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President Obama speaking before the AFL-CIO Labor Day gathering in Cincinnati, OH reminded us that all Americans have benefited from the labor movement and unions.

But today we also pause, we pause to remember, and to reflect, and to reaffirm. We remember that the rights and benefits we enjoy today weren't simply handed to America's working men and women. They had to be won. They had to be fought for by men and women of courage and conviction, from the factory floors in the industrial revolution to the shopping aisles at super stores, they stood up and they spoke up to demand a fair shake and an honest day's pay for and honest day's work.

Many risked their lives. Some gave their lives. Some made it the cause of their lives like Senator Ted Kennedy, who we remember today. So let us never forget… much of what we take for granted, the forty hour work week, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security, Medicare, they all bear the union label.

It was the American worker, men and women just like you who returned from World War II to make our economy the envy of the world. It was labor that helped build the largest middle class in history. Even if you’re not a union member, every American owes something to America’s labor movement.

"Kill your parents Steve," was one chant that was yelled at Rep. Steve Driehaus as he entered his car. Chris Johnson from Cincinnati took this video at a town hall being held at the First Unitarian Church.

The scene was no different at Monday's local town hall meeting at the First Unitarian Church here in Cincinnati with Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH). As you could see in my initial post on this topic, Driehaus was regularly interrupted by the crowd and at times had difficulty answering the questions as people insisted on shouting over him. "What about the illegals getting covered?" one man shouted, "You're lying!" shouted several others.

Driehaus pleaded for rationality and calm indicating that he wanted to have a good discussion with those who didn't agree with the plan, but couldn't do so if everyone insisted on shouting. A handful of people walked out two-thirds of the way through the forum complaining about socialism and indicating the the health care system did not need reforming. Several people wore tee-shirts with the web address of the Cincinnati Tea Party movement while others had signs objecting to, in their view, a government take-over of the health-care industry.

As the forum drew to a conclusion after a little over an hour, little had been accomplished. This had not been a thoughtful exchange of ideas but was rather a gathering of people who felt that the best way to move America forward was to prevent any rational and thoughtful debate. Participants who used buzz phrases indicating their opposition to "government control" and "socialized medicine" were cheered and when Driehaus even mentioned the words "single payer" or dared to question the deficit under President Reagan, he was called a liar and shouted down.

You will hear several moments where people are shouting "Vote for Chabot" in reference to long-time politician Steve Chabot whom Driehaus defeated in 2008 and will face once again in the next election. As the crowd runs over to Driehaus' car, you will also hear someone shout "Don't kill your parents Steve!" which is a reference to a story that Driehaus told during the forum about his personal struggle in determining end of life care for his now deceased father.
..read on

Beckerwocky (as I'm calling it) is the typical dialogue spoken by most of the teabaggers and the guy that Chris interviewed during the last half of this video is no different. They make up the majority of attendees along with the astroturfing crews. They are global warming deniers that yell "socialism" as much as they can and after a minute or so make no sense at all.

Like Chris, if you have video of a town hall, please email me the footage at crooksandliars@gmail.com and crooksandliarsvideos@gmail.com. Please send to both emails. Please put " Town Hall Video" in your subject line also.

As if the foreclosures alone weren’t wreaking enough havoc on our economy, we also find out the whole process is starting to hurt our local cities in other ways we didn’t imagine:

Cincinnati wants Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo to pay for what officials say is neglect of foreclosed-upon properties that's worsening blight in city neighborhoods.

The banks own more than 100 properties in Hamilton County.

Representatives appear often in local courts to prosecute foreclosure actions against property owners, the city says in a lawsuit, but don't show up when Cincinnati asks them to maintain abandoned properties titled to them. The city wants repayment for boarding up, demolishing and the other work done to Deutsche and Wells Fargo properties. The suit didn't specify an amount.

It really upsets me when I hear people on the right try to say the foreclosure problem is from greedy people trying to live outside of their means, and we should let them suffer. Sure there are a lot of foreclosures that are the product of people over-extending themselves, but just ignoring that leads to these costs being passed onto struggling local governments. Not only that, but it also effects the former neighbors of these foreclosed homeowners. People sit there and pay their mortgages on time, take pride in their home ownership and try to make something good out of the largest investment they will most likely ever make. In turn, they get rewarded with lower property values, because of a foreclosed house turned abandoned by the bank, now devaluing up their neighborhood.

I got a feeling the lawsuit being brought on by Cincinnati is only the start of it. We will see more cities follow suit (no pun intended) down the road as they realize how much this nightmare is costing them. Then the banks will want to recoup the costs of these lawsuits and having to actually maintain the properties they couldn’t wait to foreclose on. Of course the banks are only worried about their own well being. Why should they worry that your own property value is also being decreased, or that your local government is having to absorb some big costs associated with the foreclosures?

Pandora’s Box is just now opening, and without interaction by Congress, in the form of a homeowner bailout/rescue, we will be facing a vicious cycle that will continue for some time to come and cost all of us more than we could imagine. Until that happens, merry Christmas from the Bush/Republican economy.

(cross posted at IntoxiNation)

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The national media has spent the week covering storm torn Texas' damage from Hurricane Ike. Something that appeared to fall off the radar though was the damage Ike left in other parts of the Midwest.  Here in the Greater Cincinnati area, we were hit with high winds last Sunday, gusting upwards of 80 mph. These near hurricane force winds wreaked havoc on an area that isn't used to such weather systems.

By the time the winds died down on Sunday night, our area saw close to a million people without power. Ohio overall saw close to 2 million in the dark, and as of today there are still about ¼ million people without power in the state.

Luckily, I escaped damage to my home. I was without power for about 12 hours, phone for 4 days and internet for 6 days. There are others who weren't so lucky. The picture above is a couple miles from me where a tree ended up crushing a car. This was a common scene around Ohio, and cars weren't the only casualties. Four deaths were caused by the storm in the Greater Cincinnati area and numerous houses sustained massive damage from down trees and limbs.

However the story doesn't stop there. People ended up losing refrigerators full of food. Gas stations had hour long lines, what restaurants that were open were running out of food, and grocery stores had to throw away millions in stock (including Kroger, which is based out of Cincinnati). The saddest part is all the people on fixed income who had to toss away their food.  Luckily, state and local officials are working to issue food stamps to these people so they can restock.

At least normalcy seems to be trumping the frantic week we saw. They are hoping to have power back on to all those affected by this Sunday and we might see a normal week of school and work around here. It did take me by surprise that the media was rather silent on this aftermath of Ike. I saw a blurb about it on the crawl of MSNBC in the middle of the week, but that was it. If you have any stories to share about this massive storm, please do so in the comments. It will be interesting to hear how other people weathered this past week in the area.

 (Additional photos and video of the damage Ike left in the Greater Cincinnati area can be found here.)