One of the officials President Obama illegally appointed to the National Labor Relations Board advanced policies in his position at a major labor union that hindered efforts to reform corrupt union locals. Incoming NLRB member Richard Griffin, formerly the general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, pushed a union rule in 2007 that barred union leadership campaign websites from being made available to the general public. We spoke with Mike Quigley, a member of IUOE Local 150, about his experience challenging a corrupt union official, and the difficulties …
Peter Schweizer doesn’t have many friends on Capitol Hill these days. So few, in fact, that he was told not to even show his face at a congressional hearing on insider trading — even though that hearing was the direct result of his new book, “Throw Them All Out.” Schweizer, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, spoke at The Heritage Foundation this week about his research on the “permanent political class” in Washington, D.C., and the crony capitalism that has enraged so many across America. We caught up with him …
Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter really missed the mark last week with a commentary singing the praises of “The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal”, as the headline stated. Alter’s limited discussion of a couple of the scandals that have plagued the administration comes up short, while a laundry list of dishonest and ethically questionable policies escape mention. Obama, Alter declares, “has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest.” Alter begins his piece with a reference to defunct solar company Solyndra. He insists the administration’s handling of …
Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics James Sherk writes: “The Obama Administration recently rolled back union financial transparency reforms. New regulations will exempt many union trust funds, such as strike funds and apprenticeship programs, from financial disclosure laws. These regulations also end financial reporting for many government unions.” According to recent polling, 66 percent of union members believe their leaders mostly look out for themselves and a full 89 percent of them believe unions should disclose their spending. Sherk notes that Members of UFCW Local 7 in Colorado …
The Cartel, a searing education documentary, opens nationwide on Wednesday. The film, by director Bob Bowden, exposes where our multiplying education tax dollars are going. Spoiler alert: In too many instances, they aren’t going toward teaching children. Bowden focuses on New Jersey, a state that spends over $17,000 per student annually. A few simple calculations show the real picture: Instead of being chronically under-funded, as union advocates claim, each classroom in the state costs the taxpayer between $300,000 and almost $450,000 annually. But the reality is that charter schools, such …
After yesterday’s Senate vote against an earmark ban, we again made the case that the damage earmarks do to our nation’s deficits go far beyond the nominal amounts spent on the earmarks themselves. The problem is that the votes earmarks secure from the sponsoring legislators then allow for ever higher levels of spending on other federal programs. Now, just one day after eight Republican Senators voted to protect earmark spending, CQ confirms our fears: New Hope for a Spending Package. The 15-day stopgap bill, or CR, buys Democrats the maximum …
Stories of corruption in India have filled the news in recent days. First there’s the corrupt Communications and Information Technology Minister, whose scam to pocket money from telecommunications firms may have topped $37 billion. Then there were accusations that politicians, officials, and contractors had pocketed more than 70% of $2.5 billion meant for flood relief in the state of Assam. There are the officials arrested for corruption in the planning for the Commonwealth Games and there reports that businesses over the last six decades have made billions through tax evasion …
On the anniversary of the November 2008 election, it seems appropriate to assess the impact of the Administration on America’s relationship with the United Nations. After all, one of President Obama’s sharpest criticisms of the Bush Administration was its supposed resistance to multilateral efforts—particularly U.N.-led multilateral efforts—to resolve international problems. Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned. In its first 9 months, the Obama administration has sought to purchase goodwill at the U.N. by conceding U.S. policy positions, downplaying the U.N.’s many problems, and seeking to engage with the U.N. …
Last Friday I had a post about the Justice Department’s dismissal of a public corruption case against New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. The AP reported that sources within Justice said the investigation had been killed in Washington. More evidence of that possibility comes from a letter sent by the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, Gregory Fouratt, who is not an Obama political appointee, but a career lawyer appointed by the federal judges in his circuit to fill the vacancy in the U.S. Attorney’s office. The purpose of the letter was …
It’s said that Albert Einstein once defined insanity as repeating a given course of action and expecting different results. With the return of a large number of Mexican congressional seats to the former ruling party, the PRI, it would appear that Mexico’s citizens have (by Einstein’s standards) gone insane. Drug wars, swine flu, earthquakes, and a staggering economy have not made for an easy few months for the citizens of Mexico. While it’s hard to blame anyone for an earthquake or the outbreak of an illness, it’s certainly appropriate to blame …
