Wisconsin's High Court Says Controversial Union Law Can Take Effect

It's about damn time. This law should have gone into effect as soon as it was passed. Maybe now Gov. Walker and the State of Wisconsin can get back to the business of fixing the financial issues that have been troubling them. 

Asking public employees to pay more for their own upkeep shouldn't have been this big of an issue to begin with. Even with the increased participation they still pay less than most private sector workers. And non-union, private sector workers aren't able to hold their employer hostage when they don't get an extra coffee break or a cost of living increase. Most of us live in the real world, it's time some of these public sector people had a taste of it. Maybe it will make them a little more humble about the jobs they keep at the tax payers expense...

From FoxNews

The Wisconsin Supreme Court narrowly ruled Tuesday that the state's contentious union rights law can go into effect, giving Republican Gov. Scott Walker a major victory after a long and dramatic battle.

The high court upheld Walker's law in a 4-3 vote, reflecting the partisan divide of the members.

Walker pushed the law that eliminates most of public employees' collective bargaining rights and forces them to pay more for their health and pension benefits. He says it's needed for the state to address its budget problems.

"The Supreme Court's ruling provides our state the opportunity to move forward together and focus on getting Wisconsin working again," Walker said in a statement.

The law passed in March after weeks of protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the state Capitol. But the law has been tied up in the courts since a Democrat filed a lawsuit accusing Republicans of violating the state open meetings law during the run-up to passage.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court said the judge had no authority to interfere with the legislative process.

The court ruled Tuesday just hours before the Republican-controlled Assembly was planning to start debating the state budget and possibly adding the collective bargaining provisions since the case was tied up in the court.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote a blistering dissent of the court's ruling, accusing Justice David Prosser of appearing to have a "partisan slant" with his concurring opinion.

Read the rest at the link above

Obama Skirts Rule of Law to Reward Pals, Punish Enemies

Give this a read if you have the time, it's interesting. It's kind of strange how some of the biggest contributors to democrats get the best breaks from this administration. It's always been like that. It seems like the goal is to give away as much as they can to their friends and supporters before they get run out of town on a rail.

kitty kat sebelius was just a typical democrat when she was in Kansas (I lived there at the time), not a good steward of the tax dollars, out for her own interests, etc. But she has graduated to a whole new level. She has become one of the obama thug scumbags.

And this administration claims to be transparent?

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary - Transparent

A : free from pretense or deceit
B : easily detected or seen through
C : readily understood
D : characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices

The definition doesn't seem to fit anything about this administration, not even close, on anything...

 
by Michael Barone - Human Events

Question: What do the following have in common? Eckert Cold Storage Co., Kerly Homes of Yuma, Classic Party Rentals, West Coast Turf Inc., Ellenbecker Investment Group Inc., Only in San Francisco, Hotel Nikko, International Pacific Halibut Commission, City of Puyallup, Local 485 Health and Welfare Fund, Chicago Plastering Institute Health & Welfare Fund, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, Teamsters Local 522 Fund Welfare Fund Roofers Division, StayWell Saipan Basic Plan, CIGNA, Caribbean Workers' Voluntary Employees' Beneficiary Health and Welfare Plan.

Answer: They are all among the 1,372 businesses, state and local governments, labor unions and insurers, covering 3,095,593 individuals or families, that have been granted a waiver from Obamacare by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

All of which raises another question: If Obamacare is so great, why do so many people want to get out from under it?

More specifically, why are more than half of those 3,095,593 in plans run by labor unions, which were among Obamacare's biggest political supporters? Union members are only 12 percent of all employees but have gotten 50.3 percent of Obamacare waivers.

Just in April, Sebelius granted 38 waivers to restaurants, nightclubs, spas and hotels in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco congressional district. Pelosi's office said she had nothing to do with it.

On its website, HHS pledges that the waiver process will be transparent. But it doesn't list those whose requests for waivers have been denied.

It does say that requests are "reviewed on a case by case basis by Department officials who look at a series of factors including" -- and then listing two factors. And it refers you to another website that says that "several factors ... may be considered" -- and then lists six factors.

