TPM has this amazing statement from the AFL-CIO:
STATEMENT BY AFL-CIO SECRETARY TREASURER RICHARD TRUMKA
ON CORPORATE FUNDED 'MOB RULE' AT TOWN HALLS
August 6th, 2009
Every American has the inalienable right to participate in our democratic process. Our politics is passionate, heartfelt and often loud -- as was the founding of our nation. But that is not what the corporate-funded mobs are engaging in when they show up to disrupt town
halls held by members of Congress.
Major health care reform is closer than ever to passage and it is no secret that special interests want to weaken or block it. These mobs are not there to participate. As their own strategy memo states, they have been sent by their corporate and lobbyist bankrollers to disrupt, heckle and block meaningful debate. This is a desperation move, meant to slow the momentum for change.
Mob rule is not democracy. People have a democratic right to express themselves and our elected leaders have a right to hear from their constituents -- not organized thugs whose sole purpose is to shut down the conversation and attempt to scare our leaders into inaction
We call on the insurance companies, the lobbyists and the Republican leaders who are cheering them on to halt these 'Brooks Brothers Riot' tactics. Health care is a crucial issue and everyone - on all sides of the issue - deserves to be heard.
Mob rule? The AFL-CIO? They sure are experts on Chicago Mob rule. Here's a little biography on AFL-CIO bigwig
Ed Hanley:
Edward T. Hanley is president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, a post he has held since May 1, 1973. Born Jan. 21, 1932, in Chicago, Hanley was elected AFL-CIO vice president on Oct. 6, 1975. He also is vice president of the AFL-CIO Food and Allied Service Trades Department.
Hanley has served as the Illinois AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, business agent for HERE Local 287 and president of the Chicago Joint Executive Board for culinary locals. He has been a director of the Chicago Convention Bureau and trustee of the Chicago Restaurant Health and Welfare Trust and Pension Trust.
Here's more on late Ed Hanley of
AFL-CIO and Chicago Mob fame:
Chicago and Illinois politicians who publicly cry about the need to crackdown on corruption turn out to be the very same people who are willing to turn their backs on the problem when they need to raise money.
So it should not be surprising that the Cook County Democratic Organization, and the state’s political leadership are planning to salute a man whose ties to organized crime continue to plague his career, Edward T. Hanley.
The Organization will fete Hanley at a $125-a-person cocktail reception and fundraiser on June 17 at Plumber’s Hall.
“If the politicians need to use a guy like Hanley to raise money for their coffers, why stop with him? Why not just go right to the top and invite a guy like Joey Lombardo. Why didn’t they honor a guy like Tony Accardo, for that matter?” said CCPA President John J. Flood, a recognized authority on organized crime figures and their activities.
“The very fact that Hanley is being used as the lure to bring money into this event, indicates how pervasive the stranglehold of organized crime is on our everyday lives.” Flood called on Democratic Party Chairman Thomas G. Lyons, a former Chicago cop, to withdraw Hanley’s name as the honoree for the evening.
Hanley, who has never been charged with or convicted of a crime, has been the ironfisted ruler of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union since 1973, deemed by the Justice Department as the most corrupt union in America.
Ed Hanley is the brother in law of Chicago Mob killer Frank Calabrese. At the landmark Chicago Mob Family Secrets Trial Ed Hanley's
name came up:
Unknown to the elder Calabrese, his son was helping the FBI, saying he believed his father would never leave the mob and he wanted to "expose my father for what he is." Jurors also have seen videos made at the prison.
On one tape, Calabrese Sr. also says it was Aiuppa who got Edward Hanley a position with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. Hanley rose to become international president of the union, which represented employees ranging from bartenders to room maids.
Hanley, a one-time member of the AFL-CIO executive board, was repeatedly investigated by federal prosecutors but never charged. But experts often cited the union as an example of mob influence in labor.
On the tape, both Calabreses refer to Hanley - who retired from the union in 1998 and died in a Wisconsin auto accident - as "Uncle Ed" and the father says Aiuppa got him his first union job.
The AFL-CIO: the experts on the subject of mob rule.
