Hoover Institute Swiftboats Nancy Pelosi

Mike the Mad Biologist

There was a time when think tanks on occasion actually thought. Not so, at the conservative Hoover Institute, where Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer slimed Pelosi, claiming she had to explain why her family’s vineyard does not use union employees. Schweizer claimed Pelosi was a hypocrite.

Two things to note:

1) Pelosi pays better wages than the union vineyards.

2) By law, Pelosi is not allowed to even suggest to her workers that they organize. She can only negotiate with a union once it is formed.

When confronted with this by a TV news station, Schweizer refused to return phone calls even though he said he would. The Armani suit angle might be better.

Movement conservatives have nothing left but character assassination. Some ‘party of ideas’…

(and kudos to the station for running the story)

Comments

#1 bigTom
November 29, 2006

Better they stick to sliming. That whole Project for a New American Century thingy which spawned the neo-con agenda, came to us courtesy of these thought factories. So if we can just keep these minds distracted, perhaps we can avoid future mega-fiascos.
#2 Godlstein
November 30, 2006

Uh, so why doesn’t Pelosi’s family vinyard use unionized employees? I mean, she wants everyone else to. So, if I pay better, I don’t need to use unionized employes?
#3 Lab Cat
November 30, 2006

I’m amazed that it is against the law for an employer to suggest their employees unionize. How and why did that come about?
#4 Markk
November 30, 2006

Lab Cat – It is illegal for an employer to “suggest” that employees unionize for the same reason it is illegal for the employer to “suggest” that they do NOT unionize. The decision has to be left to the workers if it is to be meaningfully independent.
This law came about through the slaughter (literally) of many workers, it has their blood on it…
#5 Troublesome Frog
November 30, 2006

Uh, so why doesn’t Pelosi’s family vinyard use unionized employees? I mean, she wants everyone else to. So, if I pay better, I don’t need to use unionized employes?

Methinks you miss the point of a union.
#6 Shaun Snapp
May 4, 2009

How many people work for Nancy Pelosi’s vinyard? Small companies are rarely unionized. Hoover should ask the question why Wal-Mart and McDonalds’s which have a history of mistreating workers and which has a team that flys around the country stopping unionization, is not unionized. Hoover does not perform actual research and they are not a think tank. They perform pre-fab research for their corporate base. They are a political tool for Stanford, which is intensly fascist at the administration level, and for companies like Bechtel, which seek reconstruction projects from wars that Hoover and The Project for A New American Century beat the drum for. They turn out research that Stanford can not publish because it would damage their academic reputation (like denying global warming for major client Chevron). The operation is a false front run by Stanford.
#7 Willis Hart
September 9, 2011

But this is a pattern for Pelosi. It isn’t just the vineyard. The woman also owns a resort, a restaurant chain, and is a major owner in an exclusive golf course (which was supposed to allow the public to participate in and didn’t), NONE of which hire any union labor. I think that there’s more than enough here to throw out the hypocrisy label.
#8 NJ
September 9, 2011

Besides the slow-wittedness of reviving a five year old post, did you even read the post? By law she can’t interfere one way or another with unionization, and she pays above-market wages to boot.

It’s clear that the first two words of your last sentence are incorrect.