Koch Brothers Tell Employees Whom to Vote For

by James Parks, Apr 24, 2011

The right-wing extremist billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch are not satisfied with spending millions on Capitol Hill to mold, gut or kill more than 100 prospective bills or regulations or funding blatantly anti-worker front groups. Now they want to control how the more than 50,000 people who work in their companies think and vote.

The Nation magazine obtained and published a 14-page Koch Industries election “packet” mailed out before last November’s election to the employees, telling them who they should vote for and warning them of the consequences to their families, their jobs and their country if they voted wrong,

Experts say employers likely will send out more of this political propaganda in 2012.

Although employers can spew out political propaganda like this in the workplace, they can bar unions from even handing out a list of endorsed candidates on the job.

Says UCLA law professor Katherine Stone:

If a union wanted to hand out political materials in the workplace not directly relevant to the workers’ interests—such as providing a list of candidates to support in the elections—the employer has the right to ban that material. They could even prohibit its distribution on lunch breaks or after shifts, because by law it’s the company’s private property.

Read “Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch” here. And make sure to check out the election packet here.

Jobs Clock Tick Tocks as Republicans Can’t Find Time for Jobs Bill

by Mike Hall, Apr 23, 2011

House Republicans talk the jobs talk, but they sure aren’t walking the jobs walk. Here we are, 109 days into the 112th Congress, and House Republicans haven’t produced one piece of jobs legislation. This clock will keep on ticking until we see a real jobs bill. (Click here to get the code so you an embed the clock on your web page or FaceBook page.)

The economy is not going to heal itself. Instead of a jobs bill that could help the more than 24 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed, Republicans have given us their proposed budget—straight out of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) horror movie economics laboratory. It could cost between 1.7 million and 2.2 million jobs in the first two years alone.

It’s as if they have shrugged their shoulders, looked at the 24 million in need of work, and said:

So be it. Let’s cut corporate taxes, give the rich a break on taxes, while privatizing Medicare, decimating Medicaid, repealing health care reform—and when we get the chance, privatize Social Security.

It’s time for Republicans to reject their “So Be It” spending plan, which puts ideology before jobs, and make a bipartisan effort to create a plan that reduces the deficit, creates jobs, and strengthens the middle class.

Tick tock. Tick tock.