No good reasons for public employee unions to exist

There is only one police force in any city. Is it right that the police can go on strike against the citizens who pay their taxes, thereby leaving them without any official enforcement of the law? Doesn't that leave taxpayers at the mercy of criminals?



How about firemen?



Isn't it the job of the public servants elected by the people to decide the proper staffing and funding levels for such important government employees as firemen and police? How then can the union trump decisions made by the lawful representatives of the people? Isn't that immoral and wrong?

Amplify’d from www.outsidethebeltway.com

Playing off the ongoing story out of Wisconsin, Professor Bainbridge makes a strong argument against the very existence of public sector labor unions:

In effect, public sector unionism thus means that representatives of the union will often be on both sides of the collective bargaining table. On the one side, the de jure union leaders. On the other side, the bought and paid for politicians. No wonder public sector union wages and benefits are breaking the back of state budgets. They are bargaining with themselves rather than with an arms’-length opponent.

Bainbridge’s argument isn’t a new one. In fact., it was made more than 70 years ago by Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

“The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service,” Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, “I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place” in the public sector. “A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government.”

Indeed, for many years, the very idea of public sector workers being able to organize and force the government to bargain with their representatives was largely rejected:

Courts across the nation also generally held that collective bargaining by government workers should be forbidden on the legal grounds of sovereign immunity and unconstitutional delegation of government powers.

Courts across the nation also generally held that collective bargaining by government workers should be forbidden on the legal grounds of sovereign immunity and unconstitutional delegation of government powers. In 1943, a New York Supreme Court judge held:

To tolerate or recognize any combination of civil service employees of the government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy, but inconsistent with every principle upon which our government is founded. Nothing is more dangerous to public welfare than to admit that hired servants of the State can dictate to the government the hours, the wages and conditions under which they will carry on essential services vital to the welfare, safety, and security of the citizen. To admit as true that government employees have power to halt or check the functions of government unless their demands are satisfied, is to transfer to them all legislative, executive and judicial power. Nothing would be more ridiculous.

The very nature of many public services — such as policing the streets and putting out fires — gives government a monopoly or near monopoly; striking public employees could therefore hold the public hostage. As long-time New York Times labor reporter A. H. Raskin wrote in 1968: “The community cannot tolerate the notion that it is defenseless at the hands of organized workers to whom it has entrusted responsibility for essential services.” Read more at www.outsidethebeltway.com

 

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Need ID to buy beer, need ID to vote

Since the Democrat state senators are out of state instead of in-state, doing their jobs, the grownups will proceed with a bill that has long been needed in Wisconsin and every other state that doesn't check IDs for voters.



Say you are a Wisconsin voter and a drunk. When you go to the bar to get loaded on a day of early voting the bartender checks your ID to make sure you are allowed to drink. But when the nice people from the local Democratic Party come by in their van to carry you to the polls, you stumble drunken into the polls and sign your name anywhere they will let you. No ID needed! No need to vote in your own name. Just sign next to any name. Then go vote, stumble back into the van, and go back to drinking. They'll even give you a couple of bucks for your time when dropping you back at the bar. Heck, you can do the same thing tomorrow at another precinct. The nice people in that van are so very helpful with allowing you to vote early and often, and not checking voter ID makes it much easier.



So how about we stop that scheme?



Thank goodness the foxes have left the henhouse so as to better protect their best campaign contributors, public sector unions.

Amplify’d from www.redstate.com

Hey, maybe we’ve got this all wrong.  Maybe all those Democratic state senators should stay in hiding for a couple of days longer; it’ll let the adults get some business done.

…Republicans plan to move ahead with regular Senate business. In addition to tomorrow’s calendar, that could mean public hearings on other legislation, and possibly a floor vote on a voter ID bill that Democrats don’t like.

Background on the Voter ID bill here: essentially, it’s the usual commonsense notion that people who vote should have to go through the same kind of hoops to establish identity that we expect from people who, say, buy beer.  The Democrats hate the very idea, of course - it’s not that they personally indulge in election fraud, but it’s a weakness of some of their dearest companions - so they’ve been fighting it tooth and nail in Wisconsin for years. Read more at www.redstate.com

 

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Poll measures national support for Walker over public sector unions

Union thugs not so popular as they pretend.

Amplify’d from chicagoboyz.net

This is (apparently, so far) shaping up to be a political defeat for the unions, the Democrats, and Obama.

48% Back GOP Governor in Wisconsin Spat, 38% Side With Unions.

