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Latest Articles: United States News
12K State Workers Could Be Fired Without Budget Deal, Wisconsin Governor Warns
Post Date: 2011-02-20 15:46:33 by A K A Stone
1 Comments
If changes aren't made to the benefit contributions paid by Wisconsin's nearly 300,000 public sector employees, about 10,000-12,000 workers will lose their jobs, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warned Sunday. The Republican governor has been targeted by protesters for nearly a week for negotiating a bill now in the state Senate that would require workers to increase their contributions to pensions and health care coverage, would limit collective bargaining rules and tie raises to inflation. But Walker said while the state enjoys a lower-than-average unemployment rate -- about 7.5 percent compared to 9 percent nationally -- about 5,000-6,000 state workers and 5,000-6,000 local ...
The Fundamental Difference Between Private and Public Unions
Post Date: 2011-02-20 13:42:24 by jwpegler
29 Comments
I grew up in Detroit. I make a huge distinction between industrial worker unions like the UAW and Teamsters on the one hand and government bureaucrats unions like the NEA on the other hand. The NEA funnels compulsory union dues into political campaigns to essentially elect their own bosses. The politicians who benefit from this refuse to make any changes whatsoever in the horrible school systems no matter how bad they get. Milwaukee teachers earn on average for $100,000 a year in salary and benefits. What do we get for it? 32% of kids in Milwaukee never graduate high school. Many of those who do "graduate" are functional illiterates who can't read, write, or perform simple ...
Opposing sides meet as Capitol protests enter sixth day (Wisconsin)
Post Date: 2011-02-20 13:22:25 by go65
1 Comments
Union leaders offer concessions Top leaders of two of Wisconsin's largest public employee unions announced they are willing to accept the financial concessions called for in Walker's plan, but will not accept the loss of collective bargaining rights. Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, and Marty Beil, executive director of AFSCME Council 24, said in a conference call with reporters that workers will do their fair share to narrow Wisconsin's budget gap. Click for Full Text!
Our Kenyan Prez's Approval is Dropping Like a Stone
Post Date: 2011-02-20 09:27:39 by no gnu taxes
3 Comments
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove. -- Who knows what this means. Rasmussen's polls fluctuate like like the global warming evidence of Hansen before and after the data gets doctored. On the surface, it would appear, President Mandingo ain't impressing a lot of folks outside his dumbass base.
Koch Brothers Behind Wisconsin Effort To Kill Public Unions
Post Date: 2011-02-19 22:05:43 by Ferret Mike
6 Comments
As the nation focuses on the efforts of Governor Scott Walker to take away collective bargaining rights from public employees in Wisconsin, new information is coming to light that reveals what is truly going on here. Mother Jones is reporting that much of the funding behind the Walker for Governor campaign came from none other than uber-conservatives, the infamous Koch Brothers. What’s more, the plan to kill the unions is right out of the Koch Brothers play book. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these ...
Wisconsin Protesters Breitbarted Over Bogus Teachers' Excuses
Post Date: 2011-02-19 21:21:43 by go65
2 Comments
On Saturday, a group of men and women in lab coats purporting to be doctors were handing out medical excuse notes, without examining the ‘patients.’ “I asked this doctor what he was doing and he told me they were handing out excuses to people who were feeling sick due to emotional, mental or financial distress,” said Christian Hartsock. “They never performed an exam–he asked me how I was feeling today and I said I’m from California and I’m not used to the cold, so he handed me a note.” --------- Looks like Christian Hartsock is just an ordinary guy, eh? Well, he's not. Christian Hartsock, 24, is a director, screenwriter, producer and ...
Weirdness in Wisconsin (Poll: Majority disapprove of Gov's plan)
Post Date: 2011-02-19 21:17:39 by go65
2 Comments
As you may know, Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a plan to limit the pay of government workers and teachers, increase their share of the cost of benefits, and strip some public-employ unions of much of their power. We’d like to know if APPROVE or DISAPPROVE of Gov. Walker’s plan Approve: 43.05% Disapprove: 51.09% Click for Full Text!
