Is Kerry clueless or does he just love to be in the limelight or both? You decide. Krauthammer already has!
Meanwhile principled Joe gets it!(See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
Meanwhile principled Joe gets it!(See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
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Our local paper picked up the leaked memo regarding 'Lefty Nunn,' who wants to parade as just a good old simple young lady trying to do good by caring for us neanderthals. ! (See 2 below.)
A politicized NLRB, which Obama stacked, is now attacking franchisees in order to undercut Capitalism in keeping with Alinsky's laws.
First the basis for Obama's attack was fat, then minimum wages and now its about paying off unions. (See 2a and 2b below.)
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Kim wants to know is cronyism alive and well? She believes some upcoming GOP elections will provide the answer! (See 3 below.)
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Just another day for Obama's walking children which he cares so deeply about. Bless his and their 'soles!' (See 4 below.)
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Lt. Goldin's abduction status after cease fire was violated by Hamas.
Radical Muslims understand pawns but play chess their way.
When you deal with animals you must play their way. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
A politicized NLRB, which Obama stacked, is now attacking franchisees in order to undercut Capitalism in keeping with Alinsky's laws.
First the basis for Obama's attack was fat, then minimum wages and now its about paying off unions. (See 2a and 2b below.)
===
Kim wants to know is cronyism alive and well? She believes some upcoming GOP elections will provide the answer! (See 3 below.)
===
Just another day for Obama's walking children which he cares so deeply about. Bless his and their 'soles!' (See 4 below.)
===
Lt. Goldin's abduction status after cease fire was violated by Hamas.
Radical Muslims understand pawns but play chess their way.
| HAMAS VIOLATES VIOLATES 72-HOUR CEASEFIRE AFTER JUST 90 MINUTES | ||
| BY BRYAN PRESTON | ||
| Overnight there was another humanitarian cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and Hamas broke it with about 70.5 hours still on the clock. |
When you deal with animals you must play their way. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) Clueless in Gaza
By Charles Krauthammer
John Kerry is upset by heavy criticism from Israelis — left, right and center— of his recent cease-fire diplomacy. But that’s only half the story. More significant is the consternation of America’s Arab partners, starting with the president of the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas was stunned that Kerry would fly off to Paris to negotiate with Hamas allies Qatar and Turkey in talks that excluded the PA and Egypt.
The talks also undermined Egypt’s cease-fire proposal, which Israel had accepted and Hamas rejected (and would have prevented the vast majority of the casualties on both sides). “Kerry tried through his latest plan to destroy the Egyptian bid,” charged a senior Palestinian official quoted in the Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat — a peace plan that the PA itself had supported.
It gets worse. Kerry did not just trample an Egyptian initiative. It was backed by the entire Arab League and specifically praised by Saudi Arabia. With the exception of Qatar — more a bank than a country — the Arabs are unanimous in wanting to see Hamas weakened, if not overthrown. The cease-fire-in-place they backed would have denied Hamas any reward for starting this war, while what Kerry brought back from Paris granted practically all of its demands.
Which is what provoked the severe criticism Kerry received at home. When as respected and scrupulously independent a national security expert asDavid Ignatius calls Kerry’s intervention a blunder, you know this is not partisan carping from the usual suspects. This is general amazement at Kerry’s cluelessness.
Kerry seems oblivious to the strategic reality that Hamas launched its rockets in the hope not of defeating Israel but of ending its intra-Arab isolation (which it brilliantly achieves in the Qatar-Turkey peace proposal). Hamas’s radicalism has alienated nearly all of its Arab neighbors.
●Egypt cut it off — indeed blockaded Gaza — because of Hamas’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist attacks on Egyptian soldiers in Sinai.
●Fatah, the main element of the Palestinian Authority, is a bitter enemy, particularly since its Gaza members were terrorized, kneecapped, expelled and/or killed when Hamas seized Gaza in a 2007 coup.
●Hamas is non grata in Syria, where it had been previously headquartered, for supporting the anti-government rebels.
●Hamas is deeply opposed by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which see it, correctly, as yet another branch of the Islamist movement that threatens relatively moderate pro-Western Arab states.
Kerry seems not to understand that the Arab League backed the Egyptian cease-fire-in-place, which would have left Hamas weak and isolated, to ensure that Hamas didn’t emerge from this war strengthened and enhanced.
Why didn’t Kerry just stay home and declare unequivocal U.S. support for the Egyptian/Arab League plan? Instead, he flew off to Paris and sent Jerusalem a package of victories for Hamas: lifting the blockade from Egypt, opening the border with Israel, showering millions of foreign cash to pay the salaries of the 43,000 (!) government workers that the near-insolvent Hamas cannot.
Forget about Israeli interests. Forget about Arab interests. The American interest is to endorse and solidify this emerging axis of moderate pro-American partners (Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states, and the Palestinian Authority) intent on seeing Islamist radicalism blunted and ultimately defanged.
Yet America’s secretary of state doesn’t see it. Speaking of Hamas-run Gaza, Kerry actually said in Paris: “The Palestinians can’t have a cease-fire in which they think the status quo is going to stay.” What must change? Gazans need “goods that can come in and out . . . a life that is free from the current restraints.”
