On Wednesday, after Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed into the Right To Work law, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow squirmed in her chair with excitement as she showed the Super Bowl Village being invaded by Big Labor activists. [see update at bottom of post]

Rather than seeing the Super Bowl as a big event for Indiana, Maddow’s guest, Indiana State Rep. Scott Pelath, sees it as a “national platform” for Big Labor “education” through disruption.

Indiana AFL-CIO union boss Nancy Guyott pulls no punches describing the chaos she intends to create; she has declared war on Super Bowl spectators. From Sterling Wong at Minyanville.com:

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Scott Lincicome to discuss a court ruling impacting the Obama administration’s US-China trade practices, how this will impact the American marketplace, and how the Senate may come to the rescue.

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:

On China Trade, the Obama Administration Just Can’t Stop Digging
Bombshell: CAFC Rules US CVD Law Cannot Apply to China & Other “Non-Market Economies”
China CVD: Time to Unscramble the Eggs

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Scott on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Recently, former-SEIU Radio Voice, current-MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow and Indiana State Rep. Scott Pelath appeared eager to see Big Labor’s anticipated disruption of Super Bowl Week in Indianapolis, site of the 2012 event.  Threats of using the Super Bowl to intimidate lawmakers have been increasing over the past weeks.  From the Associate Press:

Facing a legislative vote that would make Indiana a right-to-work state … Labor activists are deciding whether to go ahead with protests that could include Teamsters clogging city streets with trucks and electricians staging a slowdown at the convention center site of the NFL village.

“The last thing the city needs is a black eye,” said Jeff Combs, organizing director for Teamsters Local 135.  [But, apparently Combs is willing to give it one.]

“You can tell them we’ll take the Super Bowl and shove it,” said Combs, the Teamsters organizer. Teamsters gathered at the Statehouse Wednesday wearing T-shirts with the roman numerals 46, referring to the Super Bowl, crossed out on the back.  He said truckers would be willing to risk arrest by causing traffic jams.

Why does Big Labor from across the USA plan to converge on Indianapolis?  Union bosses fear ‘Voluntary Unionism’ and the freedom that Right To Work will bring to Hoosiers.  Without ‘Compulsory Unionism,’ currently imposed in Indiana, union bosses will have to create reasons for employees to join their union; and, that is a lot more work that state-sanctioned compulsion. (more…)

Labor union membership continues to be blind to the fact that the support of its “leadership” to President Obama and his political allies is coming at the cost of the members. Big Labor bosses and their political allies are happy to continue to throw the membership under the bus for their own personal gain. For President Obama, this is the prospect of re-election; for the labor bosses, this is the survival of their “way of life.” This can be seen through the President’s actions and comments over the past three years.

Early in his presidency, President Obama made disparaging remarks about business owners whose companies had corporate jets. This was done in a blatant attempt to incite class warfare, despite the fact that the country was in a deep recession. By his words, the President willingly sacrificed the jobs of the very people who supported him through union dues. He knew the liberal media would not expose the tragic result his words would have on the private jet and airplane manufacturing industry.

In Wichita, Kansas, the home of private aircraft manufacturing has suffered tremendously, as thousands of union employees employed by Cessna and Beechcraft have been laid off, not to mention the thousands of jobs affiliated with general aviation lost across the country including manufacturers, part suppliers, fuel, pilots, mechanics, FBO services and insurance providers. Additionally, due to the loss of significant sales, use, income environmental and aviation tax revenues, thousands of local, state and federal employee positions, many of which were union jobs, have disappeared.

Adding insult to injury now the White House Defends User Fees of $100/flight on general aviation and corporate aviation to raise revenues in Obama’s continued class warfare and redistribution of wealth scheme in his effort to bring down America. Ironically this will cost more jobs, many of them union, as revenues ultimately will be reduced as fewer aircraft are purchased and general aviation travel is curtailed due to the added expense. The vicious cycle will continue to perpetuate itself at the expense of American jobs!

(more…)

TALAHASSEE, Fla. – What’s happened to Florida Gov. Rick Scott?

When Scott took office earlier this year, he wasted no time establishing himself as a bold education reformer by placing limits on teacher tenure, basing teacher pay on student achievement, and increasing the number of charter schools.

Scott deserves credit for getting those reforms across the finish line, but he seems to have lost his nerve for bold action in the current fight over school funding.

