-By Warner Todd Huston Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, has an interesting expose in the Washington Examiner revealing how the U.S. government has decided to allow an obviously illegal fund-raising scheme that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) invented to fuel its spending on political causes and campaigns. The SEIU
Visit link:
SEIU’s Illegal Fund-Raising Scheme
Photoshop: Conservative Arts America’s voter rolls are a mess. But you can’t count on the Department of Social Justice and corruptocrat Attorney General Eric Holder to clean them up. It’s another job the feds won’t do. Time for ordinary citizens to step up to the plate. Thanks to a provision in federal law, you can pick up the slack. Former DOJ attorney/whistleblower J. Christian Adams fills you in at Pajamas Media: In November 2009, political appointee Julie Fernandes told the entire assembled DOJ Voting Section that the Obama administration would not enforce the list maintenance provisions of Section 8. Section 8 “doesn’t have anything to do with increasing minority turnout,” Fernandes said. “We don’t have any interest in enforcing that part of the law.” End of story. At the same time, Fernandes stressed that the DOJ would vigorously enforce the welfare agency registration provisions of Section 7. She made these lawless instructions in front of me and dozens of other shocked Voting Section lawyers. The DOJ has never once denied that Fernandes gave these instructions, nor has the DOJ countermanded them. This lawless policy couldn’t have a partisan motivation, could it? Now, Americans are left to clean up the voter rolls on their own. Thankfully, Motor Voter provides a private right of action — that means private citizens can bring lawsuits against states and voter registrars who are allowing dead and ineligible voters to taint the voter rolls. Americans are used to getting the job done themselves. Reliance on government tends to disappoint. Using this private right of action, I have given sixteen states the legal notice required to alert them that they have violated Section 8 of Motor Voter. I am working with private citizens across the nation to help ensure that the elections in November aren’t plagued by ineligible voters… …Every two years, states must report to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) information about their voter rolls. The latest report is troubling. South Dakota, Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Indiana report in excess of a dozen counties with more registered voters than living people old enough to vote. Having more voters than living humans tells you something is wrong. In West Virginia, one county reported 113% of the voting age population was registered to vote. Baltimore, Maryland, reported 104% of voting age citizens on the rolls. Iowa and North Carolina also reported counties with more voters than living citizens of voting age. All of these states received a notice letter. Ponce de Leon wasted his time looking for the fountain of youth in Florida — he should have gone to Maryland, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Oregon, or Tennessee. These states report that they didn’t remove a single dead voter from 2006 to 2008 . Some of the dead registered voters were resurrected on election day and cast ballots. These states also received a notice letter. Much more at Election Law Center. Nicole Marrone, another former DOJ attorney, has related reporting at PJM on Philly’s dirty voter rolls. Another swamp in need of do-it-yourself grass-roots draining. *** More from Washington Times: Dead in Ohio, but still voting And much more from Washington Times’ Quin Hilyer : This developing scandal of mystery voters and dead voters resurrects the story about the Justice Department’s own website showing more substantial efforts to help felons reacquire voting privileges – even though the department has no statutory authority to do so – than to help ensure the opportunity for military personnel overseas to have their votes cast and counted on time. From top to bottom, the Justice Department appears to be rigging voting-law enforcement in favor of interest groups usually seen to favor Democratic candidates. If so, the department is aiding and abetting vote fraud. Either way, this a major scandal that shouldn’t be buried.
See more here:
Voter rolls: We see dead people. Does the DOJ?
Blazing Cat Fur’s been looking into the Muslim Brotherhood’s initiative to open an Islamic school in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It turns out that the leadership of Muslim Association of Canada’s Edmonton chapter is preparing lawsuits against ” a handful of ‘people exhibiting Islamophobia’ .” And there’s more at Point de Bascule, ” Who Is Behind the Islamic School Being Planned For West Edmonton? “: Many citizens living in the Lessard district of West Edmonton have expressed their concerns regarding the opening of an Islamic school in their community by the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. Itsmotto is: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our constitution. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope”. Shortly after some citizens expressed concerns in the West End News about the background of the promoters of this K-9 school, CTV and the Edmonton Sun reported that the Edmonton chapter of the MAC threatened the local paper with a civil suit. Instead of trying to defuse the concerns of the citizens by explaining how their goals and objectives were compatible with individual freedom, the MAC’s leaders in Edmonton are trying to silence their critics. Point de Bascule (Tipping Point) has been set up to expose the subtle ways used by Islamists to promote their agenda. The text that follows focuses on identifying the objectives pursued by the Muslim Brotherhood and it provides many links towards various statements made by its leaders in the past. Another text will follow in the coming days that will deal more specifically with the tactic of legal warfare frequently used by the Islamists to prevent any discussion about their agenda. The concerns expressed by the citizens of Lessard are not only justified, they should be taken into consideration by the authorities. Up to now, the government has been silent on the issue. The citizens have no other choice but to challenge the Islamists willing to abuse the legal system in order to shut down responsible inquiry. That sounds familiar. Read all about it here .
Read more from the original source:
Who Is Behind the Islamic School Being Planned For West Edmonton?
Thugs-in-chief My syndicated column today takes on the rise of President Obama’s best new Big Labor buddy, Richard Trumka — whose looming presence on the political scene I first flagged in April . As we noted last week, he’s got a combined $88 million war chest with his labor alliance and a Marxist get-out-the-vote force behind him. When they are through, they’ll make the SEIU Purple Army’s political expenditures (and its thuggery ) look like a pittance. On a related note, the NLRB (with SEIU attorney Craig Becker recess-appointed onto the catbird’s seat) is set to launch an assault on workers’ rights to a secret ballot to remove an unwanted union. See here . Card check through the back door. Who needs the legislative front door? And yesterday on Megyn Kelly’s show, I noted that union members can opt out of having their hard-earned dues used for political purposes. Several readers e-mailed that they had never heard of the process by which this was possible and wanted to know how they could do it. Here are your rights as a union worker. Here is a backgrounder on the permissible use of forced dues. Here’s my 1999 column on how public school teachers in Washington state challenged their union over their political dues power grab. Free speech not only means the freedom to voice your political views, but also the freedom from being forced to pay for someone else’s. U.S. Supreme Court precedent established by the D.C.-based National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation guarantees the right to full financial disclosure from a union and a right to challenge the figures in court if they disagree. Spread the word. *** Big Labor’s legacy of violence by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2010 To mark Labor Day 2010, President Obama will join hands with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in Milwaukee and pose as champions of the working class. Bad move. Trumka’s organizing record is a shameful reminder of the union movement’s violent and corrupt foundations. The new Obama/AFL-CIO power alliance — underwritten with $40 million in hard-earned worker dues — is a midterm shotgun marriage of Beltway brass knuckles and Big Labor brawn. Trumka warmed up his rhetorical muscles this past week with full-frontal attacks on former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. He indignantly accused her of “getting close to calling for violence” and suggested that her criticism of Tea Party-bashing labor bosses amounted to “ terrorizing ” workers. Trumka and Obama will cast Big Labor as an unassailable force for good in American history. But when it comes to terrorizing workers, Trumka knows whereof he speaks. Meet Eddie York. He was a workingman whose story will never scroll across Obama’s teleprompter. A nonunion contractor who operated heavy equipment, York was shot to death during a strike called by the United Mine Workers 17 years ago. Workmates who tried to come to his rescue were beaten in an ensuing melee. The head of the UMW spearheading the wave of strikes at that time? Richard Trumka. Responding to concerns about violence, he shrugged to the Virginian-Pilot in September 1993: “I’m saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned.” Incendiary rhetoric, anyone? A federal jury convicted one of Trumka’s UMW captains on conspiracy and weapons charges in York’s death. According to the Washington, D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, which tracks Big Labor abuse, Trumka’s legal team quickly settled a $27 million wrongful death suit filed by York’s widow just days after a judge admitted evidence in the criminal trial. An investigative report by Reader’s Digest disclosed that Trumka “did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local.” In Illinois, Trumka told UMW members to “kick the s**t out of every last” worker who crossed his picket lines, according to the Nashville (Ill.) News. And as the National Right to Work Foundation (pdf), the leading anti-forced unionism organization in the country, pointed out, other UMW coalfield strikes resulted in what one judge determined were “violent activities … organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.” Trumka washed off the figurative bloodstains and moved up the ranks. As AFL-CIO secretary, he notoriously refused to testify in a sordid 1999 embezzlement trial involving his labor boss brethren at the Teamsters Union. No surprise. Thugs of a feather: Trumka’s violence-promoting record echoes the riotous Teamsters strikes dating back to the 1950s, when the union organized taxicab companies to target workers with gas bombs, bottles and fists. And now, Trumka is spearheading a Democratic Party get-out-the-vote campaign by far-left groups — publicized in the revolutionary Marxist People’s World — to “energize an army of tens of thousands who will return to their neighborhoods, churches, schools and voting booths to prevent a Republican takeover of Congress in November and begin building a new permanent coalition to fight for a progressive agenda.” Take those as literal fighting words. The bloody consequences of compulsory unionism cannot be ignored. *** Related Labor Day weekend reading: Compulsory Unionism as a Fraternal Conceit? Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work Movement by Harry G. Hutchison, UC Davis Law Journal.
See more here:
Big Labor’s legacy of violence
Emetic of the day: Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign clinging to his seat, begging donors to fatten up his anemic legal defense fund, and blaming liberals for all his self-inflicted problems. Pathetic : Sen. John Ensign is asking supporters for donations to pay lawyers defending him in ongoing ethics investigations, insisting he is “absolutely” innocent of allegations stemming from an extramarital affair and efforts to help the woman’s husband find new work. “As difficult as it is for me to ask you, I need your help to refute these charges and wage a successful legal defense,” the Nevada Republican wrote in a fundraising letter his office said was sent out late last week. In seeking contributions of up to $10,000 to a defense fund, Ensign blamed a “liberal organization” for his legal woes after it filed an ethics complaint against him. The executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington disputed the description, saying the group was an equal opportunity watchdog. CREW may lean left, but they have indeed been equal opportunity when it comes to holding Democrats as well as Republicans accountable for ethics/corruption scandals. “Liberals” aren’t to blame for Ensign cheating on his wife with a campaign staffer and allegedly trying to pay off the staffer and her husband with hush money funneled through his parents. Ensign is like one of the cartoon kids from “Family Circus,” pointing to the NOT ME gremlin for his actions instead of looking in the mirror and practicing the personal responsibility Republicans so often publicly preach. As I’ve said before: Corruptocrats don’t deserve indulgence. They deserve a swift kick in the ass. Flashback August 2, 2010: I repeat: John Ensign needs to go away Flashback May 18, 2010: The GOP Crapweasel Club Flashback July 9, 2009: Ensign continues to drag GOP down
Today’s column targets SEIU consigliere Craig Becker and the latest White House gift to Big Labor. So far this summer, Team Obama is fronting the SEIU-backed $8 billion Child Nutrition Act expansion and forked over the union-stamped $26 billion BigGovJobs bailout. And as I noted yesterday, the next big government/labor payoff is on the way in the form of the PBGC bailout. How many more union payoffs can we afford?! Obama’s Big Labor ethics loophole by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2010 Everything you need to know about President Obama’s fraudulent ethics pledge can be summed up in four words: SEIU lawyer Craig Becker. Becker is the left-wing lawyer Obama sneakily installed on the National Labor Relations Board. The U.S. Senate rejected Becker’s nomination on a 52-33 cloture vote in February. Obama responded by flipping the bird and ramming through his recess appointment during the congressional spring break. (The New York Times approvingly dubbed it a “muscular show of his executive authority.” When that authority was exercised by GOP President George W. Bush, of course, the Times editorial board called it a “constitutional gimmick.” ) Despite the White House’s much-heralded policy of binding every executive appointee to strict conflict-of-interest guidelines, a defiant Becker now remains free to rule on cases involving his former Big Labor bosses. And the most ethical administration in U.S. history isn’t doing a thing to stop him. While serving as an associate general counsel for both the SEIU and AFL-CIO in 2009, Becker generously lent his legal expertise to the White House. He served as an Obama transition team member for labor issues and helped draft several union-backed executive orders. These new rules essentially blackball non-union contractors targeted by labor organizers and blacklist non-union employees in the private sector from working on taxpayer-funded projects. Another union protectionist measure immediately adopted by Obama requires that when a government service contract runs out — and there’s a new contract to perform the same services at the same location — the new contractor must retain the old workers. Such regulatory favoritism limits freedom in the workplace and raises the cost of doing business. This suits Becker and his White House champions (who reaped $60 million in SEIU campaign donations and support in 2008) just fine. Becker’s anti-business views date back to his days as a UCLA professor, when he argued that unions should not be subject to the same rules of democracy and fair elections as everyone else. He favors radical rewriting of union organizing rules and elimination of the secret ballot process by administrative fiat. It’s no surprise that Becker now refuses to hold himself accountable for the ethics pledge he himself signed in April. As the past two years have taught us, Team Obama’s operational slogan is: Rules are for fools. The contractual ethics commitment states: “I will not for a period of two years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.” Yet, Becker has participated in numerous NLRB cases involving the SEIU and its affiliates — and is parsing the definition of “former employer” by arguing that local SEIU chapters are “separate and distinct legal entities” that don’t fall under the ethics rules. The National Right to Work Foundation , which has fought both national and local SEIU officials in court on behalf of rank-and-file workers’ rights, eviscerates Becker’s lawyerly blather. SEIU’s own constitution considers local affiliates “constituent subordinate bodies” of the national union, the foundation notes. “Moreover, in 2009 over 85 percent of the SEIU’s receipts came from a per capita tax on the locals’ membership dues and fees. The national union even has the power to assume control over its locals if they do not conform to International policies.” In any case, Becker has also acknowledged playing a key role in providing “advice and counsel” to the powerful SEIU affiliate in Illinois “relating to proposed executive orders and proposed legislation giving homecare workers a right to organize and engage in collective bargaining under state law.” Championed by Big Labor water-carrier and disgraced former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich and current SEIU-endorsed Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, such measures effectively bust into private homes for the Purple Shirts of the SEIU and other union competitors hungry for new dues-paying members. Now, Becker is in the catbird seat — adjudicating challenges to the power grab rules he helped author. Little did America know that when candidate Obama promised the SEIU he would “open up the doors of government” to them, he’d give them the keys to our living rooms , too.
Read more:
Summer of corruption: Obama’s Big Labor ethics loophole
