Fed Judge Rules Food Stamp Recipients Can Unionize in order to assure an uninterrupted flow of payments should the fed gov be forced to temporarily shut down

Fed Judge Rules Food Stamp Recipients Can Unionize in order to assure an uninterrupted flow of payments should the federal government be forced to temporarily shut down.HT: Cei.org. By William Frezza.

In a surprise ruling, a three judge panel of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion supporting the right of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to unionize in order to assure equitable access to benefits, along with an uninterrupted flow of payments should the federal government be forced to temporarily shut down due to congressional budget stalemates.

"For too long so-called Food Stamp beneficiaries have been denied access to union representation seeking to protect their rights," said Justice Gavin Moore Freestuff. In a sharply worded rebuke to attorneys representing the National Taxpayers Union, which sought to block a ruling by the newly reconstituted National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Justice Freestuff cited recent court precedents establishing the right of home health care workers, nannies, babysitters, and dog walkers to pay compulsory dues which unions could then use to influence elections.

Under the new rules, if a majority of SNAP recipients in any congressional district signs ballot cards accepting the representation of a federally recognized labor union, all SNAP beneficiaries in that district would have 30 days to voluntarily enroll or lose benefits.
Monthly union dues would then be automatically deducted from recipients' Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, minus a small fee for the card processor.

Eyeing 47 million potential new members, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) immediately launched an organizing drive, claiming that since Food Stamp recipients were on the government payroll and contributed just as much to the economy as other government employees, their organization would offer the most appropriate representation.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka begged to differ. "Were it not for decades of untiring efforts by our brothers and sisters to drive domestic manufacturers out of the country-or if necessary out of business-there is no way we would have so many Food Stamp recipients today. It is only right that we be allowed to recruit these critical providers of aggregate demand to replenish our dwindling membership."

EBT card processor JPMorgan Chase said it could begin deducting union dues as early as October 1, provided unions selected by cardholders cover a modest fee for software to enable funds to be deposited directly into designated politicians' campaign accounts. JPMorgan Chase stock rose four dollars on the news.
If even half of the nation's SNAP recipients elect to join a union, the $100 per month dues would total approximately half a billion dollars a year. Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, that money will mostly likely be spent assuring fair and balanced elections, thereby ending gridlock in Washington. The subsequent increase in SNAP benefits that would occur once those goals are achieved would easily cover the monthly deductions.

The Reverend Al Sharpton declared a national day of thanksgiving, organizing candlelight vigils to thank the Court, as well as newly appointed member of the NLRB who made this historic civil rights achievement possible.

In related news, Grover Norquist's doctors at the Bethesda Naval Hospital report he is out of danger and recovering nicely after the heart attack he suffered upon learning of the ruling.
President Obama, stopping to speak to his media entourage from the 16th hole at the exclusive Farm Neck Golf Club on Martha's Vineyard, chose to reflect on the long march toward income equality that this ruling represents. "I promised to spread the wealth around when I ran for president in 2008, and again in 2012 when you reelected me to stay the course. I intend to keep that promise despite the protracted economic turmoil caused by fringe elements of the Republican Party who refuse to take a balanced approach to fiscal policy, not to mention those millionaires and billionaires who will not pay their fair share."
The president then called for a nine-iron, "to finish the job I started."

Obama Didn’t Save the Auto Industry: He Took Away 2,200 Dealerships and 120,000 Jobs.

Obama Didn’t Save the Auto Industry: He Took Away 2,200 Dealerships and 120,000 Jobs.(LC).As a Catholic who works in the trade association profession in the auto industry it was unsettling to hear President Obama claim that he saved the auto industry. President Obama closed over 2,200 auto dealerships, which caused the losses of decades old family-owned businesses and over 120,000 jobs they provided. The closures were allowed to happen under the false notion that auto dealerships were an expense on their auto maker. The President ignored the fact that auto dealers are not an expense to automakers. Auto makers own none of what you see at auto dealerships. Auto dealers own all their property; the cars and trucks, parts, buildings, land, signs, everything. The dealerships pay their employee’s salaries and millions of dollars in taxes to state and local governments. The manufacturer has nothing to do with any of these things.

Facts:

• President Obama purposefully and unjustly took away 2,200 self-sufficient, family owned businesses under the false premise that they were an expense on their auto manufacturer. He deliberately put these people in debt with no way to recover. Auto dealers still cannot sell their closed properties.

• President Obama’s decision to close dealerships cost 120,000 persons their jobs and livelihood.

• The President’s action defrauded auto dealers of their property rights and their employees of their wages.

The President’s actions against auto dealers violated the Catholic social teaching principles of social justice and the common good by removing owners rights to their property and defrauding workers of their wages. His actions (he calls it “shared sacrifice”) were an example of collectivism, centralized planning and socialism. All of these ideas are rejected by America and all are rejected by Catholic teaching in regard to the commandment, “thou shall not steal.”
Many people have forgotten what damage President Obama did to the auto industry and the auto dealer and their employees. Please remind them.
Peter L. Hodges Sr.

Video - Former union boss at Occupy event: Our goal is to ‘overthrow the capitalist system and build communism’.

 HT: DailyCaller.

The Dream :"We need More Gov Bailout" - The Reality :"General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy -- Again".

The Dream :"We need More Gov Bailout" - The Reality :"General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy -- Again".(Forbes).President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. 

