The Weekly Poll
Results
The 'Odd Bedfellows?' Edition...
On Labor Day, the Michigan's largest construction trade union (Carpenters and Millwrights with 18,000 members) broke ranks with other major unions (UAW, AFL-CIO, AFSCME) and endorsed the GOP candidate, Rick Snyder, for governor instead of the Democratic candidate, Virg Bernero.
Breaking with Dems, carpenters union planning to back Snyder | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
Is it ever appropriate for a Union to back a GOP candidate?
(Please feel free to comment with yer response)
1.) No! Never! _________
2.) Yes, sometimes _______
A superb collection of thoughtful responses ensue... Enjoy!
1.) No! Never! - 7
Richard McD. succinct, as usual, said...
As my grandmother would say no matter how bad you think the democrat is the republican is worse.
Uncle Sky says a picture is worth... yada yada...
Republicans have always been anti-union. Now this union is backing a Republican. It doesn't make sense. A carpenter says I will vote for someone who will do away with my union. Could this picture be an example of their work?
George C. emphatically wrote...
In regard to your poll on Bartcop Entertainment, I wish to say that my father was a millwright under the banner of the United Steelworkers of America, and he would be outraged at a union backing the GOP candidate for any public elected office.
I cast my vote No! A union voting for the GOP is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
maw sez...
No, Never...The repugs try to eliminate or, at the very least , control the unions right to strike, enroll new members or anything else that may strengthen them.
jbakal2 wrote...
I've been in the unions beginning at 11 yrs old setting pins in a bowling alley, and from that day on every corporation that I worked for had a union, my last and still with the Carpenters, Millwrights retired 23 years, would never vote for a Repug!!
bebo shouted...
1. NO! NEVER!--- I belonged to a union for over 30 years(cwa) & voted for a republican once. In 1968 I voted for Nixon because he said he would stop the war & we all know how well that worked out.
Joe did too...
NO! NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - No matter what they think, the Repubs HATE all unions and yes their union also. Look what happened to the union at Harley Davidson they want them to take drastic cuts in pay or move their business, and they were the same way. I have never known a Conservative who liked any Union.
2.) Yes, sometimes - 2
CPO John (a)weighed in with...
Greetings, BadtotheboneBob, (Back at ya, Chief...)
The question, "Is it ever appropriate for a Union to back a GOP candidate?" I would say Yes, sometimes if the Republican is better than the Democrat.
The trouble is that most of the time they are not, even if the Democratic candidate is horrible toward working people, the Republicans are worst. That's the case in Washington State. We have a Democratic Governor and controlled legislature that keeps increasing regressive user taxes and cutting business taxes for companies like the very conservative Seattle Times newspaper that does nothing toward job creation. The trouble is that the Republican candidates are worst, and voting for a third party candidate would be just throwing your vote away.
Ed the retired Teacher (Who keeps workin', he sez) elucidated with...
Hey Bob, (Hey, Ed...)
I've never replied to one of your polls before, but this one strikes close to home. I'm a retired teacher who is a political organizer for the California Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO local 1794.) Is it appropriate to back a GOP candidate? The answer is definitely yes. Do we actually do that? Almost never.
Of a list of statewide candidates the score is about 50 dems and one dual endorsement. We are not and never will be tools of one political party. You have seen recently how the Obama administration treats the "professional left"-they assume you have nowhere else to go and ignore you. I find often that my politics are closer to the union than they are to the Democratic Party. Our top priority is passing the Employee Free Choice Act, known as "card check" to the right wing media. It will probably never happen, and even though I worked for Obama in three states I'll never see it signed.
In a local school board election we endorsed one dem and one republican. Is that because we like her? No. It is because the only alternative is another republican who is worse. Some times you have to suck it up. This is not a perfect world. I will find it hard to work for someone who signed the order to lay off 200 fellow teachers, but that is the nature of politics. Sometimes you wake up with strange bedfellows, and it is icky.
Remember, politicians may be prostitutes, but even with a prostitute, you still have to PICK ONE. Get out and vote this November!!!!
Maybe
Adam in NoHo added a new category and thoughtfully responded with...
3.) Maybe (with a big shoulder shrug)?
