Aptos Psychologist: The real Zimerman/ Travyon story the media did not touch

“Zimmerman never saw the cute little boy that the TV audience did. He saw a full-grown man, a druggy, a wannabe street fighter, the tattooed, gold-grilled, self-dubbed “No_Limit_Nigga.”

The real tragedy the thousands of blacks killed by blacks. Of 279,384 black murders victims between 1976 – 2011 2,62,621 are blacks killed by blacks.
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from the American Spectator:

What the Media Choose Not to Know about Trayvon
By Jack Cashill

Unnerved by an unspoken mix of political bias and racial queasiness, the major media have chosen to know as little about Trayvon Martin as they know about Barack Obama.

As a case in point, consider this boy vs. man fable spun by the New York Times’ Charles Blow:

A boy’s blood had been spilled on a rain-soaked patch of grass behind a row of mustard-colored condominiums by a man who had pursued him against the advice of 911 dispatchers. That man carried a 9-millimeter handgun. The boy carried a bag of candy.

Blow was writing seven weeks after Trayvon’s death. He had no excuse for missing the actual story. Worse, since he is a writer for the Times, his reporting has helped set the media tone worldwide

The media’s willful ignorance was on display again this past week. In reporting this news of George Zimmerman’s return to jail, more than a few media outlets showed the dangerously deceptive image of Trayvon as 11-year-old cherub. They did so in the assumption that the narrative was still theirs to control. It is not. The blogs, which have been doing the real detective work on this case, have long since taken control away from them.

The sites I have found must useful are the Daily Caller and theconservativetreehouse.com. What follows is largely culled from those sites and their independent contributors. By probing Trayon’s background and parsing his social media chatter, they have put together a picture of a disturbed young man that begins to makes sense of the events that unfolded on that fateful rainy night of February 26. Continue reading “Aptos Psychologist: The real Zimerman/ Travyon story the media did not touch”

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Aptos Psychologist: Useful ‘facts’ comparing Obama & Romney on job creation

100,000 jobs created by Romney's Bain Capital compared to 100,000 jobs by U.S. under Obama

Take a liberal/ Democrat/ 2008 voter for Obama out for coffee and share the following concerning economy job growth.

Embarrassing for the White House,a paltry 100,000 is the total net increase in U.S. jobs since Jan. 2009 when Mr. Obama took office. This is using seasonally adjusted jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its household survey.

Many economists put more stock in the so-called establishment survey. That shows not a small gain but a decline of more than 550,000 jobs during the Obama era.

Conservative estimates say that Bain Capital created by Romney — just one company — created 100,000 jobs. So one company over a period of time created the same number of jobs as the entire economy created under the Obama administration.

No wonder the public thinks the country is still in a recession.

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Firenze Sage: Another how can we be so stupid questions [why Scott Walker must go]

no specifics as to why Scott Walker Republcan gov must go

Mahlon Mitchell, Rebecca Kleefisch’s challenger for Lt. Governor in Tuesday’s Wisconsin recall election sure likes to criticize all the changes Kleefisch has helped Scott Walker bring about in Wisconsin.

Especially tax rates and tax cuts for corporations. But right in the prime of his campaign, Mitchell couldn’t even tell Greta Van Susteren of Fox News what the corporate tax rate in Wisconsin was. And weeks after that interview, while quick to answer the rate is 7.9%, when asked whether he supported raising, lowering or keeping that rate the same, he said, “I’d have to look at that….” Having no position on the issue he went on to claim, “we got to first get rid of Scott Walker, and uh, we’ll have to figure all those things out.”

In other words, you can think of Mitchell like Wisconsin’s personal healthcare bill, just like having “to pass the bill, so you can find out what’s in it,” you have to elect Mitchell to find out his position.
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The democrats in Wisconsin really must think people are stupid. How is this moron their candidate. How many votes will he get. Ouch, hundreds of thousands. JAJ48@aol.com

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Firenze Sage: Hey billionaire can you spare a dime? [ Facebook’s Zukenberg]

No tip for waiter from Facebook CEO

Mark Zuckerberg’s latest status update should read: “cheapskate.”

