Democrat COWARDS

[ariscus99 1]

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.

By all means keep abortion safe and legal. I've never once said I was against it. I wouldn't want my wife or daughter or sisters to have one, but I know it's not my choice, and it shouldn't be. If I had to carry a child I sure as hell wouldn't let someone tell me what to do about it. That doesn't mean however I should sit around for 24-25-26 weeks and then decide to have an abortion, late term abortion and abortions of viable babies is disgusting and that should be illegal. Like what this guy was doing, delivering live babies and cutting their spinal cords with scissors. But if a woman wants a first trimester abortion, then have at it, after some soul searching hopefully. It shouldn't be used as a form of birth control, which it currently is.

I don't think anyone would have any problem fully supporting Planned Parenthood if they removed abortions from the list of services offered. Why not do that? It's bargaining, right? I don't want my money going to support abortion. It should be paid for out of pocket or by your INS company or by donation. Get some of your rich liberal buddies to donate some money to clinics that do abortions. But not at the same clinics that the government funds.

People know the consequences of sex. No birth control is 100% effective. Most everyone knows that as well. But to say something as outlandish as the blood of the aborted fetus' are on the hands of republicans because they don't want government money going to clinics that do abortions is irresponsible, and disgusting. The republicans aren't forcing them to have sex or have abortions, the blood is only on the hands of the people making the choice.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

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.

[ariscus99 1]

Good dodge. A+

Don't be angry with me, because I've done my best not to use the government, and think that others can do the same if they want to. It's choices that I and my family have chosen throughout our lives. I understand it's not for everyone. But I think the country would be a much better place if people tried harder.

I understand that you're older, and have experienced most that life has to offer so you are an absolutely brilliant old lady who knows more than anyone in there 20's could ever know. I get that, I really do. But see, what maybe you don't get is that just because it took you, 40-50-60+ years(I don't know your age) to gain all this knowledge through experience, doesn't mean everyone else will take as long to gain experience's. On a daily basis I see some of the worst the world has to offer, and I see people at their worst most vulnerable time's. It can accelerate certain parts of a life having to deal with this. It affords me the opportunity to see an aspect of human life that you've never seen, and probably never will. Allowing some young dumb idealistic punk like me to have knowledge that maybe others of my age don't. And then again maybe it doesn't. But I know I've seen things you've never seen, never will, and probably can't imagine or want to see. And if that doesn't add up to life experience, well I must be headed the wrong way. But I'm happy with it.

Now, do your best not to contort this into something it's not, I know how you love to do that. I'm not saying I know it all, or that I have nothing left to learn, I know that the exact opposite is true. What I'm saying is you sound ignorant when you write me off based on my age.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

By all means keep abortion safe and legal. I've never once said I was against it. I wouldn't want my wife or daughter or sisters to have one, but I know it's not my choice, and it shouldn't be. If I had to carry a child I sure as hell wouldn't let someone tell me what to do about it. That doesn't mean however I should sit around for 24-25-26 weeks and then decide to have an abortion, late term abortion and abortions of viable babies is disgusting and that should be illegal. Like what this guy was doing, delivering live babies and cutting their spinal cords with scissors. But if a woman wants a first trimester abortion, then have at it, after some soul searching hopefully. It shouldn't be used as a form of birth control, which it currently is.

I don't think anyone would have any problem fully supporting Planned Parenthood if they removed abortions from the list of services offered. Why not do that? It's bargaining, right? I don't want my money going to support abortion. It should be paid for out of pocket or by your INS company or by donation. Get some of your rich liberal buddies to donate some money to clinics that do abortions. But not at the same clinics that the government funds.

People know the consequences of sex. No birth control is 100% effective. Most everyone knows that as well. But to say something as outlandish as the blood of the aborted fetus' are on the hands of republicans because they don't want government money going to clinics that do abortions is irresponsible, and disgusting. The republicans aren't forcing them to have sex or have abortions, the blood is only on the hands of the people making the choice.

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.

[ariscus99 1]

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 money is going to a business that performs abortions. Connect those dots. Eliminate the service from planned parenthood, and move that service to another clinic, get the people who donate the money to planned parenthood for abortions do donate it to other places that do abortions so planned parenthood is no longer a part of the abortion world, which would make many people much more at ease about giving them money for women's health and family planning. What is wrong with planned parenthood not offering abortions, but instead referring it elsewhere?

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Good dodge. A+

Don't be angry with me, because I've done my best not to use the government, and think that others can do the same if they want to. It's choices that I and my family have chosen throughout our lives. I understand it's not for everyone. But I think the country would be a much better place if people tried harder.

