Cruising the Web

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Fourth of July weekend. I'm going up to New York City for a short jaunt, but I wanted to leave you guys with a few quick links before I head out.

I love our annual celebration of our nation's founding. It is a fine thing that we pause once a year to remember the principles on which our nation was established. Though, as Michael Graham points out, the celebrations that John Adams predicted would be used to celebrate our nation's independence would not be possible today in his hometown.

In 1776, Massachusetts native son John Adams declared that Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.” If John Adams were to return to Massachusetts today to lead such a parade, he would find that the sale and possession of fireworks is now against the law in the Bay State; that he needed the permission of a local, unelected government employee in order to get a gun license; that outdoor fires are illegal unless they’re expressly for the purpose of preparing food; and that “games and sports” such as tag, dodge ball, and all “unauthorized chasing games” are currently prohibited by many Bay State public schools. He would also find himself under government order to buy health insurance for himself and Abigail, or face stiff penalties from the state.

Harold Holzer pays tribute to Abraham Lincoln's Fourth of July address to Congress in 1861.

John J. Miller pays tribute to Joseph Addison's 18th century play "Cato." This was George Washington's favorite play; he had it performed at Valley Forge. And it is the source of many famous quotes such as the lines that Nathan Hale supposedly said before being executed by the British.

You know we're an overly litigious society when an inmate in prison for bank robbery is suing for the right to have pornography in prison. It must be one of those inalienable rights.

Some people are real killjoys. A local kid's museum had an "arm fart" contest and some people were so offended that the museum is going to cancel the contest. What a sad life someone must lead to bother to take the time to complain about a bunch of children competing in an arm fart contest.

A letter that Michael Jordan wrote during a high school chemistry class just garnered over $5,000 at auction. I hope that he learned better spelling and grammar at UNC.

Barbara Boxer earns three Pinocchios for her claim that it was due only to the Democrats who balanced the budget in the 1990s. This is history that she lived through, but she still thinks she can get away with lying about what happened.

Heh, states that have right-to-work laws are not only doing better economically in today's economy, but they also make up 17 of 18 top states ranked in terms of "work force."

Colorado's new high-risk insurance pool under Obamacare was predicted to have at least 4,000 patients join. Instead only 830 have signed up. But they have used up almost all of the federal money granted to cover those 4,000 members. This can't be good.

This statistic will show up in ads next year. Obama's own Council of Economic Advisors reports that each job "added or saved" by the stimulus has cost an average of $278,000 per job. And that's not all.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.

They'll have a hard time defending those numbers.

Ah, those Democrats and their culture of civility. Charming.

Cathy Young notes how the recent Wal-Mart Supreme Court case resurrects old arguments about women earning less than men. She has this interesting fact from the case demonstrating how part of the problem is that many women don't want jobs that will be so demanding that they don't have time with their families.

One answer comes from left-wing journalist Liza Featherstone, whose 2004 book about the case, "Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Women's Rights at Wal-Mart," is strongly sympathetic to the plaintiffs. In an interview for the online magazine Stay Free! after the book's publication, Featherstone was asked about other suits against Wal-Mart, including one by the widow of a male manager who had died of a heart attack. Featherstone explained, "Her husband was incredibly overworked, as many Wal-Mart managers are ... assistant mangers are forced to work 70-80 hours a week. In some sense, they are more exploited than hourly workers, because they are salaried, so they don't get overtime."

In another interview, in Salon.com, Featherstone noted that Wal-Mart expects managers to be available to work at any time and that the chief plaintiff in the women's case, Betty Dukes, felt her career had suffered because she refused to work Sundays.

Yes, it's tough that being a manager at Wal-Mart is so demanding. Who knew? But such facts are evidence that something was going on other than discrimination to account for the discrepancies in employment at Wal-Mart.

Noam Chomsky - rather slow on the uptake

Noam Chomsky has just glommed onto the fact that his former friend Hugo Chavez is not a friend to democracy.

Speaking to the Observer last week, Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an "assault" on Venezuela's democracy.

"Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy. You can debate whether [Venezuela's] circumstances require it: internal circumstances and the external threat of attack, that's a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not."

Chavez has been very public in his respect for Chomsky, but now Chomsky is putting behind him his former praise for what Chavez had done for Venezuela.

