Rep Darrell Issa ramps up investigation on Union political spending

This goes along with a post that I did a couple of days ago, I knew about the Beck option and I used it, I also mentioned to the rank and file about the Beck option.  I was a Union Committeeman while I was there.  I got elected because I knew the contract backward and forward.  To work in a union shop there are a lot of contract issues that have to be adhered to by both sides.  I started reading the contract(3 thick books that explained the working relations of Ford and the UAW.  Most people didn't bother reading it because it was boring, dry reading and full of lawyerspeak.  I read it because I got tired of getting screwed by the older workers that used "past practices" and distortion to get the good work assignments and days off.  We had one committeeman when I started that wouldn't do anything for you unless you had tits and were willing to blow him in the parking lot.  Since he had the "reverend" handle on his name, a certain block of members always voted for him.  When I started correcting the older workers on their BS and the committeeman at the same time, I got people's attention, especially the younger workers that like me were tired of getting dicked over by the "old timers".  I understood having to "pay my dues" but it got really bad.
     Well I was nominated to run as an alternate committeeman and was elected.  Did 3 years and got elected for full time the following election.  All I can say about the my union experiences was that 5% of the workforce constituted 95% of my workload, they were the slackers, the deadwood that demanded for and felt that they were entitled to get the good wages but not work.  This in my mind and justifiably so made the union look bad to the rank and file that came in day after day and busted their asses on a assembly job.  Anybody that worked an assembly line knows what I talk about.   I started to raise hell about the union supporting all these leftist candidates that if they had their way, my industry would be legislated out of existence.  I had read Al Gore's book " Earth in the balance"    It is full of crap but he stated in his book that he wanted to get rid of the manufacturing industry and the union supported this?  I repeatedly told the leadership that we as a union are being used by the democrats.  They come in talk some platitudes about "worker rights" get their money and immediately suck up and try to work the environmental legislation for their pet groups.  I stated repeatedly " they view us as an ATM to get money, because we HAVE money then suck up to the far left groups.  We need to start vetting these politicians to support the ones that actually support us and our industry not the ones just because they have "D" on the end of their name."  
      That idea was popular with everybody that I mentioned it to.  I made use of the Beck option because I didn't like supporting people that I am diametrically opposed politically.  I also told anybody that complained about the support what they could do.  I figured that once the union realized how many people started using that option that it would get their attention and they would have to address our concerns..  But Ford had to close plants and we got shut down.  I didn't transfer to Kentucky because family is more important than the job.  I now work at a non-union job in the aviation industry.
      Funny how things work out.....

 

In recent weeks, Rep. Darrell Issa — chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — has held hearings regarding unions forcing members to contribute to political causes which they do not support.
Today, Issa issued six letters — addressed to the Federal Election Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Alabama Education Association, the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union, and the United Auto Workers — demanding to know why union members are denied a say in how their dues are spent on political campaigns.
In the letter to UAW, Issa recounts the story of Terry Bowman:

AdvertisementA “proud” UAW Local 898 member testified that he has “heard the stories of hundreds of union workers who are … tired and fed up with the political activities of their union.” Mr. Bowman is also the founder of Union Conservatives, a group that boasts over 1,000 members and exists to “provid[e] liberty to union members who have differing political views than their union leadership.” Indeed, a 2010 survey found that 69 percent of private and public union workers think that union leaders should stop spending union dues on politics, and 66 percent believe that it is unreasonable that such spending can occur without their consent.Per the Supreme Court decision Communications Workers v. Beck, dues-paying non-members — workers who have chosen not to join the union but must pay “agency fees” so that they are not “free riding” on the union’s collective bargaining — in effect pay union dues. However, as PJM reported recently, federal law prohibits the use of agency fees to support political candidates and causes to which the non-member objects. Further, the law requires the portion of their fees spent on the political support to be refunded upon demand.However, workers with Beck rights claim getting this refund is a near-impossible task. In the letter to the NEA, Issa notes the case of teacher Claire WaitesWaites, an eighth grade science teacher and a “member in good standing” of the Alabama Education Association (AEA), testified that she was forced to make contributions to the union’s political action committees (PACs). As a delegate to the National Education Association (NEA) Convention, Ms. Waites explained that in 2004 she was told by local Baldwin County leadership that a contribution to the NEA’s “Children’s Fund” was “nonnegotiable,” and at the 2008 NEA Convention, a contribution was allegedly made in her name with travel money. After Ms. Waites learned about the 2008 contribution to the “Children’s Fund,” and that it was a PAC, she strongly objected to it. She attempted to retrieve the travel funds that had gone to the “Children’s Fund” from AEA leadership, but was informed that was not possible. Ms. Waites also testified that the AEA automatically deducted funds from her paycheck to support AEA’s “A VOTE” PAC without her permission. It was not until she inquired about the deduction that she learned that the “fine print” of the AEA application instructs that she must opt-out, in writing, to stop the deduction.Issa is demanding documents from the NLRB and the FEC, and is requesting written answers to several questions from the UAW, SEIU, NEA, and AEA. He wants to know how the unions notifiy workers of their Beck rights, why the UAW requires that Beck objections be renewed each year, and if the workers have complained about the annual renewals.Additionally, Issa wants to know if unions take steps to help ensure that union workers who exercise their Beck rights do not face ridicule and harassment. Issa also asks if the unions notify workers about how much money is spent on non-representational activities, how the unions determine what expenditures are non-representational and therefore should be excluded from the agency fee, and what activities they consider non-representational.Further, Issa asks if the unions account for differences in non-representational spending in election years versus non-election years.Issa specifically questions union spending on clear left-wing causes — such as the One Nation Working Together rally on October 2, 2010, in Washington, D.C., or spending supporting the Occupy movement — and how those expenditures qualify as representational activity.Issa is also demanding that unions answer whether or not they allow all union workers to object to non-representational activities, or if only agency fee-payers are permitted to object. If the objections are limited, Issa asks if the unions support extending the right to object to all members.He further requested information on Beck complaints from the NLRB and information about an investigation of Waite’s complaints by FEC.Issa also announced the launch of a “crowdsourcing” website — ProtectingOurWorkers.com – to seek more stories of union abuse regarding political campaigns.

