Liberty Chick (otherwise known as Mandy) is a blogger and activist whose political views would probably best categorize her as a "conservative constitutionalist.” Standing on the principles of a smaller, more fiscally responsible government, a free market economy, and respect for individual rights, she votes on principles before parties. As an activist, she supports causes and organizations that share these same views, and most recently began serving as the NJ state representative for The 9.12 Project, and as a coalition committee member of New Jersey Tea Parties United.
Mandy's own upbringing has taught her first hand the rewards that come from hard work and personal responsibility, having been raised in an impoverished household by a single mother of great strength and character. After attending Trenton State College in NJ and training as a classical flutist, Mandy worked for some time in music education and outreach before transitioning into information systems and a career in new media and internet strategy.
Mandy's writing and research interests include exposing waste, fraud, abuse and corruption in social welfare programs, political 527 groups, PACs, and labor unions (with a concentration on SEIU and ACORN).
And yes, she has lived the life of a union member...by force. Thankfully, she was placed on a layoff list and hired right back as a manager almost 15 years ago and she's been free ever since.
You can follow Liberty Chick at her blogand on Twitter.
Liberty Chick
Firestone Revisited: Was Toyota a Takedown Target in the Name of NUMMI?
by Liberty ChickAs a gloomy, snowy February came to a close in the nation’s capital, so did the most recent circus attraction on Capitol Hill. Several days of congressional hearings on the Toyota recalls didn’t exactly deliver many more facts for Americans but they did leave behind a plethora of speculation and opinion to feast upon. While the saga now known as GasPedalGate flailed around quietly for several years, it’s suddenly taken center stage and today plays out like a bad made-for-TV-movie, complete with its villain, its victims, and most telling, a very long list of opportunists.
To see the full picture, the story begins in California with the history of General Motors and the United Auto Workers in the 1980’s, and GM’s rescue by Toyota through a little venture called NUMMI. Today, in 2010, the NUMMI chapter nears its close. But before it does, the Fremont, California plant and its rank and file workers will serve as unwilling pawns in what could turn out to be an orchestrated blueprint for incapacitating the strongest competitor to Government Motors and one of the most significant threats to labor unions here and around the globe.
Today’s rendition has been so manipulated and so propagandized, the facts have all but been removed from the storyline. The bread crumb trail of truth has been trampled upon and so broadly scattered about, the trail is almost beyond the point of recognition.
The story that emerges is the collusion of forces in Big Labor, Big Government, Big Journalism, Big Litigators and Big Progressive Philanthropy. And no, I’m not talking Breitbart sites.
The History of NUMMI
When a bankrupt and bailed out General Motors officially announced in June 2009 that it would be pulling out of its joint venture with Toyota, it marked the end of another era.
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Menendez NJ Recall Update: The Tea Party Goes to Court
by Liberty ChickIt’s Not About the Recall, It’s About the First Amendment
Review of case briefs, case law research, and consultation with a number of attorneys, judges, and legal professionals contributed to the writing of this article.
Tea Party activists might be smarter than some would like to think. And depending upon the outcome of a court case later this month, they might also play a role in setting legal precedent.
When New Jersey state election officials denied their submission to initiate a recall effort against U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, calling it unconstitutional, a grass-roots recall committee’s constitutional instincts kicked into full gear. Attorneys for the committee, themselves Tea Party activists, filed to appeal the agency decision and began writing their supporting brief.
Meanwhile, seemingly everyone was now weighing in as a legal expert. Some insist the decision is simple: NJ has no constitutional authority to recall a US Senator; despite what its state constitution says, that authority is reserved for the federal government alone. For weeks now, legal scholars, political pundits and the media have been chattering online about the case, now before the Appellate Division in the Superior Court of New Jersey, some treating it more like a sideshow and an outlet to take pot shots at Tea Partiers than a legitimate court proceeding with real constitutional significance.
But Dan Silberstein and Richard Luzzi, attorneys for the Committee to Recall Robert Menendez, a committee initiated by members of the Sussex County Tea Party, see this case in an entirely different light. They insist this case is not about whether a recall order from the state is judicially enforceable against a United States Senator, rather, it’s all about protecting the first amendment right to free speech. And they are taking the matter very seriously. Based upon recent developments in the case, apparently so are several others, including some high profile legal experts and the courts.
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SEIU’s Shameless Abuse of Olympic Games Tragedy
by Liberty ChickIn the wake of yesterday’s terrible tragedy outside of Vancouver at the Whistler Sliding Center, where Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili sadly lost his life, safety is on the minds of many. Only hours before the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, the 21-year old lost control of his sled at 88mph and was catapulted over the track wall into a steel support column. All throughout the week, coaches, commentators, and even other Olympians have questioned the safety of the track, as nearly a dozen other athletes have also crashed during practice runs, including a Romanian women’s slider who was knocked unconscious and defending Olympic luge champion Armin Zoeggeler of Italy.
