The Democrats are up to it again ... using the imperial federal government to tell private companies how to run their businesses. California Rep. George Miller has proposed new federal legislation that would force employers to provide paid time off for any workers that are told to stay home when they are sick. The excuse at hand is the Swine Flu. The real excuse? Labor unions ... and power.

Do you think that there is any way that our founding fathers .. the men who wrote our Constitution ... would have been able to conceive of a government powerful enough to force a private sector employer to pay someone for not working?

If Obama is so focused on health care reform, could someone please tell me why there are so many parts of the ObamaCare plan that benefit labor unions and promote unionization? Just another indication that this is not about health care, it's about control --- and paying off your friends.

Labor Day couldn't have come fast enough for labor unions in this country. They really have their thongs in a wad right now. Why? Because they haven't seen the payoff that they expected for getting all of these Democrats elected. What do they ultimately want? They want Democrats to pass their card check bill. Pass the card check bill and the labor unions can go on their merry way, bullying workers into a giant unionized work-force. And it seems as though the White House pandered right to them. Joe Biden himself promised yesterday that the card check bill would make it through Congress this year. Barack Obama says that "every American owes something to America's labor movement."

Well .. someone had better work on getting this message across to the American people. Polling this morning shows that labor unions are enjoying the lowest approval rating since you kicked the last slat out of your cradle. Only 48% of Americans harbor positive thoughts about labor unions. The purple-shirted thugs from the Service Employees International Union and their actions at the townhall meetings haven't helped labor's image.

The AFL-CIO has come up with a brilliant plan to reap billions of dollars ... tax evil corporation profits. The plan is to tax every stock transaction. While they call it a "small" tax (about a tenth of a percent) the tax would generate $50 billion to $100 billion a year. Policy director for the AFL-CIO, Thea Lee, says there are two reasons for imposing the new tax: raising revenue and discouraging speculative financial activity. She explains, "The big disadvantage of most taxes is that they discourage some really productive activity ... This would discourage numerous financial transactions. People flip their assets several times in an hour or a day. They make money but does it really add to the productive base of the United States?" Now, what might this money be used for? The goal would be to use the tax revenue on infrastructure projects (for unionized employees, obviously). And get this, the tax could be applied nationwide or internationally.

Question: Who should make the decision as to when to buy or sell a stock? The government? Some union hack? Hey! Here's an idea! Let the person who owns the stock decide when to sell it! And let the person with money decide when to invest! I think there's a word for that ... "freedom," I think. But then we're talking about unions, aren't we?

Government wants back in. The Democrats want the government back in. In where? To our financial institutions, that's where. Make no mistake, the looters are more than a little upset that companies like Goldman Sachs have not only repaid their loans but are now making billions in profits. That drives them wild! What in the hell are those companies and the people who invest in them doing with all of that money that we could be using to buy votes .. or that could be spent to employ union workers. Well ... since these companies and their investors have broken free and are once again thriving, let's just levy a little tax against trading in their stock.

But hold tight, my friends. You ain't seen nuttin yet. Wait until the looters propose going after your pension funds, your IRAs and your 401Ks. It just not fair that you should have a comfortable retirement when so many people are going to have to rely on the busted Social Security system.

Every year unions have to submit financial reports to the government as required by the Labor Management and Reporting Disclosure Act. But for years under the Bush administration, unions complained that Labor Secretary at the time, Elaine Chao, issued even tougher regulations for labor unions to comply with. These regulations "required union officials to disclose financial information that could aid union members' seeking information on how their union leaders are spending dues money, and to help expose 'no show jobs' that put paychecks for ghost employees into union coffers."

But now that the Obama administration is in place, new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has said sayonara to these revised union financial disclosure requirements. Unions will no longer have to comply. A notice went out about a week ago stating the following:

"Accordingly, OLMS will refrain from initiating enforcement actions against union officers and union employees based solely on the failure to file the report required by section 202 of the Labor-Management and Reporting Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 432, using the 2007 form, as long as individuals meet their statutorily-required filing obligation in some manner. OLMS will accept either the old Form LM-30 or the new one for purposes of this non-enforcement policy."

In other words, just another "thank you" from the Obama administration. It would seem that now the union leaders are free to spend union dues on whatever they durned well please, and to keep those ghost union workers out there fattening union boss wallets. You would expect nothing less with Democrats in power.

