Shocking News Flash: GOP Hates Unions!

The new GOP-dominated state congress here in Ohio is feeling frisky. Some of the Tea Party tyros want to throw the entire arch-conservative wish list up against the wall and see if they can get some of it to stick. So, suddenly, the whipping boy of the moment is that old standby, organized labor.

Gov. Kasich made a lot of noise on the campaign trail about getting rid of one union or another, and eliminating collective bargaining for some State workers. Now newcomer Rep. Kristina Roegner (R, Hudson) has said that, because of Ohio labor unions, new businesses are "flocking to other states. Why would they come to [Ohio] where their plant could unionize and put them at a competitive disadvantage?" She'd like Ohio to become a "right to work" state, which would essentially gut our labor laws, weaken our unions, and reduce wages.

She cites an Ohio University study done on behalf of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce which found better economic results in right-to-work states than in Commie Pinko states like Ohio. Ooh, big surprise! A study for the Chamber of Commerce draws an anti-union conclusion. That's like a study on behalf of the KKK concluding that black people are holding us back. Or a study on behalf of Pat Robertson finding that pro-choice homosexual non-Christians are the root of all societal problems. The OU study was bought and paid for. It is, as an Oregon professor correctly put it, "junk science."

Rep. Roegner sounds like a graduate of the Michelle Bachmann School of economics. Mad Michelle once advocated the elimination of the minimum wage. In her mind, this would loosen pent-up demand and create untold millions of jobs paying, in her words, "whatever." Like maybe 50 cents an hour.

Great Utility "Service" From AEP

If nothing else, you have to admire our electric company AEP for their chutzpah. A couple months back, you may recall, AEP agreed with the PUCO that they had overcharged many central Ohio customers in 2009. But instead of issuing full refunds of the overcharge, AEP wondered if we might allow them to keep all the excess profit in exchange for a lower-than-maximum rate increase next year. What a shit sandwich!

This Tuesday night we had a fairly severe ice storm which caused a lot of property damage. It also knocked out power to over 180,000 homes. The Buster Gammons estate was among those to go dark. We spent a chilly night, but our power came back on by mid-morning. Others weren't so lucky. As of this Friday morning there were still 16,000 homes without power. And it went down to 7 degrees last night.

Meanwhile, it's hard to tell whether AEP has spent more time in making repairs or in congratulating themselves. Their spokespeople tell us they've performed virtual miracles, which they credit to their "aggressive program of line maintenance", meaning they sneak onto your property when you're not home and cut down your trees. (AEP's fantasy would be a world absent all vegetation, everything flat and paved.) They issue foggy feel-good statements like, "At this time, we're projecting with 90% certainty that 95% of our customers will have 98% of their power restored by next week." Huh?

Not that there's an alternative, but we cope with far too many power outages. It's been that way for as long as I've lived here. A good sideways fart'll knock out the power for a couple hours. In 2008, the remnants of Hurricane Ike turned off our lights for 4-5 days.

Wait -- maybe there is an alternative. Most of these problems stem from the fragile, antiquated delivery system. Like most places, we get our juice from overhead wires. From the power plant to the substation to the subdivision to the home, it's poles and wires up in the air all the way. And they flap around in the breeze and ice forms on them and trees fall on them. And we bitch and moan and freeze, and AEP spends a small fortune on a temporary fix. And then it happens again.

But there are some places where electricity is delivered by underground wires, at least in residential areas. My sister lives in such a neighborhood in a Cleveland suburb. Some new developments around here have underground wiring. It doesn't eliminate power outages, but it sure as hell reduces the number to a very, very few. And it means the utility company doesn't aggressively "prune" your landscaping.

Could we retrofit the entire city and take it all underground? Sure. So why don't we? Cost, or rather, fear of cost. AEP's position is that the costs would be prohibitive, which is code for "We ain't payin' for it!" Undoubtedly, it would be a very expensive proposition, and we probably shouldn't expect a utility company to pay the full cost of conversion. They should pay plenty, but how about if we help 'em and share the cost? It's in our mutual interests to improve the system.

What if each AEP residential customer paid a one-time surcharge of $500 to aid in converting to an underground delivery system? You could pay it all at once or spread it over a full year at $42 extra per month. How many customers does AEP have? I don't know. Would $500 be enough? Don't know that either. But let's play with a couple numbers. Take just those 180,000 homes that lost power Tuesday night. A $500 surcharge on each of them would generate $90 million. That oughta help bury a few wires.

But I'm just a wild-eyed idealist. Almost certainly it's another of Buster's busted pipe dreams. I'm heading out now to stock up on candles.

