In Praise Of Mario Cuomo

Go here to enjoy Samizdata's Perry Metzger opening a can of whoop-ass and sprinkling it on the grave of Mario Cuomo.  "I encourage all to mourn his loss in whatever manner they feel appropriate."

Good job, sir. 

 

The Libertarian View Of Going On Strike

IMHO, the Libertarian view of organized striking is as follows....

Anyone selling their labor and services should be free to organize, unionize, picket and strike. 

Anyone purchasing labor and services should be free to fire, terminate, retrain and replace. 

You do it all the time when you pick Burger King over McDonald's.  

No labor relations board is necessary.

You're welcome. 

Happy Labor Day, from the organizations that brought you ObamaCare

"In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation's largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation."

Go here to read the whole thing.  It just never seems to work out well when you want to make other people spend their money on what other people think would be good for other people, does it?  It is enough to make you think that some of those guys don't really have your best interests at heart. 

 

Grocery School

I've watched the documentary "Waiting For Superman" twice in the last few weeks.  The damn thing haunts me. 

Go here for details. 

Basically, the film follows five or six kids from failing or inadequate public schools in their effort to be accepted in charter schools. 
It comes down to a drawing.  A lottery. Pure, blind luck. 
Imagine being trapped in a public, bureaucratic hell-hole for 12 years, where the only thing that matters is having your ass counted as "present" in a seat. 
Ugh. 

Don Boudreaux likes to make the supermarket analogy.  I'm going to reprint part of it here. 

Suppose that we were supplied with groceries in same way that we are supplied with K-12 education.


Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. A huge chunk of these tax receipts would then be spent by government officials on building and operating supermarkets. County residents, depending upon their specific residential addresses, would be assigned to a particular supermarket. Each family could then get its weekly allotment of groceries for “free.” (Department of Supermarket officials would no doubt be charged with the responsibility for determining the amounts and kinds of groceries that families of different types and sizes are entitled to receive.)

Except in rare circumstances, no family would be allowed to patronize a “public” supermarket outside of its district.

Residents of wealthier counties – such as Fairfax County, VA and Somerset County, NJ – would obviously have better-stocked and more attractive supermarkets than would residents of poorer counties. Indeed, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in determining people’s choices of neighborhoods in which to live.

Of course, thanks to a long-ago U.S. Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer; such private-supermarket families, though, would get no discount on their property-tax bills.

When the quality of supermarkets is recognized by nearly everyone to be dismal, the resulting calls for “supermarket choice” would be rejected by a coalition of greedy government-supermarket workers and ideologically benighted collectivists as attempts to cheat supermarket customers out of good supermarket service – indeed, as attempts to deny ordinary families the food that they need for their very survival. Such ‘choice,’ it would be alleged, will drain precious resources from the public supermarkets whose (admittedly) poor performance testifies to the fact that these supermarkets are underfunded.

And the small handful of people who call for total separation between supermarket and state would be criticized by nearly everyone as being, at best, delusional and – it would be thought more realistically – more likely misanthropic devils who are indifferent to the malnutrition and starvation that would sweep the land if only private market forces governed the provision and patronizing of supermarket. (Some indignant observers would even wonder aloud at the insensitivity of referring to grocery shoppers as “customers”; surely the relationship between suppliers of life-giving foods and the people who need these foods is not so crass as to be properly discussed as being ‘commercial.’)
….

Does anyone believe that such a system for supplying groceries would work well, or even one-tenth as well as the current private, competitive system that we currently rely upon for supplying grocery-retailing services? To those of you who might think so, pardon me but you’re nuts.

To those of you who understand that such a system for supplying grocery-retailing services would be a catastrophe, why might you continue to count yourself in the ranks of those who believe that government schooling (especially the way it is currently funded and supplied) is the system that we should continue to use?

Think of the millions of lives wasted in the public school-to-prison pipeline.
You cannot give me a good reason why we're still doing this. 

Rahm Emanuel supporters go on strike against.....Rahm Emanuel

You may have read or heard that most of Chicago's public school teachers have walked out.  They're on strike. 

