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Madison - About a dozen law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, visited the home of a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday as part of a growing John Doe investigation. The home on Dunning St. on Madison's east side is listed in property records as belonging to Cynthia A. Archer, who was until recently deputy administration secretary to the Republican governor. "We're doing a law enforcement action," one of the FBI agents told a reporter. He didn't identify himself or provide further comment but confirmed that he and three others were with the FBI and that sheriff's...

The Rotunda continues to fill up as the 4pm deadline approaches. The Ustream video showed an almost empty Rotunda 35 minutes ago. Now the Rotunda is packed.

What's the best way to get Americans back to work? Raise taxes, according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Specifically, he wants to raise the federal gas tax as a means to fund infrastructure spending. "We need a dedicated source of revenue to create infrastructure in this country," he tells Aaron Task in the accompanying clip. "We need to create jobs. The best way to do that is through infrastructure development." Simply maintaining the existing infrastructure in this country will cost $2.2 trillion over five years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. That doesn't include Obama's objective of high-speed...

Public schedule of Vice President Joe Biden for Thursday, Feb. 24: At 10:45 AM, the Vice President and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis will meet with President of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka and with presidents of AFL-CIO labor organizations. Whatever do you suppose they're plotting inside this transparent Obama administration White House? Well, we'll never know. Because this meeting of an elected federal official with top labor union officers is closed to press. Then there are the meetings with lobbyists held just off the executive office grounds to avoid reporting them in White House logs. You are dismissed.

“…. the events in Wisconsin, and other states, unfold it is instructive to consider who is orchestrating the actions of the unions as they fight to keep their stranglehold on our economy. Investigated for terror ties Although you might not have gotten it from the old media, last September the FBI raided the homes of several people in the Midwest including those of two current or former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 Executive Board members. The FBI is investigating the SEIU’s Chicago local (a Barack Obama favored union), for its ties to terror organizations bent on the destruction...

Democratic senator is introducing legislation for a bailout of troubled union pension funds. If passed, the bill could put another $165 billion in liabilities on the shoulders of American taxpayers. The bill, which would put the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation behind struggling pensions for union workers, is being introduced by Senator Bob Casey, (D-Pa.), who says it will save jobs and help people. As FOX Business Network’s Gerri Willis reported Monday, these pensions are in bad shape; as of 2006, well before the market dropped and recession began, only 6% of these funds were doing well. Although right now taxpayers...

The nation’s non-union contractors, who constitute the bulk of the construction industry, say President Obama has given a “massive payback” to unions by implementing an executive order that would help them secure billions of dollars in construction contracts on public projects -- and a House Republican congressman agrees. The executive order, implemented in mid-April, encourages federal agencies to use “project labor agreements” or PLAs on their construction projects, which could require any non-union workers to pay into ailing union pension funds and follow work guidelines set out by a union. Ben Brubeck, who is director of the labor and federal...

Usually it takes a national government to spend itself into a debt measured in the trillions. Yet it comes as little surprise that the same profligacy that pervades the corridors of federal power infects this country's 87,000 state, county and municipal governments and school districts. By 2013, the amount of retirement money promised to employees of these public entities will exceed cash on hand by more than a trillion dollars. That's according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, which earlier this month released a troubling analysis of 126 state and local pension plans. The center's researchers found...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will deliver the eulogy Sunday for the 29 miners who died in a coal mine explosion earlier this month. The service, announced today by West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, will be held in Beckley, W.Va., and will include prayers, musical performances, tributes to the miners, and remarks from Mr. Manchin and other dignitaries. Vice President Joe Biden will join the president to participate in the service, according to a White House news release issued today. The service will be held at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center, at 200 Armory Drive in Beckley, at 3:30 p.m....

