Auto Unions Reason for Senate Denial of Bailout

-By Warner Todd Huston

For helping put American auto makers in the mess it is currently in, one might say that the unions deserve this thumbs down vote. Congressional Republicans blocked the $14 billion auto bailout on Thursday and one of the main reasons was because of undue union excess of a sort that sees US cars over priced at thousands of dollars per vehicle compared to all other competition.

According to the Associated Press, the refusal of unions to revisit their contracts with an eye toward taking cuts is one of the reasons the bailout was denied.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) was concerned that the current bailout plan did not demand any changes occur in the industry ahead of the the payout from Congress.

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Sympathy Vote: Supporting a Terminally Stupid Man for Toledo’s Mayor

-By Warner Todd Huston

Toledo’s mayor isn’t officially mentally challenged, of course. But he is a silly, bitter, idiot of a man… not to insult the word “man.” Back on December 8, good ol’ Carty “the Fink” Finkbeiner announced a grave concern that he had about the outrage by Toledo radio station WSPD. The station, caught red handed trying to inform the city of the work of a group that had formed to get the Finkster recalled, was violating the Federal Communication Commission’s rules by their focus on the flay-the-fink movement, the Mayor sonorously intoned.

Of course, Fiklegroaner has been after WSPD for a while now indulging in a years-long feud. This time WSPD, 1370 on your Toledo AM dial, came in for the Fink’s scolding for its supposed “vicious, one-sided diatribes” unleashed over the last three years. Now, as an aside, it is interesting that Carty would claim to know much about a “one-sided” anything seeing as how he has run as a candidate for just about every party in Toledo. Finkboner can’t be counted on much to see any “one side” of anything, unless it his his side. He’s at one time been a Republican, an Independent and a Democrat and rumor has it he’s next going to take a stab at asking the Klingon Party if he might take their nomination next time he runs for office.

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Google uses 21 times more bandwidth than it pays for — per first-ever research study

-By Scott Cleland

Below is the press release for the first-ever research study of U.S. Consumer Internet Usage and Cost which I authored.

The 27 page research study can be accessed at this link:

http://www.netcompetition.org/study_of_google_internet_usage_costs2.pdf

For Immediate Release December 4, 2008

Contact: Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

First-Ever Study of U.S. Consumer Internet Usage and Cost Finds Google Uses 21 Times More Bandwidth than it Pays For

Google uses 16.5% of U.S. consumer Internet capacity today, rising to an estimated 37% in 2010
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SEIU ‘Charity’ For Union Members Nets Nothing While Chief Makes Thousands

-By Warner Todd Huston

SEIU chief Alejandro Stephens not only benefited from some nasty double dipping with his undeserved salary, but he made thousands running a so-called charity that was to benefit union members, even though that “charity” ended up losing money netting nothing for the rank and file members. It’s a sweet deal if you can get it. It just might be, though, that Stephens has finally been caught with his hand in the till enough times that his criminal behavior is at an end.

Stephens used to be a union chief for the largest public employees local in California until the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) merged his local with another. As the consolidation occurred, the SEIU made a deal with Stephens. They would give him a $180,000 severance deal and he would step down. In the agreement he was also required to forego his compensation from Los Angeles Country coffers.

An aside before we continue. It is the perfect example of corruption and graft that the County of Los Angeles pays ANY union operative a salary that the union is supposed to be paying him. It simply does not matter at ALL what this person was doing for the county, there is NO reason the taxpayers should be paying his union salary. Now, if the county has some other job that he can hold at the same time, well that is another matter. But there is no fiscally responsible reason that a county should ever pay a union chief’s union salary. None. Not a one.

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An Anti-Intellectual Teacher’s Union

-By Warner Todd Huston

A school disinvited a Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist because he jabbed the California teachers union in a newspaper cartoon. What was so egregious that the school banned this prize winning cartoonist? See for yourself:

Political cartoonist, Steve Breen of the San Diego Union-Tribune was originally scheduled to appear at Sunset View Elementary School in Point Loma, California, but the week before his visit he was disinvited from the school. And the reason he was disinvited is because of the December 3 cartoon above.

