After first receiving a tip from a reader regarding a warning issued against the Alaska Public Employee Supervisers Union for their improperly campaigning against Senate candidate Joe Miller, a call to Robert Pearson of Alaska’s Department of Administration produced a copy of the offending email, see further below.

This first communique was sent in response to “several” complaints from Alaska State workers regarding the improper union communication.

From: Commissioners Office, DOA (DOA sponsored)

Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 3:06 PM

To: SOA All SU Union members
Cc: Ludwig, Bruce (DOA sponsored); Brooks, Kevin A (DOA); Beecher, Carol L (DOA)

Subject: Election Email Follow-up‬

Dear SU Member,

Several of you wrote expressing concern about an email that was sent by your union on Thursday, October 28, 2010 with the subject line “Vote Tuesday November 2nd!” Article 9.12 of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) stipulates that union emails regarding pending legislation or in-progress partisan election campaigns shall be non-positional. The State’s position is that the email violated this article of the CBA.

I asked Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brooks to meet with union representatives to explain the State’s position. He did and advised the Business Manager that further infractions could result in restriction of access to the State’s email system. It’s important that you know we follow the CBA in resolving these issues and I appreciate those who brought the matter to light.

Annette Kreitzer
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

While Alaska’s public employee collective bargaining agreement allows for the SU to use email for purposes of political communication, said emails are not to be positional in nature. Given the dynamics of the 2010 Alaska Senate race, it was the Department of Administration’s opinion that the following communication, sent out to approximately 2,000 state supervisers, violated the union’s collective bargaining agreement.

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The Senate campaign of Alaskan Republican, Joe Miller, claims the Alaska’s Division of Elections failed to meet its responsibilities today with regard to the transparent handling of what is sure to be a closely watched ballot counting process. They say they were surprised to find out that the Absentee Ballot validation process began today at 10 a.m.

The Miller Campaign was told of the news from a Republican Party member who was informed of the decision this morning. In response to this news, Joe Miller said, “Our goal is to uphold the integrity of the voting process. Every vote that is cast correctly should be counted. All Alaskans deserve a free, open and fair election. Unfortunately, the State Division of Elections has decided to call that process into question with the constant maneuvering of dates and procedures.”

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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Liberty Pundits’ Melissa Clouthier to talk about yesterday’s elections, what Republicans will do going forward, and how 2012 will be impacted by who won last night.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment.com and Stephen Clouse and Associates. We’d also like to let you know that we’ve set up a standalone site at CoffeeandMarkets.com for easier browsing of our past broadcasts.

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Melissa’s podcasts at libertypundits.com
Melissa’s blog at libertypundits.net
Today’s vote was repudiation of a Washington that refuses to listen to Americans: John Boehner
CNN’s Election Center 2010 Results
TNL – Last night’s live blog of Election Day
Rick Perry wins a record third four-year term
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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss what comes next — they are joined by RedState’s Erick Erickson to talk about today’s elections, what Republicans will do once they take over in Washington, and the role Erick and RedState have played in the conservative movement.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment.com and Stephen Clouse and Associates. We’d also like to let you know that we’ve set up a standalone site at CoffeeandMarkets.com for easier browsing of our past broadcasts.

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Good Morning. It Is Election Day.
A Special Note to Our Democrat Readers in Washington
Midterms 2010: Americans aren’t stupid – but they are angry with Barack Obama
(more…)

After what seems like a decade’s worth of commercials, more talking head blather than should be allowed under the Geneva Conventions and spin enough to make even the most rabid rollercoaster fan nauseous, election 2010 is upon us. Any reading of the news would lead you to believe that Republicans will have a good night tomorrow and Democrats will learn nothing, unless your news source is MSNBC, in which case reread the “Democrats will learn nothing” part of this sentence. The disservice outlets like MSNBC and Huffington Post have done liberals is a column for another day, this one is about the election and what you should look for as results roll in tomorrow.

The Guessing Game

Just how many House seats Republicans win tomorrow is irrelevant, the only number that matters is 39. If Republicans win 39 more seats than they have today they will take control of the House and Nancy Pelosi returns to being as insignificant a factor in your life as the kid who sat next to you in 3^rd period French class your senior year in high school. You shared some times and even wrote “Keep in touch” in his yearbook, but you didn’t include your phone number so he actually could, and now he’s gone.

As soon as those 39 seats flip Nancy returns to being Minority Leader, a fate former Speakers of the House resign from faster than a call girl cancels a date on Charlie Sheen. But I digress.

Pundits are predicting historic numbers, up to 100 seats are in play, they say. Maybe they are, but it doesn’t matter, all that matters is 39. Predictions of 50 to 75 have not been uncommon in the last few weeks; if Republicans surpass those numbers the predictors will claim the “wave” was so big no one could have foreseen it, if they are close they will claim a clairvoyance not seen since the glory days of Miss Cleo. If they fall short, the story they will tell is one of a rejection of the Tea Party, of limited government, of Americans “coming to their senses,” a near-literal smearing of lamb’s blood on the door posts of Congress to ward off the 10^th plague of the 10^th Amendment. Don’t listen to them either way. All that matters is 39.

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Apologies for our technical difficulties — about 5,000 of you tried to download this podcast at once, and our server couldn’t handle it.

In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by the one and only Michael Barone to discuss next week’s election. We’ll also touch on job losses from Obamacare.

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

Related Links:

Congressional Report: Obamacare Costs America Nearly 800,000 Jobs
Michael Barone: The Trouble With Big, Bossy Government
Michael Barone: Our Country, The Shaping of America
Real Clear Politics Latest Election Polls

Earlier tonight Andrew Breitbart, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles discussed the final chapter of the ACORN L.A. saga on “Hannity,” but more interestingly, Breitbart disclosed where the story goes from here.  Transcript (below) starts from 3:50 into the clip:

Breitbart: There’s a lot of hypocrisy and the dust has settled for ACORN and at the end of the day they’ve recognized that Eric Holder, the Attorney General, has not initiated an investigation into ACORN after we now have seven tapes.  There were five initially that came out, ACORN was defunded by the Senate, was defunded by the House, lost it’s link to the Census; while all that damage occurred, Congress didn’t come in to investigate them, obviously not the Attorney General’s office, and they’ve now realized let’s get back into business because they realized that the dust settled and they were not being investigated, it was Hannah, James, and me who were being investigated, that’s why we’ve been forced to offer this latest tape.

Hannity: Are you saying, Andrew, that there are more tapes? (more…)