Capital and Labor

Capital  

The Circuit Court in Washington, D.C., a court dominated by Republicans, ruled that businesses could not be required to post a notice that workers had a right to form a union.  Local businessman John Brinson, who owns a chain of fitness centers in the Lehigh Valley, was a plaintiff.  He was quoted as saying, “I feel very strongly that I do not want unions in my business.  In fact, I don’t want unions in any business.”

Of course he doesn’t.  He can abuse and exploit individual workers.  When they stand together in a union, he can’t do that.  Brinson, by the way, declared bankruptcy a few years ago.  Another phrase for bankruptcy is “a way to stiff one’s creditors.”  That tells you something about Mr. Brinson.

Labor

Volunteers from the Carbon County Labor Chapter, assisted by members of the Lehighton Area Democratic Club along with Franklin Township employees who provided a truck, worked in the rain today to clear away a large tree that had fallen on the historic  Bunker Hill cemetery.  Bunker Hill cemetery is where Col. Jacob Weiss, founder of Weissport, is buried.

Yes, we got soaked.  And yes, we had a good time.  One of the chainsaw-wielding volunteers, Chubby Kintz, mows the cemetery, but had no means of removing the tree.  The other chainsaw guy was Richard from Hamburg, who is a history buff.  The rest of us clipped, shoveled, raked, carried, and loaded.

  

After we quit for the day, we repaired to Mario’s Pizza in Weissport for lunch.  We plan to finish the cleanup on May 18.  

The pro-business Supreme Court

Last month the Minnesota Law Review published a study ranking the 35 justices who served during the last 65 years by the proportion of their pro-business votes.  The study involved about 2000 decisions from 1946 to 2011.

All five of the current Supreme Court conservatives were in the top ten pro-business justices.  Now get this: the two justices since 1946 most likely to decide in favor of business are Roberts and Alito, both appointed by George W. Bush.

We tend to focus on cases like gay marriage or the health care bill.  The pro-business decisions are often under the radar.  The full page article discussing the study that appeared in the May 5th New York Times referenced cases I had never heard of, yet the decisions affected literally millions of people.

Here are just two examples.  In Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes (2011), the Court ruled 5-4 that the 1.5 million employees of Wal-Mart did not have enough in common to pursue a class action contending sex discrimination. In AT&T v. Concepcion (2011) the Court ruled that companies may avoid class action suits by using standard form arbitration agreements, which everybody signs but nobody reads. 

Remember, there’s no mandatory retirement for Supreme Court justices.  They must either resign or die before they can be replaced. 

Five-year-old shoots and kills sister, no biggie

If you were a parent in Kentucky and didn't put your two-year-old in a proper car seat, and you were in an accident, and the child was killed, you would face punishment.

If you had a five-year-old who had access to loaded weapons, and that five-year-old killed his two-year-old sister, hey, these things happen.  "I think it's nobody else's business but our town's," said a resident of Burkesville, Kentucky, where this actually occurred.

The rifle the five-year-old used is called a Crockett rifle.  It is designed for children.  Let me repeat that. It is designed for children.

A German cameraman who showed up in Burkesville to report the story was punched out.  This is a Kentucky matter, not something that you and I should be concerned with.

"Sporting Arms," which makes "quality firearms for America's youth," must be proud.  The N.R.A. must also be proud.

This information came from the New York Times, "Girl's Death by Gunshot Is Rejected As Symbol,: May 6, 2013, p. A10.

"Ag Gag" bill introduced in Penna. Senate

Why do so many legislators who worry about the Second Amendment seem quite willing to ignore the First?  Pennsylvania Senator Mike Brubaker (R-Lancaster) has introduced a bill that would make “unauthorized” videotaping of animals illegal.  In the past such videotapes have documented the mistreatment of livestock and led to prosecutions.

According to an article by Karen Langley, published in today’s Morning Call (May 4, p. 10), a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau said that trespassers who videotape cruelty or mistreatment could spread disease to farm animals.  So the purpose of the bill, evidently, is to protect farm animals.  Good to know.

It's late

It’s 10:30 p.m., and we just got in from a Democratic party fundraiser in Penn Forest Township.  I’m too tired to think, but I’ve had this quotation in reserve for just such an evening.  Here it is:

“What we are now doing to the world by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate--all this is new in the experience of the earth.  It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways....  The environmental challenge which confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world....  Those countries who are industrialized must contribute more to help those who are not.”

Margaret Thatcher said that in an address to the U.N. in 1989.  

Hunger Strike

At his most recent press conference President Obama called for closing down the prison in Guantanamo, pointing out that it harms our foreign policy and is not in keeping with American ideals.  We are holding people in prison indefinitely, evidently until they die.  No trials, no proof of any kind of guilt, no way out.

Gutless Congress has passed laws that the prisoners can’t be transferred to the U.S. or released to other countries.  It offered no solution except to hold these men until they die.

Now we are sticking tubes down the noses of 21 prisoners who are on a hunger strike to force-feed them.  I am 70 years old, and it is very hard for me to even imagine my country acting this way.  This is not the country I grew up in.

When African captives on slave ships refused to eat, the slavers would hold red hot coals to their lips to make them open their mouths.  Too bad they didn’t have tubes to shove down their nostrils.  

A candidate for Lehighton Borough Council

The Times News has been running short articles on candidates for local office in Carbon County.  Today one of the stories was about John Bird, candidate for Lehighton Borough Council  Here are some actual quotations from the article, reprinted exactly as they appeared:

The 55-year-old noted conservative, defends Constitutional rights and practices lower cost, limited government.

Bird remarked he applied for federal jobs in the Maryland-DC areas.  Although well-qualified, he was denied jobs to accommodate Affirmative Action.

He continued, ‘“Inflation caused by disastrous federal policies, has made our jobs more difficult and complex.  The rising cost of energy and health care are straining municipal budgets across the nation.”

I have no further comment.