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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, but looking back on the past 12 months, it’s tough to see any sense in many of the Administration’s regulatory missteps. Of course, there are bound to be a few howlers when government churns out more than 3,500 rules in a year, including dozens unleashed by Obamacare, Dodd–Frank, and the perpetually errant Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But by any standard, 2011 brought forth a remarkable number and variety of regulatory blunders.
Fair warning: Our Top 10 list may prove fatal to any bit of faith in government as a “fixer,” if faith somehow has managed to survive despite all evidence to the contrary. In any event, it should steel our resolve to fight the Leviathan in the coming year.
1. The Dim Bulbs Rule. As per Congress, of course, for issuing an edict to phase out the incandescent light bulbs on which the world has relied for more than a century. With the deadline looming in 2012, Americans by the millions spent the past year pressing lawmakers to lift the ban which, contrary to eco-ideology, will kill more American jobs than create “green” ones. (Congress evidently overlooked the fact that the vast majority of fluorescent bulbs are manufactured in China.) The 2012 appropriations bill barred the use of funds to enforce the regulation, but it remains in law.
2. The Obamacare Chutzpah Rule. The past year was marked by a slew of competing court rulings on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the cornerstone of Obamacare. The law requires U.S. citizens to obtain health insurance or face financial penalties imposed by the Internal Revenue Service. Never before has the federal government attempted to force all Americans to purchase a product or service. To allow this regulatory overreach to stand would undermine fundamental constitutional constraints on government powers and curtail individual liberties to an unprecedented degree.
3. The Nationalization of Internet Networks Rule. Regulations that took effect on November 1 prohibit owners of broadband networks from differentiating among various content in managing Internet transmissions. (In other words, the Federal Coercion Communications Commission effectively declared the broadband networks to be government-regulated utilities.) The FCC imposed the “network neutrality” rule despite explicit opposition from Congress and a federal court ruling against it. The rule threatens to undermine network investment and increase online congestion.
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10. The Unions Rule Rule. New rules require government contractors to give first preference in hiring to the workers of the company that lost the contract. Tens of thousands of companies will be affected, with compliance costs running into the tens of millions of dollars—costs ultimately borne by taxpayers. The rule effectively ensures that a non-unionized contractor cannot replace a unionized one. That’s because any new contractor will be obliged to hire its predecessors’ unionized workers and thus be forced by the “Successorship Doctrine” to bargain with the union(s).
See the full list at The Heritage Foundation.
-By Larry Sand
There are those among us who think that teachers unions, collective bargaining and peer assistance review are the way to a better education for kids. They look like earthlings, but in fact are extraterrestrials.
As the year draws to a close, newspapers, magazines and blogs are filled with best of and worst of lists that deal with everything imaginable. The Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force got on the bandwagon early and posted Best and Worst in American Education, 2011 in November. All solid stuff. Can a reformer not be happy about the Parent Trigger being raked over the coals, yet surviving, or that many of Michelle Rhee’s reforms are still in place despite leaving her post as D.C. Schools Chancellor after a major push from the American Federation of Teachers? On the worst list, the Task Force includes the Atlanta teacher cheating scandal and the union-orchestrated overturn of Ohio’s recent anti-collective bargaining law.
Then lo and behold, we received a dispatch from Planet Ravitch on December 23rd. (Most people are not aware that shortly after astronomers ruled that Pluto was not a planet in 2006, a new planet would be identified. And it is inhabited!) The people who live on this celestial body (named after Diane Ravitch, a former reformer who turned into a champion of the failing status quo) are afflicted with a dyslexic-like condition: they have the entire education reform picture exactly backwards. The way to true reform is to hold their ideas up to a mirror with the resulting image revealing the best way to proceed. Continue reading »
-By Larry Sand
Venerable Scholastic has joined progressive educators and teachers unions in an effort to indoctrinate and radicalize American school children.
Scholastic, a student magazine that has been in business for over 90 years, has caught the progressive fever. (H/T Mary Grabar.) This malady affects common sense and good judgment and leads the afflicted to report news from a biased, progressive viewpoint.
In its December issue, Scholastic, which purports to “believe that all sides of the issues of our times should be fairly discussed — with deep respect for facts and logical thinking,” gets all gooey-eyed about the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, mentioning that OWS concerns itself with “protesters,” “voicing concerns,” “Americans wanting more opportunity to share in company’s prosperity,” and “workers that they feel that they can never get ahead.” To be sure, some of these types are present at OWS events.
But, Scholastic omits a few inconvenient details, like the fact that the OWS camps have been a magnet for Communists, anarchists, street hustlers, and common criminals and have been breeding grounds for murder, rape, vandalism, robbery and anti-Jewish sentiment. The filth left by many of these criminals — I mean protesters — has taxed municipal sanitation systems at great cost to taxpayers. As of December 9th, there were 417 incidents in all. You would think that Scholastic could have managed to mention that all is not sweetness and light in OWSland. Continue reading »
-By Larry Sand
Every year untold thousands of school kids are harmed by teachers who shouldn’t be allowed in a classroom. Parents must be given an opportunity to send their children elsewhere.
A teacher arrives at work high on drugs…daily.
A teacher regularly flies into rages, terrifying kids and coworkers.
A teacher talks in explicit terms about sex to the students.
A teacher makes constant sexual advances to other teachers.
A teacher doesn’t teach her students anything.
These are a few of the teachers that new Perth Amboy schools superintendent Janine Caffrey has to deal with on a daily basis. She is quick to point out that most teachers are committed and talented, but there are a few….
