Category Archives: morality

Four More Years

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One of the measures being voted on last Tuesday was a two-part question put before the citizens of Puerto Rico:

The two-part referendum first asked voters if they wanted to change Puerto Rico’s 114-year relationship with the United States.  A second question gave voters three alternatives if they wanted a change: become a US state, gain independence, or have a “sovereign free association,” a designation that would give more autonomy for the territory of 4 million people.

61 percent of those expressing an opinion chose statehood.

Typical of those who wanted this change in status is this from 25-year-old Jerome Lefebre (see the Fox News exit poll for an age break out of voting):

Puerto Rico has to be a state. There is no other option.  We’re doing OK, but we could do better. We would receive more benefits, a lot more financial help.

“We’re doing OK, but we could do better.”  Not on our own, but because government would do more for us, instead.

Puerto Ricans aren’t alone among Americans.

Union Above Public Welfare

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The Daily Caller, in a weekend article, reported [emphasis added]

In a two-page Oct 29 contract, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 1049 demanded union dues, pay hikes and benefit contributions from Florida electric utilities before its workers would be permitted to help reconnect power to Long Island communities.  The demand came as Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the Northeastern United States, stranding tens of millions without electricity.

That…contract…was sent to Florida’s nonunion power companies; it can be found at the above link and here.  Below are some of the eleven different financial “demands” the local required as a precondition to allowing these volunteer, and non-union, workers to help the Long Islanders devastated by Sandy.  Never mind the welfare of those residents.  They’re just useful hostages for the collection of the union’s vig.

  • UTILITY shall contribute 22 ½ % of each employee’s gross salary into the “IBEW Local 1049 Craft Annuity Fund”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 3% of each employee’s gross salary into the “IBEW Local 1049 Craft Division Skill Improvement Fund”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 3% of each employee’s gross salary to the local collection agent for the “National Electrical Benefit Fund”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 0.5% of each employee’s gross salary to the “National Electrical Industry Fund.”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 1% of each employee’s gross salary to the “Northeastern Joint Apprenticeship and Training Trust.”

Notice that—just these money grabs alone would have forced the UTILITY(s) to pay into union coffers nearly 30% of these volunteers’ (post-raise) pay, beyond that pay itself.  Taking into account all the money demands,

TheDC calculated that for a nonunion crew foreman normally earning $40 per hour in Florida, the mandated higher wages [also demanded in the “contract”] plus union contributions and dues would force a utility to pay $67.74 per hour for each worker completing power restoration tasks in New York.

For work performed on weekends or after 4:00 pm on weekdays, that overall rate would jump to $70.38.

All so these Florida volunteers could have the privilege of being Good Samaritans and trying to help out fellow Americans in their hour of need.

Florida Municipal Electric Association Executive Director Brent Moline said

The word we were getting all week was that New York was short by hundreds of [electric] linemen.  Well, okay.  We’ve got them.  Florida is two days away, so you need a head start.

No thanks, said the IBEW.  Only union workers are needed.

Moline added,

[I]t was only in New York where the union had to give their blessing.  It just made me sick that you’ve got people who have no power and you hear about a lot of people dying.

Finally, one of thirteen clauses in the “contract” specified its overall period of effect—29 Oct to 29 Nov.  Eleven of the clauses dealt with money for the union.  There wasn’t even anything in document about work conditions, worker safety, and so on.  Just that money for the union.

Only after the hue and cry did the union say it had withdrawn the demand letter.

Isn’t this display of union greed, using the citizens of Long Island as hostages for the collection, reason enough to pass a right to work law in New York?  Governor Cuomo (D)?  President of the Senate Duffy (D)?  Speaker of the Assembly Silver (D)?

As and aside, if this is what the IBEW charges its local UTILITYs, no wonder LIPA’s electricity rates are so high (the lowest non-Household Assistance rate Long Islanders pay—water and home heating by other means than electricity and assuming no more than 250 KWh of use in a month—is 51.9¢/KWh, which compares with 10¢/KWh where I live in northern Texas—and I heat, and air condition, my home with electricity, for which LIPA would charge a higher price).

Bipartisanship

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So much for it from the Democrats.  Here’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV):

Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his “severely conservative” agenda is laughable[.]

And he continues this monumental misunderstanding of who the American people are.  This is his excuse for refusing to work with Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney—or any Republicans.

Mitt Romney has demonstrated that he lacks the courage to stand up to the tea party, kowtowing to their demands time and again.

The Democratic Party’s view of bipartisanship is, “Do it my way.”  Their demonstrated view of compromise (see Obamacare and Dodd-Frank and immigration by fiat and carbon-taxing by regulation) is “My way, or the highway.”

 

h/t Doug Powers, writing for Michelle Malkin

Whiner-in-Chief

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It’s President Bush’s fault.

I “inherited worst economy since the Great Depression.”

“You didn’t build that.”

“Republicans won’t pass my JOBS bill.”

“The YouTube video started it.”

“It [the video’s fault] was purely a function of what was provided to us.”

“We weren’t told they wanted more security.  We did not know they wanted more security there.”

“Gunwalking began under the ‘previous administration’.”

“I think it’s important for us to understand that Fast and Furious was a field operation begun under the previous administration.”

You “can’t change Washington from the inside.”

Chris Wallace was right.

These guys [the Obama administration], everything is personal…They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.

Negligence or Arrogance?

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I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters.  I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.  And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.

So announced 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama.  Apparently he knows more about counterterrorism then his counterterror experts in Defense, CIA, State, et al., too.

Jennifer Griffin, of Fox News, has this:

Top State Department officials decided not to send an interagency rapid response unit designed to respond to terrorist attacks known as a FEST team, a Foreign Emergency Support Team.  This team from the State Department and CIA has a military Joint Special Operations Command element to it and has been routinely deployed to assist in investigations—for instance, after the USS Cole bombing and the bombings at the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

…

“The response process was isolated at the most senior level,” according to one intelligence source.  “Counterterrorism professionals were not consulted and a decision was taken to send the FBI on its own without the enablers that would have allowed its agents to gain access to the site in Benghazi in a timely manner.”  The FBI team did not get on the ground in Benghazi for several weeks after the attack and at that point any “evidence” had been rifled through by looters and journalists.

And

Further, the Counterterrorism Security Group, or CSG, was never asked to meet that night or in subsequent days, according to two separate counterterrorism officials, as first reported by CBS News.  The CSG is composed of experts on terrorism from across government agencies and makes recommendations to the deputies who assist the president’s Cabinet in formulating a response to crises involving terrorism.

Why not deploy the FEST?  State Department spokesman Philippe Reines:

[T]he first thing to know is that it’s not a security team.  It’s primarily a resource that State can send to help restore a facility.  Best example is Nairobi after the bombing because the Embassy suffered such significant damage.  It couldn’t function properly without resuming basic infrastructure needs like communications.  In this case, that was not necessary as Embassy Tripoli wasn’t impacted and could, as it does today, to function normally.

Look!  Shiny!  Umm, the terrorist attack occurred over in our Benghazi, Mr Reines….

The CSG?  Well, Obama and his lessers already knew all the answers.

[T]he most senior people in government worked on this issue from the minute it happened.  That includes the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of State, National Security advisor, etcetera.  Additionally, the Deputies Committee—the second in command at the relevant national security agencies—met at least once and more often twice a day to manage the issue.

And now, four Americans, including a high-ranking Federal government official are dead; American territory lies in ruins with no apparent attempt to restore it; and who knows what classified information, names of locals who were helping us, etc now are in the hands of our enemies.

Because Barack Obama thinks he’s more expert than his experts.