Howard Brandwein Presents – Union Resource Center Sponsorship Partner Attorney Sylvia Noel White.

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• Business Corporation and Partnership Law
• Consumer Law Claims and Protection
• General Practice Law
• Wills Estates Trusts and Probate Law

Noel White provides services in all areas of Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Administration. She also provides services regarding consumer issues and small business matters.
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Michigan’s New Labor Day.

Starting today, workers will have a choice in union membership and labor unions will have to earn their membership by service and not outdated work rules that force membership.

Today – March 28, 2013 – marks a new day for labor freedom in Michigan as landmark legislation making Michigan a right to work state goes into effect.

Starting today, workers will have a choice in union membership and labor unions will have to do what every other voluntary organization has to do: Earn their membership by service and not outdated work rules that force membership. Because the legislation was passed last year without immediate effect, it becomes law today on the 91st day after the 2012 Legislature adjourned. The final vote came after a day of demonstrations and violence by labor unions and activists opposed to ending decades of coercive, compulsory union membership in Michigan.

There are exemptions – and the law will not apply to all workers. Firefighters, local and state law enforcement officers, those represented by federal unions, employees protected under federal laws (such as the Railway Labor Act) and some other transportation workers, agricultural workers and domestic workers are not covered by the law. Right to work will not immediately apply to businesses that have existing collective bargaining agreements. Therefore, if a current labor agreement extends beyond the effective date of the law (March 28, 2013), membership – and payment of union dues – will remain mandatory until that labor agreement expires.

The reaction to right to work by Big Labor and state bureaucrats wedded to the old monopoly system reveals their true motives in dealing with their “members.” The Civil Service Commission claims that state employees are not covered by the law. Labor unions, primarily in the public sector, have been trying to renegotiate contracts as far out as possible before the law’s effective date in order to deny their members choice for years. Labor unions and supporters of the old, forced membership system can be expected to turn to the courts in an effort to avoid the law.

But in the long run, the new day of labor relations will not be denied.

Just as railroads tried to fend off competition from the automobile and just as monopoly telephone companies battled against emerging technology by using government rules and laws to stifle upstart competitors, such efforts will only prolong the inevitable. If labor unions can evolve into service-centered organizations that compete for membership in this new labor environment they will survive and prosper. If not, they do not deserve government protection any more than any other outdated monopoly.

Beer Fight Brewing Over Taxes.

If enacted, the Small BREW Act would cut the federal excise tax on beer from $7
 a barrel to $3.50, which is placed on a small brewer’s first 60,000 barrels produced per year.

There’s a tax fight brewing between large beer companies and their smaller craft brethren on Capitol Hill.

The Beer Institute, which includes member companies such as Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors, plans to “actively oppose” the Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce, or Small BREW Act, this year.
The Brewers Association — essentially the trade group for craft brewers — is lobbying for the bill, which would reduce the federal excise tax on beer from small producers.

Chris Thorne, vice president of communications for the Beer Institute, says his trade group has dropped its neutral stance on the legislation because it divides the industry.

“We are going to actively oppose this legislation,” Thorne said. “If the entire industry is unified and has one ask, we stand a far better chance of succeeding than when we have multiple bills to push.”

Thorne said his group opposes any tax increase on beer, but that all of the industry should unite behind one bill: the Brewer’s Employment and Excise Relief (BEER) Act, which is expected to be introduced later this year and would reduce excise taxes on beer produced by brewers large and small.

Bob Pease, chief operating officer for the Brewers Association, said the Beer Institute has been uncomfortable with his group’s preferred legislation in the past.

“That’s disappointing but not altogether unexpected,” Pease said. “They expressed discomfort in the past about various components in the bill so that’s why it doesn’t come as a total shock.”

If enacted, the Small BREW Act would cut the federal excise tax on beer from $7 a barrel to $3.50, which is placed on a small brewer’s first 60,000 barrels produced per year. After that initial 60,000 barrels, small brewers must pay $18 per barrel, which would be lowered to $16 under the bill.

In addition, the bill would expand the tax code definition for a small brewer. Right now, brewers who produce up to 2 million barrels of beer per year are considered small brewers. The legislation would raise the limit to 6 million barrels per year.

The Beer Institute said the bill amounts to a “giveaway” for a handful of profitable brewers.

TSA Simplifies Screening Process For Wounded Soldiers.

Starting Wednesday, the TSA will offer wounded soldiers
curb-to-gate service and allow them to go through security 
with their shoes, light jackets and hats on.

The Transportation Security Administration has announced it will be offering an expedited airport screening process to severely injured members of the armed services.

Starting Wednesday, the TSA will offer wounded soldiers curb-to-gate service and allow them to go through security with their shoes, light jackets and hats on. Current military personnel who go through a TSA checkpoint in uniform and with proper identification can already keep on their footwear, under existing rules.

“In recognition of the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, we have revised our screening requirements to allow expedited screening for this trusted group of citizens,” TSA deputy administrator John Halinski, himself a 25-year Marine Corps veteran, said in a statement.

In order to receive the expedited service, wounded soldiers or their travelling companions must contact the Military Severely Injured Joint Services Operations Center prior with their itinerary prior to traveling.
According to a report in the Marine Corps Times, TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said that the accommodation expansion was in the works prior to a mid-March incident in which a wheelchair-bound Marine was “humiliated” by the airport screening process.

The incident, which was reported to California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, was detailed in a complaint letter the congressman sent to TSA. The situation received national media coverage.

Following a conversation with Halinski about the incident, Hunter said he was assured of the deputy administrator’s commitment to wounded warriors.

“Based on our conversation and the level of detail provided, I have no doubt about Director Halinski’s commitment to providing for the care of our war wounded and his interest in ensuring veterans are treated with respect,” Hunter said in a statement on March 20.

“TSA has been working to improve screening procedures for wounded veterans and service members, which began before the specific report I received and conveyed, and I look forward to TSA’s action in the coming days,” he added. “The TSA already maintains a wounded warrior program and operation center and building on this program will help serve the interests of veterans across the country.”

In 2005, TSA instituted a “Wounded Warrior” screening program to help simplify the security process and ensure it affords “empathy and respect” to injured soldiers, according to a TSA website.

“We’ve had a wounded warrior program in place for some time to assist injured members of the military through the checkpoint process,” TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez said, according to NBC News.

“Starting now, in airports with or without TSA PreCheck lanes, these heroes will be escorted to and through the checkpoints and will not have to remove hats, caps, light jackets or shoes.”

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Teachers Union Disappointed With Voucher Ruling.

An Indiana House committee hears arguments on Governor 
Mitch Daniels' school voucher plan.

