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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (602655)	3/7/2011 7:09:47 AM
From: Brumar89	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576885

Democrats don't believe in democracy these days.

To: tejek who wrote (602655)	3/7/2011 7:18:57 AM
From: jlallen	2 Recommendations Respond to of 1576885

Hey dumbfukk, read and learn. 4 Recommendations of 101129 Walker has a strong case on the fiscal merits. The cost of state employees' benefits has skyrocketed in tandem with the rising power of public employees' unions. It has become a perverse and semicorrupt arrangement: the unions raise millions from dues, which are then used to elect labor-friendly politicians who cave at the contract-negotiating table, especially on long-term employment deals, whose cost really begins to crush the state or city budget in the years after the agreeable politician has left office. This is where public-sector unions lack the moral authority of their private-sector brethren. When the United Steelworkers negotiate with a steel company, they don't also control the company's board of directors. Few Americans understand how the public-employee-union money machine works. Many unionized state and local public workers have their dues automatically deducted from their paychecks. On average, a teacher in Wisconsin pays more than $1,000 per year to the union (from an average salary of $51,264). A decent chunk of this money is used to fund political activities. That doesn't mean just making contributions. It also means running lavish independent ad campaigns in support of their chosen candidates and against their opponents. Even Democratic candidates who oppose union priorities can face massively funded negative campaigns targeting them in primaries. Engaging in such well-funded political activity is the unions' right, of course, but their immense financial power means they are bringing a machine gun to a fistfight. Can rank-and-file employees opt out of their unions' political spending? They can, but they have to ask for that exemption, and few do. The system is set up to allow the unions' political barons to easily skim big money from dues with very little member involvement. Under Walker's proposal, employees have to opt into their union and its dues every year; nothing is automatic. Union leaders fear that few rank-and-file members would do so, and their political machines would quickly grind to a halt. And if Walker wins his battle in Wisconsin, it could become a game changer for the GOP as other states follow suit. This brutal battle of political realpolitik is why both sides in Madison are dug in deep, hanging from the rafters of the Wisconsin state capitol and vowing to fight to the death. National labor and interest groups are funding TV ads trying to push public opinion in Wisconsin to one side or the other. (Disclosure: I work with a communications firm doing some of the pro-Walker ads. I also belong to a union affiliated with the AFL-CIO.) Both sides have polls showing they are winning, but the ground truth is murkier. Walker is prevailing in the argument over the budget. But the unions have cleverly begun to defend what they call the right of collective bargaining. That move is as politically effective as it is factually dubious. Collective bargaining for public employees didn't begin to gain strength until the 1960s, when growing union power (and Democratic statehouses) conspired to adopt it. Two generations later, only 26 states allow collective bargaining for most public employees, and this "right" has largely not been extended to federal workers. Like all political battles, the Wisconsin fight will come down to numbers. I'm betting on Walker. He has the votes. Read more: time.com

To: tejek who wrote (602655)	3/7/2011 8:47:24 AM
From: jlallen	2 Recommendations Respond to of 1576885

The consequences of ObamaCare • More than half the states—28 and counting—are challenging the law in court, saying that it violates the constitutional rights of their citizens and the sovereignty of the states. A new study from the Senate Finance and House Energy and Commerce Committees found that as a result of ObamaCare, budget-strapped states face at least $118 billion in unfunded mandates during the first 10 years after the law takes effect. • Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has handed out nearly 1,000 waivers to allow select companies, unions and states to escape, at least temporarily, some of the burdensome new insurance rules she has created. This is a continuation of the trend of the "Cornhusker Kickback" and the "Louisiana Purchase" that Senate Democrats used to get the law passed in the first place, and that so disgusted the American people. .• Independent experts have shown that the cost of health insurance will rise faster than it would have without the law. The Congressional Budget Office expects the price of a family policy in the individual market to be $2,100 higher by 2016 than it would have been had the law not passed. In at least 20 states, it's now impossible to buy child-only health insurance because of Ms. Sebelius's onerous new rules. • Seniors are at risk of losing access to physicians and medical care. Medicare actuaries say that the cuts built into the law will force as many as 40% of providers to eventually stop seeing Medicare patients or go bankrupt. • Many thousands of people are already losing the health insurance they have now as companies are exiting markets for individual, small group and Medicare Advantage coverage. • The former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, says that the costs of ObamaCare are set to explode when employers opt to drop coverage and send their workers to the new, federally subsidized health exchanges for coverage. He estimates that this will drive up the cost of the law by $1 trillion or more in the first 10 years. The list goes on and on. It's time to stop the ObamaCare madness before it becomes another entrenched entitlement program. online.wsj.com

To: tejek who wrote (602655)	3/7/2011 9:40:08 AM
From: bentway	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576885

Fox News Might Dump Glenn Beck RATINGS DROP AS VIEWERS TURN BACK ON DEPRESSING TALK By Mark Russell, Newser Staff newser.com Posted Mar 7, 2011 3:28 AM CST \| Updated Mar 7, 2011 7:19 AM CST (NEWSER) – The Glenn Beck phenomenon has been, well, phenomenal since the "conjurer of conspiracies" made his Fox debut in 2009, turning the once the moribund 5pm time slot into a ratings juggernaut. "But a funny thing happened on the way to the revolution," writes David Carr for the New York Times—those amazing ratings have suddenly nosedived, with Beck losing 30% of his viewers since August. And now Fox News executives "are willing to say—anonymously, of course ... that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without" Beck. "The problem with 'Glenn Beck' is that it has turned into a serial doomsday machine that’s a bummer to watch," writes Carr. Beck, alone in the studio, surrounded by cluttered chalkboards, "reminds me of an undergrad seminar on macroeconomics with an around-the-bend professor I didn’t particularly enjoy." Of course, even a declining Beck gets numbers most broadcasting pundits could only dream of, and he would probably do fine without Fox—he raked in some $30 million last year in revenue from books, talk radio show, stage performances, and other content.