Obama Caught Between Two Masters - Goldman Sachs & SEIU - Part 2. SEIU

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First Published September 24, 2009

Obama Caught Between Two Masters - Goldman Sachs & SEIU - Part 2. SEIU

Radical even among unions, the Service Employees International Union has staked a name for itself building it's two million members not just by organizing the workplace but by stealing members from other long established unions.

The genius behind this radical labor movement is Andy Stern, yet another of the many Obama backers who were youthful members of the most radical organizations of the 1960's. Andy was in the socialist SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, before setting off on a life of organizing. To his credit, SDS was rather radical but never endorsed the use of terrorist bombings like other socialist groups.




Stern, perhaps the most loved and most hated member of the labor movement in modern America, began his career as a community organizer and never looked back. During his years as recruitment coordinator for the President of the AFL-CIO he consistently pushed for revitalization of the labor union movement and refocusing American unions to consolidate and gain bargaining power.

By 2005 he was head of the SEIU and was pushing his boss, John Sweeny, President of the AFL-CIO to make reforms or he would lead a walkout from the union federation. Sweeny balked and Stern made good on his threat. Within a year he formed the Change to Win (CTW) Labor Federation, getting the powerful Teamsters and five other unions to join forces with the SEIU. It was the first new labor federation in America in 50years.



Meanwhile he targeted other unions in a radical move to build his SEIU and his membership soared to 2 million this year, the largest labor union in America, with nearly 1 million health care workers. Parlaying the millions of dollars in membership dues and lack of unions in the health care industry Stern claims he spent $60.7 million to get Obama elected. It would be the largest union and special interest campaign financing ever given to a single candidate.

What was the price of the financing for Obama? Perhaps it is most obvious in the actions by the new president. Within ten days of becoming president, on January 30, 2009, Obama signed the first three Executive Orders wanted by the unions.

The first executive order requires employers with federal contracts above $100,000 in value to post a notice in the workplace informing their employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), including the right to join a union. This order also repeals Executive Order 13201, issued by President Bush in 2001, that required federal contractors and subcontractors to post so-called “Beck notices.” Such notices, named after the Supreme Court’s decision in Communication Workers v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988) informed employees covered under the NLRA that they could not be required to join a union or maintain union membership in order to retain their jobs and that employees who are subject to a union security clause and choose not to be union members may object to the purposes for which mandatory union dues are used.

The second order applies to federal contractors who provide services to government buildings. While there are several exemptions, under this new executive order, when a federal agency changes contractors, the new contractor will be required to offer jobs to the non-supervisory employees of its predecessor. This order is designed to try to ensure that when a unionized contractor is replaced, its successor will be obliged under existing labor laws to bargain with the original contractor’s labor union.

Finally, the third order prevents federal contractors from being reimbursed in federal funds for money spent to oppose (or support) union organizing efforts among their employees. The First Amendment prevents government from interfering with an employer’s right to voice its opinion on the merits of unionization. Similar measures have been enacted in some states, with respect to their state contractors, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that California ’s law to this effect was invalid because it was preempted by the National Labor Relations Act. Although a federal executive order is different than state legislation, there may be legal challenges to this executive order’s constitutionality, including a possible violation of the First Amendment. Unless and until the order is successfully challenged, however, federal contractors who still wish to oppose union organizing campaigns will need to consider the effects of this order on their ability to continue doing so without jeopardizing their federal contracts.




In another boost to organized labor, just six days later President Barack Obama on February 6, 2009, signed a fourth Executive Order, effective immediately, authorizing executive agencies of the federal government to require every contractor or subcontractor on a large-scale construction project to negotiate or become a party to a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) with one or more labor organizations. This is the fourth pro-labor Executive Order signed by President Obama since January 30th.

A PLA is a pre-hire collective bargaining agreement between contractors and one or more unions that establishes the terms and conditions of employment for a specific construction project. The stated rationale for this Order is that a PLA can promote the “efficient and expeditious completion of Federal construction contracts” by ensuring a “steady supply of labor” and the avoidance of “labor disputes” which can delay the project.

