Obama Seeks To End Federal Oversight Of Teamsters

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.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[flyguy14222]

Why is it so hard to deal in facts here on HuffPo? Hillary said she would LOOK AT changing oversight, not that she would. Also, why did Barry deny this morning ever making that commitment? Heavens no! Saint Barry lied.

[nomobull]

wheres the proof that he did and the timing is a little suspicious

[NCMan]

"where's the proof" the constant cry of the Obama supporter.

Would you ever accept anything other than a video tape of the words coming directly from Obama's mouth as proof of anything negative about him? Oh wait, you wouldn't even accept that. You would claim it was fake. You would actually have to be there yourself and witness it for you to believe it, right?

[hank48188]

Barry always complains about the old time politics with all the special interests, now he wants to run the Justice Dept. JUST LIKE GEORGE BUSH AND ALBERTO GONZALEZ. Obama told the Teamsters that with a "Friend" in the White House people would get good results. Teamster support is the bribe that must be paid, I even saw Jimmy Hoffa working in Indiana for Obama, he wants the Gov't out but I bet the workers don't

[LORISNJ]

Hold on, latest polls say that the majority of Americans think it is ok to relax oversight on Teamsters....Clinton claims she supported it before Obama.

New poll shows the majority of Americans think that Iran can be stopped before it gets a nuke....Clinton team touts "bomb to oblivion" stand will stop Iran from getting a nuke.

New poll shows the the majority of Americans think that the gas tax holiday is political pandering and that it would not be doable this summer....Clinton camp has had a senior moment and blames Obama for holding up this legislation in Congress and they said that he isn't with them so he must be against them.

New poll shows that the majority of Americans want a smart "elitist" to be in the White House for a change, Clinton is running a brand new ad showing her "coming out" party after graduating from Wellesley and her first days at Yale Law School.

New poll shows that the majority of Americans would rather vote for a black man then a white woman, Clinton team has called in specialist to perform the surgery and has called in a skin specialist as well.

[politicojunkie]

Clinton is totally obnoxious!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/politics/05cnd-teamsters.html

[ApolloniaCreed]

... and get's several serrogates to tout her "testicular fortitude"

[NCMan]

This morning's Wall Street Journal revealed that Sen. Obama unequivocally supports lifting the teamsters federal consent decree:

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.

¦Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed the candidate's position in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, saying that Sen. Obama believes that the board "has run its course," because "organized crime influence in the union has drastically declined." Mr. Vietor said Sen. Obama took that position last year.
This morning on Good Morning America, Sen. Obama contradicted his campaign and said he had not made a commitment.

Today, the Politico published audio of Hillary speaking to the Teamsters. Hillary says that she'd be open to "looking at" the status of the consent decree but made no commitments.

This is consistent with what the Hillary campaign and the Teamsters said publicly before this audio was released. Phil Singer told the Wall Street Journal: "Sen. Clinton is making no promises about lifting the consent decree." The Teamsters described Hillary's position as "wishy-washy."

[politicojunkie]

NYTimes has good article on this subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/politics/05cnd-teamsters.html

[GBecker]

Typical day before the primary crap from HRC and BFF Murdoch. There just is no such thing as responsible journalism any more.

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

You moonbats, thats all you got is to Question he WSJ! This Campaign just seems like any other campaign... "Hope and Change" Chicago Style.

Oh Chicago the home of the American Election Fraud.

The Kiddies have no clue what a Teamsters is anyway.

There is nothing new about Obama... Rev Wright is right, he is a politician

Just like that Ohio NAFTA Canada flair up.

[fungeezer]

Gee, I believe that there are many other cities that are worse. The whole state of Florida comes to mind. But, because Chicago is strong Democratic, the Republicans like to make the claim you just made.

[GBecker]

Are you from Chicago? Do you know about Chicago politics? I suggest you aren't and you don't - but that's so typical of trolls on the eve of a primary.

Slink back over to freeper.

[rwe]

Well GBecker let me help...Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.. the most corrupt , tax gouged (10.25 % sales) Rezkow, highest gas prices in country, Ayers and his wife, Todd Stroger and his 25,000 relatives and friends who are employees, pension double dippers, as many highschool killings as on an Iraq city on any given day...Just defeated a motin to allow a recall vote in November(even you guys can impeach Bush and Cheney if you want) And this mecca of delight is all run by Democrats...We have not even talked about schools and unions .... Remember the Canada incident ? wink wink nudge nudge.

[GBecker]

Are you from Chicago? Because I am. It's far from the most corrupt city on the planet, but if it makes you feel better to throw out inconsequential names and supposed occurrences on the eve of a primary and in the thread of a slanted WSJ article, knock yourself out.

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

Chicago can tax itself into the ground. Soon when Texas gets on the ball with Public Transit, it will be a even greater place to live

[neocon666]

Is this anything like to story of Barack Obama supposedly meeting with the Canadians to tell them to ingore anything he said about NAFTA? I have no doubt that like the NAFTA "leak", after the damage has been done the real story -that it was actually McHillary who made the promise -will come to light.

[neocon666]

So says the WSJ -once a respected bastion of jounalism, and now a shadow of its former self; a print version of Fox News with numbers since Murdoch bought and sodomized it.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

Yes, as many have observed in the posts here, the WSJ is now owned by Rupert Murdoch and is now part of the rightwing propaganda machine. Therefore it is important for all progressives to spread around the memes (viral formulations), that the WSJ is, as a poster here observed, Faux News In Print. I urge you all to put on your creative wordsmithing hats and create more viral catch phrases that will spread the obvious truth that the WSJ is a lying sack of s**t and a tool of corporate warmongers. Tell your friends and even your enemies what you think of the WSJ and its agenda. Let's meme this to death.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

Of course, the WSJ was always a right wing rag, but now it is on steroids.

