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Labor unions are collecting dues from public employees without their “affirmative consent” in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling that state laws requiring nonunion government workers to make such payments are unconstitutional, a new lawsuit alleges.

The Freedom Foundation, a free market think tank based in Washington state, joined with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to sue on behalf of 10 government employees in Oregon who argue that union dues or fees should not be deducted from their paychecks after they officially resigned from their union.

“This is one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever witnessed from the unions and the government,” Aaron Withe, director of Freedom Foundation’s Oregon chapter, said in a press release. “The union dues they’ve forcibly deducted from people who want out are meant to be designated to the working families of this state, not some special interest group.”

The lawsuit, filed Nov. 20, names as defendants Local 503 of the Service Employees International Union and Council 75 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as several government agencies.

In Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that “agency shop” …read more

Both men were actors who climbed to prominent positions on the world stage late in life.

Both men were fierce anti-communists who fought to restore religious liberty where it had been suppressed.

Both came close to death during assassination attempts that occurred just six weeks apart.

And both believed they had been spared to play key roles in a “divine plan” at a critical moment in human history.

The partnership between the Catholic pope and the Protestant president in the closing, dramatic years of the 20th century is the subject of an upcoming film that includes interviews with prominent religious figures, Cold War historians, and presidential biographers.

“The Divine Plan: Reagan, John Paul II and the End of the Cold War” is told as part “graphic thriller,” part stage play, and part documentary exploring the steady chain of communication and interaction among the Reagan White House, the U.S. intelligence community, and the Vatican.

“I wanted to include graphic images because they can convey certain aspects of history that are less well known and more obscure,” Robert Orlando, president and director of Nexus Media, a Princeton, New Jersey-based filmmaking studio, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“I didn’t want to use tired footage because …read more

Delaware regulators have imposed costly and unlawful climate change regulations on industry in violation of legislative directives, according to three citizen activists who took their case to the state’s highest court.

But before the Delaware Supreme Court can address the substantive questions raised in the residents’ lawsuit, it first must resolve a lower court ruling that “failed to apply the correct legal test for standing,” Richard Abbott, their lawyer, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

The Superior Court of Delaware ruled in June that residents David T. Stevenson, R. Christian Hudson, and John A. Moore did not have legal standing to challenge the state’s participation in a regional climate change agreement.

The trial court judge “applied the wrong legal standard,” their lawyer told The Daily Signal.

The three men had argued that the agreement’s regulatory restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions would raise their electricity bills. But Judge Richard Stokes decided that they failed to demonstrate this would be the case, and therefore did not have standing.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a multistate agreement that currently includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

State government officials who have joined the initiative …read more

State Department officials opposed to disclosing more of Hillary Clinton’s emails as secretary of state made “false statements” and filed “false affidavits” in a related lawsuit, a federal judge said during a court hearing in Washington earlier this month.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the hearing after a legal watchdog asked the court to obtain testimony under oath from current and former State Department officials, including Clinton and former aide Cheryl Mills.

If Lamberth agrees with Judicial Watch, Clinton and others would have to testify under oath and answer questions about how the department processed the organization’s Freedom of Information Act requests, and how it conducted its search for emails Clinton sent and received over a private email server.

Mills was Clinton’s chief of staff and counselor when she was secretary of state from Jan. 21, 2009, to Jan. 31, 2013, and worked on her presidential campaigns.

The State Department had asked Lamberth to issue a summary judgment that would have closed the case and ended any more inquiries into Clinton emails that have not been disclosed.

The judge refused and explained during the Oct. 12 hearing why he had granted limited discovery of relevant facts in March 2016:

The case started with …read more

Greenhouse gas emissions have declined across multiple sectors since President Donald Trump has been in office, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday.

The EPA collects emissions data from industrial sources on an annual basis. Those sources include power plants, oil and gas production plants, refining facilities, iron mills, steel mills, and landfills.

The latest figures show total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions dipped by 2.7 percent during 2017 compared with 2016, President Barack Obama’s last full year in office, the agency said as part of its Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.

“Thanks to President Trump’s regulatory reform agenda, the economy is booming, energy production is surging, and we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions from major industrial sources,” Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, said in a press release, adding:

These achievements flow largely from technological breakthroughs in the private sector, not the heavy hand of government. The Trump administration has proven that federal regulations are not necessary to drive CO2 reductions. While many around the world are talking about reducing greenhouse gases, the U.S. continues to deliver, and today’s report is further evidence of our action-oriented approach.

Environmental activists link greenhouses gases to what they consider man-made climate change, or global warming.

