All Things are not Equal

MoonHowler

Listening to Governor Christie of New Jersey, I am speechless.  He is saying that the health care package of public employees in NJ is $24,000.  WHAT???!!!!!  What does that do for someone?  In PWC, which is probably higher than much of the rest of the state, the health care package is around $6,000 a year per person.  Now why is New Jersey’s health care package 4 times higher?  Unfortunately, when people hear about unions breaking the middle class, etc, they assume that is what is happening to them here in  Virginia.  No it isn’t.  Virginia public employees cannot do collective bargaining. 

What is the big issue with collective bargaining?  If both sides sit down at the table, isn’t it a situation of you give/I give?  You cave here/I cave there?  That’s how it is supposed to work.  However, in the past, many jurisdictions have just acquiesced to the unions.  So, who owns that problem?  Is it because the unions gave to their campaign funds?  Has there been complicity and wink wink nudge nudge from legislators?  Have union demands been ok’ed by negotiators at the direction of those who are elected in exchange for big union bucks next election campaign?

Let’s think about redefining the role of collective bargaining so that it really is exactly that…bargaining.  Many people are very uncomfortable with union busting.  Many people are uncomfortable with union excesses. Perhaps this is the time to seek balance rather than the time to kill off unions.  The American worker will not go quietly to the union grave.  Too many people gave up their lives for the right to form unions. 

 

 

 

Shawna Forde Sentenced to Death

MoonHowler

Last week, anti-immigration activist Shawna Forde was convicted of murdering nine-year old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul Flores.  On Tuesday she was sentenced to death by an Arizona jury. 

Forde and her accomplices led a group of anti immigrant vigilantes on a raid of the Flores home where they pretended to be immigration agents and barged through the door.   The father was shot and then the child.  The mother faked death and survived. 

According to the Huffington Post:

The case was not designated as a hate crime, despite Forde’s long history with anti-immigrant organizations. She once maintained a Tea Party blog, was a member of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and has presented herself as a representative of Federation for American Immigration Reform. (All three have since distanced themselves from her.) After being cast out from the Minuteman group due to erratic behavior, she formed her own vigilante group, called Minutemen American Defense, which also patrolled the United States-Mexico border trying to detect illegal immigration.

This is an example of what happens when a person just goes too deep into their ideological.  How sad that hatred can turn anyone into a murderer.  Hopefully, Forde will not become a martyr.   

How do we know when anyone has gone into ideology too deep?  When does interest become cult-like?  What has become of her accomplices? 

A Moral Dilemma: North Korea

MoonHowler

A starving North Korea is begging for food from foreign nations.  Flood, a brutal winter, and livestock disease has made the situation worse in a country where malnutrition is already a way of life.  The North Korean government has ordered its embassy personnel to basically beg.  It is currently betting from Japan, a country that North Korea usually threatens.

The United States cut off food aid several years ago over concerns about nuclear transparency.  It has said it has no plans to start up again.   The UN Food Program has said it will only contribute food for another month.

According to the Washington Post:

The request has put the United States and other Western countries in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to ignore the pleas of a starving country or pump food into a corrupt distribution system that often gives food to those who need it least.

We have always been a generous nation, even with our enemies, at least in the 20th century.  North Korea is simply too much of a problem to start giving hand outs.   A country that won’t play by the rules and issues threats all the time is in no position to be asking favors.  On the other hand, there are starving people.  The question we must ask ourselves is, would the starving  people even get the food?  I would give food only if I could distribtute it to those in need.  If our troops went anywhere near there to give food, they would probably fire on them.

What do you think we should do?

Notice North Korea at night.  The people have no electricity:

Mr. Walker cost former county nearly a half million

MoonHowler

Rachel Maddow connects the dots between 2 seemingly unrelated stories. It seems that MR. Walker made a few real bad decision in his other union busting life, fired the union security people in his county, hired some Wakkenhut Security jockeys and had a security chief who had been in jail. He had to hire back the union security and pay back pay to the tune of nearly a half million dollars.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mr. Walker’s union busting doesn’t have a real good track record.

We haven’t had Rachel around for a long time. Enjoy. We will bring Jon in on the subject also.

What More Do They Want? Don’t like unions, try China

MoonHowler

The Public Employees Unions have conceded the pension and health care contributions to Governor Walker. What remains on the table is collective bargaining. To give this up would be total loss of power.

Link to Wisconsin Education Association. (WEAC)

Nurses, firefighters, EMTs, doctors, are all in here with the teachers, security personnel, bus drivers etc.
Listen to their point of view. It has changed my mind.  I had to step out of my own regional ethnocentrism for a minute since I am not of a union mind set.  If I were, I would definitely want collective bargaining.  Otherwise, I would not have a union.  Collective bargaining is what really defines a union.  Otherwise, you are just another group of employees with a wish list. Collective bargaining gives that wish list some teeth and some nads.

