Ark. Democrat Hides Behind Sick Kids to Stop Townhall Protests

-By Warner Todd Huston

Congressman Vic Snyder (D, Ark.) has in the past claimed that he is braver than his opponents because he has the back bone to face the hard questions in open debate. But that was before Obamacare came along. Now, Snyder is hiding behind sick kids at a local hospital where he is holding a townhall meeting. Snyder is telling opponents of Obamacare that an “angry protest” would not be appropriate at a hospital where sick kids are being treated. So why hold a townhall there in the first place? Perhaps for the very reason that he can eliminate opposing views because it’s “for the kids”?

Kenneth Wallis is reporting that Congressman Snyder has set up a townhall meeting at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. The radio commercials advertising the open-to-the-public event stated that the event was starting at 2PM, but Wallis called the hospital and was told the time was changed to 1PM. No reason for the abrupt time change was given.

Wallis was also told by a Bonnie from Ark. Children’s Hospital that a “protest in anger” is not appropriate at a children’s hospital where sick kids are undergoing treatment.

So, the question becomes, why is Congressman Snyder hiding behind sick kids? It is a pretty interesting way to shut down any opposing views to say that the “sick kids” would be upset by protests at Snyder’s townhall, isn’t it? And, if Snyder knows that there are people that want to oppose his vote for Obamacare, why doesn’t he have the back bone to face his own constituents?
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Ark. Democrat Hides Behind Sick Kids to Stop Townhall Protests”


The Two Faces of California’s Steve Poizner

-By Warner Todd Huston

As the next Governor of California gears up his – or her – campaign we are witnessing a near complete collapse of state government in the Golden State. It is a situation that the next governor will be faced with immediately, leaving not a second to celebrate victory.

There are some obvious solutions to what ails California: lower taxes, an end to the opulent welfare state, cutting off the free ride for illegals, an end to the free ride that unelected, overly powerful state employees unions have been allowed to attain, and the like, but the question is do any of the candidates on the Republican side have the backbone for the tough decisions that will have to be made before it’s too late… if it isn’t already.

When I first began to look at California’s GOP candidates for governor, I was heartened by the fact that the one Republican elected to state wide office had thrown his hat in the ring. Unfortunately, the closer I look at State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, the more like a tax and spend Democrat he appears. It is becoming increasingly clear that Poizner does not represent the right direction for California, but more of the same failed liberal policies that have destroyed the state.
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The Two Faces of California’s Steve Poizner”


Obama Admin Requiring Economy Wrecking, Budget Bloating Project Labor Agreements

-By Warner Todd Huston

What is a project labor agreement (PLA) and why is it bad for our economy? And why is President Obama so intent on implementing these budget busting regulations right in the middle of a depressed economy?

First of all a PLA is a requirement forced on building contractors by the federal government and some state governments. In order for a building contractor to be awarded a government building contract a PLA demands that it must adopt union pay scales and collective bargaining whether the builder is a union shop or not.

Secondly, it should seem pretty obvious why a PLA is a bad thing. Not only does a PLA force the costs of federal construction to rise to satisfy undeserved demands by Big Labor, but to force the 80% of America’s contracting companies to observe costly union contract requirements in order to get a federal contract results in a situation where only union contractors can get federal business. This excludes the largest number of America’s builders from government building jobs in order to favor the 20% of those contractors that are unionized.

PLAs also negatively affect construction workers, as well. In some states, for instance, a PLA forces non-unionized workers to pay union dues — sometimes at reduced rates, but paying nonetheless — while working on a government construction job. So even if an employee cannot in good conscience join a union, the government will force that employee to pay union dues anyway. If that doesn’t violate freedom of association, what does?

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Obama Admin Requiring Economy Wrecking, Budget Bloating Project Labor Agreements”


Liberal Mantras

-By Dan Scott

The new liberal mantra regarding the current drive to quote, reform our health care system, unquote, is that the current system is broken and furthermore, we have debated the idea for 40 years as thee reasons for change. On the surface, the sales pitch is compelling, but like all things liberals attempt to sell the public they are short on details and when those details are revealed, the whole system is found to be one big unworkable boondoggle. One thing we have learned over the years is that liberal assertions are nothing more than falsehoods waiting to be exposed. I don’t know about you, but once I determine someone is misleading me, I stop believing anything they say.

