Corporate union buster launches new extremist group

David Sirota

Townhall.com - the official headquarters of the fringe right - sent out an alert today telling folks about the new so-called "Center for Union Facts." The group was subsequently profiled today by the New York Times after the group funded a massive newspaper advertising buy bashing unions. The group's website is so skewed, so over the top, so dishonest, I just had to check out who is behind it. Though UPI notes that the group is refusing to disclose who its donors on (shocker!), its executive director is none other than Rick Berman - one of the biggest corporate shills working in politics today.
Want to know a little bit about Mr. Berman? Here, chew on this:

HEAD OF NEW UNION BASHING GROUP IS LONGTIME ANTI-UNION CORPORATE LOBBYIST: "Berman has a history of representing tobacco firms, restaurant chains or beer distributors in fights against labor unions, consumer-health groups and efforts to raise the minimum wage."

HEAD OF NEW UNION BASHING GROUP FOUGHT AGAINST ANTI-DRUNK DRIVING LAWS: "A national campaign -- called MADDatGM -- has been launched with the backing of 17,000 bars, taverns and liquor stores to attack the automaker and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, mostly for their efforts to lower legal blood-alcohol levels...'We want to stop GM from contributing to MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). We have a problem with GM money going to criminalize social drinkers. GM needs to recognize it is attacking legitimate businesses,' said Rick Berman, the high-powered Washington D.C. lobbyist running the MADDatGM campaign."

HEAD OF NEW UNION BASHING GROUP WAS CORPORATE UNION BUSTER: "Bensinger even received a handwritten note from Rick Berman, a powerful Washington lobbyist who used to plan union avoidance strategies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

So basically, the head of this new group is a corporate lobbyist so bought off he's willing to go out and attack Mothers Against Drunk Driving on behalf of his corporate clients. That's the kind of wild-eyed right-wing lunatic the conservative movement is breeding - people solely focused on using the nexis of money and politics to cash in, no matter how extreme and distateful they have to behave in public. With American workers having highly-paid extremist enemies like this roaming the nation's capital, it is no doubt that ordinary citizens' economic interests are regularly steamrolled in Washington, D.C.