Instead of explaining to taxpayers how Florida’s public school budgets are being overrun by special interest labor unions, Scott is sounding like a spokesman for the Florida Education Association, telling lawmakers he will “not sign a budget … that does not significantly increase state funding for education.”

Scott says he wants to “invest” – a favorite union buzzword – a billion more dollars into public education, and would pay for it by cutting $2 billion in Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals.

State Democrats wasted little time in framing Scott’s proposal as “school books versus seniors.” That’s a pretty harsh but nonetheless accurate analysis.

Scott is buying into (and selling) the faulty premise that Florida’s public schools are being underfunded by taxpayers. Instead, the governor’s focus should be on how school employee unions divert millions of dollars away from classrooms and into expensive, goodie-filled labor contracts that benefit adult employees at the expense of students.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss a new push to politically unite Europe to save the Eurozone, how the restructuring of the American job market may permanently kill America’s middle class, and the disappearance of “Made in America.”

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:

Why debt crisis could lead to a United States of Europe
What If Middle-Class Jobs Disappear?
Manufacturing America’s New Middle Class: Henry R. Nothhaft
Unemployment’s here to stay
Graph: Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons (U6RATE)
Chance of 2012 U.S. recession tops 50 percent: Fed paper
Coffee & Markets: Are We Witnessing the Death of America’s Middle Class?

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Francis on Twitter

Subscribe to The Transom

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

Can’t remember what Barack Obama said when he spoke in Tuscon, Ariz., at the Jan. 12 campaign rally disguised as a memorial service to honor the people killed in Tucson four days earlier? You’re not alone. After hearing AFL-CIO President Jimmy Hoffa call for war on the Tea Party Monday, the president seemed as if he had forgotten his words, too. Those words, by the way, surface at the 1:01:19 mark of the video below:

His exact words:

“But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Now, fast forward to Monday when AFL-CIO President Jimmy Hoffa spoke to a mostly-union crowd at a Labor Day rally in Detroit before introducing President Obama. The video below captures the first “lowlight” of the event:

Hoffa used the following inflammatory rhetoric:

(more…)

He has written about having sex with an underage girl, and claims he once threatened to kill a pregnant girlfriend unless she had an abortion. He claims to hate marijuana, but recommends heroin as the cure for suburban boredom. He mocks “Tea Baggers” and scorns “hippies.” His Russian newspaper was shuttered after a government crackdown, and he’s a regular on The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC.

Meet Mark Ames, the provocateur who created the Koch brothers conspiracy theory.

Long before John Podesta’s Center for American Progress began targeting the Koch brothers for their supposed role in the Tea Party, and two years before the Kochs were cast as the villains of public sector union protests in Wisconsin, Ames had already shaped the Koch brothers meme.

Ames and co-author Yasha Levine launched the conspiracy theory–and its twin themes of drug abuse and gay sex–with a blog post (now removed) at Playboy.com in February 2009, entitled: “Backstabber: Is Rick Santelli High on Koch?” They published almost exactly the same article at their own site, exiledonline.com, as “Exposing the Rightwing PR Machine: Is CNBC’s Rick Santelli Sucking Koch?”

Ames and Levine alleged that Santelli’s famous “rant heard around the world” that inspired the Tea Party movement “was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger” for an “anti-Obama campaign.” That campaign, they claimed, had been planned for months before the 2008 election, and funded by “the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups.”

Ames would later explain that he had been inspired to write about the Kochs by his experiences in post-Soviet Moscow, when he edited a sensational newspaper, the eXile–described last year by Vanity Fair as “arguably the most abusive, defamatory, un-evenhanded, and crassest publication in Russia” before it closed in 2008. (more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the fallout from the S&P downgrade of our credit rating, the false “Tea Party Downgrade” spin from Democrats and the Verizon’s union strike.

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:

The credibility and integrity of S&P’s ratings action
S&P Seen Surrendering to Tea Party Costing U.S. Taxpayer
“Tea Party Downgrade”? They Can’t Possibly Sell That
Second Recession in U.S. Could Be Worse Than First
45,000 Verizon Workers Go On Strike Over Contract

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Francis on Twitter

They say, sometimes a picture can be worth a thousand words. In order to offer more perspective on the campaign against Sodexo, we’ve come up with a presentation on the SEIU smear-campaign against Sodexo. The object is to expose the underlying mechanics at work behind the campaign, to show how grassroots movements in universities in America are in reality financially and rhetorically linked to a major international union and expose the underlying architecture of actors in this campaigns.

