Good news for the registered Socialists who wish President Obama were a little further left on the political spectrum – Sherrod Brown’s got your back.

Sen. Sherrod Brown officially broke with President Barack Obama today on the issue of trade, saying the president “is wrong’’ by supporting free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.

Though President Obama agrees with Senator Brown that the best way to create jobs is to take a pile of money from job creators and dump it into a special-interest pit, Obama’s belief in big government may have found a limit. Unlike Sherrod Brown, President Obama seems willing to admit the global economy is beyond his control.

The White House says it won’t send the deals to Capitol Hill for approval unless Congress renews a 2009 expansion to the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which retrains workers displaced by trade. President Obama wants $1 billion more.

Ok, the president seems willing to admit the global economy is beyond his control if Republicans will concede to even more deficit spending to benefit the unions. Sadly, this is the sort of little $1,000,000,000 footnote that goes without saying in the Age of Obama.

Sadder still, Sherrod Brown’s fix for American job loss in the union-rigged manufacturing industry is to apply comparable layers of rigging overseas:

Workers and manufacturers have found it increasingly difficult to compete in today’s global markets when the deck is stacked against them because of unfair trading practices. Yet manufacturing has helped to lead us out of past recessions, and must again be an essential part of our economic strategy.

Foreign workers could truly benefit from some of the 19th- and 20th-century rules won by American unions. However, when Sherrod Brown complains of “unfair trading practices” he doesn’t mean basic human rights; he’s promoting the same union demands that ran American manufacturing businesses overseas or into the ground.

Since the reality is that no free country would allow unions to control the price and terms of labor, the AFL-CIO wants protectionist policies so they can keep their racket going here in the States. However he dresses it up in the usual class warfare garb, Brown’s stance is great for the unions but not so good for opening new markets to American products and the job creation that would result.

Even in the face of President Obama’s far-left pandering, Sherrod Brown continues populist posturing against any trade agreement that wasn’t written by the unions. My fellow conservative loons, let’s share a round of applause for Sherrod Brown: with all the odds stacked against him, he has reminded us that President Obama could be more destructive to America’s economy!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted at that hero and Third Base Politics.

Finally State Senate Republican leaders distinguished themselves yesterday (3-2-11) as they voted to pass SB5.

Simply stated, our public servants have little need of collective bargaining as they enjoy the benefit of (2) significant conditions to their employment. First, they have a protected environment as they essentially are a state sanctioned monoply. Yes, government employees are generally secure in their positions as they need not worry about competitors or that “nasty” condition of competition which is a way of life in the private sector.. Secondly, government jobs are further secured by the existence of “civil service protection”.    It is nearly impossible to terminate an egregiously offensive employee for cause. So, why is collective bargaining so aggressively defended by the union crowd ?

Simple……collective bargaining provides an unlevel bargaining field as it is the defacto implicit THREAT of strike that enables Unions success in expanding their compensation packages to where they are to day………economically unsustainable salaries and most especially pensions.

Moreover…….Union power, in the bargaining process, has ONE HUGE DEFICIENCY as far as taxpayers are concerned! Union leadership contributes to political campaigns.  Union dues,  mandatory forced contributions, “buy” political influence.

Is this NOT a HUGE CONFLICT of INTEREST?  Who represents the taxpayers? Its a slam dunk for unprincipled politicians to “cave”to union harassment as demonstrated by the hostile environment created by SEIU, AFL-CIO,TEAMSTERS, et al, at our state house these past weeks. Conflict of interest…keep this concept in mind when it comes to re-electing those (6) Republicans that “caved” and voted with the Dems.

I can see November 2012 from my porch….can you?

~ by Chris Littleton,  Co-Founder, Ohio Liberty Council

Where does Union money go? For anyone who hadn’t seen this info, please read below – mind blowing.

1.Overall union spending in elections: Professor Antony Davies from Duquesne University put out an incredible report about how labor unions, from 1989-2010, gave twice as much as the totals for the Big Oil, telecommunications, insurance, pharmaceuticals and real estate industries combined – that number…a half Trillion dollars. Yes, that’s a ”T” – trillion!

Report: http://www.antolin-davies.com/conventionalwisdom/lobbying.pdf

Article in Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/02/special-interest-driving-federal-spending-big-labor

2.AFSCME (American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees) was the biggest political spender in the 2010 Congressional races – $87.5 million: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339504575566481761790288.html

3.Specific to Ohio, Lobbying expenditures are also public data. If we look at the top 10 groups for lobbying expenditures in Ohio – you will see unions occupy the top 7 positions and account for $4.64 million of the top 10 total spend of $5.81 million. That’s almost 80% of the total spend from the top lobbying groups in Ohio coming from unions. That remaining 20% is made up of the Wholesale Beer and Wine Association, Ohio Dental Association and Ohio Association of Realtors.

Combined money from different arms of AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) spent over $1.67 million in Ohio based lobbying efforts alone?  The Ohio Education Association and Ohio Federation of teachers spent an additional $838K on Ohio based lobbying efforts – that’s over $2.5 million in tax payer money!!