Richard Trumka Vomits At White House Meeting With Obama

President Obama convened a meeting of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board Friday, but one of his top allies needed a little more time to recover.

Suffering from a stomach bug of some kind, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka vomited at the White House Friday and had to miss the rest of the advisory board meeting, people with knowledge of the situation confirmed to HuffPost.

Trumka is a key progressive voice on the advisory panel, which also includes former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who chaired President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and served as Director of the Clinton-era National Economic Council.

AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale tried to turn the incoming jokes away from the state of the economy and towards the fight developing on Capitol Hill.

"While President Trumka is sick of big banks fighting Wall Street reform, this was in no way related to that," Vale quipped in a statement to CNN. "He just had a stomach bug and is now resting so he can get ready for his next fight."

Comments

[duhtruth]

02:44 PM on 04/19/2010

Thanks for sharing. That news made my day???****!!!!

[Ukiah Hawkins]

01:56 PM on 04/19/2010

I'm goingto start calling out BS on all of the unnecessary and totally inane articles that I see on HuffPost. I love this site, but news like this really serves no purpose whatsoever. Get it together you guys!

[scorpioleidy]

10:52 AM on 04/19/2010

Real nice, HP - and thanks for sharing!

Can't even find this kind of "news" in the Enquirer or on TMZ.

[Figerre]

10:40 AM on 04/19/2010

my gosh, hyou would think that Trumka threw up on the president's shoes! Geesh - you are that hard up for an article? Headline should have been White House meeting,

[dancucich]

12:54 AM on 04/19/2010

The President's kowtowing to conservatives would make any
working union man or woman vomit.

Card check, yes, triangulating President: no!

[XME]

11:31 PM on 04/18/2010

I feel for the guy. When I was in the third grade, I puked all over my desk in the middle of class. I will NEVER forget it, and I was child, and no one told the entire world!

[usa142day]

10:45 PM on 04/18/2010

I for one would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that Bill Gertz is one of the members of the mainstream media who has not compromised his journalistic ethics in favor of promoting a candidate or party which seems to run counter to all that is America.

A candidate who was elected primarily because the citizens of the United States were exposed to a continuing drumbeat of negativity about the country and its duly elected officials.

He ran successfully as the anti-Bush, supported by Blacks and guilt-ridden white liberals who actually believed that a corrupt politician with a sketchy personal history and dubious associations could bring about hope and change.

Well we have seen hope greatly diminish and the change seems to be pointing America towards European-style socialism. And if the trend continues, America will be virtually unrecognizable in the near future.

Governed by those who think, not of improving America, but it is their time to loot and plunder America.

[usa142day]

10:44 PM on 04/18/2010

we are now facing much more accurate, reliable missiles from China.’"

“Mr. Sokolski said he expects the U.S. government under the new policy to again boost Chinese military modernization through ‘whatever renewed 'benign' missile technology’ is approved.”

"’It was foolish for us to do this in the 1990s and is even more dangerous for us to do now,"’he said.

Bottom line …

The democrats, being run by far-left activists with a decidedly anti-America, pro-International Community outlook, cannot and should not be trusted with matters involving national defense.

The mere appointment of self-avowed Communists and Marxists to high positions within the Obama Administration underscores the point that America must now take action to protect herself from our enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Especially those who domestically are attempting to use our own environmental laws to weaken our military and tank our economy.

Never before have we faced such an evil confluence of corrupt ideologues who want to secure and maintain their political power at all costs. American and her citizens be damned.

Never before have we seen a toxic confluence of venal, corrupt and incompetent people in what amounts to a one-party rule over America – without the traditional checks and balances.

[Pennsanic]

11:25 AM on 04/19/2010

Yo Rumplestiltskin. Were you sleeping through 8 years of Team Bush tramping the Constitution?

W's team was spying upon Americans without probable cause, due process or warrants, which violated the 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution. (W's claims that he had authority to spy upon US citizens and residents by virtue of an executive order was troubling to all thinking--as opposed to Kool Aid drinking--Americans).

