Another day, another lie from the McCain campaign. Or, as the mainstream media would put it, another “distortion.”

But this time, the mainstream media, in the form of CNN, is part of perpetuating the lie.

In a speech yesterday, Sen. John McCain falsely asserted Sen. Barack Obama planned to take away workers’ right to vote by secret ballot when deciding whether to join a union. CNN’s “Fact Check” then went on to assert McCain was correct.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Obama supports the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would restore workers’ freedom to form unions. The Employee Free Choice Act will not take away the secret ballot election process. Instead, it would add another option: majority sign-up (card-check). Workers thinking about whether to join a union could pick either option. The ballot process, overseen by the federal labor board, gives employers lots of time to harass and intimidate workers. Under majority sign-up, if 51 percent of workers sign up to join a union, they have one.

McCain’s comments are the latest in seemingly desperate attempts to win the election. McCain was against tax cuts for the wealthy. Now he supports Bush’s tax giveaway to the rich. McCain was once a campaign finance reformer and now is a candidate whose campaign is run by lobbyists. McCain flip-flopped from opposing torture to voting to allow water boarding.

McCain pushes his health care plan as benefiting the middle class, when analyses of his plan have found it could push 20 million of us out of our employer-based health care coverage while cutting Medicare and Medicaid by $1.3 trillion.

And although McCain says he supports military veterans, his claim of a “perfect voting record” on veterans’ issues is contradicted by the Disabled American Veterans, which gives McCain only a 20 percent rating, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which gives McCain a “D”—a sorry distinction the group granted to only four other senators. In contrast, the IAVA gives Obama a “B,” and the DAV gives him an 89 percent rating.

So much for straight talk.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union is reaching out to thousands of members this fall to let them know that Sen. Barack Obama will fight for working families—while Sen. John McCain will leave them behind.

A new , going to 120,000 CWA households in key states, contrasts Obama’s Senate record and proposals with McCain’s on the most important issues facing working families. The mailer is part of a large-scale union mobilization effort that includes phone banks and member-to-member neighborhood walks.

In the midst of a presidential campaign marked by misleading ads, trivial coverage and under-the-radar smear campaigns, CWA is asking its members to look past the noise and pay attention to the facts.

Forget the pundits. Forget the attack ads. Just compare their records.

The mailer points out that when you look at the actual voting record and the policies the candidates have proposed, the differences are clear.

• Obama has voted to protect Social Security. McCain supported the Bush plan to privatize it.
• Obama wants to have tax and trade policies that keep jobs here. McCain voted for tax cuts for companies that ship jobs overseas.
• Obama supports expanding high-quality, affordable health care to everyone. McCain has proposed a new tax on health care benefits that could make our system worse.
• Obama wants to give tax relief to middle-class families, including nearly all CWA members. McCain’s tax proposals give nearly all of their benefits to big corporations and the wealthiest 2 percent.

A second CWA mailer addresses McCain’s frequent claims over the past year that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” It notes McCain would continue the disastrous Bush administration policies that have thrown our economy into crisis: deregulation of the financial markets, massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and outsourcing thousands of jobs overseas.

CWA has endorsed Obama for president, and its plan to mobilize members around the country includes a website, CWA Votes, that spells out where the candidates stand on key issues.

During the nearly hour-long chat, President Cohen fielded 23 questions. Many of them related to the importance of protecting the right to organize. For example, responding to a question about the connection between the current major economic crisis and the need for stronger unions, President Cohen said,

For 80 years policy makers have understood that collective bargaining means a better deal for workers and creates demand for goods and services. The US has been moving in the opposite direction making it nearly impossible for working Americans to gain collective bargaining coverage. In short more union workers means more bargaining power and better pay. This is in turn raises our buying power and stimulates the economy far better than another rebate.

There were also specific questions and answers on a wide range of issues, including working conditions for airline workers, health care negotiations with Verizon, the Presidential candidates' positions on veterans issues, and many more.

President Cohen reminded everyone just how important this election is. As union members, we have an even greater stake, due to threats to our right to organize, our jobs and benefits, and our retirements.

That's why it's so important that we do all we can to make sure Barack Obama is elected as the next President of the United States. He is the only candidate who understands the issues that matter most to workers and their families, and the only one who has shown that he'll fight for all of us.

In the battleground state of Ohio, labor walks and phone banking are being conducted daily, according to Local 4302 Secretary Peggy Griffith, who coordinates CWA's "Labor 2008" activities in the state. "It's amazing how locals are stepping up to the challenge," she said. "I've worked numerous campaigns in years past, but we're now seeing members getting involved who have not participated before. The enthusiasm is just great," said Griffith.

This week in the Akron/Canton area, Local 4302 is leafleting at high school football games. In Cincinnati, Locals 4400 and 4401 are conducting one-on-ones with members in the workplace. Early voting began in Ohio this week, as it has in 23 other states, so activists are encouraging workers to get out to vote.

To stress the urgency of supporting Obama and the issues that are at stake – especially passage of the Employee Free Choice Act –  District 4 Vice President Seth Rosen has been visiting locals throughout the district since early summer to encourage activism at all levels.

In the battleground states of Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Washington, District 7 locals are going into high gear. In Colorado, the focus is on electing Obama, Mark Udall to the U.S. Senate, and defeating constitutional amendments on the ballot that would hurt working people. Locals there have increased weekly leaflet distributions and conversations to 100 worksites covering 5,000 members, according to District 7 Vice President Louise Caddell.  Wednesday evenings are CWA phone-bank nights at the state AFL-CIO. At Denver International Airport, AFA-CWA  local activists are talking to flight attendants in crew lounges.

In Missouri, another battleground state, CWA President Larry Cohen joined with District 6 staff and more than 50 CWA local union activists last week in a labor walk through neighborhoods in St. Louis.

Speaking elsewhere in the state, in Greensboro, on Sept. 27, Obama declared:  "I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas.  I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America – jobs just like the 400 union jobs that AT&T just created over in Goldsboro based on their pledge to return outsourced work to our shores."

CWA President Larry Cohen and District 3 Vice President Noah Savant were on hand along with Local 3606 leaders and members for the official opening of the Goldsboro center this week.  "It's exciting to see AT&T investing in bringing jobs home to our communities," said Cohen.  The Charlotte News & Observer wrote that the center represents a "step toward the American Dream:  a full-time job with a major corporation, potential promotions, a stable career."

The center results from AT&T's agreement with CWA to return to the United States some 5,000 tier one tech support jobs that had been sent overseas.  The company has opened other new centers around the country over the past two years.

