“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu

Although it’s being deployed in several states like Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and others, there are still many who have never heard of the Colorado Model. What’s worse, despite all the Left’s bemoaning of the “vast right wing conspiracy,” Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or whatever enemy they can dream up, there is still nothing like the Colorado Model on the Right.

In sum, the Colorado Model is one of the Left’s most effective stratagems that was “built” to turn “red states” into “blue states” over a very short period of time (with the exception, perhaps, of the 2010 election cycle). When combined with the tactics of Saul Alinsky and his disciples, the Colorado Model is akin to a Soviet platoon armed with AK-47s mowing down a militia armed with slingshots.

According to a 2008 expose in the Weekly Standard, the Left, in 2004 and 2006 “routed Republicans, capturing the governorship, both houses of the state legislature, a U.S. Senate seat, and two U.S. House seats.”

Conceived by four rich liberals, the Colorado Model is a fairly simple strategy:

Eric O’Keefe, chairman of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance in Chicago, says there are seven “capacities” that are required to drive a successful political strategy and keep it on offense: [1] the capacity to generate intellectual ammunition, [2] to pursue investigations, [3] to mobilize for elections, [4] to fight media bias, [5] to pursue strategic litigation, [6] to train new leaders, and [7] to sustain a presence in the new media. Colorado liberals have now created institutions that possess all seven capacities. By working together, they generate political noise and attract press coverage. Explains Caldara, “Build an echo chamber and the media laps it up.”

(more…)

Following the ratification of a new Seattle-area contract between Boeing and its largest union, the International Association of Machinists, eight months of the union extremists running Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board wrongfully prosecuting Boeing offcially and quietly comes to an end.

[via New York Times]

A top official with the National Labor Relations Board announced on Friday that the agency was dropping its politically charged case against Boeing, in which the agency had accused the company of violating federal labor law by opening a new aircraft production plant in South Carolina.

The N.L.R.B.’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, said the labor board had decided to end the case after the machinists’ union — which originally asked for the case to be brought — had urged the board on Thursday to withdraw it.

According to a statement issued by the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel:

One of the stated goals of the National Labor Relations Act is to foster collective bargaining and productive labor-management relations. From the beginning of this case, and at every step in the process, we have encouraged the parties to find a mutually-acceptable resolution that protects the rights of workers under federal labor law. The parties’ collective bargaining agreement, ratified this week, does just that. (more…)

Connecticut’s union-bought governor, Daniel Malloy, is apparently scheming with the SEIU to unionize his state’s daycare providers and personal care attendants through a secret plan using the flawed method of card-check unionization.

By stripping individuals of their right to vote on whether or not to unionize, Malloy is virtually guaranteeing money (paid by taxpayers) will go into his SEIU cronies’ pockets.

According to Raising Hale’s Zach Janowski, Malloy has  created “working groups” through executive order that will “guide the unionization” over the next year.

The two working groups will meet Friday morning. The Personal Care Attendant Working Group will meet at 10 a.m. and the Family Child Care Working Group will meet at 11 a.m., both in Room 410 of the Capitol.

Malloy created the working groups with executive orders nine and 10. Adding daycare providers alone to the union roles could increase dues revenue by $1 million.

The executive orders also include a card check provision that takes away the ability of daycare owners and PCAs to vote by secret ballot. (more…)

Not that this should be surprising since Marxists have been behind and involved with in the #OccupyWallSt movement since Day One when the September protests began, but the Neo-Coms in the unionized #OWS movement are now getting more formal advice from their philosophical mentors, the Communist Party USA.

In a lengthy post about the importance of the 2012 on the Communist Party USA’s website, Connecticut Communist leader—and friend of Rep. Rosa DeLauro [D-CT]—Joelle Fishman spends the bulk of her time bashing Republicans, the “right wing” and the Tea Party while going into some detail about the CPUSA’s strong ties to the union movement in Connecticut.

