Darren Wilson's Side of the Story

[sheltiedave]

Originally Posted by finnbow

That's why I oppose public sector unions.

Does this opposition extend to police and firefighters unions, and nurses, and teachers?

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by finnbow

No, it's meaningless because the extrapolation of one incident of police corruption to the broader national issue picture is a big stretch.

Sure.
No doubt.
Absolutely.

[Rajoo]

Originally Posted by sheltiedave

Does this opposition extend to police and firefighters unions, and nurses, and teachers?

Are you offering or suggesting loopholes?

[sheltiedave]

No, I was just trying to become informed. It is one thing to have a universal opposition to public sector unions, and then you have the exceptional opposition, like Gov Walker in Wisconsin, where the opposition is just to unions that don't vote for you.

[sheltiedave]

Originally Posted by finnbow

These lawyers and their staffs bill at many hundreds of dollars per hour. This is in addition to the salaries being earned by the career prosecutor and his staff. As noted above, the outside counsel for the defense of the Virginia governor (because his AG was implicated in the same mess) cost an additional $1million.

And yes it would require additional legislation and funding. How many states do you know looking for additional places to spend their scarce resources? And how many politicians do you know who will run (and win) on a platform to spend untold millions on routine special prosecutors?

So far the bill for the Police OT and the National Guard is slightly under $2.7 million dollars.

There were two law firms that offered to provide the special prosecutor and all the support staff for free for the entirety of the grand jury and the jury trial. McCulloch turned them down.

McCulloch ran and won his race as DA while spending close to 20% of his total budget on routine contract prosecutors.

Eh, what were your objections again to a SP in St. Louis?

[icenine]

Originally Posted by finnbow

That's why I oppose public sector unions.

But as a fed, like me, you enjoyed many defacto union benefits. Probably more so than those in your run of the mill state jobs. I mean 8 hours vacation, 4 hours sick leave bi-monthly if you are over 10 years?

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by finnbow

That's why I oppose public sector unions.

Weren't you a member of one when you worked for the government?

[icenine]

Originally Posted by bobabode

Weren't you a member of one when you worked for the government?

My point Bob is that Finn and me have such great benefits you DON'T need to worry about joining a union....the federal labor statutes cover you automatically. For example last Friday was a paid holiday for me. Not just Christmas. Finn had he still been working would have gotten paid for it too. After your probation period (first year) it is hard to get fired, whether you join the union or not. The union is superfluous for federal workers but can help you negotiate rules if you get in trouble.

Sorry Finn

I am a GS too.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by finnbow

The practices suck to be sure. I didn't read anything about illegality in the cited article though. It may well be immoral, unethical, wrong-headed and downright shitty, but I'm not sure it's yet been found to be illegal. I'd be thrilled if it did, along with the feckin' traffic cameras around here.

It's there in the form of an assertion by a local watchdog group. I think there may be a state or federal investigation underway too but I couldn't reference it.

John

[sheltiedave]

Debtors' prison is both illegal and unconstitutional.

When traffic tickets and other fines exceed 30% of a municipality, that is illegal by state law.

There are municipalities in St. Louis that are violating both of these, and have been sued at this point. I have already cited the news articles with links to the filed lawsuits.