Archive for February, 2011

Herman Cain

The mayhem in Madison, Wisconsin over the last two weeks has highlighted the determination of organized labor unions to continue to restrict workers rights, and to try to intimidate Gov. Scott Walker and the taxpayers into some more unsustainable demands.

Madness.

Choosing to join a union versus being forced to do so as a condition of employment is a restriction on a worker’s rights. Joining a union or any other organization should be an individual’s choice.  And the desire of the unions to continue to make unsustainable demands on local, state and federal government irrespective of the devastating financial impacts is totally illogical, not to mention being a collective disregard for the nearly 90 percent of the workers and taxpayers who pay them.

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Brett Noel

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Dan Calabrese

Nearly a decade ago, when I was serving as a church elder and trudging through the process of budget-making, some of my colleagues advocated that we include support for several overseas missions in the budget. These missions certainly did good work, but because our church had run short of cash in recent years, we had adopted the consistent practice of not paying the missions the money we had promised.

Now you've gone and done it.

Wouldn’t it be better, I asked, to leave them out of the budget entirely rather than make a commitment we will probably not be able to keep? One of my colleagues insisted that we needed to keep these things in the budget because we didn’t want people getting upset.

He won. He would have been great in politics.

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Bob Maistros

Teachers and other government employees lying to their supervisors, calling in sick to attend protests aimed at lining their nests at the expense of taxpayers?

Fire ‘em.  It’s a no-brainer.  Sure, you’ll probably have to jump through some hoops and work through union procedures.  At least suspend them.  That’s not even a hard question.

Time for the pink slips.

But at least the teachers and other employees can be excused to a certain extent for looking out for their own interests.  They want to keep the gravy train running.  I get it.

The public employees who should really be shown the door – not only in Wisconsin but in Indiana as well – are the senators who have taken it on the lam to deprive their bodies a quorum on votes to remove bargaining rights for state workers.

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Liz Carter

Dear Teacher Union Protesters,

Protest on your own time, not on time during which you are paid by tax dollars, and not on time during which you are supposed to be teaching kids! Your behavior is wrong and you are demonstrating a huge lack of judgment.

You'd fail them and you know it.

Teachers who have turned in doctors’ notes saying you are “sick” and are protesting, be advised that your employment is terminated for cause. Cause of termination is dishonesty. Your behavior is unacceptable and the example you are setting for kids is wrong.  After all, you would give a child a “zero” on assignments if they skipped class or detention for skipping class.

Protesting for your rights to retain collective bargaining with your union is acceptable behavior and your right. Protesting during the time in which you are to be instructing the children of the taxpayers, however, is not acceptable.

Return to work immediately or be prepared to have disciplinary action taken, including the option of terminating your contract of employment.

Regards,
The Taxpayer

David Karki

Bunker Hill. Fort Sumter. Madison.

Madison?

Yes, Madison. In time, what happened in Wisconsin this week may well go down with those other two locales as the site where the first shots of a revolutionary or civil war were fired.

It's on.

They weren’t real ones this time – not yet, at least – but they were just as meaningful because they exposed what is really in the hearts of the left in this country and just how profoundly deep the rift is between their worldview and the worldview to which the rest of us cleave. And therefore, how unlikely it is that what began in WI – and has already spread to a handful of other states – will end in any way other than significant domestic conflict, sooner rather than later.

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Dan Calabrese

Is it starting to feel more like 1989 to you? Hosni Mubarak has lost power in Egypt, and now the people of Libya appear unwilling to put up with any more of Moammar Khadaffy Duck (or whatever the spelling might be).

The latest overnight doesn’t give us the clearest picture of what’s happening. Libya’s ambassador to the U.S. appears to have turned against his boss, and has asked the U.S. to take a stronger stand against Khadafy’s crackdown. The predictable response from the Obama State Department was weak and ineffectual.

I'll never look into your eyes again.

In the meantime, no one is even sure where Khadafy is. His son went on TV yesterday and rambled on for 40 minutes about how everyone had better stay in their homes, because if the rebellion proceeds, the regime would fight it there would be a civil war that would destroy Libya’s oil wealth.

You people want to take away our power? We’ll burn the oil fields! Sounds familiar.

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Brett Noel

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Jill Ciminillo

Toyota has launched a full-blown viral campaign that’s trying to make the minivan cool. Hip commercials featuring the all-new 2011 Sienna. A series of YouTube shorts that takes you inside the Swagger Wagon family psyche. And a Swagger Wagon music video. (Yes, really.)

But this single-in-the-city female isn’t quite convinced.

I mean as far as minivans go, the Sienna isn’t bad. But cool? Um. Hmmm. Let me think about that. No.

2011 Toyota Sienna

One of my tweet buddies even mentioned that the “cool” soccer moms have all defected to vehicles like the the Cadillac Escalade or Chevrolet Tahoe.

So, does the minivan still have a place in American society? I’d say yes, but it’s diminishing. You can’t beat the easy access to all three rows of seats, the plethora of storage room behind the third-row seat (great for strollers, diaper bags, gym bags, athletic equipment, etc.) and the multitude of cup holders front, middle and rear. Not to mention the fact that minivans do get better gas mileage.

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Herman Cain

All of the attempts by the media to make stories out of the budget battles going on in Washington D.C. will not change the bottom line of how it will end up, no matter how many ways they try to create a story. Namely, the taxpayers will get stuck with more debt and more taxes again.

This is how it's done.

After all of the political punches are thrown, President Obama will get some of the unnecessary spending and tax increases he wants, the Democrats will get some of the wasteful spending and tax increases they want, the Republicans will get some of the spending cuts they want, and once again the overall deficit will continue to add to the national debt using the taxpayers’ credit card.

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