Posted on 06/19/2009 10:40:49 AM PDT by radar101
The California Republican Party seemed to hit political paydirt in a YouTube ad that pilloried the Service Employees International Union for "bullying state leaders in the budget process."
The ad featured footage of an angry woman telling lawmakers that union members would work to defeat lawmakers who didn't vote their way.
It turns out that the woman portrayed as an SEIU union leader in the commercial is a home health care worker from Fresno named Lisa Brown, who works for the state by caring for her son who has Down syndrome.
Now Brown is calling on Republicans to pull the ad and "apologize for its content."
"I am the mother and care provider for a sweet young man with developmental disabilities who doesn't comprehend the implications of budget cuts on the table in Sacramento," Brown said a letter to the state Republican Party.
Brown, who is an SEIU member but not a union official, said: "Your attempt to label me a 'union bully' would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous to people that I love.'"
The GOP ran the video to counter a $1 million SEIU advertising blitz featuring a television commercial that urges lawmakers to consider taxes on oil extraction, cigarettes and alcohol to avoid social services cuts.
In the selected clip in the GOP ad, Brown hardly treads easily on lawmakers:
"We helped to get you into office, and we got a good memory," she says angrily at a legislative budget hearing. "And come November, if you don't back our program, we'll help to get you out of office."
Brown said in her letter that she appeared at the hearing "to speak from my heart and in my own words" on behalf of services for the disabled.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
I sure can gripe while mommy has no job.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Having no job doesn’t prevent a person from using the government schools and having the taxpayer pay for it.
Ditto for help for the retarded.
Hey! Listen, I **agree** with you. Parents should plan ahead for the possibility of a disabled child. If private insurance were available for this it would be a great help.
But...At least I am consistent. If parents should be prepared for a mentally retarded child they should also be prepared to **pay** for their schooling as well.
You totally avoided responding to her comment.
She’s right. It’s inconsistent to defend public education and gripe about helping the mentally handicapped.
If you object so much to government handouts because people should be supporting themselves, then why do you support the government handout of public education?
If you sent your kids to public schools, you’re leaching off the tax money extorted from other taxpayers to provide them with the education that you should have provided them yourself.
Leeching. The word is leeching.
You teach your kids with that vocabulary?
It’s inconsistent to defend public education and gripe about helping the mentally handicapped.
Normal kids go to normal schools. I resist paying for the mother
(in the thread, can you read?) to care for her defective kid.
Nobody deserves a living because they have a retarded kid.
Enjoy your weekend.
Would you care to discuss the issues we were addressing, or did you just come in to chastise people who were not laughing at anything? Did you read the posts in this discussion carefully, or did you just see a dirty word and decide that people shouldn’t be saying it? If you have something positive to contribute, please do, but you can take the liberal PC control freak churlishness about a word that has been demonized until the meaning makes people like you say things like that out of here.
By the way, I am not the person who brought up “the word.”
And no one referred to the woman’s son as a “the word.”
Having a retarded kid is now a free ride forever? Why is that?
Because the states closed all the state institutions for the retarded after the leftist lawyers sued.
And now people get paid by the state to care for their own or have someone else care for them. Just like the ones without family are cared for by state and federal grant paid workers. Disability care and PCA is the new substitute for factory jobs. Except factory jobs produced profits and disability care produces more disability and entitlement.
I drove with a disabled person the other day who was upset that she lost her funding to continue theraputic riding. She whined about it. Since she is strong enough physically I suggested that she find a barn she could work in for riding time and lessons. She said that instead she wanted to find some one with a horse who would just let her ride it. Entitilement.
Okay then... We will see if the Republican party doubles air time for this obviously great ad, or if they cave and even offer an apology. It’s crazy these days - - I’m truly not sure what the Republicans will do. Pretty sick situation, ain’t it?
BTTT
Metmom did contribute well to this discussion. As she pointed out, the juvenile jokes were unnecessary. No one here is asking for “political correctness”. Only decency and maturity. And some consistency.
I'm rude because I object to some woman and her kid sucking off the public tit? If someone has a kid, that's rough. It isn't my problem, I should not have to pay for it. So how in the world should all of us have to pay for the upkeep of this woman's kid? I look after me & mine... The woes of the world are not my problem. If this woman cannot provide for her kid, she should have thought about that before becoming pregnant.
You see, just remove the word "disabled", and the same argument can be used against "free" public education.
I look after me & mine. I work, I pay into the system.
More than likely, you didn't pay enough to cover the "free" education for your children. Most people don't. You would have had to have paid approximately $10,000 every year for each one of your children in school taxes alone (not including the other taxes).
Another sob story ran out by the dimwits to avoid cutting spending.
I wish they would end "free" education. Neither the state or the Feds need to be in the education business. Humble Gunner is right on this one and you are wrong.
I think you misunderstood my post. I’M opposed to “free” public education. Humblegunner is NOT.
I homeschool. Humblegunner sent his children to public school. HE disagrees with you. Some of us have been arguing against “free” public education, and he’s been defending it.
So, now, when he posted what he posted about the “disabled”, we’re pointing out that his positions are inconsistent.
I have a flash for you, all my kids are in their 40's and 50's and I am 70 and still paying taxes to the schools...
Been paying school taxes since I was 20... We all end up paying more than just the education of our own kids by the time we die. We also pay for all the teachers second vacation homes....
That's certainly how I take it. I'm flattered. :-D
Huh?
Here is a link to the Free Republic Lexicon so that you can look up other acronyms that are commonly used around here.
Thanks. I actually participated in contributing one of the phrases on the lexicon. I jsut get buried in work sometimes and haven't managed to memorize them all.
I joined FR around the All Your Bases are Belong to Us Era. :)
Memorize them all? You’re a better woman than I am. ♥
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