The average Chicago family earns $47,000.00 per year.  The average striking teacher makes $76,000.00 and has an incredible pension.  Forget about that.  You see, the struggling Chicago families paying for this gaggle of union ineptitude are the equivalent of wealthy coal barons, selfishly eating lobster and smoking cigars while their ragtime bands play into the night.  The striking teachers are the Molly Maguires, wearing fertlizer sack shirts, and boiling rocks to make soup.  That's the dominant media narrative today, anyway. 

79% of Chicago 8th graders aren't proficient at reading.  Here's something from a 7th grade teacher, perhaps one of the ones responsible for the 79% failure: 

Many in the peaceful crowd said they were surprised at how many teachers showed up to rally.


"This is an amazing display of democracy," said Rick Sawicki, a 7th grade teacher at Evergreen Middle School. "It is a wonderful lesson for children and adults alike. I'm honored that we are all sticking together. We all want what is fair. We want to make sure everyone is treated fairly, just like I teach my children."

You might be wondering about the impact this is having on Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's new Democrat mayor.  Is Rahm having to stay home to take care of his three kids until their school reopens? 

Hell no.  Rahm Emanuel doesn't trust public education.  Rahm Emanuel would no more send his kids to a Chicago public school than he would send them to a public housing crack den.  You'll catch the Obama's sending their kids to a D.C. public school first. 

"Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to send his three children to the University of Chicago Lab Schools rather than put them in the financially strapped Chicago Public Schools he’s trying desperately to reform," the Chicago Sun-Times reported last year.  
A phone call to the Lab Schools confirmed that it remains open. It is, after all, a private institution--and strikes are taking place in public schools.

The director's office, however, was not yet able immediately to confirm whether Emanuel's three children were in attendance today. (UPDATE: The school called back to say it wouldn't comment.) Emanuel's office did not respond to a request for comment

The Lab Schools are an expensive and elite Chicago institution. The website of the school high details the annual cost:

Good God in heaven !!  This almost puts Texas A and M into perspective. 

According to the school's website, it has a "rich academic and extracurricular offerings, [a] distinct approach to education, [a] diverse student body, and [a] unique relationship to the University of Chicago."

Hell yes, it has a unique relationship to the University of Chicago.  I bet most of the faculty send their kids there. 

Anyway, for those of us who enjoy watching people reap what they've sown, this is a delicious moment.  Does Emanuel defend the Teachers Union, the one that has provided him and The Teleprompter Jesus so many foot soldiers and donations through the years? 

Is he going to shaft those families making 47K in favor of those two-teacher families who make up the top 6% of incomes in the nation? 

I bet he does. 

Sheesh.  We need education vouchers.  Now. 

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president, supports the idea of education vouchers..  We should all have options, just like the Emanuels and the Obamas. 

I'm not saying the government is too big, but....

I'm not saying the government is too big, but....

if it really is too big, what would it look like? 

Here's the Samizdata quote of the day -

What if we have reached a point where the scale and scope of government have become absurdly large? What you would observe is a growing gap between the theories used to justify government expansion and its practical impact. You would observe the cost of education and health care rising, without commensurate benefits. You would observe stimulus programs that increase employment according to computer models but not in reality. You would observe crony capitalism. You would observe budgets distorted by public-sector unions. You would observe fraudulent accounting that shifts costs for pensions onto future generations.


- Arnold Kling

Well, if you're going to put it that way....

Picture of bloated guy came from here. 

Why Scott Walker's win is a good thing

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker handily won his recall election. 

(Note to the Brits, Canadians and Aussies who read these pages:  Republican Scott Walker campaigned for governor on a platform of reducing the state's long-term debt obligations.  When he tried to reduce the state's long-term debt obligations, the state labor unions launched a "recall" effort.  It's kinda like a vote of "no-confidence" in Parliament.) 

Walker is a Republican, meaning he's in a party that is pro-drug war, pro-oil war, anti-civil liberties, kinda pro-theocracy, and pro-national debt.  In other words, he's as bad as a Democrat. 

But here are the reasons that come to mind why Walker's recall election victory is a good thing:

1) When a government official and a union boss sit down to "negotiate" a new deal, no one at the table is representing the taxpayer.  It's two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.  I have friends who are just a few years older than I am who have already retired from government jobs with massive pensions.  They'll probably be paid for not working for more years than they were ever paid for working.  This isn't sustainable.  (And yet NPR's "Sustainability Desk" has never commented on the problem.  Strange.) 

2) Requiring people to contribute to a third party in order to hold a job is wrong.  Unions bosses have grown fat and happy off these mandatory fees.  A significant number of union employees would like to get out of the system.  1/3rd of union households voted for Walker, BTW.  Give workers a choice in joining the union vs. not joining, and look what happens.  Here's Alanna Goodman, writing in Commentary magazine:

The state’s second-largest union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, had membership fall to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, the Journal said Thursday. The organization’s Afscme Council 24, composed of state workers, fell more than two thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year.

A key reason that membership dropped was because the labor law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, forbids automatic collection of union dues. Instead, workers must voluntarily say that they want to continue to continuing paying dues to remain members of the union.
Union workers have also dropped out because of high pension and healthcare costs, and others believe that the unions are no longer influential.

The last sentence is wrong.  The unions were highly influential in diverting slush to the Democrats.  And now that Sugar Teat is gone. 

3) Union fees are spent on politicians.  Politicians are then obliged to spend even more money on make-work projects to keep the unions busy.  The circle never ends.  The debt increases. 

4) The conflict was usually described by the Lamestream Media as a matter of union "rights".  Sorry folks.  There's no such thing as a "right" that infringes on the money, time, or property of someone else.  They should've used the phrase "union privileges". 

5) The only way a union can be successful is to keep out the poor s.o.b.'s who are willing to do the job for less.  Mandates that state projects use union labor guarantee that all government projects will cost more than they should.  And please don't give me any crap about union expertise.  Compare any union LTL freight carrier with their non-union counterparts.  No difference.  The woods are full of people who can out-teach a lot of the teachers' union footsoldiers.

Every time I've had to deal with the unions at Chicago or Vegas tradeshows, it's been a case study in corruption.  Without fail.  They don't even have union employees working the damn things.  They hire temps to drive the forklifts and unload the crates much of the time.  But the vendor still has to pay them the union rate.  If you challenge the extra fees they tack onto the bill, you get ominous warnings about how much difficult it'll be for you next time.  Screw the Teamsters.  All of them. 

6) Barack Obama supported the unions and the recall effort.  Yeah, Obama was widely criticized for not showing up or making more speeches in favor of the recall. 

But I repeat:  Barack Obama supported the unions in this recall effort.  When Obama supports something, it's almost always bad for the country.  Seriously. 

A compass that is 99% wrong 99% of the time is still useful for navigational purposes.  If I could take Obama to a Vegas sports book and double-down opposite his wagers, I'd be a rich, rich man. 

Hope you all have a great day.  I'm going to go to our non-union shop where we employ people without having to give a dime to James Hoffa, Jr. 

Right To Work States, 2008 Red States, and Swing States

My employer, Jukt Micronics, is about to open another factory at a location on the east coast.  (One of the east coast states is going to give us a deal on land, building, and equipment that will make the deal you gave us on forklifts look downright stingy.  Thank you so much, all you little people in the 99%.  PLEASE, please, please, keep voting for Democrats.) 

While I was researching the area, I looked up a map of the Right To Work states.  Places where you aren't forced to give money to a labor union. 

Mitch Daniels of Indiana has somehow managed to convert his state from Hoffa to Choice since this map was produced.  That's the only exception I've found.  Color Indiana red.   

 
The work map looked familiar. 
I looked up an electoral college map of the 2008 elections. 

Wow. 
The only outliers are Hawaii, Nevada, Montana, Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida. 

Ok, here's a map of what CBS calls the Battleground States for 2012:

Of the outlier Union Vs. Choice states, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Iowa all made the CBS list.  (Some other Battleground/Swing State lists included Missouri and Indiana!) 

If the economy is supposedly the #1 issue, then whether or not a worker should be forced to give money to a union is the filter through which the issue is seen.
Fascinating stuff, I think. 

Seen and Unseen and Obscene in Washington State

Radley Balko, of The Agitator Blog, has been linking to and commenting on some of the greatest stuff ever.  I've started going to his recommended links now and then, hitting a few, ranting about them, and saving them for a slow news day.  Here's a ferinstance:

If you've read any Libertarian-ish stuff at all in the last few years, you know that Washington State and Pennsylvania have state-controlled liquor monopolies. 
Here are a few quotes Balko selected from Reason magazine on Washington State's recent decision to allow its plantation worker citizens to purchase Jim Beam from someplace besides the plantation commisary:

Here's a little Seen And Unseen for you:

Seen:


Beginning next June, liquor sales will shift from the state to grocery and warehouse stores, including Costco. It means more than 900 state employees will lose their jobs, most of them workers at state-run liquor stores.