But the only reason for those “restraints,” why goods are unable to go in and out, is that for a decade Hamas has used this commerce to import and develop weapons for making war on Israel.
Remember the complaints that the heartless Israelis were not allowing enough imports of concrete for schools and hospitals? Well, now we know where the concrete went — into an astonishingly vast array of tunnels for infiltrating neighboring Israeli villages and killing civilians. (More than half a million tons, estimates the Israeli military.)
Lifting the blockade would mean a flood of arms, rockets, missile parts and other implements of terror for Hamas. What is an American secretary of state doing asserting that Hamas cannot cease fire unless it gets that?
Moreover, the fire from which Hamas will not cease consists of deliberate rocket attacks on Israeli cities — by definition, a war crime.
Whatever his intent, Kerry legitimized Hamas’s war criminality. Which makes his advocacy of Hamas’s terms not just a strategic blunder — enhancing a U.S.-designated terrorist group just when a wall-to-wall Arab front wants to see it gone — but a moral disgrace.1a) Israel Condemning Persists Even as UN Official Admits Hamas Uses Their Buildings
Author: Phyllis Chesler
Source: Breitbart.
A senior UN official, UN OCHA director, John Ging, confirms what the IDF and other informed experts have been saying all along, but to little avail. In a television interview yesterday, Ging said that Hamas terrorists “are firing their rockets into Israel from the vicinity of UN facilities and residential areas.”
Source: Breitbart.
A senior UN official, UN OCHA director, John Ging, confirms what the IDF and other informed experts have been saying all along, but to little avail. In a television interview yesterday, Ging said that Hamas terrorists “are firing their rockets into Israel from the vicinity of UN facilities and residential areas.”
This statement by so senior a UN official confirms what the IDF has said repeatedly since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, namely that Hamas uses Gaza's civilian population as a human shield. This is a transcript of the key moments in this video. If you begin at 4:19, you will see and hear this:
JOHN GING: The militants, Hamas, and the other armed groups, they are firing also their weaponry, the rockets, into Israel from the vicinity of these [UN] installations and housing and so on, so the combat is being conducted very much in a residential built up area.
CBC NEWS ANCHOR: The Israeli government has said repeatedly that Hamas is using human shields, they are using UN schools, hospitals — not only, by the way, to store weapons — I know 3 UN-run schools have been found with munitions stored in them, as weapons depots — but in the UN's experience, is Hamas or militant groups, Islamic Jihad, are they launching rockets nearby these shelters, these UN schools? Are they using it essentially as a shelter?
JOHN GING: The militants, Hamas, and the other armed groups, they are firing also their weaponry, the rockets, into Israel from the vicinity of these [UN] installations and housing and so on, so the combat is being conducted very much in a residential built up area.
CBC NEWS ANCHOR: The Israeli government has said repeatedly that Hamas is using human shields, they are using UN schools, hospitals — not only, by the way, to store weapons — I know 3 UN-run schools have been found with munitions stored in them, as weapons depots — but in the UN's experience, is Hamas or militant groups, Islamic Jihad, are they launching rockets nearby these shelters, these UN schools? Are they using it essentially as a shelter?
JOHN GING: The militants, Hamas, and the other armed groups, they are firing also their weaponry, the rockets, into Israel from the vicinity of these [UN] installations and housing and so on, so the combat is being conducted very much in a residential built up area.
As they say, this should mean that the “game” is over; this should function as a “game changer.” Clearly, that is not the case. Even as I write, new petitions, signed by ever more western academics and activists which condemn Israel are in the pipeline; Jews are being viciously attacked (“Death to the Jews”) all across Europe and at demonstrations in North America. Media headlines, opinion pieces, and “rants,” still focus on the number of “human shield” civilians that Hamas is sacrificing for reasons of propaganda in the belief that the pressure of world opinion will force Israel to stop before the mission of “de-militarizing Gaza” has been accomplished.
As they say, this should mean that the “game” is over; this should function as a “game changer.” Clearly, that is not the case. Even as I write, new petitions, signed by ever more western academics and activists which condemn Israel are in the pipeline; Jews are being viciously attacked (“Death to the Jews”) all across Europe and at demonstrations in North America. Media headlines, opinion pieces, and “rants,” still focus on the number of “human shield” civilians that Hamas is sacrificing for reasons of propaganda in the belief that the pressure of world opinion will force Israel to stop before the mission of “de-militarizing Gaza” has been accomplished.
When Palestinian deaths occur, Israel is immediately and reflexively blamed—and then, when it becomes absolutely clear that Hamas rockets have killed their own “human shields,” or when Hamas did not allow their “human shields” to evacuate, the world media and human rights organizations simply move on. Their “game” is blaming Israelis, not in telling the truth.
On July 24, 2014, it was reported that fifteen people were killed and many wounded due to the Israeli shelling of a UN School. UN Chief Ban Ki Moon condemned the attacks. Israel had warned of this strike the previous night and told the Red Cross to evacuate civilians from the UNRWA shelter. Hamas refused to let them leave. UNWRWA spokesman Chris Gunness tweeted that Hamas rockets were also falling on the compound.
No, Ban Ki Moon did not retract his statement or call an extraordinary meeting at the United Nations based on this clear information.
On July 28, 2014, Rockets were aimed at Israeli residential neighborhoods near the Gaza Strip. They fell short and “hit Al-Shifa Hospital and the Al-Shati refugee camp instead. Nevertheless, “several major media outletsimmediately reported that Israel was behind the strikes…based solely on Palestinian claims.”
Today, a very surprising and out-of-character headline appears on the front page of the New York Times. It reads: “Arab Leaders, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel, Stay Silent.” Not exactly high praise for Israel but given the record at the Times, a teeny opening. However, right above today’s headline, is a four column photo of a UN shelter. The caption reads: “At least 20 people were killed when Israeli shells struck a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip.”
This is a typical example of how a rare truth is undercut at the instant.
Indeed, the piece on the “demolished” UN School is further maximized by two more color four-column photos of a bleeding child awaiting medical treatment and of so-called Palestinian civilians inspecting the United Nations school which was “damaged” by shelling.
Yesterday, three young Israeli soldiers were killed when they entered a booby-trapped UN School. A booby-trapped school… and yet, the world’s focus is not here. If anything, the rising death toll of Israeli’s finest young heroes seems justified, overdue, “only fair,” given how high the number of allegedly civilian casualties Hamas (whose words can absolutely not be trusted) claims.
The propaganda mill that has been well funded by so many both in the Islamic and Western worlds has made it almost impossible to get people to pay attention to the facts and to draw the obvious and necessary conclusions.
Israel is not waging an aggressive war. This is a war of self-defense.
Israel is not the capitalist/colonialist super-power. Israel is surrounded by twenty two Arab countries that have become radically Islamist and by a world that is calling for Jewish blood—yet again. Christians have been forced to flee the region. A bloodbath of Sunni vs Shiia continues uninterruptedly.
Israel, falsely demonized, is utterly alone—despite the fact that Israel is on the front line of the battle against Islamist barbarism and Jihad.
Author: Joshua Levitt
Source: algemeiner.com.
A Spanish journalist told Israeli filmmaker Michael Grynszpan that the reason television news does not broadcast images of Hamas fighters in action is because of fear of immediate execution.
Source: algemeiner.com.
A Spanish journalist told Israeli filmmaker Michael Grynszpan that the reason television news does not broadcast images of Hamas fighters in action is because of fear of immediate execution.
Grynszpan, who directed the film ‘Forgotten Refugees‘, about the 800,000 to 1 million Jews expelled from their homes in the Arab world in the 1950s, posted his interview with the unnamed Spanish journalist on Facebook on Wednesday.
“I met today with a Spanish journalist who just came back from Gaza. We talked about the situation there. He was very friendly. I asked him how come we never see on television channels reporting from Gaza any Hamas people, no gunmen, no rocket launcher, no policemen. We only see civilians on these reports, mostly women and children.”
“He answered me frankly: ‘It’s very simple, we did see Hamas people there launching rockets, they were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them they would simply shoot at us and kill us.’”
“Wooh, impressive. Then I asked him ‘Would you mind saying that on camera? I can film you explaining this…’”
“For some reason I cannot really understand, he refused and almost ran away. I guess my camera is as dangerous as Hamas threats…”
“So just for you to know, the truth will never appear on the images you see on television.”
Grynszpan‘s interview was flagged on Thursday by blogger Elder of Zion who compared the many reports of the dangerous intimidation endured by journalists from Hamas in Gaza to what was reported in 2006, at the hands of Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
“CNN’s Nic Robertson dutifully accompanied Hezbollah on a planned tour of a bombed out building, repeating Hezbollah’s talking points about not seeing any military targets there and not telling viewers that it was staged entirely by Hezbollah. Only when he was safely back in the U.S., and challenged on TV about his report, did he admit the truth,” the blogger said.
Robertson, as reported by Newsbusters, said on air: “Hezbollah has ‘very, very sophisticated and slick media operations,’ that the terrorist group ‘had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn’t have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath,’ and he even contradicted Hezbollah’s self-serving spin: ‘There’s no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.’”
But Elder of Ziyon also quoted the reporting of CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who he credited as being “the only one of scores of journalists who exposed the facade of impartiality while he was in Lebanon.”
“As the video showed a group reporters and photographers interviewing a single woman on a blanket, Cooper explained, ‘Civilian casualties are clearly what Hezbollah wants foreign reporters to focus on. It keeps the attention off them — and questions about why Hezbollah should still be allowed to have weapons when all the other militias in Lebanon have already disarmed.’”
“After letting us take pictures of a few damaged buildings, they take us to another location, where there are ambulances waiting.”
“This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah media event. When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. We were allowed a few minutes to talk to the ambulance drivers. Then one by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots of ambulances rushing off to treat civilians. That’s the story that Hezbollah wants people to know about.”
“These ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings. The sirens are strictly for effect.”
1c) Leaving U.S. Allies Adrift as Chaos Rises
In Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East, America's friends are on the defensive and increasingly feeling alone.
When I was getting into politics in Connecticut a long time ago, an experienced politician counseled me: Be loyal to your friends and people who have supported you. Take care of them whenever you can. You should also try to convince people who opposed you in the last election to support you in the next election, but never do that by being disloyal to your friends or you will end up without anybody you can depend on when you need help.
