Posts Tagged ‘Service Employees International Union’

David A. Bego

Breitbart Feels the SEIU’s Persuasion of Power

by David A. Bego

BigGovernment.com founder Andrew Breitbart received another taste of SEIU thuggery this past week at “Occupy L.A.,” his second public run-in with the SEIU thugs.  Mr. Breitbart’s first exposure was memorialized in Unholy Alliance?, The Devil at Breitbart’s Doorstep and SEIU’s Unholy Alliance. In that experience, Mr. Breitbart and Mr. Glenn Beck were confronted by, Reverend C.J. Hawkins, one of the multitude of characters that attacked EMS during the SEIU’s corporate campaign to force the unionization of my business, EMS, as chronicled inThe Devil at My Doorstep. It is obvious that the SEIU is willing to attack anyone or any entity to achieve its goals, using intimidation as its calling card!

In the latest incident, a union thug followed Mr. Breitbart throughout the “Occupy L.A.”event in an obvious attempt to intimidate him (see SEIU Thug Follows Andrew Breitbart Around at Occupy L.A. and Andrew Breitbart Hits Occupy L.A. Protest, Brings Eric Bolling the Video Evidence). This act of outright intimidation is similar to what I experienced during the SEIU’s corporate campaign against EMS, when two SEIU thugs fell in shoulder to shoulder with me for two blocks in downtown Indianapolis (see blog Corporate Campaigns: Vehicle to Forced Unionism and Political Payback).

It appears the SEIU is ramping up a corporate campaign against Mr. Breitbart. In this instance, the goal is not to force unionization his employees but rather to silence him much as they have done with their own members, small and large businesses, banks, government officials, and the mainstream media. See SEIU Thugs Beat Up State Worker Ken Hamidi in Sacramento A Story of Our Future(use of a corporate campaign against small business), California Hospital Alleges SEIU Extortion (use of a corporate campaign against large business), A Smear Campaign (use of a corporate campaign against a city council president), SEIU Plan to Destroy JP Morgan (a plan for the use of corporate campaign against banks) and many mainstream media sources, including Fox News as seen in the SEIU’s website post Glenn Beck and Republican Violence (the use of corporate campaigns against Glenn Beck). (more…)

Liberty Chick

Judge Clears Way for Sodexo to Present Evidence of Extortion in RICO Suit Against SEIU

by Liberty Chick

You may recall that Sodexo slapped the SEIU with a RICO suit in March, citing the labor union’s “blackmail, vandalism, trespass, harassment, and lobbying law violations designed to steer business away from Sodexo USA and harm the company.”  SEIU had filed a motion to dismiss the suit, but according to a press release just issued,  a United States District Judge has denied the SEIU’s motion and ruled that Sodexo’s case can proceed.

“The court has validated our decision to file this lawsuit using the federal racketeering statute,” said Sodexo General Counsel Robert Stern. “This ruling clears the path to discovery and trial, allowing us to present evidence the SEIU has conspired to extort Sodexo by threatening financial damage unless we cave in to its demands. The SEIU’s campaign was designed to illegally threaten our company. We will continue to challenge the SEIU’s illegal behavior until it ends.”

The food services corporation has accused the SEIU of engaging in nefarious activities intended to harm the company, some of which include:

  • Hacking into a Sodexo education website, in knowing violation of federal computer crime laws, and posting a link to one of the union’s own websites where malicious and disparaging claims were made about Sodexo
  • Infiltrating, under false pretenses, a prestigious medical conference and throwing plastic roaches onto the food being served by Sodexo
  • Falsely claiming that the Company’s food production plants have “rodent problems” and scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold, flies and maggots, and that Sodexo provided linens contaminated with the “remnants of someone else’s hospital waste”
  • Harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing

The complaint also describes, among many other things, activities that are similar to other instances of the SEIU’s exploitation of college students to manufacture outrage against Sodexo and opposition to the company’s food services on campus.

