Cleo's Mom

Also Krugman's Nobel doesn't give him free reign to comment on anything and then to be left unchallenged. He's commenting on unions here, not strictly economics so it's not as if his Nobel makes him an expert on this topic. Bush went to Harvard and Yale; should we use that to determine whether he was right or wrong? Anyways, Krugman overplays his hand by acting like unions are always playing for the good side against the mean rich people. They're not. They are advantageous to employees, and that's it. Unions don't do any favors to the rest of us (the consumers), and they certainly aren't good for business. We've seen this play out again and again in the auto industry and now public schools across the country. Unions aren't inherently bad; they serve the good purpose of making sure employees are treated decently. But that's old news now. Now, unions just grab for power like anyone else with money. The whole arguement that Walker makes is that the entire union represents an economic issue - including, and especially, collective bargaining. Therefore, when a nobel prize winning economist Krugman has an opinion on unions (and therefore on the economy that those on the right seem to think unions have such a huge influence on) then I think he has valid points. Employers are advantageous to employers , that's it. Employers don't do the economy any favors when they don't pay their workers fairly and provide them benefits so that they can go out and buy the goods and services employers sell. Henry Ford knew that when he paid his workers more so that they could buy his car. Smart thinking. Walmart on the other hand provides its employees with in-service sessions about what government aid they can apply for since they are making crap wages and almost no benefits. So they can feed off the government teet, to use your analogy. Actually you're wrong about the unions of today (in the 21st century). They are the ones who have made concessions and given pay cuts and benefit cuts - the auto workers did this. The teachers have done this elsewhere and now in Wisconsin. But that isn't enough for walker - he wants it all. Also teachers all over the country took less in salaries yesterday for the promise of a larger pension in the future. Now they're told - sorry, because of the greed of wall street you can't have that pension we promised you. I know we came up with $800 billion to bail them out and then they gave their f**k-up CEO's bonuses, but there is no money for you. And I guess that message should be greeted with - what? Joy? Acceptance? The willingness to compromise. Ah, yes, it is the Wisconsin unions that have compromised and have given in to the economic demands but they should never, ever give up their collective bargaining right. Ever. It's a give and take from both sides, so that neither side has all the power. But walker wants all the power.

Obama has already said that while he understands states needs to balance budgets what is going on in Wisconsin just looks like an assault on unions. And I agree.

While Walker wants the state workers to give up everything, including collective bargaining rights, I haven't heard him willing to make any personal sacrifices. How about giving up some of his salary and those in the state assembly too. I did some calculations and based on the percentage he want state workers to give up - if he, those in the assembly, the money they get for staff and per diem were reduced the same - they could save about $545,000 dollars. It certainly would help. And that doesn't include eliminating mileage which they shouldn't get. I mean I never got paid to drive to my job. But I haven't heard any such concession from him. Other governors in other states have taken pay cuts. Now it's time for him to put his money where his mouth is.

From a nobel prize in economics recipient (oops, I mean a left wing hack ) Paul Krugman / Shock doctrine, USAWisconsin is the scene of an attempted power grabSaturday, February 26, 2011The New York TimesHere's a thought: Maybe Madison, Wis., isn't Cairo after all. Maybe it's Baghdad -- specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence. As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular -- in a bad way. Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war, those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision. Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to "corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises" -- Mr. Bremer's words, not the reporter's -- and to "wean people from the idea the state supports everything." The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein's best-selling book "The Shock Doctrine," which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society. Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011, where the shock doctrine is on full display. In recent weeks, Madison has been the scene of large demonstrations against the governor's budget bill, which would deny collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers. Gov. Scott Walker claims that he needs to pass his bill to deal with the state's fiscal problems. But his attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions -- an offer the governor has rejected. What's happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab -- an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside. For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process. And then there's this: "Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (." What's that about? The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim. Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be "considered to be in the public interest." If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering -- remember those missing billions in Iraq? -- you're not alone. Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker's anti-union push, felt compelled to issue a denial that it's interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured? The good news from Wisconsin is that the upsurge of public outrage -- aided by the maneuvering of Democrats in the state Senate, who absented themselves to deny Republicans a quorum -- has slowed the bum's rush. If Mr. Walker's plan was to push his bill through before anyone had a chance to realize his true goals, that plan has been foiled. And events in Wisconsin may have given pause to other Republican governors, who seem to be backing off similar moves. But don't expect either Mr. Walker or the rest of his party to change those goals. Union-busting and privatization remain GOP priorities, and the party will continue its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets. Paul Krugman is a syndicated columnist for The New York Times. You know, I am so glad he brought up those missing billions in Iraq - $18 billion as I recall - from the corruption of the no bid contractor Halliburton (now who used to work for them, let me think, oh, I know - Cheney - who got them the no bid contract and we collectively shrugged). Just think, if they would produce that money (as they should) we could give about $360 million to each struggling state.

