Like a Mafia Don, Dem lawmaker tells unions "Get a little bloody when necessary"

---

Matt Murphy at Dorchester Reporter reports how one such union capo, Rep. Michael Capuano is telling the union members to “get out on the streets and get a little bloody”. Capuano is a good example of the incestuous relationship between unions and the politicians they own. Capuano has recieved almost $900,000 from unions and that does not count the help with phone banks, get out the vote efforts, and boots on the ground help by union members. According to OpenSecrets.org Capuano's union dollars break down like this:

• Transportation unions $242,450
• Public sector unions $204,650
• Building trade unions $176,750
• Industrial unions $169,250
• Misc unions $ 91,250

But Capuano is not alone by any means. Twelve of the top twenty heavy hitters in campaign contributions are unions. All twelve give over 90% to Democrats.

LEGEND: Republican Democrat On the fence
	= Between 40% and 59% to both parties = Leans Dem/Repub (60%-69%) = Strongly Dem/Repub (70%-89%) = Solidly Dem/Repub (over 90%)

Rank	Organization	Total ‘89-’10	Dem %	Repub %	Tilt
1	ActBlue	$50,010,524	99%	0%
2	AT&T Inc	$46,077,005	44%	55%
3	American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees	$43,337,561	98%	1%
4	National Assn of Realtors	$38,628,441	49%	50%
5	Goldman Sachs	$33,360,252	61%	37%
6	American Assn for Justice	$33,047,779	90%	8%
7	Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers	$32,930,966	97%	2%
8	National Education Assn	$32,021,910	93%	6%
9	Laborers Union	$30,106,550	92%	7%
10	Carpenters & Joiners Union	$29,154,808	89%	10%
11	Service Employees International Union	$29,139,982	95%	3%
12	Teamsters Union	$29,126,809	93%	6%
13	American Federation of Teachers	$28,731,591	98%	0%
14	Communications Workers of America	$28,273,156	98%	0%
15	Citigroup Inc	$27,974,371	50%	49%
16	American Medical Assn	$27,442,570	40%	59%
17	United Auto Workers	$26,949,252	98%	0%
18	Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union	$26,170,977	98%	0%
19	National Auto Dealers Assn	$26,156,258	32%	67%
20	United Food & Commercial Workers Union	$25,226,733	98%	1%

(Source Center for Responsive Politics OpenSecrets.org) Not surprisingly the top twenty recipients of labor cash in the 2010 election cycle were all Democrats:

1	Critz, Mark (D-PA)	House	$396,500
2	Sestak, Joseph A Jr (D-PA)	House	$385,800
3	Hoyer, Steny H (D-MD)	House	$361,700
4	Carnahan, Robin (D-MO)		$361,100
5	Murphy, Scott (D-NY)	House	$360,600
6	Chu, Judy (D-CA)	House	$359,650
7	Hanabusa, Colleen (D-HI)		$339,400
8	Hodes, Paul W (D-NH)	House	$339,250
9	Garamendi, John (D-CA)	House	$338,500
10	Bishop, Timothy H (D-NY)	House	$333,750
11	Schauer, Mark (D-MI)	House	$324,525
12	Clyburn, James E (D-SC)	House	$317,000
13	Sutton, Betty Sue (D-OH)	House	$311,880
14	Reid, Harry (D-NV)	Senate	$309,600
15	Dahlkemper, Kathleen (D-PA)	House	$309,200
16	Hare, Phil (D-IL)	House	$303,010
17	Pelosi, Nancy (D-CA)	House	$302,500
18	Connolly, Gerry (D-VA)	House	$300,700
19	Schumer, Charles E (D-NY)	Senate	$299,250
20	Boxer, Barbara (D-CA)	Senate	$295,250

(top twenty in 2009 was also all Democrats) Big labor also spends millions lobbying congress for union welfare bills like the prevailing wage requirement and big federal projects like Obama’s high speed rail vision. Most of Obama’s proposed ‘investment’ in infrastructure spending is really an investment of taxpayer funds into the campaign coffers of Democrats after filtering through the unions.

