Wisconsin and Idaho Union Mafiaosos Busted

Wisconsin finally moves ahead without the Democrats and strips the democrats from buying votes from union workers at taxpayers expense.

The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spend money. But Republicans on Wednesday split from the legislation the proposal to curtail union rights, which spends no money, and a special conference committee of state lawmakers approved the bill a short time later.

The lone Democrat present on the conference committee, Rep. Tony Barca, shouted that the surprise meeting was a violation of the state's open meetings law but Republicans voted over his objections. The Senate then convened within minutes and passed it without discussion or debate.

Spectators in the gallery screamed "You are cowards."

And here we were thinking cowards are people who run away.

Before throwing in the towel on the Democrats' farce, he Walker released emails showing his willingness to reach a reasonable compromise but the Democrats chose to drive the car off the ledge.

Way to throw your people under the bus.

Idaho's bill rocks:

The bill is a part of Otter's "Idaho's Students Come First" initiative, which is a legislative drive to reform the state's public schools. The bill not only gets rid of collective bargaining, but also eliminated tenure, limits the length of teacher contracts to one year, and ends the "last in, first out" method of deciding which teachers to let go during layoffs.

Teachers should have to earn their job security with merit - just like the rest of us.

Iowa is among other states who are ending taxpayer subsidized elections with backroom sweetheart deals.

What's interesting in all of this, is those of us who are aware of what's going on in Massachusetts find it fascinating that Deval Patrick's union busting flies under the radar.

Wealthy union thugs had a good run but all good things must come to an end.

Lay Them Off Already!

Too much talk.

Just do it.

There's plenty of people who will work for benefits and salaries based on merit and contribute to their health care plans like the rest of us.

The "USCCB" on Facebook, Henry Karlson and the "so-called" Catholic

A reader sent me a link on Facebook that looks like the official USCCB Facebook page, and it appears they are politically lobbying for big money unions and sullying the reputations of prolifers while they're at it.

Am I seeing things, or is THIS the official USCCB Facebook page? Because there's something very sleazy going on here.

The USCCB is politically lobbying for the collective bargaining rights of high-salaried unions -- and they're doing it by pretending they are 'poor people'?

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Today at 4 pm EST, join a Catholics Confront Global Poverty nation-wide phone call on "Let’s stop Congress from Balancing the Budget on the Backs of Poor People."

Dial-in number: 1-800-615-2820, Passcode: 859987. Everyone is invited!
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/2011-2-28_confcall.pdf
www.usccb.org

What are the Bishops doing rounding up political power for these so called "poverty stricken" unions?

Union: National Education Association Membership: 3.2 million Assets: $216 million The NEA, representing most of the nation’s teachers, has 31 headquarters officers and employees who earn over $200,000. The president, Dennis Van Roekel, received $397,721 in salary and benefits. Of the $3.7 million NEA spent on political activities in the last election cycle, 98 percent went to Democratic candidates. The NEA has 98,000 members in Wisconsin. Before taking the helm in 2008, Van Roekel received pay increases averaging more than 4 percent a year as NEA vice president. In 2009, public school teachers were paid a national average of $54,319 and received raises ranging from 2 percent to 4 percent over the previous five years.

Union: Service Employees International Union Membership: 1.8 million Assets: $187 million The SEIU, whose membership has increased in recent years, has been organizing hospital, home care and nursing home workers, along with local and state government employees, janitors and security officers. The union has nine headquarters officers and employees who earn over $200,000. The former president, Andy Stern, was paid $306,388 in salary and benefits from the union in 2009. In his final year, Stern got a 5 percent pay boost, which came on the heels of the union growing by more than 88,000 members. Stern resigned in 2010 and was replaced by Mary Kay Henry, formerly the executive vice president. Over the past two years, SEIU gave almost $2 million to Democratic candidates and $8,500 to Republicans. It has 18,000 members in Wisconsin.

