Barney Worries Bankruptcy Would Bust Unions

Barney Frank favors bailing out the Detroit automakers over letting them go into bankruptcy. Chief among his concerns is that bankruptcy might "bust" the unions. You know, those organizations whose contract demands have put Detroit on the brink of extinction:

There is also an assumption that if you do bankruptcy, you could undo labor contracts. Now the unions to their credit have negotiated some concessions. But you know, we already have too much union-busting and too much income inequality for the average worker in this country for us to now say by the way, if you're a company and you haven't been able to totally get rid of the unions, then go bankrupt and rewrite, write down the contracts.

As our sister organization CNS has reported, "it costs over $73 per hour on average to employ a union auto worker." That compares to an average of about $43/hour for the non-union workers of the Japanese automakers with operations in the US.

Some "concessions." Will the MSM highlight that disparity?

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China denies attempting to get US space data

China on Tuesday denied it had illicitly sought technical data for space launch vehicles from the US, after a physicist from Virginia pleaded guilty to illegally exporting the information to China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang dismissed the case. ''The so-called (allegation) of China stealing space technology from the United States is sheer nonsense,'' Qin told a regular news briefing.

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Port of Los Angeles security under control of Chinese President’s son

The Port of Los Angeles--the nation’s largest--has purchased with $1.7 million American tax dollars via a “port security grant” awarded by the U.S. Department of Homeland security, a mobile X-ray scanning system made by Nuctech Company Limited, owned outright by Hu Haifeng, the son of Chinese President Hu Jintao.


Critics of the transaction raise the specter of sensitive X-ray images and cargo manifests being archived on the X-ray scanning system and transmitted via the Internet back to Nuctech in China, or to the Chinese government. Indeed, the mobile system was required to offer that technical capability from the get-go.

“The bid that included the Nuctech scanner, which was cheaper than rival bids submitted by Smiths Detection in New Jersey, and Rapiscan Systems, of Torrance, CA, was formally submitted to the port by a small U.S.-based business headquartered in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, known as DULY Research Inc.” “We were cognizant of the fact that we were the first port to acquire this Chinese system,” said George Cummings, the port’s director of homeland security. “They were the low bidder and they complied with all the technical requirements.”

It’s been two years since the Dubai Ports fiasco was last on the public radar screen. During the high profile Dubai Ports debacle, those who opposed the sale of American ports to Dubai, vowed that no foreign government would be permitted to acquire such strategic targets in future.

The Port of Los Angeles is not only one of them, it’s the biggest of the lot.

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8 Muslims settle skirt dispute with UPS

Eight Muslim women who filed a human rights complaint against the United Parcel Service (UPS) over a dress code dispute, settled with the company yesterday. But it is unclear whether the company will change its policy, since neither party would discuss the terms of the agreement.
The women, all devout Muslims, lost their jobs in 2005 because they refused to hike their skirts above the knee over their long pants.
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Phoenix Imam Tells Muslims To Disregard U.S. Laws

“A Muslim must try his best to abide by the rulings of Sharia [Islamic law] whenever possible as much as he can. He should not allow himself to be liable to those western laws that contradict the clear-cut Islamic rulings.”
But the speaker was not some fanatic Wahhabi in Saudi Arabia; it was the Phoenix-based imam Omar Shahin, president of the North American Imams Foundation...
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Farrakhan says 'new beginning' for Nation of Islam

CHICAGO – The Nation of Islam, a secretive movement generally closed to outsiders, has planned a rare open-to-the public event at its Chicago-based headquarters in what the Minister Louis Farrakhan deemed a "new beginning" for the group. Hundreds of religious leaders have been invited to the event planned for Sunday, a rededication of the group's historic Mosque Maryam on the city's South Side.
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Moscow flexes muscle in Ukraine

KIEV — Armed with petrodollars and success in restoring control over two enclaves in the Caucasus, Russia is increasing political pressure on Ukraine and trying to dampen its aspirations for NATO membership and closer ties with the West.

Moscow has tried to raise the stakes by having state-run Russian media accuse Mr. Yushchenko of selling arms to Georgia, which in August lost its provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Russian troops in a brief war.

Mr. Yushchenko and his supporters say Moscow has distributed Russian passports to ethnic Russians in the Crimea and has sought an alliance with Yushchenko rival Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

"Russia will do whatever it can to destabilize Ukraine," said Danylo Yanevsky, director of research at Kiev´s Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy. "It needs to ruin Ukraine for its own survival."

