Railroaded Unions (The New Afghanistan Fiasco)

Stop that Train
I wanna get on

Famously, and incorrectly, it was claimed at least Mussolini made the trains run on time.  Much like his ideological descendent Trump this was a bit of fascist propaganda and the truth was Il Duce lackey's told him things to keep him placated.

The United States House of Representatives voted today 290-137 to avert a December 9th railway strike and impose the compromise contract previously brokered by President Biden's  emergency board led by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh President Administration between the Unions and Railroads. 

Railroads and workers in America are an outlier in modern American labor.  It was no accident, the vicious Ayn Rand choose a railway as the business her female protagonist owns.  Rand pined for the days of the rapacious billionaire, the consolidation of businesses and the power they had over workers was untrammeled and resulted in brutal Wage Slavery until those evil government bureaucrats interfered with their "anti-trust" laws.  In my Gen-X history classes wedged between the end of the Civil War and the glory of the World Wars was the small section on the glided age of Robber Barrons and the terrible working conditions from children in mines to garment workers and railmen, including stories of linemen, signal maintainers, and engineers getting their arms cut off or mangled by trains and being unceremoniously fired by the Railways.  Murderous working conditions and lack of retirement benefits pushed the FDR administration to pass multiple pieces of legislation separate from the Social Security system in the 1930's.  The Railroad Retirement Board is an independent agency of the Executive Branch of the US Government.

The current situation seems unbelievably ridiculous and a throw back to 19th century working conditions. Currently, railroad workers have no paid sick days and are reportedly terminated if they take a single leave of absence.

But, the CBS news story I highlighted earlier choose to end their story with this quote, "The 'most labor-friendly president in history' has proven that he and the Democratic Party are not the friends of labor they have touted themselves to be," Conductor Gabe Christenson said.  And numerous media pieces seem to focus on President Biden's role in requesting Congress intervene in a shocking attack on Unions and the working man and his role in averting an earlier confrontation by forcing a compromise contract which 4 of the 12 Railroad Unions rejected.

What I could see happening is a repeat of the End of Afghanistan, where the media works overtime to try and pin blame on President Biden.  And then repeatedly calling the Afghanistan pullout a disaster, fiasco, or failure.  Fortunately or sadly, I don't think this will happen because Americans don't really care about railroads or union contracts.  But, it does highlight how Democratic Administrations are often placed in untenable situations by years of neglect and subversion of the Federal Government by Republicans.

Because that is how Republicans operate at the Federal Level.  The GQP has run on a platform of Government doesn't work since at least Ronnie Raygun and when they get into office they undermine the government to proclaim the were right about government not working all along.  So, Democratic Presidents and Congresses find themselves in the thankless task of keeping the trains running by forcing the workers to accept a contract.

But, while Republicans seemingly aren't willing to be seen as halting the trains, the anti-American Republican Party is damn sure against giving workers more sick leave.  Because after the first vote to impose the contract, Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a second vote to provide more sick leave for railroad workers and 207 (out of 213) House Republicans voted no.

Republicans feel confident this vote against workers won't get the media coverage as the Corporate Media tries to push the Biden Hates Unions and working class people narrative.

Trump set to institute Wage Slavery via the NLRB and his Department of Forced Labor

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

More people getting paid for overtime work sounds great, but... Speaker Paul Ryan illustrates how more money for American Workers is bad because when Americans are financially secure they vote for a Democratic Socialist Government but, when reduced to penury by Republican policies they elect reactionary Republicans.

One of the most pernicious lies promulgated about President Obama's tenure was he did nothing for the working class. President Obama's National Labor Relations Board and head of the Department of Labor Tom Perez, increased protections and aggressively defended workers while punishing employers who conducted wage theft.

President Obama and his Labor Department passed regulations changing the ceiling mandating overtime pay but, a Federal Judge in Texas held up the overtime rule back in December. Now, traitor Trump and his Department of Forced Labor will undo it completely as well as undercutting American workers on several other avenues.

Under the President Obama's Department of Labor rules, salaried employees earning less than $47,476 annually would have automatically received overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week, double the current $23,660 ceiling. More than 4 million workers would have earned an estimated extra $12 billion over the next decade. As Vice President Joe Biden correctly noted last year, "It is based on a simple proposition. If you work overtime, you should actually get paid for working overtime."