White American workers are "so f---ing rabidly racist" their sentiments can be used to scare blacks into supporting comprehensive immigration reform for illegal Latinos, argued SEIU Executive Vice President Gerry Hudson. "On white workers, I think we got some real problems. I've spent a lot of time in Wisconsin and places like that, where I have heard some of the most anti-immigrant sentiments around," said Hudson, speaking April 6 at a Washington, D.C., conference sponsored by Dissent magazine, which is closely linked with the Democrat Socialists of America group.

Unions: Republican senators have warned the president not to appoint Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board while Congress is in recess. But he will — and American workers and consumers will be worse off for it. There's good reason to oppose Becker sitting on the NLRB, the five-member federal agency that administers the National Labor Relations Act governing relations between unions and private-sector employers. It's not so much because Becker is a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union and would be the first NLRB member to come straight from the legal staff of organized...

The Democrats can’t afford to let this thing get to the recess without a vote — the risk of another round of angry townhalls is too great — so every last stop will be pulled out over the next week. This is just the beginning.

President Obama's decision to appoint his close political ally, union leader Andrew Stern, to the newly created National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has set off a firestorm of criticism from business and conservative groups who charge he is a political radical who should be investigated for failure to register as a lobbyist. President Obama's decision to appoint his close political ally, union leader Andrew Stern, to the newly created National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has set off a firestorm of criticism from business and conservative groups who charge he is a political radical who should be...

Much of the first 14 months of the Obama administration has been a public "love story" between the White House and the Labor Unions. It seems as if President Obama has been basing many of his decisions on how they help the Union Bosses as opposed to how they help the entire country.... These are just a few ways the President is favoring his friends, the Union leaders over the needs of the Union Rank and file and the American People. The reason for the favorable treatment, the Pension Plans are about to collapse, most of the rank and file...

Union Influence: The White House picks its most frequent visitor to sit on its deficit commission. He believes in big government, in big spending, and that the workers of the world should unite. What could go wrong? Computer security firms have been known to hire the best former hackers because they know best how to stop others like them. But the appointment of Andy Stern, president of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), to a bipartisan commission to come up with ways to deal with the rapidly rising federal budget deficit is like having a serial arsonist organize Fire Prevention...

Commerce: Toyota's leaders are in for nasty star-chamber hearings in Congress, with politicians grandstanding and regulators pointing fingers. It's no way to treat a big employer that contributes so much to our economy. When Toyota first came to the U.S. in the 1950s and took out TV ads in the 1960s, the Japan-based company was ridiculed. How could its dinky little cars compete with the mighty Big Three automakers for the American market? But by the 1970s, word got out that Toyota was making a superior energy-efficient product and it won the public over. That success seems to be why...

Documents obtained by The Daily Caller confirm the White House is seriously considering adopting a series of proposals that would favor unionized companies bidding on federal contracts. The documents acknowledge the proposals are likely to increase the cost of government contracting and the size of the bureaucracy. The proposals, collectively known as “High Road Contracting Policy,” were first reported earlier this month. The basic elements of the policy would give preference to companies bidding on federal contracts that pay their hourly workers a “living wage” and provide health insurance, employer-funded pension plans and paid sick days. Following the report Republicans...

Longtime Democratic strategist Pat Caddell on Wednesday blasted the Obama White House for creating “a world in which there is no dissent,” following his banishment from Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff’s campaign for Senate. Caddell, in a phone interview with The Daily Caller, doubled down on the comments he made in November, when he said public sector employee unions in Colorado used as leverage to get him tossed from the Romanoff campaign. “What I said about Andy Stern and the SEIU? Sure, they’re thugs,” said Caddell, a former adviser to President Jimmy Carter, who until Wednesday had an informal advising role...

Some might say it’s a good thing, others might say the opposite, but there’s no denying that union membership is declining in the United States. Last year, 12.3 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, compared with 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which the federal government compiled comparable data. A greater share of public- than private-sector workers belong to unions. Last year local government workers — like teachers, police officers and firefighters — had the highest rate of public sector membership, at 43.3 percent. The figures show a gender differential. More men (13.3 percent) are...