The cartoon shows how the California Teachers Union, depicted as pirate ships waylaying a larger ship labeled “Sacramento (the capitol of Calif.), have been a baneful force in California.

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Detroit Carpenters Union Chief Under Further Investigation

-By Warner Todd Huston

Convicted of corruption charges in 2006, Walter Ralph Marbry is under a cloud once again for further charges that he is involved in illegal activities connected with his former role as head of the Detroit Carpenter’s union.

Convicted of receiving more than “$120,000 in illegally discounted work on his Grosse Pointe Park home,” Marbry is also being looked at for receiving kickbacks in a pension fund deal with a Mississippi casino. The alleged kickback scheme involved Marbry’s control of union pension funds that were invested at his direction.

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Union Group Uses Worker Death to Advertise for Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

I guess it doesn’t get more cynical than this, but a union advocacy group that has for years been needling Wal-Mart to unionize has used the tragic death of a Wal-Mart worker on Black Friday as a reason to push their union ideas. Even though that worker’s trampling death has nothing whatever to do with unions or any lack thereof, Wal-Mart Watch is using this poor man’s death to its advantage.

Even more ridiculously — if that is at all possible — Wal-Mart Watch is attempting to say that unions equal “moral responsibility.”

While Jdimytai Damour’s death was a “tragic accident,” it also reflects Wal-Mart’s “blatant disregard for the concern and safety of its workers and customers,” said David Nassar, executive director of Wal-Mart Watch.

Wal-Mart Watch describes itself as a “public education campaign” aimed at changing Wal-Mart so it embraces its “moral responsibility.”

What a disgusting display of opportunism.

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How Colorado Teachers can get their Union Dues Refunded

-By Warner Todd Huston

In Colorado, teachers are not required to join a union to do their job. But of those that do, there is a state law whereby they can get a refund of the part of their dues that goes to political activism if that teacher is against the union’s use of the money for political ends.

So, teachers in Colorado that oppose the causes and candidates the unions spend dues money on can get a refund of that portion of their dues. But these teachers only have until December 15th to apply for that refund.

The Independence Institute has created this two minute video to explain how Colorado’s teachers can apply for this refund.

Union’s Cure for State Budget Shortfall? Raise Taxes!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently, the Service Employees International Union is worried about the state of California’s budget. The SEIU, one of the nation’s biggest employee unions for state workers, would like Sacramento to know they have a cure for the millions in the red state budget.

Could it be that the union is going to offer cutbacks for its exorbitant union perks? Maybe a cut in their overly generous pension is in order? How about a cut in the pay scale that they enjoy, a scale that exceeds the private sector in nearly every way?

Well, don’t be ridiculous. The union is not offering to help the state with its budget. The union is demanding that the state raise taxes to keep them in the lifestyle to which they undeservedly have become accustomed.

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Majority of US Voters Oppose Ideas in EFCA

-By Warner Todd Huston

The folks at the Workforce Fairness Institute conducted an interesting and enlightening post election survey that they are now ready to release and it shows that a significant majority of American voters do not support the Democrat’s and the Union’s Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The anti-democratic policy of card check was particularly disliked by those surveyed.

Workforce Fairness Institute

Public Opinion Strategies is pleased to present the key findings from a national post-election survey of 800 voters who said they voted on Election Day (November 4, 2008) or voted early. The telephone survey was conducted November 17-19, 2008, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46%.

THE BOTTOM LINE

When presented with neutral language that describes the two main components of the Employee Free Choice Act, solid majorities of those who voted in this year’s elections oppose the proposed legislation. A couple of important themes arise in this survey data.

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Union Stifles Modern Auto Innovation

-By Warner Todd Huston

Where is the most innovative, cost effective, and modern auto manufacturing plant in the world? It sure as heck isn’t in the USA. Why isn’t it here, in a country that has traditionally been at the top of the game for innovation?

The one word answer: Unions.

