This interview with Doc Thompson below is especially potent. If you have any doubt about impropriety among the public sector employees, then listen to this broadcast. If you want to continue walking around blind and gullible, than only read the latest news from Lakota also below. If you want the whole story then read the article and listen to the broadcast together, so take a break from your schedule and enjoy the broadcast. While you listen compare what you hear to the news released from Lakota, as reported by Lindsey Hilty, about the specific cuts announced by the Lakota Administration. I will save my closing comments for the end of that article.
By Lindsey Hilty, Staff Writer Updated 8:22 AM Thursday, February 24, 2011 LIBERTY TWP. — Tensions ran high at Lakota East High School Wednesday night as more than 200 concerned parents and community members listened to how cuts would impact students next year. “We’ve looked at all areas of our budget — everywhere,” interim Superintendent Ron Spurlock said. “…We have to start living within our means.”
Many of the budget cuts, he said, likely could be permanent even with the passage of a levy. “It’s not a pretty picture,” Spokeswoman Laura Kursman said. “And it’s hard to communicate bad news.” Another meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Lakota West High School to hear about how $12.2 million in proposed cuts to the operating budget may be implemented pending school board approval. Parents who can’t attend sessions are asked to fill out a survey on the district’s web site to help with some of the future tough choices.
“I’m very worried,” parent Tricia McCaffrey said. “The Lakota School District I moved in to eight years ago is not the school district I have now when it matters for my son. Losing electives and going to state minimums is not why I chose to pay Lakota taxes.”
Elementary reductions: $3 million, 50 employees cut The goal is to maintain reading supports, supplemental classes taught by specialists, media center access and an accelerated gifted programs. To be cut: sixth-grade band; third-grade gifted program and services for grades four through six; gym, art, music and library time to 30 minutes each per week for grades one to six; one reading specialist per school; three media specialists sharing 14 schools; literacy coaches and two fewer English as a Second Language instructional aides.
Junior school reductions: $1.7 million, 25.5 employees cut Reduce day from eight bells to seven with 26-minute study hall, four core content classes and two electives. Programs eliminated include wood shop, English double block, band team teaching, jazz band, an intervention math class and department performance supplemental contracts. There will be two fewer media specialists. High School reductions: $1.9 million, 28 employees cut
Elective classes to be based on enrollment numbers with limited options, elimination of seventh bell; class size increases and 23.5 credits possible with 21 needed to graduate.
Special Services: $858,500, 19 employees cut Six fewer special education aides, one counselor per junior school and reduced nursing aids. Athletic reductions: $1 million cut
No funds for junior school athletics; $550 per high school athlete per sport with no family cap; supervision supplemental and sports information directors positions eliminated, and decreased transportation budgets. Central Office: $874,143, 5.5 employees cut
Elimination of an assistant superintendent and several central office support positions. Changes to contracted services and a hold on filling positions also led to savings. Transportation: $2.8 million cut
Already implemented in part, but in August, no student within two miles of school will receive transportation. This will impact half of Lakota’s student population.
They don’t have one. They are going to have to think differently. Because asking for more revenue to feed wages they’ve allowed to escalate irresponsibly is not going to work. It’s a complete lack of management.
It’s time for a new plan, or to step away and let people who know what they’re doing to manage the situation. The old way won’t work because the community isn’t poised to pass another levy no matter how they chose to spin it with their new spokesman. “Lakota hasn’t passed a levy since 2005.” What will never be forgotten, because I’ll never let people forget it, is that after that levy was passed, in 2008, the LEA bent the community over backwards for increased wages which drove up the costs we are seeing today. So we won’t be traveling back down that path again, no matter how it gets manipulated to the public.
For the latest on what’s happening regarding School Choice up at the capital, here is some testimony from Representative Matt Huffman from Lima, Ohio given on February 16th, 2011. There are plans to expand the voucher program which is an encouraging sign for those of us that are pushing for 100% eligibility in the state.
My good friend Ray Warrick from Mason testified on Collective Bargaining in Columbus on February 17th, 2011. Since I have video of his testimony I put it here to be watched instead of read. Listen to the rumble of the crowd outside who were able to watch the proceedings on a screen and hear what was going on in the chamber.
This is what it looked like outside that chamber.
Even though many union workers took the day off to be there, “paid for I might add,” there were some who managed to go up to Columbus and show public support for the bill. Mixed in with the chanting on this next video, “kill the bill,” are people yelling, “Pass the Bill.” It is easy to ascertain that many supporters of the bill are not present. They are the silent majority, while the many of the people against the bill were encouraged by their unions to take off work and protest. This shows the fundamental difference in philosophy.
So what’s going on in Wisconsin? Here is the platform for Governor Walker’s budget plans. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. The guy was elected by the citizens of Wisconsin to govern the state and balance the budget. If people wanted another democrat to further exacerbate their debts, they would have elected one. But they didn’t. So here is Walker’s proposal.
But listen to these people. Sounds like public education failed them miserably because they clearly don’t have a grip on reality. Where do they get these ideas?
Now, we’ve seen this locally, but it’s a national tactic, where teachers use our kids to fulfill their political and financial objectives. These children have no idea why they are at the rally. All they do know is that they are off school and doing what their teachers told them to do.
So what’s behind all this crazy stuff? That’s right, it’s good ol’ George. It’s all about ideological issues according to him, even though he’s smart enough to become rich, so he’s being misleading. What he really means is that the millions he’s spent pushing left winged agendas are being rejected by the part of the country that is in the political center and to the right of that center. The ideology that he speaks of is the mark he left through his influence on all the people shown above that are protesting something they don’t understand.
And of course here is President Obama’s position on all this. Obama is simply a spokesman to people like Soros who definitely have an agenda to subvert the Constitution. The victims of this activity can be seen in these protests.
I was playing a video game today called Left 4 Dead 2 which is a game where a bunch of thoughtless zombies try to suck your blood. It’s a fun game intended to be action packed and scary. The zombies in Left 4 Dead reminded me of these protestors. The protestors look like us. Talk like us, but they are sick and diseased with something that is dangerous to all of us. And I blame people like President Obama for doing his part to make those poor souls sick on his rhetoric. Obama is responsible for doing his part in creating the hostile climate we are seeing in Wisconsin.