This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.
It’s doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government’s massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.GM is unlikely to hit the wall before the election, but, given current trends, the company could easily do so again before the end of a second Obama term.Hmmm.......Obama: "All the Choices We've Made Have Been the Right Ones"Read the full story here.

Romney aide Fehrnstrom calls Obama campaign lower than a ‘champion limbo dancer’ .

Romney aide Fehrnstrom calls Obama campaign lower than a ‘champion limbo dancer’.(WP).By Philip Rucker.Briefing reporters at Romney campaign headquarters, Fehrnstrom said that though a super PAC released it, he held the Obama campaign responsible for the ad, which independent fact checkers have called irresponsible and over-the-top. “I don’t think a world champion limbo dancer could get any lower than the Obama campaign right now,” Fehrnstrom said. “In the process, Obama has squandered what has always been one of his key attributes — that he was a different kind of politician who was going to take us to a better place.” Fehrnstrom said the Obama campaign has “gone from what started out as petty distortions and untruths to unbelievable exaggerations that diminish the office of the president and insult the American people.”Hmmm......I'm sure they will go much lower.Read the full story here.

Obama 'Admin' Exempt Labor Unions from Stalking, Trespassing Laws.

Obama 'Admin' Exempt Labor Unions from Stalking, Trespassing Laws.(Heritage).At least four states provide exemptions to anti-staljking laws for labor union officials conducting organizing activities, according to a new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Every state in America criminalizes stalking, generally defined as repeated unwanted contact with another individual designed to cause some sort of mental or emotional distress. But Illinois, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania offer broad exemptions for union officials.
A law in Illinois, for instance, exempts from stalking prohibitions individuals who are engaging in “any controversy concerning wages, salaries, hours, working conditions or benefits . . . the making or maintaining of collective bargaining agreements, and the terms to be included in those agreements.”
Pennsylvania law says that laws against stalking “shall not apply to conduct by a party to a labor dispute.” That could prove troubling for the owners of Philadelphia-based Post Brothers Apartments, who allege that the wife of one of the company’s owners “is routinely followed taking their toddler to pre-school by picketers” involved in a labor dispute.
Some state laws exempt union activities from other criminal prohibitions, such as trespassing. As the Chamber explains, California “explicitly excludes persons engaged in labor union activities” from its strict laws against trespassing, which specify that individuals must leave another’s property when asked.
California prohibits individuals from entering or exiting a private property, or from willingly inhibiting the operations of a business, imposing fines and a potential 90-day imprisonment for those convicted of the latter. But as with its trespassing laws, the state has exempted unions from these laws.
Exemptions to these California laws are the subject of ongoiong litigation, the Chamber explains:

Beginning in October 2008, representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 8 began to picket outside a Ralphs store on a sidewalk owned by Ralphs. According to court documents…the picketers…provoked confrontations with store employees and harassed customers coming to shop, so store employees called the police. Unfortunately for Ralphs, the police refused to remove the protesters, even though the disruptive behavior and confrontations were occurring on the store’s own property.
In response to this situation, Ralphs filed a lawsuit against the union seeking an injunction to end the union tactics. The trial court declined to issue the injunction claiming that it was prevented from doing so because of another California state law prohibiting injunctions against unions. An appeals court, however, ruled in Ralphs’ favor after finding the state law cited by the trial court was unconstitutional because it granted greater rights to unions than to others. As of July 2012, the case was pending appeal in the California Supreme Court.

Hmmmm......Jimmy Hoffa: “President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong,”Read the full story here.

Emails show Obama Admin involvement in killing Non - union Auto Pensions.

Emails show Obama Admin involvement in killing Non - union Auto Pensions.(HE).By: John Hayward.Matthew Boyle of the Daily Caller reports that internal emails show Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was “the driving force” behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 non-union retirees from the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company, as part of the government’s bailout plan for General Motors. Union workers, on the other hand, “saw their pensions topped off and made whole.” This decision was supposed to be made by the independent Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which is meant to be free of political influence, so it can represent the interests of private-sector pensioners. Instead, the Daily Caller unearthed a string of emails that show extensive involvement by the Treasury Department and the White House.
In one email, PBGC staffer Joseph House told his associates that he had just spoken with Treasury official Matt Feldman, who said he had “made progress discussing our proposal with a number of key folks in Treasury and at [the] White House, but he has not yet wrapped up his coordination. He indicated that there is an 8 AM call tomorrow that he’ll use to close the communication-loop, and he’s confident he’ll have a fully-vetted Treasury view after that call.” This is problematic not only because of appearances, but because Treasury officials have testified under oath that the PBGC terminated those pensions, not the Administration. It’s tough to read the correspondence between PBGC and Treasury without concluding that Administration officials were running the show. Especially troubling is a series of emails that show PBGC staffers were actually disinvited from a key early meeting of the Administration’s auto bailout team. The meeting was clearly intended to include a discussion of the pension situation, but Joseph House told other staffers that the Treasury department had “uninvited” them. This is more than merely controversial, because as Boyle notes, “without a PBGC representative in the room, Treasury officials were legally prohibited from making decision about pensions – or even from moving toward them.” Despite this effort to save money at the expense of non-union employees, the GM bailout remains a titanic loss to the taxpayers, currently standing at roughly $35 billion with the recent dip in stock prices.Hmmmm......."Impeachable acts"?Read the full story here.