Archive for the ‘States Rights’ Category

Published August 27, 2011| Associated Press
AUSTIN, Texas –  Texas Gov. Rick Perry has asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for nearly $350 million to cover the costs he says Texas has incurred incarcerating illegal immigrants in state prisons and county jails.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Perry reiterated a claim he’s often leveled against the federal government: that it’s not doing enough to secure the border with Mexico and as a result, has allowed illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and use taxpayer-funded resources, including the prison system.

The letter was dated Aug. 10, three days before the Republican governor formally announced he is running for president.

Reached after-hours Friday by phone, DHS spokesman Matthew Chandler said he wasn’t in position to comment and said he could not confirm that the DHS had even received the letter.

Perry has been criticized by some fellow conservatives as being too lenient on illegal immigration issues. Unlike fellow GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann, Perry does not think the U.S. should build a wall spanning the entire Mexican border. Perry also has supported discounted tuition rates for the children of illegal immigrants at Texas universities, and he has said Arizona’s tough-on-immigration law wouldn’t be right for Texas.

As governor, Perry was one of the first to talk about immigration by breaking out the issue of border security, a move that has won him support from conservative Hispanics. But he angered Hispanic leaders in June by endorsing legislation that would have prohibited cities from adopting “sanctuary” rules for handling suspected immigrants.

In his two-page letter to Napolitano, Perry described the formula used to come up with his $349.2 million bill, including $94.4 million to cover costs incurred by county jails.

“During tough economic times, when communities are making difficult decisions about their own budgets, Texas counties are being asked to cover more than $94.4 million in direct costs related to housing illegal immigrants while the state has been left to cover more than $254.8 million in such costs.”

He included a memo from Comptroller Susan Combs in which she supports his calculations but warns that the estimates are conservative.

“The longstanding failure of the federal government to secure our border with Mexico continues to burden local communities and resources in Texas,” Perry wrote. “Because there are not enough troops on the ground, illegal immigrants are able to penetrate the Texas border every day and use taxpayer-funded resources.”

Perry is not the first governor to try to bill the federal government for the costs of incarcerating illegal immigrants. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, sued the DHS in February seeking compensation for incarceration costs, among other things. And Napolitano herself, who preceded Brewer as Arizona governor, regularly sent the Justice Department invoices seeking such reimbursement before she became Homeland Security secretary.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/27/perry-bills-feds-34m-for-incarcerating-illegals/#ixzz1WGS9BIdi

The Wall Street Journal                JUNE 22, 2011

Labor Board Proposes Speeding Up Organizing Votes; Employers, GOP Cry Foul

By MELANIE TROTTMAN And KRIS MAHER

The National Labor Relations Board Tuesday proposed the most sweeping changes to the federal rules governing union organizing elections since 1947, giving a boost to unions that have long called for the agency to give employers less time to fight representation votes.

The NLRB’s proposals would likely compress the time between a formal call for a vote by workers on whether to join a union, and the election itself. It is the latest in a series of actions by the board and other agencies controlled by Obama administration appointees that respond to labor leaders’ calls for more union friendly federal labor policies.

The rules governing organizing are the focus of a power struggle between unions and employers after decades of declining union membership. Only 6.9% of private sector workers belonged to unions in 2010, and just 11.9% of all U.S. workers, according to the Labor Department. In 1983, unions represented 20.1% of all workers.

“This is another not so cleverly disguised effort to restrict the ability of employers to express their views during an election campaign,” said Randy Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits.

Some companies say cutting the lead time before an election would make it harder for them to build a case for opposing a union, because union campaigns often begin months earlier without an employer’s knowledge.

Unions praised the proposal, although Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, called the board’s step a “modest” one that doesn’t address “many of the fundamental problems with our labor laws.”

Unions failed during the years when Democrats had control of Congress to win passage of a remake of union organizing rules known as the Employee Free Choice Act. Since Democrats lost control of the House in 2010, union leaders have stepped up pressure on the Obama administration to use its rule-making powers to achieve some of the same goals as the EFCA.

• NLRB Proposals: Reactions

 The NLRB said its proposed changes aim to curb unnecessary litigation; streamline procedures before and after elections; and enable the use of electronic communications, such as requiring employers to give union organizers access to electronic files containing workers’ addresses and email addresses when available.

Even with more favorable rules, unions could face challenges winning contested elections at a time when even union officials say many workers are more concerned about their own job security. Unions have tried and failed for years to organize workers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and the U.S. operations of big foreign-owned auto makers, among others.

The Union Agenda

Unions were counting on advancing their priorities after the election of President Obama. A scorecard on their progress:

Passage of Employee Free Choice Act to ease union organizing. Failed in Senate.

Getting former union lawyer Craig Becker on the NLRB. Accomplished through recess appointment.

Making it easier for airline and railroad workers to unionize. Approved by the National Mediation Board.

Enabling airport screeners to unionize and collectively bargain. Authorized by Transportation Security Administration.

On Friday, the United Food and Commercial Workers union lost an election 85-137 at a Target store in Valley Stream, N.Y. The union immediately accused the company of illegally intimidating workers.

“The team members rejected the union,” said Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder. “We are pleased that we are going to be able to work directly with our team members and continue to make Target as great a place as it can be.”

“Target believes that we have followed all of the laws and regulations of the National Labor Relations Act,” Ms. Snyder added. She said the company “doesn’t have anything to share at this point” about the changes proposed by the NLRB.

A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company didn’t have a reaction “at this time” to the proposed NLRB rules changes.

The International Association of Machinists and the Association of Flight Attendants lost elections last year involving 50,000 Delta Air Lines Inc. workers. Since then, the National Mediation Board, which oversees elections in the airline industry, opened investigations into allegations that the company unfairly pressured workers to vote against the unions. The NLRB rule changes wouldn’t affect the airline industry, whose labor relations are governed by the mediation board.

NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman, in a statement Tuesday, predicted the proposals would be controversial, and business groups and Republican lawmakers quickly proved her right.

Rep. John Kline (R., Minn.), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, urged the board to scrap what he called a reckless and job-destroying agenda.

Brett McMahon, vice president for business development at Miller & Long, a privately held, nonunionized construction company in Bethesda, Md., said the NLRB’s proposal “provides a totally unfair advantage to labor and it deprives employees of a full set of information.” Mr. McMahon, whose company employs about 1,100 people, said the NLRB proposal, combined with a Labor Department proposal Monday to require employers to disclose more information about labor consultants they hire, is “a two-fold attack” on employers.

Republican lawmakers were already attacking the NLRB for its decision in April to accuse aircraft giant Boeing Co. of illegally building a 787 Dreamliner production line at a new nonunion plant in South Carolina, a state where unions are weak, instead of in Washington state where union employees are already building such planes.

Unions reacted positively to the NLRB’s proposal. “At a time when corporations have lawyers and lobbyists speaking for them on Capitol Hill, it’s a good thing when a federal agency wants to allow working people to have a say,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union.

The NLRB’s Democratic majority has the votes to adopt the rules. Ms. Liebman said the board would approach the process with “open minds” and has invited public comment. There will be a public meeting on July 18th and 19th about the proposal.

Union organizing efforts often take years. In 2008, the UFCW won an election to organize 5,000 workers at a Smithfield Foods Inc.’s hog-slaughtering plant in Tar Heel, N.C., after a campaign that consumed 15 years. The union lost a 1997 vote, spurring seven years of litigation. In 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the company had threatened workers and ordered it to reinstate four union supporters the court found were illegally fired.

The cost of organizing efforts has led unions to seek fewer votes. Last year, unions won 1,036, or 66%, of 1,571 elections conducted by the NLRB, according to the agency. In 1990, unions called for 3,536 elections and won 1,773, or 50%.

The NLRB said it couldn’t calculate how much shorter the time could be between when a union files a petition for an election and the election itself. The median time is now 38 days.

Michael Lotito, a partner in San Francisco at law firm Jackson Lewis LLP who advises employers, said the lead time could be shaved to between 19 and 23 days under the proposal.

The power struggle between employers and unions promises to be a factor in the 2012 elections. Unions were significant contributors to President Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign and played a crucial role in drumming up votes for him and congressional Democrats.

In the 2010 election cycle, labor unions overall contributed $73.4 million to federal candidates, parties and outside groups, down from $74.55 million in the 2008 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ calculations of the 20 biggest union contributors at the time. In both cycles, at least 90% of the unions’ party-related contributions were to Democrats. Unions also spend money on political efforts not directly tied to a candidate.

Unions are heading into the 2012 election cycle facing moves in several states to curtail collective-bargaining rights. Labor leaders have turned to the Obama administration for help, and warned that union members would withhold campaign contributions for Democrats who don’t  support the union cause.

The Wall Street Junl     APRIL 11, 2011     By GEORGE P. SHULTZ
 

Unaccountable White House aides are a product of a broken cabinet-nomination process. This is not the form of government the Founders intended.
A pattern of governance has emerged in Washington that departs substantially from that envisaged in our Constitution. Under our basic concept of governance: (1) a president and vice president are elected; and (2) the departments of government are staffed by constitutional officers including secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and others who are nominated by the president and confirmed for service by the consent of the Senate. They are publicly accountable and may be called to testify under oath about their activities.

Over time, this form of governance has changed. Presidents sometimes assume that the bureaucracy will try to capture a secretary and his or her immediate staff so that they will develop a departmental, rather than a White House, point of view. So presidents will name someone in the White House to oversee the department and keep a tight rein on its activities.

