Nevermind layoffs, Milwaukee teachers union sues over male members' right to erection help

After his Florida vacation this weekend and before his next vacation in Massachusetts, President Obama will visit Wisconsin next week.

There, he'll try again to convince folks that although the economy remains pretty bad and looks like it could worsen again, all because of somebody else's failures, the economy isn't really as bad as it would have been had he and the large Democratic majorities in Congress not passed and signed 17 months ago the $787-billion stimulus bill, which could kick in any summer recovery day now.

Also, of course, this being a presidential trip in a midterm election year, Obama will raise millions more for his party on the journey, which includes collections in Washington state, California, Ohio and Florida.

This dough, including a chunk from Milwaukee, is to help protect Democrats from what now appears to be a developing political storm front moving in Nov. 2.

But even as he flies over the country and Congress' Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and obedient party colleagues pass yet more billions in spending to bail out struggling states, there's an amazing healthcare confrontation underway in Milwaukee. Jenny Erikson, one of the most regularly refreshing reads online, calls it to our attention.

There, the fight is not over whether healthcare is a right. It's a fight over whether a sustained male erection is a right.

No, really.

The Milwaukee Teachers' Education Assn. has gone to court asking a judge to order the financially strapped school board to reinstate coverage for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis and other erectile dysfunction drugs in union members' healthcare plans. The union claims that excluding such coverage discriminates against the male gender.

In clearly less important news, facing growing benefit costs and shrinking revenues, the board in June had to lay off about 400 classroom teachers, the first such cuts there in decades.

At this time of stubborn national unemployment for millions, some silly people might question the wisdom of a labor union representing people with actual jobs launching legal action over a $20 pill to improve the functioning of a member of a member.

"You've got to be kidding me," said state Rep. Jason Fields.

The school board claims the famous little starter pills are recreational, not medically necessary, and would cost the city $787,000 a year. Offhand, that seems like a lot of educators' erections, but it's also enough money to employ 12 full-time teachers of either gender.

A state labor commission recently ruled against the teachers' sexual discrimination complaint, stating in part that the union had failed to identify by name the specific discriminated members who need the erectile dysfunction drug.

Stand by for that.

The Ticket vows to vigilantly watch for any Milwaukee teachers union members who come forward and identify themselves as requiring Viagra.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Milwaukee City Hall, still standing 115 years after its erection (National Historic Preservation Trust).

Comments

[billybob]

Photo: Milwaukee City Hall, still standing 115 years after its erection. LOL!

[Staunch liberal]

Conservative zealots are in charge it seems at this school board.lGBT needs to
join this anti discrimination effort.Next,the heartless tea baggers in charge at the school board will exclude
coverage of sex change operations.The pursuit of happyness is part of our
constitution,and so is taxation.Let the rich pay their fair share.

[Amused]

This about a retiree benefit. School teachers, remember, retire 15 or 20 years before the rest of us. They are not old enough to need the blue pill while they are still working.

Well, maybe I exaggerated. Men still young enough to be working as school teachers usually require the company of an actual female in order to sustain an erection. If school teachers today are anything like the ones I remember, then maybe $787,000 may well be required for self recreation.

[Philip]

This is really, really stupid. A 100 mg. pill of old blue doesn't even cost $20. You can get them for about $3 each online. Anyone who has a job can afford that.

[harry]

Viagra for the teachers.

Condoms for the students.

Let's party in the schools!

Study is for the nerds; let them study on their own if they want to!

[bcl]

Just another sad example of the mess we've made of health care. For about two generations, Americans have expected someone else to pay for _all_ of their health care. While it's no doubt wishful thinking, we could do a lot to improve the economics of health care if the recipients had some skin in the game, instead of what is effectively a pre-paid health care plan.

[usr102]

These people are nuts!

[John D. Froelich]

The Union needs alot of Viagara beause of what they wqnt to do to the Taxpayers

[Robert Miller]

The pursuit of happyness is part of our constitution, and so is taxation. Let the rich pay their fair share.

Getting somebody else to pay for it is as progressive/liberal as one can possibly get.

[Placebo]

They need a Chris Christie gov in that state.But in the mean time the recent
26 billion just voted by socialists Pelosi and Reid will surely cover this kind of
essential entitlement.Now the dems will be able to say,no one can turn you
down in your healthcare needs.Should public employees be unionized so they
can milk the public purse ?

[tompinch]

Hey "staunch" liberal: has your Viagra kicked in yet?

