Andy Stern & Barack Obama: Fiscal responsibility fraudsters
Obama, Burger, Stern – Birds of a corrupted feather…
My column today hammers again at President Obama’s appointment of Andy Stern to the phony fiscal responsibility panel (see Feb. 22, Biggest sign that White House deficit panel is a joke: O wants to appoint Andy Stern, for background). Fresh from today’s headlines, there’s a new rank-and-file union member revolt against Stern’s corruptocrats in San Francisco. The morons at Soros-backed Media Matters falsely frame the disgust with Stern as “right-wing.” Get a clue. It’s the witnesses to his corruption inside the SEIU who know the fraudster best.
Andy Stern & Barack Obama: Fiscal responsibility fraudsters
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
Everything you need to know about President Obama’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and cost containment can be summed up in two words: Andy Stern. The profligate, corruption-coddling head of the powerful Service Employees International Union was named to the White House debt commission last week. If President Obama thinks Andy Stern holds the cure for our government spending woes, you can be certain his latest health care prescription will be fiscal hemlock.
Obama extolled Stern and his other federal debt panel appointees as “distinguished individuals” who’ll bring a “sense of integrity” to the job. Tell that to rank-and-file SEIU members across the country who have watched their hard-earned dues go down the tubes under Stern’s thugocracy. While fatcat union bosses toss hundreds of millions of dues into Democrat coffers, low-wage SEIU members’ pension funds are eroding and the organization’s debt is piling up. And the union remains under investigation by federal prosecutors for potential illegal lobbying activities at the White House.
More damning: As head of the 2.2 million-member labor union, Stern directly installed a cadre of labor management stooges embroiled in financial scandals across the country.
SEIU crony Tyrone Freeman, like Barack Obama, began his career as an urban community organizer. In 1994, Stern plucked Freeman from Georgia and set his loyalist up as head of Local 6434, the sprawling home care workers’ chapter in southern California that represents an estimated 160,000 workers who make about $9 an hour caring for the elderly and disabled. Stern then named him a national vice president. It was part of Stern’s grander plan to consolidate power by merging locals into statewide chapters.
An extensive investigation by the Los Angeles Times exposed how Stern’s protégé siphoned off hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues money for his personal enrichment and pleasure. Moreover, the paper alleged, Stern helped cover up the scandal. Freeman lived large — piping $600,000 in union contracts to his wife’s video production and entertainment ventures. The local also paid his mother-in-law $8,000 a month to babysit his daughter and other union employees’ children; footed a $13,000 bill for membership at a Beverly Hills cigar club; and forked over $8,000 in union dues to cover expenses for Freeman’s Hawaiian wedding.
Stern’s hand-picked flunky also created a non-profit training shop called the “Homecare Workers Training Center” –— ostensibly to provide educational opportunities for nurses. In practice, the non-profit served as a conduit to subsidize a childcare business operated by Freeman’s mother-in-law. Freeman’s local also paid another $106,000 to Hollywood talent agency William Morris for “advice and counsel.” SEIU’s top officials were warned of Freeman’s plundering six years before the paper blew the whistle. After dragging its feet and being forced to act to quell public embarrassment over the Times investigations, SEIU finally threw Freeman under the bus. He rebounded with a new career as an L.A. sports agent.
Rickman Jackson, another Stern administration protégé and former chief of staff to Tyrone Freeman, headed Michigan’s largest SEIU chapter before being “reassigned” for three years to a staff organizing job after the revelation of financial shenanigans tied back to L.A.’s Local 6434. While collecting a six-figure annual salary in Michigan, Jackson was drawing a second salary in California and accepted $33,500 in housing payments on a residence listed as the business address of Freeman’s bogus housing non-profit corporation.
Another Stern administration protégé, Annelle Grajeda, rose to power after Stern installed her as president of the 80,000-member Local 721 in Los Angeles. She ascended to positions on the union’s state council and international executive board. Like Freeman and Jackson, Grajeda had been voted onto Stern’s official administration slate at the SEIU convention in 2008. Whistleblowers detailed how Grajeda’s ex-boyfriend, SEIU official Alejandro Stephens, collected multiple salaries and consultant fees from the union while also pocketing a salary as a Los Angeles County health services employee. Grajeda had arranged for her ex-lover to get an eight-month leave of absence from the job. He was fired after he refused to return to work. Grajeda quit her California posts after catching public flak and found a new job –— as special assistant to SEIU secretary-treasurer (and Obama economy panel appointee) Anna Burger in Washington, D.C. Grajeda now oversees efforts to “partner with the Obama administration” to secure more public funds for SEIU projects involving infrastructure and core public services including care for the elderly, health care, education and social services.
