The superintendents are leaving the sinking ships because their true motives are revealed. They’ve always been about the money. They say it’s about the kids, but their actions speak otherwise. In Kevin Bright’s situation he still has the Stacy Schuler case that is coming his way and will be extremely embarrassing and he knows that once S.B.5 passes, the school board will be forced to make real cuts to the district, not cosmetic ones. There won’t be anymore levy increases, so he’s leaving to friendlier districts. What he doesn’t understand is that this movement that is occurring in Southern Ohio is growing north. He can hide from it, but he won’t escape.
It would be wise for these school officials to come clean now, and stop hiding behind children, and real estate values and reveal their true intentions before things become even more embarrassing. And for those teachers and administrators that are gaming the system thinking of leaving these districts for some friendly place like Kevin Bright is doing, good luck, because soon we’ll be there too. Enjoy it while you can.
Here Doc Thompson talks about Governor Kasich’s Ohio Budget and the further application of School Choice, which I support tremendously, because it creates competition in the education system. I am more convinced now than ever that the collectivism taught in schools by default has been devastating to our national economy, our political structure, and our personal identities and can be declared an epic failure. I have been open-minded about public education for the benefit of society. But now that I’ve seen the protests at the state level, and the way students have been conjured up to serve the needs of teachers unions in spite of whatever their parents might think, I am now prepared to openly speak against all the devices that are failing in American society so they can be identified and changed.
I came to similar points of view as Ayn Rand not by reading her. I came to her work late in life. But I traveled a path similar to her and arrived at similar conclusions. She, as I do, likes Nietzsche and understands without corruption what that philosopher was trying to say. She was an atheist where I’m not, but I understand her reluctance. I see spirituality in higher dimensional planes where she looked for reason in the observable world. But on matters of collectivism versus individualism I am with Ayn completely without pause.
Now that may seem extreme by let me tell you a brief story illuminating this fact. I have joined my share of groups, but I usually end up leaving them because of this whole collectivism issue. I hate it. Years ago I was a member, which I still distinctly support, but I was much more heavily active back then, called the Joseph Campbell Foundation. I spent my 20’s reading Campbell’s vast work and through him and his lectures, which I think I heard them all, I explored James Joyce’s work through the Skeleton Key and Ulysses, and much of Nietzsche’s work. But Campbell’s work put me on the path. Now Campbell was an intellectual individualist, much different from other intellectuals, so this is the reason he’s been successful on a level most only dream of regarding the field of comparative mythology and religion with sub categories in psychology, philosophy and art. Campbell was a maverick in many ways which is another way of saying he was an individualist. But, many of the people attracted to literature, and I run into this all the time, are liberal. So many of his fans were left-winged, so the moment he died, even to his warnings, they tried to turn Joseph Campbell into some collective savior, almost a religion.
So my words here, and the resistance to further taxes in schools, and reform such as what we are exploring in School Choice as heard by Doc’s interview are for the good of that great tree that is America. I see the insects that are eating the inside of our beloved tree need to be removed so the tree doesn’t die or split at the first big storm. And I have no emotion about the lives of those insects. They should not have attempted to set up a colony in our tree.
Sometimes you get a nice note from the people who count, the ones that take a few steps to show the appreciation they feel by the work you do. I was contemplating which person this week would be the Warrior of the Week when Cyd and some others put together the article below and asked me to post it.
Meanwhile, President Obama is going on vacation to Rio in South America while nothing less than the fate of the world hangs in balance.
