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Showing posts with label Competitive Enterprise Institute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Competitive Enterprise Institute. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

If The Climate Change Dictators Win, It Will Enable Government To Dictate ALL Opinions. Dissent Made Illegal

Al Gore, Democratic State Attorneys Generals Out to Silence Climate Change Dissenters

Image: Al Gore, Democratic State Attorneys Generals Out to Silence Climate Change Dissenters (Getty Images)
By John GizziMonday, 30 May 2016 02:29 PMMore Posts by John Gizzi
In what has to be among the sharpest salvos fired in modern times against free speech and freedom of expression, a coalition of seven state attorneys general has been formed to silence climate change critics.
 
One of those attorneys general filed a subpoena in April to obtain a decade of research and records from a pro-freedom market think tank that questions the findings of global warming advocates.

Last week, the case against the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) took a new direction when Attorney General Claude Walker of the U.S. Virgin Islands suddenly announced he was withdrawing the subpoena action he filed in the District of Columbia.

But no one at CEI thinks that the assault on them and their arguments against man-made global warming is over — not by a long shot.

Noting that the original subpoena against his group that was filed in the Virgin Islands remains, CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman told reporters that Walker and his fellow attorneys general "apparently think they can continue their unconstitutional intimidation campaign against anyone that challenges their view of climate change."

This latest exchange between CEI and its "legal eagle" antagonists is the culmination of actions that began in April with the launching of the new "Attorneys General United for Clean Power."

"We stand ready to defend the next president's climate change agenda, and vow to fight any efforts to roll-back the meaningful progress we've made over the past eight years," said New York' Attorney General Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

As if to underscore that they mean business when it comes to climate change, Schneiderman and the new attorneys' general group were flanked by another Democrat who has perhaps done more than anyone else to make the issue part of the national political dialogue: Al Gore.

The former vice president and Oscar-winning producer of the pro-climate change film "An Inconvenient Truth," is the country's leading advocate for green projects to mitigate carbon emissions.

Part of the agenda of Gore, Schneiderman, Walker and company was the subpoena against the 20-year-old CEI, which is one of the most respected conservative think tanks in Washington and premier voices for the view that there is no persuasive evidence that the earth faces any severe threat to it.

"And part of the agenda of those who hold the opposite view is to use so-called law enforcement to shut down debate on the issue," CEI's Kazman told Newsmax.

Hence, he noted, "the pursuit of records and documents that will be incredibly time-consuming for us.  So far, we've spent tens of thousands in attorneys' fees just dealing with this action. 

But it has cost us dearly in the Kazman and others at CEI made clear their feeling that prolonged legal action and the resulting publicity will possibly drive away contributors to the organization. 

But, Kazman quickly added, "we have always taken free market positions and actions without regard to what contributors think."

He recalled how CEI opposed the automobile company bailout in 2009 despite have financial backers in the auto industry. In addition, said Kazman, "We opposed the big tobacco settlement.

"Contributors come and go. Issues and the question of which position is right and which is wrong are most important to us."

Kazman also believes that the goal of the attorneys general and climate change advocates in pursuing legal action is to discourage scientists and leaders in the science community from speaking out by questioning evidence of man made global warming.

Whatever the cost to those who question climate change and no matter how long it takes to quash the actions of the attorneys general, Kazman believes His group will emerge triumphant in the end.

In his words, "Al Gore's 'inconvenient truth' has run into an inconvenient Amendment — the First one.'" 

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.


Breaking News at Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/John-Gizzi/Al-Gore-Democrat-AG-Silence/2016/05/30/id/731395/#ixzz4AEk8aqz1

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Right To Work Is Freedom To Work--UAW Continues To Lose And They Deserve To

CEI's Patterson: Right-to-Work Laws Represent 'Common Sense'

Friday, 20 Sep 2013 07:30 AM
By Dan Weil and David Nelson
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Matt Patterson, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is a strong advocate of states with right-to-work laws.

These laws allow someone working at a company that's unionized to refrain from joining the union and paying union dues.

"That's just called common sense, that's just called freedom of association," Patterson told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview.


"Right-to-work laws are very important from a liberty perspective, and they're also very important from an economic growth perspective. Right-to-work states attract a lot of businesses because unions have less power there."
 

So everyone benefits but unions, which is why they fight the laws so hard, Patterson says.

There's nothing wrong in principle with the idea of someone joining a union in hopes of a pay raise, Patterson says.

"If you're one person and you get a higher wage, then that's obviously good for you, until the union has driven up labor costs for the entire facility to the point where the plant is no longer productive or profitable," Patterson said.

At that point, the plant will close or move, he says. "There was a Volkswagen plant in Pennsylvania back in the 1980s. It operated for about 10 years, and there was a UAW [United Auto Workers union] presence at the plant."

The union led multiple strikes, causing so much trouble that VW shuttered the plant. "And when they closed that plant down, it devastated the community in New Stanton, Penn," Patterson said.

"So 20 years later, when Volkswagen decides to open up a new facility in the United States, no coincidence they chose a southern, right-to-work state [Tennessee], where the UAW did not have a presence."

Now the UAW is trying to organize at that Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. The plant makes Passat sedans. The UAW is trying to get in because the plant is very successful, Patterson says.

"It's sort of a nice, shiny morsel for them," he said. "They've basically cannibalized the Detroit auto industry, so for the UAW to continue existing as a viable entity, it needs to organize in southern, foreign-owned plants like the Volkswagen facility in Chattanooga."

The UAW has tried to organize at other foreign-owned plants in the south for the last 10 years, but has failed, Patterson says. "Chattanooga is the one foreign-owned plant in the south where they had a good chance of getting in."

Foreign-owned auto companies have opened plants throughout the South, including Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas, because of the absence of unions, Patterson says.

"In other words, they can keep production costs lower because there's no United Auto Workers union to drive up labor costs," he said. "These plants are the source of thousands of jobs both directly and indirectly throughout the entire region."


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