Just call them DISINGENUOUS DEMOCRATS as you read the sophistry surrounding this:
"Unions reel as budget crisis, ebbing clout collide; Stunning setbacks in a House they once owned" by Noah Bierman and Michael Levenson, Globe Staff / May 1, 2011
Nine of the state’s most influential union chiefs stormed into House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo’s office two weeks ago, fuming at the powerful Democrat’s plan to curb bargaining rights for police officers, teachers, and other municipal workers. The speaker let them stew in his gilded waiting room for 45 minutes. Finally, an aide popped his head out: “He’ll see you for about 90 seconds.’’
Talk about a HUGE INSULT! How much time do you think the lobbyii$t$ get?
He should have just FARTED in THEIR FACES and gotten done with it!
The pillars of the Democratic coalition had been reduced to just another interest group.
Yeah, one that doe$n't have the required amount of re$ource$ -- if you get my meaning.
Days later, DeLeo secured a resounding 111-to-42 vote for his plan, making the Massachusetts House the first Democratic-led chamber in the country to curtail bargaining rights in this year of public employee labor strife. It was a seismic rebuke to labor that has stunned combatants on both sides of the union-management divide.
Yeah, how does it feel to have the knife shoved into the back?
Though still considered among the strongest in the country, union clout in Massachusetts has been waning for years, sapped by declining membership, a well-financed group of business-backed think tanks, weaker government finances, and Beacon Hill Democrats trying to cast themselves as reformers by showing they are not beholden to traditional interests.....
Actually, they ARE:
Related:
"Legislators also agreed last week to change legal language in the recently passed sales tax hike to assure credit agencies that $100 million earmarked for the Turnpike Authority would go toward paying off Big Dig debt"
Also see:
Memory Hole: Massachusetts' State Budget
Mass. State Budget: Screwing Cities and Towns
Just wanted you to see where all the money is going, fellow citizens and taxpayers.
Even so, political players across the spectrum agree the recent House vote is less sweeping than the campaign earlier this year by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Republicans in other states, to eliminate almost all collective bargaining rights for public employees.
Actually, that is a LIE!
"Police and firefighters would be exempt" in Wisconsin in an attempt to set public-sector workers at each others throats with further division.
I thought the Globe was pro-union.
I was wrong.
And what is with the SELF-SERVING LYING to make the SELF-RIGHTEOUS, PoS STATE LOOK GOOD?
Representative Martin F. Walsh, a Dorchester Democrat and union official who led the fight against DeLeo’s bill, said everyone he spoke with told him they were voting to curb union rights because they believed it would save money for desperate cities and towns.
Related: Uniting With Hollywood
Oh, but the state had $82 million to hand profitable Hollywood last year?
“If my colleagues came up to me and said ‘I’m voting against labor here to take away collective bargaining rights,’ then I’d be concerned.’’ Walsh said. “But not one person said that to me.’’
Oh.
“The mean spirit of what happened in Wisconsin, I do not believe that is the root of what happened here in the Legislature.’’
No, here it was a loving anal rape for you public workers and heroes.
Is there really a difference?
Many Democrats, including DeLeo, said they were influenced by a December report sponsored by several business-backed think tanks that found that hundreds of millions of dollars the state had set aside for schools had instead been absorbed by the rising cost of health care for teachers and other school employees.
Yeah, NEVER MIND all the TAX LOOT CUT ASIDE for CORPORATIONS and DEBT SERVICE PAYMENTS to BANKS!!!
Mayors and selectman amplified those points in trips to the State House, countering the pressure from unions with worries about laid-off teachers and private-sector workers who pay much higher portions of their health costs.
I'm TIRED of that SHOP-WORN TRAP pitting US against THEM!
Yeah, I DID FALL FOR IT a while back -- and am I EVER ANGRY at the AGENDA-PUSHING PAPER for that!
DeLeo, a blue-collar Democrat, is an unexpected leader to take on unions.
Globe must be color-blind -- unless they are talking about the gambling slaves, 'er, serfs, 'er, servants he wanted to employ due to the $elf-$erving intere$t of ca$ino ca$h!
But he is pushing to emerge from the shadow of three predecessors who left in disgrace. By embracing the cause, he joins with prominent business groups that have long been critical of Beacon Hill's protection of entrenched interests.
Now the "entrenched interests" are corporations and how much tax loot they can extract from state government.
"We're watching a slow realignment of the Democrats in Massachusetts," said Tom Juravich, a union activist and professor of labor studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. "What we're seeing here is an inroad into collective bargaining that would have been inconceivable even two years ago."
Brought to you by the most Democratic state in the nation!
See: MSM Monitor Left Feeling Blue About Massachusetts
Couldn't even elect a Republican auditor for the nest of snakes?
In the past, even when the state had a Republican governor, the Legislature was a backstop for union interests. Labor leaders could move votes by threatening to oust defiant lawmakers.
Yeah, and HAD WE ONE NOW the Democrats of this state would NEVER HAVE DONE this due to POLITICS!
Joseph Faherty, who was president of the state AFL-CIO in the 1990s, said that Governor William F. Weld, a Republican who often battled unions, wouldn't have dared to chip away at bargaining rights with pro-labor Democrats ruling the State House at the time. "I don't think he would have even tried to put something like that through, because of the Legislature," he said. "I'm amazed that this Legislature did this."
