps to try and bake the workers into submission on this brutally hot day. But this seemingly inhuman and probably illegal response seemed to have had just the opposite effect. Picketers began chanting, "Hyatt can't take the heat, but we can!" The lamps were left on until word got out and media began to show up.

I appreciate that Klonsky saddles Penny Pritzker, an heiress, with the decision to cook out the union. Hyatt undoubtedly has minions to do that, and though she's clearly involved in the family businesses, Pritzker may never have been consulted.

Still ... the optics of this are just terrible. Remember the chain: Obama–campaign finance chair–hotel heiress–unions–strike. Now add "union busting" and the A-to-B reads:

Obama–union busting

Not good.

In addition, look at the bolded part of the middle paragraph above. Penny Pritzker is not your bon-bons–type heiress; she's an active player, she runs things, and she's very corp friendly. (This makes fascinating reading; note the "education reform" part. "Reform" means de-unionize and privatize.)

Obama needs people like her to hide their bright little anti-union light under the darkest bushel they can until this election is seriously over.

Why? Because frankly, I agree with Stirling Newberry — if labor unions ever did abandon the Democratic party, that party is over.

And labor is not pleased. Remember EFCA? Me too.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Video: And now a moment of baby duckling zen

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Rick Santorum is mad as heck that his name is now a dirty word on the Google

Some day when you're not at work, google the word Santorum.  On a good day, the first entry you see won't be about arch-conservative homophobe, former GOP Senator, and presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, but rather about a fictitious word that one of Dan Savage's readers made up, and which has now spread around the Internet like, well, santorum.

Anyway, it seems that after ten years of trying to put on a happy face about it, the man who once famously compared gay relationships to man-dog sex is finally letting his inner Trojan out.  He's mad as heck, and he's not gonna take it anymore.

You can read more about Santorum and santorum here. Read the rest of this post...

HuffPost Hill: "Obama isn’t weak, he’s just bad"

From HuffPost Hill, an email publication of the Huffington Post, written by Ryan Grim, Christina Wilkie & Sam Stein (and like the Economist, they're kinda bitchy and we don't know who wrote what):

OBAMA ISN'T WEAK, HE'S JUST BAD - The White House insists that July 22nd is the last day that Congress can introduce debt-ceiling legislation and still pass it in time to avert default, yet is showing little interest in the legislation with the greatest chance of becoming law, McConnell-Reid, which would effectively transfer debt-ceiling authority to the executive branch in exchange for $1.5 trillion in cuts. Instead, the administration is myopically focused on a "big [f'g] deal" that would cut $3 trillion in spending, yet include no enforceable means of raising additional revenue. Can we for once and for all abandon this notion that Obama is a weak negotiator? He's not weak, he just wants different stuff than most Americans. A New Fox News poll asked respondents if they would still support a favored candidate if that candidate voted to increase taxes. The result? More said they would, by a 45% to 38% margin. Obama last week called the debt ceiling a "unique opportunity to do something big" -- by which he means "do less for the American people" -- and he has little intention of passing it up, even if it means driving the nation to the brink of default. And what are Senate Democrats mad about? That they had to hear about it from us.

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What’s the economic impact going to be of any budget deal, and shouldn’t we know this before voting on it?

You'll note that little discussion is taking place about whether, and to what extent, any debt ceiling/deficit deal is going to increase unemployment and/or hurt economic growth.  Even the rudimentary outline of the deal we saw yesterday had "immediate" cuts of $500bn.  That's a lot.  And depending on what specific cuts are taking place, and when they're taking place, more people could be unemployed as a result of this deal.  Shouldn't we have an independent analysis on the economic impact before we reach any decision on whatever deal is reached?

And with nearly 100 conservative Republicans, if not more, expected to vote against any deal that increases the debt ceiling, Democrats may end up responsible for the bill's final passage.  Yes, you heard that correctly. The final irony is that it may be Democrats who cut Social Security, cut Medicare, and increase unemployment going into the 2012 elections.  Good luck with that, and enjoy your final year in office. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: What recovery? "Companies step up layoffs"

Paul Krugman has the goods, in a simple chart that says it all. This is one of the broadest, and perhaps the truest, measures of unemployment, the Employment-to-Population Ratio. Here's the latest:


Krugman adds:

[W]e’ve been basically flat on the employment front since late 2009, with nothing suggesting a sustained break back toward better performance[.]

