Pledge Cards = Card Check, I DON'T THINK SO!

Well this something that I do know a lot about. (I think I am going to upset a lot of my friends with this one.) At the tender age of 21, I was exposed to work conditions and a manager at a southern TV station in Petersburg, Virginia that was so horrible that I decided that we needed a union. This would be quite a feat in a "Right-to-work-state". (I was a Conservative/Republican, but, hey, even we can belong to unions.) I made all the necessary contacts, met "in-secret" with a Union Organizer (a man that I still respect and hold in high regard to this day) and I was told how we would go about getting my fellow workers to sign something called a "Pledge Card". This card carried a signature of the employee, saying that he was requesting a "Secret Ballot election" in which all employees could cast a "secret ballot" to either vote "yes" for Union Representation on "no" against "Union Representation". We had to get two-thirds of the eligible employees to sign a "Pledge Card" in order to get the NLRB to sanction an election that was a "simple majority rules" vote. Meaning if 60 employees were eligible to vote in this election, then we would need only 31 "yes" votes in this "Secret Ballot" to be able to be represented by this union.
Now, please keep in mind, the entire time our goal was to get a simple two-thirds of the eligible employees to sign these "Pledge Cards"; these cards went directly to the NLRB and were NEVER shown to management of the TV station I was employed at. The important thing here is that this "Pledge Card" was NOT a commitment to vote in favor of the union, but only an assertion that the undersigned person wanted a chance to have a "Secret Ballot" election to let the "Majority" decide if a Union Representation was necessary. Let me repeat that, this "Pledge Card" was NOT a commitment to vote in favor of the union, but only an assertion that the undersigned person wanted a chance to have a "Secret Ballot" election to let the "Majority" decide if a Union Representation was necessary. We were told to STRESS this was just a request for a "Secret Ballot" election. Again it was a request to the NLRB to sanction a "SECRET BALLOT" election. I remember being told that this "SECRET BALLOT" was the most important thing we could have, because it gave a regular employee a chance to "have a say" in his future with his employer, without the employer knowing who voted "for" or "against" the union. And I remember in subsequent years as my involvement in the "Organized Labor Movement" grew, being told to "STRESS" that signing this "PLEDGE CARD" was an "important right"because it 'gave an employee a chance to have a "Secret Ballot" election. And years later, when I was sent to an AFL-CIO sponsored "Union Organizing Class", again, this "PLEDGE CARD" was held up and shown as our goal, to get two-thirds of these signed so that the NLRB would sanction a "Secret Ballot' election.
This takes us to today. Now the AFL-CIO and all of the Union leaders around the country are calling for a "Card Check" system, one that would do-away with the "Secret Ballot" election. My question is, if one delves into the history of "Organized Labor", one will see that men and women fought in the streets for the right to this "Secret Ballot" election. This was the one thing that all union members knew; "This union is here because we voted in a "Secret Ballot" and the majority won!!!" Now all of a sudden, this Democratic right to a "Secret Ballot" is going to go away? What? Wait! Where is the Democratic process in that? Where is the "Majority rules"? The so- long- and- hard- fought- for "Secret Ballot" will go away and be replaced by a simple "signing of a card"? What happened to the promised "Private and Secret Ballot", which was always organized labor's hook to get the average Joe to sign a "Pledge Card".
My union membership extended over thirty years. I went from a non-represented Organizer, to a member, to an Alternate Steward, to a Steward, to a Chief Steward to a Local Vice President. I KNOW what I am talking about. . .I was in the organizing trenches; I spoke to employees and convinced them to sign these "Pledge Cards". I spoke to employees and convinced them to vote "Yes" for "Union Representation" in a "Secret Ballot" election. Now the Federal Government wants to take away another right; the "Secret Ballot" election will go away and it will be replaced by a simple signature on a card that was originally really intended to allow these employees to have their say through a "SECRET BALLOT ELECTION". Another change brought to you by the libs, the Dems, the Progressives and obama!! Democracy is slowly being chipped away and will soon be replaced by socialism.

The VAT (Value Added Tax)

This is going to be obama's answer to the cost of his Health care plan and, once again, the little guy is going to be stung the most. This VAT is a tax that is added on everything we purchase... EVERYTHING! There is a rumor that food purchases could be exempt, but I think that is highly unlikely. One of the major problems is that this tax falls squarely on the shoulders of the end consumers of these taxed products. This VAT is considered a "regressive tax", meaning the lower your income is, the bigger bite this tax will take out of your pocket. But wait, those of you that have worked hard, gotten a good education and have clawed your way to a good salary will be slammed too, because you folks tend to have more disposable income and a HUGE chunk of that will be going to the VAT, thereby reducing your ability to buy products. This tax will be included on every product that is used in the manufacture of those end products too, meaning everything, every ingredient, every single item sold to a manufacturer which is in-turn used to manufacture an item will be taxed. So every business in the chain leading up to the end product will be taxed and guess who will be bear the burden of this tax? You and I, the end consumer. . .you know the old expression "crap rolls downhill" and it this case it will land right in our laps! This is not going to be good for an already horrendous economy. With the current national unemployment rate at 9.7%, if this tax goes through, we will all be hurting even more than we are now. We need to let our elected officials know that this VAT is a horrible idea; of course, our elected representatives did not listen to us on the Healthcare issue so do you really think they are going to listen to us on this huge mistake?