If Russia succeeds in boosting the number of Russian citizens in Crimea, it will have achieved the geopolitical equivalent of ballot-stuffing," Peter Dickinson, editor of Kiev-based Business Ukraine magazine, wrote recently.

[same play book as Georgia. same ending? Believe me, we've a vested interest...]

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Russian Hopes Obama’s Win Will Warm Relations

President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia expressed hope Saturday that President-elect Barack Obama’s election would improve relations that have soured under President Bush, but he remained unwavering on the issues that have most starkly divided the countries in recent years.

All Barack Obama need do to improve relations with Russia is capitulate to their desires across the board. What could be easier? He wouldn't want to be seen as unpopular in Europe now would he?

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We are actually heading towards a new Ice Age, claim scientists

A taste of the future: Plunging temperatures around Britain created
dramatic 2-ft icicles over Sleightholme River in County Durham

It has plagued scientists and politicians for decades, but scientists now say global warming is not the problem. We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim. British and Canadian experts warned the big freeze could bury the east of Britain in 6,000ft of ice.

Most of Scotland, Northern Ireland and England could be covered in 3,000ft-thick ice fields.

The expanses could reach 6,000ft from Aberdeen to Kent – towering above Ben Nevis, Britain’s tallest mountain. [snip]

The warning, published in the authoritative journal Nature, is based on records of tiny marine fossils and the earth’s shifting orbit...

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GREENS SPELL PROGRESS R-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N

[HT:BW]
The United Nations says the 40 signatories to the Kyoto treaty have, on average, cut their CO2 emissions to 5 percent below their levels of 1990 -- just meeting the goals for 2008 to 2012. So on the surface, it could look like growing economies are cutting their immissions - but that would be deceiving. As the publication the New Scientist noted, "Much of the 17 percent drop is a consequence of the economic downturn of eastern and central European nations in the 1990s."

"Downturn" is too polite a term. [snip] This economic implosion led to a 37 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions among the so-called "economies in transition", while their economies contracted 43 percent. In other words, it took a regional depression for Kyoto to meet its goals.

What has really happened is that major industrial economies aren't reducing their so-called greenhouse gas emissions at all.

Indeed, the industrial economies excluding the former communist ones have actually increased greenhouse gas output by 9.9 percent since 1990. Supposed "progress" in meeting the Kyoto limits is an [intentional] illusion.

The Eastern European economies had to basically collapse in order to help the world meet its Kyoto goals. That's what it would take in the United States, too.

[the real goal of Kyoto]

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[HT:NB.org]

WHY GOVERNMENT SPENDING DOES NOT STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH

In a throwback to the 1930s and 1970s, Democratic lawmakers are betting that America's economic ills can be cured by an extraordinary expansion of government... [snip]

This is not the first time government expansions have failed to produce economic growth. Massive spending hikes in the 1930s, 1960s, and 1970s all failed to increase economic growth rates. Yet in the 1980s and 1990s -- when the federal government shrank by one-fifth as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) -- the U.S. economy enjoyed its great est expansion to date.

Cross-national comparisons yield the same result. The U.S. government spends significantly less than the 15 pre-2004 European Union nations, and yet enjoys 40 percent larger per capita GDP, 50 percent faster economic growth rates, and a substantially lower unemployment rate. [snip]

... Government spending fails to stimulate economic growth because every dollar Congress "injects" into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. Thus, government spending "stimulus" merely redistributes existing income, doing nothing to increase productivity or employment, and therefore nothing to create additional income...

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THE HIDDEN COSTS OF SINGLE PAYER HEALTH INSURANCE

Canada\'s government monopoly, single-payer health care system is one of the worst ways to achieve universal health insurance coverage and Americans should avoid adopting a similar system, concludes a new study from the Fraser Institute.

Researchers found that health care in Canada appears to cost less because relative to the United States, Canadian public health insurance does not cover many advanced medical treatments and technologies, common medical resources are in short supply, and access to health care is often severely delayed.:

• Government data shows an estimated 1.7 million Canadians (aged 12 and older) were unable to access a regular family physician in 2007.
• The actual number of "effectively" uninsured Americans is less than half of the figure usually reported and that being uninsured is usually only a temporary condition.
• On average, Americans spend more of their incomes on health care but they get better access to superior medical resources, and the United States outscored Canada on key indicators of available health care resources.

The study concludes that both Canada and the United States should look to countries such as Switzerland or the Netherlands, where the government is not in the business of providing health or drug insurance at all.

