Mark Hemingway

Controversial National Labor Relations Board nominee Craig Becker shot down in Senate

By a vote of 52 to 33, the Obama administration nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker, just failed to get the 60 votes needed for his nomination to proceed in the Senate. Yesterday, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., came out against Becker's nomination. Senate Republicans and grassroots conservatives had been opposing Becker's nomination from the get-go. As a law professor, Becker had written a law review article about how the NLRB could be used to remake labor regulations in favor of unions without congressional approval. More recently, Becker had acted as counsel for the SEIU and AFL-CIO. Becker was perceived by opponents as marching in lockstep with a Big Labor agenda and...

Continued...

 

Will Dems try and slip card check legislation into upcoming jobs bill?

A cursory reading of this Las Vegas Sun report, "Prospects For Organized Labor's Legislative Agenda Rapidly Fading," suggests -- and not without evidence -- that Big Labor isn't seeing any payoff for their huge investment in the Obama campaign and Democrats generally in the last election. Specifically, unions had hoped for Democrats to pass "card check" legislation, which would effectively end secret ballots in union elections and encourage unions to pressure, intimidate and even bully workers who don't want to unionize. But buried in the Sun article is this bombshell -- Democrats may try and slip card check legislation into an impending jobs bill: On labor law, Bill Samuel, the...

Continued...

 

Bloomberg obit headline calls Murtha 'Supporter of Troops'?

The headline on Bloomberg's obituary for the recently deceased Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., is "Lawmaker Murtha, Supporter of Troops, Dies at Age 77." That's a bizarre headline for someone notorious for not supporting the troops. Nowhere in the obituary is the word "Haditha" mentioned. In November of 2005, the Marine Corps launched an investigation into whether a group of Marines had killed innocent civilians in Haditha, Iraq. While the investigation was barely underway, Murtha took to the floor of congress and pronounced the Marines guilty. "It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted...

Continued...

 

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson to filibuster key nominee favored by Big Labor

Republicans and business interests were already deeply suspect of Craig Becker, Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker was formerly counsel to the AFL-CIO and the SEIU, and his acdemic writings suggested that he intended to use his post on the NLRB to radically remake labor laws in favor of unions. Labor leaders were "fuming" over the fact that Democrats were unable to vote Becker in before Senator Scott Brown was seated, a move which allowed Republicans to threaten to filibuster Becker's nomination. Well, before Democrats scream at Republicans for being obstructionist again -- Democrats are now going to have to contend with the fact that one of their...

Continued...

 

White House wants to make filibuster a campaign issue?

Or so Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post is reporting: Over the past week, President Obama and his senior aides have repeatedly cited Republicans' filibuster threats as the primary reason for the lack of progress on big ticket legislative items, an early sign that Democrats will seek to use this bit of legislative arcana against the GOP in the coming midterm election. At a meeting -- televised, natch -- with Senate Democrats last week, Obama harped on the GOP's willingness to invoke the filibuster, noting that Democrats had taken more cloture votes to end debate and force votes in 2009 than they did in the 1950s and 1960s combined. Added Obama: "We've had scores of pieces of...

Continued...

 

National Organization for Women upset over 'domestic violence' in Tebow pro-life ad?

One of the big events surrounding last night's Super Bowl was Pam and Tim Tebow's "pro-life" ad for Focus on the Family. You can watch it...

Continued...

 

Hope and Change: Wall Street abandoning Obama and Democrats

The New York Times: If the Democratic Party has a stronghold on Wall Street, it is JPMorgan Chase. Its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is a friend of President Obama’s from Chicago, a frequent White House guest and a big Democratic donor. Its vice chairman, William M. Daley, a former Clinton administration cabinet official and Obama transition adviser, comes from Chicago’s Democratic dynasty. But this year Chase’s political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. While it has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it...

Continued...

 

Amnesty International suspends employee for questioning ties to radical Islamist

Though it has gotten little attention stateside, a major controversy is brewing in the British press over human rights organization Amnesty International. For years now, the organization has been promoting Mozzam Begg, a former Gunatanamo detainee who is an unrepentant radical Islamist and supporter of the Taliban. After two years of working within Amnesty International to try and get the human rights organization to stop working with Begg, Gita Sahgal, the head of Amnesty’s gender issues program, has spoken out publicly: “I believe the campaign [with Begg's organization, "Cageprisoners"] fundamentally damages Amnesty International’s integrity and, more...