This Executive Order, which specifically revokes contrary Executives Orders issued by former President George W. Bush in 2001 and reinstates a Clinton-administration rule, was immediately hailed by organized labor. "This is yet another reason for working families to be grateful that we have a champion in the White House," Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa stated. In the same vein, Mark H. Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), praising President Obama, stated: “The Bush anti-PLA executive order was exactly the type of special interest-driven politics and policy that American voters rejected overwhelmingly last November…. [Project Labor Agreements] provide maximum benefit to construction users; union and non-union workers; union and non-union contractors; lenders and insurance companies; and taxpayers.”




This was only the beginning.

Though stymied on the Employee Free Choice Act, (the Card Check Act), abolishment of the secret ballot in elections which would make it easier for workers to form unions, organized labor claimed a big consolation prize: the massive application of a law guaranteeing “prevailing wages” for hundreds of thousands of construction workers hired under President Obama’s economic stimulus program.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood implemented guidelines to expand the scope of the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, according to a department spokesperson. LaHood’s action will put a floor under wages paid for the more than 578,000 construction jobs that the White House estimates will be created by the end of 2010. It also marks a sharp reversal of U.S. policy on public works projects under President Bush, who in September 2005 suspended Davis-Bacon in the Gulf States after Hurricane Katrina.

Such is the power of Stern that Obama once said he consulted with SEIU on every major decision he makes. Proof of the power is that the White House, when it became obvious that the Obama healthcare initiative was in danger of losing support and faced with a series of contentious town hall meeting in August, brought Stern and SEIU in to manage the campaign for approval.




Stern dispatched the SEIU mobile centers to coordinate town halls for nervous members of the House and Senate all over the nation. They were to control and counteract the opponents to the Obama healthcare proposals including filming events with their own video teams and feeding footage to the media to make the opponents look bad. Some say the tactics of the purple clad SEIU operatives was like thugs and one SEIU staffer was arrested for beating up an older man.




Even House Majority leader Steny Hoyer was fearful enough to hire SEIU to manage his town hall where they limited questions from the crowd to 20 total when over 1500 people were at the meeting and several hundred more were outside. Hoyer spent over one hour spouting the benefits of the Obama plan before people were allowed to take the mike and in spite of the SEIU efforts to control things the crowd began to boo his responses.

In September another victory for the unions when Obama imposed heavy import tax duties on imported Chinese tires at the request of labor unions, an action against that threatens to spark a trade war between the US and China. China has already threatened to add a tariff to imports of US poultry and vehicles. The action by Obama increased the 4% tariff on Chinese tires by 35%.

Now Congress is back and it is time to see if the big payoff is made to the SEIU, passage of health care reform that allows, even gives favorable treatment, to allow Stern to organize the health care industry in America. Over 17 million people work in health care and related social services in America. SEIU now represents about 1 million of these workers while the Communications Workers of America represents about 140,000 meaning the pool of non-unionized health care workers is huge.




SEIU expects to be the primary beneficiary of the health care reform using it to open doors to unionizing this massive prize. The union dues and lobbying wealth it would generate would dwarf current spending by the unions. A public option would make it even more desirable as public workers would be much easier to organize.

Unfortunately, the more SEIU has tried to function like a well oiled corporation the more difficulties it has encountered so it remains to be seen if Stern can wrap up the gigantic payback. If anyone can he can. However, his aggressive tactics have alienate many other unions and even some of the unions he has swallowed up are now protesting their treatment and threatening to withdraw from SEIU because of his heavy-handed tactics.

Corruption in SEIU is extensive, especially in California where battles between unions and between union leaders, most instigated by SEIU, threaten to tear apart the move to grow the unions. One union official in California calls Stern a "threat to the soul" of the union movement. Claims that members dues are being used to foster socialism and other causes not approved by members, even funding programs like the disgraced ACORN program, are a source of concern.




