Union head threatens legislators

By Ed Lasky

Steve Bartin, who heads up the great site Newsalert, sends a fascinating YouTube clip (below) of a leader of the AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) threatening Illinois lawmakers in order to get them to send more money to public employees.

I have written quite a bit regarding the sweetheart deals public employee unions and their members enjoy, courtesy of taxpayers. Generous salaries, guaranteed gold-plated pension and health care plans, special deals that allow them to retire, collect their pensions, and go to work again for the government. Those deals exist because politicians are playing with Other People's Money (ours) and like to hand it out to union members, who then recycle it back into their campaign coffers. The AFSCME Political Action Committee is one of the largest in the nation and the union boasts of its political power on its website. States are being crippled by these unions; investments needed to support our children and our future are instead flowing to fill the bank accounts of 50-year old people who retired from government service. Much of the bloated stimulus bill went to support their benefits. Democrats paid off their sugar daddies with taxpayer money.

Yet union leaders grow indignant when they are asked to share in the sacrifice to try to balance the books. Instead they would rather tax, tax, and tax. But sometimes the line is crossed and their sense of indignation becomes veiled threats to the politicians who -- faced with voter discontent -- are trying to change in even minors ways the monster they have created: public unions.

On this You Tube clip, an AFSCME leader stands before a crowd and threatens Illinois legislators. He says we (the state of Illinois) can afford to pay for more services (not true: Illinois is teetering with one of the worst debt problems in the nation and Chicago taxpayers will be forced to bail out city pension funds).

He advocates a tax increase, and then quotes Mohammed Ali to the legislators in a building across the street: "They can run but they cannot hide; we will chase you; and when you go home, we will find you". Even Jimmy Hoffa would not engage in such thuggery -- or would he? In any case, Andy Stern, President Obama's political ally and friend (and frequent White House visitor), trail-blazed this sort of extortion.

When will the insanity stop? At least one Governor is taking the battle on, and he has a taxpayer army behind him. All hail Governor Christie of New Jersey.

Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.