Below are excerpts, not in specific order, of  the Communist leader’s lengthy post.

The doors are wide open in every community for 2012 with nationally coordinated grass roots work by labor and by the American Dream movement as a whole.

This election will be decided by the number of doors knocked on, the number of conversations held, the number of voters who are inspired to become a part of this movement and make a difference.

Where we have clubs that are focused on a neighborhood, door to door election work is made to order as a way to bring out the vote and build a club base. In the example I mentioned, we coordinated our participation through the labor movement. It all started with door knocking to find out what the concerns of the voters were in that ward, and it went from there. And don’t forget to bring voter registration cards along! (more…)

Some background to the presentation below:

After observing the trends on the Left for many years, in early February 2009, during a meeting with a friend familiar with the “hydra” that the Left had built, we lamented on how there was nothing on the Right to combat the behemoth that had been built by unions, the institutional Left, with the help of the mainstream media, to tear down the Right and propel Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats to their huge 2008 victories.

Knowing what was on the agenda, “we’re finished as a nation,” was the overriding feeling. A short time later, the first Tea Party rally was held.

During the summer of 2009, I attended my first Tea Party meeting as an observer. It was, as they say, beautiful chaos. People who, for the most part, had been apathetic to politics were suddenly engaged and outraged. Nevertheless, I left that meeting with the thought, ‘these people really have no idea what they’re up against.’

A little more than a year later, as we were launching the Concord Project for the mid-term GOTV , there was opportunity to speak at several other Tea Party events. As part of the presentation, several slides were devoted to “what we’re up against” (explaining the leviathan that the Left had built).

Following that meeting, someone stated that the attendees loved the information, but it “scared the crap out of them.” This was surprising since the Tea Party had been in existence for more than 18 months at that point. How can you fight something you don’t understand? More importantly, how can you expect to win? (more…)

Lone Republican NLRB Member Brian Hayes shut out of process…

It seems that Friday afternoons are always the time to drop job-killing news on America’s job creators. In this case, the union appointees within Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board have issued a press release stating they will be issuing their final rule on ambush elections on November 30th.

In mid-June, the union-controlled NLRB issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making on the procedures governing NLRB-conducted elections. Despite the fact that unions already win more than 60% of all secret-ballot elections and the median time frame between a union petition for and election and the election itself is 38 days, the proposed rule change would like shorten that time drastically, creating an “ambush” union campaign on targeted employers and employees.

When the NLRB’s union appointees issued the notice, it was met with a tremendous outcry from America’s employers, as well as the sole GOP member at the NLRB.

The board’s lone Republican, Brian Hayes, issued a vigorous dissent, saying the proposal would result in the type of “quickie elections” union leaders have long sought. Hayes claimed elections could be held in as little as 10 to 21 days from the filing of a petition, giving employers less of a chance to make their case.

“Make no mistake, the principal purpose for this radical manipulation of our election process is to minimize or, rather, to effectively eviscerate an employer’s legitimate opportunity to express its views about collective bargaining,” Hayes wrote.

On Friday afternoon, with controversial SEIU lawyer Craig Becker’s recess appointment to the NLRB ending at the end of the year (rendering the NLRB unable to issue the rule change), the NLRB issues a press release stating that it would be issuing its decision on November 30th. (more…)

According to the Los Angeles Times, with the exception of existing in locked freezers in Russia and U.S. labs, the smallpox virus was eradicated in 1978. Yet, in a no-bid contract, the Obama administration has given $443 million of American taxpayers’ money for a “experimental smallpox drug” to a bio-defense company, Siga, controlled by billionaire Democrat-donor Ron Perleman and whose board ex-SEIU boss Andy Stern sits on.

According to the Times:

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company’s financial demands, senior officials replaced the government’s lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a “sole-source” procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation’s biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government’s specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews. [Emphasis added.]

