Archive for category Justice
Public Employee Unions Strangle Governments and Numb Public Employees
Posted by Tom in Economics, Employment, Justice, State Finances, Unions on January 7, 2012
Reno Nevada cannot afford to staff five of its fire stations because of crippling union compensation, bloated benefits, top heavy command structure and make-work work rules. This is only one example of how public employee unions are strangling the communities that they are hired to serve. This is one small example that is replicated throughout each community and state in the nation. Unfunded union benefits alone–a time bomb waiting to explode–are Three Trillion Dollars nationwide.
The sad truth is that there is no justification for public employee unions in the first place. The system that tolerates them is dark and unjust existing only for (i) the benefit of the politicians dependent on union contributions and support to get themselves elected, (ii) the union bosses that get power and wealth from their members, and (iii) the few deadwood employees who would fail in any competitive environment and are dependent on union seniority to remain on the public payroll. Excellence is not even mentioned, mediocrity is the norm.
Also true, the good, dedicated, high-preforming public workers are held back by the same unions that claim to represent them. Performance bonuses that could otherwise be available to reward excellence in performance are nonexistent. Seniority governs, holding back the top performers. This disincentive enforces mediocrity, the stuff of a declining society. Likewise the union members really have no voice. The cliques supporting the union bosses pressure conformity. If work slowdowns are called for, work slowdowns are socially enforced. Then, there is the lack of political choice in where political contributions generated from the pockets of public employees from their union dues go. In essence, they are paying for incompetent political leadership but have no choice in the matter. Finally, there is the false promise of retirement benefits which, because of the incompetent political leadership, will not be available to them on retirement. In short, the public employee union members are used for short term gain by others.
There is a critical difference between private sector unions and public sector unions, PRIVATE SECTOR UNIONS ARE SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF THE MARKETPLACE. PUBLIC UNIONS ARE A MONOPOLY WITHOUT MARKET COMPETITION.
This fact is lost on the voting public. Private unions work for companies that compete in the marketplace. If their demands are too exorbitant in terms of wages, benefits or work rules, their employer will lose business to it competition. If the employer loses enough business, the employees lose their jobs. So a competitive market forces parties to be reasonable and respond to market conditions; in short, to excel in their jobs.
In the public union case, the government by definition is a monopoly free from competition. There is no market in which it must compete. Governments are by definition inefficient necessities in society. If their workers are allowed to unionize and collectively bargain for wages and benefits, there is no check or balance on their ability to extort increases, security, tenure, etc. A strike, walkout or slowdown creates a situation where there are no substitute government services. No competition.
A public union labor negotiation, is really no negotiation at all. The ritual of collective bargaining in the public union case is just a union boss talking to the incompetent politician who was elected with the help of the union dues. This incestuous relationship is driving our states, counties and cities to the brink of bankruptcy. It is dis-economic at its core.
Public employee unions perpetrate a fraud not only on the unsuspecting public but on the public employees themselves. We all lose with this unjust, uneconomic system.
Time for a change!
Class Warfare: Politics of Victimhood
Posted by Tom in Democrats, Economics, Entitlements, Justice, National Character, Socialism, Welfare on August 6, 2011
Barack Hussein Obama is the master of class warfare; his background is community organizing, pitting sub class against sub class and class against class. As such he doesn’t relate to all classes, his politics are dependent on his ability to divide and thus to create more dependency, pushing victimhood, resentment and class warfare.
Kyle Meintzer alerts us to this in Bill Whittle’s video Rich man, poor man?. Bill uses Heritage Foundation data to show that while the rich get richer, the “poor” get richer also. In fact, the definition of poor is suspect. But Obama and the Democrats need to expand the definition of poor just to keep up with those becoming non-poor, and this, just to buy votes. Enough said, here’s the video:
A British View of Osama’s Assination
Posted by Tom in Foreign Policy, Humor, Justice, Military Policy, Terrorism on May 20, 2011
Pat Condell on OBL’s untimely demise:
John Stewart on Gitmo Capitulation
Posted by Tom in Humor, Justice, Political Correctness, Politics on March 10, 2011
John Stewart: The Daily Show on liberals…..fair and balanced?
