Romney Carries Torch Lit By Christie and Walker

For years they called social security the "third rail" of politics meaning whoever stepped there would suffer badly. George W. Bush boldly went there but learned quickly it was a battle he didn't have the will to fight with everything else he was dealing with.

But over the last five years or so, the real hornets nest was shown to be teachers unions. Governor's for years had given the teachers representatives contracts that were grossly unfair to those paying for them--taxpayers. They were afraid to get hit with the "enemy of kids" card, which can hurt even more than the race card. Every governor or local official who even remotely took a stand was branded as anti-children or anti-education and quickly backed down with their tail between their legs.

Enter Chris Christie who actually ran on a platform of reforming education and taking on the unions like the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA). But Christie is a man of his word and didn't back down but charged forward. He was vilified and the unions ran ad after ad. Out of spite, schools began charging for all activities--some up to $300 per year--stating they couldn't afford to cover the costs. Christie cut funding for schools and made them adapt by streamlining. He battled daily and became a You Tube sensation every time he smacked down someone who debated him.

Christie restored some fiscal sanity to a state that had seen none in decades.

Then we were introduced to Gov. Scott Walker who also campaigned on the union-busting platform. He had union ingrates sleeping in the Capitol building protesting his every move. They eventually got enough signatures from homeless dudes and dead people to force a recall. Unfortunately for the unions and assorted other idiots, he saved the state a billion bucks and appears headed to victory.

Now Romney is taking on the unions and we're about to see how this successful strategy plays out on a national scale:

And he declared war on teachers unions, saying they “are the clearest example of a group that has lost its way.” He said Mr. Obama is too beholden to the unions to be able to reform the school system.
“President Obama has been unable to stand up to union bosses — and unwilling to stand up for kids,” Mr. Romney said, accusing the president of putting the unions’ campaign donations ahead of the needs of students those teachers are teaching.

This came during a speech on education in which he talked about the good things charter schools are doing for all children. The unions abhor charter schools so Romney effectively just declared war. Not that they would've supported him anyway but this was overt and he's evidently decided that this is a winning issue after seeing how well it resonated with many people.

The Rise of the Free Market Fiscal Cons

I've long considered myself a devout fiscal conservative but a libertarian-conservative on social issues. In my purview, elections should be decided on tax rates, spending cuts and deficits not abortion, gay marriage or racial quotas. The social conservatives have held sway in the GOP for decades and wouldn't think of saying anything that would upset Christian groups going as far back as Falwell's Moral Majority.

That's changed and changed for the better as we are seeing a new type of conservative rise out of the ashes of the party. Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Scott Walker and Tom Corbett are now the ones taken seriously by everyone because they generally eschew the social issues argument in deference to the argument that we as a nation are facing a reckoning that has been laid at our feet after a half-century of Democrat and Republican borrowing and spending. The economic situation is not taking a toll only on Southern Baptists or small business owners but on the black, gay and feminist population as well. It's hurting us all equally as bad fiscal policies affect all Americans--not just those who vote for a certain party.

Christie and Walker are out there as the new conservative standard bearers and saying the tough things people want to hear in a crisis situation. They've essentially called the bluff of the liberal hierarchy and note that not only does the king have no clothes but he's going to have to take a loan from China to buy even a towel to cover up.

This new type of right-winger is not the type liberals have been fighting against for years and it scares the hell out of them. The old version was one who would talk of slashing spending and then spend anyway for those they needed to appease for reelection purposes. The old type was the one who would invoke God, get sucked into racial politics and spend half their time arguing about abortion--all the while ignoring the union influence. Not the new type we are seeing emerge. These men and women are baffling the left because they aren't just not talking about the issues that unite the Democratic coalition but going right at the jugular of the liberal body politic: unions and the money they collect and disperse. Never have we seen this in our recent history. Here we have a new breed not only giving lip service to cutting education and state costs but actively attacking the unions that have artificially inflated those costs over the last two decades. That's the reason we are seeing these protests in Wisconsin and the rage being shown.