Tea-Party members = Racists. . .NOT!

Well I must admit, it wasn't until 9:45 tonight that something really rankled my sensibilities and here it is. First, let's set the record straight. The accusations of Tea-party members hurling racial slurs at black congressmen have been proven to be FALSE. There have been several independent groups that have examined the video of Rep Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)when they claimed to have been allegedly called racist and homophobic slurs and all that could be found was the Tea-Partyers chanting "KILL THE BILL". This was a blatant attempt to paint the Tea-Party members as racist, hate-mongering, homophobes. Notice this hub-bub died down after it was proven to be nothing but false accusations! The left is attempting, once again, to paint us Conservatives as racists. Let's set the record straight. Abraham Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" put an end to slavery; he was a Republican. The Dixiecrats, *[Definition from Wikipedia:The States' Rights Democratic Party (commonly known as the Dixiecrats) was a short-lived segregationist, socially conservative political party in the United States. It originated as a breakaway faction of the Democratic Party in 1948, determined to protect what they portrayed as the Southern way of life beset by an oppressive federal government[1], and supporters assumed control of the state Democratic parties in part or in full in several Southern states. The States' Rights Democratic Party opposed racial integration and wanted to retain Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. Members of the States' Rights Democratic Party were often called Dixiecrats. (The term Dixiecrat is a portmanteau of Dixie, referring to the Southern United States, and Democrat, referring to the Democratic Party.] were the ones that opposed Civil Rights. This was an offshoot of the Democratic party, NOT the Republican party. This has been the story for many years; the Democrats are the party that is attempting to control the black vote by making sure that black members don't think for themselves. This is witnessed in the fact that now Black Tea-party members are being accused of being "sell-outs", "house-Negroes" and "Field-Negroes", by their Black counter-parts in the Democratic party. The Democrats, as a whole, have seen fit to claim the Black race as entirely their own. If you are Black, you cannot be a Conservative or a Republican because that is racist. However, the facts bear out that the breakdown of the Blacks that consider themselves to be Conservative or Republican is growing everyday. The Dems/libs have equated any disagreement with obama to racism. Now here is the folly in that logic; obama is not a black man; he is of mixed-race. He is one-half white and only one quarter black. Yet, the libs are trying to paint the Conservatives as racists because we have the audacity to disagree with a "Black" president. In truth, he is more white than black! I hate to break it to you but Conservatives disagree with obama's socialist ideas, his socialist agenda and his attempt to blatantly rip the Free-market ideas away from this country and replace them with socialist ideas. The fact that he is of mixed-race is not a bearing on why we disagree with him to the degree that we do. We are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. . .he is a far left, socialist, marxist, communist and we are totally opposed to any type of socialist control of our country. We Conservatives are just that... Conservative in our approach to the way this country should be run, not with a huge, burgeoning government that will control everything, but instead with a minimal amount of interference from the government and certainly without this hoax they call Health-care reform, which is nothing more than a power-grab by the left, again to promote their socialist, marxist agenda! We have to wake up, fellow Conservatives! We have to let the libs/Dems/obama know that we are NOT going to stand still and watch our Glorious County be ripped apart and turned into The "United Socialists of Obama" Republic!

My Opinion

Wow, so I have heard from various news outlets that a doctor, posted a sign on his business door saying that he was refusing to treat anyone that voted for obama. Now there is a move afoot to pull his medical license. This is just the beginning, folks. This Dr. owns a private business, he is a citizen of this country, therefore, he has the "right-to-free-speech", especially political speech and a group of Left-wing zealots want to take away his medical license because of his free political speech???

To make matters worse, this idiot Rep Alan Grayson is comparing his sign to racism. . .GRAYSON:" Well, in fact, where he lives in Mount Dora (ph), which is in my district many, many of the Democrats who live in Mount Dora (ph) happen to be African-Americans. So by saying that he will not treat somebody who supported Obama, he's saying that he's not going to treat a large number of African-Americans in this community."

So just because his office is in a pre-dominantly democratic area, which also is a Black area, this automatically make him a racist??? Wow we are quickly losing our grasp on reality. . .what is one man's opinion, has been turned into a race-card and is going to be used to pull his medical license?? Welcome to the United Socialists of Obama Republic", formerly known as "The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA".