Things are going from bad to worse in the Midwest, as Big Labor's rhetoric of intimidation is giving way to violence. Now we have to not only halt the assault on business, but halt the actual physical assault of business people.

Just last week I wrote about how a local IBEW union boss sent an email to an Ohio business owner threatening to harm his non-unionized business if it expanded into the Cleveland area. The story picked up a lot of attention and also a lot of outrage and rightly so.

Rather than tempering themselves or pulling back on the thuggery, Big Labor in the Midwest has instead doubled down and escalated the intimidation and violence, with an apparent shooting of a Toledo suburbs business owner (who actually lives in Michigan) tied simply to the fact his company remains union-free.

Laborunionreport.com has the details:

Last Wednesday, however, the attacks on Mr. King became much more serious when he was awakened late in the evening at his home in Monroe County, Michigan and saw that the motion lights in his driveway had come on.  When he looked out his front window, he saw a figure near his SUV and went outside.

As soon as he got outside his front door, King yelled at the individual who was crouched down by King's vehicle. As soon as King yelled, the suspect stood and, without hesitation, fired a shot at Mr. King.

The night of the shooting, police recovered a shell casing from a small caliber handgun. In addition to the shell casing, police also found a Swiss Army knife that police say was likely going to be used to slice the tires on King's SUV.

While neither the police, nor Mr. King can say which union was behind the attack, it is very clear by the word 'scab' scrawled on his SUV that it the attack was union-related.

For those not in the know of the lingo, a "Scab" is a centuries-old derogatory term for someone who refuses to join a union--which, in the case of America, means 93 percent of the private-sector workforce.

Both last week's email threat and this week's vandalism and shooting from the IBEW are nothing new to those of us that are business owners in the labor and construction industries, but probably will come as a major shock to most Americans who happen to hear about it. And granted it won't be something they find out about from any mainstream media source.

Let's consider this: The threat email occurred last week and got a significant amount of publicity.  During the same news cycle, the King shooting occurs.  We can therefore presume that the IBEW international condones the actions by both of their members in both incidents.  If they did not condone the threatening email, they would have made it known directly to all of their Ohio affiliates.  Presumably, their Ohio affiliates would take their scolding seriously and would not engage in other attention getting thuggery in the same geographical area.  Therefore, the IBEW condones and in fact endorses these criminal acts. Their silence seems to be an approval of maintaining the status quo.

The current news cycle highlights the rhetoric out of the Left that makes much mention of the "extremists" or "terrorists" within the GOP that are "holding the country hostage" in the debt and budget talks and negotiations.

Meanwhile, real-life extremists and criminals threaten, shoot at, vandalize and seek to destroy hard working business owners whose employees have chosen not to join a union.

And this isn't limited to Ohio. All around the country we are seeing familiar tactics and language, from death threats to Governor Walker in Wisconsin, to alleged sabotage and vandalism from striking Verizon workers in many east coast cities. For these unions it seems to be their way or no one's way, and with violence and threats to back it up.

These are also the extremists and criminals that the elite politicians embrace and push through their agenda onto the rest of the country. If President Obama is so serious about creating jobs in this country, why is he not denouncing the forces that are doing everything possible to make business owners want to move all their business and jobs overseas?

President Obama and other politicians should be called upon to denounce these actions and not accept, and even should return, the campaign contributions of those so hell bent on ruining job creation and productivity.

Of course, I won't be holding my breath.

Brett McMahon is spokesman for the Free Enterprise Alliance's Halt The Assault campaign