Simple Arithmetic ... or Trumka Does The Math

We're getting closer to Labor Day, the date after which  zerObama promised to promise us something to reverse the tragic on-going and worsening jobs crisis.  You remember, don't you?  Well, maybe not, there really is nothing in a promise to promise is there?  So, the upshot is that what comes out of this no doubt will disappoint, but it should not surprise us.

The opening acts took the stage yesterday.  I start with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.  This, I admit, is a little self-indulgent.  I've been waiting quite a while for an AFL-CIO leader like this.  Some of the criticisms Trumka has leveled at Obama make my "zerObama" characterization almost look like a compliment.  I won't repeat them all here, they've been in the news often in recent weeks, and can easily be researched.  Essentially, Trumka has been saying about Obama and  most of the Democrats what I have for years, to wit: We are sick and tired of making winners of people who turn on us, turn around, and make us losers.  That has to stop.

Yesterday, Trumka held a press conference to lay out the AFL-CIO wish list and strategy for getting the country back to work.  No doubt this was done to get the jump on the start of the promise-to-promise- us-something zerObama process, and give it a little push.  I am wholly on board, especially with the opening paragraph which declares our need and determination to remake our political identity into one which is an "independent political voice that's not beholden to parties or politicians ..."  Amen.  See the excerpt below.


The nation’s ailing economy needs a prescription powerful enough to heal the jobs crisis and America’s working families need an independent political voice that’s not beholden to parties or politicians, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
At a Labor Day press conference this afternoon, Trumka unveiled a six-point “America Wants to Work” jobs and economy initiative “that is serious and reflects the scale of the crisis we face.” The plan includes:

• Rebuilding the nation’s transportation and energy infrastructure;
• Reviving U.S. manufacturing and ending the exportation of U.S. jobs;
• Putting people to work in local communities;
• Helping states and local governments to prevent layoffs and cuts to public services;
• Extending unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and helping homeowners keep their homes; and
• Reforming Wall Street so it helps Main Street create jobs.

Meanwhile, zerObama sent a notice to Speaker Boehner of his desire to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night next week, the same time the Republican presidential candidates will be on television debating, and no doubt tearing him up.  Well, President Speaker Boehner immediately replied with a change of date to the next night, when New Orleans and Green Bay will be opening the season on national television.  Of course, zerObama immediately agreed, after all Boehner is still  running and ruining the country, don't you know.  And the elected President once again is proving, as he has every other time he's tried anything of significance,  that zero times anything equals zero.