• Japan is in need of United States help from its catastrophic devastation at the hands of a tsunami. • Congress, the Senate and the White House cannot agree on the proposed budget cuts and are only buying small increments to keep the government operating. • Socialist labor unions are threatening order all over the United States. • States and cities are going bankrupt all over the nation. • The NFL is even shutting down over “collective bargaining!” • The Middle East is undergoing destabilization. • Fuel prices are rapidly increasing. • Food prices are rapidly increasing. • And the immigration violence on the border is terrible while the pacifists feed the discontent with rhetoric like this:
Weiner and company forget that even John Boehner is standing behind the cutting of the Joint Strike Fighter which has the engine built-in Boehner’s district at the GE facility. Everyone is making sacrifices, but those stories aren’t being reported, only the emotional ones that are equivalent to pouring blood in the water to attract the mindless sharks. All that kind of discussion is lost to the foolish sharks like Weiner and his friends that only look at the meal in front of them and circle the island of logic, hungry for more food to feed their mindless lives of living just one more day on the spoils of others.
Darryl Parks is right. We are all on a lonely island, the last sane vestibules of continuation that must fight an ocean of predator’s intent on immediate, selfish destruction in order to restore our nation to a life of thriving unification that can only occur when the predators no longer threaten our existence. We are truly engaged in a battle of the mindless sharks and the beings of reason for the advancement of civilization.
And Barak Obama is in Rio looking at string bikinis. Hey, I was happy to elect Alan Keys as the first African-American president, but nobody wanted to listen to him.
Because the sharks want their food to swim right into their mouths, they don’t want us on an island planning our escape, or the taming of their wild, bloodthirsty ways.
With Obama, the socialist minded, tribal leaders of the African-American community got what they wanted, a man who would turn his back on his nation, play golf, and go on vacation to South America while the world burns, and the sharks are free to eat.
I’ve mentioned in many words on these pages why some leaders are better than others, and exactly what makes a leader, “good.” For a clear definition of what makes something of quality, and why some people are “better” than others I refer your inquisitive mind to the great book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That book is one of the best, most thorough works of philosophy on quality and leadership done since the pre-Greek age. The capacity to be, “the best” is within all of us. But certain traits certainly jump out as contributory factors.
Now, before anyone says that I don’t know what I’m talking I know quite a few school board members all over the state, and this is how I learned about this story. It’s not a secret. Such ceremonies are no different from the “hazing” rituals in college fraternities. The intent is to unify everyone into a “collective team.”
At a minimum, no school board member elected by the public should ever wear a pin or carry a sign lobbying the community for increases in taxes. Because in doing so they are publicly admitting that they do not have management control over the school system and are not able to do the job.
And a warning to Mr. North and all those like him. Be careful what you say to people. The difference now is that when a whistleblower says something to the paper, and it falls on deaf ears, there are now groups like this one and others that are emerging, that will carry the story. So hiding behavior under a rock or behind closed doors will no longer be a valid way to hide improprieties to the taxpayer. And there are plenty of leaks. Believe me.
Butler County commission signs off on FOP contract Butler County Sheriff’s Office deputies have new agreement. By Michael D. Pitman, Staff Writer March 18, 2011
HAMILTON — Butler County Sheriff’s deputies and supervisors will get a raise, but they’ll have to wait until next year. The Butler County Commission agreed Thursday to ratify the collective bargaining agreements for members of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 101.
The contract, which expires Feb. 9, 2013, had to go to a conciliator in November for the six items on which the union and administration could not come to terms.
“This is how the process is supposed to work,” said Sheriff Richard K. Jones, an opponent of Ohio Senate Bill 5 that passed the Senate and is in the House for debate. “We couldn’t agree, so we went to arbitration.”
Sgt. Jeff Gebhart, a spokesman for the FOP, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
According to the new contract, union members will get a 2 percent raise next year; $1,000 cash payment in lieu of a uniform allowance; and new top step effective in February 2012 to be set 2 percent higher than the current top step while deleting the lowest step.
The union also wanted similar pay scales for court services deputies and road deputies; the ability for supervisors to bid on positions; and a uniform allowance in 2010. The conciliator did not grant these requests.
“We want our people to have the best they can negotiate for; it’s not a battle,” Maj. Norman Lewis said. “But in these economic times, with the way the budget has been slashed, it’s a process that had to take place.”
Lewis said the collective bargaining process started in February 2010, but the six items of disagreement needed a conciliation hearing.
