Monthly Archives: August 2015

Democrats and Planned Parenthood

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The Senate failed a cloture vote on a bill related to one already passed by the House that would have diverted some $550 billion of American taxpayer money from Planned Parenthood and sent it, instead, to a number of other women’s health facilities around the country, facilities that don’t do abortions. The bill would have preserved access to health care for women who need it and don’t have, for instance, the economic resources to get it. As a result of the failure, the bill is near death—Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) voted against it when it became clear it would fail; his vote means he can bring it up again this session. He and his fellow Republicans have said the question is far from dead.

The Senate Democrats who caused the cloture vote to fail, though, did so explicitly because they want that money to keep going to Planned Parenthood. The key distinction between Planned Parenthood and the other women’s health facilities? One dissects aborted babies’ bodies for parts, and the others do not abort babies in the first place.

So much for any war on women. Sending money to women’s health facilities—regardless of whether you think the Federal government should be doing that at all—hardly constitutes a war on women.

Never mind, too, the increased risk of breast cancer that women face from pregnancies that are catastrophically interrupted (from any of a variety of causes of which abortion is one).

The Democrats’ war on babies, though….

“Gig” Economy Workers

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These unfortunates are exploited by evil startup companies. Or so say unions, plaintiffs’ lawyers, and Democrats looking to maintain the dependency of others on them in government.

In the last year such companies as Uber, Lyft, HandyBook, Instacart, Postmates and Try Caviar have been slapped with lawsuits arguing that they have misclassified workers as “independent contractors,” which aren’t covered by most federal and state labor regulations.

Another startup, Homejoy Inc, has shut down because it couldn’t raise its next round of capital due to such suits.

The nuisance suits also demand such union froo-froo as

…backpay for overtime, workers compensation, unemployment insurance, unpaid meal breaks and business expenses. Homejoy was accused of not providing 30-minute meal breaks every five hours.

All of these things, all of the gig economy businesses, give initial or additional income to the folks doing the work. The business model also threatens the viability of unions and Democrats while representing money-making opportunities for the plaintiff’s lawyers, so it’s open season on these companies.

Never mind that the income these folks earn is more than the zero income they’ll earn after they’re priced out of jobs by unions; the startups that gave them their gigs have been closed down by plaintiffs’ lawyers looking for a fee, eliminating those gigs, and Democrats’ labor rules have made it the more difficult for startups to start.

None of that matters. All that matters is union and Democrat power and those fees.

Teachers Unions and Chris Christie

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Jake Tapper fed Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Chris Christie the straight line:

[W]ho “at the national level deserves a punch in the face?”

Christie had the answer:

Oh, the national teachers union, who has already endorsed Hillary Clinton 16, 17 months before the election. …they’re not for education for our children. They’re for greater membership, greater benefits, greater pay for their members. And they are the single most destructive force in public education in America. I have been saying that since 2009. I’ve got the scars to show it. But I’m never going to stop saying it, because they never change their stripes.

What he said.

An Acceptable Conclusion

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Pavlo Klimkin, Ukrainian Foreign Minister acknowledged over the weekend that Russian forces are in control of his country’s oblasts, Donetsk and Luhansk.

He also said that it’s time for Russia begin

“real negotiations” about a cease-fire and stabilization in Ukraine’s war-torn east which will require fair elections that are intentionally monitored.

He’s right. But that would require Vladimir Putin first to stop lying about Russia’s behavior toward Ukraine. In the end, too, an acceptable conclusion to Russia’s invasion, IMNSHO, would be Russian withdrawal from eastern Ukraine and the end of their occupation of Crimea.

Obama Gets One Right

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Edward Snowden will likely remain hiding in Russia for some time, with Washington officials and most Americans offering no leniency or forgiveness for him notoriously stealing classified information and jeopardizing U.S. national security.

President Barack Obama, through his Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco, said this about that:

Mr Snowden’s dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work…to protect it[.]

And then he tossed a petition to pardon this…scofflaw, the petition a product of a two year effort to let Snowden skate, into the round file.

Hear, hear.