Unseen:

The state budgeting office figures the number of outlets selling liquor will jump from 328 to 1,428. It also expects the change to generate an average of $80 million more in annual revenue for the state and local governments over the next six years....Some liquor prices are expected to drop.

Plus bonus hilarious overstatement from vested interests:

Tom Geiger, communication director for the union representing more than 700 workers in state-run liquor stores, said he thought the results raised questions about democracy itself.

Anybody who doesn't think that's funny needs to have a drink.  From a low-cost, private establishment that isn't subsidized by theft, of course. 

It's time to go knock back a few and watch the Buffalo Bills cover a 5 1/2 point spread against Jerry Jones's Dallas Cowboys.  Have a good Sunday. 

First Mexican truck to enter U.S. interior sometime soon. I hope.

From The San Diego News, via a link from Radley Balko:

SAN DIEGO -- The first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S. interior within days, but American trucking union leaders and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program that had been stalled for years by safety concerns and political wrangling.

The stall has had little to do with safety concerns.  It is about the political wrangling and protecting the constituents of some politicians that they've bought at auction prices. 

U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner said they'll take a bipartisan stand at the border Wednesday in San Diego to voice concerns about the bilateral pilot project that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States. Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.

They will join Teamsters union President James Hoffa and Todd Spencer, the owner-operator of the Independent Drivers Association, in a last-ditch effort to block Mexican trucks from being granted full access to U.S. highways.

The trucks are crossing a river, a river that has symbolic meaning because of a war we had with Mexico.  This river became known as a "boundary". 
Boundary (noun) (bound*a*ry) 1. In the geographic sense, an arbritrary listing of lines of latitude and longitude to be filled in on maps with different colors.  2.  In the political sense, the far edges of your cage.

Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them onto U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, the union leaders say.

Horseshit.  According to Marc Levinson, author of "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" the ancestors of these same union parasites once tried to unload and reload each shipping container as it entered U.S. "boundaries".  They didn't understand that the entire point of the shipping container was to load the thing at Point A and not have the load touched by thieving little Jimmy Hoffa hands until it was unloaded by the customer at Point B.  The unions insisted that they had a right to "strip and stuff" every shipping container, even if the load was going to be placed right back in the same shipping container.
All Jimmy Hoffa wants is to get his hands on the load.   

Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.

If I want to hire Transportes Olympic to haul a load from Juarez to Fort Worth, it really isn't Jimmy Hoffa's business.  It is the U.S. government's business, unfortunately.  They own the roads.  But they've also established that it is illegal to discriminate against people for racial reasons, and that's the only angle these clowns have to fight with. 

Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic, maiden trip.

The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.

The company was also the first approved under the 2009 pilot program before President Barack Obama's administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.

As well the should have.  It's called NAFTA.  It is a free-trade agreement, kinda.  We've been in violation of the law for about 20 years. 

Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck heads out of the border zone Friday.

"We're really excited," Perez said in a telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Now we can provide door-to-door service so it's about a 15 percent savings for companies."

Eliminating and lowering idiotic trade barriers like this one helps you to afford the computer on which you're reading this rant.  It's how you got the clothes that I hope you are now wearing. 

Opponents say the fight isn't over.

Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would require the pilot program to be ceased in three years and Congress to vote on the issue again.

"There's absolutely no upside to the program," said Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter's office.

Yes there is an upside, you flak-catching hack.  If I want to hire these people to haul a load, then I get to have my way. 
That's always an upside. 
Plus, I won't have to hire Hoffa goons.  (Remember Jimmy Hoffa?  The guy who said "let's take out those sons-of-bitches", in reference to The Tea Party?)  
And I get to save money, which means that in the long run, you get to save money.

 "It's a good example of foreign interests overtaking American interests, at the expense of jobs, security and safety. The program was a bad idea when it was created under NAFTA and it's a bad idea now. It should be stopped right away."

