A few of us got together to hang out at the federal building on 3rd and Rosser today and watch cars go by and honk to send a message to the unreachable Earl Pomeroy. It was a bit of a surprise to see a bunch of people show up to hold signs in favor of the government healthcare takeover, but not a surprise to find out the story behind them (which, by the way, you won’t find in North Dakota’s mainstream media).

These were the two ringleaders who brought stacks of pre-printed signs and were most vocal in engaging the grassroots folks while I sat and listened (of course I chimed in on occasion). Who they really are tells the story: Dave Kemnitz, on the left is the president of the AFL-CIO union. The guy on the right is Don Morrison of “ndpeople.org” — an organization I’ll get to later on in this post.

Here’s a stack of the professionally made (and printed by a union shop) signs that Mr. Kemnitz brought for his lackeys. He neglects to note on his signs, however, that Earl Pomeroy has been bankrolled by the big insurance companies for the past seventeen years. Liberals always cover for their own.

I think some of these folks were made available for this counter-protest by the incredibly great effect labor unions had on Bobcat jobs in our city. Given all the jobs they drove out of here, there could have been another couple hundred union folks here…

I wonder if anyone has told this fella about SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, CHAND, or any of the other social programs that take care of people who cannot afford health insurance. Something about this professionally made sign sets it apart from the grassroots movement that’s been sweeping the USA like a wildfire…

…oh yeah. Professionally printed by union shops for union operatives. This is called “astroturfing,” named for the antithesis of a “grassroots” movement.

Now, about ndpeople.org – a site which got a weblink in this story from KFYR-TV, although the organizers of the event did not (they could have linked to americansforprosperity.org or honkno.com just as easily. The ndpeople.org people have their headquarters in the NDEA building (another farcical union entity, in my opinion). I photographed it last summer but didn’t use the pics for anything until now.

The posters that adorned the windows of this place all have one thing in common. (Aside: how’s that “Health Care ’09” thing working out for ya?) Most of these have since been removed. Do you know what that is?

Have you spotted it yet? All that talk of evil CEOs and profits clued you in yet? Or do you recognize any familiar logos?

Here ya go. SEIU union logos all over the place. That URL on the one poster, healthcareforamericanow.org, well that’s interesting. According to the Discover the Networks website, this group is a front, controlled by the AFL-CIO and other unions! In other words, Don Morrison and his group are simply not-so-cleverly-disguised union lackeys.

The KFYR-TV report focused more on a five minute spat that was going on just as I arrived, which quickly turned into a relatively amicable discussion between both sides for the next forty-five minutes and ended in a bunch of handshakes. In the web version they put up a web link to the union front group ndpeople.org but didn’t do the same for the organizers of the event. More importantly, they completely ignored the fact that this entire counter-protest was a 100% union operation. Well, I guess that’s what the “new media” is for – connecting the dots that otherwise go unreported.

The afternoon was fun; I got to spend my lunch break outside with some pals, we had some good spirited political discussion, and it was Taco Tuesday at our local Taco John’s. Lots of people honked, and I saw some interesting hand-signals flashed at the union group on the corner. The counter-protesters exercised the same freedom of speech that we did, even if they did have to staff it with union labor in order to try getting their message out.