We’ll continue to bring you the latest on this, including the signature verification efforts, which will begin almost immediately.

The Post also reported, “The email was sent by Mark McCullough, spokesman for the SEIU. But if you looked closely at his email address, it was missing a ‘c,’ and emails to that address bounced back.” While the release was meant as a prank, the payoff that unions expect from their political backing to the Democrats and Obama is no laughing matter.

Also on Tuesday, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) voted to endorse the president’s reelection bid. AFSCME vowed to spend $100 million to help his campaign. That was no joke, and neither are the massive budget deficits which states and localities across the country face due to the unsustainable contracts and pension obligations negotiated by AFCME’s affiliates.

Why the extravagant spending using the forced dues of workers? In his book Democracy Denied, Phil Kerpen details how the Obama Administration gives favors to Big Labor while making an end run around congress.

The unions expected that enormous investment to pay dividends, and Obama did not intend to disappoint them. While the public has mostly focused on the high-profile fights raging in Congress, the key implementer of the union agenda is a relatively obscure federal agency called the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Now stacked with SEIU lawyers who are Obama’s ideological fellow travelers, the  board is poised to grant union bosses vast new powers without so much as a vote in Congress.

Kerpen writes how much the President owes to the unions and SEIU.

Nobody did more to make Barack Obama the president of the United States than labor unions, most significantly the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Now they want their payback, and it doesn’t matter to them—or their handpicked president—that Congress and the American people have rejected their agenda.

SEIU is largely responsible for Obama’s remarkable primary upset over Hillary Clinton, spending more than $9 million supporting Obama through the critical three month stretch that determined the nomination. In Obama’s own words:

“ I’ve spent my entire adult life working with SEIU. I’m not a newcomer to this. I didn’t suddenly discover SEIU on the campaign trail.”

And that primary support was just the beginning, as then- SEIU President Andy Stern said:

“We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama—$60.7 million to be exact— and we’re proud of it.”

How proud? SEIU even gave its blessing—and funding—to a 2009 documentary film highlighting the pivotal role the union played in getting Obama into the White House.

He goes on to explain how SEIU and their affiliates such as ACORN functioned as “shock troops” for the Obama campaign.

In all, SEIU and the AFL-CIO claimed they spent over $300 million to elect the president and put Big Labor-friendly Democrats in Congress.  Don Loos of the National Right to Work Committee estimated that all told, unions may have spent as much as $2.2 billion on political activities between 2007 and 2010.

As the 2012 campaign heats up and unions become increasingly desperate to hold on to their last concentrations  of power – namely federal executive agencies such as the National Labor Relations Board and laws that restrict worker choice in the states – they will spend big and do whatever they can to get their friends elected and reelected.

The ‘A’ is supposed to stand for accountability. But, in reality, not so much.

Yesterday we reported that the GAB would not comb through the petitions to disqualify duplicate signatures.

Today, we find out it is much worse than that.

[Madison, Wisc…] Duplicate signatures are not the only point of contention in the ongoing recall drives in Wisconsin. The board that oversees the state’s elections admits they will not check the validity of any of the signatures or addresses contained on the recall petitions expected to be submitted in January.

For $625,699 the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board will make sure all the blanks are properly filled out on petitions to recall Governor Scott Walker, but that’s all.

Meanwhile, news reports around the state have raised the questions about ineligible individuals signing the forms. At least one liberal group is encouraging voters to sign multiple times.

The GAB will not be checking for fraud, but will rule on challenges brought forth by the subjects of the recalls, should they find evidence of fraud.

Reid Magney, GAB spokesman, cited Section 9.10(3) of the State Statutes, under which the filing officer, ”shall determine by careful examination whether the petition on its face is sufficient.”

Administrative Rules GAB 2.05 and 2.07 expand upon the definition “facial sufficiency,” including the presumption of validity of information contained on the petition and the challenger’s burden to establish any insufficiency.

“[C]hecking addresses, verifying ages, etc., is by law the responsibility of the incumbent,” Magney said. “If the incumbent files a challenge that says John Smith does not live at 123 Main Street, Onalaska, then the GAB must determine whether the challenge is correct and the name should be struck.”

Magney says the burden of proving the validity of signatures will fall on Governor Walker, not those filing the recall petitions. Read more>>

So, if the legislature grants the GAB’s request for additional $600,000, up to 50 temporary workers, aided by GAB staff, will have at least a month to make sure the forms were completely (though not necessarily legally) filled out. Governor Walker and any legislator facing recall will have a whopping  ten days to verify the hundreds of thousands of signatures are valid.

That’s right. Ten days.

However, the Walker campaign could go to court to contest GAB’s finding that the petitions are sufficient or for more time or to contest the validity of the signatures.

Settle in. It’s going to be a long and bumpy ride.

As the unions strike back against the governor who forced them to ask permission to collect dues from public employees, controversy over the ongoing recall process is emerging. One liberal organization is saying people have a right to sign more than one recall petition. The state regulators admit it’s true, they have that right and although only one signature per eligible voter is supposed to be counted as vaild, their temporary workers won’t be accountable for finding duplicates.

Huh?

This MacIver News’ report provides the details.

The state board overseeing the potential recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tells the MacIver News Service that they will rely upon temporary workers to scrutinize recall petitions and those individuals will not be expected to catch any duplicate signatures submitted by recall organizers.

This revelation comes as one statewide liberal group is actively promoting the collection of duplicate signatures, paving the way for a lengthy process wherein Walker supporters will challenge the validity of the recall petitions.

One Wisconsin Now, a liberal non-profit, posted on its website “you can circulate or sign a recall petition even if you have already signed another recall petition.”

This advice, however, will complicate the signature challenge process and runs counter to the advice of nonpartisan state election regulators.

“While it is not illegal to sign more than once, we do not suggest people sign a second time unless they have good reason to believe the first petition they signed was somehow fraudulent,” Reid Magney, GAB Spokesman.

One Wisconsin Now follows their advice with this disclaimer: “[N]ote, however, that only one signature per person will be counted,”

That is not necessarily true.

Magney told MNS said that the pro-union groups obtaining recall signatures will be expected to self-police the collection of duplicate signatures.

However, neither the state Democratic Party nor the pro-labor organizations steering the recall drive have disclosed any process by which they will identify and discard the duplicate signatures they obtain.

Recall organizers announced Monday that they have collected 300,000 of the 540,000 signatures necessary to trigger a recall election of Walker. Until those signatures are actually submitted to the GAB, however, there is no way to verify that claim or determine whether that figure includes duplicate signatures. Even then, it will be up to outside groups like the Walker campaign or the state Republican Party to sort through the signatures to find any invalid and/or duplicate signatures.

Until the signatures are submitted and independently checked, there is no way to know how many people are heeding One Wisconsin Now’s advice.

Read more>>>

An important factor in these movements is the fundamentally anarcho-syndicalist tenor of the union movement, which demands an ever greater share of national income. Public-sector unions like the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have been prominent in the “occupy” movement. Wisconsin AFSCME proudly sent pizzas “in solidarity” with the Wall Street occupiers.

Rutgers University labor economist Leo Troy calls public-sector unionism “the new socialism.” The old socialism was based on state ownership of the means of production. The new socialism involves the transfer of an ever greater share of the economy to the public sector. Government at all levels took about 5% of GDP a century ago and 13% on the eve of the Great Depression. The New Deal increased the proportion to one-third by 1960. We are in the forty percent range now, and the full nationalization of health care will put us over half.

Unions have been a primary force in the expansion of state power. Even the reputedly “conservative” American Federation of Labor called for “the abolition of the wage system.” A.F.L. President Samuel Gompers put organized labor’s goal as simply “more” — exactly what Johnny Rocco, the Al Capone-like figure portrayed by Edward G. Robinson in the 1939 film “Key Largo,” explained as his ultimate end. The New Deal’s expansion of state power was based principally on private-sector unionism that began with the “occupy Flint” sit-down strikes of 1936.

Congress had empowered unions by the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act to balance the power of corporations. But they had become a law unto themselves. Roscoe Pound, the Harvard Law School Dean who had done much to promote labor reform in the progressive era, noted in 1958 that unions were free to commit torts against persons and property, interfere with the use of transportation, break contracts, deprive people of the means of livelihood, and misuse trust funds, “things no one else can do with impunity. The labor leader and labor union now stand where the king and government . . . stood at common law.” Rather than a countervailing force to limit corporate power, unions had themselves gained “a despotic centralized control.” The private-sector union quest for “more” finally killed the auto and steel industries and private-sector unionism itself.