The USCCB went on to say the call would apply real and authentic Catholic values - as opposed to all that hooey about sin, repentance, grace.

What are real Catholic values, you ask?

Running for office, working with political parties, joining advocacy networks and community organizations to apply authentic moral teaching...and the like...

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops The Church teaches Catholics about moral values and then helps Catholics to apply those values to issues affecting the poor and vulnerable and the common good. Participating in the call can help Catholics live out the duties described in Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: "Forming their consciences in accord with Catholic teaching, Catholic lay women and men can become actively involved: running for office; working within political parties; communicating their concerns and positions to elected officials; and joining diocesan social mission or advocacy networks, state Catholic conference initiatives, community organizations, and other efforts to apply authentic moral teaching in the public square (no. 16)" We welcome all who would like to do this to join us this afternoon!

I'm filing a complaint tomorrow against their non-profit status. Maybe we should make it a formal campaign.

And, of course, you can always count on so-called Catholic Henry Karlson to smell the blood in the water:

Henry Karlson Many so-called pro-life advocates turn out to be anything but pro-life;

Henry Karlson

I have a narrow view? How do you know this? I have studied and engage the 2000 years tradition of social justice in the Church, and the further, longer tradition we have with the prophets. I have pointed out that so-called pro-life advocates turn the other side for life issues;

Henry's a so-called expert on Catholicism because he's 'studied' 2000 years of so-called tradition.

You know what Abba Cadabra said? Some people study and study but keep earning big fat zeros.

I don't do well with people who pretend their anti-Catholic or proabortion bullying is work they're doing on behalf of the poor.

Can you tell I am annoyed with the use of so-called?

Another woman in the thread addresses Henry's chicanery :

R**** Henry the name "so-called prolifers" is denegrating and prejudicial. We are not arguing about political agendas here. Please don't interject political bias by decrying the GOP. We want to here discuss the proper role of the Church in civil discourse. In this we should bear in mind that the Church's resources are limited as well and should be focused on the primary mission of the Church, the DIRECT care and ministry of the poor, ill, and enslaved.

Henry Karlson

when people claim to be pro-life, but denigrate things necessary for life, they are so-called pro-lifers, similar to how St Irenaeus pointed out the so-called gnostics were not even gnostics....

Henry Karlson you see so-called pro-lifers going against unions, encouraging disastrous policies such as proposed by Gov. Walker, it is clear they are not dealing with life-issues, but rather, politics and use abortion as a mask for their other, non-related issues...

Henry Karlson

Patrick: Walker has tried to remove the ability for people to have collective bargaining; this is an imposition on the weak...

Blech...Where's that list I found in the Urban Dictionary today?

Do you suppose if our country's poor learned how to earn their own credentials, to bargain for their own salaries and benefits, through education, hard work and merit, instead of staying weak and relying on the political cronies in bed with the Democrats for handouts - Henry and the USCCB would start lobbying for the unborn?

I'm sorry. I don't seem to have much patience for this today.

Who do you think is operating that USCCB Facebook Page?

Check out Michael Voris' Vortex on the USCCB's politically corrupt machine whoring for the unions.

Union workers need to pay their fair share like the rest of us. They are stealing from the poor and making it look like virtue.

Archbishop Burke says Democrats risk transforming into the party of death

From CNS:

"That does not surprise me much," the archbishop said. "At this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a 'party of death' because of its choices on bioethical questions as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his book, 'The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life.'"

Archbishop Burke said the Democratic Party once was "the party that helped our immigrant parents and grandparents better integrate and prosper in American society. But it is not the same anymore."

Pro-life Democrats are "rare, unfortunately," he said.

John McCain should put accountability for nightmare from subprime mess where it belongs.

The Democrats were putting pressure on banks to give loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them back.

From Real Clear Politics.

The truth is that most of the blame rests on political meddling in the credit decisions of these mortgage lenders.

