Former union stronghold Michigan shocked the labor inion bosses when it became a right to work state in December 2012.  There were threats of violence:

“There will be blood, there will be repercussions,” State Democratic Rep. Douglas Geiss, speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, warned ahead of the votes.

And of course, there were predictions of disaster for the “little guy” as ruthless bosses would exploit the defenseless workers.

Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said that right-to-work legislation would lower employee wages.

Utter self-serving nonsense from the political party which rakes off union dues as political “contributions” from workers whose paychecks are deducted from by their union bosses. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports:

Michigan’s per-capita personal income increased from $38,291 in 2012 (before right-to-work became law) to $39,215 in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. That increase was the ninth highest in the country. (snip)

“The dire predictions of right-to-work detractors have not come true — Michigan has been a leader in income growth since passage,” said James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

A study released this week by Richard Vedder, a distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University and an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute as well as with the Mackinac Center, found that “incomes rise following the passage of RTW laws, even after adjusting for substantial population growth that those laws also induce. RTW states tend to be vibrant and growing; non-RTW states tend to be stagnant and aging.”

The study states: “The evidence suggests that if non-RTW states had adopted RTW laws 35 years ago or so, income levels would be on the order of $3,000 per person higher today, with the overall effect varying somewhat from state to state.”

In fairness, RTW is not the only factor in determining personal income, which includes sources other than wages in its totals. But it makes sense that freeing workers from the compulsion to join a union and fork over part of their paychecks to bosses who spend it on political donations to Democrats raises their incomes. Not to mention that it stimulates entrepreneurs and established companies to expand job opportunities, thereby raising demand for workers, and growing wages.

Another big fail for big labor.  More evidence that unions harm workers

Hat tip: iOwnTheWorld.com

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This link is to an article on the vote for Scottish Independence. As a Scottish-American, I have interest in this issue as do, of course, my Scottish relatives in Caithness.   This is interesting and attention should be paid to this issue. By the way, I did send The Declaration of Independence to Caithness.
http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21606840-our-advice-david-cameron-and-alex-salmond-tricky-disputes-and-dilemmas-involved

It’s July 3 and on this day in 1863, in the middle of the Gettysburg battlefield, 16,000 Confederates attacked the Union lines at a copse of trees that have been know as the high water mark of the Confederacy. After the charge, the bodies of members of the 26th North Carolina marked the precise location of that high water mark. This allows North Carolinians to claim they went “Furthest” in the Civil War.

I have been visiting Gettysburg since I was a teenager. Then, with a friend with Southern roots like me, I made Pickett’s and Pettigrew’s charge.  The ground is rolling, so for part of the walk, you are shielded from Federal fire. It is only after crossing the Emmitsburg Road that you are fully exposed to artillery and musketry.  

There are thousands of Gettysburg books around.  In “Intruder in the Dust,” William Faulkner wrote about it this way:

“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances…” 

My Uncle Vernon Niven felt this way, and my great Uncle Malcom Niven was trying to get up Culps Hill at the same time. Remember the day. 

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/07/03/july_3_1863_longstreets_misgivings_–_and_picketts_charge.html#ixzz36RTXhHdD 
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter 

From the Washington Times:

The recent decision by an obscure administrative law board to cancel the Washington Redskins‘ trademark registrations came despite the fact the agency hadn’t received a single letter from a member of the public complaining about the team’s name, records show.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which is part of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, ruled last month that the name was disparaging to American Indians. The team is appealing that decision.

Politicians, including President Obama, have waded into the team name controversy, with many saying the team should change its name. But despite widespread media attention and a legal fight that goes back more than a decade, the USPTO recently acknowledged there’s hardly been an avalanche of public complaints filed with the agency.

In fact, the agency doesn’t have any record of correspondence from the public about the Redskins‘ name — expressing sentiments one way or another — prior to the board’s June 18 ruling.

A Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Times asking for any communications from Congress or the public produced just 13 pages of records.

Six of those pages were a handwritten, meandering letter from a man in Lubbock, Texas, whose position on the team name controversy isn’t clear. Another writer congratulated the appeals board after its decision but questioned whether the judges would “go after” the United Negro College Fund. Both letters were sent after the ruling.

In addition, there were a few pages of email correspondence between staffers for the USPTO and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting member of Congress. Ms. Norton has been a vocal critic of the team name, but her staffers were mostly seeking background information on the case.

The board made its ruling last month based on a legal challenge from Amanda Blackhorse and four others, who petitioned the USPTO against the Redskins, calling the team name offensive to American Indians. After the ruling, she called the decision a “great victory for Native Americans and all Americans,” saying the team’s name was “racist and derogatory.”

Both sides in this widely publicized case introduced thousands of pages of evidence and testimony from experts. And the decision hinged, in part, on the testimony of linguistics experts.

The Redskins declined to comment through an attorney Monday, but an attorney for Ms. Blackhorse said the paucity of public input isn’t entirely unexpected despite the intense media coverage.

“There are regimented procedures in which the USPTO makes its decisions, and there is no mechanism for input from the general public,” attorney Jesse A. Witten wrote in an email. “This is not at all like the notice and comment period that accompanies a regulatory rule making.”

Rebecca Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the patent office isn’t like the Federal Trade Commission or Food and Drug Administration, where there can be a public comment procedure for individual cases.

“If you don’t have a particular stake there’s no obvious point at which your input can be given,” she said. “I’m sure that doesn’t stop people from sending in correspondence, but I honestly wouldn’t know how to go about getting it read in an individual case.”

The USPTO did not respond to phone calls Monday.

The trademark appeals board based its ruling on part of the law that says a trademark can be canceled if it is deemed disparaging. In the case of the Redskins, the board said the drop in the use of the word in the last century showed it was becoming a slur. The board also pointed to research that found at least 30 percent of American Indians surveyed found the name offensive.

The agency’s decision doesn’t mean the Redskins are barred from using the team name, but it does make it harder for them to assert their brand against potential copycats.

The same appeals board was overruled on appeal in 2003 after ruling against the Redskins in a similar case. Bob Raskopf, the team’s trademark attorney, said in a statement after the most recent ruling that he expects the same outcome.

“This case is no different from the earlier case, where the board canceled the Redskins‘ trademark registrations and where a federal-district court disagreed and reversed the board,” he said.

Even if the public hasn’t been very vocal with the agency, politicians have been quick to let the media and Redskins know where they stand.

Last fall, Mr. Obama said he would think about changing the name if he were team owner Dan Snyder.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has vowed not to attend any games until the team changes its name.

And Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, said last week at an Associated Press Sports Editors meeting that while he doesn’t think Mr. Snyder should be forced to drop the Redskins‘ name, he’d “probably” change the team name nonetheless.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/1/redskins-name-drew-no-public-complaints-patent-off/#ixzz36LL2IpXZ 
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