[Chris Richards]

hey Staunch Liberal... What proof do you have that the people in charge of the school board are "conservative zealots"? Oh wait, i forgot how liberals don't need proof for anything. So because the school board won't pay for erectile disfunctioon medicine, that means they are right wing teabaggers?
You are a melodramatic MORON of epic proportions.

[Skep41]

Are these guys nuts? Why do they think Russ Feingold is in trouble in a normally save Democratic state? Its like the Obama/Clinton State Department hiring Imam Rauf as a goodwill ambassador to the Middle East and promising to pay for restoration of historic mosques. They just dont get it. The leftists and the public employee unions pit themselves against the mainstream electorate with every piggish, self-serving action they take. People are in a rage about the overstuffed perks that are earmarked for our esteemed public servants and the madder they get the more of them will stomp to the polls this November and vote to toss the Democrats out. Pay for your own Viagra, idiots. You make enough money to afford it.

[dave]

htese unions need to realize they cant have everything they want anymore. real people are giving up a lot to survive making a lot less than these gvt unions, and people giving it up are paying these union salaries. im in a union and with the way thew economy is i'd settle for what we got 3 years ago. times are tough, unions on stike now will have no sympathy from anyone.

[valwayne]

This is the insanity coming from the extreme left. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the Democrats have spent trillions feeding the left wing special interests like the teachers and other public employee unions. And they won't settle for trillions they want more. They want average working Americans to help pay for Viagra. The unions won't even give average American workers that much of a break. Neither will Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the Democrats. We need massive political change in Nov to get out of this corrupt insanity or we may never recover!!!!

[Dan the Red]

Just what the schools need...horny teachers! Am I the only one seeing the irony, here?

[Tom Gemelli]

Just another way of sticking it to the taxpayers.

[Freedom Fan]

Let's stiff the teachers unions -- we abused taxpayers won't need Viagra.

[Skep41]

DAN THE RED
Never thought about it that way. Maybe Milwaukee has a bunch of teachers like the LAUSD who have been determined to be too dangerous to put in the classroom. There are dozens of those critters sitting around downtown, impossible to fire because of the UTLA teacher's union rules which protect even the most incompetent losers. Obviously people like that are going to need Viagra at some point. Hopefully the LAUSD hasnt run out of cash for this much-needed medicine. Lets just hope the Neanderthals dont win the election and force cuts that will hurt our children's education. We're already closing most elementary school libraries, lets not threaten the Viagra our teachers need to do their jobs.

[Butterflylady from Wisconsin]

To "StaunchLiberal" - as a resident of the Milwaukee Metro area, I can tell you that the school board is anything but conservative....and very much controlled by the teacher's union. The teacher's union chose to have over 400 teachers laid off rather than switching from a rolls royce to a cadillac health plan in which they would have to pay something towards their healthcare. It is a "me first" attitude that is costing the taxpayers millions of dollars.....all the while the Milwaukee Public School system is one of the worst in the nation. We are running major deficits and the teachers are asking for Viagra!!!! Quite a disconnect. But this pretty much sums up what is happening in similar large cities that are and have been controlled by Democrats for many years.

[Staunch liberal]

To: Chris Richards,Tom Pinch &the buterfly madame from Wisconsin!
Just because dimwits are happy as hogs in their own waste does not mean that
we the organized portion of the proletariat have to sacrifice our hard fought
for protections.Our union dues and get out the vote efforts are what put the
present admin and congress in power.Why should we take a back seat to the
teabaggers and other loosers who worship free market exploitation and cant
be bothered with the quality of education ?Conservative extremists want to
reneg on their signature and deprive the teachers of basic protections wich
were granted in exchange for quasi benevolent wages.

[mckgarth]

Hey Staunch liberal, you could use a good dose of COMMON SENSE and an open mind to actually learn something..it's idiots like this that are driving this great country of ours to be a 3rd world nation. Watch some Milton Friedman videos on Utube and maybe you'll learn something. Start with when he schooled Donahue about "the free market"...or as you put it, the "evil" free market. Lets all pitch in and buy Staunch liberal a one way ticket to his favorite country where there is no free market and watch em cry.

[Letscheck]

Any adult who needs a pill to perform should wake up and figure out that they are either a sex addict or a pill addict.

I recall that young Scott Peterson, the guy who killed his pregnant wife, also had a lot of those pills in his possession when he was caught..

A young man should not need those pills so I am guessing that he had an addiction.

Same for the school teachers who are demanding them. It is an addiction not a need, much less a necessity.

Taxpayers should never, ever, have to be responsible for someones addiction.

[Gora Saab]

Why not also subsidise liquor to facilitate the female partner’s mood to ensure that the male teacher achieves a desired experience. Remember, “candy is dandy, and wine is fine, but liquor is quicker.” The absurdity is that teachers unions, like all governmental employee unions have placed the economy on the expressway to hell. Teachers work nine months a year, need little training compared to most private sector college grads and collect huge benefits, which are never considered in evaluating their total compensation packages. Do the math; on the fully allocated costs of 12 teachers and to get the picture. Perhaps it is time for the teachers union to accept the fact that the benefit trajectory should head downward in an economic recession. Farmers who risk their capital have to face up and down years constantly because of weather conditions, competition from abroad, higher interest rates, etc.

[Joe Lammers]

I believe Staunch Liberal is being satirical. Even my sister-in-law, who is about as brain-dead a liberal as you can get, doesn't believe there is a "right" to viagra.

[Trancexplant]

Staunch liberal,

1) The "pursuit of happiness" isn't in the Constitution; it's in the Declaration of Independence -- which isn't legally binding in any way, shape or form relevant to today. I suggest you read the Constitution before ranting about dubious rights that aren't contained in it.

2) "The rich" -- which I am not one of -- already pay an arguably unfair share of taxes due to the fact that nearly 50% of the nation's population pays no income taxes at all. Why should anyone else be forced to pay more when millions of people who can obviously afford to pay something are currently given a free ride at others' expense? And besides, even if your imaginary boogeymen -- the rich -- were made to pay more, there aren't nearly enough of them to cover the absurd amount of debt the government is now creating. So the "soak the rich" argument which the left loves to scream and yell is nothing more than a populist red herring aimed at the politically naive and mathematically inept anyway. A better idea is to hold our leaders accountable for spending money we don't have on frivolous things such as pills to enhance erections.

[Concerned Dad]

Folks, I have to believe that Staunch Liberal is being sarcastic with all of this and just trying to get a rise (pun intended) out of everyone. NO ONE (not even our beloved govt. leaders) can be that clueless. If this person truly is serious, I am all for contributing some of my hard earned salary to sending Staunch Liberal (and all like him/her) off to their favorite Utopian paradise. I hear Venezuela and Cuba are lovely places to live! Oh wait, MY money is not really mine. Staunch Liberal gets to decide what it gets spent on!

[Marie Antoinette]

It's time we all wake up and start identifying needs vs. wants. This is an easy call. No, viagra is a want, not a need. Next!

[Ilpalazzo]

I think Staunch Liberal was being a sarcastic parody of the liberal/GLBT mindset, especially when he mentioned the sex-change operations. He couldn't possibly be serious, so don't get so riled up over his comment -- it only shows your misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

[JR]

Some things just leave a person stunned to read it. You know that people are craven and selfish but this one takes the cake.

Pay for your own erections, people. Never mind that the test scores for students stink on ice, the state and the country is literally broke. And anyone with a job is lucky to have one these days. No, no problem! They have their priorities in order, here. We demand our RIGHT for TAXPAYER PAID Viagra!

Grow up, pay for your own party and go away. The 'bank of the people' is closed and I don't care if you never have sex again. The government worker sector is the ONLY area where people's employment numbers are stable, cutbacks are small and the whining is EPIC. Compared to the rest of us, they're on the gravy train.

Unions are no longer working for the people, they're parasites living off of the people. This is spoken as someone that spent a career herself in a state union. Your problems are not real, they're manufactured. I don't care about them and don't want to pay for them.

[AngelenoConservativo]

I can't believe no one has commented yet on how 787,000 dollars is only enough to hire TWELVE full time teachers. By my math, that means they're making somewhere around 65,583 dollars a year. Why not start cutting some wages, especially since teachers work about 1/2 the year. You can save a lot more and hire a HELL of a lot more teachers.

(AM responds: Your math is good. Remember tho employer costs per worker also include employer Social Security payments plus benefits.)

[Staunch liberal]

Receiving free viagra in exchange for lousy wages and having to cope with a
bunch of unruly,drooling snotty kids throws the ignorant teabaggers in a
tizzy.Teachers are the most underpaid workers in this dog eat dog,savage
capitalist rat hole.Middle class,upper middle class and the rich are all under
taxed in this country.Europeans pay 25 to 35 % more taxes and
teachers benefit from that system of wealth redistribution as is perfectly
normal in a civilized society.Gasoline taxes in this country are 80% lower than
in europe,what a shame!If only we raised our 's the same as Europe's we could
have classes of 12 to 15 kids and hire a million moore teachers,and viagra would cease to be a wich hunt.