The kind of people Obama likes to hang with

Meet Eddie York. He was a workingman whose story will never scroll across Obama’s teleprompter. A nonunion contractor who operated heavy equipment, York was shot to death during a strike called by the United Mine Workers 17 years ago. Workmates who tried to come to his rescue were beaten in an ensuing melee. The head of the UMW spearheading the wave of strikes at that time? Richard Trumka. Responding to concerns about violence, he shrugged to the Virginian-Pilot in September 1993: “I’m saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned.” Incendiary rhetoric, anyone?

A federal jury convicted one of Trumka’s UMW captains on conspiracy and weapons charges in York’s death. According to the Washington, D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, which tracks Big Labor abuse, Trumka’s legal team quickly settled a $27 million wrongful death suit filed by York’s widow just days after a judge admitted evidence in the criminal trial. An investigative report by Reader’s Digest disclosed that Trumka “did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local.”

In Illinois, Trumka told UMW members to “kick the s**t out of every last” worker who crossed his picket lines, according to the Nashville (Ill.) News. And as the National Right to Work Foundation (pdf), the leading anti-forced unionism organization in the country, pointed out, other UMW coalfield strikes resulted in what one judge determined were “violent activities … organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.”

And from Glenn Beck the other day:
VOICE: So welcome Richard Trumka to Washington. I'm very proud, always very proud and very satisfied to have Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, our president, your president of the Party of European Socialists.
...
VOICE: And the co chair of the global progressive forum. Both have really worked tirelessly for progressive causes and now we are they are concentrating and we are concentrating how to achieve really this financial transaction text.

PAT: Oh.

VOICE: The AFL CIO has been working with Americans For Financial Reform. Now, we're very pleased that Paul has organized Europeans for financial reform which shares common principles with Americans For Financial Reform, including regulate speculative funds such as hedge funds and private equity funds, create a financial speculation tax or a financial transaction tax or a Robinhood tax, however you wish to refer to it.

VOICE: This is one of the most progressive people in the United States of America. I'm so proud to be declaring myself and defining myself as one of your friends.
Besides the general dirtbagginess of Trumka & The Socialists, please note that Mr. Hood was fighting the Sheriff & Co., the TAX COLLECTORS and enforcers for THE GOVERNMENT.