Mount Virtus

(Compliments of ALG Feature Syndicate)

If there’s one thing undecided voters need to weigh in the waning days of this presidential campaign, it indeed is Barack Obama’s desire to give taxpayer-funded goodies to union bosses, the welfare state, and ACORN.

Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign continues to raise questions about the integrity of his online fundraising process. The bare minimum security opens the door to all kinds of potential fraud and federal campaign violations. An experiment by PowerLine readers highlights the extent of the problem. (Update: < em>HotAir has tons of mounting evidence.)

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards reported its 900th conviction of union leaders for criminal activity. From the press release:

During the month, OLMS obtained three convictions, seven indictments and court orders of restitution totaling more than $80,000. The office’s totals for fiscal year 2008 (which ended on Sept. 30, 2008) are 102 convictions and 130 indictments, with restitution of more than $3.2 million. The bulk of the cases involved the embezzlement of union funds.

“The triple-digit numbers of indictments and convictions obtained by OLMS in the 2008 fiscal year demonstrates that criminal activity in unions is still a major problem. This problem points to the critical role performed by OLMS in prosecuting those who steal from their members,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Standards Don Todd. “We are proud to have secured court orders of restitution of more than $91.5 million since 2001.”

Embezzlement yes, and cases of forgery and theft, too. The OLMS is one of the most effective federal agencies, helping to bring Big Labor’s bad seeds to justice and restoring millions of dollars to rank-and-file workers wronged by corrupt union leaders.

A Barack Obama presidency would mean a rollback of this agency’s good work. Here’s a flashback to a Wall Street Journal report from five months ago (subscription needed to read entire article):

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign.

Barack Obama is the Jimmy Hoffa presidential candidate, much like Bill Ritter is Colorado’s Jimmy Hoffa governor.

Joanne Kelley reports on the Rocky Mountain News Stump blog:

Supporters of Amendment 49 filed a campaign finance complaint over $2,800 of “in-kind” contributions a teachers union committee made to a group fighting the ballot measure.

The complaint alleges the Colorado Springs Education Association’s issue committee made contributions to a group created to address statewide ballot issues when the teachers’ committee was created to promote issues in its own district.

“I find it disturbing to see the teachers union funnel resources earmarked for local education issues into a fight against statewide political issues they don’t happen to like,” said Colorado Springs resident and former school board candidate Reginald Perry, who was named on the complaint filed with the Secretary of State’s office.

But a spokeswoman for the Colorado Education Association said the law allows the teachers union committee to support or oppose both state and local ballot issues.

“The (teachers) committee has the same purpose as Protect Colorado’s Future,” said Deborah Fallin of the Colorado Education Association.

The same purpose. Really? The purpose of the teachers union committee? “Promote ballot issues in School District 11.”

The purpose of Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future? “Support initiatives #57; #62; #73; #74; #75 and #76. Oppose Amendments 47, 49 and 54.”

They sound different to me. It’s sad that words cease to have plain meaning to the likes of the Colorado Education Association. And it’s sad (but not surprising) that the group fighting Ethical Standards would break campaign finance laws to get out its deceptive messages.

Colorado U.S. Senator Ken Salazar made the mistake of letting his name appear on a letter recently published in the Fort Morgan Times, a letter that repeats at least one special interest group lie:

Amendment 49 targets public employees, including law enforcement officials, fire fighters and teachers, who provide vital services for all of us. Amendment 49 will interfere with the personal choice of working Coloradans over how they want to spend their hard-earned paychecks.

This echoes the deceptive flyers distributed by the well-heeled committee Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future (the issue committee known for its perpetual deception), in which they falsely state that Amendment 49 dictates how firefighters and other public employees can spend their paychecks.

In his recent appearance on 850 KOA’s Mike Rosen Show, though, former U.S. Senator Hank Brown set the record straight:

Here’s the transcript:

I notice some of the negative ads that want a vote against 49 claimed that it somehow restricts various public employees. Not the case at all. Simply, absolutely wrong. I think as the Rocky Mountain News said in its editorial, “Such claims are nonsense”. And they are nonsense. There’s no restriction on employees here, only restrictions on government.

It’s not just Hank Brown and the Rocky Mountain News who have cleared the air with the truth. Similar observations have been made by editors at the Grand Junction Sentinel and Boulder Daily Camera, too. A look at the ballot language confirms that Amendment 49 provides only “restrictions on government,” and doesn’t in any way restrict how government workers can spend their money. (In some cases, it actually gives workers more freedom of choice in this regard.)

What a shame to see Senator Ken Salazar regurgitating a discredited talking point pushed by special interest groups that thrive off our taxpayer-funded government payroll systems. Just a little more reason why we need Amendment 49 to provide ethical standards for our state and local governments.