How is our health care system broken? Most citizens have health care via insurance or direct pay, 1. Employer sponsored plans, 2. A COBRA plan because they are unemployed (indirect pay), 3. An individual plan (indirect pay), 4. Medicare if you are over 65, 5. Medicaid if you are indigent or 6. The wealthy that for their own reasons pay the bill presented by any health care provider directly. The observed facts say the system works for the majority of users. For a system that is supposedly broken, thousands of foreigners flock to the US to receive health care they see as clearly second to none. The system is said not to work for illegal aliens, the young who choose not to have insurance and those between jobs who elect not to take advantage of COBRA or get an individual policy. Who are we missing here? Those people who choose not to prioritize monthly health insurance payments over that of their other personal priorities.
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Liberal Mantras”


Romneycare Failing, Obamacare Will Follow

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is surprising that the national debate on Obamacre has thus far excluded any real examination of the state wide healthcare program signed into law in 2006 by Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. But maybe the fact that Romneycare, a system closely resembling Obama’s policies, is failing on several levels serves as a reason that Democrats want to pretend that system doesn’t exist when debating their own programs.

The Wall Street Journal had a July 11 editorial that looked a little closer at Romneycare and found the whole thing wanting, suggesting that Obamacare might be “dead on arrival” if Romneycare is reviewed.

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Romneycare Failing, Obamacare Will Follow”


A Map-Based Answer to the Palin Question

-By John Armor

[I wrote this column a week ago, and posted it on the Internet without sending it to my usual publishers. Since then, almost a dozen people who live in Alaska and regularly travel to the Lower 48, or the reverse, live in the Lower 48 and travel to Alaska, have responded to my column.

[Every one of those commentators have agreed with my point about the geographic facts – which almost all of the national, media pundits have missed in their hot-air speculations about the reasons for Governor Palin’s resignation. It used to be that I would remind members of the press of their first duty — get the facts straight, before they go out dancing on spider webs of political speculation. But there is so much failure in this area today that it’s useless to point it out.]

There are two aspects of Governor Palin’s decision to resign now, which have not been competently discussed, or discussed at all, in the main stream media. One is based on the map, the other is based in American political history.
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A Map-Based Answer to the Palin Question”


Obama’s Stimulus Stimulates Nothing But Votes for Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

Of his Social Security program, Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that the whole thing had nothing to do with helping the aged. “They were politics all the way through,” he said of his Social Security payroll withholding taxes. In other words, the So. Sec. program was created solely to give the Democrat Party a permanent majority on the “we care” ticket. FDR knew from the get-go that the program was an unsustainable sham but it was all about politics, not old people anyway.

Seventy some years later Barack Obama was praised as a second coming of FDR when he ran for office. His promises of everything for everyone were hailed as a second new deal. As we all know the economy took a dive at the tail of 2008, it continued apace into 2009 and once Obama took office he campaigned hard for a “stimulus” plan to lift America from its economic doldrums. It was an “emergency” he said, we couldn’t get by without it, he claimed. He cared about all of America, you see, and he, the great father in Washington, had the cure for what ails us. The great god of D.C. loved all his children we were sonorously informed.

Well, maybe not all. You see, just as FDR’s “help” only went to further his own political goals and not the country’s economic recovery, Barack Obama’s benevolence seems to have benefited mostly those that voted for him.

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Obama’s Stimulus Stimulates Nothing But Votes for Obama”


Teachers Union Seeks to Impair Charter Schools

-By Warner Todd Huston

During its late conference held during the Independence Day holiday weekend, the National Education Association took up a series of new resolutions that targeted charter schools. The union was looking for ways to reign in the success of charter schools to make their own woeful attempts at education in the public schools look better. The union was also looking for ways to cash in on charter school’s success as well as for a way to get more union oversight into them.

But, here is the thing: when they work, charter schools work because they have less union meddling involved in their operations.