In national security and foreign policy, the National Security Council (NSC) was established after World War II by the National Security Act of 1947. As late as 1961, under President Dwight Eisenhower, the NSC was supported by a small staff headed by an executive secretary with a “passion for anonymity” and limited to a coordinating role. In subsequent administrations, that passion disappeared and staff members took on operational duties that formerly were the responsibility of constitutionally confirmed cabinet officials. This aggrandizement of the staff function then spread into fields far beyond national security.

Lt. Col. Oliver North, 1987: Iran-Contra is an example of what can happen when cabinet-level decision making is bypassed.
More recently, the situation has been worsened by the difficulty of getting presidential nominees to cabinet and subcabinet positions approved and in place. The White House vetting process has become exhaustive, with potential appointees required to fill out extensive questionnaires on such things as foreign travel and personal acquaintances, let alone financial matters. Mistakes are potentially subject to criminal penalties. The result is a drawn-out and often disagreeable process from the time a person agrees to a job to the actual nomination.

Formal nominations do not necessarily receive quick consideration by Senate committees, which routinely request additional information. Sometimes a nomination, voted legitimately out of the committee, can be put on hold indefinitely as one member of the Senate uses the hold as a bargaining chip to get some matter, often unrelated, settled to his or her satisfaction.

These long delays make for great difficulty in assembling an administration, particularly in its crucial first year. The result has been appointment of people to the White House staff with de facto decision-making power over all the major areas of government. This practice also extends to foreign affairs, as a variety of special envoys and “special representatives” are appointed, often with ambiguity about whether they report directly to the president or to the secretary of state.

The practice of appointing White House “czars” to rule over various issues or regions is not a new invention. But centralized management by the White House staff has been greatly increased in recent years.

Beyond constitutional questions, such White House advisers, counselors, staffers and czars are not accountable. They cannot be called to testify under oath, and when Congress asks them to come, they typically plead executive privilege.

The consequences, apart from the matter of legitimate governance, are all too often bad for the formation and execution of policy. The departments, not the White House, have the capacity to carry out policies and they are full of people, whether political appointees or career governmental employees, who have vast experience and much to contribute to the making of ­policy. When White House staffers try to formulate or execute policy, they can easily get off track in a way that would not happen in a regular department.

As secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, I experienced this with great pain when White House people developed and ran an off-the-books program of arms sales to Iran. It erupted in the Iran-Contra scandal involving the unconstitutional transfer of funds not appropriated by Congress to the Contras, and with close to devastating consequences for the president.

Iran-Contra is a dramatic example, but the more general problem is the inability to take full advantage of available skills and expertise in policy making, and the difficulty in carrying out the functions of government nationally and internationally.

What must be done?

To return to a more effective and constitutionally sound use of cabinet members and their departments in helping the president formulate policy, cabinet secretaries could be grouped into important functional categories—national security and foreign policy, economics, natural resources, human resources, the rule of law, education, health and others. All of these subjects involve more than one department. Sometimes the natural convener is obvious; in other instances the leading role might simply rotate.

With the help of staff coordinators in the White House, cabinet members might convene by themselves and then with the president. This would involve the departments and, at the same time, ensure that a presidential, rather than a departmental, point of view would prevail. Policy execution would be improved, as would support for legislative initiatives.

The main goal is to assure that a cabinet member—not a White House aide—is always in charge. The result would be not so much cabinet government as presidential government with the heavy involvement of accountable officials in the administration.

Then, and foremost, the appointment process must be moved back to what it was even as recently as the Reagan administration. The assumption is that honorable people want to serve honorably. Reasonable vetting, such as a review of Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation records, can be done quickly. A bad apple will surely be discovered and can be discarded.

I remember a passage in the late great American statesman Paul Nitze’s autobiography. A friend in the FDR administration called and asked him to work in government—he would receive no pay, only an extra desk and an assistant. In this wholly illegitimate way, he began his career in the federal government.

Nitze’s record of public service is legendary. I was lucky to serve with such a great and honorable man. I am not recommending that today’s vetting process be like his, but I worry: Could we attract a Paul Nitze to the government today?

Today’s problems are daunting and of critical importance. We need today’s Paul Nitzes involved in the process of governance. It’s imperative that we get back to a constitutional and accountable form of government before confidence in our capacity to govern further erodes.

Mr. Shultz, former secretary of labor (1969-70), secretary of the Treasury (1972-74) and secretary of state (1982-89), is a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

In my last article (Part 3) I evaluated the two presidential candidates from the 2008 Republican primary, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney, giving Romney the edge on both his business experience and his governorship. Today we will look at the remainder of my favorite candidates, Jon Huntsman, Sarah Palin, and Allen West, ending with a ranking of my favorite five potential candidates.

Jon Huntsman, Jr. Huntsman gave the vice-presidential nominating speech for Sarah Palin, and has all but been endorsed for a presidential run by John McCain. To most of America Huntsman is an unknown. He has been an insider in Washington since the 1980s serving in the Reagan, G.H.W Bush, and G.W. Bush administrations as (respectively) White House Staff Assistant, Deputy Secretary of Commerce then Ambassador to Singapore, and Deputy US Trade Representative. He is currently serves in the Obama Administration as Ambassador to China.

He was Governor of Utah for two terms, winning the second term with almost 78% of the vote. The Cato Institute rated him the top governor on tax policy, and the fifth highest on overall fiscal policy. During his administration Utah was listed as the best run state government by the Pew Center on the States.

His business experience includes an executive with the Huntsman Corporation, an international Chemical Company with annual revenues topping $8 billion and over 10,000 employees; and CEO of Huntsman Family Holdings Company. He has also headed major philanthropic organizations including the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, the Utah Opera, Envision Utah, and The Family Now Campaign.

His stand on fiscal matters, taxation, and business is strongly conservative. He is more mixed on his social positions, being strongly conservative on abortion, and gun rights, but he has liberal positions on climate change, same sex domestic unions, the Department of Education, and the Obama Stimulus. He signed Utah up in the Western Climate Action Initiative, basically a western states cap and trade arrangement. He has shunned the Tea Party conservatives but has broad appeal to old school Republicans.

Sarah Palin The candidate for vice-president on the 2008 McCain ticket has a strong appeal to deeply conservative Republicans, the religious right, Libertarians, and the Tea Party movement. The fact that she shared the ticket with McCain has given her some standing with moderate and old-line Republicans.

Upon becoming Governor of Alaska, Palin embarked on two gutsy missions: To clean out corruption in Alaska politics and to cut spending; she did this with gusto rooting out criminal activity and cronyism not just from the state government, but even within her own party. She pared back government programs, size, and waste starting with getting rid of the perks of the office of the governor.

Besides being governor, Palin served on the town council, then as mayor of Wasilla, and as a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission.

Her time on the commission gave her a good practical insight into natural resource issues. Her political position is solidly conservative on both fiscal and social issues. She has experience in operating family businesses and has worked as a correspondent on Alaskan TV Stations. She has shown a great sense of fiscal responsibility and is business friendly.

Because of her run for vice-president, authoring two books, hosting an excellent documentary series on Alaska, being supportive of and responsive to the Tea Party movement, and being a frequent topic of conversation and controversy on talk shows and news commentary she is now well known. In fact, she might be too well known; she is as disliked by the left as she is liked by the right.

While I really like her positions on all the issues, she doesn’t have the level of leadership that most of the other candidates have, and certainly not the degree of financial education and experience of most of them.

Allen West  The newly elected congressman won his seat on the strength of Tea Party support. Some would point to this, his only elective office, as being not enough political experience. However, one does not work as a battalion commander in a war zone without learning a lot about practical politics. He holds a master’s degree in political science from Kansas State and a master’s degree from the Military Command College in political theory, military history, and military operations. So is probably better versed in political processes and institutions than 90% of congressmen.

He served twenty-two years as a commissioned officer in the military including both Gulf Wars serving in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He earned a bronze star, Meritorious Service Medal (2 oak clusters), Army Commendation Medal (2 oak Cluster, Valor Device), Army Achievement Medal (1 oak cluster), Valorous Unit Award, Air Assault Badge, and Parachutist Bade, as well as ten service medals. After his retirement he worked as a high school history teacher, a college ROTC instructor, and a regional director for a military consultancy to the Afghan army.

West is both a fiscal and social conservative. He sees the last fifty years of liberal social programs and policies as trapping the poor in a culture of welfare and dependency. He has an overriding respect for the U.S. Constitution and is a deeply committed patriot. He has probably the clearest understanding of any person in Congress of the Muslim religion and the threat of both conquest by migration and conquest by aggression that exists from the radical elements of the faith. He has great clarity of thought and a direct and unapologetically sincere mode of speech. He is a motivator and is himself very motivated – he is able to think on his feet, does not need a teleprompter, and is unafraid of debate and discussion.

So the way I rank my favorite five candidates is:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Allen West
3. Sarah Palin
4. Mike Huckabee
5. Jon Huntsman

I could happily support a ticket that has any two of these five on it, but feel the strongest ticket would be Mitt Romney and Allen West, because they nearly perfectly complement each other with their individual strengths. Romney is excellent in economics, business, fiscal responsibility, Administration, and practical day to day politics. West is excellent in international politics, national security, the military, crisis management, and Middle East issues, a critical gap in the current administration.  It is important that the ticket have truely qualified candidates, that they form a strong team, and that they appeal to voters accross the broad spectrum of Republican politics.  To win the must pick up independents, Libertarians, and Democrats.

If this ticket should come about, I could see Palin as Secretary of Interior, Huntsman as Secretary of State, and my preferences for Huckabee include chairman of the FCC (this wouldn’t be possible if he still has ownership in radio and TV stations), or as a white house assistant for reducing government, combining and eliminating cabinet positions and moving functions that belong to the states back to the states, or as transitional Secretary of Education or Energy to transition the department out of existence.

