ANTI TEA PARTY WEB SITE PART OF SCHEME TO FUNNEL FUNDS

The Tea Party movement is under attack again, and this time it's by the very people who recently thrashed the Supreme Court for their narrow decision to preserve freedom of speech. With all the noise Obama and his defenders made against this decision, they are the biggest offenders. A group of big corporate companies have organized a new web site targeting the tea parties under the guise of a grassroots organization. It's a very tangled web of corporations, big labor unions, tons of money, and political slush funds to counter the tea party movement.

Ha! Obama said the Supreme Court decision would "open the floodgates for special interest." Hypocrites! Wonder if he's planning on investigating these infractions.

Joseph Abrams of FOX News writes in detail:


Anti-Tea Party Web Site Part of Scheme to Funnel Funds
By Joseph Abrams - FOXNews.com, February 10, 2010

A new Web site targeting the tea parties is a part of a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country's biggest labor unions and trickling slowly into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

A seemingly grassroots organization that's mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds -- including sizable labor union contributions -- through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer.

A Web site popped up in January dedicated to preventing the tea party's "radical" and "dangerous" ideas from "gaining legislative traction," targeting GOP candidates in Illinois for the firing squad.

"This movement is a fad," proclaims TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, which was established by the American Public Policy Center (APPC), a D.C.-based campaign shop that few people have ever heard of.

But a close look reveals the APPC's place in a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country's biggest labor unions into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

Here's how it works: What appears like a local groundswell is in fact the creation of two men -- Craig Varoga and George Rakis, Democratic Party strategists who have set up a number of so-called 527 groups, the non-profit election organizations that hammer on contentious issues (think Swift Boats, for example).

Varoga and Rakis keep a central mailing address in Washington, pulling in soft money contributions from unions and other well-padded sources to engage in what amounts to a legal laundering system. The money -- tens of millions of dollars -- gets circulated around to different states by the 527s, which pay for TV ads, Internet campaigns and lobbyist salaries, all while keeping the hands of the unions clean -- for the most part.

The system helps hide the true sources of funding, giving the appearance of locally bred opposition in states from Oklahoma to New Jersey, or in the case of the Tea Party Web site, in Illinois.

And this whitewash is entirely legal, say election law experts, who told FoxNews.com that this arrangement more or less the norm in Washington.

"It's not illegal but it is, I think, dishonest on the part of the organizations," said Paul Ryan, a legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. "And there's a reason they do it: they know voters don't like outsiders coming in to sway the vote."

Calls and e-mails to the Maryland-based consultant firm Independent Strategies, run by Varoga and Rakis, were not returned.

Outside of that firm, the center of their activity appears to be a single office in Southeast D.C. -- 300 M Street, Suite 1102 -- which plays host to a sprawling political shell game they have established.

Public records show at least seven political shops listed in Suite 1102, most of which are essentially clones of one another, but all of which have offered money -- from measly thousands to game-changing millions -- in state-level elections across the country:

-American Public Policy Committee - Donations | IRS forms
-Patriot Majority - Donations | IRS forms
-Citizens for Progress - Donations | IRS forms
-Oklahoma Freedom Fund - Donations | IRS forms
-Mid Atlantic Leadership Fund - Donations | IRS forms
-Public Security Now - Donations | IRS forms
-Pioneer Majority - Donations | IRS forms
-Bluegrass Freedom Fund - Donations | IRS forms

The APPC, which developed the anti-tea party ads, has gotten all of its money for 2010 from Patriot Majority and from Citizens for Progress, which is also called Patriot Majority West.

Patriot Majority West sent them $25,000 in January, and Patriot Majority added another $5,000. The groups, both run by Varoga and Rakis, also swap hundreds of thousands of dollars between themselves, money often buttressed by gifts from Patriot Majority Midwest, seen above as the Oklahoma Freedom Fund.

The confusing naming system is intentional, say election law experts, who generally disapprove of the practice.

"I do take issue with and have long complained about groups that shield particular special interests with innocuous-sounding names like ... 'Americans for America,'" said Ryan. "That type of naming of an organization, I believe, is specifically intended to obscure the true sources of funding of special interest groups behind political activity."

These three Patriot Majority groups also send checks to Independent Strategies, the strategy firm run by Varoga and Rakis. And some of the 527s have sent money to VR Strategies, another firm run in part by and named after Varoga.

The most recent backers of the Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West, which helped fund the APPC and thus the Tea Party site, form a veritable Who's Who of the country's top labor unions: the Service Employees International Union, Change to Win, the Communications Workers of America, the National Education Association, the Teamsters Union, the United Food & Commercial Workers Union and others besides.

But by far the largest donations have come from a collection of unionized government workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) -- which in 2008 alone donated $5.8 million to Patriot Majority and another $4.1 million to Patriot Majority Midwest.

