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(photo: spike55151)
This is, as Gerry McEntee might say, “Bullshit!” Via Ben Smith, McEntee praises Rahm on the Chief of Staff’s way out of DC and endorses him for mayor of Chicago:
“If I lived in Chicago, I would vote for him for mayor,” said Gerald McEntee, the president of the giant public workers union AFSCME.
McEntee clashed with Emanuel over elements of health care legislation and has at times been a critic of the Obama Administration from the left. But while many in his wing of the party remain bitter at Emanuel — and plan to campaign against him for mayor of Chicago — McEntee said that Emanuel’s record was, on balance “for progressive forces and ideas.” [...]
McEntee also recalled backing Emanuel’s 2006 efforts to take back the House of Representatives.
“For our aid and participation in that effort, particularly working close with him, he on two different occasions sent me a cheesecake from Eli’s,” McEntee said, referring to the Chicago eatery and adding that the aid had not amounted to “coordination.”
Anyone know what kind of presence AFSCME has in Chicago? Cause then this would make sense.
Finally, it appears as though McEntee doesn’t want to be left out of the “buck up” chorus of late.
Asked for a message about Rahm to skeptical allies on the left, McEntee echoed Joe Biden: “Suck it up.”
Come on, what is it? It’s bullshit!
Fuckin’ AFSCME.
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Mr McEntee? Time to step up and tell us why you think Rahm Emanuel is worthy of support after all the evidence otherwise that we’ve seen the last few years.
I’m holding whoever found that image responsible for any nightmares I may have, now or in the future.
Where’s Suzanne’s brain bleach when we need it?
These guys are making me really really mad.
Paging Suzanne, Paging Suzanne, Please make sure all bleach dispensers are refilled… They were just emptied by all who read this…
Very disappointed in AFSCME. Worked closely with many members in Dem politics for a long time.
Deeply disturbing graphic.
McEntee has been a tireless Clinton supporter. I didn’t expect any different from him on this.
a cheesecake ? from Eli’s, really ?
well, I heard Leo Gerard got a potpourri gift basket
You just gave me a great idea for a Halloween costume.
I think my kid’s going to dress up as Rahm Emanuel.
I can’t think of anything scarier than having that “sexy motherf*cker” show up on my doorstep, can you?
Besides, my kid has Emanuel’s patter down cold. Heh.
Public employee unions have been a big component of the corrupt Chi/Ill Dem party machine for most of the past century. Ain’t nottin’ new about this news.
Prolly not as good as yours.
Oh, f*ck McEntee. The only thing “progressive” about rahm is the level of destruction he presides over.
Tired old hacks like McEntee make me wish there were term limits for union leaders.
If he wins the dems blessing, I hope a green runs.
I don’t think Progressive means what he thinks it means….
Alot of the more established conservative unions live in 1950, and think their union is beyond targeting unlike unions for service workers. It is dreadfully stupid. Look at how Rahmco targeted the teachers unions, but thus is the terrible legacy of gomperism.
Michael Whitney
Chicago’s AFSCME 31 boasts of 100,000+ members (active & retired)
Hear, hear! I am a sometime-cringing union supporter (at heart I support the unions cuz where would we all be without them??)… and this story clearly highlights why I often cringe. Corrupt, cronyism gone mad, bull hockey. Time to turn in the towel McEntree; you’re not standing up for the rights of your constituents.
sexy………….?????wha…to what sex?…species?………..not to me,even in elevator ballet slipperz
I think he meant proregressive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRK5vLUYLmg
little man ,with gargantuan ego
Yet more evidence that union leaders are their own worst enemies right now.
Be very afraid…be very afraid.
I’m not sure you could do justice to that smirk of his with a mask, but good luck.
Is it fair to say that McEntee is part of the FAKE Professional Left?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a spirited endorsement of Rahm Emanuel on Thursday afternoon, answering “yes” when asked at a Capitol Hill press conference if she would endorse the outgoing White House chief of staff’s bid for mayor of Chicago.
The Speaker lavished him with praise, referencing his “great reputation” and the “affection” he enjoys from his former colleagues in the House of Represenatives.
oy
There are people over at Daily Kos who think that (D) = Progressive. That’s just not true. That is analogous to saying that all plants flower, it just isn’t so. Obama being Black doesn’t make him a Kenyan like some Republicans like to say and Obama (or Rahm) running for office as Democrats doesn’t make them Progressive.
I tend to think that must be a “praise the turkey” gambit. “Someone please take this posturing fool out of my barnyard.”
My guess is that McEntee (and Pelosi) both feel that they could get more accomplished with that little asshole back in Chicago than they ever could if he stays in DC. So why not praise him, if it means that bought-and-paid-for corporate suck-weasel is gone that much sooner?
Yea, well, I’ll take his message, and Biden’s message, and Obama’s message and put them in the same place The Sternly Worded Letters to the elitists go
right here
The Chicago Mayor’s race works with a runoff system (probably because almost everyone is a Democrat).
