Is California Following Wisconsin's Lead?

I'm not talking about becoming fiscally responsible, or possibly going from blue to purple to red. California is permanently blue and its economic scorecard will be printed in red ink for decades to come. But there is one small ray of hope for some fiscal sanity. The legislature has refused to do what is necessary to get public employee debt under control, so the people may end up doing something about it via a state initiative.

The move doesn't match Wisconsin's, but it's a start.

The ship has hit the sand in the formerly Golden State. Employee pensions and benefits for public union employees have already bankrupted three of its cities—Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino. Others are quickly approaching the brink. The whole state can't be far behind. Two major cities have addressed the problem with local ballot measures. San Diego, California's second largest city, passed a measure curbing future increases in the huge city-paid public employee pensions and drastically reducing those benefits for new employees. That is not a huge surprise, since San Diego is California's cleanest and most efficient big city, and leans moderate/Republican.

San Jose, California's third largest city, is a bit more of a surprise. San Jose recently passed a similar ballot measure, and it passed by a whopping 70%. San Jose leans heavily Democratic. Even more surprising is the fact that the Democratic mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, led the charge for pension reform and limits on public employee union direct involvement in political matters. It goes without saying that the representatives of the public employees unions immediately filed suit to stay implementation of the reforms. San Jose has temporarily avoided bankruptcy largely because of the huge taxes paid by its industries, including the computer industry and major dot.com companies like Google. But oppressive state taxes are driving major players out of Silicon Valley and into more business-friendly states.

The state initiative measure is less drastic, but moves the debate to the entire population and accomplishes a couple of major goals. It would specifically prohibit unions and corporations from contributing directly to candidates. It wouldn't have any effect on PACs. But as a companion to that, the measure includes the previously-failed “paycheck protection” provisions. Unions collect dues from their members whether they like it or not. And whether the members like it or not, a huge percentage of those dues go not to employee protection, but rather to left wing, Democratic political causes.

Currently, the weak and confusing decision in Beck v Communications Workers has had little effect on the unions' ability to use dues for political causes. If a member does not want to be an active union employee, he or she must file a “Beck statement,” which limits the dues collected to narrowly-defined activities. His or her dues must then be reduced by the percentage the union spends on political causes.

The unions routinely lie, and reduce the dues by 2% to 5%, depending on the weather. But the National Right to Work Foundation has filed multiple suits proving that the political spending is (depending on the union) somewhere between 18% and a stratospheric 48%. The NRTW Foundation has not lost a single case, but because of the arcane rules, it can only file for complaining individuals rather than entire groups. So the unions take a temporary loss, and move on to bigger and better extortion.

Wisely, the organizers of the measure included corporations in their restrictions. It is consistent with the Citizens United case. But it also corrects the problem that caused the paycheck protection plan to fail previously. This measure includes both unions and corporations, where the previous failed measure addressed unions only. Under this measure, no organization can use forced deductions to pay for candidate campaigns. Not from stockholders, employees or union members.

In the past year, public-sector unions and trade unions contributed $2.7 million to political candidates (96% Democratic) in California, while large corporations gave $4.3 million, almost evenly distributed. Under this measure, neither could make any direct contributions to candidate campaigns. The supporters of the measure have very smartly pointed that out, and emphasized instead that “special interests” should be curtailed. But the real distinction is that unlike unions, businesses cannot forcibly take money from their employees to support candidates that many of the employees oppose. This measure would fix that problem for union members and have no effect whatsoever on non-union employees.

In short, the measure prohibits the unions from forcing deductions from the member's paycheck for political candidates, and it equally prohibits the corporations from deducting that money from their union employees' paychecks. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. In the case of public employees particularly, this is a big hit. Not a Wisconsin-style hit, but a hit nonetheless. Paycheck deduction is automatic for public employees (unless they want to fight a Beck case). In the private sector, paycheck deduction is allowed, but not required. Most union employees just go along with it because it relieves them from having to write a check once a month and getting fined and disciplined by the union if they forget to write that check.

The measure levels the playing field a bit, but until Californians are ready to seriously restrict public employee contracts and collective bargaining a la Wisconsin, this is just a band-aid on a cancer. And until the state does so, it is headed the way of Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino. Democratic politicians should pay heed to the efforts of the San Jose mayor and city council.

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Liberalism Is Sick

Totalitarianism and privilege runs in the blood of liberals. They want to control everyone else, but place themselves above the law. We’ve just had some classic examples of this. Observe the vile petulance of the left. . .

● S.W.A.T.ing: For some time now, prominent conservatives (including bloggers like Erick Erickson of RedState) have experienced the joys of finding the SWAT team showing up at their homes. Why? Because some liberal group has learned how to hack into the phone system and call 911 pretending to be the conservative. These calls go something like this: “I am Erick Erickson and I just shot my wife.”

Obviously, this is a crime. It is also despicable. Think about the kind of pathetic, abusive mindset someone would need to send the police screaming to someone’s house on a false murder claim? That’s Nazi-tactics. What happens when the cops show up and shoot someone by mistake? What about the emotional toll on these people’s children? Think of the people who might get killed because the police are distracted? Think of the waste of resources and the effect on the 911 system when police start doubting the veracity of calls.

But this has become the modern liberal mindset. They are abusive little Nazis who seek to instill terror in their enemies and they don’t care about the damage they do in the process. To them, it’s all legitimate -- calling out the cops, death threats by phone, mail or twitter, bomb threats to events they don’t like, property damage, arson. We have reached a point where liberals are becoming a menace to society. And something will need to be done about them. . . perhaps the old liberal favorite of re-education?

● Uncontrollable Rage: Wisconsin once again exposed the twisted emotional wreckage that is liberalism as liberals everywhere devolved into whiny rage about the election results. One guy told a camera he hopes Lt. Kleefisch dies of colon cancer. Another liberal idiot was so incapable of handling rejection that they actually slapped Dem. Candidate Tom Barrett right after he gave his concession speech. Apparently, it was Barrett’s fault the public didn’t hate Walker. . . or this liberal wanted Walker to cling to the “slim” hopes of overturning a 6.9% defeat. So much for losing with grace. Another liberal sobbed “this is the end of democracy.” How idiotic. Just because the public doesn’t agree with your view, somehow that’s the end of democracy? Someone needs a civics class. Then we have the violent Twits. They posted things like this:

KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER KILL SCOTT WALKER! Ole Bitch Ass Pig Ass Nigga!!!!

Somebody need to Abe Lincoln Scott Walker cave frog lookin ass.

I wanna kill scott walker so fucking baddd!!!!! & the racist dumb assholes that voted for him #nbs

Please somebody kill Scott Walker.

You couldn’t find a less intelligent, less hateful set of morons if you tried. And note the obvious racism. Yet liberals like to think they’re smarter? Ha. These fools can barely speak and certainly can’t think. Heck, if you want to proof of evolution, this is it -- liberals are the missing link. . . not quite human yet.

Again, frankly, it’s getting to the point that liberals need to be medicated or locked up for everyone’s good. They prove time and again that they are violent, racist creatures of hate who seek to instill terror when they don’t get their own ways. That’s called psychosis, and psychotics should be locked up for everyone’s protection.

● Heil Moochelle: Madame O has jumped on the food Nazi bandwagon once again and is expressing support for the idiotic idea of banning large drinks in New York City. This is laughable nonsense. For one thing, as with all other liberal ideas, this is unworkable. How, pray tell, do you stop someone from buying two 16 oz. drinks? Whoops, I just found the hole in the security net.

This is more evidence that liberals really are Nazis. They want to control every aspect of your life right down to how much cola you can put into a single container at a time. Think how petty that is! In fact, calling them Nazis is a bit unfair to the Nazis because they weren’t nearly the control freaks liberals are. And why am I not surprised that the people with the least grip on reality (see above) are the people most inclined to tell everyone else how to live? Pathetic.

● I Am Above The Law: Amanda Bynes (who?) is pathetic. She’s apparently an actress, though you wouldn’t know it by me, and she’s a drunk, a fool, a liar and a fascist. Two days ago she got caught DUI. Did she quietly pay her ticket like everyone else who gets caught? Heck no, she’s a liberal celebrity! Laws aren’t meant for people like her!! So first she refused to blow into the breathalyzer (which is a stupid move, especially for someone who claims they weren’t drunk). Then she took to Twitter, where all morons go to display their moronism, and she tweeted this:

“Hey @BarackObama, I don’t drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me.”

Well, honey, that’s not how the world works even for you. For one thing, your lord and master has ZERO power to fire a local police officer. You would know that if you weren’t liberal and stupid (but that is redundant). Secondly, they don’t fire people for doing their jobs just because some celebrity turd doesn’t like how they do it. But this is how liberals think: laws are meant for the little people and if you dare to apply the same law to them, well, then you need to be fired because you failed to recognize the superiority of the person you so ruthlessly treated like everyone else. What a vile little creature she is, I hope the cop sues her for something. By the way, appealing to the President to save your butt from a DUI is pretty much the definition of narcissism, another standard liberal trait.

