Chicago Union Bosses Get Huge Tax-Payer Pensions

The Lonely Conservative cites msnbc.msn.com for some outrageous Illinois dealings at a time when Illinois is having a hard time paying its bills.

A labor leader in Chicago is expected to receive pension payments of nearly $500,000 a year, while another could get about $438,000 a year, according to reports Wednesday.

The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, which obtained information about union pension benefits during a joint investigation, said at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.

The news organizations said this was due to “a charitable interpretation” of Illinois law by officials representing two city pension funds.

“Can you name any place in the world where someone can get two pensions for the same job?” state Rep. Tom Cross, a Republican, told the paper. “Even by our standards here in Illinois, it’s beyond belief. It’s insane.”

Chicago and Illinois are facing financial trouble, in part due to pension shortfalls.

Illinois, facing budget shortfalls, raised taxes massively this year. Right before the new Legislature was sworn in, a Legislature that wouldn’t raise the taxes. And by “right before” I of course mean at 3 in the morning on the day the new Legislature was sworn in. And immediately, the jobs began disappearing. Businesses have been pulling up stakes and leaving due to the tax increases and new taxes. Residents have been pulling up stakes and leaving.

The gargantuan tax increases passed by tax-and-spend Democrats are guaranteed to provide even fewer tax dollars. And yet Illinois sees its way to paying half a mil a year in tax-payer pensions to a Union Boss. Hey, OccupyWallStreet clowns, the pension of one Union Boss would be enough for 12 20-dollar-an-hour jobs and the pension of a second Union Boss would be enough for another 10 20-dollar-an-hour jobs. Why don’t you go stand out in front of the Union Bosses’ homes and yell and scream and poop on their cars and sit around naked with your pink hair and nose balls, while doing your drugs and complaining that nobody will hire you? Or maybe you can doodoo all that at the homes of the Democrats who caused it and allowed it to happen?

The Organon

 

 

This short posting is not really about Aristotle’s  Organon.

Bust of Aristotle

 

 

It is instead, a delayed acknowledgement of some comments made to me by, I think, AOTC.

AOTC (again, I think) had referred with some approval to the work of someone named William Lane Craig. I was not familiar with Craig prior to that reference, and I based my response on the viewing of a couple of linked videos. One in particular, involved Sam Harris, who stupidly did much of Craig’s work for him.

In subsequent weeks though, I have had a little time to view a few more YouTube videos of Craig, and I find that he is quite famous in certain circles. I even came across part of a debate moderated, apparently, by William Buckley.

Thus, I have now been able to form a better idea of what Craig is doing in these various debates and discussions over the grounding of moral propositions, and the ultimate (for lack of a better term) nature of reality.

And my opinion is that Craig is in large part engaging in some very basic – for a philosopher – and one would think very requisite kinds of analysis of the arguments of those with whom he is having these discussions.

It shouldn’t be surprising. What is surprising is, that it is. In these debates, this journeyman-like work, seems typical of only Craig.

In fact, speaking of journeyman-like, Craig very often goes to great pains to point out that what he is in many cases doing is considering not whether the conclusion of his opponent’s argument is specious or sound as a stand-alone proposition, but merely whether the  statement his opponent is making validly follows from the form or the content of the argument which he is presenting as entailing such an assertion.

This is, or should be, completely unexceptional; as it should constitute a minimum standard for debate among men of serious purpose and sincere intentions.

What is baffling is how little effort his opponents expend on any formal analysis the arguments.  What they seem to imagine is that true conclusions somehow follow from empirical observations or data, regardless of the form of the argument. In debate, they snottily wave their supposed commitment to empirical method and their evolving factoids about, and expect everyone to simply salute and fall in line, or be deemed troglodytes.

Craig on the other hand, engages in the actual work of forensics; examining whether the conclusions these men purport as following from the premisses they present, do in fact logically follow.

This often leads not to an absolute conclusion pro or con as regards the resolution of the topic, but to an agnostic situation regarding the status of the proposition mooted.  But with Craig, at least an examination of the argument has been conscientiously performed according to commonly understood and commonly accepted rules of inference, such as modus ponens, modus tollens,  and the hypothetical syllogism, to name just a very few.

I mention these formal rules in particular because unlike murky accusations regarding the commission of an informal fallacy, which are so cheaply leveled in debates, these rules of inference are well established and not subject to interpretation or dispute. It is one thing to try and score a debating point by tossing out an accusation that your opponent has committed some named fallacy of relevance or ambiguity; it is quite another to repeat his complete argument and reveal through a known rule of replacement, how your opponent has committed, say, the deductive fallacy of affirming the consequent. That, is a great deal more intellectual work.

