AFSCME sues IL governor for pay raises
It may be bad economic times for most of us, but it's business as usual for public employee unions:
The state's largest employee union filed a lawsuit today in an attempt to force Gov. Pat Quinn to dole out raises for 33,000 workers that were scheduled to go into effect on July 1.Quinn moved to block the pay hikes when he made changes last week to the state budget that lawmakers sent him, saying they did not set aside enough money to cover the increases.The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees argues Quinn is violating the terms of the union's contract with the state, as well as state and federal equal protection laws.The lawsuit filed late Friday in a Springfield federal court asks to restore the pay increases for workers in 14 different agencies."AFSCME members do the real work of state government, such as caring for the disabled, preventing child abuse, guarding state prisons and much more," AFSCME Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer said in a statement. "These hard-working men and women deserve to know that their employer, the governor, will keep his word and honor his commitments under the law."
Quinn said he'd love to accomodate his labor friends but that the IL legislature did not appropriate the funds for the pay raises.
Since when did such mundane matters as not having enough money stop a union from grabbing for everything it can? They will no doubt find a way to get their raise and someone else will have to suffer for it.
And people are asking why the unions should be reformed?
Coal industry braces for massive layoffs
Liberal blogs and pundits are hugely perplexed at the horrible job numbers recently. They just can't figure it out. They blame businesses for trying to sabotage Obama. They blame Republicans for not letting them spend trillions more in stim money. They blame the American people for voting for the GOP in the first place.
Maybe they should look in a mirror:
The coal industry is crying foul over new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations which they say will be among the most be costly rules ever imposed by the agency on coal-fueled power plants.The result, industry insiders say: substantially higher electricity rates and massive job loss."The EPA is ignoring the cumulative economic damage new regulations will cause," said Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). "America's coal-fueled electric industry has been doing its part for the environment and the economy, but our industry needs adequate time to install clean coal technologies to comply with new regulations. Unfortunately, EPA doesn't seem to care."Thursday the EPA announced that they have finalized additional Clean Air Act provisions, collectively known as "The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule" to ostensibly "reduce air pollution and attain clean air standards," by requiring coal companies in 27 states to slash emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide by 73 percent and 54 percent, respectively, from 2005 levels by 2014.
Energy and Commerce Committee chair Rep. Upton:
"The goal for these rules should be reasonable regulation that protects public health and the environment while also preserving economic growth. Unfortunately, the unprecedented pace at which the administration is issuing major new rules that impose new costs and regulatory requirements on states, employers, and consumers fails that basic test," said Upton. "By issuing multiple regulations for the energy and other sectors at such an accelerated rate, EPA has turned regulation from a manageable tool into an unpredictable moving target that makes it difficult for companies to invest and create jobs."
The administration has the same problem with CAFE standards for auto mileage - too much, too soon, with little regard for the economic impact on the industry. What is truly pathetic is that the liberals have no concept of how their feel good environmental policies contribute to the miserable job numbers for which they are desperately looking for someone to blame.
Anti-Israel demonstrators hurling stones, Molotov cocktails qualify as 'unarmed' in NY Times
In its July 8 edition, the New York Times introduces a new semantic stretch, going so far as to exculpate stone-throwing, Molotov-cocktail-hurling anti-Israel protesters as non-threatening "unarmed" demonstrators. (U.N. Report Criticizes Israeli Role in Deaths at Border page A10).
Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner performs this linguistic jiu-jitsu in an article about a UN report critical of Israel for responding with live fire against about 1,000 violent demonstrators trying to breach its border with Lebanon last May 15. The report, which asserts that Israel should have used less lethal crowd-control tactics after firing warning shots in the air, blames Israel for killing seven "civilians," although Israel points to Lebanese military forces on the other side of the fence who also used live fire that might have caused casualties.
Kershner gins up a report already highly critical of Israel by loading up her lead paragraph with an unqualified hit against Israel -- The UN report, she writes, "strongly criticizes Israel for using live fire against unarmed demonstrators."
However, she revises her lead further down in her story, acknowledging that, according to the UN report, about 1,000 of the demonstrators "broke off from the main demonstration and threw stones and two petrol bombs across the fence," while attempting "to climb it and bring it down."
What immediately jumps out at readers who still harbor illusions that words have meaning is that Kershner's "unarmed" demonstrators, followed by these same protesters hurling Molotov cocktails and lethal stones farther down in the body of the article, don't seem to convey compatible descriptions.
Certainly, any reader going no farther than her lead paragraph would be left with the impression that Israel fired on unarmed demonstrators. Period. But would that be an accurate impression?
This is by no means the only anti-Israel spin in Kershner's dispatch. While the UN report directs most of its criticism against Israel, it nevertheless makes clear that it was the surging demonstrators trying to breach the border fence who were the first to initiate the trouble, the first to use violence, and the first to violate the 2006 UN cease-fire resolution between Israel and Hezbollah -- all clear findings in the report that Kershner glosses over.
To tilt the scales against Israel even more, Kershner plays down Israel's furious response because its actual author, Michael Williams, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, has a record of eagerness to condemn Israel -- regardless of any evidence. After the May 15 incident, Williams immediately blamed Israel and only Israel for what happened.
Kershner writes that Israel plans to respond shortly to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to convey its displeasure, suggesting there has not yet been an official Israeli response. What she doesn't report is that, immediately after Williams' rush to judgment against Israel last May, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman expressed outrage at Williams' remarks and instructed Israel's UN delegation to file a protest with Ban Ki-Moon. Israel already conveyed its official outrage to the secretary-general nearly two months ago.
In sum, this is an article that takes an already biased UN report against Israel and paints it even more one-sidedly against Israel, while exculpating a bunch of violent protesters hurling stones and Molotov cocktails as they tried to breach Israel's border.
That's the twisted "news" the NY Times sees fit to print these days.
The friends of Michelle O
One of Michelle Obama's closest friends (she went on the trip to Spain after all with the Obama girls and First Lady) has been appointed to Chicago's Landmarks Panel. Oddly, no one appointed by Rahmbo is an architect and most choices are strange. Only two of his choices make sense, a former alderman who had been on the landmarks committee and the former Cook County assessor. Both actually have respectable reputations.
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