Obama continues the slash and burn approach to economy and the "balance of power" that keeps this ship on its constitutional course. Regular Atlas readers recall one of many EXCLUSIVES I broke on Obama's massive illegal campaign activity. Obama paid out at least $2,250,000 to the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union - the nation's largest labor union. And SEIU COPE-PAC spent $13,355,389.00 on behalf of Barack Hussein.
Payback time for voter fraud and illegal campaign activity.
Between the SEIU and ACORN, the Chicago gangland style politician muscle for money and protection racket is all locked up. And now he is going nationwide with it.
More illegal harassment and intimidation - more blackmail from the thug-in-chief.
Over at Newsmax, by Jim Meyers:
federal stimulus money earmarked for California if the state does not
restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers.
[...]
Federal health officials have advised Schwarzenegger's office that the
cuts violate provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
the Los Angeles Times reports.
The cuts involve workers who care for around 440,000 low-income disabled
and elderly Californians. They would see their wages reduced from a
maximum of $12.10 an hour to a maximum of $10.10.
The Service Employees International Union, which represents the workers, said in a statement that it had asked the Obama administration to intervene.
SEIU COPE-PAC $13,355,389.00 was spent on behalf of Barack Obama through August 21, 2008. ($1,600,415.00 has been spent against John McCain through July 31, 2008). Click below for breakdown. Source here.
SEIU and Obama on Obama’s own website;
“SEIU’s members are temperamentally suited to Obama; he is a longtime friend of Chicago’s SEIU Local 880 and worked closely with the union as an organizer and later as a state legislator.”
SEIU paid for door-to-door canvassing for Obama, voter identification and registration, phonebanks…an expenditures document.
Presented by the Federal Election Commission, numerous donations to the Obama campaign by SEIU in 2008.
SEIU involved with Get Out the Vote in Indiana.
Obama’s 2004 campaign, contributions by SEIU.
Service Employees International Union Independent Expenditures
SEIU, specifically SEIU Local 880/Chicago, contributed money directly to Obama’s campaign.
SEIU and ACORN and Wade Rathke.
To an observer from outside Louisiana, it’s sometimes difficult to tell where SEIU ends and ACORN begins. The union and the community organization seem to merge. The relationship is easier to understand when one learns that Wade Rathke, who founded the New Orleans ACORN chapter 30 years ago, is also the chief organizer of SEIU local 100. The two are fraternal, not identical, twins.40 (here)
WADE RATHKE: ACORN’S FOUNDER, AYERS’ COMPATRIOT No Quarter
Rathke is the founder of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 100. He was ACORN's chief organizer from its founding in 1970 until he stepped down June 2, 2008.[1] Rathke and his wife, Beth Butler, live in New Orleans, Louisiana. (All the cockroaches are at this party). (from Rotten ACORN)
When employees of Rathke’s SEIU Local 100 wanted to organize themselves into a union, Rathke relied on his wife and brother to plot out an aggressive (and hypocritical) union-avoidance strategy. One former employee reported that after employees provided Rathke with a petition demanding union recognition: Rathke quickly called a meeting of ACORN’s inner circle, which included his wife, Beth Butler, head organizer of Louisiana ACORN, and Rathke’s brother Dale, who is the financial guru of the outfit. The troika devised a variety of tactics, such as can be expected from any union-busting corporation, to divide and destroy our solidarity.
Department of Labor financial disclosures show at least $623,829 in transactions between ACORN’s SEIU locals 100 and 880 and other Rathke/ACORN-run operations.
UPDATE: OT but related
More Acorn Voter Fraud Comes to Light John Fund
Congressional Democrats still want the group to be eligible for federal money.
On Monday, Nevada officials charged Acorn, its regional director and its Las Vegas field director with submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms last year. Larry Lomax, the registrar of voters in Las Vegas, says he believes 48% of Acorn's forms "are clearly fraudulent." On Thursday, prosecutors in Pittsburgh, Pa., also charged seven Acorn employees with filing hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations before last year's general election.
Acorn spokesman Scott Levenson calls the Nevada criminal complaint "political grandstanding" and says that any problems were the actions of an unnamed "bad employee." But Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada's Democratic Attorney General, told the Las Vegas Sun that Acorn itself is named in the criminal complaint. She says that Acorn's training manuals "clearly detail, condone and . . . require illegal acts," such as requiring its workers to meet strict voter-registration targets to keep their jobs.
Other Democrats on the ground have complaints. Fred Voight, deputy election commissioner in Philadelphia, protested after Acorn (according to the registrar of voters and his own investigation) submitted at least 1,500 fraudulent registrations last fall. "This has been going on for a number of years," he told CNN in October. St. Louis Democrat Matthew Potter, the city's deputy elections director, had similar complaints.
Elsewhere, Washington state prosecutors fined Acorn $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007. The group signed a consent decree with King County (Seattle), requiring it to beef up its oversight or face criminal prosecution. In the 2008 election, Acorn's practices led to investigations, some ongoing, in 14 other states.
The stink is bad enough that some congressional Democrats have taken notice. At a March 19 hearing on election problems, Michigan Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, pressed New York Rep. Gerald Nadler, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, to hold a hearing on Acorn. He called the charges against it "serious." Mr. Nadler agreed to consider the request.
Mr. Nadler's office now says there will be no hearing on Acorn because Mr. Conyers has changed his mind. Mr. Conyers's office released a statement on Monday saying that after reviewing "the complaints against Acorn, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time." A Democratic staffer told me he believes the House leadership put pressure on Mr. Conyers to back down. Mr. Conyers's office says it is "unaware" of any contacts with House leaders.
Then there's Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Last month, he voted for a committee amendment (to the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act) by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R., Minn.) to block groups indicted for voter fraud from receiving federal housing or legal assistance grants. Identical language was passed into law in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Mr. Frank now says he "had not read [the amendment] carefully" before backing it. He gutted the amendment on Thursday, claiming that the language Congress passed just last year is "a violation of the basic principles of due process."
A lot of money is at stake. In the stimulus bill passed by Congress, Acorn is eligible -- along with other activist groups -- to apply for $2 billion in funds to redevelop abandoned and foreclosed homes. Meanwhile, public records show that last spring the IRS filed three tax liens totaling almost $1 million against Acorn, most of which concerned employee withholding.
Read it all. It's really gross