The contracts with corrections officers, corrections supervisors, clerical and dispatch unions are being finalized and likely will go before the county commissioners in ensuing weeks, he said.
Jones said the collective bargaining process works for the administration and the unions, and has worked well for the 34 years he’s been involved in the negotiations.
The protests on Fountain Square the day Governor Kasich released his budget were amazingly short-sighted considering many of the participants were educators. “We need to tax the rich, and save the middle-class,” were the chants. Really? I mean, really???????? These people really believe that there are other options that are less painful than the budget cuts Kasich placed on the table. They really believe that the wage levels are somehow separate from collapsing community budgets.
Few of these public workers understand that Medicaid is almost a third of the state budget and only 4% of the people occupy 70% of the cost. That’s a major problem and one of the largest contributors of the budget deficit Ohio is experiencing. It’s certainly not that the rich aren’t paying enough taxes, or that industry is getting tax breaks. The people who say such things are incredibly selfish and not very wise on world affairs. They only look at their little piece of the world and could care less if everyone else suffer, which is what’s happening in Lakota and every other school district.
The protestors were already prepared to protest Kasich no matter what he said in his budget. He could have said he was giving everyone a thousand dollars in the state of Ohio, and they would have still complained about what an evil guy he is.
I look at the things Kasich wants to do and it all sounds good to me. The protestors clearly just don’t want change because they benefit tremendously by keeping everything broken. They are ultimately a very selfish lot that lack the intellectual capacity to educate anyone in my opinion. To know that there were teachers from Lakota at this rally disgusts me. They represent the community very poorly.
Here is what they are protesting from Kasich’s budget plan.
• More oversight over Medicaid, although spending on the federal program will continue to grow by $1 billion annually. Medicaid comprises 30 percent of Ohio’s $60 billion budget in fiscal year 2013, including all federal matching dollars.
• Better coordination of mental health services.
• To offer the state’s health-care coverage to local governments to save money and ask union workers to pay more toward premiums.
• To sell liquor distribution rights to raise money for job-development programs,
• To honor pay increases contained in the third year of a union contract that ends next February. The extra pay offsets lost personal days and unpaid furloughs by state workers – concessions to balance Gov. Ted Strickland’s last budget.
• To double vouchers for school choice, eliminating a waiting list for parents who want to transfer their children from public to privately operated charter schools.
• Bonuses for teachers – $50 for each student who shows marked improvement.
• A closer look at adding slot machines to Ohio’s horse tracks or legalizing casinos operated by Native American tribes.
• Study the concept of semi-private “charter” universities to give now-public colleges more flexibility. That would eliminate the requirement that they hire multiple prime contractors and pay prevailing wage on construction projects, to keep tuition down. It also caps annual tuition growth at 3.5 percent.
Recently I needed a part from a large manufacturer in Dallas, Texas, and the person on the other end of the phone said they could see the part through the window from where they were sitting. But they couldn’t send it to me. Why? Because the department on the other side of the window was controlled by the union and the guy in charge of moving that part was out on sick leave, and he was the only one able under the contract to move the part. So because of union rules the person I was speaking to could not simply open a door and pick up the part to ship back to me. It cost thousands of dollars in delivery penalties and seriously set back our manufacturing process. I was so mad at that process that I put my fist through my phone in frustration.
The same mentality is at play with these public sector unions. They are out of touch and protecting the serious imposition they have imposed on us all. And they could care less of some kids suffer because of their inflated opinions of themselves.
The proof is in what they say and do. Not in their very controlled bullet points designed to manipulate a busy voting population.
I would consider this a very important and timely film. One that contributes to our culture and it gives me great hope listening to the producer explain to Doc Thompson that the film makers are doing everything in their power to remain true to the original book. The last time a filmmaker spent that kind of time being authentic to a body of literary work it was a little film project called Lord of the Rings.
