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Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Pissing off the natives.
No. It's not Iraq this time.
Representative Tom DeLay's proposal to use a cruise ship as a hotel and entertainment center during the Republican National Convention next summer has infuriated local labor unions and given gleeful New York Democrats an issue to use against their adversaries.
Democratic members of Congress said they planned to send a letter today to Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, asking him to lean on Representative DeLay, the House majority leader, to kill the idea. On the labor front, at least one union leader said that if the ship is used, his union might consider void an agreement with the Republicans not to strike during the convention.
[snip]
Mr. DeLay, of Texas, has proposed chartering the 2,240-passenger luxury cruise liner for the convention, docking it in the Hudson River, so that Republican members of Congress and their guests can all stay at one place. The deal has not been sealed, but Mr. DeLay has given no indication that he plans to back down.
[snip]
The Republicans may be able to shake off the partisan sniping, but they risk running into trouble with city labor unions, a prospect that could undermine the operation of the convention. Labor leaders said yesterday that to help bring the convention to New York, they had agreed to guarantee they would not strike during the convention, which is scheduled for Aug. 30 to Sept 2. They would still be bound by their negotiated labor contracts, a union official said.
But leaders of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, representing about 100,000 workers, and the Hotel Trades Council, representing 25,000 members, said that if the cruise liner is used, it will mean that the Republicans negotiated in bad faith.
"We feel the agreement that we signed may be null and void," said Ed Malloy, president of the construction trades council, whose members will build sets and prepare other facilities inside and outside Madison Square Garden, where the convention will be held.
Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel Trades Council, representing virtually all hotel workers, said he was furious about the DeLay plan.
"Everything that every union leader did, every civic leader did, every government leader did to bring the convention here was done for one reason: to bring business into the city to stimulate jobs and raise the tax base," Mr. Ward said. "And for these guys to rent a boat to stay out in the river, and not pay hotel occupancy tax, is just an outrage."
First off, the obvious. When it says "Republican members of Congress and their guests ", "guests" means lobbyists who will pay to be there, fat cat donors who have already paid to be there, and hookers. Lot's o' hookers. And what better way to control any media sightings of say, Senator Mitch McConnell and the lobbyist from Amalgamated LandRapers LLC playing 'wheelbarrow' with two fifteen year-old hookers wearing Hillary masks, than by putting them on a secure luxury liner protected from "terrorists" and evil city-dwellers. Oh sure, Fred Barnes and Brit Hume will be invited out, but they'll be the ones slathered in Wesson oil, wearing butt plugs, and doing body shots off of Claire Buchan, so it's not like a lot of reporting is going to get done on board.
Secondly, since when did the Republicans care about the unions? Those people work for a living and make good money, which keeps them from enlisting in the military because there are no living wage jobs. So who is going to invade the other countries, kill their leaders and convert their people to Christianity? Huh? You see, unions are just full of America haters, so screw 'em.
Then there is this:
Jonathan Grella, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, dismissed the Democratic attacks yesterday, writing in an e-mail message: "The Democrats' real beef is with their own party for choosing Boston over New York for their convention. They're the ones who will be wearing Red Sox hats next summer."
I guess this is another example of that Conservative wit that I don't get, possibly because it's pitched at a frequency that only dogs and freepers can hear.
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