Even though Obama was easily elected to a second term as President of the United States, the contentious debate over his so-called Socialist ties has not diminished. Opponents are claiming the first official visitors to the White House since the election were leaders of the Progressive Caucus and Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO .
Conservatives are not happy with the influence of the unions on the President. Obama promised the most transparent administration in American history; one that would be free of outside influence, special interest groups and lobbyists. However, the official log of visitors to the administration indicates a revolving door of the very people that the President promised to keep out of the White House.
During Obama’s first term, lobbyists for organized labor paid over 500 visits to the Whiter House for closed door meetings. Among the visitors were James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters 22 times; Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union,15 times; Edwin Hill, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 13 visits; Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, and Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, 10 times.
Trumka, who once took the 5th during an investigation of the Teamsters Union that linked prominent Democrats to union money laundering, has been a particular target of the right, who loathe his aggressive attitude and socialist leanings. According to Discover the Networks , Trumka’s ties to left wing politics and Socialism are long standing:
“In 1994, Trumka was honored at the annual Eugene Debs Award Banquet in Terre Haute, Indiana; the award was named after the man who founded the Socialist Party of America and ran for U.S. President five times on the Socialist Party ticket.”
Mr. Trumka makes no effort to hide his White House access. He almost boasts about his daily conversation with the Obama Administration, using his typical in-your-face tone.
“I’m at the White House a couple times a week. Two, three times a week. I have conversations everyday with someone in the White House or in the administration. Everyday.”
Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, Charles Krauthammer, was not surprised by Trumka’s constant contact with the White House.
“Well, you tell me. It’s not a new story that the AFL-CIO is close to the Democrats. It’s been that way for 50 years. It’s one of the largest union federations. We traditionally think of it associated with the industrial unions, steel workers, auto workers, and mine workers but it also has a large contingent of government workers, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, etc.”
“To me, it’s not news that they talk to the White House all the time. We know on Election Day the unions contribute huge amount of money to Democrats and they man the phone banks and they do the buses. They get out the vote. They are essentially a wing of the Democratic Party. There is nothing new here.”
To gain an understanding of just how important the unions were to President’s re-election, we only need to look at the union’s effort to get out the vote for Obama in 2012. After Mr. Trumka finished boasting about his regular visits to the White House, he poured a little salt in the wound by adding that a record 400,000 union volunteers would be knocking on doors and talking to voters in all 50 states before election day.
The unions donate untold millions of member’s mandatory dues to Democratic candidates and then order their workers out in the streets to campaign for those same candidates. Mr. Obama had a sizable army of union workers supplementing his billion dollar re-election campaign; an advantage that Mr. Romney was unable to match.
Unions are motivated by self interest, power and electing politicians who will do their bidding. Unions do not represent the American citizen. One only has to remember the words attributed to late American Federation of Teachers President, Albert Shanker, to understand the mindset of union leaders.
“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”
No sane person denies that the United States needs to take serious steps to put an end to the incredible corporate greed that is helping to create the vast gulf between the ultra rich and the average person. The time has come to put an end to the failed marriage between Washington and the major corporations sucking the life blood out of the American economy. At the same time, Socialism is not the answer and neither is an overbearing Federal government, armed with thousands of growth killing regulations.
Britain’s outspoken critic of Obama’s policies, Viscount Monckton, was absolutely blunt in his opinion of President Obama. In his historic exclusive interview with The Inquisitr’s Wolff Bachner, Viscount Monckton spoke about Obama’s plans for America and the encroachment of the United Nations Globalist policies on American sovereignty:
“If democracy is to survive, the US should refuse to ratify any international treaties whose governing bodies are not elected. Otherwise, the internationalization and eventual globalization of government will gradually weaken and eventually extinguish democracy itself, and the central ambition of the Founding Fathers of the United States will have been thwarted. My impression is that Mr. Obama would not mind in the least if democracy were forever destroyed. If so, he is not just un-American, he is UN-American: in fact, anti-American.”
Viscount Monckton’s words are echoed by many Americans, who fear Obama as a socialist out to re-distribute the wealth of America. It remains to be seen if they are correct, but there are millions of citizens in the United States who are strongly opposed to United Nations treaties that compromise national sovereignty. Most Americans want their laws to be based solely on our Constitution and they are highly offended when other nations try to punish America for her amazing success over 236 years of existence
Conservatives are tired of Obama’s endless Executive Orders to circumvent Congress and ignore the Separation of Powers. They want Washington to stop spending like a drunken sailor and deal with the crippling 16 trillion dollar deficit. Many American’s are frightened by the President’s well documented belief in economic redistribution and they are not fond of his party’s utter unwillingness to deal with the out of control spending on entitlement programs.
It is obvious the country is still deeply divided and it may be many years before our leaders finally put aside their partisan politics to rebuild our bankrupt nation. Surviving the crash after falling off the fiscal cliff is one nightmare that the American people can surely do without.