The final segment, part 5, of this series of blogs, will look at those not on my list who are considered or are considering becoming candidates.

By Ron Ross on 3.4.11 @ 6:07AM

The Democrat party is an amalgam of special interest groups — environmentalists, trial lawyers, minorities, college professors, and labor unions, for example. All of these groups, however, are not equally crucial to the survival of the party. Far and away the most important, of course, is organized labor.

The British equivalent to our Democrat party is the Labour party. If there were truth in labeling, that would be the name of the Democrat party. Only the spelling would change.

The Democrat party has numerous reasons to be worried. Possibly the biggest is the degree to which it is dependent on organized labor for its continued success and possibly even its existence. Where would Democrats be without unions, and vice versa? As much as they trumpet the value of diversity, Democrats are dangerously under-diversified.

Only labor unions have the ability to automatically and involuntarily extract campaign funds from their members. Unions have become the equivalent to a guaranteed income for the Democrat party.

Automatic payroll deduction makes unions qualitatively different from any other Democrat support group. Republican governors are currently making great progress in rescinding automatic payroll deduction for public employees in several states.

There is little or no difference between the goals of labor unions and the Democrat party. Their political philosophies are indistinguishable. Both, for example, view people not as individuals but rather as members of groups, all of whom are to have equal incomes, regardless of effort or merit. Although both Democrats and unions would vigorously deny being socialists, both are strongly sympathetic to socialistic ideals.

Much of the most destructive legislation of the past eighty years has been the products of the unholy alliance between the Democrat party and organized labor. Besides being far and away the greatest source of campaign funds, unions have provided a dependable army of disciplined foot soldiers for the Democrat party.

Their alliance has been a major factor in the success of both. The unions rely on the Democrats to bend the rules in their favor – being exempted from anti-trust and restraint of trade regulations, for example. Everyone else and the economy end up worse off. Unions are rarely prosecuted for widespread corruption, threats of violence, and blatant intimidation. They have been allowed to play by a different set of rules.

Democrats need unions to deliver money and votes, unions need Democrats to deliver legislation that works in their interest. As both organized labor and the Democrat party decline in power, what each can deliver for the other will diminish. Each side of the symbiotic relationship must have power and vitality in order to keep the relationship working.

If the Democrat party finds itself in the minority for an extended period of time, it will be unable to deliver the legislation. The energy necessary to propel the system will peter out. In fact, it’s already begun. Democrats were unsuccessful in passing “card check” even when they had majorities in both the House and Senate. Unions are not happy about that.

Organized labor is 100 percent devoted to the Democrat party. Neither should be at all surprised that Republicans are now working to diminish the power of unions. It is only natural for Republicans to be seeking to weaken their opponents’ basic support apparatus. Someone should remind Democrats, “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Less than seven percent of private-sector workers now belong to unions. That is a number that probably scares the hell out of Democrats. Thirty-six percent of government workers are unionized. If public-sector history repeats private-sector trends, the implications are profound. As Washington Post columnist, Robert Samuelson, put it, “Big Labor became Little Labor. If public-sector unions fail, Little Labor could become Mini-Labor.” I would only add — and the once powerful Democrat party will become the Mini-Democrat party. It’s way too soon to know for sure, but for Democrats it could be that the party’s over.

Many good potential Republican candidates for the 2012 presidential election are beginning to attract attention. Some of my favorites are, in alphabetical order:

Mike Huckabee, making his second run for president, has experience as a Minister, Educator, Author of several best selling books, televangelist, television station owner and producer, and was a conservative Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Arkansas, a highly Democratic state, is an ABC Radio Commentator, and hosts a talk news show on Fox News Channel. He has very strong conservative stands on economic and social issues, respects the Constitution, and is deeply patriotic.

Jon Huntsman, Jr. is the son of a billionaire industrialist and philanthropist. He served as CEO of the Huntsman Corporation, a successful businessman and philanthropist, served in three Republican presidential administrations, as Governor of Utah, and is currently the US Ambassador to China. He has very strong conservative stands, respects the Constitution, and is deeply patriotic.

Sarah Palin, candidate for vice president in the last election and a cultural icon, TV reporter, author, business woman, commercial fisherman, served as city council and mayor, Governor of Alaska, and has starred in a documentary TV series on Alaska. She tackled corruption in state government, and even within her own party. Young, brash, quick on her feet, she has gained a strong following as well as many detractors. She is conservative both socially and economically, respects the Constitution, and is deeply patriotic.

Mitt Romney, making his second run for president, is the son of the multi-term Governor of Michigan, has served as a lay minister, is a highly successful business man, and was brought in as chairman of the US Olympics to salvage them from scandal and financial ruin, served as conservative Governor of highly Democrat Massachusetts. He has very strong conservative stands on economic and social issues, respects the Constitution, and is a deeply patriotic American.

Allen West, currently a freshman congressman from Florida, is a Career US Army Officer, who grew up in Atlanta Georgia in a military family. His father served in WW2 and made a career of the military, his mother was a civilian employee of the Marine Corps, and his brother, also career military, served in Viet Nam. He is recipient of valorous and meritorious service decorations including a bronze star. He has taught high school history and college ROTC. He is a social and fiscal conservative, and is passionately patriotic.

There are other good people out there, but these are the ones that I favor. In this post I will begin evaluating candidates and end up with a ranking of most favored to least, starting with the two candidates from the 2008 primary:

Huckabee vs. Romney. On issues, these two are almost identical, so either one of them would be a good choice for conservative voters. While I like Huckabee’s stand on issues, I have doubts about his character. I was very disappointed at his attacks on Romney’s religion during their presidential run.

Huckabee is trying to make an issue of the Massachusetts Healthcare bill. Health care is not a federal responsibility. Whether a state will provide healthcare and how they will choose to do is a state issue, and if the citizens of a state want to create a program, it is their prerogative to do so.

I have been put off by Huckabee’s apparently deceitful use of statistics to attack Romney on healthcare. First he notes that Massachusetts has the highest health care premiums in the country since Romney signed health care into law as Governor; this is not a lie, but it is deceitful, because that state already had the highest premiums of any state before the law was passed. Second he used statistics in to show that state health care costs had increased from 16 percent to 35 percent after the law was passed; again technically not a lie, but the law was passed in 2006 and the 16 percent figure is from 1990 – the cost of national health care rose nearly 300% during that period, yet Massachusetts increase was only 220%, so was considerably less than the national increase during that period. He sources this from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association, yet that organization says the costs “have been relatively modest and well within initial projections… the health care costs are not a problem” and the program is “a great success.”

Beyond the mudslinging approach that Huckabee has chosen, I give Romney the edge on meaningful leadership experience. While both have been governor, Massachusetts has double the population of Arkansas. Romney won two elections there running on a ticket of fiscal conservatism because the tax burden and state budget were in a state of near disaster. He turned the state around reducing programs, eliminating waste, balancing the budget, and initiating private insurance based healthcare without increasing taxes.

On the matter of electability, consider some more differences between the two states. While both states are majority-Democrat states, Massachusetts Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1 and are among the most liberal of states – For the last dozen or so elections they have gone Democrat; whereas Arkansas has voted Republican in the last three presidential elections. The voters in Arkansas are conservatives, both socially and fiscally. Romney based on his fiscal performance was reelected to a second term in a state that a conservative should not have a chance.  He was elected based on performance.  He has proven he is highly electable. So my rating so far:

1. Romney
2. Huckabee

In my next post, I will compare Huntsman, Palin, and West with Romney and Huckabee.

MARCH 3, 2011 By KRIS MAHER And AMY MERRICK
Ohio state senators narrowly approved a bill that would prohibit public-employee unions representing 400,000 state and local workers from bargaining over health benefits and pensions, while also eliminating the right to strike.

Supporters and opponents of Senate Bill 5 demonstrated outside the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday.
While national attention has focused for weeks on a similar battle in Wisconsin, the vote, by 17-16 in Ohio’s Republican-controlled Senate, virtually ensured that the Buckeye State will become the first to strip collective-bargaining rights from public employees as states grapple with recent gaping budget deficits.

The move is especially significant because Ohio is larger than Wisconsin, and like its fellow Midwestern state, is both a stronghold of public-sector labor unions and a swing state politically.

The bill now goes to the House, where the Republicans have a 59-40 majority. If approved, as expected, it will move for signature to Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who supports the bill.

Mr. Kasich believes it would help local governments control labor costs, spokesman Rob Nichols said.

Ohio’s labor leaders, while noting the narrow passage in the Senate, weren’t optimistic about stopping the bill in the House.

“We’re expecting it to pass,” said Jason Perlman, a spokesman for the Ohio AFL-CIO. But, he added, “We are hopeful those in the Ohio House will see this bill is nothing more than an attack on the middle class.”

Republican lawmakers say worker pay and benefit cuts are needed to offset projected budget shortfalls. “If we’re going to grow in Ohio, we cannot raise taxes,” Republican state Sen. Keith Faber said Wednesday.

William Batchelder, Republican Speaker of the Ohio House, said a House committee will begin holding extensive hearings on the bill next week. “I think the bill has a good chance of passing. What form it will take I would have to say will be unclear,” he said.

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis criticized the moves in Ohio and other states to curtail bargaining rights. “Some state leaders have gone too far,” Ms. Solis said Wednesday night, in a conference call with thousands of activists from the Communications Workers of America. “Budget sacrifices are one thing, but demanding workers give up their rights as union members is another.”

