From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
What Would Molly Say?
Hard to believe Molly Ivins has been gone for four years. Any time I get a hankerin' for some common sense mixed with sass, I crack open one of her books or Google one of her columns. She does a progressive soul good. Yesterday I decided to see what she wrote about labor unions. This is her most-frequently-cited quote:
"Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts."
In early 1996, she picked up the trail of the democracy-busting Koch Brothers, and gave 'em a little free publicity:
Another major [Bob] Dole backer is Koch Industries ($245,000), now the country's second-largest family-owned industry, and the Koch brothers are among the wealthiest men in the world (estimated worth: $4.7 billion). Among other right-wing groups, the Koches support the libertarian Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy, which should be called Rich Guys for Big Bidness. CSE wants to phase out Medicare completely, and Dole's regulatory reform bill---the one that would effectively repeal most of our health, safety and environmental regulations---is straight out of the CSE playbook.
And in 1998, she wrote about California Prop. 226, whose purpose sounds awfully familiar 13 years later:
The plan is simple: If the initiative passes, unions will have to get written permission from each member every year to use union dues for political activity. What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing, as long as corporations are also required to get written permission from each shareholder every year before the corporation can use any money for any political activity. But this proposition is aimed only at unions. It would cost the unions millions of dollars and untold amounts of time to get these annual permission slips, and that, of course, is the whole point: to weaken the political power of unions, which are already outspent by business. Just what the country needs, complete domination of politics by corporations and the only organizations that speak for American workers shut out entirely.
It's a column worth reading in full because it gives you a sense of just how long union-busting has been on the conservative radar. (Fortunately Prop. 226 failed.)
And then there's this from her 2000 column on the Great Southwest Strike of 1886:
A lot of busted heads and broken lives went into making the eight-hour workday a reality. Think how mad [Great Southwest Strike organizer Martin] Irons and all those other fighters would be at us for letting the corporations get away with mandatory overtime and 60-hour workweeks, month after month.
The thing about corporations is that they never give anything away out of the goodness of their non-existent hearts. As economist Milton Friedman put it, the only social obligation of a corporation is to make money. Workers still have to fight for a decent life.
Solidarity forever!
I'm not a big fan of playing the "What would [deceased person] say about…" game. But sometimes you can make an educated guess with relative certainty. And my guess is Molly would be cheering on the protesters in Madison, and urging the "Fab 14" to stay tough and hold their ground.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, this year C&J has moved the Ides of March up from the 15th to the 2nd. [Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!] Thank you for your understanding and have a nice [Stab! Stab!] day.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Mardi Gras: 6
Days `til the Durango Bach Festival in Colorado: 12
Number of years in the last 15 in which a Pew poll has shown that less than half of the public opposes gay marriage: 1 (2010)
Rank of 18-29'ers among U.S. age groups most supportive of gay marriage: #1
(Source: Equality Matters)
Percent of the U.S. population growth accounted for by Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans between 2000 and 2009: 79%
(Source: Census data)
Area of the average American worker's personal workspace in, respectively, 1994 and 2010, in square feet: 90, 75
(Source: The Week)
Number of vinyl records sold last year, the best year for sales since 1991: 2.8 million
(Source: SoundScan)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 177 (including 5 plagues and 80 days 'til Judgment Day). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Gotta love them miracles…
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JEERS to Mr. Petty Pants. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker took some time out of his busy day of screwing teachers and children out of their futures to have the windows in the Capitol building welded shut so people couldn’t use them to pass food to the protesters. And, to ensure no nutrition reaches any of them in any way, he's now welding shut the protesters' mouths, buttholes, noses (to crush their collective boogerpicking rights), ears and belly buttons. Wild guess: somebody's mama didn't hug him enough as a child.
CHEERS to taking the first swan dive into the wood chipper. Looks like the Republican campaign season has gone from ice-cold to barely-tepid, now that Newt Gingrich has thrown his hat into the preliminary exploratory committee ring which, after close scrutiny of the pros and cons plus fundraising resources, may or may not lead to the hat actually making it into the declaring-my-Quixotic-candidacy ring. He has all the charm of spamloaf and all the empathy of my grandma after she'd drain a bottle of tequila and chase us around the house with a flyswatter. But I hope Newt runs---it'll be fun having a chance to use his own tactics (call your opponent an America-hating extremist and then stick out your tongue) against him. Plus I already have a name for a Bravo TV series that follows his campaign: White Louse for the White House.