Listen to the generals of this new kind of war. Because that’s what it is.
Below is my own testimony for the record that I’ll include here in its entirety. It can’t be stressed enough how important this bill is to Ohio and the future of our financial strength. As the union groups attempt to fluff their feathers to appear larger than they truly are while real working people continue on with their jobs, too busy to attend such protests, feel free to make your voice in favor of this bill known by sending your support to Senator Bacon at the email address displayed.
Senator Kevin Bacon Ohio State Senate Columbus, OH
Re: SB 5 – For the Record
During the year of 2010 I was heavily involved in a resistance group to oppose the requested levy increases by the school district of Lakota, from South Western Ohio located in Butler County.
There are many reasons that I can see for the implementation of a collective bargaining reform bill such as Senate Bill 5. It is obvious to me and many of the voters that participated in defeating the Lakota Levy on both 2010 occasions that unions under the collective bargaining bill of 1983 have done what they accused business of doing, and that is acting greedily and knowing no limit to the impositions of their demands. Nor did they show any sign of caring what the cost off those impositions where to the tax payer. The result has been an unfair system that has formed between the public sector worker and the tax payer.
My focus of this testimony is on what I consider to be the most pertinent of the many benefits of S.B.5 and that is the elimination of “step increase” as a hidden cost that is deceiving communities all across Ohio. As much of the talk from Fire and Police Unions has centered on their lack of ability to strike, teachers can, and do. “Step Increases” are an ominous appeasement to those potential strikes that is largely hidden from the eyes of tax payers.
In October of 2008 the LEA (Lakota Education Association) threatened to strike and staged a demonstration against the school board. Their reasons for the strike were increased wages and benefits. In the small hours of the morning on the final day of contract talks a settlement was reached, and the LEA achieved its objective.
Two years later Lakota had an operating budget of $160 million dollars even with the declining revenue imposed under the Strickland Administration which favored allocation of state funds to poorer districts. Lakota saw a decline in state funding but through their property taxes, which saw approximately $11 dollars per $1,000 in home evaluation going directly to the schools, still maintained the large budget mentioned.
In the spring of 2010 again the LEA was pushing for a renewed contract and threatened to strike. They did this just months before a new levy request was being placed on the ballot in May. This was a reckless enterprise on their behalf and showed incredible arrogance in an economy that was already weakened. The residence of the Lakota District easily defeated that levy in May.
By August the LEA had announced that they would take a “pay freeze” in order to work with the school board on bringing down their costs as the announcement came from that same board that another levy attempt would be coming in November.
As I looked at the financial situation I realized that the reason the Lakota District was in trouble was because nearly 80% of their budget allocation was tied up in salaries and benefits, so it was obvious to me that the LEA should renegotiate their contract to fit the needs of the community. The average salary of a teacher at Lakota had been during much of 2010 $59,000 per year. As the new school year started that fall, those salaries on average had crept up to $62,000, and this was a baffling statistic. After all, the LEA had just agreed to a pay freeze.
I had loosely understood what “step increases” were but didn’t really give it much thought as to the impact on community budgets. I learned through the campaign that fall how devastating they truly are to financial forecasts. The reason is that often communities only consider the finances of their local districts. They don’t concern themselves with the affairs of their neighboring districts. However, the teachers unions do. The LEA is an arm of the OEA (Ohio Education Association) and they do have a statewide strategy that they impose district by district. It’s a game communities have been unaware was occurring, until now.
Knowing the game was larger than just the situation at Lakota I took my story to WLW radio in Cincinnati and engaged in many debates on the air hoping to get input from school districts around the region, and that’s how I learned about the terrible cost and manipulative nature of “step increases.”
As the facts that are known to many of the law makers that have graced Columbus for many years became apparent to me and a small army of tax protesters that were gathering in Southern Ohio and pockets all over the state, it became evident that communities were being selfishly misled intentionally and action would be needed to return real management power to the district where we elect members of the community to manage our resources.
School Boards under the current system have no choice but to just keep asking for increases in funding because they are so constrained by legislation lobbied and secured by the same forces that have collected themselves to protest this bill S.B.5 and the people who fund this activity have been manipulated and outright lied to regarding the intentions and motives of collective bargaining agreements.
This education funding issue that has plagued Ohio for decades is an unsustainable path, and collective bargaining is at the heart of the problem. I have planned to stand in the way of every single levy initiative for every district that wants my help until true reform is initiated from our State Representation. I consider any further property tax increases for any district in Ohio to be as good as throwing money on a fire. The money will not go to improving test scores for kids, or making children more comparable to students in the international stage. The entire nation is seeing the same story from its public education system, and it has failed in its current form. No amount of union rhetoric can hide that fact now. A majority of the voting public is now ready to admit it to themselves. Putting this bill on the table for discussion is a bold move by this legislative body and hopefully is a sign of things to come, for I do not believe if S.B.5 goes far enough. Many, many reforms will need to be implemented to give the State of Ohio the competitive advantage it needs to step out in front of the nation in education.
There are programs available that could save the State of Ohio a lot of money and make it a premiere state of education reform in the country. Representative Bill Coley from my district has started that process in the last session of congress with a technology bill which allows students to use technology to greater effect, and take away some of the “brick and mortar” costs imposed on school districts currently. There is also “School Choice” which is a phenomenal program utilizing all the best traits of competition to make education better, that will trickle down to the culture of the children attending those education systems.
But all those programs will take courage and they start by dealing with the type of resistance organized by groups like SEIU who have flown in protestors to lobby against this bill. They are applying their work to Wisconsin also where the governor there is also trying to reform their collective bargaining issues, only to be degraded as the villain from the Austin Powers films.
Such actions have taken our state through the collective bargaining process to extort millions of dollars from the intended target of those dollars and it has been to a loss of the entire state not only in being disingenuous to the tax payer, but to the competitive nature of the state as a whole. Over the next decade, the states which become swifter or most innovative will become the guardians of prosperity. Collective bargaining is a failed system that does nothing but help the people on one side of that bargaining, which leaves everyone else feeling depleted and used.
Innovation in most every category is available to Ohio ripe for the picking. But we have to have the courage to reach beyond the fence of collective bargaining to pick our harvest and unleash the true potential that resides among the true labor of Ohio.