Center for Responsive Politics - OpenSecrets.org

Big labor lobbying for 2010 alone is over $46 million!And it happens at all levels of government. The NEA is the largest labor union and is the eighth largest contributor of campaign money to congress. 91% of the donations go to Democrats. According to RiShawn Biddle in a Capital Research Center report: ‘The NEA took in an estimated $569 million that it spent on local, state and national political campaigns during the 2007-2008 election cycle, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. This made the NEA the nation’s single-biggest campaign contributor for the 2009-2010 election period…” ‘This fundraising prowess is why Harvard University education scholar Paul Peterson declares that the NEA is “in a position to tell state legislatures what to do.”’ This is exactly what we are seeing in Wisconsin. The Democrats in the state legislature were out numbered by the duly elected representatives of the people of Wisconsin but are so in bed with the teachers union that they fled the state to avoid even having a vote. Wisconsin schools have doubled per student spending from 1998 to 2008 and yet there has been no improvement in schools. Terence P. Jeffrey at CNSNews.com reported how even in inflation adjusted dollars Wisconsin’s increaed spending a very poor results: In 2009, Wisconsin public school eighth graders once again scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. Meanwhile, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil expenditures from $4,956 per pupil in 1998 to 10,791 per pupil in 2008. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator the $4,956 Wisconsin spent per pupil in 1998 dollars equaled $6,546 in 2008 dollars. That means that from 1998 to 2008, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil spending by $4,245 in real terms yet did not add a single point to the reading scores of their eighth graders and still could lift only one-third of their eighth graders to at least a “proficient” level in reading. The $10,791 that Wisconsin spent per pupil in its public elementary and secondary schools in fiscal year 2008 was more than any other state in the Midwest. In other words, despite the $10,791 that taxpayers were paying to educate students in Wisconsin public schools, two-thirds of eighth graders in those schools showed at best only a “partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work” at that grade level. In fiscal 2008, the federal government provided $669.6 million in subsidies to the public schools in Wisconsin.[emphasis added] There has been a long time shakedown of the American taxpayer with unions conspiring with Democrats to fleece the taxpayer. But something funny happened on the way to the bank. The taxpayer has run out of money. This doesn’t seem to matter to the unions or the Democrats. Obama is possibly the worst of the bunch. Unions spent millions to help Obama get elected and he is paying them back in spades. Recent paybacks to unions by Obama include overturning a 76 year old rule to make it easier to unionize airlines and more importantly a new executive order requiring all government contracts be to union companies. Both of these union payoffs were done without needing or even asking for congressional approval. Close to half of Obama’s first $820 billion stimulus bill went ‘to entities that sponsor or employ or both members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democrat-controlled unions‘ according to Ben Stein in an article last year in The American Spectator about the stimulus. More recently, congress passed the $30 billion ‘teacher bailout’ bill which funneled approximately $16 billion to union teacher and other public employee union jobs. Obama usurped a long history of banking and creditor laws when he bailed out GM and Chrysler. In return for campaign support Obama gave partial ownership of both auto companies to the UAW and shafted the bond holders who had legal legitimate claims on the assets of the companies. An earlier IBD Editorial pointed out the sweetheart deal Obama gave the UAW:

“Given that the wasteful work rules that UAW bosses — wielding government-granted monopoly-bargaining power over employees — insisted on for decades were largely what drove GM into bankruptcy, they certainly didn’t deserve kid-gloves treatment. Yet that’s what they got. A UAW-controlled auto retiree health care fund was owed $20 billion by GM before the bailout. Under the White House-dictated terms, UAW-appointed fund managers got back half of what they were owed in cash, whereas taxpayers who were owed $19.4 billion didn’t get a dime back in cash. Instead, the Obama administration “forgave” this entire loan on taxpayers’ behalf and earmarked an additional $23.5 billion for the company’s trip through bankruptcy. In exchange for the nearly $43 billion funneled to GM, taxpayers acquired a “60.8% equity stake” in GM.”

It should be noted that the UAW is one of the most politically active of all unions. The union gave $2,119.937 to the 2008 campaigns 99% of which went to Obama and the Democrats. They gave another $1,106,500 in this past 2010 election cycle 100% of which went to Democrats. That is a total of $3,226,437 in just the last two election cycles. That does not include the phone banks, neighborhood canvassing and get out the vote efforts. Since 1990 the UAW has donated $26,510,252 of which 99% went to Democrats. Not a bad return on investment when you consider they received billions back in ownership and benefit funding. So in reality taxpayer money was used to pay off unions so that they could then campaign for Democrats and lobby for special favors from those same Democrats. This is change alright. An increase in arrogant corruption that is off the Richter scale. And barely a peep is being made about the $248 million in estimated fees being paid to the IPO underwriters including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Barclays, Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank, and Royal Bank of Canada. As another bonus for Obama who is the all time highest recipient of contributions from Goldman Sachs related donors, Goldman gets a payoff from the union payoff. Isn’t America great! Now we see why Democrats are willing to tell unions to ‘get a little bloody when necessary’. They are protecting the biggest organized crime racket in America. Only its all legal. And we see that the union agenda really is the Obama agenda. Michael Whipple, is the Editor of usACTIONnews.com

---