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Andrew Breitbart

The White House Guess List: How Obama Pulled a Fast One on the American People – in the Name of ‘Transparency’

by Andrew Breitbart

**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…)

Liberty Chick

SEIU Hit With RICO Lawsuit, Blames Hunton and Williams and…Koch Brothers

by Liberty Chick

After years of being harassed by the purple people beaters, one company has finally said ENOUGH.

In a press release issued Thursday, Sodexo USA announced that the company has filed a civil lawsuit against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act., accusing the union of engaging in an “illegal campaign of extortion.”  The lawsuit representing Sodexo is Hunton & Williams – the same firm SEIU and its allies have accused of launching a “dirty tricks” campaign against them in retaliation for their anti-Chamber of Commerce campaigns. (more on that after the jump)

One of the largest food services and facilities management companies in the world, Sodexo is the provider of choice for most schools, universities, companies, hotels, prisons and other facilities that outsource their cafeteria and food catering operations, and for those that outsource industrial cleaning services.  SEIU has been incessantly battering Sodexo since 2007, in its desire to unionize some of its nearly 400,000 employees, many of them hotel and food service workers.  Exacerbating the tensions was a longstanding turf war between SEIU and UNITE HERE over hotel and casino workers, which often spilled over into SEIU’s antics prior to the settlement the warring unions reached this past summer.

Sodexo USA has filed the lawsuit in an attempt to halt the over-the-top harassment from SEIU, alleging that many of the acts are very serious and outside of the normal realm of union tactics, including acts of ” SEIU blackmail, vandalism, trespass, harassment, and lobbying law violations designed to steer business away from Sodexo USA and harm the company.” [emphasis added]

Aside from some of its usual corporate smear campaign tactics, certain organizers in the SEIU subscribed to some especially nasty, and frankly repulsive, tactics:

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Kevin Mooney

Private Companies Could be Forced to Negotiate with ‘Mini-Unions’

by Kevin Mooney

Although the energy and influence of organized labor has shifted over to the public sector, union bosses are ambitious to regain their footing in the private sector. This much is evident from the rulemaking changes the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) now seeks to enshrine. With media attention understandably focused on the confrontation between Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, and the teachers unions, private industry advocates should not lose sight of administrative activity in Washington D.C.

In just a few weeks, the Obama Administration attorneys who dominate the board could open the way for labor bosses to burrow into private companies with “mini-unions” built around small clusters of employees. At issue, is a seemingly narrow case involving nursing home workers that could potentially reshape the way bargaining units are created in six million companies covered under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), industry advocates have warned.

Despite losing on major legislative priorities like “card check” and binding arbitration, which were included in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor could still find a way to regain its footing in the private sector through rulemaking changes. Brian Haynes, a Republican member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), explains how this can occur in a strongly worded dissent attached to the Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile case.

Under the current system, organizers must gain support from over 50 percent of an entire storewide bargaining unit. However, the legal reasoning at work in Specialty makes it possible for just 10 pharmacy workers, or 15 auto shop workers, or 20 loading dock personnel to all form separate unions.  Employers would have to negotiate separate contracts with each group, while losing the flexibility to reassign workers to different jobs within the organization.

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Liberty Chick

SEIU Protests Hospital for Defending Employees’ Freedom

by Liberty Chick

It’s one of the most beautiful times of the year in the lovely Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, when the trees are gorgeous hues of crimson and gold, and the sweet smell of hot apple cider is in the brisk autumn air.  As you walk in and out of little village colonials and saltbox houses donning  fall mums and pumpkins on their porches, you’re hit with that waft of burning fireplace aroma – the sort of scene that gives you that comfy feeling of peace and contentment.

But turn the corner and that picturesque scene is disrupted by a tiny sea of purple t-shirts and angry faces.  Yep, you got it – it’s the SEIU!   And they’re not in the holiday spirit, apparently.