The liberals have had their thongs in a wad for weeks over this column by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. For those of you who missed it, Mackey wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal on August 11th that explained his free market plan for healthcare reform. Ever since then, liberals have been in a war against Mackey for daring to go against Barack Obama or stand against the political leanings of so many of his customers!

Well now the unions have gotten involved. The CtW Investment Group, a part of the Change to Win federation of unions that advocates on behalf of workers' investments in pension funds, is calling for Mackey's resignation. The union says that Mackey is undermining President Obama's healthcare reform.

CtW Investment Group's Executive Director Bill Patterson says, "Mr. Mackey attempted to capitalize on the brand reputation of Whole Foods to champion his personal political views, but has instead deeply offended a key segment of Whole Foods consumer base." Oh my God! NO! Tell me it's not true! Someone has been OFFENDED!

In the meantime, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union is going to be handing out information to Whole Foods shoppers about healthcare reform. Maybe they will hire some homeless people to handout the flyers ... that's always a good way to promote your cause.

(Note for Atlanta listeners: You will see around town groups of about five people holding a frame with a "Shame on" banner in it? Those people are homeless winos and bums. They're hired by local building trades unions to hold those "shame on" signs naming companies that dare to finish out an office with a non-union sheetrock contractor.)

Included in one of the House versions of the healthcare reform bill is a little gift to the unions. One provision includes $10 billion to pay off medical costs of union members and retirees. Section 164, a reinsurance program for retirees, sets aside $10 billion in order to set up a temporary reinsurance program "to provide reimbursement to participating employment-based plans for part of the cost of providing health benefits to retirees age 55-64 and their families ... Employment-based plans must apply to participate and be approved, and the health care plan would reimburse participating employment-based plans for 80 percent of the cost of benefits in excess of $15,000 and under $90,000." Pure pork for the Democrat's union pals.

Then we get this explanation from UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. He says, "We need meaningful health care reform if we are going to get our economy going again ... Decent, affordable health care should be a right of every American, not a privilege."

Now here's what Gettelfinger is saying. In order to receive health care someone has to provide you with a service. This means that someone has to expend time, property or both to provide you with your health care. Usually this health care provider is compensated for their time or property. But ... if, as this footstool Gettelfinger says ... healthcare is a "right," then that would mean that you are legally entitled to the healthcare provider's time and property .. and that you don't have to pay anything at all for the service? After all, we shouldn't have to buy what is rightfully ours, should we?

The claim that healthcare is a right is tantamount to a claim that you have a right to a portion of the life and property of another. Defend that one.

I think the amazing story of the week is the panicked reaction of the looters to the way their representatives have been treated at town hall meetings around the country. I mean, how DARE these people question the ruling class? Don't they realize they lost the election? The Democrats will remind them of that at any opportunity. The theory is that if you lose the election you are supposed to shut the hell up, sit back and let the victors do pretty much anything they want to you.

Let's draw a parallel. A man attacks a woman. She fights back like hell. Finally the man subdues her and starts pulling off her clothes. As he tries to rape her she starts fighting again. "Hold on there," the rapist yells. "I won ... you lost. Now you're supposed to let me do anything I want to you and you can't do a damned thing about it."

The Democrats - Pelosi, Boxer, et all - have been calling the people who show up at the town hall meetings to protest ObamaCare "thugs." Well, I guess they've decided it's time to thrown in some thugs of their own. Now if you're a Democrat - a looter - and you need some thugs, where are you going to go? You got it! There, that wasn't all that hard, was it? You go to the unions? What better place to find some thugs than a union hall?

And so ... what do we have now? We have violence breaking out at these town hall meetings. And trust me on this one .. the Democrats and most of the media is going to make sure that the people protesting ObamaCare take the blame for the disruptions. Certainly not the unions.

Believe this .. unions are more than a little pissed right now. When their hero was inaugurated on January 20th they thought it would just be a matter of weeks ... a few months at most ... and they would have their forced unionization bill. Yeah - the so-called "card check" bill. The thugs couldn't wait to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of workers faced with the decision of whether or not to sign that union card.

"Pssst. Buddy. No, don't look at me, just listen. That card you have? You really do need to sign it and turn it in. That's a mighty nice new car you have parked outside. New tires are expensive, you know. And it would really be a shame if your wife had any problems the next time she went to the Safeway for some groceries. You know what to do."