But the most serious threat to SEIU controlling the union movement in America may be the lavish spending to buy politicians, like the $60.7 million spent on Obama. Ironically, Obama and Congress may be the only thing standing between the union and bankruptcy. Stern led the condemnation of the greed and mismanagement on Wall Street. Now he stands to fall into the same trap as his Wall Street enemies.

According to the New York Daily News, in spite of the fact Stern undertook a bitter campaign against the Bank of America and even got the CEO thrown out last spring he was borrowing an astonishing $87.7 million from the bank at the same time. In another industry it would probably be called protection money. He borrowed another $15 million from the only union owned bank in America, the Amalgamated Bank. SEIU recently reported $33 million in assets and $102 million in liabilities.

The SEIU cannot afford delays in the payback by Congress and Obama, they need money and they need it fast. There are times the investor better have the money to invest before making the big jump. If SEIU spent $60.7 million on Obama and health care yet had to borrow $102 million to cover it the accounting does not seem to add up. It will be interesting to see if Obama, Pelosi and the Democrats can maintain the sense of urgency they need to approve the bill and help SEIU or if the public discovers the truth first.

In the tale of the two Masters, the SEIU has no chance against Goldman Sachs when it comes to deciding which master will win out with the Obama administration. Goldman has billions to manipulate while SEIU must borrow money to play the money game. So far the return to Goldman has already been in the billions of dollars while the token victories given to SEIU have not even made a dent in paying their debts.

Nor can SEIU match the vast army of former Goldman executives strategically placed throughout the Obama administration and throughout the world of finance and politics. No one has ever questioned the loyalty of this massive force. Andy Stern may have attended the Wharton School of Finance but Goldman wrote the course and probably financed the school's endowment fund.

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Obama Caught Between Two Masters - Goldman Sachs & SEIU - Part 1. Goldman Sachs

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First Published September 24, 2009

Obama Caught Between Two Masters - Goldman Sachs & SEIU - Part 1. Goldman Sachs

President Obama has taken on one of the most difficult jobs possible, trying to please two master with very different agendas. On the one hand is Goldman Sachs, the undisputed king of Wall Street and his long time corporate sponsor. On the other the more traditional sponsor of liberal Democrats the SEIU labor union, the Service Employees International Union. Of course there is nothing normal about either of these two contenders and so far they are leaving all their competition in the dust when it comes to benefitting from the actions of the new president.

One is the epitome of corporate excess with over a billion dollars in bonuses paid even in the worst of times. Goldman not only is the only financial institution to actually improve their position during the world economic collapse but actually wiped out competition in the process while making money every time money flowed from the federal spigot during the bank bailout, the AIG bailout, the housing crisis and bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the economic stimulus and even the cap and trade bill making it's way through Congress.




Long before Obama became a household name, before he was even elected to a federal office, Goldman was shepherding his meteoric rise through the ranks of political wannabes. Of course it helped that Obama's closest advisor and mentor, Rahm Emanuel, was on Goldman's payroll before Obama ever thought about running for office. When he was raising money for the Clinton presidential run in 1992 he was also on the Goldman payroll and investigations were launched that stopped the illegal corporate subsidy.




After serving as a White House aide during Clinton's term, in 2000, just before leaving office, Clinton then appointed Rahm to the Board of Freddie Mac where the sub-prime mortgage plot was hatched that triggered the economic disaster years later. A major player in this market was Goldman Sachs who was to make billions of dollars before the sub-prime market dried up and the Obama Administration had to bailout the banks and mortgage companies.




Emanuel spent three years as an investment banker after his Clinton years making $16 million and then ran for Congress, with the generous help of Goldman and the Wall Street community. Making a name for himself as the most prolific Democratic fund raiser ever Emanuel rose to #4 in the party hierarchy before being tapped by Obama as his Chief of Staff.




