Here's my reaction to the Mitchell Report on Performance Enhancers in Major League Baseball:
1) Good luck getting the players to go along with any proposed reform. The MLBPA is the strongest union in professional sports; Bud Selig can't pick a tie out in the morning without approval of the union.
2) George Mitchell should be commended for naming as many big names as he did. Yeah, there's a bunch of Paxton Crawfords and Mike Stantons in there, but there's also Eric Gagnes and Roger Clemens and Migel Tejadas. I was convinced that no names that we didn't know-like Palmiero and Bonds and McGwire-would be included. I don't agree with the man's politics but he did everything you can ask, especially with a mostly-uncooperative group of people.
3) How stupid are you to pay for HGH with a check?
4) The mafia has nothing on MLB players. Kevin Brown UPSing a box of money to a dealer? Martin Scorsese needs to get a pencil out quick.
Showing posts with label Unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unions. Show all posts
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Who's Paying (October 10 Edition)
Some contributions of interest to the Franks campaign, courtesy of the Secretary of State's office...
Percy Watson 1000
IBEW Washington DC 10,000
Steve Holland 200
Ray Mabus 300
Jackson Chemical Supplies Laplace, LA 1000
MS UAW PAC Baltimore MD 500
IBEW Local 903 10000
MAE 10000
Ike Spears Atty 5000
OPEIU 3000
Ironworkers PAC Washington DC 5000
UA PAF Washington DC 5000
South Carpenters Regional Council Irondale, AL 5000
Coalition for the Preservation of Rural Lifestyles (?) 1000
Wyeth Good Government Fund Madison NJ 500
IBEW Education Cmte Washington DC 5000
Douglas Horne Knoxville, TN 2000
Rudy Warnock, Attorney (wait, I thought this guy was an engineer?) 1000
CWA District 3 PAC Decatur, GA 1000
Plum Creek Columbia Falls, MT 1000
Harrah's Operating Company Memphis, TN 1000 (Amazing-he gets his values from his little church in Tupelo, yet he takes money from groups they oppose-like gaming!)
Lee Memorial Funeral Home (if you don't know, that's Steve Holland's business) 500
MMHA PAC 1000
MMHA VPAC 1000
Steve Patterson 6000
Mississippi Health Care PAC 5000
Ronnie Shows 500
Total Cash on Hand 595,941
Contributions this cycle 536, 296
Disbursements " " 543,010
Once again, so many House Dems on the list, so few Senate Dems. Also, looking through Phil Bryant's donors, one thing keeps jumping out at me: How many contributions he got from Mantachie, Fulton, Iuka, Tupelo...you know, the part of the world that Mr. Franks represented for the last twelve years, and several prominent Senators. They're voting with their pocketbooks, obviously.
http://www.sos.state.ms.us/PDF-Out/000000052389.pdf
Percy Watson 1000
IBEW Washington DC 10,000
Steve Holland 200
Ray Mabus 300
Jackson Chemical Supplies Laplace, LA 1000
MS UAW PAC Baltimore MD 500
IBEW Local 903 10000
MAE 10000
Ike Spears Atty 5000
OPEIU 3000
Ironworkers PAC Washington DC 5000
UA PAF Washington DC 5000
South Carpenters Regional Council Irondale, AL 5000
Coalition for the Preservation of Rural Lifestyles (?) 1000
Wyeth Good Government Fund Madison NJ 500
IBEW Education Cmte Washington DC 5000
Douglas Horne Knoxville, TN 2000
Rudy Warnock, Attorney (wait, I thought this guy was an engineer?) 1000
CWA District 3 PAC Decatur, GA 1000
Plum Creek Columbia Falls, MT 1000
Harrah's Operating Company Memphis, TN 1000 (Amazing-he gets his values from his little church in Tupelo, yet he takes money from groups they oppose-like gaming!)