Well, the union's big summer didn't happen, and they're itching for some action. They know that they won't get any action on card check as long as the Democrats are tied up trying to take over our health care system. So maybe, just maybe, if the unions would help out the looters, the looters will return the favor. So if you are planning on attending a town hall meeting on healthcare any time soon, be on the lookout for union thugs. It's always nice to have something to look forward to you .. and coming soon to a town hall meeting near you, your favorite local union sweethearts! John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO has issued his call to arms. He wants union members to attend healthcare town hall meetings in order to counteract the "right-wing 'Tea Party Patriots.'" These are all of you evil, well-dressed protestors who believe in smaller government or the freedom to choose your own doctors. Oh .. and just what do you think that Sweeney means by "counteract?"

Sweeney wrote a memo to his minions saying, "The principal battleground in the campaign will be town hall meetings and other gatherings with members of Congress in their home districts ... We want your help to organize major union participation to counter the right-wing 'Tea-Party Patriots' who will try to disrupt those meetings, as they've been trying to do to meetings for the last month."

Yeah .. it's the ugly "Tea Party Patriots" that are going to try to disrupt the meetings, certainly not the unions, right? Perhaps you might like to look at this item from Michelle Malkin's blog. It would appear that a St. Louis town hall meeting yesterday the union members showed up ... the union members were allowed in ... but those who weren't exactly friendly to the Democrats takeover of almost 20% of our economy were left out. My guess is that if you were to check local coverage you might see that it was all the protestor's fault. I understand that we can't know for certain just what happened in these meetings ... but based on past experience, what would you guess? Would you believe that the ObamaCare protestors caused the violence, or union members?

Here's something else for you to think about: We have one Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff to President Obama. Talking to Democrats yesterday said "if you get hit, we will hit back twice as heard." Well, the Democrats have been taking a hit at their own hall meetings. Are they now hitting back twice as hard?

It doesn't help that the Secretary Treasurer of the AFL-CIO issued the following statement about the town hall meetings. You'll love this.

Every American has the inalienable right to participate in our democratic process. Our politics is passionate, heartfelt and often loud -- as was the founding of our nation. But that is not what the corporate-funded mobs are engaging in when they show up to disrupt town halls held by members of Congress.

Major health care reform is closer than ever to passage and it is no secret that special interests want to weaken or block it. These mobs are not there to participate. As their own strategy memo states, they have been sent by their corporate and lobbyist bankrollers to disrupt, heckle and block meaningful debate. This is a desperation move, meant to slow the momentum for change.

Mob rule is not democracy. People have a democratic right to express themselves and our elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents -- not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation and attempt to scare our leaders into inaction.

We call on the insurance companies, the lobbyists and the Republican leaders who are cheering them on to halt these 'Brooks Brothers Riot' tactics. Health care is a crucial issue and everyone - on all sides of the issue - deserves to be heard.

These are the tactics of despots. They'll pay grand lip service to the idea of free speech .. but there's always a "but" thrown in. The looters have no real answers for the people who are protesting ObamaCare, so they start making references to mob rule. We're nothing but "organized thugs" who want to shut down conversation? Are they kidding? Shut down conversation? In a few paragraphs you're going to have the opportunity to click on a link to watch a video of a recent AARP meeting. As soon as the people in the audience try to have a conversation with the meeting organizer, she packs up and leaves! Just WHO is trying to shut down conversation?

Oh ... and before we move on: Isn't it just precious to hear a union leader talking about "organized thugs?" The history of unionism in this country is a history of organized thuggery. Then he says that "mob rule is not democracy." Sorry, but that is EXACTLY what democracy is. Why do you think they call themselves Democrats? A lynch mob is mob rule. Right? Well, a lynch mob is also a prime example of democratic action. One man wants to live to see his day in court. Thirty men want him hung ... NOW. OK, let's have a vote! Wow! Imagine that! The vote was 30 to1. Get the rope! There's your democracy in action. In a democracy the rule of law means zip. That's also what it meant to Obama when he was manhandling the GM bankruptcy. Hope your memories are that long.

