In a press release, the three senators touted their legislation as an effort to give states “the option to collect sales and use tax revenues from out-of-state sellers through a new, simplified tax system,” but “only if they adopt certain minimum simplification requirements and provide sellers with additional notices on the collection requirements.”  The Enzi-Durbin-Alexander bill also “exempts sellers who make less than $500,000 in total remote sales in the year preceding the sale.”  It reportedly has the support of big bricks-and-mortar retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, as well as Amazon.com.

In multiple states around the country over the past year, legislators and officials have been looking to sales made by out-of-state, online-only retailers as a potential revenue stream capable of being tapped in order to help fill budget holes. California has been notably aggressive in pursuing a so-called “Amazon Tax,” which would force retailers like Amazon.com and O.co to collect and remit to the state sales tax on sales made to Californians.

However, such moves are likely unconstitutional as it stands, and fly in the face of Supreme Court jurisprudence, and notably the decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota.  According to Quill, Congress can, and needs to, act to allow states to require collection and remittance from businesses with no physical presence in the state, which is exactly what the Enzi-Durbin-Alexander bill would do.

The legislation is viewed by some fiscal conservative groups as an improvement over legislation previously pushed, such as the Main Street Fairness Act, introduced earlier in the year by Durbin.  The Main Street Fairness Act approach attracted considerable criticism and its ability to be passed had been drawn into question by multiple observers. However, concerns remain for some groups about the potential for the new Enzi-Durbin-Alexander bill, if passed, to facilitate some net, state-level tax increases—concerns that will likely be more warranted with regard to certain especially tax-happy states than others that are more tax-averse.

With a coalition of local labor unions promising to withdraw support for any alderman who votes for the measure, Chicago’s City Council has for months been locked in a statement on the issue of the company’s expansion.

But Alderman Anthony Beale, who lobbied his colleagues on Wal-Mart’s proposal, claims he now has the votes to approve the new development, a measure which he argues will inject new money and jobs into struggling black communities on Chicago’s depressed South Side. The Council is slated to vote for the expansion this week.

Though the areas in which Beale has proposed Wal-Mart expand have high and sustained unemployment, union organizers say the retail giant’s wages are inadequate.

“The notion that black people should be happy to get any job, I think, is an insult to the black community,” said Delmarie Cobb, a veteran political activist and spokeswoman for Good Jobs Chicago. “As I said to Anthony Beale, slavery was a job.”

February unemployment in the broader Chicago area reached a staggering 11.3 percent, up from 9.1 percent in the previous year and well above the national average of 10.4 percent. A report released by Crain’s Chicago Business last month revealed Illinois would collect an additional $2.1 billion in annual tax revenue were it not for the state’s chronic unemployment, for which many say unions are showing a blind eye in their unyielding quest to defeat Wal-Mart’s expansion.

Despite the threats of primary challenges from union organizers, Beale said he has assembled his own coalition — one comprised of 150 African-American ministers who favor the retailer’s expansion.

Rev. Larry Roberts, whose campaign to bring Wal-Mart to dilapidated Chicago communities desperate for new jobs was recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal, told the Chicago Tribune he is organizing a picket of City Hall and prepared to campaign against those aldermen who plan to vote against the measure.

It has the making of a battle royal: Pastors versus the unions, with each group threatening the reelection of city officials who vote against their interests. Unlike unions, Cobb stressed, ministers have not shown an ability to influence elections.

“The idea that [these minsters] are going to go after the alderman, and ‘pull a page from the unions,’ … that’s almost laughable,” Cobb said. “I can tell you that in 20 years, I haven’t seen these ministers get anyone elected.”

“There are two cardinal rules of politics,” remarked a senior political operative with whom Capitol Confidential spoke Monday. “Those being: don’t anger the Church, and never, but never for the sake of everything that is everything holy, compare anything to slavery. Cobb willfully broke both.”