I have been thinking of that wise counsel as numerous crises threaten the world's security—from Ukraine to Israel, from the Senkakus to Syria. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke for a lot of us when she recently observed: "The world is a mess." In the midst of a mess, there is a natural tendency to avoid getting involved or take sides. That has been the reaction of many Americans and their leaders.
But it is at just such times when it is most important to get involved, to take sides, and make clear that we know who our friends and foes are—and that we will stand with our friends and against our foes. Over history that has proved to be an effective way for a superpower like the U.S. to clean up the "mess" of geopolitics and prevent regional conflicts from becoming wider wars.
David Gothard
Unfortunately, in recent years that has not been the foreign policy of the U.S. and our closest European partners in NATO. When other powers—Iran, Russia and China—have acted aggressively, we have reacted ambivalently, slowly or not at all. Too often we have sent a message of uncertainty to our allies and enemies, making the former more anxious and the latter more ambitious.
The conflict in Syria is a painful example. When the uprising against Bashar Assad began, it was dominated by patriotic Syrian freedom fighters who pleaded for our help. Saudi Arabia and other American allies in the Arab world urged us to provide arms to the rebels and offered to help. We laid back. Iran and Russia did not. They saw the larger importance of the Syrian conflict and poured in weapons and personnel to support Assad.
The result has been enormous loss of life, the "re-election" of Assad, and a big opportunity for Islamist extremists who now control large areas of Syria and Iraq that they have declared an Islamic caliphate from which they plan to attack America. The worst of that would likely have been avoided if we had supported our natural allies in Syria early on.
The disappointment and anxiety of our Arab allies and Israel have only grown as the P-5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran have gone forward in a way they believe gives too much to their foe, Iran, and listens too little to their counsel. In the clearly stated opinion of friends like the Saudis, we and the Europeans have been naïve and ineffective and, as a result, they have begun planning how to deal with a nuclear Iran. Those plans include obtaining their own nuclear weapons.
The actions of the U.S. in response to the current war between Israel, our closest ally in the region, and Hamas, a violent, extremist organization, have further divided us from our allies. The Obama administration has rightly supported Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas's missile and terrorist attacks, but the administration's recent efforts to broker a cease-fire sent an unsettling message. The White House seemed to be siding with Qatar and Turkey, supporters of Hamas, and against not just Israel, but also Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Authority, who don't want to see Hamas emerge stronger from the conflict. The U.S. succeeded in infuriating Israel, encouraging Hamas and Iran, and once again shaking the confidence of our friends.
In the Asia Pacific, our closest allies are following events in the Middle East to determine whether they can rely on U.S. support if they are threatened by China. They are not encouraged by what they see. Allies around the South China Sea were shaken by our tepid response when China moved a giant oil drilling rig into waters that they and we have considered to be Vietnamese. When China asserted its sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, which Japan and the U.S. have long considered to be Japanese, the Japanese government accelerated the development of its military capabilities. They no longer have confidence that we will protect them, even though President Obama declared a few months ago that he would come to Japan's defense if China seizes the Senkakus.
In Eastern Europe, our soft response to Vladimir Putin's seizure of Crimea, and our slow reaction to his deceptive and treacherous support of Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine before the shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 unmasked him, stirred disappointment and anger among Ukrainians and anxiety among NATO allies in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. This week President Obama and the European Union did the right thing in imposing much tougher economic sanctions on Russia. But why haven't we given lethal assistance to the Ukrainian military and redeployed more NATO troops to Poland and the Baltics? Those are actions that Mr. Putin is more likely to understand.
Today, in the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe, America's allies are on the defensive and increasingly feeling alone, while Iran, the Islamist extremists, Russia and China are on the move. In response, our allies may be tempted to seek out a different partner or build up their military capabilities, making the world much more dangerous.
This is self-evidently not good for America's security, prosperity or freedom. It can be turned around if we stand more clearly with our allies. Some will say that the U.S. cannot and should not be the world's policeman. But if we want our allies to join us when we ask for their help in protecting order and freedom in the world, we must take sides and be there when they need our help.
As my mentor in Connecticut politics would have understood, strong and consistent support of our allies must be a foundation of U.S. foreign policy in this unstable and unpredictable world—for America's good and the world's.
Mr. Lieberman, a former four-term U.S. senator from Connecticut, is senior counsel at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman.
2) Nunn memo leak becomes attack fodder for political junkies
By WALTER C. JONES
ATLANTA — Michelle Nunn is joking about a leaked campaign memo that is providing ample ammunition for her political opponents.
A conservative publication generally supportive of Republicans, the National Review, published a 144-page strategy outline drafted by political consultants working for Nunn’s U.S. Senate campaign. The publication said it was discovered online briefly in December when she was still running in a four-way race for the Democratic nomination.
In frank terms, it assesses some of her weaknesses, such as spending most of her youth in the Washington area while her father was a senator and the likelihood that Republicans would paint her as a liberal. It also makes clear that 80 percent of her time would be spent soliciting campaign contributions.
One sensitive area was its blunt characterization of demographic groups like women, Jews, blacks and young adults by saying which could be counted on for financial help while remaining in the background and which would have a more visible role.
Nunn tried to shrug it off when reporters asked about it Thursday during a campaign stop in Macon.
