Breaking: Union thug violence towards right-to-work supporters in Michigan.

Charming:

Here’s a picture of the former tent in question.

Moral of the story, besides the obvious? GET A CAMERA. The Left STILL doesn’t get how bad they look when they get recorded Acting Badly.

More over at Twitchy. Much more, including random acts of assault, battery, and the now-deleted tweet where Michigan House Democrats egged on the aforementioned union thuggery.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Breaking: Right-to-Work legislation passes Michigan State House.

The Monroe News has reported that the legislation (part of House Bill 4054) just (4:45 PM) passed 58-52 in the state house, and will now go to the State Senate (I’m being told that the Senate will vote on this legislation within five business days).  Governor Rick Snyder (R) has already indicated that he will sign the legislation if it gets to his desk; given that the Michigan Senate has a two-to-one Republican majority, this is likely to occur.  Right-to-work opponents have already showed their disapproval of the measure, to the point where the cops had to use pepper spray to get control of the Michigan State Capitol.  All in all, today’s demonstration is unlikely to be the only response by Big Labor to Michigan’s union reform bill/law, in the same way that water is somewhat wet and the sun’s surface can get a trifle warm sometimes.

More as it happens.

UPDATE: Annnnnd Fox News reports that they’ve just passed a similar bill in the Senate.  Five-day delay before the final version gets passed; I assume that the first labor-induced (I am so dreadfully sorry for that) rioting has been tentatively penciled in for Monday morning.

Moe Lane (“Breaking: Right-to-Work legislation passes Michigan State House.“)

 

Michigan to be scene of the Right-to-Work War of 2013?

It’s an interesting situation up there in Michigan: as the Detroit News rather sourly notes, the Republicans control the legislature and the governorship, while the extremely-Big Labor-friendly Proposal 2 went down in flames (58/42, not that the Detroit News wanted to mention that statistic).  This opens up the possibility of right-to-work legislation being introduced in either the current or the next state legislative turn; it also opens up the virtual certainty of a Big Labor response that will make the Wisconsin recall meltdown look like… well, I was going to write ‘a petulant, foot-stamping, and ultimately impotent temper tantrum conducted by spoiled brats with no conception of how the world really works,’ except that that was what the Wisconsin recall meltdown really was.  Anyway, it’ll be worse in Michigan.  To the point where things may start actually be set on fire.

But does it matter?  …Maybe not.  Consider the chart below:

State Sen House Cong
MI N/A -4 0
OH 0 1 0
WI 3 2 0

Continue reading Michigan to be scene of the Right-to-Work War of 2013?

Good News / Bad News for Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

The bad news: she didn’t realize that she was calling members of her own party ‘anti-woman’ before she started screaming The Weekly Standard‘s John McCormack about how people who voted to defund Planned Parenthood are anti-woman!

TWS: But there were eleven [correction: ten] Democrats who voted against funding for Planned Parenthood, so are those eleven Democrats anti-woman?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, they’re not, because if you, when I declare someone, when I make a broad statement like that, I look at the balance of somebody’s–where their priorities are, the balance of their record. And so one individual isolated vote here and there does not make you anti-woman.

TWS: So what are the broader votes that make those Democrats who voted on those same issues–on Planned Parenthood on H.R. 3–what makes them not anti-woman?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I don’t think there are any Democrats.

TWS: Eleven.

Note that Debbie Wasserman Schultz happens to be the Deputy Minority Whip; I was unaware that the position was a sinecure.  Or that it causes traumatic memory loss among those who have been burdened by the job.  Or that the Democrats simply pick lying suckweasels for the position… actually, no: I was already aware of that one. Continue reading Good News / Bad News for Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

RS Interview: State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R, PA-12).

State Representative Daryl Metcalfe is one of the state legislators behind the Pennsylvania Open Workforce Initiative, which is a set of four bills designed to essentially transform Pennsyvlania into a Right-to-Work state (you can see a summary of the bills here).  Rep. Metcalfe has been pushing for this elementary bit of labor union reform for some time; only usually not when both the governorship and both houses of the state legislature were decisively controlled by Republicans.  We talked for a bit on the Initiative:

The high costs involved with Big Labor – particularly in the public sector – means that labor union reform is a hot topic on the state level right now.  I encourage readers to get involved in the issue.  Certainly the opposition is doing precisely that…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Right-to-work coming to Maine?

That’s the plan, at least.  The current situation in Maine is as follows: people don’t have to belong to a union to work, but non-union employees (both private and public sector) may still have to pay the unions a ‘service fee.’ This supposedly represents the recouping of the cost of unions ‘representing’ non-union members in labor disputes – whether or not the non-union members wanted to be part of the labor dispute in the first place – and it’s a common feature in contract negotiations in Maine.  There’s legislation going through the state legislature right now to close that loophole; new Maine governor Paul LePage (R) is enthusiastically supporting it.

Whether this will work or not will largely be up to the Maine grassroots.  Maine is currently majority-Republican in both houses of the state legislature, but it’s, well, Maine: I found LePage to be pretty tough-minded, but there’s a limit to how much he can do without legislative backup.  And, needless to say, the unions have already begun the usual reactionary Koch conspiracy theorizing.  Everybody involved is expecting a fight; and the impression is that Governor LePage, at least, is looking forward to it.  Interesting times ahead…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh Waitasecond. The DNC convention starts on LABOR DAY?

The Democratic party picked Labor Day weekend for their nominating convention in Charlotte, North Right-to-work Carolina?

Apparently.

Wow.  That’s the funniest damned thing that I’ve seen all day.

(pause)

Oh, well, it’s not like Big Labor doesn’t deserve the contempt shown to it by the Democrats.  I can’t respect people who won’t respect themselves, sorry.

Moe Lane