Public-sector unionism had suffered a major setback with the Boston police strike of 1919, which exposed the anarchical consequences of what Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge called a “strike against the public safety” and which President Woodrow Wilson called “an intolerable crime against civilization.” Government employees were expressly excluded under the Wagner Act. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt explained, “the very nature and purposes of government” made collective bargaining impossible, because a public employer is “the whole people, who speak by means of laws”—that is to say, the government is sovereign. A union that could compel it to bargain must perforce become the new sovereign.

The ethos of organized labor could often be predatory and nihilistic. It reminds one of the famous “Melian dialogue” in Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians tell the citizens of Melos that they must join their alliance against the Spartans. When the Melians reply that they have a just right to remain neutral, the Athenian ambassadors reply that “we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.” When the Melians insist on their rights, the Athenians annihilate the city, kill all the men, and enslave the women and children.

This was the spirit of Representative William Clay’s advice to the air traffic controllers in 1980. He urged them to:

“…completely revise your political thinking. It should start with the premise that you have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. It must be selfish and pragmatic. You must learn the rules of the game and learn them well. Rule Number 1 says that you don’t put the interest of any other group ahead of your own. What’s good for the federal employees must be interpreted as being good for the nation. Rule Number 2 says that you take what you can, give up only what you must. Rule Number 3 says that you take it from whomever you can, whenever you can, however you can. If you are not prepared to play by the rules then you have not reached the age of political maturity and perhaps you deserve everything that’s happening to you.”

The United States dodged a bullet when Congress refused to enact Representative Clay’s National Public Employee Relations Act—a “Wagner Act for public employees”—in the mid-1970s. It was helped by a close Supreme Court decision that suggested that such an act was beyond Congress’ heretofore limitless power to regulate interstate commerce. Reagan’s breaking of the air traffic controllers strike also helped to ensure that the United States did not go as far as Italy, Greece, or even Great Britain–before Margaret Thatcher–in turning over its government to public-employee unions.

The ethos of “more” for the public sector has driven most of the West to the point where the private sector cannot produce enough to stave off bankruptcy. Occupy Wall Street drivel notwithstanding, the outright confiscation of all of the income of the “1%” would not even eliminate this year’s federal deficit.

Out of $30.5 million dollars given to We Are Ohio since the union front group was created this spring, the overwhelming majority is directly from union bosses standing to lose power over Ohio taxpayers when Issue 2 passes. It’s been expensive convincing Ohioans that government union reform will destroy the middle class and return Ohio to the days of Jim Crow laws. Who has contributed the most to “We Are Ohio’s” dishonest smear campaign?

• Ohio Education Association (state NEA affiliate): $5.87 million
• AFSCME (D.C.) $3 million
• National Labor Table (D.C.): $3 million
  
• AFSCME Local 11: $1.94 million
• National Education Association  (D.C.): $2 million
• Communications Workers of America (D.C.): $1.5 million
  
• AFL-CIO (D.C.): $1.5 million
• AFSCME Local 4: $1.46 million
• Ohio Federation of Teachers (state AFT affiliate): $1.26 million
• SEIU 1199 (New York): $1 million
• SEIU 1199 (Ohio): $1 million

It’s also worth noting that more than $100,000 of the non-individual Ohio contributions are from the Ohio Democratic Party, and nearly every individual donor who lists a profession is a union rep. This could prove donors’ selfless dedication to the happiness of Ohio government employees (taxpayers and cruel “mathematics” aside)… but that isn’t what my past few months of Ohio Education Association research would suggest!

Get the facts about Ohio Issue 2, spread the truth before November 8th, and watch this space for more…

“The first rule of Project Mayhem: You do not ask questions.” –Tyler Durden, Fight Club

On November 8, Ohioans vote on Issue 2 – which determines the fate of SB 5, signed in March by Gov. John Kasich. The bill offers to save $191 million annually at the state level and millions more at the local level by asking public employees to contribute merely 10 percent to their pensions and 15 percent towards their health care (as opposed to the average 31 percent that private employees contribute).

While actually preserving collective bargaining “rights,” it brings the actual employer (the taxpayer) to the bargaining table by replacing unelected, unfireable binding arbitrators with elected officials directly accountable for budget solvency, and clarifies the collectively bargainable “terms and conditions” – the ambiguities of which have long been exploited by unions for Cadillac benefits at taxpayer expense.

But one must read the bill to know this – which its opponents apparently don’t want you to do.