● Who Cares About Human Life?: Patti Smith, a singer, just made a fascinating statement. For decades, liberals have whined about how any death is a tragedy and how we should go to any extent (including wrapping kids in bubblewrap) to prevent any death. But we know their willingness to take any step is selective and depends on who gets hurt and by whom. Enter Patti Smith, who is upset with Obama for continuing the war on terrorism. Why? I’ll let the callous dipsh*t explain it herself:

“[Terrorism is] not the most important issue in the world. When you think about how many people the terrorists have killed, its nothing. It’s not as many as die on a bicycle in America probably in a year or something.”

In other words, who cares, it’s only a couple people. And to make her point clear, she added this:

“I’ve said this over and over, but I’ll say it a million more times — I’m concerned more about the death of a bee than I am about terrorism. Because we’re losing hives and bees by the millions because of such strong pesticides. We can live with terrorism. We can’t live without the bee.”

Nice huh? Not only does she write off the deaths from terrorism (cost of business, I guess), but she’s more concerned about bees than the people who died. Wanna bet she believes products which might kill someone should be banned?

● Misplaced Tolerance: Finally, we have this little bit of intense hypocrisy. Janice Roberts, a 63-year old Masshole “anti-war” activist, has refused to rent an apartment to Sgt. Joel Morgan because he’s a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. So much for tolerance and so much for the lie that “we’re against war, not soldiers.”

What’s more, at the same time, over in New Mexico, the state’s Court of Appeals has ruled that a private photo studio cannot refuse service to people based on sexual orientation. The studio owner had argued that this violated his religious and moral beliefs but the court didn’t really care. This is so typical of liberal tolerance. Tolerate those whose causes you like and use the force of law to crush those whose causes you don’t.

Is it just me or does liberalism seem increasingly sick to you?

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Wisconsin Recall Primer (Ironic Version)

Tomorrow night is the Wisconsin recall. This is an interesting election, but purely for the sake of momentum. Ironically, while the Democrats and their union buddies forced this showdown, they are facing possible disaster if things go wrong, whereas the Republicans aren’t. Here’s what you need to know about Wisconsin and what it means for the rest of us.

Although the recall of Scott Walker has received the most media attention, there are actually two parts to the recall. The first is Scott Walker verses Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker appears safe at this point, as he leads by 6-9% in recent polls and his lead has grown steadily -- though Bluffington Post claims “internal polls” show the race is neck and neck. . . yeah, and I can levitate when no one is looking.

The second involves four GOP senators and Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. Kleefisch is polling well against labor candidate and Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin president Mahlon Mitchell. I suppose that’s good, except her job is meaningless. Of the four Senate seats, only one is considered a possibility to change hands. That is the seat of Sen. Van Wanggaard who is being challenged by Democrat John Lehman, who held the seat until 2010. If the Democrats do win that seat (or any of the other three) they will take control of the Senate.

So what does all this mean? That’s the laugher.

If Scott Walker were to lose, it would only mean an end to his ability to keep pushing Wisconsin to the right. It would not mean the repeal of anything he’s done because the Wisconsin House is dominated by Republicans and they can stop anything. So the reforms will go through either way. It might mean a loss of anti-union momentum nationally, but I doubt it because Wisconsin is a very pro-union state. Thus, a pro-union result should be expected and won’t have much meaning elsewhere, especially since it took everything the unions/Democrats/etc. could muster to barely win it.

But if Walker wins, this has HUGE meaning. First, it means that the voters of pro-union, liberal Wisconsin have endorsed a major shakeup in unionization laws. Under normal circumstances, this would be bad enough for unions, but the unions made this infinitely worse. They chose to make an example of Wisconsin by flexing all of their national might and, in the process, they put all of their credibility on the line. They sent in thousands of people and poured in millions of dollars. They called out all the celebrities, all the politicians, all the dirty lawsuits and false allegations, and all the death threats and union thuggery they could. In other words, they went all in. And yet, all their might couldn’t even win against “extreme” reforms in a pro-union state? The national message will be clear if Walker wins: the unions are finished, kill them off.

Democratic face saving is already beginning. Debbie Wasserman “Assbag” Schultz is trying to dismiss this recall as nothing more than “a dry run for November.” Uh huh, sure.

The unions and their leftist fellow travelers are trying to console themselves that they may win control of the Senate even if they can’t beat Walker. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate claims that would be enough, “taking back the Senate majority is a huge deal.” He claims this would allow them to “undo” what Walker has done. But that’s laughably false.

For one thing, the Senate is done for the year, so taking the Senate now is meaningless. Indeed, current Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says that all the Democrats could achieve would be to get new parking spaces and bigger offices before November -- they can’t pass legislation. And here’s the interesting bit. Because of redistricting, which will take effect in November, it looks like the Republicans are likely to gain seats in any event. Thus, a Democrat win would likely last only until November.

So the best the Democrats can do is stop further reforms if they beat Walker or get new offices/parking spaces until November if they defeat any of the Senators. Aim high, donks!

But the price for trying this, i.e. what the Democrats/unions have risked to win this “valuable” prize, is that they have exposed union impotence. If unions can’t win in Wisconsin, where will they win? Moreover, they will have completely demoralized the Democrats before November. Indeed, admits Democratic consultant Heather Colburn:

“People have put so much of not just their time, but their heart and passion into Walker’s race, and he’s been so vilified and people have so organized around him that I think there’s going to be some broken spirits and hearts, even if we take back the Senate.”

Even Politico warns that a sweep by Republicans would be a disaster for the left:

“At the same time, a GOP sweep of the four races and a Walker win would deal a devastating blow to the left. It would hand a powerful mandate to Walker and his Republican allies in the state Legislature and give the GOP a burst of adrenaline heading into the November elections.”

A Republican sweep (or even just a Walker victory) also will put Wisconsin into play on the national map in terms of Obama’s reelection, especially if the Republicans get a clean sweep. And if Wisconsin swings into the “maybe” column for Romney, then expect things to really fall apart for Obama. In that event, forget everything I said about this race coming down to Florida and Ohio. . . if Wisconsin goes red, we’re looking at a landslide.

Good times!

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Democratic Wedge Issues

I said a long time ago that the Democratic Party really isn’t a political party anymore. It’s become a collection of tribes held together by some common interests. The thing is, their common interests are really quite narrow and they glossed over significant disagreements in forming the coalition. Recent events, such as Obama’s embrace of gay marriage against the wishes of blacks and Romney’s discussion of education with Hispanics highlight this more than ever. It’s time for conservatives to start driving wedges into this coalition.

Conservatives need to spot the disagreements that were glossed over and start pointing those out relentlessly. The idea would be to cause enough friction within the Democratic alliance that the party ruptures into ineffective smaller groups. Here are some thoughts on where those disagreements might be and how to attack them.

1. Gays v. Feminists: At one point, gays should have been natural allies of conservatives. Conservatives believe in less government and individual rights, and the problems gays faced until the mid-1980s were sodomy laws, which made gay relationships criminal. But now that those laws have been struck down, the gay agenda has switched to forcing others to accept their lifestyles. That puts gays at odds with conservatism. Feminists similarly are at odds with conservatives because they too favor big government schemes to reshape society. So neither groups is likely winnable for conservatives. But that doesn’t mean we can’t drive a wedge between them.

The big issue for feminists is abortion. And as I mentioned the other day when discussing sex selection (something Planned Parenthood just got caught promoting), abortion means the end of homosexuality once genetics locates the “gay gene.” It would behoove conservatives to keep pushing this idea to the gay community that abortion = gay-genocide, and suggesting they seek to limit abortion.

2. Blacks v. Feminists: Blacks have very much tied themselves to the Democrats by making themselves wards of the state. Through either direct money transfers to poor blacks or race-based preferences in loans, housing, schools and jobs for middle and upper-class blacks, blacks as a group have come to rely on the government. So they are unreachable as a group. But as I pointed out the other day, abortion is killing blacks in massive numbers compared to all other races. Conservatives need to beat this drum that abortion = black-genocide to separate them from feminists. It would also be smart of conservatives to start pointing out that affirmative action has by far benefited upper-to-middle class white women more than it has blacks. This has the potential to set up a bloody fight between feminists and blacks over how to divide the spoils of affirmative action.

3. Blacks v. Gays: Blacks as a group are socially conservative when it comes to gays. Conservatives should push the message to blacks that the Democratic Party, which is dominated by the gay lobby, is looking to force the gay agenda on them and their churches.