This, of course, enraged Republicans, who responded with predictable Pavlovian frothing at the mouth fury. Actually, paying workers is antithetical to the Republican Party.  Trump especially doesn't pay people who work for him, as thousands of contractors and former FBI head James Comey found out.

In many ways Traitor Trump, is a bog standard Republican, he hates paying workers and uses the awesome power of the Federal Government to ensure he doesn't have to. The Republican Plan to screw over workers works like this; an employee works 60 hours (20 hours overtime) but instead of being paid time-and-a-half, the 20 hours goes into a bank of compensated time (CT), which theoretically the worker could use as paid time off or as pay at the end of the fiscal year. What really happens is the CT builds up for years and the employee never gets time off and never gets paid.

But, Trump and his Forced Labor Department are just getting started.  In addition, to making overtime an unpaid "benefit" of working in the U.S.  The Department of Forced Labor is also set to do the following:

• Trump's proposed budget includes a 20 percent cut to Labor Department funding, but not all areas as the Office of Labor-Management Standards, which investigates conducts witch hunts against in private-sector unions is set to receive a 22 percent increase.
• Eliminating the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, which barred companies from receiving federal contracts if they had a history of violating wage, labor or workplace safety laws. 
• Rescinding the Persuader rule, which would have required law firms to publicly disclose any work they do for employers surrounding union busting and anti-union organization efforts.
• Curtailing OSHA efforts to improve worker safety by delaying tightened exposure standards for silica, which is often breathed in by certain construction workers and linked to lung disease; and lower workplace exposure limits for beryllium, an industrial mineral linked to lung cancer.

And they are just getting started.  Traitor Trump and the Respublikanskaya Partiya have a message to 99% of Americans; You have No Friend in Government.  Welcome back to the Era of Forced Labor and Slavery.

Joe Biden was right as usual when, in 2012,  he stated, "We got a real clear picture of what they all value. Every Republican's voted for it.  They're going to put y'all back in chains."

Republicans think 99% of Humanity is Disposable

The fight over abortion, contraception, Medicare, Social Security, Wealth Inequality can all be summed up easily:

To the Republican Party the 99% are nothing more than interchangeable parts to be used in the gears of Industry and War and to be disposed of when broken by those Monsters.

You, Mister or Miss Average American, are nothing but a fresh body to be plugged into the system. When you can't do the job anymore you are not worth anything to the Republican Party and Plutocratic Lords they serve.

This is why they don't want you educated. This is why they want women trapped in the cycle of childbirth. This is why the are constantly trying to eliminate Medicare. This is why they are always trying to take away Voting Rights. This is why the undercut and destroy Labor Unions. This is why the constantly want to steal Social Security.

The whole goal is to get as many people into the Capitalist system, train them just enough to haul trash, input data, pull a trigger or sweep and mop a floor. But, when you can't do those things anymore or can't give birth to another generation...

The Republican Party sees all humanity as nothing more than a giant pool of labor. To be used and abused when young and healthy and cast aside when old, sick or broken.

Here are just some of the evidence:

Senator Mike Lee of Utah ran in 2010 on repealing Child Labor Laws. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gringrich echoed his sentiments by declaring, "Child labor laws are truly stupid" and a plan to "get rid of unionized janitors and pay local students to take care of the school."

Education has always been a bane to Republicans because once people, especially women, are educated they overwhelming reject conservatism and Right-Wing thinking.

Lost amongst the odious Racist Limpballs repeated sexual harassment and misogynistic assaults on Sandra Fluke was he continued on other women and vented his anger on "Overeducated single white females". Educated women scare and infuriate Limbaugh because they can see through his shallow pleas to to the Patriarchy and Oppression.

Rick Santorum thought he was scoring points with conservative voters when he smugly stated,

"President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.”

But, that was merely a play to anti-Elitism. His real fear are educated Americans. On President Obama’s efforts to boost college attendance, Santorum warned his supporters about higher education,

“because they're indoctrination mills, absolutely … The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”

Of course, attacking education as away to further the Oppression of Women hasn't been confined to merely Limpballs 20 year defamation of educated women as "Feminazis". Republicans are using the power of Government to pass laws to restrict and shame any woman who dares buck the power of the Right-Wing Patriarchy.

Multiple Republican controlled state Legislatures, have decided and passed degrading State-Sponsored Trasnvaginal Ultrasound Laws, or to be more accurate State-Enforced Slut-Shaming Rape Wand Laws. The Key Leader of this has been Virginia and Republican Governor Bob McDonnell but such "Laws" have spread to multiple states.

