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The Fox News morning show Fox & Friends on Friday declared that a law in Michigan that weakens unions was a "Victory for Capitalism!"

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled state legislature in Michigan had quickly pushed through a new measure that would make the birthplace of the country's labor movement a right-to-work state, crippling unions by prohibiting requirements that employees join or pay dues.

"Yesterday, the legislature of both of houses passed a law making Michigan the 24th right to work state, bans mandatory union dues," Fox News co-host Steve Doocy reported while a graphic on the screen read, "Victory for Capitalism!"

"If you work for the UAW, you work for Chrysler, Ford, places like that -- there are a lot of people who are upset," Doocy noted.

"But that's where it's going," co-host Brian Kilmeade asserted. "If you want to know what's good about our economy, look at Indiana, look at Ohio and now look what's happening over in Florida [with anti-union laws] and that's what they want to do in Michigan. It's governors making tough choices."

Hundreds of protesters turned out on Thursday, briefly shutting down the Michigan state Capitol Building and causing State Police to use pepper spray and arrest several demonstrators. But lawmakers jammed through the legislation and Gov. Rick Snyder has promised to sign the bill after final passage, which is expected before the Republican majority is reduced from a 64-46 margin to a 59-51 margin in January.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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Michigan State Police say they were forced to use pepper spray and arrest at least four protesters who were opposing right to work legislation at the Michigan Capitol on Thursday.

Michigan State Police Inspector Gene Adamczyk told the Detroit Free Press that a number of protesters tried to rush the state Senate floor.

"When several of the individuals rushed the troopers, they used chemical munitions to disperse the crowd," Adamczyk said. "It would be a lot worse if someone gets hurt and I failed to act."

WILX reported that the Capitol building had been locked and at least four protesters were arrested during the incident. WILX reporter Brian Johnson estimated that there were around 500 protesters in the building.

Video posted by Michigan Senate Democrats showed Republican state Senator Tonya Schuitmaker angrily gaveling the Senate session into recess as the crowd became rowdy.

"Additionally, Republicans have called in countless State Police officers again today to guard their offices and question the public as they enter the Capitol to protest the Republican agenda," the Democrats wrote. "Frankly, if you have to bring in a massive police presence in order to conduct business at the State Capitol, it might be time for Republicans to rethink what they’re doing."

After initially calling the union-busting right to work legislation "too decisive," Republican Gov. Rick Snyder on Thursday said that he would sign the bill if it came to his desk. The measure is expect to pass because Republicans control both the state Senate and state House.

"The goal isn’t to divide Michigan," he said at a press conference. "It is to bring Michigan together."

Snyder said that he now supported the legislation because it was about the "freedom to choose" and "fairness and equity in the workplace."

Democratic lawmakers and unions, however, claimed that the bill would lower wages and reduce benefits for workers.

"Gov. Snyder campaigned on a promise of unity, but instead he’s ushering in an era of divisiveness across Michigan by launching an attack against working families," U.S. Representative Gary Peters said in a statement on Thursday. "By trying to jam this through a lame duck session, Gov. Snyder is trying to prevent voters from seeing how he is dividing Michigan instead of working to ensure the future of our state during this fragile recovery."

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Protester Al Neal of Fight For a Fair Economy in Ohio got some unusual silencing treatment today during a speech by former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at Kentown Plaza in Parma, Ohio.

via Brandon Blackwell of Cleveland.com.

At one point, one of the protesters, Al Neal of Canton, 25, who said he was a union worker and a member of Fight for Fair Economy Ohio, was confronted by Richard Brysac, 77, of Parma.

Brysac attempted to quiet the protester by emptying a bottle of water in Neal's mouth.

"He seemed thirsty, so I tried to shove the bottle in his mouth," Brysac said. "I thought it was wrong to interfere with [Pawlenty's] freedom of speech.

"I acted out of character and I apologize if I offended anyone."

When the bottle didn't work, Brysac pulled out his handkerchief and gagged Neal.

Neal removed the handkerchief and continued chanting with the other protesters until the group was escorted from the rally.

The old chestnut "I apologize if I offended anyone" is now being used to literally gag protesters.

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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Friday said that President Barack Obama's call to hire more police, firefighters and teachers proved that he didn't "get the message" from Republican wins in the recent Wisconsin recall elections.

During a press conference earlier on Friday, Obama had called on Congress to pass a jobs proposal that would prevent layoffs and rehire public workers like police, firefighters and teachers.

“The truth of the matter is 3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone," the president told reporters. "The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government."

At a campaign stop in Iowa, Romney blasted that assertion.

"For the president of the United States to stand up and say the private sector is doing fine is going to go down in history as an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding by a president who's out of touch," the GOP hopeful charged.

"And his answer for economic vitality, by the way, was, of course, pushing aside the private sector, which he said is doing fine," Romney continued. "Instead, he wants to add more to government. He wants another stimulus. He wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policeman, more teachers."

"Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did! It's time for us to cut back on government!"

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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann elicited cheers, boos and some heckling from the lawmakers in New Hampshire Wednesday after she encouraged the Legislature to enact right-to-work legislation.