Upon hearing the testimony in Columbus on February 15, 2011 primarily against Senate Bill 5 by the organized elements of union influence, I find it astonishing how many times I’ve heard, “we serve the public, when you call 911, we’re on the other side. That’s why we’re more important, and that’s why we should have collective bargaining because we are entitled to things because of the risks we take.”
Well, I never take bullet point answers at face value. I look deeply into everything. It’s a hobby of mine. Before I say what I’m going to say next, I’ll say that I see a certain value for police officers, firemen, and teachers, because they all kind of get thrown into the same pot. They cost a lot of tax money and most of what they sell is based on things most people don’t want to do themselves, so tax payers surrender some of their freedoms for the convenience and trained professionalism of those professions. A world without police officers would be more violent. Their presence in the world discourages bad guys from doing bad things.
However…………..my experience, which is extensive speaks that sometimes the bad guys are the cops themselves, and this occurs more frequently than people care to admit. It’s not popular to bring that little fact up, just like it’s not popular to question the integrity of teachers, because those professions through their union marketing machines, have made doing such a thing a social taboo. Reality though is a different story.
Ever wonder why so many police officers wear a mustache? Young boys when they first discover they can grow facial hair are quick to grow a mustache because they want to prove that they are men, or at least on their way. It’s a primal desire for males to gain acceptance with other males by displaying manhood and mustaches are a way to do it. My personal experience with people that have mustaches though is that when they have them, they are trying to hide something from public opinion or even from themselves, and wearing a mustache is a dead give-a-way to a person of questionable character.
I’ve raised two girls, and the very first thing I taught them about sex, and males is that if a young man or even a middle aged man has a mustache, don’t trust a thing they say. Look for the hidden messages in their words and never get too close to them. Now that’s a general term, and there are probably many good people that have mustaches and all they are hiding about themselves may be some secret desire to wear women’s clothing, or hiding from themselves an attractiveness to other males, so their secrets may be harmless. The dangerous mustache men are the ones that wear a mustache to hide what they are really up to, and that’s a quest for power, and an assertion of dominance over other males, and women which is a biological remnant from their adolescence which they carry into adulthood.
I’ve known of situations where police have been involved in many bad deeds, and most of them had mustaches. Not all of them. I know one that used to work for me that was very clean faced and took so many liberties with the truth that he could even lie to himself, and while he was a police officer he got himself into trouble pulling over women and exchanging sexual favors to get out of tickets. He was the worst kind of bad guy because he doesn’t give off visual clues to his intent. But as a general rule, as I explained to my kids, there is a reason in the early days of cinema that the villains had mustaches. Because at a primal level, the human mind acknowledges there is something not quite right with people that wear facial hair.
Among the many stories I could tell about bad police officers, that are using their positions of authority to profit themselves, I could testify that I actually had a police officer tell me to move from my home if I didn’t like the drug trafficking that was going on with the teenage kids that lived across the street from me years ago. What I found out was that this particular police officer had been a trouble maker when he was a kid and straightened himself out, or so he said. Turned out, he was making money on the side from the kids covering for their drug trade to kids at the high school. He had a mustache. Once he realized I was a “holy roller” as he spread the word through the police community, and that I was not going to play nice, he conspired with other officers to “lean” on me. There was a police offer that lived two homes down from me that worked in a different municipality, and yes, he had a mustache, and he became friends with the officer covering for the kid’s drug trade. He had teenage kids that behaved badly and I scolded them more than once for making too much noise or playing their radio too loud in front of my house, because it was disrespectful. I thought because their father was a cop, that he might see things my way, but he didn’t, instead he worked with his kids and the drug dealers across the street to run the “holy roller family” out of the neighborhood.
So I started video taping all this and I sent it to the chief of police thinking this bad behavior would be exposed. I actually had a drug deal on tape and I hand delivered it to the Chief.
All it did was make things worse.
These police officers did nothing to put themselves on the bad side of the law, other than turn their heads and take money for looking the other way. What they did do, and I see the same behavior from teachers trying to get their levies passed, it’s they use the kids to do their dirty work. That’s a common strategy, to get the youth to do the ugly stuff because they’re too young and naive to think for themselves.
The straw that broke the camels back came when a majority of the kids in the neighborhood turned against my kids for riding their bikes down the sidewalk of their own street, again encouraged by the police officer dad, and the corrupt local police officer, that a mob of these boys ranging from 16 to 19 gathered at the drug dealing house across the street from my home and called my wife a “bitch” when my wife confronted the boys about hassling my kids.
My wife called me at work; I left immediately and came home. Once I saw the mob I ran into the center of the to fight any of the kids that wanted to take a swing. There were about 22 to 25 of them, most of them just over 18. The boys didn’t expect that kind of aggressive action, so were unprepared. Eventually the mother of the house came out and had all those boys go inside her home leaving me by myself on the front yard. Technically I was wrong and could have been prosecuted for assault, but I estimated that she didn’t want the police to come break up the fight, and the police didn’t want to come, because they wanted deniability. So no cops came even though every neighbor up and down the street witnessed the act. I recognized that a situation of complete lawlessness was going on in my neighborhood and it occurred to me that the only way I could put a stop to it was to respond with violence and make a big incident of the issue that would transcend the community I lived in that was covering up this whole issue. I had been warned by the police officer that I either looked the other way as a resident or I move, because he wanted things to stay the way they were. And I wasn’t about to do that. So we had an all out war.
I began to patrol the neighborhood with my bicycle at night and if I caught kids out where they didn’t belong, I chased them down with my bullwhip. It got pretty violent at times.
My kids, who were only about 7 years old at the time, were hassled too. One boy that was about 15 spit on my oldest daughter while he was in a group of kids numbering more than 10. I tracked the kid down with my daughters and their friends in the car and dragged that kid by his shirt to his house and made him apologize on his knees to my daughter in front of his father who was working in his garage. His father was appalled and proclaimed that he was going to have me arrested because his son was under aged and he wanted to fight me, which I agreed to. Instead he called the police, but they never came, because it was me, and the police didn’t want to bring light to their other activity.
My wife and I eventually moved and bought a place that had some property and space. She and I agreed that we were the type of people that enjoyed our space and my bullwhip hobby was intimidating to many of our neighbors anyway. So we moved.
