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Donald Trump just insulted a union leader on Twitter. Then the phone started to ring.


Trump and Indiana-Still!! MA

The Washington Post
Danielle Paquette

4 hrs ago

Chuck Jones uses a flip phone, so he didn’t see the tweet. His friend of 36 years called him Wednesday night and said: The president-elect is smearing you on Twitter.
Jones, a union leader in Indianapolis, represents the Carrier workers whose jobs Donald Trump has pledged to save. He said the sudden attention from the country’s next leader didn’t feel real.
“My first thought was, ‘Well, that’s not very nice,’ ” he told The Washington Post on Wednesday night. “Then, ‘Well, I might not sleep much tonight.’ ”
Jones, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1999, told The Post on Tuesday that he believed Trump had lied to the Carrier workers last week when he visited the Indianapolis plant. On a makeshift stage in a conference room, Trump had applauded United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company, for cutting a deal with him and agreeing to keep 1,100 jobs that were slated to move to Mexico in America’s heartland.
Jones said Trump got that figure wrong.
Carrier, he said, had agreed to preserve 800 production jobs in Indiana. (Carrier confirmed that number.) The union leader said Trump appeared to be taking credit for rescuing 350 engineering positions that were never scheduled to leave. Five hundred and fifty of his members, he said, were still losing their jobs. And the company was still collecting millions of dollars in tax breaks.
In return for downsizing its move south of the border, United Technologies would receive $7 million in tax credits from Indiana, to be paid in $700,000 installments each year for 10. Carrier, on top of that, has agreed to invest $16 million in its Indiana operation. United Technologies, meanwhile, still plans to shuttle 700 factory jobs from Huntington, Ind., to Monterrey, Mexico.
Jones, who said the union wasn’t involved in the negotiations, said he’s working to lift his members’ spirits. He said he didn’t have time to worry about Trump.
“He needs to worry about getting his Cabinet filled,” he said, “and leave me the hell alone.”
Representatives for Trump did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Over the past two decades, the United States has lost about 4.5 million manufacturing jobs, a consequence economists ascribe to trade and automation. Jones said he has fought to keep work on U.S. soil, bargaining repeatedly with Carrier and Rexnord, another Indianapolis plant that plans to relocate jobs to Mexico.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence tweeted his support for Jones earlier this year:
Half an hour after Trump tweeted about Jones on Wednesday, the union leader’s phone began to ring and kept ringing, he said. One voice asked: What kind of car do you drive? Another said: We’re coming for you.
He wasn’t sure how these people found his number.
“Nothing that says they’re gonna kill me, but, you know, you better keep your eye on your kids,” Jones said later on MSNBC. “We know what car you drive. Things along those lines.”
“I’ve been doing this job for 30 years, and I’ve heard everything from people who want to burn my house down or shoot me,” he added. “So I take it with a grain of salt and I don’t put a lot of faith in that, and I’m not concerned about it and I’m not getting anybody involved. I can deal with people that make stupid statements and move on.”
Brett Voorhies, president of the Indiana State AFL-CIO, called Jones after Trump’s tweet caught his eye. Jones, he said, had just left his office in Indianapolis, where he manages the needs of about 3,000 union members.
“This guy makes pennies for what he does,” Voorhies said. “What he has to put up with is just crazy. Now he’s just got the president-elect smearing him on Twitter.”

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‘He got up there and lied his a– off’: Carrier union leader on Trump’s big deal


