You Knew There Had to be a Union Link in Blagogate, Right?
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
12/09/08 5:34 PM EST
Michelle Malkin has been combing through the indictment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on multiple political corruption charges, and amazingly enough found a fascinating passage involving an unnamed SEIU official discussing approaches to securing appointment to the Senate side vacated by Barack Obama.
Given the top-to-bottom corruption of Illinois politics, there is every chance that the Blagojevich scandal is only the beginning. Stay tuned because this is going to get much more interesting - and sad - before long. Already, speculation is rampant about the identities of five unnamed individuals of interest in the government's indictment of Blagojevich and his chief of staff.
At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey notes the link of this latest scandal in Illinois politics and the coming debate in Congress regarding the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, the horribly mis-named proposal better known to proponents and opponents alike as the "Card Check" bill:
"Let’s just put this in perspective. The largest public-sector union — the one that works most closely with governments — has officials in it that see nothing wrong with bribing public officials to get their preferred Senate candidate into office through a corrupt appointment. If Blago’s arrest reflects poorly on Illinois state government, then the involvement of this SEIU official says volumes about the way workers there and everywhere else get represented and organized, as well as how their union dues get used.
"If they’re willing to flat-out bribe a governor, they’ll be happy to use Card Check to intimidate workers into unions and increase their dues. They’ll then use those dues to buy more politicians, just as we see in this indictment. Card Check is nothing more than a Trojan horse to fund corruption and abuse on the largest possible scale."
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who filed the Blagojevich indictment, may have just fired the opening shot in the Card Check debate.
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