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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
A short editorial in the Washington Examiner is worth repeating here:
Union thugs try to silence critics of Obamacare
To hear the White House and its Democratic congressional allies tell it, Americans who have vigorously questioned their representatives about Obamacare are nothing more than paid protesters organized by right-wing extremists and evil corporations determined to stop health care reform in its tracks. Earlier this week in a USA Today op-ed, for example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, described the protestors as “un-American.” Over on the Senate side, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called the dissenters “fear-mongers,” and Reid’s deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, told CNN the protests were “being orchestrated.” And a new Democratic National Committee (DNC) video claims the protests are being staged by “desperate Republicans and their well funded allies [who are] organizing angry mobs — just like they did during the election.”
But the reality is that when it comes to organizing angry mobs, the real professionals work at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This union has organizing resources and experience that ordinary citizens can only dream about. Their goon squads have heckled, harassed and even assaulted concerned citizens who favor less-costly private options to government-run health care.
Just ask Kenneth Gladney, the victim of an assault outside of a town hall meeting in St. Louis last week by a group of thugs wearing purple t-shirts emblazoned with the SEIU logo. Similarly clad union operatives also blocked critics of the Obama health care plan from attending other meetings, notably in Florida. Former Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook notes that in January SEIU announced a plan “to hire more than 1,000 activists to work in 35 states on behalf of the Obama agenda, committing 30% of the union’s total resources to the effort. You’ve seen SEIU’s purple-shirted members in videos of town hall altercations.” He calls them the “Purpose People Beaters.”
SEIU has a long history of partnering to generate angry mobs. The union helped fund the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) Muscle for Money program that was set up to pressure corporations in shakedown campaigns, including demonstrations at the homes of corporate executives. Labor Department disclosure forms show more than $600,000 has changed hands between SEIU locals and ACORN affiliates under the Muscle for Money initiative. It is not an exercise in subtlety. How’s that for coordination?
Specter Shows His Other Face
Only a few weeks before Senator Arlen Specter (Traitor, Pennsylvania) flipped back to his original party, the Democrats, he made all sorts of pronouncements on how he wouldn’t support the cloture vote to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). He blustered that he couldn’t support the bill and that he’d vote against it.
But now he claims to be a Democrat. Now he has told a group of left wing, nutrooters at a convention in his home state that he will vote for cloture and will vote for the EFCA.
If this isn’t a perfectly clear example of a most unprincipled man, what is? One minute, while he pretended at being a Republican, he says the bill is no good, the next minute, as he pretends at being a Democrat, he’s all for it? Where does principle and honesty come in?
In America we expect two things from our elected officials, honesty and representation. Honesty comes in when we elect someone based on the principles they claim to serve and representation comes when we expect that politician to live up to those principles.
Of course we want our officials to vote the way we elected them to vote, certainly. But we elect a politician based on how they present themselves to us. If a majority votes a pol in who spouts conservative principles, he should vote that way. If a pol is elected based on his left wing principles, then a sudden about face is not desirable.
Specter won election because he was supposed to be a man of center right principles and he invoked those principles when he stood in opposition to the EFCA. But now, a mere party shift seems to mean a complete about face on principles. This makes Senator Specter a man that no one should ever trust under any circumstance. It makes of him a liar.
It means that his “principle” will change with the wind and that his vote is either entirely erratic or for sale to the highest bidder. In any case he is a man that can be trusted by neither the left, the center, nor the right.
This also proves that the battle against the Employee Free Choice Act is far from over.
It isn’t just out of the goodness of their hearts that Big Labor is gearing up to spend millions to help President Obama to jam Obamacare down the throats of the American people. The unions stand to get a big payoff of $10 billion to supplement their failing pension plans.
The President of the AFL-CIO recently announced that the union would jump into the healthcare fight to help out “working people.” John Sweeney also said that the healthcare fight is “the next big step in our march to turn around America.”
But unions already have their own healthcare plans and Obama promised — for whatever an Obama promise is worth — that union plans would be untouched by Obamacare. So, what are the unions in the fight for if it doesn’t really touch them?