In their adopted resolutions, the NEA paid lip service to the “potential” reforms and “creative teaching methods” that can more easily be adopted at charter schools. Yet the following resolutions seemed determined to undermine and eliminate the very freedom and flexibility it paid lip service to at the outset. One is struck by the logical disconnect. Why, exactly, do the unions imagine that the freedom realized at charter schools lends itself to that innovation in the first place? Conversely, why is innovation not seen in public schools?

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Teachers Union Seeks to Impair Charter Schools”


State Workers Worried About Losing ‘Cadillac’ Medical Benefits

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you want to see the logical disconnect of unions and their lap dog lawmakers where it concerns costs to government, one need look no further than the over indulgent healthcare plan that New Hampshire’s state workers have been lavished with.

On July 4, the Boston Globe published a story that details the incredibly rich healthcare plan that state workers have succeeded in getting due to union negotiations with pliant Democrat lawmakers. It seems that they get just about any kind of care they want and all for “free.” It’s called a “Cadillac” healthcare plan and it is amazing for its coverage.

According to the Globe, surgery is free for New Hampshire state workers. So are MRIs, CT scans and X-Rays. It gets even more indulgent.

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State Workers Worried About Losing ‘Cadillac’ Medical Benefits”


SEIU’s Way or the Highway

-By Warner Todd Huston

I have a few questions for all you non-union employees out there (which is 80% of America). Can you lobby your employer for a raise any time you feel like it even when your company is nearly bankrupted? And, do you have employees that can get off work to do so when ever they want to? And do you have bosses that are also one of you and who can just bow to your every demand?

Sounds like a wonderful situation, doesn’t it? I mean, who wouldn’t want a situation where you can get whatever you want as an employee (including never getting fired) no matter if your company is bankrupt or not?

Well, that is the deal that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has with its employers. You see, they have folks that are so close with the employer that whenever they decide they want more benefits or a raise, they go demand it and it happens. It truly is the dream job.

The problem is, though, that WE are the employers. And WE are the ones paying the tab for that dream job because the SEIU represents government workers. And our politicians are the ones that give the SEIU anything it wants.

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SEIU’s Way or the Highway”


City of Chicago Fireworks Show: No Patriotic Songs Needed

-By Warner Todd Huston

So when you think Independence Day fireworks audio productions do you think of John Mellencamp, Kid Rock, and Neil Diamond as the musical accompaniment? Apparently the City of Chicago did. Either that, or the City of Chicago didn’t care enough about the patriotism inherent in an Independence Day fireworks show to make sure that the radio station they farmed the job out to bothered to include any patriotic songs in the program.

Not only were there no patriotic songs in the program (unless you think “R O C K in the USA” is a patriotic song?) but someone forgot to tell the obviously clueless radio station that the William Tell Overture is supposed to serve as the finale of the show, not as the tune that is supposed to start off the display!

The City of Chicago is becoming well known for raping its citizens, but it is also now widely known for doing its level best to ignore the Constitution of the USA with its unconstitutional gun banning laws, its practice of high taxation for little return, its internal, mobbed-up corruption, its high murder rate and now even a casual disregard for patriotism.

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City of Chicago Fireworks Show: No Patriotic Songs Needed”


Ten Cost Cutting Suggestions for California

-By Ann “Babe” Huggett

Poor Kal-ee-for-nee-ah Governor Ahnold Schwarzenkennedy! He may have an “R” after his name politically but he’s been running California like a liberal for years now. However, it is finally catching up with him; as of July 1st California went from a state of great weather and fabulous scenery to one of fiscal emergency. Facing a $24.3 billion shortfall in the state’s budget, Governor Schwarzenegger called a special session of the state legislature on June 30th to close the gap but the state’s Republicans held firm against the frantic demands of the tax-tax-tax, spend-spend-spend and spend some more Democrats.

Now California’s vendors and local agencies will be getting IOUs instead of state checks We can also expect needed services and providers like police, firemen and health care workers to get the axe while Sacramento fat cats on six-figure salaries bloviate about the need to cut corners “somewhere”.
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Ten Cost Cutting Suggestions for California”


Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already

-By Warner Todd Huston

When Governor Mitt Romney instituted a universal healthcare plan for Massachusetts in 2006 he proclaimed it a conservative idea. “It’s a conservative idea insisting that individuals have responsibility for their own health care,” he said. “I think it appeals to people on both sides of the aisle: insurance for everyone without a tax increase.” The plan passed and was put into practice. But has it worked? Has it been successful?

