Next time you hear sanctimonious wails from the left about how Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Republicans want to take collective bargaining rights away from workers, remember that basic evaluations and disciplinary actions for awful teachers is something these union believe need to be negotiated and are not, in fact, the built in right of the employer (that’s you, the taxpayer).

Here’s “Exhibit A”:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stressed the importance of officials agreeing on a new statewide teacher evaluation system at yesterday’s State of the State address. Michael Mulgrew, President of the United Federation of Teachers, tells WOR’s John Gambling, Cuomo showed real leadership, but until Mayor Bloomberg negotiates the law the union will not act outside of those parameters. (Audio after the jump) (more…)

“A smoking ban in bars is saying that adult citizens are not allowed to use a legal substance even though they’re very highly taxed for doing so in a place that is private property,” explains Joe Jackson, the hitmeister behind indelible tunes such as ”Look Sharp!,” “Is She Really Going Out With Him?,” and, yes, “(Everything Gives You) Cancer.”

Jackson’s not a smoker himself but he insists that smoking bans and other for-your-own-good restrictions infantalize us all and challenge basic concepts of freedom. “You’re throwing out the window the property right of the owner of that establishment, freedom of choice, a lot of things, compared to a health risk [from second- and third-hand smoke] that is really unproven.”

Jackson’s antipathy for the creeping nanny state in his native England and his longtime home of New York City led him to write a meticulously researched essay called “Smoking, Lies and The Nanny State.” It also led him to finally flee New York and London, setting up residence in Berlin because there he at least feels like he is relatively “free” and “treated like an adult.”

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg might want to retool some of his immigration reform initiatives within his new national coalition, the Partnership for a New American Economy, and team up with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to tell the Federal Government to “do their job.”

Why?

Because the Mayor’s idea to give immigrant investors green cards to create jobs for Americans already exists. It’s called the EB-5 category for Immigrant Investors. In fact, the EB-5 has been on the books since 1990—that’s twenty years. The problem is the federal government-run United States Citizenship & Immigration Services’ (USCIS) inability to competently process applications.

It was last week when Mayor Bloomberg said on Fox News that he had suggested to the Obama Administration, “You say to immigrants who have money, and are entrepreneurs from around the world, ‘Come to America. We will give you a Green Card. If you start a business here and employ ten or more Americans, and as long as they are still working– you keep your Green Card.’ It matches our needs with their needs and everyone benefits.”

According to the United States Citizenship & Immigration Services:

The fifth employment based visa preference [EB-5 Immigrant Investor

Category], created by Congress in 1990, is available to immigrants seeking to enter the United States in order to invest in a new commercial enterprise that will benefit the US economy and create at least 10 full-time jobs…

Acquiring lawful permanent residence (“Green Card”) through the EB-5 category is a three step self-petitioning process…

To read more about EB-5 click here.

It’s unfortunate the Obama Administration didn’t have the courtesy to inform Mayor Bloomberg that his great idea was already on the books before he spoke publically about it.

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No fight, nor sovereign nation, is too small to find tax revenue:

On August 25 of this year, a federal-court judge in Brooklyn handed down a verdict addressing the Unkechaug’s motion to dismiss. Federal Judge Carol Amon denied the motion and ruled that the state appellate court had misinterpreted the law in question. She ruled that regular tax law indeed applied to the tobacco trade on Indian reservations, as it does everywhere in the state. She issued a temporary injunction banning all further cigarette sales at four stores identified in the city’s suit. Chief Wallace and the Unkechaug appealed. On September 25, the court announced that though the appeal would be heard, the injunction would continue. But that leaves ten other smoke shops in the Poospatuck reservation, and the cars are still backed up around Squaw Lane. “The city will go after every dollar that is owed to city taxpayers,” said Bloomberg in a statement.  

Wallace is far from ready to smoke the peace pipe, however. He says it’s the same as it was with whaling in the seventeenth century. “The goal here is not to stop us from selling cigarettes,” Chief Wallace said. “It’s to try and destroy us as a people, because every effort that we made to resolve these things has met with resistance. They don’t want to do it. They want to take it as far as they can to try and kill us.

 “They need a scapegoat for not blaming his friends on Wall Street,” said the chief, his tone slowly rising. He began pacing in circles, literally hopping mad. “Who is a convenient scapegoat? The smallest tribe in New York, selling a demonic product—that’s a good scapegoat.”

Read the whole thing here.