Commentary by James Shott

The American concept of personal freedom takes a back seat in West Virginia and other states that do not protect their citizens’ ability to get some jobs without being forced to join or pay fees to a labor union. For state governments or the federal government to allow such conditions for going to work to exist is as antithetical to the idea of individual freedom that our nation was built on as it gets.

Half of the 50 states have already embraced worker freedom and passed right-to-work laws. These laws have a positive impact on the economies and job picture for those states, and are creating jobs. And now West Virginia is poised to become the 26th state where workers are free to choose whether or not to join a union.

The state House of Delegates and Senate have both passed right-to-work legislation. The Mountain State’s Democrat Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, has vowed to veto the bill, but the Republican majorities in both houses can override that veto.

Advocates of right-to-work in the state legislature say they are not opposed to unions, per se, but do oppose state laws dictating that unions receive taxpayer and worker funds.

West Virginia and 25 other states believe that people should be free of pressure to join a union to get a job and believe that such mechanisms are deterrents to business development and job creation, and thus are harmful to the economy of states.

Characterized as pro-worker, pro-growth, pro-freedom and pro-job, abolishing forced unionization and the prevailing wage rule in the state are predicted to improve the state’s business climate, increase job opportunities for West Virginians, and help overcome the economic damage to the state’s economy brought on by the Obama administration’s war on coal.

The rub arises when a union has negotiated a contract for workers in a business, and some workers do not want to join the union. The union argues that it isn’t fair for non-union workers to benefit from union negotiations, and the union is correct about that. So then non-union workers are assessed a fee to compensate the union for their benefits.

But then that isn’t exactly fair, either, as non-union workers have nothing to say about how the union uses their money.

The solution is simple: Those workers who want to join the union should be able to do so, and to benefit from the union negotiated work conditions and wages, and those who choose not to join should not be required either to join, or to pay money to the union, and therefore would negotiate their own deal with the employer.

Labor unions evolved from workers wanting better conditions, having endured conditions that were generally unfair and even dangerous for many years. Over the years after workers became organized, however, federal and state governments put laws and rules into effect that provided protections for workers, taking on the primary role that labor organizations had been providing.

With their prime function now essentially covered by laws and regulations, labor unions had to change their focus in order to survive. They have become active and influential political organizations, using member dues and non-union worker fees for political purposes. And too often, the demands they make to attract membership frequently involve things that no sensible business would do on its own, such as demanding work rules that are inefficient and designed to increase union jobs, rather than increase efficiency and productivity. They often demand pay practices that ignore individual worker performance, basing pay on considerations other than the worker’s abilities. And they routinely protect the job of all members regardless of their performance, or the health of the business.

Despite their actions on behalf of their members, which frequently are harmful to the businesses in which their members work, union membership has declined sharply from its peak in the mid-1950s, when one in three workers belonged to a union. The decline began to accelerate in 1980, according to Economy Watch online, and today union membership is a mere 11.1 percent.

That figure includes public-sector workers, who among all workers have the least justification for union representation, given that their employers are the governments that enforce labor law. Public workers are 5 times more likely to belong to a union than their private-sector counterparts, with a union membership rate of 35.2 percent, while the private employee rate is just 6.7 percent.

Many of the demands of unions on businesses, while good for union members, make profitability more difficult for businesses, artificially raising wages and labor costs, thereby increasing the price of goods and services for everyone, including union families. 

Rather than being an adversary of management, unions could become partners, focusing on providing a better trained and more productive workforce, assisting business in succeeding, and creating jobs through natural economic methods, rather than blackmailing employers into actions that benefit only one side of the labor/management equation.

Under this scenario unions could succeed on their own merits rather than depending upon government force and political intrigue for their survival.

Cross-posted from Observations

Media blackout of black Chicago protesters marching against Obama

Originally found at: Legal Insurrection

Posted by Anne Sorock    Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 2:12pm

Black Chicagoans from the south and west sides took their message to what they say is the source of the problem when they converged outside of a fundraiser held by Mayor Emanuel for Barack Obama and then marched to the studios of ABC News.

Their message, “let us work in our own community,” was made all the more poignant as the ABC News crew ignored the news event outside their very studios. Not one camera was sent to cover the news that was, literally, placed at their doorstep.

The protest, which took place Thursday evening, addressed these community members’ growing desperation as their wartorn neighborhoods are redeveloped by political cronies, evicting residents and shutting out local investors, and use union labor from outside the community to do the work. It’s a corrupt cycle of government “work” that takes advantage of the poor, evicting them, and then redeveloping the properties to benefit anyone but the community.

In the video below, community members who say they are desperate for jobs and investment, focus their protest against liberal leadership, including Obama and Emanuel, so-called community organizations like ACORN, and unions:

In an earlier video published by Jeremy Segal “Rebel Pundit,” a community member elaborated on the issue the inner-city black community has with unions: they won’t hire black people. Therefore any work going to their communities for building sites, etc., shuts them out of jobs.Segal writes:

According to Mark Carter of the Broke Party, a newly formed group of black grassroots activists fed up with the destruction and blight brought on their community by the liberal agenda, the protest was “about bringing attention to the demolition of homes in Chicago’s black communities on the west and south sides.” These buildings, Carter says, “can still be saved, but the city is tearing them down,” leaving property values and the community in the gutter.
Carter told Breitbart News they chose the Obama fundraiser as the starting point for the protest in order to send a direct message to Rahm Emanuel and Washington, D.C. that they will not be voting on Tuesday for those politicians who are allowing their homes and community to be demolished.
In an effort to bring even further attention to the ongoing issues of the black community in Chicago, the protest ended up outside of ABC 7 News’s local broadcast studio on State Street. This studio can be viewed from the street and sidewalk. When the protesters arrived, they used a bullhorn to announce themselves and called on weather reporter Jerry Taft, seen through the window, not to pretend they weren’t there, prompting a wave from Taft to the protesters.

As the new jobs numbers show black unemployment has risen to 14.3 percent, this community is desperate for work. They are desperate to find a new way outside of liberal leadership. And  they are desperate for the media to stop the blackout on the real stories happening in the inner-city communities.

What can the inner-city black community do to get ABC News and other outlets to cover their plight, if bringing news to their very doorstep is not enough for the media to pay attention?

Originally found at: http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/11/media-blackout-on-black-chicago-protesters-marching-against-obama/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le·gal+In·sur·rec·tion%29

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Disclaimer: These opinions are solely my own, and do not reflect the opinions or official positions of any United States Government agency, organization or department.

You can’t make this stuff up: reality is often stranger than fiction

 

Commentary by James H. Shott

A couple of items recently in the news illustrate the weirdness of some of the ideas that are put forth for serious consideration these days, and that actually gain support from some Americans.

Labor unions in Indiana are upset over the state’s recently passed right-to-work law. According to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a right-to-work law “affirms the right of every American to work for a living without being compelled to belong to a union. Compulsory unionism in any form – ‘union,’ ‘closed,’ or ‘agency’ shop – is a contradiction of the Right to Work principle and the fundamental human right that the principle represents.”

Individual freedom such as the option not to belong to a labor union was a fundamental component of the United States Constitution, but that concept has Indiana’s unionists all out of sorts. They fear the new law will cause a decline in union membership, something that is so far not supported by the data in other right-to-work states. Nevertheless, Indiana unions recently filed a suit to overturn the law. The suit cites two reasons that the law violates the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. First, the suit complains that it requires dues-paying union members to work alongside non-dues-paying workers, terming that condition “compulsory service and/or involuntary servitude within the meaning of the amendment.”

Translation: If all workers are not forced to join the union, union workers effectively become slaves.
The second point, however, seems a fair criticism: that it is unfair to force “unions to furnish services to all persons in bargaining units that it represents, but it may not require payment for those services,” and once again they make a “slavery” connection. However, this complaint is even more foolish than the first one, since the unions asked for and received monopoly rights over collective bargaining, meaning they asked to be the bargaining agent for all workers, and were granted that status. You cannot rationally seek and accept the monopoly right to bargain for everyone, and then complain that representing non-union members effectively makes slaves out of union members.

