As the legislative session came to an end, some Capitol observers expressed a glimmer of hope that Gov. Jerry Brown would be the independent, reform-minded governor that he swore he would be when he ran for office. After the governor argued that not every problem deserves a government solution — when he vetoed a Nanny-ish...
BigGovernment.com founder Andrew Breitbart received another taste of SEIU thuggery this past week at “Occupy L.A.,” his second public run in with the SEIU thugs. Mr. Breitbart’s first exposure was memorialized in Unholy Alliance?, The Devil at Breitbart’s Doorstep and SEIU’s Unholy Alliance. In that experience, Mr. Breitbart and Mr. Glenn Beck were confronted byReverend C.J. Hawkins,...
Hilda Solis, Secretary of Unions By Charles W. Baird, October 10, 2011, The Freeman Lenin argued that communism is so obviously virtuous that any worker who resists it must be a victim of “false consciousness.” He cannot think straight because his oppressors have muddled his brain. Hilda Solis, Obama’s secretary of unions – oops, labor...
Notwithstanding the fact that the government employee unions were the biggest financial backers of Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial race against Meg Whitman, he repeatedly assured us that he would govern independently. After all, he said, he is older and wiser, not interested in higher office and has nothing to prove. But the political version of the...
Gov. Jerry Brown today signed an executive order and legislation intended to deal with the problem of cell phones being smuggled into the state’s prisons, but he artfully ignores the main source of those contraband phones, the employees who guard the prisons, and the main political obstruction to reform — the union that represents most...
How Illinois’ Governor sold out the state to AFSCME Editorial, October 4, 2011, Chicago Tribune Selling out Illinois. We used that headline a year ago when news broke that Gov. Pat Quinn had cut a craven deal with AFSCME, the state’s largest employees union. The governor agreed that the state, though it faced massive debts,...
Public employee unions portray themselves as representatives of public servants, whose only goal is to insure their members are treated like all other Americans. Teachers’ unions especially portray themselves as having the best interests of students and parents at heart. The mask is starting to slip. Last week a 19 page power point presentation prepared...
The California State University Employees Union is encouraging its members to intimidate people who are gathering signatures for a so-called “Paycheck Protection Initiative” that would limit the ability of unions to use automatic payroll deductions to gain political contributions from their members. Whatever one’s views of this specific initiative, the tactics CSUEU is employing are...
Pension wars: Take retirement benefits off bargaining table? By Teri Sforza, September 27, 2011, Orange County Register Some 30 states allow collective bargaining by public workers, but only a handful allow retirement benefits to be a chip on the bargaining table — and California is one of them. “Last week the auditor general of Rhode...
The tide is definitely turning in the way the public, and perhaps even district attorneys, view police officers who kill and abuse civilians and abuse their power. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has filed serious charges against two Fullerton police officers who were part of a gang of six officers who beat to death...
Sodexo, a major player in the food service and janitorial industries, filed a RICO lawsuit against the SEIU in March of this year, because of the SEIU’s use of corporate campaign tactics to enforce “Card Check” on unprotected employees. Evidently, the SEIU’s failed attempt to have Sodexo’s suit dismissed and Sodexo’s intent to move to...
Obama’s sellout to unions staggers the economy By Michael Barone, September 20, 2011, Boston Herald Barack Obama has been at pains to convince voters that he cares about jobs. It seems to be a hard sell. But he certainly can demonstrate that he cares about certain jobs — the 7 percent of private-sector jobs and...
As part of his ongoing campaign to raise taxes, last week Jerry Brown made a pilgrimage to a major labor confab in Las Vegas. There he delivered a fiery speech to thousands of union delegates, touting his labor credentials and lashing out at Republicans and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, blaming the minority party and...
Raft of labor-backed bills are a challenge for California Gov. Jerry Brown By David Siders, September 12, 2011, Sacramento Bee As the Legislature finished in a flurry early Saturday and left town, it left Gov. Jerry Brown in a jam. Among the raft of bills approved in the final hours of the legislative session were...