Polls conducted in North Carolina this week indicate that Obama's message is resonating with working families in the state, which has been hard-hit by outsourcing.  He is now dead even with, or slightly ahead of, John McCain. Voters in the state have not supported a pro-worker, pro-union presidential candidate since 1976.  CWAers in the state also are working hard to elect Kay Hagan to the U.S. Senate.  A state senator, she is in a close race with incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole.

Last night’s vice presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Ala.) proved again that Sen. Barack Obama’s plans for improving our health care system and giving tax breaks to working families are the plans that will really help working families at this critical time.

Biden gave detailed, sharp answers that demonstrated why he’ll be a strong governing partner for Obama. Meanwhile, Palin mostly talked around the important issues. As did her running mate, Sen. John McCain, during last week’s presidential debate, Palin offered rhetoric that didn’t match the reality of the challenges facing our country.

On health care, the differences between the two tickets are wide. Biden explained to the millions of viewers that Obama’s health care plan would expand coverage, improve quality and cut costs. Biden also described the risks involved should McCain’s health care tax be implemented.

Much of the public got to hear, for the first time, that McCain would tax health care benefits. Biden laid out a stark fact for viewers and voters: If they’re among the 158 million working families covered by employer-based health care, McCain’s plan would put them at risk of losing that coverage entirely. Biden explained the tax credits promised in the McCain health care plan would not cover the cost of the average family’s plan—in fact, McCain’s “tax credit” is more like a subsidy to insurance companies.

So you’re going to have to replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company. I call that the “Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere.”

Palin didn’t show much depth of understanding on the issue. She focused on the McCain plan’s insufficient tax credits, and largely ignored the question of why that plan would impose a new tax on health benefits. Palin also bragged about the McCain plan’s deregulation of health care, but what she couldn’t explain was the fact that this policy means that insurance companies would have more power than ever to deny coverage and payment for care and leave out anyone with pre-existing health problems.

Palin even alluded to a time in her life when she didn’t have health care, and she and her family worried about paying out-of-pocket for health care. But she never made the connection: Families like that wouldn’t be helped by the McCain plan. It’s structured as though the uninsured don’t exist.

And how did the Palin family eventually get good health coverage that protected them? It was through union membership. Yet Palin is running on a ticket with a candidate who is hostile to unions—he voted to block the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field for workers seeking to form a union and bargain for family-supporting wages, and he’s voted against bargaining rights.

Tax policy in general also separated the two candidates. Biden said that the McCain plan to give $300 billion in tax cuts to corporations and the very wealthy showed the wrong priorities. The Obama-Biden tax plan, on the other hand, would offer tax cuts to 95 percent of working families

That seems to me to be simple fairness. The economic engine of America is middle class. It’s the people listening to this broadcast. When you do well, America does well. Even the wealthy do well. This is not punitive. John wants to add $300 million, billion in new tax cuts per year for corporate America and the very wealthy while giving virtually nothing to the middle class. We have a different value set.

Palin never addressed the fact that the majority of working families would get a bigger tax cut under Obama’s plan than McCain’s.

Palin claimed that education was “near and dear to my heart,” yet she never addressed McCain’s record of voting against vital education programs.

It seems that Palin doesn’t get it. The policies she’s supporting, as McCain’s vice presidential candidate, are completely disconnected with her rehearsed talking points about reform, change and helping the middle class.

Last night’s debate proved why Biden was a strong pick by Obama. His understanding of policy and how it affects real people’s lives, his judgment and his consistent record of supporting working families were apparent. He effectively laid out the most important question in this election: How to turn around the economy so it works for everyone.

You ask anybody…whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years. And then ask them whether there’s a single major initiative that John McCain differs with the president on. On taxes, on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on the whole question of how to help education, on the dealing with health care.

These people know the middle class has gotten the short end. The wealthy have done very well. Corporate America has been rewarded. It’s time we change it. Barack Obama will change it.

Every day, we get reminded of ways that technology is changing the way the 2008 Presidential Campaign is being carried out.

Today, that reminder comes from Arizona AFA-CWA members who have created a YouTube clip telling John McCain “Thanks, but no thanks.”

The video focuses on several of McCain’s votes and policy stances that have hurt flight attendants. Be sure to check it out.

In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland knowsthe economic crisis facing working families is the most important issue at stake for them this fall. And he knowsSen. John McCain has been part of the problem, while Sen. Barack Obama proposes real solutions.

Ohio Labor 2008 director Ben Waxman reports that McCain’s record on jobs, trade and health care topped union voter concerns at a workers’ roundtable discussion last week with Strickland.

Strickland opened the meeting by pointing to the fundamental imbalance in the economy, which has been thrown into distress, thanks to policies that have helped corporate elites at the expense of working families.

We got here, I believe, through a series of decisions that were made over multiple years that have resulted in a situation where our nation’s economy is on the brink.

There has been a growing gap between the economic circumstances facing most of America’s working families and a very privileged, small number at the top of the economic ladder.

Strickland talked with 15 union members about the financial stress Ohio’s working families are undergoing, and how the outcome of this presidential election will affect them. Union members at the event came from a range of unions: CWA, IBEW, NALC, OAPSE/AFSCME, SEIU, TWU and USW.

Mario Ciardelli from IBEW Local 683 brought up the McCain-supported outsourcing of jobs and the policies of the Bush administration that have resulted in many Ohio factories and other businesses closing up for good.

The factories that were around central Ohio—North American Rockwell, White Westinghouse, Timkin Roller Bearing Company, Jeffries Mining—they were all union jobs. And the General Motors plant on the west side—that was a great place to work for years and years, and now it’s gone. In central Ohio, we have lost thousands of good jobs with good benefits in the last couple years.

People don’t realize how many factories are gone.

In fact, in the eight years of the Bush administration, many factories and other enterprises have shut down or engaged in mass layoffs in Ohio. McCain promises to pursue those same community-destroying policies if elected, and he has gone so far as to tout free trade in the cities and towns of Ohio that have beenhurt the most by it. While he was campaigning in Youngstown this spring, McCain said the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been “a benefit to our country.”

Strickland responded, saying McCain would continue the downward slide in jobs.

Four more years of Bush policies represented by a McCain presidency would be a terrible thing for the state of Ohio and working families in general.

Strickland also pointed out that free trade often results in massive worker exploitation in countries like Mexico, whose low wages attract business. He described his visit to a Mexican town where workers employed at a modern factory were living in conditions so poor he wouldn’t want an animal he cared about living like that.

