The Union News.: 11/19/09

11/19/09

Andy Stern's aggression, greed exposed

SEIU raids earn enmity of union brothers, sisters

Union bigs smack down private balloting

We don't need no stinkin' right to vote

An initiative that would require secret ballot voting in union membership was criticized Wednesday by labor activists as "anti-worker."

The "Save Our Secret Ballot" initiative, which was filed late Tuesday with the secretary of state's office, seeks to protect the "right to vote by secret ballot for elections for public office, for decisions on ballot measures, and for designations of employee representation."

The movement is supported by business groups in at least 13 states as a response to a bill pending in Congress. The Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier for workers to form unions by allowing them to sign authorization cards rather than the current practice, which allows employers to mandate secret ballot elections.

Tibi Ellis, a Las Vegas businesswoman and Republican state Assembly candidate who is leading the initiative effort in Nevada, said the petition goes beyond labor groups.

"It's about having the privacy of casting a vote no matter what particular purpose, and having it cast as a secret," she said Wednesday. "It is not partisan, it is not about unions. It's about people understanding that there is value in preserving that right."

Secret voting in union elections also protects workers from harassment and intimidation, she said.

But Danny Thompson, secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said the initiative was "about union organizing campaigns because anti-union employers have learned that the secret ballot process is one they can prevent the union from winning."

(from mercurynews.com)

You cannot handle the TARP truth

Obama big Geithner ignores FOIA requests

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the reason Obama administration is still refusing to release Bush-era documents about the massive government bailout, says Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “Their guy [Geithner] was involved in this last year, and now he’s running Treasury.”

The group filed two Freedom of Information lawsuits against the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, both of which have ignored dozens of months-old FOIA requests.

“We are now more than a year and trillions of dollars into the government bailout and answers are in short supply. What was Congress told about the so-called financial crisis and who was lobbying the Fed for taxpayer cash? The taxpayers are paying for this bailout and they deserve to know the truth,” Fitton said.

(from washintonexaminer.com)

Tax cheats infect Obama Administration

D.C. bigs: A pattern of corruption

It appears that the Obama Administration has hit yet another tax road block with one of its top appointments. Lael Brainard, Obama's choice to become the Treasury Undersecretary of International Affairs, has a tax problem. In short, she conveniently forgets to pay them.

In 2005, 2006 and 2007 she filed late tax returns. The discrepancies resulted in over $13,000 dollars coming into question.

Ms. Brainard is the fifth Obama appointment to come under scrutiny over critical tax issues, following Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer and Kathleen Sebelius. Tax issues seem to have become part and parcel of the Obama appointment agenda.

Despite Ms. Brainard's track record as a tax cheat, Senator Max Baucus, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has recommended her approval, no questions asked. But, Republican Senators should not be so quick to overlook behavior that has landed average, work-a-day Americans in the IRS cauldron.

(from NetRightNation)

Catholics wise up to social-justice fraud

ACORN-SEIU: Con job an eye-opener for faithful do-gooders

CCHD has never provided direct relief to the poor. That's not its purpose.

It is an extreme left-wing political organization created to feed and foster radical groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Most Catholics are blissfully unaware of its true mission, though it says right on its Web site that it aims to support "organized groups of white and minority poor to develop economic strength and political power."

Long mocked as the "Catholic Campaign to Help Democrats," CCHD is the charitable arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Since its creation in 1969 - the year before ACORN was founded - CCHD says it has given more than $290 million to fund what it calls more than 8,000 "low-income-led, community-based projects that strengthen families, create jobs, build affordable housing, fight crime, and improve schools and neighborhoods." Some say the grand total is closer to $450 million.

Both ACORN and CCHD were inspired by radical agitator Saul Alinsky, the Marxist Machiavelli who dedicated his activism opus, "Rules for Radicals," to Lucifer, whom he called "the first radical." The late Mr. Alinsky developed the concept of "community organizing" in order to mobilize poor neighborhoods to make demands, long and loud, on public officials and the private sector.

CCHD gives generously to the Industrial Areas Foundation, which Mr. Alinsky himself founded, and to similar leftist groups including the Gamaliel Foundation, People Improving Communities Through Organizing (PICO), and Direct Action and Research Training Institute (DART).

Over the years, some Catholics have called out CCHD for its Marxist radicalism.

(from washingtontimes.com)

Bonus links:
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• More Saul Alinsky stories: here
• 'Rules for Radicals' at amazon.com

Obama's $84 million GIGO website

Much ado about faked Stimulus jobs

Responding to rash of errors in its tracking of the $787 billion stimulus package, the Obama Administration has mounted a defense of its $84 million web boondoggle.