When it seems that half of the Republican party is OK with Marriage Equality, it's starting to look like a political realignment we have not seen since the 1960s and all the Southern Racists up and switched parties. (well, maybe not)
In Michigan the Unions hold A LOT of power and if the GOP candidate has a track record of supporting the Workers over the Corporations, then support the guy who supports you. I hope this endorsement is also based on a broader pro-Porker/Middle-Class agenda. I haven't looked into this race, so I don't know if the endorsement comes from a history of Union support, or just current campaign rhetoric. Of course, even at their most craven, Dems are better for us then the GOP, but with Obama trying so hard to make the GOP love him (who never, ever will), you look for real leadership wherever you can get it. I also don't think single-issue voting gets pans out in the long-run.
DRD I'll put in Adam's 'Maybe' category...
Hello Bob, (Hello, Don, welcome back...)
I think the answer to the base question is in the minds of those making that choice. Most voters, with many exceptions, as a rule of thumb, vote the bread and butter issues of, what's best for me? I'm not personally informed of the driving issues in this race, but I'm assuming there is some financial considerations at play here. I liken this development to the situation in the GOP side with The Log Cabin Organization. I venture to state that the vast majority of them vote GOP for financial considerations. In both cases, it is a situation where they are willing to take their chances the money will offset any legislation negative to their causes. Groups of racial minorities also shock the political stage by endorsing policies or politicians that advocate positions that appear to be harmful to the minorities. So, in their eye's it is appropriate to vote as they see fit, one mind-one vote! Mr Raygun saw the tremendous advantage of this swing vote in his two runs for the Oval Office and the GOP played 'The Southern Strategy' to perfection for decades. And with the 'Raygun Democrats' they were able to push through much legislation that on face value was useless, indeed harmful, to the rank and file, but very helpful to the top earners.
Another top drawer question from you, Bob. Hope all is well for you and yours.
(Thank-yew-very-much, Don! I do have some more surgery upcoming in late October, but nothing dramatic. Thanks fer the sentiment!)
DanD in a class of his own (per usual) said...
ANSWER: Six of the first, half dozen of the second.
Especially after The (TM, Lincoln) Civil War (except, perhaps, for one, almost three-dimensional Bull Moose moment), America has allowed itself to be politically imprisoned within the faux-paradigm of a "Two" Party system of political and cultural domination.
The primary problem with this is, BOTH parties are "behind-the-curtain" puppeteered by the (technologically enhanced) economic overlord and trans-cultural marionette-master of the (Corporate Media-ignored) Capitalist Political Party. This is mostly because -- through its exclusively subversive, super-human corporate extensions -- the CPP functionally owns both the Repub AND the Democrat Parties. WE KNOW THIS because, throughout the United States, ALL other political party wannabes must first arbitrarily qualify themselves as candidates in an onerous and fee-dominated, pre-election litmus contest before any may ever even appear on some election ballot along side of the (same-coin) de facto-approved candidates of the CPP. This includes most any "independent" political contestant (unless of course -- as with such CPP whores as ole' Joe Lieberman -- they had previously been de-facto "qualified" as a [functionally switch-hitting] CPP candidate). And even then, no matter how popular, any circumstantially rejected, rogue corporate candidate may selectively be taken out by the CPP's gauntlet of jackals (e.g., JFK).
As it is (at least since JFK), it's all really just political theater, whether the above two "opponents" win that governor's election. Either one is still going to do exactly what their sponsoring Banking master demands.
This is also why BP IS STILL -- with impunity -- poisoning the southern boundary of the lower 48 (along with all Central, and much of northern, South America ... remember how the world "really" looked like in The Matrix? Just give it a few hurricane seasons of aerosol dispersal ... ). Talk about treachery? Rather than lining that entire crew (along with all those government regulators who miserably failed to regulate) up in front of a firing squad, Obama is instead protecting THAT particular corporate sub-master with his own body. The CPP (it is, in fact, a WORLD political party) IS NOW, ecologically also taking out (prevalently as only a marginal competitor) Constitutional "America."
Have a nice day. (Thanks, Dan... You, too)
~~~~~~~~~~~
Well then, Poll-fans, I'm gonna put myself in the 'Maybe' category. My voting history has been one of goin' fer the person that will, IMHO, do the best job dealin' with the situations at hand. I consider myself, politically, a 'GDI'. I also believe that there are few political absolutes. I do not believe that all republicans are evil, misogynistic, homophobic racists any more than I believe all democrats are the exact opposite. Adam is correct with his statement that Unions hold a lot of power in Michigan. They have for many years, especially the UAW (natch). But, for twenty years (1963-1983) Michigan had two very popular republican governors (George Romney and Bill Milliken) and those were halcyon days for the Unions. And to prove my point re: political absolutes, Milliken, though retired, publicly endorsed John Kerry in 2004... So, there it is... Thanks to all responders! As ever was, Yer the Best!