As Illinois Senator Durbin mentioned when he declined to endorse Rahm, there are a lot of people who will probably run. Rahm isn’t a top runner even with his national attention and former status as a congressman. Tom Dart and James Meeks are the only ones polling at double digits. Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr. are next. Then Rahm appears.
Lakefront Liberals like Dart. African Americans like Meeks (who looks particularly strong with Jackson unlikely to run). Hispanics like Gutierrez. They are all Chicago politicians and all Democrats.
Everybody likes these guys more than Rahm, and even if Rahm’s national political connections, like my faux progressive Rep Schakowsky, help him make it to the runoff, I don’t think he could beat any of them in a head-to-head race.
Well as a Chicagoan I wasn’t surprised at Daley getting out while the getting was good (he’s as good as untouchable with a big downturn right around the bend for the next chump), and I can’t say Rahm running is any surprise either. He annoyed me as the Rep in my district and his display as Chief of Staff only secured my belief that he’s a bully and a jackass. As for ASFCME they have upwards of 75 thousand members in the state of Illinois. So yea, McEntee is kissing Rahm’s ass since Chicago amounts to a large number of that union. I would very much hate to see Rahm get the mayor gig, but the way Chicago’s been going for the past 10 years I doubt I’ll be sticking around here much longer anyway.
Why is the president of a public employees union signaling obeisance to the Corporate neo-whatevers within the Democratic Party? Something is amiss.
That maybe true, and from what I can gleen, Chicago liberals still have to elect him in order for him to be mayor.
One more thing as a resident Chicagoan. The parking meter fiasco is a privatization disaster that still has everyone riled up. This is a bad time for someone who’s primary claim to fame is corporate deal-making to be running.
Parking meter fiasco: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/features-cover-april-9-2009/Content?oid=1098561
In this city, Dart’s suspension of evictions of rent-paying renters due to foreclosures of landlords made him a populist hero:
http://www.cookcountysheriff.org/press_page/press_evictionSuspension_10_08_08.html
Perhaps, but they don’t have to elect him for him to be gone from DC.
This smells
I’m a member of 443 and recently we had a union meeting about our ongoing contract negotiations which basically suck. It looks like we might have to strike to keep our health benefits, and the union was worried about the media battle for our public image. When I suggested we come out against Bank Rob America, the bank that does all the financial business for the liberal state college I work for, in order to side with all the middle class people being foreclosed on by these bastards, I was totally ignored.
And then they bitch and say shit like “Union begins with U-N-I!!” Fu*kin’ AFSCME indeed.
LOL. I think the answer to that was provided in the form of the question “does AFSCME have a large presence in Chicago?”. Large enough I would say. I also think this is a signal that rahmbo is definately palnning a run there or, McEntee wouldnt have felt required to make a public ass kissing statement.
nothing amiss, same as it ever was.
Mr McEntee is full of shit.Union leadership has done a piss poor job of fighting for union members & American workers..
Anyone advocating voting for Rahm is negligent & willing to sellout workers
even more.
Remember Rahm is DLC…He ain’t into ordinary people as much as McEntee would like you to believe.
This is a vivid illustration of the corruption that exist within Union leadership & the WH at the expense of their members.
I asked Mr. McEntee the following pointed question on one of his recent diaries:
“Mr. McEntee, with all the respect that is your due (and I am a brother from The City of Brotherly Love), we should call our Senators… why? To be ignored yet again? Or because a labor leader is telling us to?
How much more blatant must the reality – that we are owned and Washington is nothing more than a 24/7 trade show where our owners comfortably gather in their club chairs, over wine and cigars, to plot their next steps in further exerting their absolute sway over us – become, before we begin to seek change outside the “system”?”
No response from Mr. McEntee, of course, who apparently LOOOOVES FDL only enough to whore his old white guy positions. Another Anthony Weiner.
In the current political set up the survival of labor Unions is basically held at knife point by political operatives like rahmmy. Some Union leaders are themselves political operators just like rahmmy. Take a look at the the media coverage of the corporate backed hostile takeover scheme called “the school reform movement”. Even David Gugenheim made a film pushing the dishonest public relations meme we’ve all been pratically indoctrinated with, such that – teachers unions are the problem, teachers are well meaning but incompetent, teachers have too much power (?!) and so on. That particular film casts the increasingly discredited Michelle Rhee as a “plucky Heroine” (i quote the time magazine spin) who was accomplishing “so much” in the DCPS. WHAT she was acomplishing the “reform” backers dont really quantify, except that some test scores over a 3 year period were higher under Rhees chancelorship.They almost never mention that some were also lower. In exchange for some higher test score in the short term, and some lower ones, what she mostly accomplished was firing nearly 300 Union teachers and replacing them with inexperienced, often untrained, temporary, non-union teachers. Other things she accomplished was a system of “bonuses” to be paid in “gratitude” to teachers who were retained. She never mentioned, or even made it perfectly clear up front to them, that the money came in return for signing away their tenure rights, which meant they could be fired without cause at any time in the future. She was doing dogdirt common, run of the mill, textbook perfect- practice union busting. Thats what She was there for. And unions face this kind of hostility from management daily, weekly, annually, all over the country, in virtually every part of the workforce where unions still exist, with perfect complicity in the reporting and NON reporting from the corporate media. Its not a pretty picture but if there is a more purely go along to get along faction within the left coalition, sadly its labor unions. But thats because they are held hostage to democratic party politics taken over by the New Dem – blue dog forces and a completely apathetic to openly hostile public.