Using this arrangement, Varoga and Rakis are managing what NPR called a "never-ending pot of union money" that they dispense among the 527s they run, which in turn pay for ads in hotly contested election districts.

That means that taxpayer dollars, sent up as union dues, have been going to fund a host of Democratic causes and help quash the tea party movement.

What's more, Varoga and Rakis are not actually present in Suite 1102. That is the office of their lawyer, Joseph Sandler, a longtime general counsel to the Democratic National Committee.

Sandler, whose firm and trust account raked in over $500,000 in Democratic party money in 2009 alone, told Fox News that there was nothing irregular in their setup.

"That's common practice," said Sandler, a renowned expert on election law who served as general counsel to the Democratic National Committee until February 2009, and whose firm, Sandler Reiff & Young, continues to work for both the Democratic party and numerous left-wing 527 groups.

Sandler noted that political committees and groups are often run by multiple people and don't have a central office, but need a place where they can be in ongoing contact with the IRS and other federal agencies that track election funds.

"It's very common for a law firm to give their address ... as the official address for the organization where correspondence can be received," he said.

It has the effect of confusing the ultimate sources of election funding, but also serves an important practical end, say election law experts.

"As a practical matter there's not a huge universe of lawyers in the United States that know political law all that well and most of them are here in D.C., said Ryan, of the Campaign Legal Center. "It's not uncommon for political organizations to be using lawyers in D.C. or starters, even if they're all over the country."

It is not clear whether TheTeaPartyIsOver.org is the start of a larger campaign run by Varoga and Rakis to target tea party activists. Additional attempts to reach Varoga at a California number were unsuccessful. A staffer answering the phone in Varoga's Oakland office last week told FoxNews.com that he was unavailable for comment and hung up.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, UNIONS WIN, YOU LOSE

It appears Big Labor has struck a deal to stick it to the American tax payers -- again. This deal has been done behind closed doors, and not on CSPAN as promised by this president over and over again during his campaign. The 'deal' will tax the middle class on their so called "cadillac" health care plans, but not the union plans, leaving the middle class to pick up the slack in additional taxes -- another in a long line of broken promises.

This is another example of why Congress and this administration are polling unfavorably in their out-of-control spending and their lies, and why America is more involved in changing it. Between the sweetheart deals for Nelson in Nebraska, or Sanders in Vermont, or Madame Landreiu in Louisiana, or another Nelson in Florida -- America is fed up! America was not founded on favoritism but equality, not founded on elitists but workers. And now, the threat of another elitist in the form of Martha Coakley? What a revolting thought that is.

The Heritage Foundation writes an excellent piece on backdoor deals:


Behind Closed Doors, Unions Win, You Lose
January 14, 2010

Yesterday, President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and nine other lawmakers met face-to-face for seven hours to resolve differences between the House and Senate health care bills. At the same time these talks were going on, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger met with other Obama administration officials in a separate room in the White House. This all comes after these same labor leaders met personally with Speaker Pelosi yesterday, and after they met face-to-face with President Obama in the White House on Monday. Despite then-candidate Barack Obama's explicit promises to the American people, absolutely none of these meetings were open to the public or televised on C-SPAN. In fact, Politico reports: "Those involved in the talks sought to keep details of their progress under wraps."

And just what deals were Big Labor, the leftist majorities in Congress and the Obama administration making behind closed doors? How to pay for President Obama's likely $1 trillion health care plan without raising taxes on one of the President's most loyal constituencies: labor unions. Specifically, Big Labor reportedly has struck a deal with health care negotiators to exempt union members from the 40% excise tax on high-priced health insurance premiums. By some estimates, the tax would hit one in four union members. Now Big Labor will get all of the big government health care spending they always wanted, but they will not have to pay for it.

And Obamacare's Big Labor handouts don't end there. The legislation also sets aside $5 billion to subsidize the costs of employer health benefits for early retirees. As Heritage fellow James Sherk notes, few nonunion employers, of course, pay pension and health benefits for workers to retire at 55. And then there's the small business exemption from the employer mandate for businesses with less than 50 employees. At first this applied to all small businesses, but after aggressive lobbying by Big Labor, non-unionized construction businesses were unexempted. Big Labor lobbyists explicitly admitted they wanted to use Obamacare's job-killing employer mandates as a competitive advantage to drive non-unionized firms out of business.

So where does the White House and Congress propose to regain the revenue lost from exempting unions from the health care excise tax? The people who fund job creation: investors. The Obama administration wants to apply the Medicare payroll tax not just to wages but to capital gains, and for the first time ever, to dividends and other forms of investment income. This tax will hit seniors the hardest since many of them live off their dividend and interest income, in addition to their pension and Social Security checks. But it also hurts us all since high taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest and business income increase the cost of capital, thus depressing investment at the very time the economy needs new investment to grow and create jobs.

