GovMo - Dealergate: Enemies list looms ... U.S. Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) gave a shout out to the Dealergate bloggers and the handful of reporters and editors who shined a light on the scandal: "There are reporters and bloggers around the country who have been digging through lists of donations reported on the Federal Election Commission website. They have been comparing donor names on the lists with the names of the owners of Chrysler dealerships that have been forced to close … Did this group of auto task force individuals discriminate against Republican dealerships in Chicago-style paybacks? We don’t know … Campaign contributions seem to be the common thread in all of these ordered closures. That’s some coincidence. The American people are starting to ask a few questions of their own. Are these auto task force tyrants picking winners and losers based on campaign contributions? Does the administration have a Nixon-style enemies list? All these questions because the auto task force guys aren’t talking, and aren’t telling us why they closed down certain dealerships and why they let others remain open." What made Dealergate inevitable, regardless of what will be proven and what will remain open to question, is the very process of allowing the federal government to inject itself into the affairs of the private sector to manage businesses, something completely foreign to the U.S. Constitution and the very principles upon which the founders created their new republic. Everyone seems to recognize this except for “constitutional scholar” Barack Obama and the merry band of thieves that is his administration. (redstate.com)In case you missed it: The Union News weekend
Sunday: Union organizers leave scars of division among workers
Saturday: Balls of Steel: Non-union workers picket v. oppressive UFCW organizers
Mismanagement exposed: Corrupt union bigs squander workers' savings ... Almost half of the nation’s 20 largest unions have pension funds that federal law classifies as “endangered” or in “critical” condition due to being underfunded, an Examiner review of federal actuarial reports shows. Pensions with less than 80 percent of the assets needed to cover present and projected liabilities are considered “endangered,” while those that fall below a 65 percent threshold are classified as “critical” under the Pension Protection Act of 2006. Unions are required to file 5500 forms that record the financial health of their retirement plans, show that union pension funds have lost their financial footing over the past several years. Eight of the largest unions have underfunded plans, according to the most recent 5500 reports, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Laborers International Union of Northern America, the International Association of Machinists, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the National Plumbers Union. (washingtonexaminer.com)
NEA covers up huge Indiana pension rip-off ... Teachers in the Hoosier State recently learned that the Indiana State Teachers Association’s (ISTA’s) Insurance Trust has effectively gone bankrupt. Regulators revealed that the trust, which pays benefits for disabled teachers, owes $86 million in liabilities and has only $19 million in assets. The FBI has begun investigating. Much of the portfolio’s value apparently vanished in high-risk investments. The investment broker managing the trust made 4,000 trades over a nine-month period, perhaps motivated by the 50 percent hike in commissions on trades that ISTA’s executive director, Warren Williams, authorized. As investigators sort out responsibility, school districts and the state government are examining what the fund’s shortfall will mean for teachers and taxpayers, who could be on the hook for a bailout to ensure that teachers are insured. Williams has resigned, and the National Education Association announced that it has taken over the Indiana State Teachers Association. (article.nationalreview.com)
Trumka-in-waiting: No love from AFL-CIO barons ... AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was briefing union leaders gathered in a conference room lined with portraits of the labor federation’s past leaders. He turned a page in his notes, looked up and made an announcement: He was backing his lieutenant, Richard Trumka, as his successor. Instead of applause there was silence, said two labor leaders who were among about a dozen in the room for the meeting. The lack of enthusiasm reflected doubt about Trumka’s ability to revitalize the U.S. labor movement, according to the leaders, who asked not to be identified describing the April meeting at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington. Months after labor’s candidates won the White House and added seats in Congress, the movement’s top legislative goal has stalled, a leader of the AFL-CIO has said its deteriorating finances were masked through “creative accounting,” and hopes are fading that unions that split from the largest U.S. labor organization almost four years ago will rejoin anytime soon. Trumka’s 14-year tenure as secretary-treasurer of the AFL- CIO, which says it has 11 million members, and three terms as president of the United Mine Workers of America make him a poor agent of change when that’s what organized labor needs, said labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein. (bloomberg.com)
Don't ask: How much is Obama costing America? ... Candidate Barack Obama repeatedly promised transparency during his campaign. Now President Obama and his administration have proved many times that "transparency" was campaign rhetoric. Transparency disappeared when the White House was asked multiple times to divulge the cost of that poorly communicated, terror-causing flyover of the Statue of Liberty. The American people have a right to know how our taxpayer money is spent. ACORN is receiving government funds through an organization called Citizen Consulting in New Orleans. They continue to stonewall any attempts to see their books and learn how this taxpayer money is spent. Obama should be outraged and call for a clear demonstration of how our taxpayer money is spent. (islandpacket.com)Related video: Radical TIDES Foundation exposed
