The SEIU’s Insidious Tentacles continue to infiltrate government and politics at the expense of its own rank and file without attracting national media attention. Interestingly enough the mainstream media will not peek beneath the covers and investigate reports by employees and employers, such as those detailed in The Devil at My Doorstep, who have been abused by the SEIU’s ruthless tactics and/or the reports of corrupt political connections , government infiltration and pay-to-play ties to the current administration. Several interesting stories have surfaced during the past month, yet not one has received the national attention it deserves through investigative journalism by the national mainstream media.

Among the events:

1. )  On November 10, 2011 a Washington Examiner article reported on SEIU activities in Michigan, a state desperately attempting to pass a RTW bill to stop big labor from usurping employee rights and money, involving the SEIU’s infiltration of state government and how the SEIU Siphons ‘Dues’ from Mich. Medicaid Payments.

2. )  On November 16, Michelle Malkin revealed that  former SEIU President Andy Stern utilized his membership on the board for a California pharmaceutical company to facilitate a half billion dollar drug deal for the company.  See the article: Obama’s Half-Million-Dollar Crony Drug Deal; Related non-shocker: SEIU endorses Obama.

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According to the Los Angeles Times, with the exception of existing in locked freezers in Russia and U.S. labs, the smallpox virus was eradicated in 1978. Yet, in a no-bid contract, the Obama administration has given $443 million of American taxpayers’ money for a “experimental smallpox drug” to a bio-defense company, Siga, controlled by billionaire Democrat-donor Ron Perleman and whose board ex-SEIU boss Andy Stern sits on.

According to the Times:

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company’s financial demands, senior officials replaced the government’s lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a “sole-source” procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation’s biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government’s specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews. [Emphasis added.]

Although Siga’s questionable government deal may eventually mean $2.8 billion in revenues for the company, Siga’s profits would have to be split with its former partner in a failed merger, PharmAthene. In September, after years of litigation following a failed merger, a Delaware court ruled that PharmAthene was entitled to 50% of Siga’s profits from its ST-246 smallpox vaccines. (more…)

**UPDATED

President Barack Obama has won praise from the media — and from himself — for putting the White House visitor logs online. Yet the visitor logs may hide more than they reveal.

The White House is still holding back “tens of thousands” of visitor logs, according to congressional testimony last week by Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, who also added that “the Obama administration is less transparent than the Bush administration.”

We also know that some of the most important presidential visitors don’t even walk into the White House. The administration meets K Street lobbyists at Caribou Coffee, and holds secret meetings in Jackson Place townhouses where there are no visitor logs.

The visitor logs that have been released are problematic, because they are simply lists of names, with no way to verify whether a specific name belongs to a particular person.

When the first names were released on Oct. 30, 2009, late on a Friday afternoon, then-White House “ethics czar” Norm Eisen noted the lists included “false positives” — “names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else.” According to Eisen, these included ordinary visitors named “Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly (“R. Kelly”), and Malik Shabazz.” (more…)

Prominent current and former members of SEIU local 73 are being investigated for their potential ties to the Hamas and FARC terrorist groups.

Late last year, their homes were raided by the FBI, and they were subpoenaed to appear in front of a grand jury for questioning.

Joe Iosbaker, Chief Steward of SEIU 73, and Tom Burke (former board member of SEIU 73) are among 9 people who are subjects in the investigation. None of them have been charged with any crimes, yet.

Two days ago, they refused again to appear in front of the grand jury.

The interesting thing about these SEIU folks is that they also belong to a violently radical group called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. From their website:

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a revolutionary socialist and Marxist-Leninist organization in the United States.

1) We stand for the right to self-determination up to and including secession for the African American nation in the Black Belt South.

While rejecting Zionist claims on Palestine and white supremacist claims to a white southern nation or northwestern nation, we do acknowledge the fact that the most advanced sections of the Black liberation movement, from the 1800s on, have demanded a Black Republic in the South.

It gets worse from there.

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The woman known as the “Queen of Labor” is living up to her promise to focus on “building a sustaining progressive infrastructure.”  Anna Burger, former SEIU Secretary-Treasurer, has just joined the board of directors at the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action).

CAP Action is a sister organization to the liberal think tank, Center for American Progress.  While the Center for American Progress focuses on developing new policy ideas and on “critiquing the policy that stems from conservative values,”  CAP Action focuses on how to put those policies into action – by organizing liberal grassroots groups, labor unions and other progressive partners as advocates.