Although Siga’s questionable government deal may eventually mean $2.8 billion in revenues for the company, Siga’s profits would have to be split with its former partner in a failed merger, PharmAthene. In September, after years of litigation following a failed merger, a Delaware court ruled that PharmAthene was entitled to 50% of Siga’s profits from its ST-246 smallpox vaccines. (more…)

In February, when the Democratic National Committee chose Charlotte, North Carolina as the host city for its September 2012 convention, it left the door wide open for the Charlotte-area’s union-free workforce to be discriminated against in favor union workers. Although Charlotte’s Democrat Mayor, Anthony Foxx  (who is facing GOP challenger Scott Stone in Tuesday’s election), has denied the allegation, it appears Foxx has been misleading Charlotte residents on both his (alleged) job creation record as well as the outsourcing of DNC convention jobs to union labor.

On Friday, RedState’s Ben Howe broke the story of the Democratic National Committee discriminating against a Charlotte-area business for the 2012 convention because its workers were not unionized.

When John told him he was not, the Committee member told him, “We were just told that we cannot accept bids unless they are from companies that are unionized.”

Politico also had another Charlotte business owner who was told the DNC was looking to use union labor for its Convention:

He was told the Convention was looking to use local contractors to run the project, but union labor to staff it — and then, he said, he was told he would have to sign an agreement stating he would use union labor for the project.

“We asked the question, how do you want to use local when no one local is unionized?” Webb told POLITICO.

(more…)

If there’s one thing about the Marxists controlling today’s unions, it is that they are predictable. If you watch them long enough, the pattern is always the same: Demand the extreme with something attainable in mind as the fallback position.

In labor relations, the making of outrageous demands is a classic negotiating tactic at the bargaining table because union negotiators know company negotiators will only agree to what they are willing to based on business economics. In politics, however, the union tactic is an absolute winner because their prey (politicians, many of whom are bought by unions anyway) always fall for it and, besides, it’s only the taxpayers who are stuck with the tab. One thing though, whether at the bargaining table or in politics, unions always reveal their hidden agenda—eventually.

In the case of the #OccupyWallStreet, union bosses were eager to capitalize on a slick ad campaign and some miscreant professional protesters to create a “movement” to aid their own sagging fortunes. Despite the multiple rapes, the assaults and drug dealing, open sex, public masturbation,  anti-American rants, and violence, from the beginning, unions were eager to jump on board with the Neo-Communist squatters, their anti-Semites and their useful idiots in lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. Since then, unions have paid for protesters, water, food, legal fees, advertising and, in West Virginia, the AFL-CIO has even offered its property to use as a new “occupy” site.

Despite their more ambitious young allies who have called for the seizing private property and the “de-privatization of everything,” however, unions have known that their movement wouldn’t lead to a fully Marxist nation (yet) and, as a result, have had a more attainable goal in mind from the beginning. In addition, with winter approaching, union bosses know they need to being this movement to a close sometime soon and, up until now, they haven’t formally issued their real demands. (more…)

A powerful United Food & Commercial Workers local union (348s) in New York was closed for business on Thursday as police arrested three family members who run the union local.

Police arrested the president, former president, and treasurer of Local 348 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) on Thursday. Anthony Fazio Sr., John Fazio Jr., and Anthony Fazio Jr. were charged with racketeering, extortion, money laundering, and witness tampering.

The Fazios used their positions in the union to extort money from employers unionized by the UFCW. They stole more than $2.4 million from union members and employers over the course of 16 years, according to the indictment.

According to Courthouse News Service:

The indictment accuses the Fazios of “extorting, soliciting and obtaining cash payments, in violation of federal and state labor law, from business owners who employees were represented by Local 348,” to enrich themselves and others. (more…)

As Ohio’s SB5 (collective bargaining reform) goes to a vote on November 8th, pressure is being ramped up in the final week and a half. According to the Columbus Dispatch, unions and their fellow reform opponents have bankrolled the We Are Ohio anti-SB5 campaign to the tune of $19,048,680, dwarfing the pro-reform Building A Better Ohio’s $7.6 million.