But, not to just limit themselves to "Ultrasound Opportunity Acts" Republicans have begun an assault on contraception and the sexual behavior of all Americans as well.

The Republican Totalitarian Assault on America doesn't just target children and women but is also focused on rolling back hard won gains for all American workers. Republicans take aim at dismantling Unions because Unions give Americans a fighting shot at earning a good, living wage with benefits instead of being held at the whims of the 1% and their cut-throat Capitalism.

The soon to be recalled Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker never mentioned Unions prior to being elected but after winning struck right at Unions (while sparring others in an attempt to divide and conquer) while sneaking State funds and State-controlled utilities to the Koch Brothers who are bankrolling him.

Several other Republican Governors Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Paul LePage of Maine, John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of Michigan joined the Crusade and created budgets which placed the burden of Government onto the backs of working and middle class Americans while stripping Unions of Rights all in an effort to reduce the standard of living for Americans and make them wage slaves to Corporate Monsters.

Besides gutting and dismantling Unions, Republicans work to reduce the standard of living of 99% of Americans by their constant restructuring of the Tax Code. Republicans tinkering isn't designed to make it easier or more comprehensible for the 99% but, to make it byzantine and laden with special tax cheats for the 1%.

The elimination of Security and Exchange Tax and deregulation of Wall Street lead to the George W(orst President Ever) Bush Recession, but the dropping of the Capital Gains/Deferred Compensation tax rate to 15% allowed the Richest Americans to accelerate their control over the Wealth of the Nation. So much so, that in 2010 93 percent of income gains went to the top 1 percent.

But, even though Mitt Romney, Nominee of the 1%, paid a tax rate of 13.9% on his income of $21.6 Million dollars, Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh and Newt Gingrich (again) think that rate is too high. They both want Capital Gains taxes to be ZERO and for Mitt and all the Vulture Capitalist to take home all the money they make on firing Americans and closing American factories.

Additonally, the entire deabte over Obama Healthcare Insurance Reform centered around Republicans opposition to letting Americans enjoy a modicum of decent healthcare in their old age. Congressman Paul Ryan when he's not out being wined and dined by Billionaire Hedge Fund Vultures, created a program he calls New Medicare, the goal of which is the destruction of Medicare and it's replacement by a system of capped and limited payouts for medical coverage.

Even though Social Security, as it is currently structured, will be able to pay out until 2037 and is not causing the deficits, Republicans have been claiming for 70 years it's on the verge of bankruptcy. Their dire predictions, like those of Armageddon is at Hand Preachers, all fail but that doesn't stop them from repeating them at every opportunity.

Back in 2010, Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn ominously declared, "My colleagues celebrate this day as being like the day when Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid were passed. They forget that today those programs are insolvent and will likely crush our children under their debt"

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who never met a bribe he didn't like, declared Social Security is "a Ponzi scheme".

The only scheme going on involving Social Security is the Republican Plan to steal those funds and funnel them into Wall Street, where the 1% can apply the Free Market to them and they'll vanish into the Plutocrats off-shore bank accounts.

I could go on like this and highlight Indiana Congressman Rick Morris violently stupid, arrogantly uninformed, insulting attack on the Girl Scouts of America when he wrote a memo to his friends in the 112th Congress,

"I did a small amount of web-based research, and what I found is disturbing. The Girl Scouts of America and their worldwide partner, World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), have entered into a close strategic affiliation with Planned Parenthood. You will not find evidence of this on the GSA/WAGGGS website—in fact, the websites of these two organizations explicitly deny funding Planned Parenthood."

This is your Republican Party America. You may think these are just crazies infecting the Party but, it isn't it's part of their goal of reducing the American People to the Status of third-world Wage Slaves, while the Republicans act as the Guard Dogs and Protectors of the 1%.

On President's Day Barack Obama Posterizes Ronnie Reagan

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. - Harry S Truman, in Observer, April 13, 1958

GM is Alive and Bin Laden is Dead. President Obama inherited a Nation on the brink of Collapse after years of purposeful neglect, callous indifference, selective mistreatment, and pandering to the 1%, or known more simply as Republican "Governance".

What President Obama did in arresting the Fall of America was spectacular. If only Barack was an ardent socialist instead of Sean Hannity Fantasy Socialist his successes would have been even more spectacular. As the Top 5 Happiest Nations in the World are all Democratic Socialist Countries.

