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When the National Association of Manufacturers polled around 1,000 of its members in July about the National Labor Relations Board’s case to shut down Boeing’s South Carolina plant, costing up to 5,000 potential jobs, the clear majority indicated the union-backed case likely will, or has already, had a negative effect on America’s job creation.

This was in the Wall Street Journal: “As Some 60% of the National Association of Manufacturers said the government’s case already has—or could—hurt hiring. Sixty-nine percent said the case would damage job growth. And 49% said capital expenditure plans “have been impacted by the NLRB’s complaint.”

Despite this, however, Barry’s union appointees at the National Labor Relations Board are continuing their assault on America’s job creators with yet another attempt at doing union bosses’ bidding by skirting Congress to require all employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act to post union notices in the workplace to advise employees of their ability to unionize their company.

The National Labor Relations Board has issued a Final Rule that will require employers to notify employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act as of November 14, 2011.

Private-sector employers (including labor organizations) whose workplaces fall under the National Labor Relations Act will be required to post the employee rights notice where other workplace notices are typically posted. Also, employers who customarily post notices to employees regarding personnel rules or policies on an internet or intranet site will be required to post the Board’s notice on those sites. Copies of the notice will be available from the Agency’s regional offices, and it may also be downloaded from the NLRB website.

The notice, which is similar to one required by the U.S. Department of Labor for federal contractors states that employees have the right to act together to improve wages and working conditions, to form, join and assist a union, to bargain collectively with their employer, and to refrain from any of these activities. It provides examples of unlawful employer and union conduct and instructs employees how to contact the NLRB with questions or complaints.

Failure to post the Notice will constitute an unfair labor practice which may be filed with the NLRB by any person. Further, the failure to post the Notice will be deemed evidence of anti-union animus or motivation where employers are alleged to have interfered, restrained, or coerced or otherwise discriminated against employees to encourage or discourage union membership or activity.

Opposition? The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) stated in a press release:
The same week the Obama Administration announced it was making an effort to scale back burdensome rules on small businesses, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal government’s labor union advocate, demonstrated an unprecedented overreach of its authority today by issuing a punitive new rule requiring all private-sector employers to post a notice in their business informing employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

“Just when we thought we had seen it all from the NLRB, it has reached a new low in its zeal to punish small-business owners,” said Karen Harned, executive director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center. “Not only is the Board blatantly moving beyond its legal authority by issuing this rule, it is unabashedly showing its spite for job creators by setting up a trap for millions of businesses.”

Under the National Labor Relations Act, the NLRB does not have the authority to broadly impose rules, such as the one issued today. The statute only permits the Board to act when a representation petition or unfair labor practice charge is filed.

Furthermore, the rule sets up a “gotcha” situation for millions of businesses which are unaware of the new rule or unable to immediately comply.

Whether or not the NLRB’s new mandate will be challenged in court and, ultimately, be rescinded remains to be seen. In the meantime, however, with Barry’s union agents at the NLRB foisting their agenda on America’s job creators, there is no reason to believe that the administration is serious about growing the economy again.
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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.”

Thomas Paine, 1776

Solyndra, a Fremont-based solar panel manufacturer that flared then sputtered, abruptly ceased operations last week and immediately laid off all 1,100 of its workers. The shutdown marks a high-profile collapse of a company that received more than $1.6 billion in federal and private funding in recent years.
"This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate," Brian Harrison, Solyndra's president and chief executive, said.

The company received $535 million in taxpayer money from the U.S. Department of Energy and $1.1 billion in private venture capital funding.
"We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed," said Dan Leistikow, a spokesman for the Department of Energy. "But we can't stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America's leadership in the global economy." Solyndra workers who were laid off & dismissed without layoff packages.
"They are getting no severance," said Dave Miller, a Solyndra spokesman. "They are getting nothing."
"It's devastating," Campbell resident Matthew Henry said. "There was no compassion."
"They cut off everything," Pham said. "Before, when they laid people off, they extended their health insurance."

Solyndra had recently completed construction of a new solar equipment factory that was built and equipped with funds from the federal loan. The company had spent $527 million of the $535 million from the DOE grant.

"We had just installed the new tools," Miller said "We were starting to ramp up production."
Solyndra intends to file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a federal court in Delaware next week, said Dave Miller, a company spokesman.
"We will try to sell the company or reorganize its finances," Miller said.