Another Face of The Carrier deal. MA

The Secret Service agents told the Carrier workers to stay put, so Chuck Jones sat in the factory conference room for nearly three hours, waiting for president-elect Donald Trump. He’d grown used to this suspense.
Seven months earlier, at a campaign rally in Indianapolis, Trump had pledged to save the plant’s jobs, most of which were slated to move to Mexico. Then the businessman won the election, and the 1,350 workers whose paychecks were on the line wondered if he’d keep his promise.
Jones, president of the United Steelworkers 1999, which represents Carrier employees, felt optimistic when Trump announced last week that he’d reached a deal with the factory’s parent company, United Technologies, to preserve 1,100 of the Indianapolis jobs —  until the union leader heard from Carrier that only 730 of the production jobs would stay and 550 of his members would lose their livelihoods, after all.
At the Dec. 1 meeting, where Trump was supposed to lay out the details, Jones hoped he would explain himself.
“But he got up there,” Jones said Tuesday, “and, for whatever reason, lied his a– off.”
In front of a crowd of about 150 supervisors, production workers and reporters, Trump praised Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies. “Now they’re keeping — actually the number’s over 1,100 people,” he said, “which is so great.”
Jones wondered why the president-elect appeared to be inflating the victory. Trump and Pence, he said, could take credit for rescuing 800 of the Carrier jobs, including non-union positions.
Of the nearly 1,400 workers at the Indianapolis plant, however, 350 in research and development were never scheduled to leave, Jones said. Another 80 jobs, which Trump seemed to include in his figure, were non-union clerical and supervisory positions. (A Carrier spokesperson confirmed the numbers.) And now the president-elect was applauding the company and giving it millions of dollars in tax breaks, even as hundreds of Indianapolis workers prepared to be laid off.
“Trump and Pence, they pulled a dog and pony show on the numbers,” said Jones, who voted for Hillary Clinton but called her “the better of two evils.” “I almost threw up in my mouth.”
Spokespeople for Trump did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
In exchange for downsizing its move south of the border, United Technologies would receive $7 million in tax credits from Indiana, to be paid in $700,000 installments each year for a decade. Carrier, meanwhile, agreed to invest $16 million in its Indiana operation. United Technologies still plans to send 700 factory jobs from Huntington, In, to Monterrey, Mexico.
T.J. Bray, 32, one of the workers who will keep his job, sat in the front row during the Dec. 1 meeting as Trump spoke. A corporate employee had guided him specifically to that seat, he said, so he suspected he might be part of Trump’s remarks.
On Carrier’s makeshift stage, Trump paraphrased the words of an unnamed Carrier employee who talked to an NBC reporter after the election. Bray was the only Carrier employee who had appeared on television that day. Apparently, he realized, Trump was saying he inspired the deal.
“He said something to the effect, ‘No, we’re not leaving, because Donald Trump promised us that we’re not leaving,’ and I never thought I made that promise,” Trump said. “Not with Carrier. I made it for everybody else. I didn’t make it really for Carrier.”
In fact, Trump did make that commitment, and it’s on video.  “They’re going to call me and they are going to say ‘Mr. President, Carrier has decided to stay in Indiana,’” Trump had said at the April rally. “One hundred percent — that’s what is going to happen.”
Last week, though, the president-elect told the Carrier crowd he hadn’t meant that literally.
“I was talking about Carrier like all other companies from here on in,” Trump said. “Because they made the decision a year and a half ago. But he believed that was — and I could understand it. I actually said — I didn’t make it — when they played that, I said, ‘I did make it, but I didn’t mean it quite that way.’”
Trump asked if the employee he’d been referencing was in the audience. A woman yelled that her son was, and Trump began to compliment that son, though he hadn’t spoken in the television news segment. (Bray said that a United Technologies spokesperson later told him Trump meant to single him out.)
“I was confused when he was like, ‘I wasn’t talking about Carrier,’” Bray said. “You made this whole campaign about Carrier, and we’re still losing a lot of jobs.”
Bray clapped that day, anyway, for the 800 that would remain on American soil

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Exclusive:CEO Who Just Went Toe-To-Toe With Donald Trump