but he can't really go and advocate for something that he doesn't allow 2 million of his employees to participate in without looking a little silly. And of course you have proof that it was President OBAMA who signed an executive order forbidding federal workers to strike. I didn't think so.

The why didn't Walker didn't evoke the name of so-called union buster carter instead of union busting saint ronnie as someone he wanted to be like? What delusions of grandeur he has. The most important event in recent American labor history is President Ronald Reagan’s firing of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981. That year air traffic controllers went on strike for better working conditions, better pay, and a reduced-hour work week. But Reagan immediately ordered the controllers back to work, claiming their jobs were essential to national safety and that the strike was illegal. When they refused, Reagan fired all of them. The event is widely acknowledged as the point at which America opened the floodgates to the modern wave of union busting, increased inequality, and all-around squeezing of the American worker over the past three decades. Suddenly, union busting was sanctioned by the president himself, and companies soon followed his lead. PATCO, many labor and economic observers agree, has hurt all workers, union or not. What is currently transpiring in Madison, Wisc., is just as important of an event in American labor history as PATCO was. As goes Wisconsin and its governor’s “Budget Repair Bill,” so goes the rest of working America. Newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker’s ® bill is an ostensible response to the state’s budget crisis; it entails a series of huge cuts to public employee pay and government contributions to pensions and health care. Unions, for their part, have repeatedly made clear that they are willing to accept these concessions, painful though they will be. There is one demand, however, they won’t accept: under Walker’s bill, the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers in the state will suddenly vanish into thin air. Not only will teachers, prison guards, social workers, and sanitation workers be unable to negotiate their wages and benefits as a group—they won’t have a collective say in any part of their work days. Nurses could lose time off between shifts, potentially raising the probability of committing life-threatening errors because of fatigue. Teachers could lose their planning hours and be forced to teach more classes and take on more work. Social workers could be given such massive caseloads that they are unable to adequately address clients’ needs, much less have a relationship with them. Under the guise of fiscal responsibility, the Walker bill would end any semblance of workers’ rights. Though the bill only targets public sector workers, and only those in Wisconsin, citizens of all types—workers and the unemployed, white collar and blue collar, public and private sector, students and teachers—have hit the streets of Madison and occupied the capitol since early last week because they know what’s at stake. Some groups were excluded from the bill but have had a heavy presence in the streets of Madison this week: Firefighters, police officers, and private sector union workers all aren’t targeted by the bill but oppose Walker’s bill. They seem to sense that though they may have been spared from Walker’s opening anti-union shot, more are sure to follow. The accuracy of their prediction can be tested by looking back at Reagan’s anti-union move. The PATCO firings directly affected only public employees at first, but they put private companies on notice to take on private sector unions and roll back decades of hard-fought gains in wages, benefits, and conditions. Since then, the political right has successfully painted unions as enemies of democracy and American capitalism, a massive union-busting industry has come into being, and union membership has fallen dramatically. In a recently recorded prank (in which a blogger convinced Gov. Walker that he was billionaire David Koch), Walker candidly spoke of his desire to create his own PATCO moment in Wisconsin: Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan … had one of the most defining moments of his political career when he fired the air traffic controllers… That was the first crack in the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism… This is our moment. This is our time to change the course of history. PATCO’s impact on working people in the United States can still be felt in workplaces across the country—it’s one of the reasons inequality has skyrocketed in the last three decades. Walker’s bill has its roots in Reagan’s mass firing, but it takes things a step further. PATCO served as a dog whistle to corporations and other anti-union interests that they could not only attack unions and get away with it, but that they had the implicit blessing of the president. Walker’s bill, on the other hand, does not simply give a nod and wink to forces that oppose workers. It directly empowers by gutting the only check on employer power that workers have, unions. Walker has begun this fight by targeting the much-vilified public sector workers and unions, but the attack will soon spread to all workers. If Walker’s bill passes in Wisconsin, other states across the country will have the green light to unleash a barrage of anti-worker measures that will exacerbate our country’s ever-widening inequality. Working America will continue its downward spiral to destitution at a breakneck pace the corporate beneficiaries of PATCO could have only dreamed of. Meanwhile, corporations and the rich, unencumbered by workers’ concerns and unchecked by any legal protections for workers, will be laughing all the way to the bank. Micah Uetricht is a staff writer with Campus Progress.