Democrats and their union cronies have dominated Ohio for decades and the collective bargaining reforms signed into law earlier this year pose a very real threat to their continued base of power. As a result, the Democrats did something incredibly arrogant on Thursday afternoon when the official Twitter account for the Ohio Democratic Party released the names of several businesses that have contributed to SB5, then told their 4,000 followers to “contact them.”

Although the Ohio Democrats promised to tweet the names of the businesses and outside organizations “bankrolling unfair attacks on Ohio’s middle class,” they only listed three businesses before removing all four tweets. (more…)

…Or, Unions Win, Right-to-Work States Win, You Lose

With less than two weeks before the November 8th elections and with the polls leaning toward repealing SB5, it appears that Ohioans are ready to vote to increase their taxes and unemployment. Ultimately, that is a choice Ohio taxpayers will be making and fiscal self-immolation is certainly within their rights and, frankly, there are states who would be all-too happy to see Ohio’s unions put the final nail in the coffin in the Buckeye State.

Curiously, though, after months of being pounded by a multi-million dollar union campaign of fear-mongering and deceptive propaganda, there seems to be very few Ohioans who know the true economic consequences of what happens when they repeal SB 5—and the unions, in their attack ads, certainly aren’t telling them either.

Even before John Kasich attempted to wrest control of Ohio’s budget from union bosses’ death grip, the state has had one foot in the dirt (so to speak). Thanks to Ohio being a forced union state and its years of union-cronyism (a state where non-union business owners are shot), the state’s private-sector has been shrinking while its public sector payroll has remained obese.

This public-sector bloat has led to liabilities that, with the repeal of SB 5, are only going to get worse. Below is a graph (view here) that shows the projections of Ohio’s school district deficits, using data from 2010. (more…)

#GlobalRevolution Brought To You By Big Government, Big Business & Big Labor

Nearly a year ago, when the Tunisian uprising sparked the beginning of what would later be dubbed the Arab Spring, many in the Western World were transfixed by the seemingly spontaneous popular uprisings. However, what many have viewed as the impromptu uprisings of the oppressed appear to be more the result of a quietly-conducted campaign called 21st Century Statecraft that was birthed and nurtured by the U.S. State Department, some of America’s most well-known corporations, the U.S. labor movement and the global Left.

Now, as the American Autumn unfolds, combined with the #OccupyTogether movement taking root in cities around the world, it appears that the engineers behind Arab Spring are deploying their 21st Century Statecraft model in the United States.

What is 21st Century Statecraft?

In short, 21st Century Statecraft is an initiative of the U.S. State Department to change the world through social media. Simply put, it is regime change through internet activism. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (referred to as “the godmother of 21st-century statecraft“) describes it on the State Department’s website: (more…)

Over the last three weeks, as the world has watched the spectacle of the Zuccotti Park protesters in lower Manhattan, some have been inspired and, in many cases, repulsed at the protesters occupying the park. Since the protests have now garnered the backing from the professional protesters from the AFL-CIO’s 56 unions and the SEIU, as well as implicit and explicit support from the Obama Administration and Democrats, there is more relevance to examining not just what the protesters are protesting but what they are promoting.

Meet “the Collaborators” [aka Baklava [sic] Boy and his friend. It was a chance encounter (the taking of this picture and the subsequent conversation) on Day One of #OccupyWallSt that gave some insight into the minds of the Neo-Communists protesting across the country.

Since most observers know that the #OccupyWallSt protesters are protesting capitalism and free-markets (generally), as well as banks and “corporatism” (specifically), other than a general destruction of America’s economic system, there has been a lot of questions as to what protesters’ end goals are.

As the #OccupyWallSt protests have been designed and populated by a hybrid of hard-core Marxists, from the leftist unions, to socialists and actual Communists, there have the stated goals ranging from the seizure of workplaces, schools and the “de-privatization of everything,” to the AFL-CIO’s more “moderate” goal of a worldwide tax on financial transactions. Then, there is also the unofficial proposed list of demands that has drawn a good deal of ridicule.

