The Fat Lady Is Starting To Sing

Some call it a surprise move and others could probably see it coming. The Obama Fainters are the former and the realists among us are the latter. Obamacare wasn't a good idea in the first place and now the fat lady is tuning up rapidly to sing the song most of us know has to be sung. It's commonly called a death march and I don't particularly want it to be the entire US economy we're speaking of but Obamacare needs to be crucified and buried to never be resurrected again.

Labor unions came out strong "pro" Obamacare because they are numbered among the "fainters" of Obama. They saw him as the saving grace of the union movement. Many probably still do but even Richard Trumpka, the leader of the AFL-CIO kinda sorta started wiping the egg off his mug the other day saying "mistakes were made" in crafting the legislation and resulting regulations that will destroy our health care system. Using "mistakes" was an understatement.

Hang on I'm coming to the surprise that shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone who has been paying the slightest bit off attention. The way Obama swayed organized labor was a bits of smoke and mirrors that Trumpka and his lot of union leadership chowed down on. It gave them a form of temporary waivers to grease the skids of approval. Now the jig is up and "mistakes" where made? On whose part union leadership? You, along with the rest of us out here in the real world, didn't have the opportunity to read the bill before it was passed. Furthermore, the people who passed the bill had never read it themselves before enacting this fiasco we are now seeing come to life.

The "surprise move," which also happens to correspond closely to our long Labor Day weekend, is that the International Union of Longshoremen and Warehouse Workers has withdrawn from the AFL-CIO. I have to applaud that move even though it is a "Johnny Come Lately" type of gesture and mainly for the wrong reasons.

What is their reasoning? There were two factors which the ILWU cited for jumping ship so to speak rather than continue to unload the manure. The first is Obamacare and the realization that they were sold a bill of goods. The second is this administration's stance of granting what amounts to amnesty to illegal aliens who are sucking up jobs needed by legal Americans. The Gang of 8 idiots aren't doing us any favors by crafting more crap legislation that no one read before signing off on it in the Senate and shoveling it over to the House of Representatives. I know I can be blunt and will be as necessary.

On August 29th a letter went from ILWU Prez Robert McElratth to AFL-CIO head honcho Trumpka with a laundry list of grievances. Chief among them was support of Obamacare by "going along to get along." That's the way McElratth worded it specifically. Trumpka expected to be rewarded and obviously has not been and now the fat lady is tuning up.

The downside of McEllrath's chagrin is that a different position needed to be taken. I happen to disagree with that but here is his statement, "they (the ILWU) are for a single-payer, nationalized health care policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their "Cadillac" health care plan." I am wondering who "they" is? They being the rank and file of the ILWU or the leadership? Did they take a vote? Single payer equates to socialized medicine. Get the drift?

The rub now is with the taxing of union "Cadillac Plans." Whoops! Again McElratth's words and not mine, " "President Obama ran on a platform that he would not tax medical plans and at the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, you stated that labor would not stand for a tax on our benefits." Of course he is obviously ignoring that what Obama ran on and reality always seem a bit out of sorts with each other. A single payer system isn't the answer to that puzzle either.

Trumpa termed Obamacare a "moving target." Things have been moving along precariously and delayed again and again so that is probably true. Mistakes have been made all around by the people who crafted this nonsense, passed it without reading it, went against the will of the majority of people in this nation and allowing the federal government to control 1/6th of this nation's economy. They can't control their own spending and want total control of ours?

So the unions are now bucking. The ILWU pulls out with its 40,000 plus membership and Trumpka is left to wipe more egg off of his mug,. We'll save the immigration dissatisfaction for later. I don't have that going anywhere close to what the Gang of 8 proposed. The ILWU feels that the AFL-CIO ( read: Trumpka) is lock step with Obama and if he makes a hard right Trumpka will end up with a broken neck.

The ILWU may be right on that account. As a foot note please be aware that in the private sector unions now account for only 11.3% of US workers. Maybe there's something to this right to work without having to pay to do so movement.

"Vote It," "Like" It, "Tweet" It, "Pin " It, "Share It" With Your Followers. Time to let em read it and keep reading it.

As Always,

The Frog Prince