The Facebook CEO, who’s worth billions, couldn’t spare a lousy eight bucks to tip a waiter at a Rome restaurant after a honeymoon nosh with his new wife.

Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan lunched on fried zucchini blossoms and a plate of sea bass and tomato ravioli at Nonna Betta, running up a tab of 32 euros — about $40.

tip habits of Facebook CEO recent honeymoon in Italy

But when the tight-fisted techie settled up, he stiffed the waiter — leaving him exactly zero percent.
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Throw him [Zukenberg] to the lions. JAJ48@aol.com

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Firenze Sage: Obama-Care’s death panel – what death panel?

Obama-Care "death panels" say NO to testing for prostate cancer as too expensive

Obama-Care’s “death panels” recommend no screening for prostate cancer for men. The US Preventive Service Task Force ruled last week that screening for prostate cancer is a waste of money.

The task force claims that screening all adult men with the PSA (protein-specific antigen) test doesn’t prevent death from the disease. It argues that “the number of men who avoid dying of prostate cancer because of screening after 10 to 14 years is, at best, very small.”

Adding to the “costs” of the test are “false positives” — they tell people they have cancer when they don’t about 10 percent of the time. The task force thinks this problem makes the cost of screening higher than the tiny benefit screening generates.

It’s worth analyzing the road to this conclusion, because it tells us a lot about how ObamaCare rations medicine.

First, the task force measures the effect of testing on the death rate from any disease (all-cause mortality). That’s a bogus benchmark, because, as John Maynard Keynes famously noted, in the long run we all die. In fact, death rates from prostate cancer have dropped 57 percent among men ages 49 to 64 and 80 percent among adult men over 75. National Cancer Institute data show that prostate cancers are being detected and treated earlier and that life expectancy is rising as a result.

The task force claims there is no evidence that screening directly reduces prostate cancer. But how, then, did death rates decline, if screening doesn’t work?

It does, of course. As prostate-cancer expert William Catalano notes, PSA screening is why the horror of not diagnosing this cancer until it has metastasized (advanced and spread) has all but disappeared.

Catalano also points out that it’s regular testing — not the test being used — that has likely contributed to raising the odds against the disease.
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Who needs evidence when the Obama-Care cost cutters strike? JAJ48@aol.com

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Firenze Sage: Not exactly lifting that bale [working conditions college grads expect]

personal phone calls & Twitter access expected perks colllege grads expect
When you got your first job after college did you assume that personal phone calls and access to social media and shopping online were part of the perks?

Having read the survey of college graduates that found nearly one in four would not take a job that didn’t allow them to make or receive personal calls at work makes you wonder if they live in the real world.

According to Adecco’s 2012 Graduation survey, 12 percent of new college grads also said they would not work for an employer that wouldn’t let them check Twitter or Facebook.

Five percent of Generation I (that’s I as in Internet) would not work for an employer that would not let them shop online or check sports scores.
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Working conditions sure have changed.
JAJ48@aol.com

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Aptos Psychologist: net metering solar program in CA encourages green greed? You decide.

huge shift of solar costs to non-solar customers not good policy in CA

Solar green greed in CA will bleed the more needy non-solar electric customers. This is not good public policy.

Go solar in California with your own solar-power system & your non-solar neighbors have to pay for costs you don’t and you can force utilities to buy your solar power. This is not healthy public policy.

Further only about 14% of residences generate sufficient solar electricity to sell it back to the grid. So why engage in an expensive transaction that is costly and benefits who? Of course it benefits the solar industry. What say you?

See more in the WSJ article below.

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SAN FRANCISCO—California regulators approved a plan Thursday to expand a subsidy for rooftop solar power generated by homeowners and businesses, handing a victory to the solar industry.

The plan, adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission, allows more homeowners and businesses that install their own solar-power systems to sell unused power to their utility. The program requires utilities to buy the power.

The program, called “net energy metering” and first adopted in the mid-1990s, has attracted more than $1 billion of investment from banks such as U.S. Bancorp and large companies such as Google Inc. The program has spurred greater development of California’s rooftop solar-panel market, but developers became increasingly anxious about hitting a hard cap that was established to limit the cost of the program.