4. Hispanics v. Everyone: Hispanics are an odd group to be jammed into the Democratic coalition. They are socially conservative and largely Catholic, yet the Democratic Party hates religion (atheists) and is dominated by the gay lobby (gay marriage) and feminists (contraception). Moreover, they are the second biggest victims of abortion, so they should be uneasy with that too (feminists). Unions have worked hard to keep them out of the country, to keep them from getting jobs, and have kept them out of the well-paying union jobs. Further, as Romney noted, the teachers unions are hurting their kids. They run a large number of small businesses, who find themselves attacked by unions, who are unable to obtain financing from the Democrats’ Wall Street friends, and who are crushed by environmental and labor regulations. Each of these issues should be made clear to them.

5. Bankers v. Socialists: By and large, the Democratic rank and file hate business, hate capitalism, and HATE banks. They despise Wall Street. Yet, most of the money the Democrats get comes from that very same Wall Street. And right now, Wall Street is upset at being vilified by the Democrats. Conservatives should keep pushing the Democrats on this point. They should force elected Democrats to make a choice, support Wall Street or do the bidding of the rank and file, by bringing up legislation which splits this coalition, such as elimination of banking fees. The more the Democrats are made to dance, the greater the chance they will lose one group or the other.

6. Environmentalists v. Farmers/Miners/Workers: Since the days of FDR, the Democrats have done their best to buy farmers, coal miners, and skilled-labor workers with government handouts. But in the past thirty years, as ivory tower intellectuals and white-collar professionals have come to dominate the Democratic Party, they’ve adopted environmentalism as a religion, and with it they’ve put in place insane rules which cripple farmers, miners and workers. It’s time for Republicans to push this issue hard. They need to point out to auto-workers in Detroit and coal miners in West Virginia how much regulation the Democrats have imposed on their fields and what the cost is and why this lets China steal their jobs. Also point out how Democratic friends like GE are shipping their jobs overseas. Similarly, Republicans need to become fluent in the regulatory burden imposed on farmers and they need to go farm by farm explaining to these people how the Democratic agenda is crushing them.

7. The Elderly v. the Poor: The elderly are abandoning the Democrats already, and Republicans need to help push that along. Republicans specifically need to talk about Medicare. Fewer and fewer doctors are willing to take Medicare because it doesn’t pay enough. Despite this, Obama plans to steal another $500 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare and its subsidies to the poor. Republicans need to make this clear that the Democrats are stealing from the elderly to hand out the money to other groups.

8. Jews: The Republicans have had little success winning over Jews. There are two reasons for this. First, many Jews are simply scared of the Religious Right starting a second inquisition. I know that specific outreach has begun on this issue and that needs to continue. More importantly, as I mentioned with Hispanics the other day, Republicans have wrongly been treating Jews as a single-issue people, with that issue being Israel. But Israel clearly isn’t that strong of a pull. A better approach would be to talk to them about issues like Medicare (which resonates in Florida), the attacks on Wall Street (which resonate in New York), and this: the Republicans need to establish a counterpart to the Anti-Defamation League to focus exclusively on all the anti-Semitism coming from the left these days. We’ve seen this at Media Matters, at OWS and just generally from the left.


If Republicans do these things right, they can create tremendous friction within the Democratic alliance, perhaps even enough to shatter the party. The way to do this is to relentlessly point out the issues above. Do that through targeted advertisements, in speeches, on webpages/blogs and through media stunts by having our talking heads demand explanations from the Democrats on these wedge issues. Further, the Republicans should start crafting legislative proposals which put the groups above on opposing sides and forces the Democrats to pick sides.

At the same time, as I said the other day, Republicans needs to start reaching out to each of these groups on the issues that we have in common. Even taking away 5% of Democrats would guarantee a permanent Republican super-majority.

Thoughts?

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Hispanic Outreach Done Right

Romney is really impressing me. Last week, he gave a speech to The Latino Coalition at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. In this speech, Romney showed that he understands two vital points for the future of conservatism in America: Hispanic outreach and education.

Before I get into what Romney did, let me remind you of a post I did in 2009 (LINK) in which I criticized the Republican Party for its pathetic Hispanic outreach efforts. I pointed out that the problem with the way Republicans do outreach is that they buy into liberal group-identity theory. Republicans think of Hispanics as a monolithic, single-interest bloc, and they go about trying to woo them in the same ways the Democrats do. Specifically, they try to pass the occasional bill aimed at issues the Democrats claim Hispanics care about and then they try to be seen around election time at the occasional political rally with some well-known Hispanic person. This is pathetic.

By buying into the liberal view of Hispanics as a bloc, Republicans end up reinforcing the idea to Hispanics that they are a bloc and should not try to think independently outside their group. This all but guarantees that they will see themselves as inherently liberal. Moreover, being seen once every couple years with a famous Hispanic only reinforces the idea that Republicans see Hispanics as “other people” who must be approached now and then, but who clearly are not welcome otherwise.

A real Hispanic outreach program would treat Hispanics like any other voters. Republicans wouldn’t try to appeal to them on “Hispanic issues” but would instead try to appeal to Hispanics who happened to find particular issues of interest. For example, Republicans would try to attract Hispanic parents by improving the schools their children attend. Or they would try to attract Hispanic businessmen by making conditions better for small businessmen. Etc. The idea is to appeal to different groups of Hispanics on the issues that matter to them as individuals rather than trying to appeal to “Hispanics” as a group.

In light of that, what Romney did last week was very encouraging. Rather than going to the Latino Coalition and talking about immigration, affirmative action, tuition for illegals, or trade with South America, Romney spoke about education reform. Indeed, he never once brought up immigration. Instead, he said this:

“Here we are in the most prosperous nation, but millions of children are getting a Third World education. And America’s minority children suffer the most. This is the civil rights issue of our era. And it’s the great challenge of our time.”

Then he outlined his proposals, which mimic the things done by Republicans governors who have done strong work in reforming schools, such as increasing the availability of charter schools and tying federal funding to students “so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school of their choice.” He also included private schools, though this had to be clarified later.

He also noted that he supports the No Child Left Behind Act, but wants its accountability rules replaced by state rules -- very 10th Amendmenty. About this, he said:

“Parents shouldn’t have to navigate a complicated and cryptic evaluation system to figure out how their kids’ schools are performing. States are going to have to provide a simple-to-read and widely available public report card that evaluates each and every school. These report cards will provide accurate, easy-to-understand information about student and school performance. States will continue to design their own standards and tests, but the report cards will provide information that parents can use to make informed choices.”

Then he blasted teacher’s unions for blocking school reforms, calling them “the clearest example of a group that has lost its way” and he linked them to the Democratic Party:

“The teachers unions are one of the Democrats’ biggest donors — and one of the President’s biggest campaign supporters. So, President Obama has been unable to stand up to union bosses — and unwilling to stand up for kids.”

Finally, he pointed out that these same unions have stood in the way of vouchers, which have proven successful, because “success anywhere in our public schools is a rebuke to failure everywhere else. That’s why the unions oppose even the most common-sense improvements.”

So let’s break this down. First, Romney rejected the liberal idea that Hispanics are a bloc and he instead appealed directly to Hispanic parents on an issue that is dear to them. In fact, Hispanic voters regularly place education among their top issues, even higher than immigration, and they generally support vouchers and stricter school standards. Even Raul Gonzalez of race-hate group National Council of La Raza, said Hispanics consider education a civil rights issue and Romney’s push for vouchers “likely will play well.” This means, Romney stands to peel away Hispanic parents from the Democratic Party, and he is doing it without pandering, i.e. by treating them as Americans rather than Hispanics.

Secondly, notice how he drives a wedge between Hispanics and unions by pointing out that the unions are standing in the way of Hispanic children getting quality education. Given all the fights unions have undertake to keep Hispanics out, this pokes right at a source of antagonism within the Democratic coalition which makes Hispanics ripe to be pulled away. Finally, note that he then tells Hispanic parents that the Democrats and the teachers unions are the same thing, i.e. they won’t help you.

What Romney has done here is brilliant. He has finally started genuine outreach by finding issues which actually matter to a large group of Hispanics and he has addressed those without reinforcing the liberal propaganda that they are a voting bloc. Moreover, he’s told them point blank that if they wish what is best for their children, then voting for the Democrats is a horrible idea. This is how it needs to be done, not showing up at parades and promising to make immigration kindler or gentler. Start winning these people over on issues after issue and by treating them as Americans.

It should also be noted that this is an interesting position politically for several reasons. First, it suggests that Romney is not moving left for the general election as conservatives feared. Attacking teacher’s unions and advocating a national voucher scheme is deeply conservative. Secondly, this tells us that Romney really has a broad reform plan for all of government, not just for budget matters. Indeed, he could have easily ignored education and just stuck with economic matters. The fact he didn’t and is pushing this issue is a great sign. And the fact his plans mimic those of reforming Republican governors is an even better sign.

All of this continues to raise my hopes that Romney may prove to be a special president and that he may leave the country in a much better shape than it’s been in a long, long time.

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With Friends Like These. . .