But it's not just the AFL-CIO. The Service Employees International Union is also summoning the troops. A spokeswoman for the unions says that it is "unleashing the purple people" in order to "challenge the radical fringe" that is disrupting these town hall meetings. The spokeswoman also says union members are not there to "talk to the crazies." We need to "reclaim our democracy!" and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I could rant on this for hours. The looters are in panic mode. The people are learning more and more about their takeover of health care. The people saw right through that attempt to change the topic from health CARE reform to health INSURANCE reform. The people in this country see the huge deficits coming. They know instinctively that Barack Obama cannot promise more and more health care to more and more people with fewer doctors and nurses and NOT resort to rationing and higher taxes. We don't like it ... and we're speaking out.

You haven't heard a lot about the union's precious "card check" bill lately. I don't think it's dead ... just dormant. Count on the unions to do everything in their considerable power to get this passed ... they're virtually licking their chops at the idea of their union organizing thugs being able to intimidate workers into signing a card saying they want to join a union. (Hey, buddy, remember: We know where you live, and we know where your children go to school.)

Here's another reason why you do not want to see the power of unions to increase in this country. You've heard of the financial problems facing California. But have you heard what the California government-employee unions are doing to help? Well ... they've voted to authorize a strike. They don't like the idea that government union workers are being furloughed to save taxpayers money.

BTW .. did you know that over the past year wages have been working twice as fast in the government sector than they have in the private? Government employee unions.

The California government employee unions think it's just fine if California looks for ways to save money --- but from now on that money has to come from somewhere other than union paychecks.

Yeah ... we really want more unions, don't we?

In case you were worried about the United Auto Workers union lately, you needn't be. It looks like they will be taken care of just fine. As for other workers in the auto industry, they may not be so lucky. Take a look at the latest from the Wall Street Journal.

It's hard to keep up, but this week the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took over the pension liabilities of Delphi, the auto-parts spinoff of GM that has been working its way through Chapter 11 since 2005. As with the previous taxpayer rescues, this one includes a special favor for the United Auto Workers.

Under the agreement, the PBGC will assume some $6.2 billion in pension liabilities from Delphi, including both hourly and salaried employees ... As Delphi's former parent, GM had agreed to take responsibility for billions of dollars of Delphi's pension obligations to its hourly employees.

It will be months before Delphi employees know what percentage of their expected pension they'll receive, but not all pensioners are created equal in this arrangement. UAW employees will have their pensions made whole by GM, which insists it is merely fulfilling its end of a deal made with the UAW in 1999 (when it spun off Delphi) to cover any future pension shortfall ... Less fortunate are smaller unions and Delphi's salaried employees, whose pensions may see drastic reductions and who already lost their health care and life insurance plans on April 1.

There are two groups that Obama and the Democrats are sure to protect as their big-government agenda progresses: Unions and trial lawyers. You didn't happen to see any medical malpractice reform in the government health plans, did you?

This story takes place in Baltimore, Maryland. It actually involves a charter school. You see, the law in Maryland requires that charter school teachers be part of the union in their school district. That was their first mistake.

So this charter school, the KIPP Ujima Village Academy starts doing really well. Students at the school are outperforming students at the local government schools. One reason may be that the teachers at the KIPP Ujima Village Academy put in longer hours than their government school counterparts. KIPP teachers work nine hours and 15 minutes a day, as well as every other Saturday. Local government school teachers are only required to work seven hours and five minutes a day. And you can forget about weekends.

This is where the local union steps in and says "Hey, wait a minute. Teachers at this charter school are working longer hours than other unionized teachers at the government schools." The solution? The Baltimore Teachers Union says that this charter school must pay its teachers 33% more than other government school teachers. The charter school says ... screw you, we have a budget to meet (there's a concept no government hack would understand). So now, one of Baltimore's most successful schools is laying off staff and shortening its school day. They are doing this in order to please the teachers unions.

Oh wait ... you thought that teachers unions are there to enhance the education of your child? And just what planet did you say you are from?

I mentioned this one on the air last week, but it is so outrageous that it is worth repeating. When it comes to healthcare reform, the Senate is considering the idea of allowing union-negotiated benefit packages go un-taxed. Yep, as I just talked about in the Nuze item above, there is still an option on the table that would tax employee healthcare benefits. However, if that plan makes it into the bill, union-negotiated contracts would be exempt from paying these taxes.