Solar firms and clean-energy proponents have pressed CPUC to increase the cap and allow more homeowners and businesses to join the program. Utilities, however, have opposed increasing the cap. They argue that the subsidy has saddled their other customers with growing costs, while the customers who sell their excess solar power aren’t contributing their fair share to the costs of maintaining and improving the state’s electric grid.

Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric utility, PG&E Corp.’s utility and Edison International’s Southern California Edison have estimated that Thursday’s decision will shift $1.3 billion a year in costs from the utilities’ solar customers to their non-solar customers.

SDG&E and PG&E said the expansion is likely to more than double the number of customers currently enrolled in the net metering program.

Because solar customers don’t pay fees that other customers pay to cover the utilities’ costs of building and maintaining transmission lines, citywide electricity systems, low-income customer assistance and other expenses, other customers end up paying more, which isn’t fair, said Dan Skopec, a vice president at SDG&E.

“If we want rooftop solar to be sustainable and grow throughout the country, we have to have a system where they pay their fair share of the cost of the grid,” Mr. Skopec said.

PG&E supports the program but is “concerned about the cost shifts from solar customers to customers who either cannot afford to or do not choose to go solar,” said Lynsey Paulo, a spokeswoman for the utility.

The solar industry group Solar Energy Industries Association hailed the decision as a “step forward for clean energy jobs, for ratepayers, and for our state,” according to a statement.

Commission members said they were sympathetic to both sides and that the state will need to resolve the dilemma in new legislation expected by 2014. Until then, commissioners said they were compelled to allow the program to continue, to support California’s clean-energy goals and the state’s solar-power industry, which employs tens of thousands of people.

“If everyone was on net metering, who would pay for the grid that we have?” CPUC member Mike Florio said Thursday at a meeting during which the commission unanimously adopted the plan. “On the other hand, it would be problematic for [net metering] to come to an end and provide a major setback to the solar industry that has flourished in this state.”

CPUC ordered the net-metering program to be closed to new customers on Jan. 1, 2015, unless the commission issues new policy rules.

The commission also ordered a study on the costs of the net-metering program versus the benefits provided by electricity generated by program participants.

Write to Cassandra Sweet at cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com

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Aptos Psychologist: 20 million public sector retirees – the true “1%”

government union pays $65 K a year compared to $15 K for private sector Social Security

The average public sector retiree gets $65 K a year compared to the average private sector social security benefit of $15 K. It’s an accurate statement to say that taxpayers are enslaved to the public sector unions and why collective bargaining by government employees must be limited. See article that appeared on the web site.

Government Employees – The True “1%”
By Wayne Allen Root, on March 6th, 2012

Editor’s Note: The claims made in this commentary by Wayne Allen Root are incendiary. But they are true. We are on track in the United States to pay more money to 20 million public sector retirees – at an average pension of $65,000 we will pay these retirees $1.3 trillion per year, then we will be paying in social security to 80 million private sector retirees – at an average social security benefit of $15,000 per year that will cost less, about $1.2 trillion per year. Providing a level of retirement security to government workers that only the wealthiest 1% can enjoy in the private sector is not “protecting the middle class,” it is economic enslavement by government unions over the taxpayer. This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com and is republished with permission by the author.

How did America become broke and insolvent? How did we build up an unimaginable $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities? How did we allow the American Dream to become a nightmare?

All we need do is look at the primary demand the Eurozone and IMF are placing on hopelessly bankrupt Greece to get their new $170 Billion bailout — Greece has agreed to cut 150,000 government employees. Even Cuba’s leader Raul Castro recognizes too many government employees are at the root of economic destruction, as he is cutting over 2 million of them to save Cuba from bankruptcy.

The truth is that government employees are the true 1%. We have far too many of them (21 million), many of them are paid too much, and their union demands are straining taxpayers to the breaking point.

They have become a privileged class that expects to be treated superior to the taxpayers — the same folks who pay their salaries and pensions. But it is their obscene pensions that are the big problem moving forward for America.

How would you like to retire with $6 million? $8 million? $10 million? All you have to do is become a government employee to hit the jackpot.

You don’t believe me? Do the math.