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FOR WHOM THE SCHOOL BELL TOLLS

We can't meaningfully address poverty or grow the economy as long as urban schools are failing. Therefore, the most effective anti-poverty program we could devise for the long run would have less to do with income redistribution than with ensuring that poor kids get a first-rate education.

... the problem with American education is not the good schools, it's the bad schools, but there are ways to boost weak schools;

1) End rigid requirements for teacher certification,
2) End tenure so that ineffective teachers can be weeded out and
3) Award hefty bonuses to good teachers willing to teach in low-income areas.
4) Universal Vouchers unencumbered by any public schools system administration*.

If we want outstanding, inspiring teachers in difficult classrooms, we're going to have to pay much more, and it would be a bargain...

[* I'm sure they meant to include it]

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Who’ll Help Students Pay for College?

“Student Loans Start to Bypass 2-Year Colleges” (front page, June 2) discussed how turmoil in the student lending market is causing anxiety for consumers, especially those attending community colleges.

[our education racket is detrimental to the nation - we need an internet based education system to compete with it and take money largely out of the equation for those with the gumption to learn]

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Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid on Jonestown

Thirty years ago today more than 900 followers of Jim Jones committed "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid. *SNIP* On November 17, 1978, Jim Jones was a hero to American leftists.

On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the killings of 918 people and strangely morphed in the eyes of American leftists into an evangelical Christian fanatic... [snip]

Jim Jones was an evangelical communist who became a minister to infiltrate the church with the gospel according to Marx and Lenin. He was an atheist missionary bringing his message of socialist redemption to the Christian heathen. Remembered Jones of his days in 1950s Indiana:

"I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."

It's worth remembering that before the people of Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones's Kool-Aid, the leftist political establishment of San Francisco gulped it down. And without the latter, the former would have never happened.

[revisionist history revisited - Recommended > ]

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Unions' Creepy Push Against Secret Ballot

The first campaign promise Barack Obama should break is to push through the Employee Free Choice Act. That harmless sounding piece of legislation would let union organizers do an end run around secret-ballot elections: Companies would have to recognize a union if most workers signed cards in support of it.

We're not children here. We know how those majorities can be reached. There's repeated harassment, bullying and more inventive tactics, such as getting workers drunk, then sliding sign-up cards under their noses. Meanwhile, any strong-armed tactics by employers can be dealt with

Former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, a pro-labor liberal, has come out against the so-called card-check provision. He calls it "disturbing and undemocratic."

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Schwarzenegger wants to trim Calif.'s 14 holidays

California [HT:JK]
Sacramento, Calif. - California's generous offering of holidays for state workers - the equivalent of nearly three work weeks - is among the items Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking to trim to help counter a mounting budget deficit. Lincoln's Birthday and Columbus Day would get the ax under a proposal the governor's administration estimates will save $114 million during this fiscal year and the next one starting in July.

[they're spending over 100 billion dollars a year - and this is what our governor focuses on]

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On CNN Reliable Sources, Sarah 'Was a Real Drag on the Ticket'

The election is over, but quite clearly the Palin Derangement Syndrome suffered by many in the mainstream media isn't. This morning's CNN Reliable Sources was typical. Joining host Howard Kurtz to discuss Sarah Palin were Beth Fouhy, an Associated Press political reporter, Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, and Julie Mason, the Washington Examiner's White House correspondent. Mason opined: "I don't think she helped herself at all this past week. I think she actually probably made it worse." [? - snip]

There are polls and then there are polls. Fouhy could have mentioned the exit poll cited by the Pew Research Center: "Yet those who cited Palin's selection as a factor in their vote -- 60% of all voters -- favored McCain by 56% to 43%." Or she could have noted the Rasmussen poll taken after the election that found: "Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency. . ." ... Even the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote today of how Sarah Palin helped the GOP ticket.. [snip]

On CNN, Reliable Sources aren't so reliable. Democratic partisans masquerading as objective reporters aren't satisfied merely to have helped put Obama in the White House. They now need to damage Sarah Palin's political future.

[it's the old ploy: the media-left giving the right 'advice' - it's how McCain got the nomination in the first place, and many republicans in Washington look to be duped by them again re: the party's need to 'moderate'. Me, I'm sticking with Sarah - she's exactly what this country needs - an un-corrupt politician - from there real change can be made.]

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''Intellectuals''

Among the many wonders to be expected from an Obama administration, if Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times is to be believed, is ending ''the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life.'' (Snip) Intellectuals, according to Mr. Kristof, are people who are ''interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity,'' people who ''read the classics.''

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry

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[HT:GC]