Unions Prepare for ‘Civil War’

My piece from the Dec. 13, 2012, issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Unions Prepare for 'Civil War'

By Matthew Vadum

Top Teamsters goon James R. Hoffa is threatening to bring “civil war” to Michigan in order to roll back the state’s new right to work law.

After Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed legislation aimed at breaking the labor movement’s death grip on Michigan’s near-comatose economy, Hoffa took to CNN Tuesday to declare, “This is just the first round of a battle that’s going to divide this state.” He added, “We’re going to have a civil war in this state.”

Hoffa also flippantly compared the enactment of the legislation to the attack on Pearl Harbor 71 years ago in which more than 3,000 Americans died.

While the Michigan House of Representatives debated the worker freedom bill on Tuesday, state lawmaker Douglas Geiss (D) took to the floor.

“There will be blood,” he said. “I really wish we had not gone here … I do not see solace, I do not see peace.”

In fact blood has already been spilled. While he was trying to interview right to work opponents outside the legislature in Lansing two days ago, conservative comedian-activist Steven Crowder was beaten up by union members. Apparently the perpetrators were upset that Crowder was asking questions and trying to prevent them from demolishing a temporary shelter that the good government group Americans for Prosperity had erected at the site. Crowder suffered a chipped tooth in the attack.

Radio interview tonight 6:05 Eastern (4:05 Arizona time)

I'll be on "Hair on Fire" (hosted by blogger Barbara Espinosa) tonight at 6:05 Eastern (which is 4:05 Arizona time).

We'll be talking about my article, Pushing Obama Over the Fiscal Cliff.

Listen live here.

Did Obama steal the 2012 election?

James Simpson, who was writing about the Cloward-Piven Strategy long before I'd ever heard of it, has a thoughtful piece at WND looking at how much fraud took place in the 2012 election.

Worker Freedom Comes to Michigan?

My article from today's FrontPage Magazine:

Worker Freedom Comes to Michigan?

By Matthew Vadum

As Michigan lawmakers prepare to strike a blow for worker freedom, organized labor is resorting to its old playbook in an effort to prevent the state from adopting “right to work” legislation” aimed at restoring the Rust Belt state’s economic vitality.

True to form, the entrenched forces of organized labor that have been gnawing away at Michigan for decades are throwing a big, carefully stage-managed, media-saturated temper tantrum.

Around the state capitol in Lansing, police are gearing up for massive demonstrations, beefing up their presence today as the Michigan Legislature meets to grant final approval to right to work legislation.

“It’s an attack on working families, and we’re gonna be there. We’re not gonna stand for it,” Bernie Ricke, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600, was quoted saying.

President Obama dropped by Michigan yesterday taking time out from his busy golf schedule to rally labor commissars at the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant.

Surprise Senate Exit by Jim DeMint

My article is in today's FrontPage Magazine:

Surprise Senate Exit by Jim DeMint

By Matthew Vadum

One of President Obama’s most outspoken critics is quitting the U.S. Senate to take over the reins at the Heritage Foundation, the nation’s preeminent conservative think tank.

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Tea Party movement-supported Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said he is leaving public office in order to help the conservative movement regain the upper hand in the war of ideas. Replacing Heritage co-founder Ed Feulner, DeMint expects to take over as president at Heritage early next year.

“This is an urgent time because we saw in the last election we were not able to communicate conservative ideas that win elections,” said DeMint, a market researcher before he entered public life.

“This really gets my blood going again thinking about the possibilities. This is the time to elevate the conservative cause.”

Pushing Obama Over the Fiscal Cliff

My article from the Dec. 6, 2012 issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Pushing Obama Over the Fiscal Cliff

By Matthew Vadum

As a potentially toxic combination of steep tax hikes and deep spending cuts draws nearer Republicans are consistently being outmaneuvered by President Obama.

Disillusioned Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell counsels that this wonkish back-and-forth over the finer points of marginal tax rates is not the hill that Republicans should die on.

The GOP doesn’t even grasp the underlying political dynamics now in play, he says.

In a nutshell, Republicans need to understand that the real struggle is not with the Obama administration; instead, the real struggle is for American political opinion, including the broad middle that preferred Obama to Romney, but nevertheless feels no great trust or affection for the re-elected 44th President.

Republicans have to grab hold of the narrative and drive home the point that Obama’s overreaching is bad for America, something that now-private citizen Mitt Romney refused to do in the recently concluded election cycle.

Caddell believes that an outrageous proposal offered by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner presents a golden opportunity that Republicans have thus far failed to seize.

Geithner brazenly asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to ignore the Constitution and give the Executive Branch the ability to raise the national debt ceiling with the stroke of a pen. McConnell reportedly laughed out loud and Boehner afterwards said he was “flabbergasted.”

A mildly dismaying tale of lying liberal liars who must have struggled in English class

So many bloggers have a disdain for the facts. Especially on the Left.

Take the bloggers in my former home state of Pennsylvania at "2 political junkies."

In a piece called the "The Right Wing Echo Chamber/Filter," they accuse me of "skewing" or something in an article about loathsome radical union thug Leo Gerard.

They accurately quote from my FrontPage Magazine article last year about Gerard. In it I wrote:

To Gerard, it is not radical leftist agitation that leads to violence but capitalism itself. Economic “inequality,” he says, “leads to instability and violence.”

In a Huffington Post column dated Halloween 2011 and titled "Sacrilege: Wall Street Worship," Gerard wrote, "Such inequality leads to instability and violence."

It's pretty obvious that Gerard is criticizing capitalism, which, of course, is his privilege.

But the 2 political junkies, who may have been high at the time, accused me of dishonesty because I didn't include a superfluous detail that they really, really, think I should have.