The evil here is tenure or permanence, which in New Jersey bestows a position for life on teachers after just three years on the job. (It’s even worse in other states – in California, for example, a teacher can get into the untouchables club after only two years.) Tenure for teachers would be nothing more than a bad joke if it didn’t destroy the education experience for tens of thousands of children who are subjected to incompetent/cruel/perverted people on a daily basis. Continue reading »
-By Warner Todd Huston
Once again a thuggish union official has used his ability to reach into our schools to push his partisan, anti-reform message on those public employees we call teachers and your tax dollars helped pay for it through his use of public facilities.
Last week the President of the Lake County Federation of Teachers used his ability to access the mailboxes of teachers at Zion-Benton Township High School to propagandize against efforts of local tax-reformers to fix the wild overspending of area school districts.
LCFT Prez Michael T. McGrue filled teachers mailboxes with a letter using a vile sexual reference to attack Tea Party opponents of big government spending and fearmongered at teachers telling them that tax reformers want to take away all their benefits and pensions. (Download .pdf of letter HERE)
Purportedly addressing his letter to “anti-tax zealots,” McGrue accused them of wanting to “take jobs away from the public sector” so that they could “keep more” for themselves. Naturally these are simply the hatemongering lies of an over paid union thug desperate to make sure that he can keep the riches of which he’s become accustomed.
One has but to remember the recent blockbuster stories about union thug and Director of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, Steven Preckwinkle, who along with his fellow unionista David Piccioli, it was discovered had not only ripped off the state of Illinois for millions in unearned state pension payments, but also arranged for all his kids and some of his relatives to get a free education at state universities. All off the backs of the taxpayers.
This is the sort of corruption you get when your government allows its employees to unionize, for sure.
One candidate in the area, though, is not ignoring this outrageous ignorance exhibited by a tax-paid union chieftain. Lennie Jarratt, a State Senate candidate for the 31st district, has made some comments about this incident.
Jarratt, it should be noted, has been an active school reform activist in north western Illinois for sometime.
Jarratt has sent out the following press release:
(Round Lake Beach, IL – December 11, 2011) Lennie Jarratt responds to the attack on the parents, taxpayers, teachers, school board members, and businesses of Zion-Benton High School District 126 by Lake County Federation of Teachers President Mike McGue.
“Someone needed to respond to Mr. McGue. His attack on the citizens of the Zion-Benton area was excessive and uncalled for. He has chosen his personal agenda and political influence over the needs of the families and businesses of Zion, Winthrop Harbor, Beach Park and Wadsworth.”, Jarratt said.
Dear Anti-Taxpayer Democratic Activist Mike McGue,
Teachers deserve a fair wage and the Zion-Benton District 126 offer of 10% over the next three years is a generous offer given the current financial difficulties of Lake County, the State of Illinois and our entire country. This offer is extremely generous with the fact that the district pays the entire 10.3753% into the Teacher Retirement System on top of the salary.
A few facts that may help you understand the true financial problems facing the families and businesses of District 126:
- Property taxes in Lake County are the highest in the Midwest
- Property taxes in Lake County are the 16th highest in the country
- Illinois unemployment rate has risen from 9.0% to 10% since the Legislature passed the 66% tax increase on individuals and 45% on corporations
- 1 in 158 homes in Zion received foreclosure notices in October
- 1 in 271 homes in Lake County received foreclosure notices in October
Businesses and families are leaving Lake County and the State of Illinois. Yet we have people like you, Mr. McGue, calling people names and making personal attacks. You are even using your position as LCFT President and your relationship with the Benton Teacher Union President, your wife Corrine, to bully and intimidate the District 126 community.
I am running for State Senate to promote the change of public policy to help families and businesses instead of the politics
of personal destruction that people like you use. Families and businesses are losing their jobs and homes. They cannot afford to keep cutting back because school boards are bullied into a contact that rewards the teachers at the top end of the pay scale while harming those at the bottom.I would like to suggest a solution to help the teachers at the bottom of the pay scale. Have the teachers at the top end of the pay scale like your wife whose compensation was over $92,0004 last year get smaller raises over the next 3 years. Use the additional monies to share with those younger, struggling teachers making under $40,000 so they can get more than 10% over the next 3 years. This will help those teachers pay their college loans.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Unions are at the head of the critics on the left that claim that voter ID laws are raaaacist and suppress the minority vote. Yet, as Christian Adams’ Election Law Center blog notes even unions require their voters to show their ID before voting.
A picture is worth a thousand words. According to OpenSecrets.org unions belonging to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) have donated over $26 million to Democratic candidates and causes since 1990. During that same period, the union gave a paltry $272,311 to the Republican Party.
As you’ll note in the photo below the union requires its own members to produce a photo ID in order to vote. The photo shows a union worker voting earlier today on whether to sanction a new four-year contract with Boeing, clearly the union understands the need for a picture ID in order to help guarantee a clean election:
In America, one needs an ID to vote in a union election, buy liquor, drive a car, board an airplane, use a credit card and a slew of other things in our society. Yet, the Democratic party refuses to back the idea of requiring an ID to vote in state and federal elections under any circumstances. A sensible voter ID law that respects the rights of the poor, elderly, and minorities is a great idea. What are Democrats afraid of? You connect the dots.
Yet another example of how leftist and Democrats want to make rules for us to follow… but they don’t feel they need to obey them themselves.
Eric Odom (Media Director)
Warner Todd Huston