Today, in 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood launches the Easter Rising. It would fail, but set in motion events leading to Ireland’s independence from Great Britain.

On Wednesday, when President Obama’s union-controlled National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the Boeing Company for making a sound business decision to “dual source” its 787 production, it was another blatant example of a government agency run amok. However, while most of the nuts and bolts behind the dispute were detailed here, there are several other, more intricate details behind the NLRB’s legally tenuous prosecution of Boeing that are deserving of closer examination—most notably, the union’s own culpability behind the decision.

A Union With a Bone to Pick.

Even before the decision was made by Boeing to locate the second assembly line in South Carolina, Boeing’s union (the International Association of Machinists) had a problem in South Carolina. Namely, workers at the facility had voted the Machinists’ union out shortly after Boeing bought the facility in 2009 from Vought Aircraft because of workers believed the union poorly represented them.

What brought the workers to the point of decertifying the union an interesting story that is both part irony and part poor representation by the union. (more…)

“In recent injury/product liability news, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit against the FDA alleging it failed to regulate toxic substances in certain consumer products.”

Thus began the latest manufactured consumer crisis illustrating the powerful union between radical environmentalists and the trial bar.   Add a sympathetic Congressman and a manipulative triad is born.

Product liability wrangling follows a clear path – first the setup, then vague accusations of the product’s damaging properties followed by class action cash flow.

In just one sentence, the above blog comment posted by Texas personal injury law firm captures the essence of how product liability wrangling starts – and, ultimately, why.

Despite a forty-year record of reducing germs, slowing their transfer and being deemed safe by the FDA and EPA, the latest victim of the NRDC and friends are antimicrobial products – particularly those with ingredients Triclocarban and Triclosan.

These synthetic antimicrobial agents kill or retard the growth of fungus, mildew and bacteria in commercial and consumer products including hand soap, toothpaste, cosmetics, restaurant equipment, air conditioning coils, surgical scrubs and the Swiss Army Knife.

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The Internet phenomenon that is Trig’s Crew (Twitter tag #TrigsCrew) might represent the most potent example of the power of online activism we’ve seen yet. In a matter of hours, citizen activists rallied around the righteous cause of condemning a vile Wonkette attack against Governor Sarah Palin’s three-year-old son, Trig with astonishing results.

Best of all, and contrary to Andrew Sullivan feeling all “queasy,” this was not a “Palinista” uprising.  (Heads up: When it comes to Trig Palin, Sullivan is nothing more than Wonkette with professorial elbow patches.) Decent people of all political stripes, including some in the media, put partisan politics aside over this — and it was a beautiful thing to behold. Better still, organized under their hash tag, a group of citizen activists discovered the small “d” democratic wonder of Twitter and effectively learned how to politely, firmly, and publicly fight for something they believed in.

Personally, I’m not a boycott person, but that’s my right. Others have a right to boycott, and brother, did Trig’s Crew put on a boycott. All on their own, they organized a list of Wonkette advertisers, tweeted them directly with a request that they pull their ads, and kept track of those who did and didn’t. Within hours, it was obvious a tidal wave was brewing and by the next day it was just as obvious that it had hit. As of this writing, over 30 advertisers agreed with Trig’s Crew and pulled their ads from Wonkette. Seemingly, and in record time, the dismantling of a fairly mainstream, left-wing snark-site seemed probable.

Like the Tea Party, Trig’s Crew has represented the very best of mainstream America as they engaged in an inspiring First Amendment online debate with dignity and decency. So commendable is their behavior, that Slate’s Dave Weigel obviously had to dig pretty deep to come up with this single tweet — one of thousands — in order to manufacture something (which required some back-filling in the form of a later update) that might tarnish the whole movement as “jumping the shark.” Obviously, this is the MSM-Alinsky-Tea Party-Playbook all over again — where a single and unique negative out of an ocean of positives is intentionally amplified to unfairly brand the kind of grassroots campaign elites always find so threatening.

Whatever.