Democrats don't worship Carter like republicans do at the altar of saint ronnie: In addition -your post bringing up carter is just like that "con" post - hey, look over here at 35 years ago and some de-reg carter did - and not at what union busting walker is doing. Nice try. Labor - And A Whole Lot More Ronald Reagan's War on Labor Amidst the continued outpouring of praise for Ronald Reagan, let's not forget that he was one of the most anti-labor presidents in U.S. history, a role model for the virulently anti-labor George W. Bush. Republican presidents never have had much regard for unions, which almost invariably have opposed their election. But until Reagan, no GOP president had dared to challenge labor's firm legal standing, gained through Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the mid-1930s. Reagan's Republican predecessors treated union leaders much as they treated Democratic members of Congress -- as people to be fought with at times, but also as people to be bargained with at other times. But Reagan engaged in precious little bargaining. He waged almost continuous war against organized labor. He had little apparent reason to fear labor politically, with opinion polls at the time showing that unions were opposed by nearly half of all Americans and that nearly half of those who belonged to the unions had voted for him in 1980 and again in 1984. Reagan,in any case, was a true ideologue of the anti-labor political right. Yes, he had been president of the Screen Actors Guild, but he was notoriously pro-management, leading the way to a strike-ending agreement in 1959 that greatly weakened the union and finally resigning under membership pressure before his term ended. Reagan's war on labor began in the summer of 1981, when he fired 13,000 striking air traffic controllers and destroyed their union. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted, that was "an unambiguous signal that employers need feel little or no obligation to their workers, and employers got that message loud and clear -- illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing permanent employees who could collect benefits with temps who could not, shipping factories and jobs abroad." Reagan gave dedicated union foes direct control of the federal agencies that were designed originally to protect and further the rights and interests of workers and their unions. Most important was Reagan's appointment of three management representatives to the five-member National Labor Relations Board which oversees union representation elections and labor-management bargaining, They included NLRB Chairman Donald Dotson, who believed that "unionized labor relations have been the major contributors to the decline and failure of once-healthy industries" and have caused "destruction of individual freedom." Under Dotson, a House subcommittee found,the board abandoned its legal obligation to promote collective bargaining, in what amounted to "a betrayal of American workers." The NLRB settled only about half as many complaints of employers' illegal actions as had the board during the previous administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter, and those that were settled upheld employers in three-fourths of the cases. Even under Republican Richard Nixon, employers won only about one-third of the time. Most of the complaints were against employers who responded to organizing drives by illegally firing union supporters. The employers were well aware that under Reagan the NLRB was taking an average of three years to rule on complaints, and that in any case it generally did no more than order the discharged unionists reinstated with back pay. That's much cheaper than operating under a union contract. The board stalled as long before acting on petitions from workers seeking union representation elections and stalled for another year or two after such votes before certifying winning unions as the workers' bargaining agents. Under Reagan, too, employers were allowed to permanently replace workers who dared exercise their legal right to strike. Reagan's Labor Department was as one-sided as the NLRB. It became an anti-labor department, virtually ignoring, for instance, the union-busting consultants who were hired by many employers to fend off unionization. Very few consultants and very few of those who hired them were asked for the financial disclosure statements the law demands. Yet all unions were required to file the statements that the law required of them (and that could be used to advantage by their opponents). And though the department cut its overall budget by more than 10 percent, it increased the budget for such union-busting activities by almost 40 percent. Union-busting was only one aspect of Reagan's anti-labor policy. He attempted to lower the minimum wage for younger workers, ease the child labor and anti-sweatshop laws, tax fringe benefits, and cut back job training programs for the unemployed. He tried to replace thousands of federal employees with temporary workers who would not have civil service or union protections. The Reagan administration all but dismantled programs that required affirmative action and other steps against discrimination by federal contractors, and seriously undermined worker safety. It closed one-third of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's field offices, trimmed its staff by more than one-fourth and decreased the number of penalties assessed against employers by almost three-fourths. Rather than enforce the law, the administration sought "voluntary compliance" from employers on safety matters - and generally didn't get or expect it. The administration had so tilted the job safety laws in favor of employers that union safety experts found them virtually useless. The same could have been said of all other labor laws in the Reagan era. A statement issued at the time by the presidents of several major unions concluded it would have been more advantageous for those who worked for a living to ignore the laws and return "to the law of the jungle" that prevailed a half-century before. Their suggestion came a little late. Ronald Reagan had already plunged labor-management relations deep into the jungle.

