SOUND FAMILIAR ?

SEIU- Pledge Gives 85 Million to DNC

The SEIU has pledged $85 million to Democratic campaigns this year.

In 2006, the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, a plan for the rank-and-file members, covering 100,787 workers, was 75% funded.

In contrast, a separate fund for the union's own employees, numbering 1,305, participants was 91% funded. Even better, the pension fund for SEIU officers and employees, which had 6,595 members, was 103% funded.

They do not take sufficient care in negotiating adequate employer contributions for the rank-and-file plan, with the result that these plans are underfunded.

The SEIU trumpets its efforts to secure health and retirement benefits for service workers. Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that the SEIU is not truly securing these benefits.

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NOTE: With 2 million members, the SEIU is the fastest-growing union in North America and the second largest public employee union. jg

FDNY "CAN-DO ATTITUDE"

Within Harsh Report on Fatal Fire, a Nod to Firefighters’ ‘Can-Do Attitude’
(Click Here for Entire Article)

The report said the firefighters’ risky actions embodied a culture of positive thinking. “The ‘can-do attitude’ has enabled the F.D.N.Y. to protect life and property at a superior level of excellence since the Fire Department’s inception,” it states.

Glenn P. Corbett, an associate professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said city firefighters were known for fearlessness and innovation. Each fire is unique, he said. Conditions can change in a heartbeat. But a question remains: When is it appropriate to deviate from standard operating procedures?

“There is a balance between advocating unsafe or inappropriate actions under normal circumstances versus a situation where extraordinary effort, experience, creativity, innovation, taking higher risks and pushing equipment beyond its limits is necessary,” said Professor Corbett.

“When someone is dying, firefighters are going to push themselves to the limit,” he said. Sometimes that can get firefighters into trouble. But they invariably show up.

URGES FULL HOMELAND SECURITY $$

Candidate Urges City Get Full Homeland Security $$
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Former state Assemblyman Bob Straniere, the conservative Republican candidate for the 13th District, said he would sponsor legislation, if necessary, to provide direct funding of federal Homeland Security dollars to New York City, "based on a threat-based formula with no pass-through to the state." Straniere also lauded a new contract with the city that substantially boosts pay and benefits for the NYPD, but believes the city could do even more with additional federal dollars.

"This will undoubtedly bring more resources to the New York Police and Fire departments and will help ensure the safety of our citizens."

Based on a formula created by state and federal lawmakers, Washington, D.C., sends Homeland Security grants to the state, which takes a 20 percent cut and gives the remaining 80 percent to the city.

Straniere also said he would continue to fight for money for Sept. 11 health initiatives, including long-term care for those who worked in and around Ground Zero.

WTC 7 - NO EXPLOSIVES

World Trade Centre Bldg 7 Not Destroyed By Explosives: US Study

(Click Here for Entire Article)

After the World Trade Centre's North Tower fell at 10.29am, debris sparked fires at building seven, which was 370 feet (112.8 metres) south of the fallen tower.

Heat from uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion of steel beams, according to the report. When the beams expanded, they pushed supportive beams and damaged flooring surrounding columns.

Finally, a support column identified as No 79 buckled, triggering an "upward progression of floor system failure," according to the report.

The federal government allotted $16m to investigate the fall of the Twin Towers and building seven.

TAPES CAPTURE DEUTSCHE CONFUSION

Fire Dept. Tapes Capture Confusion of ’07 Bank Fire
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Graffagnino’s father stated, “There was so many maydays that they could not differentiate one mayday from another,” he said. He said that several systems “fell apart,” and that he hoped the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is conducting a criminal inquiry, would eventually apportion blame.

One former city fire official, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the details of much of what went wrong at the fire indicated that lessons from Sept. 11, 2001, had not been fully learned.

On that day when 343 members of the department died, radios had failed and discipline had broken down.

“Are firefighters and civilians safer now than they were then?” the former official asked. “My gut feeling is, I don’t think so, and they should be.”

TO PBA DELEGATES & MEMBERS

To All Delegates & Members

(Click Here for for Specific Provisions of Contract)

I am pleased to inform you that we have a tentative agreement for the contract covering August 1, 2006 to July 31, 2010.