Moreover, if we are talking about slavery, it is a far more persuasive argument that forcing workers to join the union and pay dues in order to have a job makes slaves of those who prefer not to join the union.
Next, in an irrational effort at political correctness (excuse the redundancy), the Applied Research Center (ARC) and its news site, Colorlines.com, are demonizing Americans who use perfectly proper language to accurately describe a law-breaking activity.

“Drop the I-Word” is a movement that attempts to do through distraction and demagoguery what rational thinking precludes. The “i-word” – illegals – is “a harmful slur,” according to the ARC, “a racially charged slur used to dehumanize and discriminate against immigrants and people of color regardless of migratory status. The i-word is shorthand for ‘illegal alien,’ ‘illegal immigrant’ and other harmful terms,” it says. The organization hopes that a majority of Americans will fall for this grand fraud that attempts to persuade us that the criminal act of people who sneak into the United States is really not a crime.

Somewhere in the Great Beyond George Orwell is smiling.

By accurately labeling the method willfully chosen by illegal immigrants to enter the U.S., the ARC asserts that we are denying people “basic human rights.” “No human being is illegal,” it proclaims. That may be true, but human beings can do illegal things, and sneaking into the country is one of them, thus the completely appropriate terms “illegal alien” and “illegal immigrant.”

Like the Indiana unions, the ARC does identify one piece of truth: “Immigrants without documents are regularly hired as cheap, exploited labor.” But this is not a result of correctly labeling them “illegal,” it results from the failure of the federal government to stem illegal immigration by enforcing immigration laws and guarding our borders. Businesses cannot hire and exploit illegal immigrants unless they are available to be hired and exploited.

Taking this absurdity to its illogical extreme, a video posted by the radical leftist organization MoveOn.org says calling illegal immigrants “illegal” fits the definition of a hate crime and calls for the word to be banned when used in the context of immigration. Rather than discuss the pros and cons of this issue, MoveOn.org prefers to silence the opposition, or better yet, imprison opponents to keep them from challenging goofy ideas like this one.

For Indiana unionists, apologists for illegal aliens/immigrants, and others inhabiting this strange other-world, working beside non-union workers is “slavery,” and illegal aliens are not illegal. Fitting nicely into this madness is the case of a Muslim U.S. Army officer crying "Allahu Akbar" while committing the jihadi murder of 12 soldiers. He is considered to have committed "workplace violence," but an American citizen with a Tea Party bumper sticker is regarded as a "domestic terrorist."

In this bizarre world the trees are a bright orange, the sky is chartreuse, the clouds are a rich puce, and standards and definitions change with the political winds. A society in the throes of such idiocy cannot long survive.

Cross-posted from Observations

Why Democrats Hate “Fair And Balanced” News

Why Democrats Hate “Fair And Balanced” News
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Around two thousand years ago, a man said: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” A relatively short while ago, someone added a few words to it and said: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free – but first, it will pi*s you off!” That’s all you need to know about the democrats and the fair and balanced news channel – Fox News.

However, I still have blank paper to write upon and an ink cart not quite dry, so I shall plod on in the seemingly endless task of defining the love of democrats for the politically correct over fact and/or truth.

Facts and truth are two of the most stubborn things in existence. It does not matter whether you believe a fact, or refuse to accept a fact; it remains a fact, nonetheless. The same is true for the truth. It makes not one whit of difference whether you believe the truth, or not. It remains the truth – period.

On the other hand, politically correct facts and/or truth(s) can mean anything you want them to mean. Often they are based on fact or truth but, in reality, that is the only thing valid about politically correct fact and truth. To my way of thinking, a politically correct fact, or truth, is an oxymoron. In the southern vernacular: “There ain’t no such thang!”

The political left is entirely too emotional for me. It has often been said that if American political parties had gender, the democrats would be female and the republicans would be male. All one needs to do to see evidence of that is to observe the pathetic union demonstrations in Wisconsin and other states.

Those demonstrations are a public display of an emotion, called anger, because they lost control of the US government last November. It is the reaction that a child displays when a favorite toy is taken away as punishment.

