What is with our city? We keep attracting the worse of the Tea Party, union-busting Republicans in the nation. First, Scott Walker was in town so two weeks ago to shake the Republican money tree–and we treated him to a Bronx cheer. Today, his Tea Party, low-life, colleague John Kasich came to town for another Republican Governors’ Association fundraiser. We were there–and made his life a nightmare.

    I heard about this event only yesterday when I got a call from my good friends at SEIU who are taking on Kasich in a campaign to repeal the noxious SB5–Kasich anti-union bill that strips collective bargaining power. The campaign to repeal the bill recently submitted 1.3 million (!!!!) signatures to put the repeal on the November ballot.

    So, some calls were made–and there we were in front of the private Racquet Ball and Tennis Club in Manhattan on Park Avenue. Only a couple of us were there in the beginning when Kasich walked in. I don’t have a pic of this but he was walking and talking on a cell phone when I approached him with a leaflet. An Ohio state cop stepped in front of me and pushed me away and I pushed his hand away and said, "Do that again and I’ll call the cops–this is New York, not Ohio" and handed Kasich the leaflet–he took and kept walking in.

Our cadre arrived as you can see–buttressed with a huge group of STUDENT activists working at SEIU32BJ (rock on, young folks!–and we were loud and clear:

   And:

    How do we know that we made a difference. Midway through the picket, a patrol car pulled up and a policeman gestured to me. I went over to the car and leaned in and explained why we were on the pavement. The cop had no issue with it–he knows that a little thing called the First Amendment allows us to picket–by the way, you are allowed to do so even without a permit, which we didn’t bother to get, as long as you keep moving and don’t obstruct any entrances.

    So, midway through my chat with the cop, the guy in the picture below with the green tie came storming down to the police car, demanding  that we be removed because "we have a guest here and this is disrupting the event".

    The cop asked him if he was from the Club. Mr. Wall Street said, no, that he was "from across the street". I laughed and said to the cop, "so, he doesn’t even have any authority here, what a joke". And of course Mr. Wall Street did what all those guys try to do–intimidate. He stepped right up to an inch from my face with some menacing blah-blah…which actually made me laugh.

    The cops stepped in between us. They took Mr. Wall Street off to the side and explained that little thing called the First Amendment. Ironically, we were thinking about wrapping up just before Mr. Wall Street threw his tantrum but we decided to stay longer and GET LOUDER.

    Bottom line: know this–if union-busting Tea Party politicians set foot in New York, we are going to make some noise.

    And, folks, while I love to blog, it’s a whole lot more fun to hit the streets and get in their faces. Even a small group can have an impact–as we showed.