At the expense of jobs?  If it's about saving jobs or creating more jobs, let's just mandate that loads can only cross The Rio Grande on wheelbarrows and that they can only move up Interstate 35 on hand carts pulled by the less fortunate of our society. 
If it's about security, let's end the idiotic drug war.  Safety will increase 100-fold on both sides of the river that we  currently use as a boundary, just like safety increased when we ended our alcohol war with Canada at the end of Prohibition. 
If it's about safety, take a look at one of the trucks that Transportes Olympic will use on these loads and then compare them to the rigs that haul the U.S. Mail.  Case dismissed.  There will be no comparison. 

Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government's strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.

And they do this because there is a fortune to be made in doing so.  End the monopolies that we've granted to the Mexican Drug Lords and their U.S. Enablers, and the smuggling will end.  No one ever got rich by smuggling coals into Newcastle.  Or by smuggling more bullshit into a political protectionist argument. 

"The beneficiaries of opening borders will be few and the casualties will be plenty," Spencer told The Associated Press on Wednesday. His organization represents small independent trucking businesses.

He doesn't represent all of the small independent trucking businesses, as the article implies.  He doesn't represent mine.  (I'm the General Manager of one.)
Trade runs both ways.  The outfit that I work for sells stuff in the U.S., and we sell stuff outside of Jimmy Hoffa's boundaries.  We also purchase stuff from overseas and sell it inside the Hoffa enclosure in which most of you folks live.  I don't need Hoffa and his Washington puppets in the way.  
Anything is good as long as it helps weaken the cage so jealously guarded by  U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner and union boss Jimmy Hoffa.   

Proponents say especially strict safeguards are in place: The U.S. government is paying for electronic monitoring devices to be installed in all Mexican trucks used in the program.

Mexican trucking companies had to fill out an application, pay a fee and then submit the names of any drivers who will participate so they can undergo national security and criminal background checks by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Inspectors will check out the trucks for safety violations, verify the drivers' qualifications and administer oral English-proficiency exams.

The program's long delay has cost companies in both countries millions and hurt bilateral relations, proponents say.

"We certainly hoped that it cannot be stopped," said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mexico Business Center. "The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English."

About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations is transported by land to its destinations according to the Mexican government.

And all of that stuff is currently being unloaded at the border and reloaded onto another trailer.  That's a total waste. 
End of rant. 
Thanks for listening. 

8 Steps For Revitalizing The U.S. Economy

Industry Week  has a piece in their online edition by Dr. Ken Mayland, an economist who covers manufacturing and business trends. 
Here are Dr. Mayland's "Eight Steps For Revitalizing The U.S. Economy".  I've been ranting about seven of these for years, and I don't even have a Doctorate in Economics.  Or a Masters.  Or a Bachelors.  I do, however, work in the shipping and logistics industry, and that qualifies me to comment on these things. 

1.  Kill the 2010 health care reform bill.

Well, duh, of course.  Nobody knows who exactly wrote it.  Nobody knows what it is supposed to accomplish.  It's too long for anyone to know what is in it.  A lot of people who lobbied for it have now been exempted from it.  But everyone fears it. 

2.  Do a "reverse course" on developing domestic energy and ease access and permitting for all forms of energy production.

Yeah.  Drill, Baby, Drill.  The Green Energy Scam is slowly being exposed.  Within a year and a half, it'll be dead as a doornail.  Drill, Baby, Drill.  Now.   

3.  Eliminate the minimum wage. Mayland said: "Economists have long know that politicians cannot legislate the productivity of a worker. If you raise the minimum wage above the basic productivity of the worker, the worker will be fired or not hired." Mayland said since the minimum wage was last raised, the biggest increase in unemployment has been among teenagers -- "exactly where you would expect a minimum-wage increase to hurt."

The minimum wage is zero.  The higher you set an artificial price floor for unskilled workers, the more of them you condemn to earning the true minimum wage - zero. 

4.  Repeal the Frank-Dodd financial reform law and Sarbanes-Oxley, which he said put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage compared to businesses in other countries.

I know absolutely nothing about this.  Some might say that this shortcoming has never prevented any of my other rants, but there you have it.  I know nothing about SarbOx.  But this guy does. 

5.  Rein in EPA and the National Labor Relations Board.

Or we could continue to allow the NLRB to tell businesses where they can and can't operate.  Pick one. 