The electorate sent the democrats to the woodshed, and they don’t like it, no, not even a little bit. They are P.O’ed and, like a child, they are throwing a tantrum.

When I “threw a fit,” as a child, my parents snatched my skinny butt up and applied a 2-inch leather belt to my gluteus maximus until my cerebral cortex sparked and my mind was changed, my attitude was adjusted, and my general demeanor was acceptable in polite southern society. Of course, that meant eating from the mantle board for a few days. (For those uneducated in southern colloquialism, that means: “eating while standing up.”)

Look. When grown people, adults, make fools of themselves, on purpose, normal people just have to wonder: “What ails those folks?”

OK, so it is just me. See, I have a heck of a time dealing with anyone having authority over me. While in the US Army, I was on “KP,” as punishment, 13 times in eight weeks, at Fort Jackson, SC, because I had a problem with authority figures. I simply do not like, and will not tolerate, anyone or anything having absolute control over me. It ain’t gonna happen. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not particularly proud of it – but neither am I shamed by it. It is the way I am wired.

(Stay with me – I am about to make a point – or, at least, TRY!)

Unions, and the Democrat Party, are all about control. I could never be a member of either. I tend to think for myself, indeed, I LIKE thinking for myself. I am self-motivating, and I darn sure don’t like some one trying to motivate me -- covertly or overtly. (Again – it is the way I am wired.) You can imagine – I was a pain in the collective posteriors of my former employers.

The communists used to refer to THEIR minions as “useful idiots.” They manipulated them anyway they wanted and those minions did the will of the Communist Party. Much like Pavlov’s dog, the party would ring the bell -- and the “little commies” would come running.

Now. Compare that to what you see in the union demonstrations. The unions ring the bell(s) and the union members come running. See? Understand? It is “conditioning.” It is “control.”

There would be a heat wave in Hades before I would stand in the snow and shout that a news organization, which actually makes an effort to present BOTH sides of an issue, is a liar – for anyone!
But, then again, they have been so conditioned by the union’s propaganda and the Democratic Party’s propaganda that they seem to actually have great difficulty discerning truth from fiction, fairness from partiality, fact from lie. Its called: “CONTROL.”

It is important that America understands that those “conditioned” union members and Democratic Party members are a prototype for a liberal-socialist Democrat Party/labor union controlled America. Should they ever gain total control of America – they will OWN you – much like the people of the old Soviet Union, only worse.

It would seem their problem with Fox News is – the truth. They can’t stand it. And since the truth remains – unchanged – they must attempt to divert America’s attention elsewhere. They try to besmirch the purveyors of the truth. If it were not so serious, it would be hilariously funny.

Don’t hate them. No. They are to be pitied. They can’t quite grasp the meaning of a representative republic. They seem to believe that socialism is not evil and will not lead directly to communism, and ultimately to slavery. Sadly, they don’t have a clue that they would be the very first targets their socialist masters would seek to round up and annihilate!

J. D. Longstreet

Democrats Harm Their Party In Wisconsin

Democrats Harm Their Party In Wisconsin
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet


It gives me no small amount of pleasure to watch the Democratic Party inflict harm upon itself with those “demonstrations” in Wisconsin -- and those just beginning in other states, as well.

“Oh,” but you say, “Those are UNIONS demonstrating in Wisconsin!” To which, I would respond, “That’s what I said – DEMOCRATS!”

Come on, folks! The UNIONS are the democrats and the democrats ARE the UNIONS! This is a political fact I have known since I was a child.

I have told reader’s before that my uncle was a big wig in one of the most powerful unions of its day. I don’t know what position he held, but it was important enough that when he died, the United States Secretary of Labor attended his funeral.

I watched my uncle visually check his automobile for bombs, underneath the car and under the hood and dashboard and seat in the mornings before his drive to the airport. I grew up with those images forever burned into my memory.

Americans have very little sympathy for people WITH JOBS these days not reporting to work -- and taking that time to raise hell in the streets. Many of those people protesting have jobs with salaries from the public trough… meaning they are paid with taxpayer money. Do they not understand how that makes the taxpayer feel?

