Patriot Action Network

Bloomberg News is reporting that Charles Munger, Jr., son of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Charles Munger, has thrown his fortune behind an effort to defeat a campaign funded by unions and the anti-American billionaire George Soros to put redistricting powers back into the hands of politicians bought and paid for by union money.

Munger and his wife have spent some $10.5 million on a plan to continue the creation of a commission composed of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four non-partisan members who are to have the power to affect the redistricting required by Congress as a result of Census statistics.

“I’m doing this to try to ensure voters have fair districts where representatives will compete for offices,” Munger said yesterday in a telephone interview from Palo Alto. “Elected politicians are picking the voters, voters aren’t picking their representatives.”

For their part, Democrats, unions and George Soros are sponsoring Proposition 27, a plan to abolish the independent commission and return the redistricting duties to politicians.

Now, at some level I am torn over the whole episode. In ideal situations I’d hate to have some unelected, unaccountable commission determining how my district is arranged and I’d rather want my elected official to be the one to determine the way it should go. After all, as a voter I have the power to affect my local representative but I’d have no way at all to affect this commission.

However, because unions and anti-American outsiders like Soros have bought and paid for 90% of California’s political class, I can see why people don’t trust their elected officials to do something as important as redistricting.

As we have seen with the entire Obama administration, our elected officials don’t care a whit about what the voters think about anything any more. All they care about is the forty pieces of silver that folks like Soros and his union buddies can fill their pockets with.

In saner days I’d support a Prop 27 that would eliminate this unelected commission. But we are no longer in a time where our democracy is working for the voters. California’s is a government of the unions, by the unions, and for the unions. California’s government is bought and sold to unions, anti-Americans like Soros and the self-flagellating Hollywood crowd.

At this point, I’d argue to keep the commission and keep the dirty hands of the elected crooks out of the process.

But I long for saner days where such commissions were unnecessary devices.

 

With a recent Federal Election Commission decision Obama’s government has ruled in favor of the SEIU’s illegal kickback scheme and decided that such law breaking it is A’OK as far as he is concerned.

Ostensibly, FEC law states that unions cannot require member locals to pay a specific amount of money into a union’s political action committee (PAC) fund. PAC contributions by the locals are supposed to be voluntary and not forced by rules from the main HQ. This year, however, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has handed down rules from its Washington HQ that locals must send $25,000 each to the SEIU political PAC or face a “fine” of $37,500 from the main office in DC. This clearly violates FEC rules.

Once this violation came to light Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, filed a complaint with the FEC. In response, Obama’s FEC has decided that the SEIU’s law breaking is nothing to worry about.

Worse, the graft of Obama’s FEC is such that it ignored the advice of its own general counsel who affirmed that the SEIU was indeed violating the law. And it gets worse yet. The FEC is supposed to immediately give its reply to the interested parties within a 60-day reply period so that everyone gets a chance to see the decision and comment upon it. But Obama’s crooked FEC didn’t reveal its decision for 111 days, long after the reply period was over, thereby preventing appeal and comment.

The NRWF is not amused.

“They can’t do that,” said foundation president Mark Mix, who is vowing to challenge the commission’s actions. “We will pursue the appeals process. We are working on it now,” adding that he’s prepared to file a new complaint, if necessary.

No one at the FEC “will speak in reference to this case,” spokeswoman Julia Queen told Fox News.

But Obama’s union bought government ruled in favor of… surprise… the unions. Obama does not mind law breaking as long as it is his folks doing it.

 

Liz Peek has a great piece at Fox News taking Obama to task for his constant bailouts, handouts, and special deals for the union thugs that have given him millions upon millions in political donations.

The more President Obama talks to (some would say “at”) the American people, the lower his approval ratings sink. The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, released this week, shows that only 43 percent of the nation approves of Mr. Obama’s job performance, while 53 percent disapprove- the worst ratings yet. Why are Americans tuning out their president?

It starts with credibility. Beginning with the health care debate, the president has squandered an extraordinary stockpile of the public’s trust. A fourth-grader would have deemed absurd his core promise – that we could provide free health care for an additional 31 million Americans and not add to our deficit. According to Pew data gathered earlier in August, 78 percent of Americans distrust the government under this administration –an unprecedented level.