The New Breed is fighting the war with vigor but also with a new game plan. Just as defense and war-fighting plans changed after WW I, so are they changing now. In WW I, France won yet failed to update and develop new plans to deal with changing technology that was being invented. They figured the Maginot Line was still a viable option going forward. As history notes, the line was easily bypassed and before the Gallic armies knew what was happening, the Germans were sipping tea in Paris (I see this as a much closer analogy of Nazi tactics then the idiotic signs comparing Walker to Hitler). The New Breed got past the union's Maginot Line of social issues that always bogged them down in the past and went right after the capital while they were looking the other way.

"How is this happening" they ask themselves. Just over two years ago we were preparing for the world-changing administration of Barack Obama--a man who was going to finally implement all those liberal policies they've lusted for for 35-years and now we have these interlopers not only voting against it but actively looking to defund the victories we won earlier and expected could never be touched.

We are living in strange days, folks. We've not had a recession last this long since the Great Depression. We've also not had a recession where only Keynesian strategies were used to overcome it. In under three short years, we've gone seen socialist spending policies shown as farce and socialist labor policies come under heavy attack. All the defensive techniques used in the past have simply bounced off as these juggernauts lay waste to the status quo. They used the "he's racist" canard so often it has no effect anymore. The anti-abortion lobby is powerless since someone who's been out of work for two years really doesn't have the time to argue the merits/detriments of late-term abortion. Even the old class warfare standby has been an abject failure from the federal level on down.

They've run out of arrows in their collective quivers and the only recourse available to them is to illegally shut down schools (causing great hardship to parents whose taxes pay their salaries and now have to pay even more of their money to hire babysitters) and march on the state capital. Another bit of collateral damage is their actions will come back to haunt them when deficit reduction talks begin at the national level.

All because of the New Breed.

The Union Death Spiral

How quickly things change. The various unions still possessing clout thought they had the man and the timing to stage a labor rebound in a country that has seen union membership plummeting in the last few decades. Instead, they gave Obama millions of their members' money (which member's had no say in) with the expectation that he would push for and sign union-friendly legislation such as "Card Check".

Instead, Obama met reality and reality is that unions are dying and are becoming more and more hated by Americans who are struggling to keep or even find jobs while paying higher taxes, gas prices and insurance premiums. Why, many Americans ask themselves, should we in the private sector have to pay 10%, 20% or even 40% of our insurance premium when the unions are bitching about paying 1.5%? Why should we support organizations run by some of thew most vile people on the planet and take an ever-increasing amount of our tax money while giving us shoddy performance in return?

Events playing out in Madison, WI will dictate what strength the unions will have going forward in many states (mine included) and this has turned into an ugly war:

Nine people have been arrested in the third day of widespread protests at the state Capitol.

The state Department of Administration estimated 20,000 people attended protests outside the state Capitol, while 5,000 protesters filled the rotunda and hallways.

Labor supporters and activists have been protesting Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to strip most public employees of all collective bargaining rights, except for limited negotiations on salary. Walker has said the bill is necessary to close a budget shortfall of $137 million and a looming $3.6 billion deficit in the next two-year budget.

The arrests come after two days of incident-free rallies and demonstrations, as protesters have remained mostly peaceful. State officials did not immediately return calls asking for details on the nine arrests.

Police hand-cuffed one protester after he apparently tried to charge into the state Assembly.

The Tea Party organizers called for a large demonstration in supports of Badger governor Scott Walker and it appears they got a great response based on this picture.

MM has more info including the illegal distribution of doctors' notes to teachers who are staging an illegal sick-out and protesting. She also pics of the signs being carried by those who are paid to teach our children. They are pretty nasty but pretty much what one would expect from the collection of thugs and douche bags up in that liberal shit hole.

I leave you with this picture that about sums it all up:



I'm not sure that's exactly an ally they want at this point.

How Liberals Outsmarted Themselves in New Jersey

There are some things that make me feel warm and fuzzy when they occur. This would be one of them.

The Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) was instituted by Jon Corzine in 2008 to forcibly integrate affluent communities. It was paid for by a tax levied on "non-residential" builders and required communities to approve new housing as a percentage that would be made available for to those who couldn't afford the high housing costs in the state. They made it sound really swell when it was passed and promised a zillion things it wouldn't do. The fact that it was regressive and would dissuade builders from constructing commercial tax rateables never occurred to them (as if it ever does but I digress).