Immorality At Its Highest
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Justice, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character, National Debt on January 27, 2011
Consider the $14 Trillion in national debt. Now consider the $1.5 Trillion U.S. budget deficit that will increase it this year and the like sized deficits in future years. Now consider the $140 Billion plus in state budget deficits and hundreds of billions in state and municipal debt. Finally, consider the $3.1 Trillion in the unfunded liabilities of the several states and the $53 Trillion in unfunded liabilities of the federal government.
Now who is benefiting from all that money? Who has benefited from all that money?
OK, now who will repay all that deficit generated debt and all those over-promised unfunded liabilities?
That’s right, future generations will pay. Your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will pay. They will pay for what you have used! For what you have become entitled to! For your welfare! For your retirement and medical care!
DOES THIS STRIKE YOU AS IMMORAL?
In short, this generation is stealing from the next generations. And it is reaping benefits that the next generations will not enjoy. And it is obligating those generations to pay for our benefits.
This is absolutely wrong, immorality at the highest level. And, does our president attack this or suggest reform? No he merely wants to freeze this immorality in place at the high levels he had promoted!
Justices Ignoring the Constitution
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Federalism, Individual Freedom, Judiciary, Justice, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, Legal, National Character, Supreme Court on December 19, 2010
What to do about judicial legislation? About justices that ignore the constitution? Doug Bandow posted and excellent article in American Spectator, Does the Constitution Mean Anything? He recites the circumstances of the drafting and ratification of the establishment document, namely the restriction of the type of unlimited powers exercised by the king and parliament against the colonies and the people. It was natural then that the founders drafted a structure dividing government between branches, each with its own domain, and each having a check on the others so that power was in fact divided. Thus a balanced central government was created. But not one of general police powers. No, the federal government was one of limited powers, specifically enumerated limited powers. The general power governments were the states. Thus the states possessed the so-call “police power.” The constitution specifically reserves powers not delegated by it to the federal government, to the states or the people.
Realizing that changes may later be needed, the founding fathers provided for a couple of different processes for amending the constitution. There have been 27 amendments to the document none conferring additional power on the central government.
Bandow goes over the various theories by which judges and justices try to get around this basic governing document which they have foresworn to defend and uphold. Theories of “living constitution,” or “dynamic constitution” or “time is right” for changes that the founders would have drafted if they thought of them, are all part of the judicial tap dance used to deny the validity of the constitution.
He suggests that it is not judicial “activism” that is the sin: ”Originalists” of varying stripes have tended to criticize judicial “activism,” but activism is not the problem. Lack of fidelity to the Constitution is the problem.”
He correctly analyses the current constitutional issues on the Obamacare insurance mandate and then posits the real value of his post, a potential solution to recalcitrant judges short of impeachment, itself a non-remedy.
“GIVEN THE TENDENCY of judges to ignore law and constitution, one helpful fix would be to end life tenure for justices. Intended to protect judicial independence, this provision creates a dangerous and disconnected elite that will always be tempted to overstep its role. Better to appoint judges for a term, perhaps ten years. Rotation in office would still insulate jurists from political passions while limiting the concentration and abuse of power by the judiciary. Errant jurists would naturally leave the bench rather than forever wield unconstrained power — becoming liberal saints along the way.”
While this is perhaps not the only solution to the problem, it seems a sensible one. Perhaps others will be constructed, but this at least causes us to ponder the problem and think about potential solutions.
The issue is important for, “If constitutional protections are but formless inkblots, then no American is truly safe from his or her government.”
Obama & Holder Get Their Wish: Terrorist Goes Free
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Defense, Justice, Terrorism on November 18, 2010
As suggested in my October post, Obama and Holder do not want Gitmo terrorists to suffer justice. They want them to go free. They try them in civilian courts so that the civilian rules of evidence and the constitutional protections accorded citizens will apply to these killer.