While Emanuel was a Congressman from Illinois Obama was to get a tremendous shot in the arm in his presidential ambitions with the help of Goldman, starting from his first campaign for federal office, the US Senate, in 2004. In the Democratic primary Obama was a distant underdog to millionaire Blair Hull who was caught in a scandal and forced to resign from the race. Interestingly, Blair Hull's company was purchased by Goldman Sachs shortly afterward.




In the general election Obama was again a distant underdog to millionaire Republican Jack Ryan who was also forced to resign from the race because of a scandal. Ryan was a partner in Goldman Sachs. This cleared the way for Obama to be the new Senator from Illinois and launched his presidential bid. In 2006 Obama secretly met with Goldman Sachs executives in Chicago and soon after, thanks to the fund raising of Goldman, his presidential bid was launched.




In 2008 Goldman sponsored a secret meeting at the Metropolitan Museum where Obama was prepared for debating by none other than former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, who would moderate the final presidential debate of the campaign. Of course this was not disclosed to the media or public either.




Goldman was the leading contributor to Obama while the sub-prime mortgage market collapsed, while the oil futures market prices skyrocketed for no good reason, and for the economic collapse of the USA when the multi-billion dollar bank bailout was enacted. The bailout legislation was prepared by Bush Treasury Secretary Paulsen, a former Goldman CEO, steered through the House by Rahm Emanuel, a former Goldman Executive, and even approved by Senator Obama.




Once elected Obama immediately appointed Emanuel Chief of Staff and the AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts, and Stimulus bill were approved with Goldman benefitting with billions of dollars in revenues. Far outperforming everyone in the financial sector in the first 6 months of the Obama rein, the Goldman dominance was so great that at one week in the spring Goldman's program trading on the New York exchange was greater than the combined total of the next 14 traders worldwide.




Goldman has the inside track for controlling the "cap and trade" energy market, the bizarre centerpiece of the Obama Green energy program that will create immense wealth for Goldman, Al Gore and whoever else they decide to include. Gore's partner in his financial schemes which have already made him $100 million as the Green King is also from Goldman. What real benefit to the environment from cap and trade remains to be seen.




Now Emanuel is heading the White House efforts to regulate Wall Street and the financial markets and draft the necessary rules and regulations to tighten controls. Perhaps that explains why no action has been taken in nine months. If Obama does not know what the legions of former Goldman executives are doing in his administration he is merely a puppet. If he does know then he has a lot of explaining to do to the American public. I'd say to the media and Congress as well but they have ignored the Goldman factor for years. Perhaps the millions in campaign contributions from Goldman and Wall Street have influenced this ignorance by Congress.




Although Obama and Treasury have sternly criticized Wall Street and the investment banks for the manipulation of the stock market, sub-prime mortgage market and oil futures market, Obama has been silent on Goldman and their role in these activities. He has also never answered questions as to the role Goldman played in his Senate campaigns, his presidential campaigns and the extent of his contacts and those of the many former Goldman executives on his staff with current Goldman executives.

Obama promised transparency and gave us a brick wall. He promised reform and gave us more of the same.  He promised to penalize the violators and he gave them unlimited wealth. Now he is trying to complete his deal and deliver to them the cap and trade and even health reform legislation on top of the trillion plus already given through the bank, insurance, auto, and housing bailouts and the stimulus bill. Just today the White House announced that the financial reforms are being scaled back from expectations. Imagine that?

In the tale of the two Masters, the SEIU has no chance against Goldman Sachs when it comes to deciding which master will win out with the Obama administration. Goldman has billions to manipulate while SEIU must borrow money to play the money game. So far the return to Goldman has already been in the billions of dollars while the token victories given to SEIU have not even made a dent in paying their debts.




Nor can SEIU match the vast army of former Goldman executives strategically placed throughout the Obama administration and throughout the world of finance and politics. No one has ever questioned the loyalty of this massive force. Andy Stern may have attended the Wharton School of Finance but Goldman wrote the course and probably financed the school's endowment fund.

