Ann Coulter: Look For the Union Fable

SEIU- Come join us.

The SEIU held a rally yesterday in Denver. It was your typical afternoon rally.
El Marco posted several photos.

Ann Coulter wrote about the current union controversy today.
LOOK FOR THE UNION FABLE

…It used to be widely understood that collective bargaining has no place in government employment. In 1937, the American president beloved by liberals, FDR, warned that collective bargaining “cannot be transplanted into the public service.” George Meany, head of the AFL-CIO for a quarter century, said unions were not appropriate for civil servants. As recently as 1978, the vast majority of states prohibited unionization of government employees.

Anytime there is the slightest suggestion that perhaps in the middle of a deep recession, public school teachers should pay 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their extravagant health care plans for their entire families, suddenly we get television ads of hard-working men doing dangerous jobs on docks and in foundries while being abused by their greedy capitalist overseers.

The unions must be desperately hoping that no one will notice … Wait a minute! WE’RE TALKING ABOUT TEACHERS! This isn’t the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” — it’s Mrs. Cooper’s seventh-grade “values clarification” class.

With heavy union dues, labor has plenty of money to pay for propaganda and to threaten and bribe politicians.

On his first day in office, the Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, signed an executive order denying public sector employees the right to bargain collectively — something that had been granted, naturally, by a Democratic governor.

As a result, Indiana government employees instantly got to take home an extra thousand dollars that no longer went to union dues — and good employees started getting raises, while bad employees got cashiered.

But government workers think the job of everyone else in the economy is to protect their high salaries, crazy work rules and obscene pensions. They self-righteously lecture us about public service, the children, a “living wage” — all in the service of squeezing more money from the taxpayer to fund their breathtakingly selfish job arrangements.

There’s never a recession if you work for the government. The counties with the highest per capita income aren’t near New York City or Los Angeles — they’re in the Washington, D.C., area — a one-company town where the company is the government. The three counties with the highest incomes in the entire country are all suburbs of Washington. Eleven of the 25 counties with the highest incomes are near Washington.

For decades now, the Democrats have had a good gig buying the votes of government workers with outrageous salaries, benefits and work rules — and then sticking productive earners with the bill. But, now, we’re out of money, no matter how long Wisconsin Democrats hide out in Illinois.

More… Reason Magazine added this on the current fiscal crisis.

This Is What a Broke Democracy Looks Like

…The specifics of the Wisconsin fight aren’t why it’s so important. Collective bargaining rights for public unions may or may not be the right battlefield on which to settle a state’s fiscal future. But Republican Gov. Scott Walker is showing a long-term sophistication, beyond the specifics of this fiscal year’s bottom line, in trying to limit the growth of government spending by preventing collective bargaining by public sector unions. Such “bargaining” is often a charade where both sides support each other financially at a third party’s expense (the taxpayer, that is), as is often the case between public sector employees and politicians.

It’s likely not essential to the survival of Wisconsin that Walker win this fight. As his enemies point out, cuts could happen in other places, taxes could be raised. Still, a loss would be an unsettling sign for how America’s political class (including the vocal voters and media professionals that move them) is prepared to face a depressing fact we’ve been explaining to you here at Reason for a while now: We are out of money, on both the federal and state level.

Wisconsin is an early sign of the stresses that will either shift our system of government action and spending to something unrecognizable to those who lived in the post-WW II boom years or tear that system apart. And everyone seems ready to fight about this necessary shift. The White House has its hands in. The AFL-CIO is reviving the old anarcho-syndicalist dream of the general strike to show that all labor is feeling the pain of Wisconsin’s public unions. People all over the globe are delivering pizzas in solidarity. Both sides of the larger debate about government spending are busing in their forces. Progressives are calling for national anti-austerity protests this weekend.

We may not be France yet, but there are disturbing signs that Americans may be ready to take to the streets angrily in defense of their government deals and giveaways. (Some polls showing a lack of support for the very idea of public employee unions are encouraging, but it doesn’t take a majority to cause civil unrest.) Wisconsin may be the first sign that, no matter how much support one can gin up for shrinking government, actual attempts to restrain a free-spending government will be met with strong political counterforce—even when that interest is overpaid teachers and big-money unions.

#1 February 23, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Randy commented:

Ahh, Illinois – the National Sanctuary for corrupt politicians. Could be our new State motto. Sadly, “The Land of Lincoln” no more.
#2 February 23, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Rock commented:

And yet the clueless knuckle dragger at (http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/02/b) had the gall to accuse Tea Party people of using the Sieg Heil salute. Do these thick neck buffoons ever look around and see where the cameras are?
#3 February 23, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Chippy commented:

“With heavy union dues, labor has plenty of money to pay for propaganda and to threaten and bribe politicians.”

The propaganda part comes from the unionized liar czar media!

The gig is up!
#5 February 23, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Rock commented:

Sorry link will not work, check im Hoft on Friday, February 18, 2011, 5:02 PM

And yet the clueless knuckle dragger at (http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/02/b) had the gall to accuse Tea Party people of using the Sieg Heil salute. Do these thick neck buffoons ever look around and see where the cameras are?
#6 February 23, 2011 at 11:47 pm
tommy mc donnell commented:

that picture looks like a sixties yippie reunion. right on man.
#7 February 24, 2011 at 12:10 am
Contessa61 commented:

okay, why can’t Walker sign the same executive order?
#8 February 24, 2011 at 12:24 am
Bogdan from Australia commented:

Don’t they look almost exactly like those fell beasts, ORCS from Lord Of The Rings movie?

Particularily that fella on the left.

