Federal Law? What Federal Law?

Posted on Comments

Ace gave this the Flaming Skull™ and pinned it to the top of his blog: There is a federal law that requires employers to give advance notice of layoffs. Because of Obama’s massive deficits, defense contractors will have to lay off tens of thousands of employees.

Obama convinced Lockheed Martin to delay the layoff notification until after the election. Don’t like it? You’re a racist!

(Trying to get me one of those Elspeth Reeve gigs at the Atlantic.)

Last week, one of my tip-jar hitters informed me that he was one of the 575 people to be laid off when Sikorsky shut down its Black Hawk helicopter plant in New York State. When the Obama deficits start hurting my tip-jar hitters, I get angry.

UPDATE: Gabriel Malor at New York Daily News:

In case you missed it over the weekend, the Obama administration’s Friday afternoon document drop was a memo from the Department of Labor telling defense contractors not to provide legally-required notice to thousands of employees that they are about to be laid off, if automatic spending cuts agreed to by the President and the Congress take effect.
Translation: President Obama wants to prevent thousands of employees, especially in swing-state Virginia, from being told that they are going to be laid off due to Department of Defense funding cuts. Because of the timing of the cuts, those notices would have been sent to employees just prior to the election in November. The man who signed those funding cuts into law would like to avoid that.

It’s worth noting that blog sidekick Smitty works for a defense contractor. Are they going to lay Smitty off? We don’t know.

Because, hey, who cares about a freakin’ federal law, when following it might hurt Obama’s re-election chances?

UPDATE II: Yeah, let’s add this:

Update III (Smitty): welcome, Instapundit readers! While you’re here, check out Ambassador John Bolton’s recap of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy debacle, recorded Monday, 01 October 2012.

27 comments

  2. Following the schedule…*flips pages*

    Lies? check.
    Lies that involve deaths? check.
    Scandalous programs designed to disarm the populace?
    ……………checkaroonie.

    Ethnic group targeted? *flip* Mmm, not yet.
    Wait, lets invert that this time. Let’s single out one ethnic group, and begin a holocaust on all the others.

    Okay, check. Had to get the media on board. Suckers.

    Now, let’s see…. is the Reichstag fire before the putsch or does that happen after?

    Crap! I’m not sure what to wear.

    –Notes from a Party Insider

  5. My husband works for a federal agency. This past June he sat in a meeting where the 2013 and 2014 budgets were discussed. By the time 2015 rolled around, the budget would be slashed by nearly 20%. The head of the meeting said that all this could change “depending on who wins the elections in November.” One could argue that the statement violated the Hatch Act. On the other hand, my husband just checked our heating oil and we still have half a tank which means we can possibly squeak into December before we have to fill it. We may be able to afford it then, depending on who wins the White House (and it isn’t who the department head was implying).

  7. As much as I hate to weigh in in favor of the Prez, consider this: the WARN act requires 60 calendar days of advanced notice. If the government tells e.g. Lockheed Martin that sequestration will not have any effect on existing contracts until after January 2nd, that means layoff notices prior to election day are not required. Which is not to say that corporations couldn’t issue them anyway. But there are consequences to doing that, too, if not needed. Am I happy to not be getting a layoff notice in early November? Yes I am. Do I think that will mean anything at all about a week or two after that? No, I do not. Nor should any other thinking person.

  8. silly doof, laws are for journalists to write about….apparently. When you see a lawmaker actually getting interested in defending the law in a timely fashion, let me know.

  13. Stop talking about impeachment. Realistically speaking, there is no way on earth that Impeachment proceedings could be held before Inauguration Day, much less before the election. So we will have the blessing of Obama’s presidency until then. But AFTER Inauguration Day, REMEMBER all these things; there will be a new Attorney General…

  19. When you’re talking impeachment or other legal proceedings, it’s normally the letter of the law that applies. Unless you’re just venting, as many of our friends on the left did during much of the Bush administration.

  20. There will be no impeachment. If Obama loses, there’s no need. If he wins, impeachment would be seen as an attempt by the Reps to reverse the decision of the people.

  24. Romney should announce that upon being sworn in as president he will order the Justice Department to prosecute any person/corporation that does not follow the law in this matter fully.

  25. There’s the letter of the law, and the intent of the law.

    Obama’s position is weasel wording thunk up by his shysters. In point of fact, this is not something that he can say, with any degree of certainty, WILL happen.

    Add the offer of immunity (or at least official indifference to the law), and your point is not valid.

  26. It’s not about what the leftists think. It’s that by re-electing Obama, his present and past course of conduct will have been ratified by the electorate. It would take something new to impeach him.

    Besides, what it takes for a successful impeachment is the agreement of the president’s own party, at least to some significant degree. The Dems would not agree to impeach a Dem president, even if he were a child molester who turned over A-bomb plans to The Taliban.

  27. badges?
    we don’t need no stinkin’ badges
    i think Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a prequel of BHO’s second term
    all we are is gold dust in the wind

Comments are closed.