But let’s just look for one moment at where some of that line of thinking comes from on the other side.  I’ve written previously about the birth of Media Matters as a spawn of Rob Stein’s Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix road show, from which the Democracy Alliance was born.  It’s through this organization from which much of the organization’s funding had come; in recent years, more has been spread out across other progressive organizations, but the funders often remain the same names in most cases.  For instance, The Tides Foundation gave Media Matters and their Action Network over $175,000 just last year.  In earlier years, groups like Montclair, New Jersey-based (hometown of Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert) Schumann Center for Media & Democracy gave the organization $500,000.

The donors’ list is vast and diverse, and we plan to cover that in detail in the future.  So I’ll focus in on one set of donors to Media Matters, which is the Labor Unions.  More specifically, in light of some recent posts regarding the Kenneth Gladney incident, I thought it appropriate to revisit donations made to Media Matters specifically by the Service Employees International Union.

When you look at the timeline of events and the media calendar in general leading up to the Gladney incident last August, it’s difficult not to conclude that there was collaboration amongst White House staff, components of Big Labor, and certain liberal media outlets.  However, we know that all will continue to deny it.

Further, just as the flurry of media activity finally starts to wind down a bit around October last year, this is when SEIU makes three separate donations to Media Matters totaling $50,000, under the classification of “Communications”, according to the SEIU LM-2 report. (In reviewing other LM-2s for several previous years, this appears at least to be the first time that SEIU has donated to Media Matters, and there does not seem to have been another donation recorded since these.)

This is the type of funding that I would question in return to Media Matters.  With their membership being so low and their unfunded pension expenses so high, can the SEIU really afford to be randomly donating funds to an organization like Media Matters?  Perhaps SEIU purchased advertising on Media Matters’ website, but then I’d think it would be categorized as such, as others ad expenses in the LM-2 were.  If not advertising, if not random donations,  then what’s the reason for SEIU having donated these funds?  One could logically conclude that Media Matters performed a service in return.  Only they can answer that.

That said, I can simply present the basic information here and suggest that readers do their own research and draw their own conclusions, in the absence of any explanation from Media Matters.

The timeline follows below.  While it is not all inclusive, it presents a collection of the most pertinent sources at that time.

8/4/2009

• 6:55 AM ET:  White House launchesFlag@whitehouse.gov, its “fishy” snitch program
• 4:45 PM ET:  SEIU Posts the White House snitch program & video in a post titled “Pushing Back on Right-Wing Lies on Reform“
• Margarida Jorge, National Field Director for Health Care for America Now, releases a four page memo instructing members of HCAN to fight “militant right-wing activists” and “teabaggers”.  Even the URL uses the word “fight”:
  http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/fight

• Back in St. Louis, Congressman Russ Carnahan’s campaign announces Sara Howard as the new director of communications.  Howard was formerly Senior Strategist at Obama for America, National Media Relations Specialist for Anna Burger / SEIU, Communications Director for Senator Mark Dayton, and spokesperson for George Soros funded American Coming Together (ACT).  She also worked with Buffy Wicks while with SEIU on door-to-door campaigns in Missouri.
• 11:09 pm ET:  Media Matters tries to discredit Tea Party protesters by broadly painting the entire movement as “birthers”

8/5/2009

• The DNC releases “Enough of the Mob” ad calling the protesters an “angry mob” and focuses the ad repeatedly on “right-wing birthers” disrupting town hall events.

8/5/2009

12:13 am ET, Media Matters:  Special Report says “public venting” at health care town halls, ignores conservative efforts to pack events

8/6/2009

• 9:53 AM ET, Huffington Post/Sam Stein:  Unions To Take On Conservative Groups Health Care Town Halls; “In a memo sent out on Thursday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney outlined the blueprint for how the union conglomerate would step up recess activities on health care reform… also uses the specter of the infamous 2000 recount “Brooks Brothers” protest to rally its members to the administration’s side.”
• Richard Trumka, then AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer (now President) issues a statement, slams the town halls, calls the events corporate funded and part of the conservative strategy.
• 12:47 pm ET, Media Matters:  AP reported on town hall disruptions, ignored conservative strategy
• Afternoon:  White House aides give Senate Democrats a recess battle plan; David Axelrod and Jim Messina tell senators, “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard.” See Politico:  White House to Democrats: ‘Punch back twice as hard’
• Organizing for America sends out mass email for the Bernard Middle School event in St. Louis, MO:

That very evening, the Kenneth Gladney incident happens in St. Louis at the Bernard Middle School event.  A black conservative is beaten by members of SEIU.  I’ll let the guys at 24^th State cover the details of that evening’s outcome.