Quite a difference between the two bills. By way of example, take an employee earning $50,000 per year. Under the House bill, an employer who did not provide insurance would be required to pay an additional tax of $4,000 to the federal government. Compared to only $750 under the Senate bill – a difference of more than 500%.

Now consider whether it would make more sense financially for the employer to provide insurance or pay the penalty. In our example above, under the House bill it would probably be close to a break-even if the employer is providing coverage only for the employee. According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average monthly insurance premium for private industry employers across all worker categories was $317.63. Or just over $3800 annualized (compared to the $4,000 penalty). However, it would be quite a bit more expensive if the employer was providing family coverage (BLS data: $737.68/mo – $8850/yr).

Obviously under the Senate bill it would be far less expensive for the employer to just pay the $750 penalty rather than provide the insurance.

This is just one example, but importantly, note that under the House bill, the lower the average wage base of the employer, the more cost effective it would be for the employer to pay the 8% penalty rather than offer insurance coverage. In fact, an average wage base of $50K is probably close to the tipping point. An employer with average wages much lower than this would likely find it less expensive to not provide insurance for their employees. And correspondingly, any employer with an average wage higher than $50K would likely find it more cost effective to provide insurance.

Of course under the Senate bill, practically speaking there is no tipping point. Given the cost of health insurance, it would make far more financial sense for every employer to ante up the $750 per worker rather than provide health insurance.

So with the Senate bill especially, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that a large number of employers would elect to not provide insurance coverage once the bill goes into effect?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn’t seem to think so. Based on their analysis of the Senate bill, by 2019 only 5 million fewer individuals will receive insurance coverage through an employer compared to current law. (Note that this total also includes family members who would otherwise receive coverage through an employer policy). With the CBO’s estimated total of 162 million people receiving employer-based coverage in 2019, that’s a reduction of only about 3%.

I’m going to give some examples to demonstrate why this defies common sense, but here’s why this is so critically important. The more people who do not receive coverage through an employer, the more who will wind up in the federal insurance exchange. And the more people in the insurance exchange, the more subsidies the government will be required to pay under the terms of the bill. Under the Senate bill, individuals and/or families earning up to 400% of the poverty level will receive some level of federal subsidy. With the CBO’s estimate of an average annual subsidy in excess of $5K per subsidized enrollee, the incremental cost could add up pretty quickly if their estimates turn out to be inaccurate.

Let’s assume under the Senate bill that 5% of individuals lose their employment based coverage rather than the 3% estimated by the CBO. (Still a very conservative estimate in my opinion). This would result in an additional 3 million individuals in the exchange, and an incremental annual subsidy cost of up to $15 billion. Even under the accounting method that the Democrats are using (accelerating revenues, and deferring costs), this would increase the initial 10 year cost of the bill by another $50-75 billion. Not an insignificant amount. And this total would be dramatically higher if a greater number of employers elect to dump their coverage. (A 10% drop in employer coverage would result in an additional cost in excess of $50 billion per year).

So why is the CBO estimate so low? I’m not exactly sure – hopefully a Senate Republican will press the CBO for a more detailed explanation of the data and assumptions that went into this calculation. My best guess based on the CBO analysis of an earlier House committee bill is that they are assuming that the competitive dynamic within the labor market will largely dissuade employers from dropping their insurance coverage. Because current and prospective employees will continue to demand this benefit as a condition of employment, and because any employer who does not offer insurance would have their talent raided by an employer who does.

While I think this will likely be an important factor in the higher end of the labor market, I don’t think this will be a compelling factor for many industries and professions farther down the wage scale. The reason is really quite simple: federal subsidies will be available for individuals to obtain insurance in the exchange.

Let’s take the example of a single large employer – like Wal-Mart – which currently offers health insurance for the majority of its employees (including many part-time employees). The average hourly wage of a full-time store worker at Walmart is just over $11/hr (source). Given that this wage level is very close to the federal poverty level, under the Senate bill most employees of Wal-Mart would be eligible for either Medicaid coverage at zero cost or a federal subsidy in the insurance exchange which would limit their annual cost to no more than 2-3% of their income.

Since most Wal-Mart employees who participate in the company-provided insurance plan contribute more than 3% of their income now (source: Wal-Mart Watch), they would actually be better off under the new government plan. And at a cost of only $750 per full-time worker, so would Wal-Mart. In the business world, this is what’s called a “win-win”.

Wal-Mart has over 2 million employees.

Granted they are probably the largest company which falls into this category, but how many other large retailers will be looking at this same calculus? Costco, Home Depot, McDonald’s, Starbucks…just to name a few. And how many other industries are there which consists primarily of people making less than $30K per year? More than a few, I’m sure. Considering the substantial savings for these employers, and considering that the majority of their workers will pay no more – and possibly less – in the insurance exchange than they do for their current coverage, the Senate bill is virtually rigged to lead low-wage employers to drop their coverage.

And if the prospect of spending only $750 per employee for health insurance costs is not enticing enough, there is one more big incentive for large employers with predominantly low-wage employees to ditch their coverage and send their workers to the federal exchange. Most very large employers (including Wal-Mart) self-insure, meaning they typically carry a large reserve on their books to cover the expected costs of the healthcare services its employees and their eligible family members will use in the future. (Wal-Mart, for example, reported an accrued liability of $3.1B for their self-insurance reserve as of 1/31/2009.)

Guess what happens to these reserves once the company passes off responsibility for their employees’ coverage to the feds? No more long-term liability, no more need for a reserve. Cha-ching, straight to the profit line.

Considering the clear incentives, along with a little common sense, the CBO’s estimate seems highly questionable at best. In fact, as implausible as it sounds, the CBO is actually forecasting that employer-based coverage will continue to grow over this timeframe. Based on the growth in the overall workforce. The 5 million figure really just represents a reduction in the growth rate of employer-based coverage, compared to what it would be under current law. (With the House bill, the CBO has gone even farther, estimating a net increase of 7 million people with employer-based coverage compared to current law.)

If nothing more than the accuracy of the number (and the credibility of the CBO) was at stake, it would be enough to just predict that they are wrong and see what happens down the road if the bill passes. However, given the importance of this estimate on the total cost of the bill, and the massive increase in federal spending which will result if the CBO is wrong, I think it’s deserving of a lot more scrutiny. Hopefully the Republican leadership will press the CBO for a more detailed analysis of this calculation.

The campaign that COI is most involved in, or at least featured on their main page, is the campaign to reform global remittance. Global remittance is the process by which ex patriates send money back to family in their home country. For instance, it’s been well documented that Mexico’s main economic source is actually money sent back home from the USA. According to Rathke, this is an industry that topped $300 billion, and far too many of its players practice predatory lending practices. For instance, Rathke has seen fees up to 20% of the amount to be wired. So, if someone were to send $1000 back home, they would be charged $200 to process this transaction. Rathke stressed that such fees were an “outlier” but fees of 5% are about the norm. In his view, this is far too much, and the poor are being taken advantage of by predatory lending practices in this area. Furthermore, with these rates, it also leads to a black market. That’s what’s happening. Often people send money home with all sorts of strangers because they’re promised that it will get there with no charge.

Furthermore, fees to countries in Africa are often significantly higher than to Mexico and other parts of the world. Rathke told me that he hasn’t seen any evidence that it actually costs Western Union any more to wire money to Africa than it does anywhere else. So, the fees should be the same. Rathke would like to “open a dialogue” with Western Union, Moneygram, as well as several of the largest multi national banks to speak about fees charged for remittance. In fact, Rathke believes that multi national banks like Citigroup could get involved in remittance and not only bring about much needed competition which would bring prices down, but also add another source of income for these banks.

For now, Rathke would merely like to sit at the negotiating table with representatives of Western Union et al. He told me that he didn’t have a percentage in mind. He was hoping to get an idea of how much it costs these organizations to process these transactions and then negotiate a “fair rate”. One individual I spoke with called Rathke a “master negotiator” and so that’s probably a place he’d be comfortable at.

I pointed out that major banks and wire transfer institutions like Western Union aren’t likely to sit down at the negotiating table with Wade Rathke just because he asked nicely. I also told him that I believed that he wouldn’t give up just because the other side wasn’t willing to negotiate when asked nicely. So, how far would he take his protests and how cut-throat would he be in dealing with these banks and transfer institutions? I asked if he was willing to picket outside of these places. Rathke laughed and he told me that he didn’t think that pickets and protests were “cut-throat” and that “if an institution is predatory in their remittance charges you bet we’ll let their customers know it”. Rathke told me that at this stage COI only wants to represent those folks looking to use remittance services and isn’t looking to be a vendor because among other reasons they don’t have the infrastructure for such a venture.

COI is also working on a campaign in India to raise the profile of the issue of Wal-Mart’s entry into India. In India, internal laws don’t allow for retailers from outside the country. So, that bars WalMart from entering the country. Still, Rathke says that it’s inevitable that WalMart will find its way into India in the next five to ten years. He said that in their society there are all sorts of unintended consequences with bringing WalMart in. Currently, retail in India is done mostly by street vendors and the equivalent of our mom and pop thrift stores. Having a big box top store come in and swallow up neighborhoods can create all sorts of adverse effects on such a society. As such, COI is campaigning to have the government in India study and plan for WalMart’s inevitable entry into their market. Rathke has a long history with Walmart. Several years ago, he campaigned for a living wage and health insurance for Walmart employees. When, in 2006, a Walmart employee was left for dead because they were very sick and without insurance, the publicity that Rathke created from this story caused Walmart to relent and begin to provide health insurance to some employees and they cut their generic prescription prices to $4.

The one impression I got of Rathke is his pleasant demeanor. If the pressure and stress of the controversy surrounding ACORN has gotten to him, he certainly didn’t express it outwardly. Several folks told me that to be a good organizer you have to have a pleasant demeanor. I next turned to some questions about ACORN itself and it was at this point that the interview, which was almost exclusively pleasant, became contentious. I asked him what he had learned from his experience at ACORN and how he would try to apply that to COI. He was coy as though he didn’t understand what I was asking though I believe he did. He told me the structure of ACORN is different than the structure of COI. ACORN, according to Rathke, was one corporation while COI was a federation. In that, COI is currently in seven different countries. Yet, each country is its own separate entity. Meanwhile, all of ACORN’s affiliates, according to Rathke, were all part of the same organization. Yet, I pointed out, Rathke was in control of the entire federation.

I said that a cynic would believe that the bank accounts of ACORN Dominican Republic and ACORN Canada (each individual country in COI still uses the ACORN name) would eventually be comingled. Rathke responded that international banking laws would never allow such things. I responded that there were all sorts US laws that were broken by ACORN. At this point, Rathke lost his pleasant demeanor. He told me that ACORN broke NO laws. In his 39 years at the helm, they were audited each and every year and passed each and every time. He told me that I was talking to Wade Rathke and not some right wing ideologue.

There are several points of interest in this exchange. First, if Rathke sits at the top of this “federation”, it’s still unclear to me how each is separate. Without knowing who controls each bank account, it’s still not clear that funds can’t be comingled. Second, and much more importantly, ACORN always claimed that affiliates were separate of each other. Here, Rathke told me what many that want ACORN reformed have suggested, if not accused. That’s that ACORN and its affiliates aren’t separate but all part of the same organization, ACORN itself. What Rathke told me about ACORN’s structure is exactly the same as what many critics of ACORN have accused the group of doing.

I also asked him about the firing of Beth Butler. Butler is Rathke’s common law wife and she was, until recently, the long time head of Louisiana’s branch of ACORN. Rathke thought that it was inexplicable that at this point of turmoil that the hierarchy would fire Butler. The move only added chaos at a time when the organization was already in turmoil. He couldn’t explain it, understand it, or in any way see how it helped ACORN. I asked him what he thought of Steve Bradbury taking over for Butler. The back story here is that Bradbury could be considered a protege of Rathke. He certainly taught Bradbury a lot and Rathke had befriended Bradbury and groomed him for years. By taking over for Butler, this could be viewed as a betrayal. I said none of this, and Rathke was diplomatic. He told me that he read in a newspaper that Bradbury said this move was temporary and Rathke was taking him at his word.

Finally, I asked Rathke about his legacy. Did he think about his legacy? “Mike, I’ve been doing this for forty years, of course I think about my legacy”. He believes his legacy still has several chapters left. In that way, he looks forward. At the same time, he told me that no one is a “bigger fan of ACORN” than Rathke and that he’s saddened to watch them disintegrate so badly. He certainly understood that this disintegration did no favors to his legacy. Several people told me that as much as Alinsky has become an adjective and a verb, that one day Rathke would be synonymous with a style of organizing. With no hint of modesty, Rathke agreed.

Epilogue:

I didn’t ask Wade Rathke about his brother’s embezzlement. When things became contentious, I cut it off and moved on. I did this for several reasons. First, I asked Wade Rathke if he had time to talk about his campaign about remittance. I could have blind sided him with all sorts of gotcha questions about his brother and other alleged ACORN misdeeds. I don’t think that Rathke would have made any stunning admissions to me and of course, that’s not what we agreed on. The week previous to the interview, I wrote about the firing of Beth Butler and I said that moving forward Wade Rathke is the story. That’s the case. What has happened, the embezzlement, the investigations, and the disintegration, is not the story. Wade Rathke is the story, and what he’s going to do going forward is the story. All the other things have been hyperanalyzed, and there’s nothing I could have added to the discussion.

Wade Rathke is trying to do in the world what he did in the US. That is to grow a community to serve the poor and middle class throughout the world. People from all sides of the philosophical and ideological aisle will fill in the blanks on that statement. Ultimately, that chapter has only begun. It is the story now, and that’s why I wanted the interview. What happened in the past isn’t nearly as interesting as what Rathke wants to do in the future.

The Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was perceived by many as a well-intended organization, but it appears that the association that Wade Rathke founded was increasingly driven to cause chaos and disrupt the system whenever it could.

BEFORE the Dale Rathke embezzlement finally became last year, John Fund, in “Grapes of Rathke: ACORN, a liberal activist group, comes under scrutiny. About time,” reported:

“Current and former Acorn employees say the problems in Kansas City and St. Louis are no accident. ‘There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,’ says Nate Toler, currently head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in Merced, Calif. In 2004 he worked on an Acorn voter drive in Missouri, and says Acorn statements aren’t to be taken at face value: ‘The internal motto is “We don’t care if it’s a lie, just so long as it stirs up the conversation.”

As various charges and complaints have materialized over the years, it seems that ACORN uses the communities in which they are located as staging grounds for national power grabs. With multiple states and entities receiving federal funds, ACORN plays to win. Aiding ACORN are groups like DEMO’s, the Democracy Alliance, Soros Open Society Institute, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Washington Examiner has covered ACORN’s: “Muscle for the Money” program:

“ACORN’s so-called ‘muscle for money’ strategy extorts ‘donations’ from targeted government and corporate officials by offering them Mafia-like protection from protests by the group’s own paid thugs, many of them convicted felons. ACORN has also blocked bank mergers until the targeted financial institutions agreed to change their lending policies to ACORN’s satisfaction.”

While it is easy to see the benefit for ACORN to go after Sherwin Williams or Jackson Hewitt, it was their 2007-2008 ventures with SEIU against the Carlyle Group that deserve a closer inspection. In 2007 SEIU began a series of “grassroots” actions designed to pressure the Carlyle Group to the bargaining table.

