Republican Sharron Angle is trying to unseat Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid. in Nevada. Her poll numbers look good so far.
Here is her first TV ad: Help is on the Way!
Defeating the Democrat Majority leader would be sweet, indeed. I hope everyone supports Sharron Angle.
-By Warner Todd Huston
For the last few decades sports teams across the country have nosed up to the public trough and demanded that states and cities chip in millions for the construction of new sports stadiums. To justify the public expense the claim has been made that these monstrous construction projects bring a wealth of jobs and spending on entertainment and are a boon to any city that will fund them. But are they? Do these multi-million dollar projects bring such lucrative benefits to the cities and states that pay through the nose for them?
For many years the “economic boom” idea of building stadiums seemed to make sense and city after state pumped billions of taxpayer’s dollars into such projects. But starting in the early 2000s, economists began to have enough data to show that the claims of beneficial end result of building stadiums was not as advertised.
In fact, these days economists that disagree amongst each other about so much have developed a wide consensus based on the belief that sports teams in and of themselves are not great economic engines for a city and that building giant new stadium complexes are not the automatic boon to the area such as they were sold.
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Want Economic Stimulus? Don’t Build a Sports Stadium!”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Many businesses across Illinois are trying to stave off closing their doors by cutting salaries and hours for employees. Some aren’t so luck and are laying off thousands of workers. Add to that dismal outlook that the state’s budget is billions in the red and politicians are so at loggerheads on how to solve the crisis that no budget can be agreed upon.
Cue accidental Governor Pat Quinn whose job, as he sees it, has been to warn Illinois that we are broke, that we can’t afford the many programs we have, that the poorest of us are at risk and that taxes will have to be raised to “fix” it all.
It’s a very bleak picture, indeed. Bleak, that is, unless you are one of Quinn’s staffers. In that case you are living high off the hog and getting an up to 20 percent raise in salary thanks to the Governor’s generosity… oh, and at the taxpayers expense, of course.
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Gov. Says Ill. is Broke, but His Staffers/State Workers Get Big Raises”
-By Warner Todd Huston
In case you aren’t aware of the House GOP’s YouCut program, it is a website where the GOP offers ideas that can help cut the budget and we (the voters) get to vote on our favorite ones. This voting, in turn, helps the GOP leadership focus on just what cuts the American voters want to prioritize.
Our favorite one this week is the removal of Obama’s mandated PLAs.
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This Month’s YouCut: Stop Obama’s Mandated Union Fees That Drive Up Construction Costs”
-By Scott Cleland
Viacom is ultimately likely to prevail in its appeal of the lower court decision in the seminal Viacom vs. Google-YouTube copyright infringement case.
If one only reads either the lower court’s decision or the press reports of it, without considering likely appellate arguments and the broader constitutional context of copyright protection, it is easy to mis-read the likely ultimate outcome here.
Both sides agreed to an expedited summary judgment process in the lower court because both sides fully expected this case to ultimately be decided at the appellate level, and most likely by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Why Viacom Likely Wins Viacom-Google Copyright Appeal”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Chicago Sun-Times financial reporter Terry Savage wrote a little opinion piece this week about a kid’s lemonade stand she came across in a ritzy, liberal northern suburb of Chicago. The kiddie enterprise violated one of our most sacred American principles and Savage was incensed by the whole incident.
Savage stopped to buy some lemonade from the two little girls and when she asked how much, she was told that it was free! As the girls happily gave their parent’s food away, their nanny stood beside them smiling approvingly.
Savage was unhappy with the girl’s faux generosity. “That’s not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own.” Savage wrote, “They’re giving away their parents’ things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It’s not theirs to give.”
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An American Tragedy: When Commies Give You Lemons…”
-By Warner Todd Huston
You know its bad for unions when even the New York Times publishes a story reporting that Big Labor is losing friends and allies in formerly well controlled political spheres. But such is the times in which we live where fiscal disaster is highlighting the illicitness that is unions in general, but public employees unions in particular. (You know our mantra here: Unions are antithetical to good government)
For the Times Steven Greenhouse writes that Big Labor is finding new critics among “old allies in elected office.”