For a time, many thought it might but cracks in the system are already being seen. These cracks are instructive as a lesson on how Obamacare will crash and burn just like Romneycare is now in the process of doing.

One of the early claims that helped push Romneycare through to law was the insistence by its supporters that Emergency Room visits would fall as more and more citizens became covered under healthcare insurance. Since ER care is far more expensive than a doctor’s care, it was thought that more people with insurance would ease the overcrowding of ERs as well as lower the overall costs of healthcare.

However, a flaw in this logic has been seen throughout the state. As more people became insured, more people demanded the care of doctors. These doctors became overloaded with patients and waiting lists for doctors got longer and longer. As a result, ERs in Massachusetts have not seen a downturn in visits. On the contrary, it seems that ER visits are actually on the upswing in the Bay State. In fact, in 2007 they were higher than the national average by 20 percent.

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Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already”


Democrat Says Gov’t Doesn’t Have to ‘Live Within Our Means’

-By Warner Todd Huston

So, as a common citizen, what do you do when you are out of money and your credit is used up? Well, you go without don’t you? Like my Mother always used to say, “What are you gonna do, buy something with your good looks?”

Well, we are all getting woefully used to feeling that government can’t seem to understand that fraud, waste, and overspending is not a good idea. In fact, we are starting to realize that government is incapable of fiscal responsibility.

But, even as we realize this truth, politicians at least pretend that they are interested in fiscal responsibility. They pretend at laws that supposedly force government into a balanced budget, they make claims that they are fully funding their new causes, and they act as if they are concerned about the budget.

Well, apparently California Budget Conference Committee Chairman Noreen Evans (D, Santa Rosa) has decided to cast away the mask of fiscal responsibility. She has publicly announced that she believes that government does not have to “live within our means.” In fact, it is a duty to spend on just any old thing that government wants to spend on.

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Democrat Says Gov’t Doesn’t Have to ‘Live Within Our Means’”


6 States Want to Nullify Obamacare With Opt Out Law

-By Warner Todd Huston

Six states are currently looking to add an “opt out” law to their books to protect citizens from the possibility of a national healthcare plan imposed by federal fiat.

Arizona started the ball rolling by introducing the Health Care Freedom Act, a voting initiative that will be put before voters on the 2010 ballot. If accepted by the majority of the voters, Arizona will be able to opt out of any federal healthcare laws passed by Washington. Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming are considering similar measures.

The arrogance of Congress and the president worries many of these state lawmakers, some even consider Obama’s healthcare policies a naked power grab.

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6 States Want to Nullify Obamacare With Opt Out Law”


Amer. Indians Already Suffer Gov’t Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

Let’s talk about a government healthcare plan that already exists. It might help us understand what sort of situation we might see when Obamacare is fairly begun. It’s not Medicare or Medicaid but the IHS, the Indian Healthcare Service.

Few have remembered during this debate that the U.S. government already has a sort of single payer styled healthcare program already and it is for America’s Indian population. Unfortunately, it has not served our native peoples well.

For example, recently it has been shown that the IHS has “lost” $20 million in high tech healthcare equipment bought by the federal government to care for Indians.

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Amer. Indians Already Suffer Gov’t Healthcare”


Fiscal Realism: Adam Andrzejewski Wants to be Illinois Governor

-By Warner Todd Huston

First of all, I know it looks impossible to even say, so let’s clear up that last name. It’s pronounced An-gee-ef-ski. I know, I know, that means here in Illinois we could possibly go from a Governor Blagojevich to an Andrzejewski. But the difficult last name should stand as the only similarity between the two men, for Adam seems to have some ideas on how Illinois might get out of its fiscal nightmare. I interviewed him not long ago and he had some very interesting thoughts on how to fix Illinois. (adamforillinois.com/)

In fact, Andrzejewski has already made some headway in shining the sunlight of accountability on various sate and local agencies through his self-funded program — self-funded to stay independent, he said — dubbed “For the Good of Illinois.” Andrzejewski has been at the vanguard of encouraging school boards and county governments in Illinois to put their check registries and finances on the Internet for all citizens to see. In fact, his catch phrase is “every dime online in real time.”