(more…)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of Governor Scott Walker and the state’s legislators who passed the controversial union law that captivated the nation last February and March. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi previously ruled that the Legislature violated the state’s open meetings law in approving the bill. The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Judge Sumi’s decision, ruling she had no authority to interfere with the legislative process. But this matter is about much more than a controversial state-level law and its meanderings through the court process. The original law itself, and its ultimate victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has everything to do with elections.

In 2010, millions of Americans went to the ballot box and handed Democrats across the country election defeats at all levels. The GOP took control of the U.S. House of Representatives, won 29 gubernatorial elections, and established Republican majorities in several state legislatures. Exasperated with out-of-control spending and busted budgets, among other reasons, people wanted a change. The 2010 elections gave the GOP the mandate to effect change from the top down and laterally across the states.

In early 2011, Gov Scott Walker lived up to his campaign promise of pushing for legislation that would finally slow down the public sector union gravy train and empower local governments to negotiate with unions.  We all know the results: tens of thousands of well-organized protestors and union thugs descended on Madison while a dozen or so Democratic lawmakers fled the scene of the crime to stall the legislative process. The law passed in March, and it was quickly struck down by a County Judge.

(more…)

From The Washington Times:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka addressed Communication Workers of America (CWA) union members on a conference call Tuesday evening and relayed his concern about the current battle across the United States over union collective bargaining power, immigration, and education among other issues:

“See, the fact is the fight for workers’ rights and immigrant rights are cut out of the same cloth, because the politicians and their CEO backers are targeting all of us… all working people. They’re targeting immigrants. They’re targeting our collective bargaining rights. They’re targeting professors…trying to silence them if they dare teach something right or a progressive value. They’re going after the poor, trying to take away their voting rights by passing legislation that would say you have to have a driver’s license in order to be able to vote, like the old poll taxes did to us. They’re targeting every progressive group out there to promote their corporate backed political agenda and to continue a power grab.”

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

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

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Francis on Twitter

In the year that has passed since the Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. FEC, the liberal elites have waged a war against the First Amendment.  Liberal politicians including President Barack Obama and Senator Harry Reid, liberal media corporations like the New York Times, and labor unions have joined together to support restrictions on speech and liberty.

Their proposals for “reform” have fallen flat, in large part because they have been exposed as efforts to chill the Freedom of Speech.  These attacks on the First Amendment have used populist rhetoric in an attempt to silence corporate speech.  These efforts to silence corporations are difficult to reconcile when one sees that the New York Times, a media corporation, published a new proposal for “reform” authored by the founder of a non-profit corporation, aimed at silencing speakers that do not support their liberal world view.

In the April 4, 2011 edition of the New York Times, David Callahan launched an ideological attack on the boogeymen de jour, Charles and David Koch.  Callahan sets the tone of his article by attacking the Koch brothers for “conceal[ing] the recipients of their largess.”  In order to prevent this from occurring, Callahan would “require all nonprofit organizations that engage in political advocacy to reveal their donors.”

While Mr. Callahan alleges the current system can be utilized by the left and the right, he seems particularly offended by David Koch’s support of “ideologically driven organizations like the Cato Institute.”  Callahan argues that such groups should be treated differently from other not-for-profit organizations.

(more…)

Apparently, the Big Labor-related death threats aren’t limited to Wisconsin.  Or to lawmakers.

This following email is just in from our friends at The Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

<start email>

“The Mackinac Center for Public Policy received numerous death threats and bomb threats in the aftermath of national publicity about a Freedom of Information Act request it sent to three public universities.

The messages were left on the Center’s voice mail Thursday night and early Friday morning, but it is unclear at this point if one or two women were responsible for the threats.

Mackinac Center President Joseph Lehman said the Mackinac Center has contacted law enforcement about the threats.

“We, along with the authorities, are doing everything necessary to protect ourselves,” Lehman said. “No threats will prevent us from showing the public how universities spend tax dollars.”

There were five messages left containing death or bomb threats. Four of them appear to be from the same caller. A fifth message was from a woman who left a death threat and, unlike the previous caller, left her name and indicated she lived in a neighboring state. It was unclear if the second caller was the same as the first caller.

A female voice said:

“Scotty Walker is dead. So are you. We know where you live.” The woman then recited the Mackinac Center’s address and said, “We are coming up to destroy you.”