Sometimes, your friends do more harm to you than your enemies. That’s been the case for Obama lately, and I’m not just talking about Biden shoving Obama into the gay marriage debacle. The truth is that Obama’s friends are causing him all kinds of problems.

● Obama Hates the Middle Class: Last week, the Republicans introduced Obama’s budget in the Senate. It lost without a single vote (0-99). More interestingly, it got blasted by the United Auto Workers as an “attack on the middle class and our most vulnerable citizens.” That makes this a double embarrassment for Obama. It also drives a stake through Obama’s middle class champion act.

● Obama Hates Capitalism: Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a prominent Democrat and Obama supporter, blasted Obama’s main attack on Romney this weekend when he went on Meet the Press. Obama is hoping that people will hate Romney because he founded Bain Capital. To do that, he’s been demonizing Bain. In fact, he just released a new ad doing exactly that. Said Booker:

“If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this, to me, I'm very uncomfortable with. This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It's nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on.”

Booker has since walked these comments back, but the damage was done and it presented Obama with another headache and another distraction. Indeed, he’s spent the week attacking Booker and trying to explain why his anti-Bain attacks are justified.

● Not As Brave As Jimmy Carter: For weeks, Obama has been pushing the idea that he’s some tough guy hero, unlike Mitt Romney, because he ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden. Romney rightly blasted Obama for politicizing military action in an effort to make himself look good. Well, The Economist decided to come to Obama’s defense because they now say there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a President trying to impress us with their military achievement (they said the opposite when Bush was President). Clearly Americans disagree as recent polls show upwards of 65% of people thinking that Obama was wrongly trying to politicize this military action.

In any event, here’s the great part. In defending Obama, they were particularly upset that Romney compared Obama to Carter when he said, “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” They are upset because they view this as unfair, because while the raid Carter authorized was a failure, it was not cowardly. In fact, they note it took more courage for Carter to order that raid than it took for Obama to order the killing of Osama bin Laden. Yep, they said that. To defend Obama, they took his sole positive achievement in office and told us it was less brave than what Jimmy Carter did. That is truly sad.

● Stop Condescending, Mr. Obama: We’ve discussed the supposed war on women extensively. And just when you think it’s finally dead and buried, along comes MSM personality Campbell Brown to lecture Obama about his behavior. Indeed, she just wrote an editorial in the New York Times in which she took Obama to task for his efforts to “relate to women” by saying that his campaign has been “maddeningly off point.” She says he has “failed to connect with tens of millions of Americans, many of them women, who feel economic opportunity is gone and are losing hope.” Then she says,

“In an effort to win them back, Mr. Obama is trying too hard. He’s employing a tone that can come across as grating and even condescending. . . Most women don’t want to be patted on the head or treated as wards of the state. They simply want to be given a chance to succeed based on their talent and skills.”

Julia anyone? So much for pushing the war on women.

● Give An Inch: When Obama decided to endorse (and not do anything about) gay marriage, he assumed this would shore up his gay supporters. Actually, it just increased their list of demands. Gay groups are now running around demanding that Obama come through on other promises. Indeed, they’ve got a list of 52 demands, including repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, extending Social Security benefits to gay partners, changing immigration rules to prevent the deportation of same-sex partners, adding gays to the Violence Against Women Act, preventing workplace discrimination, etc. Rather than making them happy, he has just stirred the nest.

● Show Me The Money: Romney’s super PAC not only blew Obama away in terms of raising cash in April, but they had a lot more cash on hand to begin with, even despite having to fight a long and nasty primary. The MSM once claimed Obama would get a billion dollars and now they are fretting that he can’t even keep up with Mitt Romney. Moreover, Tea Party groups have many-times more money on hand than both. So much for all of Obama’s rich friends.

All in all, Obama’s bad year continues. His campaign can’t get traction and he’s found no way to attack Romney. The things he’s tried, like the war on women and the attacks on Bain Capital, have all blown up on him and now even his allies are criticizing him. His donors aren’t giving him any money, his supporters are getting pushy, and even his defenders can’t defend him without making him look like a fool. Ha ha.


Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!
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The Obama Game: Winning the Election

All right, let’s play a game, shall we? This game is called “Win the Election” (I would have called it “Win The Future,” but no one would be stupid enough to use that acronym). The goal of this game is to influence various segments of the population. Here’s how we’re going to play.

Step One: I’m going to name various segments of the population.

Step Two: For each group, tell me something Obama has done which you would use to try to sell Obama to that group.

Step Three: Then, for each group, tell me something Obama has done which you would use to try to get them to vote against Obama.

Here are the groups and some suggestions:

1. Women. Nothing good comes to mind. But. . . He insulted women, especially mothers. He didn’t help them on the jobs front. He endangered their healthcare with Obamacare.

2. Gays. Ended don’t ask don’t tell. But. . . Did not extend government benefits to gay partners. Copped out on gay marriage.

3. Blacks. Nothing positive comes to mind, except Holder suing various states over civil rights issues to help black-racist groups. But. . . Black unemployment is at a record high.

4. Hispanics. Nothing positive comes to mind except he sued Arizona. But. . . He continued a record number of deportations. He also used the DREAM Act and promises of immigration reform as a political football.

5. Environmentalists. He regulated carbon. But. . . He failed to pass a global warming bill like cap and trade. At Copenhagen he surrendered to China. His carbon regulations can be undone by Romney on day one.

6. Union workers. Most of the stimulus money went to unions. The auto bailout. Giving GM to the UAW. Tried to impose a union on Boeing. But. . . On the downside, he failed to save state employees from a mass wave of layoffs and the Boeing decision and card-check fell through.

7. Small business. Nothing good. But. . . Tax hikes, failed to free up credit for small businesses, added excessive regulation, and created unaffordable Obamacare requirements.

8. Big business. Opened the Treasury to his friends, passed toothless regulations of banks, allowed big business to write regulations to stymie small business, and did the bidding of big business on China, on healthcare costs, and on stimulus spending. Can’t really think of any negatives.

9. Religious believers. Nothing good. But. . . Obama has waged a war on religion for quite some time now, trying to force religions to accept positions that run contrary to their beliefs.

10. The Military. Not much good here. But. . . He showed he cared more about an Islamic terrorist than American soldiers. He didn’t end the wars, nor did he win them. He picked a pointless war with Libya. He’s been taking credit for killing bin Laden, which the military did.

11. Senior Citizens. Nothing good. But. . . Obama robbed Medicare of $500 billion.

12. Homeowners. Nothing good. Obama spoke of several ideas to fix the housing market and get homeowners out from under upside-down loans, but ultimately did nothing. On the plus side, he didn’t do anything stupid. :)

Anything I missed? Do tell.

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Lousyana Teachers Protest Reform

My favorite governor, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, has been cleaning up his state for several years now, cutting costs and making the entire government more efficient. His early training as a management consultant has served the public well as he applied his methods to the government. He brought Louisiana out of the dark ages in medical coverage and instituted severe ethical reforms.

Now, Governor Jindal is being attacked by union and public school teachers who fear his education reforms.

Today, the state’s education committee will act on Jindal’s proposed reforms. He has taken on all the public school teachers’ favorite perks and privileges. The unions don’t like that. His proposal includes a complete revamping of the tenure program (a redundancy in union schools), enhanced monetary compensation based on performance rather than longevity, and expansion of school choice and voucher programs. He also included some tinkering around the edges of pensions, having already made a substantial change in them through an omnibus reform bill which encompassed all government employees, teachers included.

Jindal's own extensive educational accomplishments aside, the teachers cannot validly claim that he “doesn’t understand education and teachers.” One of his major reform positions in government was in the field of education. At age 28, he was appointed president of the University of Louisiana system, the sixteenth largest such system in the United States. During his tenure, formerly skyrocketing tuition fees were stabilized, duplication of effort was cut back, topheavy administration was slashed, instructor hiring was modified in order to include objective standards beyond mere diplomas, and academic standing increased dramatically.

He now proposes to institute the same reforms for elementary and secondary education. Louisiana resembles a great many other states in that huge numbers of teachers are overpaid, underworked, and often unqualified to teach much of anything. But since they are being paid for their terrible performance, the least they could do is show up for school and make a half-hearted attempt at pretending to teach.

Instead, teachers throughout the state, and particularly union members have convinced weak-spined school administrations to cancel classes so that the “teachers” can go to Baton Rouge to protest the proposed changes. This essentially means that public employees are being converted into temporary lobbyists to advance their own miserable cause while stealing time from the students and taxpayers.

How well have they done their jobs as teachers? On national standards, one-third of Louisiana public schools scored below grade-level. Nearly half of public schools in Louisiana scored a D or F even using National Education Association standards. 4th and 8th graders were in the bottom 15% of American students in math and English. Still, these space-wasters are unable to comprehend that they are lucky to have any job at all, let alone one with a near-guarantee of a job for life and disproportionately high pay and benefits for no discernible accomplishment.