President Obama has only himself to blame. The current fracas over campaign spending is the kind of issue that further widens the credibility gap. Ever since the Supreme Court judged corporations free to engage in political advertising, the president has hinted of dark forces and “special interests” at work.

His demonizing of the decision has been robustly supported by The New York Times, which recently ran a lead editorial describing the Supreme Court decision as “opening the door to a new era of political corruption.” In other words, corporate views and practices are essentially dishonest; undeterred, Obama fans suggest, businesses will elect Republicans to further their greedy and self-serving agendas.

Here’s the lie behind Mr. Obama’s narrative: corporations are indeed big campaign givers, but unlike unions, they give to both parties. Unions, on the other hand, funnel almost all their contributions to Democrats….

Read the rest at FoxNews.com.

 

Union Killing Local Libraries?

On October 14, 2010, in Corruption, Public Employees Unions, Unions Revealed, by Warner Todd Huston

In this era of severe budget cuts, layoffs, and job loss, people in the real world are making due with less. Businesses are cutting back and people are hurting everywhere in this era of Obama. Local governments are also starting to find this economic climate challenging. But even as local budgets are taking hits, unions seem to think it’s still the same flush economy they’ve been taking advantage of for decades.

In the case of two school libraries in Massachusetts teachers unions are so arrogant and greedy that they would rather see the facilities shut down and books left unavailable to kids than see schools keep libraries open with volunteers manning them.

Teachers unions in Bridgewater and Raynham have filed a grievance that might prevent volunteers from working in the libraries. The volunteer workers were to serve as a stop gap effort by the schools to keep the libraries open and serving kids.

Catch this idiotic excuse that union thug, Anita Newman, babbled to explain why the union is trying to close libraries:

“You’re putting unqualified people into the library who are not certified,’’ Newman said, calling it the basis of the grievance. “We don’t want to ruffle feathers, but you’re responsible for the children. We don’t use volunteers for recess or lunch either.’’

Really? How much “training” and “certification” do librarians need to be “responsible for the children”? They are just librarians! One would think that all the school need do is run a background check and then show them the Dewey Decimal system and everything is set! How much expertise do you need to put books on shelves and check out kid’s selections? It ain’t rocket science.

The districts have been using volunteers in its libraries for some time and the reason they are relying on volunteers is to save the district money.

Susan Prewandowski, a regional school committee member and longtime school volunteer, thinks the union thugs are all washed up. “We felt the most important thing was to let the kids have access to the library,’’ she said.

But here is the thing, it’s all about money, money for union thugs. You see, if a union thug can’t be the one putting a book on a shelf then union thugs don’t want anyone doing it. Yes, these union thugs will even shut down libraries and prevent kids from being educated unless they get their cut.

It all goes to show that teachers unions do not care at all about kids. They don’t care about education, either. They only care about their cut of YOUR tax money.

 

A government employees union just released a very hackneyed and amateurish video attack ad against all you “Tea Baggers” out there. Joe Schoffstall has the story today at Eyeblast.TV.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has released its new cartoon-styled ad showing a cheering section of Republicans marked as “Tea Baggers Section.”

 

A Chicago Park District employee is seen on this video attacking his union for spending his dues on political causes that he doesn’t support.

This Park District employee works for the Service Employees International Unions (SEIU) and was asked his thoughts on union spending at the Palos Tea Party’s American Voter Rally in Tinley Park, IL on Oct. 10, 2010.

One has to wonder how many other union members are upset like this — not just of the SEIU but all unions across the country? Over the last few decades unions have spent billions of their member’s dues money on extremely left-wing causes. Why, just a few weeks ago dozens of unions got together to spend their member’s dues money supporting a rally sponsored by actual, hardcore communist and socialist groups.

And unions are spending millions this term, too. They desperately want to keep overspending, socialist-leaning Democrats in power. And all this money being spent comes right out of the pockets of the rank and file union members.

(H/T Fran Eaton of IllinoisReview.com)