GM Bankruptcy...? Facts and Fiction, Past and Future

As those that have read my bio know that I am a former autoworker.. Ford shuttered the Atlanta Assembly back in 2006 in their restructuring bid.  Some facts about the Ford restructuring that is not apparent with the GM model.  Ford mortgaged its own restructuring, it borrowed against everything it had, sold off unprofitable side ventures(Volvo,Aston Martin,Jaguar because it detracted from the core business which was building cars for the blue collar(Lincoln handles the white collar folks).  Ford had veered away from its core business in the 90's when the SUV craze hit America and leading the pack was the Ford Explorer

    The trends started changing after the turn of the new decade and Ford didn't. they focused on SUV's and trucks, Ford Motor company cars got the short end of the development stick.  The Ford Taurus was considered by many the emblematic problem of Ford Motor Company, from being a cutting edge vehicle to being relegated to rental status at the end of its initial run in 2006 as an automotive fall from grace that was unprecedented.

First Generation Taurus 1986-1991

4th Generation Taurus 2000-2007 model

  The other vehicles with the exception of the Ford Mustang was equally lackluster.  Ford realized that there was a big problem and they need to find a formula that worked or they will fade away like the other names in automotive history like Packard, AMC and Studebaker.   Ford knew that they needed somebody that was respected in the business world to show that Ford was serious about rebuilding itself.  They wooed the CEO of Boeing (BCA) to lead the way.  Alan Mulally was brought in and Ford went through a frantic period where they sold off excess ventures and borrowed heavily against its own assets to restructure.  They didn't get a government bailout like GM and Chrysler.   Ford did it themselves..they rolled the dice and went for broke...literally.  If they failed in this, Ford would fade away  like the other Icons of the American Automotive landscape.   Ford was the only American Automotive company that refused the government bailout.   Ford engineered a comeback and totally changed their corporate culture.  That is a point of pride for me.  I still have my pension(small as it is) and I still have all my Ford stock.  Alan Mulally had the Taurus nameplate brought back...to him it was a poor business decision.    The new Ford Taurus looks a lot different than the old one.

       

    I do want GM to succeed but they still have all the baggage from before, from the management to the unions   Nothing has changed...the corporate culture remains the same.

The Democrats have decided to run in 2012 as the bailout party. It is an odd choice — the 2008–09 bailouts were deeply unpopular among the general public, and even their backers were notably conflicted about the precedent being set and the ensuing moral hazard. But Democrats have nonetheless made one of the most abusive episodes in the entire bailout era their economic cornerstone: the government takeover of General Motors.

The GM bailout was always an odd duck: The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was created in order to preserve liquidity in the financial markets by heading off the collapse of key financial institutions that had made catastrophically bad bets on real-estate securities — nothing at all to do with cars, really. GM’s financial arm, today known as Ally Financial, was in trouble, but GM’s fundamental problem was that its products were not profitable enough to support its work-force expenses. A single dominant factor — the United Auto Workers union’s extortionate contracts with GM — prevented the carmaker from either reducing its work-force costs or making its products more efficiently. And its hidebound management didn’t help.

Admirers of the GM bailout should bear in mind that it was the Bush administration that first decided to intervene at the firm, offering a bridge loan on the condition that it draw up a deeply revised business plan. President Obama’s unique contribution was effectively to nationalize the company, seeing to it that the federal government violated normal bankruptcy processes and legal precedent to protect the defective element at the heart of GM’s troubles: the financial interests of the UAW. It did this by strong-arming GM’s bondholders into taking haircuts in order to sweeten the pot for the UAW. The Obama administration also creatively construed tax law to relieve GM of tens of billions of dollars in obligations — at the same time that Barack Obama & Co. were caterwauling about the supposed lack of patriotism of firms that used legal means rather than political favoritism to reduce their tax bills. Mitt Romney’s proposal for a structured bankruptcy would have necessitated considerable federal involvement, too, but with a key difference: The UAW contracts would have been renegotiated, and GM’s executive suites would have been cleaned out, placing the company on a path toward innovation and self-sufficiency rather than permanent life support. Which is to say, Obama did for GM what he is doing by un-reforming welfare: creating a dependent constituency.
The Democrats cling to the ridiculous claim that the bailout of GM and its now-Italian competitor, Chrysler, saved 1.5 million U.S. jobs. This preposterous figure is based on the assumption that if GM and Chrysler had gone into normal bankruptcy proceedings, the entire enterprise of automobile manufacturing in the United States would have collapsed — not only at GM and Chrysler but at Ford and foreign transplants such as Toyota and Honda. Not only that, the Democrats’ argument goes, but practically every parts maker, supplier, warehousing agency, and services firm dedicated to the car industry would have collapsed, too. In fact, it is unlikely that even GM or Chrysler would have stopped production during bankruptcy: The assembly lines would have continued rolling, interest and debt payments would have been cut, and — here’s the problem — union contracts would have been renegotiated. Far from having saved 1.5 million jobs, it is not clear that the GM bailout saved any — only that it preserved the UAW’s unsustainable arrangement.
Bill Clinton bizarrely tried to claim that the bailout has been responsible for the addition of 250,000 jobs to the automobile industry since the nadir of the financial crisis. Auto manufacturers and dealerships have indeed added about 236,000 jobs since then, but almost none are at GM, which has added only about 4,500 workers, a number not even close to offsetting the 63,000 workers that its dealerships had to let go when the terms of the bailout unilaterally shut them down.
Ugly as the bank bailouts were, the federal government appears set to make its money back on most of them, with the exception of some smaller regional banks and CIT. Even AIG, one of the worst of the financial basket cases, is set to end up being a break-even proposition for U.S. taxpayers. But tens of billions of dollars will be lost on GM. The federal government put up more for a 60 percent interest in the firm than GM is worth today.
At their convention, Democrats swore that GM is “thriving,” but the market doesn’t think so: GM shares have lost half their value since January 2011. And while the passing of the Great Recession has meant growing sales for all automakers, GM is seriously lagging behind its competitors: Its sales are up 10 percent, a fraction of the increases at Kia, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Porsche. With its sales weak, its share price crashing, and its business model still a mess, some analysts already are predicting that GM will return to bankruptcy — but not until after the election.
The Obama administration talks up all of the “jobs” it saved at GM — but jobs doing what? Manufacturing automobiles that are not competitive without a massive government subsidy? Propping up an economically unviable enterprise just long enough to get Barack Obama reelected? As much as it will pain the hardworking men and women of GM to hear it, it is not worthwhile to save jobs at enterprises that cannot compete on their own merits. So long as the federal government is massively subsidizing the operation, a job at GM is a welfare program with a fairly robust work requirement. (And we all know how the Obama administration feels about work requirements.)
We have bankruptcy laws and bankruptcy courts for a reason. It may make sense to expedite the proceedings for very large firms such as GM in order to prevent disruptions in the supply chain that would, as Ford’s executives argued, harm other, healthier firms. But bankrupt is what GM was, and bankrupt is what GM is, a fact that will become blisteringly apparent should the government ever attempt to sell off the shares it owns in the company.
The GM bailout was a bad deal for GM’s creditors, for U.S. taxpayers, and, in the long run, for the U.S. automobile industry and our overall national competitiveness. No wonder the Democrats are campaigning on a fictionalized account of it

rioting in England

I was watching the news and saw the riots in England with people protesting the austerity measures from the British Government.  The people trashed shops and looted other shops.  They are basically acting like children having a temper tantrum.  The government gravy train that has supported several generations of freeloaders has started to run out of money.  The reaction of the average leftist/anarchist is to break things and demand that the money to keep their freeloading lifestyle going.  What happened to the British people?  Several generations ago we had Winston Churchill promise to fight them on the beaches and never surrender.  Now we have generations of people that believe that it is their right to live off the sweat equity of other people.  Where is the pride?

  I believe that this is what happens when government assumes the role of mother and father.  like the phrase from a tv show that I still watch that I used called Babylon5 about the PSYCORP..the PSYCORP is mother and father and the teeps(telepaths)  have loyalty to the organization.  The same principle apples with the government .  People that get goodies from the government have loyalty to the programs that enable them to live with out working and their sole job is to vote for the politicians to keep the gravy flowing.