Jindal’s education spokesman Aaron Baer said the following: “When one-third of all students are below grade level, the last thing public school employees should be doing is using class time to lobby the state legislature to prevent much-needed reforms. But instead they are joining the education unions who are descending upon Baton Rouge in full force.”

Although I agree with Baer, I also have the horrible thought that the only thing worse than these useless public school teachers being away from their classes is their being in their classes, filling those young minds with lots of nonsense and very little education. I will add that I do indeed know there are some very fine public school teachers, perhaps even many such. But they do not comprise even a strong minority. Jindal’s proposed reforms are being offered precisely to protect and reward those good teachers and to cease rewarding all those bad ones.
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That’s The Answer. More Teachers.

What is the best thing to do during a weak economy? Hire more public employees. Or so Barack Obama thinks. But he isn’t just talking about those illiterate file clerks or surly bureaucrats who are there to make sure you don’t try to slip anything past the government. He is talking about those molders of our youth—public school teachers. This week, the president called on the nation’s governors to stop cutting education and hire more public school teachers.

And he was willing to sweeten the pot with $25 billion in federal gifts. His litany was heart-rending. “We’ve just got to get more teachers into our classrooms. Over the past four years, school districts across America have lost over 250,000 teachers, educators have been lost. A quarter million educators responsible for millions of our students, all laid off when America has never needed them more.”

Of course anyone who has actually followed the news about public schools over the past few decades knows that what Obama is saying is a combination of wishful thinking, purposeful deception, and pandering to one of his largest campaign contribution groups. Public school teachers are a huge constituency for liberal politicians, and unionized public school teachers are even stronger for the left. But if they were really teaching our kids the things they need to know, there would be little room for complaint.

The school cutbacks have indeed been numerous, but hardly draconian. “Educators” seem to think the proper student-teacher ration is 1:1. For decades before the unions and self-serving educators got into power, student-teacher ratios of 1:15 and even 1:20 were common and somehow students got fine educations. Today, a classroom with 15 students, one teacher and two teacher’s assistants is considered barebones. 250,000 teachers laid off nationwide isn’t even a very significant number.

But Obama would like the public to think that by balancing budgets, laying off teachers and putting teacher-administrators back in the classroom and out of the bloated offices American students will fall into education deficiency disorder. I hate to tell The One, but even before the cuts, American public schools had become a laughingstock in the western world. Overall, our public school students are among the worst educated in the industrialized West (and yes, I know there are exceptions).

Now before anyone jumps on me for being down on teachers, I want to make it clear that I am not. A good teacher is one of civilization’s most valuable assets. And even in our miserable public schools (particularly the urban and near-urban suburban schools), there are teachers struggling against a system which has stacked the deck against them. But when the money runs out, belts have to be tightened and some people have to go. If the system provided for getting rid of the worst teachers based on objective standards, reduction in the number of teachers would actually be a boon.

But it doesn’t. Given unionization, tenure, and an overabundance of labor lawyers, the system is designed to retain the teachers with the longest history of employment at a particular school or school district. Many of them should not have been allowed to teach from day one, but are now nearly untouchable. Obama figures that a good teacher “can increase the income of a classroom by $250,000.” Where he got that figure I haven’t a clue, particularly since it depends in large part on how populous each classroom is. But rather than quibble, I’ll just say he has the right idea, but the wrong facts. The operative word is “good,” and far too many are barely able to attain minimal teaching efficiency.


Last hired, first fired has its merits. But it should be far from the only criterion. A bad teacher with twenty-five years on the job should not be retained over a good teacher with proven objective results who has only been on the job for a year or two. For a frighteningly large number of retained teachers, this includes teachers who are so bad both academically and morally that they are serving out their tenure in “rubber rooms.” Unions and civil rights/labor lawyers have managed to retain the jobs of sexual predators, but can’t see why we should retain good teachers who don’t molest their students.

Says Obama, “other countries are doubling down on education and increasing their investment in teachers.” But the failing American pubic schools already spend more per pupil/per teacher than most of those “other countries” anyway. And that’s before you start counting the crippling burden of teacher pensions. Good teachers are indeed underpaid, but far more bad teachers are overpaid and destructive of true education.

Unlike the federal government, the states cannot balance their budgets and retain expensive deadwood by printing money. Obama knows this, and he keeps holding out those magic wads of cash he’ll give to the states if they’ll just rehire laid-off losers while recruiting new ones. The idea of attaching strings, like teacher competency, termination of bad teachers and reduction of benefits to general public levels before rehiring or newly employing teachers is simply not part of the Obama equation.

And here’s at least part of the reason why: The National Education Association gave $1.2 million to Democratic candidates in 2010, though that was down from the $1.8 million it contributed to Democrats in 2008. In 2012, very early in the election cycle, the NEA has already contributed nearly $250,000 to Democratic candidates (that magic number keeps reappearing, doesn’t it?). Not to be outdone, the American Federation of Teachers has already contributed $637,000 for Democrats in 2012. In 2010, it was $2.3 million, outdoing its 2008 contributions of $2.2 million. Any questions? I’m sure there’s a union public school teacher available to answer them.
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A Falling-Out Among Thieves?

Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa (the one who isn't among the missing) has threatened the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats that the Teamsters will "hold them accountable" for passing the three free trade agreements that had languished on President Obama's desk for over two years.

How he plans to do that is yet to be determined. Cement overshoes, perhaps? Does he plan on singling out Obama only, or will he need a large cement mixer for the Democrats who voted for the agreements as well? At least now I know why the Fox Movie Channel keeps showing Blood Feud, the TV mini-series about the elder Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy. There hasn't been this much bad blood between the big union and a Democratic administration since 1968.

Hoffa (who prefers to be called James P. Hoffa) did lay out part of his plan. He said "the Teamsters will hold members of Congress accountable at the ballot box for their votes on these damaging trade deals." How democratic. He went on to say: "Our representatives just voted to damage our economy, raise unemployment and lower workers' wages. These trade deals protect the profit of multinationals at the expense of American working families."

Obama, in contrast, signed the bills the moment they were returned to him. He said that the agreements would support tens of thousands of American jobs while protecting the environment, workers' rights and intellectual property rights. Rather than simply remove trade barriers such as tariffs, the agreements require mutual cooperation in raising the standards for labor and the environment in the three contracting nations. They didn't simply open up additional markets in America for the products coming from the three nations (Colombia, Panama, and South Korea) without corresponding concessions. For a more complete discussion of the trade agreements and Obama's belated support for them, go here.

Several think tanks on both the left and right estimate that the free trade agreements will produce about 77,000 new jobs in America and make American products more appealing to the other three nations. Hoffa wasn't going to take that lying down, so he attempted to pander to his Occupy Wall Street counterparts by saying: "This is one of the reasons people are marching in the streets of dozens of American cities. Their government is betraying them, and they're furious."

How real this dispute is remains to be seen. Hoffa may just be trying to shore up support among his own cadres and those of the other big unions. He may very well have spoken with Obama and told him "don't worry, we're just putting on a show, but we're still in the tank for you." After all, who else is his union going to support in 2012? The Republicans? The Blue Dog Democrats? The battle between his father and Bobby Kennedy was much more personal, so Jimmy the Elder's support of Richard Nixon is not likely to repeat itself with Jimmy the Lesser.
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The House Tells Boeing Not To Fly Away

If things go as planned, the House of Representatives will vote today on slapping down the National Labor Relations Board for its attempt to curry favor with labor by determining where a company can decide to build its plants. The NLRB took it upon itself to pursue a suit against Boeing Corporation for alleged “unfair labor practices.”

In fact, Boeing merely attempted to expand, and made the mistake of expanding into a right to work state—South Carolina. For background on the original House investigations into the matter this past June, go here: Boeing, Boeing, Boeing. Nothing that the House committee has produced has detoured the NLRB juggernaut. In order for Boeing’s actions to be considered an unfair labor practice, the NLRB would have to prove that Boeing’s expansion plant in South Carolina was retaliation for union strikes in closed-shop Washington State. In addition, it would have to show that as a result of Boeing’s actions, union jobs were lost.

Boeing says that it was making a pure business decision. It needed additional space, and given the unavailability of large tracts of land in Washington necessary for major expansion along with the costs of doing business, South Carolina was an ideal choice. Equally importantly, not a single union job was lost in Washington as a result of the expansion. In fact, since the labor dispute, Boeing has expanded the Washington facilities to the maximum extent allowable, and has hired 2,000 more union laborers. The facts are clear and indisputable. Only the philosophy of unionism and government control of private business are at issue.

The Obama administration and its Congressional allies aren’t doing themselves any favors with this NLRB action. South Carolina is an early primary state, and at least one Republican presidential hopeful has already used the NLRB’s action as a campaign issue. Mitt Romney visited the new Boeing plant, and pronounced the NLRB’s action “political payback from the White House to the unions.” He may be the first, but he won’t be the last Republican to latch onto the issue.