The answer to that question appears in the House bill on page 65, section 164 where unions are to receive a $10 billion dollar infusion of taxpayer’s money to supplement their failing plans through a program called the “reinsurance plan.”
In his open letter, Sweeney said that one of the union’s goals was to seek “relief for company/union funds providing pre-Medicare retiree coverage.” This would be people that retired from the unions before they are eligible for Medicare. In other words, the union is looking for federal funds to relieve expenditures from his over extended pension plans.
Well, low and behold the House healthcare bill has included in it a “Reinsurance Program for Retirees” (section 164). This section stipulates that $10 billion will be set aside for this program of “reinsurance” for those older than 55 and not yet eligible for Medicare.
This program will reimburse eligible “retirees” for 80% of the costs of their medical care. This would go a long way to help unions defer costs to their own plans.
So, no wonder the unions are so hot to help Obamacare pass. It will be a boon to their overextended pension plans.
(H/T Jeanne)
Remember how The One, Barack Obama, claimed that he was going to alter the status quo in Washington where it concerns the same old way of doing business through those eeeevil D.C. lobbyists? Well, apparently, Obama has changed nothing and it can now be reported that his fellow Democrats have been enriched by many millions of dollars in political contributions from unions, lobbyists, and political action committees (PACs).
MSNBC is reporting that donations to politicians are way up this year with Obamacare being debated and the union’s favorite subject, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), waiting in the wings. And the Democrats lead the Republicans by extremely lop-sided numbers, too.
Big Labor, for instance, has donated at 92% in favor of Democrats, the healthcare industry at 62% and PACs in general lavishing another 62% on Democrats over Republican pols.
But it has been the unions pushing the EFCA that have led the pack giving far and away more money to Washington pols than any other sector.
Union political action committees shelled out $11 million to lawmakers during the first six months of this year. Ranking second were health care interests, which gave $9.5 million from Jan. 1 through June 30, according to a CQ MoneyLine analysis of the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
The MSNBC piece details some of the top money receivers in Congress, so go on over and take a look at the story.
What this shows, though, is that those forces that oppose Big Labor have an awfully well funded enemy with which to contend. Imagine facing a force that can command $11 million in political donations in just the first six months of the year! And that doesn’t include the $50 some million that Big Labor donated during the late presidential election.
Remember, all this money comes from the member’s dues. Whether they wish to or not, the individual members are funding this giant give away of cash.
Over 600,000 more people will be out of work if the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) passes.
-By Warner Todd Huston
The St. Louis Tea Party movement is incensed that thugs from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) beat up an African-American conservative that had come out to a recent anti-Obamacare protest. The attack sent the man to a local hospital.
In response to this unprovoked attack, the St. Louis Tea Party folks are going to descend upon the St. Louis headquarters of the Service Employees International Union tomorrow, Saturday August 8. The Tea Party folks are going to take the fight to these union thugs.
Notice how there hasn’t been ANY violence at these raucous townhall meetings… until the union thugs showed up. Then, all of a sudden, people are getting beaten up! THIS is the union way people. It is also the Democrat way.
If you are in the St. Louis area here is the info:
Demand Justice! Denounce Violence! Saturday at SEIU Office
DATE: Saturday, August 8, 2009 (tomorrow)
TIME: Noon
LOCATION: SEIU Headquarters, 5585 Pershing Ave., Suite 130, St. Louis, MO 63112The protest is to demand justice for Kenneth Gladney, an African-American conservative who was brutally beaten by 4 individuals, at least 2 of whom were identified as SEIU representatives. The beatings included racial slurs and required hospitalization of Mr. Gladney.
The link above has more information.
Now, can you tell me the din that would be raised in the Old Media if a conservative group had beaten up a black, pro-Obama supporter? The Old Media would be in a frenzy of coverage if that had happened. How much you want to bet that since it was Democrat supporting Union thugs that beat up a conservative, you won’t hear about it in the media much?
Eric Odom (Media Director)
Warner Todd Huston