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Fiscal Realism: Adam Andrzejewski Wants to be Illinois Governor”


When We Voted for Unions to Run State Gov’t…

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s a good thing that California’s public employee union is taking it’s rightful place at the head of our government by proposing new taxes for us to pay. Why when we voted to give a union power to control government, I… oh, wait. No one ever voted to put a union in charge of government fiscal policy or give them the role of creating new taxes to burden us all with. How, could I have forgotten that these union thugs are not elected officials?

How could I forget it? Why it’s easy to forget this small fact because our Democratic lawmakers act as a rubber stamp for the unelected, unconstitutionally empowered unions, that’s why.

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When We Voted for Unions to Run State Gov’t…”


Name That Party: Dem Scandal, No Party Mention/GOP Scandal, Party Mentioned at Top

-By Warner Todd Huston

And now another episode of Name That Party where the news customer reads a story and tries his darndest to discern from what party a scandal plagued politician hails. We have many times said that one of the main rules of the Name That Party parlor game is that if the Old Media is talking about a troubled Democrat, often times the pol’s party is either not mentioned at all or is buried way down in the story. On the other hand, if it is a troubled Republican, why the party affiliation often leads the story if it isn’t right in the headline itself. Today we have a pair of stories that proves this axiom well.

First up is the mysterious case of Detroit City Council Member Monica Conyers (wife of Representative John Conyers) who the Associated Press reports is “snarled in bribes probe.” All the sordid details about the tale are laid out for us… except one. It seems the AP somehow forgot to mention that Monica Conyers is a Democrat.

Curiously, the AP does give a hint of our Mrs. Conyers’ affiliation by mentioning that her hubby is a Democrat. I guess we are supposed to extrapolate that she is also a Dem?

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Name That Party: Dem Scandal, No Party Mention/GOP Scandal, Party Mentioned at Top”


Will the Real Republican Please Stand Up?

-By Warner Todd Huston

“I am not beholden to any party.”
California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, candidate for governor

That must be true given Steve Poizner’s history of political donations. Poizner has given, and generously at that, to both Republican and Democrat candidates for office in addition to several Democrat controlled committees, this based on he and his wife’s publicly reported accounts, anyway. Oddly, Poizner’s wife happens to be a registered Democrat who Poizner has “blamed” for many of the Democrat contributions that have his signature affixed. Such donations include: a $10,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee on 10/02/00; $1,000 to John Forbes Kerry on 02/15/01; and a $10,000 donation he made to the ’00 Gore/Lieberman Recount Committee.

In fact, there is quite a lot of chatter out there that seems to point to Poizner’s less than stellar Republican credentials. He has been termed everything but a conservative for the last 5 years.

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Will the Real Republican Please Stand Up?”


Capriciousness of Government

-By Warner Todd Huston

What should be isn’t always what is, we all know. For instance, government is supposed to serve its people. However, more often than not government becomes a burden, an iron boot heel on the neck, and if not so egregiously oppressive at the very least it is often capricious. Today I have two examples of the capriciousness of government. One case in Chicago, a place where if government isn’t capricious it’s big news, and Ohio, a land where capricious is government’s middle name.

Let’s start with Chicago. The city of big shoulders, the city that works, the Windy City, the city that Al Capone Built, the city of the 1968 Chicago riot… er Democratic Convention, the city where a serial killer murdered dozens of visiting World’s Fair goers in 1893. Yeah, that city.

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Capriciousness of Government”


Unions Team With California’s State Controller to Stop Cost-Cutting Measures

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Democratic Controller of the State of California is joining with unions to prevent the ability of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to get a handle on the state budget by refusing to obey the governor’s furlough plan and pay cuts. And state officers, including the Republican Insurance Commissioner, are backing the Controller showing that unions have co-opted all of them.

