To hell with the taxpayer, gonna make ’em pay MORE!
Glen Shulfer rips the ripoff artists in the unions a new one in this rockin’ new tune.
Glen writes us and says, “Witnessing the sense of entitlement by the union employees during the Madison protests, I was inspired to write a song called ‘Union Man.’ I am a local Milwaukee area musician, former teacher and a Scott Walker supporter.”
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Great Rockin’ Song: Union Man — Come On And Give Me MOOOORE!”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Pursuant to Governor Scott Walker’s new rules, as of Monday the State of Wisconsin is no longer taking union dues out of the paychecks of government workers. The state is also charging more for these employee’s healthcare and pensions.
Even though there is still a question open of a compromised judge’s ruling to set aside the new law, the state is surging forward and implementing it anyway. Because of the legal confusion, some cities are not implementing the law.
The cessation of the state removing union dues will be a great blow to the government unions and will save the state millions of dollars in administrative costs.
Like many states, until this ruling Wisconsin automatically deducted union dues from the checks of state employees and deposited that money straight into the union’s bank accounts. This saved the unions millions of dollars because the union did not have to pay for the administration and accounting costs of taking dues. It also made sure that the unions automatically had their dues money given to them without having to rely on the union members to write a check for dues on their own.
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Wisconsin Stops Removing Union Dues From Employees Checks”
-By Larry Sand
Weingarten is schooled by WSJ’s Jason Riley; Van Roekel is clueless as usual.
The National Education Association and the American Federation of teachers represent over 4.5 million teachers and educational support workers across the United States. These two unions have been under attack for the past few years by reformers who point to their slavish clinging to the status quo as a major barrier to badly needed education reform.
Since the election in November when American citizens voted forward thinking legislators and governors into office, education reform has made great strides across the country. The elected officials have been attacking the union’s sacred cows with a ferocity that hasn’t been seen before – eliminating seniority and tenure, introducing merit pay, defining teacher accountability, more school choice programs, etc. are all on the agenda.
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Teacher Union Leaders Go Public and Confirm Their Fecklessness”
-By Larry Sand
Misinformation is at the heart of unionspeak.
Public school teachers have been told for years that they are only respected by the general public because Big Union fights for them and gets them that respect.
However, the opposite would appear to be true. America still loves its teachers…the good ones, that is. They don’t like the bad ones, the self-pitiers and the bullying unions that keep incompetent teachers on the job, ruining the lives of thousands of children every year. Nothing makes this point better than the recent situation in Wisconsin where certain members of the teaching community showed their true colors.
The unions also tell teachers that if not for them they’d be toiling away for minimum wage. But again, that’s wrong. And it’s not only teachers who buy this line – much of the general public does too.
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Teachers Unions and Truth: Rarely Does the Twain Meet”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Michigan’s union thugs have found a new way to hide their on-the-job union activism from the prying eyes of public transparency — or at least they think they have. Activist school teachers are using their state-sponsored email accounts to discuss their strike ideas, their union work slow down ideas and other illegal activities but are claiming that these emails are “personal” and therefore should not be open to Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the state’s budget hawks, government transparency advocates, and the news media.
Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy recently reported that the Michigan Education Association has sent out messages to its members that they should exclude any emails sent from school-owned email accounts in FOIA requests because they are “personal” emails and are legally not eligible for FOIA requests.
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Michigan: Teachers Trying to Hide Union Activism in School Email Accounts”
There’s nothing like a judge’s love for her son to cloud her otherwise-cloudy judgment.
On Friday, unions scored a temporary victory to maintain their ability to collect union dues from Wisconsin public employees when Judge Maryann Sumi (the same judge who refused to order striking teachers back to work in February) issued a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the implementation of Wisconsin’s new law governing public-sector unions.
Via the Wall Street Journal:
Judge Maryann Sumi said a lawsuit filed by the Dane County district attorney had enough merit for her to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the bill while she reviews the case.
This is a problem. Judge Maryann Sumi should have recused herself entirely from the Wisconsin battle due to her inability to be neutral in this case. You see, Maryann Sumi has a clear conflict of interest. Her son is a political operative who also happens to be a former lead field manager with the AFL-CIO and data manager for the SEIU State Council. Both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO have members who are public-sector employees in Wisconsin. In fact, as a federation, the AFL-CIO can boast of several member-unions that represent public-sector employees. Maryann Sumi is hardly an unbiased judge in the matter.
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Wisconsin Judge Maryann Sumi & Her (SEIU, AFL-CIO) Political Operative Son”
-By Dan Proft
In political terms 2010 may have been the year of the Tea Party movement, but in policy terms it was the year of school choice. And with courageous reformers at the helm of several states, 2011 could be even better.
