Pretty funny, Tom, the accusation that I spout a party line coming from somebody who seems to be at least a coauthor of the RightWing brochure.

A primary function of the modern labor union is to funnel money and votes to the Democratic Party

And I feel like I've fallen into a vortex. By your logic, those same statistics would suggest that all of big business exists to funnel money into the GOP. It's cause before effect, Tom, cause before effect. Try to get that.

"anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of dues-paying union members are registered Republicans". Don't know where you plucked that figure, but so? Common sense would tell you that it's impossible that at any time in history all union members have been Democrats. Republican union members are a minority, and their wishes don't translate into support for Republican candidates. Again, so? Even more opaque is what any union would stand to gain by support of anti-union Republicans. Support for Republicans by union leaders would be gross misconduct.

And once again we fall into the vortex: Depending on the industry, a slim-to-large majority of employees of big business are Democrats, yet those contribution charts show business leaders resolutely ignoring the wishes of their employees and supporting mostly Republican candidates.

What exactly is your point, Tom?

BTW, read today's San Jose Mercury-News yet? I went out for lunch after my last post, and bought a paper, and about spewed my coke all over Subway's when I saw the front page of the business section. Damn near every item, even the itemettes in the left column, is relevant to today's discussions, and every one of them supports what I'm saying. A sampling of headlines:

"Middle class squeeze", about the declining standard of living of the middle and lower classes, while a small segment of pampered thoroughbreds in the neofeudal stables prosper.

"The New Face of Unions", about union growth in white collar and previously nonunionized segments of the labor force.

"Dell audit finds errors, evidence of misconduct" and "Law firm was aware of client's backdating"--more business corruption [yawn]

"Yahoo reduces acting CFO's bonus"--still an $850,000 "peformance bonus" despite a significant drop in stock price.

"Solectron could cut as many as 1,500 jobs"--hi ho, hi ho, it's overseas we go...

If your only response is to rant about "mainstream media", please don't bother. This is the reality that you desperately wish to deny.