Placing aside the ultimate status of the questions Craig finds himself discussing, from what I have seen, by using the tools and the discipline of logic, he argues with a diligence, and therefore an integrity, that his opponents sometimes seem to lack.

Maybe they feel these techniques of forensic interpretation and clarification are unnecessary and obsolete. Maybe they know they are right, so they figure, “Why go to the effort of logic-chopping?”

Maybe Craig, they figure, while a credentialed professor, is not a physical  scientist;  and so, neither he nor his tool kit, need be taken seriously.

No maybe about this though: Craig is humble enough to take his work seriously, and to use the tools he has in earnest when examining whether or not the claims made by his opponents are sufficiently grounded according to the rules of reason.

If they were not so arrogant, they might learn something from his example.

Obama Wants A Fawning Press Like Socialist Nations And Dictatorships Have

In other critical news, the sun is expected to rise in the East tomorrow.

HT Legal Insurrection.

“I didn’t know you were the spokesman for Mitt Romney. Uhhh uhhh let me uhhh…” As Professor Jacobson rightly said, Obama is thin-skinned. In other news, water is wet. And don’t you dare ever ask Obama a question and quote someone who is challenging him on anything. That is not permitted. Only fawning is permitted.

November, 2012 cannot come soon enough.

New Hampshire Threatens Early December Primary

As I said previously, Florida’s decision to move their Primary up from March to January was strictly an attempt to maintain Ruling Class Establishment Republican rule and prevent anyone from outside the Ruling Class from getting name recognition and traction. The early Primary and Caucus states would, and have, moved their dates ahead of Florida. And now New Hampshire is threatening the possibility of a December 6 Primary if Nevada doesn’t move their Caucuses from January 14 to January 17 or later.

RS McCain quotes Molly Ball:

CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire’s primary could be held as early as Dec. 6, 2011, Secretary of State William Gardner warned today.

In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Garnder, who sets the date, said that if Nevada sticks with its current plan to hold a caucus on Jan. 14, “I cannot rule out the possibility of a December primary.”
Gardner wants Nevada to accept a date of Jan. 17 or later in order to keep the 2012 primaries from spilling into 2011. But if it does not, he said, “The dates of Tuesday, December 13th, and Tuesday, December 6th are realistic options, and we have logistics in place to make either date happen if needed.”

And RS McCain continues to hammer away at the “corrupt jackals who run the Florida GOP” (and I agree fully with the description) as being the ones wholly to blame for this chaotic fiasco.

Just to remind you: Florida is to blame for all of this, as I have been warning since Sept. 28. The corrupt jackals who run the Florida GOP did this evil thing for their own selfish reasons, in contravention of RNC rules to which they had agreed. Their disastrous decision to move the Florida primary from March to Jan. 31 was undertaken with the approval of – and quite possibly under orders from — Florida GOP Chairman Lenny Curry, reputed to be a close ally of the Crist-like RINO Senate candidate George LeMieux.

Furthermore, the top Republicans in the Florida state legislature were all in on it.

South Carolina Republicans also have placed the blame squarely on the Florida Ruling Class Establishment Republicans’ shoulders, and South Carolina is none too pleased.

And if New Hampshire moves its ‘First in the Nation’ Primary to December 6, Iowa will move its Hawkeye Caucii up to late November. And the whole outrageous anti-grass-roots over-the-top front-loading is all due to the arrogance of Ruling Class Establishment Republicans in Florida, who in 2010 tried to foist a Senator Crist on Floridians but failed spectacularly when the grass-roots chose the Conservative Cuban-American Marco Rubio instead of the squish-tastic Ruling Class Establishment Republican-turned-Independent Charlie “orange is beautiful” Crist.

The RNC declared any state moving its Primary or Caucuses up ahead of February 6 would lose half its delegates. Florida knew that when it moved its Primary to January 31, forcing the early states to move theirs up as well. So now, Florida, South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa will all lose half their delegates as a result of Florida’s egregious actions. Does that help the Florida Ruling Class Establishment Republicans’ favorite candidate, Mitt “three positions on every issue” Romney? Not exactly.

Allahpundit reports on polling numbers that show Romney isn’t gaining any ground against the Conservative base.

In case you thought the PPP poll was a fluke, rest assured that he really is the frontrunner now.

