While yet divided in its Democratic loyalties, organized labor has turned its attention away from Democratic endorsements and begun to focus on GOP opposition. The AFL-CIO is sending 6,000+ agents to 22 states over the next two weekends, hoping to inform 200,000 unionists of the evils of McCain. The Service Employees International Union is running ads critical of McCain's health care plan.

This shift in focus coincides with increased pressure from the Labor Department for greater transparency in union finances. On Monday, Labor will publish proposed changes to union disclosure forms in the Federal Register. Such measures reflect an effort to force labor unions to reveal more details of their internal finances.

It seems that McCain's honesty in Youngstown, Ohio will go unrewarded by the Unionists whose greed has largely impoverished that area. Their eyes hazed with fanatical obsession, union leaders will once again prostrate themselves in delusional frenzy before Democratic promises to reanimate the corpse of American steel. Far from speaking truth to power, the lecherous Democratic-unionist cabal forecasts only continued blight in the downtrodden urban centers in which it will most likely gain its most fervent - if misguided - support.

The Teamsters, a union that has been under the government's watchful eye for nearly 20 years due to its past connection with organized crime and the mafia, may have found a friend in Barack Obama.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Obama won the endorsement from the organization of James P. Hoffa's (son of former Teamster's President Jimmy Hoffa, whose 1975 disappearance is still fodder for lore and mystery) in February after the Democratic presidential hopeful said privately he was in favor of ending the strict government oversight of the group to root out corruption. Monitoring of the union has largely been left to the Justice Department. Hoffa - who has been campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania and Indiana, the latter of which has its primary tomorrow - has been advocating for an easing of oversight since he became union president in 1999.

Hoffa says it's Obama's criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement that won the group's support.
Both camps say there was no quid pro quo between the endorsement and oversight issue. Obama today denied any sort of agreement between the two.

"I wouldn't make any blanket commitments," Obama said this morning on "Good Morning America." "What I've said is I would examine what is going on in terms of the federal oversight that's been taking place.

"The union has done a terrific job cleaning house. The question is whether they're going to be able to get treated like every other union. Whether that time has come is something I'll absolutely examine when I'm president of the United States."

Across the pond, the Mother Country has just undergone the tremors of an impending earthquake. In a series of local council elections, Gordon Brown's Labor Party suffered its worse defeat in 40 years. Labor took only 24% of the vote, just behind the Liberal Democrats (25%) and well behind the surging Conservative (Tory) Party (44%).

While the council elections do not account for much significance beyond acting as a measure of public opinion, the Conservatives did score one substantive success. Laborite Ken Livingstone, London's mayor of eight years, was ousted in a resounding vote of no-confidence. City Hall was conquered by Tory upstart Boris Johnson, whom the New york Times fittingly describes as a "floppy-haired media celebrity and Conservative member of Parliament who transformed himself from a shambling, amusing-aphorism-uttering figure of fun into a plausible political force."

While interim council elections are not absolute auguries of future elections, they clearly reveal a pervasive discontent amongst the Brits. A similar turn-out in the national elections (which must be held by 2010) would manifest as a complete change of government. The center-left coalition is fighting against a strong wind of change, and the Tories are eager to once again hoist their sails.

ABC News blogger Eloise Harper reports that Paul Gibson, the president of a steelworkers union Indiana, introduced Hillary Clinton at an event in a somewhat cryptic manner. Gibson said the nation needed a leader "that has testicular fortitude."

For those elitists reading the blog, testicular fortitude is a catch phrase used by three-time WWE champion and children's literature author Mick Foley.

Clinton, or HillRod, spoke up for fortitude, just not that kind of fortitude. "I do think I have fortitude," she said. "Women can have it as well as men."

The tide of "BitterGate" is turning faster than a C-130 in a corkscrew landing. I've got to hand it to the people who don't have a dog in this fight, and even some who do. Despite a media firestorm over remarks that Senator Barack Obama made at a fund-raiser in San Francisco, and the campaigns of John McCain and Hillary Clinton pushing an "elitism" narrative to anyone who will listen, lots of people seem to have gotten wise to this game.

At an Alliance For American Manufacturing Forum in Pittsburgh today, Hillary Clinton went in armed with talking points, but was greeted by a crowd armored against them. Here's the video. After the jump, a few more surprise guests to the Hotel Context, and Senator Obama's remarks at the same event.

The House of Representatives failed to override President Bush's veto of the Labor, Health, and Education appropriations bill yesterday. The vote was a close one, the measure coming just two votes shy of the 2/3 needed to override. The final tally was 277-141.

In his veto message accompanying the rejected bill, the president cited spending on ineffective and duplicative programs and earmarks contained in the bill as top reasons for the veto. The bill had a total price tag of $151 billion, some $12 billion more than the budget request made by the White House. That $12 billion includes over 2,200 earmarks themselves totaling over $1 billion.

But the close vote on the veto override is causing some in Congress to see an opportunity to reach a solution in the months long spending battle playing out at opposite ends of Pennsylvania Ave.

The surging popularity of Republican Mike Huckabee in Iowa shows that some Republicans have woken up and smelled the coffee.

Unlike rivals such as Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney, the former Arkansas governor doesn't have to fake his conservative credentials. Rev, Donald Wildmon of the ultra-right American Family Association endorsed Huckabee yesterday even though Thompson called him a "pro-life liberal", according to the New York Times.

Interestingly, he's not the only Republican making that ridiculous accusation against the former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. In fact, the Club for Growth has started anti Huckabee Web Site Take Hike Mike that paints Huckabee with the same brush as fellow Hope, Arkansas native Bill Clinton

"Mike Huckabee is getting cozy with labor unions," the site says. "He was the only Republican candidate to recently speak in front of the National Education Association and the International Association of Machinists. He even received the latter's endorsement!."

All the leading Democratic candidates for President fought for their support but only one won them over. It wasn't Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. It was John Edwards.

John Edwards has received the endorsement of the New Hampshire SEIU (Service Employees International Union). SEIU Local 1984 (New Hampshire) represents 9,000 members.

As noted earlier, John Edwards spent a long Saturday evening with the New Hampshire SEIU Executive Board last month. Reports indicated, standing with sleeves rolled-up, he answered their questions and gave them the straight-talk needed on their most important issues.

As noted earlier, the Iowa state chapter of the SEIU (Service Employee International Union) endorsed John Edwards for president today. But Iowa's SEIU chapter is not alone; they are joined by the state chapters of: California (650,000 members), Idaho (400), Michigan (70,000), Minnesota (28,000 members), Montana (500 members) Ohio (22,000 members), Oregon (46,000), Washington (103,000) and West Virginia (4,000).

Today the Illinois and Indiana SEIU chapters endorsed Barack Obama.

The New York chapter (local 1199, the nations largest) has not yet endorsed a candidate.

The Politico is reporting that the Iowa state chapter of the SEIU (Service Employee International Union) will endorse John Edwards for president. The national SEIU has chosen not to endorse in the 2008 campaign but is allowing their state affiliates to make a state-by-state determination. The formal announcement is expected at a health-care forum added to Edward's Monday schedule at 5:30 CST in Iowa City, Iowa.

SEIU represents nearly 2 million workers nationally.