Last year, school choice moved beyond the think tanks and policy journals and squarely into popular culture.
The first annual National School Choice Week in late January was a fitting recognition that the issue has been successfully entered the zeitgeist even as education remains mainly (and appropriately) a state and local issue.
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My Latest for School Reform News: 2011 Looks Good for Reformers”
-By Frank Salvato
Maybe you’ve heard this one. What do you get when fourteen Democrat Senators go AWOL from their jobs in Wisconsin? You get fiscal responsibility, the tools to balance an out-of-control budget and a boatload of evidence that the Progressive Left is prone to violence and thuggery over process. Thank you very much and goodnight. Be sure to tip your waiters, waitresses and bartenders on the way out. You’ve been great.
Seriously, does anyone else find it abhorrently hypocritical for Progressives and Democrats to proclaim an abdication of process in the Republican’s out-maneuvering of them on the issue of limiting – not eliminating – collective bargaining rights for public-sector union employees, especially when their own national leadership just jammed Obamacare down our throats? Wasn’t “deem-and-pass” an abdication of “the process?” Weren’t behind closed door meetings used to craft Obamacare; meetings where Republicans were excluded in total, an abdication of “the process?” Wasn’t the democratic “process” abandoned when lawmakers were given a 2,700 page piece of legislation and less than 72 hours to absorb its content?
Spare me the tears about “abandoning the process”…and if you’re a Wisconsin Democrat and a State Senator, dry your eyes in Illinois. Elections, as the Obama Democrats have espoused, have consequences. Remember Mr. Obama’s “I won” and “You can ride with us if you want, but you’ve got to sit in the backseat” comments?
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Government Shutdowns and Death Threats… Bring It On”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Law breaking and violence has always been the stock and trade of unions and today’s budget conflagrations are no different as witness the most recent threatening actions by a union thug, this one in Lansing, Michigan, the Wolverine State’s capitol city.
On March 17 a man was arrested at the Capitol armed with a “sharp-edged weapon,” after he broke through a window and assaulting officers. 13 other protesters accompanying the man in his illegal entry and were charged with trespassing.
Meanwhile, in Camden, New Jersey, the police union chief there has compared Governor Chris Christie to Hitler. More of that “new tone” we keep hearing about from Democrats, I suppose.
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Tolerant Union Protester Damages Capitol Armed with Knife”
-By Warner Todd Huston
From Joe Schoffstall we find yet another example of the way unions and Democrats use thug tactics to force their way on those around them, yet one more example of how Democrats and union thugs don’t care about democracy or the American system when it comes to their ill-gotten gains and freebies paid for on the backs of the working poor.
The scene was a petition drive aimed at recalling a Democrat state senator and the participants are a bunch of union thugs one of whom grabbed up all the completed petitions, defaced them, and then ripped them up.
As Schoffestall explains:
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Union Thugs Attack Petition Worker, Destroys Petitions”
-By Larry Sand
NEA’s reprehensible sexual agenda goes on unabated and the MSM is MIA.
At a time when teachers’ unions are battling for their collective bargaining lives, courtesy of Governors Scott Walker, Chris Christie, John Kasich et al., it’s hard to go a day without reading a newspaper account of the latest union news. However, there is a story involving the National Education Association that has flown under the mainstream media radar.
I could not find a single MSM account of a talk given at a UN conference on March 3rd where Diane Schneider, representing the NEA at the “Commission on the Status of Women” said:
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An Orgasm for the Children”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Ann Althouse has been one of the leading bloggers chronicling the union thugs that have infested Wisconsin over the last few weeks and yesterday she did it again. With her trusty video camera in hand, Althouse found some Wisconsin “teachers” leading little children in protest chants at the State Capitol at Madison.
I just want to ask a question here before we see the video, though. Imagine the screams of agony we’d hear if a group of conservatives had taken children out of school, bussed them to a state capitol, then trained them like good little robots to chant a conservative protest chant. Such a video would be all over the news, wouldn’t it? Such a group if a conservative one would be excoriated from coast to coast by every newspaper and every TV station in existence. If conservatives had done this, the entire Democrat Party would be rising up as one to say that conservatives were child abusers, without a doubt.
… and yet…
Althouse asks if it is a good idea to teach children to mindlessly protest authority when they haven’t the slightest intellectual grasp of why they are protesting! That is certainly a good question, don’t you think?
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Indoctrination U: Union Thugs Using Kids As Shields in Wisconsin”
-By Larry Sand
NEA boss has it backwards when he claims that America cannot have a middle class without unions.
Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, America’s largest union, claims, “In actions more fitting for comic book arch-villains, a new crop of state leaders have launched blistering attacks on working families disguised as budget and education reforms, and many have sought to strip workers’ rights to have a voice through their union.”
If he is correct and the middle class is being threatened, it is the public employee unions (PEUs) that are doing the threatening. Fewer than one in eight Americans are in unions but more than 50% of them are in PEUs. It’s hardly a secret that PEU pensions are in the process of sending various states and cities around the country into insolvency.
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No Citizen Left Untaxed”
-By Warner Todd Huston
A few stories around the web concerning the union thugs in Wisconsin.
In Fond Du Lac, Wis. (just north of Milwaukee) a few GOP lawmakers had to skip the Saint Paddy’s Day parade because of death threats issued by union scumbags.
So much for the Democrat’s “new tone.”
“We’ve taken them all seriously and we’re happy to say that none of them have panned out yet here in Fond du Lac, so we’re still vigilant,” Deputy Chief Kevin Lemke said.
Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner pegs the situation exactly right in its Saturday editorial:
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Union Violence and Death Threats Continue”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Recently I was part of a conference call with Senator Ron Johnson (R, Wis). Johnson is a member of the GOP wave that over took Washington in the 2010 midterms. In a surprise to many, Johnson defeated long-time Wisconsin Senator, Democrat Russ Feingold.
My first question was one that I have also asked Chief Deputy Whip of the House Peter Roskam. I wondered what Johnson’s position was on the idea of states declaring bankruptcy.
Johnson said that he agrees with Roskam that state should not be allowed to declare bankruptcy. “I totally agree with Peter Roskam. There’s no way the federal government should be called upon to bail out states that have been irresponsible in terms of their spending, that haven’t made the tough choices in their jurisdictions… I would definitely oppose the bailing out of any states”
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Senator Ron Johnson on The Budget and the Debate in Wisconsin”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Democrats and their handmaidens in the Old Media have been decrying the evils of the “violent rhetoric” of the Tea Party and Republicans for the better part of two years, now. Yet all the violence and threats of same continue to come mostly from those left of center.
The video below shows just a little of the hatred, threats, and unhinged stupidity from the left (content warning).
Leftists/Union Wisc. Thugs: An Orgy of Death Threats and Warnings of Violence”
-By Frank Salvato
When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he was approached by a Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia. It was then and there that she asked the now famous question, “Well, Doctor, what have we, a republic or a monarchy?” It is said that Dr. Franklin, without hesitation, said, “A Republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”
By definition, courtesy of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, a Republic is “a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.” In other words, and to paraphrase without deviating from the definition’s intent, a Republic is a system of government where the ultimate power lies with the people; that power executed by way of elected representatives who are responsible to those who elected them and according to the rule of law.
The United States of America is a Republic, a Constitutional Republic. By this it is meant that we elect representatives who execute government per the rule of constitutional law, the United States Constitution being the ultimate and exclusive basis for that law.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Last night we reported that the Wisconsin State Senate separated from the budget bill the curbs on government unions that Governor Scott Walker campaigned on achieving and passed it out of committee for a vote by the full Senate. Today, in a smashing success for Wisconsin Republicans, the senate voted on the union curb bill and passed it. And all this in the face of death threats and attempted mob rule by Democrats and their union thug masters.
The final vote count was 53 in favor and 42 opposed. Four Republicans broke ranks with the leadership and voted with the Democrats, but the bill still goes to Gov. Walker’s desk for his signature and will then become law.
In a statement, Walker said, “I applaud all members of the Assembly for showing up, debating the legislation and participating in democracy. Their action will save jobs, protect taxpayers, reform government, and help balance the budget. Moving forward we will continue to focus on ensuring Wisconsin has a business climate that allows the private sector to create 250,000 new jobs.”
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In Face of Death Threats, Wisc. GOP Passes Curb on Unions”
-By Warner Todd Huston
At least the GOP has been civil during this whole debate. This is not something that the wild-eyed, hatemongers on the left of the union thugs can say. Well, here are some elected GOP officials in Indiana trying to lighten the mood a bit with a spoof on the old John Denver song “Take Me Home, County Road.”
The chorus of the Hoosier’s song goes: “Bring them home to the place they belong, Indiana!”
Great stuff.
Lyrics:
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Ind. Republicans Spoof on Fleebagging Democrats in Satire Song”
Video courtesy of the Workforce Fairness Institute. WFI’s YouTube Channel.