State governments have spent themselves into oblivion, we all know. Unfunded mandates, programs that cannot be paid for and for which no provisions for funding were ever arranged, have been the modus operandi of governments across the country. Strange, indeed, is the government program that is properly and affordably funded.

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Unions Team With California’s State Controller to Stop Cost-Cutting Measures”


Reason Asks, Why is Killing Abortionists Wrong? Because it is Un-Christian, That’s Why!

-By Warner Todd Huston

On a recent Reason Magazine blog called “Hit and Run,” Jacob Sullum asks the tough question of why it’s wrong to kill an abortion doctor if the killer truly believes that abortion is murder? Why would Christian groups, Sullum wonders, denounce the murder of abortionist, George Tiller?

Sullum asks what might appear to be logical questions, but it also seems that he didn’t do much to research the issue before posing them. My cursory look at Christian ethics and the Bible, for instance, shows that there is no way in keeping with a Christian worldview to justify the killing of an abortion doctor by a lone actor outside the duly constituted law.

Still, Sullum asks some salient questions and offers some pointed remarks and they deserve to be addressed.

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Reason Asks, Why is Killing Abortionists Wrong? Because it is Un-Christian, That’s Why!”


Why Did Calif. Republican Poizner Donate To Gore/Lieberman Recount Fund?

-By Warner Todd Huston

California’s gubernatorial race is widening on the Republican side with one famous name from the business world, ebay’s Meg Whitman, one former congressman, the 15th District’s Tom Campbell, and current State Insurance Commissioner, Steve Poizner all ready to hit the ground running. But as each candidate is vetted, some are wondering if Steve Poizner is a Ronnie(Reagan)-come-lately to the Republican Party as it has been discovered that Poizner donated money to the Gore/Leiberman Recount Committee in 2000.

IRS records* confirm that Mr. Poizner gave the hefty sum of $10,000 to the recount effort, a fund to which Jane Fonda is also listed as having donated $100,000. Records also show that Poizner donated $1,000 to Al Gore’s run for president as well as $2,000 to John Kerry’s.
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Why Did Calif. Republican Poizner Donate To Gore/Lieberman Recount Fund?”


Police Union Wants Anti-Union Employees Fired from Paper

-By Warner Todd Huston

Not long ago the San Diego Union-Tribune got bought up by a private Beverly Hills firm named Platinum Equity. Platinum was heavily invested in by the Los Angeles police pension fund. And so, because the police are large stake owners of the news paper, the police union has called for the firing of certain employees it considers anti-union.

So much for freedom of the press as far as this union is concerned!

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Police Union Wants Anti-Union Employees Fired from Paper”


Hope and Mirrors: Stimulus ‘Saved’ Cops To Be Fired Anyway

-By Warner Todd Huston

On March 6, Obama’s mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, happily told the nation that the Obama “stimulus” plan had saved the jobs of 25 Cops in Columbus, Ohio. This was an example, Gibbs trumpeted, of how Obama’s supposed stimulus package was “working” to set the country to rights. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder even took a road trip to Columbus to proudly see these “saved” cops being sworn in as police officers.

It was back slaps and grins all around as Obama celebrated his successful “stimulus” program. That was less than two months ago. Today, those same 25 new policemen whose jobs were “saved” by the great father in Washington have been laid off over lack of funds.

Obama’s great hope and mirrors campaign strikes its false stance as savior again, proving that there was no “stimulus” in the stimulus plan and that it was a false front all along meant only to serve as a part of Obama’s permanent political campaign effort. In reality, there’s just no there, there.

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Hope and Mirrors: Stimulus ‘Saved’ Cops To Be Fired Anyway”


CA Legislative Office Recommends Dumping SEIU Contract

-By Warner Todd Huston

On the Sacramento Bee website, Jon Ortiz has a blog called “The State Worker” and he’s discovered an interesting little tidbit about the state employees union and the current budget woes that face the Golden State.

It seems that someone in the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office has wised up and recommended that the state dump the contract the state has with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as well as add a third furlough day to state employee’s work month.

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CA Legislative Office Recommends Dumping SEIU Contract”