Pocono Medical Center, a mid-sized, not-for-profit community hospital nestled in the Pocono Mountains near East Stroudsburg University, has been in SEIU’s crosshairs for months.  The union has been demanding a closed shop at the hospital, despite the desires of other workers, and has since made it the crux of its contract negotiations. They were out protesting last week, making their demands known.  (Not many from Pocono Medical Center participated in the protest, so they resorted to recruiting some nearby friends to join them).

For those not familiar with what a “closed shop” is in union terms, this means that all of those employees would be required to be a member of the union and to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

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Kevin Mooney

ACORN’s ‘Texas for Obama’ Labor Ally Could Provide Cover to Rebuild Discredited Organization

by Kevin Mooney

Political operatives connected with renamed ACORN affiliates are in position to help swing close, competitive races for left-leaning candidates in the 2012 elections, according to former insiders and policy analysts who are familiar with the network’s operations.

An ambitious rebranding scheme that began earlier this year has now accelerated to include affiliates in at least 12 states. The bankruptcy filing the organization slyly submitted on Election Day is properly viewed as “a head fake” and a “public relations gimmick” arranged to distract attention away from the partisan political activities of renamed affiliates, sources say.

It is worth recalling that the organization known in full as the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now had initially denied reports that it would be dropping its tarnished name in press statements released in the summer of 2009.  Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN in 1970, had announced on his blog that ACORN International, one of many affiliate organizations, had officially changed its name to “Community Organizations International.” Former board members who came together under the banner of ACORN 8 in response to an embezzlement scandal saw the move as a possible opener to a larger rebranding effort.

Scott Levenson, a spokesman for organization’s national leadership, issued a statement claiming that the name has not been dropped and that Rathke is no longer connected with ACORN.

“ACORN is not changing its name,” he declared. “ACORN International, is a five-year old organization from which ACORN withdrew a year ago as part of an overall restructuring process and requested that they stop using the ACORN name, which they have now done. Wade Rathke was fired as Chief Organizer of ACORN in June 2008.”

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Patterico

Obama Activist Tied in With Organization Accused of Voter Fraud

by Patterico

You may have read that there is strong evidence of voter fraud in Houston. Here’s what you may not have heard: the organization accused of shady behavior is linked to a former head of an Obama campaign office. She is a fan of Che Guevara. She is also the person who invited to a town hall meeting a woman who then posed as a doctor at that meeting during the health care debate.

Here are the details.

Last month, Houston’s Registrar accused a Democratic organization called “Houston Votes” of voter registration fraud. The allegations were recently detailed here, and make compelling reading:

When Catherine Engelbrecht and her friends sat down and started talking politics several years ago, they soon agreed that talking wasn’t enough. They wanted to do more. So when the 2008 election came around, “about 50” of her friends volunteered to work at Houston’s polling places.

“What we saw shocked us,” she said. “There was no one checking IDs, judges would vote for people that asked for help. It was fraud, and we watched like deer in the headlights.”

Their shared experience, she says, created “True the Vote,” a citizen-based grassroots organization that began collecting publicly available voting data to prove that what they saw in their day at the polls was, indeed, happening — and that it was happening everywhere.

. . . .

Their work paid off. Two weeks ago the Harris County voter registrar took their work and the findings of his own investigation and handed them over to both the Texas secretary of state’s office and the Harris County district attorney.

Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Sean Caddle, who also worked for the Service Employees International Union before coming to Houston. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid.

The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures. . . .

“The integrity of the voting rolls in Harris County, Texas, appears to be under an organized and systematic attack by the group operating under the name Houston Votes,” the Harris voter registrar, Leo Vasquez, charged as he passed on the documentation to the district attorney.

Guess who was active in recruiting for Houston Votes? That would be one Maria Isabel.