I think ALL of us ARE!
**************
Labor leaders warned again last week, in a letter to every lawmaker, that anyone who voted for DeLeo's bill would face retribution next election. But Democrats shrugged off the threat.
Another IN$ULT -- and we KNOW WHY!
"It's been overused and overthreatened," said Senator Steven A. Baddour, a Methuen Democrat who battled unions when he pushed for a 2009 bill that stripped some bargaining rights from state transportation employees. "People are sick and tired of the constant over-the-top rhetoric."
That's why I'm not reading much of the newspaper anymore.
The House approved the bill at 11 p.m. Tuesday, just ahead of planned protests by police officers and firefighters.
Oh, is that ever COWARDLY!!!!
Lawmakers voted after almost no floor debate.
Must have been the BU$INE$$-BACKED THINK TANK$ that SENT OVER the BILL, huh?
Labor leaders have vowed to fight the plan in the Senate, where they have more powerful friends and where President Therese Murray has signaled she will offer a more union-friendly bill.
Why not kill it instead?
Ultimately, the bill will be hashed out in negotiations between Murray, DeLeo, and Governor Deval Patrick.
In other words, THERE WILL BE a BILL LIMITING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS in Massachusetts!
Patrick has been put in a difficult spot as he tries to curb labor rights with a bill similar to DeLeo's while traveling to Wisconsin and other states to argue that he has controlled spending without desecrating core union values....
That is Globespeak for being EXPOSED as a LIAR!!
Both Patrick and DeLeo share the conviction that limiting union power will save union jobs.
And how has that worked out with the rest of AmeriKa, huh? Unionization on the rise is it?
Are you SURE THESE GUYS are DEMOCRATS, Massachusetts?
That is the SAME ARGUMENT the Wisconsin Republicans made!!!
"What we're trying to say is, 'Look, this is an education issue. It's a public safety issue,' " said Representative Brian Dempsey, DeLeo's budget chief. "It's about keeping teachers in the classroom, police on the street, firefighters on the ladder truck. That's ultimately what this is all about, because if we don't have the resources going into local aid for those particular areas, then ultimately, they will not benefit."
Smells like DEMOCRAP to ME!
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And the good governor is out HAWKING HIS BOOK and CAMPAIGNING?
"Patrick attacks GOP on labor" by Glen Johnson, Globe Staff / May 1, 2011
MILWAUKEE — Governor Deval Patrick waded into the national debate over labor rights last night, telling fellow Democrats in the union battleground state of Wisconsin that Republicans “have abandoned any sense of responsibility for our common future in order to win power at all costs.’’
Yeah, but once you have won it here in Massachusetts then you can use it.
Offering tidbits of the personal story outlined in the memoir he is now selling, as well as a preview of the pro-Obama speech he will deliver over the next year as a surrogate campaign for the president, Patrick was scalding as he mirrored President Obama in casting the 2012 election as one less about policy than values....
Oh, NO! That type of POLITICAL BULLSHIT is something I expect from REPUBLICANS, not DEMOCRATS!
I suppose NO MATTER WHICH PARTY it is now the "elections" HAVE TO BE about "VALUES."
There is NO WAY they can be about POLICY since BOTH PARTIES $ERVE the $AME $ET of INTERE$T$!
And you REELECTED HIM for THIS, Massachusetts?
Hey, don't blame me, I voted for Baker -- and had he won I would not be typing this now and we would not be having this discussion.
Patrick spoke as he faces his own labor controversy at home. Last week, the Massachusetts Democrat-controlled House passed a budget that would let municipal leaders set health insurance copayments and deductibles for government workers following a monthlong negotiation period with labor leaders.
Related: Patrick Punches Unions Below Belt
And now he has done it again; shouldn't a point be taken away or something?
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo has projected that it would save $100 million in fiscal 2012.
Yeah, that money need to go to Hollywood or to banks or to whatever other well-connected corporation kick$ in campaign ca$h.
The bill, passed late Tuesday, sparked labor protests at the State House not unlike those seen a 90-minute drive away from Milwaukee in Madison.
Aren't you ASHAMED of YOURSELVES, Massachusetts?
Patrick later applauded the “very important vote,’’ which mirrored his own bill pushing for lower municipal health care costs, but he refused to discuss its specifics.
Yet in opening his speech, he hit Wisconsin Republicans for suggesting he supports Walker’s stance on collective bargaining.
“As long as I am governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we will have no Wisconsin-type of law. It’s not happening on my watch. I am not, I am not going to let Massachusetts be a pawn in the national Republican effort to undermine collective bargaining and the right to organize," said Patrick.
But it IS happening ON YOUR WATCH, guverner!
Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, also issued a statement of support.
“With a state Senate and governor consistently on the record in favor of municipal health care relief and collective bargaining, we are confident that we will ultimately pass legislation that provides for municipal health care reform and insures that collective bargaining will remain strong for the working families of Massachusetts,’’ said Haynes.
This guy is a UNION LEADER?
If HE DOESN'T GIVE a S*** why I am I up in arms?
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Also see: Nothing Has Changed in Massachusetts
Yeah, yuk it up you f***s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