Continued...

 

Was Bush just better at foreign policy than Obama?

While focus has been on his domestic policy failures, Obama's foreign policy isn't doing too well either. The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl surveys the international scene: Is a wounded Barack Obama withdrawing from the world? Europeans could be excused for speculating as much. The White House announced last week that the president would not attend a U.S.-European Union summit planned for Madrid in May, forcing its cancellation. The spurned host, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, also failed to get a meeting with either Obama or Vice President Biden during a two-day visit to Washington. Zapatero claimed he had "no problem" with the rebuff. But that...

Continued...

 

Santorum to run in 2012?

Since the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans is being viewed as the unofficial kickoff of the Republican presidential campaign season, I've been keeping something of a running tally of who is planning on speaking at the event. The list of potential candidates appearing includes Romney, Palin, Pawlenty, Gingrich and now former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum: “I am pleased to join the list of outstanding leaders who will speak at SRLC this year,” Santorum said. “We are at a turning point in American history: We can accept the liberal policies that have jeopardized American prosperity, or we can return to our roots of liberty and smaller...

Continued...

 

Sen. Landrieu thinks she's a good person for extorting $300 million from taxpayers

Yesterday, Senator Mary Landrieu took to the floor of the Senate to defend the $300 million "Lousiana Purchase" backroom deal that she struck in exchange for her vote on health care reform. Her defense of the deal boils down to it's okay because she thinks she's a good person. From Politico: "I have spent 30 years of my life trying to represent the people of my state and make them look good," Landrieu said. "Never, never in my life have I ever or will ever throw the people of my state under the bus to save my reputation or my job. I know what I am inside. I don't need anyone to remind me of the goodness that I have inside. My parents do that, my husband does that, my children do that...

Continued...

 

Illinois LG nominee and alleged domestic abuser: 'Dude is like Jack Ryan meets Blair Hull meets Charlie Sheen'

The Capitol Fax blog is keeping track of the scandalous allegations surrounding Scott Lee Cohen, who just won the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor in Illinois. Steroid abuse, retraining orders, prostitution -- it's all there and getting crazier by the hour. In other news, Cohen has no intention of stepping down yet, despite calls from other Democrats in the state to do so. Here's the statement on his website: I have no intention of stepping down or stepping aside. When the facts come to light, after my ex-wife and ex-girlfriend speak, the people of Illinois can decide, and I will listen to them directly. I am asking my ex-wife and ex-girlfriend to come forward and to talk with...

Continued...

 

A Social Security bailout this year?

Fortune's Allen Sloan observes that Social Security is set to take in less money this year than it has to pay out: Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system. A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits. Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation's biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing -- in other words, a taxpayer bailout. Ed Morrissey has more thoughts, including this...

Continued...

 

E.J. Dionne coddles Joe Biden

E.J. Dionne recently had a sit down with Vice-President Joe Biden with the intention of discussing the stimulus bill. However, Dionne ended up writing about a different topic that he discussed with Biden. Note this paragraph near the bottom of Dionne's column: Obama's handlers can be terribly tough on Biden for digressing from the narrow point they want him to make. So let the record show that he spent most of our interview ably defending how the stimulus money has been spent and what it has accomplished. Poor little Joey Biden. "Terribly tough"? I mean can't the vice-president and six-term senator be expected speak his own mind without having to be coddled by the most friendly of...

Continued...

 

U.N. climate change body blasted -- by Greenpeace?

There's been a controversy over Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It seems that when Pachauri was made aware of the fact that a highly alarmist claim about Himalayan glaciers melting due to global warming was false, he stonewalled rather than admit the truth. And now the head of Greenpeace UK is calling for Pachauri's resignation: A journalist working for Science had told Dr Pachauri several times late last year that glaciologists had refuted the IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Dr Pachauri refused to address the problem, saying: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.” He suggested that the error...

Continued...

 

Labor leaders 'fuming' over Scott Brown assuming Senate seat today

Earlier this week, I noted that Democrats were frantically trying do some special favors for labor unions before Scott Brown was seated and Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. They succeeded in getting Patricia Smith, the Obama administration's nominee for Solicitor of Labor, through a party-line cloture vote, even though it's entirely likely she lied in her Senate testimony about a program she was involved in as New York's labor commissioner that unjustly benefited unions. However, with Scott Brown being seated today and Democrats losing their supermajority, Big Labor may well have just seen their secret weapon shot down. More than Smith, Big Labor had a lot riding on the...

Continued...

 

Obama says 'every economist' backs claim stimulus saved or created two million jobs?

ABC news' Jake Tapper: “Now, if you hear some of the critics, they'll say, well, the Recovery Act, I don't know if that's really worked, because we still have high unemployment,” the president said. “But what they fail to understand is that every economist, from the left and the right, has said, because of the Recovery Act, what we've started to see is at least a couple of million jobs that have either been created or would have been lost. The problem is, 7 million jobs were lost during the course of this recession.” Um, it’s not true that “every economist” has said the Recovery Act has saved or created two million jobs. No kidding. There's...

Continued...

 

Andrew Sullivan hits new low in attacking Palin

At what point does Andrew Sullivan's derangement over Sarah Palin and his bizarre conspiracy theories about how her son was really birthed by her daughter become an issue for an otherwise respectable publication such as The Atlantic? If his employers don't take action over this blog post of his, then we're totally through the looking glass: The medical term for Down Syndrome is Trisomy-21 or Trisomy-g. It is often shortened in medical slang to Tri-g. Is it not perfectly possible that the very name given to this poor child, being reared by Bristol, is another form of mockery of his condition, along with the "retarded baby" tag? And does the way in which this poor child was...

Continued...

 

Uh oh: Turnout in Illinois primary portends disaster for Democrats

My colleague Michael Barone noted this morning that the turnout numbers from last night's Illinois primary look bad for Democrats heading into November. He's not alone in this observation. The Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling looks at the numbers from last night and they are very concerned by what they see: Based on the current numbers 885,268 voters were cast in the Democratic primary for Senate compared to 736,137 on the Republican side. Those numbers are awfully close to each other for a state that's overwhelmingly Democratic. For sake of comparison the last time there were competitive Senate primaries on both sides in Illinois, in 2004 when Barack Obama was nominated,...

Continued...

 

Obama budget doubles money for nuclear power plants

President Obama's budget may be a bloated montrosity, but it's not all bad. According to the Washington Post: The Energy Department would get the ability to guarantee an additional $36 billion in loans for the construction of new nuclear plants under President Obama's budget request, twice as much as the previous loan guarantee program. The loan guarantees would sharply reduce the financing cost of capital-intensive nuclear plants, and proponents hope it would help jump start an additional half-dozen nuclear power plants. Of course, the same budget also eliminates funding for the Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste in Nevada, so the budget is not entirely favorable toward...

Continued...

 

Is Senator Schumer, D-N.Y., in trouble at the polls?

Chuck Schumer, New York's powerful senior Senator, now has an approval rating under 50 percent, notes Marc Ambinder. This is Schumer's lowest approval rating since 2001. Scott Brown's victory already underscored how vulnerable Democrats are, but this news is still surprising. Ambinder quotes a political scientist who says it would take "a major effort to unseat" the politically savvy Schumer -- but former Reagan administration member and CNBC host Larry Kudlow is allegedly considering a challenge to Schumer. Kudlow is certainly capable of mounting "a major effort" that has the potential to topple Schumer....

Continued...

 

Government union membership now outnumbers private unions

The Wall Street Journal reports: It's now official: In 2009 the number of unionized workers who work for the government surpassed those in the private economy for the first time. This milestone explains a lot about modern American politics, in particular the paradox that union clout with Democrats has increased even as fewer workers belong to unions overall. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently that 51.4% of America's 15.4 million union members, or about 7.91 million workers, were employed by the government in 2009. As recently as 1980, there were more than twice as many private as public union members. But private union membership has continued to decline, even as unions...

Continued...

 

Dirty Money Watch : Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa

WHO: Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa WHAT: Boswell received $10,000 from Rep. Charles Rangel's National Leadership PAC, the political action committee of the powerful New York Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that writes tax law. WHY IT'S DIRTY: Rangel is being investigated on multiple issues by the House Ethics Committee, including failure to report income from properties he owns in New York and the Dominican Republic. A company that gave $1 million to a New York school facility that will bear Rangel's name subsequently received lucrative tax breaks, and he has reportedly solicited political contributions on official stationery. WILL BOSWELL GIVE IT BACK?...

