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Don’t miss FrontPage’s other Union Gangsters profiles featuring Craig Becker, Richard Trumka, Stephen Lerner, Andy Stern and Daniel De Leon. Few union gangsters have the exquisitely barbaric pedigree of International Brotherhood of Teamsters president James P. Hoffa. And few labor unions can match the Teamsters, the million-plus member union of truckers and blue-collar workers, for its legendary connections to organized crime, corruption, and violence. For decades the word Teamster was essentially a synonym for gangster. Hoffa is the son of James R. Hoffa, the relentlessly corrupt, larger-than-life Teamsters president who worked closely with figures from the crime underworld. In July...

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck a huge blow against a much-abused presidential power yesterday in invalidating Craig Becker's 2010 appointment to the National Labor Relations Board. I think it's great news -- the recess appointment is an outdated accommodation for the executive branch, and no president from any party should have such power...But bear in mind that although this decision does resemble a recent one by the D.C. Circuit, it isn't about Obama's flagrantly illegal appointments to the NLRB from last January. This calls nearly all recess appointments into question, and it gives the Supreme Court a...

Emigrant Bank was recently identified to receive a waiver that would allow the bank to opt out of rigorous Dodd-Frank requirements. These of course are the same new rules and regulations that Barack deems essential to the nation. Yet when the bank’s owner, Howard Milstein, who is a close friend and was a bundler for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, protested that the new rules would seriously crimp operations of his bank, the Obama Administration worked with members of congress to grant him a waiver from the new rules. Other financial institutions and banks have consistently and vehemently argued that...

A political maelstrom may soon develop over the National Labor Relations Board, as Senate Republicans might finally have some leverage over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. NLRB chairwoman and GOP member Wilma Liebman’s term ended this past weekend, bringing the Board’s total membership down to just three members. There are two Democratic members, Craig Becker and Mark Gaston Pearce, and one Republican member, Brian Hayes. President Barack Obama appointed all three of them, but the Senate only confirmed nominations for Pearce and Hayes. Obama recess-appointed Becker after the Senate rejected his nomination. Becker’s recess appointment runs out at the end...

The departing chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board won praise from the nation’s biggest labor group Saturday as she leaves a panel that’s facing key vacancies and an uncertain future. NLRB Chairwoman Wilma B. Liebman’s leaves the board after her term ends at midnight Saturday. She has served on the body for nearly 14 years after an initial appointment under President Bill Clinton. The White House has designated NLRB member Mark Gaston Pearce to replace Liebman as chairman. In addition to Liebman’s tenure ending, NLRB member Craig Becker’s term expires at the end of the year. Without new people...

House Republicans have been in talks with their counterparts in the Senate about blocking President Obama from filling two upcoming vacancies to the National Labor Relations Board through recess appointments, which would leave the body deadlocked with just two members, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said on Thursday. “The major flaw here is that the board is grotesquely imbalanced," Kline, chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, told reporters after a hearing about the NLRB's new proposed rules to speed up union elections. Right now, Democrats on the board outnumber Republicans by 3-to-1, but the terms of two Democrats will expire...

And the line “I wouldn’t like you 10 times in a row” seems fitting in the context of the Barack Obama White House. Clearly, Obama has been caught in more than one lie. But you may have noticed that since Obama began raising money for his 2012 reelection, the outrageous activity and agendas coming out of this administration have been relatively subdued when contrasted with the events of 2010. Sure, Obama upset many people this week in El Paso Texas when he proclaimed that immigration reform has become a critical issue, however, the fence protecting our southern border “is basically...

RFFM.org To launch Effort To Inform Seniors, Retired And Disabled About Issues Involving This Group by Daniel T. Zanoza EDITOR'S NOTE: As a disabled individual myself, I fully understand that the Obama Administration now sees senior citizens and disabled individuals from the middle-class and poor alike as a politically expendable voting bloc. Some might claim my efforts may be self-serving, but it has become clear to me groups including AARP are no longer looking out for the best interests of seniors. The disabled are also suffering under Obama's policies which impact all Americans. Subsequently, I will issue a quarterly newsletter...