Greenhouse reports the words of former union member turned New Jersey State Senator Stephen M. Sweeney who has turned against his former compatriots in Big Labor and its unnecessarily high compensation packages. “At some point, you reach the limit of your ability to pay,” he told the Times.
One State Senator in Jersey isn’t the only apostate against unions.
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Even the NYT Noticing that Unions Losing Friends and Allies”
-By Warner Todd Huston
In January one of the early “successes” of the White House was the Lilly Ledbetter Act, legislation that was supposed to insure equal pay “for everybody.” Apparently, as in all Obama’s pronouncements, the outcome of Obama’s drive for “fairness” is rarely as advertised. In this case, some people are more equal than others at least if we take various White House staffer’s pay scales into account.
As it happens about 36 percent of White House staffers make a low 30 percent of what the top 23 percent earn. Bill Collier of The Freedomist calculated that 42 percent of the salary budget is paid out to only 23 percent of the staffers.
What about all that vaunted equal outcome in pay, President Obama? I thought you were all about “fairness”?
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Obama Fairness? White House Staffers See Amazingly Unequal Pay”
Hint: it ain’t listening to the Obama administration and his jobless “recovery” policies!
Video courtesy of http://www.bankruptingamerica.org.
-By Thomas E. Brewton
Marxian economic dogma explains why liberal-progressives, the Obama administration in particular, push for restructuring our constitutional government to concentrate more power in the hands of labor unions and the Federal government.
Marxian economic dogma has been emphasized to an increasing degree in our colleges and universities, even in our high schools, since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal imposed state planning upon the United States in the 1930s. That emphasis became dominant in the late 1960s and 1970s. Today so many generations of teachers and students have been so thoroughly and subtly imbued with Marxian concepts that they are unaware of their ideological environment, assuming that such concepts represent exclusive truth.
Marxian doctrine leads to the assertion that private property is power and that such power is used by employers to exploit the workers. To end exploitation, government must restructure society, using progressive income taxes, high death taxes, and punitive regulation of private businesses, coupled with welfare-state entitlements.
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Why Democrat/Socialist Party Animosity Toward Private Enterprise”
(This was sent to me from a concerned citizen of the great state of Arizona…)
An Open Letter to Milwaukee City Alderman James Witkowski and His Fellow Aldermen (With the Notable Exception of the Hon. Bob Donovan)
How dare you boycott us, you who have never had thousands of ignorant, poor, opportunistic Canadians pouring into your towns and cities, murdering your farmers and stealing anything else they can get their hands on. How dare you assume we are RACIST? We aren’t racist, you dolts. We have lived as good neighbors to Mexico and Mexicans for hundreds of years. Our friends, our families, our schools, our universities, our workplaces – our whole society here in Arizona – is completely and fully and happily integrated. This isn’t about Americans of Mexican descent it is about Mexicans of Mexican descent, and it infuriates me that you silly, silly people 2,000 miles away would presume to call us racists. We are simply doing what our federal government has refused to do for the last 30 years: we are finally protecting ourselves and our borders with our votes, as we are completely within our rights, human and Constitutional, to do.
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Open Letter to Milwaukee Over its Decision to Boycott Arizona”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Hill is reporting that Iowa’s leading Democrat, Senator Tom Harkin, is promising that the lame-duck Senate will again take up Big Labor’s favored Employee Free Choice Act, (EFCA), the famous card check act that is neither good for employees nor one that facilitates “free choice” of any kind.
Apparently, what’s bad for the nation is easier to push when Democrats already feel that the 2010 election will erase their giant majorities in Congress so they want to launch a last ditch effort to sneak this through before the people can speak at the ballot box.