Never daunted, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who recently declared war on the Republican Party (those sons-of-bitches), said “the National Labor Relations Act prohibits companies from retaliating against workers who exercise union rights by moving their jobs away.” Trumka failed to explain how Boeing’s expansion of the Washington facilities and adding another 2,000 union employees “moved jobs away.”

In attacking the pending House bill, Trumka said: “This is sweeping legislation that would gut the NLRB and result in serious, harmful changes to jobs and workers’ rights across the country.” Well, it would be sweeping, it could potentially gut the NLRB (that’s a bad thing?), and it would damage the cause of forced unionism. How putting people to work is a harmful change remains a mystery to all but the union bosses and the Obama administration.

Trumka adds that if the bill becomes law, “a company could simply close a plant and move to another state if workers complained of unsafe working conditions or discrimination.” Two things immediately occur to me. First, every state, including South Carolina, has rigid laws against unsafe working conditions and discrimination, so what does the union have to do with it? South Carolina also has whistleblower statutes which prevent companies from retaliating against workers filing legitimate complaints about unsafe working conditions or discrimination. Therefore, what Trumka is actually talking about is cushy union work rules, not safety or discrimination.

Second, I turn his own argument back on him. If the NLRB ultimately prevails, Boeing would be within its rights and good business sense to move its offices and plants to some place more business-friendly like, say, Shanghai. If Boeing did indeed commit a labor violation (which I firmly say it did not), the government telling a company where it can locate its facilities is both unwise and unconstitutional.

This is another back-door, end-run around the Constitution and proper delegation of authority. The President exacerbates the problem by claiming to stay above the fray. Says Obama: “I am reluctant to interfere in a case brought by an independent federal agency.” In other words, he wants his dirty work to be done by somebody else so he can pretend his skirts are clean.

I wish the sponsors of this bill the best of luck. It does have a good chance of passage in the House. But that won’t be the end of it. The Senate is still controlled by pro-labor Democrats and the bill will probably not even get a debate in that chamber, given majority leader Harry Reid’s adeptness at parliamentary roadblocks. What is likely is that the legal battle will go on for years, adding to the very uncertainty that is crippling American investment in American business

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Unions Believe Violence Solves Problems

What you are seeing is the peaceful picketing that unions would have you believe is as tough as they ever get. Anybody with an IQ higher than an armadillo's knows that this peaceful picture is not how unions are getting their way these days. Public sector unions and their supporters have occupied state capitols and roughed up their opponents. The SEIU has its resident thugs at any meeting where there might be heard a discouraging word.

And that's the gentle part of union thuggery. Let's take a look at a couple of these peaceful strikes. First, there was the United Mine Workers strike. Sure, there were picket lines and stirring speeches. Those covered up the real activities of the union goons. One non-union contractor named Eddie York crossed a UMW picket line and was rewarded for his bravery with a fatal shot to the back of his head.

UMW president Richard Trumka not only failed to discipline any of the strike organizers, but set aside major union forced dues for the defense fund for the eight strikers charged with the murder. Trumka's reward was to be elevated to the presidency of the AFL-CIO. In that position, he has proudly quoted the words of Karl Mark from the Communist Manifesto, advising his workers to rise and rid themselves of their chains (much like former SEIU president Andy Stern). He keeps the Bolshevik violence out of his public speeches, but not out of his union meetings.

Prior to the murder case, a Virginia judge had ruled in a UMW private property damage and criminal threats case that "the evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of the union." The unions have slowly lost their hold over the working public, and their rhetoric convinces no worker to join their unions voluntarily. They have to convince them somehow. If the speeches don't work, the violence which had been on the down trend for several decades has come back in force. Intimidation and actual physical harm to both employers and employees is the order of the day.

The most recent example is the activity which has taken place away from the picket lines shown in the picture accompanying this article. The latest target of organized thug labor is Verizon. Says a spokesman for the Communications Workers of America: "There's nothing wrong, or un-democratic, or un-American about militancy. It's part of our tradition." That was a valid statement nearly a century ago when companies which practiced union-busting used goons of their own. With the advent of the NLRB, state laws, creation of OSHA, and other modern developments, the companies grew up. The unions are still like dangerous, angry, willful and ungrateful children.

There have already been 123 verified destructions of Verizon property, including at the homes of Verizon customers. One picket-line crossing Verizon employee had his arm broken in a very nasty melee. Fellow strikers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers blocked the entrance to the home of a sixty-four year old semi-invalid woman's house after she called Verizon from a neighbor's house to repair her cut phone line. Verizon's security office is receiving hundreds of daily reports of sabotage, threats, or actual violence.

The most famous outrage occurred last week, when John King, an electrical contractor in Toledo (who was doing work for Verizon during the strike) was awakened to the bright lights of his home security system coming on as he heard loud noises in his driveway. He came outside to find a gang of union goons scrawling the word "scab" on his car. He shouted for them to stop, and one of the thugs came up with a gun and shot King in the arm. A few weeks earlier, the union goons had thrown a rock through his shop window inscribed with the word "kill."

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) have a long history of nefarious activities. It used huge sums of forced union dues for thug activities and political action, despite the wording of the National Labor Relations Act. In a landmark case, the union was heavily fined and required to produce records for any union member who requests them concerning how their forced dues were being spent. It turned out that somewhere between 50% an 60% of those dues were being used for non-permitted union activity.

The NLRB and finally the United States Supreme Court ruled that nobody could be forced to be a member of a union, but if they worked in a union shop, they had to pay a percentage of the full member dues for those activities permitted by the Act. In cases that subsequently went to court, CWA had told the protesting employees that their dues would be reduced by no more than 4% to 5%, since that was all that was being spent on union activities disallowed by the Supreme Court ruling.

In fact, when the evidence was produced in court, [pro-Democratic] political activity alone (unpermitted for forced dues for non-members) accounted for 40% to 55% of the union's spending. Huge refunds and penalties have been imposed, but CWA, IBEW, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and a myriad of other unions continue to lie about how their dues are spent.

For your information, the case is Communications Workers of America vs. Beck. Employees who choose not to be members of the union and request an accounting for how their dues are being spent are said to be "filing a Beck statement." They are always told they are giving up all the fabulous benefits of union membership and will still only reduce their dues by a minimal amount. But at least this is just union theft. It's when a "Beck employee" makes too much public noise about the dues that the intimidation and violence follows.

There is a hole in the Act that allows union bigwigs to get away with this highway robbery and violence. Union officials are exempt from personal liability as long as the violence they promote is in the name of "legitimate union objectives." That makes it very hard to tie the rhetoric to the actual physical violence. Jimmy Hoffa made this rule work for him for over a quarter of a century until the union turned on him after his federal convictions on other charges.

Right now, the situation is about as bad as it can be. The Obama campaign desperately needs the support of the unions, and Eric Holder's Justice Department is willfully blind to these union criminal activities. The NLRB is now loaded in favor of socialist hacks who will not take any stand that opposes union activity. Remember that Marx-spouting SEIU past president Andy Stern still holds the record for most overnight stays at the Obama White House.
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The SEIU Intimidation Handbook

There has been considerable civil unrest nationwide because of sensible governors and legislators who decided that the need to cut costs was vital to their states' survival. The fattest cats on the cat farm are the public employees unions, and their turn to join the rest of us in recession mode has come. They don't like it, and they've acted like a mob on multiple occasions as a result.

The mainstream media have treated the "spontaneous demonstrations" as proof that unions are viable, popular, and righteously indignant. But those with the ability to see through the hype have long suspected that these demonstrations and occupations of public property were hardly spontaneous. Most have reasonably suspected that there was some sort of vague but organized effort among union management and membership to interfere with the workings of government and private enterprise. Recently, in regard to the most visible of the unions and its agitators, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nebulous plan has become concrete.

During the discovery portion of a pending court case, the blueprint for union disruption of government and businesses and intimidation of individuals has turned up. In a seventy-plus page manual which will be entered into evidence, the SEIU sets out its demands, strategy, and tactics for use by the thugs and unwitting SEIU membership in disrupting civil society in order to strengthen the waning union movement. It is the first, but likely not the last smoking gun that will turn up during the unions' self-created class war.

The manual contains the usual garbage about predatory businesses and heartless corporations which had some truth decades and even a century in the past. But after justifying unionism even in the public sector, the manual goes on to describe tactics that can only be described as "mob-like." Though aimed largely at damaging medium to large businesses and corporations, the manual also includes elected officials among its targets. Worst of all, it encourages mob action against high-profile business owners and corporate management as well as boycotts and personal action against public officials, at their homes, not at their workplaces.

