Tuesday, April 12, 2016

$15 Hour Cartoon


SEIU reportedly spent millions on minimum wage initiative as enrollment drops


The Service Employees International Union is believed to have spent $20 million on its campaign to have the minimum wage raised to $15 last year, according to a new report.
The report by the Center for Union Facts, a watchdog group, says that the new figure is in addition to the $50 million already spent since 2012. The numbers come from the 2015 financial disclosures released by the SEIU that were was analyzed by the CUF.
What the CUF discovered was that a majority of the $20 million spent for the “Fight for 15” campaign last year went to various organizing committees and that the powerhouse union was likely spending even more, due to staff salaries, legal services and money paid to minimum wage advocacy groups such as the National Employment Law Project (NELP) and the Economic Policy Institute (EcPI).
“While the SEIU has made some headway in its push for a job-killing $15 minimum wage, working Americans appear to be sending a clear message to SEIU big spenders: ‘Find a way to create jobs rather than diminishing them.’" CUF Executive Director Richard Berman said in a statement. “The $15 campaign may generate some legislative wins, but even former SEIU boss Andy Stern has acknowledged that this big-spending strategy isn't sustainable."
The $70 million figure since 2012 is close to estimates from November, when it was believed that the SEIU had spent $80 million since 2012—a low cost compared to the potential of revenue it stands to make from unionizing fast food workers.
Unionizing just a third of the nation’s estimated 3.6 million fast-food workers could bring in more than $400 million per year in dues to the SEIU, according to one estimate at the time.
In order to woo potential union members, the SEIU financially backed the “Fight for 15” movement, which was presented in some areas as a grassroots initiative for struggling fast food workers and activists.
 “The SEIU is sponsoring ‘Fight for 15’ to do its dirty work,” Jared Meyer, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, told FoxNews.com last November.
The fast food industry has long been coveted for unionization. Experts say that previous efforts to organize have stumbled in part because of the high-turnover rate and reliance on young and part-time workers who do not see the value in paying union dues.
A vast majority of fast-food workers also do not see their current jobs as a full-time career, in contrast to workers in other industries such as manufacturing or education, say experts.
The SEIU’s efforts, however, may be for naught.
As their spending has increased, their numbers have been dwindling, losing 6,000 members in 2015 alone, according to the CUF.
That figure is on top of membership numbers that have consistently dropped for the past five years.
The newest filing shows that the SEIU claimed 1,921,786 union members in 2011, the year prior to the start of the Fight for $15--almost 34,000 more than it had in 2015.

Hillary Clinton, NYC Mayor De Blasio draw criticism over racially-tinged joke at charity dinner


New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton were forced to defend a joke made by the mayor at a charity dinner that critics considered racially offensive. 
The incident occurred Saturday night, when Clinton and De Blasio took part in a skit at the Inner Circle dinner, a black-tie event in which New York City's political press corps and politicians spend the evening making fun of each other.
Clinton took the stage ostensibly to thank De Blasio, a former aide, for his belated endorsement of her for the Democratic nomination.
"Took you long enough," Clinton said.
De Blasio responded, "Sorry, Hillary. I was running on C.P. time." The phrase, popular in pop culture, is a reference to the stereotype that African-Americans are typically late for appointments.
Broadway actor Leslie Odom Jr., who was also on stage with Clinton and De Blasio and appeared to be in on the joke, said, "That's not - I don't like jokes about that, Bill."
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Clinton then turned to Odom and delivered the punch line, "Cautious Politician Time. I've been there."
The exchange takes place at the 8:30 mark of this video, posted on the NYC Mayor's Office YouTube channel.
 
The joke was widely criticized in the media, with New York magazine calling it "amazingly unfunny, terribly executed". Left-leaning website Salon called it "cringeworthy", as did The Root, which bills itself as a site for "Black News, Opinion, Politics, and Culture."
The skit came at an awkward time for Clinton, who has ridden strong African-American support to several wins in key primary states but has also been criticized by some for using the term "superpredator" during her husband's administration to describe criminals.
Last week, former President Bill Clinton clashed with Black Lives Matter activist and defending his criminal justice policies at an appearance in Pennsylvania. Hours before her Inner Circle appearance, Hillary Clinton told the New York Daily News that she also agreed with critics who say the bill contributed to high levels of incarceration for non-violent crimes, like drug offenses.

De Blasio told CNN Monday evening that critics of the skit were "missing the point."
It was clearly a staged show. It was a scripted show and the whole idea was to do the counter intuitive and say 'cautious politician time,'" he said. "Every actor involved, including Hillary Clinton and Leslie Odom Jr., thought it was a joke on a different convention."
A Clinton spokesman said in a statement to ABC News, "We agree with the mayor."