Continued...

 

Senate rushing to do favors for Big Labor before Brown is seated

Yesterday, Senate Democrats rushed through a party-line cloture vote on Obama's nominee for Solicitor General, Patricia Smith. Smith got 60 Democratic votes even though a Republican senator produced damning evidence that she lied in Senate testimony regarding her role in a controversial program that unfairly benefited labor unions while she was New York State Labor Commissioner. Today, the Senate is again trying to perform as many favors for Big Labor as it can before newly elected Republican Senator Scott Brown is seated and Democrats lose their supermajority. Senate Democrats are now trying to rush through the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)....

Continued...

 

With Reid sinking in polls, Senators Durbin and Schumer jostling to lead Senate Dems

It looks as though Senator Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senator Durbin, D-Ill., are already plotting fill the leadership vaccuum in the increasingly likely event that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., loses reelection: The second- and third-ranking Senate Democratic leaders are doling out huge sums of cash, laying the groundwork for a leadership race should Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lose reelection. Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the vice chairman of the Democratic Conference, has been the biggest giver to Democratic Senate candidates, contributing $210,000 to colleagues and candidates. During the same span, Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has given $110,000 to Senate...

Continued...

 

Rep. Paul Ryan's, R-Wis., bold budget proposal

Over at the Washington Post, Ezra Klein has taken a brief hiatus from his hyperbolic rhetoric on why we need the Democrat's health care reform to take a thoughtful look at Paul Ryan's "daring" new budget proposal. Klein doesn't necessarily approve of Ryan's proposal, but he does kick the tires on it and give it a fair evaluation. And most importantly, he gives Ryan credit for stepping up to the plate and offering real solutions. More Republicans should follow Ryan's lead....

Continued...

 

Obama education budget is 'cradle to career agenda'?

Conservatives often indulge in hyperbole about liberals wanting a "nanny state" or assuming the impossible task of taking care of people from "cradle to grave." Well, Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan is actually describing the administration's education budget as a "cradle to career agenda." That sounds a lot like a nanny state, and while it's not "cradle to grave" -- it's halfway there. Might want to dial the Orwellian language back a bit, Mr. Secretary....

Continued...

 

Senate votes to advance allegedly untruthful Labor Dept. nominee

The Senate voted for cloture today to advance the nomination of Patricia Smith to be Solicitor of Labor by a vote of 60-32. The vote was along party lines. This is despite the fact that Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., produced a detailed 40-page report with convincing evidence she lied in testimony to the Senate about her role in a controversial program when she worked for the Department of Labor in New York state. The Democratic Senate is rushing through a few last minute items before they lose their supermajority. Despite repeated attempts today to get a statement from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader did not provide a comment about where he stood on her...

Continued...

 

Dirty Money Watch: Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio

WHO: Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio WHAT: Kilroy received $10,000 from Rep. Charles Rangel's National Leadership PAC, the political action committee of the powerful New York Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that writes tax law. WHY IT'S DIRTY: Rangel is being investigated on multiple issues by the House Ethics Committee, including failure to report income from properties he owns in New York and the Dominican Republic. A company that gave $1 million to a New York school facility that will bear Rangel's name subsequently received lucrative tax breaks, and he has reportedly solicited political contributions on official stationery. WILL KILROY GIVE IT BACK?...

Continued...

 

Sen. Enzi condemns allegedly untruthful labor nominee, will Minority Leader McConnell back him up?

As noted earlier, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., is alleging -- backed up by pretty credible evidence -- that Obama's nominee for Solicitor of Labor, Patricia Smith, lied to the Senate about some controversial dealings with unions. Enzi wants her name withdrawn. With a cloture vote on her nomination likely to happen this afternoon, Enzi just delivered a blistering floor speech condemning Smith that concludes as follows: It’s clear that Ms. Smith’s testimony and responses to follow-up questions are repeatedly contradicted by documents I received from the State of New York. It is particularly troubling that the inconsistent statements to the Committee were in each instance an...

Continued...