Dan Benishek is under serious assault by, you guessed it, the union bosses in Michigan. And, if you haven’t figured it out already, they don’t play nice.

You see, in Michigan 1, Democrat Bart Stupak stepped aside after he led and then was misled by the President over whether ObamaCare would use tax dollars to pay for abortions (it does).  After Stupak ducked out, union bosses saw an opening to get another pet for Nancy Pelosi to collar and offered up one of their own, a 30-year Teamster named Gary McDowell.

Unfortunately for them, Dan Benishek is standing in their way. As a result, they need to take him down whichever way they can—even if it means borrowing from Alan Grayson’s playbook.

As union bosses are so apt to do, they’re spending their members’ money trying to destroy Dan Benishek by distorting the truth. Take a real good look at Gary McDowell’s contributors, and you’ll see the reason his campaign has to go on the attack: McDowell’s positions are the unions’ agenda. And, you really can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps…or, in this case, the unions that own him:

Gary J. McDowell (D)

How Gary’s Going to Gore Americans

Note: Since Gary McDowell seems to prefer attacking Dan Benishek and shies away from being direct on his positions, we’ll just have to take some of his statements, as well as the agenda of his backers and fill in the blanks.  If we’re incorrect on any of these, we’ll be happy to have him provide clarifying answers to the questions below.

Given that Gary McDowell appears to be just another union puppet trying to go to Washington, let’s shine some light on what he and union bosses are likely to cost you.

Another $165 Billion Union Pension Bailout: Gary Got His, But You Get the Big Bill.

This is a no-brainer.  Gary’s seems proud of the fact that he’s a retired Teamster driver for UPS. The funny thing is, according to his website, Gary retired from UPS in 2003, so Gary’s getting a pension for his years at UPS. That’s a good thing.

However, after so many decades of the Teamsters’ anti-competitiveness causing so many trucking companies to close down, there’s not enough the money to cover all of the retirees the Teamsters’ pension owes. As a result, McDowell’s union bosses want Gary to support the Union Pension Bailout bill.  It’s only going to cost us $165 billion…

You see, McDowell’s company, UPS, knew that this pension trainwreck was coming as far back as 1997. They tried to get out back then but Gary’s union, the Teamsters, prevented that. The union bosses inside the Teamsters’ Marble Palace in Washington (yes, the building is made of marble) ordered a nationwide strike against UPS in 1997.

• This was the same strike where Rod Carter, a UPS driver who chose to work during the strike, was ripped out of the UPS he was in, beaten and stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick; and the same strike where the Teamsters cut off health care coverage of a five-year old little girl named Callie West because her father chose to work during the Teamster strike.

Ten years after Gary McDowell’s union went out on strike against UPS, the Teamsters and UPS finally agreed that UPS get out of the Teamster pension fund—for a price.  For a mere $6.1 billion and the Teamsters’ ability to unionize then-newly acquired Overnite Transportation (more on this later) the Teamster would set UPS free from the failing pension.

Now, with an estimated $25 billion underfunding problem, guess who Gary and his union bosses want to pick up the tab (along with the other $140 billion in underfunded pension plans from other unions). That’s right, Mr. & Mrs. Taxpayer—that would be you (and every other American taxpayer).

Cripple FedEx? Yeah Gary’s seems good to go on that too.

Both UPS and the Teamsters (McDowell’s former employer and his union, respectively—and both campaign contributors of McDowell’s) have been trying to bust FedEx’s kneecaps for years by saddling the largely non-union company with the union.

They’ve used their bought-and-paid-for politicians (which Gary McDowell apparently aspires to be) to try and pass legislation to cripple FedEx by putting into the same category as UPS.

If you can’t beat ’em, have Congress hobble ’em. That’s the motto of some in corporate America, and Exhibit A might be United Parcel Service’s campaign to get Washington to impose its labor woes on rival Federal Express. This would be one more union bailout at the expense of business competition and economic efficiency.

While the UPS-Teamster team hasn’t succeeded yet at getting Congress to do their bidding, more union-controlled Democrats like Gary McDowell will certainly help them. In the meantime, though, the Teamsters did go after Fred Smith personally last month, trying to fire him from the company he started.

Socialized Medicine? You betchya! Gary doesn’t think ObamaCare goes far enough!

McDowell seems to be is all for having the government control your health care.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm4AyfMwxc0[/youtube]

We talked about universal health care and we’re all for it… that debate, that was settled years and years ago folks… if we would have universal health care in this country, and we decided we would!

Oh yeah!  One other thing: If your grandma starts to cost too much under ObamaCare, McDowell seems just ‘all for’ pulling the plug on her too.

How about the job-destroying Employee Free Choice Act? Well, if it walks like a duck…

If the SEIU is giving money to Gary McDowell, you better believe he’s all for saddling non-union workers with unions. You see, the SEIU would not give money to a candidate unless they’ve given the signal that they’re in support of the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act.

The job-destroying Employee Free Choice Act (more commonly referred to as “card check”) is an ‘abrogation of freedom.‘  EFCA effectively eliminates workers voting in a secret-ballot election on whether or not to unionize and, more importantly, can bind them into a government-imposed union contract for two years that workers have no right to vote on (nor would they have the right to strike if they don’t like it).  If workers don’t like the government-imposed union contract, they can quit (for now).

You see, as much as union bosses have already gotten accomplished with Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi running the show in Washington, they aren’t finished transforming America.  They’ve already tipped their hand and demonstrated to you their vision of American, but they need more bought-and-paid-for union tools like Gary McDowell to help complete their socialist vision.

Right now, it is High Noon in America and Dan Benishek is one of 218 people that need to be elected in order to stop America’s slide into a socialist state like Gary McDowell’s backers are pushing.

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Note to Gary McDowell:

If any of the above information is incorrect, please correct it by answering the following questions:

1. If elected, will you vote for the bailing out of union pension plans (or whatever scheme you wish to call it) at taxpayer expense?  YES or NO?
2. If elected, will you vote to remove FedEx’s status under the Railway Labor Act, and thereby subject them to greater likelihood of unionization by your union?  YES or NO?
3. If elected, will you vote to repeal ObamaCare?  YES or NO?
4. If elected, will agree that, in order to preserve “Universal Health Care” (socialized medicine), senior citizens may have to go without life-prolonging drugs if they prove to be too expensive for your utopian system?  YES or NO?
5. If elected, will you vote to end workers right to vote by secret-ballot on the question of unionization, as well as support government-imposed contracts on workers and companies?  YES or NO?

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Cross-posted.

For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

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* Explanatory footnote: The quotes opening this post are from a four-page settlement that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters entered into with the National Labor Relations Board as a result of the three-year strike against the aforementioned Overnite Transportation. From 1999 until 2002, Mr. McDowell’s union, the Teamsters, struck Overnite Transportation.  During the strike there were allegedly 54 shootings and much violence.  The strike ended without the nationwide agreement the Teamsters had sought.  In 2005, Mr. McDowell’s employer UPS purchased Overnite Transportation, later renaming it UPS Freight.  In 2006, Teamsters’ President James Hoffa obtained ‘card-check’ from UPS management to unionize UPS Freight.  In 2007, UPS withdrew from the failing Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.

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This post was not endorsed nor paid for by any candidate, candidate’s committee, or any other person or group.  This post was paid for, however, by the patriotism, blood and sacrifice of millions of men and women who fought for the Freedoms which America was founded on and that views be freely expressed. It was also paid for in spirit by the true heroes of the union movement, men like Samuel Gompers who fought to keep socialism from getting its death grip on the union movement—for he knew that socialism would, in fact, lead to tyranny.