AP: Unions Stymied Under Obama?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press posted a story lamenting that Big Labor has failed so far to get Obama to heel by their commands. Big Labor has said “jump” and Obama has but skipped. The article is correct, though, that Big Labor has failed in its two biggest goals: socialist healthcare and card check. At least, they’ve failed so far.

A third failure has also been forced upon Big Labor. As a result of newly seated Republican Senator Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, Big Labor was not able to install Craig Becker as the head of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Becker was Big Labor’s back up plan in case Congress didn’t pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or the card check bill. Being a former Big Labor lawyer and activist, labor groups expected that if installed as NLRB chief Becker would change rules, alter processes, and invent systems that would implement card check through the back door instead of through actual legislation.
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AP: Unions Stymied Under Obama?”


Using the System FOR Us: The Freedom Force Strategy

The National Precinct Alliance is an effort to give tea party folks the guidance to make a difference at home, within their own local political system. This is the only way that we conservatives can influence what is happening in our state government and what is happening in Washington. All our tea party protests are great, but if they aren’t followed up with real political activism — as opposed to mere bombast and carping — we will find that politics will move on without incorporating our ideas, we will stay marginal in the actual power plays in our governments.

So, with that said, here is some info from the National Precinct Alliance:

The Freedom Force Strategy

The American people find themselves in the very difficult position of having to reform their government from the bottom up, after decades of public neglect which allowed politicians from both political parties to behave as though the U.S. Constitution doesn’t exist any longer.

State legislatures have been forced by over-reaching federal policies, to restate, reclaim and reassert Tenth Amendment rights just to defend the citizens of their states from oppressive policies coming out of Washington DC.
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Using the System FOR Us: The Freedom Force Strategy”


Anti-Robo Call Bill Introduced in Springfield

-By Warner Todd Huston

There was an earlier attempt to do this, but here it is again. Senators Dale A. Righter (R, Matoon) and Chris Lauzen (R, Aurora) have introduced the Electioneering-Autodialer Call bill. This bill would provide for citizens being able to sign a registry that would prevent their phone numbers from being susceptible to the ever present political Robo-call during election time.

Synopsis As Introduced
Amends the Automatic Telephone Dialers Act and the Restricted Call Registry Act. Provides that the Automatic Telephone Dialers Act applies to electioneering autodialer telephone calls but does not apply to other telephone calls made by an autodialer and placed on behalf of a political organization. Prohibits electioneering autodialer telephone calls to telephone service subscribers who have registered their telephone number or numbers on the Restricted Call (“Do Not Call”) Registry. Defines “electioneering autodialer telephone call” to mean any voice communication over a telephone line, through the use of an autodialer or autodialer system, that refers to a clearly identified political candidate, political party, or question of public policy and is an appeal to vote for or against a clearly identified candidate, political party, or question of public policy. Effective immediately.

The bill has already had it’s first read and is now in the Assignments committee.

Well, I guess I am for this one. It doesn’t make robo-calls illegal which I think would violate political free speech of politicians and their supporters, but does provide for citizens to opt out from having to be bothered with them if they’d like.

I can get behind this one as long as it doesn’t outlaw the calls, as annoying as they are. I think this strikes the right balance between Constitutional rights to political free speech and a certain amount of an expectation of privacy.
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Anti-Robo Call Bill Introduced in Springfield”


CNBC Slams Obama’s ‘Unholy Alliance’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, CNBC’s Media and Technology Editor, Dennis Kneale, is only the latest to jump my little “Unions are Antithetical to Good Government” bandwagon. Kneale slams Obama’s “unholy alliance” with Big Labor and proclaims it a danger to the country. He couldn’t be more right.

Here is the article: “Obama’s Unholy Union-With Unions

Here are a few choice quotes:

  • It is an unholy union. It’s bad for business, bad for the economy, bad for our country. Worse, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, this alliance could lead to bigger government at all levels, which will require higher taxes on everyone (not just the top 5 percent of earners, those grossing $155,000 or more, who already pay 60 percent of federal income tax).
  • Let’s be blunt about it: Unions hurt profits, and that hurts stock prices. The typical union salary is 20 percent to 30 percent higher than the pay for a comparable job in a non-union shop, BLS data show.
  • The unions’ expansion into all levels of government already is having a pernicious impact. Today the average government job pays MORE than the average pay in the private sector.
  • On which side of the bargaining table does President Obama sit — with the union workers, in fat government bureaucracies and old ailing industries, who helped him get elected? Or with the Real Majority — the rest of the people he was elected to represent?
  • My fear is that the answer is all too obvious, and it isn’t the right one.

Now if only I could get them all to pinpoint me as the mastermind of this mantra! I couldda been a contender. Ha, ha.
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CNBC Slams Obama’s ‘Unholy Alliance’”


Obama’s Lobbyist Slams Masks Big K Street Payday

-By Warner Todd Huston

In his State of the Union speech, the president puffed up his chest, fixed his Mr. scornful face, and once again pulled out the populist’s handbook to bash those evil, monstrous lobbyists.

Obama mentioned lobbyists seven times in his address and in every case they were used as a scapegoat to explain away Washington’s inability to get one thing or another done.

Obama promised — again and for the thousandth time — to “end the outsized influence of lobbyists” in Washington. He then praised himself for excluding lobbyists from jobs in his administration and he proposed even more limits on them.

This attack on lobbyists is cathartic and makes for great populist boilerplate, of course, but there isn’t much truth in Obama’s attack on them because the fact is K Street — the D.C. street where many lobbying firms are located — has made more money off the Obama Administration than from any previous president.
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Obama’s Lobbyist Slams Masks Big K Street Payday”