I recently talked with a retired New York City toll taker. His salary averaged about $70,000 per year over 20 years. But in his last few years he worked loads of overtime and added in accumulated sick days to get his salary in those final years up to $150,000.

His pension is based on his final years’ salary. This is a common pension-padding ploy.

He bragged that he will now get a taxpayer funded pension of $120,000 a year for the rest of his life. He’s only 50 years old.

The average 50-year old male has a life expectancy of almost 80. With automatic cost of living increases, that’s a bill to taxpayers of $5 million for the next 30 years –for not working. THREE TIMES WHAT HE EARNED WHILE WORKING.

And, of course, we’re also paying his medical bills.

No country, no budget, and no taxpayers anywhere in the world can afford this. Ask Greece.

But here’s a frightening question- what if he lives to 90? Or 100? His pension could rise to $8 million or higher.

Multiply this times 21 million government employees (on the federal, state and local level) and you now get a sense of what is bankrupting America.

Are these stories the exception, rather than the rule? Over 77,000 federal government employees earned more than the governor of their state.

On the federal level, it was just reported by USA Today that the average federal civil servant compensation is $123,049 per year.

That’s more than double what private sector workers earn (average of $61,051). Since 2000, federal government employee compensation has grown by 36.9% versus 8.8% for private sector employees.

In Las Vegas (Clark County) the average firefighter earns $199,678 per year.

When he retires at age 45 or 50, we owe his pension based on that obscene salary. But here’s the clincher –when he finally dies, the taxpayer has to continue paying the pension to his spouse. Add up the damage to the economy. It is catastrophic. Talk about a 1 per center — a single firefighter could retire with $8 to $10 million for not working for the rest of his life.

This is madness.

Now it’s true that policemen and firefighters are heroes. But they make up a small portion of government employees.

Recent studies prove the average janitor that works for government makes over $600,000 more in his career than a private sector janitor. Are janitors heroes too?

Again, this is madness.

Three stories on the same day in this past Sunday’s Las Vegas newspapers sum up this national outrage.

Let’s start with the Las Vegas teachers union. It was reported that more than a third of the union’s entire $4.1 million annual budget went to pay just nine union leaders.

The Teachers Union Executive Director received $632,546, while the CEO of the union-created Teachers Health Trust was paid $546,133.

So next time you hear educators scream that we must spend more money on education, because “it’s for the kids,” you’ll know the truth. It’s for the unions.

It’s always been for the unions.

Bernie Madoff has nothing on the government employee union scam.

Article number two in Sunday’s Las Vegas Review Journal was about those highly paid Las Vegas firefighters.

It turns out they weren’t satisfied with making almost $200,000 per year. They also abused sick leave, rigged work schedules to pump up their pensions, and appear to have engaged in widespread disability fraud.

About half of all Clark County firefighters retired with work-related injuries in recent years- garnering bonus payments averaging $320,000 apiece. That’s in addition to their obscene pensions for life.

Is this also “for the kids?”

Article number three in Sunday’s paper was about a now retired Las Vegas homicide detective and possible police brutality. It had nothing to do with pensions. But interestingly, the retired homicide detective they quote in the story is 47 years old.

He’s 47 and already retired?

Want to bet that you and I are on the hook for $5 to $10 million in pension and health benefits from now until the day he dies- for not working. Is this also “for the kids?”

I’ll say it one more time… this is madness.

These aren’t CEO types. These are average government employees retiring with the equivalent of $5 to $10 million. These are the true 1% privileged class that are bankrupting our country and destroying the once great U.S. economy.

Something is very wrong here.

No one has a right to complain about the high incomes of business owners in the private sector (the 1%). We rarely have pensions and our compensation doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime. We risk our own money to start our businesses and often work 16 hour days, weekends and holidays.

Yet for all that risk and hard work, do you know any small business owners who retire with $5 to $10 million? They are few and far between. But that’s exactly what a private sector employee would need in the bank on the day of his or her retirement to match the $100,000 per year pensions (plus health care benefits and cost of living increases) of government employees paid out over 30 to 50 years.

Keep in mind that government employees never risk a dollar of their own money. They have lifetime job security. And they rarely work beyond 9 to 5, let alone weekends or holidays.

