President Obama has nominated five people to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Two are Republicans. All are waiting for confirmation by the Senate. Let your Senators know these nominees should be confirmed so the NLRB can get back to work.

What Is The NLRB?

The NLRB is the agency that "safeguards employees' rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions."

The NLRB supervises elections to form or decertify unions in the workplace. It investigates charges that employees, unions or employers violated rules over labor practices and rules on the charges. It works to get problems resolved rather than taken to court. And finally, when the NLRB has issued a ruling that is ignored it can take the parties to court.

But if the NLRB is prevented from operating there is no one to make sure that the rules for labor practices are being enforced. This hurts workers and companies.

Background Of The Nomination Battle

Individual workers have little power when up against giant corporations. They can ask for better pay, benefits and working conditions, please, and the giant companies can just say, "you're fired" if they do -- and working people know that. However, when the employees all band together it gives them collective power. It's the old story of how a person can break a single stick, but when all the sticks are bundled together the person is not able to break them. Banding together the workers have the power to get better wages, benefits and working conditions.

The other side of this is that big companies can make a lot of money if they can keep their workers from organizing unions. So they use their money and power to try to stop workers from organizing unions.

Because the economy does better when people have better wages, benefits and working conditions, and because strikes and lawsuits can plug things up, it is the law that workers have the right to form unions and bargain collectively to balance out the immense power of the giant corporations.

This is why the NLRB battle matters. For years elected officials allied with anti-union businesses worked to block the NLRB from operating, so that workers are not able to form unions and existing unions are not able to enforce labor rules. At the same time these elected officials worked to get anti-union judges into the courts and block impartial judges from being confirmed. This enabled the giant companies to make more money -- and working people less money. (Meanwhile as wages dropped nationally the economy slowed and slowed.)

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Evidently the Missouri Senate took those arguments to heart and decided they should immediately de-fund the state Drivers' License Bureau in order to fend off the evil liberals who will surely use the data there to take everyone's guns away.

Raw Story:

Missouri state senators on on Monday voted to eliminate all funding for the Department of Revenue’s driver’s license bureau because they were angry about the way the agency was keeping concealed carry gun records.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer (R) said that he had created that draconian cuts to send a message to Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s administration.

“They will not be able to issue any driver’s licenses,” Schaefer admitted on Monday.

[...]

Republican lawmakers in Missouri became alarmed at a recent hearing at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing when Revenue Department Director Brian Longrefused to agree to stop scanning and retaining concealed carry data. Long said that the records helped to prevent fraud.

Long resigned from his post as director earlier this month.

But it wasn't just over concerns that concealed carry permit records were being kept. No, no. There was more.

Melissa Wilson, wife of state Rep. Kenneth Wilson (R), told the committee earlier this month that she was certain that gun records had been shared with the federal government as a part of a United Nations initiative called Agenda 21, which some conservatives believe is a conspiracy to “transform America from the land of the free, to the land of the collective” through “a mind-control” tactic called the Delphi technique.

A 2009 Missouri law prohibits state officials from implementing the federal Real ID Act, and a state House panel this week approved legislation that made it illegal to share information about concealed carry permits.

I'll bet if we look hard enough, we'll find a law on Missouri's books outlawing fluoride in their water, too. Maybe that's why they keep believing all of this nonsense. Fluoride. And fillings, receiving messages from outer space.

Gabby Giffords let loose on the Senate in a New York Times op-ed after their cowardly vote on background checks Wednesday (including four shameless Democrats), and she didn't hold back.

You should read the entire op-ed, but I want to highlight this, because we could say this about so many Senate votes, couldn't we?

I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

Amen. This was not a tough vote. It was a slam-dunk. It was easy. How hard can it be to do something an overwhelming majority of people in this country want?

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**The subject of this video is the kind of thing DC bipartisanship gets you

There is no word in the English language that allows the sun to poke through the clouds, inspires cherubic song and makes lobbyists high five while lording over a beer-joint urinal on in official Washington than "bipartisan". Bipartisan is just so darn cool. It's hip! It's now! It's Rand Paul's talking filibuster and Charlie Krauthammer's sardonic wit and Justice John Robert's dreamy blue eyes all rolled up into one big pig in a blanket!

Or, and I'm just thinking aloud here, perhaps when that word is uttered in Washington there is only once choice to be made: Run.

Because you see, there is actually bipartisanship that makes sense. It is all over the US. It will tell you that over 90 percent of the American public thinks there should be a 3-minute background checks before you purchase a combat weapon that can dismember kindergarten-aged kids, that the minimum wage should surpass that of Heilongjiang Province and that marriage equality is a concept long overdue.

But that is not the bipartisanship that exists in Washington. This brand of bipartisanship is based on Beltway "wisdom" and the status of who happens to be presenting the case. It's the variety that just gave us the 10-year anniversary of the tragedy in Iraq and rewarded Condoleezza Rice of the "smoking gun", "mushroom cloud" and "what does 'Bin Laden determined to attack in US' mean" with a new role as a political analyst on CBS - as if she can figure out day in and day out how to tie her shoes.

That's bipartisanship DC style. It ignored Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Trayvon Martin and finally got around to thinking we have a gun problem after grotesque inaction reached its logical conclusion, with 20 six and seven year olds mowed down like cattle in their classroom. Even so, while there is much support for gun safety measures, there is still some "bipartisan" opposition.

This kind of Washington bipartisanship looks at this war-of-choice that's now estimated to have cost in the trillions (yes, that's with a T), out-of-control health care costs via a crony-capitalism protection racket and a Pentagon so bloated with fat it's a surprise Rush Limbaugh doesn't eat it with a side of his happy pills for dinner, and concludes (behind the leadership of our very own ostensibly Democratic President) "let's rob the old moochers of their earned benefits!"

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For years now, Senate Republicans have been filibustering ... everything. At the end of last year, there was an effort to convince Democrats in the Senate of the need to reform the filibuster so things We the People need to get done could get done. At the last minute, however, this effort was scuttled by House Majority Leader Harry Reid who instead made a gentleman's agreement with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. So now Republicans are filibustering ... everything. And Reid, in a strongly-worded statement, threatened to issue a sternly-worded letter.

Silent Obstruction

In the last few years pretty much everything We the People were hoping to accomplish to make our lives better was filibustered by Senate Republicans. So many bills and nominees that were so important to us ... the American Jobs Act, a terrible cost. The Bring Jobs Home Act and the Ending Offshoring Act to end tax incentives for sending jobs and factories out of the country, the Public Option, the DREAM Act, the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act, and the DISCLOSE Act so we could at least know what companies and countries were bribing our politicians. ... Just so much cost...

Public Doesn't Know

The public doesn't even know that so many important acts and nominees have been filibustered! The public believes a filibuster is Senators taling all night, but rules changes allowed Senators to block bills without doing anything. The media did not report these obstructions as filibusters, only saying things like "the Senate failed to pass a bill to..." or "Senate rules requiring 60 votes ..." or, most destructive to democracy, "Democrats failed to gain -passage of ..." The public had no idea what was happening, no idea of the extent of the obstruction, and no way to know who to hold accountable for the failure of government to accomplish anything. Democracy can not function without an informed citizenry.

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On Face the Nation today, John McCain expressed frustration with Rand Paul and his gang of libertarian obstructionists who threaten to block any gun measure from coming to the floor for debate.

The Hill:

“I don’t understand it,” said McCain on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The purpose of the United States Senate is to debate and to vote and to let the people know where we stand.”

“What are we afraid of? Why would we not want… if this issue is as important as all of us think it is, why not take it to one of the world’s greatest deliberative bodies – that’s one of the greatest exaggerations in history by the way – but you know why not take it up, an amendment and debate. The American people will profit from it,” said the Arizona senator.

“I don’t understand why United States senators want to block debate when the leaders said we could have amendments,” McCain added.

A number of GOP lawmakers, including Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah), Marco Rubio (Fla.), and Ted Cruz (Texas) wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowing that they would “oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions.”

Interesting that it's the young wingnut guns opposing the "elder statesmen" of the Republican party. There is a definite civil war brewing just under the surface there. But I digress.

When 90 percent of Americans support background checks, it should be a slam dunk. As the president noted last week, 90 percent of Americans can't agree on what to have for breakfast, much less gun safety laws. Yet there we are, with a vast majority of the country in support of such a thing. I'll take the question one step beyond McCain and ask why they aren't rushing to get this done if they expect to be re-elected again?

Yes, there should be a debate. But for me, it just makes me furious that we're settling for a debate on background checks and little more. Background checks go without saying. Why can't we have a debate on clip size and assault-style weapons? Why can't we get these wingnuts on the record so they have to own their words after an assault weapon offs a lot of people in one place yet again, simply because they lacked the integrity or the guts to do the right thing? Instead we get this wimpy, simpy "Oh, won't it be grand if we get background checks!" nonsense.

Appearing with McCain, Sen. Charles Schumer expressed optimism that if the bill proceeded to the floor, a measure on background checks could pass.

“If we go to the floor, I’m still hopeful that what I call the ‘sweet spot’ background checks can succeed. We are working hard there. Sen. [Joe] Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. [Mark] Kirk [R-Ill.] have a few ideas that could modify the proposal.”

McCain said he would welcome a debate on background checks on the Senate floor.

“Everybody wants the same goal to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally disabled. Background checks are being conducted. Are they sufficient, are there ways to improve those? Then I think that’s something that the American people and certainly Congress could be helped by if we have a vigorous debate and discussion,” said McCain.

Message to Americans: If we are so lucky as to get these young bucks to deign to debate this measure, won't it be grand to get a watered-down toothless background check measure that probably won't even come up in the House? Hey, at least we can say we passed...something.

Doesn't it seem like we're all being asked to simply 'bite the bullet'?

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ANOTHER UPDATE: At a White House briefing today, Jay Carney said there is no authority for U.S. drone strikes against Americans on U.S. soil.

UPDATE: That ever-popular comedy team of Grampy McCain and Lindsey Grahamcracker are attacking Rand's filibuster -- which means it had an impact.

I watched a lot of Rand Paul's filibuster Wednesday, and as much as progressives loathe much of what Paul stands for, I do agree with his take in this instance. (Even a stopped clock, etc.) I have been one of his harshest critics as C&Lers know, but I wonder if an unintended consequence will come out of this move. It was a very political ploy on his part and a smart one, but I will always welcome a much-needed discussion on drone attacks both foreign and domestic, targeted assassinations and on our right as U.S. citizens to due process.

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution each contain a Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court of the United States interprets the Clauses as providing four protections: procedural due process (in civil and criminal proceedings), substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws, and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights.

Highlighting this to the American public is a very good thing and should never be minimized.

Here's Spencer Ackerman:

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A redistricting bill is being amended by Senate Republicans during the last reading, with no hearing or public input.

— Waldo Jaquith (@waldojaquith) January 21, 2013

This is breaking news, so I don't yet have all the details, but here's what I know, via Blue Virginia:

"Wow- Republicans in the Virginia Senate are now trying to redraw the maps and draw at least one Democratic Senator out of the Senate. Happening right now on the floor."

"COUP GOING ON IN VIRGINIA SENATE: Republicans have just brought all new Senate districts to the floor with Henry Marsh gone in DC, now 30 minutes of debate before they send them to the House of Delegates."

"COUP SUCCESSFUL- NEW DISTRICTS HEADED TO VIRGINIA HOUSE. AT LEAST ONE DEMOCRATIC SENATOR TO BE OUSTED."

After Ben's first Facebook notice, I went to the live feed of the Virginia Senate and watched as Sen. Saslaw, Sen. McEachin, and Sen. Barker went ape**** on the Republicans for what they said was a totally underhanded, unconstitutional move that will utterly poison relations in the Virginia State Senate. The fact that Republicans pulled this underhanded maneuver while most people were focused on the inauguration and Democratic State Senator Marsh was out of town (for the inauguration) really says it all. Wow.

I'll update as more becomes available.

Here are some Blue Virginia updates:

UPDATE: Sen. Ebbin tweets, "VA Senate GOP trying to redistrict w/ substitute bill with no notice in violation of our state Constitution" and "VA Senate GOP votes to redistrict in violation of state Constitution."

UPDATE #2: One of the sharpest Virginia political analysts I know, KentonNgo, tweets: "If VA Republicans were smart enough not to touch the already cleared VRA districts, the plan will likely stand. Dems are toast." Ugh.

UPDATE #3: Here are the votes as Senate Republicans rammed this one through on 20-19, party-line votes with longtime civil rights champion, Democratic State Senator Henry Marsh, at the inauguration in Washington, DC.

Also, this footnote from Talking Points Memo:

As mentioned earlier, seizing on the absence of a Democratic senator who happens to be a veteran of the civil rights movement and was in Washington, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, for the second inauguration of the country’s first black president, Republicans in the evenly split Virginia state Senatepushed through a surprise mid-decade redistricting plan to try to gain decisive control of the body in the next election.

We’re not done yet.

At the end of this wild day, the “Senate adjourned in memory or (sic) General Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson,” according to the minutes of the session. Jan. 21 is the Confederate general’s birthday.

Update 1/22/13: Waldo Jaquith observed this debacle first hand, and tweeted it as it was happening. But his article this morning reveals just how craven the Virginia Senate Republicans are.

Senate Republicans’ MLK Day gift to Senator Marsh and to Virginia is to use the re-inauguration of the United States’ first black president as cover to pass a bill that will make it harder for black candidates to get elected.

Now the bill goes to the House of Delegates, who will no doubt pass it, and then to Gov. Bob McDonnell, who said he was as surprised by this bill as everybody else. We’re about to learn if McDonnell has really become the centrist he’s presenting himself as, or if he’s the same old right-wing extremist. I fear we already know the answer.

Unfortunately, McDonnell has indicated that it's likely he'll sign it.

I can't tell you the Tweety-like tingles I get at the thought of Elizabeth Warren and Barney Frank in the Senate together. It thrills my liberal heart to imagine to strong, stalwart progressives unafraid to speak out for the American people.

So it is with great glee that I offer you a link to a petition now widely being circulated by the PCCC and MoveOn to let Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to support the nomination of Barney Frank as interim senator until a special election.

If you want to see Barney Frank in the Senate, please go to AppointBarneyFrank.com and sign the petition.

Now if we could just get Barney Frank to consider running permanently for the seat...

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Oh Congress, Barney Frank just can't quit you! Although he announced that he would not seek re-election in 2012, Barney Frank didn't say that he would fade quietly into private life. To that end, he has made an intriguing proposal to Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick:

The day after his 32-year term in the House of Representatives ended, Mr. Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said on Friday morning that he would like to be appointed as an interim senator to fill John Kerry’s seat until a special election later this year.

He would not run for election, he said on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe.”

It is up to Gov. Deval Patrick to name someone to fill the vacancy created by Mr. Kerry’s nomination to be secretary of state.

If selected, Mr. Frank would be a reliable liberal vote in a series of decisions on taxes, spending and the debt that face Congress this winter and spring.

He said it was those votes that had made him think twice about his earlier disinterest in the job.

Elizabeth Warren and Barney Frank representing Massachusetts in the Senate? Be still my liberal heart, that is a dream come true.