It embarrassed me and saddened me that we were participants in creating those inhuman conditions, by promoting free trade policies with no protections for workers.

Frank Mathews from Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 4321 asked about health care costs, noting that much time is spent in contract negotiations discussing how to pay for health care, even though there is a “laundry list” of other important issues workers want to address.

Health care is the most important issue in this election. Unless something is done to expand coverage to people who now rely on emergency rooms and can’t afford preventive care, our employers will continue to have to compete with employers who fail to provide good health care and wages. We need a president who will make improvinghealth care a top priority; that’s why we need Barack Obama.

Strickland noted that McCain’s top health care adviser said that because everyone can go to an emergency room, everyone is insured.<

There is no such thing as free health care. Every bit of health care that is delivered, somebody pays for. In many ways, John McCain is not the man he once was, or the man we thought he was.

Strickland said that, unlike McCain, a real straight talker does not hire advisers who believean emergency room visit equals health insurance. A maverick doesn’t toe the Bush party line on free trade, supporting policies that force good American workers to endure joblessness and that promote the shameless exploitation of workers overseas. Strickland called McCain’s policies “damaging to the people.”

Early voting in Ohio begins tomorrow.

With so much at stake for working people in the November election, union members and activists are working through the AFL-CIO My Vote, My Right voter protection project to ensure the ballot process is run fairly and that every vote is counted.

(A new website up now offers help to voters who have questions about voting, including where to register. The National Campaign for Fair Elections launched www.866ourvote.org and spotlighted a toll-free voting rights hotline 1-866-OUR-VOTE, operated by a nonpartisan coalition of groups, including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the AFL-CIO.)

Through broad local coalitions with union activists, lawyers, civil rights organizations, faith-based organizations and other community allies, My Vote, My Right participants are working with local election authorities to mitigate any problems that may be caused by this massive voter turnout and to clear up significant weaknesses in our election system that were spotlighted in the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections.

In Colorado, My Vote, My Right activists met with county election officials to work on strategies to reduce the lines at the polls and convinced them to send out an absentee ballot application to every registered voter in the county.

In Michigan, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union and the United Steelworkers have joined to pass out bookmarks with a voters’ bill of rights to Detroit bus riders. In Kansas City, Mo., the local My Vote, My Right coordinator is recruiting high school seniors to monitor polling places near their school.

In Pennsylvania, our coordinators are pushing the secretary of state for a policy that would ensure each polling place has sufficient emergency paper ballots on hand Election Day and would require paper ballots if more than 50 percent of the voting machines break down.

As AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says:

It’s time to turn around America, and we will start by voting and making sure that every single vote is counted. A truly historic election day is going to come down to individual voters who should do everything we can to protect our own right to vote—and those of our friends and neighbors.

Click here to learn more about the My Vote, My Right program.

Meanwhile, in the pivotal state of Ohio, the youth activist group Rock the Vote plans to hand out more than 10,000 of the AFL-CIO Student Voter Bill of Rights during a statewide voter registration drive, which began earlier this week.The Ohio student registration drive is critical, because across the country, younger voters are energized as never before behind the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama and Republicans are actively trying to suppress student voting. Democrats in three states say Republican election officials have sent false information to local college students about their voting rights.

The Republican county clerk in El Paso County, Colo., admitted sending incorrect information to out-of-state Colorado College students, telling them they could not register if their parents listed them as dependents on their tax returns. After Democrats complained, the clerk, Robert Balink, who was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, issued a statement saying his office had misinterpreted state law and “mistakenly published information that was incorrect.”

Balink’s actions are the latest of several instances in which local election officials, including some in Virginia and South Carolina, have discouraged college students from voting. The New York Times reported earlier this month that a local registrar at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg issued two releases that incorrectly suggested students who registered to vote might no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns.

Jon Greenbaum, a voting rights expert with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the McClatchy Newspapers that while voter residency requirements vary from state to state, they must meet the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. States and counties cannot adopt rules that treat one group of voters differently than others, he said.

Also in Ohio, according to McClatchy reporter Greg Gordon,Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner yesterday advised county election boards that home foreclosure lists should not be considered proof that voters have changed residences. “Ohioans faced with the pain and turmoil of a home foreclosure should not be targeted by the forces of disenfranchisement on Election Day,” Brunner said.

The Michigan Democratic Party and the Obama campaign have filed suit to stop the Republican Party from using lists of people whose homes are in foreclosure to challenge their right to vote. Macomb County Republican Chairman James Carabelli told the Michigan Messenger his army of election challengers “will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.”

In addition,The Seattle Times has this:

A Washington State court judge will hold a hearing Friday on a lawsuit by the state Democratic Party to force Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi to list his party preference on the November ballot as “Republican” instead of “GOP Party.” Rossi is running against Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. He lost to Gregoire by 133 votes in the 2004 election, and polls show this race to be close as well. The Seattle Times reports that recent polls suggest that many people don’t know that GOP and Republican mean the same thing. One poll showed Rossi did better among voters if he used the “GOP” label instead of “Republican.”

It’s exactly six weeks until Election Day, but in many states, voting is already under way.

More and more states are offering absentee voting and early voting this year. In 13 states, absentee ballots are already available. Most states don’t require an excuse for using absentee ballots or early voting. And registration deadlines are approaching quickly—for 23 states, the registration deadline falls from Oct. 4-7, within two weeks of today. 

At Working Families Vote 2008, our state-by-state section includes vital voting information for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. You can register to vote, learn more about the AFL-CIO’s efforts in your state and find out the key dates for absentee voting, early voting and voter registration. Nationally, the AFL-CIO is working to elect Sen. Barack Obama, while many state federations have endorsed candidates in critical races for Senate, House and gubernatorial seats.

Union leaders say that getting out the vote early can make a big difference. In New Mexico, one of the states making voting by mail available this fall, Lindsay Burr, a Letter Carriers (NALC) member, is leading a vote-by-mail outreach effort.

There are several ways in which vote by mail is beneficial. Voting by mail increases participation because voters have added flexibility that going to the polls on Election Day does not provide. It also reduces the impact of last minute negative campaigning because voters have their ballots starting Oct. 7, almost a full month before the election.

Volunteers for the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2008 political program will be working throughout the fall, across the country, to encourage early votes from union members, to maximize turnout and make sure every voter is reached.