John Podesta, Chairman of the Board of Directors for CAP Action, offered the following statement in the organization’s December 9th press release:

“The Center for American Progress Action Fund is pleased to welcome Anna Burger to our Board of Directors. She has been a longtime friend of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action and we’re very happy that she has agreed to help us advance our mission by serving in this new capacity.

Anna Burger has been fighting hard for progressive ideas and policies for nearly 40 years, including the visionary leadership she has provided for the progressive movement over the past decade. We face numerous opportunities and many challenges over the next two years and look forward to Anna’s help in charting our course. As we continue to push for an economy built on a strong middle class that works for all Americans, Anna’s continued leadership and experience could not come at a more important time.”

In addition to her previous post at SEIU, Burger has held many prominent positions that have played significant roles in advancing the progressive movement, including:

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By now, most Americans know how hard union bosses pushed, tugged, bullied and threatened, using tens of millions of their members’ money on advertising and lobbying, all to get health care reform passed.

Most Americans also remember (though many did not believe) the promises that health care reform would make health care “affordable for all.” And no one can forget how the legislation was sold to Americans:

The Chairmen of the three Committees with jurisdiction over health policy in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced comprehensive health care reform legislation today that will reduce out-of-control costs, encourage competition among insurance plans to improve choices for patients, and expand access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Well, on March 23rd (not quite six months ago), the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law. That same day, a jubilant Andy Stern even recorded this video for his SEIU members, congratulating them on ow the SEIU “changed America forever.” That was then… The Chickens Start to Come Home (aka the Law of Unintended Consequences) Almost immediately after the passage of what is now called “ObamaCare,” like a pebble thrown into calm waters, waves began to develop. Karma. The first sign of trouble began when a number of companies began taking hundreds of millions of dollars ($1 billion in AT&T’s case) in write downs due to the projected cost of ObamaCare, making Congress and the Administration furious. In fact, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was so furious that he ordered a show-trial hearing to be held and then he abruptly cancelled it.  It soon became clear why, as noted by the Daily Caller [emphasis added]:

Publicly, Waxman said the investigation showed the companies’ disclosures were properly filed. But a new report from committee Republicans reveals the documents Waxman obtained included embarrassing evidence that the health-care law could drive up insurance premiums and force employers to dump employees from their health plans. “Turns out Obamacare means if you like your health plan you can lose it. The president didn’t have to actually strong-arm companies into dumping their employee health insurance because his bill carried financial incentives to virtually guarantee that result,” Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Rep. Joe Barton, Texas Republican, said. Most significantly, documents unearthed by the investigation highlight companies that are considering dumping employees from their current health-care plans in the face of new costs from the health-care law. President Obama repeatedly promised his health-care law would let Americans keep their current insurance if they’re happy with it.

The dumping begins… Over the past couple of weeks, months after Henry Waxman’s initial embarrassment, a big problem has begun to emerge for the Democrats who worked so hard to pass ObamaCare.  News has begun to break that companies are, in fact, beginning to dump their employees (or retirees) health care benefits.

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From the Associated Press:

The FBI and the U.S. Labor Department are investigating prominent labor leader Andy Stern in their probe of corruption at the Service Employees International Union, according to two people who have been interviewed by federal agents.

The two organized labor officials met with federal agents this summer to answer questions about a six-figure book contract that Stern landed in 2006 and his role in approving money to pay the salary of an SEIU leader in California who allegedly performed no work.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. The FBI and the Labor Department’s office of inspector general declined to comment for the record.

The disclosure about the federal inquiry of Stern—who abruptly resigned as president of the 2.2-million member SEIU in April—comes just weeks ahead of contentious congressional elections in which the union is spending an estimated $44 million to support its favored Democratic candidates.

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As if the $10 billion “public education bailout” wasn’t enough to stomach, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has introduced a bill, titled Education for All Act of 2010, which would spend American tax dollars on education systems around the globe.  It’s S.3797.

U.S. Rep Nita Lowey (D-CA) has introduced similar legislation as H.B. 5117.

I think Washington has officially lost its marbles.

While no dollar amount is contained in the legislation, the bill states, “Credible estimates indicate that approximately $16,000,000,000 per year of financing assistance is necessary for developing countries to achieve universal basic education by 2015.”

Is Sen. Gillibrand really proposing to spend an additional $16 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars elsewhere?

Does spending money in other countries imply that our system is okay?  Or that it’s on a course of improvement?  Because in case these members of Congress haven’t noticed, our system kind of stinks.

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When Congress created Labor Day in the late 1800s, it was to placate an increasingly hostile labor movement.  At a time when American workers needed protection from heavy-handed industrial bosses, labor unions made sense.

But with the growing effort by Big Labor to unionize public employees, it’s left its mission of worker protection from dangerous conditions and now has increasingly become a leech on the taxpayers.  Public employees hardly need protection from their employer, the government.

If there’s any segment of society that needs protection from the government it’s taxpayers, not their employees.

Big Labor’s legacy today is that of creating pension systems that are continuing to plunge deeper into the red.  Some reports indicate the collective debt, just of school employee pensions, is around $1 trillion.

Public employee unions have also created scenarios where the health benefits of their members now cost school districts nearly $24,000 in places like Milwaukee.

And they’ve instituted schemes where teachers receive raises for not dying over the summer.  With negotiated “step raises,” increases are based on years of service, not value added to the “company.”

Big Labor is bankrupting government – and we should continue honoring that?

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The Democracy Alliance is alive and well, and its Vice-Chair is about to be born again.

Today, the “Queen of Labor”, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer and Chair of the Change to Win labor federation, Anna Burger, announced her retirement.

Anna Burger was defeated by current SEIU President Mary Kay Henry when she ran against Henry for the spot vacated by outgoing President Andy Stern.  Despite that loss, Burger had insisted that she’d be staying on as Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU.  Instead, she will be replaced as the head of Change to Win by United Food and Commercial Workers president, Joe Hansen.  Henry is likely to appoint one of her own insiders as SEIU Secretary-Treasurer, a practice that was already causing tension between Burger and the new guard of SEIU (even though both guards are not all that different from one another).

Burger’s departure marks not just the end of an era for SEIU, but more importantly it’s indicative of a new era for the Progressive movement.

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Andy Stern has just gained yet another job.  Earlier this month, Stern also accepted a position on the Board of Directors for SIGA, a producer of anti-viral and biological warfare defense products.

But this job seems to have some policy teeth, with a think-tank title akin to Media Matters or the Center for American Progress, and it comes with perhaps some welcome company as well.

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, is joining Georgetown University’s public policy school as a research fellow.

Stern, 59, retired in May after building his union into one of the largest in the labor movement and increasing his own influence with President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers.

Stern will coordinate research at Washington-based Georgetown on wage reform, labor policy and retirement security, according to an announcement on the school’s website.

Stern of course maintains his position as an adviser on Obama’s deficit-reduction commission, a post to which Obama appointed him in February of this year.

This announcement comes only weeks after the announcement that Ed Montgomery, who has been serving in the White House as both a member of President Obama’s Task Force on the Auto Industry and as the Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, will leave the Obama administration to take over as Dean of Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute.  As very active leaders in the labor movement, both Mr. Montgomery and Andy Stern certainly know one another, and have shared visits at the White House for such activities as Obama’s White House Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth.

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There are many who argue that President Obama has (repeatedly) broken his promise to bring transparency and openness to the White House.  In literal terms, however, Obama may not have actually broken that specific promise (as opposed to all the others he has broken), it’s just that people may not have understood what Obama meant by transparency and openness.

For example, President Obama’s ”openness and transparency” is really open and transparent if you break it down into three categories:

Category One: Everything’s in the open, you’re just looking in all the wrong places

An example of this would be the current flap over White House staffers meeting with lobbyists.  Obama’s staffers are meeting with lobbyists in the open, it just happens to be away from the White House—at Starbucks. You see, it’s not the President’s fault the press corp doesn’t follow White House staff to get a cup of coffee.  Why wouldn’t the press think his staff would meet with lobbyists in the open over cups of iced mocha frappuccinos?

Category Two:  The I-openly-don’t-give-a-d**n openness

Two recent examples of Obama’s I-openly-don’t-give-a-d**n openness came just this week when the administration openly (but without explanation) released 10 Russians who had been spying on the U.S. for years and only hours after pleading guilty in U.S. Court, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder’s running of a racist “color blind” Justice Department.

Category Three:  The by-the-time-you-connect-the-dots-it-will-be-too-late openness and transparency

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When it formed in 2005, the Change to Win coalition was heralded as a dynamic organizing force that would rejuvenate the labor movement and swell membership rolls for constituent unions.  However, U.S. Department of Labor figures show that only one union organization has benefitted from its affiliation with Change to Win while the others have lost out.

The Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) membership has risen from about 1.5 million to more than 1.8 million and its annual receipts are up to about $75 million since 2005, according to government records. SEIU has in turn contributed $5.7 million to support the coalition, which is far more than any other coalition member. By contrast, the other six unions that split off from the AFL-CIO to form Change to Win have either flatlined or declined.

In 2006, the first year Change to Win filed Labor Department financial disclosure forms, the coalition claimed over 5.3 million members but its most recent filing in 2008 shows it had less than 4.8 million members; that’s a decline of almost 11 percent. In 2006, Change to Win listed $11.7 million in assets, a figure that dropped to $8.8 million in 2008. During that time, liabilities spike by more than 130 percent from about $550,000 in 2006 to more than just $1.25 million in 2008.

Annual receipts have also plummeted, falling from $18.7 million in 2006 to just $6.5 million in 2008. In 2006, revenues far exceeded expenditures, but this ratio was turned upside down in 2008 with Change to Win’s spending outpacing its revenues.

“Despite being a coalition of several unions, Change to Win has been of material benefit to one union only, and that is the SEIU,” Glenn Spencer, the executive director of the Workforce Freedom Initiative with the Chamber of Commerce has observed.   “The coalition started with great fanfare and was meant to be an alternative to the AFL-CIO – the new front of labor organizing, but it just hasn’t worked out that way.  It’s now an organization struggling to justify its existence.”

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We’ve theorized previously that there may be a smoking gun tying the connection between President Obama and ousted-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich:  That smoking gun being the Service Employees International Union.

Well, the smell of gunpowder is filling the Illinois courtroom where Blago’s trial is still going on:

Top [SEIU] union leader Thomas Balanoff said he was at dinner the night before the November Presidential election when he got a call that was blocked.

So he didn’t take it.

Later he listened to his messages: “I walked outside, listened to it and it was from President Obama,” Balanoff said.

“Tom, this is Barack, give me a call,” the soon-to-be President-Elect said on the message.

After Balanoff sent word through an Obama aide to call him back, Obama returned his call later that night.

“Tom, I want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat,” Obama told him.

Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010.

Obama said he wasn’t publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill.

“I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria,” Balanoff said Obama told him. “I said: ‘thank you, I’m going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich.”

Balanoff then described a Nov. 6, 2008 meeting he had with Rod Blagojevich to recommend Valerie Jarrett for Barack Obama’s Senate seat.

Though this is technically not a contradiction of then-President Elect Obama’s public “report” that there was no contact between he and Blagojevich, it does seem that SEIU top boss Tom Balanoff [shown here at a 2009 May Day rally] clearly served as the middleman between Obama and Blago.

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SEIU’s New Lavender Lady Labor Boss

Politico’s Ben Smith was first to publish that Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger would not be the Purple Union’s  new union boss, he created a shock heard round the world; well at least, at SEIU’s Dupont Circle Headquarters. The breaking news was that Executive Vice President (EVP) Mary Kay Henry (MKH) would become the abruptly resigned Andy Stern’s replacement. Some claimed that this indicated an SEIU shake-up; actually it is merely an SEIU insiders’ game of musical chairs that will result in little change.

Don’t let the cheery atmosphere surrounding her anointment ease concerns about her nor the SEIU and its agenda; because for her, ObamaCare and its potential for 21.1 million forced unionism conscripts are just the beginning steps for SEIU’s steady march towards domination of U.S. labor markets.

Mary Kay Henry’s intentions to further radicalize the labor movement and the American economy are clearer than Stern’s vision.  With the hundreds of millions of union dues and fees flowing into SEIU’s treasury, she has the financial fuel needed to fund her ambitious desires.

SEIU’s Growth by Forced Unionism Fiats

Under Stern direction, SEIU had focused on the takeover of the healthcare industry through forced unionism obtained primarily through government fiats or from intimidated and cowed employers signing away worker freedoms to keep “labor peace.”  SEIU’s purple machine is unlikely to change their top-down intimidation operation with  Henry running the show.

Mary Kay Henry the Queen of ‘SEIU Grassroots’ (more…)

We hit the streets of Chicago to gauge people’s reaction to the recent street mob action style protests organized by long time Obama allies – National People’s Action (NPA), SEIU and Heather Tobis Booth.

Almost everyone we spoke with believes going to private home of a bank employee is deplorable.

Almost everyone we spoke with thinks politicians shouldn’t take money from or support groups that use mob tactics like this.

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President Barack Obama and his administration, is shamefully deeply connected to the people and organizations that recently organized street mob protests, terrifying a teenage child in his own home, and storming bank buildings (violating how many Federal laws?) in a show of uncivil disobedience (intimidation).

