The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Union Activist Teaches Civility Seminar

Posted on | September 10, 2011 | 14 Comments

By now you know about the violence perpetrated this week by the Longshoremen’s Union. So when a local TV news crew showed up at the union office to get an interview, they were greeted with extraordinary courtesy vulgarity and aggressive hostility by a Longshoreman who gave his name as “F*** You C***Sucker.”

Category: Unions

Senate Rival Gary Glenn Calls on GOP’s Hoekstra to Disavow Hoffa Comments

Posted on | September 10, 2011 | 9 Comments

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is up for re-election in 2012 and former Rep. Pete Hoekstra is the most prominent Republican to throw his hat in the ring to challenge Stabenow. But last month, veteran conservative activist Gary Glenn entered the GOP primary, and has not been afraid to hit Hoekstra’s record:

Noting Hoekstra’s votes for the $850 billion Wall Street bailout, earmarks such as the $223 million “Bridge to Nowhere,” and for budgets and debt ceiling increases that added trillions of dollars to the national debt, Glenn cited “Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
“Over the last twenty years, Debbie Stabenow and Pete Hoekstra have both voted for budgets and debt ceiling increases that resulted in trillions of dollars of crushing new debt on our economy and our children’s future,” Glenn said. ”A Democrat who’s been there 14 years, a Republican there 18 years in Congress and two more as a lobbyist, over three decades combined as part of the culture that got us where we are now. Is it rational to expect we’ll change the fiscal insanity in Washington by sending either one back there again?”

In the wake of outrageous comments this week by Teamsters boss James Hoffa Jr., Glenn is now calling attention to Hoekstra’s longstanding relationship to Hoffa. Here’s the press release from the Glenn campaign:

Right to Work advocate calls on Hoekstra to
publicly disavow Hoffa threat to Tea Parties
MIDLAND, Mich. — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gary Glenn, Midland, who has championed Right to Work legislation banning compulsory unionism, Wednesday said fellow GOP Senate candidate former Rep. Pete Hoekstra — because of his close relationship with Teamsters union president James Hoffa, Jr. — should publicly disavow Hoffa’s Labor Day comments in Detroit that some have interpreted as threatening violence against members of the Tea Party movement.
Glenn cited comments Monday in which Hoffa, referring to Tea Party activists, told a Labor Day rally, “Let’s take these son of a bitches out.”
“Given Pete Hoekstra’s opposition to Right to Work and his cozy relationship and past endorsements by Hoffa and other Teamster union bosses, Pete needs to make clear to the public that his deafening silence does not indicate approval of his friend Jimmy Hoffa’s threats,” Glenn said.
“I urge Pete to join me in publicly condemning Hoffa’s violent rhetoric and use his cozy relationship to press Hoffa to retract those threats and expressly disavow actual violence against the patriotic Americans who make up the Tea Party movement,” Glenn said.
“While he’s at it, Pete should disavow his own opposition to freeing American employees from the compulsory ‘pay up or you’re fired’ unionism enforced by Hoffa and other Big Labor bosses, and join the 82 percent of Michigan Republicans who support Right to Work legislation.”
Glenn, a speaker at the first Tea Party rally in Midland in April 2009 and at dozens of Tea Party rallies and meetings since, led the campaign that succeeded in passing a Right to Work law in Idaho in the 1980s and is a founding member of the recently-launched Michigan Freedom to Work coalition, which is pushing the same legislation in Lansing.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/08/04/1290957/glenn-returns-to-celebrate-25.html

Hoekstra opposes Right to Work legislation and has been endorsed and funded by Teamsters union officials in his past campaigns for Congress and, most recently, in his 2010 GOP primary campaign for governor.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100716/FREE/100719907/michigan-teamsters-endorse-pete-hoekstra-in-gop-race-for-governor#

The New Republic magazine called Hoekstra “Hoffa’s greatest booster.”
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/archive/bush-jimmy-hoffa-teamsters-dirty-deal?page=0,0

According to the Teamsters’ website, Hoekstra in 2006 “lauded the Teamsters…at the union’s 27th International Convention for being the ‘voice of America’s workers’ with the unique ability to get things done. ‘American workers need a voice for equality and fairness, and that’s you,’ Hoekstra told the more than 7,000 convention delegates. Hoffa called Hoekstra in return “a true friend of the Teamsters.”
http://teamster.info/content/hoekstra-says-teamsters-are-voice-america39s-workers