A federal commission has yet to enact a year-old executive order that President Barack Obama thinks will avoid labor unrest but one that critics say discriminates against non-union companies and non-union workers in federal contracting. The construction industry, one of the hardest hit industries from the economic downturn, is speaking out against enactment of the executive order. While unemployment is 9.7 percent nationwide, it is 18.7 percent in the construction industry. Brett McMahon, vice president of the Miller & Long concrete construction firm in Bethesda, Md., said the company is anxious over what will happen if the executive order is...

The Senate on Tuesday rejected Craig Becker, President Obama’s nominee for the National Labor Relations Board. Becker got 52 votes — but he needed 60 to break a GOP filibuster. Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska even voted no. On the surface, new Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., wasn’t important. But he denied Democrats' ability to break a GOP filibuster, so there was no point in vulnerable senators sticking their necks out

Labor Policy: And you thought card check legislation was dead? That certainly appeared to be the case last spring. But now there's talk of attaching it to a jobs bill. Dirty politics and lousy policy. Card check, known last year as the Employee Free Choice Act, is an attempt to fundamentally change the way unions organize. Under a card check law, a union would be certified if a simple majority of workers signed the cards that were used to gauge their interest in unionization. A follow-up vote through a secret ballot, the traditional method of certifying a union, would not...

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) cast his first major vote today, helping Republicans maintain a filibuster against President Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board. Brown opposed ending debate on the nomination of Craig Becker, a former lawyer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who has received stiff opposition from business groups and Republicans. The final vote was 52-33, falling short of the 60 needed to end debate and move to a final vote. President Obama has blasted Republicans for filibustering nominees like Becker. The vote suggests Brown will stick with his caucus on controversial party-line votes. Many suspect...

The nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board was just defeated on a cloture vote 52-33. Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.), and Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.) all voted against cloture.

Fox News now reporting that Pres. Obama;s nomination of leftist radical labor union associated Craig Becker has failed in the US senate.

Still looming on the legislative horizon is something deceptively called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 800), the provisions of which will make it easier for union organizers to impose union representation on a group of workers by circumventing the current secret ballot method of deciding for or against union representation with an odious mechanism called “card check.” Secret ballot voting has been a feature in US elections for more than two centuries, and that includes union elections. However, if the EFCA were to become law, the federal government will have tilted the playing field toward labor unions by...

President Obama is losing friends left and right these days. Moderate Dems to his right are getting queasy over just how liberal and profligate some of his policies turn out to be. Ultra-liberals to his left are miffed he isn't even more liberal. ..President Obama still has one unstinting and stalwart comrade: the unions. After decades in inexorable and well-deserved decline, unions are back bigtime in the Obama-nation. It is an unholy union. It’s bad for business, bad for the economy, bad for our country. Worse, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, this alliance could lead to bigger government...

The Obama administration is considering a proposal that would heavily favor government contractors that implement policies designed by organized labor. The “High Road Contracting Policy” would give preference to companies that adopt practices above and beyond existing labor laws. Multiple sources have confirmed the discussions, which are part of the White House’s attempt to spur economic growth through procurement reform and are driven by the Center for American Progress and the Service Employees International Union. The proposal would advantage contractors that provide hourly workers with a “living wage”, health insurance, an employer-funded retirement plan and paid sick days. Contracting officers...

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...

Obama Administration Says It Is 'Not Finished With Toyota' By JOSH MITCHELL And NORIHIKO SHIROUZU The Obama administration toughened its stance toward Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday, saying it is still reviewing possible safety defects in the company's vehicles and weighing other actions. "We're not finished with Toyota and are continuing to review possible defects and monitor the implementation of the recalls," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. Another DOT official said the agency is considering a civil penalty against the Japanese auto maker. Mr. LaHood, in his statement, said "while Toyota is taking responsible action now, it...

