Patterico's Pontifications

3/6/2012

Hello, Super Tuesday

Filed under: 2012 Election — Karl @ 2:57 pm



[Posted by Karl]

Who could hang a name on you?  Here’s the big Google/AP Map for tracking results in the various contests tonight.  Nate Silver provides a range of possibilities for gauging the expectations game.  My own preview should give you an idea of how the delegates may stack up as the votes are announced.  ABC News has a decent round-up of the narratives that will invariably follow.  And not to be a wet blanket, but it is all-but-mathematically-impossible for Gingrich or Santorum to win a majority of delegates at this point.  So it’s Romney or a brokered convention (with all the downsides that would bring).

Discuss.

–Karl

Top LulzSec Members Arrested after Leader Cooperated with FBI

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:36 pm



Top members of LulzSec, an Anonymous splinter group thought to be responsible for the Stratfor hack in December, were arrested this morning when it was revealed that their leader, anonymouSabu, had been cooperating with the FBI since August.

Barrett Brown claimed his residence had been raided by the FBI, but told the New York Times that he had had advance word of the raid and had hidden his laptops.

More later when I get time . . .

You know who doesn’t think Obama won the election already?

Filed under: 2012 Election — Karl @ 9:58 am



[Posted by Karl]

Barack Obama.  There is bipartisan doomsaying about the GOP, but he does not believe it.  No, in recent weeks Barack Obama has flip-flopped to take SuperPAC money, because GOP groups are raising so much.  He reportedly told Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi there would be no cash transfers to the DCCC or DSCC from OFA or the DNC before Election Day.  He reportedly will lower himself to joint appearances with Bill Clinton at a series of fundraisers, including one aimed at the financial services industry.

Today, Obama will hold his first press conference since October 2011, after months of hand-picked media ops — just coincidentally scheduled for Super Tuesday.  Desperate to steal the spotlight much?  With Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in town, he will hope to focus on foreign policy and remind people he is CINC for now.  Highlighting foreign policy is a tried-and-true tactic for presidents foundering at home.  Or maybe he hopes to extend the MSM/DNC distraction on birth control.  After all, Obama’s campaign to convince voters that “America is back” is a dud — which is not surprising, given that there has been no recovery for the 99 percent.

In short, Barack Obama is desperate to raise the money he thinks he needs to get reelected.  He is desperate to steer the conversation away from the issues Americans care about — the problems he failed to fix with solutions the public rejects.  Let the pundits and politicos say whatever they want.  Watch what Obama does, and it’s a different story.

–Karl

Front Groups for the SEIU . . . and the Teamsters . . . and ACORN!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:44 am



The Daily Caller reports on a number of front groups for the SEIU. This post expands on the Daily Caller report, and shows that the front groups are not merely tied to the SEIU, but also to the Teamsters — and to a descendant of our old friend ACORN.

The Daily Caller piece explains:

The politically aggressive Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has quietly created a national network of at least eight community-organizing groups, some of which function alongside the Occupy Wall Street movement, a Daily Caller investigation shows.

Incorporated by the SEIU as local non-profits, the groups are waging concerted local political campaigns to publicly attack conservative political figures, banks, energy companies and other corporations.

Each local group has portrayed itself as an independent community organization not tied to any special interest. But they were founded, incorporated, and led by SEIU personnel.

The front groups, which operate as 501(c)(4) non-profit organizations, pretend to engage in grassroots activity, such as going to a Republican senator’s office, and claiming to be unemployed D.C. residents demanding that the senator meet with them concerning an Obama jobs bill. The only problem is that the puppeteers are not far behind:

A source told the Daily Caller that while African-American and Hispanic protesters sat in McConnell’s office, two Caucasian women from Our DC directed the protesters from the hallway. The staffers called reporters, operated laptops and posted messages to Twitter.

As Rick Perry might say: “oops.”

Despite these groups’ utter lack of transparency, the Daily Caller provides extensive evidence tying these groups to the SEIU. For example:

An SEIU-tied Washington, D.C. law firm incorporated each of them. The founding board members are solely SEIU executives and organizers. In each city the founding addresses match those of SEIU locals.

In addition to that and other evidence, the Daily Caller tells us that the IP addresses of the front groups’ web sites tie back to an SEIU server.

Good stuff, and excellent research.

