Odds and ends number 43
More of the small stuff you love! Let’s begin with this.
Up in the Second Congressional District, GOP candidate Larry Smith is challenging his four rivals to eight hour-long debates on various issues. But considering he has more to gain than two of his rivals (who serve in the Maryland General Assembly) that’s probably a pipe dream – not to mention they would likely be in session several nights a week.
But the key complaint Smith has is simpler: “This election should not be decided on who has the most insider endorsements, but rather who would be the best representative of the voters of the district.” All that is true, but if these debates were to come to pass I would hope that a conservative runs them, rather than the debacles we have seen with the GOP Presidential debates and their “gotcha” questions.
I wish Mr. Smith the best of luck in going to Washington.
Odds and ends number 41
Not that I necessarily keep track of these things, but this is my first look in 2012 at those items which are worth a paragraph or three, but not a full post. It helps me clean out my e-mail inbox.
I couldn’t figure out how to embed this “Made in America” video, but I found it interesting when I watched it. I’m generally in favor of free trade and against strict protectionism, but if the difference is as small as they claim then buying American is worth it. Perhaps the claim of using 5% more American products would create 220,000 jobs is a bit dubious, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt.
Our nation needs to take steps in regaining its onetime prominence as a leading manufacturer. But it’s interesting to note several of the companies prominently mentioned have at least one plant in a right-to-work state. I can’t ascertain whether these are all non-union shops, but chances are fairly good – given that only about 1/10 of the private-sector workforce is unionized – that these good, honest American jobs don’t come with the union label.
Not that Maryland is making any quick moves to join the ranks of Virginia and other right-to-work states – this year, HB91 hasn’t progressed beyond first reading. But the group New Day Maryland pointed out to me a couple other bills of interest in the General Assembly this term to keep an eye on, and I thought I’d pass along the word.
House Bill 23, the Dedicated State Funds Protection Act, would prohibit the fund-raiding Governor O’Malley is almost as well known for as his constant zeal to raise taxes. And House Bill 43 would allow appropriations bills to be subjected to the same referendum process as those bills not dealing with appropriations. (The last remaining legal straw opponents of the in-state tuition for illegal aliens referendum are grasping for is that the bill is an appropriations bill, although it’s not.)
Both these bills have a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. on January 31. I presume written testimony is acceptable, too.
The Maryland Model (part three)
This will be the final part of a three-part series; in case you’re getting caught up here are parts one and two.
In truth, though, this part won’t be based strictly on the Maryland Model. It’s actually going to be a critique of a presentation I ran across, one which is presumably some sort of PowerPoint presentation translated to Scribed for the purposes of disseminating. Called Become a Force Multiplier: 5 Simple Tasks for American Activists, it addresses many of the issues we will face in 2012 with a particular focus on Big Labor’s aspect. (Not surprisingly, since it’s done by LaborUnionReport.com.) More importantly, they note that:
Several of the tactics and action models described herein have been adapted from models used by unions and other Left-wing groups. In other words, the Left is already using these models, you need to as well.
Fight fire with fire, as it is said.
The Maryland Model (part two)
In part one I related the Maryland Model in its current state to the 2012 campaign, particularly when considering the battle to repeal the in-state tuition for illegal aliens passed last year by the General Assembly. The bill was petitioned to referendum as opponents turned the trick for the first time in over twenty years in Maryland.
As you should recall, I distilled the idea behind the Colorado Model liberal Democrats used to take over that state into four simpler M words: money, message, media, and mobilization. In this part I assess the overall shape conservatives here in Maryland exist in regarding these four issues – and we definitely need to do some work!
The Maryland Model (part one)
Over the holidays I did a little bit of light reading, and while I was doing so it occurred to me that the General Assembly session is sneaking up on us rather quickly. In 2011 that session set the scene for what turned out to be one of our side’s rare successes in Maryland, the petition drive to bring the in-state tuition law for illegal aliens to referendum later this year. It appears that will be on the ballot since CASA de Maryland and other pro-illegal groups are dropping the challenge to the petition signatures and narrowing their focus to whether the referendum itself is legal while simultaneously fundraising to sustain the law at the ballot box.
That fundraising: $10 million. What that means: carpet-bombing the media with images of poor, purportedly law-abiding and successful immigrant families being denied a chance at the American Dream due to racist TEA Partiers who hate all those who look different than they do. Don’t believe me? Just watch.
And this nicely leads me into my main points of this post, which will be the first of a multipart series on what I’m calling the Maryland Model. You see, part of my reading over the holidays was this RedState article on what is called the Colorado Model, which led me to read the original post on this strategy from the Weekly Standard back in 2008. Read those articles (I’ll wait for you) then take a look at how the CASA de Maryland folks are fighting the will of the people here in the Free State.
