Dr. Laura Mirrors TKA on Teamster Hit Piece
First of all, this post marks over 500 posts on BlogaBarbara since we began just a few years ago. Another milestone! As always, I appreciate all of your support and readership.
In Dr. Laura's column this morning, she said she was waiting by the phone for Santa Barbara Newsroom to call her about syndicating her column so THEY could demonstrate a lack of bias. She has had an open invitation to do that with me for over a month and has failed to take action! I've been hitting refresh on my email client for weeks! As always, you are free to a post at any time Dr. Laura -- and for that matter so are your friends at De la Guerra Plaza.
She then says she is opposed to unions. Again, she made the same rather intentional mistake Travis Armstrong did and tried to turn the United Food and Commercial Workers at our grocery stores into the big bad Teamsters when they are a really different union. Just like Armstrong, she invoked the image of a union eating up all they could. Here's an excerpt -- does anyone have an original thought or do any fact checking over there?
Doesn't that sound like an editorial from a few weeks ago -- I guess their PR folks have had their "One Voice" speech with them and this does not indicate bias. Hmmmm. The News-Press is acting much more like Big Brother than the Teamsters, Dr. Laura! Finally, isn't it extortion to refuse to give someone their job and back pay after a court decision just because you think they were wrong?
In Dr. Laura's column this morning, she said she was waiting by the phone for Santa Barbara Newsroom to call her about syndicating her column so THEY could demonstrate a lack of bias. She has had an open invitation to do that with me for over a month and has failed to take action! I've been hitting refresh on my email client for weeks! As always, you are free to a post at any time Dr. Laura -- and for that matter so are your friends at De la Guerra Plaza.
She then says she is opposed to unions. Again, she made the same rather intentional mistake Travis Armstrong did and tried to turn the United Food and Commercial Workers at our grocery stores into the big bad Teamsters when they are a really different union. Just like Armstrong, she invoked the image of a union eating up all they could. Here's an excerpt -- does anyone have an original thought or do any fact checking over there?
Union demands and threats to destroy business functions is bullying at best, extortion at worst.
So, starting a new "newspaper" is a reasonable solution for the group of folks who quit over claims of bias or were fired for allegedly undermining the workings of the News-Press. However, complaining about "bias" and then being virtually owned by a union is so blatantly hypocritical that I don't have to comment further.
Doesn't that sound like an editorial from a few weeks ago -- I guess their PR folks have had their "One Voice" speech with them and this does not indicate bias. Hmmmm. The News-Press is acting much more like Big Brother than the Teamsters, Dr. Laura! Finally, isn't it extortion to refuse to give someone their job and back pay after a court decision just because you think they were wrong?
Labels: Dr. Laura, Santa Barbara News-Press, Travis Armstrong
posted by Sara De la Guerra | 4/05/2007 06:30:00 AM
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36 Comments:
sb newsroom should sell advertising and send dr laura a commission check for increasing site traffic.
The good Dr. doesn't seem to understand the peculiar restrictions Ms. McCaw has on the News-Press website. In offering "syndication" Dr. Laura also misses the difference between new media and old media. Dr. Laura needs to get permission from Ms. McCaw before making any grandstanding offers, since SB Newsroom or anyone else could simply post a link to Dr. Laura's column, but Ms. McCaw won't allow that kind of contact with the News-Press website without a paywall in place that prohibits free reading.
It is good people have a choice.
The NewsPress daily for the conservatives and the questions this community needs to start asking that were long ignored in the past. And the union sponsored Santa Barbara NewsRoom daily for continued feel-good fluff pieces that keep the Santa Barbara PR spin machine going full speed.
I am glad I have two to choose from now - the conservative viewpoint has long been MIA to the point too many in the community felt it did not even exist. It is nice to have a forum where deeper questions about the direction of this city can be voiced.
Let the healthy debate begin. No sense for one paper trying to everything for everyone. Choice is good. There is room in this town for both. Can't NewsRoom find a way to take PayPal donations once it sheds its union support?
And thanks for the Santa Barbara Sound daily too for having an alternate daily paper one can have in hand.
Scott Steepleton directs readers to a competing advertising website at craigslist.com with his hardhitting page 1 story about a boat stuck in the sand and today Dr. Laura uses big headlines to send readers to a competing news website at sbnewsroom.com with her page 2 union rant. Wendy McCaw needs to get better control over her people. They are giving away her store.
Look at the bright side. "Dr." Laura made her complaint about the reporters' website the lead in her column. She's driving readers to the Newsroom website, where they can get real reporting, such as yesterday when they covered the Janeway case which the News Mess missed!