CHEERS to bustin' outta this taco stand. On March 2, 1836, the Republic of Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico. Then on March 2, 1861, Texas joined the Confederacy after declaring independence from the Union. Today, Texas's current governor talks openly about re-declaring independence from the United States. Because you know what they say: If at first you do secede, try try again. Why they say that I have no idea.
CHEERS to defending their right to defend their bullshit. I have no problem with Rep. Eric Cantor saying that the House will defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DUMB), now that the Justice Department has backed off:
“I do believe that this is a case that is distinguishable on its merits, and to have … the president take the position that he’s not defending the law of the land is something very troubling, I think, to most members of the House,” Cantor said.
Congressional Republicans had been largely silent on the issue in the days after Obama’s announcement last Wednesday. Asked about the move during an event at Harvard last Thursday, Cantor said that he was “a little taken aback” by it and suggested that “there are some options available to us legislatively that we’re looking at.”
Fine. It's a fool's errand. Cantor's guys will be going up against a buzzsaw of logic, reason, facts, historical precedents and air-tight arguments painstakingly crafted by conservative legal titan Ted Olsen, liberal legal titan David Boies, and especially judicial titan Judge Vaughn Walker. Plus it's always fun to see the look on the losers' faces when they find out that the only response they'll get from crying "Leviticus!" in court is the sound of crickets. (Gay married crickets, but don't spill the beans about that because it's half of what makes seeing the look on their faces so much fun.)
JEERS to Democrats denied. On March 2, 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was handed the 1876 election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though the latter won the popular vote by 250,000. Here's how it went down (via Anything for A Vote by Joseph Cummins):
The struggle over the twenty remaining electoral votes lasted from November 8, 1876 to March 2, 1877. Republican-controlled "returning boards" (groups in each state who tallied electoral votes) simply threw out enough Democratic votes to swing Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina to Hayes. Democrats cried foul, officials of both parties flocked to the south, and President Grant sent federal troops, just in case. In the end, an Election Commission was established, consisting of five U.S. senators, five congressmen, and five Supreme Court Justices, all of whom split along party lines. With the commission tied at 7-7, the Supreme Court justice who had the deciding vote resigned---and a Republican justice took his place. Hayes was voted into office with 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184.
And Ralph Nader was like, "Hey…don't looka me! I'm not even born yet!"
JEERS to paper cuts. Right index finger got Michael-Myers'd by my copy of the PFLAG newsletter yesterday---deep. Yeah, it effing hurts. But y'know the worst part about paper cuts? The worst part is that, as soon as you feel the razor-sharp paper's edge gut your finger like the belly of a trout, your brain immediately goes Click! and begins playing an endless loop of that moment. Over and over and over. And strangers stop you on the street and ask, "Why are you wincing, dear?" And you tell 'em your paper-cut loop is playing in your head, and they give you that look like, "Get the hell away from me with your paper-cut loop and go check yourself into a paper-cut colony so you don’t contaminate us all!" It doesn’t help that my hippocampus is now showing it in 3D. (Memo to self: don’t forget to figure out what the hell this item has to do with politics or anything else.)
JEERS to wishful thinking. On March 2, 1977, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a strict code of ethics. And some days the punchlines write themselves.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the new old kid on the blog. I'll never forget the night Keith Olbermann said "Good night and good luck" for the last time on MSNBC. My first thought was, "Holy shit, he's leaving TV to go off and become a monk, a hermit, a cab driver, a homebody or a boy toy for a dowager!" (My second thought was to put the bong down…slowly.) But his subsequent reassuring tweets were quickly followed by the announcement that he was settling down at Current TV sometime this year, and all was right with the world. In the meantime, if you're jonesin' for a quick Keith fix, you can drop by his new blog, FOK News Channel. Yes, you can even jeer the occasional list of Worst Persons. I can't wait to see what he pulls out of his hat at Gore's place. I just hope he gives us a heads-up if we'll need to install a blast shield on our TV.
Oh, and here's yesterday's headline of the day. Have a wondrous Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"We need to attract Bill in Portland Maine to public service. These times demand it."
---President Obama
2/28/11
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