BadToTheBoneBob
~~~~~~~~~~~
New Question
The 'Cleaning House' Edition
Flint (MI) public housing authority, in an effort to fight crime in the projects, is considering a requirement for all current and prospective residents to take a drug test to keep their federally subsidized apartments.... Housing Commission Executive Rodney Slaughter said he wants a drug-testing program modeled after the city of Indianapolis, where public housing residents are required to take annual drug tests. If a resident tests positive, they would have 30 days to test negative or seek help...
Flint eyes drug tests for public housing | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Would you support such a policy in your community?
Send your response to
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Steven Rea: Documentary shows how myth-makers distorted Pat Tillman's death (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman was shot and killed in a mountain pass in Afghanistan. The initial reports said that Tillman - the Arizona Cardinals defensive safety who left the NFL and enlisted in the Army after the attacks of 9-11 - had died while valiantly defending his fellow Rangers when they were caught in a Taliban ambush. It was a tragic story, and a great one. Only problem: It wasn't true.
Davis Guggenheim: Repeat After Me: We Can't Have Great Schools Without Great Teachers (huffingtonpost.com)
Regardless of where the school is or what it's called: public, private, charter or magnet, Parents know (even if the rest of the world often forgets) that teachers are what matter most.
Daniel Gross: Low-Ball America (slate.com)
When employers and shoppers pay less, everyone suffers.
Paul Krugman: China, Japan, America and the Renminbi (nytimes.com)
Japan knows that its economy is hurt when China buys up its bonds. It's the same for our economy, but our policy makers just don't get it.
Matt Miller: A tax cut we need-but won't get (mattmilleronline.com)
Ask any economist or businessperson what kind of tax cut would be the biggest boost to job creation and the answer is clear: a cut in payroll taxes, because it would directly reduce the cost of employment.
Ted Rall: Revolution B Gon
The answer is almost certainly yes. If 20 percent-plus of Americans will never be able to find a job, what do we do with them? Do we let them starve? Or do we pay them off?
Roger Ebert's Journal: A Lightbox & the Case of the Manacled Mormon
Some of the festival films were previewed in Chicago, New York and LA. Some played under the radar at Telluride. A lot played at Cannes. Wherever they came from, they go out from this time and place to bring nurture to a continent of movie lovers starving after the usually cheerless summer drought.
Peter Singer: The Internet Will Set You Free (chronicle.com)
Everyone now has access to the resources of the world's greatest libraries. Collaborating with distant colleagues, and keeping up on the latest developments in your field, has become much easier. Some scientists and other scholars now publish their findings online, rather than wait for a response from a peer-reviewed journal. If you are in the social sciences, the Internet brings you millions of research subjects.
Savage Love: Am I a Predator? (thestranger.com)
A few nights ago, I got drunk and knocked on my roommate's door and confessed my attraction to him while he was lying in bed in nothing more than his skivvies.
Connie Schultz: A Grown Daughter Reflects on the Nightmare of Her Mother's Innocent Photos (creators.com)
Eight-year-old Nora Stewart had starred in tens of thousands of her mother's family pictures by the time a photo lab processor asked police to review two prints of the little girl rinsing herself off with a shower nozzle.
Roger Ebert's Journal: I totally see lots of ghosts
There is no such thing as a ghost. And even if there was, would they have enough physical presence to show up in a photograph?
Michael C. Munger: 10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly (chronicle.com)
Most academics, including administrators, spend much of our time writing. But we aren't as good at it as we should be. I have never understood why our trade values, but rarely teaches, nonfiction writing.
wrote:
answered:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Link from RJ
Bedbugs
Hi there
One for you perhaps? Thanks for taking a look!
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny but on the cool side.
Man With A Plan
John Waters
John Waters, the filmmaker and actor known for such movies as "Hairspray" and "Cry-Baby," has an idea for how gays and lesbians can push for marriage equality.
His suggestion at the North Louisiana Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in Shreveport? "I think we should just try to make heterosexual divorce illegal."