More recently, San Diego SEIU Local 221 came under fire last month for squandering dues on a cozy $107,000 severance package and consultancy deal for Stern’s former appointee Sharon Frances-Moore. Tyrone Freeman, Rickman Jackson, Annelle Grajeda, and Moore were all groomed by Stern and personally appointed by him to the posts they exploited. Like Obama, Stern has managed to pass the buck while pretending it stopped at his desk. These fiscal responsibility fraudsters now back a massive expansion of government’s role in health care they promise will rein in costs and root out fraud. Insert laugh track here.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
On Capitol Hill today: Union members testify against forced dues racket
February 8, 2012 09:44 AM by Michelle Malkin
36 CommentsGingrich channels open-borders SEIU; Rubio rebukes; Update:Newt retreats
January 25, 2012 10:56 AM by Michelle Malkin
155 Comments
The Year in Obama Scandals — and Scandal Deniers
December 28, 2011 12:04 PM by Michelle Malkin
122 Comments
Michelle Obama’s Unsavory School Lunch Flop
December 21, 2011 11:05 AM by Michelle Malkin
206 CommentsWhite House withdraws Craig Becker/NLRB nomination
December 15, 2011 02:57 PM by Michelle Malkin
20 Comments
Port Whine: Big Labor’s Occu-punks
December 14, 2011 09:31 AM by Michelle Malkin
91 CommentsYour guide to D12: Occupiers return to ports for West Coast shutdown; Updated: Back again tomorrow; ILWU official crows “rebirth of the labor movement”
December 12, 2011 03:52 AM by Michelle Malkin
200 CommentsLib media journos punked by fake SEIU press release
December 7, 2011 09:41 AM by Michelle Malkin
31 Comments
Capitol Hill plays Jesse Jackson, Jr. games: Docu-Dump and Kick the Can
December 5, 2011 04:55 AM by Michelle Malkin
53 Comments
Categories: SEIU
Riehl World View
» Whitney Houston: If I should stay I would only be in your wayPatterico
» Rick Santorum and the two playbooksGateway Pundit
» Barack The BenevolentRiehl World View
» Romney's Blood Is Blue, Not ConservativePundit & Pundette
» King Barack vs. the Nonconformists
Wiseguys in the Whitehouse.
Andy Stern & Barack Obama
Punch and Judy
Mutt and Jeff
all fluff, no substance.
Egads! It looks like a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show…. meets SAW III. Please tell me it can’t get worse.
What is their pension funding rate again? 65% you say! That’s some fiscal accumen there by golly!
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/02/video-the-partys-just-about-over-for-unions/
As Rahm Emmanuel might say: Even a f$$#@*kg! retard lawyer could figure out how to bring these crooks up on RICO charges. How can these people still be walking free?
…. much less be paraded before the public as model and responsible citizens?
They’re not Mutt and Jeff or Punch and Judy. They’re Bonnie and Clyde without the winsome personalities of the two latter-day bandits.
That works.
You all seem to misunderstand. They fervently believe in fiscal responsibility – with their own money(and the money they steal from their members) – it’s only a problem when they’re dealing with your money and my money. But once they start stealing from the taxpayers, they will be fiscally responsible with their loot – just try and get them to give some of it back, and watch what happens.
***
The conflicts of interest problems most of Comrade Obama’s (PBUH) government office appointments have is the worst I have ever seen–and I’m 68 years old. What happened to appointing people who serve us–not special interests?
***
Ex Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa Sr. would be proud of these people–if anybody could find him. Why not appoint Don Corleone head of the Justice Department? He would know a lot about Mafia hitmen that should “hep out” justice a lot! No problemo here.
***
Clean sweep in the 2010 and 2012 elections!
***
John Bibb
***
Bless you, Michelle. You’re one of the few true investigative reporters around.
STERN on any panel, is beyond the pale… Only one question, MR PRESIDENT, HAVE YOU NO SHAME???
Why aren’t taxpayers and union members ANGRIER when it is proven without a shadow of doubt they are being swindled? How bad will it have to get before we demand an end? Well we will find out soon enough.
This is why I only trust my dog; I taught him to stop humping my leg long ago.
Evil is ugly.
Racist!
Crooks and their cronies. Yes we can!
The appointment of Stern to me seals the deal. Obama is a thug and gangster. He will steal whatever he can for as long as he can. That is what Chicago politics is all about for those who have never visited the southside.
A person’s appearance is drastically altered immediately after selling one’s soul.
This is so very very wrong on so many levels! How can anyone in the media continue to ignore the fact that our country is burning to the ground and being destroyed by this corrupt government? The MSM is totally complicit in this and are therefore committing treason. This is not even debatable any more! I truly believe that Obama will be impeached before his first term is over.
At least there won’t be any use of weapons charges in these robberies.If that is any solace to anyone.
“A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.”
George Bernard Shaw
“But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been.”
John H. Reagan
Andy Stern, Barack Obama and George Soros are mortal like the rest of us.
They are all destined for a fall.
That Stern is anywhere near the White House is validation 0bowma speaks with a forked tongue.
When he jokes about people calling him a socialist he is hiding his smile underneath.
“If they only knew how right they are”
Criminals have no shame, or they wouldn’t be criminals.
I know several Union people who are only counting on their Union pension for retirement. I suspect they will be in for a surprise when the money the Uion says will be their won’t.