In recent days, Barack Obama gathered with House and Senate Democrats in the Cabinet Room of the White House to “negotiate” health care. They no doubt grew alarmed as Scott Brown surged in the polls, but they seemed strangely unaware that their very actions — meeting behind closed doors in a rump legislative conference from which Republicans were excluded — were fueling the outrage that would make possible a Brown victory.
Even worse, when asked the impact on health care by a Brown victory, they sketched out various scenarios, from not immediately seating Brown to passing the bill under reconciliation, requiring only 51 Senate votes. The unceasing message to Massachusetts voters was that their vote did not count.
For organized labor, if there's anything better than a federal takeover of health insurance, it's a federal takeover of health insurance with a major tax break for union members. Union leaders, led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka (see photo), this week gave the country a first-hand lesson on how to play behind-the-scenes political hardball. Yesterday, following a three-day marathon negotiating session, the nation's 
"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama - $60.7 million to be exact - and we're proud of it," Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President 
Of all the factors behind the collapse of America's financial institutions during the second half of 2008, few have been as trumpeted - or misunderstood - as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). This Carter-era legislation, intended to boost residential mortgage lending in lower-income urban neighborhoods, increasingly has served as a blank check for community groups to shake down depository institutions into lowering their credit standards to reach marginally qualified borrowers. In extracting such concessions, these groups have contributed to the ongoing explosion in loan defaults and foreclosures. Undaunted, House Democrats, led by 
The American Cancer Society’s (ACS) endorsement of the House-passed health care bill is a betrayal of the trust of millions of Americans who have made the group one of the nation’s most respected and broadly based charities.
Homeownership as a moral right has been the great unspoken reason for the nation's financial collapse of the past year and a half. And unfortunately Congress and successive administrations appear all too willing to recreate the very conditions that led to the disaster. President Obama today signed 
Despite its brief existence, the federal government's $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers already has proven to be a costly boondoggle. And in what appears to be an act of unintended comedy, Congress is primed to extend and expand this "temporary" program beyond its November 30 deadline. On Thursday, October 22, J. Russell George, inspector general for the Internal Revenue Service, 
With each passing week, the shadowy radical political network that has made possible the career of President Barack Obama is being dragged into the sunlight. And almost all paths of this network, directly or indirectly, lead to or from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a virtual corruption machine of the Democratic Party Left. One of the more disturbing aspects of the Obama-ACORN connection is that the White House political affairs director is one 
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, is fast becoming radioactive to any organization contemplating doing business (or further business) with it. Federal agencies are no exception to the growing list of entities that recently have dropped their ties to the New Orleans-based nonprofit network. 
In Barack Obama, organized labor knows it has its man in the White House. Arguably more than any U.S. president in history, President Obama supports the union domestic agenda, ever and always anchored in aggressive government intervention in the economy. And union officials support him, having provided indispensable financial and logistical support for his campaign last year. To show his appreciation, 