The Senate approval in Ohio of the controversial measure could send a sweeping message across the industrial heartland and in states with relatively high union density that the clout held by organized labor has weakened. Multiday protests by teachers and firefighters on the steps of state capitol buildings haven’t necessarily swayed Republican lawmakers who see labor contracts as expensive and inflexible.

Protests have been held over the past two weeks in state capitals across the country to protest proposed legislation to limit rights of public and private sector unions. The protests were sparked more than two weeks ago when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker presented his budget repair bill that included stripping unions of the right to bargain over pension and health care contributions. While the unions would retain the right to collective bargaining over pay, the bill would also cap wage increases to the rate of inflation.

In Indiana, Republican lawmakers proposed a right-to-work bill that would have allowed private-sector workers to opt out of joining unions, a move that prompted House Democrats to flee the state to avoid a vote.

All three of those states have a relatively large union presence. Ohio has 655,000 union members, both public and private, representing 13.7% of its workers. In Wisconsin, 355,000, or 14.2%, of its public and private workers belong to unions; in Indiana, 279,000, or 10.9%, of its workers belong to public or private unions.

In Ohio, Republicans have a 23-10 majority in the Ohio Senate, but six broke with GOP leaders and opposed the bill. “It was as close as it could be,” said Joe Schiavoni, the ranking Democrat on the Senate insurance, commerce and labor committee. He said he hoped House Republicans would “make sweeping changes if not throw the whole bill out and start all over.”

Union officials have conducted a coordinated effort to try to block bills in Wisconsin and Ohio that would curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers, and right-to-work legislation introduced in 13 states, including New Hampshire and Missouri. Those bills would allow workers in the private sector to opt out of paying dues or belonging to a union. Such legislation threatens the unions’ funding and their political clout heading into the 2012 elections.

Taking away collective bargaining rights for state public employees has occurred before. In 2005, Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed an executive order ending those rights for state workers.

In Wisconsin, Republican state senators on Wednesday passed a resolution fining 14 Democrats who left the state Feb. 17 to prevent a vote on Republican Gov. Walker’s bill restricting public employees’ collective-bargaining rights. The vote on the resolution didn’t require a quorum, unlike the budget bill that would curb bargaining.

The Wisconsin Democrats, who are in Illinois, will be fined $100 a day for their absence when the Senate is in session. Several of the Democrats went to Kenosha, Wis., Monday to meet with Republican Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, said Fitzgerald spokesman Andrew Welhouse. But the fines seemed to set back efforts to break the impasse.

“Sen. Fitzgerald’s schoolyard-bully tactics aren’t productive to resolving the serious issues at stake,” Democratic Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller said in a statement. “His actions today undermine Democrats’ ability to have a professional relationship with him.”

Mr. Walker says his bill’s restrictions on bargaining rights, and a provision requiring employees to contribute more of their take-home pay toward pensions and health insurance, could be used to offset major cuts to school districts and local governments in the two-year budget he presented Tuesday.

Unions say the benefit changes proposed for workers amount to an average 8% pay cut. Unions representing state workers have agreed to the governor’s proposed financial concessions.

On Wednesday in Indiana, B. Patrick Bauer, the Democratic House minority leader, traveled to Indianapolis and met with Republican House leader Brian Bosma for about an hour to discuss concerns the Democratic caucus has with several bills that would restrict union rights. Mr. Bauer and other House Democrats fled to Illinois last week to halt those measures.

“No negotiations took place,” said Tory Flynn, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bosma. “The speaker needs the Democrats to return to the statehouse to do their jobs.”

The Wall Street Journal By ROBERT BARRO
FEBRUARY 28, 2011

Collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

In Wisconsin, the angry faceof union power

How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959), following a tradition where it was the first to introduce a personal income tax (in 1911, before the introduction of the current form of individual income tax in 1913 by the federal government).

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

In fact, labor unions were subject to U.S. antitrust laws in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was first applied in 1894 to the American Railway Union. However, organized labor managed to obtain exemption from federal antitrust laws in subsequent legislation, notably the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

Remarkably, labor unions are not only immune from antitrust laws but can also negotiate a “union shop,” which requires nonunion employees to join the union or pay nearly equivalent dues. Somehow, despite many attempts, organized labor has lacked the political power to repeal the key portion of the 1947 Taft Hartley Act that allowed states to pass right-to-work laws, which now prohibit the union shop in 22 states. From the standpoint of civil liberties, the individual right to work—without being forced to join a union or pay dues—has a much better claim than collective bargaining. (Not to mention that “right to work” has a much more pleasant, liberal sound than “collective bargaining.”) The push for right-to-work laws, which haven’t been enacted anywhere but Oklahoma over the last 20 years, seems about to take off.

The current pushback against labor-union power stems from the collision between overly generous benefits for public employees— notably for pensions and health care—and the fiscal crises of state and local governments. Teachers and other public-employee unions went too far in convincing weak or complicit state and local governments to agree to obligations, particularly defined-benefit pension plans, that created excessive burdens on taxpayers.

In recognition of this fiscal reality, even the unions and their Democratic allies in Wisconsin have agreed to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cutbacks of benefits, as long as he drops the restrictions on collective bargaining. The problem is that this “compromise” leaves intact the structure of strong public-employee unions that helped to create the unsustainable fiscal situation; after all, the next governor may have less fiscal discipline. A long-run solution requires a change in structure, for example, by restricting collective bargaining for public employees and, to go further, by introducing a right-to-work law.

There is evidence that right-to-work laws—or, more broadly, the pro-business policies offered by right-to-work states—matter for economic growth. In research published in 2000, economist Thomas Holmes of the University of Minnesota compared counties close to the border between states with and without right-to-work laws (thereby holding constant an array of factors related to geography and climate). He found that the cumulative growth of employment in manufacturing (the traditional area of union strength prior to the rise of public-employee unions) in the right-to-work states was 26 percentage points greater than that in the non-right-to-work states.

Beyond Wisconsin, a key issue is which states are likely to be the next political battlegrounds on labor issues. In fact, one can interpret the extreme reactions by union demonstrators and absent Democratic legislators in Wisconsin not so much as attempts to influence that state—which may be a lost cause—but rather to deter politicians in other states from taking similar actions. This strategy may be working in Michigan, where Gov. Rick Snyder recently asserted that he would not “pick fights” with labor unions.

In general, the most likely arenas are states in which the governor and both houses of the state legislature are Republican (often because of the 2010 elections), and in which substantial rights for collective bargaining by public employees currently exist. This group includes Indiana, which has recently been as active as Wisconsin on labor issues; ironically, Indiana enacted a right-to-work law in 1957 but repealed it in 1965. Otherwise, my tentative list includes Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska (with a nominally nonpartisan legislature), Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The national fiscal crisis and recession that began in 2008 had many ill effects, including the ongoing crises of pension and health-care obligations in many states. But at least one positive consequence is that the required return to fiscal discipline has caused reexamination of the growth in economic and political power of public-employee unions. Hopefully, embattled politicians like Gov. Walker in Wisconsin will maintain their resolve and achieve a more sensible long-term structure for the taxpayers in their states.

Mr. Barro is a professor of economics at Harvard and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011 By: George Will

Hitherto, when this university town and seat of state government applauded itself as “the Athens of the Midwest,” the sobriquet suggested kinship with the cultural glories of ancient Greece. Now, however, Madison resembles contemporary Athens.

This capital has been convulsed by government employees sowing disorder in order to repeal an election. A minority of the minority of Wisconsin residents who work for government (300,000 of them) are resisting changes to benefits that most of Wisconsin’s 5.6 million residents resent financing.

Serene at the center of this storm sits Republican Scott Walker, 43, in the governor’s mansion library, beneath a portrait of Ronald Reagan. Walker has seen this movie before.

As Milwaukee County executive, he had similar dustups with government workers unions, and when the dust settled, he was resoundingly re-elected, twice. If his desire to limit collective bargaining by such unions to salary issues makes him the “Midwest Mussolini” — some protesters did not get the memo about the new civility — other supposed offenses include wanting state employees to contribute 5.8 percent of their pay to their pension plans (most pay less than 1 percent), which would still be less than the average in the private sector.

He also wants them to pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their healthcare premiums, up from about 6 percent, but still much less than the private sector average.

He campaigned on this. Union fliers distributed during the campaign attacked his “5 and 12″ plan. He says his brother, a hotel banquet manager, and his sister-in-law, who works at Sears, “would love to have” what he is offering the unions.

For some of Madison’s graying baby boomers, these protests are a jolly stroll down memory lane. Tune up the guitars! “This is,” Walker says, “very much a ’60s mentality.”

He does, however, think there is sincerity unleavened by information: Many protesters do not realize that most worker protections, merit hiring; just cause for discipline and termination, are the result not of collective bargaining but of Wisconsin’s uniquely strong and century-old civil service law.

“I am convinced,” he says, “this is about money, but not the employees’ money.” It concerns union dues, which he wants the state to stop collecting for the unions, just as he wants annual votes by state employees on re-certifying the unions.

He says many employees pay $500 to $600 annually in union dues — teachers pay up to $1,000. Given a choice, many might prefer to apply this money to healthcare premiums or retirement plans. And he thinks “eventually” most will say about the dues collectors, What do we need this for?

Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway — grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members’ employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees’ salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy “negotiations” with unions.

A few days after Obama submitted a budget that would increase the federal deficit, he tried to sabotage Wisconsin’s progress toward solvency. The Washington Post: “The president’s political machine worked in close coordination . . . with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.”

Walker notes that in the 1990s, Wisconsin was a trend-setter regarding school choice and welfare reform. Obama, he thinks, may be worried that Wisconsin might again be a harbinger.