But, Harry Truman's wisdom shows focusing on jobs is both the correct metric it is also the least correct one. Ezra Klein asked several economists: How much of national job creation during a presidency can we properly attribute to the president? In Their Words:

“Very little,” wrote Harvard’s Martin Feldstein in an e- mail. Feldstein led the council under Reagan, and he didn’t see much role for the president in normal economic times. “The key is growth of population and labor force participation. Policy -- primarily monetary policy -- affects cyclical conditions and therefore the unemployment rate. Fiscal policy is usually irrelevant but with interest rates at the current level there has been a role for fiscal policy.”

Laura D’Andrea Tyson, a Berkeley economist who served under Clinton, emphasized the need to consider timing in our evaluations. “There are significant lags between the time a President proposes a policy, the time it is enacted by Congress and the time necessary for it to take effect,” she wrote to me. “These lags should be taken into account in measuring the economy’s job performance under a President. The first year probably should not count at all in terms of assessing the effects of a new Administration’s policies.”

N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economist who served as the council chairman under George W. Bush, directed me to a blog post he had written on the subject. “Randomness is a fact of economic life,” Mankiw wrote, “and it would be a mistake to judge a president by the economic outcome during his administration. It is better to look at the decisions the president made, and to acknowledge that the outcome is a function of those decisions and many other factors not under his control. As an economist, I have views about what best practices are for economic policy, and I judge presidents by how closely they adhere to those principles.”

What is more at stake is what the President's long term planning does to the Nation. President Reagan and President Bush both instituted Recessions by ramping up the insourcing of illegals and outsourcing jobs.

From 2001-2009 under President George W. Bush, the Worst President in American History, multi-national Corporations laid off 2.9 million workers in the US, while creating 2.4 million jobs overseas in Slave Labor Nations. Median Income declined outright from 1999 to 2009. From 1960 to 2000, manufacturing accounted for 20 million jobs in the U.S. from 2000-2009 America lost a 1/3rd of those jobs. Between 2002 and 2007 2 out of every 3 dollars of Income growth went to the Richest 1%.

It's a spectacularly bad record for Americans but a spectacularly great record for Bush and his 1% Lords.

Republicans hate American Labor because they are beholden to the 1% who views high labor costs as a wholly unnecessary and easily correctable expense. Corporate leaders have always sought to keep costs down by taking advantage of the next wave of immigrants but post-WWII as labor reached it's epogee and power they have been able to take advantage of the World's manufacturing base and export jobs as easier than they once imported "cooliees".

But, while the 1% was easily able to sell this plan to the various President's and Congresses they've owned, selling it to the American consumer was harder.

So, they went for the easiest sell, Lower Prices. It's what Wal-Mart continually advertises. They fooled enough Americans into believing the pair of jeans made in Mexico was going to be as high of quality as that pair of LL Bean trousers you've had for 15 years but cost a fifth as much! Your GE refrigerator made in Indonesia and Taiwan and "assembled" in the US will last just as long as that one your dad had for 25 years made by US Union labor but, be half the price!

So while President Obama saved General Motors and millions of associated American Jobs, the Vultures, the Republicans have been doing everything they can to destroy American Jobs and institute an economic policy of Neo-Feudalism.

As I wrote in a blog post on December 19, 2008:

The son of auto executive, not a filthy line worker, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney wants Detroit to go bankrupt and millions lose their jobs and benefits. That way the poor will have to take whatever wage he and his Kleptocratic friends deem them worthy of, which is just enough to ensure they work themselves to death before the age 67. Romney even cites the Toyota Avalon being superior to Detroit autos. The same Toyota which is losing $1.7 Billions USC this year.

Confederate Yankee offers this insight seemingly taken from Romney's Op-Ed:

"What separates the successful companies that aren't asking for a bailout from the leaches grubbing for tax dollars from your already empty wallet? Greedy, bloated, self-serving and uncompetitive union labor, particularly the United Auto Workers (UAW). Non-union car factories are cranking out the smaller, higher-quality, more fuel efficient fleets that America wants to buy, while the unionized Big Three are cranking out bloated beasts that carry and estimated $2,000 of overhead per vehicle because of concessions the automakers have made the unions over the years in noncompetitive benefits and pensions."

Of course, he's not satisfied with just crushing the UAW,

"For that matter, much of the manufacturing in this country doesn't deserve to live, particularly that created with non-competitive union labor so prevalent in the Northeast and upper Midwest."

