In Pennsylvania union thuggery, violations of the law, and criminality is abundant in the strike by the Communications Workers of America against Verizon. It’s expected that unionistas don’t respect businesses, of course, but not to respect the safety of children? That’s beyond the pale.

Sadly, theft, property destruction, and otherwise breaking the law is no hurdle union thugs won’t jump. In fact, it is threats of and use of violence and thuggery that unions have always relied on to extort money from the business community. The situation in Pennsylvania is no exception to the illicit rule of unionism.

Yes, law breaking prevails. These Penn. union members, for instance, are breaking the law by preventing other workers from entering their place of work. It is illegal to do this according to the National Labor Relations Act.

As the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports:

An Allegheny County judge today signed an order prohibiting striking Verizon workers from blocking the entrance to any company offices or job sites.

The order, signed by Judge Michael E. McCarthy, specifies that the unionized workers with the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, are enjoined from “picketing, other than peacefully, and by no more than six pickets spaced, at any entrance to any Verizon facilities . . . or at any worksite of any Verizon employee or contractor performing company work.”

In addition, the order prohibits the strikers from “interfering with business, by threatening, obstructing, intimidating or harassing” customers or other employees.

As to the safety of children? Even fatherhood seems to come second to unionism.

A union creep dangerously placed his own daughter in front of a Verizon truck in New Jersey.

There are a lot of other illegal intimidation tactics being perpetrated by these union cretins in this strike.

This is what they do.

F. Vincent Vernuccio had a great piece in the Washington Times a few days ago revealing the handbook written by the SEIU that teaches union thuggery to union operatives.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has a 70-some-page manual that came to light in a recent court case.

SEIU is in federal court defending itself against charges of racketeering and extortion filed by one of its unionizing targets, the catering company Sodexo Inc.Sodexo’s court discovery recently revealed an SEIU “Contract Campaign Manual” on “Pressuring the Employer.” Union pressure is nothing new, but what SEIU recommends is not limited to organizing drives and strikes. Rather, the pressure takes the form of a so-called corporate campaign, whereby the union allies itself with outside third parties to raise intimidation to a new level.

Vernuccio explained that the most recent efforts of the SEIU to push businesses to the edge of bankruptcy so that they are vulnerable to being taken over by union operatives even going to the point of secretly getting the businesses to agree to work with the SEIU to prevent other unions from trying to contact its employees.

The manual is meant to guide the SEIUs thugs to win the battle.

SEIU’s manual details how “outside pressure can involve jeopardizing relationships between the employer and lenders, investors, stockholders, customers, clients, patients, tenants, politicians, or others on whom the employer depends for funds.” The union advises using legal and regulatory pressure to “threaten the employer with costly action by government agencies or the courts.”

It details the use of community groups to “damage an employer’s public image and ties with community leaders and organizations.” SEIU recommends going after company officials personally. Not mincing words, SEIU states, “It may be a violation of blackmail and extortion laws to threaten management officials with release of ‘dirt’ about them if they don’t settle a contract. But there is no law against union members who are angry at their employer deciding to uncover and publicize factual information about individual managers.”

Mr. Vernuccio goes on to give several examples of how the SEIU has used the tactics in the manual. But what we have here is the perfect example of the thuggery perpetrated by the SEIU.

Now, we have to remember one other thing that is important. The SEIU is one of the biggest government employee unions, too. These same thugs are running our government through the back door with their union rules and contracts.

Also, don’t forget that the SEIU was one of the biggest supporters of President Obama, too.

This is why government unions should be made illegal like they used to be.

Several lawmakers are questioning the Obama administration about whether the controversial “Fast and Furious” gunrunning probe may have had a cousin in Florida that resulted in guns being trafficked to Central America.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., penned a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder and ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson inquiring about a program known as “Operation Castaway.” Other top lawmakers are also starting to look into it, though ATF claims the program was above board and not similar to Operation Fast and Furious at all.