At my new place things worked well for a while, until I became involved in a property dispute in my township. Since I was the lead opposition to that property dispute I was a political target. My wife noticed that she was followed by township fireman everywhere she went. She kept seeing the same people. They never spoke to her, but they seemed to be everywhere she shopped. I told her not to worry about it.
We often built bon fires in our back yard which was legal, and I started to notice that every time I built them, someone would call the Fire Department.
Down the road would come a parade of Fire Trucks, police and even an ambulance to put out the bon fire I had in my backyard. One time in particular I had been practicing with my bullwhips in the back yard when 5 firemen and a few first responders came into my yard without saying a word to me with a hose to put out my little fire. I was furious.
I had a major argument with the police officers at the scene and the firemen that had brought 5 vehicles to my home, lights blaring and sirens whining. I counted 11 public officers at the scene, 8 of them had mustaches.
I gave them the cost of what bringing all those vehicles to my home cost the tax payer and when they heard that I spoke in that language they instantly backed off. “Sorry sir, we just wanted to check things out. We had a report.”
I said, “No, you are looking for a way to brag to your buddies, the township trustees, that you hassled me. And you did this in an attempt to embarrass me, and put me in my place. You’re showing off for your employers.”
They looked at me like guilty children caught stealing cookies. They said nothing more, got in their cars and trucks, and left.
I told my story in a commentary in the local paper and exposed the waste of tax payer funds in that trip to my house by the fire department. After that everyone pretty much left us alone. The fire department personnel stopped following my wife around. And they never bothered me again for a silly bon fire, which I continued to build.
I could go on for many pages more instances of such corruption. Like I established, I’ve employed people that went on to be police officers and I know the things that go on behind the public eye. I’m friends with people that are pretty important in the law enforcement community and I understand all too well that speeding tickets, DUI check points and other activities are all about generating revenue, and not public safety. And I know there are quotas, even though they aren’t called that directly. I know of cases where a home dealt drugs for years, but was “suddenly busted” when an important raid was needed for the papers for budget approval by the taxpayers.
And a vast majority of the participants of this questionable behavior were by officers that wear mustaches.
And this behavior is not unique to this decade. When I was a teenager I was at a party hosted by a cop. His daughter was the practice girl for the entire school, he knew it, and was fine with it. He provided alcohol openly to under aged kids and didn’t think anything of it. He wanted to be the “cool cop” in the neighborhood. He was almost identical in personality type to the officer I originally talked about, that was letting the house across the street deal drugs. He thought it was a good party till a big fight broke out on his front yard by two different guys that wanted to have sex with his daughter on the same night, and there were injuries that were embarrassing to him. But the EMT guys kept everything quit and the papers weren’t notified and he was never reprimanded. And he had a mustache.
It really comes down to a social decision. If society wants to be staffed at these levels in public service positions, that’s fine. But the unions spin their usefulness so they can justify the expense. When public servants realize their jobs are under scrutiny from the public, they’ll clean up their act. They may even shave off those mustaches and stop hiding the sins they commit when they think nobody is looking.
You get what you ask for and if you don’t ask or keep your eye on these crooked mustache men, they’ll play you for a fool. Without question there are many that will look at what I’ve written here and think it’s a conspiracy or that I am angry at public officials because I have a bone to pick. No, I have a history of sticking up for myself and others and when you do that you make enemies. And when you have enemies you see the true nature of people in their anger and actions. The difference between me and everyone else is that I’m willing to say what everyone else thinks, but don’t feel comfortable saying. I feel comfortable saying it because I’ve seen it for myself and can stand with certainty behind my words of what goes on behind the eyes of crooked men.
Yet explanations like what I provided in that video are just too simple for the people who have made careers for themselves out of confusing everyone and profiting off the chaos. And that’s what Union Thugs are all about.
What is the typical union thug like? I’m not talking about good people who happen to work in a unionized organization. I’m talking about the people who organize and participate in protests, strikes and the type of lobbying that goes on in state and federal governments.
I’ve received a lot of nasty notes and emails, which I enjoy. But there was one that I show below which wa clean enough, and hits the important issues that I think it worthy to publish here because it displays the mentality of many involved in protests of S.B 5.This is an organized effort to attack this bill, and the people who support it. These people are being fueled by their leaders through email campaigns, and it is through this type of attempted intimidation that the operating costs were increased to the level they are currently, and the reason we need S.B 5 to help Ohio sort through this kind of rhetoric and solve some budget problems.
I find your lies and destructive intent astounding. You display the outright greed and despicable corporate defender attitude that would make Boss Tweed very proud.
As a greed-first capitalist you are more than willing to complain that we aren’t sucking the Big Business teat enough…MORE for big business! More MORE!
(this is a common strategy for union bosses and radical members. They create an “us versus them” mentality that they are on the side of the little guy, fighting for the working class person. Then they try to paint their opponent, in this case me in a marketable and degrading way. Such as the “greed first term.” This person has no idea that I’m a greed first capitalist. I am a capitalist, but I’m certainly not greedy, never have been. And I’ve fought greedy people all my life. But this person knows that their members aren’t very smart so they have to paint the picture in duality, such as worker versus the evil corporation. And what’s my destructive intent. I think it should be illegal for public workers to unionize and I don’t want my tax dollars spent on that activity. How is that bad? You see, even questioning them makes you greedy. That is a designed strategy to make the mass of the REAL middle-class not to question them, because nobody wants to be called names.)
Oh, but teachers, those greedy bloodsuckers, THEY are ripping us off, robbing taxpayers blind. Right.
(I have been asking our local school board to live within their $160 million dollar budget and to not continue to come back to the tax payer for more and more taxes. Taxes are already so high in our district that it makes it unattractive for real estate investors. When I looked into the reason for the escalating costs it turned out to be “step increases” for teachers that were averaging $62K a year. THAT’s THE AVERAGE! And those same teachers had just threatened a strike in 2010 just before asking the community for a new levy. And in 2008 they threatened another strike and their primary issue was wages and benefits. As a result of that it was discovered that most of the school budget of $160 million was tied up almost 80% in wages. The taxes are already very high for residents of the community, so taxes should not be increased any higher. Yet the school board said its hands were tied because state laws required them to increase the budget size to fulfill the contract obligations. After the levy failed, the union made no attempt to work with the community. It was determined that the unions only care for their own interests, and not how they fit into the economics of the community. So legislation must be introduced to protect tax payers from union greed which shows no sign of ending. It is greed because when an organization expects more and more without caring where the money comes from, they are only thinking with their own needs.)