Now the blogosphere is having rumblings that this summer, the big government labor unions like the SIEU  and others will hold major protest rallys to cause major problems.  They got energized by what had happened in Wisconsin.  they know that their power is directly derived from how much money they can funnel to democratic politicians.  Also there is another provision that would remove the automatic union  dues deductions and the union has to ask your permission to use the money for political activities.   I was in a union when I was in the automotive manufacture industry.  I also was a shop steward, It amazed me that the union(U.A.W) supported people that wanted to legislate our jobs out of existence.  I read Gore's book " Earth in the balance" and he stated that he wanted to legislate the American manufacturing base out of existence.  the Democrats would take the money from the UAW, mouth some platitudes then continue pursuing an agenda that showed that they were more aligned with the radical green movement.  I couldn't understand that.  Now the government unions are different, there is no check and balance on the relationship between the gov't union and the government enities.  With a private union like what is at the auto plants, the company and union officials would work together to get an equitable agreement.  With the government union, there is no threshold of pain, only the taxpayer on the hook for the increases.

Labor Day, Monday Music "Allentown" by Billy Joel

 

  I am what is called a "old school unionist".  Unions served a purpose when they first started for the working conditions in the average facility was horrible, people were getting maimed and killed and the kids working the factories at a young age to help out their families but they were not able to go to school and having to work, with little education guaranteed them being virtual slaves.  My experience with unions was that I was a "shop steward" for the automotive union.  I got the job by my peers because I knew the contract backward and forward and I would go toe to toe with any one.   I was the only republican to hold union office. A bunch of us found a home in the "America First" movement of Donald Trump I found my experience interesting, with few exceptions I found myself working with the same group of people, they wanted to get paid but not work.  I used a formula, 5% of the workforce utilized 95% of my time as they gamed and played the system.  I heeded my oath of office to do the best I could and I did, I was successful.  I would have the rank and file members always complain that "the union are saving the sorry asses."  And I agreed.  I was an employee and a Ford Stockholder and I wanted them gone but as a union rep, I had to do the best I could and I did.  I almost wished the union was self policing and got the sorry asses gone on their own.   I would have the same slackers tell me that "Ford owes me a job", and when I go outside in the parking lot, I would see the latest offering from the Japanese companies.  I would then ask the dirtbags " what about a Ford?  their response was "F*ck Ford, it be my money."  I would then call them" a hypocritical 2 face suns of bitches."  They would then threaten to whip my ass, I would reply "if you feel froggy, jump to it."  They would complain to the chairman about me but I never got any complaints from him.   What I meant by an "old school unionist" was that the union was our balance against the corporations, I don't agree with government unions.  Walther Reuther one of the founders of the UAW considered a government union to be incorrect.  In the traditional relationship, the union and company knew how much the other can stand and still pay and stay in business.  Contrary to popular belief, the unions don't want the company to go out of business for it is the livelihood of their members....Little Debbie and Yellow Trucking not withstanding.   With the government unions, the people representing the "company" are politicians, they don't feel the pain for their decisions.  The decisions are then pushed on the communities and there is no check and balance.  Walther Reuther believed in community and the community would pay the freight for the negotiated contract between the government unions and the politicians and he knew that it would be lopsided. 

Most of the world marks Labor Day on May 1 with parades and rallies. Americans celebrate it in early September, by heading to the beach or firing up the grill. Why the discrepancy? Here’s a hint: The answer would have been a great disappointment to Frederick Engels.
Engels, the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, had high hopes for May Day, which originated in the United States. When the socialist-dominated organization known as the Second International jumped on the American bandwagon and adopted May 1 as International Labor Day, Engels confidently expected the proletariats of Europe and America to merge into one mighty labor movement and sweep capitalism into the dustbin of history.
Things didn’t work out that way, of course, and the divergent Labor Day celebrations are part of the story.

May Day’s origins can be traced to Chicago, where the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, under its leader Samuel Gompers, mounted a general strike on May 1, 1886, as part of its push for an eight-hour work day. On May 4, during a related labor rally in Haymarket Square, someone threw a bomb, which killed a policeman and touched off a deadly mêlée. As a result, four radical labor leaders were eventually hanged on dubious charges.
In 1888, Gompers’s union reorganized itself as the American Federation of Labor, and revived its push for the eight-hour day. Gompers laid plans for a strike to begin on May 1, 1890–the fourth anniversary of the walkout that had led to the Haymarket affair. Meanwhile, in Paris, a group of labor leaders were meeting to establish the Second International. To these Europeans, the executed Chicago radicals were revered martyrs. In an act of solidarity, the Second International set May 1, 1890, as a day of protest.