We have achieved a package of benefits valued by the PBA at well in excess of 20%. Salary will increase at every step of the schedule by a compounded 16.98% bringing our total basic maximum pay in the contract’s last year to $76,488. Considering other forms of pay (including longevity, holiday pay, night differential and uniform allowance) our average monetary compensation after 20 years will rise to over $94,000.

As part of this agreement, we have negotiated a historic provision that links longevity pay and the city’s contribution to the health and welfare fund to all future general wage increases. For the first time in this great union’s history, your longevity pay and the city’s contribution to the health and welfare fund will automatically increase by the same percentage as the general wage increase. As a result, your longevity pay will grow exponentially while providing for the fiscal stability of our welfare benefits package for active and retired officers for years to come. Prior to this agreement, longevity pay and the city’s contribution to the welfare fund did not increase along with general wage increases and had to be negotiated separately in each round often remaining static.

Fraternally,
Patrick J. LynchPresident

UFA'S SBF RSBF UFOA'S FPP RFPP

Let's Keep a Close Watch on Any UFA/UFOA Contract Re-Negotiations

In the proposed PBA contract a lump sum of $400 is awarded from 8/01/06 - 7/31/08. If I recall correctly, the PBA elected to forgo, in a past contract, an increase to their Active & Former Active Welfare Funds, in order to increase Active Members salaries or other contract enhancements. If so, that should mean the PBA was receiving less, yearly, into their funds.

If so, let's make sure that the UFA, in renegotiating their current contract, exponentially increases Firefighter's Security Benefit Fund payments, in order to maintain any previous contract ratio differences between the PBA's Welfare Fund and the UFA's SBF & RSBF.

I cannot speak to the UFOA's totals, or ratio to the UFA's RSBF, as the UFOA "USED" $100 from their Retiree's Family Protection Plan (RFPP), in a past contract, to fund Active Lt's. pay or longevity increases. The UFOA used some different calculations to explain away the Active Lt's increase but the fact remained that the RFPP lost a $100 increase to their welfare plans. I don't know if they ever contracted to undue that injustice, but it reflected a $600,000 per/year loss to the RFPP.

Thousand Points of Right - jg

MAYOR SATISFIED W/FDNY MGMT

Mayor Says He's 'Satisfied' With Fire Management

(Click Here for Entire Article)

There were problems with the firefighters' radio communications. A number of maydays were made before previous ones had been responded to, in violation of guidelines, which added to the confusion. The report also found that some firefighters' walkie-talkies malfunctioned; it recommended that firefighters receive training in emergency radio communication.

FDNY: RADIO TRAINING NEEDED

FDNY: Radio Training Needed After Deadly WTC Fire

(Click Here for AP Article)

WNBC.COM

A 176 page report says New York City firefighters made more than 30 distress calls from inside a burning ground zero skyscraper where two firefighters lost their lives, but not all of them were heard.

The Fire Department of New York recommends training in radio communication and the use of firefighters' air tanks in a report on the Aug. 18, 2007, blaze at the former Deutsche Bank tower across from the World Trade Center.

A department official says the 14 maydays and 19 urgent distress signals were sent from firefighters climbing stairs in a maze of hazards such as blocked stairwells and negative air pressure.

The report is to be released Thursday. It doesn't explain why the fire department hadn't inspected the partially dismantled building in over a year.

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FDNY Probe Finds Series of Big Failures Led to Deutsche Horror
(Click Here for Daily News Article & Photos)

14 "Maydays" and 19 "Urgents" - a distress call considered slightly less grave than a "Mayday" - were issued at the blaze. It was unclear how much time elapsed before officers were able to make out where the firefighters were located. Some walkie-talkies failed, forcing one firefighter to crawl to the building's edge to call for help. He survived.

Beddia's air tank had about five minutes of oxygen remaining when he was located on the building's 14th floor. Graffagnino's was empty.

The fire raged for more than an hour before firefighters were able to get water on the blaze; construction workers waited nearly 13 minutes before reporting the fire - believed to have been started by a discarded cigarette. It took FDNY units 67 minutes to get access to water because of a severed standpipe in the basement.

The FDNY's failure to do inspections every 15 days meant firefighters were unaware of the broken standpipe and other safety hazards like sealed stairwells and busted sprinklers.

