Big Labor's Investment in Obama Pays Off

This is one of the unions wanting to control you and your job with government permission.
The UAW is right behind them...They want to come into your place of business or your job and make you sign a card to join their unions and will try to force you into signing it...This is not acceptable practices in my book!

By Michelle Malkin
Townhall.com

"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama -- $60.7 million to be exact -- and we're proud of it," boasted Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, to the Las Vegas Sun this week. The behemoth labor organization's leadership is getting its money's worth. Whether rank-and-file workers and ordinary taxpayers are profiting from this ultimate campaign pay-for-play scheme is another matter entirely.

The two-million-member union, which represents both government and private service employees, proudly claimed that its workers "knocked on 1.87 million doors, made 4.4 million phone calls … and sent more than 2.5 million pieces of mail in support of Obama." It dispatched SEIU leaders to seven states in the final weekend before the election to get out the vote for Obama and other Democrats.

Through a series of local chapter takeovers and bully campaigns to destroy the reputation of executives who refuse to submit to their will, Stern and his scandal-plagued lieutenants have consolidated low-skill service workers to create a 21st century labor empire. The ubiquitous Stern now enjoys a prominent seat at the table of every major policy discussion at the White House, including economic recovery and health care radicalization.

Obama champions the SEIU's top legislative priorities: expansive government health care (paid for with regressive sin taxes) and the "Employee Free Choice Act" to do away with private-ballot union elections in the workplace. He has SEIU-blessed bureaucrats installed in every corner of his administration to carry out the agenda.

The SEIU scored not one but two Cabinet appointees: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. The SEIU pitched in with maximum donations to Solis' first congressional campaign and lent her nearly 300 canvassers and ground troops. "I wouldn't be here, were it not for my friends in the labor movement," she gushed. Indeed, over four terms in Congress, Solis has pocketed more than $900,000 in union campaign contributions.

Former SEIU chief lobbyist Patrick Gaspard served as the Obama campaign's national political director and transition deputy director of personnel. During the 2004 election cycle, he led the George Soros-funded group America Coming Together (ACT) as national field director. SEIU poured $23 million of workers' dues money into ACT in its failed attempt to put Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the White House. Under Gaspard's tenure at ACT, the get-out-the-vote group employed convicted felons as canvassers and committed campaign finance violations that led to a $775,000 fine by the Federal Election Commission. Gaspard was appointed White House political director shortly after Election Day 2008.

SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger was appointed to the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide advice on "boosting the sagging U.S. economy" (translation: imposing new employment regulations on companies and expanding union membership rolls).

Within two weeks of moving into the White House, Obama signed a series of executive orders championed by union bosses. The new rules authorized sweeping powers for the labor secretary that essentially blackball nonunion contractors targeted by labor organizers and blacklist nonunion employees in the private sector from working on taxpayer-funded projects. Such regulatory favoritism limits freedom in the workplace and raises the cost of doing business.

Another measure immediately adopted by Obama requires that when a government service contract runs out and there's a new contract to perform the same services at the same location, the new contractor must retain the old workers. Mickey Kaus of the left-leaning Slate magazine dubbed the move the "Labor Payoff of the Day."

The payoffs keep coming. Last week Obama slashed the Labor Department's funding to investigate union corruption -- a welcome move for Stern, who has seen three of his handpicked deputies resign in 2008-2009 over financial scandals involving cronyism, nepotism and embezzlement.

California officials also reported last week that the Obama White House gave the SEIU an unprecedented role in negotiations over federal stimulus funds. According to the Los Angeles Times, the union lobbied the feds to withhold nearly $7 billion in stimulus money from California unless it revoked a wage cut for unionized health care workers -- which had already been approved by Democratic lawmakers as part of a budget deal forged in February. Top SEIU officials participated in a conference call last month on the issue; the Obama White House backs the union demands.

SEIU's enforcers have set aside $10 million to un-elect any of its political beneficiaries who abandon their pledges to do the union's legislative bidding. The campaign money was raised by slapping an extra $6-per-member fee on top of regular dues payments -- and funneled straight to the union's political action committee. Meanwhile, after spending a fortune to put Obama in office, the union laid off a third of its D.C. field staff (in violation of its own employment protections, according to the workers) due to … budget troubles.

The laid-off workers are collateral damage in Big Labor's pursuit of power. The only jobs guaranteed by SEIU's merger with Hope and Change, Inc. belong to the brass.

Obama Is Handing Over Our Country To The Unions

It has become increasingly clear that Obama is in bed with the unions.
He is spending OUR tax dollars to shore up the unions and circumventing bankruptsy laws to give Chrysler Corporation to the unions in a 55% ownership role....The unions who gave Obama millions of dollars in campaign contributions are cleaning up america on your dime!..

You Have Got To Be Kidding Me!..U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job

Here are some more of OUR hard earned tax dollars being wasted on people who are not even United States Citizens!...Tell me people...How much more will the tax paying americasn really take from Washington DC corrupt politicians???

By Edwin Mora


The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers."

"Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the 'gatekeepers', defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li.

"Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China," says the abstract.

The research will take place in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi.

Guangxi is ranked third in HIV rate among Chna's provinces--and is a place where the sex business is pervasive, Li said.

“The purpose of the project is to try and develop an intervention program targeting HIV risk and alcohol use,” Li told CNSNews.com. “So basically, it’s an alcohol and HIV risk reduction intervention project."

The researcher outlined three components of the intervention program in the abstract for the project:

“(1) gatekeeper training with a focus on changing or enhancing the protective social norms and policy/practice at the establishment level; (2) FSW (female sex workers) training with a focus on the acquisition of communication skills (negotiating, limit setting) and behavioral skills (e.g., condom use skills, consistent condom use); and (3) semi-annual boosters to reinforce both social norms within establishments and individual skills,” wrote Li.

