By Rebecca DiFede — Imagine someone broke into your home and stole several thousand dollars worth of your belongings, including your brand new car. And then, when they were arrested, in addition to having to repay you monetarily for what they stole, they only got probation and a miniscule fine. You’d be pretty upset, right?
Well apparently that is how little the United States government cares about theft. Recently the former President of the Workers United Local 335-T union in Chicago, John McMahon, a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate, was arrested for embezzlement of funds and falsifying union financial records. He was sentenced to two years probation with six months of home-confinement, forced to pay restitution and also an additional $25 fine.
Yes that’s right folks. The third facet of the punishment was less than the average parking ticket. For stealing money from his union and their members, and falsifying documents to try and ensure he wouldn’t get caught, this man gets sent to his room and slapped on the wrist with less money than he spends on gas.
Fraud used to be a crime that inspired anger into the hearts of Americans and resulted in the fair punishment of the perpetrators. Now it seems that in the aftermath of Enron, Tyco, Corzine and Madoff, anything worth less than a billion is considered ‘not really stolen’.
But that’s just typical. Lying is the official language of American politicians, and it seems that those on the left are extremely fluent.
The big question is, however, why the special treatment? Martha Stewart followed the advice of her finance broker in 2000 and sold some stocks, and was convicted of insider trading, serving 5 months in jail and two years supervised release, 5 months of which were to be served as home confinement. But the big union boss who stole money from his own people gets probation and a fine less than a lunch for two?
I guess the left has a sixth sense, because it seems Boss Tweed has come back from the dead. Forget the law, we must appease the boss!
And it seems it’s not even about what you steal, or how much, but whether or not you’re lining the governments pockets. It’s no secret that Obama has long since gotten into bed with Big Labor, but who knew all that pillow talk extended to the courts?
The SEIU is the same organization who, as previously reported by NetRightDaily, was caught extorting money from the families of cerebral palsy patients, and so the standards of decency are about the same as hiring one of Governor Spitzer’s extra-curricular friends and bringing her as your date to a charity event.
These self-serving purple shirted thugs posing as union bosses are the monsters hiding under your bed, and if you don’t feed them, you might find yourself out on the street before you can even reach for the light switch. Big Labor will stop at nothing to extort its way into your wallet, and when one of their own gets caught in a lie, they pull strings on the illustrious presidential marionette, making sure everyone knows who’s in their corner.
But like flies to sewers these greedy grinches can’t lay low for too long. And as soon as one of their greasy fingers leaves a trail paved with lies, hopefully someone will take care to walk on the grass, lest they get stuck in the filthy cement of corruption that stops just short of the purple door.
Rebecca DiFede is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government.