He also thinks Obama’s intervention demonstrates why presidents should serve apprenticeships as governors. He says that Obama, in the Illinois Legislature and the U.S. Senate, “was a liberal among liberals,” and liberals are his base, and his staff comes from it. Governors, Walker says, get used to considering the interests of broad constituencies.

Walker’s calm comportment in this crisis is reminiscent of President Reagan’s during his 1981 stand against the illegal strike by air traffic controllers, and Margaret Thatcher’s in the1984 showdown with the miners’ union over whether unions or Parliament would govern Britain.

Walker, by a fiscal seriousness contrasting with Obama’s lack thereof, and Obama, by inciting defenders of the indefensible, have made three things clear:

First, the Democratic Party is the party of government, not only because of its extravagant sense of government’s competence and proper scope, but also because the party’s base is government employees.

Second, government employees have an increasingly adversarial relationship with the governed.

Third, Obama’s “move to the center” is fictitious.

The Wall Street Jopurnal FEBRUARY 18, 2011 By PEGGY NOONAN

There were two big speeches this week, and I mean big as in “Modern political history will remember this.” Together they signal something significant and promising. Oh, that’s a stuffy way to put it. I mean: The governors are rising and are starting to lead. What a relief. It’s like seeing the posse come over the hill.

The first speech was from Mitch Daniels, the Indiana governor who is the answer to the question, “What if Calvin Coolidge talked?” President Coolidge, a spare and serious man, was so famously silent, the story goes, that when a woman at a dinner told him she’d made a bet she could get him to string three words together, he smiled and said, “You lose.” But he was principled, effective and, in time, broadly popular.

The other speech was from a governor newer to the scene but more celebrated, in small part because he comes from a particular media market and in large part because he has spent the past year, his first in office, taking on his state’s most entrenched political establishments, and winning. His style—big, rumpled, garrulous, Jersey-blunt—has captured the imagination of the political class, and also normal people. They look at him and think, “I know that guy. I like that guy.”

Both Mr. Daniels, who spoke Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and Chris Christie of New Jersey, who spoke Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute, were critical of both parties and put forward the same message: Wake up. We are in crisis. We must save our country, and we can. But if we don’t move now, we will lose it. This isn’t rhetoric, it’s real.

Here’s why response at both venues was near-rapturous: Everyone knew they meant it. Everyone knew they’d been living it.

***
Mr. Daniels began with first principles—the role and purpose of government—and went to what he has done to keep his state’s books in the black in spite of “the recent unpleasantness.” He turned to the challenge of our era: catastrophic spending, the red ink that is becoming “the red menace.” He said: “No enterprise, small or large, public or private, can remain self-governing, let alone successful, so deeply in hock to others as we are about to be.” If a foreign army invaded, we would set aside all secondary disputes and run to the ramparts. We must bring that air of urgency to the spending crisis. It is “our generational assignment. . . . Forgive the pun when I call it our ‘raison debt.’”

He argued for cuts and sunsetting, for new arrangements and “compacts” with the young. What followed has become controversial with a few conservatives, though it was the single most obvious thing Daniels said: “We have learned in Indiana, big change requires big majorities. We will need people who never tune in to Rush or Glenn or Laura or Sean,” who don’t fall asleep at night to C-Span, who are not necessarily engaged or aligned.

Rush Limbaugh, who is rightly respected for many reasons—lost in the daily bombast, humor and controversy is that fact that for 20 years he has been the nation’s most reliable and compelling explainer of conservative thought—saw Mr. Daniels’s remarks as disrespectful. Radio listeners aren’t “irrelevant or unnecessary.”

Of course they’re not. Nor are they sufficient. If you really want to change your country, you cannot do it from a political base alone. You must win over centrists, moderates, members of the other party, and those who are not preoccupied with politics. This doesn’t mean “be less conservative,” it means broadening the appeal of conservative thinking and approaches. It starts with not alienating and proceeds to persuading.

The late Rep. Henry Hyde, he of the Hyde amendment, once said to me, “Politics is a game of addition.” You start with your followers and bring in new ones, constantly broadening the circle to include people who started out elsewhere. You know the phrase Reagan Democrats? It exists because Reagan reached out to Democrats! He put out his hand to them and said, literally, “Come walk with me.” He lauded Truman, JFK and Scoop Jackson. He argued in his first great political speech, in 1964, that the choice wasn’t right or left, it was up or down.

That’s what Mr. Daniels was saying. “We can search for villains on ideological grounds,” but it’s a waste of time. Compromise and flexibility are necessary, “purity in martyrdom is for suicide bombers.” We must work together. You’ve got to convince the other guy.

Mr. Christie covered similar territory in a way that was less aerial, more on-the-ground. He spoke of making change in Jersey.

Pensions and benefits on the state level, he said, are the equivalent of federal entitlements. They have powerful, “vocal” constituencies. He introduced pension and benefit reforms on a Tuesday in September, and that Friday he went to the state firefighters convention in Wildwood. It was 2 p.m., and “I think you know what they had for lunch.” Mr. Christie had proposed raising their retirement age, eliminating the cost-of-living adjustment, increasing employee pension contributions, and rolling back a 9% pay increase approved years before “by a Republican governor and a Republican Legislature.”

As Mr. Chrisie recounted it: “You can imagine how that was received by 7,500 firefighters. As I walked into the room and was introduced. I was booed lustily. I made my way up to the stage, they booed some more. . . . So I said, ‘Come on, you can do better than that,’ and they did!”

He crumpled up his prepared remarks and threw them on the floor. He told them, “Here’s the deal: I understand you’re angry, and I understand you’re frustrated, and I understand you feel deceived and betrayed.” And, he said, they were right: “For 20 years, governors have come into this room and lied to you, promised you benefits that they had no way of paying for, making promises they knew they couldn’t keep, and just hoping that they wouldn’t be the man or women left holding the bag. I understand why you feel angry and betrayed and deceived by those people. Here’s what I don’t understand. Why are you booing the first guy who came in here and told you the truth?”

He told them there was no political advantage in being truthful: “The way we used to think about politics and, unfortunately, the way I fear they’re thinking about politics still in Washington” involves “the old playbook [which] says, “lie, deceive, obfuscate and make it to the next election.” He’d seen a study that said New Jersey’s pensions may go bankrupt by 2020. A friend told him not to worry, he won’t be governor then. “That’s the way politics has been practiced in our country for too long. . . . So I said to those firefighters, ‘You may hate me now, but 15 years from now, when you have a pension to collect because of what I did, you’ll be looking for my address on the Internet so you can send me a thank-you note.’”

It can be a great relief to turn away from Washington and look at the states, where the rubber meets the road. Real leadership is happening there—the kind that can inspire real followership.

Giving Workers a Free Choice

One of the under-appreciated fault lines in the U.S. economy is between the 22 “right-to-work” states and the rest of the country. The for­mer have tended to do much better economically. Now some non-right-to-work states such as Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan are thinking about joining this club that allows workers to opt-out of union membership.

Contrary to much union rhetoric, right-to-work laws don’t ban or bust unions. They sim­ply grant individual workers the right to join or not to join, even once a workplace is orga­nized by a union. Workers, who decline to join the union can’t be forced to have dues taken out of their paycheck and thus used to finance union political campaigns. Most right-to-work states are in the South and West, and only Oklahoma has adopted this freedom to choose in the last 20 years.

Right-to-work spates outperform forced-union states in almost every measurable cate­gory of worker well-being. A new study in the Cato Journal by economist Richard Vedder finds that from 2000 to 2008 some 4.7 million Americans moved from forced-union to right-to-work states.

The study also found that from 1977 through 2007 there was “a very strong and highly statistically significant relationship be­tween right-to-work laws and economic growth.” Right-to-work states experienced a 23% faster rise in per capita income over that period. The two regions that have lost the most jobs in recent years, the once-industrial Northeast and Midwest, are mostly forced-union states.

Indiana is a case study in the negative effects of forced unionism. Governor Mitch Daniels recently explained why his state lost a bid for a new Colgate factory that would have employed hundreds: “We did absolutely every­thing we could do… . We made an offer we believe was competitive in every other respect, but they [Col­gate] want to be in a right-to-work state.” Mr. Daniels adds that the lack of a right-to-work law “does hold us back economically. There is no doubt about it.” He estimates that when competing with Southern states for businesses, “a very large number perhaps as many as a quarter- of the deals we don’t get a shot at are for just this reason.”

This damage has motivated Indiana Repub­licans, who now control both legislature chambers, to announce that they want to pass a right-to-work law. Unions immediately went to Defcon 1, Democrats are up in arms, and Re­publicans could yet buckle under this union pressure. Even Mr. Daniels, who has stood up to union opposition in the past, seems hesi­tant. He told the Indianapolis Star that right to work “may be worth a look,” but he added it “is not on my agenda.” He’s worried that the issue so antagonizes unions that it could de­rail the rest of his legislative agenda.

We hope Republicans don’t flinch. Right-to-work laws make states more economically competitive, but the bigger issue is about in­dividual rights. Workers should have the right to join a union but also the right not to. Indi­ana and other states with new Republican ma­jorities have a rare opportunity to pass a ma­jor reform that will reduce union power, help to attract new jobs, and liberate workers from union coercion.   .

On the matter of immigration many of those who support the concepts of “free choice migration,” “open borders,” or “free market labor,” defend their position with the argument that from earliest times immigration was wide open and all comers were welcome, and that is what made America great. This is absolutely untrue. It was never like that, and has never in the history of the country been close to what has been happening since 1965- the immigration problem is a recent one stemming from misguided progressives and free market labor conservatives.