You are a sick disgusting (several extremely descriptive expletives deleted) who can’t wait to turn Ohio into a wasteland of stupid kids ripe for mindless thankless benefitless jobs that your beloved Big Business is more than happy to provide, especially when you wipe out the minimum wage (damned greedy poverty-level unskilled workers!), sick leave, and as much of the rights and benefits that workers have fought and died for over the history of this great nation as you can. You and your fellow Greed Over People party pals are well on your way.
What you advocate is nothing less than a return to sweatshops, eighty-hour workweeks, and non-existent disability or unemployment protection. You’ll do it with a thousand tiny cuts, and in the end the state of Ohio will indeed bleed. It will hemorrhage skilled educators and teachers, administrators and children in search of reasonable compensation or education beyond that needed to operate a drive-thru headset. Soon enough no one will have to worry about school levies in Ohio, because there won’t be a decent school or educator in the entire state to see it voted down.
(Here is the name calling. When someone is out of ideas and can’t argue facts they resort to name calling. And they also profess to be able to predict the future with the direst consequences, using such terms as wasteland, and sweatshops. This person also assumes I’m lock step with a political party, which I’m not. They say such things because it fits their small view of the world. The Progressive Party started in 1910 really, and then progressed in power till 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt took control of the party because Taft had won the Republican nomination. Roosevelt wanted so badly to become president again, and to beat Taft that he took on the platform of the Progressive Party which consisted of minimum wage and workplace standards, compensation for job related injuries, strengthen the pure-food law of 1906, institute a system of social insurance with medical coverage for the poor, an income-tax amendment to the Constitution, a commission to inquire into the rising cost of living, and the ability to regulate interstate industrial corporations along with the new concept of the women’s suffrage movement. Unions take credit for all those things, but it was wealthy Republican defectors that were on a religious crusade that split the party and started those ideas which 100 years later we have a report card of where it took us. Some things were good, some things weren’t. However, when unions attached themselves to the progressive platform they have made it impossible for us to go back and fix the things that were broken from that original ideology, and keep the things we find useful. And yes, religion was the centerpiece of the Progressive Party. They sung “Onward Christian Soldiers” while they had their National Convention in Chicago on August 6th 1912. Now progressives, like the author of this letter obviously is, even if they don’t realize that’s what they are, have lost the meaning of religion where it interfered with politics. They didn’t care if their policies were unconstitutional, because they were on a religious crusade to “change the world.” This author proclaims that society will go back to 80 hour week sweat shops. Such a statement is hardly worth commenting on, only most of these radicals protesting outside the State House, and pleading for the status quo actually believe that will happen, because their leaders, their shepherds tell them that distorted fact. And since they are often young, or over-paid and know they can’t make that type of money in the private sector put on the dunce cap and let others do their thinking for them. Schools will become good, and competitive at a much reduced cost. Bad teachers will be removed quickly and good ones will be inserted without a lot of fuss, which is how it needs to be. Teachers like Ryan Fahrenkemp of Lakota, and Stacy Schuler of Mason were hiding their devious acts behind the security of their very protective contract and nobody wanted to deal with it because it is too difficult. School Boards are toothless. The real teeth are in the unions. With S.B.5 teachers will be paid well because parents show they want teachers to teach their children. But the costs will be managed and not become outrageous such as the teachers that are making over 90K a year. At some point step increases must be controlled so the budgets aren’t broken by such behavior, and that is one of the greatest aspects of S.B. 5.)
I find it hysterical in a profoundly sad way that you think our (state’s) treatment of business outrageous (how can we get business if we don’t allow them to rape our state without lubrication for obscene profit?) but you think teachers should work for the sheer love of it, and the $10 a week you want to pay them. Idiot.
(Here is another common theme from these people; they don’t understand what goes on in the mind of a person that creates a job. Entrepreneurs need the ability to attempt and fail, and attempt again. When too many regulations are in front of business, they are likely to not bring business to the state in favor of a state with less regulation. For instance, OSHA is set up as a safety organization within the state. But like many such organizations the power it wields is subject to abuse. Instead of being a regulatory agency that protects the workers of the state they are known for fining companies as a way to raise revenue. A program started with good intentions ends up becoming just a troll charging to cross a bridge, it’s the cost of doing business as they see it. That’s the reputation anyway, so if you were a company wanting to locate to a Midwest location, would you pick Indiana, Kentucky or Ohio, with Ohio being known for having an extorting regulation arm of the government? High paid unionized workers are discouraging for potential employers because they don’t want to be stuck in the situation that the schools are currently in. Employers can’t go to the tax payers to bail them out, unless they’re a company like GM. So they’ll go to a state without such limits. Now the union bosses seek to impose on every state the same, so business will have no place to go. Currently, SEIU is on a campaign to bring unionized workers to every country in the world, so that companies cannot move their operations overseas. That’s how out of touch those people are. Everywhere they are strong, business looks elsewhere. That is why they are looked upon as a social disease to those that don’t directly benefit. And who’s the idiot here? I’d say it’s the fool looking o the past and clinging to the status quo)
You had better pray I never attain any level of public office, because you, Sir, are a traitor to this nation, a servant of corporate interests at the expense of our education, our health, and in fact our very survival. You would be lucky to escape being shot into the Sun on a fast rocket for your attempts to make our next generation sick, fat, stupid, and rightless.
(Now this is pretty nasty, calling me a traitor. To whom am I a traitor? And I should pray? Sounds like a threat to me. Where in the Constitution of the United States does it state I as an American am supposed to support unionized workers with tax dollars. And we are all servants to corporate interests, because without corporate interests there aren’t any jobs. Secondly, consider the mentality of this person, as the mind of a child. They are proposing that someday when they get to public office that they would be able to shoot me with a rocket into the sun? Just to construct that sentence reveals the mind of a child like presence, and this is a person to lecture ANYBODY on policy?)