During this time did you go to your surgeon for fills? Because he should have removed the previous fill before giving a new one and if he did this he would have found out it was leaking. If he didn't then he is at fault. The port/tubing was also at fault. But you are absolutely right. For those for whom the band works as promoted - many tend to be big defenders of the band and almost take it personally that anyone would dare say the whole process isn't working. There are far too many of them but there are also those who actually offer good advice and suggestions. We need more of them.

Following the line of reasoning of Boehner who doesn't think it's his job to tell Americans what to think (regarding the truth about Obama's birthplace) this jerk doesn't think it's his place to take offense to someone who wants to know who will shoot Obama. (And everyone is sorry once they get caught - his delayed "conscience" is unconvincing). By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / February 25, 2011 Atlanta Rep. Paul Broun, a conservative from northeast Georgia and one of President Obama's most hardline critics in Congress, received this shocking question from a town hall attendee Tuesday night: "Who is going to shoot Obama?" According to the Athens Banner-Herald, Mr. Broun, a two-term congressman, addressed the question by saying, "I know there's a lot of frustration with this president," and by pointing to next year's election as an opportunity to elect "somebody that's going to be a conservative, limited-government president ... who will sign a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare."

What the article said is that the proposal to allow banks to reduce loan balances of troubled borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth also contains this: the cost of those write downs WON'T be borne by the investors who purchased mortgage backed securities. So who WILL bear the burden for these massive losses? The investors who weren't banks (i.e. NOT the banks). Then who??? The ones who the banks convinced to buy their bad MBS"s. LIKE PENSION FUNDS Like California's pension fund. Like Ohio's pension funds.. These funds were conned into investing in these bad investments and now that they suffered big loses due to these deceptions, well, naturally the only way to solve that problem is to bust unions. Only makes sense if you have no brain. Or live off of hypocrisy.

My son in law is a police officer and my daughter works in the county jail. While I don't see what they see first hand I certainly hear about it. And I was a teacher and I saw the worst there was in parenting and children (as well as good ones, too). What I have seen is the best man I have ever known be told he has months to live and his greatest fear of cancer mets going to his brain coming true and asking me to kill him if it happened. I have seen this once brilliant man become someone who couldn't remember his kid's birthdays. And then each day become less alive and more dead until he was. A man who only wanted to retire after his "cushy" teacher's job with all those undeserved union perks and play some golf and maybe someday play with his grandchildren -but he never lived to see them. I am very thankful that his union negotiated for his retirement because as a widow that is what I have to live on. I also had to deal with the financial, verbal, emotional and sometimes physical abuse my mother suffered at the hands of my bully brother. I had to take charge, get an attorney, file suit and get what I could for her care (she was disabled from a stroke) even though he had stolen her house from her. With all her assets gone, she had to rely on medicaid to pay for her nursing home care after they took all her SS and retirment (except for $30/ month). I guess she was one of those who came to expect entitlements. She was in her 80's, broke and disabled, but I guess she should have been thrown out on the street. So, maybe you have seen things but you still have a lot to learn about life, people and what being part of a country that became great, yes, by those who worked hard and were frugal but also by not ignoring the least among us but by helping them. And not just through charity but through the good works of a government who is we the people...

First of all none of that Title X money is used for abortions. It is used for all the other services I listed. No tax dollars are used for abortions. That man who was delivering late term babies is a criminal and should be prosecuted as such. A woman also died under his care. However, some of those women waited so long because access to affordable abortion has become harder and harder to obtain. Poverty also pushes women to make very desperate choices. And often very wrong ones. If republicans cut funding for family planning that includes birth control for poor women and that results in more unplanned pregnancies and therefore more abortions, as far as I'm concerned you can directly connect the dots. And the republicans can try to put the blame on the woman but their hypocrisy would again be overwhelming.

I have a proclomation for you: Whearas, I ariscus99 believe in personal responsibility and, whereas, I believe in living within my means, and whereas it doesn't take two salaries to live within my means, and whereas I just wanted to volunteer but was forced to work and pay union dues to a union I don't support and, whereas I would be willing to search dumpsters for food rather than accept government help, I therefore will quit my union job so that an unemployed person who actually needs a job can have it and I will live within my means with one salary doing whatever it takes to do so. Signed___________________ ariscus99 Of course I'm sure you'll come up with a million excuses about why you couldn't possible do this.

I guess this is why they're call CONservatives: Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 05:53 PM EST The Con Is On The key to a good con is misdirection. Convincing a mark to close out his bank account, liquidate all his property, and borrow, steal, or embezzle in hopes of realizing a big score requires getting him to believe in something for nothing. Getting him to look over there—while you fleece him, over here. This is not just simply cheating someone. This is getting a person to reach into his own pocket and beg you to take his money. A good confidence artist believes the mark has it coming for being stupid. You’ve read a lot about how what's going on in Wisconsin is not local. It’s about finishing the long national looting begun in 2008. It's true. The Big Con is on. It's on when Wisconsin’s governor denies there’s anything nefarious about a clause in his union-busting bill allowing public power plants to be put up for sale, without bid, notification, review, or disclosure of fair market value. Yet at the same time a local energy group—apparently Alliant Energy, a corporation that made direct contributions to Governor Walker’s campaign--is soliciting resumes, seeking “experienced Plant Managers for multiple power plants located in Wisconsin.” Look over there! Unions! Pensions! Deficits! It's on when D.C. floats a proposal to allow banks to “reduce the loan balances of troubled borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth.” Look at that! Bad loans! Troubled borrowers! The con is on. Because the proposal also says this: “The cost of those writedowns won’t be borne by investors who purchased mortgage-backed securities.” No, those poor unfortunates will be held blameless. Who are they? The very Wall Street banks that, as Matt Taibbi points out , when they flooded the market with these phony securities…were smart enough to realize that they were eventually going to blow, so they started betting against them. They went to companies like AIG, and they took out trillions of dollars of credit default swaps and pseudo-insurance policies on these mortgages. The bailout wasn’t really to pay off real losses in these mortgages. It was really to pay off the bets on these mortgages. So, not only did they flood the market with a trillion dollars of defective merchandise, they got the United States taxpayer to pony up $5, $6, $7 trillion worth of bailout money to pay off their bets on all this stuff. Look! Crisis! Bailouts! With Wall Street off the hook, who will bear the burden for these massive losses? The investors who weren’t banks. The ones the banks convinced to buy the MBS’s. Like pension funds. Like California’s pension fund, which lost $1 billion from investments that crashed, and is suing Moody’s, S&P, etc., who blessed those investments with AAA gold-standard ratings on the strength of claims by the very banks whose securities they were! A number of internal e-mail messages from the companies, suggest[ed] that employees were aware they were giving their blessing to bonds that were all but doomed. In one of those messages, an S.& P. analyst said that a deal “could be structured by cows and we’d rate it.” Or like Ohio’s pension fund, which lost $457 million, and is also suing. But the con is on. It's on when Ohio Governor John Kasich says it's just a coincidence, that in 2002, while he was a Lehman Brothers rep, he lobbied Ohio’s pension fund to invest in Lehman Brothers—specifically, mortgage-backed securities. It's on when in a further coincidence, Lehman is pushing toxic investments to the Ohio pension system as late as August 25th, 2008 - only 21 days before Lehman collapsed. It's on when the former Lehman executives, the former AIG execs, the regulators who looked the other way in order to grease their later entry though the revolving door, are all doing quite well with the money they obtained by fraud. It's on when they're doing well at the expense of these folks: [The] over a quarter of mortgage holders [who] are underwater on their homes. A big chunk of these people were sold houses at artificially inflated prices, courtesy of the bank and captured appraisers. These little cheated folks are cast as profligate, immoral wastrels, forced to take pay cuts, take benefit cuts, surrender their bargaining rights. Because pensions caused the problem. Look! Pensions! Benefits that we pay for! Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers….Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages – as pensions when they retire – rather than take immediately in cash. But not before the bankers get another slice of pie: The average Wisconsin pension is $24,500 a year, which is hardly lavish. But what is stunning is that 15% of the money contributed to the fund each year is going to Wall Street in fees The con succeeds when the public believes these are just coincidences. When they find it beyond belief that rich and famous men, pillars of the community, could be involved in something so…criminal. Or that the fix is in for them. Or in against us. When they go on voting Republican, and beating their chest about the uniquely just place that is America. Big-time confidence games are in reality only carefully rehearsed plays in which every member of the cast except the mark knows his part perfectly. –David Maurer, The Big Con

