Union membership has been declining for a long time. There's no sense in invoking some complicated conspiracy explanation when a simple one will do: fewer people want to be in a union. The UAW has been trying to organize the Toyota and Honda plants for years and haven't come close. More and more jobs are not on factory floors but in offices, and unions in those kind of workplaces don't offer much.

The workplace has changed and by and large, unions have not changed with it. That's why union membership is declining.

As I said before, this is going from the comedically painful to the painfully comedic.

That's not a majority. What's more, no details of the survey were given. As we've seen in case after case, how the question is asked matters and it pays to be skeptical of surveys conducted by people with agendas.

A large part of the reason for declining union membership is the shift in where people work. Traditional union employers, such as steel mills, auto plants, etc., have given way to a lot more service-sector jobs. It's an article of faith among many that declining union membership is automatically a bad thing and is a result only of unfair tactics by employers. That's simply not the case (WalMart notwithstanding). UAW has been trying to organize in Toyota and Honda plants and they get rejected time after time.

I've been in two jobs with a union and in neither case was the union worth a bucket of warm spit. They collected dues and did nothing. I'm not suggesting that these are the rule, but it's not a given that a union is a benefit to the workers.

If people want them, they should be able to have them. I just don't believe that the number of people that want them is as high as it used to be.

Given their history, I can't imagine why you'd think that.

Do you have any evidence of that? Otherwise, I'm not buying it. If a majority of workers wanted a union, union membership would not be in free-fall. My experience is that it depends a lot on the workplace, but most of those where people want a union, there already is one.

This is not to say that many businesses (WalMart being a prime example) try hard to keep unions out, and step over the line in many cases. There certainly are workplaces where the workers want a union and have been stymied. But a majority? Not buying it without some evidence to back it up.

This old canard was always ridiculous, but is doubly so in today's environment. Retaining them is not a problem (even if you assume it's desirable, but that's an argument for another time). There's nowhere for them to go.

This is beyond stupid. Next.

I suspect that's the main reason so few rail projects are included. There are an awful lot of existing roads and bridges that are badly in need of repair, but except for buying some new rail cars and a section of track here and there, where can you spend the money on rail systems in the next 18 months?

It's like sweeping the floor after it's been vacuumed three times. You might find a couple of specks of dirt that had been missed, but you don't expect much. Which is why the pool of absentee votes Coleman wants to re-examine keeps getting larger (and more cherry-picked).

Also, what if there's only six months left in the term? Do you have a special election to fill that vacancy? No? How about nine months? A year? Obviously there is some time where a special election makes no sense, but how long?

In cases where a special election is not justified, how about having the new Senator chosen by the legislature instead of the governor?

1. Organizers are often not entirely honest about the meaning of signing a card. If this is to be equivalent to a vote, there needs to be a statement on the card in BIG BOLD LETTERS to the effect that this is equivalent to a vote for a union. People need to be able to rescind that card if they later change their mind, although I'd expect few to actually do so even if they do change their mind. Which brings me to my second reservation...

2. An election is a snapshot of the desires of the workers at a given time. Cards can be accumulated over a several year period. People may have changed their minds. It can't be said that because you have cards representing 51% of the workers that 51% of the workers want a union. There needs to be a sunset provision on the cards so that only cards signed over a reasonably contemporaneous period of time will count.

Of course, the premise that people at the bottom of the economic ladder don't pay taxes is also demonstrably false. They pay payroll taxes. They pay sales taxes. They pay all sorts of taxes. Funny how Republicans never seem to get lathered up about regressive taxes like these. In fact, when GWB was part owner of the Texas Rangers, he pushed through a sales tax increase to build a new stadium to benefit...guess who?...him and his wealthy partners. Somehow, the only taxes Republicans seem to regard as evil are progressive taxes that impact wealthy people: income taxes, inheritance taxes, dividend taxes.

Have you seen Coleman's latest comment? He says any other Minnesota Democrat would have beaten him easily.

Translation: I'm such a putz I can't believe it was this close.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA