Free Republic

As right-wing protesters dominated the news this summer, it would have seemed the perfect opportunity for Obama's much-touted organizers to drown out the conservatives with some coordinated agitation of their own. But they barely made a ripple. Where were they? And how could such a formidable grassroots operation-having just put Obama in office-fall quiet so quickly?

Hundreds of union members and organizers descended on the streets of downtown Chicago Monday morning to picket the offices of Goldman Sachs Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. The group, which included supporters from community group National People's Action and the Service Employees International Union, has organized the protests to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Bankers Association. The group is demanding that "banks end their over-reliance on greed and profits and commit to using their taxpayer bailouts and backstops to help America's economy recover," said a news release from the Service Employees International Union.

SEIU Shows Softer Side With Lawn Signs in Sacramento Area By Jon Ortiz Sep. 19, 2009 California's biggest state employee union has tried the fist. Now it's extending the hand. Service Employees International Union Local 1000 has planted nearly 15,000 lawn signs in the Sacramento region aimed at building public support for the 95,000 state workers it represents. The campaign is a courteous counterpoint to the angry rallies, aggressive ad campaigns and strike threats the union has employed in the last few months as it unsuccessfully pushed Republican legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to ratify the local's stalled labor contract....

Here is video of an ObamaCare Organizer telling Pro-ObamaCare supporters how to shout down anyone at a Town Hall Meeting who begins to ask a question or make a statement opposing ObamaCare. He tells them to stand up and start shouting "Health Care Now, Health Care Now" to silence the questioner. This was "recorded on August 31, 2009 outside Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) town hall meeting in Skokie, IL." For people who claim they are "not organized" but true grassroots activists, they look awfully "Astroturf" here to me. . . . . (Watch Video)

1. “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.” -- President Obama at an August 6 at a rally in Virginia 2. “They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.” -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an August 5 interview 3. “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have...

NY Congressman Tim Bishop tried to pack his town hall with unions on the ‘take’ for nationalized healthcare. The people of his district erupt in open rebellion when one of the union goons tries to speak! Union members, many from outside the district, were snuck into the hall beforehand in an effort to stack the deck with a friendly audience. The last straw came when one of the union leaders from outside the district was asked to speak. The citizens erupted in open revolt which almost led to violence from the union goons.

A local union leader was booed out of Rep. Tim Bishop's town hall meeting last night in New York.Like they tried to do here in St. Louis, union members, many from outside the district, were snuck into the hall in an effort to stack the deck with a friendly audience. There are reports that as many as three busloads were brought in.Things boiled over when Mr. Mitchell, head of the Long Island Federation of Labor, steps up to the podium and announces that he in fact does not reside within the borders of NY's First Congressional District.

Via Gateway Pundit, although I’m certain there’s an alternative explanation. Maybe the leader of the Long Island Federation of Labor couldn’t make it to the town-hall forum in his own district, or perhaps his Representative was busy hiding, like many House Democrats this August. His attempt to pander to the actual constituents of Rep. Tim Bishop results in catcalls and a full minute of disruption. Jim also reports that the Magical Mystery Bus Tour continued for this meeting, with unions sending three busloads of people to the event. Even so, the angry constituents shout them down fairly effectively … or...

More than 900 residents met U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop's promise to approve only a health care bill that "improves on a status quo that is unacceptable" with a mix of cheers and boos at a packed town hall meeting in Farmingville Thursday night.

Thursday, August 20, 2009 Local investors bid to own Philly newspapers A group of local investors led by real estate executive Bruce Toll is offering a plan valued at $92 million to purchase the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and philly.com, and lead the organization out of bankruptcy. According to a release, the new ownership group would include the Carpenters’ Union Pension Fund and Penn Matrix Investments. “Today, Philadelphians once again stepped up in a big way. The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and philly.com filed a reorganization plan that will allow the company to emerge successfully from bankruptcy while...

This is no time for jokes or trivial banter. The stakes are getting higher by the nanosecond. As tensions are inflamed at health care town hall meetings across the country, a dangerous trend of Hitler comparisons, Stalin comparisons, and all-around dictator comparisons to President Barack Obama is taking shape. The most probing question at this juncture might be uncomfortable to some, but it must be asked: Do conservative, hard-right demagogues, whose hatred for President Obama has hardly ever been subdued, secretly hope for--and are hard at work toward--the assassination of the nation's first Black president. The sheer thought that a...

By now you know of the atrocity committed by SEIU union thugs against Kenneth Gladney, a slight, mild-mannered man who sold pins and flags at Russ Canahan's August 6th healthcare town hall in St. Louis. The St. Louis Tea Party immediately organized a demonstration against the St. Louis offices of SEIU, placing the blame for Gladney's injuries exactly where they belonged -- on the head's of Barack Obama and his union goons. See: http://stlouisteaparty.com/ See the extended reporting on the St. Louis Tea Party here: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/politics/story/8F86C6EBA6731CBC8625760C00194F9D?OpenDocument

Well, well...in observation of the finest traditions handed down to him by his compadre, Hoo-goh Chavez, our Presidente de por vida, Barack Obamanente, managed to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war fairly quickly. Major props to him for organizing his brown shirts (in this case, "purple" shirts) so quickly. Seems the sunny-dispositioned folks from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), called to action by the White House, were able get to Missouri representative Russ Carnahan's public town hall meeting the other night just in time to beat up a black man giving away "Don't Tread on Me"...

Barack Obama told a crowd of supporters in Philadelphia back in 2008, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” He added, “That’s the Chicago way.” Last night in St. Louis, Missouri, a local conservative found out first hand about the “Chicago way.” Kenneth Gladney, a black conservative from the city, was handing out “Don’t Tread On Me” flags after a Russ Carnahan town hall meeting on health care in Mehlville. This didn’t go over well with the Obama supporters and union thugs who attended the meeting. They punched him in the face, kicked him in...

Remember kids, it's the health care protesters who are being organized in a top-down manner. Because whatever Team Lightbringer says during their afternoon unicorn rides must be true. To recap: anyone who protests at a health care pimping rally is is part of a well-funded, super organized mob, according to our friends on the left. (You can practically feel the hopenandchange permeating the entire process now, right?) And on the other side...it's just a sincere, merry band of innocents. Top White House officials counseled Democratic senators Thursday on coping with disruptions at public events on health care this summer, officials...

From: Margarida Jorge To: HCAN Field PartnersRE: HCAN—Responding to Right-Wing Attacks in the Field - August 4, 2009Since early February, we’ve seen increasing numbers of militant right-wing activists attending public meetings acrossthe country targeting Members of Congress and President Obama. Now in the August recess, the “tea-bagger” protesters and right-wing activists are showing up in larger numbers with a mission to be as disruptive as possible in thehopes of rattling Members of Congress and halting health care reform through pure spectacle and obstruction.  Our response is shaped by 3 things:  Ø Our targets are Members of Congress who must vote...

Seconds after BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, police immediately began confiscating cell phones containing videos that have yet to see the light of day. [...] But the truth is, police had no legal right to confiscate a single camera. “Cops may be entitled to ask for people’s names and addresses and may even go as far as subpoenaing the video tape, but as far as confiscating the camera on the spot, no,” said Marc Randazza, A First Amendment attorney based out of Florida and a Photography is Not a Crime reader. Bert P. Krages II,...

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...

8:50 AM, Wednesday, April 15, Echo Park, a community adjoining downtown Los Angeles. This is unprecedented. Hence I am suspicious and for good reason as explained below. I am asking that others relate their experiences, especially in Los Angeles. Today, and never before today, all three garbage trucks have completed their rounds by 8:35 AM. Normally the green barrels are picked up first, between 6:30 and 7. Then the black or the blue considerably later -- sometimes after 2 PM. Today, the black barrels were picked up first beginning around 6 AM. This pattern has repeated regularly for as long...

<p>PARIS (March 31) - Angry French workers facing layoffs at a Caterpillar factory detained four of their bosses Tuesday at the U.S. manufacturer's plant in the Alps and refused to let them leave the premises, union representatives said.</p> <p>It is the third time in several weeks that French workers have seized their bosses to protest job losses as a result of the global economic crisis.</p>

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Newspaper Guild members at The Sacramento Bee agreed Friday to take pay cuts of up to 6 percent to save jobs at the 152-year-old paper. Members voted 65 percent to 35 percent to accept the deal, said Ed Fletcher, a reporter who heads the Guild's local at the Bee. Even with the pay cuts, Bee managers plan to cut 34 of the 268 Guild-covered positions in the editorial and advertising departments. Another 19 jobs would have been in jeopardy if the union had rejected the pay cuts. ''I think it was a very difficult decision for...

Here are the remarks (as prepared for delivery) that President Barack Obama spoke via video to the AFL-CIO executive Council in Miami today. At the very end of the speech, Obama made what all of labor hoped and expected: a promise to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, or 'card-check' for short. Here goes:

New York's largest Public Employee Union is AFSCME (American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees). It is one of the affiliated unions of the AFL/CIO. Today, an e-mail marked "urgent" was sent out to member employees urging them to contact their Senators right away to tell them how imperative it is that they vote "YES" on the Obamacratic spending bill. (I'll get to the contents of that e-mail in a moment). However, most interesting was a call to action at the AFSCME website, asking members to keep talk show host Rush Limbaugh from basking in the "satisfaction of sinking...

President Barack Obama warmly welcomed trade union leaders into the White House as he reversed restrictions on organised labour set up by the Bush administration. Promising to "level the playing field" for workers, he offered the most pro-union sentiments heard from a US president for many years. "I do not view the labour movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution," said Mr Obama, who was accused of being a Socialist by the Republican Right during the election campaign. He was speaking at the launch of a Task Force for Middle Class and Working Families...

In the military it's called "mission creep." That is when you start out doing one thing and end up doing something that has nothing at all to do with what your main function is supposed to be. Unions in New Mexico have just shown mission creep, once again, because, for some reason, labor leaders in that state imagine it is their duty to tell government what sort of taxes should be invented for the citizens of Santa Fe. These so-called labor leaders have decided to urge government to institute a "transfer tax" on houses that they deem "too big" to...

Teachers unions routinely claim that the interests of students are their top priority. So we would be interested to hear how the Pennsylvania affiliate of the National Education Association explains the proliferation of teacher walkouts in the middle of the school year. According to a recent study by the Allegheny Institute, Pennsylvania is once again the worst state in the country for teacher strikes. No less than 42% of all teacher walkouts nationwide occur in the Keystone State, leaving kids sidelined and parents scrambling to juggle work and family, potentially on as little as 48 hours notice required by state...

Signs posted in front and beside mailboxes at a post office location where I dropped off mail tonight. If it was at the headquarters of the unions, that'd be one thing. But in this case, would this be considered federal property? Would it be considered election engineering since this is where people will be dropping off vote-by-mail ballots? Should I bother complaining to the post office and registrar of voters? Should I post another vanity? Enquiring minds yada yada...

Members of the carpenters union in New York City have ruined any chance that authorities there will take their union out of government oversight by beating unconscious William Davenport, a union dissident running for office in the union. After an August 5 candidates forum, the candidate was beaten by members of the carpenters union audience outside a church. Outside a CHURCH! This thuggery along with continued Mob involvement, indictments and convictions on corruption of union members convinced Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. not to release the union from government oversight.... Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A dozen leaders and members of a construction union were arrested Tuesday and charged with a decade of attacks against nonunion workers and their families, and prosecutors said some of the crimes were aided by the local's access to state motor vehicle records. The president of Operating Engineers Local 17, Mark Kirsch, was among those charged with extortion and racketeering after a five-year investigation. The union, headquartered in Buffalo, operates in six western New York counties. At job sites where non-Local 17 members were hired, union members caused more than $1 million in damage to more than...

COMMITTEE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE P.O. Box 306, Cheltenham, PA 19012 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 10, 2007 Contact: Don Adams, ###.###.#### Teamster Beating Victims Appeal Judge’s Order To Pay Union $15 Grand Philadelphia – Two Clinton protesters, viciously beaten up by a group of pro-Clinton teamsters outside Philadelphia’s City Hall during a presidential visit nine years ago, last week appealed a federal judge’s order to pay two teamster unions $15,000.00 in legal costs stemming from an October, 2000 Federal Civil Rights suit. Five members of Teamsters Local 115 eventually pled guilty to criminal assault, conspiracy, and various other charges in the...

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA   DON ADAMS, ET AL.,     PLAINTIFFS        v.   TEAMSTERS LOCAL 115, ET AL.,     DEFENDANTS   CIVIL ACTIONNO. 99-CV-4910   JUDGMENT AND NOW, this 4th day of Sept., 2007, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of defendant Teamsters Local 115 and against plaintiffs Don Adams and Theresa Adams in the amount of $450.10.   William H. Yohn, Jr., Judge IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA   DON ADAMS, ET AL.,     PLAINTIFFS        v.   TEAMSTERS LOCAL 115, ET AL.,     DEFENDANTS   CIVIL ACTIONNO. 99-CV-4910  ...

TWO ripping issues in parliament yesterday - the leaking of the ACTU’s embarrassingly detailed blueprint for winning over swinging voters to Labor and John Howard’s misuse of Kirribilli House. We’ve provided a link to the entire ACTU document. It’s oafish and unprofessional and probably doesn’t help Kevin Rudd who’s determinedly fighting the Coalition assault painting Labor as too close to unions. ..... Here’s my take in The Sketch: “THERE is nothing surprising in this,” ACTU president Sharan Burrow protested on Melbourne radio, and mostly she was right. That the union movement is campaigning furiously to kick the Howard Government out...

Indictment alleges Pacifica man stole $170,000, falsified records By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITERInside Bay Area Article Last Updated:05/25/2007 02:55:14 AM PDT A postal workers' union president from Pacifica was indicted Thursday on charges that he embezzled more than $170,000 and then fudged union and Labor Department records to cover it up. Graham Paul Vane, 49, was president of the San Mateo-based National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO, Branch 1280, from January 2002 through 2006 and allegedly used a union-issued credit card and 10 personal credit cards to rack up massive personal expenses such as dining, family travel, spa treatments,...

A federal appeals court refused yesterday to revive civil-rights claims against Gov. Rendell, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, and Teamsters Local 115, part of a lawsuit filed eight years ago by a man who says he was beaten and falsely prosecuted after protesting a 1998 appearance by President Clinton. The opinion by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is likely the end of the federal suit filed by Don and Theresa Adams, although Adams has said he will press civil claims involving state law in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. Neither Adams, 46, of...

A teachers union told the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday it should have the right to spend workers' money for political purposes without their permission -- even if they aren't union members. The case involves about 3,000 Washington state teachers and other education employees who have chosen not to join the 80,000-member Washington Education Association. Because the nonunion workers are in the bargaining unit and thus represented by the union, they are charged a fee for labor negotiations that affect them. Washington state in 1992 adopted a campaign-finance law that requires labor unions to annually ask members whether part of their...

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...

The 58-story Comcast Center rising over 17th Street is already destined to be Philadelphia's tallest and most environmentally friendly skyscraper. But its developer, Liberty Property Trust, dreams of claiming an even more prestigious title: America's tallest green building. Unfortunately, the city's quest for national glory may go down the drain of a waterless urinal. The local plumbers union is blocking Liberty's plan to install no-flush, water-saving urinals in the men's rooms at the Comcast Center. Without them, the finished skyscraper would guzzle an extra 1.6 million gallons of water a year, and Liberty could have trouble obtaining a coveted seal...

CHICAGO - A reputed mob enforcer who has been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since federal prosecutors unsealed racketeering-murder charges against the alleged top echelon of the Chicago underworld was arrested Friday, the FBI announced. Frank "The German" Schweihs, 75, was captured without incident when agents swooped down on an apartment he had recently rented in Berea, Ky., a hilly area 40 miles south of Lexington. Schweihs was one of two defendants who slipped away just before federal prosecutors in April unveiled the long-sealed indictment against reputed Chicago mob boss James Marcello and 13 others in the FBI's Operation...

Protests turn violent near APEC venue By Jack Kim 36 minutes ago Thousands of farm activists and union workers hurled bottles in a clash with police near a meeting of Pacific Rim leaders on Friday and had to be quelled by water cannon. The clash broke out about two km (1.2 miles) from the convention center where leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies were meeting. About 2,000 farmers and farm activists and 3,000 union workers took to the streets of Pusan to denounce APEC, the World Trade Organization and U.S. President George W. Bush, who was attending the...

Previously I offered "True face of Democratic Party: union thugs attack woman at anti-Arnold rally": she had her cap pulled off, she was beaten with signs, and one of the security workers ripped up her signs. Now, speaking on KFI, the victim of the assault claims it was even worse than what was shown on TV. She says the pro-union forces also poured water on her head and threw things at her. And, she says that several TV stations must have filmed that. Yet, only a small - but highly disturbing - segment of the attack was shown on just...