The first immigrants were from Europe, mostly Britain, the Netherlands, and France, settling in the Northern Atlantic coastal areas (During the same period all parties were battling for a share of the Caribbean islands, and the Spanish and Portuguese where concentrating on Central and South America, though there were minor colonies in what would eventually be the United States). During the 1600’s approximately 175,000 English migrated to America. Many of these were recruited to establish colonies for agriculture and to exploit natural resources.

Over the next 200 hundred years about 500,000 British and other Europeans, migrated to expand the colonies; of these at least half were indentured servants, people who were provided passage, room and board, and usually training in return for a long period of working for the colonist. It was during this period that most of the African slaves were brought to America. This was not open migration, it was migration with a specific purpose and consisted of volunteer farmers, merchants, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, indentured labor, and forced labor.

Immigration had little need for control because it was controlled naturally by the arduous and expensive crossing of the ocean. People who came here as religious pilgrims/refugees, were a problem in their home countries where their emerging churches caused conflict with the establishment; colonization got the problem out of the homeland and helped to develop the colonial production needed to provide a robust merchant trade; a win-win for the home government.

This continued to be the situation through the American Revolution, with the added immigration of mercenary French and Hessian (German) soldiers, some of whom stayed on as residents. The restriction of immigration as a consequence of difficulty and cost began to fail with the formation of the United States, since there was considerable political and social upheaval in Europe and ocean crossing had become much faster, safer, and less expensive. The Constitution was ratified in 1787, and the first immigration law of the United States was passed just three years later in 1790 in which only free white persons could be naturalized. From 1787 to 1820 immigration was less than 8000 per year. The next change was after the civil war when blacks were granted citizenship.

In 1875 the first comprehensive immigration law was passed, replacing the 1790 act. The purpose was to control both the number and nature of immigrants, so that they would not displace American workers, would not be enemies of the U.S., would give up allegiance to all other countries, would learn to read and write English, would not carry communicable disease, could assimilate into the American culture, and were capable of being self-sustaining. Fifteen years later, in 1890 Ellis Island in New York became the primary immigration screening and processing point of entry for European immigrants.

In 1854 the Gadsden Purchase added the southern portions of territory to what are now the states of Arizona and New Mexico. In the purchase it was agreed with Mexico that existing Mexican and Spanish land titles would be recognized and those Mexican citizens who wished to remain Mexican could sell their holdings and relocate to Mexico; those who chose to stay automatically became U.S. Citizens. The total population in the Arizona portion of the Gadsden Purchase was less than 500 people, most Mexican citizens, but also many friendly Indians. There were also Mexican Citizens at La Mesilla but they numbered no more than 500, some of these elected to move south and remain Mexican, others accepted U.S. Citizenship.

From 1836 to 1914 30 million Europeans immigrated to the U.S; almost 400,000 per year. The country had vast tracts of western land to populate, so the Europeans were welcomed with open arms. In 1921 the Emergency Quota Act limited the number of immigrants. The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted southern and eastern Europeans from immigrating and was designed to stop the large influx of Italians, Poles, Slavs, and Jews who had been coming in large numbers and settling in ethnic groups since the end of the 1800’s. There was great concern with the amount of time it took for these immigrants to learn English and become acculturated into the American social and economic structure.

Immigration dropped significantly during the years of the Great Depression, and more people actually emigrated from the U.S. than entered the country. During this time almost half a million were repatriated to Mexico, many voluntarily but about half were deported.

The Hart-Cellar act of 1965 for the first time abolished quotas by national origin. This changed the ethnic proportions of the country – prior to the act Europeans made up 60% of immigrants, and following the act only 15% were of European origin. In the five years following Hart-Cellar, immigration doubled, then double again in the following twenty years. Bush I signed the 1990 immigration act increasing immigrants by an additional 40%. Clinton commissioned a panel of experts to make recommendations on immigration – they recommended cutting legal immigration by 60%; the recommendation was ignored.

Today the United States allows more legal immigration than any other country, 317% more than the next highest. We are bringing in over 1 million new immigrants per year. We now have 38 million first generation legal immigrants in the country. In addition to that it is estimated that approximately 12 million illegal aliens are also in the country.

Our current immigration policy verges on the insane. At a time when we have more than 15 million Americans out of work we should not be bringing a million people a year into the country, and we should certainly not be tolerating the 12 million illegal aliens that are in the country, along with granting citizenship the anchor babies, and contemplating giving children of illegals a competitive advantage over children of citizens with the so-called dream act. The success of America was not is based on efficient functioning of enterprise and effective laws and institutions, but also on metering immigration to meet our needs, and assuring that those who are allowed into our country value our ideals and way of life. Prior to 1965 we had rational immigration policy that was anything but open borders, and demanded that immigrants were to become Americans in every aspect. 

We do indeed need comprehensive immigration reform, but not the kind the open borders/amnesty crowd is pushing. We need to repeal the acts from 1965 to present and do two things: 1) reduce allowed immigration to do actual sustainable demand, and 2) let only people who will support our American values and way of life into the country. We need to do that as soon as we stop illegal immigration and repatriate 12 million illegals back to their homeland.

Townhall

January 23, 2011 By Katie Gage
In a democracy, the will of the voter is the ultimate mandate. Those elected to public office are the servants to the electorate, and by extension, this is true for the bureaucrats appointed and nominated by those same officials.

But all of this seems to be lost upon the members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Whether it’s the board chairman, Wilma Liebman who previously worked for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters or Craig Becker who was previously on the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) payroll, their allegiance appears to be with union bosses, not the American people.

What has become abundantly clear is that the NLRB serves as an advocacy arm of Big Labor, instead of an independent agency charged with administering to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). It is difficult to read anything else into the activist conduct now stemming from the little known agency.

Recently, in spite of the fact that the secret ballot is part of our history and revered in free societies, the NLRB has seen fit to threaten states with legal action for defending it. These bureaucrats seem to forget that they were nominated by and serve under a President who won election on a secret ballot vote and their agency is overseen by a Congress whose members are elected with private balloting.

Furthermore, their actions seem to contradict the words and sentiments expressed by President Obama, just this week. In an op-ed published in

The Wall Street Journal, Obama wrote, “Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business – burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.”

In threatening to sue Arizona, Utah, South Dakota and South Carolina for passing amendments to their constitutions guaranteeing the right to a secret ballot in union elections, the NLRB is ignoring the will of the voter and rigidly adhering to the demands of Big Labor.

Union bosses have been unambiguous concerning what they expect from the NLRB. Last year, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Richard Trumka’s right hand operative, Stewart Acuff wrote, “It [sic] we aren’t able to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, we will work with President Obama and Vice President Biden and their appointees to the National Labor Relations Board to change the rules governing forming a union through administrative action…”

And just as there is a great degree of clarity with regard to the NLRB’s motivations, there is an equal amount of transparency with respect to where voters stand. In South Dakota, for instance, over 79% of people supported the secret ballot amendment. In South Carolina, that number grew to 86.2%. And in both Arizona and Utah, the measures passed with significant majorities with more than six in ten supporting.

Few – if any initiatives – are able to gain the endorsement of eight or nine out of ten people, but support for the secret ballot did just that.

And that leads to the question, why is the NLRB actively undermining the expressed will of the voters in these states?

It comes back to the ideology of labor radicals like Becker who believe bosses – not workers – should have the say in whether a workplace is unionized. The best known iteration of this idea is the job-killing Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act (EFCA) where voting would be done without any privacy by signing a public petition card exposing workers to intimidation and coercion.

The NLRB’s actions are the equivalent of a Big Labor bail out and demonstrate complete disregard for the intentions of Americans attempting to protect basic rights, while also working to weather a very challenging economy. Preventing states from protecting their workers sets the precedent and lays the foundation for passing card check through the bureaucracy’s backdoor, which the agency has already demonstrated significant interest in accomplishing.

The voters in Arizona, Utah, South Dakota and South Carolina have spoken. The members of the NLRB should ask themselves who they work for, the American people or Big Labor bosses?

Katie Gage
Katie Gage is the executive director of the Workforce Fairness institute.

A Bankruptcy Law—Not Bailouts—for the States

We can see the fiscal crisis coming from miles away. Congress has no excuse not to act.

By DAVID SKEEL

Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged to implement an “emergency” agenda because “the state of New York spends too much money.” Governors across the country are making similar promises, but the obstacles to achieving fiscal sustainability in many states are far too deep. To help overcome these obstacles, Congress needs to enact a law that will enable states to declare bankruptcy.

California is first on most lists of troubled states—and for good reason. Thanks to decades of implausibly generous promises to public union employees and other fiscal misdeeds, the state’s budget deficit for the next 18 months could exceed $20 billion. According to Stanford University’s Center for Economic Policy Research, the state’s pension funds are underfunded by more than $500 billion.

Illinois was looking at a $15 billion deficit before its huge new tax increase. Its pensions, according to a study by Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute, are underfunded by $208 billion. New York and New Jersey are in similarly dire straits.

While the recognition by states that they are in crisis is the first step to recovery, a new bankruptcy law for states is the help they really need.

Is there anything states can do in bankruptcy that a well-motivated governor can’t do without it? You bet there is.

First, the governor and his state could immediately chop the fat out of its contracts with unionized public employees, as can be done in the case of municipal bankruptcies. In theory, the contracts could be renegotiated outside of bankruptcy, and many governors are doing their best, vowing to freeze wages and negotiate other adjustments. But the changes are usually small, for the simple reason that the unions can just say no. In bankruptcy, saying no isn’t an option. If the state were committed to cutting costs, and the unions balked, the state could ask the court to terminate the contracts.

