[CTU President Karen Lewis makes a poor argument that Chicago teachers are starving.]
I create this post with my caveat:
I am a member of an association that has its roots in unions. Mine has been a “closed shop” for a number of years, which means that I have no voice in where my dues go, nor do I have an ability to stop my dues. With one exception: I can shuttle my dues over to our law enforcement chaplaincy, which I have done. When I was in Homicide, I saw the Good Works that our LE chaplains did on a daily basis.
That said, I first made $5.79 an hour whilst a Fornicalia deputy sheriff in a coastal county in 1978. And that coastal county had (and still has) one of the highest costs in the state for housing. That wage also included my premium hourly 25-cent “shift differential” for working graveyards.
I never entered law enforcement to cut the proverbial fat hog. I lived month-to-month for, literally, two decades at work. Whatever wage or benefit issues were acquired due to negotiations were such that both sides of the table agreed to it.
In the very best of years, I perhaps acquired a 3% to 5% increase — in the 90s.
In Chicago, however, the city teachers have clearly gone “off the rails.”
Apparently the teachers, identical to Mr Obama, are “tone deaf” in re the tenor of the times.
Chicago: the city where Rahm Emanuel is Mayor. The city that spawned Barack Hussein Obama as a community organizer. The city that embraces William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Reverend Michael Pfleger.
Chicago: the city where its teachers want a 16%increase in wages. In 2012! A raise that the teachers turned down. City of Chicago teachers already have the highest average salary in the entire nation. Even more than Fornicalia. That in itself is amazing.
Chicago teachers average $76,000 per year prior to the addition of benefits.
For — dare I portray the obvious here — three months OFF per year.
Frankly, I don’t think even the CEO of Exxon-Mobil acquired a 16% raise this year.
BZ
P.S.
9/11 has been over-done. I’ll let others make that post today.
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
~Thomas Jefferson
In the past month there have two major US incidents which one again focused attention on firearms by those determined to remove guns from the American public.
Liberal billionaire and mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has pulled amazing anti-gun fecal material out of his ass from these incidents. Go here and here. He can afford to do this. He has his own security force both afforded by NYPD and privately. He is transported by armored limousine. His home is protected by state-of-the-art security systems.
I suspect that yours is not. I know that mine is not.
In truth, Bloomberg refuses to acknowledge the fact that he has, per capita, THE largest police force in the entire nation in terms of citizen-to-cop ratios.
Go here for the NYC Homicide Map, which breaks down stats by year, race, sex, weapon and borough. NYC homicides between 2003 and 2011? 4,161. US troops killed in Iraq? 4,414. NYC kills more people than does a purposeful war in a foreign country. The Iraq war began in 2001, as a gentle reminder.
People killed by firearms in NYC between 2003 and 2011 by percentile? Check this graphic:
There’s your firearm ban efficacy, Mayor Bloomberg. And yet you continue to rail again and again against firearms. You cannot see the abject failure of your stance in the city with the hardest line against guns in the entire nation. There were 193 murders in just the first six months of your administration this year, Mr Bloomberg. At a time when major crime is DOWN across the nation. YOUR COPS have helped make YOU look good, Mayor Bloomberg. Yet you continue to spout off about gun control.
Plus, we haven’t even addressed the issue in Chicago.
As the sun rose Sunday, New York City hit a remarkable milestone, recording just 193 murders in the first six months of the year. In that same span, more than 250 murders were recorded in Chicago—a city just one third as large.
Of course, Chicago sports rampant gun control as well.
Chicago hasn’t seen murders at this pace since 2003, when the city suffered 283 homicides by the end of June, and 601 over the year. The violence that began to explode in neighborhoods across this city this spring represents a 36 percent increase in murder over the same stretch of last year.
But here’s the deal: NYPD instigated “stop and frisk.” That stance is being attacked. Yet it clearly yields:
New York City’s historic success comes at a time of increased critical scrutiny of the NYPD and its commissioner, Ray Kelly. Last month, the NAACP held a silent street protest to draw attention to its demand that the controversial “stop and frisk” policy be ended. In addition, there have been allegations of widespread padding of crime statistics.
Padding stats in CompStat, in NYPD? Perish the thought!
But here is the proverbial Turd In The Punchbowl — the proverbial Cat Down The Toilet:
The fact that homicide rates in New York and most big cities have continued to decline during the Great Recession is itself a notable refutation of the “root cause” theory of crime long cherished by liberals —namely, that crime was an inevitable byproduct of tough economic times and income inequality, solvable only by welfare-state schemes. It turns out that proactive quality-of-life policing, stemming from the Broken Windows theory, ultimately does far more to reduce violence and save lives, especially in inner-city neighborhoods. The current Harlem renaissance is Exhibit A in this national evolution.
In the UK, it’s too little, too late:
Once again, governmental confiscations under the guise of “banning fox hunting.”
You can clearly see how well it’s working for both the UK and Australia.
Ladies and gentlemen, per Robert Heinlein, do you truly Grok this?
Crime is DOWN in America. Gun violence is, overall, DOWN in America.
Yet, DESPITE THIS, government believes it MUST enact even GREATER restrictions on guns in the hands of lawful citizens.
I can only reach one conclusion: this is PURPOSEFUL.
It has NOTHING to do with actual VIOLENCE.
It has EVERYTHING to do with governmental CONTROL.
Hello?
Are you reading appropriately “between the lines” here?
“If you don’t do anything, you will lose your liberties.”
Indian government officials and Sikh leaders across India were outraged by the attack that left 6 dead, including 4 Indian nationals, at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee and called on the U.S. to do more to protect Sikhs living in the United Sates. Clinton called Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna from her stop in South Africa Monday after Krishna criticized the U.S. for failed policies and a growing trend of violent incidents against religious minorities.
In a primetime exclusive interview, the head of the executive branch of New York City’s government provided his solution for implementing stricter gun laws in America:
“I don’t understand why the police officers across this country don’t stand up collectively and say we’re going to go on strike,” Bloomberg told the “Piers Morgan Tonight” host. “We’re not going to protect you unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what’s required to keep us safe.”
Me “striking” because the Demorats haven’t taken away our Second Amendment? Are you kidding?
In summary I ask: isn’t it odd how the cities with the most Draconian gun laws seem to incur the greatest amount of gun violence?
How are those gun laws working out for you, anyway, Mr Bloomberg?