(more…)

It’s been established that when the Obama administration can’t get part of its agenda legislated; they simply turn around and push it through the web-like bureaucracy at their disposal. Last year’s failed pro-union legislation was no exception; when ‘card check’ met a dead end in Congress, obscure government agencies like the National Mediation Board (NMB) put rules in place to ensure that unionizing elections swung in the unions’ favor anyway.

The NMB was created by that union-hating, capitalist pig Franklin Delano Roosevelt to oversee union elections in the air and rail industries. Under Obama, the board made its first pro-active rule in over 75 years of existence, changing the way union votes are counted to enable an entire workforce to be forced to unionize by a minority of votes.

The House has an opportunity to pass legislation that will turn back the clock on the administration’s overstepping of its boundaries, and send a strong “game over” message to the union bosses counting on the Democrats to line their pockets. Namely, the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act, which includes a provision to overturn the NMB’s new rule and re-instate the system that has worked for decades.

The airline workers want this, and with a Republican majority in the House it should be a sure thing, right? Well, it’s not that easy. A handful of House Republicans, largely in union-heavy districts, are clearly more concerned with their re-election than with the mandate of fiscal responsibility and smaller government that put them in power in the first place.

(more…)

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has filed a motion with the 4th District Court of Appeals, seeking an order staying Judge Maryann Sumi’s temporary restraining order blocking the publication of 2011 Wis. Act 10.

Judge MaryAnn Sumi

“The publication of this Act will allow the State to save significant money–evidence of which the trial court did not allow presented and did not appear to consider are the cost savings identified by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau which require, of course, publication.” the motion reads. “Thus it is vitally important that this Court act before March 25, 2011–the last possible publication date provided by law–so as to not harm the State.”

Since the Budget Repair Bill passed the legislature, numerous municipalities and school districts have rushed, via emergency meetings, to approve mulit-year contracts with labor unions in an attempt to circumvent the restrictions contained within Act 10.

On Friday, Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi granted a temporary restraining order blocking publication of the bill, which contains changes to the collective bargaining process for public employees in Wisconsin.

(more…)

The standoff in Wisconsin continues…

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen wasted no time Friday in announcing the Department of Justice will appeal a judge’s granting of a restraining order that prohibits the publication of the law enacting the Budget Repair Bill.

“The Legislature and the Governor, not a single Dane County Circuit Court Judge, are responsible for the enactment of laws,” said Van Hollen. “Decisions of the Supreme Court have made it clear that judges may not enjoin the Secretary of State from publishing an Act.”

Earlier Friday, Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi granted a temporary restraining order blocking publication of 2011 Wis. Act 10, the Budget Repair Bill, which contains changes to the collective bargaining process for public employees in Wisconsin.

The judge made her announcement Friday morning, saying she did not see sufficient evidence indicating the legislative conference committee could not have given a 24-hour notice for its meeting last week.

Implementation of the Act cannot begin until it is officially published by the Secretary of State. Sumi’s order puts that process on hold, a move Van Hollen argues exceeds her authority.

(more…)

On Wednesday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker explained how the savings gained through the collective bargaining changes recently passed by the legislature will more than offset cuts in state aids to most school districts.

That formula is altered, however, if school districts rush to implement new labor agreements before Act 10 goes into effect on March 26th.

Walker was joined at his press conference with administrators and board members from the New Berlin school district.

Those education officials praised Walker’s plan, noting that it allows for merit pay and flexibility which will improve the educational opportunities for Wisconsin students.

(more…)

Three weeks after Senate Democrats fled the state, the Wisconsin State Senate passed the bulk of the Budget Repair Bill in a series of swift and deliberate moves Wednesday.

Late in the afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and the GOP lawmakers assembled for the Special Session voted to send the bill to a bipartisan Senate-Assembly Conference Committee.

“This afternoon, following a week and a half of line‐by‐line negotiation, Sen. Miller sent me a letter that offered three options: 1) keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 2) take our counter‐offer, which would keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 3) or stop talking altogether,” said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).  “With that letter, I realized that we’re dealing with someone who is stalling indefinitely, and doesn’t have a plan or an intention to return. His idea of compromise is “give me everything I and the only negotiating he’s doing is through the media.”

Shortly after 6pm, the Conference Committee convened and quickly approved Fitzgerald’s changes to the budget bill over the forceful objections of Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha).

Democrats fled the state on February 17^th in an extreme parliamentary maneuver to prevent a 3/5^th quorum from being present.

(more…)