Today, the House approved a bill that, if it were ever signed into law, would stop the National Labor Relations Board from enforcing the portion of the National Labor Relations Act that prevents corporations from retaliating against workers by moving production to another location. The catalyst for the bill was the NLRB’s case against mega-manufacturer Boeing, which moved a production line from Washington state to South Carolina because, by the company’s own admission, it didn’t want to deal with workers in Washington striking.

Before the bill passed, one of the NLRB’s most vociferous critics, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) took to the Senate floor to declare that enforcing labor law and protecting workers from corporate retaliation is the equivalent of the “economic death penalty”:

Boeing is the most glaring example of their overreach but it is not the only one. At a time when union membership is at an historic low, the NLRB seeks to give big labor a historically high level of influence with this administration. Whether it’s quickie elections or mandating advocacy posters in the workplace, or this, the economic death penalty, the NLRB is out of control.

Watch it:

According to the National Labor Relations Act, which the NLRB enforces, it is illegal to retaliate against workers for striking by moving production, which seems to be what Boeing did. After all, one of the company’s executives clearly said, that “the overriding factor [in moving to South Carolina] was not the business climate. And it was not the wages we’re paying today. It was that we cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years.” Another said that the company decided to move its production line due to “strikes happening every three to four years in Puget Sound.”.

As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick wrote, “there is ample precedent for the argument that threatening to move facilities because of strikes is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.” The Washington Post’s Steve Pearlstein wrote that, “given the public statements of Boeing officials, there is nothing radical about the NLRB’s decision.”

American workers already enjoy the weakest labor protections in the developed world, and if the GOP gets its way, that dubious honor is going to become even more true.

Until late this afternoon, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) was single-handedly blocking the transportation bill that would temporarily reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, keep 80,000 people in their jobs, and avoid another costly shutdown like the one that occurred in August. Coburn had said he was blocking the bill due to the “indefensible threat to public safety” caused by a provision in the bill meant to increase trees and bike paths alongside roadways.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had repeatedly chided Coburn, saying “the junior senator from Oklahoma” was acting like “a dictator.” Coburn reportedly removed his block of the bill this afternoon, but not before several Republican senators joined in that criticism, urging Coburn to relent on his blockade so the Senate could vote on the transportation package and avoid another shutdown:

“We need to reduce spending and cut out special interest provisions, but we should not let a gap in the construction program go forward,” said [Sen. Mark] Kirk [R-IL], whose state has the very busy O’Hare International Airport. “The economy is already teetering on the edge of a recession. So Congress should not repeat what happened with the FAA in August.”

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who blasted her Republican colleagues and said the August shutdown was “not honorable,” joined Kirk, saying she wanted the package to “pass without any delays. It’s too costly.” She was echoed by Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada and the Senate GOP’s Conference Chair, Lamar Alexander (TN), who said simply, “We need an FAA extension.”

The August FAA shutdown was costly for both workers and the government. For nearly two weeks, 4,000 FAA employees were involuntarily furloughed and the government lost more than $200 million a week in tax revenues. Now, just when it seemed both sides had reached an agreement to keep the agency funded for another four months, Republican extremism struck again in the form of Coburn’s block. If Coburn hadn’t heeded his colleagues’ advice, nearly 80,000 Americans could have been out of work, and the blame for another FAA shutdown would have again laid at the feet of the Republican Party.

Ambassadors of New Jersey

MTV’s anthropological foray into Italian-American stereotypes known as Jersey Shore has earned the ire of New Jersey officials. Gov. Chris Christie (R) deemed the bawdy reality series as a “negative” for his state, and the actual Jersey Shore borough administrator (formally the borough administrator of Seaside Heights) disowned the series all together.

But to the surprise of New Jersey residents, the series was recently awarded $420,000 in taxpayer funds to pay for production costs. The approval of the film credit “was part of the first round of film tax credits awarded” by the state Economic Development Authority since Christie suspended the program in 2010. Already concerned with Snooki’s cultural ambassadorship for the state, Democratic state Sen. Joe Vitale is urging Christie to veto the tax credit:

“It is disparaging to Italian Americans. He should veto it, ” said state Sen. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex), a frequent critic of the show who supports the film tax credit but said the state should not reward a television show that paints the state in a negative light.

Christie’s office was not immediately available for comment.

As Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes, this reality TV credit — in reality — will “offer little bang for the buck.” State film and TV credits often reward companies for production they would do anyway and the jobs created go to non-residents. Most studies show that the substantial cost to the taxpayers “far exceeds” the long-term economic benefits as virtually no long-term, stable jobs or income are created in-state.

Christie’s office noted that, barring pornographic content, the credit is awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis and without consideration of content. Christie’s office did however issue a statement “about Jersey Shore and its New Yorker cast” on Wednesday. “They are phonies and the show is a false portrayal of New Jersey and our shore communities.”