@themalcontent 33
with all the respect that is your due what the hell is this accusation supposed mean, “Mr. McEntee, of course, who apparently LOOOOVES FDL only enough to whore his old white guy positions.”? What allegiance, specifically does AFSCME owe to FDL, that (i think your inferring that hes betrayed the blog somehow) McEntee’s not entitled to his opinion within a Left coalition? Almost anyone can write a diary at FDL. We need to be ideologically sharp, but accussing someone of holding “old white guy positions”, old and white being antithetical to true FDL values I guess, seems pretty dull.
I like how they tell us to “suck it up” when they’re the ones on their knees giving every corporation the best fellatio they can muster, the ones unable to “suck it up” and end these worthless, pathetic wars.
Hey McEntee come tell me to suck it up in person and see what happens to you.
Clearly another asshole who thinks his dumbass political maneuvers and insults to the democratic base are the most genius shit in the world.
edit: no wonder unions have never been weaker
Typically, this is all about AFSCME’s leadership expressing support for someone who claims to be able to repay them the favor in kind. These comments in support of Rahm don’t actually describe Rahm Emanuel. He is to liberal as Sarah Palin is to statesmanlike: he is the antithesis of liberal, he’s a would be power machine. The only liberal thing about Rahm is the shape of his hood ornament, the last thing you see as he runs you over.
Rahm departure doesn’t really matter. The main force behind all of the compromises was Obama himself. Does anyone here believe that if Obama didn’t want them that he would not have agreed to compromises?
Malcontent. Your senators may ignore you but I will tell you who will not ignore you.
Namely companies that make and sell products and give money to conservatives in both parties for election and for legislation. They will not ignore you.
However you must get hundreds of thousands of people to say to a company CEO get us this progressive legislation or we don’t buy from you again. That CEO will not ignore you.
Send the emails from here http://DEMOCRATZ.ORG
nail.sledgehammer.bang. True,that. Rahm has proven to be someone who not only renigs on promises made to the left ( such as it is) he likes to brag about it. But Rahm might wind up mayor and since hes also proven himself to be a vindictive prick who braggs about paying back those he accuses of disloyalty, its easy to see how someone would act out of fear. Personally I think thats a complete dead end. And if the time money and effort that gets spent trying to “play ball” with prople like rahm went into rebuilding and growing a real left movement, including organizing labor that needs to be organized we would have better outcomes.
McEntee has been a idiosyncratic figure in politics. Isn’t he the one that rigged the union vote for endorsement of Dean back in 2004?
Rahm stands for progressive ideas? More like “Rahm stands over progressive ideas and bludgeons them to death with the heal of his shoe”.
A cheesecake? This guy can be had for a cheesecake? My god, no wonder labor is in so much trouble. What a jack.
Been saying that for more than a year. While the people who wanted him to be what he said he is clung to their dreams and defended.
Nancy is glad, even grateful, to see his back. She’d probably offer him a ride to the airport if she thought he wouldn’t take offense.
The whole union leadership,for the most part,is corrupt.
McEntee ,Trumka etc,etc.These people sat on their mouths when the WH was actively undermining progressive HCR, drug importation,PO etc,etc.
It was so hideous that 3days after his legislation for drug importation was overwhelmingly voted down in the senate under direction from the Prez.
Senator Byron Dorgan decided that this was his last term in the Senate.Dorgan said he had never seen such active participation from leaders of his own party to defeat legislation that would have greatly helped the American people.
Rahm Mr. Tea Party Himself wants to be mayor of Chicago! WOW
Has Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck endorse Rahm yet?
No one hates the middle class like Rahm!
Rahm gave us the nuclear bomb that help wipe a large part of the USA middle class NAFTA
Rahm made sure every american would have to buy health insurance by making sure the Obama/Bob Dole health care bill got pass.
Rahm attacked Unions like his hero Ronald Reagan! (McEntee this is not 1994! most of your members consider Rahm, Obama, the cousins of the Anti Christ!, McEntee you will probably get a lot phone calls for endorsing Rahm, most will consist of a lot four letter words)
If Rahm is a progressive, Sarah Palin must be a liberal.
I believe Rahm is polling 5th in local polls, i.e. last. There are others in the race, and if Rahm thinks he’s going to be coronated as the king of Chicago, he’s in for a wake up call.