Unions Send Dues Money to Planned Parenthood

Nearly half a million to top abortionist, mostly for political purposes

Labor groups sent nearly half a million dollars to Planned Parenthood in 2014, according to federal disclosure forms.

Three of the nation’s largest unions—the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), contributed $435,000 to the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Almost all of that money was spent on political advocacy. AFSCME donated $400,000 to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which spent about $1 million helping Democratic campaigns in 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. UFCW categorized its $10,000 donation as political activity in federal labor filings.

Not all of the donations were political in nature. Some were categorized as charitable contributions to the billion-dollar organization, which performs more than 300,000 abortions each year. The remaining $25,000 given by AFSCME and SEIU were described as “grants” to a “tax-exempt organization.”

None of the unions returned request for comment about the specific purpose of the donations or whether they intended to maintain relations with the organization in the wake of recent scandals.

The Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life group, has released several hours of video of top Planned Parenthood officials discussing organ harvesting and the sale of remains in manner that may run afoul of federal law. The group released a fourth video Thursday showing Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains Vice President Dr. Savita Ginde sifting through the remains of “another boy” while drawing attention to various organs and praising a “per item” payment schedule for pieces of the fetuses.

“It’s a baby,” she said on tape as an assistant probed the body for intact body parts to sell to undercover videographers posing as prospective organ buyers.

While donating fetal body parts is legal, federal law prohibits the alteration of abortion techniques to harvest usable parts of the fetus, and also prohibits any sale of the body parts.

Planned Parenthood and Democrats have attempted to shield the group, which now faces three congressional investigations, by saying the “tissue donations” are used for medical research. Ginde, the Rocky Mountain executive, told the CMP actors that the group would use the blanket term “research” to justify its financial benefit from the sale of body parts.

Via: WFB

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CALIFORNIA: SCOTUS’ Decision To Hear Friedrichs Case Has Unions In A Tizzy

On June 30^th, the Supreme Court decided to hear Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association et al, a case that could seriously change the way the public employee unions (PEUs) do business. If the plaintiffs are victorious, teachers, nurses, sanitation workers, etc. would be able to work without the financial burden of paying union dues. The responses to the Court’s decision from the teachers unions and their friends have ranged from silly to contradictory to blatantly dishonest.

In a rare event, leaders of the NEA, AFT, CTA, AFSCME and SEIU released a joint statement explaining that worker freedom would be a catastrophe for the Republic. Clutching their hankies, they told us that, “big corporations and the wealthy few are rewriting the rules in their favor, knocking American families and our entire economy off-balance.” And then, with an obvious attempt at eliciting a gasp, “…the Supreme Court has chosen to take a case that threatens the fundamental promise of America.” (Perhaps the labor bosses misunderstood the wording of the preamble to the Constitution, “In order to form a more perfect union….” No, this was not an attempt to organize workers.) While the U.S. is not without its problems, removing forced unionism will hardly dent the “fundamental promise of America.”

The California Federation of Teachers, which typically is at the forefront of any class warfare sorties, didn’t disappoint. The union claims on its website that the activity of union foes “has resulted in a sharp decline in median wages for working people and the decline of the middle class alongside the increasing concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the one per cent.” But wait a minute – the unions are the most potent political force in the country today and have been for a while. According to Open Secrets, between 1989-2014, the much maligned one-percenter Koch Brothers ranked 59^th in political donations behind 18 different unions. The National Education Association was #4 at $53,594,488 and the American Federation of Teachers was 12^that $36,713,325, while the Kochs spent a measly $18,083,948 during that time period. Also, as Mike Antonucci reports, the two national teachers unions, NEA and AFT, spend more on politics than AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, General Electric, Chevron, Pfizer, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin, FedEx, Boeing, Merrill Lynch, Exxon Mobil, Lehman Brothers, and the Walt Disney Corporation, combined.”

Via: California Political Review

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'Evil' Koch brothers just 59th on top political donation list

Sometimes, if you listen to some Democrats, they're running against the "Evil" Koch brothers rather than a specific Republican candidate.

The brothers that liberals like to hate are often trotted out as prime examples of why campaign finance reform is necessary. They are often portrayed as one of the biggest contributors to political candidates, their evil money financing evil Republicans.

The group OpenSecrets.com has compiled a list of top donors to candidates and, to the left's surprise, the Koch brothers are far down the list.

Washington Examiner:

Charles and David Koch are the two most evil people in American politics, right? We know that because Jane Mayer proved it with her landmark "Covert Operations" tour de liberal force in 2010.

Well, it turns out that Mayer's aim was off just a little, by like 58 slots on the all-time biggest donors in American politics list, as compiled by OpenSecrets.org.

OpenSecrets.org tallied the top donors in federal elections between 1989 and 2014. Koch Industries -- privately owned by the Evil Koch Bros -- is on the list, to be sure, but doesn't appear until the 59th slot, with $18 million in donations, 90 percent of which went to Republicans.

Unions, unions, unions

So who occupies the 58 spots ahead of the Evil Koch Bros? Six of the top 10 are ... wait for it ... unions. They gave more than $278 million, with most of it going to Democrats.

