KANSAS CITY, Mo. — First-class travel. Six-figure salaries for half the 132 officers and staffers. Plenty of plum jobs for family members.
Life is good at the top of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers.
The union, with its headquarters in Kansas City, Kan., represents about 59,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada who make and repair boilers, fit pipes and work on ships and power plants. The recession has hit their trade hard, reducing union membership.
At the same time, the president’s salary has surged 67 percent in the past six years, not counting a recent raise. Add in travel and some other expenses, and Newton B. Jones received more than $600,000 last year, putting him at the absolute top of the presidents of the dozen biggest unions in the country.
Many relatives of union officers also ride the payroll.
Totaling the pay to just the families of Jones and two other executives, the union and its affiliates gave them more than $2 million in annual salary, according to the most recent financial reports filed by the organizations.
“This is one of the more egregious examples of money flowing like crazy that I’ve ever seen,” said Nathan Mehrens, a former U.S. Labor Department lawyer and now general counsel for Americans for Limited Government, a conservative watchdog group.
In an interview, two union spokesmen defended the spending and hiring practices before requesting other questions in writing. Although they did not respond to every question, Michael Stapp, the union’s general counsel, provided a written response that included praise for the Boilermakers.
“The Boilermaker family of organizations, together valued at over $10 billion, has proudly represented the interests of hundreds of thousands of working men and women for over 130 years,” Stapp wrote.
“The history of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers clearly demonstrates that they operate in strict accordance with all applicable laws and governing documents. They operate in much the same manner as most other labor organizations.”
Attempts to reach rank-and-file union members for comment were unsuccessful. But rumbles of discontent are sometimes felt.
In April, an anonymous letter, mailed purportedly by Boilermakers members and obtained by The Kansas City Star, sharply criticized union leaders.
“While members and their families struggle to make it through this recession, our IBB (International Brotherhood of Boilermakers) leaders have been living high off the hog at members’ expense,” the letter said.
“We regret that we have to be anonymous at this time because we fear retribution from a leadership that regrettably values its own personal and financial interests above the rank and file’s.”
In membership, the Boilermakers are a mere 5 percent the size of the Teamsters union. Yet which president received more in total disbursements from their unions last year — Teamsters President James P. Hoffa or the lesser-known Newton B. Jones?
Jones by more than $200,000.
Jones received $607,022 in total disbursements, compared with $372,489 for Hoffa.
Total disbursements include salary and business expenses, especially travel, which a union spokesman said made up most of Jones’ expenses.
Jones’ salary in the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2011, was $307,134 — also more than Hoffa. The figures come from annual reports the unions file with the Labor Department.
Jones’ total disbursements also are more than double those of Richard Trumka, head of the powerful AFL-CIO, a federation of national and international unions with 11.6 million members. Trumka received total disbursements of $293,750.
All together, the total disbursements last year to the top nine Boilermakers officers — $4.1 million — were $182,000 more than the total disbursements to the 29 executives at the national headquarters of the Teamsters union.
Although the Boilermakers’ general counsel did not compare total disbursements, he did say that Jones’ salary is not out of line with comparable union presidents.
Other unions came up last year at a Boilermakers convention in Las Vegas when delegates heard a proposal to raise Jones’ pay.
“Some delegates were against giving the (International president) a raise at a time when many Boilermakers are having trouble negotiating raises because of the recession,” said an article in The Boilermaker Reporter, an in-house publication. Others argued, however, that Jones not only deserved a raise but needed one to bring his salary more in line with salaries of other presidents of unions in the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO.
That wasn’t necessarily true. An examination of leaders’ salaries in the Building and Construction Trades Department — an alliance of 13 skilled-trade unions including the Boilermakers — shows Jones was smack in the middle last year. And when it comes to the total disbursements received from their unions, Jones is the highest.
The Boilermaker Reporter called the debate over Jones’ salary increase “spirited but cordial.”
Delegates agreed to give Jones a raise but to make it smaller.
Stapp said delegates overwhelmingly voted to adjust the salaries of Jones and other officers.
“President Jones was recently unanimously re-elected by approximately 600 delegates in an open democratic election process, clearly demonstrating membership support for him,” Stapp said.
Stapp added that union leadership has reduced annual expenses by more than $10 million over the past nine years, including the elimination of three officers. Shortly after the 2011 convention, Jones and other officers made an additional $3 million in cuts, with more being considered, he said.
The compensation and perks in the Boilermakers headquarters stunned Marcus Owens, a Washington, D.C., attorney who once headed the division of the IRS that oversees nonprofit organizations.
“Those kinds of benefits seem extraordinarily high,” Owens said. “That’s just over the top.”
Taxpayers have a stake in the Boilermakers’ spending, he said.
The union, like most, is structured as a nonprofit organization, which means it qualifies for exemption from federal income tax. But the law prohibits union officials or key employees from benefiting from the tax-free money they raise.
“They’re not paying income tax,” Owens said. “So in a sense, we’re all supporting them…I don’t mind tax-exempts that are doing what they’re supposed to do, but if they aren’t, I’d kind of like them to pull on the oars, too.”
While their union pay may seem comfortable, some officers get a second hefty paycheck, thanks to a bank the union controls.
The union is principal shareholder of Brotherhood Bank & Trust. Three of the bank’s 11 board members are union officers, and one is a retired union officer.
The bank’s chairman? Boilermakers President Newton Jones.
In calendar year 2010, Jones received $52,945 as chairman of the bank’s board of directors in addition to his union pay, according to the most recent report he filed with the Labor Department. The previous year, Jones earned $79,775 as bank chairman and $260,000 as the bank’s chief executive officer and interim president. In 2008, he received $230,000 from the bank.
“Those both sound like full-time jobs,” Owens said of Jones’ union and bank positions in 2008 and 2009. “It’s certainly full-time compensation.”
Stapp said that Jones played a key role at the bank.
“Chairman Jones’s leadership contribution to this institution is evident in the board’s continuing demonstration of confidence in him, his vision and his labor business outreach initiative,” Stapp wrote.
Other union executives on the bank board received compensation as well.
International Secretary-Treasurer William Creeden reported earning $258,650 from the bank in 2009, the last year he filed. He also received $252,098 in salary from the Boilermakers union in fiscal 2010.
And officers who retire from the Boilermakers union get more than a watch — each gets to keep his company car.