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Because there was a tremendous amount more radio traffic on 9/11/01, is it safe to assume, 8 years later, that these new radios would have been even less effective at Ground Zero than they were at the Deutsche Bank catastrophe ??? jg

GRIM ANNIVERSARY... DEUTSCHE

On a Grim Anniversary, Firefighters Are Honored
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Sweat beaded on the foreheads of men in dress blue uniforms, some in blue hats and others in white ones. Sniffles were heard as a clergyman spoke.

People stood shoulder to shoulder in a musty room where firefighters’ coats and helmets were arrayed on hooks in one corner. All around them in the SoHo firehouse, the faces of the dead looked back from the cinder-block walls.

There were photos of three men from the firehouse who were lost after they became trapped in a burning apartment on Watts Street in March 1994. There were 11 photos marking the firehouse’s toll on Sept. 11, 2001.

The newest photos on the wall were of Firefighters Joseph Graffagnino, 33, and Robert Beddia, 53, both of whom died on Aug. 18, 2007, in a fire at the former Deutsche Bank building near ground zero.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg noted how those assigned to this post — Engine 24 and Ladder 5 of Battalion 2, “have known tragedy like no other.”

NY - IT'S A CITY OF BLOCKS

New York Isn’t Just a City of Neighborhoods — It’s a City of Blocks

(Click Here for Entire Article)

Bedford Stuyvesant.
James Munnerlyn has spent 63 years on this block, seeing it turn around from a crack street to a place where a three-story brownstone is priced at $800,000.

Last Saturday, Munnerlyn noted, the Universal Hip-Hop Parade marched down Garvey, one day before the black nationalist’s birthday on August 17.

“This street used to be called Sumner,” he said. “Who was Sumner?”

Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was a prominent voice in the anti-slavery movement. In 1856, a South Carolina Congressman attacked Sumner with a walking stick so severely he was bedridden for three years.

“All because he was against slavery!” Munnerlyn exclaimed. “Maybe we should have left his name here and renamed another street for Garvey.”

9-11 MEMORIAL COST... $1 BILLION

Cost of 9/11 Memorial and Museum to Hit $1 Billion
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Budget-busting delays on other interrelated projects at the 16-acre site have jacked up the cost of the National Sept. 11th Memorial & Museum and yanked back the timetable for completion, insiders say.

The bottom line: The museum may not open until 2013 or 2014, and it will take a miracle to fully open the memorial plaza that will honor nearly 3,000 innocents slaughtered at the World Trade Center in time for the 10th anniversary in 2011.

"I'm 73, and I'm not sure I'll live long enough to see the memorial open," said Jack Lynch, who helped carry the body of his firefighter son, Michael, 30, out of the rubble of the south tower. "Lots of older people who lost loved ones are simply not going to make it."

Noting that the Port Authority is already ponying up $150 million for the memorial's infrastructure, plus a $45 million contingency fund, the agency slammed the door on providing more cash. The $195 million, Chairman Anthony Coscia said, is the "total sum and finality of our financial commitment to the project."

The memorial has raised $350 million, including $70 million for planning and development; the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. has kicked in $317.4 million, including a $45 million reserve fund; the Empire State Development Corp. has coughed up another $80 million.
Add in the Port Authority's $195 million and the tally is $942.4 million so far.

NYC'S POSITION ON WTC LITIGATION

New York City’s Position on World Trade Center Disaster Litigation by Michael Block, Esq, Manhattan Lawyer
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Leading New York attorney, Michael Block, Esq. a New York fire fighter litigation lawyer from the law firm of - Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo P.C. says that New York City’s position is an insult to the men and women who got the job done during the time when we all needed them most. Manhattan, New York (NewYorkInjuryNews.com-Press Report) — New York City has taken the position that the City and the contractors who were in charge of the clean-up are immune to lawsuits filed by workers that claimed that they’ve contracted respiratory illnesses during the cleanup at the World Trade Center site.

They claim that laws enacted during the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union give them absolute protection against liability claims, amongst other claims of immunity.That position is an insult to the men and women who got the job done during the time when we all needed them most.

CONGRESS URGED TO FUND CARE

Congress Urged To Fund Care For 9/11 Responders
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Seven years after the attack on the World Trade Center, the men and women who worked at Ground Zero still suffer from serious respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses -- with no end in sight. In some cases, people are getting worse as they age.

At a gathering yesterday, doctors, politicians and first responders from New Jersey called on the government to continue funding efforts to treat and study the long-term consequences facing those who dug through the rubble of the World Trade Center.