I understand that you're older, and have experienced most that life has to offer so you are an absolutely brilliant old lady who knows more than anyone in there 20's could ever know. I get that, I really do. But see, what maybe you don't get is that just because it took you, 40-50-60+ years(I don't know your age) to gain all this knowledge through experience, doesn't mean everyone else will take as long to gain experience's. On a daily basis I see some of the worst the world has to offer, and I see people at their worst most vulnerable time's. It can accelerate certain parts of a life having to deal with this. It affords me the opportunity to see an aspect of human life that you've never seen, and probably never will. Allowing some young dumb idealistic punk like me to have knowledge that maybe others of my age don't. And then again maybe it doesn't. But I know I've seen things you've never seen, never will, and probably can't imagine or want to see. And if that doesn't add up to life experience, well I must be headed the wrong way. But I'm happy with it.

Now, do your best not to contort this into something it's not, I know how you love to do that. I'm not saying I know it all, or that I have nothing left to learn, I know that the exact opposite is true. What I'm saying is you sound ignorant when you write me off based on my age.

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...

[Cleo's Mom 257]

That money is going to a business that performs abortions. Connect those dots. Eliminate the service from planned parenthood, and move that service to another clinic, get the people who donate the money to planned parenthood for abortions do donate it to other places that do abortions so planned parenthood is no longer a part of the abortion world, which would make many people much more at ease about giving them money for women's health and family planning. What is wrong with planned parenthood not offering abortions, but instead referring it elsewhere?

Abortion is legal, why should it be eliminated from any family planning clinic? There aren't many clinics that offer abortion. Have you not been keeping up with that? And what few there are are being assaulted by repubican governors and legislatures.

Also, as far as funding - I saw a quote by an anti-abortion guy who said "If they (PP) do so many good things then let them be privately funded".

I could carry that thought further and say that if faith based initiatives do such good work - then let them be privately funded (my tax dollars help fund them which I oppose).

I could carry that to apply to private schools, too. If they are doing such a good job then privately fund them - don't ask for my tax dollars to support them, which I oppose.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Great story about more passing of the buck. So people who are upside down in their homes and are behind in payments will have the banks forgive(at the cost of several billion to the banks) the price down to the current market value? Well what about the people who are upside down but not behind in payments? Screw you responsible American, you don't need help. The white house isn't talking about this yet, because they know if it comes out that this will in fact be the case, that they are only going to help people behind in their payments or in foreclosure, millions will stop paying their mortgage to try to get a slice of the government pie. And why shouldn't they? If they don't they're going to penalized for doing what they are contractually obligated to do. Don't worry big brother is here to help you out again. Though I suppose your jumping for joy about this cm because the banks will be paying for it, redistributing some wealth around yay.

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.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

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."

[ariscus99 1]

So, quick trivia for all the boys and girls out there: Who stripped one of the biggest unions of their collective bargaining rights? Answer: Republicans right? No no no, Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. Why doesn't anyone know about this? Because it would make all the hypocritical democrats look even more foolish than ever. Now everyone is wondering why President Obama hasn't held good to his word that if someone tried to strip unions of their right's he'd be there in "some comfy shoes marching with you all"? Well, he doesn't keep many promises so this isn't really too much different, 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.

Here's the story;

Union bosses, Democrats and their sycophantic followers on the Left have been allowed to rewrite history for 30 years. Despite evidence to the contrary (see chart at right), they have largely cast blame for the fall of unions on “The Reagan Era,” blaming Ronald Reagan (and, later, his Republican successors) for the massive decline in unionization. Sadly, for those of us in the union movement during the 80s and early 90s, like Pavlov’s dogs, we believed The Big Lie—unfortunately, many still do today—that Reagan and Republicans are the cause of the union movement’s demise. The fact of the matter is, by the time Ronald Reagan was sworn into office the die had already been cast: Private-sector union membership in the United States had already begun its free fall, aided by market forces and the deregulatory push that the Carter administration put in place.

The simplistic view of Ronald Reagan,

the union-buster, stems from the 1981 PATCO strike and the “wide-spread union-busting” that followed in the private-sector. The problem with the anti-Reagan meme is that it completely ignores broader, more structural and consequential factors that led to the decline of unions.

While Ronald Reagan did fire more than 11,000 air traffic controllers when they engaged in (as federal workers) an illegal strike less than a year after taking office, the strike contingency plan Reagan deployed had already been developed

under Carter.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under Carter conducted a management campaign of harassment against union controllers.

