Obama Reverses Rule, Gives Unions Cover for Corruption

Submitted by Warner Todd Huston on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 04:51

Because I love to send the lefty trolls of TheNextRight.com into paroxysms of vitriol. Here is another word about Obama's union thug pals and how he is paying them off for supporting him...

Well, we can't say no one saw this one coming, but Obama has turned back rules that had been put in place to force unions to be more transparent in their financial reporting. These rules were meant to stop union fraud, theft, and embezzlement but in an effort to pay back his supporters, Obama has turned these rules back so that unions can find it easier to hide illicit financial transactions.

Naturally, one of the chief opponents to union transparency that fought the Bush administration, Deborah Greenfield, is now in the Obama administration. It was Greenfield that fought the financial reporting rules when she was a lawyer for the AFL-CIO. She was against forcing unions to account for all their illicit cash and secret accounts then. Now that she is in charge of implementing such rules she has been a major part of eliminating them so that unions could more easily hide their financial dealings from union members and the government.

The Washington Times reports this expected turning back of transparency rules.

So, what we see here is the Obama administration making more efforts to payback his supporters from the campaign. What could be a better gift than eliminating rules that keeps union criminality at a minimum?

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Comments

Lefty - and proud of it

Submitted by skayne on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 09:24.

You think this gets the blood boiling?

It does serve to remind

Submitted by NextRightNando on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 09:31.

It does serve to remind how useless WTH's posts are - nice of him to publicly acknowledge that "providing useful information and analysis" is NOT part of his self-defined mission statement.

All snark Aside...

Submitted by section9 on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 10:08.

The Bush Administration did a lot to clean up union corruption. One of the reasons that there was a decline in membership was the perception that union bosses were corrupt. And we're not simply talking about Hoffa and the Mob-run Central States Pension Fund of the Meyer Lansky Days.

Pat Tornillo was a big wheel in the Dade Teacher's Union, and ran it to the extent that it became a big player in Florida and National Democratic politics. Turns out he had been skimming the cream off the top for at least a decade. And that's just one example. I'd love to see the real books of the SEIU.

Obama is removing this accountability as part of a payoff. Period. You can't see this because you're a partisan schlemiel who doesn't want to see this. But this is hackery, plain and simple, and massive corruption will follow in its wake.

Now go snark that. BTW, did Axelrod give you a pay raise? One of the reasons I hang out at RedState is that they don't allow the trolls on their board. This place has simply gone to hell.

who needs dissenting opinion?

Submitted by skayne on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 13:38.

You hang out at RedState because nothing reaffirms your world view and reason for being like hearing only what you want to hear.

His first two paragraphs had good points

Submitted by Liberally Conse... on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 20:59.

Answer those instead of being butthurt that a conservative expects an article with a conservative viewpoint from a conservative site.

Let me first admit....

Submitted by davidfarrar on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 09:49.

...I know absolutely nothing about this issue. All I know is what you have given me to read on this issue. I will simply use your demagogic post above to state one side of the coin, while posting the other side as gleamed from the Washington Times article and let the reader decide.

Jim Coppess, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO, said the Labor Department's recent moves did nothing to affect the transparency of union financial reports or the ability of federal regulators to monitor expenditures.

"All the department has done is propose the withdrawal of a rule hastily adopted on the very last day of the Bush administration and an examination of the actual costs and benefits of extensive reporting requirements imposed on unions in 2003 as the basis for possible future changes."

Last year, Ms. Greenfield and AFL-CIO attorneys sued the Labor Department, saying the new conflict of interest forms would force thousands of unpaid union shop stewards to report detailed information about their finances to the department each year.

"Treating individuals, such as shop stewards, who are not on their union's payroll as 'employees of a labor organization' sweeps tens of thousands of rank and file union members."

To me, defining unpaid shop stewards as paid officers of the union is a bit much and can safely be eliminated from reporting requirements without causing undue harm to union transparency. But that's just my opinion.

ex animo

davidfarrar

I know absolutely nothing

Submitted by Artruen on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 14:38.

I know absolutely nothing about this issue but I can quote AFL-CIO lawyers like they are going out of style. Yeah, what is the harm of a little secrecy among thugs, oops, sorry, "shop stewards"? You know, like in the good ole days.

I wish I had some cute latin thing to post here, but I speak english. sorry.

Nobody fears demogaugery, Artruen.

Submitted by davidfarrar on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 23:00.

It is usually used by those who instinctively feel their point too weak to stand on its own merit. However, in Mr. Huston's case, it indicates a lack of faith in his audience.

ex animo

davidfarrar

Or, maybe a 'Destructive Narcissistic Pattern'...

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 23:31.

Nina W Brown in her book Coping with Infuriating, Mean, Critical People: The Destructive Narcissistic Pattern offers the follwing clues:

- comments about others that are blaming,
criticizing, demeaning and devaluing

- lies, distortions, and misleading statements

- interactions that frequently produce resentment
anger and other negative intense feelings in others

- never admitting making mistakes

- constant references to his superiority

Troll On, dude.

