California Roundup: Raging nurses, weed for the workers, Boxer's $10 million advantage

Union buzz: United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council endorses pot legalization Proposition 19.

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's home in Atherton (God's country!) attracts a protest by 1,100 nurses.

L.A. Times runs puff piece on John Chiang, the state controller who has been fighting Gov. Schwarzenegger on all efforts to rein in public employee compensation…

…and reveals that Sen. Barbara Boxer has 11 times as much cash on hand as challenger Carly Fiorina.

Ed Mendel of CalPensions.com wonders if Schwarzenegger might roll back a massive 1999 increase in public pensions and finds a fun relic: a brochure promising that state payments to the pension fund (which have since increased by 2,400 percent) would not go up.

Comments

[Jerry Brown, California's next]

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's home in Atherton (God's country!) attracts a protest by 1,100 nurses.

Sweet.

[Ring]

Yeah, that stimulus money that went nowhere will be keeping these asshats in power for a while.

[franz kafka]

Those nurses would rather be sponge-bathing John Stalignio.

[zeroentitlement]

"This is a grassroots campaign, we don't have a $1 billion account in offshore bank accounts and other kind of Wall Street bonuses to deploy in this campaign," said Brown...The nurses came in on 34 buses. They had a plane flying overhead towing a sign saying, "No to Whitman." It was all provided by the union.

Union involved = not a grassroots campaign, Brown, you dipshit.

[MNG]

How do you figure? The union is made up of and staffed by members and funded with their dues, so it most certainly can be described as a "grass roots" thing.

[J sub D]

Then so is the Chamber of Commerce. And the NAACP. And AIPAC. If unions are grass roots organizations, every goodam PAC and special interst group in the fucking country is a grass roots group.

Lay off the stupid pills for a while, MNG.

[J sub D]

Allow me to expand on the idiocy (or just plain ignorance of American English above.

Wiki (it is what it is) gives a fairly decent definition of what a grass roots organization is.

A grassroots movement (often referenced in the context of a political movement) is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures.

[MNG]

The fact that the nurses were previously organized into a group makes their protest not grass roots?

[Dave]

Uh, yeah, get it now??

[Tulpa]

Please tell me Whitman deployed the sprinklers on them. There's few better sights in this life than 1000 wet nurses running down the street.

[Warty]

Unless you like surly, crocs-wearing obese broads, I have to wonder how many real-life nurses you've actually seen.

[Episiarch]

That's exactly what he likes, you moron. Why else would he have said it?

[John]

With cigerettes hanging out of their mouths. Don't forget that.

[Tulpa]

Are you saying that the porn industry has been lying to me all these years?

[AlmightyJB]

I refuse to believe that. Porn = reality.

[jasno]

What about the tiny Phillipinos?

[Nurse Ratched]

Filipina.

[Nurse joe Ratched]

Filipinas.

[Xmas]

Tulpa,

1000 nurses that are wet or 1000 lactating women?

[P Brooks]

Is that a pear tree?

[The Rogue Economist]

Missed a golden opportunity to juxtapose the "union buzz" story with the LA Times' "puff piece" two items down...

[Fist of Etiquette]

California? That thing's still around?

[David E. Gallaher]

That's a California quail. I spotted several when visiting Cherished Daughter recently. They even roam back yards.

[Apologetic California]

The totalitarian California Nurses Association are taking the same gamble that the discredited teacher's union have taken for granted: that the sterling reputation of the professions themselves is enough to sugarcoat the nasty trologyditic libtard policies they pursue. Now of course, you couldn't swing a teacher's union endorsement in some Democrat circle because they're now poison. The funny thing is, Whitman doesn't oppose any of the expensive union rules mandated by the Dem in the past decade for nurses (such as the ridiculous ratios). The CNA oppose her because they can.

The California Nurses Association will end up probably even worse than the teacher's union since they represent a small minority of the actual nurses in the states (something like 87K out of 300K nurses in the state). The LAT and other state newspapers to their credit have been covering abuses by the nurses, and the complicitness of the CNA for covering them up. They'll end up like coal miner's of the Thatcher area. Whitman is a tyro bitch, no doubt about it, and like Thatcher, she'll punch your twats with double-fists five times before a CNAtard hits the ground. Arnie was a girly man, I am pretty sure Whitman has the balls to take on any of the far-left interest group.

[Michael Ejercito]

The California Nurses Association will end up probably even worse than the teacher's union since they represent a small minority of the actual nurses in the states (something like 87K out of 300K nurses in the state). The LAT and other state newspapers to their credit have been covering abuses by the nurses, and the complicitness of the CNA for covering them up. They'll end up like coal miner's of the Thatcher area. Whitman is a tyro bitch, no doubt about it, and like Thatcher, she'll punch your twats with double-fists five times before a CNAtard hits the ground. Arnie was a girly man, I am pretty sure Whitman has the balls to take on any of the far-left interest group.

Nurses have done good things.

But giving people everything they want on demand can turn even saints into monsters.

[Ken Shultz]

Anyone that makes 1,100 unionized nurses that mad can't be all bad.

[Dave]

I'd vote for her just because the nurses union opposes her.

The union's protest at her HOME is despicable. Such harassment should be illegal. Fortunately she wasn't home but her unfortunate family might have been.

[horsey]

I'd vote for her just because the nurses union opposes her

+58

[Ken Shultz]

If she pisses off the CalTrans workers bad enough to picket her house?

