Las Vegas Plumber News 12/03/2009

Las Vegas Plumber

Joe The Plumber: 2010 Campaign Issue http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/02/joe-the-plumber-a-campaign-issue-again/

Obama and his supporters know they face a tough election cycle coming up, and they are going to try do what they did in 2008 – basically buy the election (when ACORN isn’t able to steal it for them).

First, it seems that the phenomenon of illegally digging up dirt on political opponents has become almost epidemic. We’ve always had “opposition research” on public personalities like political candidates or Supreme Court nominees, but going after a private citizen is, perhaps, a new low. Remember that a regular Joe questioned then-Sen.Barack Obama, who was campaigning in his Toledo neighborhood, about his plan to “spread the wealth.”
Now, Joe the Plumber has become a defining issue once again, this time in the 2010 race for attorney general in Wurzelbacher’s home state of Ohio.

But not all of the pushback was done in good fun. Various news outlets began reporting not just on Wurzelbacher’s politics, but his plumbing credentials — and tax history. And not all of this information came from innocent sources, either: Evidently believing that the Wurzelbacher narrative was becoming a threat to Obama, three Democratic political appointees working for the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services allegedly used state time and resources to dig up confidential information on him in state databases.
After investigating, Ohio’s independent inspector general concluded there was “no reasonable basis” for the searches. Wurzelbacher subsequently filed a civil rights lawsuit against the three employees. Now, as Bill Hershey reported in the Dayton Daily News, Democratic Attorney General Richard Cordray had agreed to represent them in court.

It’s also worth noting that Sarah Palin’s e-mail was hacked around the same time that Joe the Plumber’s background was searched in Nixon-like fashion (ironically, it was Nixon who used “plumbers” to dig up dirt on his political enemies). To be sure, liberals are not the only people engaging in such activity, but I think it speaks to the loss of civility in politics, as well as the amount of hatred that was specifically directed toward Wurzelbacher and Palin.

Your Tax Money Spent on “Green Jobs” for Feminist http://www.dailyemerald.com/opinion/women-excluded-from-green-jobs-1.950955

But last year, when progressives were still misty-eyed for the new era of American politics, feminist Linda Hirshman asked for some specifics in a New York Times op-ed: “Where are the new jobs for women?”
Though women now make up 46 percent of the total labor force, says Hirshman, most of that “green job” stimulus money will go almost exclusively to male-dominated industries: manufacturing, engineering, HVAC installation (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning), construction, and energy. In many construction- and installation-related industries, women make up less than 3 percent of the workforce.
Hirshman argues that a “just” allocation of stimulus dollars would also support professions dominated by women, like education, social work and health care. For example, 98 percent of kindergarten teachers are women.
These industries are obviously of great importance to the welfare of our nation, but throwing money their way won’t change the fact that women are still excluded from higher-paying professions. A kindergarten teacher and an engineer both need college degrees, but the former will likely need a lot more time to pay off those student loans.
Another way to address the lack of jobs for women in a green economy is to address the underlying inequality and cultural biases that make skilled, “green” professions inaccessible to women.
Last month, $55 million of the stimulus package was dispersed in grants for green job training programs, and many of those grants will go to organizations like Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., a non-profit that places Portland women in apprenticeships at non-traditional job sites.

But what I take from Lela the Plumber is a way to view “green jobs” as a tool, rather than an enemy, for women’s equality in the workforce. The exclusion of women from the higher-paying sectors in skilled labor has always been a problem, but now we have a big, green platform to stand on and demand entrance.

Plumbers union election Questioned http://www.jsonline.com/business/76766617.html

A 78-year-old retired plumber from the Town of Merton is challenging the business manager of the state’s main plumbers union in an election marked by charges of wasteful spending.