An Indiana teachers union official says she is disappointed that the state Supreme Court has upheld the nation’s broadest school voucher program but isn’t sure if the case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Indiana State Teachers Association Vice President Teresa Meredith says she still believes the state should be investing in public schools and making those the best they can be.

The voucher law upheld unanimously Tuesday gives low- and middle-income students public money to attend private schools. More than 9,000 students are participating this year.

The teachers union sued over the law and said it harmed public schools by diverting money intended for them to the voucher program.

The justices sided with supporters who argued the program gives families more educational choices.

Divided Supreme Court Offers Mixed Signals In Marriage Debate.

Joey Williamson, left, and Gary Brown form New York City,
 cover themselves from the snow as they wait in line outside of 
the Supreme Court in Washington for the court hearing on
 same-sex marriage.

A divided Supreme Court debated Tuesday whether the Constitution includes a right to same-sex marriage and how broadly such a right would extend.

The justices wrestled with California’s ban on gay marriage in a case that would allow them to declare a nationwide right to same-sex marriage. But several justices seemed hesitant to go that far, questioning whether the issue should be allowed to percolate further in the states.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who casts the court’s typical swing vote, questioned whether the court made a mistake by agreeing to hear the case.

“I just wonder if the case was properly granted,” Kennedy said.

The court’s most conservative justices pushed back hard against the case for marriage equality. Justice Antonin Scalia repeatedly pressed attorney Ted Olson, who is arguing against the California ban, to tell him when the Constitution came to protect gay marriage.

The court’s liberals, meanwhile, argued that opening the door to same-sex marriage would not harm the institution of marriage any more than allowing marriage among infertile couples, or couples who are too old to have children.

It’s the first time the Supreme Court has tacked the subject of gay marriage. It will continue to hear arguments on Wednesday over the Defense of Marriage Act.

China’s Military Steps Up Drone Deployment.

New unarmed drone deployments include the recent stationing of 
reconnaissance and ocean urveillance drones in Northeast Asia near Japan and 
the Senkaku islands and along China's southern coast.

China’s military is expanding its unmanned aerial vehicle forces with a new Predator-like armed drone and a new unmanned combat aircraft amid growing tensions with neighbors in Asia, according to United States intelligence officials.

New unarmed drone deployments include the recent stationing of reconnaissance and ocean surveillance drones in Northeast Asia near Japan and the Senkaku islands and along China’s southern coast. Drones also are planned for the South China Sea where China has been encroaching on international waters and bullying nations of that region in asserting control over international waters, said officials familiar with intelligence reports.

“Unmanned aerial vehicles are emerging as critical enablers for PLA long range precision strike operations,” said Mark Stokes, a former military intelligence official now with the Project 2049 Institute. “A general operational PLA requirement appears to be persistent surveillance of fixed and moving targets out to 3,000 kilometers of Chinese shores.”

Japan, meanwhile, is developing and purchasing military drone capabilities to counter what it regards as Chinese aggression and Beijing’s growing military capabilities as Tokyo’s dispute with China over the Senkaku islands intensifies, the officials said.

After Chinese aircraft intruded into Japanese airspace over the Senkakus undetected late last year, Tokyo stepped up efforts to seek drone capabilities. The efforts include building an indigenous missile-tracking drone and high-altitude U.S. drones.

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Union Issues Notice To Strike At Appalachian Regional Healthcare Facilities.

The newly renovated Morgan County ARH hospital in West Liberty had
 a grand opening in August 2012.

The head of Appalachian Regional Healthcare says a union has informed officials that its members intend to strike if an agreement hasn’t been reached on their contract by the time it expires on March 31.

The Harlan Daily Enterprise cited a letter written by ARH President and CEO Jerry Haynes that says the United Steelworkers union issued a 10-day “intent to strike notice” on March 21.

The union represents licensed practical nurses, certified nurse aids, and clerical, maintenance and housekeeping staff at ARH facilities across Eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia.

Haynes said the not-for-profit ARH will proceed with plans to ensure that patients are cared for if the strike occurs.

The newspaper reported attempts to contact Roger McGinnis, president of the local USW, on Thursday evening were unsuccessful.

Pentagon Delays Civilian Furloughs.

DOD spokeswoman Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde said that furlough notices are not 
expected to be sent to civilians until April 5, although that date has not been finalized.

The Pentagon is delaying its furlough notices to civilian employees by two weeks after Congress passed a government funding measure giving the Defense Department more flexibility in its budget.

The Defense Department had been planning to furlough most of its nearly 700,000 civilian employee for up to 22 days before September in order to deal with budget reductions.

But the continuing resolution (CR) that Congress sent to President Obama on Thursday provides the Pentagon with an additional $10 billion in its operations and maintenance accounts, which includes civilian personnel costs.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said that the delay will allow the Pentagon to analyze the CR, and said no decisions have been made about whether the number of furlough days in fiscal 2013 will be changed.

“We believe the delay is a responsible step to take in order to assure our civilian employees that we do not take lightly the prospect of furloughs and the resulting decrease in employee pay,” Little said.

DOD spokeswoman Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde said that furlough notices are not expected to be sent to civilians until April 5, although that date has not been finalized.

While the continuing resolution included a full-year Defense appropriations bill — which allowed for the transfer of funds — the Pentagon is still facing across-the-board cuts under sequestration. The DOD must cut roughly $46 billion in fiscal 2013.

Sketch of 911 Conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed From Inside Guantanamo Bay’s Military Courtroom.

9/11 defendants Walid bin Attash, left, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;
 appear at their Guantanamo Bay arraignment, May 5, 2012. Image: Janet Hamlin

Few artists in the world can boast that their work was critiqued by the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Janet Hamlin remembers the stare Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave her to earn her that dubious honor.

It was 2008, and the man known as KSM was trying to plead guilty before a military judge. Hamlin, a freelance courtroom sketch artist from Nyack, New York, had taken her charcoals and oversize board to Guantanamo Bay to draw him for CNN. Her impression would amount to the first image the world would have of the infamous terrorist since his 2003 capture, when he was snapped in a ratty T-shirt that showed his back hair. And KSM cared about how he looked.

“He would turn and pose — a deliberate turn, facing me, holding very steady,” Hamlin remembers. Yet as she learned during a courtroom break, KSM didn’t like how Hamlin drew his nose. “Sure enough, he was holding [the sketch], frowning, in the window,” she continues. His lawyers mentioned to her that KSM wanted her to consult an FBI most-wanted photo. “That original nose,” Hamlin says, “is buried under layers of pastel.”