 

 

The President of the World: Bill Clinton

MoonHowler

Tonight at 10 pm, Chris Matthews’ documentary, The President of the World  will air.  This show displays the Clinton Phenomena.  The show will be fast-moving and details the respect the former president has from admirers all around the world.

Matthews will show how many people in other countries know more about Clinton than they do their own leaders.  Clinton has spent his time since the leaving office doing good things.  This show has high billing and will air tonight at 10 on MSNBC.

The Washington Post Style section previews the TV event:

Valentine’s Day was a week ago, but MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has belatedly gifted a particular former president with a mash note – strike that, a one-hour special called “President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon,” airing on the cable news channel Monday night.

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Giles County reposts the 10 Commandments

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com

PEARISBURG, VA. – Nearly 12 years ago, in the aftermath of the shootings at Columbine High School, officials quietly posted the Ten Commandments on the walls of Giles County public schools. It was a natural reaction, said residents of this rural county peppered with churches, to such an alarming moral breakdown.

There the commandments stayed, within nondescript frames that also featured the first page of the U.S. Constitution, stirring little controversy until December. That’s when an anonymous complaint prompted the superintendent to order the removal of the displays. The decision sparked such passionate community backlash that the county school board voted to post them again in January.

Giles County is down on the Virginia/West Virginia border, just for a location.  It is in the heart of Virginia’s bible belt.  In fact, it is so bible belt that they run a bible bus to Christian classes during the school day, according to the WaPo:

The district also runs a so-called “Bible Bus” so that students can get privately organized Christian instruction off site during the middle of the school day.

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Stampeding Bulls! Buy Everything!

MoonHowler

Huffington Post:

Investors will continue to ride the speediest rally in U.S. stocks since the Great Depression despite growing concerns that the market is overbought and due for a correction.

Wall Street posted its third consecutive week of gains with the S&P 500 now up 6.8 percent for the year and more than 20 percent in just six months

Regardless of where the stocks start off in the morning, they crawl upwards by afternoon.  Analysts expect a correction but they aren’t sure when.  There seems to be a tendency for more and more investors to buy.  

But there is a perceptible level of anxiety in the market. Trading volume has been exceptionally low recently and the CBOE Volatility Index .VIX, Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge, is up on the week despite the gains in stocks.

So what does all this mean?  Are lots of people buying now?  What is spurring this buying spree?  I sure hope we aren’t headed for another downturn.

Pat.Herve’s link on 401K

The New Rules: Contraception is not abortion

MoonHowler

During the Bush Administration, the ‘conscience clause’ allowed health care providers to decline care to patients if it would violate their religious beliefs.  President Obama has tried to clarify the new rules  which come after consideration of more than 300,000 public comments.  Basically, the new rules say that contraception is not abortion; specifically: “There is no indication that the federal health care provider conscience statutes intended that the term ‘abortion’ included contraception.”

According to NPR:

“The language published today reaffirms the principles of protecting the doctor-patient relationship by repealing the most onerous and intrusive parts of Bush’s last-minute refusal rule,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

NARAL said the rules, as originally written, “could have allowed insurance companies to deny claims for birth control pills, hospitals to refuse emergency contraception to rape survivors, and employees at HMOs to refuse their patients referrals for abortion care.”

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Don’t Tread on Freedom of Speech!

Elena

I can tell you, on many occasion I saw this very quiet peaceful protester on 234 throughout the past several years. All he did, was stand in the grass, next to his signs. I don’t recall it saying anything incendiary, but he was definitely against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He never shouted, he never waved his arms crazily,he just stood there, like a man on his own private mission to make his voice heard.

I was very surprised to read in the paper, the thuggish behavior of a young person in “uniform”. This “teenager” exited his van, kicked Mr. Hersch’s poster and then got back into his van.

He said that about 12:30 p.m. a green van with an advertisement on the side that read “1-800-Marines” drove up to the intersection and a teenaged passenger got out and kicked down one of his signs.

That’s when the act of civil disobedience or disorderly conduct came into play.

Hersch said he stepped out in front of the van to prevent the driver — who he said was in uniform — from driving away.

 

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Apologists for unlawfully present people?

MoonHowler

Insidenova:

Delegate Lingamfelter stated after his bill went down in defeat:

“Sadly we were defeated by apologists for unlawfully present people who have actually committed serious crimes.”

I am not quite sure what he is saying.   What are apologists for unlawfully present people?   

Like most folks here, I  support our 287g  program,.  The problem with Del. Lingamfelter’s bill was that it forced every locality into buying in to 287g.  Prince William is a wealthy county compared to many jurisdicitons in Virginia.  Many areas are already strapped for cash.  The program is not free. 

If states are howling and suing about having their citizens buy health care, how are localities going to feel about PWC dictating that they have to have 287g?  It sounded like an unfunded mandate to me.   Prince William County does not need to look like the big bully on the block. 

Having said that, is ‘unlawfully present people’ the new PC for undocumented?  I guess I applaud his efforts for trying.  I am glad he didn’t say ‘illegals.’  I just want to make sure I understand the expression.