Repealing healthcare law would cost $210 bln: CBO
Post Date: 2011-02-19 21:12:49 by go65
1 Comments
Repealing the U.S. healthcare law enacted last year would add $210 billion to the nation's deficit over the next decade, congressional auditors said on Friday. The Congressional Budget Office said enactment of a House of Representatives measure last month to scrap the healthcare overhaul would eliminate a number of provisions aimed at reducing federal healthcare costs as well as strip out new revenue-creating taxes and fees. Republicans, who now control the House, campaigned on repealing the law, one of Democratic President Barack Obama's main legislative victories. Despite the vote in the House, the repeal was largely symbolic as neither the Democratic-led Senate nor Obama ...
Court Rejects Madison School Effort to Get 'Sick' Teachers Back to Work
Post Date: 2011-02-19 19:50:53 by Brian S
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A judge has denied a bid by the Madison School District to force teachers back to work. But a leader of the teachers union says teachers will return to the classroom Tuesday. The district late Friday filed for a temporary restraining order that would bar teachers from taking part in any more work stoppages such as teacher demonstrations that have closed schools three days this week. The district characterizes the work stoppage as an illegal strike. Strikes by teachers are prohibited by state law. District officials haven't decided yet whether schools will be open Monday. Schools have been closed in Madison, Milwaukee and other districts around Wisconsin as ...
Lavish Government Pensions Killing Post Office [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2011-02-19 19:30:55 by jwpegler
52 Comments
The U.S. Postal Service warned Wednesday that it may default on some of its financial obligations later this year after reporting yet another quarterly loss. The USPS, a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars, said it suffered a loss of $329 million in the first quarter of federal fiscal year 2011. That compared with a loss of $297 million a year earlier. The agency has been suffering from an ongoing decline in mail volume, which has undercut revenues, while retiree health care costs have been straining its reserves. Excluding costs related to retiree benefits and adjustments to workers' compensation liability, the Postal Service said it had net income was ...
Gulf of Mexico Bottom Shows Little Sign Of Recovery From BP Spill, But Many Dead Creatures
Post Date: 2011-02-19 19:23:11 by Brian S
2 Comments
WASHINGTON — Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a scientist's video and slides that demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor. At a science conference in Washington, marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia aired early results of her December submarine dives around the BP spill site. She went to places she had visited in the summer and expected the oil and residue from oil-munching microbes would be gone by then. It wasn't. "There's some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn't seem to be degrading," ...
About Ezra Klein and the Orhet Dumbassts Who Spin Walker "Caused" the Problem
Post Date: 2011-02-19 16:37:52 by no gnu taxes
3 Comments
In a stunning denial of reality, Ezra Klein attempts to paint a rosy picture of Wisconsin’s budget prior to Gov. Scott Walker’s inauguration. In an article posted yesterday online, Klein excuses the union from any wrongdoing in Wisconsin’s current budgetary crisis. Says Klein: -- Whatever fiscal problems Wisconsin is — or is not — facing at the moment, they’re not caused by labor unions. That’s also true for New Jersey, for Ohio and for the other states. There was no sharp rise in collective bargaining in 2006 and 2007, no major reforms of the country’s labor laws, no dramatic change in how unions organize. And yet, state budgets collapsed. ...
Koch Industries Orchestrating Anti-Union 'Tea Party' Protests In Wisconsin
Post Date: 2011-02-19 14:59:21 by Brian S
3 Comments
A counter-protest by those supposed populist teahadists is on its way to Wisconsin this weekend. But like every other major Tea Party event, this one isn't a spontaneous, grassroots uprising. Like all the others, it's sponsored by Koch Industries. Think Progress: A number of the big business interests standing with Walker are beneficiaries of his administration’s tax giveaways. But the greatest ally to Walker is the dirty energy company Koch Industries. In response to the growing protests in Madison, Koch fronts are busing in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign.... Koch Industries is a major player in Wisconsin: Koch owns a coal company ...
