The controversial anti-piracy legislation that set off an unprecedented wave of opposition from the technology sector is withering on the vine, with additional Members of Congress withdrawing support for the bills on an almost hourly basis.

What’s interesting is that of the over 30 Members who have recently come out in opposition to the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the vast majority have been Republicans, who have long been considered the stodgy side of the aisle when compared to their tech-savvy Democratic counterparts. While the tech world, who Dems claim to support at every turn, aggressively protests SOPA and PIPA, the very officials they helped to elect – including Democratic party leaders – have abandoned them in the face of their most important issue: internet privacy.

The word on the Hill that in the past 24-hours alone Sens. Rubio, Cornyn, Hatch, DeMint, Kirk, Grassley, Blunt, Boozman, and Ayotte have all come out in opposition of PIPA, with several among them withdrawing their original co-sponsorship of the legislation. What do these nine Senators have in common? They’re all Republicans.

Even within individual states the divisions don’t make sense; New Hampshire’s junior Senator Kelly Ayotte withdrew her co-sponsorship and support for PIPA citing overwhelming constituent opposition, whereas Democratic senior Senator Jeanne Shaheen has remained on board. Did New Hampshire voters somehow reach out to Ayotte to register their disapproval but leave Shaheen out of the loop? Unlikely.

(more…)

Last month, Judicial Watch released documents from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that detailed controversial remarks by NRLB staff related to the agency’s lawsuit against Boeing. The NRLB, you will recall, filed its dubious lawsuit against the Seattle-based company for deciding to open a $750 million non-union assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture its Dreamliner plane.

Well, as controversial and irresponsible as those remarks were, after receiving an additional batch of documents from the NLRB this week, we learned they were just the tip of the iceberg.

These new documents, which we obtained pursuant to Judicial Watch’s original July 14, 2011, Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent lawsuit, include internal correspondence among NLRB attorneys discussing the Boeing lawsuit. And check out these highlights:

• On April 22, 2011, Acting NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon sent an email to Wilma Liebman, outgoing Chairwoman of the NLRB, “The article gave me a new idea. You go to geneva [Switzerland] and I get a job with airbus [French company]. We screwed up the us economy and now we can tackle europe.” Solomon’s comment was in response to an article published in French on the European Planet Labor website noting the devastating potential economic impact on South Carolina if the plant were to be scuttled: “Two billion dollars were invested in Charleston, 1,000 employees were recruited, and the site was supposed to open in July… until the NLRB meddled in.”
• On April 22, 2011, NLRB attorney Debra Willen received an email, in which Republican Sen. James DeMint of South Carolina is ridiculed as “Sen. Dement.”
• On May 12, 2011, NLRB Deputy Assistant General Counsel Joseph Baniszewski emailed a political cartoon to Deputy Assistant General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo mocking the state of South Carolina with regard to Boeing Corporation’s decision to locate its manufacturing facility in that state.
• On April 28, 2011, Miriam Szapiro sent an email to NLRB attorney Debra Willen commenting on an article in The Economist expressing some support for the Boeing lawsuit: “Exactly; it just shows you how incredibly reactionary the US is, that the conservative Economist thinks we’re Neanderthal.”
• On April 20, 2011, Mara-Louise Anzalone, counsel for Acting NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon, took exception to U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) statement, “As Senator, I will do everything in my power, including introducing legislation cutting off funding for this wide goose chase, to stop the NLRB’s frivolous complaint [against Boeing].” In an email to NLRB regional attorney Anne Pomerantz, Anzalone writes, “Awesome. Sounds like they’re just going to furlough you and me.”

The documents also include Lafe Solomon’s personal notes detailing conversations with Senator Graham, who said, according to the notes, that “the ‘retaliatory charge’ of the Machinists against Boeing would have huge economic and political consequences” and that if the NLRB filed the complaint, the senator would come out “full guns a-blazing.” The notes also describe Senator Graham as saying “that he was more reasonable than his Senate counterpart (Sen. DeMint).”

(more…)