Solyndra was founded in 2005 by Chris Gronet, a veteran of Applied Materials who earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University.

Barry touted Solyndra as a poster child for clean energy after the company received the federal funds.
"Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future," Obama said during a 2010 visit to the company's Fremont headquarters.

Of course the mainstream media is not all over it yet but it is only a matter of time that it catches on, given the criminal enterprise the U.S. Government seems complicit in aiding and abetting: just in from one of Vman's on crac.....errrr, crack reporters:There is a scandal taking off like a rocket and directly relevant to Stimulus II. Via Doug Ross comes word that ABC News has uncovered the makings of a very real and potentially damaging scandal for Barry.

Newly uncovered emails show the White House closely monitored the Energy Department’s deliberations over a $535 million government loan to Solyndra, the politically-connected solar energy firm that recently went bankrupt and is now the subject of a criminal investigation.

The company’s solar panel factory was heralded as a centerpiece of the president’s green energy plan — billed as a way to jump start a promising new industry. And internal emails uncovered by investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee that were shared exclusively with ABC News show the Obama administration was keenly monitoring the progress of the loan, even as analysts were voicing serious concerns about the risk involved. “This deal is NOT ready for prime time,” one White House budget analyst wrote in a March 10, 2009 email, nine days before the administration formally announced the loan.

“If you guys think this is a bad idea, I need to unwind the West Wing QUICKLY,” wrote Ronald A. Klain, who was chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, in another email sent March 7, 2009. The “West Wing” is the portion of the White House complex that holds the offices of the president and his top staffers. Klain declined comment to ABC News.

But no unwinding happened. Barack Obama and Joe Biden stood behind Solyndra even as the company headed toward bankruptcy. More so, just three weeks before George Bush left office, the Bush Administration’s Energy Department credit committee unanimously rejected a loan commitment to Solyndra.

But Barack Obama desperately wanted to tout a green jobs initiative. He needed one to make his case for the stimulus’s “green jobs” efforts. So he put his faith in a company that was falling apart. And emails within the White House make clear that despite protestations the administration knew nothing about Solyndra’s financial problems, there were warnings.

The White House just chose to ignore them and throw taxpayer money in Solyndra’s direction.

More on Barry helping the economy: Remember an August report that federal stimulus grant of nearly $500,000 to grow trees and stimulate the economy in Nevada yielded a whopping 1.72 jobs, according to government statistics……In 2009, the U.S. Forest Service awarded $490,000 of stimulus money to Nevada’s Clark County Urban Forestry Revitalization Project, aimed at revitalizing urban neighborhoods in the county with trees, plants, and green-industry training.

According to Recovery.gov, the U.S. government’s official website related to Recovery Act spending, the project created 1.72 permanent jobs. In addition, the Nevada state Division of Forestry reported the federal grant generated one full-time temporary job and 11 short-term project-oriented jobs.

Also reported in August: Seattle, Washington, one of 25 communities that received $20 million from the Stimulus program as part of “Retrofit Ramp-Up” — an initiative of the Department of Energy in which stimulus dollars are used to make homes more energy efficient. The program was touted as one that would create 2,000 “green” jobs in the city of Seattle and retrofit at least 2.000 homes. There is just one problem: The program is a massive failure.

More than a year after accepting the $20 mil, Seattle’s numbers are lackluster. As of Aug 2011, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers.

And…..the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that at least $24 billion in taxpayer money from the stimulus was given to federal contractors who failed to pay their own taxes:

"More than 3,700 federal contractors received $24 billion in stimulus money despite failing to pay federal income taxes, according to a report to be released today by the Government Accountability Office. The total tax liability was at least $750 million but likely much more, the GAO report says. About 35% of the unpaid taxes go back at least eight years. Investigators sampled 15 cases and found ‘abusive or potentially criminal activity' in every case. They include an unnamed construction company that got more than $1 million despite owing $700,000 in taxes."

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NOW

Texas energy company Luminant announced on Monday new burdensome Environmental Protection Agency regulations are forcing it to close several facilities, which will result in about 500 job losses.The company will be idling — stopping the usage of — two energy generating units. It will also cease extracting lignite from three different Texas mines.

The EPA regulation Luminant cites as too burdensome is the new Cross-State Air Pollution rule, which requires Texas power generators to make “dramatic reductions” in emissions beginning on January 1, 2012.

“We have hundreds of employees who have spent their entire professional careers at Luminant and its predecessor companies,” Luminant CEO David Campbell said in a statement. “At every step of this process, we have tried to minimize these impacts, and it truly saddens me that we are being compelled to take the actions we’ve announced today. We have filed suit to try to avoid these consequences.”

The company said it has been trying to meet the new standards, but won’t be able to do so without closing down several facilities and eliminating 500 jobs.
“As always, Luminant is committed to complying fully with EPA regulations,” Campbell said. “We have spent the last two months identifying all possible options to meet the requirements of this new rule, and we are launching a significant investment program to reduce emissions across our facilities.”

THE GREEN PLOT THICKENS: Now who is George Kaiser??

Well, George Kaiser Parents developed oil and gas business. He’s a Harvard man. Today Kaiser-Francis Oil is among the biggest private energy producers. Diversified: owns $1.9 billion stake in Bank of Oklahoma, vast private equity holdings, large derivatives and energy trading portfolio. Sold half of liquefied natural gas outfit Excelerate Energy this year after buying more than $1 billion worth of gas tankers. Does fight childhood poverty through George Kaiser Family Foundation.

More recently this longtime Democratic donor, he is a big financial backer of Solyndra that in 2009 won a $535 million loan guarantee from DOE for a solar plant in Silicon Valley. He had multiple visits (16 times) to the White House in the months before he was awarded the contract. Kaiser has not responded to interview requests……Investigations confirm that at least 18 other bundlers have ties to businesses poised to profit from the president’s political agenda, through stimulus money, government contracts, or other spending to promote clean energy technology or green development. Two of Solyndra’s largest investors are Argonaut Ventures I, L.L.C. and the GKFF Investment Company, LLC. Both firms are represented on the Solyndra board of directors by Steven R. Mitchell . Both are investment vehicles of the George Kaiser Family Foundation

One does not see mch coverage of all of Barry's onerous regulations on business. National Economic Research Associates (NERA) used the Federal Government’s own data in finding that Barry’s proposed EPA regulations would cost America over 180,000 jobs per year between 2013 and 2020.

This includes effects from the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) as well as Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) rules.

Here’s a break down of just a handful of the states affected by these regulations:

Projected Job Losses between 2013-2020:

Pennsylvania: 59,000
Ohio: 53,500
West Virginia: 38,500
Michigan: 40,000
Illinois: 48,000
Indiana: 51,500
Wisconsin: 24,500
Iowa: 26,500
Minnesota: 12,500
Florida: 135,000
Missouri: 76,000

Total nationwide will be in the range of 1.44 million jobs lost.

There are ways to help prevent this. If you haven’t heard of the TRAIN act, it may be voted on this Friday and it will hopefully be a way to reign in some of this tyrannical regulation:

The TRAIN Act (H.R. 2401, “Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011”) establishes an 11-member federal inter-agency committee, chaired by the Department of Commerce, to analyze the cumulative impacts of a number of major EPA regulations. A final report on the results of the analysis is due to Congress by August 1, 2012.

It bears repeating: This is precisely what Barry said he would do. He is systematically destroying the coal industry, and the toll on American jobs is extremely high.

If an industry becomes obsolete, there is no preventing the shedding of jobs as the market transitions to a new good or service. That is not what’s happening here. What’s happening here is the targeting of a bedrock American industry by a President who thinks he’s saving mother Earth.

It’s as if Solyndra never happened........... The Obama Administration is giving $737 million to a Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. PCG is an investment partner with SolarReserve. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law happens to be the number two man at PCG.

Yea, now Team Barry is spending $737 million to create 45 permanent jobs:

The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project.
The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from Barry in 2009 filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington.

The $737 million loan guarantee will help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve.

Crescent Dunes is the latest solar project to receive a loan guarantee from the Energy Department in recent weeks. The department announced a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar for a solar generation project in California and a $150 million loan guarantee to 1366 Technologies for a Massachusetts solar manufacturing project earlier this month.

And yea, the Energy Department says the project will result in 45 permanent jobs.

vman wrote:One does not see mch coverage of all of Barry's onerous regulations on business. National Economic Research Associates (NERA) used the Federal Government’s own data in finding that Barry’s proposed EPA regulations would cost America over 180,000 jobs per year between 2013 and 2020.

This includes effects from the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) as well as Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) rules.

Here’s a break down of just a handful of the states affected by these regulations:

Projected Job Losses between 2013-2020:

Pennsylvania: 59,000
Ohio: 53,500
West Virginia: 38,500
Michigan: 40,000
Illinois: 48,000
Indiana: 51,500
Wisconsin: 24,500
Iowa: 26,500
Minnesota: 12,500
Florida: 135,000
Missouri: 76,000

Total nationwide will be in the range of 1.44 million jobs lost.

There are ways to help prevent this. If you haven’t heard of the TRAIN act, it may be voted on this Friday and it will hopefully be a way to reign in some of this tyrannical regulation:

The TRAIN Act (H.R. 2401, “Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011”) establishes an 11-member federal inter-agency committee, chaired by the Department of Commerce, to analyze the cumulative impacts of a number of major EPA regulations. A final report on the results of the analysis is due to Congress by August 1, 2012.

It bears repeating: This is precisely what Barry said he would do. He is systematically destroying the coal industry, and the toll on American jobs is extremely high.

If an industry becomes obsolete, there is no preventing the shedding of jobs as the market transitions to a new good or service. That is not what’s happening here. What’s happening here is the targeting of a bedrock American industry by a President who thinks he’s saving mother Earth.

I love the way you spin... The flipside is that corporate profits, dividend payments, etc could be reduced so that more jobs could be saved.

Do you work for the Koch brothers? Or are just in love with them???

I love the way you spin... The flipside is that corporate profits, dividend payments, etc could be reduced so that more jobs could be saved.

Do you work for the Koch brothers? Or are just in love with them???

[quote="say_oww"][quote="vman"]One does not see much coverage of all of Barry's onerous regulations on business. National Economic Research Associates (NERA) used the Federal Government’s own data in finding that Barry’s proposed EPA regulations would cost America over 180,000 jobs per year between 2013 and 2020.

Spin??? Please read carefully.....I quoted the Federal Govt's own data! oww

I've stated previously that the Solyndra story would get little to no mainstream media attention.. .

There are a number of facts surrounding the Solyndra story that don’t seem to be getting any attention. A significant part of the public outrage regarding the bankrupt company isn’t centered on their failed business model or external factors; it’s the millions of taxpayer dollars that the Obama Administration lost on Solyndra after the business was doomed.

After Solyndra defaulted and they knew Solyndra was in real financial trouble, Secretary Steven Chu’s Department of Energy (DOE) staff made a decision by December 10, 2010, to subordinate $75 million of taxpayer money so more private capital could be injected into Solyndra. Subordination means that outside private investors are given superiority over taxpayers in the event of bankruptcy. At that point, $440 million of the $535 million loan guarantee already had been pumped into the company.

By law Secretary Chu wasn’t allowed to subordinate the taxpayers’ money. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 specifically states that the loan guarantee “shall be subject to the condition that the obligation is not subordinate to other financing.” It was the clear intention of Congress that taxpayers should be reimbursed first.

For a company that had already been declared in default and had a collapsed business model because the Chinese were selling their solar panels for less, one might question the sanity of private investors who gambled on Solyndra in December of 2010. Were they after Solyndra’s intellectual property (IP) rights? As a private investor and the dominant financier, could Argonaut’s support of President Obama have helped them secure Solyndra’s IP assets?

By December of 2010, these private investors were placed in first position to get the choice parts of the business – intellectual property, including proprietary information, processes, and patents – when Solyndra went under. To be fair, I’d guess that these assets likely aren’t worth billions, but one could certainly speculate they’re at least worth $75 million, which legally belonged to the taxpayers.

Without question, $170 million – at the very least – was wasted. If DOE had simply let Solyndra fail in December 2010, taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook for $95 million of the loan guarantee that had yet to be dispersed in addition to the $75 million that was subordinated.

Why isn’t the mainstream media asking questions like these? What other questions aren’t being asked? To me, the Solyndra scandal is worthy of some good, old-fashioned investigative reporting. Where are Bernstein and Woodward? Is there no budding Mike Wallace? Where the F is the MSM?/?

Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, Virginia Republican, is a member of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations; vowing to get to the bottom of this scandal.