This issue has many Faces. MA
Exclusive: CEO who just went toe-to-toe with Donald Trump says there was ‘no quid pro quo’ about Carrier
Abigail Stevenson,CNBC Mon, Dec 5 3:25 PM PST
Exclusive: CEO who just went toe-to-toe with Donald Trump…
United Technologies (UTX) CEO Greg Hayes told Jim Cramer in an exclusive interview on Monday about his conversation with Donald Trump last week, and says there was no “quid pro quo” with the president-elect.
“I think we came up with a relatively good solution for everybody … We still got to do the preponderance of the restructuring, which we were going to do anyways. So it’s — I would say no ‘deal,’ but at the end of the day a good deal for UTC,” Hayes told the ” Mad Money ” host.
United Technologies is the parent company of furnace and air conditioner maker Carrier, which was under fire by Trump on the campaign trail because of its plans to move some manufacturing operations to Mexico from Indiana. Trump used Carrier as an example to highlight the decline of manufacturing in America.
Ultimately, United Technologies agreed to receive $7 million in tax credits from the State of Indiana, issued at $700,000 per year for 10 years. Carrier also agreed to invest approximately $16 million in its Indiana facilities, and will keep more than 1,000 people employed in Indianapolis.
Hayes stated that he received a phone call from Trump a week before Thanksgiving, with a request from the president-elect to reexamine the decision to close the Indianapolis Carrier factory.
“He said, ‘We are going to do a lot of things in this country that are going to make it a lot more conducive to manufacturing. We are going to take the tax rate down; we are going to reduce all of this burdensome regulation. When all that happens you are going to be printing money, but I need you to relook at your decision to close the factory in Indiana,'” Hayes said.
Hayes confirmed that there is approximately 1 million manufacturing square feet in Mexico already, thus he considered it to be a natural evolution to close facilities in Indiana and move them to Mexico .
“Nor was there any, I would say, deal,” Hayes said about his conversation with Trump, “There was no quid pro quo for him to say ‘look, I am not going to tax you, if you don’t do this.’ He simply said ‘take a look at this.'”
And while Hayes did agree to keep employees in Indiana, he said he still considers free trade to be essential for the growth of the U.S.
“This country was founded on two principles, right – immigration and free trade. And that is what made America great over time because we had to develop and innovate in the U.S. and take those products and sell them around the world,” Hayes said.
Carrier will still close its Huntington, Indiana facility and move 700 jobs to Mexico

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McConnell Cautions Replacement To Health Law To Take Time


This little article caught my attention because the current Congress (Dupublicans) have had years to alter the Affordable Care Act and have done nothing about it. Had the Congress done their job, the current Act would have been a better functioning LAW! It has surely helped millions but at the cost of others having no coverage and possibly dying for the lack of care. The time to act was sooner rather than later (now). MA

© J. Scott Applewhite/AP Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., talks about his agenda for a GOP-controlled Congress during an interview at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014 LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Congress will act early next year to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law but delay the changes as Republicans try to come up with an alternative.
The Kentucky Republican insisted Saturday that some 20 million Americans who have health care through the six-year-old law will not lose coverage, though the likely upheaval in the insurance industry suggests otherwise.
Speaking in Louisville, McConnell cautioned that the law’s critics “can’t just snap your fingers and go from where we are today to where we’re headed.” He said a replacement to the health care law will be done in a “phased-in way.”
Republicans have been unable to agree on an alternative since the law’s enactment, but now must produce one if they scrap the law..

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Americanized


Many US cities are named after European cities but do not use the same pronunciation. Lima, Peru is pronounced LEEma, Lima Ohio is pronounced Lyma. Athens Greece is pronounced Athens (short A) and Athens, Georgia and Illinois are pronounced Athens,( long A). Cairo Egypt is pronounced Kyro, in Illinois its called Kayro. How about Worchester Ma. in England it’s Wooster. Leicester is Lester and it is the same in The U.S. New Ulm (MN, & Texas)) is pronounced New “oolm”. This is the process of Americanization of languages and people. Ulm as pronounced in the Original German is very different from the way it is pronounced in Oklahoma and Louisiana. In Germany its OOLM, in English its Ohm, the l is not as pronounced as heard in New Ulm (Texas). This a common occurrence in many Cities and areas in the US as the population changes from generation to generation becoming more Americanized. Some names remain primarily in tact from the original language while the pronunciation changes to become Americanized or more like  original English words or names. Example : Los Angeles originally Los (long O) Angeles (g is pronounced ga as in gas). Yet we are against immigrants when immigrants are what we are. Imagine how the Native Americans felt when we encroached upon their lands, then under the guise of friendship fought them for their own lands, moved them in to ever shrinking “tribal lands” and confiscated those same legally given lands for the profit of  big money people while the Native Americans got squat except the bias and derision of the ” emigrants” to North America. Now this confiscation is still evident in the pipeline stalemate. If this is not the same as the prior acts of aggression against Native people then what would we call it? This action is for short term gains with potential long term consequences as with so many previous historic takeovers. Apparently greed supercedes!