While they have seven pieces to the puzzle in the RedState article, I’ve consolidated these to what I can call the 4 M’s: money, message, media, and mobilization.
Joe the Congressman?
Having lived in the Congressional district in question for a long time, I think this is quite funny.
First of all, the Republicans who are running Ohio’s redistricting process played quite the nasty trick by lumping two longtime liberals in Congress into the same Congressional district – Ohio’s Ninth District, which used to be primarily a Toledo-based district represented by Marcy Kaptur since 1983, now snakes along the Lake Erie shoreline toward Cleveland and has since the 2000 redistricting. But the newest Republican lines have now expanded the district far enough eastward to take in the residence of one Dennis Kucinich.
A chance of improvement
Obviously the political landscape is much different here than it is in my native state of Ohio, but there are times I still get missives from the Buckeye State because I’m still on a number of mailing lists.
One such case was today, and although I deleted the actual message the gist of it was a local chief of police calling out the opponents of Issue 2 – a measure that would roll back gains made against the overly powerful unions in the state – for misleading the public into thinking they’d be less safe if it passed. On the contrary, passage of Issue 2 would allow him more funding for hiring police officers since his other overhead costs would be reduced.
Is Ohio’s recovery on the line?
It’s been seven years since I left the state of my birth, and it doesn’t seem like politics has changed all that much.
Even the ray of hope provided when a solid conservative governor was elected may be snuffed out next week if voters in the Buckeye State are fooled into voting against Issue 2. A no vote would wipe out a series of common-sense measures designed to hold the power of the state’s labor unions in check along with making them contribute a little more to their benefit package (but still less than the average private-sector worker does.)
It’s telling that opponents of the measure, essentially Big Labor and its allies, are outspending those who want a yes vote by a significant margin. The unions didn’t want Governor John Kasich to be elected anyway, as one of his first priorities was to whip them into line. If they can’t beat him until 2014, they can do their level best to thwart his efforts. It’s nothing new from a state which is heavily unionized along the Ohio Turnpike corridor from Toledo through Lorain and Cleveland to Youngstown. The rest of the state is relatively conservative.
I’m hoping against hope that the smart voters aren’t fooled by the lies and obfuscation of Big Labor’s campaign and hand them a stinging rebuke. If they don’t, you can well see why I left the state – not that Maryland is a whole lot better, but the weather and vibe is what keeps me here. It would be nice to have a governor with the cajones to take on Big Labor, so let’s hope he’s rewarded next week.
So what can I do?
As always, I like to know what the opposition is up to.
The other day I got an e-mail from Organizing For Against America which asked if I could organize in Salisbury. I’ll come back to that question here in a couple minutes, but if you can stomach this video here’s the One talking about organizing:
I guess the first question is: did you notice anything missing?
Labor Day, once again
Well, I suppose those of us who like summer can heave our collective sighs and recall the time it was.
Of all the holidays which dot the calendar, Labor Day is probably my least favorite. Sure, I appreciate the day off work but look at all the other things going on:
- For many children (including my significant other’s), it’s literally the last day of summer vacation.
- As a Shorebirds fan, after today I have seven months without baseball to dread.
- Those in the local tourism industry see their window of opportunity beginning to close down, although the push to establish a “second season” in recent years has cushioned that blow to an extent.
But today is the day which Big Labor calls its own, allocating the celebration of the American working person despite the fact that the vast majority of workers don’t belong to a union. An area which is a union stronghold (like the city of my birth) is quite likely to have a Labor Day parade, and it irked me to no end that the Labor Day parade was much better attended and had greater participation than the Memorial Day parade which was often moved to the Saturday before. Something is amiss with those priorities.
Is the TEA Party electoral poison?
Well, to answer the question, Rasmussen conducted a poll which stated 43 percent now see the TEA Party label as a negative. Of course they do, since the media constantly portrays the TEA Party as part of the problem and not part of the solution. I think the number around here who would agree with the 43% is only about half of that.
But the labeling trend is definitely not in the favor of those who believe in smaller, more limited government as independents dislike the TEA Party label by a 42-25 margin. Generally they are the ones who fall in the middle politically and supposedly it’s the great unwashed whose votes pile up on election day.
So here’s my message to the 43 percent: if you don’t buy the TEA Party and its message of limited government it’s only because you believe the lies told about the TEA Party by those who have a vested interest in keeping things just the way they are!
Do you want to know the way it is? We spend way too much money in government, and it’s money we create out of thin air. The question now isn’t if we’re heading into an inflationary era, but when and how much. It’s sort of like our experience with Hurricane Irene – some got a little wind, some got a little rain, but most had some sort of damage done to their towns and dwellings. All that differed was the degree.