In the previous survey, conducted in late August, Perry led the field at 38 percent, Romney stood at 23 percent, while Cain was at only 5 percent.

Cain’s numbers are sky-high among Republican primary voters. Fifty-two percent view him favorably, versus just 6 percent who see him unfavorably. Among Tea Party supporters, his favorable/unfavorable score is 69 percent to 5 percent. And among Republicans who identify themselves as “very conservative,” it’s 72 percent to 2 percent.

In follow-up interviews with respondents supporting Cain, they argue that he’s not a politician, and that he seems real. “He has common-sense answers and is in touch with the heartbeat of America,” said one respondent, a 46-year-old male from Florida…

Despite Cain’s rise and Perry’s fall over the past month and a half, Romney’s standing in the Republican horse race hasn’t changed — it was 23 percent in August, and it’s unchanged at 23 percent now.

Perry’s lost 22 points since the last poll — and not a single one went to Romney. That’s how reluctant base voters are to back him over some other conservative in the field.

While RS McCain linked to Nate Silver’s reasoning why an early New Hampshire Primary won’t necessarily benefit Romney (but is the reason behind all these early states front-loading so drastically), I have another reason why it won’t necessarily benefit Romney. New Hampshire should be a clear Romney win, being that New Hampshire is more squish than Conservative and there are multiple candidates gunning for the Conservative, anti-squish vote. Nevada might be a Romney win because Nevada has a higher percentage of squish voters. But both states will be losing half their delegates due to the early Primary/Caucuses. While Iowa and South Carolina are clearly more Conservative and will also be losing half their delegates, Romney was depending on an early Florida to freeze out his Conservative opposition and win Florida (which is losing half its delegates). But Florida polling shows Cain has a commanding lead over Romney in Florida.

There is only Romney vying for the squish left-wing of the Republican Party voters. Asterisk Huntsman doesn’t count. But there are 5 vying for the Conservative base of the Republican Party voters: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum. Combined, they have a large majority of the vote, and those voters are not going to drop a Conservative choice to pick up the squish option. Just not going to happen.

After Iowa and New Hampshire (which lose half their delegates), two of the five Conservative options will drop out. After Nevada and South Carolina (which lose half their delegates), a third Conservative option will drop out, leaving two Conservative options, who will pick up the voters who had sided with the Conservative options who dropped out, going up against the squish Romney, who cannot get past that quarter of the vote line despite the risings and fallings of Conservative options.

So Florida’s move, causing all the other moves and all five states to lose half their delegates, will weed out several second-tier Conservative options and concentrate the Conservative vote early. And the remaining Conservative candidates will have more time to focus their attention directly on Romney and get their message out without the clutter of the also-rans. Florida’s move, pushing 5 states way too early, could cause TWO Conservative candidates to beat the squish Romney, pushing the squish Romney to third place. Instead of locking up the nominating process for the Ruling Class Establishment RINO, Florida may have sealed Romney’s fate as a failed candidate. And I won’t shed a tear if that is the result.

Political Campaign Money: Correcting The Liberal Lie

Liberals love to spread the lie that Big Business is buying elections for Republicans. Liberals love to spread the lie that the Koch brothers are buying elections for Republicans, suggesting Democrats don’t stand a chance, what with all that “evil Right-Wing” money pouring in. But the lie is easily fixed by taking a quick trip over to Open Secrets and looking at the top 140 donors list.

I broke down that list into 10 different mutually exclusive subsets (with some on the list not falling into any of the 10 subsets), based on the percentage of money given.

90 percent or more to Democrats — 21, with the top 2 and 4 of the top 10 ranked donors
80 to 89 percent to Democrats — 12, with 3 of the top 10 and 5 of the top 12 ranked donors
70 to 79 percent to Democrats — 6, the top donor ranked 5th
60 to 69 percent to Democrats — 5, the top donor ranked 25th
50 to 59 percent to Democrats — 15

90 percent or more to Republicans — 3, the top donor ranked 70th
80 to 89 percent to Republicans — 6, the top donor ranked 30th
70 to 79 percent to Republicans — 10, the top donor ranked 23rd
60 to 69 percent to Republicans — 26, the top donor ranked 17th
50 to 59 percent to Republicans — 34

Where do those “evil” Koch brothers — who are Libertarian and not Conservative — fit in? Koch Industries is ranked 82nd, with 88 percent to Republicans and 11 percent to Democrats.

Once again, the easily-found facts defeat the Liberal lie, which is why Liberals need people to be ignorant of the facts in order for Liberals to win elections.