The nation’s two top labor coalitions have split over how to proceed on the health care bill, further damaging the already-fading chances that the bill will land on the president’s desk. Bill Samuel, legislative director of the AFL-CIO, told reporter Greg Sargent that his organization is opposed to any plan that is based on passing the Senate version of the health care bill. “We don’t want the House to pass the Senate bill,” Samuel told Sargent. “We would not be in favor of passing the Senate bill without fixing the problems that we’ve identified.” But Andy Stern, president of the...

Organized labor is turning to House Democrats to oppose a tax on high-cost insurance plans that is under consideration to help pay for healthcare reform. Unions are blasting the idea in the Senate Finance Committee bill, as many union members would be affected because they either have expensive insurance to cover dangerous professions or negotiated for better benefits instead of higher wages. So far, at least one union has now turned to the lower chamber to stop the proposed tax from becoming law. An e-mail accidentally sent to The Hill on Wednesday by a senior lobbyist of the International Union...

Non Union workers will be forced to pay the difference!Two neighbors do the same kind of work. One is a member of a union and the other is not. Both work in fields which require a substantial health insurance plan. So why is it that the neighbor in the non-union job will now pay a 40% tax on a premium health insurance plan and the union neighbor will get a waiver on that tax until 2018? It's another smack in the face to fairness that has been all too common in the Democrat conduct of health care "reform." First there...

For organized labor, if there's anything better than a federal takeover of health insurance, it's a federal takeover of health care with a major tax break for union members. Union leaders, led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (see photo), this week gave the country a first-hand lesson on how to play behind-the-scenes political hardball. Yesterday, following a three-day marathon negotiating session, the nation's top labor officials announced they had reached an agreement to delay introduction of a federal excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans on their rank and file. While a number of Republicans are calling the deal a...

Politics: With the Massachusetts Senate race in a dead heat, the Service Employees International Union makes a massive ad buy for a Democrat raising money from lobbyists. Sorry, Sen. Kerry, but the tea party's coming. Having received a tsunami warning, the purple shirts of the SEIU have sprung into action with a major ad buy trying to pull the Senate candidacy of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley from the jaws of defeat. The buy size of $685,000, extracted from the union dues of not-always-willing workers, is one of the biggest of the election. The ads note that Republican Scott Brown...

Politics: Big Labor carved out a tax exemption for union members' health plans on Thursday, paving the way for passage of health care reform. Call it what it is: a bribe to cronies in an increasingly corrupt overhaul. With Nebraska winning "free" coverage of its Medicare costs in the Senate version of the bill, and Louisiana getting a tax exemption of its own, what's one more bone to a favored political group on a bill Democrats are determined to pass no matter what? That's what made it easy for labor leaders, following a sit-down with the White House, to carve...

Union leaders bowed Thursday to White House demands for a new tax on high-cost insurance plans....

Speaking at the National Press Club this afternoon, AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka made a bold prediction: The Employee Free Choice Act--the flagship legislation of the labor movement--will pass in the first quarter of 2010. "I think you'll see the Employee Free Choice Act pass in the first quarter of 2010," Trumka said. "You'll have it have some real effect. We'll start creating and making new jobs in this country again."

Cadillac Tax’: Has Obama Told a ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Lie About His Position http://www.breitbart.tv/cadillac-tax-has-obama-told-a-jaw-dropping-lie-about-his-position/

President Obama plans to meet with union leaders Monday to discuss their opposition to a proposed tax on high-cost insurance plans, a tax that would pay for his health care overhaul plan, sources told Fox News. The meeting is expected to include leaders from the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union and other labor organizations. Union officials told The Associated Press that they view the meeting Monday as a chance to forcefully make their case that the tax is bad policy and bad politics. Unions contend that the tax would be passed along to workers.