I must tell you, what is happening in Wisconsin is turning more and more Americans against labor unions and if nothing else good comes from all that sound and fury THAT, alone, in my opinion, would be a good thing for America.

It is also extremely “telling” when the democrats flee the state. It speaks to the veracity of all the claims the GOP and conservatives have made over the years -- that when the going gets tough, the democrats flee. Now, all of America has seen it.

We have often told you that democrats strike us as child-like. They seem to be ruled by emotion. Good solid reasoning seems to be just outside their grasp. This, too, is on display in Wisconsin.

We’d like to express our appreciation to the Democratic Party for making our job so much easier. See – we can claim all this stuff about them, but until Americans see it for themselves it means nothing to them. Now, however, the Democratic Party has been kind enough to put their emotional answer to a question that calls for deep reasoning right out there in public view where the American electorate can see the unvarnished truth. And for that, again I am truly grateful to the democrats.

We conservatives would also like to express our appreciation to the unions for burning all that cash money on the Wisconsin demonstrations. That is a great help to the conservative cause and will most certainly aid us in a achieving our goal of stopping Obama from securing a second term in the White House. The less money the unions have, the less money they can contribute to Obama’s campaign -- and that, too, is good – very good!

We have warned so many times, dear reader, about the Democratic Party’s lack of feeling for the “common man.” Oh, they would argue otherwise having seized the mantle of “the people’s party” for themselves. Only, it is not true. Hopefully, Americans viewing the so-called “demonstrations” in Wisconsin will discern for themselves that just exactly who the Democratic Party actually represents.

Look. We knew way back when, that at some point this was going to happen. We knew the labor unions would suck our state treasuries dry. They have done it.

Public employees should never have been allowed to unionize in America. Those who opposed it predicted then that this time would come. And here we are. Remember what I said above about emotion versus reasoning?

The situation in all our states calls for cold, hard, reasoning and some extremely difficult decisions. Nobody is going to be happy with what must be done for the states to survive. Most people, however, know this and they will act like grown-ups and not take to the streets like spoiled brats on a rampage.

When the choice is between busting a union, and busting a state, I’ll come down on the side of union-busting every time.

J. D. Longstreet

Common sense is desperately needed in public sector employment

Commentary by James H. Shott


Making the rounds through email a few months ago was something called the “Profound Paragraph,” attributed to the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, who was a Southern Baptist minister and president of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Profound Paragraph was part of a sermon Dr. Rogers delivered in 1984.

It is comprised of five statements: “You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

So simple; so logical. Unfortunately, we have not just failed to observe these truisms, we have strayed so far from them that we are approaching the beginning of the end of America, as Dr. Rogers describes it in the fourth statement.

We are to the point where nearly half of US workers – 47 percent – paid no federal income tax in 2009 according to the Tax Policy Center. The National Taxpayers Union reports that the top 50 percent of taxpayers paid more than 97 percent of federal income taxes in 2008.

In 2009 there were 37.2 million food stamp recipients, 4.1 million on welfare and 9.1 million receiving unemployment support. In 2010 Medicare rolls had 47.3 million people, and 58 million were on Medicaid.

When you add up all those numbers you come up with 155.7 million, a number that likely overstates how many people actually receive some sort of federal assistance, because some people receive more than one type of assistance. Still, that total is 50.2 percent of the 310.2 million people living in the U.S. last year, and that gives us some idea of how close we are to Dr. Rogers’ scenario.

His Profound Paragraph is a common sense refutation of the idea of redistributing wealth to make everyone more financially equal, and evidence shows convincingly that he is correct; it doesn’t work. But that doesn’t stop the redistributionist statists from trying to defy reality, and that causes enormous problems.

Paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw, politicians who take from Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul. Taking from one group to give to another is the main ingredient in contemporary politics, and that is what’s behind the situation in several states, notably Wisconsin, where over the years greedy politicians traded their state’s future economic security for votes in the next election by giving favors to their constituents, in this case public sector workers who belong to unions.

And now when the bills for this traitorous behavior have put the state near insolvency, public employees have taken to the streets in protest of the governor’s efforts to restore fiscal responsibility.