If these sorts of numbers hold up, the unions, the Democrats, and Mr. Obama will have managed to turn a local setback into a major defeat by accepting battle on a ground not of their own choosing.

That poll is a national, not a Wisconsin poll.

What are the Wisconsin-only numbers? Last week Walker was apparently behind.

43% approved, 53% disapproved. But that was last week, the question is slanted, events have moved on and that is only one poll. (That same poll found that by 55/36 people wanted the Democrat senators to return to the capitol.) Read more at chicagoboyz.net

 

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White House inaction comforts the dictatorial regime in Iran

Once again, when an American ally faces an internal rebellion our White House leaps to the attack against its current government. But when an American enemy, that is also the enemy of every other free country in the world and seems to every eye to be set on the destruction of Israel, faces internal rebellion the White House refuses to take sides against it.



How many lives will it take to pay the toll in blood of this presidential inaction?

Amplify’d from no-pasaran.blogspot.com

The people flooding into the streets of Iran to seek regime change find no support from the U.S. government

editorializes The Washington Times in its editorial, Obama’s Double standard for Iran.

President Obama, who hectored Egypt‘s President Hosni Mubarak to transfer power “right now,” suddenly doesn’t want to get involved when it comes to the dictators running the Islamic republic. The administration argues that taking a firm stand on regime change would hand Tehran a pretext for cracking down on pro-democracy protesters. It took the same approach during the 2009 protests, and the result was that Tehran’s thugs ruthlessly suppressed demonstrators and blamed the United States for instigating them. Iran‘s leaders will do the same again no matter what Mr. Obama says. The president has nothing to lose by standing up for freedom, especially because the Iranian regime really needs changing.

The Apologizer-in-Chief has nothing to lose, except for the left's fairy tale view that if only the world would come together, it would see that there are no enemies — except, of course, for America's clueless combative conservatives. Read more at no-pasaran.blogspot.com

 

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More climate change fraud

This time instead of fraudulent data, it's a fraudulent company providing "relief" from CO2 rationing. Expect more if CO2 rationing and taxation become more widespread.

Amplify’d from www.sec.gov

Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, 2011 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a group of seven individuals who perpetrated a fraudulent pump-and-dump scheme in the stock of a sham company that purported to provide products and services to fight global warming. Read more at www.sec.gov

 

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Anti-democratic protests in Wisconsin

When Joe Klein of Time Magazine agrees with conservatives that the union protests in Wisconsin are wrong on the facts and wrong in tone, then progressives have gone too far. Personally, I think all those teachers who walked off the job have quit their jobs. They shouldn't be allowed to go back.

Amplify’d from swampland.blogs.time.com

Revolutions everywhere--in the middle east, in the middle west. But there is a difference: in the middle east, the protesters are marching for democracy; in the middle west, they're protesting against it. I mean, Isn't it, well, a bit ironic that the protesters in Madison, blocking the state senate chamber, are chanting "Freedom, Democracy, Union" while trying to prevent a vote? Isn't it ironic that the Democratic Senators have fled the democratic process? Isn't it interesting that some of those who--rightly--protest the assorted Republican efforts to stymie majority rule in the U.S. Senate are celebrating the Democratic efforts to stymie the same in  the Wisconsin Senate? Read more at swampland.blogs.time.com

 

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White House in contempt of court

What is the remedy when the White House behaves as if it is above the law? Is the president, or is he not, subject to the same laws that bind everyone else? This is the fundamental question that needs to be answered.

Amplify’d from biggovernment.com

Last May, after millions of barrels of oil had been pumped into the ocean, Barack Obama issued an order to halt all U.S. deep sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.   Immediately, constitutionalists began to rail against the moratorium, which appeared to be a severe abuse of Presidential authority – a quick grab for powers that the commander in chief simply doesn’t wield.  The courts agreed, and on June 22, an injunction was issued by U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman, who argued that Obama’s directive was “overly broad.”

A few hours after their defeat, U.S. Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar issued a statement stating that the Obama administration would be presenting a “new order in the coming days that eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate, and within our authorities.”

A second drilling ban was enacted last July, only to be rescinded in October – before Judge Feldman could rule on it.  Since then, the government has used a cadre of regulators to deny drilling and enforce a de facto ban.  In fact the government has not issued a single drilling permit in the last 9 months.

Two weeks ago, Judge Feldman found the Obama administration in contempt of court.

“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman ruled. “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provides this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt.”