Yet government employees are paid millions by taxpayers to retire early, often on pensions fattened by gaming the corrupt system.

They are the true 1%.

This is a national disgrace that is bankrupting America. The gall of this scam would make Bernie Madoff blush.

But hey…”It’s for the kids!”

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts.” His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com. This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com and is republished with permission from the author.

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ALEC is pro democracy & free markets

National Organization for Women (NOW)   has a long  list of links– not updated since 2005–  to various left wind organizations including Color of  Pink and Common Cause.

NOW in addition to Color of Pink and Common Cause are  organizations which  oppose ALEC and want  to shut ALEC down.  ALEC is pro free markets and has provided legislation that is pro-business.

For more about ALEC go directly to their site.

ALEC And The Left’s War On Free Speech

Posted 05/16/2012

Advocacy: If you want an insight into today’s left, look at its multifront war against the American Legislative Exchange Council for committing the grave sin of pushing free-market bills in state legislatures.

At a recent meeting in Washington, Aniello Alioto of ProgressNow Colorado summed up the left-wing’s campaign against ALEC: “Never relent, never let up pressure, and always increase.”

According to the Washington Free Beacon, ProgressNow was one of several left-wing groups meeting at AFL-CIO headquarters earlier this month to plot their ongoing campaign against ALEC. Other groups included Common Cause and the Color of Change.

So what’s got the left so agitated? Is ALEC involved in organized crime? Has it stolen money from state treasuries? Bribed officials? Polluted the environment? Clubbed baby seals?

Nope. The left is targeting ALEC for the simple reason that it’s been effective in promoting pro-business, free-market ideas and policies, mainly by drafting model legislation that lawmakers can use as a template in their own legislatures.

Those bills, mind you, still have to make it through their states’ representative bodies, and then get signed by their governors.

In other words, it’s democracy at work.

But the mere fact that ALEC has succeeded in pushing back on the liberal state has the left in a state of apoplexy.
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Instead of debating the group, or working to counter it with their own liberal legislative efforts, they’re trying to shut it down.

For a while, the left had little success, until the Trayvon Martin shooting, which it dubiously tied to ALEC’s advocacy of state “stand your ground” laws.

As a Common Cause spokeswoman told Businessweek, “The Trayvon Martin thing was like a gift.”

Since then, the left has mounted a fierce campaign to target companies that donate to ALEC, acting like reverse extortionists who threaten a PR nightmare unless the companies stop paying up.

They don’t even bother to deny it. Color of Change talks about flooding targeted companies with “thousands of phone calls” and how it will “escalate pressure” with radio ads and threats of public action, the Free Beacon reports.

And the Center for Media and Democracy’s Lisa Graves boasted to the Washington Post a while back about the “enormous work and preparation behind the scenes by numerous public interest organizations and researchers and writers and journalists across the country,” and how it was finally paying off.

As ALEC’s Ron Scheberle correctly described it, “this is an all-out intimidation campaign.”

Unfortunately, more than a dozen risk-averse corporations have since capitulated, severing ties with ALEC.

Meanwhile, Common Cause has filed an IRS whistle-blower complaint claiming ALEC violated lobbying rules, and it’s asking state AGs to investigate the group.

If it all seems out of proportion, it’s because this campaign isn’t about ALEC. It’s about the left’s desire to silence voices with which it doesn’t agree, and it’s about bullying companies into giving only to left-wing causes.

As ALEC’s experience shows, the left doesn’t want open debate and dialogue or freedom of speech. It wants forced conformity.

What’s worse is the fact that “journalists across the country” — including those at the Washington Post and New York Times — who normally pride themselves as champions of free speech, have decided to play along with this campaign rather than call it out.

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Aptos Psychologist: Make SEIU union dues a voluntary choice a win-win for political free speech? Yes.

union dues
no more forced SEIU union dues win-win for political free speech

Let’s take the wind out of sails of the SEIU?

How? Through state legislation, stop automatic deductions of union dues from SEIU workers pay checks.

Let workers be free to choose yes or no whether to pay union dues. Many government union workers will opt out of automatic dues removed from their checks. No automatic dues flowing into the SEIU results in less political clout that they can exert.