[NoLove4HillaryAnymore]

The question to be asked is...who owns WSJ?? It is owned by Rupert Murdock FOX NEWS CHANNEL. This is a blatant action to hurt Obama and Americans have to say enough is enough. STOP the MEDIA coordinated big money connection of the Clinton's from beating our candidate.

[KMan1]

This is old news masquerading as new news. Obama voted to lift the decree in 2004.

Shockingly here is what HRC had to say about the decree this past March.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Clintont_to_Teamsters_Turn_the_page_on_consent_decree.html

So although they believe much of the same things, She hopes that she can use this to manipulate a few uninformed voters. She is giving this the ol' Naftagate try.


With HRC the end always justify the means. She truly has no integrity.

[NoLove4HillaryAnymore]

This is a lie...all the Clinton camp including WSJ knows to do is lie, lie and lie more about Obama. I guess it is contagious.

[tbone99]

Isn't this Bush's ploy - deregulating for his friends?

[KillTheMessenger]

It is an article in the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Now, stop ranting for a moment everyone and THINK about what that means in this context.

OK? Got it?

[Bill3rdterm]

What I gather is Obama is pandering on this issue, yet he and his drones are criticizing HRC for it on the Gas Tax Holiday.

[nomobull]

and the economic experts that she says she won't listen to and do you have proof that he said it.

[heal57]

This is what the WJS has become since owned by Rupert Murdock. Obama is slammed almost daily in a so-called business newspaper. I've asked my husband to reconsider our subscription.
Uniions may have gone too far and some are[were] corrupt, but you must know how mangement treated it's workers before unions [slave labor , children working 80 hour weeks, pittance wages,etc].
We're on our way back there if we don't CHANGE. YES WE CAN!

Independents for Obama '08

[kay]

Oh, she's just such a liar.

Hillary Clinton, same issue:

"and so I would be very open to looking at that and to saying, what is it we"re trying to accomplish here? And seeing what the answers were because at some point turn the page and go on."

No sooner does she launch some ridiculous attack than her own statements come back to haunt her.

[dumboldfarmer]

Is this one of Hillary's famous "day before the election" smears? It has to be a smear tactic since she herself has taken the same position regarding the Teamsters. Typical Clinton campaign. I expect more before the day is done. The Clinton campaign sure is ethically and morally challenged.

[hopelessobama]

obama for change!!! (and by change we mean changing the rules for exelon and the teamsters!!)

[hopelessobama]

whats next? a few hundred thousand dead people in cook county will end up casting ballots for b. hussein. what is joe kennedy running this campaign? no wonder teddy signed on!!! obama/mafia 08!

[hopelessobama]

obama/hoffa 2008: making sam giancana proud!!!

[hopelessobama]

obama and jimmy hoffa working side by side to continue corruption, what a shocker. i guess this is 'new politics' chicago style!

[gwhizz]

So he's already overstepping.

Leave it to a Chicago Pol to support ending "the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign."

Can you say PANDER?

[LannyMacD]

It's a non-issue. Both Democratic candidates share the same position on the issue. If it comes up in the fall it is an ace in the hole. If the Republicans come crying about this issue, the Democrats can fire back that they are just exploring greater deregulation and less government interference, two common bugbears the Republicans like to toss in Democrats faces. This is a non-issue.

[jaynevada]

Obama is CORRUPT, a LIAR, and his slogan of change an ILLUSION.

1) CORRUPT: A houseowner wants to sell both a house and adjoining land. Obama can afford to buy only the house. No problem, the criminal Rezko to the rescue. Rezko pays full price for the land, whereas Obama gets a discount of $300,000 on the house. Nice to have criminal friends like this!!! (ref ABC News)

2) LIAR: Obama claims he did not know about Wright's America-hating (God damn America) and racist views till it was revealed in the mainstream media in March 2008. Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years, was married by Wright, had his children baptized by Wright, donated over $20,000 to Wright's church and named his book "Audacity of Hope" after one of Wright's sermons. You really believe after 20 years and all this he did not know?

3) ILLUSION: Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants in Illinois. Obama, a senator for Illinois introduces a bill to make disclosures mandatory. Seems like Exelon doesn't like it. Each draft of the new bill by Obama goes more and more towards Exelon till disclosures end up being "voluntary". What gives? How about $250,000+ donations by Exelon!!! Obama is not change, he is WASHINGTON BUSINESS AS USUAL. (ref NYT)

People need to realize that Hillary has been fighting for them all along. All the way back to 1993 when she tried to introduce universal health care.

[nomobull]

show me proof of her fighting for me other than her say so

[hussein]

This morning's Wall Street Journal revealed that Sen. Obama unequivocally supports lifting the teamsters federal consent decree:

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.

¦Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed the candidate's position in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, saying that Sen. Obama believes that the board "has run its course," because "organized crime influence in the union has drastically declined." Mr. Vietor said Sen. Obama took that position last year.

This morning on Good Morning America, Sen. Obama contradicted his campaign and said he had not made a commitment.

Today, the Politico published audio of Hillary speaking to the Teamsters. Hillary says that she'd be open to "looking at" the status of the consent decree but made no commitments.

This is consistent with what the Hillary campaign and the Teamsters said publicly before this audio was released. Phil Singer told the Wall Street Journal: "Sen. Clinton is making no promises about lifting the consent decree." The Teamsters described Hillary's position as "wishy-washy."

[HowietheScreamer]

Hello... it's the RUPERT MURDOCK owned WSJ... they are now just Faux Nooze in print form. Rupie is FOR Clinton... there's ALL you need to know.