And 12 months before the government’s contract with PATCO was set to expire, Carter formed a “Management Strike Contingency Force” to prepare for a walkout–including the use of scabs.

The Carter Legacy & the Era of “Union Busting”

According to the Left’s narrative, it was the PATCO strike, the replacing of strikers in the private-sector during the 1980s, combined with the Reagan-appointed National Labor Relations Board that has caused the decline of unions. However, this view is as misleading as it is simplistic.

Before Ronald Reagan stepped into the Oval Office, the American economy had suffered

nearly a decade of economic malaise. By June of 1980, the “misery index” had reached an all-time high and the Carter Economy had become an issue of the presidential campaign. By the time November 1980 rolled around, Carter’s stagflation had become a household word and Ronald Reagan became President. However, this did not happen before President Carter had set into motion the most fundamental shift in America’s regulatory environment that caused the most remarkable decline in union power since the 1947 passage of the Taft-Hartley Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act.

Due, in part, to the

Great Steel Strike of 1959 (which opened the door to foreign competition), the American steel industry had already begun to decline by the time Carter was in the White House. However, by the 1970s and early 80s, more and more industries were beginning to feel the effects of the global marketplace, with Japan and Germany becoming ever-larger competitors.

Foreign competition, in turn, was beginning to bring greater economic pressure to bear on U.S. companies which caused them to begin re-evaluating the old labor-relations models. The increased economic pressure caused companies to begin taking a harder line in negotiating union contracts with unions across the country and, in cases where unions struck, companies began to use with more frequency a tool that had been

available since the 1930s, the right to permanently replace economic strikers.

When Ronald Reagan appointed members to the National Labor Relations Board, his appointments and their subsequent decisions were frequently blasted as being “anti-union.” Notwithstanding the argument that many of the NLRB’s decisions under the Reagan Board were more favorable to employers than any since the Eisenhower Board, even the

totality of the Reagan Board’s decisions could not have had the negative outcomes that were set in motion by Carter.

Deregulating Railroads, Trucking & Breaking Ma Bell’s Back

In addition to deregulating the airline industry earlier in his Presidency, in 1980, two laws were signed by Carter that greatly transformed the rail and trucking industries. The first was the Staggers Rail Act and the other was the Motor Carrier Act. By largely deregulating both the rail and trucking industries, these two laws have significantly altered the landscape for transportation unions.

When President Carter signed the Staggers Rail Act into law, he

proclaimed:

“By stripping away needless and costly regulation in favor of marketplace forces wherever possible, this act will help assure a strong and healthy future for our nation’s railroads,” the president’s signing statement promised. “Consumers can be assured of improved railroads delivering their goods with dispatch.”

For the most part, Carter’s prediction has come to pass, as railroads were able to finally able to set their own prices and dump unprofitable lines. However, with deregulation has come a loss of union membership as the industry changed over the last 30 years.

Wow, democrats busting unions and deregulating? What's that all about?

Here's more;

. In 1978, Democratic President Jimmy Carter, backed by a Democratic Congress, passed the Civil Service Reform Act. Washington had already established its General Schedule (GS) classification and pay system for workers. The 1978 bill went further, focused as it was on worker accountability and performance. It severely proscribed the issues over which employees could bargain, as well as prohibited compulsory union support.

Democrats weren't then (and aren't now) about to let their federal employees dictate pay. The GS system, as well as the president and Congress, sees to that. Nor were they about to let workers touch health-care or retirement plans. Unions are instead limited to bargaining over personnel employment practices such as whether employees are allowed to wear beards, or whether the government must pay to clean uniforms.

In Wisconsin, for instance, the teachers union doesn't just bargain for more health dollars. It also bargains to require that local school districts buy health insurance for their teachers through the union-affiliated health-insurance plan, called WEA Trust. That requirement gives the union (not the state) ultimate say over health benefits. It also costs the state at least $68 million more annually than it would if schools could buy the state-employee health plan—money that goes to a union outfit.

Since Washington pols aren't about to let unions run their town, the result is a weird bifurcation. On the state level, union campaign dollars are primarily contingent upon Democrats agreeing to allow public-employee unions to milk taxpayers dry. On the federal level, union dollars are primarily contingent upon Democrats agreeing to pervert federal laws and institutions so that private-sector unions get special privileges over employers and nonunion companies—consider project-labor agreements, Davis-Bacon and card check.

All of this helps explain why Mr. Obama has gone quiet on Wisconsin, and why Organizing for America is scurrying to hide its involvement. The president's initial instinct was to jump into the state, a 2012 battleground area where he might build points with his liberal base.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

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.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

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.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

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.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

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.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

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.