In 2010 the union “gifted” a vehicle to retiring international vice president Sammy May. The vehicle originally cost $73,998 with a book value of $51,388 when the union gave it to him, the union’s annual report said.
According to its annual reports, the union has a long-standing policy of giving vehicles “as gifts to retiring officers.”
International vice president George Rogers retired in 2008, taking with him his company car that cost $53,380. That same year, the union gave a vehicle that cost $58,959 to the widow of an officer who had died.
Some retiring officers continue to receive union pay by working as a consultant. Rogers made $600,000 over two years, annual reports indicate.
Along with the $300,000 in consulting fees he received in fiscal year 2008, the year he retired, Rogers earned $400,871 in salary as a union vice president, Department of Labor documents show.
In fiscal year 2009, records show Rogers received another $300,000 in consulting fees.
Rogers said he couldn’t comment on pay.
“I’m not supposed to talk about anything,” Rogers said.
“Those seem extraordinary,” Owens said of the union’s consulting fees. “Frankly, I’ve never seen consulting compensation to a retired officer at that level.”
Being a boilermaker executive can be a family business.
Newton Jones, 58, took over the president’s office when his father, Charles W. Jones, retired in 2003 after 20 years.
Among Newton Jones’ family members:
His brother, Charles, is director of the Boilermakers’ History Preservation Department and assistant to Newton. His salary in 2011 was $150,091, with total disbursements of $187,641.
His sister, Donna, earns $98,802 as an executive secretary.
His relative, Michael Peterson, is an aide to Jones and until last year worked for the Boilermakers National Apprenticeship Program, earning $132,746 in 2010, according to the program’s most recent tax document, and $127,252 from the union, according to its annual report for fiscal 2011. He told The Star he is now an international representative for the union as well as an aide to Jones.
Jones’ son, Cullen, is a video communications technician who lives in North Carolina, earning $68,482 salary with total disbursements of $173,288 last year. He is 23, according to a court filing.
The union in 2009 paid $43,000 to send Cullen to the Vancouver Film School in British Columbia. The school describes itself as “Canada’s premier entertainment arts institution and one of the most distinguished worldwide.”
Several members of the Creeden family also make a good living working for the Boilermakers, totaling $624,000 in salary.
That is only a sampling of the family ties involving union officers.
In his written response, Stapp said it is policy not to comment on individual workers or consultants:
“All Boilermaker employees are hired based on their respective skills and experience as well as their desire to serve the best interests of the Boilermaker organization,” he said.
And employing family members is common in large corporations, Stapp said in an interview.
Watchdogs, however, pointed out that there’s a big difference between family-owned corporations and nonprofits such as the Boilermakers that don’t pay income tax.
They also called the Boilermaker jobs a classic case of nepotism.
“Especially for some of these young employees who are relatives of officers, it raises all kinds of alarm bells,” Mehrens said. “It begs the question, did that person get the job based upon skills or qualifications, or did they get it based on who their father was?”
When the union’s officers get away, they do it in style.
The union has an 18.75 percent ownership in a Piaggio airplane, which holds up to nine passengers. Today, a new one sells for about $6 million. The Boilermakers also have a 6.25 percent share in a second airplane, according to its Labor Department filing.
In 2011, the Boilermakers paid $521,160 to Avantair, its aviation service provider, for maintenance and other fees associated with the planes.
Union watchdog groups say few unions have ownership in planes. The Machinists union has a Learjet, but the Teamsters union — which used to own several private jets — sold them years ago because of criticism.
Union officers and their relatives also are allowed to fly first-class on commercial airlines, the union’s tax documents show.
Once they’re on the ground, officers make sure their stays are memorable.
About a year ago, members of the union’s International Executive Council treated themselves to at least one gathering at a renowned hunting lodge in Gettysburg, S.D. The council — the president and eight other officers — listed the trip as a council meeting.
The lodge, called Paul Nelson Farm, is a favorite hunting spot of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway.
It’s a luxurious resort that “attracts 700 hunters a year who are prepared to pay for the very best,” according to a 2009 review in the magazine Business Jet Traveler.
The Paul Nelson Farm website offers a package that includes three days of hunting with guides and dogs, pheasant cleaning, and meals and beverages. For a group of six or more, a three-day package runs $4,595 per person.
The Boilermakers paid a total of $163,000, according to Labor Department reports they filed.
The union also paid $12,854 in 2010 to Alaska Fly Fishing Adventures in Sterling, Alaska, but it is unclear who enjoyed the service, described as an “outfitter and tour guide.”
That year, the union held an Alaska conference at which union officials met with contractors and owners.
In France, where officers went in fiscal 2009 to negotiate contracts, the union paid $5,232 to Yachts de Paris, a “dinner cruise service provider.”
Stapp defended spending for recreational events.
“As most successful organizations recognize, sporting and entertainment activities and venues are important tools for relationship building with business partners and fellow organizations and are used in this organization’s efforts to insure and expand the work opportunities of its members,” he wrote.
But watchdog groups find the perks and benefits enjoyed by union officials to be unusual and profligate.
“This is a pork fest,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center in Falls Church, Va., a conservative union watchdog group.
“These things sound way out of line. They’re not even in the same ZIP code as the line.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/13/148607/hefty-salaries-perks-for-union.html#storylink=cpy
This report reveals the Left’s vote fraud strategy for the 2012 elections. Like a KGB operation, it is thorough, multi-faceted and redundant. It has overt and covert, illegal and legal elements, the latter of which are designed, at least in part, to facilitate illegal activities later. It is a deliberate, premeditated, comprehensive plan to win the 2012 presidential election at all costs, and is in keeping with the organizational methods, associations and ethics of the Community-Organizer-in-Chief, Barack Obama.
The Left seeks fundamental structural change to our entire form of government. In keeping with their amoral, means-justifies-ends philosophy, they will register any voters, dead or alive, legal or illegal, who will then vote as many times as possible, in order to establish a “permanent progressive majority.” As two New York Democrats recently caught in a vote fraud scandal told police, “voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections…”
Low income individuals are the perfect dupes for this strategy. An expanding welfare state makes them increasingly dependent on government benefits, a development that guarantees their vote for liberal-left candidates. At the same time, people with marginal attachment to society may be less inclined to report illegal activity at the polls—or actually participate. The “victim” narrative promoted in popular culture and press may even encourage such behavior. Meanwhile, a growing tax burden and public debt suck private enterprise dry—pushing ever more people onto the dole.
