Free Republic

MATTHEWS: How about ANWR? You guys want to see ANWR because you want to see guys working in your business. I guess there‘s a lot of Teamsters jobs up there lined up and organized, if you could put a pipeline up to the Alaska wilderness. He is against that. HOFFA: Well, we talked about that. He says, look, I am against ANWR, but I am going to put that pipeline in and we‘re going to drill like never before. (CROSSTALK) MATTHEWS: What, are they going to run water through it? (CROSSTALK) HOFFA: ... more jobs than the ANWR would have...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Teamsters President James P. Hoffa's growing relationship with President Bush has gotten downright cozy. Hoffa scored a VIP seat in the first lady's box for Bush's State of the Union speech, blurring the lines of the traditional rivalry between Republicans and organized labor. Hoffa said Wednesday that it was a great honor to be asked. "We have a growing relationship and we're very proud of that," Hoffa said in an interview. Hoffa and Bush have been courting each other for some time and with varying motives. Their staffs talk to each other weekly. The Teamsters even employ ...

It's not hard to figure out why the Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership are wooing the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. They want the union to lobby for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling. And they really want support and endorsements in states like Michigan and Ohio, where the union's members may hold the balance of power in key House and Senate races—and even in the 2004 presidential election. Less well understood is why Teamster President James P. Hoffa—who endorsed Al Gore and agrees with the Democrats on most issues—is courting the Republicans right back....

Editor's note: Monday's letters about a Labor Day vow by Teamsters general president James Hoffa to "take . . . out" his political opponents continue to generate a lot of interest from Newsday readers. Hoffa stood by his comments during a radio interview on Friday with KIRO-FM in Seattle. Here's an excerpt:"I'm talking about the tea party Republicans who are trying to take away everything that labor has fought for, who frustrate the president when we try and put America back to work, who are out there trying to pass right-to-work, and who are trying to take away collective bargaining...

Is there no double-standard depths to which the liberal media won't sink when it comes to provocative political speech? No—judging by the pitiful performance of two MSMers on today's Morning Joe in defending James "take them out" Hoffa. Newsweek editor Tina Brown brayed that we must not "sanitize" political speech or take the "juice" out of it--all the while condemning Michele Bachmann and Glen Beck for some of their remarks. And the preposterous Mike Barnicle somehow defended Hoffa on the basis of the "context" of his remarks. Say what? Hoffa was introducing the President of the United States! View video...

Presidential candidate Herman Cain struck back Monday against abrasive comments made by Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. attacking the tea party and congressional Republicans at a Labor Day event in which President Obama later delivered a speech. Appearing on Fox News Channel, Cain said the reason Hoffa and others resort to vitriolic rhetoric to bash conservatives is because “they have no plan, they have no ideas.” “The one reason the president and his administration don’t have an idea that’s going to work is they keep forgetting the business sector is the engine that drives growth,” Cain said. “He [Obama]...

Jimmy Hoffa got his job as Teamster president the old-fashioned way: He inherited from his father who had the misfortune of being offed by mobsters. On Labor Day, the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters decided for irony’s sake to rally in Detroit, a town ruined by the UAW, and the SEIU loaned them President Obama to serve as their main speaker. Hoffa huffed and puffed and actually threatened violence against members of the Tea Party. But while conservatives should be concerned, this is not the pants-wetter it might have been 30 years ago. This is what Jimmy Hoffa said: “We got...

Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa had some profane, combative words for Republicans while warming up the crowd for President Obama in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.

Thug. (TPM) — Teamsters union president James Hoffa would say it all again if he could, he told TPM Monday. Hoffa riled up Fox News and the right wing Monday with a Labor Day speech in Detroit in which he called Republican members of Congress “sons of bitches” and said union workers are ready to “go to war” with the tea party next year and “take out” Republicans at the ballot box. Hoffa said he’d say the exact same words all over again. “I would because I believe it,” he said. “They’ve declared war on us. We didn’t declare war...

Despite President Obama’s repeated claims to change the tone in Washington, the White House has no comment this afternoon on incendiary statements made by a union leader who spoke before the president at today’s Labor Day rally. Warming up the crowd before President Obama’s speech in Detroit this afternoon, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. warned the largely-union crowd that the Tea Party was waging a “war on workers” and said that, come November, they should “take these sons of bitches out.” “We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see...

President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters James P. Hoffa criticized the patriotism of American corporations who are sitting on assets and holding back from employing more American workers.Hoffa called American businesses "unpatriotic" for opening factories and stores overseas instead of helping boost employment at home on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. He singled out Apple Inc., saying “every time they do something, they do it in China, they do it somewhere else.” “We owe an obligation to America, let’s put America back to work,” he said. Hoffa suggested that too much attention has been paid to what the...

James P. Hoffa tried his hand at some spin against opponents of the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) last week, denying that a secret ballot is a basic tenet of democracy. "Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy," Hoffa is quoted as saying in a Teamsters press release. How does he justify this idiotic claim? Because, you see, the Soviet Union had a secret ballot "but those weren't democratic," Hoffa reminds us. A facile comparison, for sure. So, Hoffa thinks that eliminating a worker's right to a safe and fair election is perfectly in...

The bolt in Chicago from the AFL-CIO by the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union reflects a long-building reaction to John Sweeney's plans a decade ago when he muscled his way into the labor federation presidency. He wanted to restore union power through politics. His project was a total failure, and the AFL-CIO is in ruins 50 years after its creation. The scenario of the breakup was accurately laid out to me by Teamsters sources nearly a year ago. Sweeney would be offered a deal he could not accept. To keep the two big unions in the federation, Sweeney would...

...Most conservatives and libertarians have been giddy about the prospect of an AFL-CIO breakup, hoping that the schism would diminish labor's power and influence. Many liberals are worried about the same thing. That might indeed happen, but a more likely outcome is that a new labor federation rivaling the AFL-CIO and led by Andy Stern will actually reinvigorate labor and move it into the 21st century. Stern is a savvy leader who has a sophisticated grasp of the new economy and understands that, in order to survive, labor must be more than just an appendage of the Democratic Party. He...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - Salvadoran police have arrested the mother-in-law of a U.S. Teamster gunned down in El Salvador last month, along with five other suspects, describing the slaying as a contract killing that was the result of a family dispute. Jose Gilberto Soto, 49, a U.S. citizen of Salvadoran origin from Cliffside Park, N.J., was shot in the back on Nov. 5 outside his family's house in Usulutan, 70 miles southeast of San Salvador. Soto had arrived in El Salvador on Oct. 30 to meet with the country's trade union leaders and port drivers. Rosa Elba Ortiz,...

Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, left, Edwin Stier, a former federal prosecutor, next to Hoffa, and others, arrive for a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002 to discuss a report, "The Teamsters: Perception and Reality." The image of the Teamsters union has become a caricature of mob influence, corruption, violence and intimidation. Some of that was earned, although that perception is no longer true, says the new union-commissioned report released Thursday.The study was led by Stier and his law firm which is paid by the Teamsters for its assistance in developing, implementing and...