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The saga of Martha Boneta’s abuse at the hands of an environmental group gets worse …read more

Remember the EPA bureaucrat who got caught receiving $900,000 in pay without working because he claimed he also was employed by the CIA?

According to a report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the man, former climate policy expert John Beale, “retired” when questions arose about his spotty attendance and expense records.

Only he didn’t file his retirement paperwork and continued to draw an active-duty salary for some time after. His boss at the time in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, now-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, knew this for about seven months and did nothing to stop it.

>>> This is the first of a two-part series.

“On March 29, 2012, an OAR official raised concerns about Beale’s retirement when he informed McCarthy that Beale was still on payroll,” the report stated.

“Despite being aware of the fact that one of her subordinates was collecting a paycheck without providing any work product, this arrangement continued for seven more months before McCarthy ever contacted Beale.”

In December 2012, McCarthy met with Beale for the first time in nearly 15 months, and he informed her that he was no longer planning on retiring. Two more months passed …read more

It was a cold and cloudy day with poor visibility on the side of a mountain in Colorado when Dr. Pat Castle first encountered Padre Pio, the canonized Roman Catholic priest from Southern Italy, who was known for his healing powers and connection with supernatural occurrences.

It was 2006, and Castle was about 10 minutes from reaching the finish line in the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon. He had been fine when the race began at the base of the mountain in Manitou Springs, Colo., but he had climbed the narrow, windy trail to 7,815 feet, and he was beginning to wonder if he was going to be able to finish.

“I just said a prayer,” Castle told The Daily Signal. “I could hear someone speaking to me, and when I looked over my shoulder I could see St. Padre Pio running with me.”

It was as a result of this experience that Castle decided to form Life Runners, which helps to fundraise for and promote the pro-life cause.

Castle described his mountaintop vision as he stood just a few feet away from the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington D.C. during the annual “March for Life” last month.

Castle was …read more

TRENTON, N.J.—We all know the story from high school history. Or think we do.

Gen. George Washington and his tired and tiny Continental Army scored one of the most significant battlefield victories in American history at Christmas in 1776.

The Continentals launched a surprise attack on the Hessians—mercenaries from Germany who were protecting Trenton, N.J., on behalf of the British.

The Hessians had more firepower, the story goes. But they left themselves vulnerable to the surprise attack because they got drunk celebrating the holiday and passed out.

Their no-account leader, Col. Johann Rall, died in the battle with a note in his shirt pocket from a local spy warning him of the impending attack.

The real story of what happened that Christmas is far more interesting and complex. It is retold every year during “Patriots Week”—a celebration of the great victory that includes a re-enactment of the battle, which draws thousands to the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides of the Delaware River.

The Old Barracks Museum in Trenton is the center of the action during Patriots Week. There, one can ask colonial re-enactors what they know about Moses Doan, the loyalist spy opposed to the American Revolution who tried to warn Rall of Washington’s …read more

Virginia farmer Martha Boneta thought her long-running dispute with a local green group was coming to an end. But now, that light at the end of the tunnel has gone dark again.

Efforts to reach a settlement with a local green group, the Piedmont Environmental Council, are on hold. The PEC currently oversees enforcement duties of a conservation easement on Boneta’s property. Under the settlement, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation would have assumed those duties. However, the foundation found serious flaws with the agreement.

Now, the foundation wants Boneta and the PEC to agree on a “corrective amendment” to address the concerns.

With little progress being made on that front, the foundation informed attorneys for both sides it would not take up the matter of assuming enforcement duties at its next meeting.

“It appears, from communications made during the first weeks of December 2014, that we have not been able to reach a solution that is amenable to all parties,” Kerry Brian Hutcherson, the foundation’s staff counsel, wrote to PEC attorney Turner Broughton and William Hurd, the former Virginia solicitor general who represents Boneta.

Accordingly, the VOF staff does not anticipate that the VOF board will take formal action regarding the …read more

Kentucky is not a right-to-work state, but one of its counties soon may be.

Local officials in Warren County are to vote Friday on a measure that would remove the requirement that workers in some jobs must join a union and pay union dues as a condition of employment.

A first reading of the measure in Warren County Fiscal Court passed with a 5-1 vote with only magistrate Tommy Hunt, a Democrat, voting against it. The second reading scheduled for Friday will be immediately followed by a formal vote. An affirmative vote is widely expected.

Right-to-Work Set to Take Root in Additional Counties

Other counties in Kentucky already are following suit. On Monday, the Fulton County Fiscal Court voted unanimously in favor of a right-to-work ordinance as did the Simpson County Fiscal Court on Tuesday. Both votes were on first readings. Second readings will take place Dec. 29 in Fulton County and Dec. 30 in Simpson County.

Being without right-to-work status puts Kentucky at a “competitive disadvantage” that often results in “lost business opportunities,” Mike Buchanon, the Warren County judge-executive, told The Daily Signal in an interview.

Buchanon said “site-selectors” who are hired by companies to identify places to build factories and other workplaces have told …read more

Two state labor officials have publicly acknowledged there are ample opportunities for “community organizers” and labor unions to partner with government agencies to enforce workplace laws and regulations against American businesses.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress last week, California Labor Commissioner Julie Su and Terri Gerstein, labor bureau chief for New York’s attorney general, outlined how their agencies are cracking down on businesses for alleged wage violations.

A union operative knew about the government’s lawsuit before the Papa John’s pizza franchisee did.

Last week, The Daily Signal reported on such a case involving a Papa John’s franchisee in New York.

In that case, a union official knew about the government’s lawsuit before the pizza franchisee did. Kendall Fells of Fast Food Forward and the Service Employees International Union generously praised New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman when he announced he was taking the pizza franchisee to court on behalf of workers who claim they were underpaid.

The lawsuit alleges workers were underpaid. The state attorney general, like the unions, called it “wage theft.”

State official weighs in

At the conclusion of the Center for American Progress panel discussion after Labor Secretary Thomas Perez spoke, The Daily Signal asked Gerstein, the labor official from …read more

Under President Obama, government officials are aggressively enforcing the law against employers who fail to pay the minimum wage, deny overtime compensation and misclassify workers as contractors.

That was the central message Labor Secretary Tom Perez delivered before an audience of approximately 100 attendees last week at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

When Obama took office, there were 730 investigators in the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division. Today, there are more than 1,000.

Perez, who previously served as a Center for American Progress trustee, used the Dec. 4 speech to call for a higher minimum wage and stronger overtime laws to ensure that employees “receive a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.”

He also made it clear that “the law is only as effective as the political will of those enforcing it.”

At the direction of Obama, the U.S. Labor Department is “back in the enforcement business, putting more cops on the beat and giving them more resources to protect working families who bear the greatest burden when labor standards are violated,” Perez said.

At the outset of the administration, there were 730 investigators in the department’s Wage and Hour Division. Today, there …read more

Virginia farmer Martha Boneta’s desire to have an environmental conservation group replaced as overseer of her property has moved a step closer to reality.

Officials of the Piedmont Environmental Council have agreed to a meeting Friday to talk about ending a bitter standoff with Boneta by handing off enforcement duties for a conservation easement on Boneta’s farm to another environmental organization in Virginia.

Simply persuading the Piedmont Environmental Council to agree to the meeting marks a “major victory for property rights,” says Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based group that champions those rights. DeWeese adds:

Martha Boneta, like most victims in these cases, does not have near the resources of money and political power as the PEC. If such battles can be fought across the nation in the same way, it will have a profound effect on how such groups behave in the future. Perhaps they will be less aggressive and more willing to respect the property owner.

Under the proposed arrangement, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation would take over responsibility for the conservation easement on Boneta’s farm in Paris, Va. Friday’s meeting is set for the foundation’s offices in Richmond.

Conservation easements are legally binding …read more

A union operative generously praised New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman when he announced he was taking a Papa John’s pizza franchisee to court on behalf of workers who claim they were underpaid. The state attorney general, like the unions, called it “wage theft.”

The thing is, the union official knew about the government’s lawsuit before the pizza franchisee did.

“Fast-food workers all across the city and country are organizing for higher pay and union rights,” said Kendall Fells, organizing director for Fast Food Forward, a group dedicated to increasing wages and benefits for fast-food workers. Fells added:

This suit shows why their campaign is so important. And it shows that Attorney General Schneiderman is serious about holding fast-food companies accountable for wage theft.

Fells’ comments came in a press release from Schneiderman’s office announcing the lawsuit.

That means Fells, also on the payroll of the Service Employees International Union, knew New York’s attorney general was going after the Papa John’s franchisee before its owner, Ronald Johnson, did.

The suit, filed Oct. 16 in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks more than $2 million for more than 400 delivery workers in restitution, damages and interest from New …read more