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Obama's SEIU Union Violates Privacy Rights Again when Angry Mob Swarms Private Home

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President Obama was proud to talk of his relationship to the renegade SEIU union and it's leader Andy Stern during his campaign for president, with Stern claiming SEIU pumped over $60 million to ge him elected. Obama even named Stern to the National Debt Commission though he had no economic background or experience.

Once he was elected the SEIU had a free pass to the White House and Stern made more visits there the first year of Obama's presidency than anyone else in America. His union was hired by Obama, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and many other Democrats to provide security at the health care town halls, a move that got them accused of beating up a handicapped citizen attending a town hall in Ohio.



Perhaps in frustration with the president for the lack of progress on the SEIU radical leftist agenda, the union began picketing banks that benefitted from the bank bailout, and that is acceptable public protest. More recently they have begun picketing private homes of people associated with banks and this past week outside Washington 14 busloads of SEIU people descended upon the private property of a BOA executive, Gregory Baer in Maryland.

Baer just happens to live next door to Nina Easton, the Washington Bureau Chief of Fortune Magazine, who observed the mob scene from her front window across the street. This is what she reported.



“Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that — in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action — makes his family fair game.”

"Waving signs denouncing bank ‘greed,' hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage son Jack-- alone in the house--locked himself in the bathroom. ‘When are they going to leave?' Jack pleaded when I called to check on him."

"Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly ‘outed' him, and slipped through his front door."

" ‘Excuse me,' Baer told his accusers, ‘I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.' "

The journalist called the protest "a mob."



Is this the legacy and are these the tactics Obama expected from his primary union backer? Why has the president and all Democrats, who were quick to condemn the Tea party protestors even though they were never involved in illegal activity nor the violation of privacy like the SEIU, not condemned this renegade union for unlawful tactics?

Why did the liberal media, who reports the most trivial of liberal trash about Sarah Palin and others on their hit list, not report the news about their own people ignoring the rights to privacy granted to all Americans? Today in America we have dual standards when it comes to reporting and when it comes to lawful behavior. Apparently the waiver from criminal indictment for unlawful acts from the Obama Administration is a $60 million campaign contribution.



And by the way, even though the SEIU claims they gave Obama over $60 million, they only reported $32 million on federal campaign reports. Why has the Obama gang not investigated the public boasting by Stern and the SEIU about the $60 million which would amount to about $30 million in illegal spending according to the federal laws you and I are required to follow?

SEIU President Stern Resigns Under Cloud of Suspicion

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The darling of the Obama White House, the guy who claimed he steered over $60 million into Obama's presidential campaign, and the guy who has used the White House as a revolving door since Obama first took office, Andy Stern, self-proclaimed King of the Labor Bosses, was forced out of office.

Now to listen to the liberal media who love Stern, another of those '60's radicals (SDS) who seem to gravitate to Obama, you would think he walked on water. He said he finished his mission, getting health care approved. I've been telling you all along that big bucks from the labor bosses keeps the congress in line. But for Stern to take credit for getting health care approved seems quite suspicious to me.

More than likely it has more to do with the loss of faith in him by his union members. You see, unlike most union federations in the country who spent years building their membership, the SEIU under Stern decided to take all the shortcuts. If you didn't want to build your union then the only option was to steal your new membership from another union.



At a time when union membership was decreasing nationwide Andy was increasing the SEIU base by raiding other unions. Then stacking those union leadership positions with his people. I suspect the members of those unions who moved from the AFL-CIO or Teamsters to the SEIU found out all too soon they were pawns in a much bigger game being played by the leadership.

Just recently the California health locals who were snatched by Sterns into the SEIU voted, for the first time, to reject the Stern slate of candidates and install their own citing the lack of concern by SEIU for membership issues.

While the media seemed to embrace Stern more and more as he dominated the list of people visiting Obama White House, the union membership was watching their investment in the new president go up in smoke. After a flurry of executive orders by the president to aid unions, and the massive protection of union assets in the auto industry takeover, progress ground to a halt.