He is like Grishnak or Shagrat or Ugluk or Snaga. Or whatever…

Isn’t Obama experiencing the same joy while destroying America as MORGOTH or later SAURON were feeling when destroying works of elves?
#9 February 24, 2011 at 12:40 am
SamRitter5000 commented:

Ann is correct. Even as the officer of a small private local, I understand that the public unions collective bargaining rights are illegitimate. Check these articles out.
http://samschaos.blogspot.com/2011/02/hey-gov-walker-this-union-man-is-right.html
http://samschaos.blogspot.com/2011/02/fdr-afl-cio-opposed-public-unions.html
http://samschaos.blogspot.com/2011/02/return-of-taxpayer.html
#10 February 24, 2011 at 12:50 am
GP Loves obama commented:

The Commie scare after WWII was real, now the commies are in every DNC ( or local Democratic Party) Club, and are spoiled rotton, filthy rich, can take 216 days off a year without penelty, and cannot get fired like most private sector employment shows.
#11 February 24, 2011 at 2:20 am
LimoLibsStink commented:

0bama:

Your Tax Dollars at Work!

Ha ha, but, your public servants are not!

My limousine is running and if I have to get every one of my Purple Bus People off the job and into the Taxpayer’s face I will. I don’t care if they have brass knuckle every women and child I want my cronies to win! Good day.
#12 February 24, 2011 at 2:42 am
Scott commented:

These government unions inhabit our military bases where many jobs are civil service in support of our combat troops. Will we one day see strikes on our military bases? Walkouts? Work slowdowns? Having unionized federal workers in critical areas of our defense structure is a dangerous concept that needs to be addressed.
#14 February 24, 2011 at 6:18 am
forest commented:

From El Marco’s visit with the goonion: “That’s your problem. You’re an entrepreneur, so you don’t work. You don’t know what work is until you get into an educational area. … You’re uneducated, unethical, immoral, and you don’t know what life is. That’s your problem. Why don’t you go behind that fence where you belong? Why don’t you go back with your own kind?”

I only heard the racist soundbites before, but the first part is a little more interesting to me. She thinks entrepreneurs don’t work, and people in an educational area do? Good Lord. These people are absolutely nuts. We need to make some drastic changes to education. Partial collective bargaining restrictions are not nearly enough.
#15 February 24, 2011 at 6:18 am
KR commented:

These dems think “might make right”.

They reject our Republic.
#16 February 24, 2011 at 6:19 am
Big L commented:

Pay them with warrants. Good for some time in the future.
#17 February 24, 2011 at 7:11 am
CrackerMike commented:

(sarc on) I just don’t understand the problem with govt unions and the mean people opposing them. What’s wrong with compensating govt employees 2-3 times the average salary of the people who are forcibly taxed at gunpoint to pay those poor ole union people. Why not pay for their retirement before our own? Hey, I pay 100% of my own retirement, why shouldn’t I pay 95% of theirs too? Why should I feed my own kids before my money is confiscated at gunpoint to feed their kids first?, at 1/3 their pay level?? Please forgive me for being such an evil, greedy hog. And whats up with this crazy right wing stuff of expecting me to pay for a mere, insignificant 92.5% of their pensions?? After all, don’t these poor overworked, underpaid comrades, er, um, I mean teachers, deserve it all? I mean they DO work a 9 month year!!!(sarc off).
#18 February 24, 2011 at 8:03 am
logprof commented:

Douche with the goatee aping a gorilla. Priceless.
#19 February 24, 2011 at 9:36 am
Freddy commented:

We should be counting our blessings. The public unions decided to support only one political party. This mistake has become their downfall. Look for the public unions to try and buy Republican candidates in the next election cycle as the Democratic brand has been destroyed by their own socialist actions.
#20 February 24, 2011 at 9:46 am
Barbara commented:

that photo is good example of what “white trash” looks like. stupid, thuggish people who neither understand nor deserve their blessings!
#21 February 24, 2011 at 11:13 am
Paul commented:

We need a rational energy policy and health care reform. We will get neither with Obama in office. Barrack OWalker has turned Wisconsin into a no win zone for his own party if any of the surveys taken are even possibly true.

Here’s an example union member households voted Republican at about 39% last time around. If that drops to 20%(wildly optimistic) in the next election and they only take immediate family with them there is no way for a Republican to carry a purple state like Wisconsin or Ohio.

All of you folks so proud or our Barrack OWalker should realize he has done more for Obama’s re-election chances than George Soros. Thanks a lot. does passing something loaded with give aways to political allies, refusing all debate even if they know it would save money and cramming something through despite massive objection of the people sound familiar? It should we all complained about it when Obama did it a year or so ago.

Walker is peddling favors giving sweetheart deals to supporters and attacking unions regardless of the situation. He and his crew have been especially vitriolic vs the teachers who haven’t actually had as much as a cost of living raise or benefit increase in over 15 years. the only funding increase toward schools at all has been increased health care costs and the union already has offered massive reductions on that issue. Meanwhile the state legislature whether Demorat or Rep has hired tens of thousands of state workers.

OWalker has been caught lying through his teeth several times and yesterday was dooped into, among other things accepting a payoff from David Koch. At least that is what he thought he was doing.

I am ashamed I voted for this idiot.
#23 February 24, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Auntie Em commented:

Good job, union workers! You are making The Man richer!!!

Fight to pay those dues….

What a complete fail you all are.
#24 February 24, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Barbara commented:

Re #21, Paul, after the term paper you were able to produce vs. Walker, I don’t believe that you ever voted for him; likely you’re not even from WI. Not Buyin’ It.