At National Review Online this Labor Day, writer Deroy Murdock has a great article titled “Hypocrisy Is Big Labor’s Big Problem.” Subtitle: “Labor unions don’t play by the same rules they try to impose on everyone else.” Some of the article’s “red meat”:
● Privatecompanies often complain that union labor is too expensive. The Teamsters agree. When they constructed their 16,246-square-foot union hall in Houston, they didn’t use union workers because they were too costly. “There are serious solidarity issues here,” Richard Shaw of the Harris County AFL-CIO moaned to the Houston Chronicle.
● Unfortunately for the AFL-CIO, it practices hypocrisy within hypocrisy. When it refurbished its Washington headquarters, it employed non-union electricians and construction workers. One insider observed that “it did save us some money.”
Read the rest here. It’s hysterical and sad at the same time.
Posted 8/23/2010 6:43 AM
The Kalamazoo Gazette reports:
Blaming former President George W. Bush or “radio talk-show hosts” won’t deliver the votes this November to maintain Democrats’ control in Congress, says Chicago civil rights leader The Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The occasion was a speech in Kalamazoo, repeated in Saginaw and Detroit. Clearly, Jackson gets it; too bad his Democratic compatriots do not. And there's more:
The Chicago preacher left his audience with a challenge for parents to do five things to help children succeed. Jackson said parents should take their child to school, meet their teacher, exchange phone numbers with teachers, turn off the television for three hours each night, pick up their child’s report cards and accompany their child to a place of worship each week.
Doggone! At this rate, I could become one of Jackson's biggest fans!
Posted 8/22/2010 7:54 AM
Came across this great passage in the reader comments section of a Wall Street Journal interview with pollster Scott Rasmussen.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C. S. Lewis, "God in the Dock" (1948).
The Wall Street Journal reports that one of the biggest proponents of Obamacare is coming to the realization that it’s a disaster for Democrats. Here’s the red meat:
On Thursday, Families USA hosted a "messaging" conference call with Democrats and Democratic allies, admitting that ObamaCare has not in fact become more popular since it passed. Families USA called for a wholesale shift in how Democrats now attempt to sell its handiwork to the public, the central theme being that "The law is not perfect, but it does good things and helps many people. Now we'll work to improve it."
Erstwhile Detroit News political reporter George Weeks has a column in the Traverse City Record Eagle that proclaims what a “strong candidate” Democrat Gary McDowell is in the 1st Congressional district race. From McDowell’s state house Website, here’s a sample of this “strong candidate’s” most recent proposals
Lawmaker calls for permanent ban on drilling in Michigan's waters (the Great Lakes, where Canada has no such ban; do oil spills stop at that dotted line in the middle of the lakes?)
Lawmaker asks folks to stay in Michigan, fish for free on June 12, 13 (a one-weekend boycott of Chicago over the Asian Carp; now that’ll show ‘em!)
Lawmaker's legislation will rename a portion of M-80 in Chippewa County (to honor the area’s veterans; how could he take such a risk by supporting something so controversial!)
For those who may have forgotten, Weeks was the guy who predicted that Laurie Stupak would coast to the 108th Michigan house seat in 2002, over upstart Tom Casperson. Why anyone continues to pay Weeks to write this stuff in beyond me.
Posted 8/6/2010 7:35 AM
Well, our little backwater U.S. House district is certainly getting a lot of national attention. Actually, of course, it started when our not-ready-for-prime-time Congressman made a fool of himself on a national stage. Now the attention focuses on the tight race for the Republican nominee in the race to succeed Bart Stupak--in a race that could be decided by one vote. Stupak (deservedly) became the Tea Party poster child for all that's wrong with Washington. So it's appropriate, I guess, that there's a battle royal between the Tea Party candidate (Dan Benishek) and the GOP insider (Jason Allen). I'm amazed, though, at how little the national commentators seem to know about this district. One prominent analyst calls MI-1 a "tossup." Give me a break! Does he really think people up here will elect Gary McDowell, whose principal issue seems to be changing Michigan's nickname from the Wolverine to the Great Lakes state? They're looking at Stupak's long tenure in the House, of course--ignoring the fact that two Republicans (Phil Ruppe and Bob Davis) held the position from 1967 to 1992. Furthermore, the Dems' grip on U.P. has been slipping. All but two counties up here (Marquette and--by a tiny margin--Alger) voted to re-elect George Bush is 2004. And thanks to the elimination of the increasingly-liberal Traverse City area in the 2001 reapportionment, the L.P. portion of the district remains solid Republican.
Posted 7/28/2010 5:13 PM
Andrew McCartky, legal eagle at National Review Online's The Corner blog, has this reaction to a court decision today blocking implementation of Arizona's tough new immigration enforcement regimen:
In essence, Judge Susan Bolton bought the Justice Department's preemption argument — i.e., the claim that the federal government has broad and exclusive authority to regulate immigration, and therefore that any state measure that is inconsistent with federal law is invalid. The Arizona law is completely consistent with federal law. The judge, however, twisted to concept of federal law into federal enforcementpractices (or, as it happens, lack thereof). In effect, the court is saying that if the feds refuse to enforce the law the states can't do it either because doing so would transgress the federal policy of non-enforcement ... which is nuts.
Make eminent sense to this non-lawyer.
Posted 7/24/2010 8:54 AM
A reader at Wall Street Journal's on line edition reacts to a story by John Fund at the apparent despair among left-wing journalists and bloggers:
So the far left is in disarray? And they hear footsteps? All because their progressive world view, and theory of Marxism is shown to be false?
Marxism fails every time it is tried. Label it as liberalism, progressivism, Obamanistas, Marxism, Leninism, environmentalism, Stalinism, fascism, Maoism, it just never works.
What works is free people, free markets, freedom of association, freedom of the press, right to life, right to liberty, right to property, and the right to pursue happiness.
Bingo!
Posted 7/24/2010 8:25 AM
Have you been following the JournoList controversy? Basically, it’s the revelation of what were supposed to have been private postings on the liberal list serve. The postings show “journalists” plotting to suppress bad news about Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign—specifically, the controversy involving his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As is his wont, Jay Cost of Real Clear Politics has an excellent analysis here. I’ve long held that a return to the partisan media of the late 18th and early 19th centuries would not be a bad thing—we would know where these “journalists” are actually coming from, and their “facts” could be quickly checked online.
Posted 7/15/2010 6:17 AM
I was awakened early today by the sound of high winds and crashing tree branches in my neighborhood. So I went to the computer to access the national Weather Service's Marquette office Website--and it wasn't working. As of this writing (6:05 a.m.), it still isn't working. So the government service fails when it's needed most. Of course, the private Weather Channel and Intellicast sites were working just fine. In the case of the Weather Channel, they actually sent out the National Weather Service warnings via email. Your government at work. Won't it be fun when they're running health care? It's November or never, folks!
BTW, is it just me or is outgoing Congressman Bart Stupak going off the deep end? According to our soon-to-be erstwhile representative, Right to Life organizations have become agents of the vast right wing conspiracy, out to kill health care by lying about whether or not it includes government-funded abortions (which everyone except Stupak apparently realizes that it does). His latest volley was fired in a press release this morning over some statement made by Right to Life of Pennsylvania. He initially posited this theory in the op-ed pages of the Washington Post after caving on the abortion issue and voting for government-run health care earlier this year. So why did this bunch of right wingers endorse Judy Nerat for state representative? Inquiring minds want to know.