As I used to tell pattygreen - if saving unborn babies and reducing abortion is the REAL agenda and the most important thing - then reducing unwanted pregnancies is the most important way to do that. In order to reduce unwanted pregnancies you must be willing to provide access to contraceptives to poor people - men and women. They don't have $50 or $60 to buy it at a drugstore. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all about personal responsiblities and if you dont' have money don't have sex - but we live in the real world where poor people have sex. Imagine that!! I guess if you're poor you shouldn't have sex. That's the immature mantra from the right but hardly realistic. Like telling teens not to have sex before marriage. That doesn't work either. A mature debate deals with the world as it is. I want poor people to be responsible and go to these clinics and get birth control and family planning. So, if reducing unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions is the real agenda then those who call themselves pro-life will support funding for family planning clinics that provide it. And birth control can fail, so even if someone buys their own, that is no guarantee it will work. There was something in the news recently that an implant didn't work and women were getting pregnant - which is a reason abortion needs to be kept safe and legal.

You read it here first - the unemployed do apply at Walmart, which I NEVER DOUBTED OR SAID OTHERWISE. OAKLAND, Calif. - The city's first Wal-Mart, set to open next week, fielded more than 11,000 applications for 400 openings, company officials said. By late Tuesday, 350 positions had been filled. "There's still a lot of people who were put out of work in the last four years who still don't have a job," Levy said. "If the rest of the labor market was strong, you wouldn't have 11, 000 people applying for 400 jobs" at Wal-Mart. The company, which employs 66,000 people at 150 Wal-Marts in California, offers an average hourly wage in the Bay Area of $10.82. "People are looking for jobs with a career," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Lin. But for people like Melvin Brown, just about any job is worth it if it comes with a paycheck. He's been out of work for six months. "It's best to accept what you can get," said Brown, 52, who applied for an overnight maintenance position. "You start low and aim high."

A second important Republican, asked to stand up to birther ignorance, responded, "It's not my job to tell the American people what to think." And, on the canard that Mr. Obama is secretly a Muslim: "The president says he's a Christian. I accept him at his word." (Taking the president "at his word" is code to tea partiers. It means, "He's a liar but there's nothing I can do about it.") It's not Boehner's job to tell the American people what to think? Isn't that what he does every day when he bashes Obama? Maybe what he meant was that it isn't his job to tell Americans the truth. That's more like it. I wonder if the media asked him if McConnell was a secret member of the KKK or that Marco Rubio was born in Cuba if he would tell the American people what to think. Even former maverick McCain corrected a woman during the 2008 presidential campaign when she said Obama was a Muslim. He told her no he wasn't. However, that McCain is long gone - he has done a complete 180 and now has the most conservative record in the senate.

In addition to the cuts mentioned above, the republicans in their infinite hypocrisy, are cutting funds for Title X family planning which enables 5 million women nationwide access to health care including breast exams, mammograms, cancer screening, birth control and screening for STD's. In my area, about 80,000 women access this care. Medical clinics that receive these funds prevent nearly a million unintended pregnancies a year thereby preventing thousands of abortions. So, by cutting this funding there will be an increase in abortion. Now, I know that the republican's so called pro-life stance is phoney - they don't really care about babies or life. But they will still have the blood of these murdered babies (which is how they refer to abortion) on their hands by cutting family planning funds. But somehow they will get away with this hypocrisy because it won't be headlined in the media like the tea partiers message that Obama wasn't born here or the elderly receiving home heating assistance are abusing the system -what with their mentality of entitlements and all.