The Justice Department says Castaway was an anti-gun trafficking operation handled by an ATF division in Florida. It resulted last year in a slew of convictions for defendants the department claimed provided firearms linked to violent crimes around the world. But in light of questions surrounding the Fast and Furious probe out of ATF’s Phoenix division, Bilirakis questioned whether Castaway bore the same suspicious hallmarks.

He asked Holder and Melson whether “similar programs included the possible trafficking of arms to dangerous criminal gangs in Honduras with the knowledge of the ATF’s Tampa Field Division” and a Justice Department office, via Castaway.

Bilirakis’ letter specifically asked whether the Tampa division participated in a “gun walking” scheme allowing guns to go to Honduras. He also asked whether ATF or DOJ know if any of the firearms ended up in the hands of the “notorious” MS-13 gang — a violent gang spread across Central America, Mexico and the United States.

The ATF claims that everything was hunky dorey with Castaway, and that the operation was completed successfully with a few arrests. Isn’t that what they were saying before Operation Fast and Furious exploded in their faces? Should we be sending guns to criminals, gang-bangers, and other assorted scumbags in other countries? Yet, here in the USA, liberals and Team Obama want to restrict the legal sales of guns to legal Americans. Time will tell whether this will grow.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Asked by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) whether the Obama administration would consider amendments to the DREAM Act making individuals ineligible for legal status if they were convicted of certain misdemeanors, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday’s congressional hearing was not the right venue to “go into some of the actual details” of the legislation.

Cornyn continued to beat Napolitano around for a while, then moved on to Arne Duncun, because it’s highly important to our legal and security systems to have the Education Sec. testify about illegal immigration

Education Secretary Arne Duncan also testified at the hearing about how illegal aliens — including a group of young people invited to the hearing — would contribute to the economy and federal revenues. Duncan called the DREAM Act “common-sense” legislation.

“The DREAM Act is a common-sense piece of legislation that is in keeping with core American values,” Duncan said in his prepared remarks. “It goes against our basic sense of fairness to shut the educational door to young people because of the choices of their parents.”

It goes against what our country is about, a nation of laws, not a nation of men, to look towards giving amnesty to the children of illegals, especially since we all know that once the children are on their “pathway to citizenship,” their parents will be given special status, as well.

But, it is the very next paragraph that brings the “say what!?” moment

Some of the parents of the illegal immigrants were also in the hearing room.

If the kids are illegal aliens, it’s a sure bet that the parents are ……. illegal aliens! Why in the heck weren’t they immediately and summarily arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and put on a pathway to deportation?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach

The last time the Obama administration made a hard push to legalize some of the children of illegal immigrants, officials focused on some of the inspirational and sympathetic stories of honor students who could gain legal status through the DREAM Act.

As Democrats renew their push for that act in a Senate hearing Tuesday, the sales pitch will also focus on how those children can help the nation’s foundering economy.

How so?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday he will continue to support passage of the law by explaining how the hundreds of thousands of people who could benefit from the act would contribute to the economy.

Because they would be getting better jobs, they’d be paying more taxes, starting businesses and creating jobs, all of which would infuse a much-needed kick-start to the economy and help drive down the national debt, Duncan said.

Hey, I have a wonderful idea: how about we reserve those “better jobs” for actual American citizens first? Of course, this is simply a silly talking point, one which anyone with half a brain (leaving most liberals out) knows is canard: if the jobs were there, they would be filled already by Americans, instead of seeing an unemployment rate of 9.1%, with large numbers of Americans having dropped out of the workforce. The idea is simply to sob story their way into giving amnesty to illegal aliens. We all know that the supposed pathway to citizenship, which would require college (probably paid for by the government in the first place) or military service, keeping a clean record, and learning English, waiting in line, paying fines, would quickly move to “OK, you’re a citizen, and, it would be terrible to deport your parents, so, we’ll make them citizens, too.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who has spent years trying to pass the DREAM Act, said Monday he doubts he has the votes needed to get it passed through the Senate. But he’s sponsoring the bill again because enough Republicans have told him privately that there are ways they could support it, so he’s confident a compromise can be reached even though so many other immigration-related issues remain divisive.

