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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alan Smithee who wrote (333396)	11/10/2009 4:06:24 PM
From: SmoothSail	Respond to of 793990

they bussed in a few dozen SEIU thugs. Wouldn't surprise me one bit. And it wouldn't surprise me if it originated with Rhambo. The tepid response O has had from the military compared to the way Bush used to be warmly welcomed could be the reason.

To: Alan Smithee who wrote (333396)	11/11/2009 11:53:45 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 793990

Unholy Union Why is the SEIU boss the White House’s most frequent visitor? STEPHEN SPRUIELL The Friday before Halloween, in response to requests from the public, the White House released records of the visitors it had received between January and July. George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, and Serena Williams were among the famous names on the list. But the man who appeared most frequently is less well-known. His name is Andrew Stern, and during the first six months of Obama’s tenure, he visited the White House 21 times — about three times per month. Most of these visits included an intimate meeting with the president or other senior officials. Among outsiders, Stern enjoys unrivaled access to the White House. And the more you know about him, the spookier that sounds. Stern is president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a federation of health-care, public-sector, and custodial workers that claims approximately 2 million members. Stern replaced former president John Sweeney in 1996, the year after Sweeney won a bitterly fought battle for control of the AFL-CIO. At the time, Sweeney’s win was viewed as a victory for the left wing of the labor movement. Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in these pages: “Many of the people in [Sweeney’s] camp have backgrounds in the New Left.” Andrew Stern certainly fits that description. Stern lacks the traditional blue-collar pedigree of a union boss. In a profile of him for The New Republic, Bradford Plumer wrote, “Stern was part of a generation of idealistic union leaders who came to organized labor from college, not the factory floor.” He started at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school in the late ’60s, dabbled in student radicalism, changed his major, bummed around Europe, came back to the States, and went to work as a welfare case officer in Pennsylvania. SEIU had just organized his shop, and he got active in the union. He ended up as one of Sweeney’s protégés, his successor, and, eventually, his bête noire. In the 1950s, the percentage of American workers who belonged to a union peaked at around 34 percent. Today, that number is closer to 12 percent — 7.6 if you’re counting only private-sector jobs. Against this backdrop of declining ... Message 26089395