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:

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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.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca and Senator Jim DeMint to discuss the attack on Boeing by unions and the NLRB, their threat to Right to Work states and the debt ceiling debate.

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:

Should Bond Buyers Bet on Stalling US Economy?
Another Labor Board Power Play
Boeing faces NLRB persecution
The NLRB’s Opening Of Pandora’s Box Beyond Boeing

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As is the case with any important election, events are happening fast as we approach the final weekend prior to the crucial Tuesday April 5 vote that will ultimately decide the future of Wisconsin for a generation to come. In one corner, you have sitting State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, a reliable 4-to3 tie-breaking vote in favor of judicial restraint. In the other corner, Joanne Kloppenburg, a die-hard lefty with zero judicial experience who has all but promised the state’s thuggish public unions that she will be their firewall in stopping Governor Walker’s reforms via judicial fiat.

We all know Democrats and public unions plays dirty. That’s not the question. The question is only how dirty, and in their bid to get Kloppenburg on the court, they played it as dirty as anyone can — going so far as to exploit a victim of sexual abuse. Here’s a disgusting smear that’s been airing non-stop in Wisconsin for a week now:

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The ad buy was for a full $3 million but immediately upon release the victim, Troy Merryfield, asked Kloppenburg to call for the ad to be taken down, calling it “offensive, inaccurate, and out of context.” Incredibly, Kloppenburg refused, and residents of my home state tell me that as of yesterday the smear was still airing ad nauseum on every channel.

Obviously disgusted with the Left shamelessly exploiting what was obviously as traumatic and painful an experience anyone can go through, Merryfield bravely took to the airwaves today with a devastating ad that Milwaukee talk radio host Charlie Sykes has learned is part of a massive buy:

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If you haven’t read by now all the headlines on this story, you’ll want to start at the beginning and read the first post, SEIU Storms Private Residence, Terrorizes Teenage Son of Bank of America Exec.  Because as each day passes, new facts are popping up.  The story seemed so outrageous at first.  After all, the thought of over 500 screaming and chanting protesters surrounding a Bank of America lawyer’s private residence while the man’s teenage son, home alone, hid frightened inside a bathroom – it’s just so extreme, even by SEIU’s standards.

I knew something was up when the following day, Fortune magazine editor Nina Easton, a neighbor of the targeted residence, published an account of the incident and was almost immediately attacked by what seemed like practically a coordinated dogpile of writers from several specific sources.

In almost mirror fashion to the Town Hall events last August, when both the Huffington Post and Media Matters seemingly tried to cover up and dismiss the violent acts that SEIU committed against Kenneth Gladney, the same players were again out in full force.  As our Larry O’Connor wrote, both outlets behaved less like journalists and more like arms of the SEIU press office, dismissing SEIU’s bad behavior and attacking an innocent party with fabricated conflicts of interest as a method of distraction and intimidation.

Bob Borosage, Erica Payne, and John Podesta

And now we learn this:  Erica Payne, the guest who was invited to appear Friday on Megyn Kelley’s Fox News show and proceeded to blame the Tea Parties for the behavior of SEIU?  She was co-founder of Democracy Alliance, the very organization that spawned and is a donor to Media Matters.  SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger is also the Vice-Chair of its Board.

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Alinsky Rule #12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Nina Easton just became the left’s latest target.  Why?  So that SEIU can hide from the truth about its financial liabilities to Bank of America (more on that after the jump).

Easton, a Washington Editor for Fortune Magazine, wrote a column early morning Wednesday, addressing the outrageous protest organized by SEIU and National People’s Action, where 700 protesters stormed the front lawn of the private residence of Greg Baer, deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America.

As I wrote in my post yesterday, “SEIU Storms Private Residence, Terrorizes Teenage Son of Bank of America Exec,” Easton is actually a neighbor of Baer.  When she was startled by the loud, screaming, bullhorn-rattling protesters, she called Baer’s teenage son to check on him.  Home alone, the frightened teenager had locked himself in the bathroom.  After witnessing the entire incident as it unfolded on her neighbor’s private property, Easton criticized the SEIU and left wing groups in her article for crossing the line this time.

Alinsky’s Rule # 12 states,

“Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)”

In almost coordinated lock-step fashion, the 12^th Rule was promptly and firmly applied.  As Larry O’Connor posted on Big Journalism yesterday, a series of several posts soon followed the publication of Nina Easton’s article:

• Late Wednesday evening, John Vandeventer of SEIU posted “Nina Easton & the Bank Lobbyists: Too Close for Comfort” in response.  Conveniently, Vandeventer distracts readers by recounting the sob stories of foreclosure “victims”, then quickly focuses the attention on Easton and polarizes his target.  He proceeds to play a guilt by association game to tie her husband to Bank of America through Business Roundtable.  You can read my post from yesterday about that here.
• Then came Arthur Delaney’s piece from the Huffington Post, with the headline: “Nina Easton, Fortune Columnist, Compares Bank Protesters To ‘God Hates Fags’ Group.”  He ends his piece with a link to an open letter to Easton penned by Al Marshall, SEIU Local 1021 shop steward in Oakland, CA.  Marshall begins his letter by mentioning that he flew out to DC for the protest  from CA because “Wall Street caused” his wife to lose her job, and then him and his wife to lose their house.  (I’d like to know how he could possibly afford those plane tickets, in that case).  The whole tenor of the post is undoubtedly less jovial than his prior day’s, when he gleefully bragged about the whole event.
• And then, the much anticipated and expected Media Matters post: “Attacking SEIU, Nina Easton fails to disclose husband’s ties to Bank of America“.