Does that name sound familiar? It should. She is a radical Obama supporter who ran an Obama campaign office that sported a picture of Che Guevara. (more…)

LaborUnionReport

How to Win the War on Drugs: Unionize the Pot Industry

by LaborUnionReport

When Nancy Reagan launched her “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign in the early 1980s, Bill Clinton may (or may not) have still been inhaling, while Barack Obama almost certainly was.  Nevertheless, politicians in the 1980s might not have known that they were embarking on a campaign that has cost nearly $50 billion per year, caused millions of arrests and hundreds of thousands to be jailed and, after all of that, has arguably failed.

legalizeusaIt’s too bad the political leaders who were responsible for launching and financing the war on drugs so many years ago didn’t spend some more time reflecting on other, more simple solutions—like unionizing the industry.

As Californians head to the polls on November 2nd, among the other decisions voters will be deciding on (like choosing whether or not to recycle ex-governor Jerry “California Über Alles” Brown), they will be voting on whether or not  pass Proposition 19—that is whether or not to legalize pot in California.  More specifically, whether or not to legalize “various marijuana-related activities, allow local governments to regulate these activities, permit local governments (but not the state government) to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes, and authorize various criminal and civil penalties.”

Like any budding new industry, Prop. 19 has not escaped unnoticed by union bosses.  In fact, over the past few months, unions have taken a keener-than-usual interest in the pot industry and its workers.

First, the United Food & Commercial Workers unionized some medical marijuana workers in May as part of an effort to bring “legitimacy to a once-hidden sector of the state’s economy” and boost the marijuana-legalization initiative.

Shortly afterward, the UFCW endorsed Proposition 19, stating:

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LaborUnionReport

None Dare Call it a Coincidence: Andy Stern and the White House Biodefense Program

by LaborUnionReport

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.

andy_stern

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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LaborUnionReport

Did the SEIU-controlled NLRB Blackmail Company Owner?

by LaborUnionReport

StLouisTeaPartyProtestSEIU_

Upon an initial read, a company owner’s actions that are described in this Newsday article appear to be way over the top

The National Labor Relations Board required that Matrix Realty Group post this notice in its Danbury, Conn. complex: “We will not threaten to kill you or to cause you bodily harm because you engage in activities” in support of a labor union.

Eee gads!  At first glance, based on the above, it would appear that some company “boss” went off the deep end and threatened to kill his workers.

However, like all good SEIU stories, there seems be more to this story than meets the eye.

Apparently, the purple-shirts over at the SEIU decided to park itself outside the company owner’s home (reminiscent of the SEIU stormtroopers who targeted Greg Baer in May) for no other reason than to put pressure on him over a labor dispute.

The notice is the result of a dispute between Matrix owner Glen Nelson of Miller Place and the Service Employees International Union.

The dispute escalated last year when Nelson bought a Connecticut building and switched janitorial companies to a nonunion cleaning service, replacing a workforce of 40 union janitors to save $1.3 million a year.

The man who says he was threatened, Arthur Tiscia, 40, in a telephone interview Wednesday said he went to Nelson’s home in Miller Place on Dec. 21 with a group of the cleaners who had lost their jobs.

They set up a table and a banner in the street near Nelson’s driveway and intended to ask Nelson’s neighbors for food donations for Christmas, for the families of janitors who had lost their jobs, Tiscia said. Nelson came home and threatened him, Tiscia said.

So, it’s a case of the SEIU activists word against the home owner’s?  Since there was an alleged death threat made, you would think that would be in the police report, right?  Wrong.

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LaborUnionReport

The SEIU Smoking Gun: Did Obama lie about Blago seat?

by LaborUnionReport

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.

Blagojevich Corruption Probe

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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Bob McCarty

Republican Jo Ann Emerson Sponsoring Union Bailout Bill!

by Bob McCarty

Jo Ann Emerson is back in the news today as one of nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives sponsoring H.R. 3936, a $165 billion union pension bailout bill. But why?

Emerson 2

It could be that the seven-term Republican elected in the 8th Congressional District of Southeast Missouri simply loves bailouts. After all, she did vote for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) and “Cash for Clunkers”. But I don’t think her love for bailouts is the main reason why she is behind the bill.

Instead, I think her sponsorship of the union bailout bill stems from the fact that she is married to Ron Gladney.