“I always felt it was kind of in a special category,” Durbin said. “I face these young people all the time and I can’t turn around and I can’t quit.”

So, let me get this straight: a United States Senator, charged with an oath to uphold the Constitution, meaning The Law, is admitting to consorting with law breakers without turning them in?

Senate Democrats know this legislation will go nowhere. If it passes the Senate, it will be shot down in the House. It is simply a way to attempt to patronize Hispanics.

Meanwhile, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has signed SC’s illegal immigration legislation, that strengthens their already existing laws.

And in Atlanta, a bunch of young illegal immigrants plan on rallying and agitating at the Capital building, and will declare their immigration status. In a sane system, ICE, along with all sorts of law enforcement, would be there to arrest them and put them on a plane out of the US immediately.

America’s red and blue states are increasingly going in exactly opposite directions on the issue of illegal immigration – a testament to how difficult finding middle ground has become on the federal level.

Earlier this month, Alabama followed Georgia and, most famously, Arizona in passing sweeping anti-illegal-immigration legislation. In many respects, Alabama’s is the most comprehensive bill of the three, forcing schools to report how much they’re spending to educate kids of illegal immigrants, for example.

That same week, however, New York State followed the lead of Illinois and opted out of the federal Secure Communities program, which is designed to identify and deport illegal immigrants in US jails who are convicted of certain felonies. They have criticized the program as casting too broad a net, deporting even “busboys and nannies.” Several days later, Massachusetts also opted out, and California could be next.

So, by Red-Blue, the CSM is actually taking more of a position of Blue-Grey, Northern-Southern. Interestingly, it seems the Southern states are more interested in law and order, following the established “a nation of laws,” while the damnedyankee states are opting out of following the law, “a nation of men.” It somehow makes these liberal states feel good about letting illegals convicted of crimes hang out in the US. But, here we go

In the broadest terms, states with a long history of assimilating foreign-born migrants are largely defending the ideal of the United States as a “nation of immigrants,” legal or illegal. Meanwhile, states that have before been largely isolated from immigration patterns are now taking a “the law is the law” approach.

And there you go: the Blue states are nice, and the Red states are mean and raaaaacist and intolerant. Except, as all the illegal immigrant supporters fail to understand, we aren’t discussing “foreign-born migrants”: we’re talking about people who came to this country illegally. Heck, us Southerners have been dealing with migrants for well over a century, especially you carpet-bagging Northerners. We are happy to have migrant workers come and help out in the fields. We have tons of workers coming from other countries to work in high tech and manufacturing, as so many companies come to the South, because our taxes tend to be lower than the North, and so many are right to work states.

We are not happy, though, to have illegal immigrants pour across our borders, which includes those that overstay their visas, and use our services, drain our money and resources, demand that we speak their language, and, in some cases, commit serious crimes, like rape, robbery, and murder, against our citizens. If the Northern states want them, they should put their money where their mouths are, and offer to take them all in. Then we can listen to the caterwauling once the results come in.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Bolding; STACLU

Alabama set a new national standard for get-tough immigration policy Thursday with Gov. Robert J. Bentley’s signing of a law that surpasses Arizona’s SB 1070, with provisions affecting law enforcement, transportation, apartment rentals, employment and education.

The new law, combined with legislation passed in May by neighboring Georgia, has arguably made this swath of the Deep South the nation’s hottest immigration battleground, with the region’s troubled racial history fueling the fire.

Oops. Raaaaacism. Funny how liberals always go back to that same well, instead of discussing law and order.

The American Civil Liberties Union declared its intention Thursday to file a lawsuit opposing HB 56, arguing that it would invite racial profiling and require police to “demand ‘papers’ from people they stop whom they suspect are not authorized to be in the U.S.”