You can thank Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus for this one. He's the one that believes that any major changes to the US healthcare system should exempt perks secured by existing collective bargaining agreements. In other words ... they would be grandfathered in. Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute makes a good point. He says that this "smacks of political favoritism ... "I can't think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for."

So this would be a way to still tax benefits, but magically exclude 12.4% of American workers who happen to be union members. In the end, who is going to have more of a say come election time?

I got on a rant about unions again after reading about these government school teachers in New York. You know the ones sitting in these "rubber rooms" doing crossword puzzles and playing grab-ass? Yeah, those are the ones. What a joke. But you continue to turn your children over to the government to be educated.

Anyway, that got me thinking about how hideous unions are for this country, and I was reminded of a recent study by the Heritage Foundation. Take a look at some of the highlights below. It's wonderful stuff.

• Studies typically find that unionized companies earn profits between 10 percent and 15 percent lower than those of comparable non-union firms.
   
• Some unions win higher wages for their members, though many do not. But with these higher wages, unions bring less investment, fewer jobs, higher prices, and smaller 401(k) plans for everyone else.
   
• Final union contracts typically give workers group identities instead of treating them as individuals. Unions do not have the resources to monitor each worker's performance and tailor the contract accordingly. Even if they could, they would not want to do so. Unions want employees to view the union--not their individual achievements--as the source of their economic gains.
   
• Consequently, union contracts compress wages: They suppress the wages of more productive workers and raise the wages of the less competent. Unions redistribute wealth between workers.
   
• A better summary of the economic research is that unions do not increase workers' wages by nearly as much as they claim and that, at a number of companies, they do not raise wages at all.
   
• In essence, unions "tax" investments that corporations make, redistributing part of the return from these investments to their members. This makes undertaking a new investment less worthwhile. Companies respond to the union tax in the same way they respond to government taxes on investment--by investing less.
   
• Research shows that unions directly cause firms to reduce their investments. In fact, investment drops sharply after unions organize a company. One study found that unionizing reduces capital investment by 30 percent--the same effect as a 33 percentage point increase in the corporate tax rate
   
• The balance of economic research shows that unions do not just happen to organize firms with more layoffs and less job growth: They cause job losses. Most studies find that jobs drop at newly organized companies, with employment falling between 5 percent and 10 percent.

Here's a little story about unions flexing their muscles. We'll back into this one. Out in California, many companies are looking to set up solar power plants. So a company called Ausra files plans to build. Immediately it is inundated for demands from a union: "before you can build, you have to study the effects this will have on endangered species like the short-nosed kangaroo rat or the ferruginous hawk!" Studies like this could take years, and they are definitely costly.

Then, another company called BrightSource Energy comes along and wants to build a solar power plant. The same union has no complaints. In fact, it wants regulators to approve the project ASAP.

So I'm sure by now you've already figured out what is going on here. The first company, Ausra, rejected demands to only use union workers to build the solar farm. The other company, BrightSource, said that it would use labor-friendly contractors.

It's not like this is anything new. This is business as usual for unions. What is new is the field that unions have planned to use the green movement to achieve their goals of union expansion. Socialist and communists figured this out 20 years ago, don't know why it took the unions so long.

Barack Obama and the Democrats have ensured that wind and solar farms will be popping up all around the country and creating all sorts of new jobs. (So they say.) So the unions want to make sure that these "new jobs" are union jobs. They are going to use this movement to "regain relevance," as it says in the New York Times. So the unions have devised a plan: use these costly environmental studies to threaten any company that doesn't agree to use union workers or labor-friendly contractors. Obama's their pal. Maybe they'll get away with it.

The President of Brazil has let the cat out of the bag. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says that unions and workers should be taking better advantage of the current financial crisis to form "a new world economic order." What kind of world order would that be? One based on fairness. One where the workers and the unions would dominate political policy and make sure that the evil rich corporations that provide their jobs don't make money.

He made this statement at the International Labor Organization summit, a gathering of United Nations members. He says, "This is an exceptional opportunity for all of you to think and develop proposals together with the employers and business leaders so that we can change definitely the relations between state and civil society and so that we can build our countries with much more fairness and much more solidarity."

Sadly, there are a lot of people ... including some in our own government ... that would agree with him.

We can only hope this country wakes up before Obama ruins it.