The Atlas Shrugged series will be divided into three parts the first of which is coming out this April. Hollywood will be watching closely how this film is received. It is entirely possible that the success of this film could change the direction of Hollywood for years.
The young people making films today are as lost as the films they are producing. The other day my wife and I were discussing whether or not we wanted to see the film Paul. I told her it looked a lot like ET to me. We’ll probably see it, but will come away feeling a hunger for more.
That’s why Atlas Shrugged has the potential to be more than just a movie. It has the potential to revitalize our American civilization at a time that many are asking the very questions that Ayn Rand offered in a time that nobody wanted to listen.
Go to the Atlas Shrugged web site and let them know you want a print of the film to be shown at Newport on the Levee. Also, contact that theater so they can set up a screening with the producers so we can help that film prove how powerful the viewings in the Midwest are. This will convince Hollywood to release the film on a wide release, which is of paramount importance.
Go to this link and just type in your zip code to cast your vote to bring this great film to Cincinnati, or whatever city you live in.
I’m actually amazed that Kasich’s approval rating is as high as 40 percent considering how bold he has been on many of his policies. There is no question that Kasich’s budget is going to be painful for many people. I would have to say that if I were governor, I probably wouldn’t do things much different from Kasich is doing. I personally wouldn’t think too much on the pain of the moment, because what’s right is right. It’s not Kasich’s fault that so many people have become addicted to public money. It’s like taking the bottle away from an alcoholic while they are trying to get drunk. Of course the drunk will be upset, and they usually protest that they are not alcoholics. I’d probably hire people to serve under me at good business wages so I could get the best people and not the typical “kiss ass” political climbers, I’d probably want to control the video of my presentations so they couldn’t be used against me in the future, and I’d probably be caught numerous times calling police that pulled me over, “idiots” because it would make me angry. I’m a very aggressive guy and I keep my eyes on the end result, and I see in Kasich the same traits.
I would say that Kasich understands like many people who are in leadership positions that a vast majority of any given group will be lost no matter how much you try to explain it. And those types of people don’t like to waste time explaining their vision to people who won’t get it anyway.
It was reported that Kasich’s approval rating is below the levels enjoyed by the last three governors when they were in their start of their administrations. The Ohio Poll registered 68 percent approval for Democrat Ted Strickland in May 2007, 49 percent approval for Republican Bob Taft in March 1999 and 61 percent approval for Republican George Voinovich in February 1991. The reason for this is because those governors spent much of their time pandering to the 47% and therefore accomplished very little as leaders. They mistakenly assume that the 53% will always be there for them, which is unfair because the 53% get overlooked as they are the good citizens that work hard to support the nation. Unfortunately the squeaky wheel does get the grease, and those squeaky wheels are that 47%.
People aren’t used to a governor that has a reversed position and targets his governorship at the 53% that understand, even if they don’t agree. It appears that Kasich isn’t the only governor showing these tendencies. Scott Walker certainly appears to be the same way.
Doc Thompson covers how the “rich Hollywood types and politicians hide their money from tax collectors, gaming the system. These are the same people who proclaim that we should pay increased taxes in order to fund public sector jobs. Doc has an argument with a guy that claims he’s willing to send in a $20,000 check to pay his “fair share.” Also, Doc covers a UC administrator that received over $900,000 in severance upon being released from his contract. Have a listen:
My guess however is that these current administrators won’t explore that option unfortunately, because they cannot think any other way, which is part of the problem.
Before a single layoff is ever explored, wage reductions should be implemented. Realistic wage amounts need to be established, not the outrageous levels they currently are. Teachers of high school students and junior high students are not all worth 70K or more no matter how much schooling they have. Some may be, but not a majority. Few people are worth that much in labor and a college degree does not guarantee those wage levels, which is the assumption under the established step increases, and the fact that I even have to write it down so that administrators have to be told says they are out of touch completely with the community marketplace.
The other is from Arnie Engle from Fairfield who has been fighting this fight for a long time.
