Tag Archives: political economy

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.

Some Duplicity in Obamacare

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Recall that a while ago, in 2014, the GAO ran some tests of Obamacare: they set up 12 fake persons with invalid Social Security numbers, fake citizenship, and/or false income claims. Eleven of these got coverage, several of them got subsidies, many of them got renewed for this year, and some of the renewals got increased subsidies.

…officials running Obamacare told the GAO they possess “limited ability to respond to attempts at fraud….”

Worse, these guys added in wide-eyed innocence

that measures to ensure program integrity would undermine “consumers’ ability to ‘effectively and efficiently’ select Marketplace [Obamacare] coverage.”

It’s like voter ID: if we protect the sanctity of an American’s vote, the Democrats’ favorite demographic—the frauds—won’t be able to vote Democratic.

Change the Subject

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At the Federal level, Republicans in Congress are attempting to take national-level steps to curb union abuses of members and nonmembers. The particular abuse is union use of dues to fund a particular party’s candidates, whether the union members support that party or candidate or not for now, at least, the Congress is ignoring union states’ practice of collecting dues from non-union members—which the employees are required to pay as a condition of keeping their jobs—and using those coerced dues also for political work rather than union activities related to work).

The Employee Rights Act, introduced Monday by Senator Orrin Hatch (R, UT) and Congressman Tom Price (R, GA), would allow union members to tell their bosses they don’t want their share of dues going to certain candidates or causes, without fear of retaliation.

The response?

…Democratic strategists are accusing Republicans of ignoring the needs of hardworking union members, and instead just trying to re-route sizable campaign contributions.

Don’t address the subject of the bill. Talk about “rerouting.” Never mind that the bill doesn’t reroute a penny of union money.

Never mind, too, that the bill takes care of the “needs of hardworking union members,” particularly those hard workers who don’t want their dues to go to political causes they don’t support.

Changing the Subject

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Planned Parenthood and President Barack Obama are partners in this misbehavior.

Recall the hoo-raw over the videos published by Center for Medical Progress showing Planned Parenthood doctors discussing the best way to harvest valuable (monetarily) body parts from freshly aborted babies. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards spent her time decrying the videos as “edited” and insisting that Planned Parenthood behavior was both legal and ethical.

Obama’s only comment on the matter came through his Press Secretary Josh Earnest, and it was centered on the editing and a repeat of Richards’ claim of “ethical behavior.”

Neither of them addressed the question of aborting babies and cutting out the good parts for resale (or “donation”). Both of them ran screaming from the subject.