Wisconsin’s public employees have a sweetheart deal where they pay nothing toward their own pensions and only six percent of their health insurance premiums, a much better deal than most private sector employees have. Gov. Scott Walker advocates limiting public workers’ collective bargaining to wages only, have them pay 5.8 percent of their pension costs, and 12 percent of their health insurance premiums, still a pretty good deal, compared to private sector employees.

Municipal, county, state and federal government workers should not work for slave wages or in bad conditions, of course, but that is not the case. The employees in Wisconsin and in the federal government have better pay and benefits on average than many or most of the people they serve, the ones whose taxes pay their salaries. If fairness is the issue, what’s fair about that? Why should taxpayers fund all or most of the health insurance and pension plans of public employees?

Public employee benefits and work rules are the issue here, not their pay. Gov. Walker believes that in order to protect taxpayers from the rising costs of one-sided union contracts, work rules and benefits would have to be approved by voters. What a concept: Public employee’s fringe benefits would have to be approved by their bosses!

The truth is that in the federal government and many state governments public employees quite often have superior circumstances to their private sector counterparts, and because of the incestuous relationship between vote-seeking politicians and self-serving union leaders, public employee unions crossed the border between acquiring fair wages, benefits and work conditions for their members, and began seeking excessive and costly conditions that are economically destructive and indefensible. That has to end.

Whether or not public employees have a right to collective bargaining is a good subject for discussion, but even if they have such a right, it has been abused, and when you abuse either a right or a privilege, you are apt to lose it.

Cross-posted from Observations

Cutting Off Their Noses To Spite Their Faces!

By Findalis

That is what the unions in Wisconsin are doing. Instead of paying into their pension plans and having a co-pay for their Cadillac Healthcare Plans, they insist on forcing requiring the taxpayers of Wisconsin to foot the bill.

The trouble is that Wisconsin is broke. There is no money in the till for these luxuries. Something is going to have to be cut.  If not the luxuries, then it must be workers.  12,000 of them in fact.

If changes aren't made to the benefit contributions paid by Wisconsin's nearly 300,000 public sector employees, about 10,000-12,000 workers will lose their jobs, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warned Sunday.

The Republican governor has been targeted by protesters for nearly a week for negotiating a bill now in the state Senate that would require workers to increase their contributions to pensions and health care coverage, would limit collective bargaining rules and tie raises to inflation.

But Walker said while the state enjoys a lower-than-average unemployment rate -- about 7.5 percent compared to 9 percent nationally -- about 5,000-6,000 state workers and 5,000-6,000 local government workers could lose their jobs if they don't accept changes to their benefits plan.

"I don't want a single person laid off in the public nor in the private sector and that's why this is a much better alternative than losing jobs," Walker told "Fox News Sunday."

The budget vote was supposed to take place last week, but was delayed when state Senate Democrats fled to Illinois to avoid having to vote on the plan, which would cost public sector employees about $300 million over two years, or less than 10 percent of the deficit total.

President Obama, whose group Organizing for America, has bused in some of the nearly 70,000 protesters outside the state capitol on Saturday, last week called the bill "an assault on unions."

Walker said the president should stay focused on fixing the federal budget, which is $1.5 trillion in deficit this year. The president's plan, rolled out last week, proposes $1.65 trillion in deficits next year.

While union workers say they've been blindsided by the governor's plan, which he campaigned on through the midterm election, they also say Walker has unfairly targeted public employees while giving tax breaks to businesses worth about $117 million.

"We expected concessions, but we just didn't think there was a mandate for this. We didn't see him getting rid of collective bargaining," said Gary Steffen, president of the Wisconsin Science Professionals, the union that represents state scientists, including crime lab analysts, biologists, chemists and foresters.

Under the governor's proposal, unions still could represent workers, but they could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized. Only wages below the Consumer Price Index would be subject to collective bargaining, anything higher would have to be approved by referendum.

Walker said he hoped "cooler minds will prevail" and lawmakers will come back to vote.

"Democracy's not about showing up in another state," he said.