Lee Memorial Funeral Home (if you don't know, that's Steve Holland's business) 500
MMHA PAC 1000
MMHA VPAC 1000
Steve Patterson 6000
Mississippi Health Care PAC 5000
Ronnie Shows 500
Total Cash on Hand 595,941
Contributions this cycle 536, 296
Disbursements " " 543,010
Once again, so many House Dems on the list, so few Senate Dems. Also, looking through Phil Bryant's donors, one thing keeps jumping out at me: How many contributions he got from Mantachie, Fulton, Iuka, Tupelo...you know, the part of the world that Mr. Franks represented for the last twelve years, and several prominent Senators. They're voting with their pocketbooks, obviously.
http://www.sos.state.ms.us/PDF-Out/000000052389.pdf
Friday, September 7, 2007
Desperation is a Stinky Cologne
It seems that the Franks people leaked a favorable internal poll this week on the Cotton Mouth blog. It shows the race 'tightening' as we approach election day. Rule of thumb when a campaign leaks a poll: They're desperate. It goes hand in hand with the Barbour trust leak. Charlie Ross tried the same thing, and it didn't work. There are a number of polls commissioned by campaigns, and a number of them are designed to be favorable.
The polling that they actually believe probably shows them what I have stated before: Their base is strong amongst the fanatically Democratic, but that's shrinking daily. There's a very low ceiling for Mr. Franks because he's so combative and partisan, his statements to an adoring media nonwithstanding. Mr. Franks has been careful to keep himself clear of Ike Brown and his ilk, but he's still one of the ones who voted to back the suit on the state committee. He's probably also finding his support amongst the black community, but how much support can he have when it's discovered that he campaigned in 2003 as a 'champion of our heritage' who supported the current state flag?
What am I saying? That's not likely to get reported. But it was part of his radio ads in the 2003 cycle.
He's been working the union vote very hard lately, and proposed adding a Department of Labor. I'm sure he's probably also going to promise behind closed doors to end the right-to-work laws we have here as a tradeoff to the unions, much like the debate they're having in other southern states. I wonder though: How effective will a state dept. of labor be? It would, after all, be staffed by the same pool of applicants as the land, water and timber board that was so instrumental in the beef plant fiasco.
A candidate that's got everything together doesn't have to work to court the base of his party. This screams of not having it together. A candidate who's got it together is trying to broaden his appeal, not limit it. Finally, let's discount this supposed strength in Northeast Mississippi. There's a good chance he won't even carry District 19, which just rebuffed his hand picked successor.
This is a campaign in trouble. It's desperate, and it smells of it.
The polling that they actually believe probably shows them what I have stated before: Their base is strong amongst the fanatically Democratic, but that's shrinking daily. There's a very low ceiling for Mr. Franks because he's so combative and partisan, his statements to an adoring media nonwithstanding. Mr. Franks has been careful to keep himself clear of Ike Brown and his ilk, but he's still one of the ones who voted to back the suit on the state committee. He's probably also finding his support amongst the black community, but how much support can he have when it's discovered that he campaigned in 2003 as a 'champion of our heritage' who supported the current state flag?
What am I saying? That's not likely to get reported. But it was part of his radio ads in the 2003 cycle.
He's been working the union vote very hard lately, and proposed adding a Department of Labor. I'm sure he's probably also going to promise behind closed doors to end the right-to-work laws we have here as a tradeoff to the unions, much like the debate they're having in other southern states. I wonder though: How effective will a state dept. of labor be? It would, after all, be staffed by the same pool of applicants as the land, water and timber board that was so instrumental in the beef plant fiasco.
A candidate that's got everything together doesn't have to work to court the base of his party. This screams of not having it together. A candidate who's got it together is trying to broaden his appeal, not limit it. Finally, let's discount this supposed strength in Northeast Mississippi. There's a good chance he won't even carry District 19, which just rebuffed his hand picked successor.
This is a campaign in trouble. It's desperate, and it smells of it.
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