With competitive contests for the White House, Congress and statewide offices in many states, it’s more important than ever to ensure that everyone gets a chance to cast their vote and that everyone’s vote counts. The AFL-CIO has launched the My Vote, My Right campaign to help educate voters and protect them from potential problems with voting. The AFL-CIO has created a Voters’ Bill of Rights to help protect voters in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and it will be releasing this important information to more states soon.

No matter where you are, it’s critical to get informed, get involved and vote this year. Check out our state-by-state pages for more information. With early and no-fault absentee voting in many states, it’s easier than ever to cast your vote.

Click here to register and download a new debate watch kit.

The first round of parties, held the final night of the Democratic convention, was a huge success, with CWA holding more than 800 parties. With our Alliance partners, that total hit more than 1,300.  

The Oct. 7 parties are another great opportunity to get together with co-workers, friends and families and listen as the candidates talk about the issues important to us, said CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill.  

During the debate, CWAers can log on to www.cwavotes.org/debatewatch and submit questions about election issues for the live Internet chat that President Larry Cohen will hold the next day Wed., Oct. 8, from noon to 12:45 EDT.

In this live web chat, Cohen will address the questions and issues that CWA members are talking about, from bargaining to politics to health care and more.

To submit questions, click here. Participants also can submit questions live during the chat, so plan to log on to http://www.cwavotes.org/debatewatch at noon EDT on Wed., Oct. 8. If you can't participate at noon, the chat will be available to read later in the day, posted at www.cwavotes.org.

This will be the second round of local union/house parties, after a huge success on the last night of the Democratic convention. More than 813 CWA watch parties were held that night, along with over 500 parties from CWA Alliance partners.

Cohen explains why the parties are so beneficial:

“Now is the time for all of us to get on board and a debate watch party is a great way to talk with co-workers on the issues. What we do – or don’t do over the next seven weeks – will determine what kind of country and future we have for ourselves and our children. If we work like never before, and I know many CWAers are doing exactly that, we can make something good happen.”

The Communications Workers of America has provided a Debate Party Kit, which includes information on the web chat, sign-up sheets, rips for activities and materials on our issues. Sweetening the pot, Cohen said that he would “contribute toward the pizza.”

For Cohen’s web chat, Questions should be submitted prior to noon EDT, so that the best cross-section of inquiries will be answered. They can be sent through a form on the CWA website.

The Alliance, which consists of CWA, the Auto Workers, the Steel Workers and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, chose Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Minnesota as the center of their election efforts.

The four unions have begun their election strategy, which includes: walks, member-to-member contacts, worksite leafleting, phone banking, door-to-door canvassing and other efforts.  In Michigan, member walks are being held every Saturday in Kalamazoo and other locations, while leafleting efforts are held every Thursday.

A major portion of the Alliance’s strategic plan is a voter protection program. The program will “ensure that eligible voters aren’t blocked from exercising their rights,” according to Shannon Kirkland, a Michigan CWA Representative.

In the process, tens of thousands of workers will lose their jobs.  Hundreds of thousands will lose their homes.  Millions will lose their savings.  And taxpayers will be on the hook for the wild, speculative mistakes made by the so-called financial wizards.

How did it happen?

It's a complicated story, hard to understand, concealed by incredibly complicated financial maneuverings that boggle the mind and that few understand. 

But the truth is, and this is a story you will be hard-pressed to find on your front page—it was the very policies of financial deregulation promoted literally for decades by John McCain and his top financial advisers that led directly to this spectacular economic catastrophe.

We'll try to explain.

The roots of the mortgage meltdown—which have produced the massive financial and credit crisis that rocked world markets over the last few weeks—can be traced directly to two critical pieces of banking deregulation legislation passed about a decade ago.  Both were pushed through Congress by Texas Senator Phil Gramm—yes, the same Phil Gramm who described Americans struggling with economic setbacks as a "nation of whiners" who were in a "mental recession".  Until that little verbal lapse, Gramm was the co-chair of John McCain's campaign.

In the mid-1990s, Gramm served as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

In 1999, he pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that eliminated firewalls established during the Great Depression between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies and securities firms.  This led to a wave of mergers such as the JP Morgan investment house with Chase Manhattan Bank, and Citicorp with Travelers Insurance.  Banking and insurance became much more speculative, risky businesses.

Then, in December 2000, Gramm pushed through a 262-page bill called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.  This bill, Gramm said at the time, would "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders."

For starters, this bill exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, which according to one writer "allowed Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market, and cost consumers billions before it collapsed."  (Gramm's wife Wendy later earned over $1 million as a member of Enron's Board of directors).

But even more important, the 2000 deregulation bill allowed the sale of something called "credit default swaps"—essentially insurance policies on risky investments.  This move would open the door to the massive speculation in mortgage investments that ultimately produced the current crisis.

The Good Old Days and Bad New Days of Mortgages

Let's stop for a moment and talk about how the mortgage business has changed.  In the old days, banks gave mortgages to home-buyers on the basis—incredible as this may seem—that the buyers would actually be able to pay them back.  They counted on a relatively small profit derived from the interest rate paid by the home-buyer over the long term on the loan.  Because the bank planned to hold on to the loan for a long time, it had a strong interest in thoroughly investigating the home-buyer's finances to ensure that they had steady incomes and no other major debts that would cause them to miss payments.  Radical idea—give a loan to someone who could afford to pay it back. 

But during the housing bubble of the last ten years, this all changed.  Sub-prime lenders gave out loans to almost anyone on the theory that housing prices would go up forever and it didn't really matter if the borrower could repay—because the value of the house would go up anyway.  Even more important, most of the sub-prime lenders didn't really care if the borrower could repay because they rarely held on to the loans for a long period.  Instead, they treated them as investments.

Under the terms of the two Gramm deregulation bills, lenders were permitted to package all their various mortgage loans together in bundles called "collateralized debt obligations" (CDOs), which were then bought and sold by mainstream banks and investment firms as investments.  The theory was that because they were bundles of thousands of loans, they couldn't possibly all go bad at the same time and therefore they would rise in value even if a few of the borrowers defaulted.

And because the mortgage lenders quickly sold the loans off to investors, the whole process was turned on its head. The mortgage lenders made money by making as many loans as they could, rather than sound, affordable loans. This opened the door to deceptive marketing in which true interest rates were concealed by low "teaser" rates to trick borrowers into unaffordable loans. And with housing prices soaring, the big investment firms saw these "CDOs" as hugely profitable investments, far more lucrative than conventional mortgages.