Dave Ohmart, the unofficial “non-union rep” for Colorado state government, finally has his Colorado Loses website up and running. Look for newsletters, events, and relevant legal information pertaining to employee rights in state government.

Colorado Loses is the clever foil to the Colorado WINS union organizing coalition:

Colorado WINS, the big state employee union, recently held a convention. Union loyalists were shown a video depicting flood and famine – images from the Gulf Coast of slums, Hurricane-ravaged homes and the like. The moral of the story: state employees are the only line of defense Colorado has against, uh, Hurricanes. No, floods. Wait, I’m confused.

Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy, but it has nothing to do with our state government. Nor does the healthy dose of Bush-bashing members partook in, either. It’s OK for Colorado WINS to acknowledge openly that it exists to play politics. What’s another word for “representation” before government? Oh, right, “lobbying.”

Invoking real tragedy as a cover for raw politicking stoops pretty low.

Kind of makes you want to support the good government initiatives Amendment 49 and Amendment 54, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I’ll stick with Dave Ohmart and Colorado Loses.

ACORN, the increasingly notorious voter fraud group, is part of the Colorado C-3 Roundtable going around “educating” voters about various ballot initiatives.

Among the initiatives ACORN hates and opposes (and which the Roundtable won’t invite supporters to share their side of the debate) is Amendment 49, the Ethical Standards initiative. This amendment “will prohibit governments from bundling money from public employees’ paychecks and delivering the funds to special interests, like unions. These special interests use the money to lobby the same politicians who just delivered the cash to them.”

So why is ACORN part of the virulent opposition? We could start with its own ethical lapses, which include not only voter fraud but also an ongoing investigation for misusing our tax dollars for partisan purposes (PDF).
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In his Sunday column, Denver Post editor Dan Haley discussed “cloak-and-dagger” Democrats:

The once-stealth cadre, united under the name Colorado Democracy Alliance, has not only heavily influenced state politics, it’s become a model Democrats want to replicate nationally. Nothing they’re doing is illegal, or at least it doesn’t appear to be, but it has changed politics and policy-making in Colorado for years to come.

Republicans last week could only stand by, slack-jawed and jealous. It was the type of operation they figured Democrats had.

Only bigger.

Politically speaking, the operation is genius, as it funnels money from wealthy donors — sometimes tax-free — to push political causes. But, ultimately, all of this skirting of campaign finance laws is bad for a transparent and open democracy.

Except for questioning Haley’s claim that nothing the Colorado Democracy Alliance has done is illegal (check this out), I agree wholeheartedly.

Here is Dan Haley’s terrific - if not original - idea:

But wouldn’t it be easier if instead we stripped out all of the do-gooder campaign finance laws that have lessened accountability and made campaigns even nastier, and allow people to donate as much as they want as long as it’s instantly transparent? Donors’ names and occupations, along with their spouses’ information, could be posted on a website for all to see within hours of their donation.

We would know who’s donating and why. Those folks who fund scurrilous attacks could no longer hide behind 527s with benign-sounding names like Coloradans for the Children.

I propose we launch the citizens’ campaign here and now: a 2010 amendment repealing the campaign finance Amendment 27 of 2002 and enacting a simple transparent system in its place. It looks like we might be able to count on the Denver Post’s endorsement.

The official campaign against Colorado Amendment 49 - also known as Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future - has set a pattern of blatant deception.

But this week one group that has funded the anti-49 political campaign with teacher dues money found a way to step over the line a couple of ways at once, reports the Rocky Mountain News. First, by using official school district resources for electioneering purposes:

A teachers union improperly used the Jefferson County School District’s e-mail system to urge a “no” vote on three ballot measures, including one that would impact union dues.

The Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA) also stepped over the line by using false, ridiculous scare tactics in its anti-Amendment 49 message . The message from JCEA President Kerrie Dallman suggested that these initiatives would take away teachers’ pensions. But, of course, as my boss Jon Caldara correctly noted:

None of the amendments have anything to do with pensions.

If that doesn’t convince you, go ahead and look up 47, 49, and 54 in the official Colorado Blue Book.

Thankfully, there are teachers in Jeffco who are above being fooled by the deception. Like the whistleblower teacher who brought this misuse of school communication systems to my attention. And like another Jeffco teacher who appeared with me on Independent Thinking to explain why he believes Amendment 49 is a good idea.

It will be interesting to see whether the ethical reform of Amendment 49 can survive the heavily-funded onslaught of scare tactics - among schoolteachers and the general populace - and win out at the polls.

The Rocky Mountain News today takes a closer look at Protect Colorado’s Future and its use of “real” people in advertisements to foist its deceptive messages on the public:

Firefighter Joel Heinemann says he would rather run into a burning building than face a movie camera.

