In a two-page Oct. 29 contract, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 1049 demanded union dues, pay hikes and benefit contributions from Florida electric utilities before its workers would be permitted to help reconnect power to Long Island communities. The demand came as Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the Northeastern United States, stranding tens of millions without electricity.
The “Letter of Assent,” which The Daily Caller obtained from the Florida Municipal Electric Association, demanded 11 separate financial commitments from municipal power companies and electrical cooperatives in the Sunshine State. The agreement, for any utility that decided to sign it, would have been in force from Oct. 29 to Nov. 29.
Barry Moline, the association’s executive director, told TheDC that by Nov. 1 the union, based in the central Long Island town of Hauppauge, had relented and stopped insisting that nonunion crews pay dues and other union fees.
“The union director” himself placed a phone call to withdraw the letter, Moline said during a telephone interview Saturday. But that came only after Moline had notified a national trade group, the American Public Power Association, which turned outrage into action.
The Florida Municipal Electric Association is a statewide trade group that represents 34 separate utility companies. The letter, Moline said, was sent to Florida’s nonunion power companies.
“We had crews ready to go on Monday when the storm hit,” he told TheDC. ”We had dozens of line workers ready to go. There have been hundreds of line workers who have been told, ‘We don’t want you unless you’re part of the union.’ And as a result, people in New York and New Jersey are having the power turned on slower than everywhere else.”
“The word we were getting all week was that New York was short by hundreds of [electric] linemen,” he told TheDC. “Well, okay. We’ve got them. Florida is two days away, so you need a head start.”
Of those workers who were ready to drive north, he said, “probably about 25 stayed put” because of the Long Island IBEW local’s demands. “Another 35 were delayed by five days.”
But in New York, no government official has stepped in to ensure that utility crews from other states won’t have to show their union membership cards before going to work — even though their own employers are paying for them to repair power lines in the Empire State.
Eventually, Moline said, his state’s crews “went everywhere else” affected by Sandy, “but it was only in New York where the union had to give their blessing.”
“It just made me sick that you’ve got people who have no power,” he said, “and you hear about a lot of people dying.”
Editor’s Note: This article is based on “The Machine,” a documentary that aired on TheBlaze TV Nov. 1 as the first of an occasional news magazine series called “For The Record.” An encore broadcast is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 4 at 8pm ET.
President Barack Obama’s campaign team could have more control over the outcome of the 2012 election than you think, according to a report by TheBlaze documentary team that reveals the potential for highly targeted voter fraud in key cities that could determine who gets the electoral votes from many swing states.
The potential fraud would be focused on major, decisive cities that are believed to help keep states blue, and therefore earning them the electoral college’s votes. They’re called “spigot cities.”
Voters cast their ballots at St. Martin’s de Porres high school,Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, in Cleveland. (Photo: AP/Tony Dejak)
J. Christian Adams, an author and former attorney for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, spoke about the spigot cities on the BlazeTV documentary — “The Machine” — which delves into various forms of voter fraud and how it’s being perpetuated. Many believe it is ultimately resulting in a loss of freedom through a corrupt voting system.
Adams believes spigot cities are managed by the Obama campaigned with some involvement by the Voting Section of the Justice Department.
“Without the spigot being opened in Philly, without the spigot being opened in Saint Louis, without the spigot being opened in Detroit and Fort Lauderdale and– and– and places around the country like that, Milwaukee– Cleveland, Cincinnati, those states would not go blue,” Adams said on “The Machine.” “It requires massive turnout– in large unopposed numbers in those urban centers for those states to remain in– in the blue column. What you have, unfortunately, is pervasive systemic voter fraud in many of those places. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
(Image: “The Machine” screenshot)
Calling upon the 2008 election, Adams pointed out that Republican Sen. John McCain’s campaign had a policy to not call the Justice Department’s voting section. The campaign for then-Senator Barack Obama, on the other hand, is believed to have made frequent calls to the department requesting these cities have an adequate number of voting machines in case a precinct received a large amount of voters at one time.
“So you had one side using the DOJ as a potential lever to help them gain power, and you had the other side fleeing from the battlefield,” Adams said.
Flooding the polls would be a necessary factor to create a spigot city. In the documentary, Adams discussed how voter manipulation would be employed for these record poll turnouts, which he says are generally reported in a positive light by the media.
“You have election officials telling voters for whom to vote,” Adams claims. “You have forced assistants. You have bus loads of people who are losing their right to vote as they’re marched into the polling place and have somebody else mark their ballot for them.”
John Fund, author and writer for National Review, said in the documentary that “people will do it for the 20 bucks that are handed at a homeless shelter, and they’re told to get on a bus and go from polling place to polling place, casting votes.”
Voters wait in line to cast their votes at a polling place in Philadelphia in 2008. (Photo: AP/Matt Rourke)
A general aversion to voter identification requirements and support for same-day voting registration is believed to contribute to this practice of flooding polls as well.
Watch this clip from the documentary discussing spigot cities and voter fraud:
“Same day voting is an engraved invitation to voter fraud,” said Fund, who wrote the book Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk. “Because let’s say it’s Minnesota, anybody can show up at the polls, register to vote, and then immediately vote. They don’t have to show ID. Somebody has to vouch for them. So anybody can come in who’s a Minnesota resident and say, ‘Well, I vouch for this person. I know Joe.’”
With same day voter registration, as Adams pointed out, checking voter eligibility is virtually non-existent.
The requirement of a voter ID has been making the rounds in the news during this entire election cycle. Those against imposing a requirement, calling it unconstitutional, argue that it woulddisenfranchise minority voters who have a hard time obtaining identification. At the same time though, TheBlaze reported a Washington Post poll that found near 75 percent of Americans believe the requirement of a voter ID is reasonable.
Although some might deny the existence of voter fraud, fail to see issues with same-day voter registration and at the same time balk at the idea of an ID requirement, there are real consequences of corruption if it occurs.
One example included recently on TheBlaze has Fund discussing how he believes Sen. Al Franken was elected in Minnesota under fraudulent conditions and, if that’s the case, points out that Franken was the deciding vote that passed Obamacare. Some of the controversy surrounding the election between Franken and incumbent Norm Coleman for Minnesota in 2008 — which was won by Franken by only 312 votes after months of litigation following an initial 725-vote lead by Coleman — is that a conservative group Minnesota Majority found evidence of voter fraud, which included voting conducted by ineligible convicted felons.
Watch Fund talk voter fraud with Mallory Factor earlier this month:
So what can be expected of “spigot cities” and alleged voter fraud with the 2012 Presidential Election?
“Well, the problem is– voter fraud is– cyclical,” Fund said. “If the election isn’t close, then people care about less voter fraud. If it’s perceived as very close, there’s an enormous temptation to put your thumb on the scale of democracy. I think this election is gonna be very close.”
You can watch an encore broadcast of the documentary Sunday, Nov. 4 at 8pm ET on TheBlaze TV or on Dish channel 212.