Of all of the responses, not a single one of the posts actually addresses any of the issues. None will account for the fact that the protesters were on the private property of a private citizen, though Vandeventer tries to rationalize their actions as acceptable because the police supposedly followed the crowd to the location.  Then, he paints the picture that Baer is lurking in the crowd trying to blend in; rather, the man was trying to get to his front door without creating a scene so that he could get to his frightened son inside as quickly as possible.

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UPDATE: Video has since been removed from YouTube

By now, you’ve probably seen the mob-scene that developed on the front lawn of the private residence of Greg Baer, deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America.  This was planned for some time by the SEIU as part of a larger national event, their Showdown on K Street, which was shared with National People’s Action and thousands of other activists from MoveOn.org and other left-wing groups.

Prior to the main event on K Street in Washington DC, SEIU and company made a little pit stop.  According to Fortune magazine Washington editor Nina Easton, 14 busloads of riled up protesters unloaded on Baer’s private property and stormed up to his doorstep, while his teenage son was home alone.  Easton is a neighbor of Baer’s and had called to check on her neighbor’s son when she heard and saw all the commotion outside. Easton writes,

“Waving signs denouncing bank “greed,” hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer’s steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly “outed” him, and slipped through his front door.

“Excuse me,” Baer told his accusers, “I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.”

Imagine what you would have done if your child were inside that house and that mob was on your front lawn as you tried to reach him.

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When thousands of peaceful, Tea Party protestors came to Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nev. last Saturday, you would have thought that the favorite son of this hardscrabble, mining town would garner tons of local support.  Not so.  Members of IBEW Local 357 were called to action to agitate the crowd and, as we’ve previously shown, to hurl eggs at the busses carrying them.

Around 0:18 into the video released last night showing the exploding shell and yolk that came inches from Andrew Breitbart’s face, a loud protestor taunts Breitbart, smiling and mocking his condemnation of the egg-throwing.  “Glad you approve!” he sneers, “Thanks, man!”.

This guy really gets around.  Here he is at a Las Vegas healthcare townhall meeting back in August.

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Goo goo g’joob:

Early today we pointed out video of the unidentified eggman of Searchlight, Nevada.

If you have any other evidence on the rent-a-thugs of the IBEW Local 357 caught in this series of videos who even dared to call the police and accuse me of what they had done, please email feedback@breitbart.com.  We are looking to do a series looking into this chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.  Why would they go to such length to agitate, misdirect, threaten, vandalize, and lie on behalf of Sen. Harry Reid and why would the police turn a blind eye to their misbehavior?

BONUS OBSERVATION:  The most eccentric union astroturfer featured a mouthful of something that looked like chewed up Saltine crackers (at 85% oral cavity capacity).  While one thug was threatening violence against me and the Eggman himself was claiming himself a moral high ground for the Democratic Party on race issues and while others were shoving their signs into my face and into the lenses of cameras filming the scene, the Saltine-spewer screamed at me with cracker particles exploding out of his mouth while no words were remotely decipherable.  Each agitator seemed to have trained skills of misdirection, incitement, and other forms of intimidation.  Is anyone aware of the Saltine-mouth-spew tactic?

CHARGES WERE FILED TODAY IN THE KENNETH GLADNEY CASE!!

—6 Are Charged in Town Hall Disturbance and Beatings!

They were charged with “misdemeanor” violations for smashing a black man on the cement and calling him n*****.

The Post Dispatch just broke the news:

Six people arrested in August outside a raucous town hall meeting in south St. Louis County have been charged with misdemeanor ordinance violations.

The six, including a Post-Dispatch reporter, had attended a demonstration outside an Aug. 6 forum called by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville to discuss health care reform.

The charges were filed Tuesday by the St. Louis County counselor’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor ordinance violations in unincorporated areas. All are to appear in court Jan. 21.

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On August 6th Kenneth Gladney attended the Russ Carnahan town hall meeting in south St. Louis County. Kenneth was there to make some money selling freedom flags and buttons. After the meeting Kenneth was assaulted, beaten and stomped by angry SEIU thugs who were upset that a black man would be selling anti-Obama merchandise. Gladney was taken to the hospital following the attack.

Ken Gladney is pictured here after his public beating by SEIU thugs. Kenneth Gladney attended this protest against SEIU violence in August in St. Louis. He was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters after the town hall meeting earlier that week. St. Louis County officials have yet to press charges.

It’s been over 3 months and still St. Louis county officials have not met with Kenneth Gladney to discuss the case nor have they press charges against the SEIU thugs who beat him.

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From CBS 13 in Sacramento:

A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose allegedl corruption within the union. 

Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting.

“We had every right to be here, very simple; it wasn’t anything private or anything exclusive,” said Hamidi.

But Hamidi says the union members did not want him there.

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