6.  Pass free-trade agreements with Panama, Columbia and South Korea.

This is great as long as it is Free Trade and not Managed Trade.  Any Free Trade Agreement that's 900 pages long is automatically suspect. 

7.  Pare back overly generous unemployment benefits from the current 99 weeks. Mayland cited a scholarly study that if unemployment benefits were 26 weeks, the unemployment rate would be 2% to 2.5% lower.

Yep, and it wouldn't be pretty.  But combine #3 and #7, and you would rapidly approach full employment.  Companies would accomplish more with less.  But it wouldn't be fair !  So we're going to continue to borrow from our fetuses ! 

8.  Trash the tax code and install a flat tax. Mayland said once the appropriate tax rate was determined, taxpayers could fill out their tax return "on a postcard."

Go here for a picture of the Hong Kong tax postcard. 

There you have it.  If Obama and Congress knew that they were going to be propped against a wall and shot if the economy didn't improve within one year, they would implement all of Ken Mayland's Libertarian-ish suggestions tomorrow morning.  Hit the labels below if you want to read earlier rants on any of these topics.

Some clarification on the remarks of Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.

Jimmy Hoffa Jr., made a big fuss during an Obamessiah campaign event.  (That's Jimmy Hoffa the current Teamsters Union president, not the elder Jimmy Hoffa who was convicted of fraud, jury tampering, and bribery.)

He told his union audience:

That’s what we are going to tell America…..When he sees what we are doing here, he will be inspired, but he needs help. And you know what? Everybody here has got a vote. If we go back, we keep the eye on the prize, lets take these sons-of-bitches out and give America back to America where we belong.


There was an earlier reference in his speech to The Tea Party, and if you're willing to skip about 4 paragraphs of other stuff, Jimmy Jr can be interpreted as saying that it's time to take The Tea Party sons-of-bitches out. 

(You can already buy T-shirts.)

I believe Hoffa meant that it is time to take generic sons-of-bitches out, not necessarily Tea Party sons-of-bitches.  And who are these generic sons-of-bitches?  Anyone who opposes Hoffa, the unions, or The Teleprompter Jesus, perhaps.  Here's some clarification:

Hoffa describes the combatants in his “war” as “workers” on the one hand and “the Tea Party” on the other. But of course he isn’t interested in workers in general, only those who belong to unions–a group that, after decades of private-sector union decline, largely consists of employees of government, government contractors and government bailout beneficiaries such as General Motors and Chrysler. “The Tea Party,” meanwhile, is a dysphemism for taxpayers.


A dysphemism, in case you're wondering, is a substitution of a more offensive or disparaging word or phrase for one considered less offensive.  For instance, my preferred phrase "Fascist Union Thug" instead of "Teamsters President" is a dysphemism. 

Hoffa was not calling Tea Party members "sons-of-bitches" as far as I can tell.  He was calling taxpayers "sons-of-bitches". 

I hope this clears up the matter, and that we can all move forward. 

BTW, for everyone who works in shipping, freight, warehousing and logistics....  Did you know that UPS is a Teamsters Union outfit and that FedEx is not?  And that part of every dollar you spend with UPS goes to Jimmy Hoffa, and part of that money goes to support The Teleprompter Jesus and all his works? 

Remember, you have choices.  Money spent with FedEx doesn't go to Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.  Let your UPS sales rep know what you think about being called a son-of-a-bitch.   

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

From The Boston Herald:

A Quincy mom has disconnected her support for striking Verizon workers yesterday after a group of mouthy picketers surrounded non-union repairmen and turned a phone-line fix at her home into what she is calling a “ridiculous” protest scene.

“I looked in the street and there are picketers, 10 of them or more, doing a circle around the Verizon truck,” said Karen Austin, 64, a mother of five who lives on Forest Avenue. “Every time (the repairmen) would walk up to my house they would follow them. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is ridiculous. Why are they picketing my house?”

With tensions rising in a work-stoppage now in its fifth day, Verizon filed lawsuits in five states, including Massachusetts, yesterday to limit picketing by the 45,000 striking workers.

The company claims picketers have harassed non-union workers, and has reported suspected sabotage, such as sliced cables. The union has denied sabotage.