Unions: Losing friends all around
By Nina Easton, Fortune/CNN Money
As Barack Obama stood on that frigid inaugural stage in 2009, labor leaders could envisage the glorious future awaiting them. Here, at last, was a President determined to help unions rebuild their sagging ranks by supporting a “card check” bill that would change the way unions are allowed to organize workers. Here was a President who openly criticized fellow Democrat Bill Clinton for signing the North American Free Trade Agreement. And here was a President who would put government health care for the uninsured at the center of his agenda.
Two years later card check is dead, Obama is out promoting free-trade deals, and his health care reform plan — passed without a government option — faces an uncertain future in the courts. And now a costly new front has opened in labor’s struggles: the states, where budget-cutting governors are targeting union salaries, benefits, and even collective-bargaining rights.
Not even the most union-friendly President in three decades can soften this harsh political terrain — a problem sure to vex his 2012 reelection bid…..
Read the rest at CNN Money.
-By Warner Todd Huston
First Congressional Democrats offered a national forced unionzation bill, and now Republicans have countered by putting forth a national worker’s freedom bill. With the luck breaking against unions in Wisconsin and the issue in an uproar in Ohio and Indiana it is now surprise that Congress has come to loggerheads with the same issue.
On Tuesday eight Republicans introduced the National Right to Work Act. Senator Jim DeMint says that he hopes it will, “reduce workplace discrimination by protecting the free choice of individuals to form, join, or assist labor organizations, or to refrain from such activities.”
Unions are less than 8 percent of the work force at this point yet those states that have more union members than others are doing less well. DeMint says that having unions is part of the problem.
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Dueling Union Bills in DC”
From the office of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker…
Madison— Today Governor Walker’s office released more specific examples and new details to show how collective bargaining fiscally impacts government and how reforming collective bargaining can improve government.
A Year’s Worth of Pay for 30 Days of Work
Under the Green Bay School District’s collectively bargained Emeritus Program, teaches can retire and receive a year’s worth of salary for working only 30 days over a three year period. This is paid in addition to their already guaranteed pension and health care payouts.
At the average annual salary for a Green Bay teacher of $51,355, this amounts to a daily rate of pay of $1,711.83, or an hourly rate of $213.98. Since most retiring teachers receive higher than average salary, these amounts are, in practice, much higher.
Source: WLUK-TV, 3/3/11
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Union Abuses in Wisconsin”
-By Warner Todd Huston
After all the huffing and puffing, we find that Wisconsin’s Republicans have a spine after all. They have taken a step that they have many times threatened and divvied up the budget bill with the provisions to scale back some of the collective bargaining “rights” once had by the state’s government employees and gone ahead and passed the thing.
On Wednesday night, the Wisconsin Senate — minus the fleebagging Democrats that have run off to Illinois — separated from the budget bill the part of the previous legislation that eliminates some, but not all, of the collective bargaining capacity of government workers.
Even though the past legislation could not be passed without a quorum because of the fleeing Democrats, the Senate Republicans utilized a work around to pass the parts of the legislation that affected unions. By separating the union parts out of the budget bill, they got around the quorum requirements that are necessary to pass bills that concern spending. With the part that didn’t spend money in committee legally and properly and without the need for a quorum the Republicans passed the union provisions.
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Republicans In Wisc. Pass Curbs on Gov’t Unions”
-By Warner Todd Huston
You can only serve one master and Democrats have chosen unions over the people. Proof of this is once again seen in the post by Bryan Preston of Pajamas Media where we find a Democrat lawmaker from Wisconsin who has announced that if you don’t want to pay dues to his union masters, why, then you should expect not to work in Wisconsin.
State Rep. Nick Milroy is the Democratic state representative from Wisconsin’s 73rd assembly district. He was on America’s Radio News with anchors Chris Salcedo and Lori Lundin. Salcedo pointed out that union membership was split by their votes in 2010, 49% for Democrats and 47% for Republicans, nearly an even split. But unions donated 93% of their total contributions to Democrats in 2010, and 7% to Republicans or others. The question was asked if the assemblyman could understand why Republicans were not in favor of having tax payer funded dues go to fund Democrat campaigns? The assemblyman contended that public employees can opt out of the unions. But when pressed about how even those that opt out must pay union dues, the assemblyman suggested that those people that didn’t want to be part of a union could find other work.
Get that, folks? As far as this union bought and paid for politician is concerned, if you don’t want to support unions expect to lose your ability to work in Wisconsin.
Head on over to Bryan Preston’s page and hear the outrageous audio of this radio appearance.
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Wisc. Democrat Tells Workers Pay Union Dues or Lose Your Job”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Is this the distempered, hatemongering that our “teachers” are teaching our children?