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Boy King


We have 4 years of wondering, assessing and regretting (in any order) what is ahead of us with the Trump Presidency. Since the new method of mass communication is the tweet, the next state of the Union will be about 15 minutes and will have no details. It will be interesting to see how the neer do well Congress does with “their” candidate. It is my hope that  nothing dire occurs during his tenure but looking at the candidates’ selections for his cabinet one has to wonder what can we expect and the long-range effect. Looking at the first campaign promise to be kept:The Carrier deal is no deal for 1300 people and not much of a deal for the  700 who will remain. Looking at the numbers:7 million is what carrier gets in tax incentives this amounts to three hundred & fifty thousand dollars per  (retained or not) worker. Needless to say not many if any of the remaining workers will be compensated anywhere near the saved thousands per year even with benefits. This leaves the question of where is this money going? Some may go to severance, pension payouts, unemployment or perhaps factory upgrades (robotics?). In the end there will be 1300 fewer jobs in Indiana and 1300 more jobs behind the Southwestern wall. A promise kept on the backs of the workers who supported the Boy King.

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Rauner Roundup


Illinois issues appear to be more apolitical and inane than based in reality. The current governor in my opinion won based on the weakness of the former governor and the publicly perceived impotence of the legislature. Since Mr. Rauner has had the office, the state has rapidly gone down a dimly lit path to stability. A State is NOT a business! The statement of running the state like a business is a great sound bite but just another election ear grabber. Most voters have no idea what that statement means but in the Governor’s mind it means running the state in the same pinch penny fashion as he has apparently run his businesses. In business these are the facts: you produce a product of some sort. You hire people to manufacture this product and of course you pay what is required for these hires to get the job done. Next you price the product to sell and pay for the labor and material including cost of shipping , receiving and other business expenses. As costs rise for whatever reason you have to adjust your selling price accordingly. This is not how it works in Government where your product is public service and the raising of costs is tied to taxes. So it appears that the way to make a Government solvent is to raise taxes in a way that still will benefit the population. Raising taxes is one way but if you stated that you would not raise taxes when you were running for office it becomes a bit hard to then raise taxes. So the issue is how do you fund a government without taxes? Attack the workers whose Union you see as the problem? Or take a sit down with the Unions to determine what can be done? How about starting a full blown assault on the Unions and the established political system (no matter how flawed)?  I would offer that perhaps explaining to the taxpayers how their demands influence spending in relation to the basic needs of  running a Government (which includes infrastructure maintenance and the agencies that provide services). Meanwhile this long lasting stalemate has cost jobs, stopped education for some and caused untold issues for others. It appears that this business model has failed and looks a lot like the companies that have gone under due to this impasse. I do not see a second term in the Governors future and of course it is not an issue as his financial picture is quite rosy unlike many Illinoisans who have suffered under his actions or lack of.

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After The Election


This election is a dream come true for the Dupublicans as they feel now they can run the country as they see fit ( notice I said as “they” see fit) no matter what is desired by the voters and needed to run the country. Since the existing Congress has done nothing of merit except obstruct, what do you suppose they will do for  (or to) us now? My expectations are that the Congress will create another pre 2008 scenario where the neediest will still be needy, the economy will still slide and we could very well still be at full-out war in the middle east.

Will the new President truly be President or just a shill for the Dupublican Party? After denouncing the candidate earlier, the main Dupublicans , Ryan and McConnell seem to be smiling through clenched teeth (in photos published).There are several possible scenarios for the next 4 years:

  1. Some good things will be done
  2. Our allies will be still our allies (or not)
  3. The Congress will continue their anti citizen activities
  4. None of his agenda will be accomplished but stifled by the Congress or replaced with what they like.
  5. Trumps backers will remember him for what he did not do and not elect him
  6. Trump will find that the Presidency is not another Trump Company that he can control.
  7. The Trump method of lashing out at the media over what is reported (true or not) will be watched and tested.
  8.  There are a number of unknowns for the actions of this President who in my opinion has a business (his) as usual attitude toward the top office.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Unfortunately the proof of good or bad will come at a cost to all of us. It has become a national concern and not just the cause of  fringe elements. Our only job in this is to start now and assessing what your elected officials have done in the past 4 years, pay more attention to the news (real news) about politics. The key to good government is a well informed public.

