From the office of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) comes the video of Tuesday’s news conference on the National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against Boeing. Hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the event featured Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) as the first official to speak.

Her central point: President Obama must speak up on the issue.

We are demanding that the President respond to what the NLRB has done, because this goes against everything we know our American economy to be. When a company comes to South Carolina and wants to create jobs, they should be able to do that. For the President not to weigh in on this, and not to say that this is going to be harmful, is a problem.

Job creation is key in the next few years in this country. What we are doing is we are telling people, not only can you not go and work in any other state, we want you to go overseas.

That’s what the president is saying through his silence. He has got to speak up. We need to see leadership. He has to respond to what has happened from the NLRB to Boeing, and tell us, if we can’t create jobs this way, then how exactly are we supposed to create jobs.

The White House press corps has certainly had the time to pose the question to Jay Carney. Maybe today.

UPDATE [11:05 p.m.]: President Obama tapes a townhall discussion on the economy today at the Newseum, an appearance for CBS News. What a perfect opportunity to address the NLRB and Boeing issues. Now, back to news conference …

Joe Trauger of the National Association of Manufacturers speaks shortly after the 21 minute mark.

In other developments and commentary … (continue reading…)

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) announced on the floor of the Senate Tuesday that he and the two Senators from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, would be introducing legislation today inspired by the National Labor Relations Board’s unprecedented, unjustified complaint against Boeing for locating new production facilities in South Carolina.

Sen. Alexander said: “We are calling it the Right to Work Protection Act, and it is our intent to preserve the right of each State to make a decision for itself about whether it will have a right-to-work law and have an ability to enforce it. This is in direct response to an action that the National Labor Relations Board has taken against the Boeing Company and the plant they are building in South Carolina.”

In the floor discussion (transcript here), the Senators defended state right-to-work laws as one legitimate approach toward competing for new businesses, a choice that states should be able to make without being undermined by the federal government. Their legislation would add this paragraph to the National Labor Relations Act and the Railroad Labor Act:

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit the application of any State law that prohibits, or otherwise places restraints upon, agreements between labor organizations and employers that make membership in the labor organization, or that require the payment of dues or fees to such organization, a condition of employment either before or after hiring.

Sen. Graham gave the background of Boeing’s decision to locate the company’s new assembly facilities in South Carolina instead of Washington State, the timeline of the complaint from the machinists union, and the lawsuit filed by the NLRB’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon. (Embedded video). Excerpt:

All I can say is this complaint is frivolous. It is taking time and money away from creating jobs in South Carolina and Washington. And it has national implications. To Senator Alexander, you have found the right way for the Congress to address this issue. We are not forcing anybody to be a member of a union. We are just saying, if a State such as South Carolina or Tennessee chooses to be a right-to-work State, that cannot be held against them. This legislation would say to the country and the business community as a whole: When you look at where to locate, you can consider a right-to-work State without violating the law. That is an important concept. (continue reading…)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, interviewed by Candy Crowley on the National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against Boeing for choosing South Carolina over Washington state to locate a production facility for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The video is here and the transcript is here. Sen. Graham’s comments provide great fodder for questions the White House press corps could ask spokesman Jay Carney. Today. During the daily press briefing.

CROWLEY: South Carolina’s senior senator wants to know why the NLRB is against the project when, in a previous life, one of the president’s top advisers thought it was a fine idea.

GRAHAM: Bill Daley, the president’s chief of staff, was on the board of Boeing at the time they made the decision to locate to South Carolina. For the complaint to be legitimate, you would have to assume that the president’s chief of staff engaged in retaliatory behavior against a union.

That’s just the start of some tough commentary from Sen. Graham.

At National Review Online, The Corner, Robert Costa interviews Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), who also has pointed, political remarks for President Obama. From “Haley Pressures Obama, ’12 Field on NLRB“

Boeing, which has poured billions into the new facility, calls the agency’s complaint “legally frivolous.” Haley, for her part, is baffled by how the feds think that they can kick around a private company, picking and choosing where it operates. “There is no case; this is ridiculous,” she says. “It is an embarrassment for the NLRB. The unions are losing and this is nothing more than a desperate attempt to see if they can make their voices relevant again.” (continue reading…)

On Fox News Sunday today, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) called for tax increases on higher income brackets, including small businesses and millionaires, millionaires, millionaires, millionaires. (See post below.) Also on the program was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who offered a different point of view about extending the current tax rates beyond their Dec. 31 expiration. From the transcript:

GRAHAM: I’m not going to vote to increase taxes on anybody in America, millionaires included. We’re in a very weak economy. If you want to make it weaker, raise taxes on anybody is a bad idea.

There will be bipartisan support in the lame duck to extend all the tax cuts for two or three years, and I think that vote will be had before the end of the year.

And if the president doesn’t support that, I think he’s running a risk of making the economy weaker at a time where he could help make it stronger through bipartisan support by Democrats and Republicans to extend all the tax cuts. And stop playing class warfare. Let’s get the economy going.

Concise and correct, Senator. Thank you.