Obama special adviser G. Edward DeSeve writes on the White House website that the errors are minor compared to the overall to the massive bill.

First, the mistakes are RELATIVELY few, and don’t change the fundamental conclusions one can draw from the data. Even if as many as 5-10% of the reports or 5-10% of the totals are wrong (and we don’t think it is that high), that still means the Recovery Act saved or created between 600,000 and 700,000 direct jobs in its first seven months – more than most experts predicted when it passed. And most leading experts agree that – whatever the recipient reported total should be – the actual number of jobs saved or created is about double that, because the recipient reports don’t include direct payments to individuals, the jobs created by Recovery Act tax cuts, and the jobs created when workers on Recovery Act projects spend their paychecks.

The Recovery.gov team even weighed in on Twitter, passing the blame for the slew of faulty job numbers and phantom Congressional Districts on recipients making mistakes on the reports they submitted.

Did you know? Unless an egregious error is noted, Recovery.gov posts data exactly as it is reported by recipients.

But the Board overseeing the $84 million Recovery.gov project admits it never checked to see that the data going into the database was accurate.

(from watchdog.org)

Jobless Stimulus: Working for you

Mistakes were made

New Mexico Watchdog broke the story on Monday morning–the Obama Administration claimed to create jobs in congressional districts that did not exist. Those reporting errors, however, was not limited to New Mexico. A Watchdog study has found the stimulus has given $6.4 billion to 440 non-existent districts in all 50 states, D.C. and even four American territories. Click the link to see what a Watchdog reporter has found in your state:

(from Bill McMorris, franklincenterhq.org)

Related audio: West Virginia Watchdog on LIVE

We don't need no stinkin' oversight

Cascading Obama tax-cash defies accounting

This week we all learned that the Government couldn't keep track of the Stimulus spending on what they branded a revolutionary website, Recovery.gov.

How, then, will they be able to keep track of all 300 million plus Health Care records in their “revolutionary” Health Care database? One must ponder this as we are being sold a bill of goods.

What will happen when the system inevitably collapses as the Recovery.gov system has? Will we simply get an explanation over Twitter? If that sounds outlandish, that’s exactly what they did yesterday when the buffoons behind Recovery.gov tweeted that “Unless an egregious error is noted, Recovery.gov posts data exactly as it is reported by the recipients.” Apparently no apparatus exists to provide the needed oversight. Troubling.

The current administration reminded us for the better part of the last year about a lack in oversight, a claim which is completely false. However, judging from the performance of the record keeping at Revovery.gov and by those in charge of the Stimulus spending, it’s hard to assert that there is oversight in any form. It appears that Government cannot provide quality oversight.

(from NetRightNation)

Obama job approval craters

Nation wises up to massive social-justice fraud

SEIU shameful newspeak revealed

Orwellian union operatives abuse language to deceive

A source who opposes the Employee Free Choice Act sends over a revealing internal SEIU memo that made its way into the hands of the opposition, and which details the language the union has been trying to use to shape the debate on the issue.

The memo reflects the fact that unions and organized labor aren't universally popular, and that Americans sympathize with -- especially -- small business.

• "Anti-union," for instance, is out, replaced by "Anti-worker."

• "Our union" and "labor" become "workers" and "working people."

• "Employers" become "big corporations" or "corporate CEOs."

An SEIU spokeswoman, Christy Setzer, didn't challenge the authenticity of the memo.

(from politico.com)

ACORN: Follow the money

Union-backed fraud group part of the corrupt community fabric

Last month, New York’s highest court heard oral arguments in the case of Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation. At issue was the state’s controversial seizure of private property on behalf of a 22-acre development project known as the Atlantic Yards. Situated in central Brooklyn, this taxpayer-subsidized boondoggle was the brainchild of real estate tycoon and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner, who wants to build an “urban utopia” complete with more than a dozen office and apartment towers, a 180-room hotel, and a fancy new basketball arena for Ratner’s Nets to call home.

Real Estate Tycoon Bruce Ratner and ACORN's Bertha Lewis

To get his way, Ratner turned to his buddies in big government, specifically the Empire State Development Corporation, a controversial state agency with the power to bypass zoning laws and seize private property via eminent domain. In other words, this is a classic case of eminent domain abuse. Ratner isn’t building a bridge or a tunnel or any other legitimate public project that might justify the forceful taking of private property by the state. He wants to build a basketball arena, sell tickets to the games (not to mention broadcast rights, concessions, and luxury boxes), and collect a big fat profit.

So what in the world is ACORN, a self-described champion of “social and economic justice” and “low- and moderate-income people” doing in bed with a shady corporate powerbroker like Bruce Ratner? Let’s follow the money.