FDR's Ghost Is Smiling on Wisconsin's Governor
Post Date: 2011-02-19 11:55:38 by no gnu taxes
1 Comments
Somewhere, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is grinning past his cigarette holder at Wisconsin's governor. They are on the same page regarding government unions. Except that Scott Walker -- Republican cheapskate, his visage Hitlerized on signs waved by beet-faced union crowds besieging the Capitol -- is kind of a liberal squish compared to FDR. He's OK with some collective bargaining. Walker, you might have heard, wants some changes in how Wisconsin deals with unions. He wants state employees to pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions (they pay almost nothing now) and he wants them to cover 12.6% of their health care premiums (their share would go up from $79 a month to about $20 ...
In Wisconsin, it's the unions vs. the tax paying people
Post Date: 2011-02-19 11:21:07 by no gnu taxes
17 Comments
The ferment in Wisconsin is no workers' uprising against the rich and powerful. It is instead political muscle-flexing by a well-funded special interest group, which is limbering up for President Obama's re-election bid. Obama's campaign, operating as Organizing for America, is bussing protesters to the state capitol and manning phone banks to apply pressure to state legislatures. Obama himself has called Gov. Scott Walker's bill curbing government-sector collective bargaining "an attack on unions." While liberal writers wax romantic about a workers' uprising (former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on Twitter "Wisconsin is spreading to Ohio -- ...
Wisconsin Gov. To Obama: “Stay Out Of Our Business”
Post Date: 2011-02-19 10:36:15 by no gnu taxes
1 Comments
Wisconsin — Union protests are continuing in Wisconsin as Govenor Scott Walker is threatening major budget cuts that will affect many union workers. This morning on Fox News, Walker told Obama to “stay out of the state’s business” after Obama’s comment that Wisconsin is “waging war on unions.” “I think we’re focused on balancing our budget,” Walker said on Fox News Friday morning. “It would be wise for the president and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budget, which they are a long ways from doing.”
DUDE OF THE WEEK – WISCONSIN GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKER
Post Date: 2011-02-19 10:27:58 by no gnu taxes
5 Comments
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is the type of leader Wisconsin needs. Blue states like Wisconsin have dug themselves into huge financial holes because of liberal politics. It’s time for the adults to come in and sweep up the sh*t left behind by generations of liberal tools. And Governor Walker has a big shovel. Leaders like Walker will work hard to hopefully save Wisconsin. They are broke. America also needs a leader with the cojones to stand up to the union/DemonRat machine. It won’t be easy. It won’t be pretty. But it is necessary. Adults understand this. Tax-sucking public sector employees, who have gladly allowed the producers to be raped in order to pay their over the ...
Heroic Scott Walker Has freed Wisconsin
Post Date: 2011-02-19 10:24:23 by no gnu taxes
1 Comments
Somewhere between the first cries of the Tea Party in February 2009 and the November election in 2010, the states in the middle of the continent suddenly came to realize what Texas and Alaska have known all along: They are free. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says his party has been emboldened by massive protests against his controversial budget plan, The Hill reports. He says the demonstrators who filled the state capitol building in Madison and the boycott by state Senate Democrats — some of whom fled the state in protest — have steeled the resolve of members of his party. Wisconsin today potentially takes its first steps in freedom. The events today in Wisconsin actualize the ...
Gates pleads for 'critically urgent' funds for State Department's work in Iraq
Post Date: 2011-02-19 10:20:47 by go65
1 Comments
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told a Senate committee Thursday that everything the United States has accomplished in Iraq is potentially at risk if the State Department does not get the money it has requested to fund its work there as U.S. forces exit this year. In an impassioned plea during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on next year's Pentagon budget, Gates cited the loss of more than 4,000 American lives in Iraq and the expenditure of some $900 billion. He said it is "a critically urgent concern" that a planned $5.2 billion allocation for fiscal 2012 be approved, so that the State Department can carry on the training of Iraqi police and other programs once ...