Waters was the celebrity guest at the festival, which honored him Sunday with a cocktail reception and two showings of his 1981 film "Polyester."
While at the festival, Waters - wearing a sport coat with red and neon-pink curves - signed copies of his autobiography "Role Models" and his 2004 album "A John Waters Christmas."
John Waters
Defends Mosque
Salman Rushdie
"The Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie is not a great fan of organized worship but believes an Islamic center and mosque should be permitted two blocks from ground zero.
Rushdie's satirical novel led in the 1980s to worldwide riots by Muslims and calls for his death. He says he understands the "sensitivities" of building the site close to where thousands were killed during on Sept. 11, 2001.
But he says First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion should be honored. He adds that he is "not personally" a lover of mosques or any place of worship.
But he says that if people "want a mosque, it seems absolutely right they should have it."
Salman Rushdie
Bill Clinton Visiting Thursday
'The Daily Show'
Comedy Central says former President Bill Clinton will visit "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Thursday.
He is expected to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative, which annually convenes world leaders to grapple with pressing global concerns. This year's meeting is scheduled to take place next week in New York.
Clinton appearance on "The Daily Show" will be his sixth. The show airs Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m. Eastern time.
'The Daily Show'
Wades Into Live Streaming
YouTube
YouTube is making its long expected foray into live streaming by launching an experimental trial with four new media partners.
The new live streaming platform will be previewed in a two-day trial beginning Monday, but is expected to later grow considerably across the Google Inc.-owned website.
Four YouTube partners will participate: the celebrity-focused Young Hollywood; the online television outlet Next New Networks; the how-to guide Howcast; and Rocketboom, the Internet culture vlog.
For the last two years, YouTube has offered numerous events live, including a U2 concert, cricket matches in India and President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address. But for all of those events, YouTube relied on third-party technology to enable the live webcasts.
YouTube
Family Loses Case
Bob Marley
Bob Marley's family lost a lawsuit seeking the copyrights to several of the late Jamaican reggae singer's best-known recordings.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said the UMG Recordings unit of Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group is the rightful owner of copyrights to five albums that Marley had recorded between 1973 and 1977 for Island Records.
The albums "Catch a Fire," "Burnin'," "Natty Dread," "Rastaman Vibrations" and "Exodus" were recorded with Marley's band The Wailers. They include some of Marley's best-known songs, including "Get Up, Stand Up," "I Shot the Sheriff," "No Woman, No Cry" and "One Love."
Friday night's ruling is a defeat for Marley's widow Rita and nine children who had sought to recover millions of dollars in damages over UMG's effort to "exploit" what they called "the quintessential Bob Marley sound recordings."
Bob Marley
Settles Suit Over Foreign Royalties
Screen Actors Guild
Attorneys for the Screen Actors Guild and the actor who played Eddie Haskell on "Leave It to Beaver" have reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit over the distribution of millions of dollars in foreign royalties to actors.
Attorneys for the union and actor Ken Osmond filed the agreement for a judge's approval on Monday.
SAG has already paid out millions in royalties to the performers, but the agreement spells out how both remaining and future royalties will be distributed.
The lawsuit is the last of three cases filed against unions representing tens of thousands of actors, writers and directors over royalties that have been generated in Europe since the 1980s. The payments were created to compensate the performers for video rentals, blank media and, in some countries, cable retransmissions.
The settlement requires an independent audit of payments that have already been made and sets out disclosure guidelines for how SAG handles the royalties. The union is not admitting any wrongdoing, according to the settlement.
Screen Actors Guild
Rates Dropping
Crime
Violent crime is down for the third straight year. Property crime for the seventh. But why?
Violent crimes reported to police dropped 5.3 percent last year, the FBI said Monday, and reported property crimes fell 4.6 percent.
So explain this: Police budgets have been shrinking. Not only that, typically crime rates head up when the economy heads down.
There are no neat answers. Among the theories: As overall economic activity slows, more people who otherwise would be at work are unemployed and at home, and when they do travel they are not as likely to carry items of value, so burglaries and street robberies decline.
Crime
Party Organ
While cable news networks remain a key source of information for consumers, only Fox News has maintained its share of regular viewers, and the reason is that more Republicans regularly get their news there.
Fox Rupert News
So says a new study that also found Americans are spending more time with the news today than over much of the past decade thanks to digital media, but they enjoy keeping up with the news less.