A very good analysis of the hypocritical and wrong political mind set of those on the right: Margaret Carlson / Beating up on janitorsAusterity-chic is cover for a GOP war on the middle class Friday, February 25, 2011 A good litmus test of how far right a politician is leaning is the question of President Barack Obama's place of birth. Yes, this is still an issue. A recent survey of 400 Republican primary voters nationwide by Public Policy Polling found that 51 percent believed that the president wasn't born in the United States. Here's what one prominent Republican figure said on the so-called birther issue: "It's distracting. It gets annoying, and let's just stick with what really matters." A second important Republican, asked to stand up to birther ignorance, responded, "It's not my job to tell the American people what to think." And, on the canard that Mr. Obama is secretly a Muslim: "The president says he's a Christian. I accept him at his word." (Taking the president "at his word" is code to tea partiers. It means, "He's a liar but there's nothing I can do about it.") Here's what's interesting. The first quote -- the more reasonable, if we're grading on a curve -- happens to be from Sarah Palin, the person we normally think of as holding the pole position in the Republicans' daily race to the outer edge of our political galaxy. The latter quotes are from House Speaker John Boehner on NBC's "Meet the Press." Lapping Ms. Palin is one way Mr. Boehner can prove himself to his House freshmen. The insider of insiders, boon companion of lobbyists, Mr. Boehner smoked, drank and wept his way to his gavel. Now the man who once handed out campaign checks from the tobacco industry on the House floor finds that his old unsubtle ways don't win quite so many friends. Mr. Boehner is being pulled in different directions by his freshmen, by the larger Republican Party and by his own nature. Republicans can't win the presidency in 2012 by ceaselessly pandering to the tea party, a lesson even Ms. Palin has absorbed -- as shown by her slight retreat on Mr. Obama's citizenship. To win, Republicans must appeal to moderates and independents, many of whom are partial to clean Water and Pell Grants. Already the cutters have shown Mr. Boehner who's boss. His $35 billion in pledged budget cuts quickly morphed into their $100 billion. Where he would trim, they would slash, even if it means being penny-wise and pound-foolish. Cut home heating oil assistance and you risk sending more people to emergency rooms and seeing homes flooded by burst pipes. Demolish neighborhood block grants and you get more homeless people evicted because there's no one to negotiate rent payments with landlords. Cut food inspections and you get more E. coli. Yeah, these are the things that have caused our deficit. More than Ross Perot, the tea party has focused the country on the crazy aunt in the attic, the deficit, so that fighting it trumps concerns over unemployment, failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and health care. As long as the supposedly adult conversation we're having remains childishly vague, it's easy to turn those complaining about cuts into welfare queens who should toughen up. Even worse is how some supposed budget hawks, on the eve of battle, made deficits even worse with tax cuts for the haves, then used mounting deficit projections to justify cuts to discretionary programs that mostly hurt the have-nots. So much for spreading the pain. That's right - give more money to the wealthy that increases the deficit and then cut the deficit on the backs of those who didn't cause it. Typical hypocritical republican mind set. The new austerity-chic is playing out in Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker gave tax cuts to businesses while demanding give-backs from public employees. He also wants to strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights to make sure they don't ever get their sweet packages again. Analysts say public pay in Wisconsin is in line with private pay for similar work. State workers have agreed to contribute more for their benefits. Mr. Walker, refusing to take yes for an answer, prefers to use the issue as a pretext to cripple organized labor. What an odd chapter in American history we're living through. Suggesting that the financial elite might be responsible for the economic mess we're in brings cries of "class warfare." Meanwhile, congressmen and governors, under cover of cutting deficits created by congressmen and governors, wage real class warfare on janitors and on parents trying to pay their mortgage or send their kids to college. Blaming nurse's aides and prison guards for the death grip this economy has on the middle class is to indulge a fantasy on par with the fairy tale of an American president born in Kenya and secretly Muslim. Margaret Carlson is a columnist for Bloomberg News (mcarlson3@bloomberg.net).<BR clear=all>