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Protests Intensify Over Local Union Takeover By SEIU

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is still going ahead with its plans to perpetrate a hostile takeover of California local California Healthcare Workers union (UHW). Naturally, the local isn’t too happy to be forcefully dissolved and integrated into the SEIU national and losing their identity.

The UHW folks with their president Sal Roselli in the lead, are staging all sorts of protests and efforts to deny the SEIU its victory. Roselli has been a thorn in SEIU president Andy Stern’s side for quite a while now.

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Union Prez Banned From Union For Life!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Oh, the humanities! It has been determined by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that troubled local president Tyrone Freeman is to be banned for life from the union. Gosh, what a horrible fate, eh? One wonders if he can be reinstated with back pay after he dies. Bet he does!

The Service Employees International Union has imposed a lifetime ban on the former president of its largest California local and ordered him to repay more than $1 million that it says he misappropriated from the labor organization.

Let me suggest a more appropriate punishment: jail.

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Will Southern Dems Torpedo Themselves By Voting Card Check?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico has some interesting analysis on the purported divisions among Democrats going into the future. They may have majority control of Congress on its face, but do they have enough of a controlling majority to push through some of their most egregiously extreme measures like the pro-union card check idea contained in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)?

According to Politico the “fault lines” in the Democratic caucus are soon to be revealed.

Unless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) can whip their caucuses into unity, numerous fault lines will be revealed: Southern Democrats vs. Northern liberals on labor law; California greens vs. Rust Belt Democrats on global warming; socialized medicine adherents vs. go-slow health care reformers; anti-war liberals vs. cautious centrists on national security. And don’t forget the anti-bailout crowd vs. the powerful Michigan Democrats in both chambers when it comes to money for Detroit.

Martin Kady goes on to elucidate those divisions, one of them being the card check issue. Of course, we’ve discussed card check here many times, but essentially if passed it would eliminate any potential union member from having the right to vote for or against a union on a secret ballot, making the member’s vote open for everyone to see. This would leave the member open to any sort of union pressure and thuggery, for sure.

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Why Google lost the formal debate over its ethics — And a compendium of Google’s ethical lapses

-By Scott Cleland

Google effectively lost its first formal debate over whether “Google violates its own ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto” at the Rosenkranz Foundation’s Oxford-style debate in New York City, November 18. (Transcript here)

Before the debate the audience was polled and voted 21% against Google and 48% for Google; after gathering additional insight from the debate, 47% voted against Google and 47% voted for Google. Apparently, most all of the undecideds voted against Google — that Google violated their own ‘don’t be evil’ motto.

What does this mean?
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Democrats Hate Privacy Invaders. Unless…

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is interesting to see how Democrats react to abuse of power and invasion of private personal information. The Democratic Party made President Bush a pariah over his supposed act of “domestic spying” when Bush was attempting to stop terror attacks against citizens of the U.S. They called him all manner of names, tyrant, despot, etc., etc., even though no Americans were being snooped on by the Bush administration. And just recently, Democrats tsked tsked Verizon Wireless when it came to light that Barack Obama’s old cell phone records were snooped into by Verizon employees.

But, did they say a word as agency after agency in Ohio illicitly snooped into Joe the Plumber’s records so that they could find dirt with which to attack him? Did the Democrats find anything wrong with agencies and employees from the government of the state of Ohio illegally prying into the private records of Samuel “Joe the plumber” Wurzelbacher? Not much they didn’t.

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Fed. Employee’s Labor Chief’s Demands Presented to Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

And it begins. President of the National Treasury Employees Union, one of the Federal government’s largest labor unions, has drawn up her demands for president-elect Obama to fulfill as payback for union support for his candidacy.

Colleen M. Kelly has announced her demands and two of them are quite controversial. The first, that the employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) get unionized, shows that unions want to be in a place to impede our national security. The second, the firing of all current members of the Federal Service Impasses Panel, shows that unions want to eliminate any oversight that might hinder union corruption and give them a freer hand to hide their own illegal activities.