What other factors may be considered? Political contributions or connections? (Unions contributed $400 million to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle.) The websites don't say.

In his new book, "The Origins of Political Order," Francis Fukuyama identifies the chief building blocks of liberal democracy as a strong central state, a society strong enough to hold the state accountable and -- equally crucial -- the rule of law.

One basic principle of the rule of law is that laws apply to everybody. If the sign says "No Parking," you're not supposed to park there even if you're a pal of the alderman.

Another principle of the rule of law is that government can't make up new rules to help its cronies and hurt its adversaries except through due process, such as getting a legislature to pass a new law.

The Obamacare waiver process appears to violate that first rule. Two other recent Obama administration actions appear to violate the second.

One example is the National Labor Relations Board general counsel's action to prevent Boeing from building a $2 billion assembly plant for the 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina, which has a right-to-work law barring compulsory union membership. The NLRB says Boeing has to assemble the planes in non-right-to-work Washington state.

"I don't agree," says William Gould IV, NLRB chairman during the Bill Clinton years. "The Boeing case is unprecedented."

The other example is the Internal Revenue Service's attempt to levy a gift tax on donors to certain 501(c)(4) organizations that just happen to have spent money to elect Republicans.

A gift tax is normally assessed on transfers to children and other heirs that are designed to avoid estate taxes. It has been applied to political donations "rarely, if ever," according to New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom.

"The timing of the agency's moves, as the 2012 election cycle gets underway," continues Strom, is prompting some tax law and campaign finance experts to question whether the IRS could be sending a signal in an effort to curtail big donations."

In a Univision radio interview during the 2010 election cycle, Barack Obama urged Latinos not "to sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're going to punish our enemies and we're going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.'"

Punishing enemies and rewarding friends -- politics Chicago style -- seems to be the unfiying principle that helps explain the Obamacare waivers, the NLRB action against Boeing and IRS's gift tax assault on 501(c)(4) donors.

They look like examples of crony capitalism, bailout favoritism and gangster government.

One thing they don't look like is the rule of law.

Massachusetts House votes to restrict unions

You don't usually hear of smart government coming out of the State of Massachusetts, but the House there is trying to do the right thing for ALL the people instead of giving the unions the moon.

Of course, the senate probably won't pass it.

It's pretty telling by the comments from the union goon that they care only for themselves instead of the welfare of the entire State. We have allowed the unions in this Country to get out of control. I'm sure there are many union members who are able to see the big picture. That's not true of their leadership. They have become so blinded by greed that they would see the entire State dragged down to bankruptcy, and even then they would ask for more.

I have a little new found respect for some of the democrats in Massachusetts, very little, but it's a start...

By Michael Levenson - The Boston Globe

House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last night to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns.

The 111-to-42 vote followed tougher measures to broadly eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states. But unlike those efforts, the push in Massachusetts was led by Democrats who have traditionally stood with labor to oppose any reduction in workers’ rights.

Unions fought hard to stop the bill, launching a radio ad that assailed the plan and warning legislators that if they voted for the measure, they could lose their union backing in the next election. After the vote, labor leaders accused House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and other Democrats of turning their backs on public employees.

“It’s pretty stunning,’’ said Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns. The same Democrats who tell us over and over again that they’re with us, that they believe in collective bargaining, that they believe in unions. . . . It’s a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.’’

“We are going to fight this thing to the bitter end,’’ he added. “Massachusetts is not the place that takes collective bargaining away from public employees.’’

The battle now turns to the Senate, where President Therese Murray has indicated that she is reluctant to strip workers of their right to bargain over their health care plans.

DeLeo said the House measure would save $100 million for cities and towns in the upcoming budget year, helping them avoid layoffs and reductions in services. He called his plan one of the most significant reforms the state can adopt to help control escalating health care costs.

“By spending less on the health care costs of municipal employees, our cities and towns will be able to retain jobs and allot more funding to necessary services like education and public safety,’’ he said in a statement.

Read the rest at the link above...