Michele McGinty: August 2009 Archives

Did you guys see the ad ABC and NBC refused to air? Here it is:

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Here's a report about it:

BTW, Obama plans to cut payments to "heart and cancer doctors by $1.4 billion next year."

Even toilet paper is rationed!

Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in electricity and imports of raw materials.

But CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria says that ``at the bottom of this toilet paper shortage is Cuba's continuing commitment to its bizarro world of socialist economics.''

``Cuba's disastrous economy would be a joke were it not for the poverty it has perpetuated among millions of Cubans,'' Zakaria said in a video commentary posted last week. ``The whole country is stagnating. Fifty percent of its arable fields are going unfarmed. First and second year college students work one month out of the year in agriculture.''

``It's insane farm policies lead to frequent shortages of fruit, vegetables and other basic food needs, shortages even more serious than toilet paper,'' he added. ``And all those programs that they have held up for years as successes of the communist revolution -- free education for all through college, universal health care -- well, Raúl Castro just announced they're going to have to make cuts in all of these.''

When we retire, most of us have to go on Medicare because our employers do not provide health care insurance for their retirees and though we don't have the coverage, we will be footing the bill for the auto worker unions to continue providing health care to their retirees:

One reason the public so distrusts the health care plan being considered by Congress is that so many troublesome details keep bubbling out of the massive legislation.

The latest example is the $10 billion taxpayers will be asked to shell out to prop up the United Auto Workers' retiree health insurance program.

[...]

In effect, it would ask every taxpayer, regardless of whether they'll have health insurance coverage themselves after they retire -- and most won't -- to chip in to maintain the UAW's coverage, which even after the union's givebacks is still better than what the average American worker receives.

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The union ignored their wishes, the teachers would rather have had the wage freeze than layoffs since the laid off teachers were given no notice of the layoffs:

The teachers, who gathered outside their union office, said they want a response from the union and put their demands in writing in the form of a petition.

Those speaking out said it shouldn't have reached this point, and they would have accepted the district's offer, favoring a wage freeze to save jobs.

"We took a poll in the spring and they got our opinion and the majority said wage freeze," said Monica Whiteley, who was laid off. "So I would like them to look at the poll or honor it and have us look at the memo of understanding that is out there."

Negotiations started again Thursday at 11 a.m., but there was still no agreement. When the union was asked whether they would take a poll or vote, they said they would have to wait and see.

She didn't have to say "probably." I wonder how much the heckler is being paid?

BTW, I've given birth in America twice and I have to tell you that it was never in an elevator, outside the hospital or in a bathroom. And I've never heard of anyone else given birth in those places unless it was because the baby came too quickly (usually you hear of babies being born in the subway or taxi cabs) but then the mom is taken to a hospital.

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