Engels was thrilled. “As I write these lines, the proletariat of Europe and America is holding a review of its forces; it is organized for the first time as one army,” he wrote on the first May Day. “The spectacle we are now witnessing will make the capitalists and landowners of all lands realize that today the proletarians of all lands are, in very truth, united. If only Marx were with me to see it with his own eyes!”
The first May Day was deemed a success, so the Second International adopted it as an annual event. And for a few years, it seemed as though May 1 might be on the way to becoming a rallying point for socialists in America, as it was elsewhere. The Panic of 1893 touched off a national wave of bankruptcies that plunged the nation into a deep depression–and depressions generally push workers toward radical solutions. Things came to a boil with the Pullman Strike, which erupted in Chicago in May 1894. The striking Pullman Palace Car Co. workers quickly won the support of the American Railway Union, led by Gompers’s rival Eugene V. Debs. Railroad traffic in much of the country was paralyzed.
President Grover Cleveland, a conservative Democrat, was determined to squash the strike. But he did not want to alienate the American Federation of Labor, which was not yet involved in the Pullman dispute. Moreover, 1894 was a midterm election year, and the Democratic Party could ill afford to be seen as an enemy of labor. Cleveland and the Democrats hit upon a possible solution: They would proclaim a national Labor Day to honor the worker. But not on May 1–that date was tainted by its association with socialists and anarchists. Fortunately, an alternative was at hand.
Back in September 1882, certain unions had begun to celebrate a Labor Day in New York City. By 1894, this event was an annual late-summer tradition in New York and had been adopted by numerous states, but it was not a national holiday. Nor was it associated with the radicals who ran the Second International, and who liked to run riot on May Day.

On the contrary, the September date was closely associated with Gompers, who was campaigning to have it declared a national holiday. Gompers opposed the socialists and was guiding the AFL toward a narrower and less-radical agenda. Gratefully, Cleveland seized upon the relatively innocuous September holiday as a way to reward labor without endorsing radicalism. On June 28, 1894, he signed an act of Congress establishing Labor Day as a federal holiday on the first Monday of September. (He made a point of sending the signing pen to Gompers as a souvenir.) Less than a week later, the president sent federal troops to Chicago. Gompers refused to support the strike, which soon collapsed.
With his union in ruins, Debs went into politics, but his Socialist Party ultimately failed to catch on as America’s party of the left. Organized labor did not regain its momentum until the 1930s–and by that point, Gompers’s September holiday had been institutionalized as America’s Labor Day. May Day, meanwhile, had become the occasion for big annual parades in Moscow’s Red Square, which did not improve that holiday’s reputation in the United States.

May Day today is well established in most of the world as International Labor Day. May 1 also remains a traditional date on which leftists and anarchists of various stripes take to the streets to demonstrate their scorn for capitalism. But America, which has proved impervious to socialism, still celebrates Labor Day in September–and not by marching. AFL officials in New York long ago gave up holding their annual parade on Labor Day itself, because it could not compete with the prospect of a three-day weekend. The parade in recent years has been held on the following Saturday, and even so has been sparsely attended. This year, it has been canceled altogether.
Only 12% of the U.S. workforce belongs to a union these days, down from a peak of 33.2% in 1955. But whether they belong to a union or not, most Americans still have to work, so they appreciate a day off–and they prefer to spend it by relaxing, rather than storming the barricades.

On this  Monday Music. I am going with "Allentown" from Billy Joel, I remember a line from the song, "The jobs went away and the union people crawled away" this happened when in the video it showed a worker getting his pink slip while in the shower.  I thought about this when my job went away at Ford Motor Company.

 Inside the door of my toolbox at work, I kept my

Old Ford Toolbox and modified it. 

Don't get me wrong, I understand why Ford did what they did and they treated us good in a really bad situation.  I was the only republican to hold union office, I was a heck of a good shop steward.  The rank and file knew it, I didn't hide it, and half of them voted for the GOP despite the union recommending anybody democrat.  I had my own issues with the democratic party, even back then, they treated the UAW as an ATM, mention "worker platitudes" and they would take our money, but they were beholding to the environmental movement.  and I knew if the environmental groups had their way, my job would be gone.  Well it went away anyway. but it was for different reasons.

Stickers on my old gun safe.

        I got lucky, I got hired by a local airline and am a chemtrail technician now and doing very well, unlike many of my Ford peeps,   they didn't do so well.  It was difficult making the adjustments.  Even now I am sensitive to the subject of "Outsourcing". 

.

"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel, which first appeared on Joel's The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video. It later appeared on Joel's Greatest Hits: Volume II (1985), 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert (2000), The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and 12 Gardens Live (2006) albums. Also, it was featured in Hangover II (2011) "Allentown" is the lead track on The Nylon Curtain, which was the seventh best-selling album of the year in 1982. The song reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending six consecutive weeks at that position and certified gold. Despite the song placing no higher than #17 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was popular enough to place at #43 on the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart for 1982.
Upon its release, and especially in subsequent years, "Allentown" has emerged as an anthem of blue collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America's working class in the late 20th century.