And isn’t that just the thing, here? The people did speak in 2006 and 2008, after all. They spoke in favor of Democrats. Yet, even with all that support Harkin and his far left cronies couldn’t lead their overwhelming majority to pass the jobs killing bill. Even their fellow Democrats were against it because they knew the voters stood against it.
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Sen. Harkin Promises Return to Card Check”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Here we are in a nation being inundated by illegal aliens, so much so that states are having to take what should be federal responsibility into their own hands to try and end this flood of illicit immigrants, and Barak Obama’s Sec. of Labor is announcing to illegals that she intends to help them get paid “fairly.”
Hilda Solis has a new video out promising to get illegals “every cent they earn.” You see, “every worker has a right to be paid fairly whether documented or not,” Solis helpfully tells us.
So, while the country is facing a flood of illegal immigrants that come here to overburden our system and commit crimes, we have a federal government promising to help make their illegal stay more comfortable.
Hey, Hilda…. what part of ILLEGAL don’t you understand?
Obama’s Dept. of Labor Offers to Help Illegals Get Paid ‘Fairly’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The outrage of union activities never ceases to amaze. From the Education Week blog we find that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the teachers union of New York, spends almost $200,000 a year of its member’s dues money on an office in Boca Raton, Florida! As EdWeek drolly says, “That’s not peanuts for a union fretting about its financially strapped members.”
Turns out that the reason the office exists is because of a union perk to retired teachers: permanent summer jobs at nearly $50 and hour.
According to Ed Week it’s called “retention rights.” The deal is that teachers with long tenure can come back each summer from their cushy retirement homes in Florida and take summer teaching jobs that would otherwise go to current, working teachers. These retired teachers essentially have first dibs on those summer jobs above the claims of the current workforce of New York educators. Retired teachers have a huge vested interest in keeping tabs on their old union, vote heavily to retain this perk, and they make huge cash taking advantage of the perk. So, the Boca office is there to serve them.
Ed Week details how lucrative this perk is for retired teachers.
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New York Teachers Union Has Branch in Florida?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Here’s how bad writing is in the media. In a Reuters story about unions making concessions is this amusing line:
“Under Gettelfinger, the UAW agreed to allow new workers to be hired at about $14 per hour — about half of the $28 base rate for existing autoworkers.”
Uh, per my math, 14 IS half of 28. It isn’t “about half.” Nice writing there al Reuters!
Now, a better way to say it would have been:
“Under Gettelfinger, the UAW agreed to allow new workers to be hired at about half the $28 base rate for existing autoworkers.”
More precise, less wordy and makes sense. It was pretty poor work by Reuters. I know I make my share of mistakes, but then again, I’m just blogging here. I don’t have editors!
-By Warner Todd Huston
For those of you that have come to the blog often, there is a constant theme: unions are antithetical to good government. We’ve been saying this here for years, of course, but over this campaign season I think that meme is beginning to gain real traction because stories echoing this sentiment are everywhere these days.
Jay Ambrose has another such piece at Real Clear Politics this weekend.
Ambrose says that public employee unions are bankrupting both the state treasuries and the federal government so that their “members can live much better on average than those of us in the private sector.”
Spot on.
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Our ‘Unions are Bad for America’ Theme is Resonating”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Joseph Carafano of the Heritage Foundation has made an interesting observation and wonders if President Obama is allowing unions to make it harder to effect a timely and effective cleanup of the BP oil spill in the Gulf?
The offer of aid from foreign companies has been refused by the Obama administration and the Jones Act is cited as the reason why Obama will not allow foreign ships to enter our waters to assist in the cleanup.
The Jones Act is a 1920s protectionist law put in place to assure that boats and crews working in American waters are American crews and union members. Carafano thinks that Obama is using the Jones Act as a sop to unions despite what it is doing to slow the cleanup.
“Cause this is a big thing for unions,” Carafano said. “The unions see it as … protecting jobs. They hate when the Jones Act gets waived, and they pound on politicians when they do that. So … are we giving in to unions and not doing everything we can, or is there some kind of impediment that we don’t know about?