Like a bouncing ball that flutters till it dies on the floor. This is what it looks like when stimulus money runs out and nothing triggers new demand. This is what it looks like when frightened job-holders try to pay down that massive household debt overhang with failing and uncertain incomes.

But wait, it could get worse. Watch when Obama's eager austerity kicks in. Think that will change the 2012 election dynamic just a tad?

Me too.

UPDATE: David Frum has a similar chart, going back to the 1940s. This one shows labor's share of national income, a great measurable. Note the Icarus-like fall from grace as soon as Bush II (and his tax cuts) took office.


By the way, the source of both charts is the St. Louis Fed and its great chart-making capability.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Remember the time the White House said to ignore the rumors that they sold out on the public option?

Obama White House's Dan Pfeiffer on rumors that they sold out the public option:

A rumor is making the rounds that the White House and Senator Reid are pursuing different strategies on the public option. Those rumors are absolutely false.

In his September 9th address to Congress, President Obama made clear that he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition. That continues to be the President's position.

We all know how that went.

Obama White House on the rumors that the President has sold out on the budget deal:

A White House spokesman called the claims from aides "not credible" -- the result of having a "3rd hand version of the facts."

And here's more on the record from - wait for it - Dan Pfeiffer:

pfeiffer44 Dan Pfeiffer
Anyone reporting a $3 trillion deal without revenues is incorrect. POTUS believes we need a balanced approach that includes revenues.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain:

Dorothy
If you were really great and powerful, you'd keep your promises!

Wizard
Do you presume to criticize the Great Oz? You ungrateful creatures! Think yourselves lucky that I'm giving you audience tomorrow, instead of twenty years from now. The Great Oz has spoken!

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

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TPM: Obama looking at deal that’s all program cuts, no tax increases

A lot of news hitting on the budget front.  Make sure you read Joe's piece about this grand bargain, and Gaius' piece suggesting the President actually wants even MORE cuts.  Brian Beutler:

A Congressional aide briefed on ongoing negotiations between House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama says the two principals may be nearing a "grand bargain" on to raise the debt limit which would contain large, set-in-stone spending cuts but only the possibility of future revenue increases.

"All cuts," the aide said. "Maybe revenues some time in the future."

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Sam Stein: Reid-McConnell nearly on "life support" — Obama pushing instead for biggest cuts possible

The news is flying today. Joe just posted about the NYT report that Obama and Boehner are on the verge of deal, but Amanda Terkel at HuffPo is saying to "ignore the NYT alert." And Brian Beutler at TPM reports that the President is pushing for all program cuts and no tax increases at all. Sam Stein, Amanda says, has the real story, and it's not good.

The Gang of Six deal looks like a dying swan, as many have predicted at this time yesterday. So what's President Obama's response? Try for something even worse.

Sam Stein with this breaking Huff Post report (my emphasis):

The fail-safe debt ceiling plan crafted by the Senate's top two leaders, Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) – is close to being put on political life support, those familiar with negotiations tell The Huffington Post, as lawmakers coalesce around a major deal instead.

Sources on the Hill Thursday morning expressed a newfound -- at times defeatist -- sense of worry about the political prospects of the proposal, which would cut roughly $1.5 trillion over ten years while granting authority to the president to suggest (but not sign off on) future spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling now. House Republicans have told leadership that they are sour on the idea, with more than 90 members pledging to oppose it. Another factor contributing toward its demise, however, has been the Obama administration's decision to continue to push for a bigger deficit-reduction package, which has led many lawmakers to consider the McConnell-Reid option both insufficient and potentially unnecessary.

Will the man never stop? And by "the man" I mean Barack Obama.

Apparently not. Stein again:

What such a deal would look like is difficult to pin down in detail, as much of the Gang of Six proposal requires congressional committees to write in the specific cuts to programs under their purview. But it would involve steep reductions in health care spending -- both in Medicare and Medicaid. In previous debt ceiling negotiations, the administration has supported further means-testing elements of Medicare as well as raising the eligibility age of the program. Cuts to Medicare suppliers would also be part of a larger package, as would adjusting the payment structure of Social Security so that a lower level of benefits was paid out over time.

How much clearer do things have to get? "He hurts me less than the last bad daddy" — is that where we are? Forget the cuts to the safety net. Even that massive spending package will kill in its sleep any recovery we might be on the verge of.

