This would be funny if it were a joke. But though this revolves around a joke, this story is decidedly not funny.
Over at The Wall Street Journal, Ben Domenech, the publisher of the conservative The Federalist, tells a remarkable tale of government gone wild. Here is how Ben opened his column:
“I’m under federal investigation for making a joke on Twitter.
In June 2019, employees at the left-liberal Vox Media Inc. walked off the job demanding a new collective bargaining agreement. As the publisher of a conservative website, the Federalist, I found the clash ironic. I tweeted: ‘FYI @fdrlst first one of you tries to unionize I swear I’ll send you back to the salt mine.’
Although Twitter leftists were enraged, my employees were amused. They joked about selling branded salt-shakers and writing sympathetic vignettes about union rebels from Federalist salt mines.
Then things took an unfunny turn. The National Labor Relations Board informed me that the leftist writer Matt Bruenig had filed a formal complaint about my tweet. He withdrew it, but Joel Fleming, a Massachusetts lawyer, filed another.
Mr. Fleming alleged I had violated Section 8(a)(1) of the Wagner Act, which states that ‘it shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7’—namely the rights “to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
Got that? A joke on Twitter has some left-leaning lawyer demanding the NLRB launch a government investigation of the publisher of a news and commentary outlet. And the NLRB, in a move that reeks of fascism, did just that.
Let’s start with this:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
This is known to any literate American as the First Amendment. Again, it quite specifically says “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
And the NLRB? Here is the NLRB’s description of it’s own history: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/our-history/1935-passage-of-the-wagner-act
“In the fall of 1934, Senator (Robert) Wagner (D-NY) began revising his labor disputes bill, determined to build on the experience of the two earlier NIRA boards and to find a solution to the enforcement problem that had plagued them. In February 1935, Wagner introduced the National Labor Relations Act in the Senate. The Wagner Bill proposed to create a new independent agency—the National Labor Relations Board, made up of three members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate-to enforce employee rights rather than to mediate disputes. It gave employees the right, under Section 7, to form and join unions, and it obligated employers to bargain collectively with unions selected by a majority of the employees in an appropriate bargaining unit. The measure endorsed the principles of exclusive representation and majority rule, provided for enforcement of the Board’s rulings, and covered most workers in industries whose operations affected interstate commerce.”
In other words? The NLRB was established by an Act of Congress. And the First Amendment quite clearly states that “Congress shall make no law…… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
In a direct violation of the Constitution, the NLRB is using its power to abridge both Ben Domenech’s freedom of speech and abridge -harass -his constitutional right to publish The Federalist.
To be blunt, this is flat-out fascism. And the unintended consequence of this move to use a government agency to silence free speech and a free press will be adding fuel to a move to abolish the NLRB completely.
Well done.