Paul Feeney, spokesman for IBEW Local 2222, the Dorchester-based union for 6,000 Verizon landline workers, said picketers take to the streets because that’s where the work is done.

“For us to be able to effectively picket the work that’s being done we have to go out in the field,” he said.

Feeney said the union strategy is to send its message to management outside Verizon offices and stores, and to the public on main streets with high traffic volumes.

“We haven’t actively sought out residential work,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is disrupt the neighborhoods.”

But Austin, who reported the 9 a.m. protest to Quincy police, said she believes the union went too far in her neighborhood.

“I’m not on a main street ... I’m not a business. I’m a person who needed a line fixed,” she said.

An apology for posting inaccurate information

I've probably posted this (inaccurate) chart a dozen times, and regret doing so. 
It shows public education spending going through the roof, while test scores remain flat. 

The cost of public education has indeed increased as shown. 
My mistake was in assuming that the miserable flatlined test scores were accurate.
Here's why I was wrong:

In the Atlanta Public School system, the administration held "cheating parties", in which they met at a teacher's home to change test scores. 

A similar thing happened in Pontiac, Michigan. 

Here's more on the Atlanta mess:

Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.

Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.

....For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.
The voluminous report names 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in cheating. More than 80 confessed. The investigators said they confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 schools they examined.

So.   I humbly repent of publishing that chart so many times.
The chart is inaccurate. 
Test scores have not remained flat despite the spending increases.  If Michigan and Georgia are any indication of what's going on in government schools, test scores have declined. 

My bad. 

Go here to read an outraged editorial about the pro-choice movement that wants to privatize the public schools and give students and parents some other options. 

What if they went on strike...

....and nobody knew? 

Hey, it works for Westboro Baptist Church !!!

Stay classy, folks !!

Go here for details. 

Note to The Aggie: Aren't you tired of going to school ????

I am trying to get the child known as The Aggie through college. 

College is expensive.  Textbooks, thanks to this idiot, are still incredibly expensive. 

The Aggie wants to be a veterinarian.  She has loved mammals, reptiles, bugs and amphibians ever since she learned to walk. 

During the summers, she works as a lifeguard.  Lifeguard training and certification, if I remember correctly, required that she undergo a grueling series of qualifications, then pass a ten day lifesaving course.  The cost for all of this was $200.00

A degree from Texas A and M will cost you around $16,000.00 per year. 

Until today, I saw lifeguarding as a means to an end, nothing more.  Depending on whose statistics you believe, a good vet can bring home between 75K and 115K per year. 

But wait....Here's the Orange County Register:

High pay and benefits for lifeguards in Newport Beach is the latest example of frustrating levels of compensation for public employees. More than half the city’s full-time lifeguards are paid a salary of over $100,000 and all but one of them collect more than $100,000 in total compensation including benefits.


When thinking about career options with high salaries, lifeguarding is probably not one of the first jobs to come to mind. But it apparently should. In one of Orange County’s most desirable beach destinations, Newport Beach, lifeguards are compensated all too well; especially compared with the county annual median household income of $71,735.

It might be time for a career change.

According to a city report on lifeguard pay for the calendar year 2010, of the 14 full-time lifeguards, 13 collected more than $120,000 in total compensation; one lifeguard collected $98,160.65. More than half the lifeguards collected more than $150,000 for 2010 with the two highest-paid collecting $211,451 and $203,481 in total compensation respectively.  Even excluding benefits like health care and pension, more than half the lifeguards receive a total salary, including overtime pay, exceeding $100,000. And they also receive an annual allowance of $400 for “Sun Protection.” Many work four days a week, 10 hours a day.

I don't begrudge anyone whatever they earn, as long as they're not taking it from someone else by force.  But these are government employees, and their compensation is taken from others by force. 
If you live in Newport Beach,  and put your foot down, and refuse to pay your share of this, and say "I'm not going to pay $200,000.00 per year to have Jack Johnson sit on a tower all day, watching damp supermodels frolic in the sand and the surf," the government will show up with guns at  your house and take your assets or put you in a steel cage. 
But all libertarian rants aside, how in the hell can you justify paying $200,000 per year to a freakin' lifeguard?  Is it possible? 
Well, yes.  You just compare the compensation to that of other lifeguards in government jobs, and it all makes sense. 