In a May 3 post, I pointed out that her second husband is both a Democrat and an labor union attorney for St. Louis-based Bartley Goffstein LLC and that, according to Federal Election Commission records, she has received campaign contributions from a variety of union entities, including the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). And that’s not all!

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Liberty Chick

A New Job for Andy Stern, it’s Not the White House…Yet

by Liberty Chick

stern-dunn-corzine

An April 30th Press Release issued by Leading Authorities, Inc., announces Andy Stern’s latest move:

“Leading Authorities, Inc. has signed Andrew (Andy) L. Stern, the former president of the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the fastest-growing union in North America. Stern turned SEIU into a powerful political force, and Stern and SEIU were widely credited for helping elect Barack Obama in 2008.

“We are extremely proud and privileged to be representing Andy Stern,” said Leading Authorities founder and CEO Mark French. “He is a major force in Washington politics. He transformed the labor movement, raised huge sums for President Obama’s election, and exerted monumental influence on the health care debate. Everyone at LAI is thrilled to be working with Andy.”   The release goes on to state,  “Stern will be addressing audiences about politics and issues such as fiscal policy, entitlements, immigration, healthcare, and the future of the labor movement.  He will speak independently, and also be matched with leading Republican thinkers.”

About the company:

Leading Authorities, Inc. is one of the nation’s most progressive event design firms as well as a renowned lecture agency and production house. LAI represents thought leaders in business, politics and contemporary life as well as nationally-recognized entertainment acts. Our award-winning video and production departments provide professionally managed events and cutting-edge media products. Our experiential event design experts conduct workshops to improve attendance, engagement, and return on investment. With tools such as our Strategic Event Evaluation and our Event Design Workshops, Leading Authorities is setting the standard in customized, fully integrated event design.”

Aw, Andy’s got himself an agent.  Show him the money.

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Liberty Chick

SEIU: Save Our State or Shut it Down?

by Liberty Chick

I’m thinking SEIU may need to hire itself a new communications consulting firm.  Am I the only one confused by this messaging conflict?

To protest Illinois state budget cuts, thousands (which in lefty stats must mean 10, as in ten people) took to the steps of Illinois’ state capitol building, demanding the Governor shut down the state house.  They chanted, “Shut it Down Now. Shut it Down Now”.


Then, at the same protest, they marched and chanted outside, “Save Our State.  Save Our Schools.”


I don’t know which it is they’d like the Governor to do – shut down the state, or save it?

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Liberty Chick

BREAKING: SEIU Names a New Leader, Against Stern’s Wishes Anna Burger is Out

by Liberty Chick

“After a great amount of my own thought, hearing opinions from many of you, and holding them up against my own criteria—I recommend that Anna Burger not only temporarily—but then permanently—become the 10th President and first woman to lead our union.”

henry-burger

That’s what outgoing SEIU President Andy Stern requested in his April 16th letter to the International Executive Board of SEIU, as he named Anna Burger as his preferred successor.

But locals from New York, Los Angeles, Oregon, and Washington State, as well as Canada, all lined up behind Mary Kay Henry tonight to commit their votes.  According to Politico’s Ben Smith,

“It’s done,” an SEIU insider emailed moments ago.

Tonight’s development comes only days after Anna Burger’s plea to the International Executive Board:

“During my 38 years in SEIU, I’ve held every position but one and now I’m asking for your support… to be the next International President.”

However, building tensions between locals across the country that saw Stern as a divisive figure, too politically entrenched and connected to the DC complex, have left the union itself divided.  Some have seen Mary Kay Henry as a more uniting force that might break the national union away from the chains of the DC operations and bring the power of the locals back to the members again and keep the peace amongst other locals. Others (including me) speculate that she’ll infuse new life into those very DC operations and could possibly even accelerate some activities; she apparently has fewer enemies than Stern or Burger did.  As Politico reports,

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Liberty Chick

Center for Responsible Lending and SEIU, a Perfect Union

by Liberty Chick

As you know, we’ve been writing for some time about The Center for Community Self-Help and its financing affiliates Self-Help Credit Union, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, and Self-Help Ventures Fund.  As of late, the organization has been under increased scrutiny for its questionable lobbying activities, its former leader and soon to be CFPA Czar Eric Stein, and  its $15 million donation from disgraced hedge fund billionaire John Paulson.

