Premature Burial?

Stop the funeral. There's a sign of life in the Cadaver! Yes indeed. Making headline news from coast to coast, the Cleveland Cadavers -- er, Cavaliers -- won a basketball game last night. After losing an NBA record 26 in a row, the Cavs finally picked up a win, topping the LA Clippers 126-119. Yippee. Cleveland still owns the league's worst record by far, so I wouldn't order champagne and playoff tickets just yet.

Kasich To Public Employees: "You Vill Verk Or Ve Vill Make You Pay!"

Hardly a day goes by without some new attack on organized labor coming out of the Kasich administration. Now, just in case you had any doubt (and you shouldn't have), Gov. Kasich has made his position plain: He intends to not merely reduce union influence, he's gonna be a union-buster. Not only does he dislike public employee unions, he dislikes public employees!

John-Boy said that if the Jones Bill (SB 5) doesn't give him everything he wants, he'll just make up his own draconian labor rules and slip them into the state budget. (Well then, fuck, King John! Why bother with the House & Senate? Save time and money, send 'em home, and do whatever you like. His hubris simply astounding!)

The royal words of King John regarding public employees:

"We would outlaw strikes, and the penalties would be either firing or docked wages."

Any recourse for dissatisfied union workers? Nope. "They have a job. Try to come up with something."

The King also said he'd eliminate Ohio laws requiring binding arbitration and prevailing wages.

It's shit like this that makes me want to puke. It's mean, punitive, and pure conservative ideology -- it's a "fix" of a non-existent problem, with no demonstrable social or financial benefit. Just throwin' a bone to the anti-union dogs.

In the historical big picture, it's people like John Kasich who make necessary people like Eugene V. Debs, Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, and Walter Reuther. (If you don't know who those guys are, do a Google search right now.)

Mubarak Departs For Film Career

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has announced that he will step down in order to play the lead role in the latest instalment of the Blacula movie series.

At his final press conference Mubarak said, "I love Egypt and I've had a great run as your Pharoah Dictator, but 32 years is plenty. So farewell and good luck. I'm going to Hollywood! See ya, suckers!"

Ohio GOP Ready To Go Back In Time

State Senator Shannon Jones (R, Springboro) has introduced Ohio Senate Bill 5, which would significantly reduce the collective bargaining rights of public employees at both the state and local levels.

Buster knows that many people like to blame unions for all the problems in the world, but would you really want to return to the bad old days before they existed? If you know your history, no, you wouldn't. Over the years, every workers' rights issue has been bitterly opposed by management, every labor success hard fought. In recent years, unions all over the country have recognized the economic conditions and agreed to concessions and wage cuts. But any attempt to weaken actual labor laws,which is what SB 5 does, should be met with great skepticism. We give up these rights at our peril.

I'll spare you the details of the bill, giving you instead the comment of Sen. Bill Seitz (R, Cinti.), who said "It tends to skew things mightily in favor of the employer." (This from a Republican!) Sen. Jones said she's "not doing this to punish [Ohio] employees." Behind her back, she had her fingers crossed. Another R, Sen. Tom Niehaus, tied it to the budget and deficit reduction, which is just total horseshit. And John-Boy Kasich is all for it, of course.

The new breed of Libertarian Tea-swilling Republicans seem to think the world would be a much better place if we could somehow roll back the clock to 1773. No, it wouldn't! Unfortunately, both houses of the State legislature are heavy with R's and they're ready to toss us into the Time Machine and see how far backward we can go. Buckle up!

Bill Maher on Gun Rights

On the latest Real Time With Bill Maher, our man Maher came up with another beautiful "New Rule":

"New Rule: Stop talking about 'gun rights'. Guns don't have rights. C'mon, think about it. If they did, do you really think there'd be so many of them in Alabama?"

Obama Extends Olive Branch To Business; They Stuff It Up His Ass

President Obama has been reaching out to Business, reminding them that things are getting better, and that Democrats are not anti-business, and he is not their enemy. Well, ya gotta give him credit for tryin'.

Monday, he addressed a meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This is as staunchly Republican an organization as can be found, and one which spent $75 million to defeat Democrats in the mid-terms. Obama told the Chamber he was willing to work with them to continue the recovery, tweak the tax code and reduce unnecessary regulations. But he also asked them to get off their gold-plated asses, spend some of their record profits, and help out by hiring some people. His speech was met by stony faces, half-hearted applause, and requests for lots more tax cuts.

Earlier, the President had asked Business for their ideas on job creation. As a reply, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Cal) arranged to send him a one-sided bitch-list from 200+ PACs and industry advocacy groups. Just a little light reading from outfits like the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assoc., the American Beverage Assoc., the American Chemistry Council, the American Meat Institute, the National Mining Assoc., and the U.S. Council For Giving Business Every-Fucking-Thing They Ever Wanted.

This Darrell Issa guy is a real piece of work. He is now the Chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Committee. As such, his job is to waste everyone's time and money by gumming up the works with endless probes of safety, environmental, banking, and insurance regulations. All for the benefit of Big Business, and by extension, Republicans.

How this slimy, unsavory criminal ever got elected to Congress, I don't know. He's one of those self-made men, a car alarm tycoon personally worth $250 million. But before he made his fortune, Issa was a punk -- a high school drop-out (who eventually earned a GED and college degree). He has been indicted for auto theft, insurance fraud, illegally carrying a concealed handgun and a tear-gas gun (a tear-gas gun?), and was suspected of arson in a total loss fire at the offices of his own company.

And this is the man in charge of oversight and investigation? Who's in charge of the oversight and investigation of Darrell Issa?

Palin Slams Obama For Egyptian Crisis

Sarah Palin couldn't find Egypt on a map if you spotted her the E, G and Y. Yet she feels she's qualified to talk about it anyway.

Sister Sarah implied that President Obama knows more than he's telling about who'll be Egypt's next leader. (She apparently believes Cousin Barry is some sort of king-maker who can install whoever he likes.) She's worried that Barack Hussein Obama wants to hand the country over to the Muslim Brotherhood as part of his thinly-veiled plot to Islam-ify the entire world. Scary!

In a recent interview on the Christian Broadcast Network, Palin said we should give the country to leaders of the Egyptian Evangelical Baptist Church. When told that there is no such thing, she replied, "See what I mean? That's just so typical of the Obama administration."