“This draconian initiative signed into law this morning by Gov. Robert Bentley is so oppressive that even Bull Connor himself would be impressed,” said Wade Henderson, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, referring to Birmingham’s notorious segregationist public safety commissioner from the civil rights era. “HB 56 is designed to do nothing more than terrorize the state’s Latino community.”

Well, Democrats would know about racism, since they were the primary drivers behind those policies, while Republicans worked to stop racist policies, even deciding to go to war over it.

In an echo of the Arizona law, the Alabama legislation requires that police, in the course of any lawful “stop, detention or arrest,” make a reasonable attempt to determine a person’s citizenship and immigration status, given a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is an immigrant, unless doing so would hinder an investigation.

It outlaws illegal immigrants from receiving any state or local public benefits, bars them from enrolling in or attending public colleges, and prohibits them from applying for or soliciting work.

It forbids the harboring and transport of illegal immigrants, and outlaws renting them property or “knowingly” employing them for any work within the state. It also makes it a “discriminatory practice” to fire, or decline to hire, a legal resident when an illegal one is on the payroll.

The law criminalizes “dealing in false identification documents” and, beginning April 1, will require every business in the state to verify employees’ immigration status using the federal E-Verify system.

Kudos to Alabama for taking a tough stance. Expect the Obama administration to take the state to court shortly.

For opponents, one of the most disturbing provisions is a requirement that officials in K-12 public schools determine whether students are illegal immigrants. It will not ban the students from schools, but rather require every school district to submit an annual report on the number of presumed illegal immigrants to the state education board.

But Ali Noorani, head of the National Immigration Forum, fears that simply asking parents about their children’s immigration status will cause them to pull their kids from school.

Good. They shouldn’t be there, Mr. Noorani. Apparently, Los Parents will have to show their snowflakes’ birth certificates or proper proof of citizenship. Personally, I remember having to provide (or parents having to) documents such as my certificate of live birth for grade school, boarding school, and college. I had to provide said COLB to get my NJ and NC drivers licenses.

Anyhow, this law is a good mixture of measures, including law enforcement and making it difficult and expensive to employ illegals, all designed to drive them from Alabama.

One problem I see with this is that a person can receive up to a year in jail for transporting a known illegal, but a business would only lose their license for 10 days. They need to make the penalties on business, and the specific people who hire illegals, stricter and tougher.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Government union members of AFSCME Council 24 are circulating letters to local businesses in southeast Wisconsin threatening them that if they don’t come to immediate and vocal support of government unions the businesses will be targeted for attack.

The union says it won’t be satisfied with statements of neutrality, either. An AFSCME spokesman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that only full-throated support would keep the union from attacking businesses.

The union told businesses that if they didn’t put a sign in their store windows proclaiming their support of government unions, then the union would target the business. “Failure to do so will leave us no choice but (to) do a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means ‘no’ to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members,” the union said in its letter.

As Brett Jacobson quips, “Translation: That’s a nice business you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

But all this sounds suspiciously like a violation of Wisconsin State law:

943.30 Threats to injure or accuse of crime. (1) Whoever, either verbally or by any written or printed communication, maliciously threatens to accuse or accuses another of any crime or offense, or threatens or commits any injury to the person, property, business, profession, calling or trade, or the profits and income of any business, profession, calling or trade of another, with intent thereby to extort money or any pecuniary advantage whatever, or with intent to compel the person so threatened to do any act against the person’s will or omit to do any lawful act, is guilty of a Class H felony.

943.31 Threats to communicate derogatory information. Whoever threatens to communicate to anyone information, whether true or false, which would injure the reputation of the threatened person or another unless the threatened person transfers property to a person known not to be entitled to it is guilty of a Class I felony.