A clinical center in New Jersey that expected to treat and monitor about 200 people is now caring for 1,300, many of them firefighters and police officers, as well as iron and construction workers. They are being treated for asthma, sarcoidosis and pulmonary fibrosis, as well as acid reflux, sinusitis and sleep apnea.

"We can provide the complicated diagnostic tests, specialist care and expensive medications for these conditions," said Iris G. Udasin, a principal investigator of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program.

Udasin directs the center in Piscataway, a joint program of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rutgers University. It is one of several places created to treat and monitor World Trade Center first responders.

A bill pending in Congress to continue funding for these centers is named for James Zadroga, a New York City police detective who was at Ground Zero.

SMITH'S PLAN FOR ALBANY WRONG

Smith's Plan for Albany is Wrong: Less is More
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith said that he'd like to see the Legislature stay in session 10 or 11 months a year instead of six. And Sen. Martin Connor of Brooklyn has a plan to pay lawmakers an extra $52,000 a year - a 65% hike - if they give up their outside jobs and devote themselves full time to serving the people of New York.

On behalf of the people of New York, thanks but no thanks. The last thing New Yorkers need is an even greater quantity of Albany-style lawmaking.

In a functional Legislature, members of the Assembly and Senate would spend their time grappling with big issues - such as closing the $6.4 billion gap in next year's budget, bringing cleaner, cheaper energy to New York, upgrading subways and highways and rolling back high taxes that are a drag on the economy.

But this is Albany, where all the important legislative decision-making is monopolized by two men. All that's left for the rest is thumb-twiddling and mischief-making.

Rank & file legislators rubber-stamp the budget at the end of March and rubber-stamp other major bills in late June. In terms of actual work in this boss-driven system, they put in 3 or 4 days a year. 5, tops.

CATHOLIC CASE AGAINST BARAK

A Catholic Case Against Barack
(Click Here for Entire Article)

In the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama rolled up more than 90 percent of the African-American vote. Among Catholics, he lost by 40 points. The cool liberal Harvard Law grad was not a good fit for the socially conservative ethnics of Altoona, Aliquippa and Johnstown.

But if Barack had a problem with Catholics then, he has a far higher hurdle to surmount in the fall, with those millions of Catholics who still take their faith and moral code seriously.

For not only is Barack the most pro-abortion member of the Senate, with his straight A+ report card from the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood. He supports the late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion, where the baby's skull is stabbed with scissors in the birth canal and the brains are sucked out to end its life swiftly and ease passage of the corpse into the pan.

UNIONS REVERSAL ON "LABOR DAY" !

Tyson Foods Plant Reinstates Labor Day
(Click Here for News Article)

Union workers and officials at a Tyson Foods plant in Tennessee said yesterday that they have agreed to reinstate Labor Day as a paid holiday, and the plant will also observe the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr this year. Tyson had agreed to drop Labor Day and substitute the Muslim holiday as part of a new 5-year contract to accommodate Muslim workers at the plant in Shelbyville, which is about 50 miles south of Nashville.

The Springdale, Ark.-based company said it requested reinstating Labor Day after complaints from plant workers and the public. Union members voted Thursday to reinstate Labor Day as one of the plant's paid holidays and keep Eid al-Fitr as an additional paid holiday for this year only. For the remainder of the contract, workers will have Labor Day and a personal holiday, which can be used to observe Eid al-Fitr or another day.

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NOTE: Stuart Appelbaum, president of the union headquartered in New York, said he was surprised by the reaction to the holiday change.

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NOTE: Last year, dozens of Somali meatpacking workers at a Nebraska plant quit their jobs because they were not given enough time off for Muslim prayers, though they eventually returned to work at the Swift & Co. plant.

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Somalis Fill Vacant Jobs at Iowa Meatpacking Plant
(Click Here For News Article)

Nearly three months after a federal immigration raid uprooted almost 400 employees at a meatpacking plant in northeastern Iowa, dozens of Somali immigrants are slowly but steadily filling the depleted ranks left by the arrested workers.

Federal officials have said the May 12 raid at Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, was the largest single immigration enforcement effort in U.S. history.

As they fill the jobs vacated by the 389 people (mostly Mexicans and Guatemalans) who were arrested during the raid, the Somalis are now beginning to form their own community within this town of 2,200.

