How does that video prove anything?

I see an executive for a large corporation calling the union racist. It seems a little odd, and more than a little suspicious, considering the number of minority members in that union. Far more likely the veep was just looking for something nasty to say, in an attempt to keep the workers divided. You know, like claiming that workers having a -choice- between secret ballots and card checks somehow weakens workers rights.

>> ^Lolthien:
>> Okay, you are much less an informed person than WP..

You're saying that because I disagree with you, which is a rather silly thing to say, since you're wrong.

1. 'read a poll sometime' I have just as many polls available saying middle class people approve of healthcare reform as I have polls that say the opposite. Also, no polls anywhere refer to 'Obamacare'.
That word just shows you have very little original thought and are using regurgitated Fox News drivel to argue against something you haven't bothered to inform yourself about.

What an amazingly powerful argument. The possibility hasn't suggested itself to you that 1) I don't watch Fox News (except at the gym, which is all that they have on), 2) I have informed myself as much as possible about the issue, 3) I think Obamacare is the perfect name for it, and 4) I have read the polls, and people don't support it. Hell, the NYT showed 70% of people were worried about Obamacare. Not that it matters to Rachel Maddow, since all those people must be part of the Republican Secret Masters of the Earth organization.

2. I have to challenge you to submit evidence that she said anything about ending secret ballots being pro-labor, and also challenge you to present evidence that the Employee Free Choice act does nothing besides end secret ballots.
3. I submit that you, sir, are a troll of rather poor talent.

Pot, Kettle.

She said the EFCA was a pro-labor bill, when it is anything but. If she had said it was a pro-union bill, then yes, absolutely true.

There's a good summary of why it is anti-labor here:
http://www.heritage.org/research/labor/bg2027.cfm

(And yes, I know the Heritage foundation is right-wing, but it's a good summary of why the bill is bad for workers.)

EFCA does *not* eliminate secret ballot elections.

"The Employee Free Choice Act preserves "secret ballot" elections, but also ensures that workers, not CEOs, decide whether to form a union at work through "majority sign-up." Right now, even when a majority of employees in a workplace sign cards saying they want to form a union and have them certified by the federal agency that oversees labor law, the company can decide that workers have to do it all again months later by forcing them to hold an election."

>> ^ShakaUVM:
She's also kind of wrong about middle class people being upset about Obamacare. Read a poll some time.
She also claims the Employee Free Choice act is "pro-labor". What? Ending the secret ballot for working people in Unions is, quote, "Pro-Labor?" She's either an idiot, or ridiculously uninformed.
Maddow? "Smart"? Give me a break.


Okay, you are much less an informed person than WP..

1. 'read a poll sometime' I have just as many polls available saying middle class people approve of healthcare reform as I have polls that say the opposite. Also, no polls anywhere refer to 'Obamacare'. That word just shows you have very little original thought and are using regurgitated Fox News drivel to argue against something you haven't bothered to inform yourself about.

2. I have to challenge you to submit evidence that she said anything about ending secret ballots being pro-labor, and also challenge you to present evidence that the Employee Free Choice act does nothing besides end secret ballots.

3. I submit that you, sir, are a troll of rather poor talent.

She's also kind of wrong about middle class people being upset about Obamacare. Read a poll some time.

She also claims the Employee Free Choice act is "pro-labor". What? Ending the secret ballot for working people in Unions is, quote, "Pro-Labor?" She's either an idiot, or ridiculously uninformed.

Maddow? "Smart"? Give me a break.

Unions are not needed in the majority of businesses in the US. They are shrinking in the private sector and growing in government jobs. They add cost to a company without really adding value.

This act removes the power of the secret ballot. If a majority of workers agree to a union with a "card check" then a secret ballot is not required. So unions will utilize pressure and even dubious methods to obtain a simple majority so companies cannot request a secret ballot. A common dubious method is to simply use a "sign in sheet" for a meeting. They say, "sign in so we have a record of your visit." Unbeknown to the employee they just signed a "card check" and basically voted for the union.

This act makes it easier for unions to get in and harder to remove them. It is bad for America.

>> ^lucky760:
In actual trials are defendants first introduced to each member of the jury?
They're peers not because you know their name but because only peers have the ability to vote.


The concern isn't that they might not be peers, it's that if you're going to pull the trigger on banning someone temporarily, it's main purpose is to shame people into modifying their behavior, and putting faces (or at least avatars) to the vote enhances that effect.

If the vote is about permaban, I'd hope people were confident enough in their decision to put their name on it. If they have a personal conflict, they can go on record with an abstention.

Secret ballots have their place, I'm just not so sure a siftquisition is that place.

On August 28th 2007 it was announced that 10 people were arrested in connection to her murder:

"Controversy arose because the prosecutor, Yuri Y. Chaika, suggested that the motive for killing had not been to silence Ms. Politkovskaya, whose efforts to uncover corruption and brutality under President Vladimir V. Putin had brought her international acclaim but scorn from officials here.