8/7/2009

7:14 PM ET by Kate Thomas:  Violent tactics at last night’s St. Louis town hall meeting

8/8/2009

10:11 am ET by Media Matters, Eric Boehlert:  Inventing tales of a union ”beating”

And after this date, there are so many more, from SEIU and from Media Matters.  Simply type in this Google search to retrieve a relatively thorough list.

As you’ll see from Google’s timeline, October is when the activity calmed down.

Seems to me that -hypothetically speaking, of course – if there were any sort of service arrangement in place, October would have been the most appropriate time for SEIU to make its payment installments and thank Media Matters for a job well done.  (That’s of course before anyone knew things would be heating up again once the police report would become available in November)

Hm.  I wonder if these types of payment installments are regulated under the financial reform bill?

]]> http://biggovernment.com/libertychick/2010/05/18/did-seiu-pay-media-matters-to-cover-up-the-gladney-beating/feed/ 387 http://biggovernment.com/sright/2009/12/02/anatomy-of-a-beat-down-part-3-why-kenneth-gladney-was-beaten-and-by-whom/ http://biggovernment.com/sright/2009/12/02/anatomy-of-a-beat-down-part-3-why-kenneth-gladney-was-beaten-and-by-whom/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:19:01 +0000 Larry O'Connor http://biggovernment.com/?p=40094 In Part 1 of this series we detailed the events leading up to the assault on Kenneth Gladney on August 6^th and revealed the document written by Margarida Jorge at Health Care for American Now (HCAN) a front group funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which laid a blueprint for the unions to follow that evening at Rep. Russ Carnahan’s town hall meeting.  Yesterday, in Part 2, we exposed a second town hall meeting that occurred the same night in Tampa Bay, FL with Rep. Kathy Castor that followed the same structure and had very similar results.  We also detailed the relationships of key decision makers at HCAN, Rep. Carnahan’s office and the White House and showed how they were all inter-related at SEIU, the Obama for America campaign and the two accused of assaulting Kenneth Gladney that evening.

Margarida Jorge

On the evening of August 6^th hundreds of citizens were shut out of the meeting and not allowed to question their elected official while hundreds of SEIU members were ushered in a side entrance to sit in reserved seats in the front of the hall.  This followed precisely the instructions penned by Margarida Jorge of HCAN.

• We need to stack our folks in the front to create a wall around the Member…
• Get to your location early and make sure you set up the venue in a way that ensures that the attendees you want are at the front and that any protesters who come are sequestered as far as possible from the stage.
• Make sure that you assign marshals to take care of moving the crowd, keeping people organized and orderly, and acting as security

According to eye-witnesses, Elston McCowan and Perry Molens approached Kenneth Gladney and began grabbing the “Don’t Tread on Me” materials that he was distributing.  This also was in line with the instructions laid out in the HCAN memo.

• Another way to limit protesters’ ability to hijack your event is to confiscate signs or leaflets that they may bring into the venue from outside.

The climate of intimidation and frustration created by following HCAN’s rules of “Responding to Right-Wing Attacks” led to the confrontations outside of Rep. Carnahan’s town hall meeting.

The St. Louis Police were dispatched that evening to respond to the assault on Kenneth Gladney and arrests were made.  Big Government has already revealed the 24-page police report detailing the police’s own account of the events as well as eye-witness testimony.  The suspects taken by the police that night were booked on assault charges and last Wednesday, November 25^th, more than three months after the incident, charges were finally brought against the suspects.

Elston McCowan

As anyone who has taken a high school civics class can tell you (or, more likely, anyone who has ever seen an episode of ‘Law and Order’), city and county attorneys are responsible for prosecuting suspects who the police arrest.  The County Prosecuting Attorney has ultimate authority over cases such as the arrest of SEIU senior staff members Elston McCowan and Perry Molens.  And the Prosecuting Attorney is an elected official which by definition makes that person a politician.  Who is the politician ultimately responsible for ensuring the crimes against Kenneth Gladney are brought to justice?

Meet Robert McCulloch .  Robert McCulloch  is the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney in whose jurisdiction these arrests were made.  Last year, during the presidential election, Robert McCulloch was a central figure in something called “The Barack Obama Truth Squad”.  This “truth” squad was created at the request of the Missouri Obama for America campaign.  As KMOV reported at the time:

“They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year. They also say they plan to respond immediately to any ads and statements that violate Missouri’s ethics laws.”

