Washington – A tea party group called on President Barack Obama to rebuke Teamsters President Jim Hoffa for urging him to use supporters at a Labor Day rally as an army to march and “take out” tea partyers, describing the remarks as “a call for violence.”
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Obama was not on stage at the Detroit rally when Hoffa made the remarks Monday. The White House declined to comment on the flap.
In addressing the crowd before Obama’s appearance, Hoffa said there has been a war on workers. “And you see it everywhere, it is the tea party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve 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 of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war.”
Hoffa added: “President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these SOB out and give America back to an America where we belong.”
In a statement, the chairwoman of the Tea Party Express, Amy Kremer, demanded an immediate apology from Hoffa and urged Obama to rebuke him for “his dangerous comments.”
“Jimmy Hoffa’s remarks are inexcusable and amount to a call for violence on peaceful tea party members, which include many Teamster members,” Kremer said. “We have called on President Obama to condemn this inappropriate and uncivil rhetoric, which has no place in the public forum.”
Teamsters spokeswoman Leigh Strope said in a statement: “Workers didn’t start this war — the right-wing tea party zealots did. Jim Hoffa’s comments today reflect the anger of workers under attack in this country. Instead of focusing on the economy as a top priority after taking office, corporate-funded conservatives attempted to gut the middle class.”
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. His father(Who is allegedly holding up the goal posts in Giant stadium) was a mafioso, and so is he. Think Obam will rebuke him? Don’t hold your breath. If however a “tea partyer ” would make this kind of disgusting remark , Obama and his minyons would be squealing like pigs!
It won’t happen. Obama doesn’t have the onions to stand up to anyone or anything union. Besides it only inflammatory when someone on the right says something but the socialist liberal left can say anything.
Conservatives don’t need the crank up the outrage machine every time a liberal socialist says something silly or even inflammatory.
Joe Biden says so many things that it would be impossible just to keep up. I’d much rather persuade with the facts rather than insisting on Obama to rebuke them. What would we gain, anyway? We know that Obama wouldn’t be sincere anyway, given the open words of his Rebbeim Rev. Wright and Saul “Rules for Radicals” Alinsky. So why worry about the outrage?
The ballot box is going to be far more important.
Sorry, but I didn’t find anything wrong with what Mr. Hoffa said!
There absolutely IS a war on the working class in this country! And now that the rich & powerful have ruined everything… they want US to pay the bill!
Well we (the working man\woman) don’t have anything left TO give!
They’ve taken our pensions, our 401k’s, our retirements, our benefits, our worker’s rights, and our rights to fight for fair wages!
Sounds like a war on the middle class to me!
Preach on Hoffa Jr!
At least somebody’s out there telling it like it is on the Liberal side of the aisle!
Obama (as much as I like him personally as a family man & whatnot), is just NOT tough enough when it comes to fighting for the very crowd that voted him in!
What moronic comments by the union spokesman, relying on the stupidty of the American people. As if the tea party is made up of corporate big wigs lol–they’re middle and working class people, the very people the union accuses the tea party of being opposed to!
He’s saying to vote out the Tea Partyers. I think that’s a great statement-although the Tea Party wouldn’t agree. But this is USA, & if someone excercizes freedom of speech, the government’s job is not to silence or criticize, but to defend this right.
Dear Dear, did we touch a heart string of the rich in this thread huh?
Point taken that the unions have in some cases resorted to violence in the past.
That said, i disagree that this is a call to physical arms by the nation against the tea party and as I spoke above, surely Mr. Obama can indeed make a breif comment about the true words spoken.
Either way, it does not legitimize this tea party. The tea party wants to eliminate most of our government. Just today I heard that our lovely Michele Bachmann wants to get rid of the Department of Education. You cant be serious on that one huh? They want to steal the benefits of our great nation such as social security, medicaid and medicare and limit educational experiences to only the rich so that they can cut and run with all their bags of money that are due to benefit our nation in the form of taxes.
By the way, your nice right wing folks also morphed a photo of obama to look like yemach shemo hitler as well. So I guess that you must police your own too.
Jimmy Hoffa=Johnny Friendly