Here is aan e-mail that I just received:Genvieve Peters (no relation), who I recruited for the LA bus tour team, is certifiably insane and brings new meaning to the phrase "earned media". Forget about the baloney delivery stunt, this one clearly takes the cake. When David Pegos tried to stage a counter protest today at the Latino union rally with Nunez and Villaraigosa in Downtown LA I put him in touch with Genvieve. She showed up in her red Arnold t-shirt with her signs ALL ALONE. Instead of going home (which I would have told her to do if the...

An interesting thread by striking Northwest Airline mechanics at www.usaviation.com. The source URL takes you to the specific thread Evidently, they all think that this is the way to strike: They are all for it, including this pleasant little ditty: PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH Yesterday, 11:05 PM Post #26 Rank: Veteran Group: Registered Member Posts: 707 Joined: 10-October 03 Member No.: 2,790 The AMFA STRIKERS are being way too nice in my opinion. If this was the 1930's, that SCAB's house would have been torched! -------------------- TWU:THE UNION THAT INVENTED CONCESSIONS! Why RIDE the BUS? When you can FLY with AMFA

EMS & Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina - Our Experiences By Parmedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth SlonskySep 6, 2005, 11:59 note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradsahw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky  is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.[California]Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt,...

AFL-CIO Chief Criticizes Federal Response to Hurricane, Calls It Sign of Hostility to WorkersBy Jeremiah Marquez Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 5, 2005 LOS ANGELES (AP) - AFL-CIO President John Sweeney derided the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina at a Labor Day rally Monday, saying the government's slow response was a sign of hostility to workers. Speaking to more than 1,000 cheering teachers, firefighters and nurses at a Los Angeles intersection, Sweeney argued that cuts in government services and taxes had sapped the administration's ability to react to the crisis. "We really need look no further than the ravaged...

Boeing Co. Machinists voted Thursday to strike as union members overwhelmingly rejected a three-year contract proposal their leaders had deemed "insulting." Union members voted 86 percent in favor of a strike beginning at 12:01 a.m. local time Friday. Under union rules, the contract would have been automatically ratified -- and workers would have stayed on the job -- unless two-thirds of the union members voted to strike. The strike will affect about 18,400 Machinists who assemble Boeing's commercial airplanes and some key components in the Seattle area, Gresham, Ore., and Wichita, Kan. Company officials said earlier in the week that...

When O.V. Delle-Femine led his mechanics out on strike against Northwest Airlines earlier this month, he thought he had a pretty good chance of winning public support. After all, the members of his union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, were not crazed militants striking for huge wage increases. They were senior mechanics averaging decades of experience. All they wanted was to stop layoffs and wage cuts. Delle-Femine himself--72 years old and known as "Dell"--is something of a character. He reckoned that he and his small union would appeal as underdogs. And they had a final advantage: The fourth largest airline...

Division of LaborBy Lowell PonteFrontPageMagazine.com | July 29, 2005 The convention was supposed to have been a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the umbrella group that overarches most major North American labor unions.But on the eve of this week’s AFL-CIO convention in Chicago, long-building pressures began to tear the labor organization to shreds. Two unions of the newly-formed dissident group of seven unions called the Change To Win Coalition announced that they were leaving the AFL-CIO. One was the leftwing Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the largest union in the...

On the second day of its convention in Chicago, the AFL-CIO took an historic step, calling for the rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and an end to the country's occupation. Public attention has focused largely on the split in US labor, and the decision by two of the federation's largest unions to leave. Yet the impact of this call will reverberate for years, with as profound effect on the future of US workers and their unions. Brooks Sunkett, vice-president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), started a train of passionate speeches on the convention floor, saying that...

The AFL-CIO succumbed to division Sunday, with its largest union deciding to bolt the 50-year-old federation and three others poised to do so in a dispute over how to reverse organized labor's long slide. The four unions, representing nearly one-third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members, announced they were boycotting the federation's convention that begins Monday, a step that was widely considered to be a precursor to leaving the federation. They are part of the Coalition to Win, a group of seven unions vowing to reform and modernize the labor movement — outside the AFL-CIO if necessary. But many union...

Christians are among those sounding the alarm about the ethics of this retail giant. Are the worries justified? The cavernous hallway outside Chicago City Council chambers is echoing with the sound of 150 people chanting, "We're fed up, we won't take it no mo'!" The lady with the megaphone is leading a mix of union workers and community reform activists shouting slogans...