So follow the money. If you didn’t get a raise last year or – worse – lost your job, well, what has the current big-spending government done for you? Maybe you’re getting some sort of transfer payment like unemployment benefits or food stamps but wouldn’t you really rather have the standard of living of being a productive full-time worker returned to you? As it stands you have less but government has more because they set the rules and print the money! Let my people go!
Verizon on strike: is the middle class really in peril?
With no end in sight, the varying group of red-clad picketers at the Verizon location just around the corner from me promises to be a sight I’ll see for awhile – at least until the economic reality of making no money from working begins to rear its ugly head. According to reports like this, the union and company have been far apart in negotiations.
The Communications Workers of America union calls the strike “standing up for middle class jobs.” Their complaint is that an immensely profitable Verizon has “regressive demands” which “would roll back 50 years of bargaining gains.” Too, the union condemns the “Wisconsin-style tactics” employed by the company.
And the union is getting support in its efforts – for example, the Teamsters who represent UPS workers have ordered drivers not to make deliveries to Verizon facilities where they would cross a picket line. (Sounds like an opportunity for FedEx.) The CWA also claims that over 100,000 have signed a petition decrying Verizon’s “corporate greed.”
Yet Verizon states a case that the workers represent a division of the company that’s not profitable and all they are asking is for well-compensated union employees to chip in a little bit on their benefit packages. The company is also accusing the union of misrepresenting the company’s bargaining demands and also several incidents of vandalism and sabotage. (That seems to be par for the Big Labor course, as I’ll explain later.)
In essence, the conflict boils down to this: Verizon is trying to cut costs in a division that’s on its way to obsolescence. No longer are Americans tied to a phone line as more and more households have eschewed a landline phone for cellular service. Nor does Verizon even have the monopoly on landline service as they used to because cable providers and others have made these services available. Unfortunately for the Verizon employees affected by the strike, their business will eventually go the route of the horse and buggy just as that of the telephone operator went away years ago when direct-dial phones became available.
The other irksome item within the union’s argument is playing that old class envy card. Their claim that the “very profitable company has paid its top five executives more than $258 million over the past four years” doesn’t address how these corporate leaders were paid. Most likely much of the compensation came in the form of stock options granted because the company was “very profitable” – would they prefer these executives lost millions of dollars instead? (By the way, that $258 million number works out to $1433.33 per striking employee per year. Would the strikers accept such a measly pay raise on even a $60,000 salary, let alone upwards of $90,000?)
Certainly that sounds like a huge amount of compensation for these executives – after all, who wouldn’t want a gig where they made an average of $12 million per year? But then again, would you like the hard work and long hours these people put in on their way up the corporate ladder? I doubt these positions were handed to them, and they certainly require more thought and skill in a number of areas than the average line worker would be able to exhibit. A failure on a line worker’s part may mean a few hundred customers are inconvenienced until someone can fix the issue. A CEO’s screwup could drive the entire company to bankruptcy and cost thousands of workers their jobs – so let’s get a sense of proportion here.
It seems to me the unions are becoming more and more desperate as they realize their hold on power is slipping away. Thus far Verizon has managed to keep their service going – albeit at a somewhat slower pace – and as the strike drags on Verizon’s management may find that they can do without some of these striking employees on a more permanent basis. Surely above all that’s what the CWA is afraid of, and the sabotage now may lead to more violent attacks later.
While it’s not related to the Verizon strike, consider an event which happened near my old hometown where a non-union electrical contractor was wounded in an attack – presumably by a union electrician or supporter. (Having “SCAB” spraypainted on the business owner’s vehicle would be my first clue.) There’s no question Toledo is a rough-and-tumble union town and has been for decades; why do you think I’ve called them “union thugs” before? I know how they operate so as soon as I saw the “Ohio business owner” blurb for the story I figured it was from Toledo.
Still, the idea that someone would actually attempt to gun down a business owner who was protecting his property appears to me to mean the stakes are deadly high in Big Labor’s case. After all, consider the unions had the federal government’s apparatus lock, stock, and barrel for a two-year period but couldn’t get everything they wanted because a number of people said “no, you cannot have card check” and “yes, corporations have the same right to political speech as unions do.” That had to hurt, even if they picked up an automaker or two in the process.
Now does this mean the Verizon strike will turn deadly? I pray not, as cooler heads on both sides need to prevail.
But those walking the picket line around the corner from me have to know they’re whistling past an economic graveyard because in this day and age workers need to be flexible and the ball is usually in the company’s court. In all honesty, they’re only being asked to work under the same rules most of the rest of us already do and as such be thankful they have a good job.
Bear in mind profits are by no means permanent, nor are corporations. Too often a union has won the small battles of getting workers raises and better benefits only to lose the war when the company closes shop because it can’t compete anymore. There’s always the likelihood that in ten years Verizon may be a distant memory, another casualty of an ever-changing world. No work stoppage can ignore that fact.
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