U.S. political leaders fail

Obama: We may not be up to the task

Job growth follows private investment. Most everyone except professional journalists and politicians gets it.

What happened when federal policies in the Reid-Pelosi-Bush-Obama era -- and the public policies of many labor-state governments -- became openly hostile to private investment? Rising joblessness.

That's why today's so-called leaders resort to double-speak when acts of collectivism result in unemployment.

Related video: "We were dealt a tough hand ..."

SEIU big job-killer responds

Barack Obama's best friend strikes back

Public policy is like collective bargaining. Powerful interest groups make demands on the government. The government negotiators, on behalf of The People, say, 'yes.' We all pay. There are no limits, no other rules.

Andy Stern, president of the SEIU (aka the Purple People Beaters) has visited the White House more than any other guest. Here, Stern blames others for the economic wreckage caused by the New Progressive policies he advocates.

Obama delays union-only mandate

Oppressive contractors force union thugs to take time-out

The U.S. Department of Labor has canceled the bid process for the 160,000-square-foot Job Corps Center planned off Dunbarton Road. The estimated cost of the project is $35 million.

The Labor Department's decision came a day short of one month after North Branch Construction of Concord filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office. North Branch decried the Labor Department's requirement for a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) that the contractor contends mandates following union rules and paying into union benefit funds as a condition for bidding on the project.

The Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents 25,000 merit shop construction and construction-related firms that employ more than 2 million people, is supporting North Branch in its legal battle.

"This is a real win for the principle of fair and open competition in government procurement," said North Branch attorney Maurice Baskin of Venable LLC. "It is no coincidence that the Department of Labor canceled its unlawful PLA mandate the day before the agency was required to file a response to our bid protest. We demonstrated that there was no justification for imposing a PLA on this project and that the PLA mandate violated the Competition in Contracting Act and other long-standing federal procurement requirements."

North Branch filed the protest contending that most contractors in the state are non-union and the PLA would prevent them from working on the project.

"We are not anti-union," Ken Holmes, president of North Branch Construction in Concord, said in a statement at the time the protest was filed. "We work with union and non-union contractors, but the preponderance of contractors in New Hampshire are non-union. This knocks all of them out of the ball game.

"If the PLA remains, virtually every contractor working on the project will be out of state and they'll be union." (from unionleader.com)

Related video: What is a Project Labor Agreement?

Seniors have long memories

Seniors have been trifled with by the D.C. establishment. Seniors don't like it. Seniors are getting organized. Seniors vote.



Related video:

Working Families Gone Wild!

You just can't stop union-backed political fraud groups

Short of printing out the city's campaign-finance statutes, dumping the pages on the street, dousing them with lighter fluid and striking a match, it's hard to see what else the Working Families Party could've done to raise suspicions about its activities. Yet it looks like the party is getting away with it all.

That spells greater trouble for elections ahead, as the WFP tries to take over City Hall. The hard-left fusion party took quite a gamble this year. It played to win. And win it did -- electing Bill de Blasio public advocate, toppling incumbent lawmakers and seizing open seats.

But the WFP also turned the city's campaign-finance system on its head. With the help of a suspicious for-profit corporation, the party seemingly found a way around the strict spending and contribution limits imposed by the public-financing system, established a generation ago to put a damper on influence peddling.

Since the start of the year, the WFP has pumped $1 million into the corporation, which isn't required to file an expenditure report. The WFP, then, was able to conceal and maximize the support it provided city candidates, who still got to collect the taxpayer-funded matching funds.

So who's going to do something about it? (from nypost.com)

Related video: WFP: Labor-state social justice fraud

NFL militant talks 'labor peace'

NFL's new adversarial union thug is well-connected with Obama Administration

While the dire economy is the primary reason to bet against labor peace in the NFL, another good one is new Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith. The NFLPA is generally seen as the weakest of the sports unions because it's the only league without guaranteed contracts.

Smith, a connected Capitol Hill lawyer who was elected in March following the sudden death of Gene Upshaw, wants to show that despite not being a former player, he will be strong for his players. Upon assuming leadership, he said, "There isn't a day where I don't hope for peace, but at the same time, there isn't a day where we won't prepare for war." (from socialistworker.org)

Architects of Ruin Exposed!

Roots of plunder revealed

Because Barack Obama says so, most folks blame it on 'Wall Street greed'. But according to experts, there is more to it. Something about collectivism and government abuse of authority.

How Big Government Liberals Wrecked the Global Economy — and How They Will Do It Again if No One Stops Them
By Peter Schweizer
Harper, $24.99, 217 pp.

With Architects of Ruin, Peter Schweizer again delivers a knockout punch of a book that is the must read of the season for conservatives and should be a main topic of conversation for conservative media.

Schweizer blows the lid off the 30-year leftist war on banking standards in the name of “equality” that created the housing bubble and caused the foreclosure crisis. (Somebody get this book to Glenn Beck as he recovers from his appendectomy- it’ll give him at least a week’s worth of blackboard material when he returns.)

For just over a year, Republicans have half-heartedly tried to point toward Democrat politicians for being too close to federal mortgage lenders Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. They pointed out that Barack Obama got lots of campaign contributions from the lenders and protested that Democrats from Franklin Raines to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have their fingerprints all over the housing meltdown that tipped the economy into crisis.

But these dark rumblings don’t really explain what happened. Instead, people see the Wall Street disaster, companies going under (or worse, getting bailed out by taxpayers’ money) and their 401ks tanking. Egged on by the media, most folks pin the blame on Big Capitalism, aka Republicans. At best, the public wishes a pox on both parties.

In succinct, witty and easy-to-understand language, however, Schweizer lays bare how radical activists spent 30 years undermining the banking system for their own benefit, and he exposes how liberal social engineering led to disaster. (from frontpagemag.com)

Bonus links:
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• More Saul Alinsky stories: here
• 'Rules for Radicals' at amazon.com

Pfizer: Corporate Welfare Fail

When everything is for sale, all roads lead to the legislature. What happens when Big Government and Big Business get together for the common good (nod, nod, wink, wink)? This. It's no wonder Big Labor wants a piece of that action.

The private homes that New London, Conn., took away from Suzette Kelo and her neighbors have been torn down. Their former site is a wasteland of fields of weeds, a monument to the power of eminent domain. But now Pfizer, the drug company whose neighboring research facility had been the original cause of the homes' seizure, has just announced that it is closing up shop in New London.

To lure those jobs to New London a decade ago, the local government promised to demolish the older residential neighborhood adjacent to the land Pfizer was buying for next-to-nothing. Suzette Kelo fought the taking to the Supreme Court, and lost. Five justices found this redevelopment met the constitutional hurdle of "public use."

Scott Bullock, Kelo's co-counsel in the case, told me: "This shows the folly of these redevelopment projects that use massive taxpayer subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare and abuse eminent domain." (from washingtonexaminer.com)

Related video: Suzette Kelo tells her story

Who is Joe Biden?

"I don't have a clue."