Yet it’s his face Coloradans are seeing in television ads and home flyers urging a “no” vote on Amendments 47, 49 and 54.

Heinemann is a “messenger,” one of about a dozen firefighters, police officers, nurses and teachers who volunteered to enter the political limelight to speak against three ballot initiatives they believe are anti-union.

Of course, it’s also important to note that Joel Heinemann is president of the Littleton firefighters union, and that Denver Deputy Sheriff Jeff Shaw helps to negotiate the Fraternal Order of Police union contract. As the Rocky points out, Protect Colorado’s Future has used Shaw’s image to say these amendments “will stop law enforcement from lobbying for better body armor,” when the contract Shaw negotiated has nothing to say about body armor or safety issues.
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Much ado has been made out of the 11th-hour deal that pulled four labor union-sponsored initiatives from the Colorado ballot. As opined by the editors of the Rocky Mountain News:

On Thursday, labor peace was restored in Colorado. At least until the 2009 legislature convenes.

The announcement that two labor-backed groups would remove Amendments 53, 55, 56 and 57 from the November ballot - and in return business groups would fund a joint business-labor campaign to defeat Amendments 47, 49 and 54 - is a positive development. The state’s economic health was in the crosshairs of the labor measures, a couple of which probably had a good shot at passage.

There’s no doubt that the “economic health” and well-being of Colorado families and businesses is safer as a result of these four measures being off the ballot. Union leaders may have believed these measures would benefit their members and other workers. But they never believed that workers’ economic bottom line was more important than maintaining and increasing their own power.
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Denver attorney Ted Trimpa is being touted as the great mediator, the great savior, in negotiating a compromise between business and labor to remove four anti-business initiatives from the ballot.

Who’s doing the touting? Why, the liberal Dead Governors blog, of course:

For those of you who don’t know about Hogan and Hartson’s Ted Trimpa, well, you should. He’s the one who brought this pact, the most unlikely partnership since Referendum C, together, helping reinforce his growing waterwalker mystique. It’s also true that labor wasn’t really looking forward to taking the blame for the potentially serious unintended consequences of a couple of these proposals. The infusion of cash to fight the anti-labor initiatives will help, as will the new and respected business community spokespeople getting out the message–that while the idea of Amendment 47 (and 49 and 54) “sounds good,” the details are devilish.

Well, after all, the Denver Post reports:

Cole Finegan, a managing partner at Hogan & Hartson, said some “outside” union money helped close the deal.

“Ted Trimpa got the deal done,” Finegan said.

But what do the ColoradoPols and Denver Post not tell us about Ted Trimpa that might be important? Interestingly, Trimpa is one of the leading members of the Colorado Democracy Alliance (CoDA) “Strategy Group & 527 Coordinating Operatives” (PDF) (his name is somewhere between Rutt Bridges and Andrew Romanoff). Trimpa also has worked as liberal billionaire Tim Gill’s political adviser, and is clearly intimately connected with the inner workings of CoDA.

So in whose interest did Trimpa help negotiate this deal? The state of Colorado? Hardly. Rather, it appears he is working on behalf of the “progressive” Colorado Democracy Alliance, which is committed to “increasing CO union power” and to “Educate the [racial minority] Idiots”. This time, the Left is trying to “Educate the Idiots” with lies about Amendment 47, 49, and 54. Trimpa’s deal scored $3 million in cash to relieve Big Labor of some of the burden to attack these amendments.

The four economy-busting union ballot initiatives (53, 55, 56, and 57) that Ted Trimpa and his labor leader friends negotiated off the ballot were only there in the first place to serve as extortion. Trimpa is hardly a disinterested third-party in these negotiations. ColoradoPols is a little too glib in shouting his praises to the sky.

If you haven’t seen or heard it by now, Colorado’s “progressive” Democrat coalition got a little more behind-the-scenes exposure yesterday than they would like. A series of slowly leaked documents by Face The State are uncovering the inner workings of the coalition - known as the Colorado Democracy Alliance (CoDA). The light of the day has given us some useful insights.

We are starting to see what the Left’s agenda for Colorado is, why they have coordinated the spending of so much money to take over the state legislature, the governor’s office, and so much more. No document has received quite as much attention as this one:

In a confidential internal memorandum obtained by Face The State (PDF), the Colorado Democracy Alliance outlines a roster of “operatives” who worked for Democratic victory in the 2006 general election. The document outlines specific tasks for various members of the state’s liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to “educate the idiots,” assigned to the state’s AFL-CIO union. Among the operation’s intended targets: “minorities, GED’s, drop-outs.”

Individuals named in the document, marked “CONFIDENTIAL,” “for internal use only,” and “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE,” are high-level elected Democrats including House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, as well as Gov. Bill Ritter’s press aide and former campaign chief Evan Dreyer. All are specially marked as “off-the-record or covert.”