Indeed it appears the Jersey Shore will succeed in briefly bringing about a rare occurrence in politics: Bipartisanship. Sharing Vitale’s view, State Rep. Declan O’Scanlon (R) was a tad more blunt: “I can’t believe we are paying for fake tanning for ‘Snooki’ and ‘The Situation,’ and I am not even sure $420,000 covers that.”

Three years ago today, Lehman Brothers, one of the largest investment banks in the world, filed for bankruptcy, setting off a financial system collapse that nearly destroyed the global economy. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) ironically choose this anniversary to deliver his rebuttal speech to President Obama’s recently released jobs plan. Unsurprisingly, Boehner touted those old Republican chestnuts — lower taxes and less regulation — as the keys to “liberating America’s economy.”

Then, trying to channel some economic populism, Boehner had the audacity to rebuke “too big to fail” banks, despite voting to bail out those very banks and fighting tooth-and-nail against Wall Street reform:

BOEHNER: [Small businesses have] been hampered by government that offers confusion to entrepreneurs and job creators when there needs to be clarity. They’ve been undercut by government that favors crony capitalism and businesses that are deemed “too big to fail” over the small banks and small businesses that are at the heart of our economy.

Watch it:

Boehner, along with the rest of the Republican caucus, has a long and established track record of protecting the interests of the big banks at the expense of almost everyone else.

In fact, this time three years ago Boehner cried (admittedly not a rare occurrence) in a speech on the House floor and literally pleaded with his fellow Republicans to pass the Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP), better known as the “bank bailout.” TARP was signed by President George W. Bush in 2008 and, for all its warts, prevented the complete implosion of the financial system. Nowadays Repbulicans are fond of bashing the “big bank bailout.”

As ThinkProgress reported today, House Republicans — led by Boehner — have been fighting for two years now to block implementation of the landmark financial reform legislation, the Dodd-Frank Act. In other words, Boehner has been fighting to destroy the very measures designed to prevent another financial crisis.

Boehner has also consistently sided with the big banks and major corporations over small banks and businesses. He voted against a $12 billion tax break for small businesses on the same day he unveiled Republicans’ “Pledge to America” that referenced small businesses 18 times. The House GOP voted against at least 8 different Democrat-approved measures to help small businesses.

And a rebuke of “crony capitalism” is especially hypocritical coming from the guy who once handed out checks from the tobacco industry on the House floor to fellow Congressmen when they were considering a bill to end a tobacco subsidy. For years, Boehner also cultivated close ties with industry lobbyists.

Congressman-elect Bob Turner (R-NY)

Bob Turner, the Republican congressman from the New York seat once held by Democrat Anthony Weiner, won in part by running against the national GOP agenda on entitlements. He said explicitly that he would vote against the House GOP’s Medicare-privatizing budget plan, a stance that would separate him from the entire House Republican caucus. Turner’s own website even claimed that he wants to “strengthen and preserve” programs like Social Security and Medicare.

However, in an interview given to a radio program shortly before the election, Turner took a different approach. At one point, he said the Medicare retirement age should be changed and there should be higher co-pays. A few minutes later, he seemed to endorse the idea that Social Security is simply a welfare program for the poor. The host, Karen Jenelle, confused Bush’s privatization plan with her own idea of completely opting out of Social Security (which would unravel and destroy Social Security’s ability to continue as a retirement program):

JENELLE: I’m still for Bush’s plan for keeping the money for myself. You know, being able to opt out of it. Clearly the government cannot manage money to begin with. For them to just feel entitled to a significant percentage of my paycheck every single time I get one and they are going to be able to save it or spend it better than I can, is offensive to me. Let’s call Social Security what it really is, it’s another program that really aids the poor. That’s what it is for the most part.

PORTER: Right.

TURNER: Uh, true!

JENELLE: True.

TURNER: You are on the right side of the great divide. [...]

PORTER: The truth is, back in the good old days when there was no Social Security, we took care of our own parents. They lived with us and that sort of thing.

Listen here:

So-called campaign watchdogs like FactCheck.org smeared critics of Turner by claiming that Turner’s own website proved that he supported strengthening entitlements. Instead of reading websites that are typically created by outside political consultants, the fact checkers at FactCheck.org should have actually listened to Turner’s own words.

The financial crisis that nearly torpedoed the global economy began in earnest three years ago today with the bankruptcy of the investment house Lehman Brothers. One day later, mega-insurer American International Group Inc. was bailed out by the U.S. government to the tune of $85 billion.