Once again, just as with car manufacturing and education, we see unions getting in the way of best practices, safety, and the creation of the optimal American lifestyle. In this case, we see President Obama paying unions back as wildlife dies and the livelihood of millions of American is destroyed for decades to come.
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Unions Preventing a Timely Cleanup of Oil in the Gulf?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The indispensable Mark Hemingway of the Washington Examiner recently caught another union outrage. This time it’s the teachers union in New Jersey trying to extort cash from parents directly, as opposed to merely extorting cash from parents through their taxes.
Hemingway alerts us to a New Jersey parent that was aghast that the NJ teachers union would be so blatant as to send a letter home with her child suggesting a novel new way to raise funds for teachers.
As both she and the letter she handed me stated, my daughter was to accomplish chores around the house with the goal of being paid by me for those chores the sum of $20. She would then have to hand the full $20 over to the school to make up for the shortfall in their overall budget which, ultimately, disallowed the kids to go on yet another class trip.
This parent was so incensed at the “mandatory” aspect of the fund raising letter that she called the school to complain. She was assured that despite all the rhetoric about it being mandatory, it was just a “suggestion.” The parent was, of course, skeptical of the later claim.
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Teachers Union Extorts Parents for Campaign Cash”
On average, Federal workers are making twice as much in yearly salary plus benefits as taxpayers do.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Could it be? Could Bill Clinton be supporting a candidate because that candidate is not the union choice? Well, apparently Hell hath frozen over because your favorite lip-biting president and mine… OK, not our favorite, but you know… appeared at a fund raising event for Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln and said he supports her because she isn’t the chosen candidate of those nasty “outside” unions — as in Big Labor that comes from outside Arkansas.
Arkansas is not very union friendly, it should be remembered. After all it is a right to work state and one of the main reasons the unions are mad at Lincoln is that she was one of the few Democrats that have been soft on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). This is why Big Labor has been supporting her opponent, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.
Democrats think that Lincoln has a much better chance against what ever Republican that might face her than Halter does because he is the Big Labor candidate. Plus she is an incumbent and the party machinery is built to push her candidacy.
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Bubba Playing the Anti-Union Card?”
-By Nancy Morgan
As Congress labored furiously to ensure that women have equal access to federal bathrooms, insurgents in Afghanistan this month launched a series of bold strikes on U.S. and NATO bases in Afghanistan. The Potty Parity Act is proceeding apace.
The Obama administration’s response to the upsurge in violence in Afghanistan? They launched an investigation into allegations that a number of American soldiers were responsible for the “unlawful deaths” of at least three Afghan civilians. This, despite the recent unanimous acquittal of three heroic Navy SEALS who were swiftly exonerated by a jury after being accused of, gasp, slapping one of the most dangerous terrorist detainees in the world. Who, by the way, the SEALS heroically captured. Thank-you, Navy SEALS. No update yet on the terrorist’s hurt lip.
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You Can’t Make This Stuff Up”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The New Jersey Star-Ledger has a wonderful little editorial excoriating New Jersey’s teachers for having destroyed their own reputation with the public because of their petulant behavior towards Governor Chris Christie’s attempts to balance New Jersey’s over spent budget.
Take a gander at this…
Once the patient darlings who nurtured our kids, teachers now look like insensitive, out-of-touch, can’t-think-for-themselves union robots who, when forced to face economic realities, clung to an insulting sense of entitlement, heartlessly sacrificed the jobs of colleagues, called the governor naughty names and used students as political pawns.
Ouch!
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New Jersey Teachers Threw Away Decades of Goodwill”
-By Warner Todd Huston
At a public meeting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tells a union teacher who is whining about her pay scale that she can always quit teaching if she doesn’t like it.
I LOVE this guy!
And while this teacher was whining that she makes no where near $83,000 per year, the truth came out today that she actually makes $86,000 annually.
