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TheDC Morning: Jimmy Hoffa orders a hit on the Tea Party

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1.) Jimmy Hoffa orders a hit on the Tea Party — Yesterday was Labor Day, and you know what that means: a vitriolic threat of violence from a second-generation union thug, with the tacit approval of the President of the United States. TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports: “While warming up a Detroit crowd for President Barack Obama’s Labor Day speech, Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. said unions need to fight a ‘war’ against tea partiers and congressional Republicans. ‘President Obama, this is your army,’ Hoffa said. ‘We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons of bitches out and take America back to where we belong… We gotta keep an eye on the battle that we face, a war on workers, and you see it everywhere in the tea party,’ he told an enthusiastic crowd of union supporters. ‘And there’s only one way to win that war, the one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what, they got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner, it’s going to be the workers up in Michigan and America. We’re going to win that war.’ AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, SEIU president Mary Kay Henry and UAW president Bob King also joined Obama in Detroit. It’s unclear if Obama, Henry, King or Trumka will denounce the vitriolic rhetoric against conservatives that Hoffa Jr. touted on stage while opening up for and representing the president.” Hey, didn’t Obama give a pretty little speech earlier this year about violent rhetoric? Didn’t he say it’s bad and you shouldn’t use it? Apparently he’s changed his mind, or else he didn’t actually understand what was written on the teleprompter. And now, the very same people who claimed a symbol on a map possessed magical voodoo powers over Jared Loughner will scold you for your inadequate grasp of metaphor. It’s only literal when a Republican says it. P.S. Some Tea Partiers are demanding Hoffa resign over this. But don’t you want that guy right where he is? Let him keep on spewing hate. It’s fine with Obama.

2.) Obama says some more words about the economy — And maybe it’s fine with Obama because it makes him sound slightly less awful in comparison. But not much. TheDC’s Neil Munro reports: “President Barack Obama took his re-election campaign on the road again Monday with a short partisan speech in Detroit aimed at reversing his sagging support among union households, blue collar workers and swing state Midwest voters. Obama cited Democratic President Harry Truman’s come-from-behind presidential victory in 1948, lambasted GOP leaders for their criticism of unions, and declared that unions are ‘the cornerstone of the middle class … America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class and without a strong labor movement.'” Because if there’s anybody who knows what a strong, growing economy needs, it’s this dude. Just look at how the economy’s growing. Just look at how strong it is. On behalf of President Obama: You’re welcome, America.

3.) Cain explains big brains’ hate campaign — Why does the left keep saying this stuff? Why are they such brazen, shameless hypocrites? The answer is simple, as Matthew Boyle reports: “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] is offering the same old stuff so all he and others can resort to is name calling,’ Cain continued. ‘That’s all they have to intimidate folks… The fact that the president made his remarks and didn’t offer one constructive idea about how he’s going the get this economy going and the reason is simple. He doesn’t have any.'” That’s not fair. Obama does have ideas about improving the economy. They’re just all bad ones.

4.) Dick and Hillary sittin’ in a tree, P-R-A-I-S-I-N-G — Wait, was it Labor Day or Valentine’s Day? Because Cupid’s arrows hit an unlikely pair of lovers this weekend, as TheDC’s Jeff Poor reports: “Former Vice President Dick Cheney had some kind words for one of his former rivals — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On this weekend’s broadcast of ‘Fox News Sunday,’ host Chris Wallace asked Cheney, who was on the show promoting his new book ‘In My Time: A Person and Political Memoir,’ if Clinton would have been a better president than President Obama… ‘Boy, I am not sure I would have ever said that,’ Cheney said. ‘Perhaps she might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with.’ And according to Cheney, President Obama’s decision to place her at the head of the State Department was one of his better personnel moves. ‘I have a sense that she is one of the more competent members of the current administration and it would be interesting to speculate about how she might perform were she to be president,’ he said.” Which is a polite and understated way of saying that Obama is such a stuttering clusterflub of a miserable failure, even Hillary couldn’t be worse.

5.) Labash returns — After far too short an absence, Matt Labash has deigned to grace us with his presence again. In this month’s “Ask Matt Labash,” the erstwhile advice columnist helps DC residents cope with the aftermath of the earthquake: “I’ve learned from covering previous natural disasters, like Katrina, that what is most important in the aftermath is for survivors to share their stories. So I’ll now share mine. I remember standing there, and next thing I know, I saw a bridge shaking. That’s pretty much it. As I said, it was only three seconds. End of story. Except, as I later found out, I was one of the lucky ones. Plenty were far less fortunate, like my neighbor, whose Yankee Candle fell off the mantle and shattered. (Why, God, why?) As someone who covered the Haiti earthquake, and who has even brought out the tin cup on behalf of Haitian victims, I think it’s time for self-centered Haitians to start reciprocating, and to share their earthquake relief. Do you have any idea how much a 2-wick Fluffy Towels™ Yankee Candle large tumbler costs these days?” Send those letters of complaint to THEmattlabash@compuserve.com.

6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Alec Baldwin’s Truther, er, Twitter feed — “Electing someone as our President who is purely ego driven is a mistake we cannot afford.”

VIDEO: MKH: A brief history of Washington, DC’s evacuation plans

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