The United Steelworkers (USW) Marxist president Leo Gerard believes if Big Labor can’t get what it wants through the ballot box, it’s time to start cracking skulls. The Canadian-born Gerard loves a brawl. In 1999 he helped the violent anarchists protesting in Seattle block access to the World Trade Organization meetings. USW sent 1,400 goons to shut the talks down. Gerard’s agitation helped to push Algoma Steel of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, into bankruptcy in the 1990s.

USW president since 2001, Gerard wholeheartedly supports the labor-backed Occupy Wall Street movement – and wants it to become even more violent.

“You’re damn right Wall Street occupiers speak for us”, he recently told left-wing radio host Ed Schultz. “They do in Pittsburgh, they do in Chicago, they do in Oakland, they do in San Francisco, they do all across the country. And I think what we need is, we need more militancy.”

But occupying cities isn’t enough in the view of this man who began his career in labor activism at age 11 by handing out leaflets before a strike.

Gerard explained that the Left needs to start a “resistance” movement. “If Wall Street occupation doesn’t get the message, I think we’ve got to start blocking bridges and doing that kind of stuff,” he said.

“And no wonder people are occupying. We ought to be doing more than occupying parks. We ought to start occupying bridges. We ought to start occupying the banks.”

Gerard is a member of the AFL-CIO’s executive committee and chairman of its public policy committee.

He takes pride in the fact that the New York Times called him the “No. 1 scourge of free traders.” No wonder: A few days after Gerard visited President George W. Bush’s cabinet in 2001 the Bush administration slapped tariffs on imported steel.

To help advance the protectionist agenda, President Obama named Gerard to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations.

Like Karl Marx, Gerard has an interest in economics. He had planned to become an economics professor before taking a job in the labor movement. But interest doesn’t imply aptitude, and like Marx, he apparently has little understanding of economics.
(Gerard and Geithner in Pittsburgh)
Add to this: Did Gerard bring Soptic to the attention of both the Obama campaign and the pro-Obama SuperPAC run by ex-Obama White House aide Bill Burton? Which would formally tie the administration itself to the activities of the SuperPAC? A violation of federal election law.

Let’s look at this starting with Leo Gerard who is a member of the Obama Administration’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN).

ACTPN is a formal part of the Office of the United States Trade Representative, tasked by the 1974 Trade Act with the responsibility to “provide the U.S. Trade Representative with policy advice.” The U.S. Trade Representative is officially a member of the President’s Cabinet, carrying the title of Ambassador. The current U.S. Trade Rep is Ambassador Ron Kirk. Kirk, a Democrat and Obama appointee, is the former Mayor of Dallas, Texas (the city’s first African-American mayor) and previously was the appointed Texas Secretary of State for the late Governor Ann Richards. The group can have as many as 45 members all appointed by the President and is supposed to be bipartisan, with representatives of both parties serving as members. (Among the GOP members is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.)

Gerard as we know is the International President of the United Steelworkers. The self-same union from which steelworker union member, Joe Soptic, emerged in the now infamous Obama SuperPAC ad.

As all of America now knows, the Obama SuperPAC has run an ad with former steelworker, Soptic, essentially accusing Governor Romney of killing his wife. Interesting, how this is all coming together?