A grassroots non-denominational church lobby is blasting President Barack Obama for using recess appointments for two individuals who are so radical they couldn't even be confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate. Since Congress adjourned on Friday (March 26), President Obama has appointed no less than 15 of his languishing nominees. The Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) is concerned about two in particular, including radical professor Chai Feldblum who is to serve as a commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. TVC executive director Andrea Lafferty says Feldblum is way out of the mainstream. "She has stated that sexual liberty trumps religious liberty,...

Bombshell Uncovered: Obama's Newly Anointed Labor Board Czar: No Punishment for Hiring Illegals, SAYS SANCTIONS ARE DISCRIMINATORY http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-audio-obamas-new-nlrb-appointee-pushes-no-punishment-for-hiring-illegals/

BULLETIN: Obama announces more than a dozen recess appointments, including NRLB nominee Craig Becker. 3 minutes ago via Tweetie Appointments include 5 members of EEOC, senior DHS management offcial, CPB...

Recess appointment of union radical could mean backdoor card checkBig Labor played such an essential role in delivering the White House to President Obama that the head of the influential government workers union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, told The Washington Times after the election that the union was expecting "payback." Payback's name is H. Craig Becker. That's who President Obama nominated for a seat overseeing federal labor laws on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Becker's record as a top lawyer for both the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO is so troubling...

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Obama administration is hinting at a possible recess appointment for a controversial nominee to the National Labor Relations Board. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told AFL-CIO officials at their annual meeting Wednesday there will soon be positive news on the long-stalled nomination of union lawyer Craig Becker. Solis then told reporters the unions will be "very pleased" with how the issue is resolved. President Barack Obama upset union leaders when he decided not to appoint Becker during a Congressional recess last month. Union officials now think Obama may act when Congress breaks for Easter.

The Senate on Tuesday rejected Craig Becker, President Obama’s nominee for the National Labor Relations Board. Becker got 52 votes — but he needed 60 to break a GOP filibuster. Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska even voted no. On the surface, new Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., wasn’t important. But he denied Democrats' ability to break a GOP filibuster, so there was no point in vulnerable senators sticking their necks out

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) cast his first major vote today, helping Republicans maintain a filibuster against President Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board. Brown opposed ending debate on the nomination of Craig Becker, a former lawyer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who has received stiff opposition from business groups and Republicans. The final vote was 52-33, falling short of the 60 needed to end debate and move to a final vote. President Obama has blasted Republicans for filibustering nominees like Becker. The vote suggests Brown will stick with his caucus on controversial party-line votes. Many suspect...

The nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board was just defeated on a cloture vote 52-33. Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.), and Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.) all voted against cloture.

An email sent from an Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lobbyist to Democratic members of the U.S. Senate shows that the SEIU had advance knowledge of when key votes on Craig Becker were to be held. Becker is one of Barack Obama’s nominees for the National Labor Relations Board. The email was released by Jeri Thompson, co-host of the Fred Thompson Show. She will be discussing it in detail on her show, which begins at 12PM. Thompson described the email as “marching orders to the Senate HELP Committee, telling them what their schedule was going to be.” According to the...

Obama Appointee Tied to Effort to Unionize Home Health-Care Workers October 15, 2009 The plot thickens -- as in SEIU's pay-to-play plots in state government, including its most recent naked power grab: Its repugnant effort to intervene between children with disabilities and their parents by making home health care workers for disabled children in Illinois a closed shop. In an editorial today on President Obama’s nominee to head the National Labor Relations Board, the Wall Street Journal shines a light on Craig Becker, an associate general counsel at SEIU whose career is traced back to Gov. Rod Blagojevich:One of the...

One of Big Labor's priorities in Washington is to place allies in key government jobs where they can overturn existing labor policy without battles in Congress. This is a very good reason for the Senate to hold a hearing on the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Becker is associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is most recently in the news for its close ties to Acorn, the disgraced housing shakedown operation. President Obama nominated Mr. Becker in April to the five-member NLRB, which has the critical job of...

New Orleans Recent press reports and a big story in the Wall Street Journal have been sniping at the huge $85M set of contributions that the Service Employees International Union made on the Obama campaign. On one hand they seem to be insinuating crass influence buying and on the other hand they are hinting at financial mismanagement. Poppycock! Pundits, pols, and others can throw a lot of brickbats at SEIU and its leadership, but not for these decisions that actually show real leadership, risk taking, and exactly what it should mean to accept the challenge in these hard times to...