To one and all FYI The board will be voting to cut High School busing this Thursday Are you willing to risk our children’s lives to save $300,000?? The next Board meeting is 3-17-11 6PM in the Community Room at the HS
The blackmail tactics are about to begin
Our community was divided over the 3 school levies the board jammed down the throats of the community in 2004. This board is knowingly driving our district into fiscal crisis and a repeat of the 2004 community divide. Why are they doing this? Because they refuse to place the community and our children before the staff with appropriate cost cutting measures. Please attend and let your voice be heard
Please pass this on to everyone you know !
You must sign in to speak at the beginning of the meeting and you get 5 minutes. There is also an additional chance to speak before the board votes on the cuts. 2 minutes.
On the agenda are 3 million in cuts to be voted on. The list can be viewed on the school web site. In the list is the elimination of high school busing to save $300,000.
Fact! The schools own finance report, shows we spent 6.6 million on pupil transportation in 2010. We are cutting 1/3 of our busing. Shouldn’t we expect a savings of 1/3 of $6,000,000???? You can view this report on the school web site.
School busing is the safest way to transport school children. Putting our kids on the road to and from school is a disaster waiting to happen.
And for what??? $300,000???
Are you willing to risk our children’s lives to save $300,000??
I’m not!
The following is what I said about cutting busing back in 2004. The same applies today.
From the 2004 CARE flier WHY CUT SPORTS AND BUSING?
The recent cuts made by the Fairfield School Board do more than balance the budget. They actually punish our children and the community,
in an effort to force an unjust $9,000,000 school levy on the taxpayers of our fine city. This tax levy will definitely benefit the staff, but NOT our children.
Regarding Sports, local papers have reported that the Xenia School District “saved $183,000 by cutting extra-curriculars. However, more than 100 students left the school district and went to other schools to participate in sports. The decreased student enrollment ended up costing the school $340,000 in school funding from the state.” Our school board and administration are aware of this, but they cut our extra-curriculars anyway.
Regarding busing, our school officials say we will save $400,000 by cutting busing. According to Treasurer Scott Gooding, we have a $5,500,000 transportation budget. We are cutting more than one-third of our transportation by cutting busing for grades 9-12 and extra curricular activities. You would expect to see savings of one-third of $5,500,000 or at least $1,800,000. Also note that the state gives us $2,000,000 for transportation as reported in the ODE, SF3 report. If we loose one-third of this funding that amounts to $667,000, nullifying the $400,000 savings projected by our officials. Therefore, it just doesn’t make good economic sense to cut busing and sports, unless it’s really an effort to punish our kids, parents, and community in order to pass the next school levy on August 3rd.
I have heard it time and time again that the district needs to move forward and forget about the past \history. The problem is that history is about to repeat itself! We can all expect that $600 pay to play and the elimination of all busing will soon follow.
This board is, knowingly, running our district right into financial crisis. The solution to their madness was spelled out in my last letter to the editor. The boards blackmail tactics will never end as long as this board continues to places the staff ahead of the community and our children
BOARDS 1-13-11 RETREAT Letter to the Editor February 2011 BOARD INACTION WILL LEAD TO DISTRICT FAILURE
In regard to the Fairfield school districts budget retreat it was disappointing to hear the board was still considering a new tax levy. It would be a big mistake for the board to assume the community would support any type of levy. I would hope the board would anticipate this and enact the appropriate cuts to balance the budget. Failure to do so will send our district down the same road as Little Miami. The board needs to put the box of band aids away and get down to enacting a budget void of new levies. Time is running out.
Although there was an additional 4.6 million in cuts presented at the retreat there are still millions in possible cost cutting and revenue generating ideas presented by both me and the districts own hand picked finance committee. My suggestions and the finance committee’s suggestions should be reviewed, considered and enacted or rejected with reasoning shared with the public for any rejection, before there is any discussion of a new levy. The community is entitled to know, in detail, why the board refused to enact all cost saving ideas presented by anyone.
In my opinion there needs to be a fundamental change in the way the district does business. This would include but is not limited to the following suggestions.
