President Obama is looking to fill out the six-member Federal Election Commission (see recent pro-SEIU FEC decision) with someone he can count on to support his views on campaign law.  It is not surprising he turned to his friend Andy Stern’s union Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  Obama has appointed SEIU lawyer John Sullivan, who was intertwined in the Clinton/DNC/McAuliffe/Teamster scandal that resulted in Jimmy Hoffa’s ascension to the Teamster throne, but for over a year the nomination remains in political limbo.

Could it be that Obama appointees have finally reached such a level of ethical absurdity that even the Obama allies in the Senate are pulling back?

Sullivan was a lawyer for Teamster President Ron Carey when he was convicted of laundering Teamster forced-dues and fees through the Democratic [sic] National Committee.  He also served as SEIU’s lawyer for its 527 Federal Election Campaign Committee, “America Coming Together (ACT),” that received the second largest fine in Federal Election Commission (FEC) history.

While these facts render this appointment truly absurd, it is also appears unlikely that ethical concerns are the underlying issue in the appointment delay.

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If America would like to see the millions of people who lost their jobs over the past year finally get off the unemployment line, you would hardly know it by the actions of our labor organizations. The AFL-CIO is currently waging a war on Wall Street and the companies that employ many of the 11.5 million AFL-CIO members in the United States. Given the track record of the AFL-CIO and its president, Richard Trumka, the outcome won’t be pretty.

Today the AFL-CIO will hold their “March on Wall Street,” a 10,000-person protest in New York City to show support for taxes on bankers’ bonuses, financial transactions, and private equity and hedge funds. And earlier this month, Trumka wrote a derisive op-ed in the Wall Street Journal attacking private equity firms for supposedly reaping big profits while the portfolio companies’ employees lost jobs and the bondholders lost money.

These tactics are nothing new, because in his long career as a labor leader, Trumka has often resorted to overbearing tactics. After spending more than seven years in the coal mines of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Trumka became the youngest United Mine Workers president and claimed he would work cooperatively towards reform. Yet instead, he led a strike against the Pittson Coal Company, which led to the arrest of 3,000 miners and only served to cement his image as an old-school, labor-boss bully.

Why should we listen to Richard Trumka? He isn’t exactly the ideal messenger for honest criticism of business. When, under Trumka’s watch, the AFL-CIO allegedly laundered over $100,000 for the re-election campaign of Teamsters President Ron Carey against James Hoffa—does that name ring a bell?— Trumka pled the fifth and refused to address the allegations.

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In politics the media seems to have a tier system for how they report on scandals. Republicans who fall from grace are vilified. They are the butts of countless inappropriate jokes and cartoons and expected never to be heard from again. Recent right scandals (examples, Governor Mark Sanford and Mark Foley) dominated the news, but, besides Fox News, the media barely covered Obama adviser Van Jones or delved deeply into the dealings of Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson.

Unfortunately for America, the media has been filtering news for years and this practice has allowed some of the main figures in the Teamstergate scandal to assume top spots in the Democrat party. Part 1 of this series reviewed the history of the scandal and its strong ties to ACORN and President Obama.  In order to help readers fully appreciate the connections, I discuss below some of the major players in the Teamstergate saga who were named in indictments and a Congressional report on in a scheme that reached all the way into the White House.

The Congressional report, on Teamstergate, reached a number of damning conclusions that implicated organizations like Project Vote  and Citizen Action. It also raised a number of questions about campaign finance and “soft money” donations. Something that ACORN seemed concerned with as detailed in a spring blog post here. Were these questions raised by ACORN political director Zach Polett a result of the following statement in the Congressional report:

The issue of soft money abuses is inevitably tied to the question of how access to political figures is obtained through large contributions of soft money. It is also tied to the question of how tax-exempt organizations have been used to hide the identities of soft money donors. A system that permits large contributions to be made for partisan purposes, without public disclosure, invites subversion of the intent of our election law limitations.

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In what obviously was part of a concerted effort, former President Bill Clinton appeared recently on Sunday’s Meet the Press to discuss – wait for it – the “real” forces behind President Obama’s falling poll numbers and increasing opposition:

Former President Bill Clinton says the right-wing conspiracy that attacked him during his presidency now is after President Obama.

Democrats–no strangers to major scandal–do not hesitate to divert attention away from the corruption and “pay to play” tactics being exposed or simmering just under the surface. Clinton deliberately inserted himself into a critically important national debate and thereby unwisely opened the tomb of similar scandals, potentially more explosive than his unwise dalliances with Monica Lewinsky.

For most of the 1990’s, the White House, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Citizen Action and ACORN’s Project Vote were embroiled in what would become known as “Teamstergate.”

That scandal involved disgraced former union crusader and Teamster national president Ron Carey. According to New York Times Archives:

Three of Mr. Carey’s campaign aides have pleaded guilty to a web of illegal fund-raising schemes, including having the union donate $735,000 to three liberal grass-roots groups for a get-out-the-vote effort during the 1996 Congressional elections. In return, those groups and their supporters were to channel money to Mr. Carey’s re-election campaign…

Insisting that he delegated decisions on political gifts, Mr. Carey repeatedly denied knowing about the large donations to the three liberal groups: Citizen Action, Project Vote and the National Council of Senior Citizens.

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