Union Workers Replaced With Prison Labor Under Scott Walker’s Collective Bargaining Law
While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state.
Appearing on a national cable TV show viewed by some 269,000 people, Walker said the state’s largest structural deficit had come two years earlier, under his Democratic predecessor. He was off by seven years and a political party. We rate his statement False.
“Between the second quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010, real national income in the U.S. increased by $528 billion. Pre-tax corporate profits by themselves had increased by $464 billion while aggregate real wages and salaries rose by only $7 billion or only .1%. Over this six quarter period, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of the growth in real national income. …The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented.”
Full Transcript. Excerpt Below:
Q There is some question about the constitutionality of the War Powers Act.
THE PRESIDENT: I’m just saying I don’t have to reach it. That’s a good legal answer.
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: Let me start by saying that this administration, under my direction, has consistently said we cannot discriminate as a country against people on the basis of sexual orientation. And we have done more in the two and a half years that I’ve been in here than the previous 43 Presidents to uphold that principle, whether it’s ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” making sure that gay and lesbian partners can visit each other in hospitals, making sure that federal benefits can be provided to same-sex couples. Across the board — hate crimes — we have made sure that that is a central principle of this administration, because I think it’s a central principle of America.
Now, what we’ve also done is we’ve said that DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, is unconstitutional. And so we’ve said we cannot defend the federal government poking its nose into what states are doing and putting the thumb on the scale against same-sex couples.
What I’ve seen happen over the last several years, and what happened in New York last week I think was a good thing, because what you saw was the people of New York having a debate, talking through these issues. It was contentious; it was emotional; but, ultimately, they made a decision to recognize civil marriage. And I think that’s exactly how things should work.
And so I think it is — I think it is important for us to work through these issues — because each community is going to be different and each state is going to be different — to work through them. In the meantime, we filed a — we filed briefs before the Supreme Court that say we think that any discrimination against gays, lesbians, transgenders is subject to heightened scrutiny, and we don’t think that DOMA is unconstitutional [sic]. And so I think the combination of what states are doing, what the courts are doing, the actions that we’re taking administratively, all are how the process should work.
Q Are you at all uncomfortable that there could be different rules in different states, you know, and for somebody to make the argument that’s what we saw during segregation –
THE PRESIDENT: Chuck, I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out. It’s not going to be perfectly smooth, and it turns out that the President — I’ve discovered since I’ve been in this office — can’t dictate precisely how this process moves. But I think we’re moving in a direction of greater equality and I think that’s a good thing.
This is why she's a flake. Bachmann is charlatan who's made a career of saying anything that would promote her political ambitions:
SCHIEFFER: I want to ask you about something else. A lot of your critics say you have been very fast and loose with the truth.
You know, the PolitiFact, which is a website that won a Pulitzer, did an analysis of 23 statements that you made recently. Of these 23, only one they said was completely true. Seven they call "pants on fire" kind of falsehoods. Four were "barely true" and two were "half- true."
- I wonder who was doing the sabotaging. It's disputes like this could end up dragging us all into a world war.
Gaza activists say ship sabotaged in Greece http://bit.ly/iwf6mM Shared with News Republic (http://us.news-republic.com)
The NLRB is looking into whether Boeing chose to establish a manufacturing plant for its new 787 airliner in South Carolina to punish its unionized workers in Everett, Wash., which would be illegal. But the board is months, if not years, away from making any such determination or taking any concrete action against Boeing. An administrative law judge convened a hearing June 14, but thus far has heard not a single word of testimony.
The failure of our leaders to offer realistic budget proposals was a major reason I decided to retire after 28 years in Congress, most of them as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees. My party talks a good game, railing about the immorality of passing debt on to our children. But the same Congressional Budget Office that punctured Obama's budget also concluded that the major policies that swung the budget from a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion in 2001 to the present 10-year deficit of $6.2 trillion were Republican in origin.
Bernie Sanders is the greatest champion of working people in the Congress. This video proves it once again.
Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota didn't exactly accept an apology from Fox News' Chris Wallace following an interaction she felt was "insulting" on "Fox News Sunday." Wallace asked Bachmann "Are you a flake?" in a Sunday interview and later apologized via web video.
Flood berm bursts at Neb. nuclear plant
CNN TOP STORIES | JUNE 26, 2011
http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/as73RL22HwU/index.html
A water-filled berm protecting a nuclear power plant in Nebraska from rising floodwaters collapsed Sunday, according to a ... read more
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Nighttime or violent TV tied to tots' sleep woes (AP)
YAHOO NEWS | JUNE 27, 2011
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/pulse/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110627/ap_on_he_me/us_med_tv_and_sleep
AP - If your preschooler can't sleep — turn off the violence and nighttime TV. read more
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Spectacular discoveries in New Guinea (AFP)
YAHOO NEWS | JUNE 27, 2011
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/pulse/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110627/sc_afp/pngindonesiapapuabiodiversityenvironmentwwf
AFP - A frog with fangs, a blind snake and a round-headed dolphin are among more than 1,000 new species recently found on the ... read more
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Chaos in Yemen Creates Opening for Islamist Gangs
THE NEW YORK TIMES | JUNE 27, 2011
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e9728ce24e18bc9d206e791a42e66327
The port city of Aden is now surrounded by roving gangs who have captured at least two towns, stormed prisons and looted banks ... read more
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The outside role a small number of extremely wealthy donors is playing in the run up to the 2012 elections is highlighted by the first early finance reports of the new campaign cycle filed late last week by two so-called "super PACs " — political groups that can raise unlimited amounts from individuals, corporations and labor unions.
As the Minnesota Republican kicks off her run for the presidential nomination, she responds to a Los Angeles Times report about federal money that went to her family's farm and her husband's counseling clinic.Rep. Michele Bachmann deflected allegations Sunday that she and her immediate family had benefited from government assistance despite her demands to cut the federal budget, saying hundreds of thousands of dollars for her family farm and a counseling clinic went to employees and her in-laws.