Communities fought it and lost. The most notable was the town next to mine.

So, instead of accepting the states mandate to integrate, towns played by the letter of the law and instead of building low-income housing, they built 55 and over communities that offered cheap senior housing. It met the statute and attempts to make communities cooperate led nowhere. It was a win-win for communities as they filled housing with taxpayers but didn't overburden schools.

Let me explain how the school budgets work in New Jersey: some funds come from the state after they receive funding from the federal government. But the bulk comes from residents who vote every spring on the school budget. We had that election yesterday and it went down in flames in a majority of towns and counties. It was a bitter battle to say the least.

Anyway, here's where the liberals in this state outsmarted themselves and got bitten square on the ass by a law they imposed upon us.

Senior housing was built and they moved in in droves. But every year, the budget came up for a vote and these folks of fixed incomes and limited means were left with a simple choice; do I vote to raise my taxes for schools that I have no kids attending? More likely than not the answer was no. Anyone who pays attention to voting trends knows that the elderly vote and they do so religiously. In my town it was about 2,700 against and 2,200 for. I'm assuming that the majority of the 2.7K were the seniors who moved into the afordable housing Corzine envisioned as being occupied by low income folks.

Now we all know that liberals are wont to write bills and not foresee the consequences. The Obamacare bill is just the latest example. They had no clue that municipalities would find a way to ensure that they were not burdened with the zombie entitlements from years past such as providing meals and others that have been a continual drain on school budgets. They were simply outsmarted by part-time mayors and housewife councilpersons.

Add to the mix the simple fact that people don't have the means anymore to vote themselves higher taxes and you have the recipe for Chris Christie victory and a teachers' union defeat.

As with all liberal policies; the best intentions will always come back and kick one square in the package. We saw that yesterday when New Jersey said enough.

Exit question: Can a fat governor from a deep blue state beat Obama? Christie in 2012?

I Hope Gov. Christie Has Good Police Protection

The rhetoric is heating up to proportions not seen in this state since I've been paying attention and save for a decade in California, that's 25-years:

HADDONFIELD, N.J. — They're the kind of obscenity-laced schoolyard taunts that could get a student suspended.

But the target of this tirade is New Jersey's Gov. Chris Christie — and the perpetrators are the state's teachers, irate over his calls for salary freezes and funding cuts for schools.

In Facebook messages visible to the world — not to mention their students — the teachers have called Christie fat, compared him to a genocidal dictator and wished he was dead. The postings are often riddled with bad grammar and misspellings.

"Never trust a fat f...," read one profane post on the Facebook page, "New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie's Pay Freeze," which has some 69,000 fans, many of them teachers.

"How do you spell A-- hole? C-H-R-I-S C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E," read another.

The rhetoric has become ever more heated as residents of most of the state's school districts get ready to vote Tuesday on property tax levies that support district budgets. And while many of the postings are emotional, most aren't personal attacks.

Yeah, just like the made up attacks are described as not "personal" by the AP, right?
If the Tea Partiers were on record saying anything close to this, the media would be screaming worse than they are and Bill Clinton would maybe have a point. But they aren't and the largely Democratic teachers--the ones who teach my children mind you--are saying things like this.

This is incitement plain and simple; incitement to violence that will lead to someone trying to harm the governor. The man is doing all he can to save a state that has been raped fiscally and run into the ground by McGreevey and Corzine in ways that would make Pelosi and Obama stand gaping in awe.

New Jersey teachers have gotten everything they've wanted from state government that fears them. Now they face a man who will not back down and will not bend over for them as the others have (no pun intended with regard to McGreevey).

Here's a taste of the venom these people are spewing.

As an aside; I live in this state and pay $10,000 a year in property taxes. I need some relief from that and these people want more, more, more. Sorry, I don't have it and neither do most other people. The teachers unions are spreading lie after lie in the hopes that people will buy it. Some will but most--especially us who are taxed to death--will not.

God help us if the local budgets get shot down today.

More Liberal Astroturfing

Since the left has never been able to get grassroots traction like the Tea Party movement, they've gone the direction they always go...astroturfing:

A seemingly grassroots organization that's mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds -- including sizable labor union contributions -- through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer.