Union officials say President Barack Obama plans to meet with them next week to discuss their concerns about a proposed tax on high-cost insurance plans that would help pay for his health care overhaul plan. The officials say they view the meeting Monday as a chance to forcefully make their case that the tax is bad policy and bad politics. Unions contend that taxes on so-called Cadillac plans would be passed along to workers.

The Senate version of health care reform contains a tax on high end health insurance plans. A union survey indicates one in four union members will pay this tax. Labor leaders say the tax would hit not only wealthy executives with expensive health benefits, but also many rank-and-file union members who have often settled for lower wage increases in exchange for more generous health benefits. The tax would affect individual insurance policies with annual premiums above $8,500 and family policies above $23,000, which by one union survey would affect one in four union members. Unions urged their members to vote...

EXCERPT The officials say they view the meeting Monday as a chance to forcefully make their case that the tax is bad policy and bad politics. Unions contend that taxes on so-called Cadillac plans would be passed along to workers. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because negotiations are ongoing on a final health care bill. Obama hopes to sign the bill as early as next month. The meeting is expected to include leaders from the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union and other labor organizations.

Looks like the Unions aren't going to be happy.

WASHINGTON -- The White House on Sunday urged senators to quickly hold a vote on its nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration, but the battle showed little signs of easing as a Republican reiterated his concerns about the pick. The White House's appointment of Erroll Southers, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, has been held up by Sen. Jim DeMint, who has raised questions about Mr. Southers's position on worker unionization. The South Carolina Republican wants Mr. Southers to promise that he would oppose granting collective-bargaining rights to the TSA's tens of thousands of employees. TSA appointments rarely...

Imagine it being as hard to fire an incompetent airport screener as it is to fire an incompetent teacher. Think that might have any implications for our safety and security? Evan Kohlmann apparently doesn't. In fact, the NBC terrorism consultant thinks opposition to unionizing the employees of the Transportation Safety Administration is "nonsense" and "ridiculous." Kohlmann made his comments on MSNBC this afternoon in the course of condemning Sen. Jim DeMint for opposing TSA unionization. The Republican senator from South Carolina has put a hold on Pres. Obama's nomination of Erroll Southers to head the TSA because of the nominee's...

Starting today, January 1, 2010, General Motors will be freed of billions in health care liabilities. Last May, as part of GM’s efforts to restructure out of court, they and the United Auto Workers union agreed to an amended version of the 2007 contract. Included in those revisions were for the union to take over nearly all of members’ health care costs. Prior to today GM was liable for nearly $2 billion per quarter in health care costs related to both active and retired UAW members. Starting today the UAW’s Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) Trust will take over responsibility...

It seems that among the many tribulations faced by our president was the matter of finding time away from the golf course to fill top positions in two federal agencies responsible for keeping terrorists off of airplanes. As in all important national security matters, Obama dithered for months before nominating prospective heads of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Customs and Border Protection Agency. Our senate has been far too preoccupied with its abominable health crimes legislation to bother itself with national security; an issue liberals never take seriously. Eight months into his administration, Obama at last got around...

Target Corp. retooled a training video to warn workers against a bill that would make union organizing easier. Michaels Stores Inc. told investors “our businesses could be impacted” by the measure. Enrollment in Jackson Lewis LLP’s “How to Stay Union-Free” seminars tripled. Companies are rallying to fend off a so-called card-check law sought by labor leaders and backed by President Barack Obama. While the bill stalled in Congress this year as health- care legislation dominated debate, anti-union groups say they expect the president and Democrats to deliver next year on a compromise version of the legislation. “As we approach the...

The outrage among some of America’s most vocal liberals at President Barack Obama’s failure to expand government-run health care caps a year of disappointments for Obama’s allies on the left and raises worrying questions for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. The revolt led by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean comes after a series of more contained disappointments among traditional Democratic constituencies that invested heavily in Obama — unions, gays, civil libertarians, Hispanics, and anti-war Democrats, among others — who have seen specific promises deferred and grand hopes of systematic change denied by an administration that has found itself severely...