Kasich Issues Brochure To Administration Employees Further Clarifying His Diversity Policies & Procedures

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Kasich Clarifies His Position On Diversity

Governor John Kasich has taken some heat recently for his solid-vanilla Cabinet appointments. Ohio's Black Congressional Caucus is particularly upset with the Honky In Chief.

Kasich sensed the political pickle and explained his position as follows: "I'm sensitive to the issue. I'm all for diversity, as long as diversity and I can work together and diversity has the same philosophy as I do. So what I'm saying is, diversity better be a heartless white male Republican with experience in business or lobbying. That's what I call diversity! Yee-haaa!!!!"

Where's The Republican?

Here's a fun new game for all ages I invented last night while watching the co-mingled crowd at the State of the Union address. It's called "Where's The Republican?" It's a lot like "Where's Waldo?", but easier. You just look at this picture from last night's speech, and try to find the Republican. See? You did it already. Good job! Thanks for playing.

Crying Shame

(Below are a few excerpts from Matt Taibbi's article "The Crying Shame of John Boehner" in the 1/20/11 issue of Rolling Stone. If you've never read Taibbi, you should. He's one of the best and funniest political writers working today. If you want to read the full article -- it's worth it -- just click on the article shown under Buster's Links.)

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THE CRYING SHAME OF JOHN BOEHNER. The new speaker is a lazy, double-talking shill for corporate interests. So how's he going to fare with the TEA Party? by Matt Taibbi

John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich.

He's a five-tool insider who can lie, cheat, steal, play golf, change his mind on command and do anything else his lobbyist buddies and campaign contributors require of him.

It's hard to imagine a more unlikely marriage than John Boehner and the pitchfork-wielding, incumbent-eating TEA party, whose blood ostensibly boils at the thought of business as usual. Because John Boehner is business as usual, a man devoted almost exclusively to his own political survival by tending faithfully to the corrupt and clanking Beltway machinery.

In the Nineties, Boehner started weekly meetings with a group of lobbyists that helped him develop close ties to [big-time corporate interests]. And what does Boehner do with lobbyists? Well, one thing we know he does is play golf -- shitloads and shitloads of golf. [Boehner] reportedly copped to playing 100 rounds a year, while collecting a six-figure salary paid for by U.S. taxpayers. His political action committee spent almost $83,000 on golf events in 2009, and over the past eighteen months he has run up a $67,000 tab at the Ritz-Carlton golf resort in Naples, Florida.

Boehner is an innovator in the loathsome new political phenomenon of men crying in public, co-owning mastery of the habit with screeching media dillweed Glenn Beck.

Boehner has been a Bush Republican, i.e. a corporate schmoozer and remorseless spender of taxpayer money for whom the notion of small government is just something to say when the cameras are on, or when the public money in question might go to poor people, or immigrants, or other such unlikely golfers.

[Once upon a time] Congress was an easy job for any man with a nice fairway stroke, a limited moral compass, and a keen sense of bureaucratic loyalty. Things are different now. The new speaker represents an increasingly endangered class of Beltway jobholders who know how to raise money and get elected, but not much beyond that. The tee times are over.

Republicans Rehearsing Grouchy Facial Expressions For State Of The Union Address

(by Andy Borowitz for the Huffington Post)
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WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - Preparing for what most political insiders agree is their most important performance of the year, congressional Republicans have spent the past week rehearsing their grouchiest facial expressions for Tuesday's State of the Union Address.

For seven grueling days, GOP congressmen have been behind closed doors, refining their best winces, grimaces, and other sourpuss mannerisms under the tutelage of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio).

"Looking like you've just sucked on a lemon is harder than it seems," said Mr. Boehner. "It doesn't come naturally for everyone like it does for Mitch McConnell."

Mr. Boehner has been employing a "method acting" approach with his House colleagues, urging them to imagine "the most unpleasant thing they can think of - like Keith Olbermann being back on TV."

But given the new vogue for "civility" that has swept Washington in recent weeks, Mr. Boehner is instructing House Republicans to restrain themselves from outbursts like that of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who famously shouted "You lie!" during President Obama's congressional address in 2009.

"If you feel an outburst coming on," Mr. Boehner told his colleagues, "I ask that you instead limit yourself to a simple, tasteful jerking-off hand gesture."

Mr. Boehner said that while he wants his Republican members to look as grumpy a possible throughout Mr. Obama's speech, "I want them to show him the same respect we would show to any other foreign visitor to our shores."

Immediately following the President's speech, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis) will give the official Republican response, followed by Michele Bachmann (R-Minn), who will give the official moron response.