“The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) staged a protest outside the Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters of The Carlyle Group as part of the union’s bid to organize Manor Care, the Toledo-based nursing home giant Carlyle is buying for $6.3 billion.”

It seems that, at the beginning of the campaign, SEIU wanted a slice of the $6.3 billion that was on the table from the sale of Manor Care. For SEIU and ACORN, organizing in poor communities takes a little bit of finesse and a lot of political theater. When SEIU could not muster up the required public outrage, they switched tactics. SEIU released a press statement, in late 2007, warning of the possible health risks posed by the Carlyle Group:

“To highlight the health risks that could go undetected if Carlyle refuses to disclose information about its sewer sludge business, SEIU held a demonstration today outside Carlyle’s Washington DC offices with demonstrators dressed in hazmat suits. This week SEIU began contacting environmental groups, and state and municipal governments that contract with Synagro to raise concerns about Carlyle’s lack of transparency and to encourage these groups to join the call for Carlyle to disclose potential risks of its sewer sludge business.

The focus on Carlyle’s sewer sludge business is part of a larger national effort by SEIU to hold Carlyle accountable for the impact of its actions on taxpayers, workers, and communities. More information is available at www.CarlyleExposed.org

Turning up the heat appears to be textbook “muscle for the money,” yet it wasn’t enough to produce the desired results, so SEIU raised the prospect of possible terrorism and threats to national security:

“Global buyout firm the Carlyle Group’s announcement that it seeks to acquire Booz Allen’s government consulting business should raise serious questions about the ramifications for national security and demands immediate government oversight to ensure adequate controls exist should the deal be completed…

“We shouldn’t allow the unchecked greed of buyout billionaires like David Rubenstein to put our communities at risk,” said Stephen Lerner, Director, and SEIU Private Equity Project. “With billions of taxpayer dollars at stake in these contracts, accountability and transparency is a primary concern since the Carlyle Group operates behind a veil of secrecy.”

Veil of secrecy? Interesting. On cue, enter ACORN and Barack Obama. After staged demonstrations across the country and several tactical changes, SEIU hires ACORN as a “consultant” to protest the Carlyle Group. ACORN readily accepts the money, but has one problem – how to turn the people out, to make them care about the issue. Using the same tactics that Stanley Kurtz detailed in his article about ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN spins the fight against the Carlyle Group as rich (whites) versus poor (blacks):

“White financiers are all flooding up to the Waldorf Astoria this morning for the opening of today’s Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst confab!…

ACORN and The Working Families Party and their coalition are calling for a protest at noon.

‘The Carlyle Group is the poster child for an industry that has made billions by fleecing taxpayers and loading up companies with unsustainable levels of debt,’ said Dan Cantor, Executive Director of the Working Families Party.

‘David Rubenstein made $260 million last year, yet he paid taxes at a lower rate than the doorman at this hotel. Not only that, companies like Carlyle don’t pay their fair share in corporate taxes.’ said Pat Boone, President of NY ACORN.

As the recent Van Jones exposes on Glenn Beck have illustrated, most roads lead back to radical organizations formed in the 1970’s and tie in with the current administration. While ACORN broke up business meetings in New York and DC, they developed a catchy slogan to sum up their “battle”

“Chanting, ‘It’s Not Fair, Pay Your Share’, protestors entered the ballroom while two protest leaders dropped a banner from the balcony above the ballroom that read ‘Why does David Rubenstein pay taxes at a lower rate than an NYPD officer?’

Over on Capitol Hill, then Senator Obama, acting in a manner that would quickly become one of the trademarks of his administration, employed ACORN tactics to project his power into the situation:

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on October 10, dispelled the idea that Congress would get around to addressing the hotly debated tax bill this fall when he issued a statement through a spokesman: “Given the difficulty in getting any legislation through the Senate and the little time left this year for moving other issues important to the American public, it is unclear whether there is sufficient time to address the appropriate tax treatment of private equity firms.”

