The Collectivist News … from the news blog that keeps a watchful eye on organized labor - the political backbone of the Progressive movement - The Union News. Here are the past week’s top stories. (click on the date for that day’s full news wrap)
May 6.
Blame hiring freeze on Obama payback to union bigs … Unions have not had such a sympathetic occupant in the White House, since, well, arguably FDR. Obama, as a senator, had been a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007, which would, with its Orwellian title, outlaw secret ballots in certifying unions in the workplace. Okay, so the card check proposal isn’t FDR’s Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 (labor on federal construction projects had to be paid no less than local rates on similar projects), or the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 (addressing the issue of agreeing NOT to join a union as a condition for employment), the Wagner Act of 1935 (guaranteeing workers rights to join unions) or the Fair Labor Standards Act (minimum wage). The above acts raised the cost of labor and contributed to the increase in unemployment during the Great Depression. Many feel that Obama’s labor agenda might do the same now. (registeredrep.com)May 5.
Leftwing columnist finds humor in criminal, union-backed, tax-funded fraud group … On Monday, we were reminded that in Nevada the activity of ACORN was more to be laughed at than feared. Its activities during the 2008 election, as outlined in a criminal complaint and supporting affidavit filed by Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Chief Deputy AG Conrad Hafen, was a veritable slapstick routine riddled with pratfalls and political pies in the face. It’s a wonder Masto, Secretary of State Ross Miller, and Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax could keep straight faces. According to the criminal complaint and supporting affidavit, this ACORN outfit figures to star in a comedy of errors titled, “The Gang That Couldn’t Cheat Straight.” A vaudeville routine this lame usually comes with a “no cover, no minimum” label. In a nutshell, ACORN is charged with 26 counts of compensation for registration of voters and 13 counts of principal to the crime of compensation of registration of voters. In Nevada, it’s legal to hire someone to register voters. It’s not legal to compensate through a mandated quota system. Lomax compiled a compelling analysis of ACORN’s Clark County efforts that illustrates the group’s hilarious ineptitude. ACORN claimed to have generated 91,002 “completed” applications, but actually turned in 62,905 completed new voter registration applications in 2008. Of those: • 28,097 were duplicates; • 39,719 of the newly registered didn’t vote. (Just 23,186 did.) • In an election with an 80.1 percent voter turnout, just 36.9 percent of the ACORN “voters” cast ballots. That’s what makes ACORN’s Nevada efforts the stuff of comedy. (lvrj.com)Related video: ACORN does Las Vegas
May 4.
Rule of Law no longer possible in U.S. … Decisions made during the past year by the leading federal agency that referees labor-management disputes fell under a legal cloud Friday with conflicting federal appeals court rulings. In rulings rendered virtually simultaneously, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington held that a decision handed down last year by the National Labor Relations Board is invalid because it was made by just two members while a federal appellate court in Chicago took the opposite position. It held within the same hour that a vote by the two members was appropriate and binding. The NLRB has a relatively innocuous name. But in truth, the agency has historically gotten caught in the middle of the inevitable tug of war that accompanies change in the Washington power curve; Republican administrations typically favor appointing people with a pro-business bent and Democrats have been inclined to name pro-labor individuals. When at full strength, the NLRB has five members. But it has operated with only two members and three vacancies for more than a year because Democrats who retook control of Congress in 2006 objected to President George W. Bush’s labor policies and refused to confirm his nominees. With the appeals court decisions at odds, the Supreme Court is more likely weigh in on appeal. The result could potentially have a wide impact, since the two members have decided hundreds of cases. (sltrib.com)May 1.
Obama sets U.S. Perestroika … The biggest headache facing the Obama administration is the unprecedented growth in government deficit spending. This chart below shows how bad things could get in the near future. This the scariest chart I’ve ever seen. It makes President George W. Bush look like a piker.
(humanevents.com)The inconvenient truth about fascism … Since my April 2 column that compared Barack Obama’s economic policies (and others) to those of Italy’s Benito Mussolini, I have been denounced on the pages of the Economist, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Toronto Star, and the New York Times (less strongly denounced there than in the others, oddly enough), and by Chris Matthews (and guests Tony Blankley and Larry Sabato) on Hardball, and also had the idea made fun of by CNN morning hosts while they played a rather tame and sober interview they had done with me on the subject. Never mind that in the New York Times on April 7 , David Leonhardt went farther, comparing the policies to the economics of Hitler in the course of saying that was a good thing because Hitler’s economics worked. Somehow, the rather fact-based piece I wrote was seen by the media elite as out of bounds, but Leonhardt’s was acceptable analysis because it was meant to praise Obama rather than bury him. Yet Leonhardt’s column is proof enough that it is not some right-wing conspiracy theory that sees fascistic leanings in the big government, corporatist approaches taken by The One in the Oval Office. Since then, the evidence has grown only stronger. As the Examiner noted yesterday, the Obama takeover of General Motors is astonishing in its scope and reach. The money quote from GM itself: “The U.S. Treasury will be able to elect all of our directors and to control the vote on substantially all matters brought for a stockholder vote.” (spectator.org)