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At This Time


The current political after “party” is a watchable event. The Dupublicans are still in a quandary as to what to expect from “their” President. Their expectations are high in getting “their” agenda in place. Our expectations as voters is preparing for the worse and hoping for the best. Our first issue is to insure all eligible voters do vote in upcoming local, State and Federal elections. Since we do not know who will be running for what offices aside from the existing office holders we need to pay attention to any upcoming potential candidates. The Trump administration will be a demonstration of disarray that will affect us all for years to come. The people in his administration are not dumb people but true idealists who have lost sight of what Government is about. Their focus is on converting Mr. Trumps statements into implementable items. The issue will be what the Dupublican Congress will allow to be done and what the Congress will push for. Either way there is a boil brewing in government that will not move us too far ahead of where we are now. The primary things to watch” Education, The High court, International relations and Health care. The smaller issues are the rise of the Racist fringe and the unenlightened who only want something better for themselves and their families. At some point the unenlightened will become enlightened and understand their situation has not changed much since their Congressional representatives are not doing anything different. You can be sure that the Pro-Trump media and the near to far right media will be extolling the actions of the Trump administration while the “main stream media” will be trying to keep the truth out there.

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Opinion -Miami Herald


This article caught my eye while scanning news for this blog. Even though I already know that Racists do what Racist do, Bigots- religious, gender, ethnic  or any other types do what they do. These are the folks emboldened by Mr. Trump. His tolerance of their actions before and now after the election amounts to abetting criminals as evidenced in the article below. This is not just about Race, this is about America as we want it to be and as the Constitution provides. MA

Opinion

November 27, 2016 1:53 PM

They said despicable things about the Obamas but say they’re not racists. Yes, they are

By Roger Guffey

(This column first appeared in the Lexington (Ky.,) Herald-Leader.)

Psychologists have long recognized rationalization as a defense mechanism that people use to excuse unacceptable or offensive behaviors by offering some pseudo-logical reasoning or self-serving explanations.

Perhaps we justify that sumptuous dessert because we have earned a reward for sticking to our diet. Or we tell our boss we are sick, when we really want to go to the last game of the season. Some of these excuses are harmless, but far too often they are not.

For the last eight years, people who have mounted despicable attacks on President Obama and his family have tried to rationalize their bigotries. Consider these examples:

A Republican candidate here in Kentucky won a legislative seat, even though he had posted images of the Obama family as a band of monkeys, but he says he is not a racist.

Yes, you are.

A public official in West Virginia said she will be glad to have a dignified white first lady, instead of seeing an ape in high heels. But she says she is not a racist.

Yes, you are.

In Sheridan, Ind., people made a parade float of President Obama in a toilet, but said they are not racists.

Yes, you are.

A mayor in Pennsylvania ran a picture of Michele Obama on a wagon of orangutans under the caption ‘Move-in day at the White House’, but denied being a racist.

Yes, you are.

The people who insist that President Obama is not a native-born American deny they are racists.

Yes, you are.

A candidate in Tennessee posted a billboard with the caption “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN,” but he denied that he is a racist.

Yes, you are.

A mayor in Washington State ran an image of Michelle Obama as a gorilla, saying she could be attractive only to another monkey like her husband. Of course, he says he is not a racist.

Yes, you are.

When a gorilla escaped from a zoo in South Carolina, a GOP politician in South Carolina posted a Facebook page telling people to be on the lookout for Michelle Obama’s ancestor, but he says he is not racist.

Yes, you are.

After the 2008 election, some right-wing extremists circulated bumper stickers, quoting Psalm 109, that pray for God to kill President Obama, leaving his wife a widow and his children orphans, but they denied they are racists.

Yes, you are.

One of my favorite Abraham Lincoln stories relates his encounter with an elitist lawyer who, during a trial, dismissed him as a rustic bumpkin. Lincoln posed him a simple riddle. “If we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?’ The smug lawyer replied, “Five.” Lincoln corrected him. “No, he still has four legs, because calling a tail a leg does not make it one.”

People are free to engage in self-delusion if they wish, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it is a duck, and these comments are racist. But perhaps these bigots should heed the poet Robert Burns’ advice in the poem “To A Louse.”

‘O would some power the gift give us to see ourselves as others see us.’

(Roger Guffey lives in Lexington, Ky., and is a math professor and a Sunday school teacher.)

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