Getting serious about contract negotiations.
Not relying on local property taxes to fund schools
The board must be honest with the public and follow through with their board actions.
The board should vote with an understanding of how their vote will effect the budget and leave their emotions at home . The board needs to start placing our children and the community first.
The board needs to review the business partner relationship it holds with it’s vendors and assure the public it is receiving the best possible price for the tax dollars spent.
The board needs to have a conservative outsider to review the way the district operates
The status quo of taxing and spending is not working in Fairfield or any government agency. If this philosophy can not be reigned in it will undoubtedly lead to the financial ruin of our district.
Let me leave you with a quote from the districts own finance committee “The current system is unsustainable without the fundamental changes we are suggesting — inaction will lead to district failure.” I have been warning the district of this for years. Time is running out.
Arnie Engel Past member Fairfield Board of Education CARE founder 829-7840 Please pass this on to everyone you know ! and please attend the next Board meeting on 3-17-11. Bring your neighbors, friends and family.
Bob Hagan, a Democrat from Youngstown recently participated in a disgraceful exchange on Facebook with Kevin Crowther during a debate over S.B.5. Hagan did what most Democrats and union supporters do when they are intellectually challenged by facts, they called their intellectual superiors names. Hagan called Kevin“Buckwheat” on Facebook for all to see.
Here is that exchange.
Kevin is a black man, a conservative that was making some great points that Hagan couldn’t answer. So like a child on the playground at wits end, Hagan retreated into a racial slur.
If you have lived under a rock for the last century, “Buckwheat” was the little black boy on “Little Rascals.” After Hagan’s comments, many people went to the press and a few websites carried the story. I learned about it during a recent Tea Party meeting. If you read this article, you can see that Hagan is sorry he “got caught” I mean sorry he slipped with the racial slur.
Why is he sorry? Well, apparently he wants to run for Mayor of Youngstown, and that will never happen if he can’t capture the black vote. So now that he has realized that arguing with people on Facebook is a pretty stupid idea considering that people can take screen shots, like the one you see on this page. Sorry Bob, but you revealed your true thoughts and it won’t be forgotten with double talk. Why does Hagan seem to have problems with black people? The event with Kevin took place on February 19th. It’s not a conservative conspiracy to take his seat, because a year prior to this “buckwheat” incident Hagan was in the way of another man trying to view belly dancers on a stage and Bob wouldn’t get out-of-the-way. The two men had some words, and Bob was knocked out cold, the man who punched Hagan in the face caused a gash in his chin needing 11 stitches. The man who struck Hagan was a black man. However, according to Hagan, all these things that keep happening to him are the fault of some conservatives from Southern Ohio.
Now, you’d think that this would be a big national story. But it’s not. For the most part, the papers and TV stations have given Hagan a pass. After all, he’s one of them, he’s a progressive, so his answers that he didn’t mean “buckwheat” in a racial way, is accepted.
On May 4, 1886, in Haymarket Square in Chicago, the public rallied peacefully in support of 40,000 workers in Chicago who had gone on strike, to win the right to organize. The police attacked, and eight died.
On July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 3800 workers went on strike, to win the right to organize. Three hundred hired and armed goons attacked them. Five people died.
On April 20, 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado, 1200 coal miners went on strike, to win the right to organize. The Colorado National Guard attacked their shantytown, and burned it to the ground. Nineteen people died. Two women and 11 children were asphyxiated, and they burned to death.
Here and around the world, many people have fought and died, so that you and I would have the right to organize. And so that 250,000 public workers in Wisconsin would have that right, too.
This is not exactly a new idea. Six months after the Ludlow Massacre, President Wilson signed the Clayton Act, prohibiting the prosecution of union members under Antitrust Law. That was almost a century ago.
Two decades later, during the Franklin Roosevelt’s first term as President, he signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. It protects the right to organize. That was over 75 years ago.