All of the five GOP hopefuls appearing before the lawmaking body were greeted with respectful applause, but only Bachmann's speech was met with loud disapproval.

"This body can have a significant impact on the people of New Hampshire's ability to fully restore their economic liberty by making New Hampshire a right-to-work state," Bachmann said, pausing for almost 30 seconds while lawmakers reacted.

"Just a few more votes and we'll be there, New Hampshire," she announced. The comment was followed by several more seconds of whistles and boos.

"Because you see, it's a proven fact right-to-work states have created more jobs than those that are not," Bachmann stated as the boos continued. "Facts are stubborn things."

"We're free people!" someone in the audience shouted.

Later Wednesday, the New Hampshire House was scheduled to attempt an override of Democratic Gov. John Lynch's veto of their right-to-work legislation.

House Speaker Bill O'Brien (R) told NHPR that he was uncertain that the override would be successful.

"It really depends who shows up," he explained. "If all our supporters show up, we get it overridden. If as in other House sessions, we see they haven’t show up, it’s going to be difficult to bring it forward and be successful."

The Professional Fire Fighters of New Hampshire (PFFNH) has accused O'Brien of "using Republican presidential candidates as lobbyists to further his personal anti-worker agenda."

"The speaker is orchestrating a dog and pony show, using GOP presidential candidates to generate support for a right-to-work bill that doesn't have support in the New Hampshire House and would do nothing more than erode the rights of New Hampshire workers," PFFNH president Dave Lang said in a media advisory.

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Mitt Romney has come under fire for his statements saying that right-to-work laws should remain a state issue, even though, as he reiterated here during Sen. Jim DeMint's GOP Presidential Forum, he said that he would sign a national right-to-work law if it came across his desk as President. Romney has also previously had some praise for unions, making similar statements to the one here where he said "unions play an important role in our country." Apparently Romney doesn't think much of that role if you're either talking about government worker's unions, or heaven forbid unions being allowed to have any influence over our politicians and making campaign donations.

Jim DeMint explained what the Republican Party's real issue with unions being involved in our politics is with the way he framed this question to Mitt Romney -- they support Democratic politicians. And of course with all of the corporate money pouring into Republican campaign coffers these days after the Citizens United ruling, no one in the Republican Party wants to see anything remaining to balance that on the left.

Romney said he was concerned about anyone in union leadership being allowed to make decisions for their membership as to who they make campaign donations to, but he doesn't share that concern for the all of the workers in America of varying political affiliations that have their bosses and CEO's making decisions about which politicians to donate to, or that corporations being allowed to buy off our politicians might also be "almost like a form of corruption." No, that's just free speech in Romney-GOP world.

And his criticism of unions and closed shops of course does not address what open shops and these so-called right-to-work laws really are. They are nothing more than a way to bust unions financially because when someone opts out of paying their union dues, those unions are still forced to represent those workers. They're allowed to reap the benefits of union membership without any of the costs for those protections.

Republicans seem fine with the idea of democracy when it comes to electing our politicians and citizens who did not vote for those politicians having to live with the results of their actions. They don't think so highly of democracy in the workplace, where if a majority of the workers want to join a union, they get a union and once that union is in place, everyone contributes to pay for the benefits and wages that are negotiated for them. And where if they don't like the decisions or the actions of the leaders that their union puts in place, they're free to vote them out during the next election, just as we are when we don't like the way our politicians behave.

The GOP has decided that they were going to do an all out assault on labor unions this year, which isn't working out that terribly well for them in places like Wisconsin and Ohio. It appears Romney has decided that it's a good idea to follow their lead. Let's hope it doesn't play too well for him either if he does end up being their presidential nominee. Given Romney's propensity for flip-flopping on issues when it suits him politically, I won't be shocked to see him try to backtrack from some of these statements later.

Transcript via CNN:

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Naturally since the National Labor Relations Board did something where companies cannot spend a whole lot of time fearmongering and scaring their employees over how terrible unionization might be for them, the panel members on Rupert Murdoch's The Journal Editorial Report on the Fox propaganda channel thought that this was just a terrible idea, because heaven forbid we can't have anyone in the United States standing up against our race to the bottom on wages and benefits going on right now.

These cretins won't be happy until there's nothing left of the middle class in the United States before they're through with us and of course the group here pretended that if heaven forbid workers in the United States are paid a living wage with some benefits negotiated through their labor contracts, that means companies here won't create any more jobs. What of course was not discussed here is why our politicians are happy to be rewarding companies for outsourcing jobs and shipping them overseas and why we're not fixing our tax code and our trade laws to do something about it.

Here's more from Think Progress on what the panel here was trying to convince their lemmings who watch
Fox and actually take it seriously, and what they were trying to portray as some mortal threat to our economy recovering because heaven forbid companies can't scare the hell out of and intimidate their workers before they decide if they want to vote to join a union.