Veteran political reporter Tim Skubick wrote during the 2010 gubernatorial race that Hoekstra’s “close relationship with Teamster’s head Jimmy Hoffa Jr. is Hoekstra’s ace in the hole.”
http://articles.petoskeynews.com/2009-04-03/gop-nomination_24047358

Hoffa told ABC News in 2000: “Because of our contact with Hoekstra, he has now taken himself out of any endorsement of national Right to Work laws. So this type of dialogue is paying benefits with the Republicans.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121904&page=2

In 2007, Hoekstra joined Sen. Debbie Stabenow and then Sen. Barack Obama in cosponsoring legislation that by federal mandate would have forced every state, county, city, township, and village in America of at least 5,000 in population to unionize its firefighters, police officers, and paramedics. HR 980:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00980:@@@P

Opposed by the National Right to Work Committee as well as by the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities, the legislation would have funneled hundreds of millions of more compulsory dues dollars into the coffers of the Teamsters, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and other unions that represent government employees. In 28 states without Right to Work protections, including Michigan, union membership and/or financial support is compulsory as a condition of employment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Safety_Employer-Employee_Cooperation_Act_of_2007#Opposition

In 2009, Hoekstra said on public television’s Off the Record with Tim Skubick: “I think it would be a bad idea to put (Right to Work) on the ballot. I don’t know if it would pass or not. I’d probably not vote for it.”
http://wkar.org/offtherecord/program.php?num=3841

During the 2010 race for governor, the Center for Michigan reported that Hoekstra was the only Republican candidate who — in response to the candidate survey question, “Should Michigan become a Right-to-Work state?” — joined Democrats Virg Bernero and Andy Dillon in answering “no.” http://www.thecenterformichigan.net/reforms-at-a-glance/

Dome magazine in Lansing reported of Hoekstra: “The Hollander refused to sign a no-tax pledge and declared he wouldn’t vote for a ballot initiative on Right to Work, seen as the holy grail by business groups, a powerful Republican constituency.”
http://domemagazine.com/features/f11109

The website of Republican students at Western Michigan University reported simply, “Hoekstra opposes Right to Work.”
http://wmugop.blogspot.com/2010/07/evaluating-candidates-for-governor.html

Category: Election 2012, Michigan, Senate, Tea Party, Unions

Looking Forward To Coming Home

Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 20 Comments

by Smitty

Ten years on, who could have foreseen passing the anniversary of 9/11 in Afghanistan? But that’s another post, where I’ll share what I think is the best thing written on that topic.

Fortune willing, in another week I’ll start the trek home, arriving by the end of the month. It’s no exaggeration to say that I think things are, in some ways, wackier in the U.S. than here in the ‘Stan. I’ve been a FOBbit here.

Checking in on Twitter and the RSS reader could bring an optimist to the edge of depression. There just isn’t much happy news to blog about.  Besides the wife and the World’s Youngest Blogger, there are a couple of things to anticipate, though.

Right now, I’m envisioning being at home, with decent bandwidth, Flash enabled in the browser, a pint of this Schweddy Balls ice cream, and the new Chickenfoot release, curiously titled ‘III’, as though their command of math in naming their second studio release was a desperate plea for a U.S. Treasury job.

Pray for the country. Pray for the leadership. You may have voted against them, but there they are. Pray that, though we sort of know who the agitators are, that those defending liberty keep it real and keep it peaceful.

Category: Aghanistan

Herman Cain Records Moving 9/11 Tribute, Alex Pareene Calls It ‘Tasteless’

Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 73 Comments

First, watch Herman Cain’s video:

Alex Pareene of Salon calls it “incredibly tasteless” and a “monstrosity.”

Hey, Alex, since you’re offering your expertise in what’s “tasteless,” I got three words for you: Ping-pong balls.

We must never, never, never, never forget that, eh?

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Category: Herman Cain

Anatomy Of A Twitter Slam

Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

Oh, the horror of aging:

Category: humor, Jimmie Bise Jr.