Why should any worker just to hold a job have to pay SEIU union dues
so that the SEIU can use dues to flow into other organizations like Change to Win which seeks to intimidate private companies such as Wellpoint from making political contributions?

Look at who runs Change to Win.
The President of SEIU, the Vice President of the SEIU and the Treasurer/Secretary of the SEIU are all key players of Change to Win.

Union front organization such as Change to Win seek to know and limit the political donations made by private corporations. Why? So that the unions are the only big players in who make large donations.

The unions such as SEIU want to control the political free speech exercised by of private corporations.

The SEIU seeks to grow government unions to grow their power.

Recently, in Michigan the SEIU suffered a setback to their political clout.
In states including Michigan and California home health care workers were forced to pay union dues.

Persons with developmental disabilities are frequently cared for life long by family members.

It is good news that developmentally disabled persons can stay in their homes thanks to health care provided by parents and relatives. Those who best know and love a relative with disabilities provides care at a fraction of the cost if the person had to be placed in a government run facility.

To deem home health care workers as “government employees” and force them to pay SEIU union wrongfully categorizes people and allows the SEIU to skim off millions of dollars. Home health care workers seek to care for their loved ones — not to do a government job. Recently Michigan has changed their laws. No more taking of union dues from Michigan home health care workers.

Can California wake up and follow Michigan’s lead? Let’s hope so. The necessary labor and employment laws are already in place to protect jobs.

written by drcameronjackson@gmail.com

By: Chase Ingersoll
Home Health Care Aides not longer required to pay SEIU union dues

Posted: Apr 11, 2012

MIDLAND — Michigan’s 60,000 home health care aides will no longer be deemed government employees — meaning they cannot be forced into a government employee union and have dues withheld — as a result of legislation signed today by Gov. Rick Snyder. The next step is for the Michigan Department of Community Health to immediately stop the collection of dues from subsidy payments intended to assist developmentally disabled adults and the diversion of those funds to the Service Employees International Union, said Patrick J. Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation.

“Ending this lucrative charade is terrific news for Michigan’s home health care providers who have seen nearly $30 million skimmed from their payments over the last six years,” said Wright. “The designation of these private contractors and family members as government employees was illegal from the beginning. Michigan’s Constitution explicitly states that only the Legislature can define government employees. No political arrangement or interlocal agreement can change that.

“Now that the law has been clarified, the dues skim must end,” he added.

The arrangement that allowed the SEIU to skim from Medicaid payments to some of the state’s most vulnerable residents was concocted during the administration of Gov. Jennifer Granholm. An interlocal agreement between DCH and the Tri-County Aging Consortium allowed for the creation of the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, which served as the “employer” for what were really self-employed independent contractors or, overwhelmingly, family members caring for loved ones.

Despite the fact that there was no real employer with whom to engage in collective bargaining, the SEIU conducted a union representation vote in 2007. Out of the 44,000 home health care providers in Michigan at the time, only 7,900 voted; 6,900 cast ballots for the union. Although many providers were unaware that a vote was taking place, they nonetheless were forced into the union.

Government-sector unions recently proposed a constitutional amendment to circumvent this legislative fix and restore the flow of the so-called dues. Wright noted that if passed, this proposed amendment would violate the U.S. Constitution since private employee unionization is purely a matter of federal law.

This is the third time in 14 months that an illegal unionization arrangement has been brought to an end. On March 1, 2011, Gov. Snyder issued an executive order ending the illegal dues confiscation affecting tens of thousands of home-based day care providers who had been forced into a government-employee union through a similar scheme. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation fought an 18-month court battle on behalf of day care owners.

On March 13, Gov. Snyder signed into law a bill clarifying that graduate student research assistants are not government employees subject to forced unionization. The MCLFrepresented more than 370 such students from the University of Michigan who objected to the illegal unionization effort.

“Government-sector unions are clearly trying to expand the definition of government employees in order to grow their membership and direct taxpayer money into their coffers,” said Wright. “If business owners, the self-employed, family members and students can be roped into such schemes, then grocers, doctors, landlords and anyone else who receives a direct or indirect payment from the government can’t be far behind.”

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