The doctor said the heart of the study involves “a community-based cluster randomized controlled trial among 100 commercial sex venues in Beihai, a costal tourist city in Guangxi.”

"We anticipate that the venue-based intervention program will be culturally appropriate, feasible, effective and sustainable in alcohol use and sexual risk reduction among FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract.

Li said his study is being done in China rather than the U.S. because prostitution occurs with alcohol use in the United States like it does in China, Americans will be able to benefit from the project’s findings.

“We want to get some understanding of the fundamental role of alcohol use and HIV risk,” he said. “We use the population in China as our targeted population to look at the basic issues. I think the findings will benefit the American people, too.”

Li said minimal research has been conducted on the link between alcohol use and prostitution as it relates to HIV.

“Alcohol has been a part of the commerce of sex for many, many years. Unfortunately, both global-wise (and) in the United States, very few researchers are looking at the complex issue of the inter play between alcohol and the commerce of sex,” he told CNSNews.com.

The grant is one of several “international initiatives” sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Ralph Hingson, director of epidemiology and prevention research at NIAA, told CNSNews.com, “There are many Americans who travel to China each year and they should be made aware of the HIV problem.”

Hingson said that Americans will be able to apply the studies findings to the American situation because 1.2 million Americans are currently living with HIV.

Li’s research includes exploration, development, implementation and evaluation. Currently, the project stands at the exploration stage, which the doctor expects to last 18 months.

“The first phase is kind of an exploratory study just trying to get a good understanding of the phenomena in the population of female sex workers in China. The second phase is the program development,” the professor told CNSNews.com.

Phase two will be based on the first year of the study and on “field observations,” he added. The third phase will be the implementation and evaluation of the program.

“Prostitution is illegal in China but it exists in China," Li told CNSNews.com, “but the Chinese government and the society’s attitude towards prostitution is complicated.”

According to Li, there may be as many as 10 million female prostitutes in China with the majority raging from teenagers to those in their 20s.

“We see a lot of governmental initiatives in China, like 100 percent condom distribution promotion programs, so they deliver condoms in those (prostitution) venues," he added.

“The global literature indicates an important role of alcohol use in facilitating HIV/AIDS transmission risk in commercial sex venues where elevated alcohol use/abuse and sexual risk behaviors frequently co-occur,” Li wrote when introducing the project last November.

"We expect that the intervention will improve protective normative beliefs and institutional support regarding alcohol use and HIV protection,” he added.

The NIH proposal hypothesizes that the program will decrease "problem drinking and alcohol-related sexual risk" among prostitutes that participate.

"We hypothesize that the venue-based intervention will change and enhance the protective social norms and institutional policies at the establishment level and such enhancement, accompanied by individual skill training among FSWs, will demonstrate a sustainable effect within commercial sex establishments in decreasing problem drinking and alcohol-related sexual risk, increasing consistent and correct condom use, and reducing rates of HIV/STD infection among FSWs," says the NIH abstract.

Who Wants to Confiscate Your 401(k) And IRA? Pay Close Attention America

If you’re like most people who are planning for retirement you have been socking away your money in an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) or 401(k) plan.

And when the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 14,198.10 on Oct. 11, 2007, you thought you were set. The Dow was running up. Your retirement funds were growing. Everything looked good.

Then stocks began a downward slide that turned into a cliff dive by the following spring as the full extent of the financial crisis came to light. To make matters worse, the market then showed what it thought of the efforts of Congress and the President (both Bush and Obama) to stem the crisis—it tanked.

Fast forward to March 6, 2009. Stocks hit their lows and your retirement funds had dropped by 40 percent to 60 percent.

Now your retirement years no longer look quite so rosy. You’re thinking you may have to work an additional 10 years just to build that nest egg back to October 2007 levels.

Well, don’t fret, help is on the way. The same entity that’s done such a great job of managing Social Security may soon be managing your personal retirement plan.

Congressional Democrats have been holding hearings to decide what to do to help Americans prepare for retirement. Their conclusions: It might be a good thing for the government to eliminate tax breaks for 401(k)s, IRAs and similar retirement accounts, confiscate them and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRA) managed by the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Now unions are joining the bandwagon. Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was quoted in a union publication saying that he supports a plan to centralize all retirement plans for American workers. His plan includes private 401(k)s and IRAs.

What he wants is for the government to confiscate your private retirement plan and set up a government pension system for everyone similar to the European system. And as is usual with grand government schemes nowadays, individual choice no longer applies.

The SEIU, by the way, is one of the nation’s largest labor unions and it invested heavily in getting President Barack Obama elected. Plus, the union is working with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare on the plan.

In other words, the SEIU carries a lot of clout with this President and Democrat-controlled Congress.

But the SSA hasn’t done such a great job managing Social Security. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security outlays will exceed revenue in 2019, and Social Security funds will be exhausted in 2049.

So, for a 20-year-old just entering the job market who will pay into the system for 40 to 45 years, there is no hope of recovering that money when he or she retires.

There is currently no bill in committee or before Congress to set up a GRA. But the fact that it’s being discussed in committees and pushed by Big Labor should be enough to frighten you.

It’s time to consider, if you haven’t already, your financial plans for your retirement years—whether you are 20, 70 or somewhere in between. Is it time to cash it out? That’s for you to decide along with a tax or financial advisor, as the penalties for early withdrawal are oppressive.

Regardless, as the Federal Reserve prints dollar upon dollar to fund its economic stimulus Ponzi schemes, gold as an investment looks better and better.