A tipster provides me with more, giving me further links and ties between one of the front groups and several unions and “community organizing” organizations. In addition to finding ties to Son of ACORN and the Teamsters — the main thrust of this post — my tipster also found more evidence tying one of the front groups named by the Daily Caller to the SEIU.

That organization is Houston-based “Good Jobs = Great Houston,” a non-profit, like most of these other groups . . . and a group tied to unions, ACORN descendants, and other parts of the institutional left.

For example, a visit to the Good Jobs = Great Houston web site reveals the following disclaimer, which shows a direct tie to the SEIU:

F. Warranty Disclaimer

THIS WEBSITE IS PROVIDED TO YOU “AS IS.” YOU AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SEIU WEBSITE SHALL BE AT YOUR SOLE RISK. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, GOOD JOBS=GREAT HOUSTON, AS WELL AS ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS (COLLECTIVELY, GOOD JOBS=GREAT HOUSTON), DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN CONNECTION WITH THE WEBSITE AND YOUR USE THEREOF. GOOD JOBS=GREAT HOUSTON CANNOT AND DOES NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, CURRENTNESS, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OF THE SITE’S CONTENT OR THE CONTENT OF ANY SITES LINKED TO THIS SITE. NOR DOES GOOD JOBS=GREAT HOUSTON GUARANTEE THAT THE WEBSITE WILL BE ERROR FREE, OR CONTINUOUSLY AVAILABLE, OR THAT THE WEBSITE WILL BE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. THE SEIU PARTIES DO NOT WARRANT, GUARANTEE, OR ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY PRODUCT OR SERVICE PROVIDED, ADVERTISED OR OFFERED BY A THIRD PARTY THROUGH THE GOOD JOBS=GREAT HOUSTON WEBSITE OR ANY HYPERLINKED WEBSITE OR FEATURED IN ANY BANNER OR OTHER ADVERTISING.

Man, that’s funny. Let’s screenshot it in case they try to scrub it:

Yeah, that seems pretty direct all right. Did they mean to leave the legal language so revealing? As Rick Perry might say, again: oops!

There is other evidence tying this organization to SEIU. Take a look at the following magical address:

4299 San Felipe, Suite 200
Houston, TX 77027

That very special address — right down to the suite number! — is the address of three “coalition partners” of Good Jobs = Great Houston: Mi Familia Vota, Hope Local 123, and SEIU Local 1. All four list the same office address, and the 2 unions link to the same page. And SEIU Local 5 in Houston is at the same address and suite number. Fancy that.

Next we have . . .

The Teamsters Connection

Teamsters Online described a “community canvasser” job with Good Jobs=Great Houston! as being a “Teamster Job”:

And while the link appears to be dead, a Twitter site calling itself “Union Jobs” advertised the same job:

And then we have . . .

The ACORN connection

Here’s where it gets really interesting.

Here is the contact info for Good Jobs = Great Houston. Please take special note of the address:

Contact Us

Good Jobs=Great Houston
2955 Gulf Freeway
Houston, TX 77007

Phone: 713-236-8245
Fax: 713-236-8279

Google and real estate listings show that address to be a combination office space/warehouse. Check here and here and here.

Coincidentally, this is the same address as that of the Texas Organizing Project:

Houston Office:
2955 Gulf Freeway Suite B
Houston, TX 77003

832-387-5845
info@organizetexas.org

Oddly enough, the “Texas Organizing Project” is a “coalition partner” of Good Jobs = Great Houston.

And the really fun part is: the Texas Organizing Project? Yeah, that would be the new name for ACORN in Texas:

State chapters have incorporated themselves under new names. New York became New York Communities for Change. California became Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Texas became Texas Organizing Project.

So Good Jobs = Great Houston and Texas Organizing Project (Son of ACORN) are not just “coalition partners,” but also make their address in the same warehousey location in Houston.

Hmmmm.

You could do the same exercise with virtually all these groups, and probably find all kinds of union ties. I think the ACORN tie surprised me the most least.

Keep in mind that the front groups pretend to be independent, grassroots organizations. Even as their puppeteers direct their actions, and organize under the auspices of well-funded unions, they claim non-profit status, and would have you believe they are genuine grassroots groups.

Hahahahahahahahhaha. Uh, not so much.

If Andrew Breitbart were alive today, this is the kind of shenanigans by the institutional left he would want us to expose. Nice work by the Daily Caller . . . and my tipster.

We are all Breitbart!


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