The SEIU manual, addressing banking institutions, promotes "outside pressure jeopardizing relationships between the employer and lenders, investors, stockholders, customers, clients, patients, tenants, politicians, or others on whom the employer depends for funds." It also encourages "lawfare," advising the use of lawsuits and regulatory shenanigans to threaten employers with cripplingly expensive action in the courts and at regulatory agencies (NLRB anyone?).

The manual encourages slinging mud with [phony] charges of exploitation of immigrants, racism, sexism, and rape of the local economies by taking money out of the community to pay dividends to rich shareholders. In the words of the manual: "Leafletting outside meetings where targeted managers are speaking (not to mention shouting the speaker down), their homes, or events sponsored by community organizations they are tied to are some ways to make sure their friends, neighbors, and associates are aware of the controversy."

It gets better: "It may be a violation of blackmail and extortion laws to threaten management and public officials with release of dirt about them if they don't settle a contract [favorable to the union]. But there is no law against union members who are angry at their employer deciding to uncover and publicize factual information about individual managers and elected officials." In short, a smear campaign. This is what former SEIU CEO and frequent overnight White House visitor Andy Stern calls "the persuasion of power."

This is not abstract theorizing. It's a manual for action. This past May, the SEIU organized busloads of demonstrators and ferried them to the home of Bank of America deputy general counsel Greg Baer. Unlike the AWOL union mob, Baer was at work, and his wife was at a local charity event. Only Baer's young son was at home, and he was terrified. The mob went onto the property from time to time, but mostly shouted into bullhorns and waved scurrilous signs which attacked the character of the boy's father. The boy was comforted by Fortune Magazine's bureau chief. He asked her, in tears, "when are they going to leave?"

As so often happens with leftist organizations, the SEIU invokes the names of legitimate human rights icons as if racial discrimination and colonialism were on a par with union contract demands. "Union members sometimes must act in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi and disobey laws which are used to enforce justice against working people." The manual doesn't include an explanation of why public employee union members should be paid substantially better than their private sector counterparts, or have their outrageous pensions paid for by the taxpayer. But clutching that manual (in spirit, at least) hundreds of union demonstrators occupied the Wisconsin state capitol, doing considerable property damage during their "spontaneous demonstrations."

We now no longer need to infer that there is an organized and thuggish movement on the part of SEIU and its union allies. We have their roadmap.

In case you're interested, the court filing involves a RICO case launched against the SEIU by Sodexo, Inc. Filed in the Virginia federal court, the case alleges that "S.E.I.U. has waged a relentless campaign to damage Sodexo’s reputation, interfere with its contracts, make false allegations of serving contaminated food to its customers, and otherwise bring the company to its knees. Sodexo claims this campaign has cost it millions of dollars in lost business and the Complaint specifies several contracts it contends were lost as a direct result of the union’s tactics."

Sodexo already had many union employees from various unions. The remainder of its employees had shown no interest in unionizing, but the SEIU came to Sodexo and demanded that all employees not already affiliated with another union be organized under the SEIU banner via card check. The company refused to negotiate on that basis, demanding that any such unionization be done by traditional secret ballot, and the intimidation campaign began.
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Wisconsin: Union Collapse = Education Reforms

There was an interesting article the other day about what is happening in Wisconsin now that the teachers’ unions have lost their iron grip on schools. This article was made all the more interesting by a laughable article in The Economist which tried to explain why any cuts in education would be catastrophic.

The Economist is one of those liberals rags which hides behind claims of sanity, but somehow never quite comes through. For example, they claim to favor cuts in union benefits, but they just can’t find a single cut they ever approve of. This time, they're worried that "cuts" in state budgets could destroy American education. But these aren't really cuts, The Economist is using standard liberal sleight of hand to call decreases in projected increases "cuts." In other words, many of these “cuts” don’t actually result in less money being spent, they just eliminate planned increases. Nevertheless, The Economist claims these “cuts” will result in a parade of horribles. But check out this list:

1. “Baseball may be cut to keep football going.”

2. "Latin will be even rarer -- and forget about adding Mandarin this year.”

3. “Some school are now charging fees for certain classes or activities, a startling trend that violates some basic ideas about what public schools are supposed to do. . . Elementary-school teachers ask their pupils to buy school supplies; high-school students sell cupcakes and wash cars to raise money for the prom. Parents may supplement a child’s education with extra services—a tutor, a week at lacrosse camp, a second-hand car, a new silver trumpet rather than the borrowed cornet, glottal with generations of spit.”

Oh.... my.... God!!! How will the public ever survive? Ok, let’s start with some of the most obvious responses. First, Title IX has caused most sports to be abandoned, not budget cuts, but The Economist thinks Title IX is a good thing. Secondly, kids have always paid for their own supplies. That's the American public school system. Sometimes, they even had to pay for their own books. Students have always paid for their own proms. Tutors and something as bizarre as “lacrosse camp” have never been provided by public schools. And no school on the planet has ever provided students with new cars. Also, dear Economist musical instruments are cleaned before they are sold, i.e. they don’t come with generations of spit in them.

How retarded does someone need to be to make these arguments?

Well, a lot. See The Economist even acknowledges in its article that recent studies (even by leftists) have shown that more money simply does not equate to improved achievement, yet The Economist still illogically argues that these "cuts" will hurt students. How does that make sense? That’s like conceding water does not cause cancer, but then arguing that letting people drink water will lead to more cancer! What's more, The Economist actually suggests that "cutting" this funding will undermine democracy. How? The only "evidence" they cite is that Noah Webster advocated public education. That's nonsense.

Next, The Economist argues that these cuts are upsetting kindergarteners in Michigan, who are sending “emotional letters” to evil Republicans. So what? Never mind that these kindergartners can’t have any idea what they are talking about and that it’s shameless for liberal teachers to use them as political props, but the mere fact that people are upset tells us nothing about whether a law is good or not. Even a law banning serial killing will upset someone.

Finally, The Economist assures us that “classes will be more crowded, school-bus rides longer.” That sounds believable right?

Well, that’s where Wisconsin comes into this. With the union contracts broken Wisconsin schools are suddenly finding they have freedom to arrange their schools in ways that are best for the students. When the Wisconsin bill was signed, the Democrats and their fellow travelers in the media predicted catastrophe. . . just like The Economist. But not only did that not happen, things are looking up dramatically.

Consider the Kaukauna School District. This district has 4,200 students and 400 employees. They have a $400,000 deficit to fill. To fix this, they made the following changes, which turned that $400,000 deficit into a $1.2 million surplus:

1. Teachers will now be required to pay 12.6% of the cost of their medical coverage instead of 10%. And they will need to contribute 5.8% of their salary to their pensions. Other than this, teacher’s salaries will remain the same, with a current top of $85,000 a year plus $35,000 in benefits for 184 days worked.

2. What’s more, something interesting has happened. Under the union contract, schools were required to obtain health insurance for teachers from a company owned by the teacher’s union. That company, the WEA Trust, had just notified Kaukauna that it would face significant premium hikes this year. Now that Kaukauna suddenly has the right to shop around for other providers, the WEA Trust has magically reversed its position and is offering to match the lowest bid Kaukauna can find rather than raising rates. Imagine that! (Frankly, if they can match the lowest bid, then the attempt to impose a premium hike should be looked at as a violation of Wisconsin’s False Claims Act.)

3. They also eliminated the rule that allowed teachers to work only 37.5 hours a week -- they will now work 40. And teachers will be required to work 6 of 7 periods a day instead of 5 of 7. This will result in more classes being offered, more one-on-one time for troubled students, and class sizes will fall from 31 to 26 in high school and 26 to 23 in elementary school.

So much for everything The Economist claimed.

In any event, it’s clear the world did not end and education did not perish. Wisconsin schools are about to improve and will do so for less money because the unions were broken. And the fact The Economist is left arguing that students will be forced to buy unwashable used trumpets tells us how intellectually hollow the arguments of the left have become.

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Obama Keeps Shoveling

And over the past few months, he's been shoveling it against the tide. The biggest pile he succeeded in shoveling was his plan for socialized medicine and bureaucratic control of America's health care needs, but everything since has been washing back over him.

The most deliciously ironic shoveling act was when he finally had to admit that all those projects he wanted to pay for with taxpayer money weren't exactly "shovel-ready." After pushing a nearly trillion dollar "stimulus" program, it turns out that the administration is all dressed up with nowhere to go. As Americans suffer from high unemployment and stagflation, Obama used his girlish giggle to cover up his apparent ignorance of what business does and how it does it.

I don't agree with my fellow conservatives who thought that Obama was heartlessly laughing at Americans who are the victims of his grandiose socialist schemes. I think it was his version of whistling past the graveyard. He can't laugh at people he doesn't even consider worth a passing notice. A missed one-foot putt, now that's something worth laughing about.