The US congress has, over the yeras, passed various laws to guarantee limits on domestic surveillance:

- The Telecommunications Privacy Act of 1984 (TPA)
- The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986
- The Privacy Act of 1974
- The Wire And Electronic Communications Interception
And Interception Of Oral Communications
- The Wireless Telecommunications Privacy Act of 2000
- The Freedom of Information Act

W also lied, misled and/or relied upon inappropriate intelligence to engage in an improper invasion of a sovereign nation and violated the UN Charter (which is part and parcel of our Constitution by law). That's a whole different post. I could also go on about press freedom, immingrants rights, and due process but space will not permit it.

Why do all the tube-steaks on HP insist on putting USA or Patriot or Freedom in their 'handles'?!

[usa142day]

10:42 PM on 04/18/2010

Obama: a clear and present danger to a free America?

“The presidential notice alters a key provision of the 1999 Defense Authorization Act that required that the president notify Congress whether a transfer of missile and space technology to China would harm the U.S. space-launch industry or help China's missile programs.”

“The law was passed after a late-1990s scandal involving the U.S. companies Space Systems/Loral and Hughes Electronics Corp.”

“Both companies improperly shared technology with China and were fined $20 million and $32 million, respectively, by the State Department after a U.S. government investigation concluded that their know-how was used to improve China's long-range nuclear missiles.”

“Section 1512 of the 1999 law requires the president to certify to Congress in advance of any missile equipment or technology exports to China that the export will not harm the U.S. space-launch industry and that ‘missile equipment or technology, including any indirect technical benefit that could be derived from such export, will not measurably improve the missile or space launch capabilities of the People's Republic of China.’"

“Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said restoring Commerce Department control over the sensitive experts is a ‘step backward.’"

"’It's as though Commerce's mishandling of missile-tech transfers to China in the 1990s never happened,’ said Mr. Sokolski, a former Pentagon proliferation specialist. ‘But it did.

[usa142day]

10:39 PM on 04/18/2010

Déjà vu all over again!

Once again, top-notch investigative reporter Bill Gertz ferrets out the truth.

The Washington Times is reporting …

“EXCLUSIVE: Obama loosens missile technology controls to China”

“ President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department -- a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development.”

“The president issued a little-noticed ‘presidential determination’ Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.”

“Commerce officials say the shift will not cause controls to be loosened in regards to the export of missile and space technology.”

[usa142day]

10:35 PM on 04/18/2010

October 16, 2009
Obama channeling Bill Clinton: loosens missile technology controls to China ...

Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it …
The Bill Clinton saga …

In 1996, President Bill Clinton personally signed an executive order transferring control of satellite technology to the Department of Commerce; thus releasing restraints on a wide variety of sophisticated space and missile technology which were then exported to China.

Not to bore you with the reported scandals involving democrat fundraising and Chinese interests, the mysterious death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown or the scandal involving the Loral Corporation’s alleged illegal transfer of technology under the direction of its CEO who was a prominent democrat fundraiser, suffice it to say that some of that guidance and control system technology wound up aboard the Chinese DF-31 missile.

Also to be noted, the Chinese are not our friends and consistently export arms and missiles to those who do not wish America well.

[usa142day]

10:52 PM on 04/18/2010

Déjà vu all over again!

Once again, top-notch investigative reporter Bill Gertz ferrets out the truth.

The Washington Times is reporting …

“EXCLUSIVE: Obama loosens missile technology controls to China”

“ President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department -- a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development.”

“The president issued a little-noticed ‘presidential determination’ Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.”

“Commerce officials say the shift will not cause controls to be loosened in regards to the export of missile and space technology.”

[WilliamL]

08:14 PM on 04/18/2010

Or here is another suggestion for the future-

AFL-CIO President, despite battling stomach flu still attends WH meeting and becomes ill.

A good number of the headlines and lack of correct terminology when it comes to Unions, the labor movement, AFL-CIO, and those in leadership positions sounds as if either those posting them know very little about labor and/or have an attitude.

Enough with "union/labor boss" b.s.

[scorpioleidy]

10:45 AM on 04/19/2010

You do realize the HP "writing" staffers are only in junior high, right?

[ZDuck]

07:08 PM on 04/18/2010

It was the tea.

[andyg]

03:54 PM on 04/18/2010

So he couldn't swallow what the president was giving out. Their no posting about him possible being a teabagger in diguse,

[SPQR1052]

03:24 PM on 04/18/2010

Stay classy HuffPost..... This reportage is borderline.....

[wonketteRAWKS]

07:42 PM on 04/18/2010

Borderline? Like we couldn't get through the day without this breaking news?