So what to do? At this point, I'm fishing around for ways to dead-stop this stuff. Suggestions welcome; effective plans please. Here's two to consider as a start. Let's assume that it's more important to stop a Dem from dismantling the safety net, that it is for a Dem to be a party loyalist. With that as a given:

■ Progressives in the House could join with the Tea Party to kill any deal. The only recourse would be the McConnell workaround to a clean bill — the only deal I think Progressives should find acceptable.

■ Someone could Eugene McCarthy Barack Obama; give him a primary challenge. Someone with nothing to lose and some decent integrity, who could offer voters a place to protest-vote as 2012 comes around. A way to show Obama that we don't negotiate from weakness with hostage takers.

If we're not willing to be effective — and effective plans mean risk — if we're going to cave to this stuff time after time, maybe we should put the blame on ourselves and not our stars. After all, we're actors in this drama as well.

GP Read the rest of this post...

NYT: Obama and Boehner "starting to close in on a major budget deal"

The White House and the Speaker's office are denying it, sorta, but the word is leaking, via the NY Times, that Obama and Boehner have cut a deal. A big deal. A grand bargain, so to speak. The NYT"s sources are Hill Democrats, who apparently haven't been in on the negotiation. Obama and Boehner? This can't be good:

The Obama administration has informed Democratic Congressional leaders that President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner were starting to close in on a major budget deal that would enact substantial spending cuts and seek future revenues through a tax overhaul, Congressional officials said Thursday.

With the government staring at a potential default in less than two weeks, the officials said the administration on Wednesday night notified top members of Congress that an agreement between the president and Mr. Boehner could be imminent. The Congressional leaders, whose help Mr. Obama would need to bring a compromise forward, were told that the new revenue tied to the looming agreement to increase the debt limit by Aug. 2 would be produced in 2012 through a tax code rewrite that would lower individual and corporate rates, close loopholes, end tax breaks and make other adjustments to produce revenue gains.

Officials knowledgeable about the conversations between the administration and Congressional leaders said the details of the potential package remained unknown but they presumed it would include cuts and adjustments in most federal programs, including Medicare.

We'll need more details. But, it sure looks like Medicare is on the table -- or chopping block, I should say. Way to give away the best issue Dems have.

This can't be good for progressives. It won't be.  Gaius just posted an update that suggests the Times story might be wrong.  And that the President is instead pushing for even bigger cuts.

Even worse, Brian Beutler at TPM reports that the President is pushing for all program cuts and no tax increases at all. Read the rest of this post...

Is the GOP the dog that caught the car?

A reader writes:

The ongoing moves in the debt ceiling struggle are fascinating.

I think you are underestimating Obama's tactical ability here. I know you are disappointed on other policy grounds, the only reason I am not is that I didn't think he was as progressive as you did in the first place so I didn't expect as much.

The GOP are idiots, they have manufactured a crisis here and they are the ones who are unable to move. Boehner has no chance of getting enough GOP votes to pass any increase in the debt ceiling on any terms whatsoever.

There are only two plausible ways out at this point: Boehner passes a bill with the help of House Dems, almost certainly the clean bill they proposed earlier or the House fails to pass anything and the President invokes extraordinary measures like selling off the contents of Fort Knox.

Obama gave the GOP enough rope to hang themselves and they did.

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S&P;’s coup d’etat

I can't tell if Standard and Poor's is run by children or Republicans. It's one or the other.

They, along with the other credit rating agencies, seem to be following the GOP plan to a T. We simply "must" cut $4 trillion or else S&P will ruin the US's credit rating forever. Funny, I don't recall ever seeing S&P's election certificate. But just as troubling as S&P's attempt at a financial coup d'etat is their lockstep embrace of the Republican side of these negotiations.  Though in all fairness to S&P, they're also embracing the President's position (which is still the Republican position) - that we simply must cut $4 trillion, to hell with the consequences on the anemic recovery.

I'm simply not entirely comfortable with some kid on Wall Street, who has no political sense whatsoever, deciding fiscal policy for the United States for the next decade, based on his pants-wetting assessment of how scary Washington politics is.  If S&P is so rattled about the bickering over raising the debt limit, then they shouldn't be rewarding that bickering by embracing the very thing the bickerers want, massive cuts.  S&P could have simply said "pass a permanent debt increase, taking it out of congress' hands forever," but they didn't.  S&P isn't trying to solve the bickering, they're not worried about the debt limit, they're embracing GOP economic theory and trying to shove it down Washington's, and America's, throat by financial fiat.

