Posted on 09/02/2015 2:35:24 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The War on McDonald’s
The high and mighty of the Democratic Party sneer at fast-food jobs, calling them unworthy of the often minimally-skilled workers who hold them. But those jobs fill a vital need for such workers: the opportunity to get paid while acquiring stronger skills.
Now, in an oh-so-typical overabundance of false solicitude for the welfare of those workers, the Obama administration has acted to make the jobs that are available to them harder to get.
Last Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board did what’s been long expected, broadening the definition of a “joint employer” to drag countless businesses within reach of easier organizing attempts by favored unions.
Guess who really gets hurt if McDonald’s has to negotiate with a monolithic, nationwide collective bargaining unit? The company is already struggling conspicuously to boost its earnings, confirming recently it will close more U.S. outlets than it opens this year, for the first time in four decades.
Already beset, the company may soon have to reckon with the reality that the kids behind the counters in San Francisco and New York are not going to work for the wages their counterparts in Des Moines and Kankakee might be willing to accept. Get ready for the eight-dollar Big Mac.
Or, get ready for the four-dollar Big Mac served by a robot that won’t be yanked onto a picket line by the Service Employees International.
Predictably, at the intellectual nerve center of elite Liberal opinion, they get it completely wrong, starting with the false assumption that people who work at McDonald’s are employees of McDonald’s Corp.
Barack Obama has certainly delivered on one promise: He’s fundamentally transforming America, in this instance as in others, into a place where a huge element of his constituency, young minority people, can’t find a job.
The Dogged Pursuit of Power
We invite our Liberal friends to dispute this: Government employees acting in their official capacities who avoid government-operated email systems and use personal accounts instead, create a presumption that their intentions are unwholesome and possibly illegal.
And—SURPRISE!—the newest email revelations don’t involve Hillary Clinton, but rather that stalwart of leftist covert ops Lois Lerner. It turns out the notorious Internal Revenue Service retiree used not one but two personal email accounts in, arguably, efforts to keep her activities beyond the reach of federal record-keeping and disclosure laws.
While the core of the episode is just another pedestrian abuse of power, the single detail that elevates this latest Lerner outrage from bureaucratic banality to weird fascination is the seeming penchant of Obama henchpersons to hide problematic correspondence behind the names of their dogs.
Of course you remember Richard Windsor, the email alias used by ex-Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson for a dark account within the agency, mashed together from the names of her dog and place of residence.
In Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Kimberly Strassel detailed how an EPA biologist used private email to improperly recruit outside activists in fabricating pre-emptive opposition to an Alaska mining proposal. He’s under a federal judge’s subpoena but has skipped the country. No word on whether a canine pseudonym was employed.
Last year’s active EPA manipulation of public comment on its “Waters of the United States” regulation fits perfectly into the picture.
That land-grab was blocked Thursday by a federal judge, but the overarching message is clear enough: A government that regularly breaks its own rules to keep you from finding out what it’s doing self-identifies as a government that recognizes unresolvable conflict between its interests and yours.
Treading Water
Nearby, we mentioned the EPA’s “Waters of the United States “regulation and a federal judge’s injunction blocking its implementation.
The judge says states would be irreparably harmed by the federal government usurping their sovereign right to regulate waters within their borders (and within the scope of their responsibilities enforcing the federal Clean Water Act.)
Serenely indifferent, the EPA claims the injunction applies only to the 13 states that petitioned in Judge Ralph Erickson’s North Dakota federal court. In the other 37 states, the EPA smugly says it’s going full speed ahead.
Wisconsin wasn’t among the 13 plaintiff states—it joined a petition that failed in a different federal court—but Attorney General Brad Schimel argues that the EPA is wrong and the injunction applies everywhere.
While this gets sorted out, it’s important to understand why just about every major agricultural organization and more than 30 states are suing to overturn the regulation. The EPA, you see, has managed to write a rule that defines vast expanses of dry land as “Waters of the United States,” so as to broaden its power to levy fines for everyday activities occurring in pursuit of environmental outrages like, for instance, growing food. Last month the American Farm Bureau Federation released a map showing that under EPA standards, 99 percent of the entire state of Pennsylvania is at risk of coming under Clean Water Act regulation. A Wisconsin map was in the works.
Meanwhile, a congressional committee revealed Army Corps of Engineers documents—filled with blistering criticism of an arrogantly incompetent EPA pretending dry land is water and foregoing regulation of waters where it’s arguably appropriate.
The Corps says the EPA’s handiwork can’t withstand judicial review. So far, so good.
Federal Government hard at work trampling the public’s rights. EPA; Union Power; and Email scandals spreading. Where will it end?
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
Barry and Co. Are going full burn.
People in the EPA are traitors to citizen freedom. They should quit in shame.
They are insulated and financially secure; they don’t give a rat’s arse about us peasants. When THEIR livelihoods are at risk, then they’ll pay attention.
This is the only thing that will get through to the survivors.
“The Corps says the EPA’s handiwork can’t withstand judicial review.”
Until it reaches an obama appointed judge.
McDonald’s is part and parcel of the Democrat Party. No sympathy from me.
>>Or, get ready for the four-dollar Big Mac served by a robot that won’t be yanked onto a picket line by the Service Employees International.<<
Very likely.
For those that know Economics this is a sterling example of Opportunity Cost.
Except that the way they are going after McDonalds is by counting franchises as company stores thus their collective workforce is subject to the NRLB.....
This can be applied to all franchise based companies.....not just McDonalds....
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