The coveted "card check" bill stalled in congress along with other legislative initiatives. Union job losses continued in the auto industry in spite of the GM buy out. Those labor health insurance "Cadillac" policies finally got out of federal taxes, but only until Obama leaves office.

Once again our president seems to have messed up the vetting process of screening the background of his appointees. First he appoints his good friend Andrew Stern to the National Debt Commission. Not a bad payback for the $60.7 million Stern claimed his union invested in getting Obama elected. Of course federal campaign records show he invested $38.2 million through two SEIU groups, meaning $22.5 million in Obama expenditures by the SEIU are hidden from federal reports.

This is the National Debt Commission that was rejected by Congress but created by Obama with an Executive Order to circumvent the will of the Congress. Once again the president has proven that he does not care what Congress or the Supreme Court say, he will do what he wants. The use of Executive Orders and appointments of staff when congress recesses is a cause of great concern to conservatives.

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Obama - New Social Architect or Special Interest Stooge?

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Now that President Obama has his coveted health care reform in hand, albeit there is a ways to go before it can become a reality, and we have seen what he did with the banks, insurance companies, auto companies and mortgage companies, it is time to ask if he is truly a social architect intent on forming a new American social structure based on government ownership and/or control, or if he is simply a stooge for the powerful special interests who helped finance his campaigns.



With his detached attitude and unwillingness to get immersed in the mechanics of fighting for his own legislative agenda, it seems he may be the consummate compromiser yet his actions are leading us in a very specific direction. Since he first took office there has been an obvious pattern of first taking care of his special interest contributors which leaves his true intent in question.



Look at the record. Several of the first Executive Orders he issued as president greatly strengthened the unions and even gave them a degree of control and influence over construction projects and other activities that were contained in his economic stimulus program. No Democrat or Republican president before ever made such blatant concessions to the unions.



The auto bailout he engineered guaranteed the unions major control of General Motors and protected them from losing billions of dollars in unsecured losses from GM stock they owned while the bond holders from General Motors were left out in the cold.



He even delayed the provision in the health care reform bill to tax the most luxurious health insurance policies until 2018, long after he would be president. Under the contracts negotiated by the unions with auto makers these luxury policies were a major contributor to the very bankruptcy of the auto industry.



The most frequent visitor to the White House is Andy Stern, President of the SEIU, the service workers union who Stern claims spent more than $60 million to get Obama elected. So who is to benefit most from expanded health care, the service workers union of Stern who is trying to unionize the health care industry.



Then when Congress did not approve his Deficit Reduction Task Force he created it by Executive Order and then promptly appointed the same Andy Stern to the group. I find it rather odd that a union organizer qualifies as an expert in economics and knows how to reduce our federal debt when he has been benefitting from the very Obama initiatives that have resulted in an avalanche of new debt.



Of course Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing mortgage companies, were taken over by the Obama government although the media does not seem interested in talking about it. In this case Obama took care of Wall Street poster boy Goldman Sachs, another major Obama contributor and supporter, whose actions in selling the sub-prime mortgages helped destroy the housing market.

Did you know $217 billion have already been given by Obama to these two housing agencies to bail them out of their last mess?. Did you know Rahm Emanuel was on the Board of one of them and when he was with the Clinton administration they passed the federal commodity loopholes that allowed the deceptive investment practices that caused oil price spikes and brought down the world economy?



In fact his ties to Goldman Sachs are best illustrated by the fact he approved the AIG insurance bailout to protect a too big to fail company and $64 billion in government money went to Goldman and other banks who recouped 100% of their toxic holdings in the bankrupt company while the stock and bond holders got a fraction of their value.



Finally, though Obama promised he was considering taking on the powerful Trial Lawyers Association and was going to incorporate tort reform to reduce the multi-billion dollar cost of medical malpractice, it was left out of his final bill. It's not surprising since they were at the top of the list of special interest contributors to his campaign.