Dems Closed Much Larger Budget Shortfall In Wisconsin Without Destroying Worker Rights
Post Date: 2011-02-19 10:18:54 by go65
0 Comments
We know that Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker is framing his bid to roll back public sector worker rights as a necessary measure of fiscal austerity. And we know that's basically bogus. But how bogus? And how accurate are the dire warnings of fiscal crisis? And how standard are the tools Walker's using to address it? The answers in order: very, overblown, and unconventional. "Unconventional or nuclear, depending on your point of view," said Pat Kreitlow, a former Democratic senator in Wisconsin, who helped pass the state's current budget. There's been a lot of confusion about what Walker's doing -- but he's definitely not passing a budget. ...
Liberal Milwaukee Newspaper Scolds Childish Democrats
Post Date: 2011-02-19 10:09:54 by no gnu taxes
1 Comments
The Dems' tantrum In a snit, Senate Democrats run and hide - making a mockery of the democratic process. Democrats in the state Senate threw a temper tantrum Thursday - essentially they took their ball and went home. Actually, they didn't go home. They apparently went to Illinois, just out of reach of their obligations. By boycotting an expected vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, they were able to prevent action on the measure. Twenty senators are required for a quorum; the Republicans have only 19. The Walker plan is deeply divisive. We're not supportive of some aspects of the bill, either, including those that will make it nearly impossible for unions to ...
Wisconsin Union Head: "We Will Gladly Throw the Workers Under the Bus If You Let Us Keep Our Power"
Post Date: 2011-02-19 09:16:50 by no gnu taxes
1 Comments
Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, said his members would agree to pay more of their pension contributions and health insurance benefits as Walker is demanding. But Beil said his union would never agree to give up decades-old bargaining rights. Beil's union is part of AFSCME, the largest state and local employee union in Wisconsin, which represents 68,000 workers for the state, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County and other municipalities. An AFSCME spokesman said Beil was speaking for all the group's union locals in the state. "We are prepared to implement the financial concessions proposed to help bring our state's budget into balance, but we will not be ...
wizbangblog
Post Date: 2011-02-19 09:02:58 by no gnu taxes
0 Comments
If the Governor's proposed budget cuts are implemented, Wisconsin's public employees will still have benefit plans more generous than most workers across the country, especially when compared to those middle class workers in the private sector - the ones paying the taxes which employ these protesting unionists! Obviously, no one taught these spoiled children that there is no money tree. FOX News' Greta Van Susteren interviewed the Governor last night. "...the vast majority of state and local government employees -- most of those employees, 300,000, showed up for work today, unlike those around the capital and unlike those 14 state senators, Democrats, who decided to ...
Conservatism Will Win in Wisconsin
Post Date: 2011-02-19 08:55:46 by no gnu taxes
9 Comments
It only took one day of protest by a bunch of overpaid, over-benefitted, over-pensioned state government workers in Madison, Wisconsin for far-left activist Noam Chomsky to compare them to the uprising in Egypt. Poor Wisconsin workers… Little food or clothes. Living in shacks like the poor in Egypt on $2 a day… If only it were so. These government workers have been living high on the hog for decades. It is the taxpayers of Wisconsin who really protested peacefully at the ballot box last November by electing a conservative Republican governor Scott Walker to fix the mess that the unions have created. These greedy unions did this over the last 30 years by locking in big and ...
Fat Cat Wi$con$in Teacher$ AVERAGE More than $100 K per Year
Post Date: 2011-02-19 08:46:23 by no gnu taxes
5 Comments
Wisconsin Teachers: EFF DA KIDS! SHOW ME DA MONEY So what do the oppressed “masses” of those “children-loving” striking teachers in Wisconsin have to cry about? WHY are they all faking illness to shut down schools if they LOVE the CHILDREN so much? The MacIver Institute has great research on Milwaukee Public Schools’ system: For the first time in history, the average annual compensation for a teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system will exceed $100,000. That staggering figure was revealed last night at a meeting of the MPS School Board. The average salary for an MPS teacher is $56,500. When fringe benefits are factored in, the annual compensation will ...
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