Republicans Call Rule That Would Make Union Elections Fairer An ‘Outrage,’ ‘Misguided,’ And ‘Reckless’:

Today, the National Labor Relations Board announced a new rule aimed at speeding up the process for union elections, in an attempt to prevent employers from using the various tactics they break out to delay and ultimately undermine unionization drives. According to research by John-Paul Ferguson of Stanford Business School, 35 percent of the time that workers file a petition for a union election, the election does not occur due to the many steps that employers take — including bringing in anti-union consultants — to delay elections for weeks, if not years. Currently, the average time between workers filing a petition for an election and the election taking place is 58 days, ample time for employers to engage in coercion and intimidation, or to fire pro-union workers (which happens in 25 percent of union drives). [...]

As the Center for American Progress’ David Madland wrote, the rule would simply “address the roadblocks that commonly are thrown up when the NLRB attempts to set up an election”:

The proposed rule would address the roadblocks that commonly are thrown up when the NLRB attempts to set up an election. There is currently no limit on employers’ or unions’ ability to demand a pre-election hearing on most any issue, including the eligibility of employees to vote, or the scope of the bargaining unit, which can be used to delay an election. Many of these issues could be resolved after voting, and others are manufactured for purposes of delay and don’t need to be resolved at all, ever. As former NLRB General Counsel Fred Feinstein explains, “The problem has been that a party in any election case has the ability to undermine the expression of employee free choice by manipulating Board procedures to create delay.”

And that's about 180 degrees from the takeaway these liars on Fox gave during this segment. In their world, it's the evil unions that have too much power and just want to wreck our economy because those damned American workers want to be paid a fair wage and make sure the company they work for doesn't kill them, or make them work for slave wages with no benefits. The nerve of them asking the CEO's running a company to want to share their wealth and treat their employees fairly and them having some voice in that.

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During the first GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina, Governor Tim Pawlenty is asked about his support for the teaching of creationism in public schools and whether he personally believes in the theory. Pawlenty said that he supported local school boards making those decisions and then tried to change the subject before he answered whether he personally supported it.

After Pawlenty attempted to pretend that he in any way shape or form supports union membership, Williams brought him back around the the initial question he asked and Pawlenty punted again and just said it should be left up to the parents and local governments.

Here's more on that topic from the Minnesota Independent -- Out of the closet: Pawlenty endorses teaching creationism in schools.

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Apparently Lou Dobbs is terribly upset with the National Labor Relations Board's decision to try to stop Boeing from punishing their unions for striking in Washington by moving their jobs to South Carolina, but he loves "free market capitalism" when it comes to Exxon Mobil's ability to rake in record breaking profits.

As the Hill reported -- Exxon posts $10.7B first-quarter profit:

Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. reported a $10.65 billion first-quarter profit Thursday, a 69 percent jump from the same period last year that will likely fuel political battles over U.S. oil-and-gas policy.

The company is benefiting from higher refining margins, but also a surge in the price of oil that has led to $4 per gallon gas prices in the U.S. It's also made oil companies a rich political target for the White House.

Exxon’s profits are its highest since its record in 2008, when it posted profits of $10.9 billion in the first quarter, $11.7 billion in the second quarter and $14.8 billion in the third quarter (and $45 billion for the year). [...]

But the liberal Center for American Progress is holding a call for reporters later Thursday that will take a very different view of the industry earnings.

The group parlayed the profits into a shot at GOP budget plans.

“As the first quarter profits from the big five oil companies roll in, so do the $40 billion in taxpayer subsidies to these already highly lucrative oil companies through the next decade — preserved in Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget by gutting $30 billion from Medicare,” the center said in an advisory previewing the call. Ryan (R-Wis.) chairs the House Budget Committee.

“While Big Oil rakes in windfall profit margins, they do nothing to ease the record-high prices facing American consumers at the pump and slowing our economic recovery,” the group added.

There's that "free market" for ya, subsidized by our tax dollars. Think Progress' Wonk Room has more on the NLRB's complaint -- Gov. Haley Defends Boeing’s Union-Busting: ‘It’s Called Capitalism’:

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After two years of watching CNN and Fox play up these "tea party" rallies as some huge grass roots political movement that's taking over the country and doing live wall to wall coverage of these events when they had some decent crowds show up, now we get this on the two year anniversary of the first tax day protest by these astroturfers.

Sarah Palin gives a speech while being booed by most of the crowd that showed up in Wisconsin to greet her. And the Donald and his comb-over show up in Florida to throw some red meat at a rally there, and both CNN and Fox choose to only show a few minutes of both events and do not let anyone see what the size of the crowd was at either. Gee, I wonder why?

Could it be that showing that either event didn't have a big turnout would not be good for their narrative that this is some actual, large, grass roots movement? Could it be that they didn't want their audience to hear Palin being booed if they showed the entire speech she gave? Could it be that they really didn't want the American public to hear all of what either of them had to say? Could it be that they didn't want the public to know that most of the people who showed up at the Wisconsin rally who were against Palin, and from the accounts I've read, far outnumbered the ones who showed up in support of her? And why no coverage of Andrew Breitbart out there telling everyone to "go to hell" and screaming that "class warfare is un-American." Could it be that they don't think it's too good for the Republican Party to let most of America hear from that raving lunatic as well who was out there introducing Palin?

Here's the footage of the "tea party" events today from CNN.

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And here's Fox's coverage.

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As Susie already noted, here's what they didn't want you to see in their coverage.

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