Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign have recently stepped up their rhetoric on the mortgage foreclosure crisis, and senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee wrote a piece in Sunday’s Washington Post pledging that Obama would take immediate steps to regulate subprime loans.

The problem, says AFSCME President Gerald McEntee on the Huffington Post, is that Goolsbee was an outspoken defender of subprime loans just one year ago. In addition, contributors from the subprime lending industry have provided more than a million dollars to Obama’s campaign.

Senator Obama should answer this simple question: Is he planning on following the public advice of Professor Goolsbee on the subprime crisis, or is he working behind the scenes to keep his fat cat contributors happy?

Read the full post.

While in the Middle East last week, Sen. John McCain incorrectly asserted that Iran is training al-Qaeda terrorists and sending them into Iraq. The statement, which McCain has repeated several times, revealed that the senator is apparently unaware that Iran is a Shiite country that views al-Qaeda, a prominently Sunni group, as an enemy.

McCain apologists in the media played down the remark, with FOX News managing editor Brit Hume reassuring viewers that it was just a misstatement, nothing more than “a senior moment.” AFSCME President Gerald McEntee disagrees, and in his latest entry on the Huffington Post says it is McCain’s ignorance – not his age – that is at issue.

It is disturbing that John McCain appears not to know that al Qaeda is a Sunni organization, and he doesn’t understand the key role sectarian divisions play in the violence unleashed since our invasion of Iraq. No wonder he supports keeping our troops there for 100 years.

Read the full post.

John McCain spent last week touring Europe and the Middle East. He met with the President of France who should have been very thankful for the thousands of jobs that McCain has sent his way.

McCain stepped in to make it easier for EADS/Airbus to get the contract for the Air Force refueling tankers over Boeing. As covered by the Associated Press, TIME Magazine and others, three of his campaign advisers lobbied for EADS and his campaign received $28,000 from EADS execs, lobbyists, and employees after starting to speak out on EADS’ behalf.

According to AFL-CIO’s blog, if Boeing had won the contract, it would have supported 44,000 good jobs in more than 40 states, many of which would have been union jobs.

This week our nation marked a grim milestone: the 4,000th American fatality in Iraq. The following is a statement from AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee:

“Five years into this disastrous war, we are still squandering billions of dollars and destroying the lives of young men and women and their families who answered the call to serve our country. Our service members have done their job and it is time to bring them home. We need to stop throwing troops and resources into the quagmire of Iraq. Our priorities at home - securing quality health care for all Americans, rebuilding aging bridges, levees and roads, improving our schools, and revitalizing our struggling economy - are ignored while our country is bogged down in an unwinnable war. It is time to end the madness and set a new direction for our country.”

More commentary is available on the Huffington Post.

For 70 years, Social Security has worked for America, providing guaranteed benefits in retirement, and to workers and their families in the event that they become disabled or die before retirement. Sen. John McCain, as noted in the blog Crooks and Liars, is promoting a dangerous and irresponsible scheme to privatize Social Security.

McCain told the Wall Street Journal recently that he still supports President Bush’s discredited 2005 push to divert Americans’ hard earned Social Security into risky private accounts, which failed because of widespread opposition, including from AFSCME. His plan would hurt all of America’s working families, and would lead to huge cuts in guaranteed benefits that workers have earned and are counting on. Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic gets it right when he says that McCain’s proposal is “a lethal combination of bad ideas and total lack of comprehension.”

While he may be a maverick, Senator McCain’s plan would radically transform Social Security from guarantee of retirement security for millions into a gamble.

On the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War, we need to ask the question: How much more are Americans willing to pay for President Bush’s war in Iraq?

Video from Americans United For Change.

This from the Washington Post:

“There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is no such thing as a free war. The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. economy, whose woes now go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can’t spend $3 trillion — yes, $3 trillion — on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home.”

And as public service workers, we see all too well the pain here at home. Crumbling infrastructure, funding cuts to the critical social services, schools lacking in basic supplies.

“More from Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz and their Post Op-Ed: “As we head toward November, opinion polls say that voters’ main worry is now the economy, not the war. But there’s no way to disentangle the two. The United States will be paying the price of Iraq for decades to come…and the cost will grow the longer we remain.”

Indeed.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee professed his support of striking television union writers right before crossing their picket line to appear on the “Tonight Show.”

Say what? So much for walking the talk.

Tula Connell covers the hypocrisy in her post on Firedoglake, where she writes, “Expressing support for striking workers means not crossing the picket line. Not. Ever.”

Read the full post.

It’s down to the wire in Iowa. AFSCME has endorsed Senator Clinton and our members are working hard to get out the vote for her campaign. AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, quoted in a report from Workers Independent News, says:

“With Hillary Clinton as our president, we will build a better America. We will create an America that lives up to its ideals. Together, we’ll make history.”

(listen to the mp3 from WIN)

With the contest so close, it’s possible that all three top Democratic candidates will finish within a few points of each other and that there will be no definitive winner in Iowa. In his recent entry on the Huffington Post, McEntee reminds us that despite some clear differences among the candidates, we must remember that ultimately, we are all in this together:

“It’s important for all of the Democratic candidates and their supporters to remember that we’re all on the same side with the same goal – taking back the White House for America’s working families and making it the people’s house again.”

The election results are in and it looks like working families scored big.

In Kentucky, we helped elect Steve Beshear (D) governor, ousting incumbent Ernie Fletcher (R), infamous for cancelling collective bargaining rights for state employees.

In Virginia, we helped our friends capture a majority in the state Senate, ending a decade of Republican control in the chamber.

It was only a year ago that union members helped deliver a mandate for change and put a majority of working family-friendly legislators in both houses of Congress.

This is just the beginning of our battle to take back America and put the White House back where it belongs – in the hands of working men and women!