You and your treasonous ilk will destroy any landscape, enslave any people, allow American citizens to die and go bankrupt and lose their house and see their entire life’s work utterly destroyed to pay your corporate masters enough filthy profit to build a solid gold garage next to their solid gold house to hold their solid gold Hummer.
(Here is more of that inflammatory rhetoric again. He is proclaiming that voting for S.B.5 will enslave American citizens. He says citizens will DIE, and lose their homes. The fear mongering is so extreme that he says people will lose their whole life’s work if S.B.5 is passed. How preposterous! I know a lot of people who don’t work for unions that are not part of the corporate machine, and do very well for themselves. These union types are so “addicted” to collective bargaining that they can’t even imagine life without it, yet life will go on. There will be more jobs, not less, ironically. Because these people don’t understand the basics of economics, they can’t understand how jobs will appear. It’s like explaining to a child why we have seasons. Children don’t have enough experience to see the difference in seasons let alone understand how they are caused by the earth rotating around the sun in an elliptical orbit. A similar principle is acknowledged in understanding economics. If the basics cannot be understood, all these union types know to do is complain and hold up signs hoping that in mass they can put peer pressure on lawmakers like a crying child screams for a candy bar in a grocery store. And why do these types of people all think rich people drive Hummer’s. I don’t know a single person that has a Hummer. This guy is just showing that he says what other people, union leaders in this case, tell him to think.)
This was not the “liberty” our founders had in mind, the ‘liberty’ to strip American citizens of basic human rights and turn this nation into a desperate, servile and defenseless labor pool much like the one China boasts. You deserve nothing less than to be stripped of your citizenship and deported forthwith for your efforts to undermine the people of the United States. F*** Y**.
(It is interesting that this guy proposes that I lose my citizenship for not wanting to fund unions off tax dollars. This patriotic slant from unions is an attempt to diminish the influence of Tea Parties. To justify this patriotism Progress Ohio has on it’s site a letter from President Eisenhower from 1955, well before the radical issues of the 1960’s, in a hope that unions would work well with the country in establishing healthy labor policies. This letter was an attempt to reach out to union leaders of the AFL-CIO in good faith. ……………………………………………………………………………………………. Dwight Eisenhower December 4th 1955 Mr. Meany, Mr. Schnitzler, members of the Executive Council, Delegates to this Convention and ladies and gentlemen of the AFL-CIO everywhere in America: You of organized labor and those who have gone before you in the union movement have helped make a unique contribution to the general welfare of the Republic–the development of the American philosophy of labor. This philosophy, if adopted globally, could bring about a world, prosperous, at peace, sharing the fruits of the earth with justice to all men. It would raise to freedom and prosperity hundreds of millions of men and women–and their children–who toil in slavery behind the Curtain. One principle of this philosophy is: the ultimate values of mankind are spiritual; these values include liberty, human dignity, opportunity and equal rights and justice. Workers want recognition as human beings and as individuals-before everything else. They want a job that gives them a feeling of satisfaction and self-expression. Good wages, respectable working conditions, reasonable hours, protection of status and security; these constitute the necessary foundations on which you build to reach your higher aims. Moreover, we cannot be satisfied with welfare in the aggregate; if any group or section of citizens is denied its fair place in the common prosperity, all others among us are thereby endangered. The second principle of this American labor philosophy is this: the economic interest of employer and employee is a mutual prosperity.
Their economic future is inseparable. Together they must advance in mutual respect, in mutual understanding, toward mutual prosperity. Of course, there will be contest over the sharing of the benefits of production; and so we have the right to strike and to argue all night, when necessary, in collective bargaining sessions. But in a deeper sense, this surface struggle is subordinate to the overwhelming common interest in greater production and a better life for all to share.
The American worker strives for betterment not by destroying his employer and his employer’s business, but by understanding his employer’s problems of competition, prices, markets. And the American employer can never forget that, since mass production assumes a mass market, good wages and progressive employment practices for his employee are good business. The Class Struggle Doctrine of Marx was the invention of a lonely refugee scribbling in a dark recess of the British Museum. He abhorred and detested the middle class. He did not foresee that, in America, labor, respected and prosperous, would constitute–with the farmer and businessman–his hated middle class. But our second principle–that mutual interest of employer and employee–is the natural outgrowth of teamwork for progress, characteristic of the American economy where the barriers of class do not exist.
The third principle is this: labor relations will be managed best when worked out in honest negotiation between employers and unions, without Government’s unwarranted interference.
This principle requires maturity in the private handling of labor matters within a framework of law, for the protection of the public interest and the rights of both labor and management. The splendid record of labor peace and unparalleled prosperity during the last 3 years demonstrates our industrial maturity.
Some of the most difficult and unprecedented negotiations in the history of collective bargaining took place during this period, against the backdrop of non-interference by Government except only to protect the public interest, in the rare cases of genuine national emergency. This third principle, relying as it does on collective bargaining, assumes that labor organizations and management will both observe the highest standards of integrity, responsibility, and concern for the national welfare.
You are more than union members bound together by a common goal of better wages, better working conditions, and protection of your security. You are American citizens.
The roads you travel, the schools your children attend, the taxes you pay, the standards of integrity in Government, the conduct of the public business is your business as Americans. And while all of you, as to the public business, have a common goal–a stronger and better America–your views as to the best means of reaching that goal vary widely, just as they do in any other group of American citizens.
So in your new national organization, as well as in your many constituent organizations, you have a great opportunity of making your meetings the world’s most effective exhibit of democratic processes. In those meetings the rights of minorities holding differing social, economic, and political views must be scrupulously protected and their views accurately reflected. In this way, as American citizens you will help the Republic correct the faulty, fortify the good, build stoutly for the future, and reinforce the most cherished freedoms of each individual citizen.
This country has long understood that by helping other peoples to a better understanding and practice of representative government, we strengthen both them and ourselves. The same truth applies to the economic field. We strengthen other peoples and ourselves when we help them to understand the workings of a free economy, to improve their own standards of living, and to join with us in world trade that serves to unite us all.