“I always thought I wanted to run an open and transparent campaign, but this has gone beyond what I anticipated or intended,” she told them.
But Republican operatives say it shows that instead of being above politics she is actually an empty suit packaged by consultants to take advantage of her father’s reputation.
“Michelle Nunn’s campaign is quickly finding out that the people of Georgia won’t be fooled by her deception,” said Leslie Shedd, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “The reality is Nunn is nothing more than a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who will rubberstamp the Obama agenda if she’s sent to Washington.”
Nunn’s campaign doesn’t know how the memo became public, but they say its release may have the benefit of getting several lines of attack over with quickly when voters are focused on vacations and preparing for the start of school.
“This was a draft of a document that was written eight months ago,” her campaign manager Jeff DiSantis said. “Like all good plans, they change. But what hasn’t changed — and is all the more clear today — is that Michelle’s opponents are going to mischaracterize her work and her positions, and part of what we’ve always done is to prepare for the false things that are going to be said.”
Even some Republican operatives who aren’t connected with her opponent, GOP nominee David Perdue, say the effect may be limited.
“In the greater scheme of things, I think a lot of voters are going to see it as inside baseball,” said Bill Crane, a consultant who admits to writing his share of confidential memos to candidates.
So far, Perdue hasn’t made use of the material other than to express shock when asked about it. Crane says its ultimate impact will be determined by how much money conservative super pacs spend publicizing its contents this fall.
ON THE WEB
To view the memo, go online to http://www.scribd.com/doc/235287519/2014-Michelle-Nunn-Campaign-Memo.
2a) Obama's Big Mac Attack
Sometimes it seems that President Obama's appointees are competing for the prize of most outrageous legal invention. Consider National Labor Relations Board general counsel Richard Griffin's attempt this week to punish McDonald's for resisting the union agenda.
On Tuesday the NLRB's chief prosecutor directed that the fast-food purveyor be charged as a "joint-employer" in dozens of unfair labor practice complaints filed by workers employed at the company's franchises. The workers claim they were wrongly punished for walking off the job to join rallies coordinated by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for a $15 "living wage." Leave aside whether employers can discipline workers who play hookie.
5)-
2a) Obama's Big Mac Attack
The NLRB decides to rewrite the franchise business model by fiat.
Sometimes it seems that President Obama's appointees are competing for the prize of most outrageous legal invention. Consider National Labor Relations Board general counsel Richard Griffin's attempt this week to punish McDonald's for resisting the union agenda.
On Tuesday the NLRB's chief prosecutor directed that the fast-food purveyor be charged as a "joint-employer" in dozens of unfair labor practice complaints filed by workers employed at the company's franchises. The workers claim they were wrongly punished for walking off the job to join rallies coordinated by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for a $15 "living wage." Leave aside whether employers can discipline workers who play hookie.
Related Video
International Franchise Association President and CEO Steve Caldeira on new labor regulations that could destroy the franchise business model. Photo credit: Getty Images.
By deeming McDonald's a joint-employer, Mr. Griffin is putting the corporation on the hook for actions taken by its 3,000 or so franchisees—which operate about 90% of restaurants—without its knowledge or consent. As Andrew Puzder describes nearby, franchisees independently make all personnel decisions including hiring, firing, wages, benefits, hours and other work conditions. McDonald's is merely paid a royalty for trademark rights and marketing.
This is a bonanza for trial lawyers who will be able to shake down the parent company for alleged labor violations at franchisees whose pockets aren't as deep. The other beneficiary is Big Labor. Workers have long had to petition franchisees to form a union. Under Mr. Griffin's law, they can leap-frog their direct managers to corporate headquarters, which are more vulnerable to political pressure and less sensitive to local markets.
Case in point: McDonald's CEO Don Thompson's endorsement of a $10.10 minimum wage in May. "McDonald's will be fine" and will "manage through whatever the additional cost implications are," he told students at Northwestern University. But "our franchisees look at me when I say this and they start to worry."
If the SEIU now wants to organize franchisees in, say, St. Louis, the union could petition McDonald's to recognize the union via card check. The SEIU and corporate headquarters could also negotiate a "neutrality agreement," which typically involves quid pro quos. McDonald's could give the union unrestricted access to its franchisees, and the union might agree not to criticize the company.
Making franchisers joint-employers deep-fries the incentives to franchise. Why would entrepreneurs assume a 100% equity stake in a business that they only partially control? Why would a corporation franchise if the legal liabilities and responsibilities are the same as owning?
Mr. Griffin's brainstorm also upends 30 years of legal precedent. In 1982 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals established what is known as the "significant control" standard to define "joint employers" in NLRB v. Browning-Ferris. The standard says that the employers must both "share or co-determine those matters governing essential terms and conditions of employment."
The NLRB adopted this significant control standard in two 1984 decisions TLI, Inc. andLaerco Transportation, which have served as guideposts in subsequent cases. In Laercothe NLRB stated that, "To establish joint employer status there must be a showing that the employer meaningfully affects matters relating to the employment relationship such as hiring, firing, discipline, supervision, and direction." Federal courts have generally concurred with this interpretation.