Big Labor's high wages and inflexible work rules have already bankrupted our nation's once proud automobile industry. Across the country, their early retirement and exorbitant pensions are bankrupting states. The health insurance excise tax was once the signature health care spending cost cutter of Obama's entire health care plan. Now it has been gutted at the altar of Big Labor power. The big loser in all of these cases is you, the American taxpayer.

BIG LABOR IS BANKRUPTING OUR COUNTRY

Since unions played a large part in bankrupting our country, it seems only fitting they are now playing a major role in this administration. Our country has turned upside down. Gone are the days when private businesses provide jobs for the unions. Now it's the government providing them.

If we are going to put America back to work, America has to bring the jobs back home. Unions priced themselves out of every market they touched, which is why we either don't have that particular industry, or it went overseas.

The Heritage Foundation writes:


Big Labor Is Bankrupting Our Country
November 13, 2009

Last month when the White House released its visitor log for the first six months of the Obama presidency, one name appeared far more often than any other: Service Employee International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern. Stern has every right to expect to be welcome in the Obama White House. He has repeatedly bragged about the fact that under his leadership, the SEIU spent $60.7 million to elect Barack Obama president. And what is Stern buying with his $60.7 million besides White House tours? Ever expanding federal government programs and state government bailouts which are rapidly bankrupting our country.

Unlike his predecessor, John Sweeney, who came up the ranks after starting with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Stern entered the labor movement when the SEIU organized his shop when he was working as a welfare case worker for the State of Pennsylvania. Stern’s public sector entrance into labor is by no means an anomaly. In fact, for the first time ever in American history, preliminary estimates of union membership for 2009 show that most union members now work for either the local, state, or federal government.

Heritage scholar James Sherk has the numbers: “The overall unionization rate between January and September 2009 stood at 12.4%, unchanged from last year. However, this difference masks a large difference between unions in the private and public sectors. Union membership has fallen to 7.3% of private sector workers – the lowest rate since Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. But it is a completely different story in the public sector: 37.6% of government employees belong to unions, up almost a percentage point since last year. Those 7.9 million unionized government employees are 51% of all union members nationwide.”

The days when “union member” meant an American working in a steel plant, or coal mine, or auto factory are gone. Today, unions are dependent on government, not the private sector, for their livelihood. Therefore, unions like the SEIU have little interest in private sector job growth. Private sector jobs don’t help fund $60.7 million political campaigns. But government jobs do. The change in incentives has been devastating to American taxpayers. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Steven Malanga explains why:

In the private sector … employers who are too generous with pay and benefits will be punished. In the public sector, however, more union members means more voters. And more voters means more dollars for political campaigns to elect sympathetic politicians who will enact higher taxes to foot the bill for the upward arc of government spending on workers.

Heritage’s Sherk details just some of the ways we have already witnessed this:

• In Oregon, the labor movement is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund two ballot initiatives to raise personal income and business taxes. The unions want tax hikes instead of cuts in the gold-plated medical benefits for state workers.
• In California, the SEIU spent $1 million on a television ad campaign pressing for higher oil, gas, and liquor taxes instead of spending reductions.
• However, in Washington, state Democrats have so far resisted the labor movement’s call for higher taxes. In response labor unions are threatening to fund primary campaigns against the Democrats who oppose the tax hikes.

The United Auto Workers already made General Motors and Chrysler so uncompetitive they had to be bailed out by President Obama. But who will Obama turn to when Stern’s SEIU has bankrupted us?


QUICK HITS

After spending more money on new programs in his first nine months than Bill Clinton did in his entire eight years, President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year’s State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit.

Following last week’s announcement that the nation’s unemployment rate hit 10.2%, President Obama will hold a “jobs summit” next month.

According to Gallup, more Americans now say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage (50%) than say it is (47%).

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told KOMO News in Seattle it is “very fair” to send people to jail for not buying health insurance.

Obama Sneaks Through “Union Only” Order Shutting 8 in 10 Construction Workers Out of Federal Projects

In an attempt to pay back his Union contributors, Obama is adding to the unemployment disaster. Millions and millions of small businesses choose to operate non-union, as is their right. They are now being boycotted by this administration -- another example of Hope & Change.

RedState reports:


Barack Obama Sneaks Through “Union Only” Order Shutting 8 in 10 Construction Workers Out of Federal Projects
By Erick Erickson, September 1, 2009

There has not been a lot of coverage of this. It happened back in July and is only now winding its way through the federal system.

Barack Obama and his administration are about to significantly drive up the costs of federal building construction. This is an astonishing reach. The Office of Management and Budget has directed that any federal construction over $25 million benefit unions.