By their own estimates, there about 100 to 150 Somalis in town. Meanwhile, the Somali presence (including some women and other family members) has been more noticeable in recent weeks, as new workers have settled into town.

PABULUM PUKING LIBERALS

"Lies" and "Beliefs" of The Liberal Left

Joe McCarthy Was Wrong...It's Fodder to Believe That Communists Could Infiltrate Our Government, at All Levels, Even Our Military !

It's Impossible for Muslim Cells to Infiltrate Our Government... Not Even as State or Federal Legislators !

Hollywood is Not an Ultra Liberal Cesspool !

The "Drive By Media", which includes Both Print and Major TV Stations, Are Not Controlled by the Pabulum Puking Liberal Left !

Fox News is Not "Fair" Because They Lie !

Oprah Winfrey Doesn't Influence Her Loyal Viewers on How To Vote... Nor What to Read !

95% Of Blacks In The U.S.A. Will Vote For Obama... And That's Not Racism !

Approximately 35-40% Of All Whites Will Vote For Obama... That Means 60-65% of Whites Are Racists !

Somalian Muslims Are Not Infiltrating Our Food Processing Plants, Throughout The Fruited Plain... Outbreaks of Ecoli & Ebola at These Plants Are Coincidental !

"Black Hawk Down" in Mogadishu, Somalia Deserved to Happen to Our Military !

The Many Attacks on Our Country, Our Military & Our Citizens, Both Home & Abroad Were Not Carried-Out By Radical Muslims Miscreants...ages 17-45 !

9-11 Was an "Inside Job" !

We Asked For and Deserved to be Attacked on 9-11 and Many Other Attacks !

Barak Hussein O'Bama... is Irish !

The Democrat Party is the Same Party of 50 Years Ago !
jg - Thousand Points of Right

'34 VETOES' CURBS NYS SPENDING

34 Vetoes, and Caveats by Paterson
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Two bills he rejected would have made it easier for police officers and firefighters to receive disability benefits for heart ailments even if the ailments were not clearly related to their duties. Such bills, known as “heart bills” in Albany, have long been a favorite of labor unions representing public workers.

“These proposals cannot be viewed in isolation from the deep fiscal crisis in which the state now finds itself,” the governor said in vetoing the bills.

Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffe, a Rockland County Democrat who sponsored the two bills, said, “Our police and firefighters put their lives on the line every day, and I don’t think you can put a price on that.

Mr. Paterson did make an exception to his belt-tightening by signing legislation aimed at further expanding eligibility for benefits for those who helped clean up the World Trade Center site. The projected cost for the city’s various pension funds is $3.2 million a year.

“It is imperative that we continue to provide those workers who face health consequences from their work at ground zero with the very best care,” the governor said in a statement.

CITY MAY FACE RAP IN DEUTSCHE FIRE

Agencies, City Itself May Face Rap in Deutsche Bank Building Fire
(Click Here for Entire Article)

A grand jury hearing evidence on the fatal Deutsche Bank building fire is expected to hand out indictments by the end of next month - and could even charge the city itself, sources told the Daily News Thursday.

It is also possible that an entire city or state agency - and perhaps even the City of New York itself - could be charged, sources said.

"They're all pointing fingers at each other, and they could all be right," said one law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

"[The Department of] Buildings was supposed to look at the standpipe - they didn't notice a piece of it was missing?" the official said.

Mandatory FDNY inspections - supposed to occur twice a month - also had been ignored. The Fire Department disciplined three officers whose units had been responsible for the safety checks.

Investigators have subpoenaed more than 3 million documents and have interviewed scores of witnesses. Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta voluntarily testified last week in front of the Manhattan grand jury.

FDNY & MIR3'S TECHNOLOGY

FDNY Selects MIR3's Intelligent Notification Platform to Reach Personnel in Urgent Situations
(Click Here for Entire Article)

The FDNY is comprised of more than 15,000 firefighters, EMTs, paramedics and support staff. Through its tireless dedication to keeping New Yorkers safe, the organization has responded to more than 490,767 fires and non-fire emergencies and 1,187,602 emergency medical calls.

"As an organization that prides itself on immediate responses to urgent situations, it's crucial we have the appropriate technology in place to reach our personnel as quickly as possible. MIR3's system is the best option for notifying and recalling personnel in times of crisis," said Salvatore Cassano, Chief of Department for FDNY. "With MIR3's technology, we'll have the ability to determine who is available to assist in a situation, get them where they need to be and ensure messages are communicated without fail."

As first responders to fires, public safety and medical emergencies, disasters and terrorist acts, FDNY protects the lives and property of New York City residents and visitors. The Department advances public safety through its fire prevention, investigation and education programs. The timely delivery of these services enables the FDNY to make significant contributions to the safety of New York City and homeland security efforts.

SCIENTOLOGY FRONT GROUP

Scientology Cult Front Group Holds Recruiting Event for NYC Children
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Recently another serious scandal has come to light in regard to Scientology's New York City operations. At a ceremony to dedicate the re-opening of the NYC Scientology building, a prominent Scientologist named Stephan Hittman, who had worked briefly at the New York Fire Department in a minor administrative job, declared himself to be an "Honorary Commissioner" of the Fire Department. In that phony role, he made a speech and bestowed upon the cult... the New York Fire Department's "Medal of Valor," for the cult's supposed heroic actions at "Ground Zero" after 9/11. Scientology shamelessly trumpets this "award" on many of its web sites, despite the fact that the Medal of Valor is only ever awarded posthumously to firefighters who have perished in the line of duty.

EID AL-FITR REPLACES "LABOR DAY" !

EID AL-FITR WILL BE OPENING SOON… IN A UNION NEAR YOU !

There’s a Cancer in Amereica’s Unions that has not been diagnosed by its current leadership. Shamefully, leaders like Sweeney, Schaitberger and many others, haven’t got a clue as to what their agenda will provide or rather how it will destroy the very fabric of what was once known as a “LABOR UNION”.

Right now, they expect to do well in organizing the legal and illegal immigrants into their unions and amass millions in both dollars and votes for Union Leaders and the Democrat Party. Unfortunately, they have forgotten the history of the AFL-CIO and how its great leaders battled for the American worker and his/her families. The Unions have now exchanged their ideals for 30 pieces of silver and will, maybe unwittingly, accomplish the DEATH KNELL of what was once the backbone of this nation.

Millions of workers have, in recent years, abandoned the once powerful AFL-CIO and Sweeney doesn’t realize that the illegals will either eventually depart from a failing and dwindling AFL-CIO or simply take it over. This is part of the CANCER depicted in the article below, which will soon lead to the downfall of our nation.

The Union’s ties to the Democrat Party was incomparable for almost a century. Today, that alliance is a fatal mistake, for the Democrat Party is the Party of “Votes and Entitlements” and the Unions must, in order to survive, start talking and negotiating with the Republican Party… the party of small business and large corporations... the party of free enterprise… the party which encourages "all citizens” to get off the Democrat Welfare Rolls and get to work !

The Unions must finally place our nation before votes and start to be a part of the solution by saving the country from themselves.

Does the AFL-CIO realize that the current gas crisis is a global crisis which can work in their favor ?? Countries are beginning to rethink their marketing and manufacturing locations. Thousands of jobs are now pouring into the U.S.A. because global companies have found that it is much more economical to manufacture their products here instead of paying fuel, freight and handling costs over thousands of miles of oceans. The Unions should be out “Selling the USA” and our “Great Labor Force” to other countries, instead of "selling-out" their union membership to the Party of “Votes and Entitlements”. We need to get jobs for Americans and not Illegal Aliens.

Doesn’t Sweeney and the AFL-CIO see where they’re heading, or are they too focused on the short term and too comfortable in their padded beds ??? Don’t get too comfortable boys… the illegal immigrants will be running you out of office, sooner than you think !

Now I present you with… DRUM ROLL PLEASE... The RWDSU http://www.rwdsu-cs.org/ - Google them… Go to their Site… Go to their LINKS… See their Union Affiliations and then read below !
jg - Thousand Points of Right

Union Negotiates Muslim Holiday to Replace Labor Day
(Click Here for Entire Article)

Here's something you don't see every day: a union negotiating a new contract that allows its Muslim members to replace the day they get off for Labor Day with one of their own holy days.

After all, since 1894, Labor Day has been a federal holiday designated to celebrate "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations." As such, you would expect a labor union to hold this day in extremely high esteem.

A recent press release stated that a new contract at the Shelbyville facility "implements a new holiday to accommodate the ... Muslim workers at the plant."
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) stated that "the five-year contract creates an additional paid holiday, Iidal Fitil, a Muslim holiday that occurs toward the end of Ramadan."