Note that most cases before the NLRB concerning joint-employers have involved contracting and temporary-employment agencies. The International Franchise Association says it isn't aware of the NLRB ever ruling that a franchiser is a joint-employer.
The NLRB teed up McDonald's for Mr. Griffin in May by inviting briefs on whether the board should adopt a new standard. The SEIU happened to be ready with a brief arguing that fast-food franchisers should be deemed joint-employers since franchisees "often function as little more than capital investors without meaningful control over their restaurant's business plans or the most essential terms and conditions of their workers' employment."
But since when is setting hours and wages not "meaningful control"? The union also argued that franchisees utilize "sophisticated computer systems" that "enable the franchisers to conduct real-time monitoring of sales, staffing, income, and labor costs." By this standard, Oracle ORCL -0.20% is a joint-employer of millions of Americans.
The NLRB still hasn't issued a proposed rule-making, which explains why Mr. Griffin didn't justify or explain his determination. McDonald's says it will challenge Mr. Griffin's legal concoction, but don't expect the board to listen. Its goal is to use McDonald's as a precedent for cases involving other franchised industries such as hotels and tax services.
Congress could intervene, but that will require a GOP Senate takeover in November and some hardball negotiating with the White House. That leaves the courts, which have rebuked the NLRB before, but that could take years. Meantime, thousands of franchisers and franchisees have been put on notice that their business model is no longer legal. Only in the Obama Administration.
2b) Why Do the Feds Want to Dismantle the Golden Arches?
The National Labor Relations Board begins an attack on the franchising business model.
In a decision with potentially devastating economic effects, the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel this week ruled that McDonald's Corp. could be treated, in labor complaints, as a joint employer of its franchisees' workers. This determination directly threatens the franchise business model that has encouraged countless American small business owners, creating jobs and broad-based economic growth.
The NLRB's three-decades-old joint-employer standard requires that employers meaningfully affect "matters relating to the employment relationship such as hiring, firing, discipline, supervision, and direction" to be considered joint employers. By contrast, the franchise business model is predicated on the idea that franchisers do not involve themselves in those aspects of employment. The owner of your local McDonald's decides who mops the floors; the decision doesn't come out of headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill. The franchising business model has succeeded because it allows franchisees to control costs, such as labor, and reap the benefits of running their businesses profitably.
The franchiser/franchisee relationship is built on a division of roles and responsibilities. The franchiser owns a unique system, which it licenses and protects as a brand. The franchisee operates an independent business under the brand's trademarks at one or more locations as a licensee.
As with most franchisers, the company I run, CKE Restaurants, receives a onetime fee per restaurant (generally $25,000) and a royalty (generally 4% of top-line, or gross, sales) to compensate us for the system we provide, for the use of our trademarks, and for protecting the value of those trademarks. We do not receive a share of our franchisees' profits.
McDonald's in Scottsburg, Indiana Bloomberg
It is the franchisees who benefit from their restaurants' bottom-line profits. And because the franchisees directly benefit from how efficiently they manage their staffs, they assume the associated risks.
Franchisees independently choose who they hire, the number of people they hire, the wages and benefits they pay, the training that such employees undergo, the labor practices they use, how their employees are monitored and evaluated, and the circumstances under which they're promoted, disciplined or fired. At CKE Restaurants, which include Hardee's and Carl's Jr., we are neither involved in those decisions nor do we have the contractual authority to be involved.
The franchise agreement generally has a 20-year term. Current agreements were negotiated while relying on the NLRB's existing joint-employer standard. At CKE Restaurants, even if we wanted to manage our franchisees' employees, we lack the contractual authority to do so for the simple reason that neither party contemplated that we would manage them.
Assuming that franchisers could somehow overcome these significant contractual impediments, what would the effect of the new NLRB ruling be if it becomes the standard? It would essentially destroy the business model.
Imagine the upheaval in the fast-food industry if tens of thousands of restaurants accustomed to operating independently suddenly were forced to work hand in hand with franchisers on every employment-related decision.
Franchisers would have to review countless job applications at restaurants across the country, while consulting on compensation structures and bonus plans at individual restaurants. Franchisers would also have to monitor the franchisees' workplace and ensure that employees were taking required rest breaks, being compensated for overtime and complying with both federal labor law and the labor laws of each state in which they do business. The companies would also need to administer or dictate employee training, and increase restaurant staffing levels as they, rather than their franchisees, deemed necessary.
And, since franchisers are compensated based on top-line sales, not franchisees' profitability, they would have little economic incentive to control labor costs. That would hamstring franchisees, endangering their businesses.
If the NLRB's new interpretation of the rules—which McDonald's has vowed to contest—becomes the law of the land, it will be tantamount to rewriting an existing contractual relationship by government fiat in ways the parties never contemplated and to their mutual detriment. Franchisers would inevitably pass the costs of jointly managing their franchisees' employees on to their franchisees. Franchisees would find themselves unable to control their labor costs, a key controllable expense and an important element of their profitability.
It's a lose-lose scenario for everyone—except for the labor unions that have long dreamed of organizing restaurant workers nationwide. Even if that dream were realized, though, there would soon be fewer workers to unionize as franchise restaurants began to shut down.
The NLRB's attack on the franchise business model is especially unfortunate because franchising plays an integral role in the U.S. economy.