Politicians of both parties are not above engaging in vote fraud. But this kind of corruption is relegated to individual campaigns or areas where corrupt political establishments have been able to develop unchallenged. It is not a systematic component of overall national strategy, as it is with the Left.
This strategy has been under development for decades. They have constructed an entire industry devoted to this task and pursue a multifaceted strategy to accomplish it:
1. Swamp election officials with overwhelming numbers of registrations at the last possible minute, a huge proportion of which are deliberately fraudulent, in order to create systematic chaos. This accomplishes numerous goals:
Makes verification of registrations difficult, given the small size and limited budgets of state and local election offices.
Provides multiple opportunities for vote fraud.
Throws the entire voting process into question, providing pretext for lawsuits where concessions may be obtained from election officials.
When election officials challenge registrations, they are accused of “voter suppression.” This in turn serves complementary goals:
Charge of “voter suppression” reinforces the Left’s narrative about America as an oppressive, “racist” country.
Publicity and lawsuits intimidate election officials, who settle on terms favorable to the Left.
2. Activists sue state authorities for “voter suppression,” creating further chaos and pressuring them to become de facto taxpayer-funded voter registration operations;
3. Eric Holder’s Justice Department tacitly supports voter intimidation tactics, sues states and backs private lawsuits, and resists reform as “voter suppression.”
4. Leftist echo chamber discredits allegations of vote fraud, supports “suppression” theme, and promotes advantageous legislation.
The ultimate goal is a systematized, taxpayer-funded voting machinery that will guarantee maximum participation from the Left’s voting demographic while undermining the ability to manage elections and prevent fraud.
The ACORN Swamping Method
Key to understanding the Left’s vote-fraud strategy is the community organizing group ACORN. ACORN has become synonymous with corruption, complicity in the subprime mortgage crisis and especially vote fraud.
ACORN and its voter registration arm, Project Vote, hire marginal and unskilled workers at very low rates and use incentive bonuses or quotas to encourage them to collect as many voter registrations as possible. The resulting flood of registrations are fraught with duplicates, errors and omissions, and a large number are overtly fraudulent, including names like “Donald Duck,” “Mickey Mouse,” “Tony Romo” of the Dallas Cowboys, etc.[2] According to MatthewVadum, the senior editor at Capital Research Center, a total of 400,000 bogus ACORN registrations were thrown out in 2008 alone.
ACORN was supposedly disbanded in 2010 but resurrected itself under a slew of new names. Former ACORN President Bertha Lewis bragged that they created “…18 bulletproof community-organizing Frankensteins…” These are reproduced in the table below. Most of these groups occupy former ACORN offices, many with the same staff.
ACORN is directly connected to Obama and the Democratic Party. Counsel to The Advance Group, a strategic planning company, is Michael Gaspard, Patrick Gaspard’s brother. Patrick is currently the DNC’s executive director and President Obama’s former political director. He has worked for ACORN, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Working Families Party, a descendant of the ACORN-founded New Party which Barack Obama joined in 1996. Obama has bragged of “fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.”
ACORN’s former deputy regional director, Amy Busefink was convicted in 2010 of vote fraud stemming from a 2008 Nevada case. Judicial Watch found that, “while under criminal indictment in Nevada… [Busefink] managed an online program for Project Vote’s 2010 Colorado campaign, the ultimate goal of which is to allow people without a driver’s license or state identification to register to vote online.” Busefink is now national field director for Project Vote.
Barack Obama established his organizing bona fides with Project Vote in 1992, when he registered 150,000 Illinois voters.
Zach Polett (courtesy Anita MonCrief)
Project Vote was created and run for years by Zach Polett, who bragged that he trained Barack Obama in 1992 and said of Obama, “ACORN produces leaders.” Polett is listed in Manta.com as president of Voting for America, one of Project Vote’s former names, although his name is not on Project Vote’s website. Calls to that listing roll into a voice mail identifying the organizations as “CSI.” Polett’s extension is #3. CSI is the acronym for Citizens Services Inc., another supposedly defunct ACORN group that was used to hide over $800,000 paid by candidate Obama to ACORN in 2008.
This kind of duplicitous activity reflects a deliberate methodology. ACORN is a criminal organization.
The Cloward Piven Strategy
ACORN is the face of vote fraud, but its intellectual foundation is the Cloward Piven Strategy. Sociology professors Richard Cloward (Columbia University) and Frances Fox Piven (CUNY) were founding members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Cloward died in 2001 but Piven lives on.
Richard Cloward
In 1966 Cloward and Piven penned an article forThe Nation magazine titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” They posited that if the poor were organized into street armies to demand all welfare benefits available to them, they could overwhelm and crash the system.
It became known as the “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” and is credited with expanding welfare rolls 151 percent between 1965 and 1974 and bringing New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in 1975.
The Issue is Never the Issue
The Left’s solution to everything is socialism, although they are usually careful not to name it, instead identifying issues that seemingly only their policies can redress. But “the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution” as David Horowitz has explained. The “issues” are mere distractions.
Cloward and Piven initially claimed to be agitating for a “guaranteed national income.” Such a policy is plainly unsustainable; however, it wouldinstitutionalize their strategy, creating an enormous, permanent drag on the whole economy precipitating an even larger crash later on. Cloward and Piven’s true goal was to find any instrument to institutionalize their orchestrated anarchy, and poor people were the tool.
Wade Rathke, a veteran of those early efforts, was mentored by Cloward and Piven. Rathke and other radicals created a new organization, ACORN,and sought ways to further extend the Strategy.
White House ACORN photo: Bill Clinton center; Wade Rathke third to his left; Zach Polett in lower left-hand corner. Courtesy Anita MonCrief
With passage of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN and other activist groups got in the housing business. They began pushing banks to offer high-risk mortgage loans to low/no income borrowers. The Clinton administration aggressively ramped up the effort. To encourage lenders and investors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwrote the risk. Since its passage, CRA lending has exceeded $6 trillion.[ii] The mortgage crisis was Cloward-Piven on steroids.[2]
Meanwhile, Cloward and Piven had not been idle. In 1982 they created the Human Service Employees Registration and Voter Education Fund (Human SERVE) to build political momentum for a law that would turn state motor vehicle and welfare agencies into low-income voter registration offices.