*RETURN OF LABOR DAY PARADE ?

Organizers Hope for the Return of Labor Day Parade

Labor Day Parade chairman Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RSDWU), is hoping to breathe new life into the nation's first Labor Day Parade. Appelbaum also sees the parade as a chance for organized labor in the city to flex its political muscle.

"This is an extraordinary year," Appelbaum said. "We are going to be choosing a new President. We have important issues at stake," he said, running down a list that included pensions, health care and education.

Appelbaum also called presidential hopeful Barack Obama the "labor candidate," and said he expects the "overwhelming majority" of union workers in the city to support Obama. That's the likely scenario for members of the AFL-CIO and other labor groups in the city.


But that may not be the case with some of the city's uniformed unions, which have been Republican boosters over the years. During the 2004 Republican National Convention, President Bush traveled to Queens to get the endorsement of the Uniformed Firefighters Association. And this year, the Sergeants Benevolent Association endorsed U.S. Sen. John McCain - the presumptive Republican nominee - for President.

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Stuart Applebaum? Isn't he the same Union Leader who negotiated with TYSON FOODS to allow his Muslim Union Members to "Trade-In" their Labor Day Holiday for the Muslim holiday "Eid Al-Fitr"? Now he wants to have a "Return of The Labor Day Parade? These National Unions with links to the AFL-CIO are now Con-Jobbing their membership to vote for Barak Hussein Obama! The "AFL-CIO" may soon be The "افل -- كيو " !

jg - Thousand Points of Right

TODAY'S AFL-CIO !

Obama Speaks with Union Members: ‘We Can Turn Around America’
(Click Here for Entire News Blog)

Sen. Barack Obama took part in a nationwide conference call with union members this afternoon, and he’s ready to work with the union movement to win this fall and turn around America.

Obama said that the values that inspire the labor movement are those that drive his campaign. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Obama is a candidate who is on the side of workers and will fight for them as president. Speaking on the call today, Sweeney said:

We all know he’s a great speaker, but what impresses me just as much is what a great listener he is. He has a deep understanding of the problems facing working families in our country.

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Duh !... He's a GREAT LISTENER ?? Are You Serious ?? Does He Feel Your Pain Also ?? Hey Mr. Sweeney... I Knew George Meany... and You're NO George Meany ! Period !jg

SWEENEY'S AFL-CIO LEGACY

John Sweeney, President of The AFL-CIO, Has Lost Millions of Members
( Source - Wikopedia )

In 1995, SEIU President John Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO, the labor federation that serves as an umbrella organization for unions. After Sweeney's departure, former social worker Andrew Stern was elected president of SEIU. In the first ten years of Stern's administration, the union's membership grew rapidly, making SEIU the largest union in the AFL-CIO by 2000

In 2003, SEIU pushed for reforms at the national level, and most importantly, a greater commitment to organizing unorganized workers into unions. In 2005, SEIU was a founding member of the Change to Win Coalition, which furthered the reformist agenda, criticizing the AFL-CIO for focusing its attention on election politics, instead of taking sufficient action to encourage organizing in the face of decreasing union membership.

On the eve of the 2005 AFL-CIO convention, SEIU (2M), along with its Change to Win partners, the Teamsters (1.5M) union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (1.5M), announced that it was disaffiliating from the AFL-CIO.

COP REMEMBERS HERO FDNY DAD

Cop Recalls Tragic Loss of FDNY Dad in Waldbaum's Supermarket Fire
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He was just five years old when he lost his father, a firefighter, in one of the worst tragedies in Fire Department history.

Thirty years later, Billy O'Connor led a somber procession through Brooklyn to mark the 30th anniversary of the Waldbaum's supermarket blaze that killed six Bravest.

O'Connor remembered how he stood next to his mother, watching the inferno and waving at his father, who was atop the Sheepshead Bay building. Seconds later the roof collapsed and William O'Connor fell to his death along with five comrades - George Rice, James McManus, Harold Hastings, Charles Bouton and James Cutillo.

"They're all our fathers," said Billy O'Connor, who is now an NYPD cop. "We're all a family."

Bagpipers accompanied the mourners as they marched from Engine 276 Ladder 156's firehouse to a memorial service at St. Brendan's Church led by Msgr. John Delendick, the FDNY chaplain.

