Moe Lane

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I am growing quickly disinclined to get dragged into primary political battles for the 2010 election.  This is partially because I’m getting to a position where I know some of the folks involved in the campaigns (which is why I’m counting the days until the California primaries are over), and partially because it’s going to be a free-for-all for some of these seats (part of the problem with having so many Democratic seats up for grabs).  So, it’ll take a bit to get me to note something in particular about a GOP primary candidate.

A 2008 SEIU endorsement will do.  I’m not as ready as that poster is to tie WA-03 Republican candidate Jaime Herrera to ACORN, but taking money from the Purple People Beaters is quite bad enough (see here and here for corroboration that State Rep. Herrera did in fact get endorsed by SEIU).  Mind you, I’m perfectly ready to believe that she regrets that endorsement now, too – but now would also be a good time for her to indicate said regrets.  Put another way: at the moment Herrera is talking about Big Labor, which is great… but as a state legislator she courted Big Labor, which makes at least an explanation germane.  And when you have an unexplained disconnect between current rhetoric and past rhetoric, it looks bad if it gets out.

And it will get out.  Somebody will always be happy to pass someone else a quiet word.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Eight of them:

Allentown union official Nick Balzano has been a political punching bag all week because he threatened to file a grievance against the city for allowing a Boy Scout to clear a walking path in a city park.

Three days of taking body blows nationally from conservative pundits, a rebuke from the Lehigh Valley’s congressman and even a lashing from his own union led Balzano to voluntarily resign his position Thursday as head of the local Service Employees International Union.

Balzano said he and seven other executive officers of the local SEIU stepped down.

Via HolyCoast.com. Note that the SEIU itself hung Balzano out to dry: when your guys are already out there on camera beating up protesters and gadflies, it’s not a good time to start a fight with the Boy Scouts of America*.  I suggest that the various loyalists of that organization keep that in mind.

Moe Lane

*Not that it’s ever a good time.  Nobody smart in American politics messes with the Scouts. Boy or Girl Scouts.

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE] Err… yes.  Yes, of course that was an intentional typo in the title.

Well, this is an interesting report:

Via @thebcast.  My first inclination is of course to believe this Ken Hamidi fellow… as is my second, third, and fourth inclination. And none of those links directly involve Kenneth Gladney: in fact, not all of them involve right-wing sources.  Nonetheless, innocent until proven guilty… even when it comes to SEIU’s purpleshirts.  If they have evidence to show that Hamidi was at fault, I’m sure that it’ll become obvious soon enough.

Moe Lane

Just to repeat some of the things alluded to in this article (with some additions):

• We know that Patrick Gaspard is the White House political affairs director.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard enjoys the trust of the White House to perform sensitive tasks.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard is in fact one of the most quietly powerful people in this administration.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard was formerly an ACORN higher-up.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard was also formerly affiliated with SEIU.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard was seen by Big Labor as being a payoff for SEIU’s support.
• We know that Patrick Gaspard’s brother Michael represents ACORN (and that ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis kept contact information for Patrick Gaspard).
• And we know that links between ACORN & SEIU and ACORN & the White House have been minimized, downplayed, and outright sanitized recently.
• What we don’t know yet is whether the White House is going to do the same thing with the ties between SEIU and the White House.

Or whether this administration has ‘full confidence’ in Patrick Gaspard.  Which is Dizzy City-speak for ‘He’s cleaning out his desk right now.’

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers.

Tim Bishop (D, NY-01) is having something called a “health care reform rally” on Thursday, at (of all things) SEIU’s Hicksville NY offices (1199 Duffy Ave, starts at 1 PM). This is otherwise known as “over twenty miles outside the borders of NY-01.” Bishop is of course one of the first Democrats holding down a Red district (NY-01 is a R+0) to discover that his constituents are paying attention to his votes: he rather famously canceled his future in-district meetings. Presumably he assumes that his constituents won’t drive twenty miles to complain.