Motor Voter Signing Ceremony – Cloward in light grey suit, Piven in green. Source: the White House
Throughout the 1980s, Human SERVE field-tested legal and political strategies to promote this plan. The fruits of its labor were finally realized with “Motor Voter,” the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), signed into law with Cloward and Piven standing directly behind President Clinton.
The NVRA requires motor vehicle, military recruiting, public assistance and other state and local offices to offer voter-registration services.
The NVRA has become a beacon for vote fraud. Its minimal verification requirements opened the door to ACORN-style massive voter registration fraud, and in the confusion provide blanket opportunities for vote fraud.
Voter ID laws have become critically important. According to a Pew report, approximately 24 million or 12.5 percent of voter registrations nationally are either invalid or inaccurate, including about 1.8 million deceased individuals, and 2.75 million with multiple-state registrations.
And while the NRVA has provisions for purging the rolls in Section 8, they require a complex, process spanning multiple election cycles. In some cases, the NRVA replaced better mechanisms already in use. Many states have simply not followed these procedures with any regularity. The Left ignores all this, focusing on enforcing NRVA’s Section 7.
Section 7 Lawsuits
While capitalizing on the vote fraud swamping strategy enabled by the NVRA, ACORN, Project Vote and others sue states that don’t aggressively execute the voter registration activities required by Section 7 of the law. The narrative is always “voter suppression,” and settlements have forced state agencies to become de facto low income voter registration drives.
Not only must states develop, maintain and execute plans for assuring comprehensive registration, they are forced to report regularly to ACORN lawyers. A 2009 settlement between ACORN and Missouri’s Department of Social Services is illustrative. DSS must:
Create an NVRA State Coordinator position
Designate an NVRA Site Coordinator for Family Support Division offices
Keep detailed records of client visits and registration activities
Immediately send a letter offering registration to any individual who “may not have been given the opportunity to register…”
Report detailed compliance data to plaintiff lawyers every month.
State coordinator’s performance measured by NVRA compliance
ACORN will receive $450,000 in settlement.
In these settlements, ACORN effectively assumes an executive role over state agencies. Notably, there is no corollary requirement to ascertain the legality of registrations or to clean up the rolls.
Project Vote has taken recent actions against Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, and New Mexico. They just announced their intention to sue Pennsylvania.
Project Vote formed agreements with Colorado in 2008 and 2010. According to Judicial Watch, after Project Vote’s involvement “the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average.”
Though largely unnoticed until now, this litigation tactic has been used since the 1980s, when Human SERVE’s legal allies sued state authorities for settlementscreating localized versions of Motor Voter.
While capitalizing on the vote swamping strategy enabled by Motor Voter, ACORN and Project Vote picked up the torch for SERVE, which closed its doors in 2000. Frances Fox Piven serves today on Project Vote’s Board of Directors. Significantly, President Obama has named the voter registration initiative of his reelection effort “Project Vote.”
Piven also has many other connections to Obama. She was a founding member of Progressives for Obama. Her Democratic Socialists of America bragged that it was responsible for the success of Obama’s “ground game” in 2008. Piven was one of 130 founding members of the radical left Campaign for America’s Future. Many CAF members also sit on the board of the Apollo Alliance, the executor of Obama’s “Green” jobs initiative.
DOJ and ACORN Team Up for 2012
Judicial Watch obtained several documents showing coordination between DOJ, Project Vote and the White House.[i] In one email, Project Vote demanded action on NVRA cases. Less than a month later, DOJ sued Rhode Island for NVRA noncompliance. Similarly, DOJ’s Louisiana NVRA suit followed Project Vote’s by a few months. Project Vote is promoting prospective employees for DOJ’s Voting Rights section.
The VRA outlawed poll taxes and literacy tests for voting. Section 5 requires certain states and other political subdivisions to obtain “preclearance,” or permission, from either DOJ or the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, on any change affecting voting. Currently, preclearance states covered in whole or in part include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia. Set in 1982 to expire in 2007, Congress extended the VRA for another 25 years in 2006.
The VRA has come into sharp focus this year as the Holder administration has used VRA preclearance requirements to stall or prevent voter ID laws from being enacted. Non-preclearance states have faced stiff court challenges from other leftist groups.
Alabama – Alabama’s new photo ID law has a 2014 effective date. Alabama has not yet applied for pre-clearance.
Mississippi – A Voter ID amendment was approved by voters with a 62 percent margin in 2011. A bill to implement the amendment passed April 10, 2012. Requires preclearance. No word yet from Justice.
South Carolina – DOJ denied pre-clearance for new ID law in December 2011. State filed for reconsideration.
Texas – DOJ denied pre-clearance for new ID law. Texas filed suit with three-judge panel seeking pre-clearance; DOJ asked court to postpone trial.
Wisconsin – State judge ruled Wisconsin’s voter ID law unconstitutional (read the opinion). State will appeal.
The Wisconsin case is an example of independent groups working to sabotage reform efforts. In a suit brought by the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and others, the judge found ID laws “unconstitutional to the extent they serve as a condition for voting at the polls.” This was a bizarre ruling. Wisconsin’s Constitution clearly allows mechanisms to establish voter eligibility.
Despite the Left’s best efforts, voter ID laws have been proposed this year in 32 states.
A Personal Testimony
J. Christian Adams is a former DOJ election lawyer who worked on the Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case. He resigned in protest of Eric Holder’s race-based application of the law. According to Adams’ new book,Injustice, Eric Holder became directly involved in the Black Panther case. Mr. Adams agreed to be interviewed for this report. Some highlights:
DOJ is engaged in a massive campaign to force states to… become aggressive voter registration offices…
DOJ announced they would not enforce Section 8 because it won’t increase turnout.
States are infested with dead voters on the rolls.
Investigations into eight states with widespread voter roll problems… were spiked
Because of Motor Voter, voter rolls in many states seeing influx of illegal aliens.
Data show that illegal aliens are participating in American elections.
DOJ is using [VRA] Sec. 5 to stop voter integrity initiatives.
Every one of Holder’s 113 new attorney hires is a far-left radical.
Famed civil rights attorney Bartle Bull was a poll watcher at that Philadelphia location when the Black Panthers appeared. He testified in the case, calling it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” he had ever seen.
ACORN’s swamping method is now being replicated all over the country, especially in swing states or those with critical elections like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s recall vote. Even local communities are affected. For example, the Wake County (Raleigh/Durham) registrar described a swamping effort conducted by North Carolina’s Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).