These are familiar names: AFSCME ($60.6 million), NEA ($53.5 million), IBEW ($44.4 million), UAW ($41.6 million), Carpenters & Joiners ($39.2 million) and SEIU ($38.3 million).

In other words, the six biggest union donors in American politics gave 15 times more to mostly Democrats than the Evil Koch Bros.

Via: American Thinker

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SCOTUS To Hear Case Of Parents Caring For Their Disabled Children At Home Being Ordered To Pay Fees To Unions

PARENTS SAY "NO" TO QUINN'S UNIONIZATION

Illinois Review just learned that the home health care workers' vote was tallied and those families caring for disabled family members sent the Governor a loud rejection of his plot to unionize private families. The vote was as follows:

• SEIU rec'd 293 votes
• AFSCME rec'd 220 votes
• NO UNION rec'd 1018 votes

That means the families have wholly rejected Governor Quinn's Executive Order 09-15. For those who are convinced grassroots organizing and networking are irrelevant in public policy, please take note of what these families did on their own, with little, if any help, from the mainstream media. On Thursday, October 2, Americans for Prosperity-Illinois held an open conference call to give listeners a heads up on this story.  The families themselves, including mother extraordinaire Pam Harris, were persistent and unwielding in their effort to get the word out among those affected and the Illinois public as a whole.

Take this victory for these families as a taste of what liberty-loving folks can do if they get organized.  SEIU/ACORN and Governor Quinn were put on notice.  Illinois taxpayers are fed up with their antics.  If you agree that this is the shot over the bow to the bullies, sign AFP's "Say No to ACORN" petition.  Let's push back even further.

Via: Illinois Review

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Public Sector Unions Must be Abolished

The recent battle over a Federal government shutdown adds more evidence to the argument that public sector unions must be abolished. Cities are reeling under unsustainable pensions paid to government workers who are not working. And those in state government jobs are receiving the largest pensions of all. They are destroying the economy. Their contracts are not approved by voters but by secret quid pro quo arrangements with the politicians they support.

Federal collective bargaining rights were granted by executive order, not by an act of Congress. In 1962 John F. Kennedy granted collective bargaining to federal workers through Executive Order 10988. The voters of America had no say in this cozy relationship. The result is that today fFederal workers earn up to twice as much as their private sector counterparts. But since they are unionized they have a power private sector workers don't have: to force other workers to support them through taxation.

The debt created by these union pensions may be unconstitutional: the Constitution says Congress may levy tariffs and fees in support government services. If employees are no longer working and providing services, then the tariffs and fees are not providing any services. Furthermore, the money going to pensions deprives the neediest Americans of much-needed entitlements. When excessive debt is created, the service on this debt takes more money out of the Federal government, reducing its ability to help the poor even further.

Public sector unions have always been closely associated with the Democratic Party. This continues to this day with the four largest public sector unions. The Center for Responsive Politics states that according to Federal Election Commission records, the SEIU, National Education Association, AFSCME, and American Federation of Teachers, all public sector unions, are in the group of the 12 biggest campaign contributors of the past 22 years.

Via: American Thinker

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EDITORIAL: Labor Day Is No Holiday Without a Job

AP Graphics

EDITORIAL: Another bummer Obama day
Labor Day is no holiday without a job

By The Washington Times

For 23 million Americans without jobs, the Labor Day holiday is not a day off but just another day without work. It’s a fitting hash mark for the presidential campaign kickoff, reminding Americans of President Obama’s tragic failure to deliver.

In 2009, Mr. Obama promised to lower unemployment to 5.5 percent by 2012. It’s stuck at 8.3 percent. In his first budget, hopefully titled “A New Era of Responsibility,” he projected current growth in the gross domestic product would be a red-hot 6.3 percent. Instead, the country creeps along at a miserable 1.5 percent. One measure of the Obama administration’s desperation is Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis applauding the latest youth unemployment figures, which dipped all the way to 17.1 percent. When numbers that high make officials “excited,” you know things are terrible.

From the White House perspective, this isn’t all bad news. The Obama administration thinks unemployment actually can be healthy for the economy. Obama press secretary Jay Carney said last year that jobless benefits somehow boost consumption and “every place that, that money is spent has added business and that creates growth and income for businesses that leads them to decisions about jobs, more hiring.” By that confused illogic, Mr. Obama should be cheering the worst sustained unemployment rate since the Great Depression. Congratulations, that’s a heckuva job, Barack. Apparently, the president’s re-election slogan, “Forward,” actually means “Reverse.”

Labor Day also draws attention to the role of organized labor in American public life. A new Gallup survey shows 52 percent of the public approves of unions while 42 percent disapproves. A lot has changed since the 1950s, when old Big Labor — the United Auto Workers, the United Mine Workers, the Teamsters — had a 75 percent approval rating. Back then, workers built things. The new Big Labor — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union — represents the service sector and public employees. Their influence grows through securing sweetheart deals from governments populated with the politicians they helped elect. Eventually, the cost of these deals becomes too great for states and municipalities to sustain. Even with these jurisdictions on the brink of bankruptcy, the unions refuse to give on any aspect of their plush compensation packages. Their answer is always the same: Raise taxes and fees; do anything it takes to extract more money from the public to keep alive the government golden goose.

Via: The Washington Times

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