The President of the World Luge Federation said the track is too fast and thinks it is a planning mistake, while Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg questioned whether athletes were being treated as “crash test dummies“. The shocking footage of the accident was replayed all throughout the day and evening yesterday, leaving horrified viewers focused on discussion about the safety of the track.
But in all of this shock, horror and sadness over the tragic death of an athlete in his prime and the dangers of the track on which he lost his young life, what has the SEIU focused on?
Food safety. (Translated = unionizing)
Reports of the horrible accident in Vancouver began surfacing in the press as early as 12:30 pm EST Friday. Yet, the SEIU still felt their unionization Food Safety concerns were so paramount that they went ahead and issued a press release anyway, after 5:00 pm EST:
“Sodexo is providing catering services for athletes during this key moment in their sporting careers, and we’re concerned about the food they will be providing,” charged the SEIU in Friday’s press release.
It’s not as though the SEIU could not have known about the tragedy – the story had been broadcast all over the news for at least five hours before SEIU pushed out its attack. If they didn’t know, then they’re even more disconnected from reality than we thought they were.
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Union Bosses Target 86-Yr Old Volunteer Crossing Guard
by Liberty ChickFirst, they came for the Babysitter. Then, they came for the Eagle Scout. Now, they’ve come for the Crossing Guard.
Warren Eschenbach, an 86-year-old a retired Wausau Water Works employee volunteers his time as a crossing guard at the Riverview Elementary School in Wausau, Wisconsin. After the Wausau School District built an area just outside an intersection at the school’s location for parents to pickup their kids from the school, the intersection became busier than usual for a short time every day. So, Eschenbach did a noble thing. He went over to the school and spoke with parents, kids and administrators, and he volunteered to patrol the area at pickup time to make sure kids got to their parents’ cars and that others crossed the streets safely. After all, he worked for five years as a crossing guard at the Franklin Elementary School up until three years ago. He lives two doors down and it’s for a half hour every day. Who could take issue with that?
Well, apparently union bosses can.
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California’s Class Warfare: PLAs Pit Union and Non-Union Workers Against Each Other
by Liberty ChickTen minutes prior to the start of a December 15th, 2009 board meeting of the Riverside Community College District in California, board members are handed a 52-page document filled with millions of dollars in projects to be funded by the district’s taxpayers, who themselves are struggling under the state’s 12.4% unemployment rate. The document, a draft Project Labor Agreement (PLA), will commit long-term construction and ancillary projects for the next several years to labor unions.
At least twenty-three members of the public, many of them local private business owners who oppose the PLA, have attended to publicly comment on the proposal. Two of the board members have never even seen the PLA prior to today, and have asked for a special session to review it. Despite opposition from the public, and the concern voiced by those two board members, the remaining three board members have moved that the Board of Trustees authorize Chancellor Greg Gray to negotiate the final PLA with the Riverside and San Bernardino Building and Construction Trade Councils. Board Trustees Virginia Blumenthal and Janet Green dissented.
So, without adequate time for all to review the draft, without any backup analysis provided to justify the use of up to $350,000,000 in Measure C taxpayer funds, without giving the public reasonable time to voice their opinions, and with an unemployment rate of over 12% when non-union workers are in even greater need of jobs than union workers…why would three of Riverside’s five board members vote to move forward with a final negotiation anyway? Why the rush? Residents and business owners in Riverside are wondering the same thing, and hope to have the chance to weigh in before the PLA’s final draft is signed.
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Union Boss to Members: Shut the F*%k Up, You Motherf*%kers!
by Liberty ChickUnited Auto Workers (UAW) union rank and file members shout down their own UAW leadership in a heated meeting on January 24th, as their UAW leader loses it at the podium. Sunday’s meeting in California made last summer’s Town Halls look like a family picnic, after a few choice words from their UAW leader spurred the crowd of rank and file members to erupt in screaming and chaos. At one point, another attendee tries to reason with the crowd, pleading “we have women and children in here that are scared.”
WARNING: Strong language, angry-town-hall-mob-like-behavior
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SEIU’s Secret Weapon: If Obama’s Plan Fails, Brandish the Shareholder Resolution
by Liberty ChickWe saw their fury throughout 2009: “Capitalism is Dead”, “Kill the Corporation”, “Bust Up Big Banks”, “Greed Kills”, “Bank of America, Bad for America”. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) led an all-out assault on Wall Street – and on capitalism and corporations – coining words and phrases that have since become common staples in the vocabulary of the bank-bashing craze. That fury hit a fever pitch last March when word of the AIG bonuses went public. It was the SEIU out in front of the protests, at AIG offices, and bussing protestors to the homes of AIG executives.