While these organizations are nominally independent, closer inspection often reveals interlocking directorates and/or shared staff. Many are supporteddirectly or indirectly by George Soros foundations. The chart below, compiled byNorth Carolina Civitas Institute, includes many organizations that worked with ACORN there.
North Carolina Left/Liberal Organizations
A Textbook Case: Houston Votes
In July 2010, a newly-formed voter registration group named Houston Votes (HV) announced it intended to register 100,000 Houston, Texas area voters in a few months. Catherine Engelbrecht, Leader of True the Vote (TTV) and King Street Patriots (KSP), was skeptical. Her group checked about 1,000 HV registrations. The number of erroneous registrations submitted by HV andDemocracia—a group targeting unregistered Hispanics—was, she said, “off the charts.”
They brought their results to Harris County Registrar, Leo Vasquez, who reviewed HV registrations. He found that of 25,640 submitted, only 7,193 were “apparently new voters.” On August 24, Vasquez held an unprecedented press conference, announcing:
Evidence shows that the Houston Votes and Texans Together organization is conspiring in a pattern of falsification of government documents, suborning of perjury and a deliberate effort to over-burden our processing system with thousands of duplicate and incomplete voter registration applications.
He raised concerns that HV was, like ACORN, paying employees based on the number of applications they turned in, and cited specific examples of problematic registrations:
3,531 No match for SSN or driver’s license number
1,597 Multiple apps for the same person
1,014 Pre-existing voters
1,030 Incomplete apps
25 Non-citizens
325 Minors
129 Ineligible felons
1,133 No ID
1,323 Filed past deadline
Three days later, a massive warehouse fire destroyed Harris County’s 10,000 voting machines. The fire’s timing bred suspicions, fed almost exclusively by the Left, which sought through innuendo to implicate KSP. A Huffington Post headline two days later was typical: “Possible Arson and the Right’s Texas Voter Suppression Effort.” This theme was repeated ad nauseam in the liberal media echo chamber. The Houston Fire Department later cited “an unspecified electrical short” as the cause, an explanation that satisfied no one.[iv]
Maria Isabel, One of Houston Votes’ “non-partisan” Leaders
HV held a press conference the day of the fire, calling Vasquez’s allegations “reckless and false” and “an apparently coordinated, partisan effort to suppress voter registration and to intimidate citizens into not voting…” They demandedthe Justice Department investigate.
HV dismissed mistakes with the familiar ACORN refrain, blaming a few low-level employees who were fired when errors were discovered. However, Vasquez specifically cited 180 erroneous registrations turned in by Directors Sean Caddle and Neil Hudelson—more errors than usually submitted in total by traditional voter registration drives.
HV boasted their group was “non-partisan” but an attentive blogger quickly proved otherwise. One of the people training volunteers for Houston Votes wasMaria Isabel, an Obama operative made famous by the photo of her office sporting a poster of Che Guevara.
HV Directors Hudelson and Caddle were quickly discovered to be long-time Democratic activists. At last notice they had returned to Caddle’s home state of New Jersey, working for Democratic Jersey City Council-at-Large candidate Sue Mack. She lost.
A little more digging revealed Houston Votes to be part of America Votes, a Soros-funded organization tied to ACORN, SEIU, and a universe of otherleftwing groups.
America Votes specifically targeted Texas in its 2010 Redistricting Control Project. With 38 electoral votes, Texas is only exceeded by California’s 55. Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in Texas, not coincidentally home to the second largest illegal immigrant population in the U.S.
One quarter of Texans reside in the Houston metropolitan region and there are 25 state house seats in Harris County. Prior to the 2010 elections, Republicans held a slim majority of three seats in the Texas House. Winning in Houston had the potential to flip the House, giving Democrats control over redistricting. They wanted to “turn Texas blue.”
The Advisory Board of HV’s parent organization, Texans Together Education Fund, included a number of prominent left-wing Democrats. One was Grande Dame of Texas politics, Sissy Farenthold, who worked with the radical left Institute for Policy Studies in the 1980s. Another was DemocratKristi Thibaut, a state legislator trying to hold her District 133 seat. She hadworked for ACORN and was under investigation by the Texas Ethics Commission. Yet another was Sue Schechter, running for Harris County Clerk. Not only was HV extremely partisan, but plainly the Texas arm of Soros’s project.
America Votes failed in 2010. Republican control of the Texas state house increased by 44 seats in a nationwide sweep that brought Republican control to statehouses not seen since 1928. America Votes is targeting Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2012.
But the Left still wasn’t finished in Texas. The Texas Democratic Party sued the Harris County Registrar’s office, the Registrar and other employees.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee illegally campaigning at Houston poll during early voting in 2010. Credit: Warner Todd Huston
Harris County had settled another suit with the Democrats in 2008 stemming from 67,554 rejected applications, mostly submitted by ACORN. Democrats had charged “voter suppression” then too, over registrations rejected for incomplete or inaccurate information—the kind ACORN excels at.
Because Texas is a preclearance state, redistricting maps must be approved. This year’s maps were challenged in court by Latino groups. This delayed the primary, neutralizing any impact Texas may have had on the Republican presidential primary process.
Voter Intimidation
KSP organized approximately 1,000 poll watchers for the 2010 elections. This outraged the Left, unused to having its inner city monopoly threatened. Texans Together Education Fund sued the King Street Patriots, True the Vote, Catherine Engelbrecht and her husband. On the first day of early voting, the Texas Democrat Party also filed a suit, a move characterized by KSP’s legal team as a naked effort to intimidate KSP-trained poll watchers.
Throughout the 2010 electoral cycle, the Left hurled accusations of “voter suppression” and “voter intimidation” at Catherine Engelbrecht, TTV, KSP and the volunteer poll watchers they trained. This narrative was promoted uncritically by the local press. Blogger Ann “Babe” Huggett, writing for EmergingCorruption.com, reported:
ABC Channel 13 quoted Democrats suing KSP that KSP leaders could see jail time for voter intimidation. ABC’s own video, however, shows otherwise.
Channel 26 reporter Isiah Carey asked repeatedly if the King Street Patriots hadn’t created a hostile environment. KSP offered witness testimony that it was “the other side” doing the intimidating.
New Black Panther leader, Quanell X, threatened that his men would “protect” people from the TTV-trained poll watchers.
