Public Employee Unions Get Behind Terrorist Enabler

His name is Charles Barron. In the past he has extolled the merits of despots and terrorists like Robert Mugabe and Muammar Qadafi. And the public employee unions say he's their kinda guy!

Powerful public workers' unions are throwing their weight — in public and behind the scenes — behind a Brooklyn Congressional candidate who has allied himself with despots like Muammar Qaddafi and Robert Mugabe, while calling Israel "the biggest terrorist in the world."

The candidate, New York City Councilman Charles Barron, has made occasional appearances on the national stage — primarily Fox News — for his explosive statements about white people (he'd like to slap one, "for my mental health"), Jews (Black people are the real "Semites") and foreign policy. But Barron, a self-described "revolutionary Pan-Africanist" who donned a red Nehru jacket with gold braid to receive the brutal Zimbabwean dictator at City Hall in 2002, has also been a steadfast ally of New York civil servants, many of them African-American and living in his East New York and Brownsville district. 

Two major city public worker unions, District Councils 37 and 1707 of the giant American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, have already endorsed Barron against Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, a relatively moderate legislator who has championed charter schools, a union bugaboo.

And BuzzFeed has learned that their powerful federal parent union, known as AFSCME, is planning to dive into the race on Barron's behalf. Another key New York State public workers union, the Civil Service Employees Association, meanwhile, blocked an AFL-CIO effort to endorse Barron's rival.

"We respect the voice of our members," AFSCME spokesman Chris Policano told BuzzFeed. "With the unanimous endorsement of the three affiliates, there will be money spent in this race."