The findings are part of the biennial news consumption survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 8-28 among about 3,000 adults and released on Sunday.
After all, 40% of Republicans now say they regularly watch Fox News, up from 36% two years ago and just 18% a decade ago. As recently as 2002, Republicans were about as likely to watch CNN (28%) as Fox News (25%). Meanwhile, the share of Democrats who regularly watch CNN or Fox News fell from 2008.
Fox Rupert News
Oink, Oink
Berlusconi
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi says young women should follow the money when looking for a partner, noting that women seem to like him and "I'm loaded."
Berlusconi, who was embroiled in a sex scandal last year and is known for his gaffes, also raised eyebrows with a joke about Hitler's followers urging him to return to power.
The billionaire businessman appeared at a convention Sunday of the youth wing of his People of Freedom party. When questioned by one of his Cabinet ministers - a woman - he joked about marriages of convenience, saying women were lining up for him because "I'm a nice guy" and "I'm loaded."
Berlusconi, who claims prosecutors have led corruption investigations against him because they are left-wing, also appeared to be poking fun at himself when commenting on the loss of his AC Milan soccer team on Saturday. He contended the referee robbed the team of three goals and that Milan often gets "leftist referees."
Berlusconi
Mysterious Disappearance Of Subscribers
HBO
2010 would seen have the makings of a big year for HBO given the tentpole programs it launched in the first two quarters of the year: "True Blood," which wrapped up its third season Sunday as the network's highest rated series, and "The Pacific," the WWII miniseries that won more awards at last month's Emmys than any other production.
And yet HBO had 28.6 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2010, according to newly released numbers from SNL Kagan, its lowest total in four years and the second of its first back-to-back quarterly declines in at least six years. So if HBO is so hot, how come its subscriber base is dwindling?
Figuring out what's hurting HBO is a whodunit worthy of one of the network's drama series, with a confusing mix of incriminating evidence and alibis that point to a number of culprits. But the likeliest suspect no one saw coming: DirecTV.
The nation's biggest satellite service has been locked in bruising carriage negotiations with HBO all year, according to people familiar with the talks, and applying pressure to get the desired deal terms by employing an unknown but brutally effective tactic: drastic reduction of the promotional support crucial to "upselling" HBO to subscribers.
HBO
Have Regional Accents
Bats
It's not just people who have different accents but bats as well develop dialects depending on where they live which can help identify and protect different species, according to Australian scientists.
Researcher Brad Law of the Forest Science Center found that bats living in the forests along the east coast of the state of New South Wales had different calls.
He said scientists had long suspected bats had distinctive regional calls -- as studies have shown with some other animals -- but this was the first time it had been proven in the field.
Law said the different calls of about 30 bat species were used to develop a system so that scientists could identify the various bats along the coast, assess their numbers, and protect them.
Bats
In Memory
Harold Gould
Harold Gould, an easily recognizable character actor in TV, films and theater for decades, died Sept. 11 of prostate cancer in Los Angeles. He was 86.
Gould probably is best known for playing Marty Morgenstern, father of the title character on the 1970s spinoff sitcom "Rhoda," after originating the role on CBS' "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." He also played the con man Kid Twist in the best picture Oscar winner "The Sting" (1973).
A native of Schenectady, N.Y., Gould appeared on hundreds of TV shows -- earning five Emmy nominations -- including recurring roles on "The Golden Girls," "Spencer," "Soap" and "Hawaii Five-O," on which he played the notorious Honore Vachon. He also was a regular on the 1976-77 ABC drama "The Feather and Father Gang."
Gould was equally comfortable in comedy and drama. Starting in the early '60s, he appeared in episodes of such TV classics as "The Twilight Zone," "The Untouchables," "Perry Mason," "Mister Ed," "Get Smart," "The Fugitive," "Hogan's Heroes," "I Dream of Jeannie," "Columbo," "The Love Boat" and "Gunsmoke."
His final screen role was in an episode of the final season of "Nip/Tuck" that aired in February.
Gould also performed in dozens of stage plays, including turns on Broadway in "Fools," "Grown Ups," "Artist Descending a Staircase" and "Mixed Emotions."
His film career included memorable turns in Woody Allen's "Love and Death" (1975), which featured a cuckolded Gould in a riotous pistol duel with a hapless Allen in Napoleonic Russia, and Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie" (1976).
Harold Gould
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