The months that followed saw more of the same. In April, SEIU hailed the ousting of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner. That same week, it stepped up its battleplan with the Mother of all Corporate Campaigns against Ken Lewis, Bank of America CEO and Chairman – complete with videos, rolling billboards, smear sites, petition drives, letter campaigns, media blitzes and more, while it placed equal attention on Bank of America, forcing the company to respond with a $40 million image boosting campaign of television and print ads.
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Is New Jersey’s State Constitution Unconstitutional? Campaign to Recall Senator Menendez Turns Into Battle of the Constitutions
by Liberty ChickNew Jersey’s State Constitution is unconstitutional. That’s apparently what one New Jersey election official seems to think.
A committee seeking approval from the state to petition registered voters on whether to move forward with a special election to recall US Senator Robert Menendez was denied that request, in a letter on January 11th which stated that the US Constitution does not provide for such a proceeding.
But in 1993, the people of New Jersey overwhelmingly voted to reserve for themselves “the power to recall, after at least one year of service, any elected official in this State or representing this State in the United States Congress” (emphasis added), and in 1995 made this amendment to their state constitution under Article I, 2b.
This has left many New Jersey voters wondering why Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells, a member of the Executive Branch, not the Judicial Branch, would take it upon herself and her position to declare the NJ state Constitution unconstitutional. After reviewing the committee’s preliminary appeal statement, a judge in the Superior Court of NJ Appellate Division has just issued an order allowing a motion to accelerate the appeal.
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Why Senator Jim Demint is Right to Challenge TSA Unions
by Liberty ChickOn Christmas Day, what was intended to be a far worse terrorist attack was narrowly thwarted, thanks to the prudence and bravery of a handful of airline passengers and flight crew. No one knows yet how Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (aka “Farouk1986″) made it past every airport security checkpoint, with bomb materials literally strapped to his groin, and boarded a Northwest Airlines flight ultimately headed for Detroit. Nor does anyone know how the 23-year old made it onto one watch list but not the no-fly list.
But the now infamous PantyBomber incident has since sparked a heated debate over workers in the Transportation Security Administration that has both Democrats and Republicans fuming, and labor unions chomping at the bit to wage a war of an entirely different kind.
In October, 2008, then candidate Obama wrote a letter to John Gage, President of the American Federation of Government Employees union, promising collective bargaining rights to TSA workers and vowing to make it a priority for his administration.
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Hijacking the Private Sector, the SEIU and Blago Way
by Liberty ChickThe current state of the economy has placed a large burden on private business, especially on small businesses and the self-employed. Subscribing to a Keynesian tenet of financing debt and increasing government spending to boost output, lawmakers are repeatedly giving themselves cover for splurging. After the first bailouts came the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, an urgent remedy that Congress and the White House insisted was all about “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”
And as spending has increased, so has the size of the public employment sector. Meanwhile, the private sector will soon be close to earning a coveted placement on the endangered species list.
As the union leaders’ plundering of the private sector has continued, this doesn’t mean that they have abandoned unionizing private sector workers altogether. In fact, while the number of private sector jobs overall is down, the number of unionized private sector jobs is trending upward, right alongside the public sector growth.
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Unions Out for Blood at the Red Cross – Time for a Hostage Negotiator?
by Liberty ChickAs one Change to Win labor union blocks a Red Cross blood delivery today, what will a health care system taken hostage by labor unions look like tomorrow?
As Change to Win’s Anna Burger is leading her coalition of unions to lobby all around the country “until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on,” one of her unions is busy blocking the delivery of a Red Cross blood donation to a hospital and picketing private companies’ blood drives.
The Red Cross, which has union workers in various locations who are covered both by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and SEIU, says union leaders are trying to disrupt the Red Cross Blood Services operations by going on strike.
That’s right. At a time of year when blood donations are at their lowest levels and are the most urgently needed, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, SEIU’s sister union and member of Burger’s Change to Win labor coalition, took advantage of the opportunity to go on strike on December 4th against the American Red Cross Blood Services Penn-Jersey Region. Local 929 initiated the strike at midnight just as their contract expired. Hours later, the Red Cross was forced to take legal action when some strikers illegally blocked one blood delivery in particular
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Obama’s Jobs Summit: The Invisible Hand of SEIU and ACORN
by Liberty ChickAs President Obama concludes his first jobs summit, almost a year into his presidency, the nature of the guest list hints at a deliberate initiative that’s been underway for over 15 years – and it’s not one of the obvious presumptions that most would make. Notice that of the list of leaders invited, the majority are labor union leaders, leaders of businesses with government contracts, or leaders of businesses that operate on partial public funding. There is a common element across most of the businesses represented: in one capacity or another, even if they are private sector businesses, most on the list benefit from some form of public money.