Rather, the prosecutor said, the killing was intended to discredit the Kremlin, by raising suspicions that it had been involved, and ultimately to destabilize the Russian state. That now-official theory is markedly different from one broadly accepted by her peers, who have said she was killed in retaliation for her work or to prevent additional articles from being published.

Among those arrested, the prosecutor said, were a police major and three former police officers, who were working with a criminal gang led by a Chechen. Also arrested, he said, was a former officer in the F.S.B., the principal successor to the K.G.B.

Mr. Chaika added that the killing had been ordered from abroad, although he refused to identify the man suspected of being the mastermind or disclose his whereabouts, and provided no evidence to support the claim. The prosecutor would not release the names of any of the suspects.

His description of the motive aligned neatly with Mr. Putin's first public statements about the killing last year and with a pattern of government contentions that foreigners were trying to undermine Russia and the Kremlin, and to tarnish their reputations."

- NYT

It was standard Soviet practice to blame any problems that occur within its borders on foreign influences in the past. The press brief went on to state the murders were designed to destabilize the political situation in Russia and blame the Kremlin for it. This is totally ridiculous considering that the only people to benefit from her death was the Kremlin and specifically Putin himself.

Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-FSB Lt.Col and dissident accused Vladimir Putin of personally ordering the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. He himself was poisoned on November 1st of 2006, via lethal dose of polonium-210. As of 26 January 2007, British officials said police had solved the murder of Litvinenko. They discovered "a 'hot' teapot at London's Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing." In addition, a senior official said investigators had concluded the murder of Litvinenko was "a 'state-sponsored' assassination orchestrated by Russian security services.

"The Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin's rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool.

The Kremlin press pool is like so many institutions in Russia that have the trappings of a Western-style pluralistic society but operate under a different set of understandings, part of what analyst Lilia Shevtsova of the Carnegie Moscow Center calls "the illusion of democracy." Television channels air newscasts with fancy graphics but follow scripts approved by the Kremlin. Elections are held, but candidates out of favor with the Kremlin are often knocked off the ballot. Courts conduct trials, but the state almost never loses. Parliament meets but only to rubber-stamp Kremlin legislation.

Putin offered an example of that at the news conference when defending his decision last fall to abolish elections of regional governors. "The leaders of the regions of the Russian Federation will not be appointed by the president," he said. They will be approved by "regional parliaments, which are directly chosen by secret ballot." Putin compared this to the Electoral College, which selects U.S. presidents. "It is not considered undemocratic, is it?"

In fact, under the new system, Putin will appoint governors. His selections have to be ratified by regional legislatures, but if such a legislature rejects his choice twice, it will be dissolved. As for secret ballots, Russian regional leaders have proved adept at generating the outcomes they wish.

Anna Politkovskaya was just one of the dozens of reporters to meet their end during the reign of Putin, yet the press which is 80% state controlled dare not question the official line from Kremlin. She was murdered on October 7th 2006, which also happened to be Putin's birthday.

"Russia is yet another country where a free press is upheld in the language of the constitution, but the reality is one of state control of expression, concentration of media in the hands of the very few and very rich, and violence against journalists who report on crime and corruption.

Vladimir Putin's tenure has been marked by firm and incremental moves by the state against press freedom and independence. In some cases, the Putin government's strategies are relatively direct, such as strict controls on reporting in Chechnya. Other approaches -- such as the targeting of journalists with politically-motivated libel suits, or hostile takeovers of key media outlets by businessmen with close ties to Putin himself -- are more subtle, yet consistent and effective strategies for ensuring that the state influence permeates the media at all levels.

The strategy has resulted in the takeover of a prominent and outspoken, independent, national television station and the consolidation of newspaper and magazine ownership under a handful of powerful oligarchs. While an independent press does exist in Russia, the overall effect has been to stifle criticism of Putin and his regime on key issues like government corruption and abuses in Chechnya. Media support for the Putin government was particularly evident in the parliamentary elections in spring of 2004, during which Russian press groups complained of state-dominated television's promotion of the pro-Kremlin parties.

The right to free expression is more flagrantly violated at the local level, where journalists who report on corrupt politicians and organized crime are routinely harassed, attacked, and sometimes murdered, with generally only a perfunctory and thoroughly flawed prosecution to follow. A noteworthy case is the murder of the editor-in-chief of an independent newspaper in Togliatti, an industrial city in the Volga River region, in October of 2003. It was the second murder of the editor of the very same publication in less than two years. The following investigation has been denounced as a sham."

- Source http://www.pbs.org/

I watched the main prosecutors briefing on PTP Planet in Russian that morning. The rhetoric, method of presentation, hostile opposition to any questions by the press left no doubt in my mind that it was simply a political ploy to ease criticism of the Putin government with regards to the murders. Suddenly after years of inaction not one, but several murders are explained away neatly, however neither actual motives, names of other suspects nor any concrete evidence backing up the claims were presented.

For more on Russian subversion of democracy I recommend you check out my sift - http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Rise-of-Pro-Putin-Youth