Thus far, the Bush administration has succeeded in stopping the unionization of employees of the TSA and for good reason. Should the TSA be unionized, this would eliminate any possibility that the government could fire or even regulate the people that are supposed to be making sure our airlines are safe and free of terrorists. This would not only add another layer of distance between government (and therefore we the people) and its employees, but it would also make it harder to control the security of our airports. In fact, it would make it impossible for government to control the safety of our airports.

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Another Example of Hypocritical Politics on Secret Ballots

-By Warner Todd Huston

As the Democratic caucus angles to pass the badly named Employee Free Choice Act, a law that will actually take away the choice of a secret ballot for millions of America’s workers, we get one more example of how Democrats in Congress allocate things for themselves that they refuse to allow others to enjoy.

In the nasty infighting between Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) and John Dingell (D., Mich.) over the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce committee in the House of Representatives, a secret ballot was held of the members of the House after which, Waxman came out the victor.

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How Government Destroys Our Wealth

-By Warner Todd Huston

Want to know why our economy is foundering? Blame government spending.

Government spends $57,000 per family of 4 per year. Pure waste. The median household income of Americans is only around $45,000, so the people aren’t even making as much as the government wastes on them. This is unsustainable.

Here is a great slide show by Rich Sokol to help illustrate the issue of government spending policy.

Sokol Government Spends

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

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And Now the Government Comes After the Bloggers?

-By Warner Todd Huston

“Gubbmint isn’t the solution,” Ronald Reagan famously said. “Gubbmint is the problem!” Well, until Al Gore invented our wonderful Internet world, there were darn few ways we common citizens could highlight just what the “problem” of government was. But, happily, we bloggers have become the modern version of our Founders plying the pamphleteer’s trade. Now, via the incredible world of blogging, we can spy a government abuse and cast the harsh light of public scrutiny upon it. And we can do it in the blink of an eye. All we need is our computers and a little Internet access.

But, now gubbmint is trying to find ways to make it harder for us to highlight their evil, wasteful, illegal ways. For now comes the Democrat Party of the State of Washington trying to reinvent bloggers as “lobbyists” so that we can be regulated out of existence.

Or, if they don’t exactly want bloggers regulated out of existence, Democrats at least want to put bloggers in such a position that there are fewer of them because of gubbmint’s onerous regulations.

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Union Chief Forced Charity Employees to do Political Work

-By Warner Todd Huston

It the investigation into the corruption of Calif. SEIU head Tyrone Freeman keeps getting better… well, actually worse. Now it is being revealed that Service Employees International Union chief Freeman regularly forced employees of a charity he headed to do political hack work — a practice barred by law.

Six people who worked for either the union or the charity told The Times that Freeman, and others at the labor organization acting on his behalf, ordered the nonprofit’s staffers to join partisan get-out-the-vote drives and other campaign efforts during and after their regular hours. The former employees spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation and legal jeopardy.

The former workers say that employees were required to distribute fliers, walk precincts and staff phone banks for individual candidates and the Democratic ticket during the days leading up to primary and general elections.

Naturally, Freeman is giving that innocent look of “what, me?” He is denying all allegations despite the several workers and other witnesses saying the opposite.

Like the old saying goes, deny, deny, deny.

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Dean Warns Kiddie Porn Pervert Instructor to Hide Evidence from Investigators

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is what our nation’s universities have come to. A professor at Rochester University, New York, was warned to destroy evidence of his kiddie porn collection stored on university computers ahead of a raid on his workstations staged by the State Police. And who was the informant? A university dean gave him a tip off causing the pervert prof to attempt to destroy the evidence of his criminal behavior.

On October 10 university instructor Gilbert Kirton, 26, was charged with possessing child pornography after a raid on his workstation was authorized by prosecutors and the courts. Authorities had been looking into Kirton for four months.

Police claim that what was found on Kirton’s computer was “some of the most sexually graphic images depicting the physical and sexual abuse of children secured by the state police in Western New York.”

Even though he was tipped off, the police got their man. But not with the help of at least one university dean, granted.
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Dems Threaten Anti-Iran Rally Organizers With IRS Attack if They Let Palin Speak

-By Warner Todd Huston

News has emerged that the organizers of that anti-Iran rally that famously got snarled up in Senator Hillary Clinton’s ire at Governor Sarah Palin last week were threatened by New York Democrats with IRS action against their tax-exempt status if they allowed Palin to speak. CBS local NY news reported this little fact and so did NBC but most of the national news has ignored this outrageous threat to use the IRS to silence Governor Palin.

