The first news item to cross my desk this morning was the announcement that Senator Tom Coburn, (R-OK), would leave the Senate at the end of the year. His term won’t expire until 2016, but due to a recurrence of his prostrate cancer, he’s leaving the Senate early. Erick Erickson of Red State calls Coburn the Horatius of Oklahoma.
With an unknown future, I can understand Coburn’s desire to spend more time with his family. I wish my so-called republican senator had Tom Coburn’s voting record and leadership.
I wish you well, Tom Coburn.
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Union organizers lose another one. The International Association of Machinists attempted to organization an Amazon site in New Jersey and failed. As expected, the union claims it was all Amazon’s fault! In retrospect, that is true. Amazon provided a working environment that supported their employees, more than the union who only wanted their ‘take’ from the members paychecks.
Their unusual thug tactics failed.
Is It Hubris Or…? Undemocratic and dysfunctional Machinists’ union blames Amazon for employees’ rejection
Whether it is extreme hubris or blatantly deceptive spin, the International Association of Machinists does not seem to realize that, over the last several months, the union has done a number of things to sully its own reputation in the minds of its members—as well as the general public—which is likely costing it potential new members.On Tuesday, a group of 27 Amazon workers employed by the company in Delaware overwhelmingly rejected representation by the Machinists in an NLRB-supervised election by 21-6.
According to union spokesman John Carr, the union’s loss was all the company’s fault.
The majority of 27 technicians at an Amazon fulfillment center in Middletown, Delaware, voted to reject an initiative to form a union under the auspices of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said John Carr, a spokesman for the IAMAW. The vote, held late yesterday, was 21 to 6.
“That number is a clear reflection that the tactics Amazon and their law firm employed were very effective,” Carr said. “Under the intense pressures these workers faced on the shop floor, it was an uphill battle all the way.” [Emphasis added.]
Either Mr. Carr is completely ignorant of how the goings-on within his own union impact its reputation among potential new members or he is merely looking for a scapegoat to blame for his own union’s shortcomings.
In either case, events over the last several months within the Machinists’ union do not make a good case for the union to sell itself to union-free workers.
Guess the New Jersey employees weren’t too impressed with a union that jacked around its members as they have done with Boeing.
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There were two stories in the news today about a theater overlooked by liberal media—the Western Pacific and the buildup of Chinese military forces. The Chinese declared an exclusion zone encompassing islands owned by Japan in addition to their claims in the South China Sea that covers territory claimed by a number of other nations including Viet Nam, Japan and the Philippine Islands.
Under our current non-leadership, our military forces have been degraded to the point that we can no longer secure the open seas nor support our allies in the Pacific. Japan is considering a massive buildup of their defense forces due to American military weakness.
Ominous warning: Admiral concedes U.S. losing dominance to China
Commander of Obama’s Asia pivot eyes military posturing by China
The Obama administration’s ballyhooed military “pivot” to Asia is running into some frank talk from the top U.S. commander in the Pacific.
Three years after the Pentagon said it was de-emphasizing Europe in favor of the Asia-Pacific region, NavyAdm. Samuel J. Locklear III said this week that U.S. dominance has weakened in the shadow of a more aggressive China.
“Our historic dominance that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question,” Adm. Locklear, chief of U.S. Pacific Command, said Wednesday at a naval conference in Virginia.
Although Adm. Locklear said it is obvious that Chinese military power is growing, he suggested that it is unclear whether China will seek to be a hard adversary to the U.S. in the long term, so Washington should be working overtime on steering Beijing toward a cooperative security posture.