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New revelations exposing how labor unions shamelessly rigged the “non-partisan” redistricting process in San Diego is providing case study for how the critical process of drawing legislative district lines can be hijacked by the radical left using multiple front groups.

The “independent” redistricting commission in San Diego, America’s 8th largest city, is charged with drawing lines for the city’s eight (soon to be nine) council districts in a fair and non-partisan manner.  In a city where Democrats have failed to elect a mayor in decades and just lost a seat on the city council in 2010, taking control of the redistricting process was a top priority, starting with the formation of the city’s redistricting commission.

Local television reporter Steve Bosch blew the lid off how the unions worked through two local left wing groups to plant liberal activists on the commission and control its staff.

Empower San Diego is the first union front group used to help recruit, cultivate and put forward potential appointees to the redistricting commission, whose members were selected by retired judges. The group brags on its website that it “directly helped recruit and support seven applicants” for the redistricting commission, three of whom were ultimately appointed.  The group is clearly ideological: it “advances progressive values and fosters local civil society by promoting civic participation and facilitating collaboration among community-based organizations.”

The three liberals the group succeeded in planting on the commission are:  Theresa Quiroz, a “community advocate” who is the “co-chair of the Affordable Housing Coalition” and – surprise! – the Vice President of Empower San Diego; Carlos Marquez III, the “Director of Community Programs and Public Affairs for the San Diego LGBT Community Center,” and David Potter, who has a long record of making financial contributions to Democrat candidates for a variety of offices.

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The recent Wonkettroversy over the shameful blog post attacking Trig Palin, a defenseless handicapped 3 year-old child, has made me realize something completely tangential to the story.

Susannah Fleetwood posted the following excerpt at Hot Air, from the post by the likely soon to be unemployable as a writer, Jack Stuef:

…the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.)

It hadn’t occurred to me before, but it’s the tiny minority of Progressive Democrats who are knuckle-dragging, mouth-frothing, and terminally deranged with hatred for Sarah Palin, who were the original birthers!

The Obama birthers are knock-offs of the original birther movement.

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The INET Bretton Woods summit, summoned by George Soros and those who alternatively hide behind, or gather around him, has now happened.

But before trying to analyze whatever we may discover of what occurred there, it is critical to discern how it fits an overall picture.  For context, one must also see what the IMF and World Bank “communitarian” elitists are up to.

We find that before the Bretton Woods affair, focusing upon “new solutions,” there was a similar IMF meeting, called “New Ideas for a New World.”  It was centered upon “Post-Crisis Policy Making” and occurred March 7-14.  That gave some of them a lot of time to communicate and plan in quiet (the traditional word for that is conspire) when they were not attending official sessions, or making videos.

Then, we see that Soros’ April 8-11 conference ended just as the IMF and World Bank took up their April 11-17 Spring Meetings, just a limo ride away.  “Blossom of Spring, won’t you bloom and grow?”  Let us see what is budding in this intensive series of conferences, by the first one’s own promotional vid.

Here is a collection of pitches for “New Ideas for a New World.”  Hey, they left out the last word, “Order.”  Could it be that some of them know their version of order requires fomenting massive disorder first, the crises not to be wasted?  They also left out the word “Brave,” before “New World.”  Maybe that is because some of them like Huxley, have qualms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsst1U8jidA

This video puts their dexterous foot forward about that March 2011 conference, while their sinister footfalls go on.  So who are these dudes, getting together and yukking it up (well, three out of four globalist manipulators seem to approve) and just how spooky are they?  What are the messages of the Big Money priests, to the unwashed, PITI-ful masses of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance payers?

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In promotion of his excellent book, “Righteous Indignation,” Andrew Breitbart appeared on MSNBC with host Martin Bashir. At one point in the interview, I was sure Ashton Kutcher was going to jump on the set to reveal that the pathetic questions being asked were all in jest. I was half expecting Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert to jump out with him.  But alas, the bizarre, disjointed interview was no joke.

It didn’t take long for Bashir to go straight to the gutter and insinuate Breitbart had something to do with a ridiculous picture of President Obama that an Orange County Republican Party official allegedly e-mailed to her colleagues.

Breitbart responded with genuine surprise. He obviously knew nothing about the photo or the person who allegedly distributed it.

Is this the best MSNBC can do to fill air time?

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Today, in 1985, Coca-Cola released ‘New Coke’ a reformulation of its iconic drink. It, um, didn’t go well. The company, within three months, had reverted back to a formula very close to its original. There is, of course, a metaphor here for our current political environment. Discuss in the comments.

Two pieces Friday, right on the heels of another yesterday and on top of what we already know (if largely ignore), combined to emphasize just how at sea the lovely, formerly prosperous, but now economically zombified California is dooming itself and its citizenry.

Normally this would call for a Gallic shrug – people get the government they elect, and therefore deserve – but for the inescapable likelihood the federal taxpayer will pick up the tab for a bailout, and that whatever strings come with this bailout they inevitably will not rise to the level of getting rid of the problem.

First was a ClimateWire story (subscription required) with the risible headline, “Calif. sees ‘wake-up call,’ opportunities from China’s green-tech industries”. This exposed California’s vision, to anyone having ventured even the remotest, unblinkered survey of the relevant issues, as a tragic farce.

Reporting on California officials emphasizing their vow to replicate a Chinese manufacturing boom, the story read “In a short period, China went from being ‘barely on the map’ to becoming a leader in green technology, which represents both ‘a wake-up call’ and an opportunity for California, a top state official said this week.”

In short, California sees China making the things, hears widespread if unsupportable rumors that they’re widely using the contraptions, as well, and embarks upon a double-whammy binge of mandating them and heavily subsidizing them.

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We have an update on the story of CBS’s refusal to release the full recording of His Presidency Barack Obama calling American workers “Slugs.”

Blogger John Romano of Yes But However has been doing the work of a real reporter, holding CBS to account for their decision to withhold this very newsworthy audio:

Is CBS protecting the President in some way?  Did the White House bring pressure to bear on CBS over the tape?  Is this all much ado about nothing?  CBS News’ “decline to comment” doesn’t help matters much.

Boy, you have to love it when a “news” organization, a company in the business of seeking comment from the subjects of their stories, refuses to comment on one of their own stories.

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As state governments continue to grapple with labor and legacy costs, we’ve seen government employee unions respond with massive rallies and publicity stunts.  Some union bigs have even threatened to turn their job into a “weapon.”

Case in point, of course, is Madison, Wisconsin.  Thousands of union protesters from around the country converged on the state capitol in an effort to intimidate and stop Gov. Scott Walker and his allies from passing a bill that would not only balance the state budget, but allow schools and municipalities to dramatically cut labor costs.

Unionized teachers have been at the head of the line to complain loudly that the public is “ungrateful” for their work.  They speak of being “demoralized” and “undervalued.”  Poor souls.  If the private sector has it so good, go join it and see for yourself.

But we’ve heard very little from police officers and firefighters – large groups of very important public servants.

I have the utmost respect for these individuals.  Unlike unionized public school teachers, they risk their lives every day in order to protect society from thugs and danger and don’t bellyache about it.

According to PoliceOfficerSalary.com, cops make an average of $51,410 annually.  In Michigan, a fairly typical, if not depressed state, teachers make an average of $52,300.  Cops work year-round.  Teachers are contracted to work typically about 185 days a year.  So cops make less, work more, and risk their lives every day.  Where are their complaints?

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Dearborn, Michigan has become a Sharia enclave, much like those populating many European countries. The city of Dearborn, Michigan denied a permit Wednesday for Qur’an-burning Pastor Terry Jones’ planned protest outside the Islamic Center of America on Good Friday.

Islamic supremacists were handed a victory for their violent intimidation and threats. City spokeswoman Mary Laundroche said that Jones’ permit had been denied for “public safety reasons.” In other words, they’re afraid Muslims will riot. And so the rights of free Americans have to be curtailed.

Terry Jones burned a Qur’an. So what? What happened to the freedom of assembly, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of expression? Terry Jones is prohibited from rallying in Michigan for fear of Islamic violence. Is that how far down the Sharia rabbit hole we have gone? Why is it that any time American law comes into conflict with Islamic law, it is American law that has to give way?

How dare they prohibit this march? Nazis marched in Skokie. Americans better stand up to this enforced Sharia. The idea that Muslims in America would get violent because of Jones speaks volumes about Muslims in America, does it not? Why don’t we don’t see Muslims taking to the streets every time there is an honor killing, or a church bombing, or an act of jihad, jihad piracy, forced marriage, or child slavery? Where are they?

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Like any good environmental science graduate, I take the bus to work. This morning, our driver dumped us out two miles before my usual stop. “The President,” he said, pointing to the police roadblock ahead.

As I contemplated the irony of having to walk the rest of the way while President Obama, fundraising cash in hand, took off in his fossil-fuel-powered helicopter, I remembered something he said yesterday.

Speaking in Nevada about the rising cost of gasoline, Obama put in a plug for the administration’s favorite flop, GM’s Chevy Volt: “I’ve been in one of these Chevy Volts. This is a nice car. It drives well.”

As I trudged along the sidewalk, it occurred to me that the President had probably fibbed. He had certainly “been in” the Chevy Volt, but he hadn’t ever driven one enough to know how it actually handles.

When he tried the Chevy Volt last summer, he drove it “10 feet, and probably not above 2 mph,” according to the Associated Press at the time.

So, yes–I suppose the Volt “drives well,” or at least as well as any other vehicle stuck in traffic while the President leaves a giant carbon footprint behind.

Under current law, Social Security is supposed to be an “earned benefit,” where taxes are akin to insurance premiums that finance retirement benefits for workers. And because there is a cap on retirement benefits, this means there also is a “wage-base cap” on the amount of income that is hit by the payroll tax.

For 2011, the maximum annual retirement benefit is about $28,400 and the maximum amount of income subject to the payroll tax is about $107,000.

It appears that President Obama wants to radically change this system so that it is based on a class-warfare model. During the 2008 campaign, for instance, then-Senator Obama suggested that the programs giant long-run deficit could be addressed by busting the wage-base cap and imposing the payroll tax on a larger amount of income.

For the past two years, the White House (thankfully) has not followed through on this campaign rhetoric, but that’s now changing. His Fiscal Commission, as I noted last year, suggested a big hike in the payroll tax burden. And the President reiterated his support for a class-warfare approach earlier this week, leading the Wall Street Journal to opine.

Speaking Tuesday in Annandale, Virginia, Mr. Obama came out for lifting the cap on income on which the Social Security payroll tax is applied. Currently, the employer and employee each pay 6.2% up to $106,800, a level that rises with inflation each year. …Mr. Obama didn’t hint at specifics, though he did run in 2008 on a plan to raise the “tax max” by somewhere between two to eight percentage points for the top 3% of earners. …most of the increase could be paid by the middle class or modestly affluent—i.e., those who merely make somewhat more than $106,800. A 6.2% additional hit on every extra dollar they make above that level is a huge reduction from their take-home pay. If the cap is removed entirely, it will also mean a huge increase in the marginal tax rates that affect decisions to work, invest and save. In a recent paper for the American Enterprise Institute, Andrew Biggs calculates that this and other tax increases Mr. Obama favors would bring the top marginal rate to somewhere between 57% and 68% when factoring in state taxes. Tax levels like these haven’t been seen since the 1970s.

Obama is cleverly avoiding specifics, largely because the potential tax hike could be enormous.

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Released April 15, 2011, Atlas Shrugged Part I has been predictably panned by reviewers and wildly embraced by audiences.

At the movie-review site Rotten Tomatoes, just 8 percent of critics give a thumbs up, compared to 85 percent of moviegoers. Such a sharply split reaction mirrors the reception of Ayn Rand’s original and controversial novel too. Appearing in 300 theaters, the movie’s weekend take on a per-screen basis was a strong $5,640, good enough for third overall behind major-studio releases Rio and Scream 4.

How do the folks behind Atlas Shrugged Part I feel about it all?

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Boy Obama’s deep thinking on energy can get confusing, with yet another ‘green electricity’ plant, in Reno, for some reason serving as today’s backdrop for him to defend high gas prices. And, presumably, his continued wasting of your money on unsustainable, phony, if politically selected enterprises existing not for any reasons of their own merits but to satisfy politicians’ edicts.

This from a guy who previously talked about how now’s not the time to go to Vegas. The better analogy for what he’s doing with your money is going to a ring toss game. Run by Carnies.

But since someone obviously told him he didn’t do himself any favors by mocking that father of ten and telling him to go get the 2011 Unicorn hybrid van, prompting a softer effort to address the issue earlier in the week at Facebook, let’s follow his progression. First, the effort at rehabilitation following the recent sneering performance:

“Energy — we haven’t talked a lot about energy today, but first of all, $4-a-gallon gas really hurts a lot of people around this country.  It’s not because they’re wasteful, but if you’re driving 50 miles to work and that’s the only job you can find, and you can’t afford some hybrid so you’re stuck with the old beater that you’re driving around that gets eight miles a gallon, these gas prices are killing you right now.”

Lest we forget core beliefs amid the current rhetorical fog denying the president has anything to do with high gas prices, here’s Obama in 2008, on where things should be probably about ‘right now’.

So, gas prices should go up, but just gradually (people tend to notice when not too gradual, and call for crazy things like stopping your war on domestic production and domestic consumption).

But, does ‘gradual’ alter that “$4-a-gallon gas really hurts a lot of people”, climbing during a recession (or else, for the optimist, the weakest recovery on record)? Pish posh! There’s a fundamental transformation to take place!

Also so we do not forget, here is the man Obama interviewed, recruited and hired as Energy Secretary, and had in high level planning meetings so we assume he was just saying what they’re all thinking, on where things should be probably about ‘right now’:

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss union complaints to the National Labor Relations Board against Boeing that threaten their ability to do business and potentially, your freedom of speech.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

In Shot Heard Around Business World, Obama’s Labor Board Issues Complaint Against Boeing
Federal labor board seeks to ground Boeing
IAM Complaint to Labor Board
Right to Work States
New labor plan: Nationwide protests

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Teach for America has been a breath of fresh air in some of America’s worst schools.  The program, founded 20 years ago, recruits the best and brightest college graduates to commit to being teachers for at least two years in dozens of inner city schools around the country.

Studies have shown that students in classes with TFA teachers did demonstrably better on math tests than students in non-TFA classrooms.  Many TFA teachers continue beyond their two year commitment.

TFA teachers, by their very nature, are go-getters. Most were excellent university students who could have gone straight into high-paying careers, but chose to spend some of their early years working with American youth. They do what it takes to get the job done.  They’ll stay beyond the final bell.  They essentially toss the collective bargaining agreement out the window.  It’s that type of drive that gives heartburn to union organizers who want the school to operate according to the contract.

Washington Post columnist George Will called Teach For America “a template for transformation.”

Randi Weingarten recently praised TFA in Education Week, saying:

Teach for America has attracted thousands of highly educated, idealistic young people to undertake one of the toughest jobs out there in some of the most challenging environments.…

Educators are all in this together.  One group should not be pitted against another, when our focus must be on the devastating cuts that threaten great harm to a generation of children.

So consider this skunk at the garden party. Leo Casey, vice president the New York City United Federation of Teachers, seems to believe that TFA is somehow bad because too many of the teachers are white. The film clip of his comments comes from EAGtv:

The teaching force in New York City has become steadily whiter under [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg and [former schools Chancellor Joel] Klein and it is connected I think in significant measure to the use of groups like Teach for America which are significantly whiter than the teaching force.

Yes, at the socialist-organized Left Forum, Casey tossed the race card on the table, accusing Teach For America of “whitening” New York City public schools.

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