History: 1977 c. 173; 2001 a. 109.
A threat to injure a manager’s reputation unless a job is offered violated this section. State v. Gilkes, 118 Wis. 2d 149, 345 N.W.2d 531 (Ct. App. 1984).
History: 1977 c. 173; 2001 a. 109.

Or this statute:

134.01 Injury to business; restraint of will. Any 2 or more persons who shall combine, associate, agree, mutually undertake or concert together for the purpose of willfully or maliciously injuring another in his or her reputation, trade, business or profession by any means whatever, or for the purpose of maliciously compelling another to do or perform any act against his or her will, or preventing or hindering another from doing or performing any lawful act shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year or by fine not exceeding $500.

(H/T Da Tech Guy)

Marc Theissen recently asked some very important questions about where the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is getting the mountains of cash that it spends on Democrat political campaigns. He finds that it is coming from foreign sources, but the SEIU is refusing to yield to requests for transparency.

If the SEIU is getting the millions of dollars it is spending on Democrats from foreign sources, this should put a major dent in the alarmist claims that Obama has been making about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supposedly getting its money from outside the country — a charge that was resoundingly refuted. After all, if one of Obama’s biggest left-wing campaign supporters is suffused with foreign cash, why should it be such a big deal if anyone else is?

Sadly, the Old Media will never play up this aspect of Obama’s hypocrisy, but that is another subject.

In any case, Theissen asked the SEIU where its political cash was coming from because federal financial reporting records seemed to prove that it could not have been coming solely from the dues of American union members. Since the SEIU has thousands of members in foreign nations, Theissen wondered how that factored in.

Initially the SEIU lied to him and claimed that “most” of its political cash came from domestic dues payers. But Theissen persisted with his doubts. It wasn’t long before the SEIU admitted that they were lying previously.

“Most” of the money the SEIU uses for “political purposes” does not come from [the union's Committee on Political Education] COPE (to which you must be a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident to contribute). “Most” of the SEIU’s political spending, he now admits, comes from other accounts.

Theissen still has more questions, ones that the SEIU is still stonewalling.

And who funds those other accounts? “Our own members,” Youngdahl writes. Well, the SEIU’s members include foreign workers and — as an SEIU executive boasts in this video — illegal immigrants. Youngdahl has twice failed to answer my question, so I will ask it a third time: Do the SEIU’s foreign workers and illegal immigrant members (who are by definition foreign nationals) contribute any money to the accounts that the union uses for “political purposes”?

It seems pretty clear that the SEIU is using the dues from illegals and foreign workers for its domestic political operations and that those funds are directed solely toward Obama and his Democrats.

Hypocrites extraordinaire.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, has an interesting expose in the Washington Examiner revealing how the U.S. government has decided to allow an obviously illegal fund-raising scheme that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) invented to fuel its spending on political causes and campaigns.

The SEIU has decided to fine any of its locals that does not meet a $25,000 Political Action Committee (PAC) contribution limit. The fine imposed is $37,500. This means that union headquarters is telling the locals that they MUST donate a “voluntary” $27,000 or face this exorbitant fine.

Mix puts it like this:

Imagine the outcry if McDonalds executives demanded that franchise owners collect “voluntary” contributions totaling $25,000 for the company’s PAC from employees at every restaurant.

The outcry would be loud, for sure. But this is exactly what the SEIU is doing to its members.

As it happens, the Federal Election Commission expressly forbids organizations from fining members for not contributing to political action committees (PACs). Because of this proscription, the folks at NRTW filed a complaint with the FEC about the SEIU’s practice.

Here is where it once again becomes that the Obama administration is not only sold out to unions, but will break the law while aiding them. The FEC denied the complaint, refused to stop the SEIU’s illegal actions, AND issued its report so late that the 60-day reply period in which to appeal the decision was already past.

Obama’s FEC violated its own rules and is allowing the SEIU to violate the law.

This is yet another example of how Obama’s administration is anti-business, pro-law breaking by unions, and ever willing to break the law and ignore rules itself in order to assist unions.