As of 2012, there were nearly 750,000 franchise establishments in the U.S. employing about 8.1 million people, according to the International Franchise Association. An IFA report on the industry in 2005 found that the total economic impact of franchising in the U.S. that year was to add 21 million jobs and $660.9 billion in payroll. That's 15.3% of all private jobs and 12.5% of private payrolls. Franchising's impact has grown in the nine years since that report.
Franchisers and their franchisees are not joint employers, and the NLRB is defying reality by pretending otherwise. Many budding entrepreneurs got their start as franchisees, and millions of young Americans have gained their first work experience in franchise restaurants. The Obama administration does not have a stellar record for encouraging business growth or economic vitality. Killing a business model that has been such an American success would be one of the administration's most misguided moves.
Mr. Puzder is the chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3) A Crony Capitalism Showdown
A congressional primary in Kansas's Fourth District will signal the direction of the GOP.
GOP voters overhauled their party in 2010, sending to the House a new generation of Republicans committed to smaller government, freer markets and less corporate welfare. We're about to find out if those voters really meant it.
A big decision comes Tuesday in the Kansas GOP primary. The Sunflower State is in the throes of political upheaval, with most of the attention on the fortunes of Gov. Sam Brownback and Sen. Pat Roberts. But the race that may say far more about the direction of the GOP is taking place in Wichita, the state's Fourth District, in the standoff between Rep. Mike Pompeo and challenger Todd Tiahrt.
The 50-year-old Mr. Pompeo—an Army veteran, Harvard Law grad and businessman—was elected in the 2010 tea party surge, with a particular focus on liberating private enterprise. He's made a name for himself as a leader in the fight to end corporate welfare and pork, and to cut back on strangling regulations.
Rep. Mike Pompeo at the McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, June 30. Mike Hutmacher/Associated Press
He ran against earmarks in his 2010 campaign and then pushed for the GOP's earmark ban. He's annually led a charge to power down the federal wind subsidy, and he's the author of a bill to eliminate all energy rent-seeking. "Companies should have customers, not political patrons," he likes to quip. He opposes the renewable fuel standard, and he voted in February against Congress's farm bill—which was a return to government subsidies and more food stamps.
He's also been a critic of the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration, a Great Society-era slush fund that shovels grants to politically connected communities. (See its 2008 grant for the Harry Reid Research and Technology Park in Las Vegas.) Mr. Pompeo calls it the Earmark Distribution Agency. As recently as May he got a vote on an amendment to eliminate EDA's $250 million in funding, rightly noting that the agency uses taxpayer dollars to "pick winners and losers," and that such unprioritized porking has helped create a spending culture that built $17 trillion in debt. (The vote unfortunately failed.)
Such principles are precisely what conservative voters claim to demand from their representatives. Yet the antisubsidy line has hardly been an easy one, even in conservative Kansas—which collects its share of federal largess. And Mr. Tiahrt knows it. The longtime politician held the district for eight terms, until 2010, when he made an unsuccessful bid for the Senate. He endorsed Mr. Pompeo for Congress, twice, but now wants his old job back.
His opening has been Kansas's overall sluggish business climate, and more specifically Wichita's struggling aviation sector. While jobs have been steady in the Fourth District, a number of its mainstay aviation companies have closed or moved out—unnerving locals. Plenty of this happened when Mr. Tiahrt was in Congress, but he's now centering his campaign (announced, without subtlety, at the Kansas Aviation Museum) on the claim that Mr. Pompeo is robbing his district and corporate constituents of federal handouts, and thereby hurting local jobs.
He certainly knows this game. In his 13 years as an appropriator, Mr. Tiahrt never saw an earmark he didn't love—mule museums, aquariums, wine initiatives. He directed endless earmarks to companies; the Weekly Standard's Mark Hemingway notes, in "His last two years in office, [he] doled out $33 million in earmarks to aviation companies alone." Mr. Tiahrt is not defensive about this. He brags about pork that he sent to companies operating in his district ( Boeing, BA +0.39% Beechcraft, Cessna), claiming he created local aviation jobs and rapping Mr. Pompeo for failing to join him at the trough.
Mr. Tiahrt similarly whacked the incumbent on the EDA, noting that the day before the Pompeo amendment vote, the agency had declared Wichita and south Kansas a "manufacturing community" eligible for a portion of $1.3 billion in federal funds. "Considering the size of the federal budget," Mr. Tiahrt complained in June, "it is odd that Mr. Pompeo would strike funding for a program so vital to Kansas' Fourth District." He's also in favor of wind subsidies, which has earned him financial backing from the American Wind Energy Association.
Mr. Pompeo's supporters note that their candidate—who once ran an aviation company—has focused on reducing government's role overall in the private sector, rather than benefiting one company over another. In 2013 he got both Houses of Congress to pass—and President Obama to sign—an aviation reform modernizing regulations and cutting costs for light-aircraft makers. It was a boon to that entire industry, but a particular bonus to South-Central Kansas, home to many such companies. That's a model Mr. Pompeo has sought to replicate with bills to reform pipeline permitting or to kill, equally, all energy subsidies (oil, gas and renewables).
The choice voters fundamentally face on Tuesday is whether they want a congressman who works to get government smaller for everyone and to end corporate welfare, or a congressman who grabs what he can of big government to funnel to his district, and embraces crony capitalism. The latter is a return to the unreformed GOP, a groove plenty of Republicans would happily slide back into—if only voters gave the nod. We'll see if Kansas conservatives do.
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4) Imagine you're a 3- to 8-year-old child. You're totally on your own without adults.
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You are asked to walk from Houston, Texas to Minneapolis, Minnesota on your own with no food or belongs to sustain you. Then you're asked to walk an additional 100 miles past Minneapolis.IMAGINE
Could you do it?
· How long would it take you as a 6-year-old to walk over 1,200 miles? (That's the minimum distance these poor, helpless little ones have supposedly walked from Central America to the border of Texas ) .... again, on their own. They didn't get lost.
· And they survived the journey without help (unless you buy in to the notion that a destitute out-of-work family run out of their homes by gangs and living in squalor somehow came up with $8,000 to $10,000 for EACH child to pay a coyote to take them to the border).You must start somewhere in the green area.Let's make it easy and start where green meets orange, so that you had the least mileage by not having to cover the whole green area. Just start where the green meets the orange. Blue, of course, is water.
· Your task is to figure a route from the green area to the purple area without going into the blue area and while avoiding towns and cities in the orange area. The black line is the distance from the nearest town to Mexico's southern border that touches the green area to Laredo, Texas, one of the CLOSEST purple towns. 1,220 miles across desert and mountains with no equipment or food or help.
· If “orange” had stopped these innocents where orange touches green, the problem would not have occurred. However, what six-year-old doyou know who could walk 1,220 miles (minimum) .... probably more like 1,500 miles .... on their own without dying?
· How many days would it take for a 6-year-old to walk 1,220 miles without help, directions, food, sun protection, etc.?Once again the US Federal Government is LYING to us. Someone created and implemented this problem, and the media should be figuring out who it is.
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| RAMSTEIN, Germany - Fearing an escalation of violence in Gaza, US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Turkey and Qatar on Friday to use their influence to secure the release of an Israeli soldier who was feared kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The IDF named 2nd.-Lt. Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old, a Givati officer from Kfar Saba, as the IDF soldier presumed to be abducted by Hamas.  Kerry called Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu soon after an aide informed him of reports of the abduction, and the killings of two Israeli soldiers, while flying back from a visit to India. The attacks on the Israeli troops came amid fighting that lead to the collapse of a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. "We have urged them, implored them to use their influence to do whatever they can to get that soldier returned," a senior State Department official told reporters traveling with Kerry. "Absent that, the risk of this continuing to escalate, leading to further loss of life is very high." Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned on Friday the reported violation by Islamist Hamas terrorists of a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and demanded the immediate, unconditional release of a potentially captured Israeli soldier. "He is shocked and profoundly disappointed by these developments," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. "The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about the resumption of Israeli attacks on Gaza." "The Secretary-General urges both sides to show maximum restraint and return to the agreed 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire that tragically lasted such a brief period of time," Dujarric said. Earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Kerry that Israel would take “all necessary measures” against those calling for its destruction and using terror against its citizens. Netanyahu said that the terrorist organizations in Gaza would bear responsibility for the consequences of their actions. He called the attack a flagrant violation of the US and UN-brokered cease-fire arrangement. Following the call, Kerry released an official statement condemning today’s "outrageous violation of the ceasefire negotiated over the past several days, and of the assurances given to the United States and the United Nations." The statement called on Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, "to immediately and unconditionally release the missing Israeli soldier," and on those with influence over Hamas to "reinforce this message." Kerry said the international community had to "redouble efforts" to end the attacks by Hamas on Israel and the suffering and loss of civilian life on both sides of the conflict. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, representing the left-flank of the the eight-person security cabinet, wrote on her Facebook page that the IDF was justifiably now operating on the ground “with the full backing of us all.” “Hamas has paid, and will yet pay a heavy price,” Livni said. Then, in an obvious reference to the fact that the attack took place after Hamas accepted the US and UN brokered cease-fire, Livni added, “If it was not yet clear enough to everyone, now the world knows who is responsible for the destruction and blood” in Gaza. The White House also condemned the reported Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers as a violation of the recently instated humanitarian cease-fire. "That would be a rather barbaric violation of the cease-fire agreement," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on CNN, and called on Hamas to release the abducted Israeli soldier. Earnest called on Hamas to release the Israeli soldier. The United States urged the international community to condemn the Hamas cease-fire violation in the "strongest possible terms," Earnest said. "And we would encourage those who have influence with Hamas to get them back on to the terms of the cease-fire and to get them to abide by the agreements that they struck just yesterday," he said. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian permanent observer to the United Nations, downplayed the blame on Hamas, telling CNN it was not certain Hamas had carried out the attack or violated the cease-fire. Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said Hamas terrorists had attacked IDF soldiers an hour and a half after the cease-fire took effect. "This appears to be an absolutely outrageous action by Hamas, using the cover of a cease-fire to conduct a surprise attack through a tunnel, killing Israeli soldiers and perhaps taking one hostage," Tony Blinken, White House deputy national security adviser, said on MSNBC. "We strongly, strongly condemn it." Yaakov Lappin contributed to this report. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