Previous posts detail the intimate connections between the President, and “Showdown in America” protest organizers SEIU and National People’s Action (NPA)

Digging a little deeper reveals some additional disturbing connections between President Obama, and other organizers of these mob actions. These connections might be of interest to any reporters who claim the White House as their beat.

Another key organizing force behind the “Showdown in America” is a group called Americans For Financial Reform. This group is headed by former SDS radical and proud Alinsky protege, Heather Tobis Booth.

Heather Tobis Booth is the founder of a group called USAction.

USAction used to be called Citizen Action, until the illegal behavior of  Rep. Jan Shakowsky’s husband, ex-con Bob Creamer (Obama Campaign Organizer), combined with the notorious “Teamstergate” scandal, forced the organization to collapse it’s national brand into a newly named entity. (This collapse and restructuring is the role model for ACORN’s transition today.)

In the video below, the president of USAction and Chair of Illinois Citizen Action, William McNary, openly glorifies and embraces a working relationship with the Communist Party of America (CPUSA).

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Writing for Fortune.com, Nina Easton relays her first-hand account of the uncivil disobedience and “mob”tactics exhibited by SEIU and the National People’s Action (NPA), as they terrorized a teenage child in his own home.

Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

Liberty Chick has covered this SEIU-NPA attack-action here, and Huffington Post wrote a disgusting whitewash of the mob’s behavior:

Passersby and dogwalkers smiled at the sight of people gathered all over Baer’s lawn and blocking the road.

SEIU and NPA also loudly stormed into bank buildings, occupying and shutting down their lobbies.  How much would you like being in one of those bank lobbies during an SEIU-NPA Progressive Democrat hijacking of the property? How is anyone supposed to know that the loud angry mob coming through the front door isn’t there to rob it, or worse yet, burn it down?

Just an aside -  isn’t it against Federal law to purposely shut down the normal operation of Federally insured banking institutions? Or is that sort of thing being encouraged now?

This is all a part of an ongoing campaign which SEIU and NPA have titled “Showdown In America.”

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Andy Stern unexpectedly abandons his Service Employee International Union (SEIU) presidency after working fourteen years to build his purple brand and obtaining the SEIU forced-unionism organizing coup of the century, a.k.a. ObamaCare.

Many expected Stern to announce that he was moving on to bigger things, or perhaps, new ObamaCare czar.  (see Liberty Chick’s post about Stern’s new gig as an event planner.)

Instead, Stern announces an almost Ecclesiastic (or perhaps The Byrds) sing-song reason for his departure:   “In life there is a time to learn, a time to lead, and then there is a time to leave.”

Hogwash!

Rather than finishing his term and announcing well in advance that he would not seek reelection,  Stern plunged SEIU and the workers who are forced pay as dues as a condition of keeping their jobs into an internal battle for power that is far from over. The repercussions created in this seemingly brief internal battle will eventually be felt throughout SEIU’s self proclaimed ‘global empire.’

It is unlikely that Stern arose one day and decided to retire – there are serious reasons for his actions.  Some speculate that it may be the financial mismanagement draining SEIU resources, the fading SEIU brand, or the growing scandals involving some of Stern’s handpicked local union bosses.  Whatever the reason(s), there is definitely something more to this story.  Over time as the disaffected leave, more will eventually be revealed and you will surely see many more posts at BigGovernment.com as the stories trickle out.

Former SEIU Local President Unimpressed With Stern’s Tenure (more…)

From the cheap seats, it sure does look like the President of the United States is using the powers of the Executive to coordinate with Andy Stern to organize a series of protests entitled “Showdown In America.”

Earlier, we posted about the links between Andy Stern’s SEIU and a group called National People’s Action (NPA). NPA, together with SEIU and the AFL-CIO, is organizing a series of angry marches against Wall Street and capitalism.

NPA is a very dangerous and radical group that isn’t shy about its radical philosophy.

From their song book:

Who’s on your hit list NPA? Who’s on your hit list for today?
Take no prisoner, take no names.
Kick ‘em in the ass when they play their games.

A slumlord never seems to learn
he brushes us off with no concern.
Until we show up at his door
and catch him with the neighborhood whore.
He’s the middleman; he puts nothing back,
dealing with HUD, taking kickbacks.
Don’t think that we won’t spread the word, we’ll fry your ass, rest assured.

NPA wrote the dreaded Community Reinvestment Act which community organizers like Barack Obama used to shake down banks.

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