Furthermore, under the new system, giant insurers like AIG could sell insurance that would supposedly protect the buyers—the mainstream banks and investment houses—in case the value of the securities fell.  These are the "credit default swaps" authorized under Gramm's "Commodity Futures Modernization Act."  The massive deregulated market for these "collateralized debt obligations" and "credit default swaps" mounted into literally tens of trillions of dollars, and the "respected" investment firms like Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns and Merrill Lynch invested heavily in these shady, deregulated products.

The truth is, no one on Wall Street really knew what the hell was going on. They simply assumed that the overall values of the bundled mortgages would go up and up and up.  But so many subprime loans were made to people who were utterly unable to pay, and millions more 'Alt-A' loans to people barely able to pay, that tremendous risks were created.  The lenders didn't even really want to know whether the people they gave the loans to really would be able to pay.  Financial ignorance was bliss.  "Tens of trillions of dollars of transactions were done in the dark," University of San Diego law professor Frank Partnoy told Mother Jones magazine. (you can read the whole article here http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/07/foreclosure-phil.html)  "No one had a picture of where the risks were flowing."  Meanwhile, predatory lenders, themselves deregulated, pushed more and more Americans into loans they couldn't afford.

It all worked just super until housing prices started falling across the country. The CEOs and top executives of these investment firms have made hundreds of millions of dollars apiece since 2001.  But when housing prices started falling, the unbelievable risks of the secretive, deregulated market in sub-prime loans and investments based on them, was shockingly exposed.  It turned out that the wizards of Wall Street had no idea what was going on.

One thing led to another, and a cascading series of defaults and write-downs of hundreds of billions of dollars in speculative loans that would never be repaid bankrupted Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Indy Mac, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It is estimated that there may still be another $1 trillion in write-downs of defaulted loans ahead of us.

Welfare Just Fine with Wall Street

And now we, the taxpayers are supposed to bail out this disaster.  Unfortunately, we probably have to, because otherwise the damage to the economy and to regular workers would be far, far greater.  As part of the bailout package, Democrats in Congress are pushing for oversight and accountability, help for homeowners, and limits on executive pay at firms that the taxpayers bail out.  Let's hope they don't get stampeded by the Bush Administration and media's rush to DO SOMETHING NOW and hand over hundreds of billions of dollars with no strings attached.

The irony in all of this is that Wall Street hates when government spends money to help working people.  Food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and all the other programs that help Americans are hated by the financial wizards.  They always say that we can't afford those programs.  Now, of course, those same corporate interests want us to spend $700,000,000,000 – that's seven hundred billion dollars – immediately.  And George Bush is leading the charge.

It seems welfare for Wall Street is just fine with Wall Street. (Click here now to send an e-mail to your members of Congress telling them to stand up for Main Street.)

Don't Forget—It all Started with John McCain's Top Economic Adviser and Campaign Co-Chairman

Now we hear John McCain denouncing corporate greed and calling for stricter oversight of the mortgage and banking industries.

What a joke.  It was Phil Gramm, the former co-chair of his campaign and one of his top economic advisers, who was the architect of the policies that led straight to this debacle. 

And McCain himself, until about the last two weeks, always consistently called for more deregulation.  'I'm always for less regulation,' he told The Wall Street Journal last March…. 'I am fundamentally a deregulator.'

John McCain's campaign manager is Rick Davis, who is a career super-lobbyist, much like most of McCain's top staff.  Davis got paid $2 million to lobby for Fannie Mae, helping to push this deregulated mess onto our backs.  McCain was there the whole way for deregulation.

Unbelievably, McCain wants to do for health care the same thing he did for financial services: deregulate and let the "free market" take over.

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

The record is clear—John McCain's economic philosophy will wreck America. Let's not let that happen – we must elect Barack Obama.  Call your local now to volunteer to take back America and help elect Obama. 

From the AFL-CIO Now Blog

The last time we faced a Bush recession, presidential candidate Bill—”It’s the economy stupid!”—Clinton offered voters an economic alternative to the failed Bush I policies and went on to create eight years of national prosperity.

Today, as the Bush II recession explodes, littering the nation’s economy with failed banks, Wall Street bailouts and disappearing jobs, Sen. Barack Obama offers an economic plan to steady the economy and bail out Main Street. (Click here to view Obama’s new two-minute campaign ad in which he details his economic plans.)

Speaking at the Machinists (IAM) convention last week, Obama said that for nearly eight years, the Bush administration—with the backing of Sen. John McCain, who has a 90 percent Bush voting record—sat back and watched as

corporate lobbyists wrote our laws and put their clients’ interest ahead of what’s fair for the American people. They looked the other way as working families watched their incomes fall, their bills soar, their homes foreclosed and their savings vanish. They shrugged as more than 3.6 million manufacturing jobs were lost….Too many American workers saw a lifetime of labor rewarded with a pink slip and dumped pension as their jobs moved offshore.

Earlier this week in Golden, Colo., after the Wall Street train wreck that saw the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch and the government bailout of insurance giant AIG, Obama said:

This is what happens when you see seven years of incomes falling for the average worker while Wall Street is booming, and declare—as Sen. McCain did earlier this year—that we’ve made great progress economically under George Bush.

Calling for a Main Street bail out, Obama has hit home his plan to create jobs, heal the economy and curb Wall Street excess.

In the near term, Obama is calling for a second economic stimulus—$50 billion that would create 1 million jobs through projects to rebuild roads, bridges and other infrastructure, repair schools and help states and cities avoid cutting damaging budget cuts that would reduce vital services to working families. Unbelievably, McCain is not calling for a second stimulus package—and, in fact, skipped the vote on the first one Congress passed this spring.

Obama told IAM convention delegates that for the long term, he would “revive and strengthen American manufacturing” with a $150 billion 10-year program in the green energy sector that could create as many as 5 million jobs. In addition, he calls for a new Advanced Manufacturing Fund that would focus on innovation and job creation in areas hit the hardest by the decline of manufacturing.

Unlike McCain, whose policies have abetted job outsourcing, Obama would end job-exporting tax breaks backed by the Bush administration so that corporations will not be encouraged to ship U.S. jobs out of this country. In fact, he is calling for tax incentives for companies the create and keep jobs in the United States. He also vows to fix flawed trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and pursue trade agreements with strong labor and environmental standards.

To help working families pay their bills, Obama’s tax reform and tax cut plans would give a $1,000 tax break to the middle class. Unlike McCain’s tax proposals, which would benefit the wealthy and shower tax breaks on oil companies, Obama’s tax cut would give the biggest relief to those at the bottom of the income ladder. Under McCain’s plan, the richest 1 percent would receive the biggest tax cut. (Click here for a comparison of the two plans.) As Obama said in his Colorado speech:

I offer three times the tax relief for middle-class families as Sen. McCain does—because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.