Emails from communist Van Jones’ Color of Change circulated through liberal circles, charging poll-watcher voter intimidation.
Local radio station Magic 102.1 FM repeated bogus charges about assaults on black voters… including spitting and physical assault… on black grandmothers.
But it was actually poll judges, poll workers and Quanell X’s Houston Black Panther group, who did much of the intimidating. Assistant County Attorney Douglas Ray disclosed after an investigation that Harris County poll workers and election judges had committed the violations blamed on KSP. He was silent on the Panthers.
Poll Watchers submitted 763 incident reports, detailing over 3,000 violations, to Harris County. These included intimidation, harassment and illegal voter assistance conducted by poll judges and workers. To date there has been no response from the County. Three poll watchers were willing to be identified by name and spoke to reporters at a KSP press conference. KSP invited the Justice Department to witness what was happening. Justice never responded.
Independent of KSP, poll judge Carmen Cuneo gave compelling video testimonyabout how the chief judge had her removed and threatened with arrest after she confronted Quanell X about his group’s activities at the poll.
True the Vote and the Wisconsin Recall
Union groups used the swarming method earlier this year in a recall petition of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. They reportedly submitted one million petitions, needing only 540,208. The Democrat-controlled Government Accountability Board (GAB), responsible for verifying petitions, flatly refused to do so.
In an astonishing, heroic effort, True the Vote joined an effort called Verify the Recall and developed a method to verify recall petitions online. They built a nationwide network of 14,000 volunteers almost overnight, who checked 92 percent of the petitions in 22 days. The findings were stunning:
819,233 records (not 1 million)
534,685 verified legitimate (65 percent)
In addition to numerous bogus “Donald Duck” petitions, signers included:
29 Wisconsin judges—one who later issued a restraining order against Walker’s Voter ID law.
A deputy DA, 19 attorneys and dozens of other DA employees. Some had been working on a heavily criticized “secret” John Doe investigation of Governor Walker at the time.
25 Gannett News journalists
Several members of WTMJ-4 news staff
School board members
Four University of Wisconsin regents and the university’s chief spokesman.
A Democratic activist charged with seven felony ID theft counts and two of felony vote fraud. He signed up family members and neighbors, including a deceased man, without their knowledge or consent.
The GAB refused to consider VTR’s work and certified 900,000 petitions, but it was clear that Walker opponents had committed extensive vote fraud. The fraud would have gone undetected if not for the work of TTV.
Leftwing “Reform” Efforts
Universal Voter Registration (UVR)
Cloward and Piven saw the NVRA as an intermediate goal. They made that clear in their book. The flurry of lawsuits and systemic fraud generated by the NVRA all build momentum to find a permanent solution. And the Left had the answer before they started: Universal Voter Registration.
UVR calls for automatically registering voters listed on various state and federal databases. Leftist groups argue it will solve all voter registration problems, but the left created most of them. UVR would create more:
Homeowners with more than one property create duplicates.
The many state & federal lists will create duplicates
Because so many lists exist with little or no cross-checking these duplicates are likely to go uncorrected.
UVR would institutionalize the crisis strategy, and provide countless opportunities for vote fraud.
National Popular Vote
The National Popular Vote bill seeks to effectively abolish the Electoral College by enacting state laws that give all electors from those states that have passed the bill to the winner of the national popular vote. Direct elections would become universal when enough state legislatures have passed legislation to make up a majority of the electoral vote (270 of 538). Eight states and the District of Columbus, totaling 132 electoral votes, have passed NPV laws. The Electoral College was created to ensure that less populous states would not be overlooked in presidential elections. If successful, this effort will make vast swaths of our nation completely irrelevant to presidential candidates, as they would then focus all their efforts on large population centers.
Felon Voting
Project Vote disingenuously argues that rights should be restored to formerfelons. Almost every state has provisions to restore voting rights to former felons. ProCon.org claims about 5.2 million felons are “disenfranchised.” But only current prisoners have no recourse—about 1.4 million. They exaggerate the problem for unclear reasons. The “wise Latina,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, favors felon voting.
Same Day Voting
Same-day voter registration in Ohio led to ACORN’s permanent expulsion from that state. Then-Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, an alumna of George Soros’s Secretary of State Project (see below), announced a “Golden Week” for same day registration and voting. ACORN submitted thousands of bogus registrations, including the notorious case where one man was paid to register 73 times.
Former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold proposed a nationwide same-day voting law in 2009, but his state’s experience with it has been disastrous. An investigation into the 2004 elections by the Milwaukee Police concluded the only way to prevent widespread fraud is to discontinue same-day voting. A 2011 study found errors in one-third of same-day voter registrations in Milwaukee County.
The Soros funded Secretary of State Project seeks to elect leftist Democrats to that critical post. SoS Project-backed Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie demonstrated the value of this program when comedian Al Franken eked out a victory in his 2008 U.S. Senate race amidst numerous, well-documented allegations of vote fraud.
The SoS Project did poorly in 2010, however. Ritchie was one of only two SoS-backed candidates to survive the Republican tidal wave.
The project’s website, secstateproject.org, is no longer operational. There is a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/secstateproject. It does not appear to get much traffic. This may reflect a temporary lull in activity, or Soros and his minions have moved to more promising initiatives.
What Is To Be Done?
The 2012 election may be the most important election in American history. American citizens acting in the best interest of our country must be the bulwark against fraud. There are many things people can do, suitable to their time and resource constraints. Here is a list of options:
Volunteer with True the Vote (www.truethevote.org) and join your state’s affiliate. True the Vote is conducting training all over the country. Find your state affiliate.
Bookmark Protect Your Vote! (www.protectyourvote.us). This website provides state-by-state information about voting laws, vote fraud risk, and updated information about voter ID efforts.
Judicial Watch has done more than any other organization to expose the activities of this corrupt administration and Justice Department under Eric Holder. Sign up for email alerts at www.judicialwatch.org.
Read, print and distribute the Patriot’s Handbook. This free resource contains a wealth of information on how people can participate at any level.
The National Voter Registration Act was crafted specifically to bring calculated chaos to our elections, open the door to vote fraud and force states to become de facto voter registration drives heavily favorable to one political party. Similarly, Attorney General Eric Holder and his allies have abused the Voting Rights Act, turning preclearance into a political weapon to sabotage voter integrity efforts. The results are a voting system vulnerable to systemic fraud.
