In Ohio, as union bosses have embraced Occupy Wall Street’s (OWS) class war between the “99 percent” and the “1 percent,” it has becomes increasingly difficult not to ask an obvious question:

Aren’t union bosses basically the 1 percent?

Throughout the run-up to Ohio’s Issue 2 election on November 8, in which voters will consider a referendum on the state’s new public sector labor reforms, I’ve met pponents of the bill at Occupy Columbus who say they are fed up with “the rich taking from the middle class.” They direct their class warfare energies at the abstract Wall Street anathema, but the scenario is literally accurate–and not in some obtuse, Marxist form–as a description of the fiscal dynamic between union bosses and rank-and-file members.

I asked one teacher how, being an Occupy demonstrator and opponent of Ohio labor reforms, she justified the $210,000 annual salary of Larry Wicks, executive director of the Ohio Education Association (OEA), of which she is a dues-paying member. She paused for thought–understandably, since that fact would seem to justify class warfare against the “rich” Mr. Wicks. Ultimately, she concurred with my criticism, and even condemned her very own OEA.

Other Ohio teachers are even less hesitant to criticize their union. One teacher (who wished to remain anonymous for her own safety) shared that she had requested a waiver to opt out of paying the union’s political assessments, to which the response was, “We’ll get back to you.” They didn’t. (more…)

If you’ve been following the Senate Bill 5 debate in Ohio, at some point you have surely seen the “We Are Ohio” union front group refer to studies written by Rutgers University professor, Jeffrey Keefe, for the Economic Policy Institute.  ”We Are Ohio” is the union front group who is spearheading the opposition to collective bargaining reform for Ohio’s public-sector employees.  The legislation is on the ballot for Ohio voters this November.  A “Yes” vote upholds the new reforms.  The study is a comparison of private-sector versus public-sector compensation, and is frequently cited by the anti-Issue 2 crowd.

EPI Researcher Jeffrey Keefe agreed to publish a study for the Ohio Education Association
and to kill any information that would be contrary to the outcome that OEA desired.

In July, “We Are Ohio” spokesperson Melizza Fazekas steered Columbus Business First reporter Jeff Bell to Keefe’s study.

The folks I interviewed said those trying to save S.B. 5 will hammer us with information on how the benefits and pay for Ohio’s public workers are better on average than those of us in the private sector. When asked that question, Fazekas quickly steered to me to a study on the compensation issue completed this year by Jeffrey Keefe, a labor and employment relations professor at Rutgers in New Jersey.

“We will combat it with the truth,” she said.

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Many on the left, including the Center for Media and Democracy, are now challenging the veracity of Christian Hartsock and my separate but damning video selections taken at the Van Vones/Common Cause/Code Pink “Uncloak the Kochs” rally in Rancho Mirage, California, on January 30, 2011:

In a peaceful rally of more than 1,000 people, a crew of videographers who have worked with Breitbart egged a few into making outrageous, bigoted remarks on camera, then presented them as representative of the entire crowd and the rally sponsors. None of the interviewees was identified, and some looked to be wearing wigs or disguises. Given Breitbart’s history of promoting staged videos, it is difficult to have any confidence in the authenticity of the clips.

For two years the left has tried desperately to find video evidence of Tea Party participants to damn the whole. They have failed so miserably that it became necessary for the creation of the group, CrashTheTeaParty.org, which called for opponents of the Tea Party to dress up as Nazis or in other offensive uniforms, or to carry troubling signs, all in the hopes of getting the mainstream media to falsely portray the fake Tea Party protesters as authentic and representative of the whole.

Well, Christian and I needn’t instigate fake people dressing and acting foolishly, in a racist fashion, or threatening violence. Those at the Rancho Mirage anti-Koch rally (against capitalism, free markets, and gummy bears) have been more than forthright in their extremism. (And now look at what we found in Madison, Wisconsin!)

Since Lisa Graves and the Center for Media and Democracy has now challenged the authenticity of the videos we took, we feel it’s appropriate to isolate those who made the hateful remarks by name.

The first is self-identified “Roger Fraser from Chicago, and happy to be here!”

I found him yelling “revolution now!” as I was rollerblading amongst the anti-capitalism H8 chanters.

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