No one has seen the confusing, often-revised process for post-9/11 war crimes trials like Hamlin. Since 2006, she’s made the trek to Guantanamo Bay at least 25 times, all to sit in the secured courtroom for hours on end, providing almost all of the few images from Gitmo that the public sees. Even the few reporters who cover the so-called military commissions most often prefer to watch them over closed-circuit television at the decrepit airplane hanger that serves as Guantanamo’s media center. Hamlin is in the courtroom, sketching away. I first met her at Guantanamo in 2010, as she captured the pained expression on the face of Omar Khadr, Guantanamo’s youngest resident, while his prosecutors showed a video of him as a smiling young teenager in Afghanistan playing with a bomb detonator.

That sketch is one of around 160 contained in Hamlin’s forthcoming book, Sketching Guantanamo. Published by Fantagraphics, the book is more than just a series of drawings from one of the world’s most infamous courtrooms. It’s a visual log of the form of justice — or injustice — meted out at one of the world’s most infamous places.

“This is a very historic series of hearings to me,” Hamlin says. “To be capturing that visually feels very gratifying.”

Presented above is a preview of Hamlin’s work in Sketching Guantanamo, scheduled for publication in October. (The stickers on her sketches indicate that they’ve been approved for release by military censors.) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants face yet another round of pretrial hearings April 22. When next KSM steps into the courtroom, Hamlin and her sketchbook will be there with him. And by now, she knows how to draw his nose.

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Union Leader Bullies Lawmakers With Threatening Ecard.

American Greetings ecard sent to Palm Beach County commissioners: “Do the right thing”

Union scare tactics get a whole lot scarier when the fear of God is brought into the mix.

Local Communications Workers of America President Richard Poulette sent an eerie American Greetings ecard to Palm Beach County commissioners warning God was watching, so “do the right thing.”
The spooky greeting featured a nun in full habit eerily staring at the reader with church organ music playing over and over in the background. The accompanying message read:

You know what you need to do. God wants you to give your workers a fair and equitable contract. Do the right thing.

The animated nun occasionally blinked and moved her eyes, which made the whole thing even creepier.
Invoking God is among the more bizarre tactics a union could use to pressure the opposition to cave to its demands, in this case “a fair contract with fair wage increases” for county employees.

Palm Beach County Administrator Bob Weisman told BizPac Review that while negotiations are running about six months behind, county workers were offered their first pay raise in four years. The lagging economy has made it impossible to offer raises until now, he said.

But union negotiators said the offer was not enough. They also want to be compensated retroactively for previous years.

Until now, the union has pressured commissioners to “do the right thing” using the usual tactics — letters and visits. But the county is clearly seeing some unusual methods this go-around.

In another crafty effort, the union is advertising on a billboard on I-95 that reads, “Do the Right Thing! Palm Beach County Commissioners. Give Your Workers a Fair Contract!”

So between a billboard-sized message and wacky emails warning God is watching BizPac Review wanted to know if Weisman thought the union complaint was valid.

“I always like to treat employees fairly and well, but financial circumstances have not allowed us to do that. I hope for a better future,” he said.

Biden And The White House Are ‘Still Pushing’ For Assault Weapons Ban.

Joe Biden Pushing For Assault Weapon Ban To Pass.

Vice President Biden and the Obama administration still hope to pass a federal assault weapons ban, Biden said Wednesday.

“I’m still pushing that it pass — we are still pushing that it passes. The same thing was told to me when the first assault weapons ban in ’94 was attached to the Biden crime bill, that it couldn’t possibly pass,” Biden said Wednesday in an interview with NPR. “It was declared dead several times.”

Earlier in the week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that a proposal to reinstitute a federal assault weapons ban would not be included in a gun control bill the Senate plans to vote on soon. Reid said the proposal, which Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced, would have weighed down the rest of the gun control bill. New gun control legislation, especially an assault weapons ban, faces strong opposition in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

President Obama has urged Congress to pass legislation reinstating a ban on assault weapons.
Obama also charged Biden with leading a Congressional task force to make recommendations for reducing gun violence.

Biden has been a staunch proponent of passing new gun laws. He also served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1994 when the panel considered a crime bill that included a 10-year assault weapons ban.

“I believe that the vast majority of the American people agree with us, the vast majority of gun owners agree with us, that military-style assault weapons are — these are weapons of war; they don’t belong in the street,” Biden said. “And [in] the recent decision declaring the right of someone to own a weapon in their home for self-protection, Justice [Antonin] Scalia acknowledged that you can constitutionally ban certain types of weapons. So I’m not going to give up on this.”

The effort to pass new gun laws is in response to a shooting massacre last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that resulted in 28 dead, including 20 young children.
On Tuesday White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said the White House would “find the votes” to pass the ban.

Military Takeover Of Lethal Drone Operations Under Consideration.

The official said no final decision has been made, and that there is
 no specific time frame in place, but that the change is being considered
 "due to a desire for greater transparency in who is being targeted."

The Obama administration is considering shifting lethal drone operations run by the Central Intelligence Agency over to the military, say U.S. officials.

The proposal is under “serious consideration,” one U.S. official said. The official said no final decision has been made, and that there is no specific time frame in place, but that the change is being considered “due to a desire for greater transparency in who is being targeted.”

By law, the military is not able to act covertly the way the CIA can, and it must answer to Congress.
The Daily Beast website first reported on the potential shift.

The military would operate and fly the drones, an administration official stated, but targeting would still be done jointly by various agencies. The shift would happen over time.

“It won’t happen overnight,” the U.S. official said, adding that operations in some countries would transfer to U.S. military control before other nations.

“Yemen is an example of one of the first programs that could shift,” the official states, while shifting the responsibility for the program that operates in Pakistan “would be much further out.”

CIA Director John Brennan has expressed a desire to move the intelligence agency back to traditional intelligence-collecting.

“The CIA should not be doing traditional military activities and operations,” Brennan said at his confirmation hearing.

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Union Protesters Gather Outside Northfield Park.

The unions will continue the protest each morning and members will be urged 
to visit the Thistledown racino in North Randall instead of the Hard Rock facility.

Union workers from the Akron area picketed Monday morning outside Northfield Park horse track to protest the construction of the new Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park Police Chief Mark Wentz said today.
“Everything’s been peaceful so far,” said Wentz. “We’ve spoken to them and they’ve been compliant with our requests.”

Wentz estimated that there are about 30 protesters, who have also set up a large inflatable rat that Wentz estimated is a “good 25 feet high.” He said he is unsure of the issue and does not know what union is involved, adding that there could be more than one.

Jeff Hathaway, business manager with Plasterers’ and Cement Masons’ Union Local 109, said local union workers are not being used on the project. Laborers’ International Union Local 894 and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18 also joined the protest, he said.

Hathaway said the unions will continue the protest each morning and urged its members to visit the Thistledown racino in North Randall instead of the Hard Rock facility

Reid ‘Stunned’ By GOP Move To Block Debate On Democratic Budget.

“I was amazed yesterday, flabbergasted, stunned, when Republicans
 blocked the attempt to start on the budget resolution.” stated Reid.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) expressed anger Wednesday over the budget impasse that will likely lead to weekend votes for the Senate.

Reid wants to begin debate on the Democratic budget but has been unable to trigger the process because of a separate fight over a measure to keep the government funded through September.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) blocked Reid’s motion to begin debate, demanding a vote on his amendment to the government-funding measure that would protect air traffic control towers from being closed due to sequestration.

The impasse led to an explosion from Reid on Wednesday.

“For the last few years, my Republican colleagues have been hollering, yelling and screaming that the Senate hasn’t pass a budget,” Reid complained on the floor. “Republicans were desperate to have a budget debate. They wanted a vote-a-rama. They had charts and speeches to prove it. They even had a calendar that they brought out here almost daily.

“I was amazed yesterday, flabbergasted, stunned, when Republicans blocked the attempt to start on the budget resolution.”

Reid had hoped to complete work on the spending resolution earlier this week so that the Senate could begin work on the budget. The budget fight is expected to include a vote-a-rama that will involve a lengthy series of amendments to the budget.

The Democratic budget would be the first one Senate Democrats have passed in four years. The House is expected to approve a GOP budget on Thursday, and Senate Democrats do not want to have a two-week recess where House Republicans can tout their budget while noting that Senate Democrats have yet to approve a blueprint.

Neither budget is expected to be approved by the other chamber, but the two measures would lay down markers for House Republicans and Senate Democrats.

In arguing that Moran should allow him to proceed, Reid said the automatic spending cuts in the sequester, which the Democratic budget would end, hurt all 50 states.

“The concern for the sequester isn’t focused on the delegation from Kansas — it’s all of us,” Reid said. “That’s why the Senate budget reverses the sequester.”

Democrats say their budget, drafted by Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.), cuts the deficit by $1.85 trillion over 10 years. But the GOP has said that because the accounting assumes the sequester will not happen, the amount if deficit reduction is closer to $700 billion.

Reid said he believed the public supports the Democratic plan because it uses a “balanced” approach of equal amounts of spending cuts and new revenue from closing tax loopholes for the wealthiest and corporations.
“Democrats are willing to debate the differences. We’re ready to debate the issues,” Reid said. “The American people are on our side. Let’s at least have the debate.”

US Military, Afghan Government Reach Deal For Troop Pullout From Contentious Province.

President Hamid Karzai agrees to pull out US troops from an eastern province.

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military says it has reached an agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a plan for gradually pulling out American forces from an eastern province where the Afghan government says they have been behind egregious human rights abuses.

The international military coalition said in a Wednesday statement that commander Gen. Joseph Dunford agreed with Karzai to remove troops first from Nerkh district of Wardak province and then later from other districts. The statement says international forces and members of a government-backed militia force will be replaced with Afghan army and police.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi confirmed that there has been a deal in a news conference in the capital.

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State Teachers Union Endorses Markey For Senate.

United States Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., center, was
endorsed by the  35,000-member American Federation of
 Teachers  Massachusetts Monday.

With the Democratic Senate hopefuls locked in a dogfight for every vote, they are especially focused on winning the support of organized labor, backing that both camps see as vital to a primary victory.

US Representatives Edward J. Markey and Stephen F. Lynch have sought the endorsements of hundreds of labor unions, hoping the broad base of power will help propel them to victory in the way it did for Elizabeth Warren during her successful Senate race in November.

Markey has earned the endorsements of many big unions in recent weeks, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union. Campaign officials say those endorsements total more than 255,000 workers.

Markey added another endorsement to his list Monday when the 35,000-member American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts announced its support for his campaign, one month after the state’s largest teacher union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, also endorsed him.

In all, the Lynch camp claims the endorsements of 77 unions, while the Markey camp notes that, when all of the chapters of the endorsing unions are included, their tally numbers in the hundreds.

But Lynch is not without big labor backing, including an endorsement from the Massachusetts Building Trades Council, the umbrella group that includes the Iron Workers Union where Lynch once served as president.
The South Boston native has also picked up more than 75 other union endorsements, including support of the state’s nurses and firefighters unions.

Lynch lost what would have been his biggest labor win when the AFL-CIO could not reach the two-thirds consensus needed to issue an endorsement of either candidate.

Still, the Lynch campaign said labor backing will play a big role in their efforts.
“Our labor volunteers — the nurses, firefighters, building trades, police officers, carpenters, letter carriers, and other unions — have been tremendous so far,” said Conor Yunits, a Lynch campaign spokesman.

US Chamber Wants Flexibility On Obama Health Law’s Employer Mandate.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is urging the IRS to adopt 
measure that would soften the blow to businesses from the
 healthcare law’s insurance mandate.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is urging the IRS to adopt measure that would soften the blow to businesses from the healthcare law’s insurance mandate.

The provision, which takes effect next year, is a cornerstone of the sweeping law. But the business group warns that it could undermine worker access to healthcare if it is not implemented properly.
“The Chamber has long advocated for efforts to support the employer sponsored system and remain[s] concerned that the new employer mandate requirement will instead erode this valued coverage,” the organization said.

In formal comments submitted this week to the Internal Revenue Service, the Chamber lays out a set of recommendations meant to help ease the employers’ transition to the new regulations.
Among them is a proposal to adopt a non-enforcement period for the first year after the mandate takes effect, so that employers would not be penalized while they struggle to understand and comply with the law and its provisions.

The Chamber lauded the IRS and the Treasury Department for issuing several notices meant to explain the new requirements but said, “The time it has taken to get this guidance means that employers have far too little time to fully understand their obligations.”

Employers in states that choose not to expand Medicaid eligibility should be protected from penalties for not providing coverage consistent with states that do, the Chamber argues.

The group is also calling on the agencies to allow the private sector leeway in defining what constitutes a seasonal employee. The new regulations apply differently for employees that do not work year-round.
“Given the number and impact of seasonal employees across a range of industries, employers need latitude and flexibility to apply seasonal assessments based on industry practice,” the Chamber said.
The group is also calling for refined language that would give new employers with at least 50 employees three months before the employer mandate takes effect, along with other proposed clarifications.

DARPA Launches Military Wireless Network Project.

The program aims to develop new protocols that enable military 
wireless networks to stay operational despite “inadvertent 
misconfigurations or malicious compromise of individual nodes.”

In order to try and make military wireless networks more secure, Darpa has created the Wireless Network Defense program.

In military situations, confidential data that needs to reach those on the ground is now transmitted through technology, including smartphones and tablets. However, if wireless connectivity is compromised, it has the potential to change the combat environment and could impact on military strategy.

Naturally, it’s not always the case that communications infrastructures in combat zones are trustworthy. So, deployed personnel not only have to provide access to the network, but they have to be the network — and various nodes within a military system share data on how best to share resources including spectrum and power.
However, nodes within these systems currently “implicitly trust” security information, and so if a malicious attack takes place, the entire network can be rendered useless, which leaves those on the ground in a sticky spot.
To help address these problems, Darpa has created the “Wireless Network Defense” program. The program aims to develop new protocols that enable military wireless networks to stay operational despite “inadvertent misconfigurations or malicious compromise of individual nodes.”

“Current security efforts focus on individual radios or nodes, rather than the network, so a single misconfigured or compromised radio could debilitate an entire network,” said Wayne Phoel, DARPA program manager. “We need to change how we control wireless networks by developing a network-based solution for current and future systems that acknowledges there will be bad nodes and enables the network to operate around them.”
A priority of the project is to develop protocols that will rate the trustworthiness of nodes and automatically adapt the network accordingly. In addition, similar to a neighborhood watch or fraud monitoring system used by banks, it is hoped that suspicious activity can be detected by the nodes.

Proposals are being accepted from April.

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‘White Student Union’ Members Defend CPAC Segregation Comments.

Scott Terry, on the right, supporting slavery before a shocked audience at CPAC.

Two members of the White Student Union at Towson University in Maryland aren’t backing down after advocating for racial segregation and defending slavery at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans was giving a presentation at CPAC about how Republicans could reach out more effectively to minorities. Scott Terry, a member of the White Student Union, began challenging Smith about the inclusion of blacks in the GOP’s tent, in an exchange captured by the liberal blog ThinkProgress that quickly spread around the Internet.

As seen in the video, Smith responds by citing a letter Frederick Douglass wrote in which he forgave his former owner. Terry interrupted and said, “For giving him shelter and food?” Several people in the audience gasp, though ThinkProgress notes there are also cheers. Terry muttered, “Why can’t we just have segregation?” after the exchange, ThinkProgress reported.

When Smith mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Atlantic Wire reports, White Student Union “founder and commander” Matthew Heimbach interrupted that King was a “Marxist,” and consequently not welcome.
After the exchange, Terry told The Guardian that he is a descendent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and that he didn’t totally disagree with slavery because it’s a “complicated issue.” He said, “I can’t make one broad statement that categorically it was evil all the time because that’s not true.”

Terry later told The Blaze that some of his comments were being taken out of context, and that he did not support slavery. However, when it comes to segregating by race, Terry said Americans should have “freedom of association.”

Heimbach, who started the White Student Union, has been more confrontational in subsequent interviews.
“Diversity is not a strength,” Heimbach told the Baltimore Sun, adding, “We’re being displaced from our own country,” in reference to immigration. He also told The Blaze that the issue of “forced segregation” should be left to the states.

Towson University has responded to Heimbach’s student group with caution, neither endorsing it nor trying to shut it down. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated the White Student Union a “hate group.”
Heimbach responded to the label, telling Slate, “You look at the SPLC, as fake as they are, they talk about how patriot groups are increasing in the Obama era. With a black face in charge of the White House, of the federal government, we know it’s foreign. We know something isn’t right.”

According to The Atlantic Wire, 23 members of the White Student Union attended CPAC.
The White Student Union’s website announced it would attend CPAC because the group claims the GOP’s not conservative enough. “The Republican Establishment will be trotting out only the best and brightest to tell the white socially conservative working class base why they need to support homosexual marriage, corporatism, blank checks for Israel, and amnesty for criminal border jumpers,” one blog post said.

Biden Says He Must Attend Reception For Cardinals Or ‘Lose Soul’.

Biden is the Obama administration’s emissary to Vatican City for the
 new pope's inaugural mass.

Vice President Biden on Monday said he had to attend a reception for U.S. cardinals attending Pope Francis’s inaugural mass or he would “lose” his soul.

Biden is the Obama administration’s emissary to Vatican City for the new pope’s inaugural mass. His comments came during a meeting with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic.

We invited the American cardinals to a reception,” Biden said to Nikolic according to a White House pool report. “So unless I’m prepared to join the Eastern Orthodox Church, as a Roman Catholic, I’d better show up or I’ll lose my soul.”

The delegation Biden is leading includes New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez ( R) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

A number of other House lawmakers also travelled to the Vatican for the inaugural mass. That group, led by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), includes Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas), Jim Langevin (R-R.I.), Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.).

The reception is meant for members of the delegation as well as U.S. officials in Rome.

US Military Says 21 Men Not Eating As Hunger Strike Grows At Guantanamo.

Puerto Rico — A Guantanamo Bay prison spokesman says 21 men are on hunger strike in a widening protest at the U.S. base in Cuba.

Navy Capt. Robert Durand says eight men are being fed with a liquid nutrient mix to prevent dangerous weight loss. Two men are at the prison hospital being treated for dehydration. The military says none are in immediate danger from the strike.

Lawyers for prisoners say the men are protesting their indefinite confinement and what they consider intrusive searches of their Qurans.

Durand said previously that only a handful of prisoners met the military definition of hunger strike, which includes missing nine consecutive meals. The number grew to 14 on Friday and reached 21 on Monday. Lawyers say the strike is more widespread than the military acknowledges.

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Union Officials Rip Nutter’s Handling Of Labor Issues.

As Mayor Nutter prepared to unveil a new budget to City Council, the city’s top union leaders on Wednesday excoriated Nutter’s handling of municipal labor issues and called on Council members to take their side.

“He’s trying to take away our right to collective bargaining,” said Patrick Eiding, president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, at a lunchtime rally Wednesday, drawing some 300 union supporters to the north side of City Hall.
Eiding said the city’s union movement would be out in greater force Thursday, trying to pack into City Hall and Council chambers when the mayor delivers his annual budget speech.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Bill Gault, president of the city firefighters union, predicting that 1,000 city employees would attempt to attend, joined by hundreds from other unions. Council’s seating capacity is 350.
The firefighters are battling the administration over raises awarded to the union in arbitration, but delayed by a court appeal from Nutter, who claims the city can’t afford the expense.

Eiding and other labor leaders urged Nutter to immediately give firefighters the pay increase and drop another legal motion, now before the state Supreme Court. Nutter has petitioned the high court directly, seeking permission to impose contract terms on some 6,800 members of AFSCME District Council 33.
Henry Nicholas, national president of the hospital and health care workers union, focused on City Council, complaining that its 17 members have been “too quiet” about Nutter’s labor tactics.

“They must tell him to stand down and do the right thing,” Nicholas said. “And if they do not do that, we are coming after all of them in the next election.”

City Controller Alan Butkovitz, seeking reelection this year, joined the attack on the Nutter administration.
“They have no respect for binding arbitration, no respect for collective bargaining,” Butkovitz said. “This is not a question about saving money. . . . This is about taking away the tools by which we work out what the relationship between labor and management is going to be. It is a disgrace and we are behind you.”

Administration spokesman Mark McDonald said Nutter supports unions and “wants to reestablish a vital collective bargaining process” with DC 33 and 47.

“It’s the city’s contention,” he said, “that union leaders have said no, repeatedly, to some critically important reform measures that the mayor believes are vital for a sustainable city budget in the years to come.”
The last contracts with DC 33 and 47 ran out in mid-2009. Sporadic negotiations have stalemated over the Nutter administration’s demands for future city workers to go into a less-expensive pension plan and management authority to furlough employees for up to three weeks each year.

Panel Approves Assault Weapons Ban; Cruz, Feinstein Get Heated.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a ban on the sale and manufacture of more than 150 types of semi-automatic weapons with military-style features Thursday in a party-line vote.

The 10-8 vote came after a heated exchange between Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who Feinstein scolded for giving her a “lecture” on the Constitution.

It’s the fourth piece of gun control legislation to make it out of committee, and perhaps the one with the longest odds of becoming law given opposition from Republicans to a new ban on so-called assault weapons.
Committee Democrats first beat back four amendments offered by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that would have carved out exceptions to the ban. Cornyn asked for exceptions for victims of domestic violence, military veterans and those living on Southwest border states that he said were affected by Mexican gang violence.
Feinstein, the sponsor of the underlying bill, called the amendments “an effort to nip it and tuck it and create exceptions.”

Cornyn said it would Feinstein’s bill would leave citizens with “peashooters” and outgunned by criminals.
Feinstein became furious at one point with Cruz, who she saw as lecturing to her about the meaning of the Constitution and why the framers of that document used certain language.

“I’m not a sixth grader,” she told the freshman Tea Party favorite. “I’m not a lawyer, but after 20 years I’ve been up close and personal to the Constitution. I have great respect for it … it’s fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know I’ve been here for a long time. I’ve passed on a number of bills. I’ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated, and I thank you for the lecture.”
Cruz responded by asking Feinstein if she also thought she had the power to interpret the First Amendment by deciding what books people could read.

Feinstein said she was happy that child pornography was illegal, and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) stepped in, bringing up controversies in Cruz’s home state over the content of its textbooks.

Sen. Charles Grassley’s (R-Iowa) passions also ran high over Cornyn’s amendment making an exception for residents of border states. He argued that the federal government hadn’t done its duty to protect the borders, and that the 10th Amendment gave states the right to step in such cases.

Whether the assault weapons ban is constitutional was a primary focus of the hearing, and Grassley argued that the burden of proof should be on those looking to limit rights, not on his GOP colleagues who were on the side of existing rights. Republican opponents of the bill also said it addressed “cosmetic” concerns about the guns that will have no real impact.

Judiciary on Tuesday approved a universal background checks bill as well as a measure aimed at increasing security at schools. Last week the committee passed a bill cracking down on the illegal trafficking and straw purchasing of firearms.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will now decide when and how to bring the bills to the floor for a vote. Reid has promised an open amendment process, and will likely package them separately to keep controversial measures from sinking more popular ones.

Calls to renew a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons intensified after the December killings of 26 people — including 20 children — at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Feinstein closed the hearing with graphic imagery from the Sandy Hook shooting, and acknowledged the tough road her legislation faced.

“The road is uphill,” she said. “I fully understand that.”

Senators Rally To Reinstate Military Tuition Assistance After Sequester Cut.

Senators are pushing to reinstate tuition assistance for members of the U.S. military, decrying a move by the administration to suspend the program citing the sequester.

“The president wants Americans to feel the pain of the arbitrary across-the-board budget cuts from sequestration, but to cut off promised education assistance for our service members when there are other lower priority spending programs to draw from is an injustice,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

He and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina introduced an amendment Wednesday to a stopgap budget bill that would restore the program. Inhofe states that he has additional Democratic support lined up, and warned that dropping the program not only hurts service members — it could hurt the military as a whole.
“It would hurt retention and our ability to enlist these people,” he said.

Inhofe said the tuition assistance, at least in the Army, is a major motivation for people to enlist.
“They can work a little bit harder and be able to get a college degree, and for them to pull that out from under them ….” Inhofe said.

He acknowledged the administration needs to make cuts to comply with the sequester — the across-the-board cuts that took effect March 1 — but suggested the Defense Department shave back its “green agenda” to find the money.

Hagan, in a statement, also said she understands the Pentagon has some “tough budget decisions” to make, but called the decision to suspend tuition assistance “shortsighted.”

So far, the Army, Marines and Air Force have pulled back on the program for this fiscal year.
The Army program gives soldiers as much as $4,500 annually to take courses, at accredited schools, toward high school and college diplomas. Army officials could not give a specific amount on how much the cuts would save, but said 201,000 soldiers used the program in fiscal 2012 at the cost of $373 million.

Administration officials have been challenged on a host of sequester-related cuts, from a decision to release low-priority illegal immigrants from southwest jails to a decision to suspend White House tours.

President Obama indicated Wednesday that he was reconsidering the tour decision, and trying to find a way to let in student groups. Generally, administration officials maintain they’re doing the best they can in trying circumstances, noting that even though the cuts amount to roughly 2 percent of the federal budget, they’re applying to only a portion of that budget — and must be squeezed into the remaining seven months of the fiscal year, making the impact more pronounced.

Meanwhile, a petition on the White House website to reinstate military tuition assistance has recently surpassed 100,000 signatures, which typically triggers an official response from the White House.
“Access to Higher Education is important to Service Members as it allows for career and professional advancement,” the petition says.

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AFSCME Labor Union Endorses Braley For U.S. Senate.

Although he’s not officially the Democratic nominee yet, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley continues to generate public support for his U.S. Senate bid.

Iowa’s largest public employee union, AFSCME Iowa Council 61, has endorsed him, Braley’s campaign said in a news release today. Two other unions, the Iowa State Council of Machinists and the Great Plains Laborers’ District Council, had endorsed him earlier this year.

“To know what Bruce Braley works for, just take a look at where he’s come from,” AFSCME Iowa Council 61 President Danny Homan said in the statement. “His mom is still teaching in Brooklyn, Iowa, and his dad worked at a grain elevator. Bruce learned by their example early in life how to work hard, and he’s been a fighter for the middle class in Congress.”

Braley announced on Feb. 7 that he would seek the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, a fellow Democrat. No frontrunner has emerged on the GOP side yet; U.S. Rep. Steve King is considered the strongest prospect, but he has yet to say whether or not he’ll run for Senate.

Today’s Braley news release said that in Iowa, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees represents over 40,000 public employees, including law enforcement and correctional officers, home health care and child care providers, firefighters, mental health workers, professional school staff, emergency responders, and other workers. The council is made up of over 100 self-governing local unions.

Obama To Nominate New Libya Ambassador.

President Obama will nominate Deborah K. Jones as the State Department’s new ambassador to Libya, the White House announced on Wednesday.

If confirmed, Jones would replace Chris Stevens; the ambassador killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The deaths of Stevens and three other Americans ignited a political firestorm at the height of the 2012 presidential election and Jones’s nomination could provide GOP lawmakers the opportunity to again press the administration over the deadly attack.

Jones served as U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait from 2008 to 2011, and has been with the State Department since 1982, holding posts in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Syria.

White House spokesman Jay Carney praised Jones as a “career foreign service officer who has served admirably in diplomatic posts across the world.”

Despite her extensive Middle East experience, the Benghazi attack is likely to overshadow her nomination.
Republicans have charged that the State Department, under the leadership of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ignored the existence of credible threats in the region.

GOP lawmakers also criticized U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice after she initially blamed the attacks on a spontaneous protest of an offensive anti-Islam video.

The administration later acknowledged the attack was terrorism and that no demonstration or protest had taken place in Benghazi. But officials defended Rice, saying that her statements had been based on then-current intelligence.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this week that he does not believe the White House has shared all its information in the incident. Graham said he intended to write to Secretary of State John Kerry and demand access to survivors from the attack.

Graham and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had initially threatened to block John Brennan’s nomination for CIA director until the administration answered their questions, before relenting and voting for this confirmation. Both, though, have vowed to continue investigating the matter.

Democratic lawmakers have charged Republicans with continuing to press the issue for political gain.
Carney on Wednesday also said that Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was arriving for his first official visit to the U.S. Zeidan is meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday afternoon, and will visit the White House later.

Carney did not say whether Jones would be involved in any of those meetings.

Biden: Want An Assault Weapon?

Even as a Senate panel postponed a vote on a long-shot effort to reinstate an assault weapons ban on Tuesday, Vice President Biden isn’t giving up on the measure.

Speaking to a meeting of the National League of Cities, Biden colorfully dismissed arguments from gun rights advocates who have opposed the push by the White House and some Senate Democrats to prohibit the sale of assault weapons.

Biden noted that some “real bad, tough warriors,” a reference to retired Army generals Stanley McChrystal and Colin Powell and other former U.S. military brass, have backed reinstating an assault weapons ban.

“As my son (Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden) says, ‘If you want to have an assault weapon, join the military,’” Biden said. “If you want to learn to shoot it, no problem.”

Biden spoke hours after the Senate Judiciary Committee passed two measures designed to curb gun violence.
One of the measures passed the committee along party lines and will expand background checks to private gun sales. The second bill, which had broader bipartisan support, renews a grant program to help schools bolster their security procedures and increased financing for the program by $100 million over the next decade.
The committee, however, delayed plans to vote Tuesday on an assault weapons ban and a bill to limit the size of high-capacity magazines.

Biden said he expects that the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on those measures later this week. Congress passed an assault weapons ban in 1994, but it expired a decade later.

Even before President Obama introduced his gun policy agenda in January, which included a call to reestablish the ban, it faced an uphill fight as even some Senate Democrats have said they would oppose the measure.

But as gun debate reaches a crucial point in the coming days, Biden is keeping up the push for Congress to include some of the more contentious parts of the president’s gun agenda.

To that end, Biden noted the family members of the victims of the December shooting massacre in Connecticut that reignited the gun debate. The vice president has met with a majority of the families who lost a child in the massacre and praised their courage. He called on lawmakers to follow their example.

“I know every time they talk about what happened, it forces them to relive (the incident),” Biden said. “It’s not too much to ask the political establishment of this country to show the same kind of courage — some political courage.”

U.S. Military Halts Production And Orders Review Of Controversial New Remote Warfare Medal.

The military has stopped production of a new medal for remote warfare troops, drone operators and cyber war fighters as it considers complaints from veterans and lawmakers over the award, a government official said Tuesday.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered a review of the Distinguished Warfare Medal, which was to be awarded to troops who operate drones and use other technological skills to fight America’s wars from afar. Announcement of the review is expected at a Pentagon news conference later Tuesday.

Lawmakers and veterans groups have complained that although troops can get the new medal for work far from the battlefield, it has been ranked above medals for those who served on the front line in harm’s way, such as the Purple Heart given to wounded troops.

If the review agrees with that complaint about the medal, it would likely have to be renamed and new medals manufactured, the government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

In ordering the new look at the medal, Hagel said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey would lead a review of how the medal is ranked among others — where it is in what the military calls “the order of precedence” of the medal, according to talking points obtained by The Associated Press.

John Bircher, a spokesman for the Military Order of the Purple Heart, has said the veterans groups are not objecting to the medal — just the ranking. He said some medals ranked ahead of the Purple Heart are achievement medals that can be earned outside of war time.

 What bothers many veterans is that the new Distinguished Warfare Medal appears be a war-time medal that trumps acts of valor, which he finds insulting.
The backlash to the Pentagon’s announcement included an online petition to the White House signed by thousands of people. The petition called the medal “an injustice to those who served and risked their lives” and asked that it not be allowed to move forward as planned.

Pentagon In Survival Mode As Officials Face Budget Uncertainty.

The Pentagon is in survival mode over its budget problems, planning only “days” at a time amid massive uncertainty with the 2013 and 2014 spending plans, acquisitions chief Frank Kendall said Tuesday.

The Defense Department is dealing with a potential $46 billion cut under sequestration for the last seven months of the 2013 fiscal year, and still does not know whether it will get additional flexibility from Congress with passage of a 2013 appropriations bill.

The budget for fiscal year 2014 is being readied, but the topline spending figures for next year are even murkier.

All that has Pentagon officials “planning in days” rather than weeks or months, Kendall said at the McAleese-Credit Suisse Defense Conference at the Newseum Tuesday.

“Once we figure out what long-term budgets look like, then we can do some long-term planning,” he said. “Right now we’re just trying to get through this.”

Kendall and Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said they had some optimism that Congress would approve an appropriations bill for Defense in a continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of the year.
But both stressed that would not alleviate the larger budget issues under sequester, even if it did give them some needed flexibility.

“$46 billion is $46 billion, and it’s going to have a big impact on the Department and a big impact on industry,” Kendall said. “There’s only so much we can do.”

Hale described sequester as a “pretty dumb set of problems” facing the Pentagon, something that Defense officials have long warned to be the case.

Regardless of whether sequester is reversed, Hale urged Congress to give the Pentagon a clear budget figure so the military can craft a strategy around it.

“We desperately need more stability both in the topline and the process,” Hale said. “Until we get a bill from Congress, especially this Congress frankly, we’ve got to assume the worst case.”

Hale said that the strategy created last year under former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is likely going to need to be re-crafted, because it assumed that the cuts from sequestration never occurred.
“It’s not likely we’re going to get the current [spending] level,” Hale said. “If there are cuts, what we ask for is time to re-do this strategy.”

The Pentagon is preparing to release its 2014 budget, as President Obama’s budget is expected to be submitted to Congress more than two months late in April.

Kendall said that changes were likely going to be needed to DOD’s spending plan once the other budget issues shake out.

“There will be a lot of adjustments to that given the course Congress is on,” Kendall said.

Arizona Unions Show Support For Immigration Reform.

Arizona’s labor unions are putting their weight behind comprehensive immigration reform, and they made their position loud and clear during a rally at the state Capitol on Monday.

About 200 union members, supporters, student activists and Democratic leaders gathered in support of a federal proposal that includes a path to citizenship. Union leaders said the labor movement and immigration rights go hand in hand.

“We’re both fighting for the American dream,” said Emmanuel Gallardo, a front-desk agent at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown hotel and a local union member. “And I strongly believe that as a labor movement, if we come together to support comprehensive immigration reform, we can pass it.”

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., spoke to the group, saying immigration reform needs to happen this year.
“Those of us from Arizona … understand it will be tough,” he said. “But we also understand how important it is.”
Phoenix was the last of 20 cities where labor unions held rallies. Participants urged Arizona lawmakers to oppose several bills that limit labor activities, and they called on federal lawmakers to deal with immigration.
The Arizona Legislature has been at the forefront of the immigration debate in the past, particularly with the 2010 passage of Senate Bill 1070.

But this year, local lawmakers have left the issue to national leaders.

The handful of state bills addressing immigration, including one that would have made it a crime for an illegal immigrant to use a public resource such as a school or sidewalk, have so far gone nowhere.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including Arizona Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake, are working on a reform bill that includes a path to citizenship contingent on a secure border. They hope to introduce it late this month or in early April.

Their work has mobilized supporters and opponents, both of whom are planning to flood lawmakers with calls and e-mails and to stage demonstrations.

National leaders are pushing local members to flood their members of Congress with calls supporting reform and to promise to use their influence in upcoming elections.

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3 Approved Labor Union Pacts Await Signatures.

Signatures are the only thing needed after a collective bargaining deal between the three Waterville city labor unions was ratified and approved.

Two of the contracts were negotiated through the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents the city’s sergeant and patrol units.

The Teamsters Local 20 was the third union to reach an agreement.

The pact is retroactive from Jan. 1 and is to end Dec. 31, 2014. In each of the two years the employees are to receive a 3 percent raise.

“The Teamster contract will provide for insurance coverage for their union members, the four public works technicians,” said Dale Knepper, the city’s chief of finance and administration. “There is a possibility that all city full-time employees, including the unionized police employees, may be allowed coverage under the Teamsters plan.”

The sergeants’ unit has three employees and patrol has six.

Air Force Enlists Mental Health Pros To Help Military Deal With Stress From Remote Combat.

The gritty combat in Afghanistan is thousands of miles away.

But the analysts in the cavernous room at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia relive the explosions, the carnage and the vivid after-battle assessments of the bombings over and over again. The repeated exposure to death and destruction rolling across their computer screens is taking its own special toll on their lives.
The military has begun to grapple with the mental and emotional strains endured by personnel who may never come face to face with a Taliban insurgent, never dodge a roadside bomb or take fire, but who nevertheless may be responsible for taking human lives or putting their colleagues in mortal danger.

Now, for the first time, an Air Force chaplain and a psychologist are walking the floor of the operations center at Langley, offering counseling and stress relief to the airmen who scrutinize the war from afar.
Sitting at computer banks lining the expansive room, the Air Force analysts watch the video feeds streaming from surveillance drones and other military assets monitoring U.S. forces around the globe. Photos, radar data, full-motion video and electronically gathered intelligence flows across multiple screens. In 15- to 20-minute shifts, the airmen watch and interpret the information.

Through chat windows, they exchange data, update intelligence reports and talk in real time with commanders on the ground, including troops whose lives may depend on the constant and rapid flow of information they get from Langley.

For example, they may provide information that allows a commander to order an airstrike, but after the weapon is launched, the analysts might suddenly see that the insurgents are fleeing or that civilians or children are moving into the strike zone, and by then they are helpless to do anything about it. They also often have to go over video of an incident repeatedly to assess the battle damage.

“It’s not a video game, it’s real,” said Capt. Robert Duplease, the chaplain assigned to the 497th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. “It’s repeated exposure to destruction and warfare. They see it, rewind it, see it and rewind it.”

“They are electronically in the fight in the deployed area every minute,” Sperry said. “They make life and death decisions every day, then they go home and have to play mom or dad … Sometimes things can be depressing for them.”

The idea to put a chaplain inside the center came from unit commander Col. Mike Shortsleeve and other leaders who noticed that some members of the wing were having problems sleeping and that smoking, alcohol and behavioral issues were increasing. In surveys, airmen also suggested there was a need for having a chaplain in the unit.

According to Duplease and Sperry, moving around the operations center during each day’s 12-hour shifts helps get the troops more comfortable with their presence and encourage them to reach out for help. Duplease, who said he also attended mission briefings, said slowly people began to approach him and after about two months, the interactions really began to pick up.

Many of the analysts are as young as 21, and may not yet have developed the ability to deal with the stress. And they worry that revealing their problems could prompt commanders to take away their security clearances or hurt their promotion opportunities.

In response, Duplease and Sperry created sleep classes and counseling sessions, and they have scheduled retreats for married couples and singles to help instill relationship and coping skills. They also are assuring the airmen that to date no one there has lost his or her security clearance as a result of seeking any counseling or assistance.

The success of the Langley program has prompted the Air Force to look at ways to replicate it at other locations around the country.

“We are trying to be proactive rather than reactive,” said Duplease. “We want to get ahead of things before become major issues.”