Meanwhile, Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) has at least decided to stay in-district for his “health care listening post” – barely.  Although his district includes Des Moines, Boswell has instead decided to travel 80 miles east this week to the Sigourney Public Library (Thursday, 2 PM).  He won’t be actually having any meetings on the subject in the Des Moine area (where the vast majority of his constituents live) for another two weeks.  Still, at least he’s having them; apparently being D+1 can make the difference between in and out of district.

Neither one of these two Congressmen are freshmen, and neither were considered to be hardline liberals before this Congress.  And both of them are clearly not interested in facing their constituents just quite yet.  Very interesting, that.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

By the Speaker’s own words, no less.

Ah, the problems with message discipline. Specifically: the problems with having the current Speaker of the House write things like “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American” without checking to see first whether her minions over at SEIU are advocating doing precisely that:

Action: Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at this and several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices.

All via @JTlol and Perfunction: the latter has a few more of SEIU’s confessions of un-American behavior.

The above link is to Mary Katharine Ham, as SEIU’s MiniTruth has already memory-holed the offending thoughtcrime. Although there was no reason to bother, given that there is of course a screenshot.  These people keep making the most boneheaded mistakes; you might be forgiven for getting the impression that the vaunted power and reach of the progressive activist movement is mostly due to having no real opposition up to this point…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

(Via RS Diarist rechief) Turns out that the Drudge rumor was right: Pelosi & Hoyer really did write an op-ed with the title ‘Un-American’ attacks can’t derail health care debate. And it’s precisely what I expected, too.  Which is to say, an op-ed that can write this:

Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.

…without even a hint of a sign of a suggestion that the authors mean by that condemnation the physical violence done to conservatives by SEIU members (noted here and here).  Which is actually not surprising: they don’t.  It’s them that are doing it, so it’s by definition OK.   And if you don’t like that observation of mine, then the Democratic party’s leadership is perfectly welcome to prove me wrong by issuing a terse statement saying that they do not support SEIU’s violent tactics.  Until then, they can own the actions of their blueshirts. (more…)

Caleb’s covering this at both RedState and ActiCons, but I’m going to reproduce it here anyway.  It’s more from the Gladney Incident:

Note the physical attack on the woman filming the incident.  These people aren’t reacting well to having their activities on the public record.

Moe Lane

PS: Carry a camera.

CARRY A CAMERA.

CARRY.
A.
CAMERA.

(Via Dana Loesch) They’re protesting the beating of Kenneth Gladney by SEIU agents Thursday night.

Demand Justice! Denounce Violence! Saturday at SEIU Office

DATE:  Saturday, August 8, 2009 (tomorrow)

TIME:  Noon

LOCATION:  SEIU Headquarters, 5585 Pershing Ave., Suite 130, St. Louis, MO 63112

The St. Louis Tea Party will hold a press conference and peaceable protest at SEIU Headquarters 5585 Pershing Ave., Suite 130, St. Louis, MO 63112 at Noon Saturday, August 8, 2009.

Incidentally, the National Weather Service has declared a heat advisory for the St. Louis area, with the forecast for today being:

Today: Sunny, with a high near 96. Heat index values as high as 104. South wind between 15 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.

…which, given the SEIU’s rapidly-becoming-notorious poor impulse control, may make this an interesting day in St. Louis. After all, just because the Tea Party people want to peaceably exercise their First Amendment privileges doesn’t mean that the administration stooges that they’re protesting against are prepared to let them…

Moe Lane

PS: Too late to online order one now for this, of course, but I’ll keep harping on it anyway. Cameras. You need to go to these things with cameras.

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s the usual trick of taking the first half of a sentence and presenting it as a complete statement. In this case, this turns “The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act but in practice makes it a dead letter” into “The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act;” Rep George Miller (D, CA-07) and SEIU are now using the truncated quote to pretend that the Wall Street Journal is on their side of the secret ballot question.

You can tell how amused the WSJ is on this by their editorial title (“George Miller Loves Us – Too bad he and Big Labor can’t read”): you can probably also use it to tell how desperate Miller/SEIU are, too. After all, as it stands they don’t even have Sen. Feinstein (D, CA) firmly on-board… which is interesting, no?

Crossposted to RedState.