Other “key findings” identified …read more

In federal court hearings this week, a watchdog legal group keeps the heat on the State Department for answers about the exposure of classified information during Hillary Clinton’s use of unsecure email to conduct official business when she was secretary of state.

A hearing is set Friday in U.S. District Court in the nation’s capital to address a request from Judicial Watch for Clinton, longtime top aide Cheryl Mills, and other current or former State Department officials to testify under oath.

Judicial Watch wants them to address how the department responded to its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking information about the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

“It is frankly unbelievable that the State Department is still protecting Hillary Clinton and her aides from being asked basic questions about her illicit email system,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a prepared statement.

“The courts were misled and obstructed by Hillary Clinton’s email scheme, and we hope to get some more answers about this scandal,” Fitton said.

The court hearing Friday follows on the heels of a separate one Thursday where the watchdog group reported on the estimated number of Clinton documents the State Department continues to withhold.

The …read more

Remember ACORN?

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2010 after a series of high-profile scandals involving undercover video investigations and allegations of voter fraud led to a loss of public and private support.

But ACORN’s former staffers and some if its chapters have found a new home within a left-leaning network of progressive activists that includes the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy and its sister organizations, Action for the Common Good and the Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund.

Two staffers of the Center for Popular Democracy were the women who shouted at Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., last Friday at a Senate elevator in a widely reported confrontation over his expected vote in favor of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, National Review columnist John Fund reported.

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are among senators who have been shouted down by anti-Kavanaugh protesters as they spoke to reporters during the final days of the heated confirmation process.

An article on the Center for Popular Democracy’s website about the “People’s Convention” in downtown Pittsburgh in July 2016 said the nonprofit progressive advocacy group was “trying to fill the vacuum left …read more

RICHMOND, Va.—Go in search of the tea party movement that rose up in opposition to the policies of President Barack Obama, and you won’t get the full picture if you fixate on political rallies and protests.

That’s because many tea party activists have been burrowing into state legislative houses across the nation, where their membership has developed expertise on a wide range of public policy questions.

With an eye toward the Virginia General Assembly session that begins in January, about 200 Virginia Tea Party members who gathered here at a downtown hotel Sept. 22 describe how their movement has “morphed” since its inception in 2009.

Instead of staging rallies in front of the Capitol in Washington or various statehouses, the tea party is focused on legislative initiatives that will have a more lasting impact, attendees of the Virginia Tea Party’s fall summit meeting told The Daily Signal.

Mark Daugherty, a retired Wall Street financial analyst who resides in Augusta County, was there at the moment of creation when the tea party coalesced into a real movement.

Daugherty, 63, recalls the first statewide meeting in October 2009 in Hanover County, and a larger rally of about 3,000 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center in October …read more

Delaware residents are the victims of deceptive business practices associated with a green energy scheme resulting from elected officials’ sweetheart deal with a fuel cell company, policy analysts and academics argue.

Bloom Energy had pledged to create 900 full-time jobs in Delaware by Sept. 30, 2016, and to continue employing these workers for at least seven years.

But a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from Bloom Energy’s initial public offering in June shows that as of March, it had only 277 full-time employees.

“Bloom has been able to milk Delaware taxpayers and ratepayers for massive subsidies, gain preferential treatment on multiple fronts, and avoid rules that are rigorously applied to other industries,” energy researcher Paul Driessen said during an event Friday at The Heritage Foundation’s headquarters on Capitol Hill.

The Delaware General Assembly extended financial inducements to Bloom Energy through legislation in 2012, a major topic during the panel discussion at Heritage, as was what Driessen and other speakers called preferential treatment from state regulators and other government officials.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company manufactures solid oxide fuel cells that use an electrochemical reaction to transform natural gas into electricity.

Bloom Energy traces its roots to 2002, when a Silicon Valley venture …read more

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is poised to implement a new regulation without legislative approval to join 10 other states in a climate change agreement based on restricting carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.

But lawmakers, policy analysts, and tea party activists in Virginia who oppose what they consider costly regulations of industry are raising questions about the economic and scientific arguments underpinning the proposed rule.

They say the Virginia General Assembly should have a straight up-or-down vote on Northam’s plan, in part to ensure that any revenue the governor raises from “carbon trading” is collected and dispersed in a manner consistent with the state Constitution.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a multistate agreement that currently includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. In addition to Virginia, New Jersey may rejoin the pact.

The public comment period for a draft version of Northam’s proposed regulation ended in April. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is expected to introduce a final version in November.

The seven-member Air Pollution Control Board then will be responsible for making a decision. Board members, appointed by the governor, operate independently from the Department of Environmental …read more