The right to organize also is a fundamental principle of international law. Over 150 countries have ratified the “Right to Organize” Convention, an international treaty. It was adopted in 1949, over 60 years ago. So why are we even talking about this, 11 years into the 21st Century?
Because the teabaggers want to “take back America.” They want to take it back, all right – take it all the way back to the 19th century. When there was no right to organize. When people worked for a dollar a day. When grown men competed against children for jobs. When women were barred from most jobs entirely. When you worked until you died. Not to mention slavery.
I want to see an America that is healthy and wealthy.
They want an America that provides cheap labor to our corporate overlords. An America where the middle class is chained by debt.
We didn’t ask for this fight. But we have no choice except to fight back. For the survival of the middle class in America. For us, for our children, and for our grandchildren. And so that the victims in Haymarket, in Homestead and in Ludlow did not die in vain.
As Cardinal Spellman said 45 years ago, “it is a war thrust upon us, and we cannot yield to tyranny.” I’m ready to fight for what’s right. What about you?
The labor movement was started by another Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, who fought during the first decade of the 20th century to break down anti-trusts and corporate power in machine politics. And you know what, I agree with what Teddy was trying to do. But………after his presidency, Roosevelt went on a grand safari hunt in Africa for an entire year, and every country he visited touted him as a king. Somewhere out there in the Serengeti Teddy became a bleeding heart progressive. Maybe it was his age, maybe it was a form of madness, who knows, but if Teddy had a fault it was that he craved power, and suddenly he didn’t have any power after the presidency. Before returning home, he toured all the nations of Europe dining with kings, queens, princes and Emperors. Everyone wanted to eat from his hand, and it went to his head.
The final blow came when Teddy came back to the United States and saw that his good friend President Taft had allowed machine politics to retake the Republican Party so Teddy decided to run for a third term of president. But the Republicans wouldn’t let him run on their tickets because Teddy had become, too progressive and had lost touch with his conservative principles. So they pushed him out of the party hoping he’d just retire.
All it did was make Teddy angry, because deep down inside, Roosevelt wanted power back so he formed his opinions around the new emerging “progressive” party being formed by “rich” Republicans seeking a utopia type era in America. So while the Republicans divided over progressivism and split the vote during the 1912 election, Woodrow Wilson won under a softer form of progressivism on the Democratic ticket.
Alan Grayson attempted to give a history of the labor movement as if to validate the union movement. The fact is, if Roosevelt had not fought hard for the worker rights against the corporate greed, they’d still be going on to this day. It took a president to provide that kind of leadership. The union movement only rode on Teddy’s coat tails and a friendly Woodrow Wilson administration that was so lost it was easy for the unions to take credit. When F.D.R came to the presidency, which was Teddy’s younger cousin, Franklin also suffered the Roosevelt tendency to elitism that came from their New York high society roots. Franklin came to power in government as a state senator when Teddy was most progressive and it seemed to have a serious influence on Franklin.
Franklin had another problem aside from being a progressive leaning young man……..he couldn’t keep his pants on, and had multiple affairs while married to Eleanor.
And I don’t want anything to do with a group of politicians that speak out of both sides of their mouths. Bob Hagan got caught using a racist slur. Alan Grayson is trying to incite violence among the union rank and file. I would suggest any financial damage caused by union radicals should be sent to Mr. Grayson for his incendiary comments and blind rhetoric, spewing half-baked historical facts to the masses that look to him for the truth, which he fails to offer. Instead he panders to the mob providing viability to his progressive philosophy, which has set America on a path of the pathetic as Republicans spend half their time defending themselves for far less impositions than what these Democrats have committed, recently.
And unions are not a right given by government. They should absolutely be illegal. They have no place in public funding, and what Grayson fails to point out in his child like grasp of history is that his beloved F.D.R also said that no public union should ever enter the mind of any politician. But he won’t tell the mushy minded followers of his rhetoric that. He is able to mislead his flocks of sheep because it’s worked in the past, and the plan is for it to work in the future.