In a phone conversation, Brent Jacobsen, president of the Lifeguard Management Association, defended the lifeguard pay in Newport Beach: “We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries in conjunction with comparable positions and other cities up and down the coast.” “Lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.” And therein is the problem: Local public worker pay has become all too generous and out of line with private sector equivalents.


On face, the compensation packages for these guards are staggering. But take into consideration the retirement benefits being paid to currently retired lifeguards and lifeguards who will retire at these pay levels in the future and the problem is further compounded. Lifeguards are able to retire with 90 percent of their salary, after only 30 years of work at as early as the age of 50.

Here's a video put out by a California Watchdog group (yes, that's an oxymoron) called Americans For Prosperity - California. 



Note to The Aggie:  Pack your bags.  Pack up Fat Kitty.  Pack up the idiot Labrador.  We're going to California !!!  (The City Of Los Angeles is hiring Duplicating Machine Operators, and I think I could work my way up to Senior Duplicating Machine Operator before retirement time.  Hit the link.) 

The Los Angeles May Day rally, featuring the SEIU and Communist Party

Let's look in on our Commander In Chief's buddies at the Service Employees International Union, shall we?

The SEIU is the union outfit that gave Obama lots of help in the ObamaCare battle.  Their president, Any Stern, has made more White House visits than any other non-government employee.   

All pics below came from this site, and were chosen by a Mr. Zombie.  (I don't know if his name is an intentional reference to what our Commander In Chief has done to our economy.)
Here's a sampling of Mr. Zombie's fine work:

A May Day rally in Los Angeles, co-sponsored by the SEIU and various communist groups, as well as other unions, reflected yet another step in the normalization of self-identified communist and socialist ideologies in the Obama era. Not only did the SEIU help to organize the rally in conjunction with communists, they marched side-by-side with communists, while union members carried communist flags, communists carried union signs, and altogether there was no real way to tell the two apart.

I'm currently reading a massive tome called "The Black Book Of Communism".  The authors of this massive black doorstop attempt to outline all the deaths, destruction, and misery caused by that godawful doctrine.  Their estimate is that the communists, those wanting to "spread the wealth around"  (to quote our Commander In Chief once again) by means of force, killed more than 94 million people. 

The Nazis were amateurs.  To really do some damage, you need to display a concern for fairness and equality.  At gunpoint, with gulags and re-education centers if necessary. 

Here's a useful idiot with her red commie flag, and her worse-than-Nazi sentiments.  God, I don't understand this mindset.  Have these people never read a book ????

Here's the breakdown of the body count, according to The Black Book Of Communism:

65 million in the People's Republic of China

20 million in the Soviet Union
2 million in Cambodia
2 million in North Korea
1.7 million in Africa
1.5 million in Afghanistan
1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
1 million in Vietnam
150,000 in Latin America
10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power."

The Black Book is documented to the point of being ridiculous.  Communism is the worst thing to ever happen to this planet, and I bet half the U.S. population couldn't tell you anything about the tragedy outlined above.  That estimate probably includes this booger-eater. 

And here they are, your government's employees, putting on their purple SEIU shirts and proudly carrying their red Chairman Mao flags. 
I have friends in China whose parents were sent out to the countryside to be "re-educated" during the Cultural Revolution by these socialist assholes.  Some of the parents didn't make it back. 

Just out of curiosity, are the Marxists/Communists/Socialists supposed to be better than Nazis because their intentions were mistaken for "just" and "noble"?  Is bending everyone to the will of the state supposed to be a good thing?   

According to Zombie, the SEIU employees are the ones in purple.  The Communist Party members are all in red.  And "Obama is closely linked with the SEIU.  The SEIU is closely linked with communists."

Is there any doubt in your mind why our economy is in the tank? 

Once everybody started mingling, the colors helped identify the players. 

Here's some video from the march. Enjoy the brief images of child murderer Che Guevara:




This makes me ill. 

Ummmm...We don't believe that our neighbors deserve a choice

Here's Reason magazine's Nick Gillespie laying into assorted idjits who don't want to allow their neighbors to have a choice in department stores.

Top US Political Donors from the last 20 years. Damn those greedy corporations !!!

Top US political donors from the last 20 years, from OpenSecrets.org:

I found this list here, via a link from Instapundit.