In the world struggle, some of the finest weapons for all Americans are these simple tenets of free labor. They are again: mart is created in the Divine image and has spiritual aspirations that transcend the material; second, the real interests of employers and employees are mutual; third, unions and employers can and should work out their own destinies. As we preach and practice that message without cease, we will wage a triumphant crusade for prosperity, freedom, and peace among men. To close, it is fitting that we let our hearts be filled with the earnest prayer that, with the help of a kind Providence, the world may be led out of bitterness and materialism and force into a new era of harmony and spiritual growth and self-realization for all men. Thank you very much.
Dwight Eisenhower December 4th 1955
………………………………………………………………………….. That’s how far back unions have reached in an attempt to find a position in which to bring patriotism to their cause. They are using the words of the Republican President Eisenhower as if they used those words on their own. We know the history from that point, which has only diminished as union leaders became drunk with power morphing into the tyrants they sought to protect people from. This brings us to the modern-day, where the unions hold so much power that the public officials elected to positions to do the business of the people, cannot do that business because those contracts formed under collective bargaining are too costly and restrictive that tax payers can no longer out of their good natures, continue to fund these activities at the expense to themselves.
And this uneducated, naïve apologist for organized labor has the belief to actually articulate the words that I should lose my citizenship for questioning collective bargaining motives is completely lost to what America is and has strived to be. These are only the mutterings of a radical that attempts with verbal intimidation in this case, or physical intimidation in others, and with mass protests and strikes to coerce out of employers a job with decent wages.
I have never wished to have a union position or the wages that are associated with them, because I always wanted the freedom to think and bargain for myself. I would never trade away that freedom for some collective herd mentality. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the money can’t flow forever. Collective bargaining is really just a hot potato game and when the music stops, nobody wants to be holding the ball. Union members for years have been hoping that they can intimidate the people who have their finger on the button to keep them from stopping the music. But the music has stopped, not because anybody pushed the button, but because the song finally ran out. And the people holding the ball now are scared, angry, and ill prepared because what was promised to them isn’t coming true. And they are so mindless that they only know to lash out at the people who point out to them what should be easy for them to see.
Instead they carry signs, make phone calls and try to intimidate anyone they can hoping the music will begin again, and they can return to their life of security under the umbrella of collective-bargaining. But that song will never play again. Not because the republicans are a bunch of “big mean people.” Not because the Tea Party people are “tea baggers” or because the corporations are out to kill Americans and all their babies. But because American society has been burnt by the greed of those union minorities, and the scam they pulled over the eyes of our constitutional obligations.
If anybody should be cussing people out it should be those of us that were lied to, an manipulated by the type of rhetoric leveled at me in letters like this. Because in those words is the heart of a thug that only care for themselves at the expense of taxpayers everywhere.)
Listen to Senator Jones explain the bill to Doc Thompson of 700 WLW. But after her interview, stick around and listen to the rest of the program because several union leaders called in to reveal their strategy, a strategy that worked well for print media and television, but it falls apart under the scrutiny of talk radio. This provoked me to call in at the end of the program to set some things straight about the bill, which had been distorted by the emotional testimony of union leaders.
Senate Bill 5 will start the process of taking the shackles off the State of Ohio that confine it by collective bargaining. The rhetoric provided by the sector of the population that is “addicted” to collective bargaining which has grown in influence since 1983, so long that many of those people don’t know any other form of life, is sickening. So sickening it makes me question completely the validity of public education, because these people didn’t learn the basics of American life. Their basic premise seems to be that if you can get a job, have a union protect that job for your life-time, then they are willing to sacrifice a life-time of freedom for some mundane “average” life. I personally find their view of the world repulsive and un-American. What I see in those crowded halls of protest at the State House is a group of people protecting their right to be “average.”
Old college professor hippies such as Francis Pivan, who has spent her entire life perpetuating progressivism is upset at the countries sudden desire to turn back to the Constitution, now that we know we’ve been scammed by people like her for decades.
Pivan is an old lady but she was around in the early days of all this change and she’s always been active in politics. And she opened herself to these name calling tirades when she said. “The strange stories that Glenn Beck creates with his chalkboard gain traction with Americans, who are made anxious by the large changes that have overtaken the United States, including the election of a black president and the increasing racial diversity of the population, deindustrialization and the decline of American power abroad, as well as cultural changes in sexual and family norms.”
Who are these people that I’m talking about? Is it just people like me, Doc Thompson, Ray Warrick, Glenn Beck or anybody else? No. It’s people like the comment below. This comment came to me from a woman that only knows me from these epic pages. And her comment speaks volumes of who exactly those Americans are that have now been awakened and will not sleep so soundly again. She was commenting on an article I did about John Meyer.
There are people in my life that move me. I mean…REALLY move me. They are few. My father, who gave me the tools to navigate through life..now and then as he was right when he said what I believe would waiver with experience. So right. My husband for letting me move in the direction that drives my heart and soul no matter what. Glenn Beck. Say what you may…he’s my people. He’s been saying what I’ve felt for years. Yes..I cry. All the time. And Rich, who has given strength and voice to those of us out there that share his passion and need for serious change on so many venues. We need you and those that stand by you in the fight for the simple morale and values we were taught to respect. I never thought in a million years I would be here. Last but not least…to John. Kudos to you for just handing it to them. I’m honored that you live in my county and Country. God Bless. You ARE a Warrior! Today..I am blessed.
What’s better than sex? I’m talking about the kind of sex that people fantasize about in their deepest darkest secrets. It’s Senate Bill 5 otherwise known as SB5
Oh yes, SB5 is one of the most exotic, sexy pieces of legislation ever to grace paper and to come from the lips of a State Senator Shannon Jones. The dialogue and beauty of the text is enough to turn the coldest heart into a lavish, promiscuous, insidious romantic.
So what is this salacious document that I’m speaking so highly of? It’s the first, most aggressive legislation since the infamous 1983 act in favor of collective bargaining implementation, to be enacted in an attempt to stop the bleeding that public employees represented by unions are imposing on tax payers. For more than 27 years this law has remained unchanged and has strangled the State of Ohio in being able to create a positive business atmosphere that will attract business and bring jobs to Ohio. The organizations that stand behind the collective bargaining law of 1983 have little understanding of business and have over those 27 years helped create a complex puzzle that is straining the states pension system and a host of other labor related issues.
This bill is proposed by Senator Shannon Jones of Clearcreek Twp of the 7th District has the direct support of Governor Kasich and will take a major step in the direction of solving that puzzle by taking off the shackles that are draining the tax revenue flowing to the state from the caretakers of Ohio, the tax payers.
