Some sort of mad donkey disease goin’ around
Ed Morrissey points this out about Bent Rod’s whacky scheme to leverage union influence in the appointment of a replacement for Barack Obama in the Senate:
Let’s just put this in perspective. The largest public-sector union — the one that works most closely with governments — has officials in it that see nothing wrong with bribing public officials to get their preferred Senate candidate into office through a corrupt appointment. If Blago’s arrest reflects poorly on Illinois state government, then the involvement of this SEIU official says volumes about the way workers there and everywhere else get represented and organized, as well as how their union dues get used.
If they’re willing to flat-out bribe a governor, they’ll be happy to use Card Check to intimidate workers into unions and increase their dues. They’ll then use those dues to buy more politicians, just as we see in this indictment. Card Check is nothing more than a Trojan horse to fund corruption and abuse on the largest possible scale.
The Department of Justice needs to start investigating the SEIU’s activities now. Meanwhile, we need to remain firm against the EFCA. The secret ballot is all that will stand between corruption and its lifeblood.
The day before his arrest, Blagojevich gave one of the most bizzare political performances ever in his speech to the workers sitting in at Republic Windows. Could a similarly weird pre-climax await Big Unions, who have been pushing hard for Card Check and, just today, are ridiculously petitioning for a GM Board seat as the price of concessions?
Pop Quiz: We’ve long heard about how Obama’s path to the vacant senate seat was cleared in 2004, mostly by a series of fortunate circumstances and a buffoonish opponent. Was Blagojevich interested in politics back then, too?
Also see Tapper.
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