An honest, rationale analysis of the wisconsin debate: February 22, 2011 Don't Strip Public Worker Rights in Wisconsin By Eugene Robinson Let's be clear: The high-stakes standoff in Wisconsin has nothing to do with balancing the state's budget. It is about money, though -- but only in the sense that money translates into political power. At this point, it's clear for all to see that Gov. Scott Walker's true aim is to bust the public employee unions, thus permanently reshaping the political landscape in the Republican Party's favor. Democratic state senators who fled the state to forestall Walker's coup have no choice but to remain on the lam. Protesters who support union rights have no choice but to keep their vigil at the capitol in Madison. This is a big deal. At issue is the attempt by Walker and the Republican majority in the Legislature to strip public workers of their rights to collective bargaining. Under the legislation -- which fugitive Democrats have managed to stymie by denying the state Senate a quorum -- public employee unions would have no ability to bargain over benefits and pensions. The unions would be able to bargain over salaries but could not secure raises greater than the increase in the cost of living. Walker is right about one thing: When it comes to pensions and benefits, public workers in Wisconsin have a sweet deal. Most of them put less than 1 percent of their pay into their pensions; Walker's bill would require contributions of at least 5.8 percent. And most pay only about 6 percent of the cost of their health insurance premiums, a figure that Walker wants to raise to at least 12.6 percent. It's easy to see why the average private-sector worker in Wisconsin -- probably paying upward of 25 percent toward health insurance costs and struggling to tuck away something, anything, for retirement -- might agree with Walker. It should be noted, however, that those generous deals were not ordained by Divine Providence. They were negotiated, which means that state and local officials agreed to the contract provisions now deemed so excessive. It has long been common for unions to accept better health and pension benefits in lieu of higher salaries -- in effect, taking the money later rather than sooner. Now that these IOUs are coming due, Wisconsin wants to renege. I thought Republicans were supposed to believe that a contract is a contract, sacred and inviolate. Guess not. But never mind all that. The reality is that workers in many industries are having to choose between give-backs and massive layoffs. Public employees should not be uniquely sheltered from the ill winds buffeting the U.S. economy. The Wisconsin unions have recognized this fact. Union leaders have announced that they are prepared to accept Walker's proposal on health and pension contributions. In other words, money is no longer an issue. Walker won, right? He got what he wanted, didn't he? Actually, no. Bringing health and pension benefits in line with reality was never the point. Walker and the Republicans are insisting on the provisions in the bill that would deny collective bargaining rights to public workers. The GOP's focus is not on the practical impact of this measure -- the unions have acquiesced to Walker's financial terms -- but on the political impact. Unions have been a reliable source of political support for the Democratic Party, including campaign contributions. Over the past few decades, union membership has declined sharply; according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers who belong to a union declined from 20.1 percent of the work force in 1983 to just 11.9 percent in 2010. In the private sector, just 6.9 percent of workers belong to a union. But among public sector workers, 36.2 percent are union members -- and if you look only at state and local government workers, 42.3 percent are unionized. So if Republicans wanted to weaken the Democratic Party by destroying its most important source of big-money support, they would try to crush public sector unions at the state and local level. That's what the Wisconsin fight is really about. That's why Walker won't settle for budget-balancing concessions. He wants to eliminate the greatest benefit that unions can give their members -- collective bargaining -- and also, by the way, make it much harder to collect union dues. He wants to starve the unions to death. This is pure, unadulterated union-busting -- not with goons and brickbats, but with the stroke of a scheming governor's pen.

I guess the big bad chamber of commerce is scared of little old unions. Considering that they along with the NRA are the two biggest lobbying firms - I don't know what they are scared about: Why Should Firms That Spied on Unions Keep Government Contracts? Thursday Feb 24, 2011 4:25 pm By Mike Elk Earlier this month, Lee Fang of Think Progress wrote an investigative piece on how the Chamber of Commerce had hired a private security firm to spy on union leaders and their families. Lee discovered through emails obtained by ThinkProgress that the Chamber had hired the law firm Hunton & Williams in October 2010. Hunton & Williams then solicited bids from several companies to illegally spy on unions and other opponents of the Chamber of Commerce. As part of the bidding process, the law firm paid the firms to conduct initial spying on union leaders, their families and even their children. Several of the firms involved in the spying had in the past received government contracts. As investigative reporter Justin Eliot of Salon dug up, one of the firms, HBGary, had won $3.3 million dollars worth of federal contracts for various federal agencies since 2004. Likewise, investigative reporter Marcy Wheeler of FireDogLake found that another of the firms involved, Palantir, had received $6.6 million in federal contracts since 2009. AND MY ANSWER TO THE QUESTION IS: HELL NO THEY SHOULDN'T.

You're entitled to think that the cause of all the economic problems comes from the lazy, unproductive middle class, the working poor and senior citizens who just want entitlements. Or some guy who took out a second mortgage to buy a big screen tv or the single mom on welfare who has cable or the person who gets food stamps who isn't willing to rummage through a dumpster. But you have nothing to back up these opinions in the way of facts. It's just that right wing mentality that doesn't let facts stand in the way of opinions. I have presented compelling facts and statistics to show the causes of the economic problems, who got us in this mess, who has profited and who has been hurt. Who has the power and who is losing ground. You can continue to think the way you do. I have made my case and won the argument, IMO, so I am done with this line of arguing. FYI, I hear you can download a Walmart application online.