From National Journal:

GRAND BARGAIN MAY BE NEEDED TO AVOID ECONOMIC CALAMITY. Lawmakers’ bickering on the debt limit has so rattled investors that now, to pull the American economy back from the brink, they may need to execute a bipartisan “grand bargain” of a size that once seemed unfathomable, at a speed that appears near-impossible. The credit ratings agency Standard and Poor’s has indicated that it has so lost faith in Washington’s ability to tackle big problems – because of the difficulty in solving such a simple one as how to avoid default – that simply raising the debt limit won’t be enough to spare the United States from what would be an earth-shaking downgrade of its credit rating. Instead, the agency insists that lawmakers must agree to a $4 trillion package of deficit reduction, at least, as part of the debt-ceiling deal or soon thereafter.

PS I dont' recall S&P ever registering as federal lobbyists. Someone should file a complaint against them.

UPDATE: Read more about how the man-children at S&P triggered the entire financial crisis. Read the rest of this post...

Lautenberg wants FBI to investigate another alleged hacking case by Murdoch’s News Corp.

Maybe it is time for a RICO investigation of News Corp. The FBI and Department of Justice need to figure out what kind of racket Murdoch is running:

A legal battle over alleged computer hacking of a US marketing company by a News Corp subsidiary has been referred to US authorities by a senior lawmaker, exposing the company at the centre of the UK phone-hacking scandal to further questions about how it operated in the US.

Frank Lautenberg, a Democratic senator, asked the justice department and Federal Bureau of Investigations to examine the details of a case settled between News America Marketing and Floorgraphics Inc, an in-store marketing company. Floorgraphics alleged that its rival hacked its computer system as many as 11 times in 2003 and 2004 to gain business.

“I wanted to make sure that you were fully aware of the case of Floorgraphics and News America, as it may be relevant to your current investigation,” Mr Lautenberg of New Jersey wrote to Eric Holder, US attorney general, and Robert Mueller, head of the FBI, in a letter sent on Wednesday.

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Short-term debt deal possible as Senate, House continue to scramble

As Senators keep moving toward the "Gang of 6" debacle and the House GOPers keep trying to figure out their position, the debt ceiling deadline looms. The message from the White House for weeks was "absolutely no short-term debt deal." But, now maybe:

With 12 days remaining, President Obama summoned congressional leaders of each party to the White House for separate meetings, and his chief spokesman said for the first time that Obama would sign a “very short-term” extension of the debt limit if Congress agreed to a long-term deficit-reduction deal. The president had previously said he would veto any stopgap measure.

“The president does not support a short-term extension of the debt limit, period,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “The only exception to that is in the event that both sides reach a deal on a long-term extension of the debt limit plus significant deficit reduction, and we needed a very short-term extension, like a few days, to allow a bit of extra time for a bill to work its way through the legislative process.”

Uh huh. Cause that's how things work in Washington. And, as we've seen with the GOPers, give them an inch, the take 1,000 miles. They're hostage taker. Except this time, they're abetted by the Democratic gang members. Read the rest of this post...

Let Richard Cordray speak. Don’t let the GOP define him

Senate Republican have changed "rules" of presidential nominations. They're blocking them for any and every reason. The long-held tradition is that nominees don't speak to the media. In light of the unrelenting GOP attacks, Think Progress Editor Faiz Shakir writes in the Washington Post that it's time to adjust the media strategy. And, that should start with Richard Cordray. He should speak out -- before the GOP defines him:

The White House should take the muzzle off its nominees. Let them talk to the press over and over again to tout their accomplishments. Allow them to publicly defend their records, as they are best and uniquely qualified to do.

By silencing a nominee, the administration gives its critics the opportunity to spout unfounded concerns about the nominee’s fitness to serve. The conversation quickly descends from one about the individual’s merit to meritless attacks on his or her character or qualifications.

The White House must be willing to cede a degree of control over its day-to-day messaging in favor of the greater victory of getting its nominees passed and its policies enacted. The administration shouldn’t be turning down all press requests, but should instead be picking and choosing the venues that can give the nominee a fair and reasonable hearing.

After withdrawing his nomination earlier this year, Nobel Laureate Diamond was finally free to speak out. He took to the pages of the New York Times and appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” to bemoan the many misconceptions that had been advanced by Republicans about his record. It was a cogent and powerful response to his detractors. But it came too late.

It’s time for a no-regrets approach. Richard Cordray shouldn’t be quarantined from the media while Republicans go on the attack. This time, let the nominee speak.

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