Our most fundamental right as Americans, to determine the size, scope and indeed the very nature of our nation, is being threatened. This must not stand.
How many times did Obama promise us we could keep our health insurance if we liked it?
(CNSNews.com) – A report from the House Ways and Means Committee finds that 71 of the nation’s top 100 companies would find it far more economical to drop their health care plans and simply pay the penalty for not complying with the Obamacare employer insurance mandate. The report, published May 1, surveyed 71 of the 100 companies in the Fortune 100 list of large corporations and finds that all of them would save considerable amounts of money by dropping their health care coverage instead of complying with the Obamacare insurance mandate. “According to data provided by the 71 Fortune 100 companies that responded to the inquiry, they could save a total of $28.6 billion in 2014 alone if they stopped offering health insurance to their U.S. employees and instead paid the employer mandate penalty for not doing so,” the report said. Keep reading…
A new report prepared by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee suggests that companies would save billions of dollars by ending health insurance coverage for employees under Presidents Barack Obama’s health care reform law.
Based on an analysis of health care data received from 71 of the America’s Fortune 100 companies, the report found that if the companies terminate insurance coverage in favor of paying the $2,000 per employee penalty, they would incur a financial benefit.
According to the report, companies surveyed would save on average $400 million — or a total of $28.6 billion in 2014 — simply by putting their employees on the government exchanges.
Between 2014 and 2023, the report says, the average savings per company would be nearly $6 billion, a total savings of $422.4 billion.
“These employers spent an average of $5,197 on health insurance benefits, after taxes, per employee in 2011,” the report reads. “In 2014, this average would increase to $6,487 per employee, which far exceeds the $2,000 per full-time employee penalty they would pay for not offering coverage under the Democrats’ health care law. One Fortune 100 company could save more than $3.5 billion in 2014 alone, while another could save $1.8 billion. Four companies could save in excess of $1 billion in 2014 if they dropped health coverage and paid the mandate penalty.”
Committee Chairman Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, said the data indicates a threat to employer-based insurance.
“The findings of the report, along with existing research, show that the Democrats’ health care law threatens the stability and sustainability of the employer-based health insurance system,” Camp said in a statement.
“Anyone who gets insurance through their job should be worried about what will happen next, because there is a distinct financial incentive for employers to terminate health care coverage under the Democrats’ health care law,” he added. “It is clear to me that because of this law, Americans will not be able to keep the health care plan they have and like. American workers and taxpayers simply cannot afford to have this law remain on the books.”
In 2009 Obama said the new law would not interfere with individuals’ current coverage — if they did not want it to.
“Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you,” Obama said. “First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”
In mid-March the Congressional Budget Office estimated that that under the president’s plan 3 million to 5 million fewer people will be receiving health care through their employer each year from 2019-2022 than under prior law.
A new T-shirt hit the the Florida streets this week.
The “Pu$$y A$$ Cracker” T-shirt.
As seen at right, the shirt has a picture of George Zimmerman and the words “Pussy Ass Cracker.” Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic, killed Martin, 17, last month while acting as a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida.
In related news… The attorney for George Zimmerman told reporters yesterday that Zimmerman suffered a broken nose, and had an injury to the back of his head, he was attacked by Trayvon Martin on that evening.
It’s breaking and entering for dummies. Picture the Homeless, a Bronx nonprofit that has received at least $240,000 in taxpayer money in the last five years, is giving a crash course on squatting — and city-owned buildings are a prime target. Two weeks ago, board member Andres Perez held a teach-in on how to wrest “control” of vacant apartments. He called it “homesteading.”
J.C. RICE VICTIMIZED: Squatters turned Arlington Village in Brooklyn into a prostitution den, according to a resident.
“The best time to enter a building is in the late hours,” he advised a group of about 20, who gathered in front of the half-empty East New York housing complex Arlington Village.
“You make sure you have your proper tools. You remove the chains and padlock, and then you go in.” He then led them through the next steps — including filling out a change-of-address form at the post office and setting up utilities. After that, “nine out of 10 times the courts will allow you to be able to have control of the property,” he said. But squatting school outraged legal residents of Arlington Village.
PHOTOS: J.C. RICE LAW, SHUCKS: Andres Perez is part of a city-funded program teaching people to break into vacant properties.
“I can’t let nobody squat where I live,” said Pete Rolon, 64, a 35-year resident who claimed pimps had grabbed two apartments in the complex. “There were hookers. They were smoking crack. There were condoms all over the floor. There were hundreds of them.” He remembers when the complex of 12 two-story, red-brick buildings was filled with families and children playing. Police and residents eventually forced the sex-trade squatters out last fall, according to Rolon. Mohammed Hossain, the super at Arlington, where pads go for $600 to $1,000 per month, said complaints about homeless people breaking in to steal pipes and metal fixtures are common. “The homeless people, they have no right to be squatting here,” he said. “If they pay rent, that’s different.” Residents also aren’t happy about city tax money going to a group that preaches squatting. “That’s not right,” said one longtime resident. “That these guys are teaching classes on this — that’s ridiculous.” The Web site for Picture the Homeless boasts a list of accomplishments that includes sending “delegations to the World Social Forum in Brazil.” Perez, 46, a former city Housing Authority worker, said the group has “two major campaigns.” One is dedicated to opposing the NYPD’s “stop-and-frisk” policy. The other involves schooling people about “warehoused” property. Homesteading, he lectured, is a permanent occupation, while squatting is only temporary “clubhousing.” “The best properties are city-owned properties or bank-owned properties,” he said. “They warehouse these properties. They’re sitting on them.” Picture the Homeless’s annual taxpayer funding is approved by the City Council and administered through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. “We absolutely don’t condone the practice of squatting,” said HPD spokesman Eric Bederman. “It’s illegal, and it’s dangerous.” Bederman added that his agency has no control over Picture the Homeless’s funding. “It’s the City Council’s decision,” he said. Robin Levine, a City Council spokeswoman, said, “We’re deeply troubled by reports that Picture the Homeless is instructing New Yorkers in how to engage in dangerous and illegal activities. If these reports are in fact true, they call the group’s entire funding into question.” mgartland@nypost.com
You know, because the left is renowned for their patriotism.
“I was there for 6 months. Best 6 months of my life, followed by the worst two weeks. … What I saw there is why I am here today. I saw some of the most beautiful people, some of the most well intentioned people, some of the smartest people ever to serve in our government, be stopped in their tracks, stopped in their tracks, by people who mean us no good. People who claim to be patriots but seem to hate everybody in America.”