A Web site popped up in January dedicated to preventing the tea party's "radical" and "dangerous" ideas from "gaining legislative traction," targeting GOP candidates in Illinois for the firing squad.

"This movement is a fad," proclaims TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, which was established by the American Public Policy Center (APPC), a D.C.-based campaign shop that few people have ever heard of.

But a close look reveals the APPC's place in a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country's biggest labor unions into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

...Varoga and Rakis keep a central mailing address in Washington, pulling in soft money contributions from unions and other well-padded sources to engage in what amounts to a legal laundering system. The money -- tens of millions of dollars -- gets circulated around to different states by the 527s, which pay for TV ads, Internet campaigns and lobbyist salaries, all while keeping the hands of the unions clean -- for the most part.

Remember, these are the same people who went ballistic a few weeks ago when SCOTUS shot down McCain-Feingold. They like the status quo because it made it much easier to pilfer hard-earned union workers funds and use them for purposes the local bricklayer or checkout girl never intended them to be used for.

All the players would be indicted under RICO laws if they weren't protected by the campaign finance laws that were overturned. It's a scam and one that will just inflame those who have become intrigued by the Tea Partiers. These people are scared by what happened in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts because they know their money laundering days are numbered if the Tea Partiers gain anymore clout or traction.

The unions have been dying of late and the one way to regain any momentum is to keep their Democrat cronies in power. They saw card check and other Obama policy initiatives as their way to gain back prestige and members. The libertarian/conservative Tea Partiers aim to ensure that doesn't happen.

Too late, losers.

Steel Worker About To Get Union Hall Beat-down Tomorrow

The steel worker gets paid 50 bones by the flailing Coakley campaign and he says thanks for the coin and hoists a Brown sign anyway.

Uh, dude, you do realize your mug is all over the Internet, right?



Here's Scott Brown's Reaganesque moment that will resonate with people for a long time:



As for Coakley; she's as amateurish as the Commander in Chief.

Labor Day News & Notes

Another summer gone and the kids are headed back to school tomorrow where they'll be subjected to propaganda to get the year started right. It's been a good summer albeit a cold one in these parts. Let's hope the winter is not the same.

Here's what's news:

-It's because all white people are racists as if you didn't already know that.

-Unions thought they had their greatest ally since FDR. They are going to go after every avenue to increase membership while doing nothing more than enriching their leadership and hurting American business.

-Thoughts on the Obama healthcare speech and Olympia Snowe (RINO-Me)

-So how's the stimulus and helping out with unemployment?

-Sarah Palin rightfully slams the AP.

Monday Night News and Notes

I've been busy and this blog has taken a back seat but I'm feeling more full of venom with each passing day and should be back to more regular posting in the near future.

Here's what's news:

-The unions are getting fat, dumb and happy during the early Obama admin. They, being greedy bastards want much, much more.

-Teddy Kennedy and the KGB.

-We in the US can't drill, can't dig and can't do, well, anything because of the onerous environmental lobby in the US who has gained Obama's ear. Canada is stepping in and taking the spoils.

-You see, us idiots who oppose socialized medicine are only against it because Obama hasn't framed his message correctly, not because we see the folly in it or have actually read the bill.

Democrats Continue to Meltdown on Health Care

Those who were tasked with gaining support for the health care plan they've set forth have been shown to be ill-suited with explaining it, irate when questioned on it and generally incapable of holding rational debate.

Rep. David Scott (D-GA) is just the latest but will not be the last as he went on a "tirade" against a doctor who questioned the past results of socialized medicine in a town hall meeting:



Sen. McCaskill (D-MO) canceled an event due to "safety concerns", an obvious attempt to dodge her constituents questions on the issue and a convenient one at that.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) got an earful as well when he held a town hall and the police had to break up arguments.

And on and on...

I find it humorous that when the mob scenes organized by liberal groups such as Moveon and A.N.S.W.E.R. were screaming at elected leaders they were showing their patriotism or some other such drivel while real Americans not affiliated with anyone and probably have never advocated a political position to such an extent are labeled as "astroturfers" and other terms to marginalize them. In the You Tube generation, the unions and their Democratic backers can no longer lie and obfuscate, they've been flat busted.

