In it’s never ending commitment to “focusing like a laser on the economy” the administration, on its own, has decided to implement another job-killing program. Everything this president does rewards his labor buddies, but this one adds lawyers to the list of people who will profit. Business, of course, is the target.

From Elizabeth McDonald:

In an unprecedented and controversial move, the White House has launched a new program at the Department of Labor which will refer workers who have complaints about their bosses to a toll free number at the American Bar Association, where they can get a lawyer to work on their case on a contingency fee basis.

More than 40,000 workers annually contact the Department of Labor with complaints about their bosses. But Labor can’t get to all of them, an estimated 10%, because of budget constraints, the White House says. So the White House has instead launched a program for “unresolved complainants” with the ABA. Workers will now be provided a toll-free number that connects them with ABA lawyers nationwide who are experienced in things like alleged workplace abuses of minimum wage, overtime and family medical leave laws.

The White House in a statement says this is “a new effort between the federal government and private bar to assist complainants” who may need help with “worker rights.” In a statement, the ABA calls this new alliance “unprecedented.”

Make no mistake, this “program” does nothing new, except, reward members if the ABA and punish business. Employees have always had the option of hiring a lawyer on a contingency basis to sue their employer for any wrong, real or imagined. They simply need a compliant lawyer, and there is no shortage of those. The administration has decided to intervene in that market process, and choose which lawyers get the business. The only requirement for the lawyer is membership in the liberal American Bar Association. The ABA currently has 392,000 members at an annual dues of $399.00 a year.

People always gripe about contingency lawyers, but having worked as one for 20+ years I think it is a fair way of billing. First of all, it discourages lawyers from taking bad cases, which waste money, court time, and prolong litigation for years and years. Secondly, it encourages efficiency. Defense lawyers who work on an hourly basis often have no incentive to come to the table even in a case of clear liability, until they have billed a certain amount. Contingency lawyers have no such restraint. This program, however, appears to destroy the incentive to come to a rapid and efficient conclusion, because the attorney’s fees must be borne by the business, should the plaintiff prevail, although at this point, it us unclear how that would work.

This is the first-ever collaboration between a federal agency and a private bar association. It is aimed at encouraging employees to sue their employer for complaints real and imagined. The only loser here are the job creators. Employers will discouraged from taking chances on hiring new employees who, under this program are encouraged to sue for any grievance. It will also become much more difficult to fire bad employees. Meanwhile, the donations to the President’s re-election committee from the ABA will undoubtedly make an uptick.

The latest from Matt’s Meditations, by Matt Holzmann:

I don’t know if anyone is keeping score, but the current administration may take the prize for the most feckless foreign policy in history. From the time he insulted the British people and government when he gave the Queen an iPod with his speeches recorded on it, the most powerful man in the world has offended almost all of our allies while kowtowing to our adversaries.

A sketch on Saturday Night Live (forgive the Hulu ad) done 18 months ago when the President first met Chinese premier Hu Jintao is indicative of the administration’s cluelessness. SNL did it again after the G-20 Conference in Seoul a few months ago.

Let’s look at the diplomatic record.

Six months after the president took office, he sided with Venezuela, Brazil, and Cuba against the Honduran government, a longtime ally, when he back President Manuel Zelaya against the country’s legislature and Supreme Court in a power struggle that had the potential to turn into a civil and regional war very quickly. The government cited the Honduran constitution as authority for the removal of the president, and constitutional scholars studying the matter later found the government to be acting in accordance with Honduran and international law. The government President Obama and Secretary of State tried to overthrow is still in place.

The relationships with Iraq and Afghanistan are utterly dysfunctional by any reasonable standard. The impasse with Pakistan over the country’s poorly veiled support for Islamic radicals including Al Quaeda, the Taliban, and terrorists in Kashmir has all the makings of a regional disaster. Pakistan is our frenemy. We buy them off and they hate us.

In early 2010 we doubled down in dissing the United Kingdom when Secretary of State Clinton took the side of Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner when Argentina once again threatened the Falkland Islands. Las Malvinas is the rallying cry of the Argentine despots in times of internal crisis, and Ms. Kirchner had recently stolen the nation’s private pension system. The Special Relationship is in tatters because of American perfidy and for no good reason.

During the negotiations for the Start II nuclear weapons treaty, we abandoned our plans to locate an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, both members of NATO, sending a message that we wouldn’t hesitate to throw our allies under the bus. In response to this concession to Russia, the President was snubbed on global television by their diplomats while our own diplomats were being snookered in the negotiations. We gave up much of our nuclear inventory. Russia gave up nothing and announced a vastly more powerful new missile the same week the treaty was signed.

The relationship with another ally, Israel, may have been irrevocably damaged by the Obama Administration. From personally snubbing and belittling Prime Minister Netanyahu to making non-negotiable demands with a gun at their heads, our governments actions have not only been fruitless, but have also damaged our position as a good faith negotiator.

Georgia, another ally, was thrown under the bus in our rush to accommodate the Russian government when that government’s army invaded Georgian territory.

And now our president has taken sides once again in the internal affairs of Egypt by loudly and publicly calling for regime change. With this, he has sent shock waves throughout the Middle East. Our intelligence services were taken completely by surprise. Our diplomats have delivered one message to only contradict it with the next. Governments from Yemen to Syria to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are petrified, and the price of the world’s economic lifeblood, oil, has risen to a very dangerous level as we eke out a very weak recovery from a terrible recession.

The implications and risk of disaster are clear, and yet again we have alienated and dismayed those who will remain in power, namely the Egyptian military. Any other potential leadership cadre will include the Muslim Brotherhood and others who are clearly at odds with our national interests. In his interference with the internal affairs of Egypt and poor handling of his relationship with President Mubarak, Mr. Obama has scared the daylights out just about everyone.

American foreign policy has undergone a meltdown, and our relations with the rest of the world are at an all time low. Trust in the United States, especially with the drip, drip, drip of the Wikileaks scandal, is at an all time low. The president hailed by the world when he took office is rapidly running out of friends overseas with the exception of a subset of the European Left. This is a most dangerous condition for our planet. As the sole superpower, our country is now perceived as corrupt, venal and even worse, unreliable and incompetent. The Bush administration earned its enemies, but the current administration has done more damage in 2 years than the previous 100 with an arrogance and spectacular incompetence that has few equals in all of history.

Chinese President Hu Jintao snubbed the president at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and our president barged into a private meeting. He has been snubbed as well the Russians. If our two largest potential adversaries feel free to do this, the world is a much more dangerous place. As Obama has embraced our enemies, their contempt for us and support for those actively fight against us, whether in Afghanistan or South America or on the internet will only increase. We have lost the world’s respect. Our government has failed utterly in it’s one overriding responsibility; to defend us from our enemies.

Empires and nations do not fall suddenly. They rot from within and then topple. It can take years or even centuries. Our current governments foreign policy if not reversed will combine with their corrupt and incompetent fiscal policy to seal our nation’s ruin. I pray we survive.