Chomsky is well known in Venezuela for his critiques of U.S. imperialism and support for the progressive political changes underway in Venezuela and other Latin American countries in recent years. President Chavez regularly references Chomsky in speeches and makes widely publicized recommendations of Chomsky's 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance.

"Hegemony or survival; we opt for survival," said Chavez in a press conference to welcome Chomsky. He compared Chomsky's thesis to that of German socialist Rosa Luxemburg in the early 1900s, "Socialism or Barbarism," and referred to Chomsky as "one of the greatest defenders of peace, one of the greatest pioneers of a better world."

Through an interpreter, Chomsky responded, "I write about peace and criticize the barriers to peace; that's easy. What's harder is to create a better world... and what's so exciting about at last visiting Venezuela is that I can see how a better world is being created."

...."The transformations that Venezuela is making toward the creation of another socio-economic model could have a global impact if these projects are successfully carried out," said the renowned author.

But Chomsky has finally seen the light.

Chomsky reveals he has lobbied Venezuela's government behind the scenes since late last year after being approached by the Carr centre for human rights policy at Harvard University. Afiuni earned Chávez's ire in December 2009 by freeing Eligio Cedeño, a prominent banker facing corruption charges. Cedeño promptly fled the country.

In a televised broadcast the president, who had taken a close interest in the case, called the judge a criminal and demanded she be jailed for 30 years. "That judge has to pay for what she has done."

Afiuni, 47, a single mother with cancer, spent just over a year in jail, where she was assaulted by other prisoners. In January, authorities softened her confinement to house arrest pending trial for corruption, which she denies.

"Judge Afiuni has suffered enough," states Chomsky's letter. "She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free."

Amnesty International and the European parliament, among others, have condemned the judge's treatment but the intervention of a scholar considered a friend of the Bolivarian revolution, which is named after the hero of Venezuelan independence, Simón Bolívar, is likely to sting even more.

Speaking from his home in Boston, Chomsky said Chávez, who has been in power for 12 years, appeared to have intimidated the judicial system. "I'm sceptical that [Afiuni] could receive a fair trial. It's striking that, as far as I understand, other judges have not come out in support of her … that suggests an atmosphere of intimidation."

He also faulted Chávez for adopting enabling powers to circumvent the national assembly. "Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo [authoritarianism] and it has to be guarded against. Whether it's over too far in that direction in Venezuela I'm not sure, but I think perhaps it is. A trend has developed towards the centralisation of power in the executive which I don't think is a healthy development."

Think of how long it has taken Chomsky to figure out that Chavez is not good for freedom in Venezuela. That earlier quote admiring Chavez is from 2009. Everyone else who had a concern for freedom knew what Chavez was doing to his country and how he was shutting down their liberties, but it has taken until now for Chomsky to figure it out.

Better late than never.

How getting rid of public employee collective bargaining is helping a Wisconsin school district

I just wanted to add in this report from Byron York about the Kaukauna school district in Wisconsin and how they're seeing immediate savings from the end to collective bargaining with the teachers union. As I reported below, the school district has now gone from a $400,000 deficit to a $1.5 million surplus. A lot of that is because of the contributions that the school employees will have to make to their pensions and the increase from 10% to 12.6% contribution to their health coverage. But school employees claim that they would have made those concessions without having to give up collective bargaining if those evil Republicans had been willing to negotiate. It was just Governor Walker's rabid desire to kill the teachers unions that led to the impasse.

Except that is phony. Cutting collective bargaining for the teachers has reaped immediate benefits to local school districts, as York explains.

Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?

"The monetary part of it is not the entire issue," says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.

In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Then there are work rules. "In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven," says Arnoldussen. "Now, they're going to teach six." In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.

The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes -- from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students. Those changes would not have been possible without the much-maligned changes in collective bargaining.

Teachers' salaries will stay "relatively the same," Arnoldussen says, except for higher pension and health care payments. (The top salary is around $80,000 per year, with about $35,000 in additional benefits, for 184 days of work per year -- summers off.) Finally, the money saved will be used to hire a few more teachers and institute merit pay.

Now imagine this story getting repeated in school district after district across the state. That must be the unions' biggest nightmare. Actual, immediate proof that the collective bargaining agreement was putting the schools into irredeemable debt and blocking needed reforms to help students rather than teachers. I hope the Republicans can get that message out there because we know that the unions will do anything possible to block the truth from coming out even if they have to gin up fake choking attacks from the state supreme court to discredit conservatives.