Yesterday, they got the desired result with one Ahmed Ghallani the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court. Recall this is the follow that helped with the 1998 US embassy bombing. He was acquitted on all but one of the 285 charges against him.
The New York Post article, Terror-trial travesty, tells the story:
“After all, on the merits, the evidence against Ghailani was overwhelming:
* He helped buy the truck that carried the bomb in the attack on the embassy in Tanzania.
* A detonator was linked to him.
* A key witness had told authorities that he sold Ghailani the explosives.
Indeed, Ghailani practically confessed to his role in the affair himself. But his statements weren’t introduced at trial.
Defense lawyers had argued that Ghailani’s disclosures were inadmissible because they were coerced — and prosecutors were loath to risk having their entire case tossed by the judge.
Under normal circumstances, that’s fine. But this case involved a foreigner making war on America.”
In other words this is an enemy combatant, a foreigner who is not entitled to US constitutional rights including a civilian trial; he is entitled to a military tribunal.
The Post article also included a wonderful picture of Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States.
Would you buy a used car from this man?
Soros Buys Judges….It’s so much cheaper than legislatures!
Interesting example of the judicial merit selection process is highlighted in the Weekend WSJ, Iowa’s Total Recall. It describes Iowa voters total rejection of the three state supreme court justices up for “retention” in an election under that state’s Missouri-like non-partisan court plan. This is a plan like the one George Soros was pushing in Nevada in which judges are appointed by the governor after being recommended by a pannel of lawyers then years later are “retained” or “recalled” by the voters.
Seems that the Iowa voters didn’t cotton to the unanimous supreme court ruling that overturned a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Let’s see, Iowa has been a state since 1846, that’s 163 years. In that time there have been numerous decisions related to marriage and never before has there been any question about what marriage is. The common sense voters recognize this so it natural that they resent an unelected court legislating something different.
Of course, the liberals howled at this “misuse of the judicial retention vote” in which all three justices on the ballot were fired. In reality it was the voters expressing rejection of judicial activism, judicial legislation.
Now Nevada voters should take pride in their sound rejection of Soros’ similar plan for Nevada. Nevada will still elect its judges, something the lawyers don’t like. The lawyers would much prefer a back room group of them picking the judicial candidates for the governor’s appointment. I would much prefer a public election where the public can see what’s going on and who is donating to whom.
Ya see, lawyers are smarter than we unwashed masses, particularly trial lawyers. They like to control legislatures so there are no limits placed on damages or on their contingency fees. This is the reason medical malpractice insurance premiums are so high. This is on reasen the costs of medical services are so high.
Now Obama and the Democrats get money from the trial lawyers, a lot of money. So you will note well that Obamacare has no caps or limits on medical malpractice damages or legal fees related thereto. Thus, one of the great cost generators in medical service delivery today, defensive medicine, continues unabated. All this thanks to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.
Soros’s motivation for sponsoring “Justice at Stake” is simply to promote more liberal, progressive judicial legislation. Where he can’t own the Republican controlled state legislatures, he can have another leftist vehicle if he can own the state courts. Nevada voters should take pride in rejecting Soros’s attempt to buy the judges using the trial lawyers as “superior voters.”
DOJ Wants Foreign Interpretation of U.S. Constitution
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Immigration, Judiciary, Justice, Legal, Presidency on October 28, 2010
Not only is Obama’s Department of Justice corrupt in voter fraud cases which it should prosecute but won’t, but it now doesn’t object to foreign countries advancing arguments to interpret the U.S. Constitution in its suit against a State of the Union!
One more example of how un-American Obama and Holder really are!
Scott Bullock’s Presentation
Posted by Tom in Justice, Legal, National Character on October 26, 2010
For those who missed the dinner Tuesday, here are the segments of Scott Bullock’s presentation on his work at the Institute of Justice. Warning: Long Video.