Free Republic

John Sweeney, a prominent British investigative journalist who has long covered Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrote in his new book that he feels the leader looks "seriously ill" with puffy cheeks that make him resemble a hamster. In his forthcoming book (out July 21), Killer in the Kremlin, Sweeney described changes he has noticed in Putin's demeanor and physical appearance that he said scare him. He theorized the use of steroids for Putin's changes, noting the president could have started taking the medication years ago to treat a back injury sustained after falling off a horse. According to Sweeney, this...

From:Amy.Dacey@seiu.org To: Andy.Stern@seiu.org, Anna.Burger@seiu.org, pbl@711sx.com, zschwartz@shangrila.us, douglas.york@soros.com, Michael.Vachon@soros.com more Date: 2007-09-22 00:24 Subject: Agenda and Logistical information for the September 27th NYC Meeting Thank you all for your patience as we have finalized the agenda and arrangements for the September 27th meeting in NYC. Please review the agenda and logistical information below.You will recieve a UPS overnight package on Tuesday morning with additional information to review prior to the meeting. We look forward to seeing you on Thursday. If you have any questions before then, please feel free to email me or contact me on my cell at 202-528-7492. Amy...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

President Obama today named AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. The award is presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

The Communist Party USA has scrubbed its website of references that stated it "actively supported" President Obama's election. An article posted on the party's official website on Dec. 30, 2007, previously stated, "Our Party actively supported Obama during the primary election." The article was referring to Obama's 2004 election to the Senate. It detailed how the African-American community and trade unionists played key roles in defeating the "ultra right." "This was also reflected in the historic election of Barack Obama. Our Party actively supported Obama during the primary election," stated the article, a screen shot of which was captured by...

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...

Like the cavalry, organized labor reportedly plans on swooping in to the rescue of beleaguered lawmakers who are getting shouted down by conservative activists at town-hall meetings during discussions of health-care overhaul legislation. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports that the AFL-CIO is calling on its troops to counter the anti-health care reform hecklers. An excerpt: The nation's largest federation of labor organizations has promised to directly engage with boisterous conservative protesters at Democratic town halls during the August recess. In a memo sent out on Thursday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney outlined the blueprint for how the union conglomerate would...

In a meeting with President Obama today at the White House, top labor leaders pushed for a second stimulus package to create more jobs. “Since the onset of the recession, this country has lost an astounding 6.5 million jobs and $14 trillion in wealth. We support the President's recovery and reinvestment program, and we believe it should be substantially reinforced with more stimulus, creating millions of good jobs that cannot be outsourced,” the National Labor Coordinating Committee (NLCC) said in a statement after the meeting. A labor official said Obama did not commit to any future stimulus package. The president...

Congress should coalesce behind sweeping new compromise immigration legislation despite steep political obstacles because opportunities to confront the problem head-on are rare, Sen. Edward Kennedy said Friday. Kennedy, the lead Democratic negotiator with Republicans and the White House, acknowledged widespread criticism but called it "our last-gasp stand." The bill, which conservatives immediately attacked as an "amnesty" program, would provide a pathway to citizenship for some 12 million immigrants now in the United States illegally. It also would mandate tougher border security and workplace enforcement and provide for a guest worker program. Critics complained that it would reward the nation's estimated...

With the midterm elections November 7, organized labor has been gearing up for its biggest political blitz ever. Since being rocked by internal divisions last year and failing to unseat President Bush in 2004, labor leaders have been eager to prove that unions still matter and that the labor ground game can deliver votes for the Democratic Party. Political observers believe that in some close races, labor could help swing this month’s midterm elections—an outcome the beleaugured union movement desperately desires. Although labor’s diminished power would probably not overcome a larger change in the national political currents, those currents seem...

Come Meet Rudy Giuliani and Congressman John Sweeney August 21st 6:00 PM-Saratoga Springs Due to logistical circumstances, the meet and greet event/rally with Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Congressman John Sweeney originally scheduled for Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport in Queensbury, Warren County has been moved to Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County. NEW LOCATION The Saratoga Hotel (Directly Adjacent to Saratoga Springs City Center) in the Saratoga Ballroom. NEW TIME 6:00 PM Promptly There will be no charge for this event. Please take this rare opportunity to meet America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Directions From South: Take Exit 13N off the Northway. Travel on...