At common law, employees claiming wrongful termination must mitigate their damages by seeking comparable employment. Failure to do so will result in a reduction of the backpay they recover if a court finds they were wrongfully terminated.
It turns out the same requirement applies to decisions of wrongful termination handed down by the NRLB. "An employer may meet this burden (and thus be entitled to a deduction from gross backpay) by ... establishing that the employee has willfully incurred losses through unjustifiably refusing adequate interim employment. Further, an employer need not establish that the employee would have secured such employment, for the employer meets its burden on the mitigation issue by showing that the employee has withdrawn from the employment market. Accordingly, where the employer demonstrates that an employee did not exercise reasonable diligence in his or her efforts to secure employment, then it has established that the employee has not properly mitigated his or her damages."
(Tubari Ltd., Inc. v. N.L.R.B. 959 F.2d 451, 454 (1992.).)
Given that some former News-Press employees have obtained what may be deemed comparable employment (e.g. Scott Hadly, staff writer at the Ventura County Star), I hope all are being advised to continue to "exercise reasonable diligence in his or her efforts to secure employment."
In this regard, it will be interesting to see how, if and when the occasion arises, the NRLB views working for at the new Santa Barbara News Room, if, as Craig Smith reported, "these former News-Press journalists are willing to work without pay."
It seems somewhat heretical here but my wife and I like Dr. Laura and the way she speaks for responsibility. I especially like the way she talks about soldiers.
Dr. (of Physiology) Laura today announced that if every newspaper in the country didn't run her column, all those outlets were biased.
Alas, she tried to legally change her name to "I am Dr. Big Brother" only to be sued by Dr. Joyce Brothers, who is legally represented by Barry Capello.
I'm sure the SB Newsroom crew — all of whom were fired, contrary to one of QuackLaura's statements — would be just thrilled to have a columnist whose hateful written and radio scolds — including the most recent aimed, incredibly, at the female British soldier she accused of "betraying" her colleagues with her videotaped trespass "confession" -- tarnish the News-Press and despoil our air waves with aural pollution. She seems to believe every one of Travis' words, though her comprehension of his errant vitriol leaves something to be desired, since even he, in his last public anti-union rant, didn't really say the Teamsters were going to "take over" grocery stores.
Interesting concept, "takeover". When a union gains the right to represent workers at a business, it is not quite the same thing as "toppling Saddam", as the know-nothing two-note faux Doctor would have it. Wendy will maintain her ownership, but she will have to sit down, engage with and listen to the concerns of her workers, which she has refused to do to date, to awful effect. As the Doc merrily skips along in her "free market" fantasy world, where everyone is free to leave, drink and be merry, she forgets about how many people have fled for the News-Press exits, and whether that makes a statement about the wonders of NP management. In a "free" market, capitalists either listen to what the relevant indicators are saying or perish (economically speaking). So far, Wendy appears to be intentionally deaf, at best, and belligerently so.
And, of course, the "Doctor" drinks the Kool-aid concerning Teamster alleged "threats", forgetting the union's offers of dialogue (which NLRB Judge Schmidt acknowledged in his recent decision trashing NP management) over the summer, which continue to this day with no response. Doc, here's a news flash: the only neutral arbiter who has weighed in on the subject found not an iota of proof of any Teamster wrongdoing, and for good measure, found your mentor, Travis Armstrong, to be a liar, and also duly threw Scotty Steepleton to the wolves. More fundamentally, I'm certain that "Dr." Laura's doesn't care that her policy of "take it or leave it" for workers would have led to something other than the expansion of the middle class, anti-discrimination law, family and medical leave, etc. That ol' market magic — in the bad ol' Coolidge days, it led to violence, which federal labor laws like the one that requires Wendy to bargain were supposed to divert — fails every time. Unfortunately, the McCaws of today's world have managed to pervert labor law into a tool to frustrate workers' rights.
Memo to "Dr. Heel (spelled correctly) Thyself":
Your capacity to both heap scorn on others you don't know and haven't bothered to inform yourself about, and yet blindly fawn all over your benefactor at the News-Press as if she (and her faithful if reality-challenged followers) were infallible, must make for a difficult balancing act. No wonder your bitterness and intolerance shine so brightly and often.
It's obvious that Travis had something to do with this. We need to get Oprah involved, just like the homeless are. Oprah is such a good person, and the NewsPress has such a strangledhold on this community, that she must come to our aid.
I'm offering "Dr." Laura my entire blog in a special Thursday edition of the Sunday Funnies:
The Fake "Doctor's" Sunday Funnies
Per usual, the material gets a little blue - it's about Dr. Laura, of course, so keep the kids out.