Listen to this guy. He’s why we need SB5. It’s people like him that go to those collective bargining rallies.
Among the many items in the bill the primary reforms are:
• Eliminates collective bargaining for state employees and employees of higher education institutions • Existing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) covering those employees expire according to their terms • Eliminates salary schedules and step increases and replaces them with a merit pay system • Eliminates continuing contracts for teachers after the bill’s effective date • Eliminates teacher leave policies in statute and requires local school boards to determine leave time • Eliminates seniority as a sole criterion for Reductions In Force (RIFs) • Removes healthcare from bargaining and instead permits school boards to govern healthcare benefit plans for employees • Requires employees to pay at least 20% of their healthcare costs • Allows public employers to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike • Limits bargaining for local government employees (including school districts) to issues of wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment • Eliminates binding arbitration for police and fire • Abolishes the School Employee Healthcare Board • Prohibits school districts from picking up any portion of the employee’s contribution to the pension system • Allows a public employer in “fiscal emergency” to serve notice to terminate, modify or negotiate a CBA While much of this bill will focus on the state, it will immediately bring transparency to localities. No longer will local school boards be able to blame the state for policies created and imposed on the districts. Step increases by teachers will now be considered raises, as they should be and school boards will be given much more independence on solving their own problems. Immediately SB5 will make changes to teacher’s contracts and benefits: • S.B.5 eliminates new continuing, contracts after the bill’s effective date. • The bill eliminates teacher leave polices from statute and instead requires local boards of education to establish general leave policies for employees who are not covered by a CBA. • The bill abolishes the School Employee Health Care board and instead permits boards of education to govern health care benefits for employees.
For all these reasons and more SB5 is a bold bill that has the kind of power to seduce business back to Ohio and once again make attractive enterprise not only in bringing jobs back to the state, but to reduce the impact of the syndicate style unions that feed directly off tax payer funds, particularly in education, and allows the money to go where it’s needed. Such a step has been needed for many years but lacked legislators and a governor with the kind of courage needed to implement it.
But like any great romance, there is always a jealous lover, the overly dependent jealous spouse that lives like a leech off the life it professes to love. Below is the press release from just such a jealous, over imposing leech of the state, the OEA. They quickly seek support from their members to attempt to strong arm the bold legislative movement occurring in Columbus. Read for yourself their words and bullet points below.
OHIO EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OPPOSES SENATE BILL FIVE
For Immediate Release Contact: Michele Prater 614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469 Ohio Education Association opposes Senate Bill Five Legislation will weaken public service to Ohio’s children February 9, 2011 (Columbus) – The Ohio Education Association (OEA) is gravely concerned that the Ohio Senate is not making Ohio’s children a priority. In a tough economy and facing a major budget deficit, Ohio must focus on the essentials, and nothing is more essential than giving our children a quality education that prepares them for good jobs. Sen. Shannon Jones’ legislation, Senate Bill 5 (SB 5), proposes to drastically curtail collective bargaining rights, ban public employee strikes, end collectively bargained salary schedules for public employees. SB 5 targets all state workers and all Ohio higher education employees, including OEA members at Columbus State, Youngstown State and other public colleges and community colleges, as well as OEA’s State Council of Professional Educators (SCOPE) bargaining unit whose members educate incarcerated adults and youths. OEA believes collective bargaining helps educators pursue the classroom conditions, tools and support that contribute to the kind of high quality 21st century education essential to preparing students for jobs and successful careers. Collective bargaining is a problem solving tool that shapes working conditions and improves learning conditions. Since 1983, Ohio’s collective bargaining law has created a framework that has made strikes rare and short in duration. OEA affiliates negotiate effectively to avoid strikes and disruption for student learning. Senate Bill 5 serves to weaken Ohio’s entire middle class. Rather than creating jobs in Ohio, this legislation will hurt local communities stifling job growth.
OEA’s asks you to remember that: • Collective bargaining allows educators a voice in improving opportunities for Ohio’s students, better classroom resources and improved teaching and learning conditions • Teachers know best what’s needed to improve student learning , and collective bargaining gives them the opportunity to focus on teaching rather than time consuming employment issues • Educators, like all public employees, are an integral part of the fabric of Ohio’s communities. Senate Bill 5 weakens Ohio. Rather than creating jobs, this legislation will hurt local communities, reversing Ohio’s positive economic outlook • Ohio’s collective bargaining law has created a framework for problem-solving that has made strikes rare. OEA affiliates negotiate effectively to avoid disruption for student learning • In a tough economy, with Ohio facing a major budget deficit, we must focus on the essentials. Nothing is more essential than giving our children a quality education that prepares them for good jobs.
There isn’t a successful formula for collective bargaining in the entire world that has sustained itself over time. The attempts tried have everywhere proved dismal failures, and under SB5 our state government has taken the first bold step to get the state healthy again. The rhetoric of the shallow rooted, selfish protectionists of the status quo will continue to rant the statements similar to the OEA Press Release. But none of them have a real plan. They are scrambling instead to find a way to keep the ponzi schemes going just a little longer because the tragedy for them is that they built their whole lives around those ponzi schemes, and it’s evident now that they won’t get out of the scheme what they invested.
For the rest of us, that chose to work outside that insidious system, and work for ourselves, or companies not tied to collective bargaining, our investment in long term longevity over short term gain proved the wise path. And it is our strategy that must be passed on to the rest of the state for the state’s health and future fortune.
Like all good love-making, sex is best when not rooted in selfish aims, but the mutual benefit of both partners. And the good lover knows what their partner needs even if the partner is obscure to the fact. So the sex is best when not done for the benefit of the giver, but for the receiver.
And that’s why this bill is so sexy. It’s what’s needed even when all parties aren’t aware that they need it. When the bill SB5 is thrust forward into the canvas of Ohio History much to the dismay of the intended object, the real impact will be felt only when selfishness flees the proceedings and both parties work together for mutual bliss.
But as many of you reading this know, sex is not good when third parties are involved and act as agents and matchmakers. That has been the role of collective bargaining in the State of Ohio. And that’s why we need to bypass the matchmakers and head straight for the bed.
