Sometimes union thugs wear pinstriped business suits. Investment banker Ron Bloom is one of those thugs.

He decided in the 1970s to devote his life to helping labor unions stick it to America’s corporations. As an organizer, negotiator, and researcher for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Booth observed that many union negotiators didn’t have the skills they needed to bargain effectively with management.

“Unions were being backed into corners by companies and couldn’t understand on a sophisticated level, the company’s arguments … Labor needed to be armed with the equivalent skills.”

A longtime leftist, Bloom acquired the skills he needed to run circles around management. He went to Harvard Business School and built up his resume.

Bloom, who was President Obama’s car czar and then manufacturing czar, excels at wheeling and dealing. Last year Time magazine fawned over Bloom, naming him as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Bloom’s “role in brokering the rescue of General Motors and Chrysler while preserving more than 100,000 jobs demanded a synergist who could work both sides of the equation with authority and respect.”

Although it is true that Bloom was one of the principal architects of the auto industry bailout, Time failed to mention that he made certain that the deal enriched the United Auto Workers at the expense of bondholders. Bondholders accept low rates of return on their investment in the expectation that if the company goes belly-up they will be among the first creditors paid back, but Bloom and his colleagues in the Obama administration upended that ancient rule of repayment priority in the name of so-called “social justice.” They made sure that President Obama’s allies in the labor movement got far more than their fair share.

In his career as an investment banker, Bloom has used his considerable skills as a negotiator to engineer deals that benefit trade unions.

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The power to make money, and the ability to receive a reward for assuming risk, have been cornerstones of America’s economic success.  A free-enterprise system made the U.S. the world’s only remaining superpower.

Sadly, all of the above are foreign concepts to the government-run public education system.  Karen Lewis, the new president of the Chicago Teachers Union, recently fired this shot across the administrators’ bow:

I’m giving notice to [Chicago Public Schools’ CEO] Ron Huberman and the board: you’ve met your match.  We will no longer be played.

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We’re going to put business in its place: out of our schools.  These corporate heads and politicians seem willing to trade off our childrens’ and educators’ futures to pad their bottom line.

Her speech goes on with one-liners that would make Mao Tse-Tung (and Karl Marx) blush.  Anita Dunn, call your office!  This is the type of person we should expect to teach students an appreciation of what’s made America great?  Perhaps Ms. Lewis would fit better in the Havana Education Association than any teacher group in America.

The National Education Association recently considered a New Business Item at its annual convention which called for bouncing Education Secretary (and former CPS CEO) Arne Duncan and replace him with “a person who is aligned with the interests of the NEA, its members, and especially the students it serves.”  The reason?

The D.O.E. must be led by someone who sees all students as deserving of an excellent public school and the federal funding it requires, not just those in states that can win resources by best adopting  Sect. Duncan’s competitive philosophy.

Leaving aside my quibbles with the reform competition known as “Race to the Top,”  what has made it successful is the fact that states have had to one-up each other in terms of legislating reforms to in order to compete for the money.  I can see why that wouldn’t fly in the public schools of say, Cuba.  But apparently it’s just as unwelcome in the union halls of Chicago and elsewhere in America.

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An April 30th Press Release issued by Leading Authorities, Inc., announces Andy Stern’s latest move:

“Leading Authorities, Inc. has signed Andrew (Andy) L. Stern, the former president of the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the fastest-growing union in North America. Stern turned SEIU into a powerful political force, and Stern and SEIU were widely credited for helping elect Barack Obama in 2008.

“We are extremely proud and privileged to be representing Andy Stern,” said Leading Authorities founder and CEO Mark French. “He is a major force in Washington politics. He transformed the labor movement, raised huge sums for President Obama’s election, and exerted monumental influence on the health care debate. Everyone at LAI is thrilled to be working with Andy.”   The release goes on to state,  “Stern will be addressing audiences about politics and issues such as fiscal policy, entitlements, immigration, healthcare, and the future of the labor movement.  He will speak independently, and also be matched with leading Republican thinkers.”

About the company:

“Leading Authorities, Inc. is one of the nation’s most progressive event design firms as well as a renowned lecture agency and production house. LAI represents thought leaders in business, politics and contemporary life as well as nationally-recognized entertainment acts. Our award-winning video and production departments provide professionally managed events and cutting-edge media products. Our experiential event design experts conduct workshops to improve attendance, engagement, and return on investment. With tools such as our Strategic Event Evaluation and our Event Design Workshops, Leading Authorities is setting the standard in customized, fully integrated event design.”

Aw, Andy’s got himself an agent.  Show him the money.

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Knowing that the 111th Democrat-Progressive ruled Congress is indeed tyrannical in its endeavors to ram through ObamaCare, the Left continuously touts that the American people want this bill. Now, I have seen the polls and so have you, and so have the Democrats, including Obama, and they clearly know that they American people are vehemently against this healthcare takeover.

This leads me to my next point. I search through our Founder’s words in the Declaration of Independence. I’m searching for guidance, for the Founders must have known there would be tyranny lurking at every corner to deconstruct the nation that they had instituted. So many of us read the founding documents today, dusting them off, reading every word, clinging to every word. And there it is:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. emphasis mine

What’s missing is the how. We have the Right. But, does it go further?  An obligation, perhaps? Do the Founders leave the door open to any effective means? The people have the Right to abolish an oppressive form of government. Because we do not consent, we have the Right to institute a new government–to abolish all that exists and start new. All the entitlements, bribes, kickbacks, deals, unfair taxation–everything.  They give Americans the Right, directive, and ability to dissolve the current tyrannical government.  They knew this would happen.  That is why they give us the “Right” to guard this great nation against future tyranny.

In addition, our Founders, as only Fathers could to, give us the directive in the Declaration of Independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. emphasis mine

It is our duty to ”throw off such government.” Not optional.  An obligation.

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There used to be a certain level of decorum incumbent upon the office of the President of the United States.  After all, the office is more than the man that occupies it.  It’s also more than his politics or platform.  In many ways the Presidency is the embodiment of America.  It’s the face we put forward to the world.  With the election of President Obama the presidency has also awakened dreams in many children who never believed the White House was attainable.

The mandates of the office dictate how those entrusted with its power should act.  The Obama White House has failed to maintain the high standards of this office.  Rather than operating in a dignified manner the staff has desecrated the office by resorting to old-school Chicago-style politics.  That is to say they’ve used the Presidency to reward their friends and single out and attack their enemies.

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During the Democratic primary, an arm of the powerful Service Employees International Union pressured Hillary Clinton’s campaign to fire its top strategist because he made a good living fighting unions and their policy priorities. So what will the union do now that a top Obama aid is married to a lawyer who’s tied to a firm advising clients on how to avoid unions?

Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director

The quick back story: In April 2008, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was forced to demote its top strategist in large part because he was advising a campaign to push a free trade agreement with Colombia and operates a firm that fights union campaigns — both taboo for Democrats’ biggest special interest, organized labor.

But check out this twist, courtesy of LaborUnionReport.com. President Obama’s White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn’s husband is partner in a law firm that advises the president and fights union drives:

Ms. Dunn, according to Politico and other web resources, is married to a man named Bob Bauer. Mr. Bauer is a partner and Chair of the Political Law Group of Perkins Coie LLP.

Interestingly, according to the bio on his law firm’s website, Mr. Bauer is Counsel to Obama for America and General Counsel to the Democratic National Committee, and he has been counsel for many years to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees. Mr. Bauer is also the President’s personal attorney.

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