McCain long has supported minimal regulation of the nation’s financial markets (until this week, that is). And it was Phil Gramm—architect of McCain’s economic plan—who led the charge while he was senator to give banks, brokerage firms and Wall Street pretty much free rein to do business with little oversight. Most economists say that deregulation is the fuel behind the Wall Street collapse, mortgage meltdown and credit crunch.

This week, as Obama outlined a “21st century regulatory framework” for the nation’s financial industry, he said:

Our capital markets cannot succeed with the public’s trust. It’s time to get serious about regulatory oversight.

Among his goals:

• Cracking down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation.
• Streamlining regulatory agencies.
• Establishing a system that identifies systemic risk to the financial system.
• Ensuring that regulations match the functions of the financial institution. For example, guidelines on subprime mortgages covered commercial banks and thrift institutions, but the rules did not apply to mortgage brokers.

While in Colorado, Obama summed up his economic policy speech:

My priority as President will be the stability of the American economy and the prosperity of the American people. And I will make sure that our response focuses on middle-class Americans—not the companies that created the problems.

From AFL-CIO Now Blog

Sen. Barack Obama is earning the support of union members around the country for his plans to help restore our economy and rebuild our middle class.

Peggy Griffith, Mike Parker and Rebecca Davis are just three of the union members who are proud to support Obama and will reach out to other union members to make sure he wins this fall.

Griffith is a member of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 4302, which serves Canton and Akron, Ohio. She’s the elected secretary for her local. Griffith, who’s profiled in September’s issue of CWA News, supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primary but is enthusiastic about working for Obama. She wants to ensure that the next president will make health care accessible and affordable, restore the middle class, appoint pro-worker Supreme Court justices and sign the Employee Free Choice Act.

From his days as a community organizer in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods to his state Senate seat and now as a U.S. senator, Obama has shown that he’s not just talk. He has joined workers on picket lines; he is deeply concerned about the education of our children; he wants fair trade agreements and green energy policies that will help create new living wage jobs for America while helping our environment; he wants to make sure Social Security is there for generations to come; and he is calling for corporate and bankruptcy law reforms to protect pensions.

It seems like a quaint notion after the last seven-plus years, but Obama believes that our nation’s leaders should serve the people’s interests instead of the special interests. That is the change we are looking for.

Parker, a member of UAW Local 862, works at an auto assembly plant in Louisville, Ky. In a feature in the September issue of Solidarity, the UAW magazine, Parker says that Obama’s attention to issues of jobs and trade is what impresses him the most.

Barack Obama wants to invest in jobs for our country, and he wants to provide the incentives for companies to keep the jobs here. That’s something we really need for the working class to survive.

Davis, a member of AFSCME Local 2258, in Chicago, is the chair of PEOPLE, AFSCME’s political action arm, for her local union. According to the September On the Move, the publication for Illinois AFSCME,  Davis likes Obama’s support for the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively.

Like the Obama campaign says, we need a change. Our government has forgotten it’s of, by, and for the people.

We need an administration that is more labor friendly, and Obama has been in favor of laws to protect workers.

Obama has responded to the crisis in the economy this week with new ads on jobs, Social Security and his plans for economic recovery. He’s focusing on issues that matter to working families and to union members like Griffith, Parker and Davis.

For more information on where Obama stands on the key issues in this election, visit Meet Barack Obama.

With 47 days left until Election Day, union members are stepping up their efforts to educate and mobilize voters for victories this fall. Members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) are rising to the challenge with extensive phone banking.

Volunteers from CWA locals are working hard at the crucial task of union member-to-member contact in states like Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, where races from the state legislative House to the White House will determine whether we can turn around America. Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are competing hard in these three states, and CWA volunteers are making sure their fellow union members know that Obama is the candidate who will fight for working families.

CWA members in Ohio are getting heavily involved in the political process this year, reports Ben Waxman, Labor 2008 state director for Ohio. Seth Rosen, CWA District 4 vice president, says union members around the state are getting involved:

We have a network of political coordinators at every local who are educating, informing and involving members on a regular basis.

In Columbus, members of CWA Local 4320 regularly come out to the phone banks held weekdays at the headquarters of the Ohio Labor 2008 program in the Ohio AFL-CIO building. In recent weeks, CWA members have devoted several hours of their evenings to phone banking. They talked with fellow CWA members about supporting Obama in the presidential race, as well as pro-worker candidates for Congress, like Mary Jo Kilroy, who’s running in the 15th Congressional District. Says Ebony Martin, a steward in the local, who often participates in CWA phone banks and labor walks:

Sometimes I just really want to go home, but there’s something inside of me saying, “You’ve got to fight for change”—so that’s why I come here.

This country has seen turmoil, but the working people of America, we have been able to maintain it and keep it strong, and we want to continue to keep it strong, but we need a president who’s definitely going to back us, and Barack Obama will be that president.

Michael Mitchell, the political coordinator for CWA Local 4320 and president of the Franklin County chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, thanked his fellow union members for attending, before sitting down himself to make calls.

Local 4320 President Jack Huber is working hard to make sure that CWA members in Ohio have lots of opportunities to get involved.   

I’m proud of the work CWA is doing. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

In Michigan, members of CWA locals 4050, 4004, 4107 and 4100, all Detroit-area locals, are carrying out frequent phone banks to union members across Michigan to help Obama and pro-working family House candidates win in this crucial state.

Local 4050 President Dave Skotarczyk says lots of volunteer turnout is needed to support Obama, who, as president, will fight for jobs, economic security and the freedom to form unions.

He needs our help, and we’re hoping every union person out there volunteers for a walk or a phone bank.

In Indiana, where the governor’s office and key state House races are at stake, CWA locals are holding phone banks to get out the vote and educate union members about what’s at stake for working families this fall.

Jane Phillips Harrison, a member of CWA Local 4900, is one of the dedicated volunteers working at an Indianapolis phone bank.

We really are excited about doing these phone banks. It is so important. Not only do we want to get Sen. Obama elected president, we also want Jill Long Thompson as our next governor, along with making sure we get representatives in the House who will actually vote for labor issues.

Recent polls of all three states have shown single-digit races, so the thousands of active and retired union members and their families will make the decisive difference this fall.

For more information on endorsements and voting, check out the State-by-State page at the AFL-CIO’s Working Families Vote 2008 site.