The song's theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the latter part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the wake of Bethlehem Steel's decline and eventual closure. Joel witnessed this first-hand while performing at the Lehigh Valley's numerous music venues and colleges at the start of his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The introductory rhythm of the song is reminiscent of the sound of a rolling mill converting steel ingots into I-beams or other shapes. Such a sound was commonly heard throughout South Bethlehem when the Bethlehem Steel plant was in operation from 1857 through 1995.
     When Joel first started writing the song, it was originally named "Levittown", after the Long Island town right next to Hicksville, the town in which Joel had grown up. He had originally written a chord progression and lyrics for the song, but struggled for a topic for the song. Joel remembered reading about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, which included the small cities of both Bethlehem and Allentown. While the steel industry was based in Bethlehem with none of it in Allentown, Joel named the song "Allentown" because it sounded better and it was easier to find other words to rhyme with "Allentown." Although Joel started writing the song in the late 1970s, it wasn't finished until 1982.

A year after the song was released, the mayor of Allentown sent a letter to Joel about giving some of his royalties to the town. Mayor Joseph Daddona, who sent the letter, said it would help for scholarships for future musicians. On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel, and a local paper published an article on the subject the next day, quoting Daddona as saying: "Not only would this fund be a great way to share a tiny part of your good fortune to others in Allentown, it would also help keep alive the 'Allentown' song and the Billy Joel legend (which you've already become here)."
When Joel performed the song in Leningrad during the concert recorded and later released as Концерт, he introduced the song by analogizing the situation to that faced by Soviet youths: "This song is about young people living in the Northeast of America. Their lives are miserable because the steel factories are closing down. They desperately want to leave... but they stay because they were brought up to believe that things were going to get better. Maybe that sounds familiar."

The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy and featuring choreography by Kenny Ortega, was in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original version of the video features partial male nudity when male coal workers are taking a shower at the beginning, but that part was edited when it aired on MTV. (Although it has aired uncut on both VH1 Classic and MTV Classic in recent years.)

Monday Music "Allentown" by Billy Joel a Labor Day Special

 

I am continuing to give the "Bugaloo" meme a break for a few more weeks. Now because it is a Major Holiday. Labor Day,  On this  Monday Music. I am going with "Allentown" from Billy Joel, I remember a line from the song, "The jobs went away and the union people crawled away" this happened when in the video it showed a worker getting his pink slip while in the shower.  I thought about this when my job went away at Ford Motor Company. it still gives me bad feelings to see that.

 Inside the door of my toolbox at home now, I kept my

Old Ford Toolbox and modified it for work until I had to take it home 

because we have tool control now*Mutter,spit*

 

The pictures were inside the lid that was featured in the beginning of the article.

   This is what it looked like after I modded it and repaired the toolbox and built a Sidebox

Don't get me wrong, I understand why Ford did what they did and they treated us good in a really bad situation.  I was the only republican to hold union office, I was a heck of a good shop steward.  The rank and file knew it, I didn't hide it, and half of them voted for the GOP despite the union recommending anybody democrat.  I had my own issues with the democratic party, even back then, they treated the UAW as an ATM, mention "worker platitudes" and they would take our money, but they were beholding to the environmental movement.  and I knew if the environmental groups had their way, my job would be gone.  Well it went away anyway. but it was for different reasons.

Stickers on my old gun safe.

 

        I got lucky, I got hired by a local airline and am a chemtrail technician now and doing very well, unlike many of my Ford peeps who didn't transfer to another Ford plant,  they didn't do so well.  It was difficult making the adjustments.  Even now I am sensitive to the subject of "Outsourcing". 

.

"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel, which first appeared on Joel's The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video. It later appeared on Joel's Greatest Hits: Volume II (1985), 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert (2000), The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and 12 Gardens Live (2006) albums. Also, it was featured in Hangover II (2011) "Allentown" is the lead track on The Nylon Curtain, which was the seventh best-selling album of the year in 1982. The song reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending six consecutive weeks at that position and certified gold. Despite the song placing no higher than #17 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was popular enough to place at #43 on the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart for 1982.
Upon its release, and especially in subsequent years, "Allentown" has emerged as an anthem of blue collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America's working class in the late 20th century.

The song's theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the latter part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the wake of Bethlehem Steel's decline and eventual closure. Joel witnessed this first-hand while performing at the Lehigh Valley's numerous music venues and colleges at the start of his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The introductory rhythm of the song is reminiscent of the sound of a rolling mill converting steel ingots into I-beams or other shapes. Such a sound was commonly heard throughout South Bethlehem when the Bethlehem Steel plant was in operation from 1857 through 1995.
     When Joel first started writing the song, it was originally named "Levittown", after the Long Island town right next to Hicksville, the town in which Joel had grown up. He had originally written a chord progression and lyrics for the song, but struggled for a topic for the song. Joel remembered reading about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, which included the small cities of both Bethlehem and Allentown. While the steel industry was based in Bethlehem with none of it in Allentown, Joel named the song "Allentown" because it sounded better and it was easier to find other words to rhyme with "Allentown." Although Joel started writing the song in the late 1970s, it wasn't finished until 1982.