AFL-CIO’s Trumka Uses 9/11 Anniversary to Bash Talk Radio, ‘Extremists,’ Wealthy

Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 14 Comments

Big Labor’s No. 1 honcho posts a message, “Sept. 11, 2011: A Day to Commit to Activism“:

There is no time in my memory of a more proud example of what we can accomplish when we work together. Solidarity, the cornerstone of the union movement, flowed through all of us and carried us through.
But other doors opened, too — doors to hate, suspicion of “others” and self-centered greed. Our fear was twisted into something much more dangerous. . . .
Just 10 years after 9/11, despite our vows, the public servants, construction workers and others who lost their lives or still suffer with the cancerous remnants of the Twin Towers haven’t just been forgotten. They’ve been vilified. The extremist small government posse has turned them into public enemy No. 1, as though teachers and firefighters, EMTs and nurses and union construction workers ruined America’s economy.
In state after state this year — with the heroism of 9/11 less than a decade behind us — politicians targeted the paychecks, benefits and basic rights of these workers in a rabid campaign to shift government support to tax breaks for the wealthy and already profitable corporations.
Wealthy CEOs, anti-government extremist front groups and frothing talk show hosts — from the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks to the Koch brothers, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group, Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the American Legislative Exchange Council — also pushed open the door to hate.
We’ve seen the costs of hatred in ill-thought wars, in shameful attacks on immigrants and our LGBT neighbors. We saw it in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. We saw it in the racism that has found overt and covert expression since Barack Obama began his run for office — from outright declarations of people who said out loud they would never vote for a black man to the ridiculously persistent obsession with our president’s birth certificate. Regardless of his policies or priorities, President Obama is shadowed by the drumbeat of suspicion based on his “other”-ness. And those suspicions are fed and watered constantly by forces that were threatened by his message of “hope and change.” . . .

You can read the whole rancid thing. Remember that this is the same Richard Trumka who was invited to sit with First Lady Michelle Obama during the president’s speech last night.

As far as “extremist front groups” and “shameful attacks” are concerned, Michelle Malkin reminds us how Trumka advocated violence — including the violence by Trumka’s UMW goons who shot and killed Eddie York during a 1993 West Virginia coal strike.

And you have to roll your eyes at Trumka’s attacks on the “wealthy,” while he collects more than a quarter-million a year in salary from the AFL-CIO, one of five top officials whose combined compensation totals $1.12 million.

Category: Crime, Unions

SCOAMF Scandal: Investigation of Obama’s Solyndra Cronies Continues

Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 27 Comments

Big trouble with Obama’s “green energy” scam buddies:

Federal agents have expanded their examination of the now-bankrupt California solar power company Solyndra, searching the homes of the company’s CEO and two of its executives, examining computer files and documents, iWatch News and ABC News have learned.
Agents visited the homes of CEO Brian Harrison and company founder Chris Gronet and a former executive . . .
The raid and visits come amid increasing evidence the Justice Department and Inspector General are exploring whether Solyndra misled the government in securing its $535 million loan in 2009 . . .
Members of Congress leading a House investigation of the DOE loan have focused specifically on visits Solyndra CEO Harrison made to Washington in July, when he said the company was on sound footing and expanding.

Here’s the ABC News video report:

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Instapundit highlights the tight connection between Solyndra and the Obama administration: “Officials from the Department of Energy have for months been sitting in on board meetings as ‘observers’ at Solyndra, getting an up-close view as the solar energy company careened towards bankruptcy after spending more than $500 million in federal loan money.”

Ace of Spades has more on the Solyndra scandal, including this bit of relevant information:

According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged.
George Kaiser, who has in the past been labeled a major Solyndra investor as well as a Obama donor, made three visits to the White House on March 12, 2009, and one on March 13

What did Obama know and when did he know it?

Category: Barack Obama, Crime, Scandal

Tough Talk, But Who Will Campaign On Eliminating The TSA?

Posted on | September 9, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Libertarian Republican echoes The Hill quoting Ron Paul from the GOP debate on TSA thuggery:

Texas Congressman Ron Paul let it rip on TSA abuses of airline passengers (via TheHill):
“If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents,” he continued. “Unfortunately in this case, the perpetrators are armed federal agents.”

It is Obama-esque to talk vaguely about cutting the need to cut spending. Until we’re backing candidates offering specific discussion of which acronyms to elide from the federal budget, it’s not much more than posturing.

Let’s keep up the pressure on these politicians to recover the country from the Euro-weeny pit, people. Homo bureaucratus must not prevail.

Category: Ron Paul
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