WHITEY NEED NOT APPLY

Whitey Need Not Apply

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"Will race be an issue in this campaign?"

Hearing the cable talk-show host solemnly pose the question, I could not suppress a belly laugh.

For the anchor was fearful that some white folks might reject Obama because he is African-American -- even as a Rasmussen poll was reporting that Barack is beating McCain among black voters 94 to 1.

What, other than race, explains how Barack rolled up 90-10 margins among black voters while running against Hillary Clinton, wife of the man novelist Toni Morrison dubbed "our first black president"?

Indeed, so one-sided was the primary coverage in favor of Barack as the first African-American with a real chance to be president, even "Saturday Night Live" took to mocking the mainstream media.

Black Entertainment Television plans to carry Barack's speech to the Democratic convention live, but has no plans to carry McCain's.

Consider. On Sunday, 6,800 folks showed in Chicago for the 2008 quadrennial convention of UNITY: Journalists of Color. McCain declined an invitation. Bush had been booed at UNITY 2004, while John Kerry got a standing ovation. Featured speaker: Barack. ... Major concern of the journalists running the show: that their colleagues would lift the roof off the McCormick Place convention center when Barack arrived.

And exactly what "cause" might the 10,000 members of UNITY be united behind? The hiring and advancement of journalists of color in all major news organizations in America.

For, as its emblem depicts, UNITY comprises four alliances: the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association and the National Association of Black Journalists.

UNITY is demanding that 10 major U.S. news organizations, by mid-2010, elevate to a senior management position in the newsroom at least one journalist of color and provide "customized training to help prepare them."

The journalist may be Asian, African-American, Native American or Hispanic, which rules out journalists of Irish, English, Polish, Italian, German or Jewish ancestry, since they are white.

Is this what we have come to 50 years after the triumph of the civil rights movement? Flat-out demands, by American journalists, for the hiring and promotion of colleagues based on race and color?

Is there any evidence major news organizations in this country have engaged in systematic discrimination to keep out men or women of color this last half century? The reverse seems true.

They have bent over backward to advance minority journalists. And if journalists have been hired and promoted based on ability and merit, why in the 21st century should these criteria be thrown out as the standards for advancement -- in favor of race and color?

Isn't this what they did in the days of Jim Crow -- hire and promote based on race?

What UNITY is calling for is a return to the old rules but with new beneficiaries -- blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans -- and new victims, all of whom will be white.

1ST AMENDMENT GUARANTEED BY MILITARY

How The US Reversed Its Policy On Civilian Bombing
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Before the outbreak of World War II, the United States condemned the terror bombing of Spanish civilians by Hitler. By 1945 it was inflicting the same horror on the Axis. One of these two contradictory positions had to be wrong. In fact, the United States slid from the moral high ground at the outbreak of World War II to nuclear ground zero by the end of it. Thus, while Americans rightly deplore the failure of the Japanese to apologize to China for its war crimes or to cite them in the historical record taught to Japanese schoolchildren, Americans cannot gloss over their country's own record of terror bombing in World War II and beyond.

Indeed, the failure of Americans in general to recognize this fault has impaired their moral vision so that reckless interventions abroad invariably are colored to appear noble. This is why Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon could lay waste to Vietnam and George W. Bush can launch a war of aggression against Iraq on the pretext of destroying nuclear weapons while at the same time warning other nations not to develop them at their peril. Only when the United States rediscovers its moral compass will it once again be able to regain the moral high ground in international affairs.

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PABULUM PUKING LIBERALS STILL DO NOT REALIZE THAT ALTHOUGH THE 1ST AMENDMENT MAY GUARANTEE THEIR FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OUR MILITARY ENSURES THAT GUARANTEE. WE MUST CAUTION THOSE WHO WOULD JEOPARDIZE OUR FREEDOMS, THAT WE WILL ANSWER THEIR ATTACKS WITH WHATEVER IT TAKES ! TO THOSE AMERICANS(?) WHO CONTINUE TO SPEW HATRED TOWARD THEIR OWN COUNTRY, PLEASE BE APPRISED, THAT THE U.S.A. HAS NO DEPARTMENT OF OFFENSE AND ALTHOUGH YOU OFFEND THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS, AMERICA WILL CONTINUE TO PROTECT YOUR VERBAL DIARRHEA ! jg