Second, the state could reduce its bond debt, which is nearly impossible to restructure outside of bankruptcy. While some worry about the implications for bond markets, the alternative for the most highly indebted states—complete default—is far worse. Randall Kroszner, a former Federal Reserve governor now at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, showed in a 2003 study that the price of corporate bonds went up during the New Deal when the Supreme Court upheld legislation that reduced payments to bondholders. The reduction increased the prospect that bondholders would get paid. The prospect of state bankruptcy could have a similar effect, and even if it didn’t a reasonable reduction in state bond debt is essential to restructuring

Third, state bankruptcy could even permit a restructuring of the Cadillac pension benefits that states have promised to public employees. These are often “vested” under state law, and in some states, like California, are protected by the state constitution. Under state law, little can be done to adjust them to more reasonable amounts.

Although the law is somewhat murky, there is a strong argument that bankruptcy could provide for an adjustment of these obligations. Unless the state’s “guarantees” were construed as a property right protected by the Takings Clause of the Constitution (which is doubtful if there is no collateral or other indicia of a property right), the federal bankruptcy law would trump contrary state law under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

There is little doubt that a federal bankruptcy law for states, based on a similar federal law enabling cities to declare bankruptcy (Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code), would be constitutional. As the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Bekins (1938), the key requirements are that a city not be forced to file for bankruptcy against its will, and that the law doesn’t usurp its political decision-making authority. A state bankruptcy law that honored these principles would be equally sound.

Congress could let the states decide who can file for bankruptcy, and the process would work best if the governor and legislature were fully committed to using it to get the state’s finances in order. Is there any solution if they aren’t all on board? In some states, the governor may be able to make the decision himself if this is consistent with state law. Even more intriguing is the possibility that voters could force their politicians’ hands. In a state like California, which allows for voter referendums, the voters almost certainly would have the power to make this decision.

Even if voters triggered a bankruptcy filing, it wouldn’t ensure that the leaders would make the most of bankruptcy. But this too could be addressed in the fine print of the law. If Congress were willing to be especially bold, it could include provisions providing for automatic adjustments to contracts in the event the parties didn’t reach agreement within a specified period of time. Or it could automatically reduce payments as of the date of the bankruptcy filing—perhaps to 80% of amounts provided for in the contracts—until the parties reached an agreement.

Even if Congress enacted a much more basic bankruptcy law for states, the new law would provide the tools that the most troubled states need. The collapse of the big banks in 2008 took the country by surprise, and regulators concluded that they had no other choice than to bail them out. This time we can see the crisis before it is too late, and we have a real choice. Rather than bailing the states out, Congress should give them a fresh start by enacting a new chapter of the bankruptcy laws for states.

There have been at least 20 attempts to assassinate a US president, president-elect, or past president. Of these four succeeded, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Two other presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan were wounded in assassination attempts. There has been speculation since their deaths that Zachery Taylor and Warren Harding were assassinated by poisoning.

Fifteen of these were by gunfire, including all six of those in which a president was harmed. Three attempts were by bomb; in one case, the perpetrator changed his mind but was caught driving the car bomb, in another the disguised hand-grenade was prevented from detonating by the bandana being tied too tightly around it, and the third was disrupted when the plot was discovered by Saudi Secret Service.

Three times attempts were made to crash airplanes into the White House; one actually succeeding in crashing into the lawn, killing the pilot, one ended when the perpetrator killed the pilots then committed suicide, and one was stopped by brave passengers who refused to allow terrorist to carry through with their plot.

Only three attempts were motivated by domestic politics and three were attempts by foreign enemies. The attack on FDR’s party in 1933, was most likely not actually targeting the president, but was a successful mob hit on the Mayor of Chicago who was giving Al Capone trouble. In all other instances those attempting to assassinate the president were mentally troubled men (only two women in the whole group), often delusional, unemployed or marginally employed. Four attempts have been made by members of a cult or a domestic terror group, including the two attempts by women – one a Manson devotee and the other a Symbionese Liberation Front sympathizer.

These attacks have included sixteen against Republicans, ten against Democrats, and one against Theodore Roosevelt, former Republican running unsuccessfully on the New Progressive Party ticket. (He was shot in the chest prior to giving a speech, got up dusted himself off and gave the speech before going for medical attention. The bullet was never removed.)

In most cases the perpetrators used weapons that were illegal, transported them in a way that was illegal, and of course the act of attempting murder of itself was also illegal. A number of them were prohibited from possessing a gun, because they had criminal records. None of these laws in any way deterred them from moving forward with their plan. It is logical that this would be true, for once a person has settled on killing someone, any lesser law becomes irrelevant.

Beyond the ineffectiveness of laws another problem with trying to reduce violence by outlawing guns is that those who are set on violence have many options, as well as many illegal sources of obtaining weapons. For example, almost anybody can make a powerful bomb with simple readily-available ingredients. If a person is crazy enough to shoot a public figure and as many people around them as possible, wouldn’t they also be crazy enough to take a bomb or incendiary device into that same crowd and set it off, or drive a car, with or without explosives into the crowd? The result will be at least as bad as an armed shooter.

The difference is if the shooter uses a gun he must target each individual and if there is a policeman or an armed citizen present they can stop his attack by shooting the murderer; with the other options the slaughter is over before anyone can react.

My opinion is that we need to work on the root of the problem: 1) How do we keep people from concluding it is alright to murder someone, and 2) Why do we allow those who are unstable and unpredictable in their emotional and mental control to run freely in society?

I think that the trend toward an ethic where nothing is really wrong depending on the circumstances and away from traditional family and religious mores has created an environment that allows monsters to develop. There have always been psychotic and emotionally troubled people, but we have not always allowed them the freedom to make the terrible choice of bloodshed.

You’ve heard the Texas jokes, such as: A New Yorker points to Niagara Falls and tells a Texan, “You don’t have anything like that!” To which the Texan responds, “Naw, but we got a plumber who can fix it in 30 minutes.”

But they don’t joke about their rights and responsibilities, which is why they’re considering a plan to impose jail time on federal workers who want to enforce Obamacare provisions and are in the hunt to be the first state to require presidential candidates to document their constitutional eligibility.

Now, a government advisory board in Austin, joined by a team of citizen groups, is asking the city council there to tell the federal Transportation Security Administration that the government can keep its invasive airport pat-down procedures and nude-imaging scanners, and they’ll keep their privacy.

It is the Austin Airport Advisory Commission that has resolved, in a petition to the city council, that it is recommending the city “oppose theinstallationof [advanced image scanners] at [the Austin airport] and further oppose the practice of invasive body searching and encourages the city council to inform the TSA, the state and federal delegations of such opposition.”

The dispute over the invasive procedures has been heating up since before Thanksgiving,after the federal government announced it was ramping up security at the nation’s airports. It is installing X-ray machines that look through a person’s clothes, essentially allow TSA personnel to view a nude image of the passenger.

Alternatively, TSA employees have been giveninstructionsto pat passengers’ bodies, including private parts, in a procedure critics have called a government-sponsored sexual assault.

Several lawsuits have been filed over the procedures, and some states have announced plans to prosecute TSA agents who violate state pornography or sexual assault laws. Also,doctors have warned of a long list of contagious diseases agents could pass from one passenger to another in the process. And there have been warnings the scanning machines could cause cancer.

Further,a petition, already signed by tens of thousands, was launched demanding action against the intrusive airport screening procedures implemented by Janet Napolitano.

The Austin resolution, signed by Dale Murphy, chairman of the Austin Airport Advisory Commission, included a list of statements that:

• WHEREAS, the [Advanced Image Technology] AIT health risks for passenger and screener, for short term and long term exposure, lack of health safety standards, and medical issues are not conclusively determined by a non-partisan evaluation; and
• WHEREAS, privacy rights, especially for children, sexual assault victims, medical prosthetic users, children, senior citizens, women susceptible to breast cancer, pregnant women and other physical and/oremotionalchallenged travelers have not been satisfactorily addressed; and
• WHEREAS, the TSA’s actions at other airports currently operating them have been the source of derision, ridicule, embarrassment, and other negative connotations reflecting poorly on the airport in question. These actions include the management and are therefore construed to be within their operating policy; and
• WHEREAS, impact on passenger screening operations at the security checkpoints have been demonstrated by the TSA’s own video capture to routinely require at least three and up to ten times longer processing times compared to current standards, exacerbating the delay factor for a flight; and
• WHEREAS, the AITs themselves most importantly can be rendered ineffective or marginally by their own admission (A March report from the GAO found that such scanners might not have detected the hidden explosive used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab); and
• WHEREAS, the U.S. constitutional 4th amendment issues precluding unreasonable search and seizure, suspension of criminal process, and other basic freedoms of encroachment by the federal government cases being challenged in court are yet to be resolved.

The resolution also explained that the city itself is responsible for actions on its airport property.

The city board is being joined bya citizens’ campaign that is operating under the name KeepAustinFree.org.

Testimonials include those of Austin resident Wesley Strackbein, a seventh-generation Texan, who recently told the city council that Washington “has declared war on the Constitution, and it’s time for Austin to fight back.”

“As you well know, the TSA has mandated the use of naked body scanners and intrusive pat-downs at our airports where no probable cause for wrongdoing has been shown – a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment,” he said. “This abuse is outrageous, and it must be opposed. Your own Airport Advisory Commission has rightly urged you to forbid the scanners and invasive pat-downs at Austin’s airport. Travelers at ABIA must be protected.”

