These people have no shame. The Huffington Post is reporting that the CEO's who received billions of tax payer dollars to save their asses are using t
January 28, 2009

These people have no shame. The Huffington Post is reporting that the CEO's who received billions of tax payer dollars to save their asses are using the money to organize a massive attempt to block the Employee Free Choice Act.

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.

Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse.

"This is the demise of a civilization," said Marcus. "This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it."

This is outrageous. It's bad enough to see these Bozos still try and buy private jets and hand out massive bonuses with our money, but to actively attack labor with it should be a criminal offense.

As you've seen so far, the Employee Free Choice Act is making right-wing heads explode because it places the choice of how to form a union in the hands of the workers and takes it away from big business. But I really didn't think they would take this money and use it for this purpose. The Huffington Post has audio of the calls. Reading some of what was said was infuriating.

You'll always notice that whenever most reporters mention EFCA, they call it by the right-wing name for it. Just for fun: If you drop the phrase "Card Check" in passing you'll get an angry reaction from most right-wingers and many of them don't even know why. And Bank of America has a personal vendetta going on with the SEIU now, so it's not a surprise they hosted the call.

Lawrence Lessig writes:

Not only are some of the most non-trusted companies in America blatantly trying to buy off Congress, but they're using our bailout money to do it. Enough!

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