Accusing New York Democrats of using “McCarthyism” to shut Palin down, Democrat Assemblyman Dov Hikind was flabbergasted by the behind the scenes threats against the rally organizers. “It’s an absolute shame that this has happened,” CBS quoted Hikind as saying. “To threaten organizations … to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don’t withdraw the invitation to Gov. Palin we’re going to look into your tax exempt status … that’s McCarthyism.”

The charge was that inviting only Palin and not also Democrat VP candidate Joe Biden is somehow a violation of “equal representation of candidates” (As NBC claimed in its report). But, this is not a certainty. After all, the appearance wasn’t a campaign stop nor was it a venue to advertise Palin or engage in presidential politics. Besides, as HotAir notes, of the political speakers that were invited to speak last year, few were Republicans.

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Here is Where we WILL Hurt if Journalists Lose Their Jobs En Masse

-By Warner Todd Huston

Of course our purpose here at NewsBusters is to shed light on the obscene bias often underlying what passes for journalism here in the United States (and in Canada and Europe sometimes, as well). We here at NB, however, want to stress that we aren’t out to “destroy” journalism itself. We understand how important a free and open press is to keep our democratic republic on the straight and narrow. And, with this piece I’d like to present one reason why seeing journalists lose their jobs in such massive numbers should serve as a warning to us all about the health of our system.

Journalists have traditionally been antagonistic toward government, we all know. Certainly, they sometimes take this antipathy too far and become responsible for nearly treasonous actions — The New York Times is the perfect example of that these days. But this antagonism is not all bad because while in practice it can and does lead to exposing the sort of government corruption that can and should be stopped but won’t be unless it becomes public knowledge. The light that journalists shed on these corrupt government officials using open records requests is an integral part of our system and not one we should so blithely forget about while hoping to see the field of journalism get its comeuppance.

A recent little blog post by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a non-profit legal assistance agency for journalists (est. 1970), gives us a warning that we should all heed, which I repeat in it’s entirety:

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More ACORN Vote Fraud Attempts

-By Warner Todd Huston

The union supporting, Democratic Party pushing, extreme leftist Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has been caught trying to gerry rig voter applications in Michigan. It is looking like fraud on a massive scale in Detroit as ACORN tries to fill the Democrat voter rolls with fake Democrat voters.

ACORN is being investigated after several Municipal Clerks discovered fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications.

The majority of the fraudulent and duplicate applications are coming from the liberal ACORN group based in Detroit, Michigan, which now has ACORN investigating the problem once again as well as the Secretary of State’s Office turning over some of those applications to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

And it isn’t just Detroit that has found fraud being perpetrated by ACORN.

In recent years, ACORN’s voter registration programs have come under investigation in Ohio, Colorado, Missouri and Washington, with some employees convicted of voter fraud.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is also reporting that the Obama campaign has been forced to amend a report to reflect over $800,000 of previously unreported ACORN donations to his campaign.

ACORN is at the heart of one of the most massive voter fraud campaigns in American history. ACORN is intimate with Barack Obama and is a major supporter of unions throughout the country and is doing its level best (and illegally at that) trying to assure that Obama wins this election.

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Unreported: Montana Governor’s ‘Senior Counsel’ Not Licensed to Practice Law in State! (Democrat, of Course)

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is an ethics squabble going on in Montana perpetrated by the senior counsel to the Democrat Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer. It has been revealed that the Governor’s “senior counsel,” a man named Eric Stern, has been caught trying to “back-door” the judge in a case in which he is involved on behalf of Governor Schweitzer. The ethics violation is bad enough, but it has also been discovered that, even though he is claimed to be an attorney and the Governor’s senior counsel, Eric Stern, is not licensed to practice law in the state of Montana. This seems to say that Eric Stern is practicing law without a license, doesn