That’s right: Gov. Bill Ritter’s spokesman, and the two top Democrat leaders in the state legislature (at least at the time). What do they think about minorities being called “idiots”? Some intrepid member of the press will have to ask them. Or maybe they should ask the CoDA “strategy group” members who populate the media-manipulating organ ProgressNow, the phony watchdog Colorado Ethics Watch, and more?
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Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future, opponents of the good government reforms Colorado Amendment 49 and Amendment 54, must be going after the world record for most deceptive campaign. They’re certainly making a run for it, as their latest effort may take the cake. In today’s Rocky Mountain News, CBS4 reporter Raj Chohan dissects their latest out-of-this-world fable:

A new political commercial suggests that a trio of Colorado ballot measures would give special breaks to multinational corporations such as Halliburton. The 30-second spot comes from a union-backed group called Protect Colorado’s Future.

Ad: This is a voter alert. Colorado ballot amendments have built-in loopholes. Amendments 49 and 54 would not apply to multinational corporations.

The claim is misleading. Neither of the amendments addresses multinational corporations….

But obviously it’s true: these amendments are about the operation of Colorado government. Before Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future gets any other absurd advertising ideas, let’s be clear what else these amendments don’t apply to: international terrorism, global warming, Lyme disease, and male pattern baldness, to name a few.

Special interest opponents are throwing their millions of dollars wildly into the air, hoping that some charge or another will stick that will scare voters from supporting ethical reforms that would hurt lobbyists’ bottom line. Here perhaps is my favorite part:

Ad: Multinational corporations are pushing Amendments 47, 49 and 54.

It is true that Amendment 47, the right-to-work measure, has received funding from CoorsTek, a multinational corporation, as well as national business groups. The backers of Amendment 47 have raised nearly $1.2 million. However, Amendment 49 is operating on a shoestring budget of a little more than $100,000, most of it coming from the Independence Institute, a Colorado- based free-market think tank….

Or as Face The State observed:

While recent opposition ads proclaim that “evil” multinational corporations support Amendment 49, [Jon] Caldara laughs, jokingly wanting to know when those evil corporate checks will start rolling in.

Here’s the laundry list of Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future deception:

• First sleazy, deceptive TV ads
• More sleazy, deceptive TV ads
• First sleazy, deceptive mailer
• Another sleazy, deceptive mailer
• Purely dishonest fabrications at an “educational” forum

And now this. Honesty, truth, and credibility must not count for much when you have raked in nearly $7 million from labor unions across North America to throw around your political weight.

One thing that’s clear is the Congressional bailout debates have shifted political fault lines in unusual ways. The Denver Post highlights the odd split in Colorado’s Congressional delegation: Mark Udall, John Salazar, Doug Lamborn, and Marilyn Musgrave against the bill vs. Tom Tancredo, Diana Degette, and Ed Perlmutter for it.

Then, there’s my two favorite fiscally conservative national think tanks. Co-authoring an issue brief for the Heritage Foundation, former Attorney General Ed Meese says the bailout bill was “vital and acceptable,” while Cato Institute scholar Jagadeesh Ghokale notes:

Overall, it’s not a pretty picture–but score one for supporters of the free market who insist on allowing market reorganization of the financial sector to continue unimpeded…albeit at high risk to the economy over the next few months.

Of course, Cato is more purely libertarian than Heritage. But it makes just another interesting observation in this messy debate in Congress that is far more about the people vs. political powerbrokers both Republican and Democrat than it is about good vs. bad policy. So far, I’ve seen no good way out of this situation. Just like many of our elections, we have to look to embrace the lesser of two evils.

Kudos for those with the courage to stand up for freedom, to stop Congress from dumping billions of dollars in bad debt on the backs of taxpayers.

As of today, the Denver Post becomes the fifth major Colorado newspaper to line up in support of Amendment 49, the Ethical Standards initiative (H/T Ethical Standards). One line from the Post’s lead editorial shows how truly remarkable a development this endorsement of Amendment 49 is:

It prevents state and local governments from collecting dues for labor unions or other groups that use such funds to elect or lobby the very public officials who hire them and set their salaries and benefits.

It’s a modest but important ethical rule that will help keep partisan politics, with its echo of the 19th century “spoils system,” out of the merit systems that regulate most state and local government jobs.

We usually don’t agree with the Independence Institute’s Jon Caldara, who’s pushing this measure, on, well, anything. Let this be a first. [emphasis added]

Caldara and the Post on the same side: Now that’s true “bipartisanship.” This kind of broad consensus is also reflected in a long list of endorsements of Amendment 49.

But what will happen next: Dogs and cats living together? World peace? The Detroit Lions in the Super Bowl? I shudder to think.