You see we need to reduce workers to the status of wage slaves as we find in Vietnam or Nigeria, receiving whatever their feudal lords deem them worthy of earning, i.e. just enough to live; while using up their youth and discarding the workers as worthless when they get old, sick or injured. (Sadly, No has an excellent dissection of Confederate Yankee's H8Red of the plebeians)

Republican Richard Shelby, who spent more than $1 Billion USC in taxpayer money to lure in foreign auto manufactures to Alabama

Because Republicans are against everything which helps extend the lives of the poor and middle class in America. Foreign Auto Makers, especially with automotive plants in the South are allowed to pay cut throat capitalism wages and disbar unions while receiving US Government Subsidies and tax incentives to treat American workers unfairly.

Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama ensured Mercedes -Benz received $253 Million USC, Honda $158 Million USC and Hyundai $234 million USC tax breaks for building plants in in his state, Republican scum Bob Cooker gave Volkswagon $577 million USC for a factory in Tennessee and "Mississippi paid $284 million for a new Toyota plant; Kia got $324 million from Georgia. Texas had to fork over only $133 million for Toyota's Tundra plant in San Antonio, while Tennessee gave $197.6 million so Nissan would move its American headquarters to Nashville."

This is What Republicans Believe: They get Medicare, You Don't

Everything done by the Federal Government is Socialism... Unless it benefits Republicans and their Corporate Masters.

Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA) had to put the plebs from his district back in their place with a town hall meeting, when some non-Republican person dared to question him!

Ilene Johnson, a Democratic activist who lives in Gwinnett County, "You take government-subsidized health care, but you are not obligated to take that if you don’t want to. Why aren’t you going out on the free market in the state where you are a resident and buy your own health care?"

Rob Woodall, "It’s because it’s free. It’s because it’s free."

Woodall went on to claim, "Folks, if you give people things for free, don’t blame them for taking them." First off stop with the usage of the term 'Folks'. It doesn't make you seem aw, schucks small townish. Second, Woodall probably thought he was winning points with the crowd with his subjects by educating them about how Medicare is a free service for 'welfare queens' but as always Republicans lie.

Medicare, Medicaid aren't "things for free". They are programs which have been bought and paid for by the American People. And what the Republicans and Paul Ryan are trying to do with their 'Here are Some Coupons go out and try to get Cancer Medication' Deathcare plan is steal that money.

On Newt Gingrich's studio home at Meet The Press David Gregory talked about Paul Ryan Deathcare Plan:

"So, Ruth Marcus, what wins here, bold leadership on Medicare and the argument that the Democrats won't do something courageous or the Democrats who say, hey, those guys want to take away my medicare?"

It's Bold! It's Courageous! Forcing old people to try and pay for their healthcare with a quickly devalued coupon? Forcing sick children to get coverage from Insurance Companies which are caught cheating those children out of coverage now:

Illinois Blue Cross and Blue Shield to pay $25 million fraud settlement for denying coverage to sick children in need of nursing care by "fraudulently" shifting their claims to Illinois' Medicaid programBlue Cross (Chicago Tribune Feb 24, 2011)

When it comes to Medicare, everyone in America, a nation of 300 Million persons should be aware that the 300 Never-Done-An-Honest -Days-Worth-Of-Labor Republican Bureaucrats have been instructed to destroy it and replace it with Paul Ryan's Deathcare Program.

It doesn't matter 80% of the American People dislike these Republican policies because the GOP ignores the will of the people and serve the interests of Billionaires. But, the blatant hypocrisy is galling. Republicans don't even care. They lie to cameras, they lie to consitutents, they lie, lie, lie. Because, even if they do get voted out their families financial future is safe and secure. All these 2010 Teabagged Republicans enjoy lifetime pensions. They see no problem in slashing your benefits while ensuring they will continue to get them.

And all they have to do to win this financial security is cosign We, The People to Perpetual Wage Slavery.

"Labor is a commodity just like corn or beans or oil or gold, and the value of it needs to be determined by the competition, supply and demand in the workplace," -Steve King (R-IA).

You are nothing more than a non-durable good, a cog, in the machines of Industry and War and the Republicans have no problem telling you your value, wage slave.

And they'll gladly do it with a ready lie on their lips but, by hook or by crook, the Republicans are going to force America into perpetual bondage in service to their Plutocratic Masters,

"[O]ne way or the other, either through the Supreme Court or the legislature, these reforms will be put into place," Scott Walker, Koch Governor.