Full story

The state could choose the 12,000 to be fired from the assembled idiots at the capital.   Heck, Governor Walker should pull a Reagan maneuver on the union and give them 24 hours to get back to work or they get fired.  It worked against the Air Traffic Controllers, and will work here.

Democrats Flee Conflict in Wisconsin

Democrats Flee Conflict in Wisconsin

The Ugly Face of the Unions Unmasked in Wisconsin

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*****************

One of the truest of all truisms is -- when the chips are down it is then that you learn the metal of a man/woman.

In Wisconsin it could not be any clearer. When the “defecation hit the rotary oscillator,” all the democrats in that state’s legislature boarded buses -- and headed for parts unknown.

I rest my case!

What we clearly see here is a demonstration of the kind of courage the democrats bring to an issue. When the pitchforks and torches come out, they “get the hell out of Dodge!” (Actually – Wisconsin)This is the kind of courage that lands our country in trouble time and time again when the Democratic Party is in power.

As of this moment, America is in serious trouble -- nationally and internationally. Our national leader is of the party, which, in Wisconsin, boarded buses and took off.

It would be funny were it not for the fact that this is serious business.

I am STILL not over the fright Obama threw into me -- and a huge number of Americans by his vacillating, “democrat two-step,” during the early stages of the ongoing Middle East fiasco. He clearly did not know what he was doing. He clearly did not know WHAT TO DO. He clearly did not have a plan of action for the US in the event the Mubarak government in Egypt fell, and he clearly has no idea what to do, even now.

Americans should note one important thing as they observe the furor and rage of the Unions in Wisconsin. Those are OBAMA’S PEOPLE! The Unions threw massive amounts of money and manpower into the election of Obama. It is important to know WHO those people in the streets really are.

I have news for the unions. They are not as powerful as they think they are. What is happening in Wisconsin now will have -- no -- has already had an effect on the American people as they have seen the unions with their façade down.

The more the unions riot, the less support they will have among the American people. And the better America will be as a result.

Another thing of note: The more money the unions spend on the sort of activity we are seeing in Wisconsin, the less they will have to insure their puppet is reelected in 2012. Now – THAT is a GOOD thing!

Come on, America! We all know Obama is a hand puppet for the unions in America.

There may have been a time in America’s past when labor unions were of some help to the working class in America, although you will have a difficult time trying to convince me. Even if that time did exist – it is long since past and today the labor unions are a burden on the workingman and workingwoman, and on the nation as a whole.

Incidents such as the ugly, ugly, demonstrations in Wisconsin simply show America why so many Americans object to labor unions -- and states like mine have “right to work laws.”It also demonstrates, as clearly as one could possibly hope, the ties between the Democratic Party and the labor unions in America. Take a good look, America. Those rioting unions are the “big club” of the Democratic Party and they will use it to keep YOU in line if we do not purge them from our government.

In November of 2012 we will have another chance to finish the job we began last November. That is to cleanse the US Senate and the Oval Office and put some adults in charge of the government of the United States. It will also give us the opportunity to put the labor unions in their place, which, most definitely, is not in the Oval Office, nor any place in the US government.

Observe how the democrats left town while their muscle covered their backsides as they retreated. There is a huge lesson to be learned from all this ugliness in the streets of Wisconsin. What we are seeing is the left at work.

No matter how the problems with the Wisconsin state budget are finally settled, union members are going to lose. Jobs WILL be lost. When the money is gone it is, well, GONE.

There will be other states in the near future, which will face the same sort of problem as Wisconsin. If the union rioting spreads to other states, look for the taxpayers to take another look, a favorable look this time, at the possibility of states filing bankruptcy. Seems to me that is where this is ultimately headed, anyway.

No. The unions aren’t doing themselves any good, at all, by the actions they are taking in Wisconsin. If anything, in the long run, they are doing damage to themselves that will require decades just for minimal recovery.

So – take a long, hard, look at the “demonstrating” unions in Wisconsin and ask yourself if that is what you want in your state. Because, more than likely, it is coming to your state, and like Wisconsin, it won’t be pretty.

J. D. Longstreet