Delegate disruption: Shenanigans fuel Trump's case that the system is rigged


Donald Trump says that what happened in Colorado is “crooked.”
That’s not quite right, but it sure seems undemocratic.
And it reeks of the kinds of insider politics that has caused widespread disgust with both parties.
I say both parties because, as Trump noted, Bernie Sanders is also getting hosed on the Democratic side.
I’ve been concerned in the last few days that the media’s coverage of the presidential race is getting down into the weeds. The issues have mostly been drowned out, and even the state-by-state contests have been overshadowed by endless chatter about delegate math and party procedures. This is the stuff that media and political junkies crave but that civilians start to find incomprehensible.
But people get it in their gut when someone is getting screwed.
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Primaries are the fairest way of picking a nominee. Caucuses are more time-consuming and complicated (although at least folks get to vote). And then there are states like Colorado.
In March, Colorado held caucuses to pick delegates to a bunch of assemblies and conventions. And those people picked their favorite candidate. Ted Cruz won them all because his people outhustled an error-riddled effort by the Trump camp, and perhaps because the kind of party insiders elected to these gatherings don’t like Donald Trump. (Yes, Cruz is a hardly an establishment figure, but he’s become the most viable alternative for the GOP’s stop-Trump crowd.)
"The people out there are going crazy,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” yesterday.  “They’re going absolutely crazy because they weren’t given a vote.”
National Review’s Jim Geraghty is unsympathetic, saying: “The evidence is mounting that yes, indeed, Trump really is being poorly served by his staff, as his campaign seems to get blindsided by existing rules week after week.”
But the whole point of Trump’s candidacy is not to play the game created by political hacks. Rather, he wants to beat them at their own game.
Yet all this is unfolding before we even get to Cleveland, where some delegates may declare themselves to be unbound and all kinds of shenanigans may take place as the candidates try to woo and even pressure their way to 1,237.
It doesn’t help matters when Trump’s new convention manager, Paul Manafort, accuses the Cruz camp of “Gestapo” tactics. Can we lay off the Nazi analogies, please? John Kasich, with milder language, accused the Cruz team of using strong-arm tactics in Michigan. This fracas has been heating up by the day.
On the Democratic side, Sanders won Wyoming over the weekend, but he and Hillary Clinton are getting seven delegates each. Kind of makes you wonder: what’s the point of voting?
The system of Democratic superdelegates, created to avoid another McGovern-style wipeout, is a huge insurance policy for Hillary. It almost guarantees the party a veto over insurgent candidates.
Democracy can be messy, we all get that. And there is a fine line between complaining about complicated rules and appearing to be whining.
But this is turning into a huge PR problem. And the appearance that the game is rigged will only boost the outsider candidates and fuel public distrust in both political parties.

Ted Cruz says Trump 'whining' over GOP nominating process


Texas Sen. Ted Cruz waded into the controversy over the Republican party's nominating process Monday, accusing his rival for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump, of "whining" over Cruz's sweep of Colorado's delegates for this summer's Republican National Convention in Cleveland. 
"Donald has been yelling and screaming. A lot of whining. I'm sure some cursing. And some late-night fevered tweeting," Cruz told hundreds of supporters in Irvine, Calif.
Cruz went after Trump again at an appearance in San Diego, saying, "As we know in the state of California, whine is something best served with cheese."
Addressing the real estate mogul directly, Cruz then said, "Donald, it ain't stealing when the voters vote against you. It is the voters reclaiming this country and reclaiming sanity."
Trump has repeatedly blasted Colorado's Republican leadership since this weekend's state convention, and did so again Monday at a rally in Albany, N.Y., calling Cruz's win "a total fix."
"There’s so much - the people all wanted to vote. They took away their votes," Trump said. "I think it’s going to come back to haunt them because people aren’t going take it anymore. We’re not going to take it anymore. It’s a corrupt system. It’s a totally corrupt, rigged system."
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Cruz noted that Trump's complaints follow his struggles in recent primary contests in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Colorado. He also took to social media to drive home the point.
Trump tied the Colorado controversy to next week's New York primary, where polls show him holding a big lead over Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
"You’re going to go out and vote … well, we found out in Colorado it's not a democracy like we thought and we're not going to have a rigged election," Trump said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pushed back against Trump's claims Monday, telling conservative radio host Mike Gallagher in an interview that the convention system used in Colorado is "not an affront to the people of Colorado. It just is what the rule is."
"I don't know why a majority is such a difficult concept for some people to accept," Priebus said.
Colorado isn't the only delegate battleground between Trump and Cruz. Trump won the popular vote in Louisiana's early March primary by three percentage points but the close result gave both candidates the same amount of delegates.
"I end up winning Louisiana and then when everything is done, I find out I get less delegates than this guy that got his ass kicked”, Trump said Monday.
The top two in the Republican party delegate race are not only seeking votes, but are also looking to outmaneuver each other in state gatherings where the delegates who will attend the summer convention are being chosen. Cruz's campaign has implemented a more strategic approach to picking up delegates, which, despite Trump's current lead, are essential if he wants to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.

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