Thousands of CWA members attended hundreds of house parties across the country on August 28 for the historic speech by Senator Barack Obama as he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in front of 84,000 people at Denver's Mile High Stadium.

The parties—at least 800 in all-- not only energized members and their families for the election season, they reinforced the importance of electing lawmakers who will pass the Employee Free Choice Act – and a president who will sign it, as Obama has pledged to do.

"The speech got members pumped up and wanting to volunteer to get Obama in the White House," said AFA-CWA Local 24046 President Nick Birchfield, whose house party near Detroit drew about 75 flight attendants who gathered around TVs inside and outdoors. Earlier, Birchfield said they watched the CWA Employee Free Choice video and collected postcards of support from anyone who hadn't already signed one. It was one of the biggest CWA parties across the country.

CWA President Larry Cohen urged members and locals to capitalize on the parties' momentum and get to work on worksite leafleting, conversations with members, voter registration drives and any other outreach to fellow union members and working families.

Above, members of Local 3201 showed their support for Obama at their party in Albany,GA; below, 75 flight attendants gathered at home of AFA-CWA Local 24046 Pres. Nick Birchfield near Detroit.

"Employee Free Choice, affordable universal health care, retirement security and fair trade deals that won't keep shipping our jobs overseas – the simple fact is, Barack Obama supports these critical issues; John McCain doesn't," Cohen said. "In fact, Senator McCain has made it clear that he would veto Employee Free Choice, he would tax your employer-paid health care benefits, he would try to privatize Social Security and he would rubber stamp every trade deal with no regard for workers or the environment. We can't let that happen."

Cohen attended a speech-watching party in Richmond, Va., at Local 2201's headquarters. More than 50 members turned out, including District 2 Vice President Ron Collins. "Our members were genuinely excited about Barack's speech and lot of them signed up for precinct walks," Local President Chris Lane said. "The opportunity to have our national president and district vice president here also got people really fired up."

Another 40 CWAers gathered at the Local 7777 hall in Denver, watching on a 60-inch screen rented by District 7. Local Executive Vice President Lisa Bolton said they would have had an even bigger crowd but many of their members were at the speech or working there as volunteers. The group included CWA Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Rechenbach, District 7 Vice President Louise Caddell, District 6 Vice President Andy Milburn, Communications and Technologies Vice President Ralph Maly and retired CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling who were in town for the convention. "We just had a blast," Bolton said. "Now that we're done with our Qwest contract, we're ready to jump right into Labor 2008."

Other officers and DNC delegates, including Executive Vice President Annie Hill, watched the speech in person at Mile High.

At least one CWA party got media attention. CWA members meeting at a Midland, Texas, restaurant, in the heart of Bush country, were featured on the local TV news after the speech. Local 6127 Vice President Gina Foster told the reporter that the speech was, "Wonderful, very uplifting. He truly is pro-labor, for education, he supports our military and Social Security. We love that about him."

At a restaurant in Knoxville, Tenn., about 40 members of CWA local 3865 watched the event together. "Overwhelmingly people were blown away by Senator Obama's speech and felt inspired to go out and do the work necessary to see that he is elected," said Cameron Brooks, a staff member for the local. Members even got other customers to sign postcards supporting Employee Free Choice.

Local 4217 in Belleville, Ill., had a dozen members turn out at a pub – even though someone had ripped down all their Obama signs pointing to the room they'd set up for the watch party.

In Macon, Mo., about 15 Local 6355 members gathered in a hotel breakfast room and "even those who may not have been die-hard supporters were feeling energized after the speech," member Laura Jackson said.

Ten people turned up at the home of Claudia Gaskin, Local 1037, in Bloomfield, N.J. Obama "moved all of us in a promising way," she said. On the other coast, about 60 people came to Local 9505's party at a Palmdale, Calif., restaurant, where hosts raffled off Obama buttons and stickers after the historic speech.

In Washington state, about 25 people gathered at the home of Stan Wylie, Local 7800. He registered his party with Obama's website, so it also drew several community members. "It was a very nice mix of personal friends, fellow unionists and random Obama supporters," he said. "We were all in agreement that Obama is what is right for our country, and we were impressed with the depth and passion with which the speech was delivered."

As the Republican Convention continued last night, former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) brought out a tired old talking point in his speech, one that Sen. John McCain and his allies have been pushing all year and that corporate interests have been trying to sell for decades. It’s the old “tax hike” scare.

Thompson and McCain are flat-out wrong when they allege Sen. Barack Obama's proposed economic plan would raise taxes on millions of working families. In reality, his plan would give tax cuts to nearly all working families.

The Tax Policy Center has done intensive analysis of the two candidates’ tax proposals and their public statements and found that the majority of taxpayers would see more relief from Obama’s plan than McCain’s. The Washington Post has created a chart that explains exactly what each candidate’s tax plans would mean for different income levels, and the analysis points to stark differences.

Watch the videos below to see what we've been up to in Denver -- and a special message from Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Obama started off strong, declaring, “I believe in unions.”

But, he didn’t stop there. Obama said:

“If you look at the history of this country – things we take for granted, the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, overtime, healthcare benefits, paid leave, child labor laws. Those were all labor fights.”

Obama is taking a clear pro-union message to audiences beyond union halls and is spreading the word about the importance of labor issues in general, and the Employee Free Choice Act in particular.

Watch the full video:

Senator Obama has made clear his commitment to CWA's four key issues -- the Employee Free Choice Act, universal health care, fair trade and good jobs, and financial security for retirees -- and he has proven his ability to energize millions of people across the country, unite voters across party lines and bring many new people into the political process.

Watch this video of Senator Obama thanking CWA membership for our support at our convention on Monday and send the video to your friends and co-workers.

McCainPedia.org is a wiki, a type of Web site comprised of editable information from many sources, which serves as the Democratic National Committee's repository for all things McCain. The goal of the site is to host thorough, vetted, and comprehensive research and information about Senator John McCain in real time.

According to the site:

In the past, research by candidates and political parties was hidden from the public and couldn't be accessed by voters trying to figure out how they should vote, by activists looking to influence the election, or by bloggers trying to find good research to help write their blogs. With this resource, which will be constantly updated with additional material through the election, we are embracing the idea that opening up our resources is the best way to engage voters and elect a Democrat to the White House.

The main difference between McCainPedia.org and other wiki sites is that it is not open to be edited by the general public. The DNC's Research, Communications, and Internet teams make up the editors for the site and because of this approach, unlike traditional wikis, all of the information posted on the site has been vetted for accuracy, and has been verified to be correct by the DNC.