He explained the federal government “cannot use one constitutional power as a club to bludgeon another constitutionally protected right. In the name of protecting us, Washington cannot suspend citizens’ right to free speech, right to due process, right to keep and bear arms – or ‘right to be secure in their persons.’ To do so would break our charter covenants and subvert the very foundation of this Republic.”

Strackbein said the city’s options are clear.

“Now is the time for this council to interpose against the unlawful demands of Washington – to check the TSA’s tyranny at the Constitution’s gate. This means that the naked body scanners and groping pat-downs must be banned at ABIA,” he said.

He told WND, “Momentum is building to see Austin become a safe-haven for liberty.”

The government has maintained an unchanged defense of the procedures, with TSA chief John Pistole writing in USA Today recently, “These machines are safe, efficient, and protect passenger privacy. … Rigorous privacy safeguards are in place to protect the traveling public. All images generated by imaging technology are viewed in a walled-off location not visible to the public. The officer assisting the passenger never sees the image, and the officer viewing the image never interacts with the passenger.”

Pistole also claimed that the technology “cannot store, export, print, or transmit images,” although federal document indicates otherwise.

Politico over the holidays reported, “On the day after Christmas, readers of The Washington Post were given a real treat:pictures of naked men. The men in the pictures were fully clothed, but they were naked nonetheless, because the pictures came from airport full-body scanners. The machines provided graphic pictures of the male anatomy. True, they were no more graphic than Michelangelo’s David or Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (that’s the naked guy with his arms and leg stuck out), but both of those were depictions, not actual people trying to heft their wheelie bags on the conveyor belt.”

On the issue of Muslim Sharia Law, let’s take the Muslims out of it for a moment. Consider how Americans would feel if I were to organize the New Church of the Brutal Ultimatum (NCBU), which is based on the teachings of Attila Reltih of Ghana. Those who follow this church, now numbering in millions, adhere to only two articles of faith:
1. They believe that their god, who is Reltih of Blessed Name, is a jealous and brutal god, for whom commandments are a deadly ultimatum.
2. The Minister has authority to determine Reltih Law based on the Divine Writings of A. Reltih, to pass judgment and exact any degree and method of fines or property confiscation, imprisonment or enslavement, and corporal or capital punishment upon any member of the Congregation of Believers, as well as against any person who leaves the faith, insults, or speaks against the Church, the Book of Divine Writings, or blasphemes Reltih of Blessed Name.

I, as the supreme minister, or any council of lesser ministers could have people beheaded for the sins of lying or halitosis, stoned to death for the sins of adultery, fornication outside of marriage, homosexuality, or voting for Obama; or on the other hand if they were beautiful enough, I could show mercy and have them enslaved to me for my legitimate sexual pleasure. (It would be legitimate because I said so, based on The Writings.)

I would demand that the state and federal government honor Reltih Law, because freedom of religion is protected by the Constitution. A federal judge, who attended university in Ghana, the homeland of the Reltih faith, would rule that NCBU members had freedom to practice their faith, and to institute Reltih Law above that of the state and federal government.

So when we peacefully go about maiming and executing those I don’t like, er, I mean sinners, all is well until authorities begin to find human body parts strewn in the streets. This is intolerable so they arrest me for health violations, but when I point out that in our faith you cannot touch the blood of a sinner two minutes after a limb is severed or after they are dead, the authorities are forced to let me go because it is an issue of faith.

Of course this scenario could go on and on, but this is enough to illustrate how ridiculous it is for a court to limit a states right to refuse Sharia Law. Only the words, and the political correctness, are different between the Reltih Law and Sharia Law.

Rule by Sharia Law would exempt ecclesiastical authority from adhering to prevailing state and federal criminal laws. In Sharia it is legal for a husband to beat his wife for refusing to sleep with him. In Sharia it is legal for a hand to be removed from a thief or for an adulterous woman, a homosexual, or a blasphemer to be put to death. In Sharia a man is allowed to take a child of six as his wife and to have sex with her.

In America all these things and many more that are allowed by Sharia are illegal. If someone wants to come to America and abide by the Constitution in all its aspects and the laws of the land, I have no problem with that. But if they wish to come here and keep the brutal Bronze Age culture of their homeland, they should not be allowed in.

There has been much made of a pre-election campaign poster that pictured Democrats that were targeted for defeat by Republicans with the graphic of a crosshair to emphasize the concept of their being targeted. This symbolism has been used for years on political media by both political parties and individual candidates. Harry Mitchell used a photo with his opponent centered in the crosshairs – if only we had known he was attempting to incite murder, we could have had him arrested. At least according to the liberal hysteria coming from the left. I have probably a hundred photos of liberal and Democratic examples of what they are so eagerly condemning the conservatives and Republicans. A few are posted below.

This is a graphic used by the Democrats in the last election. Notice the targets on the states where they hope to defeat a Republican, or did they REALLY mean to kill a Republican? Absurd? Of course it is, but no more so than what they are saying now about the right.

A subtle hint of violence from a liberal protest march.

Satire, not hate from our liberal friends.

Why on earth was this person not arrested? No hint of left-wing inducement to violence here.

Aliens demanding their constitutional (what?) rights in Phoenix.

Lefties proudly desecrating the American flag. This is actually violence against America, but the left has no trouble supporting this right to free speach.

Since the left has been doing this kind of protest and campaigning for the last several years, and since they are saying this type of rhetoric causes crazies to kill, we shoud brace ourselves or an onslaught of mass assassination and murder. Of course the caveat is that it’s only bad if it does not reflect their view… Would the word hyprocrite be appropriate here?

The fact is that this type of protest and advertising does not cause deadly actions. In the United States there have been four presidents assassinated and twenty attempted assassinatiion of a president. Of these only three were politically motivated; the rest were all perpetrated by an unbalanced person with their own incomprehensible motivation. Interestingly enough, almost all of these were committed by a relatively young male, a loner, unemployed, with previouse social and legal problems, who acted alone. This sounds very much like the man who committed the outrage in Tucson. I don’t really want to mention his name, because that is what he apparently wants – fame.

Instead of dwelling on the murderer, or misplacing blame, we would do well to mourn the loss of Christina Green, Gabriel Zimmerman, John Roll, Dorwin Stoddard, Dorothy Morris, and Phyllis Scheck. Their love ones have lost them from this life, and we have lost an unknown number of blessings from their being taken. Let us remember in our prayers Representative Giffords as she fights her battle to regain her life, as well as Bill Badger, Ron Barber, Eric Fuller, Susan Hileman, George Morris, Pam Simon, and Mavy Stoddard all of whom were wounded by the killer. May God bless them all to have a rapid and complete recovery.

DECEMBER 15, 2010

The Wall Street Journal

Texas pushes the British rule on tort reform.

Republicans picked up 16 governorships and at least 675 state legislative seats in November, and some of them are using this new running room to get creative.

 One Governor out of the gate early is Texan Rick Perry, who wants to extend his state’s impressive tort reform record.

Most notably, Mr. Perry is proposing a British-style “loser pays” rule, which would require plaintiffs to pick up the legal costs of their targets if they lose their suits. Almost all of America’s economic competitors follow a similar standard, but trial lawyers and their Democratic codependents have blocked states from making this revolutionary improvement to U.S. civil justice.

Americans now spend more on tort litigation than they do on new cars. The courts are choked with such high crimes as the $54 million pair of pants that a D.C. dry cleaner allegedly ruined in 2007. A procedural reform like loser pays to deter junk lawsuits would make the legal system less of a drag on the economy and less of a political tool for redistributing wealth.

Mr. Perry’s proposal isn’t the pure version of loser pays, in which the losing party—plaintiff or defendant—is responsible for the winner’s attorneys fees. Instead, it adds an extra disincentive for the tort industry to bring suits that Texas law already defines as “groundless.” The lawyers and firms that file such claims would in almost all cases pay the penalty, a downside they’d have to weigh against their chances of personal enrichment.

At the same time, to speed compensation to genuine victims, Mr. Perry would create new legal channels to expedite smaller claims (below $100,000). Judges would also be barred from creating causes of action from the bench that haven’t been approved by the state legislature.

This Texas upgrade would build on reforms in 2003 and 2005 that have vastly improved the legal climate in what has not coincidentally become the country’s best state for job creation. Texas rewrote everything from class-action certification to product liability. One success was rationalizing the asbestos-silica litigation scam. Another was an overhaul of medical malpractice laws, ending the practice of venue shopping for friendly judges and putting a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages like pain and suffering.

Before the reform, Texas was a kind of holy place on the tort bar pilgrimage. Now it’s a Mecca for doctors, especially the emergency physicians, obstetricians and surgical specialists who elsewhere can face blue-sky malpractice premiums. Liability rates have fallen by 27.5% on average since 2003. The number of doctors applying to practice in Texas has increased 60%, even as the overall population grew by 14%.

All of this is helping to end an acute Lone Star physicians shortage, especially in rural areas. Twenty-three counties now have their first E.R. doctor, 10 their first OB-GYN. Hospitals are reinvesting the malpractice savings in scarce services like neurosurgery and neonatal units and expanding access to care. This Texas success has opened eyes in nearby Oklahoma, where even Democrats have been forced to agree to some legal reforms.

The plaintiffs bar will flood the Texas legislature with cash to defeat loser pays, but Republicans have no excuse not to pass it. After a recent party switch, Republicans will have a supermajority of 100 to 50 in the house next year and 21 to 11 in the senate. Texas climbed to 36 out of 50 states in the Chamber of Commerce’s litigation-climate ranking this year, from 46 in 2003. Maybe loser pays can carry it to No. 1.