Today (April 5), the Newsmess Schlessinger column writes this:
“However, complaining about "bias" and then being virtually owned by a union is so blatantly hypocritical that I don't have to comment further.”
On March 29, the Newsmess editorial by Armstrong wrote this:
"What's their real agenda? It's so clear that you don't need me to answer that question."
See a trend here? Lots of bitching and whining, but no facts or examples, again and again and again. And again.
Which is the mirror, and which is the panderer?
Don Jose, perhaps you should reconsider the fake doctor's attitude about soldiers, since in her Monday Random Hate column she said the following about the female British sailor who was arrested by Iranian officials and has since been released with her colleagues:
"It is my opinion that she betrayed her comrades and her country [by "confessing" to trespass] and should be subject to a court-martial after the British and the Americans, I hope, show the guts the jihadist Muslim world are sure we don't have and get all the sailors back."
If Schlessinger had an ounce of true sympathy or ability to account for anything but her deep-seated belief that all females should stay home cookin', cleanin' and procreatin' (except for herself and I guess, Wendy), it might have dawned on her that Ms. Turney's video "confession" was likely a survival technique and nothing more. As it is, and as it should be, the bad myopic "Doctor" is a shrill voice in the wilderness, where she should be abandoned to whine, moan, and contemplate her self-abasement.
'twas only a matter of time before worker bee would weigh in and self promote.
In this regard, it will be interesting to see how, if and when the occasion arises, the NRLB views working for at the new Santa Barbara News Room, if, as Craig Smith reported, "these former News-Press journalists are willing to work without pay."
Presumably the NRLB will view that about the way they would view you posting here without being paid for it, mic -- it's irrelevant and none of their business; it's quite possible to do a volunteer effort and seek employment at the same time.
As for the megalomaniacal hypocrite's column, I don't even know where to begin. By her nutty standards, she's showing "bias" if she doesn't pay to let the newsroom 8 write a section of her column.
Well, if truth be told, I too was somewhat disappointed at the gushing mea culpa of Ms Tunney. Name, rank, and serial number is the courageous route taught to the soldier here. But then again, your right, a good healthy jihadis from the religion of peace might just cut your head off for less.
We shall learn the truth of what the 15 English soldiers were subjected to and their survival plan as taught in the English armed forces, as the next days unfold. Also undoubtedly more about the entire matter of the English operating in this area as well as the Americans.
If it was my son that said that in Iran, I would be severely disappointed. Telling them to 'shove it' would probably give me a somewhat more rousing and pleasurable sensation. Name, rank, and serial number, is surely a more sensible approach.
Goddess forbid Ph.D. Laura's only child is killed or maimed in the Iraqi civil war in which he is embroiled as a U.S. paratrooper. If that horrible outcome should occur, it will be interesting to see if she enjoys her future being stolen in George Bush's war as much as the tens of thousands of families of other casualties have enjoyed that. It's a shame GWB will never enjoy that sense of pride that comes from having your child killed or mutilated in someone else's civil war.
I can see why Laura, PhD as not invited to run her column on NewRoom. She is too predictible. You know exactly what she is going to say and how she is going to say it.
That is boring and she simply is not even provocative anymore, except by true believers who need to keep being reinforced since reality keeps intruding on LauraLand.
And speaking of other NewsPress droids, Buddy Winston sat in on 1290 today with the Baron Ron Herron (Not the Baron von Weaselburger).
He was thoroughly disgusting, leering, not funny, irritating, egotistical and made everyone uncomfortable. Where on earth did they get him? Keep him locked up with a written column, but please keep him off the air waves
He simply will never be a new voice in Santa Barbara to take Barney's place even when a lot of other aspects of the NewsPress are showing strong improvement.
Based on this comment:
"even when a lot of other aspects of the NewsPress are showing strong improvement."
One more time, WHAT IS IMPROVING ?
"Dr." Laura? Hmmmm Ohhh Yaaaaaawwwwwwwwn....
Sara, please get back to something interesting.
I know this may sound like a leading question, but I really don't know the answer:
Are the Independent and Daily Sound unionized? Just wondering...
I won't see the column until later. How many union hits has she done since she started? She is so confusing...(claims) she's not political, says she doesn't give advice. I heard something about morals and ethics? She's not even actually the type of doctor she plays on radio. She intentionally allows the implication to go on, she's fooling vulnerable people, for money and fame. How do decent people go for that?