Obama tips TK on insurance industry takeover scheme ... President Barack Obama reaffirmed his desire for the government to create and run a national health insurance company in a letter he sent to Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), leaders of the Democrats’ efforts to transform the nation’s healthcare system from a largely private one into one dominated by Washington. A leading conservative critic described the plan as little more than a massive Medicare system, complete with all the problems and multi-trillion-dollar debt of the current Medicare program. (cnsnews.com)
Militant military machinists go out on strike v. oppressive contractor ... At 12:01 a.m. today, vehicles filled with International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers began arriving at the west gate of Vance Air Force Base to begin a promised strike. Strike coordinator Wendell Knouse said the union tried to contact CSC Applied Technologies a number of times Sunday, but the company did not respond. “We will stay here one day longer than it takes,” said Knouse, a 311/2-year Vance employee who is vice president of union local 898. (enidnews.com)
Terrorist Progs rehabilitation now complete ... On June 7, 2009, C-SPAN II a.k.a. Book TV -- one of the three ubiquitous, non-commercial, not-for-profit cable television networks covering the Congress, government, and public policy issues -- devoted three hours of live programming to an interview with Bill Ayers, who was joined for the last hour by his wife, Bernardine Dohrn. The Ayers program was part of the channel's signature monthly "In Depth" series of conversations with leading American authors. Ayers, 65, and Dohrn, 67, are the radical 1960s antiwar activists and, for eleven years until they turned themselves into authorities in 1981, former underground fugitives from justice who were among the founders of the violent domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground. In recent years, Ayers has gained some notoriety for comments he made that appear to defend his bomb making past (gaining for him in some circles the moniker "unrepentant domestic terrorist") and for his murky but apparently influential association during the 1990s with the then new-on-the-scene, up-and-coming Chicago politician, Barack H. Obama. (americanthinker.com)
U.S. State Department rats' nest exposed ... Hunting spies is difficult, but Cuban spies are notoriously hard to detect, former senior intelligence officials said a day after an American husband and wife were indicted. Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn were arrested Thursday after a three-year investigation that began before Myers' retirement from the State Department in 2007. They had been spying for Havana for 30 years, according to the U.S. government. Investigations like this typically take years to come together because they usually turn on small pieces of information, and Cuban spies often leave few traces. Cuban intelligence specialize in recruiting "true believers" rather than agents who are out to make money, these officals said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. (newsmax.com)International Collectivism
Populist totalitarianism rears ugly head ... By approving a resolution that conditions Cuba's return to the OAS to its adherence to the ''practices, goals and principles'' of the institution, the attempt by Hugo Chávez's bloc to automatically and unconditionally reinsert the Castro dictatorship in the institution was temporarily foiled. However, the immediate goal of the Chavista bloc is precisely to redefine the practices, goals and principles of the Interamerican system in order to consolidate their new strain of ''electoral dictatorships'' in the region, with the eventual objective of isolating the United States diplomatically within the hemisphere and forcing it to coexist with a new wave of emerging populist totalitarian states. (miamiherald.com)
Suspicions link ACORN's Rathke to Peru revolt ... For more than a month, Indian groups drawn mostly from the vast Peruvian Amazon have come out against a package of laws that would open their region to oil and gas drilling, hydroelectric projects and biofuels farming. Wielding bows, spears and shotguns, activists have overtaken jungle oil facilities, blocked tourist destinations and cut off thoroughfares. The effort is intended to press Peruvian President Alan Garcia to repeal decrees that are designed to bring the country's economic framework in line with a U.S.-Peru free-trade accord. At one point, Peru's state oil company was forced to shut down a key pipeline after Indians overran a pumping station. Although weeks of protests have been largely peaceful, a clash between police and protesters on Friday left 155 people wounded and at least 30 dead, including 22 police officers, according to the Peruvian government. "We have evidence that Venezuela is supporting the protesters," Peruvian Congressman Edgar Nunez told The Washington Times. "These people are extremely poor, so you have to ask how they can afford to travel large distances, camp and feed themselves for weeks at a time," said Mr. Nunez, chairman of the Peruvian Congress' national defense committee. (washingtontimes.com)
Progressive Unions: We don't need no stinkin' elections ... Let me explain to you that when VenEconomy said Venezuelan trade unions, they meant the opposition's trade Unions i.e. the Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) and most probably, the Venezuela's Teacher Federation! As a matter of record, the CTV is no longer a legitimate trade union since it has NOT held any elections for more than five years ... and that's why they have been de-legitimized. They are not in compliance with legal democratic norms! (pr-inside.com)
Union-dues embezzlement a global plague ... An Israeli court on Monday found former finance minister Avraham Hirshson guilty of embezzling a million dollars from a labour union. Tel Aviv district court convicted Hirshson of stealing four million shekels from the National Workers Federation between 1998 and 2005, when he headed the trade union body. "The defendant and his associates emptied the coffers of the organisation they headed," the judge wrote in her ruling, which found Hirshson guilty of four different charges of theft, embezzlement and breach of trust. The indictment said that Hirshson had for years received cash-stuffed envelopes delivered to his home by his associates. Hirshson, who was expected to appeal against his conviction, could face up to seven years in prison. He quit as finance minister in July 2007 after the scandal broke. (google.com)