Despite all of this, however, it was ‘The Collaborators” who gave insight as to how the Neo-Coms plan to reorganize society—and that is through the system they call “collaboratism.” (more…)

Saturday, marked the second week of the #OccupyWallSt protests. With the endorsements of union bosses now firmly in their back pockets, protesters in New York celebrated the anniversary of their campout in a New York City park by shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge. This, of course, led to the NYPD to arrest many of the—more than 700, according to the New York Times.

In a tense showdown above the East River, the police arrested more than 700 demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests who took to the roadway as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon.

The police said it was the marchers’ choice that led to the enforcement action.

While some of the Neo-Communists (“Neo-Coms“) are purposely depriving themselves of shelter and (in the case of yesterday’s arrests) freedom out of sheer ideology, at least one appears to be getting paid—handsomely—to be part of the Marxist madness.

Meet Jeff Rae*:

Among Saturday’s arrestees was one Jeff Rae (@JeffRae), from Washington, DC.  Mr. Rae describes himself on Twitter as a “rabble rouser, agitator, organizer, labor activist.” According to Mr. Rae, he was arrested for ‘failure to obey order, prohibited use of roadway, and blocking traffic.’ [In other words, Mr. Rae was being a disobedient civilian.] (more…)

On Saturday, September 17, Marxist protesters (NeoComs) planned to take over Wall Street. While they had wanted to have some 20,000 protesters come to New York, converge on and stay for months in order to ‘tear down the machine,’ their numbers were far fewer, and their goal of occupying Wall St. never materialized as police relegated them to Zuccotti Park a block away.

In talking to several on the first day of their protest, their inspiration seemed to be a Marxist blend of  Communism and Anarchism, sprinkled with a tinge of comic-book (or Hollywood) flare from the character ‘V’ from ‘V for Vendetta.’ By Day Three, however, they made their demands more clear, calling for the seizure of workplaces and schools, as well as the ‘de-privatization of everything.’

Over the last two weeks, their numbers have dwindled to just a few hundred and there have been well over a hundred arrests. The protesters have been ordered to remove their Guy Fawkes masks and, for the most part, have set up a campground in downtown Manhattan, with take out food called in for them from around the nation.

While they’ve had visits from such Left-wing luminaries as Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Roseanne Barr, and Dr. Cornell West, they have not had as much coverage from the mainstream media nor have they had the support of the real jackboots in the fight for a Marxist revolution—today’s union bosses.

That is, they haven’t had union support until now. (more…)

In yet another example the Obama Administration’s pandering to its union cronies while thumbing its nose at the other 88% of America that is union free, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will be headlining (at taxpayer expense) to an AFL-CIO “summit” later this week in Minneapolis. The subject of the conference? How to unionize young people (and others).

Targeting younger workers has been part of the AFL-CIO’s strategy since Richard Trumka took over the reins of the AFL-CIO in 2009. Elizabeth Shuler, the AFL-CIO’s Secretary Treasurer, has been spearheading the effort and is hosting the “Next Up: Young Workers Summit” in Minneapolis later this week.

The summit was announced back in March on the Communist-run People’s World website:

The AFL-CIO’s new young workers advisory council is taking charge of the movement to invigorate the labor movement – and make its leadership more youthful – says Liz Shuler, the federation’s secretary-treasurer.

One key step, she said, will be a second “Next Up” summit for young workers and activists, to be held in Minneapolis-St. Paul from Sept. 28-Oct. 2.