A year after the song was released, the mayor of Allentown sent a letter to Joel about giving some of his royalties to the town. Mayor Joseph Daddona, who sent the letter, said it would help for scholarships for future musicians. On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel, and a local paper published an article on the subject the next day, quoting Daddona as saying: "Not only would this fund be a great way to share a tiny part of your good fortune to others in Allentown, it would also help keep alive the 'Allentown' song and the Billy Joel legend (which you've already become here)."
When Joel performed the song in Leningrad during the concert recorded and later released as Концерт, he introduced the song by analogizing the situation to that faced by Soviet youths: "This song is about young people living in the Northeast of America. Their lives are miserable because the steel factories are closing down. They desperately want to leave... but they stay because they were brought up to believe that things were going to get better. Maybe that sounds familiar."

The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy and featuring choreography by Kenny Ortega, was in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original version of the video features partial male nudity when male coal workers are taking a shower at the beginning, but that part was edited when it aired on MTV. (Although it has aired uncut on both VH1 Classic and MTV Classic in recent years.)

 

50th Anniversary on the war on poverty..........

I am a student of history and I tend to remember certain dates,   I remember in my history books(before revisionist history really took on roots) 50 years ago when President Johnson pushed through his "Great Society" program to eradicate poverty in America.   If I recall, it was during this time that they put social security trust fund into the general budget to hide the cost of these programs and the Vietnam war that were going at the same time.  Back then there was a surplus in the "trust fund" and they needed it to cover the cost of government.  Now the Social Security fund that I and many others have paid into is full of government I.O.U's and I believe that the money taken by force from me will not be available for me when I retire.  That is why people from my generation(the smart ones anyway) have been funding our retirement through our 401K and other vehicles.  If SS is there, it will be means tested so that people that have other income will not be able to draw from the money that was supposed to be set aside because they will have to restrict access to keep the program afloat.
     What has me and others concerned now is that I have heard rumblings that the government is looking at ways to get at the money in the retirement accounts of Americans to "shore" up social security. "Because it isn't fair that all Americans havn't planned for their retirement and the fortunate few have."   This mindset is prevalent on the liberal websites and think tanks.  I and others like me skimped and saved and denied ourselves the latest and the greatest so we can live ok when we retire
now the "gimmecrats" are talking about taking MY money to put it into the ponzi scheme known as social security so others who didn't bother preparing can benefit?

  You don't believe it can happen.,...Look at Cyprus and Greece, the government went into bank accounts of private citizens and took money without permission of the owners, they decided by imperial fiat to just take it.  Where is the rule of Law?   Oh Wait this is the President that likes to thumb his nose at the rule of law and do whatever he wants.  Remember the GM bailouts....Everybody got hosed on that deal including the tax payers except the UAW which backed President Obama.  The Obamacare mandates, the president arbitrarily delays certain aspects of the law for political reasons even though by law, he can't do it.  And nobody will call him on it because he controls the media and the mob.

Here is the LINK that inspired the rant

The DEMOCRAT'S War on Poverty cost us TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS, that is, a 20, followed by TWELVE ZEROS! And as usual, it is an epic failure and even more Liberal is the fact that they keep throwing OUR MONEY at it, to no avail!

EXCERPT:  "Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of impoverished people in the U.S. has declined only slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama. Aides said Mr. Obama doesn’t plan to commemorate the anniversary Wednesday of Johnson’s speech in 1964, which gave rise to Medicaid, Head Start and a broad range of other federal anti-poverty programs. The president’s only public event Tuesday was a plea for Congress to approve extended benefits for the long-term unemployed, another reminder of the persistent economic troubles during Mr. Obama’s five years in office.

“What I think the American people are really looking for in 2014 is just a little bit of stability,” Mr. Obama said. Although the president often rails against income inequality in America, his policies have had little impact overall on poverty. A record 47 million Americans receive food stamps, about 13 million more than when he took office."

Stability? Really? We've had five YEARS of this incompetence and the only thing that he has down is run this nation into the ground!

Let us remember that when LBJ signed all of these giveaway he made a comment "With a stroke of the pen, I guarantee the blacks voting democrats for the next 50 years."  I have heard 50 to 200 years bandied about. 
What do we have to show for it? We still have poverty. It’s gotten worse not better. And our poor live better than middle class people in other countries. They have TVs and smart phones. And look at the crime. Look at the feral blacks playing the Knockout Game. Look at the rise of the illegitimacy rate for both black and white mothers. It’s worse among black women where it’s over 70% but it has risen among white women as well. Get yourself knocked up and you can go on welfare. And you can keep irresponsibly having babies and we will pay you for it. 

     Economist Thomas Sowell argues that the Great Society programs only contributed to the destruction of African American families, saying "the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life."

EXCERPT:  "President Obama’s anti-poverty efforts “are basically to give more people more free stuff,” said Robert Rector, a specialist on welfare and poverty at the conservative Heritage Foundation."