At an SEIU rally outside the Ohio Capitol in Columbus, I approached a member for information. She responded that under the bill “we will soon not have any seniority benefits, insurance benefits will go out the window” (correction: 90 percent of her pension and 85 percent of her health care will still be taxpayer-funded), and “we won’t have any rights for bargaining for safety” (correction: SB 5 is the very first law to grant workers the authority to bargain on safety under Section 4117.08 – a right not clarified in the Democrat-sponsored Ohio collective bargaining law of 1983).

When I then asked how a law that specifically grants the right to bargain on safety is taking away the right to bargain on safety, an SEIU organizer interrupted the interview, insisting their members are not to answer questions.

One must wonder why the SEIU rank and file – whom their organizers recruit to “get out the message” – are not even trusted by their organizers to, well, explain the message. Like Project Mayhem, the first rule of SEIU is: You do not ask questions.

(Perhaps because the answers might incline voters to wonder what the big deal is.)

Ironically, Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio – the leading anti-Issue 2 organization – appeared on MSNBC to tell Ed Schultz that “the more Ohioans learn about Senate Bill 5 and the fact that it’s unsafe, unfair, and hurts us all…the more Ohioans are with us.”

In Fazekas’ press statements since May (literally the website’s only informative literature), she explains in profound detail how precisely it is “unsafe, unfair, and hurts us all”:

It “is unfair, unsafe and hurts all of us” (8/12); it is an “unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety” (8/3); it is an “unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety” (7/21); it is an “unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety” (7/19); it is an “unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety” (7/14); it is an “unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety” (6/29); not to mention, it is an “unfair attack on employee rights and worker safety” (5/31). Oh, and it is “a bad bill” (7/21) – and by the way, it is “a bad bill” (7/20)!

And that’s why you should vote against it! What’s that? More questions? Must we go over this again?

We Are Ohio gleefully boasts itself to be “a citizen-driven, community-based, bipartisan coalition that has come together to repeal SB 5.”

And that’s all you need to know! No need to check our campaign finance disclosure!

And to their credit, the disclosure does, in fact, confirm that the group is “citizen-driven,” if by “citizen” they mean union special interests, and if by “community” they mean the Washington Big Labor oligarchy. Yes, their “community” base includes such “grassroots support” from the following:

AFL-CIO ($1,500,000), AFSCME ($1,000,000), AAUP ($200,000), SEIU ($200,562.01), UFCW Local 1059 ($104,165.20), Fraternal Order of Police ($87,722.34), Ohio Associate of Professional Firefighters ($87,071), Ohio Federation of Teachers ($72,554.42), AAUP Locals ($52,821.40), AFSCME Council 8 ($598,278.72), AFSCME 11 ($154,598.22), AFSCME 4 ($251,160.39), OEA ($756,859.68), Ohio Democrat Party ($72,422.50), CWA ($1,000,000); and other non-individual contributions ($155,613.98).

Only $39,333.89 was received from individual contributors (0.5 percent of their intake). But this didn’t stop Fazekas from bragging that “[n]early 80% of the contributors made contributions of $100 or less.”

Sure, and 99.4 percent of the contributions were five to seven figures, but you would have to break the Project Mayhem rule to find that out. (I asked Fazekas to explain why she had left that rather significant part out, to which she declined to comment.)

After Building a Better Ohio’s pro-Issue 2 ad aired, I received a “Dear Friend” e-mail from Are Ohio’s Joe Rettof bemoaning Better Ohio’s ad and their “secretive special interest groups” (by which I’m sure he meant the kind that don’t bankroll 99.4 percent of his organization’s budget). Rettof bragged that We Are Ohio’s ad featured Doug Stern, “a working class firefighter,” while their “opponents are using two politicians: Gov. Kasich and Toledo Mayor Mike Bell – both [of whom] are no friends of Middle Class Ohio.”

And that’s all you need to know! No need to check Bell’s resume!

Unfortunately for Rettof, however, Bell’s resume reveals he not only previously worked in the Toledo Fire Department (and was laid off early in his career), but was Fire Chief before being appointed by Democrat Governor Ted Strickland to State Fire Marshal. You know, one of those empty suit politicians with no empathy for working firefighters.

Theirs is not simply a misinformation campaign, but an uninformation campaign. Fazeka’s MSNBC “the more Ohioans learn…the more Ohioans are with us” bite is a fascinating quote from someone who manifestly wants them to learn as little as possible, whose apparent disregard for the average Ohioan’s intelligence and intellectual curiosity is the lifeblood of her optimism.

Their message is clear: Vote “no” on the bill – but whatever you do, don’t read it. And always remember the first rule of Project Mayhem.