Look For The Union Libel

By Phil Boehmke

He may not be the future former president's most frequent White House visitor (that would be the SEIU's Andy Stern), but AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is one of Obama's most loyal comrades. Echoing the party line during a toxic speech at Harvard on Wednesday night.

Trumka described "radio voices" as "forces of hate" for creating an us-versus-them mentality that can divide the country and hinder enacting economic policies to fix the economy.

"There are forces in our country that are working hard to convert justifiable anger about an economy that only seems to work for a few of us into racist and homophobic hate and violence directed at our President and heroes like Congressman John Lewis," he told an audience at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "Most of all these forces of hate seek to divide working people-to turn our anger against each other."

Mr. Trumka fired up the partisan crowd by putting his proletariat pleasing stamp on the Obama talking points for the ongoing campaign against freedom. Trumka was following the party play book by labeling the patriots of the Tea Party Movement, conservative talk radio and all opponents of tyranny as racists and homophobes.

During the Q&A that followed Trumka's baseless attack on free thinking Americans, Andrew Breitbart spoke up for us all by reminding the AFL-CIO strongman that no actual evidence of the alleged racist incident prior to the vote on ObamaCare had been presented, in spite of his personal $100,000 offer for any such evidence. The union boss responded that.

...he himself had seen the events in question. "I watched them spit at people, I watched then call John Lewis the n-word," Trumka said. "I witnessed it, I witnessed it. I saw it in person. That's real evidence."

And yet somehow the incident in question was not captured on any of the numerous video cameras or cell phones. In spite of the best efforts of the Democrats to provoke an incident for the cameras and their fellow travelers in the MSM, no physical evidence was produced. Even John Lewis himself has since backed off his previous claims about the incident in question.

With regard to Trumka's applying the union label of hate and violence to those of us who dare stand up to the leftist assault on liberty and our American way of life, we should consider the source of these allegations. The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation Inc. reports that during Trumka's tenure as President of the United Mine Workers.

1989 UMW strike against Pittston Coal - Virginia Circuit Court Judge Donald McGlothlin Jr. declared that "the evidence show beyond any shadow of a doubt that violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union."

Unanimous Virginia Supreme Court reinforced Judge McGlothlin's findings: "Union officials took active roles in these unlawful activities. Notwithstanding the large fines, the Union never represented to the court that it regretted or intended to cease its lawless actions. To the contrary, the utter defiance of the rule of law continued unabated."

[...]

1993 UMW strike against Peabody Coal--Eddie York, a 39 year old non-union worker, "was shot in the back of the head and killed" leaving a job in Logan County, West Virginia.

[...]

In a detailed account of the York murder and subsequent investigation, Reader's Digest noted that "UMW President Richard Trumka did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local." [emphases added]

Maybe Mr. Trumka has forgotten about these and numerous other incidents which the casual observer might interpret as being hateful or violent. His urging of union members to "kick the (expletive) out of every last one of ‘em," (regarding workers who crossed the picket line) certainly sums up Boss Trumka's philosophy of conflict resolution.

With the recess appointment of SEIU lawyer Craig Becker to the NLRB, we have edged ever nearer to organized labor's unholy grail of "card check." With people like Richard Trumka and Andy Stern in control of the unions and the Obama-Reid-Pelosi crew running roughshod over the federal government is it any wonder that we are angry? Is it any wonder that the Tea Party Movement is gathering steam?

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
- Ronald Reagan