Occupy Wall Street, largely forgotten over the last few months, aims to make a comeback from this winter’s hibernation with an ambitious plan: a crippling May Day “general strike” in the tradition of 1930s radicalism.
The grand promise is what one occupier, Brendan Burke, described to BuzzFeed as “a day without the 99%.” But in the city where the movement was born, it’s already suffering from what has emerged as one of Occupy’s signal weaknesses, the lack of ability or interest to make alliances with liberal institutions. Despite public solidarity, there’s little relationship between the Occupy movement and organized labor. And as a result, even the most progressive New York labor leaders say their members will not participate in the May 1 strike.
“It won’t happen,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and one of the first labor leaders to embrace the Occupy movement. “They are not working with the unions in a serious way yet; nor are the unions working with them in a serious way. And it is the wrong strategy.”
“I think the concept is a great one but the reality is very tough,” said Arthur Cheliotes, the President of Local 1180, Communications Workers of America and a stalwart of the New York left.
Even Transit Workers Union Local 100, the New York City subway union with a tradition of being one of the most radical mainstream unions in the country, won’t take a side.
“I don’t think we’d take a position on that,” said Cheska Tolentino, a TWU Local 100 organizer in New York, whose union is still paying the price for a 2005 strike courts ruled illegal.
STEPHEN LERNER SEIU EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER AND LABOR ORGANIZER: “You know, I think that’s the moment we’re in that’s so exciting. In California yesterday, a community group, ACCE, and the longshoremen reoccupied the home of a longshoreman that had been evicted from his home. I think we’re at that sweet spot where we don’t need to worry about co-opt—well, we should always worry about co-option—where the issue isn’t co-option, labor or Occupy or community groups. It’s the moment where we can come together and put millions of people in the street.
It’s a moment where we can come together and talk about shutting down shareholder meetings where people don’t have a voice. I think there’s never been a more exciting time in my 30 years of organizing to imagine building the kind of movement that can transform the country, that can really talk about redistributing wealth and power. And there’s never a better time to get involved. I think the key thing we have to do is—there’s not one tactic, there’s not one thing folks should do; it’s the combination of many threads of work that will build this up to be the kind of movement that Frances talks about that changes this country for—changes this country in a historic and wonderful way.”
What a shock — labor unions paying one of their biggest cheerleaders in the media.
Perhaps Ed Schultz could explain what he does for unions to warrant such largesse. I don’t recall hearing anything along these lines on his radio program or MSNBC show.
In fiscal 2011, Schultz received $190,000 from the Communications Workers of America for what the U.S. Department of Labor categorized as “representational activities.”
For swag like that, you’d think Schultz could at least get it right about the CWA name. Instead, he invariably refers to it as the “Communication” Workers of America when its president, Larry Cohen, is a guest on Schultz’s radio show, as Cohen often is.
Schultz also received $9,900 in fiscal 2011 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), putting his union haul for the year at almost $200,000.
This represented a fivefold increase over the $37,350 Schultz received from unions in fiscal 2010 — $15,000 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), $14,850 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and $7,500 from the Communications Workers of America.
A Labor Department spokesman confirmed to NewsBusters that Schultz received $190,000 from CWA in fiscal 2011, far from than the $7,500 he was paid by the union a year earlier. The spokesman said unions are mandated to report such payments as required by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.
For its fiscal 2010 payment to Schultz, the union characterized the payment as pertaining to “union administration,” according to Labor Department records.
The fiscal year before that, unions paid Schultz $42,500 — $17,500 from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, $10,000 from AFSMCE, and $7,500 each from the Building and Construction Trades union and International Brotherhood of Boilermakers. All were for “political activities,” according to the Labor Department.
In fiscal 2008, Schultz was paid $22,304 by unions — $10,000 from United Steelworkers (for “union administration”), $7,304 from Air Traffic Controllers (“general overhead”), and $5,000 from Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 189 in Columbus, Ohio. (“general overhead” again).
Worth noting is that Schultz’s cable program on MSNBC, “The Ed Show,” debuted in April 2009 — and that union payments to Schultz nearly doubled from a year earlier.
In fiscal 2007, Schultz was paid by only a single union, receiving $8,616 from the IBEW for “representational activities,” according to the Labor Department.
A year earlier, unions paid Schultz $21,820 — $8,820 from AFSCME, $7,500 from Laborers’ International (both for “union administration”), and $5,500 from Air Traffic Controllers (“political activities”). In fiscal 2005, the same year Schultz launched his radio show, he was paid by only one union, $5,000 from Laborers’ International. (“union administration”) The payment from the Air Traffic Controllers union was made to the “Ed Schultz Show,” Labor Department records show.
All told, Schultz has been paid $337,490 by unions in the last seven years, according to the Labor Department. These same records show no payments from unions to Schultz between fiscal years 2000 to 2004 — before Schultz became such a passionate advocate for unions over the airwaves.
Nov 29, 2011- 5:04 - Former Rep. Tom Tancredo on the importance of border security and how the candidates will approach the issue.
BASHIR: STOP GINGRICH’S FOOD STAMP RHETORIC BEFORE SOMEONE GETS KILLED
MSNBC host Martin Bashir rarely misses an opportunity to dramatize and string-together current Republican happenings with obscure incidents from the past. Example. On Friday Bashir made the arguably far-fetched comparison linking the murder of a black British teenager in 1993 to Newt Gingrich calling President Obama “the most effective food stamp president in American history.”
Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo discusses the extent of the investigation into the Department of Justice.
Zach Polett (courtesy Anita MonCrief)
Richard Cloward
White House ACORN photo: Bill Clinton center; Wade Rathke third to his left; Zach Polett in lower left-hand corner. Courtesy Anita MonCrief
Motor Voter Signing Ceremony – Cloward in light grey suit, Piven in green. Source: the White House
North Carolina Left/Liberal Organizations
Maria Isabel, One of Houston Votes’ “non-partisan” Leaders
One quarter of Texans reside in the Houston metropolitan region and there are 25 state house seats in Harris County. Prior to the 2010 elections, Republicans held a slim majority of three seats in the Texas House. Winning in Houston had the potential to flip the House, giving Democrats control over redistricting. They wanted to “
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee illegally campaigning at Houston poll during early voting in 2010. Credit: Warner Todd Huston
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