 EVERYTHING the Democrats DO is to give people more freebies and make them slaves to the state and dependent on voting democrat to keep the largesse coming and the democratic party in power using the ballot.  Only their LOW IQ and dumbed down education keeps them from seeing it.

How's that Hopey/Changey working for you America? "Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record?" Now THAT is CHANGE you can BELIEVE IN!

Edmund Burke was right. Our Founders were right. George Orwell was right. Ayn Rand was right. McCarthy was right. Ronald Reagan was right. Joe Wilson was right. Anyone ELSE see a pattern here?

We're 17 TRILLION in debt with 150 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities and morons like Krugman, Goolsby, and Obama, to name a few, think we can STILL spend our way out of debt

Monday Music "Allentown" by Billy Joel

 I am changing this one up from the theme I have been running for the past few weeks because it is a Major Holiday. Labor Day, On this Monday Music. I am going with "Allentown" from Billy Joel, I remember a line from the song, "The jobs went away and the union people crawled away" this happened when in the video it showed a worker getting his pink slip while in the shower.  I thought about this when my job went away at Ford Motor Company.

 Inside the door of my toolbox at work, I kept my

Old Ford Toolbox and modified it. 

Don't get me wrong, I understand why Ford did what they did and they treated us good in a really bad situation.  I was the only republican to hold union office, I was a heck of a good shop steward.  The rank and file knew it, I didn't hide it, and half of them voted for the GOP despite the union recommending anybody democrat.  I had my own issues with the democratic party, even back then, they treated the UAW as an ATM, mention "worker platitudes" and they would take our money, but they were beholding to the environmental movement.  and I knew if the environmental groups had their way, my job would be gone.  Well it went away anyway. but it was for different reasons.

Stickers on my old gun safe.

        I got lucky, I got hired by a local airline and am a chemtrail technician now and doing very well, unlike many of my Ford peeps,   they didn't do so well.  It was difficult making the adjustments.  Even now I am sensitive to the subject of "Outsourcing". 

.

"Allentown" is a song by American singer Billy Joel, which first appeared on Joel's The Nylon Curtain (1982) album, accompanied by a conceptual music video. It later appeared on Joel's Greatest Hits: Volume II (1985), 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert (2000), The Essential Billy Joel (2001), and 12 Gardens Live (2006) albums. Also, it was featured in Hangover II (2011) "Allentown" is the lead track on The Nylon Curtain, which was the seventh best-selling album of the year in 1982. The song reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending six consecutive weeks at that position and certified gold. Despite the song placing no higher than #17 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was popular enough to place at #43 on the Billboard year-end Hot 100 chart for 1982.
Upon its release, and especially in subsequent years, "Allentown" has emerged as an anthem of blue collar America, representing both the aspirations and frustrations of America's working class in the late 20th century.

The song's theme is of the resolve of those coping with the demise of the American manufacturing industry in the latter part of the 20th century. More specifically, it depicts the depressed, blue-collar livelihood of residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the wake of Bethlehem Steel's decline and eventual closure. Joel witnessed this first-hand while performing at the Lehigh Valley's numerous music venues and colleges at the start of his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The introductory rhythm of the song is reminiscent of the sound of a rolling mill converting steel ingots into I-beams or other shapes. Such a sound was commonly heard throughout South Bethlehem when the Bethlehem Steel plant was in operation from 1857 through 1995.
     When Joel first started writing the song, it was originally named "Levittown", after the Long Island town right next to Hicksville, the town in which Joel had grown up. He had originally written a chord progression and lyrics for the song, but struggled for a topic for the song. Joel remembered reading about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, which included the small cities of both Bethlehem and Allentown. While the steel industry was based in Bethlehem with none of it in Allentown, Joel named the song "Allentown" because it sounded better and it was easier to find other words to rhyme with "Allentown." Although Joel started writing the song in the late 1970s, it wasn't finished until 1982.

A year after the song was released, the mayor of Allentown sent a letter to Joel about giving some of his royalties to the town. Mayor Joseph Daddona, who sent the letter, said it would help for scholarships for future musicians. On January 20, 1983, the letter was mailed to Joel, and a local paper published an article on the subject the next day, quoting Daddona as saying: "Not only would this fund be a great way to share a tiny part of your good fortune to others in Allentown, it would also help keep alive the 'Allentown' song and the Billy Joel legend (which you've already become here)."
When Joel performed the song in Leningrad during the concert recorded and later released as Концерт, he introduced the song by analogizing the situation to that faced by Soviet youths: "This song is about young people living in the Northeast of America. Their lives are miserable because the steel factories are closing down. They desperately want to leave... but they stay because they were brought up to believe that things were going to get better. Maybe that sounds familiar."

The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy and featuring choreography by Kenny Ortega, was in heavy rotation on MTV during 1982 and 1983. The original version of the video features partial male nudity when male coal workers are taking a shower at the beginning, but that part was edited when it aired on MTV. (Although it has aired uncut on both VH1 Classic and MTV Classic in recent years.)