The Obama administration has remained silent on the issue but, tellingly, their refusal to grant permits has not wavered.

This pattern is repeating itself in regards to Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul.  First, in December, U.S District Judge Henry E. Hudson determined that Obamacare’s individual mandate was unconstitutional – though he angered conservatives by refusing to extend his ruling to the entire bill.  A month later, however, Florida U.S. District Judge, Roger Vinson, did exactly that.

According to the Florida ruling, “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void.”  Vinson went on to say that there was no need to issue an injunction against implementing the law since it’s illegal for the government to enforce an unconstitutional law in the first place.

“There is a long-standing presumption that officials of the Executive Branch will adhere to the law as declared by the court, Vinson wrote in his judgment. “As a result, the declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction. There is no reason to conclude that this presumption should not apply here. Thus, the award of declaratory relief is adequate and separate injunctive relief is not necessary.”

Apparently, the President simply doesn’t care. Read more at biggovernment.com

 

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Good intentions are never enough to prevent equal and opposite reactions

What Newtonian mechanics has to do with the results of legislation. After all, the results are what is really important, aren't they?

Amplify’d from blog.heritage.org

In sum, a moral evaluation of public policy cannot stop short with the good intentions that go into crafting a law or government program. We have a moral obligation to pay attention to the other side of the equation as well—its actual, and often predictable, outcomes. Richards suggests that a great place to begin is for every policymaker, upon encountering proposed legislation, to ask, “And then what will happen?” Read more at blog.heritage.org

 

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What does the evidence say about federal education spending?

That should be the first thing we look at when deciding what federal education programs stay and what ones are canceled. Right?



Wrong.



Read on.

Amplify’d from www.cato-at-liberty.org

Take the embattled -- and near dead -- Washington, DC voucher program. There is currently a concerted effort to revive the program, but the Obama administration and most congressional Democrats evinced no qualms about killing it despite its well-documented success with graduation rates and parental satisfaction. Documented, in fact, using "gold-standard," longitudinal, random-assignment research methods. That documentation is why Cato Center for Educational Freedom director Andrew Coulson last week testified to the House education committee that "there is one federal education program that has been proven to both improve educational outcomes and dramatically lower costs. That is the Washington, DC Opportunity Scholarships Program." Sadly, the administration -- and, to be honest, pols of all stripes -- are as happy to ignore the evidence of success in programs they dislike as the very common evidence of failure in programs they support. Take the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which funds after-school activities intended to keep kids off the streets and provide them with social and educational enrichment.  A series of studies -- the last published in 2005 -- found that not only didn't the program appear to provide many positive results, it might have had overall negative effects: Conclusions: This study finds that elementary students who were randomly assigned to attend the 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school program were more likely to feel safe after school, no more likely to have higher academic achievement, no less likely to be in self-care, more likely to engage in some negative behaviors, and experience mixed effects on developmental outcomes relative to students who were not randomly assigned to attend the centers.   In light of its (at-best) impotence, did the program go away? Of course not! In FY 2010 it was appropriated $1.17 billion, and the Obama administration has asked for $1.27 billion for FY 2012. And this despite not just poor performance, but a pesky $14 trillion national debt. This is small potatoes, though, compared to some other programs. Take Head Start: Run by the Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start is supposed to give poor kids an early boost in life. In reality, however, it has proven itself to be largely worthless, with benefits disappearing after just a few years. It's a finding that was repeated in a federal evaluation released in 2010, which reported that "the advantages children gained during their Head Start and age 4 years yielded only a few statistically significant differences in outcomes at the end of 1st grade for the sample as a whole." Despite this fecklessness, the administration wants to increase funding for Head Start from $7.23 billion in FY 2010 to $8.10 billion in FY 2012. Clearly, "evidence" doesn't drive budgeting decisions Read more at www.cato-at-liberty.org

 

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Ahoy! How are you?

Why is it that we say "Hello" to each other?

Amplify’d from www.npr.org

The Oxford English Dictionary says the first published use of "hello" goes back only to 1827. And it wasn't mainly a greeting back then. Ammon says people in the 1830's said hello to attract attention ("Hello, what do you think you're doing?"), or to express surprise ("Hello, what have we here?"). Hello didn't become "hi" until the telephone arrived.

The dictionary says it was Thomas Edison who put hello into common usage. He urged the people who used his phone to say "hello" when answering. His rival, Alexander Graham Bell, thought the better word was "ahoy."

Ahoy? Read more at www.npr.org

 

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