Lehman’s 2008 bankruptcy was the largest in American history, and the credit panic that followed it set the stage for the the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program and the myriad lending programs put in place by the Federal Reserve to save the biggest financial institutions on Wall Street (and beyond) from the consequences of their own bad behavior. The Great Recession that resulted from Wall Street’s malfeasance cost 14 million people their jobs

Despite the ongoing pain still being felt by the American people — with the foreclosure rate continuing to climb — congressional Republicans have been fighting the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law tooth and nail. Earlier this week, the GOP’s presidential candidates even called for the law’s full repeal, in order to “free up” Wall Street. Watch a compilation:

Here are just a few ways in which the GOP is preventing Dodd-Frank from moving forward:

– CUTTING FINANCIAL REGULATION BUDGETS: The House GOP passed a 15 percent cut to the budget of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which faces the gargantuan task of overseeing the market for derivatives, the credit instruments that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission said were “at the center” of the 2008 crisis. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has argued that “the less we fund those agencies, the better America will be.”

– OBSTRUCTING THE CONSUMER PROTECTION BUREAU: Senate Republicans refuse to confirm any director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Dodd-Frank created, until changes are made to the agency’s structure that would render it a second-class regulator, subservient to the federal bank regulators that refused to rein in Wall Street excess before the 2008 crisis, and make its budget subject to congressional shenanigans.

When the GOP first won its House majority, now House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) explained that, in his view, Washington’s role is “to serve the banks.” And at the moment, Wall Street banks are pulling in record profits.

The Center for Public Integrity has found that “the Street and other financial institutions engaged about 3,000 lobbyists to fight Dodd-Frank – more than five lobbyists for every member of Congress – and have hired almost the same number to delay, weaken, or otherwise prevent its implementation.” And when it comes to the GOP, that investment appears to be paying off.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to task for blocking a critical transportation bill — an action that could put 80,000 people out of work by this weekend. The GOP-controlled House has already passed the bill, which temporarily extends funding for the Federal Aviation Administration and highway projects, in order to avert another FAA shutdown.

The bill needs to be signed by President Obama by Friday, but Coburn is threatening to let the deadline pass. He’s even found a novel excuse for holding the bill hostage — his objection to bike paths and trees:

Coburn spokesman John Hart said Wednesday that the senator “makes no apologies for doing everything in his power to force his colleagues to cut wasteful spending instead of inflicting further damage on our economy through unnecessary borrowing.

“Congress’s refusal to live within its means has created an economic disaster and a debt that is now our greatest national security threat,” he said.

Hart said Coburn was also opposed to provisions in the transportation bill designed to increase the number of bike paths and trees along roadways.

“The beautification mandate is an indefensible threat against public safety that forces states to prioritize bike paths over bridge repair,” he said.

Earlier this summer, Republican refusal to reauthorize the FAA without passage of an anti-union provision shut down the agency for weeks. Their action furloughed 4,000 FAA workers, forced others to work without pay, halted $2.5 billion in airport construction projects, and cost the government about $200 million a week. Coburn is threatening to repeat that event by refusing to let the Senate vote on the bill by Friday.

Adding insult to injury, Coburn is also holding up a bill to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which must be voted on first before the Senate can take up FAA authorization. Coburn objects to the price tag of the $6.9 billion FEMA bill. This emergency disaster aid is, of course, important to pass quickly in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and other natural disasters. Reid even compared Coburn to a dictator for holding up the bill.

"I have had it with these mother f***ing regulations on these mother f***ing snakes!"

Yesterday, taking their anti-regulatory zeal to absurd new heights, House Republicans claimed that a proposed rule from the Interior Department that would “designate the Burmese python and eight other snake species as ‘injurious’” — therefore “make it illegal to import them or transport them across state lines” — is a threat to job creation. They even brought a snake breeder to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who said that the rule could “devastate a small but thriving sector of the economy.”

This is simply the latest salvo from the GOP against regulation, as it seeks to undo everything from labor protections to environmental safeguards (with several Republicans calling for the complete dismantling of the Environmental Protection Agency). Republicans have also been fighting the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, on the grounds that tighter regulation of the banking sector will kill jobs.

At the same time, Republicans are mounting growing opposition to the Obama administration jobs plan, which includes a payroll tax cut for workers, infrastructure funding, school modernization and aid to states to prevent more public sector layoffs. Here is a table outlining the GOP and Democratic priorities given the current debate in Washington:

Obviously, reality is a bit more complicated than this. But as ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser has explained, the GOP has put forth a plan that would “permanently shut down the federal government’s ability to regulate.” For all intents and purposes, their job creation plan can be summed up as this: lower taxes on the wealthy and corporations coupled with letting corporations do what they please.

Meanwhile, economists have found that the administration’s job creation plan will boost GDP growth and create millions of jobs next year. A poll from National Journal shows that Americans prefer Obama’s job creation ideas to the GOP’s.