Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com

The media enthused when Barack Obama bloviated during his State of the Union Address, “We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.” They now enthuse that the president has appointed members to his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness allegedly designed to cut down inefficient regulations and unnecessary government burdens. None of the media announced that the appointees are a collection of globalists, media elites at NBC News, union thugs, amnesty activists, employees of Soros-funded think tanks, wealth redistributionists, business failures in the subprime lending industry, and Chicago cronies. Nonetheless, today’s issue of USA Today is already spinning the story under the headline, “Obama Wants Business World’s Best Ideas on Jobs.”

Where he would get those ideas is anyone’s guess.

Richard Trumka is perhaps the most conspicuous choice on this job-creating council. Trumka, who recently admitted to Astroturfing the protests in Wisconsin and around the country, is president of the AFL-CIO and a longtime Big Labor activist with a shady history. Michelle Malkin has noted that Trumka led the United Mine Workers when a non-union worker named Eddie York was shot to death in the midst of a mining strike. The UMW aided all eight union members present at the scene of the crime and disciplined none of them. In a separate incident, Trumka incited a crowd in Illinois to “kick the s–t out of every last” person who crossed the UMW picket line. Working his way up the ranks, as AFL-CIO treasurer he was implicated in two money-laundering scandals involving the Teamsters. He said if he were forced to testify before Congress, he would invoke the Fifth Amendment. Trumka climbed the ladder by gripping the coattails of John Sweeney, the union’s former president and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Sweeney and Trumka saw the union donate more than $200 million in political aid to the Democrats in 2008 and send out more than 250,000 “volunteers,” many of whom worked for Obama in swing states. On February 15, Barack Obama awarded Sweeney the Medal of Freedom.

After succeeding Sweeney as the union’s president in September 2009, Trumka decided to further radicalize the union. Just last fall, Trumka insisted, “We need to fundamentally restructure our economy and re-establish popular control over the private corporations which have distorted our economy and hijacked our government. That’s a long-term job but one we should start now.” To that end, Trumka has worked with European socialists to establish a global tax, a measure that is also a top priority of Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren. Last year, Trumka carried out his threats to go after Democrats who opposed ObamaCare’s “public option,” failing to oust Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln as the Democratic nominee.

The new council position provides no real boost to Trumka; he doesn’t need one. Although certain members of Obama’s Cabinet have not heard from the president after serving two years into his administration, Trumka recently boasted: “I’m at the White House a couple times a week. Two, three times a week. I have conversations everyday with someone in the White House or in the administration. Everyday.”

Trumka is not the only union thug with a seat at the table.

Joseph T. Hansen helps Trumka present the Labor Left’s views. Hansen is president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) and chairman of Change to Win, the AFL-CIO’s major union rival (the one formed by SEIU). Like Trumka, Hansen is already a frequent presidential advisor. Hansen serves as a member of Obama’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. Hansen, too, helped elect Obama. UFCW’s political action committee, United Food & Commercial Workers International Union Active Ballot Club, spent $673,309 on Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and $3.5 million on Democratic candidates in 2008 and 2010….

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