…U.S. Senator Barack Obama, for instance, issued this statement on news of Reid’s stance: ‘If there was ever a doubt that Washington lobbyists don’t actually represent real Americans, it’s the fact that they stopped leaders of both parties from requiring elite investment firms to pay their fair share of taxes, even as middle-class families struggle to pay theirs.’

Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union put in its two cents, staging another protest against the Carlyle Group on Oct. 10, this time using a street theater performance complete with wheel barrows, a fat-cat corporate tycoon character and money sacks.”

Publicly, the Carlyle Group seemingly did not bow to pressure from the union or ACORN, but some may consider their “across the aisle” support of Obama as a major concession. As a “financial kingmaker,” the group seems to have added a much needed legitimacy to the young and inexperienced candidate. A conclusion could be drawn that SEIU and others were willing to sacrifice leverage at the bargaining table for leverage in the White House:

In seizing control of Congress last year and hoping to win the White House next year, Democrats have presented themselves as the champions of change, the party that will shake up politics and return tax balance so that America has the resources it needs to deal with its problems.

Good stuff, that. Solidly in line with the party’s tradition. Ditto proposals pending in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees to boost taxes on the hedge fund and private-equity business, arguably one of the highest-paid, least-taxed industries around.

So . . . what should we make of the thick wads of campaign cash from that same industry going to Chicago’s top-ranking congressional Democrats: presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the No. 4 House Democrat?

…Another D.C. lobbying group, Public Citizen, has identified more than a dozen industry chieftains who have bundled together at least $50,000 each in contributions to Mr. Obama’s campaign. Included are two principals in Carlyle Group, a Washington private-equity firm.

While the Carlyle Group appears on the surface to be a victim of SEIU and ACORN’s shenanigans, their ties to the current administration have been carefully crafted. The group not only donated heavily to the Obama campaign, but two of Obama’s tech and telecom policy team were employees of the Carlyle Group, including William Kennard.

In addition to these connections, Carlyle president David Rubenstein – who sits on the board of the University of Chicago – did acquire Booz Allen Hamilton and Obama apparently decided to keep the special interests in the “family“:

“Mike McConnell will return to work for Booz Allen Hamilton, where he will direct the firm’s strategy in obtaining and implementing government contract…You see, at the very same time that he will be working at Booz Allen Hamilton on obtaining government contract related to ongoing Total Information Awareness operations in our government, Mike McConnell will retain a position in the government at the request of President Obama.”

A cursory look at these connections leads one to ponder if what we have here is a shakedown between friends. Did SEIU want in on a new deal that involves their “turf” and instead see an opportunity to acquire more power by enlisting the help of ACORN? Did ACORN deliver the ground troops and have Barack Obama apply the pressure on Capitol Hill? Either way, and unfortunately for Barack Obama, trouble usually follows his shady friends and his dealing with the Carlyle Group have caused some ACORN sized headaches. The Carlyle Group’s involvement in a pension scandal was the most recent:

“Among the money managers named in the indictment are the politically connected private equity players Carlyle Group and Quadrangle Group, whose co-founder Steven Rattner, leads the Obama administration’s auto-industry-bailout efforts.”

If the Sopranos and Obama’s treatment of the ACORN scandals are any indication, “muscle for the money” seems to come with a certain amount of “protection” whether it be silence from the administration, theJustice Department, or the main stream media, or just a slap on the wrist for one of their cronies. ACORN, SEIU and Obama may have moved on to the next target. but continue to use race and class as tactics and people as pawns in their power grabs. Now, however, more and more Americans are realizing it.

Anyway, once you get upstairs it’s literally a few short steps to Valerie Jarret’s office.  She’s been crazy busy integrating Van Jones into the new ruling class, so you might pass her office and it’s only one more door to go.  Now you’re at the corner suite of Christina Tschen, Chicago lawyer, long-time Obama crony friend and major fundraiser for his campaign.  She must have raised a lot of dough, because her office is pretty sweet, and it’s right above Barack Obama’s Oval Office.  Cool, huh? (more…)