The video below is the last seven minutes of a townhall meeting that was held on March 7 in Wisconsin. It was hosted by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R, WI) and State Senator Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa). The video shows that the pols quietly listened to the whiner teacher issue her lies about what the situation is in the state but when State Sen. Vukmir went to the podium to try and respond, the crowd filled with distempered union thugs erupted and would not let her finish her points.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but when scenes like this were reported to the nation back in 2009 when Tea Party members were interrupting townhalls because they were so upset at Democrat lawmakers, why, the Democrats and their handmaidens in the Old Media establishment were filled with dire warnings that the uproars were evidence of the end of our polite political discourse was nigh.
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Loud Mouthed, Hatemongering, Violent Teachers Shut Down Towhnhall Meeting”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Newsradio 620 in Milwaukee has a shocking story about the dirty underground efforts by the Chicago political machine loyal to Rahm Emanuel and President Obama that is apparently applying its dark arts again, this time assisting the leftist, fleebagging Wisconsin State Senators in their efforts to thwart the democratic process in the Badger State.
WTMJ is reporting that State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R, Juneau) is saying that organizers attached to Obama is purposefully trying to help the recall effort against GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin.
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Obama’s Chicago Machine Helping Wisconsin Fleebaggers?”
-By Warner Todd Huston
As each week rolls onward we see more and more of the outrageous waste and unearned perks that government union teachers in Wisconsin are — ahem — fortunate enough to have gotten because of the unions “negotiating” with Wisconsin Democrats over the years. Another such outrage is a program where retiring teachers can earn a full year’s pay for 30 days work over a three-year-period.
This “emeritus program” allows retired teachers a full years pay for only 10 day’s work for during each of a three-year period (30 days total work).
Fox News Green Bay reports that the Green Bay School Board has suddenly approved requests by some 140 retiring teachers and 15 administrators to join the emeritus program likely because they know the writing is on the wall and they want to make one more run at the taxpayer’s bank before the gravy train grinds to a halt. Last year only 24 teachers were allowed to join the program.
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Union Waste: Retiring Wisc. Teachers Given a Year’s Salary for 30 Day’s Work”
-By Chris Slavens
His father, an Army commander, was being deployed to Iraq, and 6-year-old Jack Dorman didn’t want to be in school in the first place. He suffers from separation anxiety and had been visiting a therapist. Sadly, the boy’s day got a lot worse after he drew a picture of a scene from one of his video games, which featured zombies and stick figures, wrote that he wanted to die, and was forced into a psychiatric ward by school administrators against his mother’s wishes.
“They said it was out of my hands,” said an outraged Syndi Dorman. “They said they were in control and they could do this and had already called an ambulance.”
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines refused to apologize for the incident, which occurred on February 7, and continues to insist that the staff of Taper Avenue Elementary, located in San Pedro, California, acted appropriately.
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Public School to Parent: We’re in Control”
-By Larry Sand
School district and teacher union leaders need to embrace serious education reform or go the way of the Stegosaurus.
My post last week concerned itself with the fact that some or even many teachers might lose their jobs come June due to the dire financial straits in which many school districts find themselves. The Los Angeles Unified School District alone sent Reduction in Force (RIF) notices to over 4,000 teachers, advising them that they may be laid off at the end of this school year. I made the point that many of the cutbacks would not have been necessary had the districts not over-hired in the first place.
Upon hearing the news of the RIF notices, John Deasy, the man who very shortly will take over as LAUSD Superintendent, whined, “The state of California does not support children. Period.” This ridiculous statement was a response to the fact that out of necessity, the legislators in Sacramento – hardly a flinty bunch – will be making cuts in education spending.
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Deasy and Duffy: The Dinosaurs Amongst Us”
-By Warner Todd Huston
With the spotlight on Wisconsin’s union thugs rampaging across the state, one wonders why it took propaganda filmmaker Michael Moore so long to put himself in front of the news cameras to take some of their publicity for himself. But this weekend, Moore finally glommed onto the cameras making himself out to be a great supporter of the union’s efforts in the Badger State. Once again, though, Moore proves to be a hypocrite. It was Moore, after all, that excluded using union workers in one of his recent films. Some supporter of unions!
Filmmaker Moore attend a recent Wisconsin pro-union rally and regaled the crowd with an address saying, “Madison is only the beginning.”
“We’re going to do this together. Don’t give up. Please don’t give up,” Moore told the protesters, who have swarmed the Capitol every day for close to three weeks.
Oh, he’s a great supporter, right? But let us drift back only a few years to 2009 when he was filming his last bomb, Capitalism: A Love Story. During that production we found that Moore didn’t hire union stagehands (the IATSE) for his film.
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Michael Moore: Big Fat Union Hypocrite”