Twenty years ago the buzz-word in the media was "redlining." Newspapers across the country were filled with hard-hitting investigative reports about evil and racist mortgage lenders refusing to make real estate loans to various minorities and to applicants who lived in lower-income neighborhoods. There I was closing these loans in the afternoons, and in the mornings offering a counter-argument on the radio to these absurd "redlining" claims. Frankly, the claims that evil mortgage lenders were systematically denying loans to blacks and other minorities were a lot sexier on the radio than my claims that when credit histories, job stability, loan-to-value ratios and income levels were considered there was no evident racial discrimination.

Political correctness won the day. Washington made it clear to banks and other lending institutions that if they did not do something .. and fast .. to bring more minorities and low-income Americans into the world of home ownership there would be a heavy price to pay.

With accountability in the right place, the last thing voters are going to do is vote in more of the same. The Democrats are responsible for the economic meltdown.

Oil spiked 25 dollars are barrel today.

Investors fear that the government will have to dramatically ramp up borrowing to pay for the mammoth rescue effort, an inflationary move that could further devalue the dollar and trigger another wave of safe-haven buying in investments like commodities.

“They’re going to have to continue auctioning off a whole lot of Treasurys to finance these projects, so the dollar is going to suffer,” said Matt Zeman, head trader at LaSalle Futures in Chicago. “Right now it’s fear and anxiety driving people who want tangible assets.”

At NRO, thoughts about the bailout, Has everyone in Washington lost their mind?

I’m not an economist, and I wouldn’t pretend to be one, but just as an observer of Washington, and as someone who has worked on the Hill and at the White House, it is simply apparent from this draft that this program will get completely out of control very quickly. It gives the Secretary of the Treasury essentially unlimited power to use $700 billion to make purchases the scope of which is defined very loosely and vaguely. It even says:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

700 Billion.

Freaken nuts!

Newt adds his two cents.

Watching Washington rush to throw taxpayer money at Wall Street has been sobering and a little frightening.

We are being told Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has a plan which will shift $700 billion in obligations from private companies to the taxpayer.

We are being warned that this $700 billion bailout is the only answer to a crisis.

We are being reassured that we can trust Secretary Paulson "because he knows what he is doing".

Congress had better ask a lot of questions before it shifts this much burden to the taxpayer and shifts this much power to a Washington bureaucracy.

Imagine that the political balance of power in Washington were different.

If this were a Democratic administration the Republicans in the House and Senate would be demanding answers and would be organizing for a “no” vote.

If a Democratic administration were proposing this plan, Republicans would realize that having Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Dodd (the largest recipient of political funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as chairman of the Banking Committee guarantees that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Paulson plan that will emerge will be much worse as legislation than it started out as the Paulson proposal.

If this were a Democratic proposal, Republicans would remember that the Democrats wrote a grotesque housing bailout bill this summer that paid off their left-wing allies with taxpayer money, which despite its price tag of $300 billion has apparently failed as of last week, and could expect even more damage in this bill.

But because this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money is being proposed by a Republican administration, the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused.

It’s time to end the silence and clear up the confusion.

Congress has an obligation to protect the taxpayer.

Congress has an obligation to limit the executive branch to the rule of law.

Congress has an obligation to perform oversight.

Congress was designed by the Founding Fathers to move slowly, precisely to avoid the sudden panic of a one-week solution that becomes a 20-year mess.

Read the whole thing - good stuff.

What a mess!

Dem Congressmen throwing Obama under the bus?

Democratic jitters about the US presidential race have spread to Capitol Hill, where some members of Congress are worried that Barack Obama’s faltering campaign could hurt their chances of re-election.

Party leaders have been hoping to strengthen Democratic control of the House and Senate in November, but John McCain’s jump in the polls has stoked fears of a Republican resurgence.

A Democratic fundraiser for Congressional candidates said some planned to distance themselves from Mr Obama and not attack Mr McCain.

Loyalty isn't a character strength of political players