Shuler has led the effort to make labor’s leadership younger and look more like its members.  The first summit, in D.C. last year, drew approximately 300 delegates from around the country.  Shuler hopes for 800 this time. (more…)

Last week, the public comment period closed on the Obama Labor Department’s proposed regulatory change to alter a 1959 law that would make employers and their service providers (attorneys and various consultants) file financial disclosure statements and make personal information public, all in order to give union bosses hit lists of individuals and companies to target. Prior to the closing of the public comment period, there were nearly 6,000 comments—4,000 of which came within the last ten days or so as more people became aware of  the union-backed proposed rule.

So far, it has been remarkable that almost no attention has been given to this issue on Capitol Hill. However, it may be that very few have actually understood the DOL proposal’s unprecedented overreach and broad ramifications until these last few weeks. Yet, since so many of the law firms who donate to high-ranking Democrats (as well as to Republicans) will likely be deemed ‘persuaders’ and be required to report their incomes under the DOL’s proposal, there may yet be some interest raised in Congress over the issue.

Nevertheless, in addition to many of the comments from individuals urging the union appointees within the Department of Labor to drop this unbelievably broad proposal, several larger groups expressed their harsh criticism through their comments.

Among those comments, Over 1500 came from persons affiliated with the Society of Human Resource Management. Outside of attorneys, with 250,000 human resource professionals, SHRM members are probably the single largest grouping of individual service providers who will be affected by the DOL’s proposed change.

What follows below are some excerpts [with emphasis added] of a few of the comments received by the Department of Labor: (more…)

Sometimes it is difficult to see the forest through the trees. Such seems to be the case of the media’s reporting on the matter of the union appointees at President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board and their prosecution of Boeing. This latest example of the media being blinded is the alleged ‘smoking gun‘ that was reported on Friday. However, if the media were to actually look at the timeline in the Boeing  drama against the ’smoking gun,’ it appears they’re being duped by just another well-orchestrated smoke screen to cover the Machinists own potentially unlawful retaliatory actions against the Boeing employees in South Carolina.

On Friday, various media outlets echoed the union story line that there has been a smoking gun somewhere buried deep in the far recesses of some corporate filing cabinet in Boeing headquarters.

According to the union’s story line, the smoking gun is the content of slides on several PowerPoint presentations (view here) given to executives, beginning in April of 2009. The plot, according to the Machinists, are revealed by the ‘Project Gemini’—Boeing’s slides weighing the pros and cons of opening a second assembly line outside of Puget Sound. These slides, according to the union, ’prove’ Boeing’s intent was to ‘punish’ Machinists union members.

The union even goes so far as to state on its website:

“The Project Gemini documents prove what we’ve suspected all along – that Boeing moved to Charleston to punish our members for exercising their union rights,” said Connie Kelliher, a spokeswoman for District 751.

While ‘Project Gemini’ clearly shows that the company was interested in a second source of production in South Carolina because of “lower labor costs” and its “current hostage situation,” the problem with the union’s (and NLRB’s) entire evil corporate conspiracy theory is in the actual time line of events.

(more…)

NLRB Chairman’s Former Law Partner Defends Union Violence

A little over a month ago, in a case that drew national attention, a man was targeted at his home, shot and injured, all because he dared to run union free business. Now, in Buffalo, New York, a case involving outrageous allegations of labor-racketeering and union violence aimed at non-union construction workers and company owners is proceeding through the judicial process. Its outcome, however, may have wide-ranging ramifications on a national level.

Forget for a moment that a man was stabbed in the throat, hot coffee thrown on non-union workers, sand put into gas tanks and a woman threatened with sexual assault. Forget the fact that the judge presiding over the federal racketeering case against Operating Engineers, Local 22, in Buffalo, NY ultimately rejected the AFL-CIO’s attempt to file a amicus brief, the sheer fact that the national AFL-CIO even attempted to intervene speaks volumes:

“We’re not condoning the allegations or arguing that union officials are completely immune from prosecution,” said Jonathan D. Newman, a lawyer for the AFL-CIO. “Instead, we simply want to make sure that the [federal law] is not interpreted in a way that could have a chilling effect on legitimate union activity.” (more…)