McCulloch himself was quoted in the report saying:

“If they’re not going to tell the truth, somebody’s got to step up and say, ‘That’s not true. This is the truth.’”

That is what McCulloch said he would do on “The Barack Obama Truth Squad” in his capacity as Prosecuting Attorney, NOT as a paid employee of the Obama for America Campaign.  Please understand, in September of 2008, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch  took on as his responsibility as a public official, paid for by the good people of Missouri, the role of “Rapid Response” for the Obama Campaign responsible for informing the voters of what is true and what is not, all the time reminding everyone that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year.  I think even the most casual observer can look at this and reach the conclusion that Mr. McCulloch  brings with him a certain level of partisan bias when executing his duties as Prosecuting Attorney.

As the KMOV report stated:

“The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.”

“The Barack Obama campaign is asking…”  We have already discussed who was in charge of the Barack Obama campaign in Missouri, but I think it bears repeating:

• Buffy Wicks ran the Obama for America campaign in Missouri, Buffy Wicks now works for Valerie Jarret in the White House Office of Public Engagement and was involved in the NEA Conference Calls.
• Sara Howard worked with Buffy Wicks on the Obama for America Campaign in Missouri and Sarah Howard worked at SEIU in St Louis.  The day before the St. Louis town hall she was hired by Rep. Russ Carnahan.
• Margarida Jorge also worked at SEIU in St. Louis, just like Sara Howard and Margarida wrote the HCAN memo on fighting back against the right.
• Just like Jorge and Howard, Elston McCowan and Perry Molens worked at SEIU in St. Louis.  They have been charged with the bloody assault of Kenneth Gladney.

Now, let’s add THIS one to the mix:

• Robert McCulloch worked on behalf of the Obama for America campaign (Wicks and Howard) by aggressively promoting a pre-emptive strike against negative campaigning against Barack Obama.  McCulloch is the person charged with the duty to bring charges against McCowan and Molens for assaulting Gladney outside the town hall meeting of Carnahan arranged by Howard following the volatile template written by Jorge!  (Follow all that?)

So, how did McCulloch do in executing his duties in the Gladney case?  McCulloch handed the case over to county counselor Patricia Redington and washed his hands from that point on.  It is interesting that McCulloch moved so quickly in using intimidation tactics by wielding the power of his office and the threat of legal ramifications for any negative advertising that may have suggested that candidate Obama might not actually lower taxes on everyone making $250,000 per year (have you gotten your tax cut yet?) but he passed the buck when it came to this case.

Meanwhile, Redington let this case languish for months before finally bringing modest charges against the suspects on the afternoon before Thanksgiving (an obvious attempt to let the story disappear).  One week before the charges were brought, Big Government reported:

• Redington hasn’t spoken to Kenneth Gladney
• Redington hasn’t called any of the witnesses on the police report.
• Redington hasn’t contacted any of the Tea Party members that are seen on video
• Redington hasn’t contacted any of the people who shot video that night and whose YouTube urls are listed on the evidence page

Also, despite the fact that Redington never investigated the injuries Gladney suffered and never interviewed the medical personnel who administered assistance to Gladney, she still felt it best to reduce the charges down to an ordinance violation.  In the words of Judge Anthony Napolitano:  “The moral equivalent of jay walking.”

But, make no mistake; this is happening on McCulloch’s watch.  He has the authority to handle this case and to ensure that proper charges are filed, but he has chosen not to.  It begs the question:  If he jumped through the “Truth Squad” hoops when Buffy Wicks asked him to during the campaign, is it possible he has turned his back on this case for similar reasons?

Tomorrow:  We reveal a document linking the activities of HCAN and SEIU in August at the town hall meetings with the highest levels of the Government.

Ken Gladney is pictured here after his public beating by SEIU thugs. Kenneth Gladney attended this protest against SEIU violence in August in St. Louis. He was beaten, kicked and called racist names by Russ Carnahan’s SEIU supporters after the town hall meeting earlier that week. St. Louis County officials have yet to press charges.

It’s been over 3 months and still St. Louis county officials have not met with Kenneth Gladney to discuss the case nor have they press charges against the SEIU thugs who beat him.

Today after Kenneth set up an appointment with the county officials to discuss the crime– they blew him off. Kenneth made the appointment and they totally ignored him.

Later today Kenneth Gladney talked about how the county is ignoring the crime against him:

Kenneth Gladney was beaten once in the street in a hate crime. But, it doesn’t matter to county officials.

They have better things to do than protect a black man who was assaulted by SEIU thugs.

Cross-posted at GatewayPundit.