John Edwards, Crusader for the Poor & Unions

Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards' antics are just too hilarious for words sometimes. Take this past week.

First we learn that, while promising legislation to shut down offshore fund managers, Edwards actually worked for one for at least the past year. That's right. Edwards worked for Fortress, LLC, the prominent hedge fund that has recently begun allowing public investment into itself.

Edwards earned some $400,000+ last year at Fortress. When asked to explain this association, he said that he wanted to learn how hedge funds related to poverty. You can't this stuff up. Nobody would believe it.

This weekend, in the Wall Street Journal, it was reported that Edwards, who likes to style himself as the "son of a millworker," rather than the former class action lawyer that he is, went to bat to strip workers of their rights in North Carolina.

At issue is union pressure on Smithfield Foods. The Democrats, led by Edwards, are attempting to force the company, whose employees have thus far resisted union organizers, to replace a secret ballot with the 'card check.' This latest liberal Democratic idea allows unions to simply count every signature gathered publicly as a 'vote,' thus using thuggery and intimidation to organize workers.

Of course, the goal of this is higher union wages at Smithfield. The Journal article recounts how this strategy backfired on UNITE, a textile union, when they organized Fieldcrest Cannon in 2002. The resulting union demands on the company, as it emerged from bankruptcy, left it no choice but to close its operations in the North Carolina county in question.

So much for trying to hold back global economic tides.

Further on, the article provides an interesting statistic,

"From 1997 to 2005 the 10 states with the highest rates of union membership- which include California, New York and Michigan, among others- had slower growth than the bottom 10 states. North Carolina is among just five states with union membership rates below 5%. ....Further unionizing the workforce will likely only make the state look more like the old Northeast and Rustbelt than the New South."

It's sort of comical to put these two stories together. Here's John Edwards, multi-millionaire class-action, corporate-shakedown attorney, raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the type of company he publicly lambastes. Then he turns around and supports an erosion of workers' rights which will likely lead to more of them being jobless, as their unions raise wages too high for companies like Smithfield Foods to continue operating in North Carolina.

As the Journal piece notes, for better or worse, Edwards has lashed himself to big labor for this election. It's going to be interesting to see how Edwards tries to tack back from this socialist stance, should he somehow actually win the Democratic nomination for President.

Frisco Nan's Fiscal Promise-Breaking

Last week's tussle over pork being stuffed into the Iraq funding bill provided voters with a clear view of how Frisco Nan (Pelosi), the House Speaker, has already broken her promises for better fiscal management of the budget.

Her main man, Pennsylvania Rep John Murtha, was caught threatening Mike Rogers, a Republican, with a total elimination of any funding requests for his district, because Rogers challenged a specious earmark project in Murtha's district.

According to the House's own rules, this type of intimidation and coercion is supposed to be illegal. So much for the Democrats new broom sweeping clean.

In fact, they had to lard the Iraq funding bill with quite a bit of pork, in order to tempt some of their own party to vote for it, despite it being vetoed the first time around.

As I wrote in my prior post, here, the Congressional Democrats are on record now breaking promises, left and right. Mostly left, of course.

Seriously, they've tried to unplug the funding for the war in Iraq, but without actually taking responsibility. They've now returned to earmarking, and even last minute insertions of them, a la Tom Delay- something they vowed to 'clean up' if they won control of the Lower Chamber.

Honestly, you can't make stuff up that's as good fodder for election campaigns as these actions by the liberal House Democrats.

Another reason to have bright hopes for a return to Republican control of at least one House next election, if not both, even by slim margins.

Congressional Democrats Run to the Left on Iraq

This past week's Congressional buckling under to President Bush's refusal to sign an Iraq funding bill with a withdrawal timetable has accomplished what conservatives (like me) expected all along.

Frisco Nan, Reid, and their cohorts showed their true colors, trying to force a withdrawal from Iraq, without actually taking responsibility for it. It backfired, they couldn't override the veto, and had to back down.

But they are on record as having now voted, clearly and decisively, to cut and run in the face of global terrorism.

Additionally, it forced Hillary to run left, in order not to be outflanked by Obama Bim Baden and Chris Dodd. All three are on record now as having voted to gut support for our armed forces, and try to pretend we are a continental island in a troubled world.

Was 9/11 that long ago, that these Democrats think American voters won't recall that this type of thinking didn't work before? I continue to believe that they have badly misunderstood American voter sentiments, i.e., whether or not we should be in Iraq, we are, so let's win this time. Unlike the liberal Democrats' sabotage of our Vietnam policy during the Nixon administration.

Thanks to President Bush's fortitude, the Republicans now have the gift of a big, fat target at which to aim in the 2008 elections. The liberal Democrats are now "out" as soft and spineless on Iraq and the war on terror. This should result in GOP seat gains, and maybe a return to majority, in both Houses during the next election.