This is an issue that will stay in peoples minds for awhile and if they ram the legislation through we'll see a backlash of unprecedented proportions come 2010.

Black is White, War is Peace, SEIU is Victim

Orwellian is the way it was described at Sweetness and Light and I can't think of a more apt word. The SEIU beat a man who ended up in the hospital and has the balls to blame Glenn Beck and "Teabaggers" for the violence. Savor the lies my friends:

August 7, 2009

Things are turning ugly. Town halls, which typically serve as open, safe environments to ask questions of elected officials, have degenerated into violent shouting matches.

Last night in St. Louis, Missouri, a reverend and member of SEIU was assaulted at a town hall. The incident, along with a town hall in Tampa, Florida, has been all over the radio and cable news shows. GOP operatives are rushing to paint it as SEIU "thug" violence. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Cable news channels are broadcasting images of neighbors turning against one another in chaotic, sometimes frightening town hall meetings. Incited by extremist radio and TV hosts, "teabagger" protesters are yelling and chanting talking points that span from radicalism to racism.

Enough is enough. Click here to sign a pledge for civil, honest debates about health care reform: http://action.seiu.org/townhall

It is extremely discouraging to see people treating one another like this. And it’s a reminder of how GOP scare-tactics ("the government will kill the elderly,!" [sic] "the government will choose your doctors!" or "the government will ration care!") use fear to overpower the truth.

We are at a turning point. To succeed, we will continue to elevate this conversation, distinguish ourselves from the opposition, and speak to our fellow Americans with respect and dignity. Where we disagree, we’ll invite discussion. And when we agree, we’ll work together toward a solution.

That’s the only way we’re going to solve our nation’s health care crisis. When it comes to quality, affordable health care, the stakes are too high to let shouting run the show.

Thanks for standing up.

This is the definition of "standing up" I guess:



We're at a crucial moment in our country with regard to politics and one in which we could see the fastest pendulum swing ever. A president who came into office with more goodwill than any predecessor has implemented programs that has sent his poll numbers into a tailspin and has led to partisanship on a monumental scale. This will only help the GOP in the midterms and may send the Democrats back to irrelevance for a decade.

Waterloo Indeed: Black Protester Beat By Union Thugs

The Democrat's henchmen--the Service Employee's International Union (SEIU)--attacked a black man selling "Don't Tread on Me" flags for doing nothing more than practicing his God-given right to protest:

St. Louis County police say six people were arrested. Two of those were arrested on suspicion of assault, one of resisting arrest and three on suspicion of committing peace disturbances. Carnahan was gone when the ruckus started.

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don't tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John's Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

“It just seems there's no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.

This is not going well for the Dems with Pelosi's appearance in Denver drawing a crowd that scuffled and events elsewhere ending in violence by unions against protesters.

Everyone knows that unions support Democrats and these videos will be used by the GOP in the midterms with devastating effect. I foresee this driving down support by at least ten points in the next week and if more events are marred by violence, we'll see a twenty point drop by the time Congress reconvenes in September.

The impact this is having on Obama is immeasurable at this point. It may well be his Waterloo.

AFL-CIO hands out Hard Hats Made in China

In a move that sums up the idiocy of Big Labor, they handed out hard hats and pushed for passage of "Card Check"--the anti-American bill they are pushing whereby secret ballots are replaced by open ones. The hard hats were stamped with stickers that read "Made in China".



And these are the people that are now co-owners of GM. They were too friggin' stupid to buy hard hats made in America and we're supposed to trust them.

Sunday Evening News & Notes

Here's what's news:

-The failure of Obamanomics is becoming increasingly clear. Things are going to only get worse if we keep pursuing his wayward policies.

-Ray Nagin quarantined in China. Maybe if the ChiComs keep him for awhile, New Orleans will rise from the destruction he's overseen.

-John on unions and how they destroy business. The Dems grovel to the unions in New Jersey i ways that would make Obama sycophants blush.

-Hamas channels Bernie Madoff. I feel such pity for them words cannot express it...or not.