Don Jose de la Guerra,
I've been wondering, what has she said about the Pat Tillman situation? You know she will talk about soldiers, et al. She is passionate about what the Army is doing and especially Afghanistan. Both Tillman and her son enlisted. She must feel deeply for the Tillmans? Cold and notable to not mention that. Please, someone has she mentioned, if not, why?
She did have strong opinions for abducted British soldiers. She does make quick judgements for people in crisis. I find that reckless for someone in her position. There were more friendly fire victim's families on the news today. Silence for soldier's families who have been lied to? Something is wrong there.
Yes, responsibility is good. She does preach tried and true old wisdom. No ones perfect, but her hypocrisy is abundant, almost twice a week now around here. She needs to act responsible, then talk it. In her favor, I thought many of the birthday photos were fun. Good to see her like that and with her husband. Her sons fiancee is pretty.
If it was my son that said that in Iran, I would be severely disappointed. Telling them to 'shove it' would probably give me a somewhat more rousing and pleasurable sensation.
An admirably macho American thing to say, Don Jose, but would you say the same thing if it meant your son came home in a bag? It sounds good in the movies, but as a father I find that painfully absurd.
Be honest now: would you really prefer that he have his John Wayne moment than come home to his family?
As I said earlier, I have nothing but respect for Dr. Laura who teaches individual responsibility. All honors to her son who chose to fight for our freedom. And all honor to my son too, who chose to do the same, in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Our community's soldiers respect Dr. Laura and she respects them.
the Brits are not at war with Iran, therefore the soldiers could have exchanged recipes for all I care..Dr. laura is just throwing her usual bombs..the real oddity in yesterday's NP was the Chumash PR lady's paranoid commentary..a must read!
It's campaign time already!
Yes, respect and honor all soldiers. When so-called patriots are not able to mention the famiies of friendly fire and the Pat Tillman story, that's not respect and honor of soldiers. That's pig headed dumb and coldhearted. The honor and respect only selected soldiers campaigners have a BIG PROBLEM. As time will tell, they will have fair dscussion or they will select a few soldiers to respect and turn their backs on many. Look at the Walter Reed (heathcare) scandals, the drugs given to soldiers to fight, coming home addicted, the homeless Vet's. Show some respect and discuss their issues. Schlessinger so far is a coward when it comes to those matters.
Don Jose now speaks and writes for all soldiers?
Did you consult with the local Veterans for Peace members?
Again, why cannot some people understand the difference between "support out troops" while at the same time oppose the War? Schlessinger obviously cannot fathom that, but who really cares?
All the Don Jose's are saying is they respect Laura and his sons, unless they were in a captured Brit situation and were survivalist's. You can turn against your own blood, court martial them all!
More glaring hypocisy is Laura's cheer leading for Rudy Giuliani. Don't miss George " You Add It Up It Brings You Down". The irrepressible Worker Bee is always a must read. Keep exposing the political machinist posers.
Doesn't Dr Laura support Cheney and torture? The US policy and laws change, that effects the world. Dr Laura would support her kid to survive. She knows if we can torture, that will make it more justifiable for others. She knows the rules. You think she wants her son tortured? No, she would want him to escape torture and live. She's not stupid, she knows she reaps as she sows.
What happened to Sunday Funnies ? Is satire now illegal? We need relief and that was funny. I know all the charity needs to be scruntinize as well. I'd like to know more about which are not paying CEO's a fortune. Also the radio business. Didn't Bush get millions or billions just for war public relation? Do radio shows get bonus' for war promotion? Is it legal to ask? I know the FCC relaxed rules and the people like Laura can get by with more. Do we have to call her Dr. if she shows no credentials? What's going on?
Sara--- I'd like to petition you, and my fellow bloggers--- to stop giving Dr L- free press; as evidenced by her column today, she is thriving on it. This will be the last posting in which I include reference to her.
I haven't seen the column yet but please remember she's given us a lot of free press too. I felt compelled to do a post on Worker Bee's blog as some may wonder...I hear what you are saying though.
I'll be glad when the likes of media matters stop harassing Rush. Let them all speak the truth. They don't need you to get listeners. She called it like it is. Cowardly. It sure didn't take Dr. Laura long to win.
Yes, please, PLEASE stop paying ANY attention to that laura person. She's just like that Ann Coulter bile - thriving and enjoying any attention she can muster. It only gets worse as they have to top their last fling of hate and filth.
She does not matter.
At all.
Please, let us have discussions about something that truly matters to our community.
I agree. When Rush got publicity for his Michael J. Fox impersonation it helped ratings.
Maybe the reason why Dr. Laura doesn't get her column syndicated has nothing to do with bias. Maybe it has to do with her poor writing skills.
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