From the Ratowitz for Congress campaign (5th District)…
U. S. Congressional Candidate, David Ratowitz (IL – 5), calls to task advocates of public corruption who use specious claims of racism to distract from their own dishonesty”
Chicago, IL, March 12, 2010 – Long time transparency and pro-liberty advocate Candidate for U. S. Congress from Illinois’ 5th Congressional District, David Ratowitz defends Liberty from false charges of racism.
OF LIBERTY AND RACE
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5th Distroct, David Ratowitz: ‘I stand for Liberty: Boldly and without Equivocation!’”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The City of Charlotte, North Carolina is still suffering an unemployment rate hovering around 12 percent. Jobs are hard to come by if you are a resident of the region, unless, of course, you work for the city government. Despite the hard times fatcats in government are still partying like it’s 1999! In fact, city salaries are likely to grow finds the Charlotte Observer.
For a whole year Charlotte City workers suffered under a pay hike freeze, but now the hard times are over as the City has announced that not only will the luxurious raises return, but more and more workers will be added to the rolls.
Let the celebration continue.
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As We Suffer, Gov’t Salaries/Jobs/Union Pyoffs Grow”
From the Dold for Congress campaign (10th District)…
Our National unemployment rate rose to 9.9% last month and the unemployment rate in Illinois is even higher, now at 11.5%. There is some good news in these numbers as our country created 290,000 net new jobs in April, and there is evidence that workers who had given up seeking work reentered the search for employment.
There remain, however, an unacceptable number of people unemployed. We must not accept this as a “new normal” and herald an economy that leaves millions of people without work. Our Federal government deserves much of the blame for the slow recovery of our jobs market.
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10th District: GOP’s Bob Dold on Jobs”
-By Warner Todd Huston
As the rest of us in America lose jobs by the millions, Obama wants to spend another $23 billion more of your taxes on public employees in a teacher bailout plan proposed by Senator Tom Harkin (D, Iowa).
Harkin wants this new public employees bailout in order to prevent teachers layoffs, a concern echoed by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “We are gravely concerned,” said Duncan in a letter to Congress, “that ongoing state and local budget challenges are threatening hundreds of thousands of teacher jobs for the upcoming school year.”
Oh, Duncan had all sorts of recommendations for Congress on this newest bailout.
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Obama’s $23 Billion Teachers Unions Bailout”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Associated Press made an interesting concession — likely without even knowing they did so — in a recent report on the “new normal” of permanent job loss in Obama’s economy. The AP admitted that until the recession, American businesses weren’t firing people simply so improve the bottom line as many anti-business, left-wingers have been for decades claiming.
In the AP piece the headline moans that “Millions of jobs that were cut won’t likely return,” and goes on to say that “millions of jobs lost in the recession could be gone for good.”
It’s all pretty dismal news, but tucked inside the piece was this interesting paragraph:
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Study Shows Businesses Weren’t Cutting Jobs Until…”
-By Warner Todd Huston
One of the aspects of the inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is the card check rule that is meant to make creating a union easier for unions and harder to resist for employers. But the EFCA is stalled in Congress as too many people understand just how bad this legislation really is. So, in order to help unions, both union leaders and President Obama have aimed to begin to push union aiding policies through the back door by changing federal rules governing the relationship between labor and business.
This week, Obama tossed unions a favor by changing the rule governing the way unions are ushered into the work place in the air transportation industry. By a 2 to 1 margin the National Mediation Board changed the percentage of “yes” votes that certifies a union from 75 percent of employees to a mere majority. The 75 percent rule has been in place for 75 years. (*NOTE* This is somewhat more complicated than the simple way I put it, so do go to the Fox story and see the particulars)
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Obama’s First Stealth EFCA Styled Rules Implementation”
Led by Carol Marin, the Chicago public television station conducted an interview with GOP Gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady that is worth watching to gain some small measure of the man.
Chicago’s WTTW Interview With GOP Gov Candidate Bill Brady”