Submitted by Artruen on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 14:42.

It is good to see all of the session trolls here, the administration must view this site as a direct threat. Ya'll keep that in mind when fighting these leftist idjits. They fear us or they would not be here. Keep posting.

pathetic.

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 15:27.

this site gone jumped the shark.

Several people on a recent

Submitted by acinphx on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 16:25.

Several people on a recent RedState thread suggested that Patrick and Jon need to 'clean this place up' by banning any dissenters. Our days here could be numbered, RisingTide.

Seems that supporting the Bush torture program is the latest litmus test. With 25% of Republicans supporting further investigation of that issue, the true believers will be working overtime to purge yet another group of apostates.

Link?

Submitted by NextRightNando on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 16:59.

Several people on a recent RedState thread suggested that Patrick and Jon need to 'clean this place up' by banning any dissenters.

Have you got a link? I'd like to read the comments.

Nando...

Submitted by acinphx on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 18:03.

Here's the link, comments toward the end of the thread:

http://www.redstate.com/jrichardson/2009/04/25/steele-in-jeopardy-again/

Thanks. Yet more howls of protest

Submitted by NextRightNando on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 18:54.

Thanks. Yet more howls of protest about the liberal bias of reality.

They do have a point...

Submitted by Liberally Conse... on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 20:55.

I don't mind reading the opposing view, and I don't mind the original counter-arguments from some of the Democrats that post here.

However, I read both Kos and this site, for opposing ideas and views on current events. It's frustrating to read liberal memes that I looked at on Kos the day before. I don't see how any good is done there; if liberals want to debate on a conservative forum, they should need to be loaded for bear.

Well, I come here to debate strategy

Submitted by RisingTide on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 09:20.

and to try and help the republicans come closer to the middle, particularly in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

If you start getting into ideology, you'll likely find me rather liberal -- from Adam Smith to Teddy Kennedy.

I can definitely see where you're coming from, on people not "repeating exactly what someone else was saying" -- I'll try to remember that some people on here don't suffer from Extreme Kos Hate, and would rather not waste their time rereading the same arguments twice.

;-)

this site gone jumped the

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 22:45.

this site gone jumped the shark.

As it is, this site (...remember the early McCain campaign?) is going nowhere; looks like The Next Right is gonna pull a Palin on the blogosphere. Hehe. Appeal to the base. Embrace RedState.

on the hindsight

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 23:04.

after reading the said comments I am glad the Next Right has its -- ideological, foundational and stylistic -- differences with the Red State crowd. Too bad. I pity these folks who cannot hang out anywhere else than their own black and white cocoon where words (like "troll") have a whole new meaning.

having hung out on usenet...

Submitted by RisingTide on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 09:22.

"believes something different than you" does not a troll make.

Trolls are consistently off subject, interested in starting flame wars, and otherwise completely disruptive to actual conversation.

Robin Hood

Submitted by carltonyates on Mon, 04/27/2009 - 23:44.

always plays by different rules as does Mister Potter.

And the liberal students steal from scabine stores...

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 00:02.

Daily Kos: Some Liberal students STEALING from nonunionised stores: Is this ethical?

The diary has since been removed by the author. Alternative link: Why do otherwise ethical people steal?

"Robin Hood and Zorro are fictional characters...

Sure, it's possible to manufacture fictional circumstances (i.e. Sheriff of Nottingham) where stealing is ok, but in the real world, where you're dealing with real people, I think that author's friend is completely full of shit when she rationalizes her stealing.

That's all she's really doing. Why not protest? Work to help organize a union for these stores? There are always ways to really make a difference, but sneaking into a store and stealing what she WANTS is stupid and her excuse is pathetic.

I really hope she gets caught some day and tries to talk her way out of that jam by telling them how she's been doing this for a while to punish them for not having a union. Maybe a sympathetic judge will punish her for being a habitual thief."

"This is the latest in that classic series: lets-get-worked-up-about-that-crazy-thing-a-college-student-once-did.

College students are supposed to push boundaries and come up with ideas that, in retrospect, seem a little wacky. Claiming that you're a hero because you shoplift is definitely one of those ideas.

Don't get excited. This story has only one place: Fox News, when they want to avoid talking about real news and so denounce "liberal students" instead."

Obama Administration

Submitted by youth4ever on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 03:40.

I don't think that Obama Administration can do more that Bush Administration even he tries to force the Unions for transparency.

Why believe a wingnut?

Submitted by lgm on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 06:37.

Much of what conservatives say about unions, like much of what they say about global warming, marginal tax revenue, etc.) just isn't true. The "facts" in this post, such as they are, are sourced to the Washington Times. This "source" has a reliability rate slightly above the Onion. If it were true, there would be a real source.

-- One calm lib.

You want a source other than WashTimes opinion?

Submitted by Remains of the ... on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 07:22.

Of course that's something you would expect from The Next Right. But, what else do you expect from a RedState lunatic, who does a fair bit of (real)trolling here.