A tape recording of a 3/27/2007 Teamsters meeting between Obama and Teamsters leaders recorded Obama saying this:
"I think if you've got somebody in the White House who you know and who you trust and you've got history with, then you are going to see a change in terms of how we evaluate these consent decrees."
"I don't want to talk as if I snap my fingers and it suddenly happens, but as president with the authority to appoint an attorney general who actually understands the law..." (Laughter, applause)
Follow-up news coverage gives the following information:
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. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.
Sen. Obama's rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, has declined to take a stance on Teamsters oversight. During his eight years in office, President Bill Clinton took no action to end the special board. Democratic presidential nominees in 2000 and 2004 -- Al Gore and John Kerry -- didn't address the issue, according to Teamsters officials.
Sen. Clinton was "more wishy-washy" than Sen. Obama in discussions on the issue, said Mr. Coli. "Sen. Clinton is making no promises about lifting the consent decree," said her spokesman, Phil Singer.
This sure smacks of *Old-Boy, Back-Room Politics" to me. What do you think? The labor leader supported by the U. S. government in its efforts to root out the Mafia鈥檚 stranglehold over the powerful International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union has now himself been indicted on Federal charges.
Ron Carey, the "reform" candidate who rose to the Presidency of the Teamsters in the 1990s has been charged with 7 counts of Perjury in regards to the illegal transfer of over $800,000 in Union money to fund Carey鈥檚 1996 re-election campaign.
The U. S. Attorney鈥檚 office in Manhattan claims that Carey and his associates had this money donated to other Unions as well as the Democratic National Committee, and that these organizations then illegally kicked back the funds as donations to Carey鈥檚 re-election campaign.Through his attorney, Carey has pleaded not guilty and predicts he will be vindicated of all charges.
Richard Trumka, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, has been charged as Carey鈥檚 co-conspirator in the kickback scheme.
Five Carey associates have already pleaded guilty, including Carey鈥檚 former campaign manager Jere Nash, political consultant Martin Davis, Teamsters official William Hamilton, and fundraiser Michael Ansara.
Trumka and Ansara were top fundraisers for Al Gore in his failed year 2000 Presidential campaign.
Carey served for over 20 years as the President of a Union of UPS workers in New York and counted among his supporters workers involved in radical leftist causes. Carey took over as IBT President in 1991 but by 1994 indications had emerged of trouble yet to come.
In that year a Federal Judge who was among a Panel appointed by the Justice Department to help rid the Teamsters of Mafia influence sent a letter to authorities in New York urging the cessation of an investigation into allegations that Carey was associated with the Luchese Mafia Family.
In the 1996 election Carey edged out his opponent, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., the son of the late Union legend who, in league with the Mafia, had built the Teamsters into a powerful but feared Union nationwide. Federal monitors threw out the results of the 1996 election when evidence of the illegal funding was uncovered.
In the second election ordered by the Federal government, Hoffa Jr. won a decisive victory over Carey.
In 1998 Carey was permanently removed from the Teamsters Union as a result of the investigation of the charges upon which he is now under indictment.
While current Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. has never been charged with a crime, his actions in 1991 on behalf of Local 707 in New York raised the attention of Federal Mafia probers. Hoffa worked for two months that year as legal counsel for Local 707.
In 1996 that Union鈥檚 President James McNeil was indicted along with Colombo Family members John Orena and Thomas Petrizzo in a Union pension fund kickback scheme. Petrizzo, who was among scores of defendants acquitted in one of the four Federal trials that resulted in the infamous Colombo Family War of 1991-94, pleaded guilty to the pension fund charges.
Hoffa Jr.鈥檚 father was convicted in 1964 on jury tampering and fraud charges in a case that was initiated by U. S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy.
After spending four years in prison, President Richard Nixon commuted Hoffa鈥檚 sentence and Hoffa engaged in an attempt to once again take control of the Teamsters.
However, in 1975 Hoffa vanished without a trace and is presumed murdered. Authorities believe Genovese Family capo Tony Provenzano, who also served as President of a corrupt Teamsters Local in New Jersey, was among those Teamsters officials who plotted the murder of Hoffa.
No one has ever been charged in Hoffa鈥檚 murder. Provenzano was eventually convicted of murder in an unrelated case and died in prison. I think Obama, took it in the "back room" to get their backing or gave it in the "back room"!!!
One or the other, he sure does talk a good game and all those tree hugging hippie walmart ghetto shoppers out there really buy into his BS... LOL he didn't have to take any "back-room" deals. The teamasters were never for Hillary. They always saw her as being involved with NAFTA.
You will have to reach a little farther....nice try though. |