I'll make a campaign contribution.

[MNG]

"The totalitarian California Nurses Association"

Yeah, those nurses are a regular SS dude...Captain Hyperbole strikes again!

[hmm]

Are you his nemesis Super Citation?

[MNG]

Oh come on hmm, if you can't see the goofiness in combining "totalitarian" with "Nurses Assocation" I can't help you.

[hmm]

I never said it wasn't goofy. I however see the use of the word in conjunction with any union as not that far fetched. Just because it's a nurses union and not the Teamsters doesn't mean unions aren't totalitarian in nature.

Anecdotally I'd have to say the head of the local IBEW calling my wife and threatening her job (years ago) if she didn't help the union get into a company she was freelancing for kind of cemented this notion for me. It also made my name infamous among the leadership of the local IBEW.

corny, yes
hyperbole, a little
out of line, na

[MNG]

I just don't think unions are totalitarian in the, you know, English sense of that word.

[hmm]

You really don't think unions control others freedoms? Have you ever dealt with a union?

[Apologetic California]

Of course the CNA is totalitarian-they want complete control of the state. Even if Meg Whitman pretty much agrees with the CNA changes done in the past decade, they still go after her for no valid reason at all except that she won't be a rubber stamp to the Dem-run legislature.

[hmm]

Running for office is a good reason to own a ranch with a 1 mile driveway and a potato gun capable of firing paint bombs.

[Jeffersonian]

I can't think of a single reason *not* to own either of those things.

[Paul]

Why do you need a one mile driveway to fire your potato gun with paintbombs? I'll drop that shit on 'em in an apartment complex.

[hmm]

It's more fun. Less of a headache for you. You can't hear them, and can get some wicked practice at artillery based physics.

Think of the kids man, you have to educate the kids.

[Pope Jimbo]

Yup,

Bring over Jaime Escalante's kids and let them get a real world example of their kick ass math skillz.

It's fine and dandy to figure the azimuth needed to hit a bunch of nurses, but actually dropping a bunch of spuds on nurses will go a long way.

[hmm]

Can we give Mexico California? Immigration problem solved and California problem solved.

[PapayaSF]

Hey!

[PapayaSF]

By the way, what ticks me off about John Chiang and his "Gosh, our computers are too hold" schtick is that his office apparently has had no trouble for decades when adding tens of thousands of state employees at various pay scales, and giving everyone regular raises of various amounts. But a temporary pay decrease, with everyone getting the same pay? Suddenly that's too complex. Bull.

[Paul]

He's got his eye on the governor's mansion.

[PapayaSF]

Ugh, I meant "too old," of course....

[Almanian]

Well of COURSE they need to add all those employees. The computers are so old, you see, so...

[Mexico]

We don't want that shit back. We've got enough troubles of our own!

[MNG]

As measured by gdp per capita CA is the 10th most productive state in the union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....er_capita_(nominal)#2009_Rankings

[hmm]

And I am the Easter Bunny.

Want to go ride bikes?

How non-sequitury of you.

[MNG]

I for one appreciate our more productive fellow citizens and would not want to give them away.

[hmm]

Of course not. You want to give their earnings away.

Someplace would fill the void. It always does.

[hmm]

Do you feel the same about Wall Street?

[MNG]

I love Wall Street. "Wall Street" is just the name given to where stocks are traded, stocks in corporate entities which employ and create wealth for millions of people.

[skr]

but the GSP is #1 in the union.

[BakedPenguin]

As measured by gdp per capita CA is the 10th most productive state in the union.

I'm surprised it's not #1. Seriously. When you raise the cost of having employees, the only people who will hire are those who have high enough productivity to jump the hurdle of employee costs. This is why CA is 3rd nationally in unemployment.

[Tulpa]

Protesting against a person at that person's private residence is not protected speech, it is harassment, and should be legally treated as such. Discuss.

[hmm]

Na. As long as they aren't trespassing.

I guess this is better than the taring and feathering the SoL did.

[hmm]

Not a bad troll though.

[TXLimey]

The protest is protected speech, but actions that invade the privacy of the private residence can and likely do break other laws. It would no t be the speech which is unprotected, but these other actions.

[Paul]

Michael Moore disagrees. Except when they show up on his doorstep.

[Dave]

I agree wholeheartedly. It is threatening and disruptive. It should be illegal.

Similarly, picketing in front of a business should be illegal since it inevitably involves threats towards customers and replacement workers. This is not "speech" and should not be protected.

[Tulpa]

I wouldn't agree with the second part. People at a place of business have no expectation of privacy.

Obviously, threats towards people entering the business are already illegal.

[fishfry]

Another fine example of having to be careful what you wish for. The good news, pot's going to be legal. The bad news is that it's going to be run by unions!

[fishfry]

Another fine example of having to be careful what you wish for. The good news, pot's going to be legal. The bad news is that it's going to be run by unions!

[Paul]

The good news, pot's going to be legal. The bad news is that it's going to be run by unions! legal.

[Kimbo Jombo]

Yey, we like weed. Weed is good LOL

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[Tulpa]

There's little more creepy than Chris Berman standing next to Angie Everhart boasting, "I...did...go...all...the...way!"

[hmm]

Who knew the teachers union was a fan of LARPING. Someone should grab their nerf sword and go slay that blond witch beating up California.

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