There is a legal precedent over 15 years old that is the pervasive push behind such a premise, one that was the product of ACORN and labor union coalitions. And judging by Change to Win / SEIU’s Anna Burger’s plan for today’s jobs summit, it’s evident that this precedent is in play as we speak.
It’s no coincidence that in the wake of America’s economic crisis, some lawmakers have been pushing for infusions of public funds into the private sector. No, we’re not just talking bank and insurance company bailouts. We’re talking about tax credit and incentive programs, health care reform proposals, green jobs programs, energy efficiency initiatives, and even real estate development companies. As the conservative accusations of socialism have begun to sink in with progressive leaders -especially with union leaders, who are especially sensitive to being perceived as public spenders – the language has been changing. Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” doesn’t sound so scary when it’s wrapped in the glove of words like “co-ops” and “public-private partnerships” and “national service”, which are now quickly being mainstreamed into the rhetoric.
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SEIU and the Law of Intended Consequences
by Liberty ChickSEIU has made a good living off the law of unintended consequences. Or so the labor union would have you think. The reality is, there’s nothing unintended about the consequences they reap. And when it comes to local, state and federal lawmaking, SEIU banks on the propensity of the American people to respond to emotion rather than logic, and orchestrated concern that becomes a popular mantra. Even some SEIU members (those brave enough to say so) plead for the public to investigate the union’s true intentions. But if you’re just an average citizen disengaged from the issues, before you know it, you’re ignoring the consequences staring you right between the eyes.
This past September Lisa Snyder, a 35 year old Michigan mother, made the news when she received a disturbing letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services. In it, the letter warned her that she was in violation of the law. Her offense? Watching a handful of neighborhood kids each morning for about 20 minutes as they waited at the end of her driveway for the school bus to arrive, with the blessing of their parents. State law in Michigan prohibits the home supervision of unrelated children for more than four weeks in a year without a child care provider license. Turns out a neighbor had complained and the Michigan Department of Human Services, the watchdog for home child care licensing, intervened by sending the warning letter. In Michigan, state employees for the DHS are represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union. Coincidentally, the union that represents the state’s home child care workers? Also the UAW.
AFSCME: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
FCC: Family child care | FNN: Family, friend and neighbor
” Building a Union of Family Child Care and FFN Providers”
by SEIU & AFSCME members to the National Women’s Law Center
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ObamaCare: Show Me the SEIU Money!
by Liberty ChickThroughout the debate over health care reform, there has been a great deal of discussion over the role of special interests in influencing the votes of lawmakers. Liberal democrats, progressive think tanks and mainstream media have repeatedly accused anyone who opposes government run health care of standing with special interests instead of with needy Americans, painting them as greedy and selfish. And now that a bill has passed in the House and is on its way to the Senate, big government proponents of a ‘public option’ are already attacking their fellow Democrats’ own bill, insisting that it may as well have been written by special interests.
Funny they should mention that. Because, just like the stimulus bill, it was written by special interests.
While it’s true that Republicans certainly receive their fair share of donations from the health industry, the surprising truth is that Democrats actually receive more. Because there’s one giant special interest sector that everyone seems to be leaving out: Big Labor. And in the monarchy of labor these days, there is one queen that’s at the top of the money chain, and that’s the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the top billing union in its parent coalition, Change to Win. Especially when it comes to the issue of health care.
Let’s start first by breaking down the numbers.
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SEIU: Building a New American Health Care Empire?
by Liberty ChickMost average Americans know little about the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Some know them as the people in purple shirts that beat up attendees at the town halls this summer. Some equate them to ACORN, or to the Obama administration. While there is some truth to all of the above, there is for certain one title that every voting American should be bestowing upon SEIU, and that is the title of “special interest”.
From 2000 to current, SEIU has spent at least $187,500,000 through combined lobbying, PAC and 527s group donations and expenses on candidates and policy issues – nearly 100% of which went to Democrats and to liberal policy initiatives. Much has been focused on influencing universal health care, as well as other indirectly related health legislation, such as public nutrition, food safety, research, and environmental health – all part of SEIU’s supposed plan for Building a New American Health Care System. Because, in their words, they “will not stop until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on.”
So really…why is SEIU so invested in health care?
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