Vanity...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two House Republicans said Wednesday they will circulate a petition calling for elections to replace nearly all the top GOP leaders of the House, instead of just former Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Such a move would put Northern California Republican Rep. John Doolittle's leadership post in jeopardy. Reps. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., and John Sweeney, R-N.Y., said wholesale changes were needed in the wake of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal that helped force DeLay to permanently relinquish his leadership post. Their petition would not seek to replace House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., but would subject all seven leadership...

2006 Congressional Election Cycle Has Begun  50 Republican Incumbents Undeserving of Support by Pro-life Voters   The Republican National Coalition for Life PAC is currently receiving phone calls from Republican candidates for Congress in the 2006 Republican primaries. Our usual practice is to mail our Candidate Questionnaire to Republican candidates in each district as soon as the filing deadlines are reached. When we receive the results of the questionnaire, they are recorded on our website at www.RNCLife.org so that voters can see for themselves it those seeking to represent them in Washington are truly pro-life. We hope that this service...

Union riveter Chester A. Riley would know what to say: What a revoltin’ development this is. Two major unions broke away from the AFL-CIO this week with others likely to follow. When the dust settles, the labor federation stands to lose a third of its membership. After 50 years of dominance in representing unionized workers, the AFL-CIO will now confront that which it abhors, competition. Union power is predicated on monopoly. Use our members or go out of business, Mr. Employer. Pay our dues or go without a job, Mr. Worker. Protect us from overseas competition, Mr. President. AFL-CIO boss...

The president of America's national labor federation, the AFL-CIO, has won the support of a wavering union president by vowing to boost the labor movement's outreach to the Republican Party. The AFL-CIO's president, John Sweeney, 71, who is up for re-election at a convention in Chicago next month, made the promise recently as he worked to beat back a challenge from dissenting unions that have charged Mr. Sweeney with moving too slowly to overhaul the labor federation. The change in political strategy was disclosed yesterday by a labor leader who has long advocated a more bipartisan approach, Harold Schaitberger of...

Democrats lost the evangelical vote decades ago. As the last election showed, they are now in danger of permanently losing Catholics. But the left has devised an ingenious technique for winning back disaffected Catholics – insult their Church and its leader. And they thought of this all by themselves? As part of the campaign to defeat the Republican push to end the judicial filibuster, on May 17, 2005, MoveOn.org, PAC ran an ad appealing to anti-Catholic paranoia. The broadside was an altered photo that showed Pope Benedict XVI standing outside the Supreme Court’s chambers. The pontiff appears to be holding...

Labor's disarray echoes loudly for Democrats By RON FOURNIER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Divided and desperate, union leaders are looking everywhere - from Ivy League classrooms to the ''megachurch'' pulpits of far-flung suburbia - for ways to reverse a 50-year decline in membership that is tipping the balance of power in politics. Labor's woes are a threat to the Democratic Party, because unions are the single-greatest organizing tool on the left side of the political spectrum. ''If we can't reverse course, the future is very, very bleak,'' said Harold Ickes, an influential Democrat and labor ally. Organized labor is...

John Sweeney, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), has spent tens of millions of dollars in union dues in a failed ten-year quest to re-take the U.S. House from Republicans.  Sweeney also saw George W. Bush beat his favored Democratic candidates in 2000 and 2004. Sweeney's policies have failed to halt the drop in union membership and a corresponding decrease in the organization's political clout and is at the center of a conflict that threatens his job as the coalition's president.  It would mark only the second time in its half-century history...

Over the years, however, and especially on Mr. Sweeney's watch, they became much less interested in the creation of private-sector jobs. Instead, they became part of the ideological left and its regulatory and high-tax agenda. So instead of favoring oil drilling in Alaska, which would create thousands of new middle-class jobs, Mr. Sweeney's shop leaned toward the rich liberals of the Sierra Club. And while many union members are cultural conservatives, the AFL-CIO has spent its scarce political capital fighting conservative judges. No wonder millions of workers look at union organizers and shrug.