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Individual liberty anywhere is a threat to the Progressive-Collectivist Cause everywhere.
From the statehouse in Madison, Wis., to a Boeing factory in Charleston, S.C., it was a busy year for organized labor.(full story at tbo.com)They've been working tirelessly to convince Americans that membership in the middle class is synonymous with membership in a labor union. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) — dominated by union-friendly appointees — has been an important ally, just recently approving new election rules to speed private-sector union organizing.
Lost amidst these political battles is any discussion of employees' best interests.
Enter the Employee Rights Act (ERA). This legislation, co-sponsored by Republicans Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina, takes an important step to restore freedom to American labor markets.The history of organized labor makes one thing abundantly clear: When given a choice, most American workers are skeptical of union power. Throughout much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, union membership was well below 10 percent. The numbers changed in the 1930s when legislation that tilted the rules in favor of unions was passed (such as the Norris LaGuardia Act of 1932, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938).
Unions are legal cartels. Unions restrict the supply of labor in order to raise the wages and benefits of their members above levels that would be set by free-market forces.
This president has crossed over from socialistic extremism into lawlessness and, perhaps, impeachability.(full story at investors.com)
The U.S. Constitution established a strong presidency — so strong that even one of the most esteemed founding fathers, Patrick Henry, worried it would be kinglike. But this week saw a president exceed even those broad constitutional powers because doing so fits his election-year narrative of a "do-nothing Congress" so well.
Now we have the makings of a banana republic, where the rule of clearly written constitutional law is compromised by a ruler's subjective whim.
The Constitution is crystal clear on the recess appointment authority of the president.
"The president shall have power," Article II, section 2 states, "to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session."
The Senate has not been in recess. And Congress' authority over when it is and isn't in recess is no small matter of parliamentary procedure. Rather, it is a power the Framers explicitly bestowed in Article I, Section 5:
"Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days."
Yet Obama on Wednesday, with no recess in effect and against the publicly stated position of his own Justice Department, made four "recess appointments."
The Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing bubonic plague, were rounded up and incinerated (1349)
The United Nations headquarters officially opens in New York City (1951)
b: Richard Nixon (1913), Joan Baez (1941); d: Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1927)