Somewhere in the mix, Obama managed to get unions involved in the shovel conspiracy. You know what I mean--those "workers" who have one person shoveling with six supervising, all with high-pay, low-performance guarantees and cushy benefits and pensions. Early on, he managed to push two major automobile corporations into bankruptcy, screw over the creditors and bond-holders, while handing over ownership to the joint venture of big government and big labor unions. I'm still looking for the constitutional authority for that maneuver. Also, if you think that Chrysler Corporation has paid back the taxpayers and made the bondholders whole, I have a big orange bridge in San Francisco I'm willing to sell you, cheap.

Other ventures haven't been quite so shovel-ready. Several airlines, most noticeably Delta, have conducted multiple unionization votes, and the unions have been rejected each time. Teams of federal investigators are checking into how such a thing could possibly happen. It is self-evident that every American worker deeply desires union membership, so it must be some sort of capitalist conspiracy against them.

Before you can have airline workers being denied their Constitution and God-given right to be members of a union, you first have to have airplanes for them to fly. And there the capitalist conspiracy goes even deeper. Big Boy Boeing is now under attack by the Obamist-controlled National Labor Relations Board for daring to open a non-union plant to build the "Dreamliner" in South Carolina. It was rather amazing to see how quickly a well-run company could make a place truly "shovel-ready" without first demanding huge sums of the taxpayers' money to pay for the shovels.

Being continues to build airplanes in unionized Washington State, and is even expanding its operations there. But the room for expansion is limited, so without costing a single union job, Boeing found a place that it could shovel without union labor, to add to its Washington-based union plant. "Not good enough" say the unions and the NLRB. In their inimitable illogic, creating jobs in South Carolina ipso facto automatically means the loss of union jobs (and union dues--no small matter).

It must be retaliation for union strikes in the past, so that is nothing short of an "unfair labor practice." The Obamists aren't satisfied with telling Americans who should own businesses, who should run them, and how much profit they should make, but it now wants to make sure that it controls where those facilities can exist (and more importantly, where they can't exist).

The Democrats got shoveled-under in some formerly Democrat states in the last general election. In Wisconsin, the unions cried "foul." They know they have the exclusive right to shovels in Wisconsin, so when the governor and the legislature commandeered their shovels, they first mobbed the capital, then sued to get their shovels back (writ of replevin for a shovel?). They found a union-owned judge to agree with them, but the state Supreme Court reversed the decision and found that the shovels belonged to the people.

Failing to get his way on so many of his shovel-ready projects, Obama needed to deflect attention from his growing record of failure and onto something positive. How about shovel-ready foreign trade agreements? That should fool the rubes into thinking that The One is actually in favor of letting the markets work. The Master of Business first discovered that our trade problems center on poor performance in exports. So as far back as his 2011 State of the Union address, the nation's economist-in-chief announced that he would increase our exports to double their current level by 2014 (optimistic about that re-election thing, isn't he?).

How to do that? Implement the Bush-inspired free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea and take personal credit for it. It's part of the overall strategy of "blame Bush, take credit for his achievements." But once again, those capitalist conspirators ruined his plans. Or did they? The shovel he got hit in the back of the head with came not from the capitalists, but from the unions. You must remember that in Keynesian thinking, every success means somebody else has to fail. In Marxist thinking, every success is based on exploitation of the workers. Obama has been getting cross-eyed trying to figure out which of those two theories to use.

The unions helped him to reconcile the two modes of thinking by demanding that in any free-trade agreement with the three nations, there must be a guarantee that no union worker in America will lose his job without compensation. So Obama has decided that he will support the agreements only if there is a massive expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act. "What's that?" you ask. It's your tax money above and beyond unemployment benefits to be given to "workers displaced by foreign competition." Now there's no such program for workers displaced by domestic competition, but we're dealing with rotten furriners here.

So now we know that even foreign trade agreements are not shovel-ready. Clearly, we could have increased our exports if only we paid union employees for being out-produced by foreign competition. OK, I'm getting lost in the logic myself. But one thing you can count on. If, as seems likely, the free-trade agreements are rejected by the Senate because of the Trade Adjustment Assistance union payoffs, the Obamists already have their shovels ready to bury the Republicans who queered the president's brilliant double-our-exports plan.
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Boeing! Boeing! Boeing! Here Comes Issa

Barack Obama and his comrades at the big unions are happily encouraging their friends at the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) to ignore Congress and the Constitution and make business decisions for private companies by interfering directly in their operations under bureaucratic cover.

But as proof that Californians aren't all bad, Republican Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government, has scheduled hearings on the Democrat-controlled NLRB over its interference with the operations of Boeing Aircraft. Seems the NLRB, currently being led around by the nose by Obama's recess-appointed leftist/unionist Craig Becker wants Boeing to cease its "unfair labor practice" in which it dared to open a non-union plant in South Carolina.

You probably all know the basics. Boeing decided to open a new plant in South Carolina where the business climate was vastly better than in the heavily over-governed State of Washington. Boeing is the giant of the American aircraft industry, and has done extremely well in its home production base in Washington (home corporate offices are located in Chicago). The company was getting a new contract for the production of the 787 jumbo jet. There was no more room for producing it at the Puget Sound facilities, so Boeing looked around and found the ideal spot in South Carolina. No jobs will be lost in Washington. This was an expansion plant, not a replacement plant.

But Democrats on the NLRB are bought and paid for by the unions. When they're bought, they stay bought. The appointment of Craig Becker gave the Democrats a majority on the NLRB. So the Board sued Boeing based on a union complaint for unfair labor practices because South Carolina is a right to work state. Joyful Boeing employees there didn't want a union to screw things up. No union jobs in Washington are eliminated by the hiring in South Carolina. Nevertheless, by some strange twist of leftist logic, the NLRB determined that Boeing was union-busting in Washington by hiring non-union labor in South Carolina.

And now the Obama bureaucratic refusals to appear before committees of Congress continue. The Oversight Committee prepared a list of potential witnesses, including NLRB general counsel Lafe Solomon. Solomon was invited courteously to appear before the committee hearings on Boeing. He semi-politely refused. Some day Republicans are going to learn that courtesy and decorum are seen as weaknesses by leftists. Solomon cannot be required to reveal attorney-client confidences, but a Board does not have the same level of immunity and executive privilege that a cabinet-level position does. Solomon can rightly be asked how the Board determined that Boeing was committing unfair labor practices without asking about private conversations leading to the decisions. More significantly, it can ask directly how the Board justifies having done so. Who better to answer that question than the Board's own general counsel?

An administrative law judge will hear the matter in Seattle on June 14. The Oversight Committee hearings are set for about two weeks later, and will now probably be delayed in order to subpoena Solomon for his testimony. But if the judge finds against Boeing, the matter will quickly be appealed to the D.C. Board (where the decision will of course be upheld), and then to an appellate court. Somewhere in between, we will be treated to Issa grilling Solomon (or even better, Becker).

The complaint against Boeing filed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is based entirely on the allegation that Boeing opened the South Carolina plant in retaliation for a union strike at the Washington facilities in 2008. The bulk of the work on the 787 will continue to be done in Washington, and the first one is scheduled for delivery later this year. But Boeing already has over 800 orders for the planes, and that could neither then nor now be accomplished solely in Washington. Boeing looked for a place to build the additional output efficiently and optimally, and found it in South Carolina.

Issa's letter to Solomon said: "This hearing will focus on how your actions against Boeing could impact the thousands of Boeing employees at a non-union work site in South Carolina. You assert that you do not seek to close Boeing's operations in South Carolina, yet the relief requested would have that exact effect." Boeing filed papers which demonstrated that the company had not removed or transferred any work from its Puget Sound site. It has refuted the claim that any union members have lost a job because of its decision.

The union and the NLRB have basically suggested that the 787 contract was "meant for the Washington facility" and all production on the 787 in South Carolina should cease. The South Carolina plant was built almost exclusively to handle the overload of 787 orders. It's tooled for it and Boeing hired with that goal exclusively in mind. The investment was huge. In fact, it was the largest industrial investment in that state's history. 1,000 jobs were created (no Obama mumbo-jumbo about jobs "created or saved") and many more are in the offing as production accelerates. If 787 production stops in order to satisfy the greed of union labor, the plant will effectively die.

This is in fact a double power play. South Carolina law allows for unionization, but also allows employees to refuse to join a union. Becker and the leftist members of the NLRB want to reverse the trend of ever-shrinking industrial unions. Congress refused to go along with card-check and elimination of secret ballots in union elections. Becker and his bureaucrats are determined to do end-runs around Congress using regulations to create union rights that Congress has refused to grant. If the Board could succeed in requiring that all 787 work be done in Washington or in a union shop, it might accomplish coercing South Carolina employees into joining a union they have already rejected.

Issa and his fellow GOP members will launch a major attempt to expose this bureaucratic travesty. At a time when the economy is the issue and the focus is jobs, jobs, jobs, the Obama administration, his cabinet and his czars are doing everything they can to stifle job growth. This is only one painful example of how they intend to go about it.


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