-Breaking down the distortions in Obama's Cairo speech visually (via Moonbattery):

Union Bosses Very Happy With Obama

It always amuses me the pull that unions still have with the Democrats. They kiss the unions asses more than they do women's groups, African-Americans and anti-gun groups combined. They court them and stroke them and generally support them against the mean, evil corporations who are keeping them out (think WalMart) or the greedy CEO who won't bargain nicely. The only time they don't speak out for the unions is when it's the NY Times doing the screwing but I digress.

Well, the unions are getting their moneys worth from The One who worked them for donations the entire campaign:

Fifty years ago, Congress passed the landmark Landrum-Griffin Act to protect rank-and-file union members from malfeasance by union leaders. Senate hearings had uncovered serious corruption and other unethical practices inside the labor movement, and a bipartisan coalition emerged to shine the light of disclosure on union practices.

Nevertheless, Democrats in Congress and in the executive branch have often attempted to undercut that law's financial reporting and disclosure requirements. Prior to reforms adopted in the George W. Bush administration, for example, one union could get away with reporting a $62 million expenditure as nothing more than "contributions, gifts, and grants to local affiliates" -- with no further explanation. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is already showing that it wants to return to this nontransparent standard of financial disclosure.

Within days of the inauguration, the new leadership at the Labor Department moved to delay implementing a regulation finalized in January that would have shed much needed light on how union managers compensate themselves with union dues. The regulation required disclosure of receipts for expenditures and for the purchase and sale of union assets -- disclosures that would help deter embezzlement. The administration has since moved even more aggressively, initiating proceedings to rescind this rule and others promulgated when I was secretary of labor.

Now why should we be concerned about union bosses scamming the members, that never happens, right? I mean, the case where a mobster was scamming the operators and the laborers unions was an anomaly, right? And the case where the Business Manager of Operators Local 825 was charged for bribery was something that almost never happens, correct?

In light of that, I can't imagine why would need more transparency for unions instead of less.

Update: Obama isn't even trying to hide it anymore. He's now telling the UAW that they don't have to pay back the billions of our tax dollars given them.

Friday Morning News & Notes

A rainy Friday but it's the weekend so it's all good.

Here's what's new:

-David Paterson yuks it up about raising taxes. I've spent alot of time in his state lately and the way they are imploding, he shouldn't be laughing at anything.

-The dirty fingers and corruption of Congress and Big Labor.

-Met the new boss, same as the old boss... Remember, it's not hypocrisy, it Hope and Change...or not.

-Someone explain to me why Obama would need 500 people to accompany him for his one week European junket? What the hell are 500 people doing for the week, carrying the teleprompter? Not only that, they all flew via military transport and that's hurting our military support in Afghanistan. Hell, Obama could have stimulated the airline industry into profitability if they would have flown commercial like the rest of of dumb schmucks.

-Ward Churchill wins and gets about all he deserved.

-Terri has a nice new look. The site still has that great new car smell.

Specter Finally Grows a Pair?

Either that or the esteemed Sen. Arlen Specter (RINO-PA) is worried about Pat Toomey ousting him in the primary in 2010. He better not even think of crossing the GOP faithful again after voting for the insane stimulus trainwreck of a bill.

Specter has said he will vote against the Employee Free Choice Act (and is anything but), also known as card check whereby unions would have an easier time organizing. The act would ban privacy when voting whether to unionize or not and is among the more un-American and un-Constitutional pieces of legislation to come along in quite some time.

I guess Specter has been paying attention to the news as the conservative Toomey is gaining and in some cases has surpassed the senator.

The Death of Starbucks

Starbucks was once a company to emulate; from their meteoric rise out of Seattle to their apex with stores on almost as many corners as Dunkin Donuts, they've mastered the elitist coffee drinker angle. You have to give credit to anyone who can get Americans to pony up $5 for thirty cents worth of crushed beans and some cream.

They've hit a rough patch of late and sales started to slip some but they've slimmed down and have managed to maintain corporate stability.

That may change if they decide to go in this direction:

Starbucks Corp. and other companies are discussing a potential compromise on union-backed “card- check” legislation that U.S. business groups are spending millions of dollars to defeat.

Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee-shop chain, has had “conversations with like-minded companies” and is “open to exploring alternative solutions” to the measure, said Deb Trevino, director of corporate communications for the Seattle- based company in an e-mail yesterday.

The bill, backed by President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress, would make it easier for unions to organize. It would let workers form a union when a majority of company employees sign a card requesting one, rather than permitting their employer to require a secret-ballot election run by the National Labor Relations Board. The proposal is organized labor’s top legislative goal this year.

If Starbucks goes the union route, they will effectively die as a company. Big Labor will demand a "living wage" that will exceed roughly $13 to start and will raise steadily every year. They will demand full health benefits and some type of pension plan plus the percentage that goes to the union local. The stabilized labor rate--actual cost paid per hour--will be somewhere in the area of $21 when all the above-mentioned benefits are added in. That means that they will make increasingly less profit unless they raise their prices even more and will end up pricing themselves out of the market.

Most people don't realize how unions work so here's a primer: Say you're doing construction work in New Jersey. You have to do the work using union labor. You call the local hall and ask for a heavy equipment operator and they send him to the site. Let's say he's going to operate an excavator for you. His hourly rate is, at current, $41. Add to that the ancillary disability and other taxes that are required. Then add in the union costs: healthcare, vacation, union fees and a few others. His actual cost per hour to the construction company is over $70 per hour, paid weekly to the employee and the union hall.

This is one of the many battles that has to be fought, not just for big and small business but for the American consumer. Big Labor needs just a crack in the door to send their goons in and unionize everything from the local hardware store to the electronics dealers. Wages will rocket upward and prices will surely follow affecting us, the consumer, in ways we can't even fathom.

If Starbucks, or any other large firm breaks ranks and allows unions to organize in their stores, they will be bankrupt within five years and we'll have more people out of work. Thinks I'm making this up? Just take a look at GM, Ford and Chrysler and tell me what good unions have done for them.

Savor the Schadenfreude: Union Sues Union For Unfair Practices

Awesome.

This is one of those issues that just make me smile:

As it helps push for legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, the country's fastest-growing union is engaged in its own labor dispute with employees it is seeking to lay off.

The Service Employees International Union, considered the most influential union in the nation, has notified the union that represents about 220 of its national field staff and organizers that 75 of them are being laid off. In return, the workers' union, which goes by the somewhat postmodern name of the Union of Union Representatives, has filed unfair labor practices charges against SEIU with the National Labor Relations Board. The staff union's leaders say that SEIU is engaging in the same kind of practices that some businesses use -- laying off workers without proper notice, contracting out work to temp firms, banning union activities and reclassifying workers to reduce union numbers.

This is just too rich to even discuss but I'll give it a shot. A major union is slapped with and unfair labor practices charge for the way they treated union employees. Plus, how odd is it that workers for SEIU are under another union?

And Obama wants to institute card check. If I were the GOP, I'd hit SEIU upside the head with this as often as possible to show that unions are hypocritical and their oppressive standards will only make American business worse. I'd use charts and graphs and point the finger right at SEIU for daring to treat their employees with such utter disrespect. Who does SEIU think they are, WalMart? Oh wait, even WalMart wouldn't have been this uncaring about the rank and file worker.

Update: I missed this but Ed is enjoying this as much as I.

Wednesday Evening News and Notes

What's up? Just relaxing and watching a little WBC baseball with Puerto Rico taking on the upstart Netherlands squad that beat the vaunted Dominicans twice in three games.

Here's what's new in the world:

-Dude, no way! Cops confiscate over a million bucks in cash and dope from Phish heads in Hampton, VA. They were way cooler when I saw the Dead there for this epic show in 1988. That's serious harshing of a man's mellow. I'm guessing the state of Virginia may just balance their budget if Phish comes through town in the summer.

-Joe Biden is a buffoon and a hypocrite. But then, you already knew that. So is Obama but you knew that as well.

-Tom Harkin is shameless but you knew that as well.

-95% of professors were shown to be liberals in a survey but denied they let that permeate into the classroom. Uh, okay, I believe that.

-Zo meets Michelle Malkin at CPAC and channels his inner Erkel: