No comment - National Labor Relations Board union may file claim against Board lawyers for unfair labor practices - Brief Article

Progressive, The, April, 2002

Best Definition of Irony

The union representing the National Labor Relations Board lawyers is considering filing an unfair labor practices claim against the board. "The union alleges the board has failed to bargain in good faith," according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Both sides have been negotiating since September 2000.

Inflated Self-Worth

Breathe a sigh of relief. Arthur L. Carter's weekly New York Observer is not for sale, we're told in The New York Times. How important is this 50,000 circulation weekly? Just ask Carter: "We're a small organization, but when we lay off three people it's bigger news here than when U.S. Steel lays off 20,000," he told the Times.

Earned-Income Tax Harassment

The working poor accounted for 55 percent of all IRS audits last year. The likelihood of people being audited if they're in this bracket is 1 in 174 returns, as compared to 1 in 208 for people who make over $100,000, according to The New York Times. Audits of the working poor centered on people who use the earned-income tax credit. Audits of large corporations fell to 1 in 6, down from 1 in 4 five years earlier.

C-Notes from Heaven

Reuters reported that U.S. military aircraft dropped $100 bills tucked into envelopes bearing the picture of President Bush over southern Afghanistan. Some of the envelopes, however, fluttered into Pakistan. Both areas are considered strongholds of support for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. "People pushed and fought with each other to get their hands on the envelopes," reported the news service.

Oh, That Explains Everything

New York Magazine media critic Michael Wolff offers this analysis on why some political/media insiders insist ABC newsguy George Stephanopoulos is gay: "I think the gay thing is used to explain why he doesn't act like we might assume he should. He's on his best behavior ... because he may not want us to see who he really is."

Way to Go, Fellas!

War means never having to say you're sorry. Just ask General Tommy Franks, commander of military operations in Afghanistan. His boys don't need to apologize for killing sixteen civilians in a night-time raid in February. "In fact, I have some respect for the discipline and quality of effort as [the team] moved through the compounds," Franks told the press.

Unrighteous Indignation

Robert Novak, he of the overheated rhetoric and excessive frowning, skewers the Dems for blaming the Enron scandal on the Republicans. "They seize on any Bush official's connection with the company as evidence of impropriety," he writes in his February 21 Chicago SunTimes column, adding that this is "less solidly grounded in reality than McCarthyism was a half-century ago."

Apocalypse Now ... We Hope

A New York state parole board nixed Amy Fisher's appearance on the Fox Television game show Celebrity Boxing because it "would not be conducive to her continued parole supervision and would send an inappropriate message to victims of violent crime." According to the Associated Press, Fisher was set to bust heads with Tonya Harding. Paula Jones graciously consented to step in for Fisher.

Truth Gets in the Way ... Again

Business 2.0 ad critic John Gaffney theorizes that the requirement forcing hard booze manufacturers to mention the ill effects of their products is one reason why they haven't flooded television networks with advertising despite low ad rates. "Hardly a case study for effective branding--especially in these down times," Gaffney writes.

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