Check out the site throughout the election to learn everything from the details of the lasted McCain blunder to more information on his dangerous lack of knowledge about the economy.

'The Real McCain 2' would be funny if John McCain weren't running for president. In clip after clip, Senator McCain contradicts himself and the truth. One clip shows him claiming he walked down the streets of Baghdad neighborhoods with no body armor. The next clip shows video of McCain during his supposedly unarmored walk wearing, of course, armor, and details the rest of the security present: more than 100 American soldiers, three black hawk helicopters and two apache gunships overhead.

In another outrageous part of the video, McCain claims he has extensive background and knowledge of the economy -- and then we see him admitting he still needs to be educated on economic issues and lacks economic expertise to delve into George Bush's interest rate cuts.

Here's McCain's pronouncement, made at the same time reports of record-breaking oil prices, rising unemployment rates, and huge stock market losses:

As Tula Connell writes, "it's long past time for such pat pronouncements."

John McCain shouldn't be given a pass for accepting the Bush premises of low taxes on the rich and utter abandonment of a fair playing field for all workers. Those policies haven't worked for the past seven-plus years, and they won't work for four more.

Union membership encompasses just 7.5% of the private sector, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is fearful of a potential resurgence in the United States. Now the group, which represents business interests, is opposing a laundry list of bills fluttering about Capitol Hill, which the chamber says would make it easier to organize a union, expand worker benefits at the expense of employers and lift the caps on punitive damages sought by employees in lawsuits.

So, what are they so scared of? Having to finally follow existing law that protects the rights of workers to organize? That would be terrible!

"What's going on on Capitol Hill right now is nothing less than a radical rewrite of our nation's unemployment laws," says Randel Johnson, the chamber's vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits.

But forget 2008. "We're very concerned about the next four years," Johnson says. The prospect of Democrats controlling Congress and the White House is unsettling for foes of labor expansion.

The presumptive democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama has vowed unwavering support for the Free Choice Act as well as other labor issues like restructuring trade deals to protect workers here and abroad. Of course Sen. John McCain is in favor of anti-union laws and opposes, in lock step with George Bush, the Employee Free Choice Act. 

Teamsters' spokesman Galen Munroe says, "It's pretty much accepted that Americans want change after the Bush administration."

 And that's exactly what they're going to get.

Eighty percent of Americans are sure this country is on the wrong road economically. Sen. John McCain acknowledges this, yet believes it has nothing to do with foreclosures, 4 dollar gas, or the health care crisis; instead he blames Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for their opposition to a widely criticized free trade agreement with Columbia.

Seth Michaels wrote an enlightening article for the AFL-CIO Now blog on the reasons behind McCain's ardent support for the trade agreement.

Maybe McCain is spending too much time listening to the lobbyists who run and fund his campaign -- one top backer actually lobbies for Colombia's government. Clearly, he's not listening to the millions of working families who are unhappy about lost jobs, shuttered factories, foreclosures and rising costs.  

Nor is he thinking about the exploited Colombian workers who face intimidation, threats and even murder if they try to secure their rights at work. Last year, 39 trade unionists were killed in anti-union violence in Colombia, and 24 have been killed already this year -- more than one a week. 


Michaels was echoing the President of AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, in accusing McCain of being out of touch. Sweeney emphasized Columbia's history of human rights abuse.

John McCain glossed over horrific human rights abuses and the deaths of hundreds of Colombian union activists today when he urged Congress to pass the Bush administration's ill-conceived Colombian trade pact. Workers in Colombia are targeted for violence and blocked from joining unions to lift their lives and prevent exploitation, making fair trade impossible. In fact, Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world to be a union member. The fact that McCain believes not passing Bush's bad trade deal with Colombia is the reason Americans think we're on the wrong track is a measure of how out of touch he's become with working people's concerns. 


McCain is clearly happy following the paths of trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and the agreements with Peru and Chile straight into Columbia without acknowledging the problems with previous agreements or the issues of the Columbian people, creating an obviously fallible campaign argument in the process.

So, no Mr. Senator, 80 percent of Americans do not think we are on the wrong track because of democratic opposition to the Columbian trade agreement. You could figure it out, Senator McCain, by starting with a good, hard look in the mirror.

CWA District 3 Legislative-Political Coordinator Beverly Hicks said every CWA local union and unions throughout the state got involved and worked together. "It's so important to put people in office who will be accountable and who will support working families and the issues that are so important to us. That's exactly what happened in this election," she said.

Despite what Garry Jordan, president of CWA Local 3517, describes as Republican attempts to distract voters with terrible advertising, the efforts of CWA to keep the focus on the economy, health care, and other concerns for working families proved to be effective.

"We'll do it all over again in November" when Childers must run again, Jordan said, adding that union members were seeing a real change in Mississippi and the opportunity to elect a U.S. Senator and other representatives who would "get people health care, get them workers' rights and the Employee Free Choice Act and stay focused on their issues."

This is just one example of what organized efforts on behalf of working families can achieve. Keeping the focus on what really matters to middle class Americans and not letting up can put good people like Travis Childers in office where he belongs.

Sen. John McCain recently appeared on Live with Regis and Kelly, where he suggested that not only did he want to risk your Social Security benefits by putting them into the stock market, but that he was more concerned with the bottom line of bankers on Wall Street than middle class Americans, who would benefit greatly from such a windfall.

Edward F. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans points out that this is an unreasonable thing to ask from seniors, who are already struggling with out-of-control gas and grocery prices, exposing them to unnecessary risk and uncertainty.

“Not only did Senator McCain support privatized Social Security in a March 3 interview with the Wall Street Journal, but in 2006 he voted to shift Social Security’s annual surpluses into a reserve account that would be converted into private accounts. [S. Con. Res., Vote #68, 3/16/06].  Earlier in his Senate career, McCain voted twice to replace Social Security’s guaranteed benefits with income from risk-based private investments. [S. Con. Res., Vote #56, 4/1/98; S. Con. Res., Vote #77, 4/1/98]”

Additionally, in a March 3rd Wall Street Journal article, McCain was revealed to be considering raising the Social Security retirement age to 68 and reducing the cost of living adjustment.

Coyle explains:

“Current –and future – retirees demand the truth about the prospects for their retirement security.  We call upon all in public office to speak clearly about their intentions for Social Security.”

Not all older Americans have the luxury of a $100 million beer fortune to live lavishly off of – McCain needs to start worrying about middle class retired Americans, not banking industry fat-cats.