According to the Self Help website, the organizations “provide financing, technical support, consumer financial services, and advocacy for those left out of the economic mainstream.”  Within that complex web of entities under the Self-Help umbrella exists about forty or so real estate development projects.  I thought it might be a productive exercise to start looking into some of Self-Help’s individual properties.

So, I started with Barr Building, LLC, a Self-Help investment registered under its affiliate Self Help Ventures Fund.  The property is located at 910 17th Street NW, Washington, DC.

And wouldn’t you know, it happens to be home to one of our most frequent subjects:

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

SH-seiu-office

This seemed especially curious, because it was only recently I’d discovered that SEIU, together with the AARP, is also the proud funder and agitator for one of the Center for Responsible Lending’s other advocacy projects – its state-specific lobbying websites targeted at regulating short-term loans in an effort to insulate its own predatory practices from any private industry competition.  For example, take a look at this site, from Arizonans for Responsible Lending.  It’s chock filled with all of the usual SEIU corporate campaign elements:  the menacing title and domain name, the array of photos depicting abused consumers who simply could not have known any better, the manufactured headlines, and of course – the staple of their strategy – the studies and the research (all funded and conducted by their own organization allies).

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Liberty Chick

BREAKING NEWS: SEIU President Andy Stern to Resign

by Liberty Chick

stern

According to Ben Smith of Politico, Andy Stern, longtime President of the Service Employees International Union, is rumored to be resigning from his position. From the Politico post:

Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern, one of America’s most prominent labor leaders, is set to resign, according to a member of the union’s board and another SEIU official.

The President of an SEIU local based in Seattle, Diane Sosne, broke the news to her staffers at 11:35 this morning, local time.

“Last night I received confirmation that Andy Stern is resigning as President of SEIU. He has not yet made a public announcement; we will share the details as we become aware of them,” Sosne wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO.

Sosne offered no explanation for the move, but another SEIU official speculated that Stern had finally tired of the draining job.

Read the entire Politico post here.

Hmmmm…I’d speculate differently. Here are my top guesses:

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Larry O'Connor

The Blueprint Penned From the Pen: Manufacture a Crisis, Manufacture Rage

by Larry O'Connor

In today’s Big Government post by Joel Pollak readers were treated to an amazing glimpse into the political strategy that has been put into place over the past year by the Obama Administration to force the radical overhaul of the American health care system all under the guise of “Health Care Reform”

HC2

If anyone doubts that the strategy blue print written by convicted felon Robert Creamer (while he was serving his time in Federal Prison) was really put into action by the administration, one only needs to look at the endorsements page and notice a rave from none other than David Axelrod:

Bob Creamer has devoted his life to progressive causes.  Here he provides a fascinating narrative of how progressives have won in the past and provides a blueprint for future victories.

When David Axelrod reads and endorses Creamer’s book and describes it as a “blueprint for future victories” then it might be more than just a coincidence that what Creamer suggested/predicted is exactly what has come to pass.

As odd as it seems that President Obama’s top political advisor would see fit to publicly endorse a book by a newly released felon, it is still instructive to actually look at Mr. Creamer’s “blueprint for future victories” and see how Mr. Axelrod and the Democratic leadership has used that blueprint for President Obama’s Health Care scheme.

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Larry O'Connor

HCAN = SEIU = ACORN = Community Organizers = Bullies

by Larry O'Connor

We have already established the Healthcare for America Now (HCAN) is a front group primarily staffed by former SEIU members and financed by the SEIU.  And we’ve established HCAN’s role in the angry intimidating tactics employed to bully the town hall protestors during the month of August.  So, who is HCAN?

In short, HCAN is ACORN.  Take a look at their staff page:


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