The order would make all federal construction projects 10-20% more expensive by requiring all contractors to either use union workers or apply inefficient union apprenticeship and work rules to their employees. Contractors would also be required to make contributions to union pension funds and other union programs that non-union workers will never benefit from.

This will hugely drive up the cost of construction of federal buildings and line the pockets of unions without even having union workers involved in the projects. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that only 15.6% of private construction workers in America belong to unions. In other words, 8 out of 10 construction workers in America will be legally denied the right to work on federal building projects.

This is appalling.

Great news in the midst of a recession, right?

Democrats Echo Truman and Threaten to Nationalize Internet

In another attempt to nationalize America, Obama moves closer to obtaining sweeping authority over the Internet and silence opposition.

A revealing op-ed in RedState:


Democrats Echo Truman and Threaten to Nationalize Internet
By Neil Stevens, August 29, 2009

In 1952, during the Korean War, the United Steel Workers of America had gone out on strike. The union was demanding pay increases beyond what steel firms said they could afford to pay, unless they were to raise prices beyond what would be approved by the government’s Wage Stablization Board (set up for the war to attempt to keep costs in line despite inflationary government policies).

President Harry Truman, Democrat, unilaterally declared the steel firms to be at fault for the strikes, which were set to cripple Defense contractors’ ability to keep the war supplied. So, the President nationalized America’s steel manufacturing plants with the plan of dictating his own terms to the unions, appeasing them as part of his political base, while keeping afloat an early front of the Cold War.

The Supreme Court two months later shut the President down, denying the administration’s claim that he had broad implied or residual powers to do whatever he wanted as President of the United States. Had he relied on the Selective Service Act to take control, he might have gotten away with it, but he refused to use it because it had too many pesky controls to protect property rights. Had he relied on Taft-Hartley to stop the strikes, he might have gotten away with it, but he refused to use it because the unions were his allies.

So today, it is surely with the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube co. vs Sawyer in mind that the Congress debates giving President Barack Obama, Democrat, sweeping authority over Internet Service Providers, including the authority to nationalize whatever Internet resources he declares to be important.

S. 773, a bill by West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Democrat, has a 55-page draft bill that would create new “emergency” powers for the President, a ‘cybersecurity’ Enabling Act of sorts, that would give the President the authority broad powers over any “non-governmental” computer networks, whether public or private, that are declared by the President to be “critical.”

On its own, this power is already dangerous, and even frightening to anyone in the industry. Whether large or small, we all who operate on the Internet invest in online capital. Large firms spend billions on the task, and now the Democrats want to nationalize it at the drop of a hat. This is threatened theft on a scale not usually seen outside banana Republics.

These powers extend beyond declared emergencies, however. Rockefeller’s bill would immediately grant the ability of the government to control hiring and firing of jobs related to these so-called critical networks, because the President could unilaterally declare that jobs related to those networks would be required to be filled by people certified to the task by the government. And much like with the car dealerships, the Obama administration is fully expected to use its power to favor political allies for these jobs by granting or denying certification depending on your level of donations to Obama for America or the Democratic National Committee.

Elections have consequences, and all those people who told themselves that Democrats would leave the Internet alone now have a lesson to learn regarding letting the scorpion of big government onto their backs. But it is not too late, and we all now can unite against the socialist threat now looming over the Internet.

Unions Fighting for 10 Billion Dollar (Healthcare) Payoff

It's pay-back time for all the Union campaign contributions, but it's coming out of the tax payers pocket -- 10 BILLION dollars worth. There's so many parts of this government run health care bill that is wrong, and here's another example.

RedState reports:


Unions Fighting for 10 Billion Dollar Payoff in Health Care Rationing Bill.
Because Heaven forbid that they *pay* for what they did, of course.
By Moe Lane, August 24, 2009

Which, even by modern (read: “Democratic party”) standards, is a fairly big number:

"$10B aimed at union retirees

WASHINGTON — Antilabor forces say it’s welfare for the UAW and Democrats’ union allies. Labor supporters say it falls short of what’s needed as tens of thousands of union members are pushed into early retirement as employers cut back health care coverage.

They’re both talking about a $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills that could help the UAW’s retiree health-care plan and other union-backed plans.

It would see the government — at least temporarily — pay 80 cents on the dollar to corporate and union insurance plans for claims between $15,000 and $90,000 for retirees age 55 to 64."

These would be the (generous) health care plans that the UAW essentially extorted out of the auto industry. Also note that this is in addition to the percentage of the auto industries already traded to labor unions in exchange for assumption of obligations stemming from those health care plans. And now the expectation is that the unions will be able to pass along the costs of early retirees to the government - which is to say, you. Put another way: fully one percent of the health care rationing bill’s minimum final cost will go towards rewarding the UAW’s original health-care looting.

As Ed Morrissey notes: at least now you know why the unions have sent out their bully-boys.