Social architect or special interest stooge, the jury is out but the actions seem to have taken a sharp left turn. Big government and multi-trillion dollar debt are the products of his efforts, a very left leaning legacy to date. Yet he may be the godfather of his own special interests and at the top of the list come Goldman Sachs (Wall Street), the Trial Lawyers and the unions, particularly SEIU. All stand to benefit greatly from his health care reform.



His unfinished agenda includes more social redirection as he says Immigration reform is next followed by Cap and Trade and other initiatives. Ironically, he and the Democrats controlling congress still are not even talking about the economy, unemployment, jobs and credit issues affecting Main Street, the very issues Main Street wants addressed.

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Obama's Seven Cardinal Sins Since Becoming President

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Not to minimize the characterization of Cardinal Sins as they are the most serious of sins that can be committed in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church, but for purposes of this article our Cardinal Sins are the most serious political sins that can be committed by a politician. Since taking office Obama has seen his favorable ratings collapse from 65% to 48% or less in his first year in office since being elected and tenth month of running the nation.



1. Double crossing his political base.

Case in point, the SEIU International Union, one of the two most important sources of money and support for the Obama political campaign. White House records indicated that SEIU leader Andy Stern was in the White House 22 times since Obama took office. These meetings between Stern, Obama and Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, might explain who coordinated the SEIU involvement in trying to control health care town hall meetings or how SEIU will get their payback for sinking $60.7 million into the Obama campaign.

Unfortunately, there was one group Obama clearly owed more to than the SEIU and it was Goldman Sachs, the multi-billion dollar beneficiary of the Obama presidency. So many billions of government dollars went into Goldman that they are able to pay over $22 billion just this year in executive bonuses in spite of doing little in the way of banking. Even SEIU is outraged and Stern started demonstrating outside Goldman Sachs offices bringing to a head the conflict of interest between these two Obama backers and powerful political forces.



Many other groups of Obama supporters have been trampled on as well since the election ranging from the Democratic governors, two Obama states have already been lost, to the auto unions where the auto bailout has only resulted in protecting executives while eliminating workers. People caught in the housing mortgage scandal which was a product of Goldman and other banks have lost their homes while the banks got bailed out. All the Congressional Democrats are at risk for reelection in 2010 thanks to the refusal of the Obama gang to look out for their interests.

For more information on the Obama/Goldman relationship check out the following:
http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

More on Obama/SEIU:
http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-caught-between-two-masters.html



2. Assuming he had an overwhelming mandate to push his own agenda.

Those of you who paid attention at the end of the campaign for president realized Obama outspent McCain by over 4-1, the economy was a disaster, Bush had the lowest approval ratings ever recorded, and still Obama only won the vote by 6%. He should have won by a landslide, but just won by 3% more than half of the vote. That means 47% of all American voters voted against him.



Yet the adoring media made the world think Obama won by the greatest landslide in history and Obama believed the media. He surrounded himself with ideologues committed to taking what everyone else had and gave them the power to do it. Was it arrogance? Why did the cap and trade bill Obama proposed guarantee Goldman Sachs and Al Gore untold wealth? He bailed out AIG and $13 billion went straight to Goldman. He bailed out the banks and Goldman took the no interest federal money and started manipulating the unregulated derivatives, swaps, futures and hedge markets, and kept making billions while doing nothing to help the American taxpayer who gave them the money.



First Goldman said they were doing "God's business". Does that mean Obama is God? Who else gave them the keys to the Treasury and a license to steal? Who decided it was time to regulate the financial markets then turned the effort over to his top aide, who was from Goldman? It has now been a year since the economic crash and no regulatory reform has even been proposed.

Obama spent his first days attacking every aspect of the federal government from the war in Afghanistan to Health Care reform, stimulus spending to saying there is no war on terror. He followed the advice of his top aides on the economy with stimulus, bailouts and massive deficit spending. These were the very same aides who worked for Clinton and ten years ago made the legislative and regulatory changes needed to allow the greatest theft in the history of America.



As the Obama poll numbers crashed they could care less. As people demanded that the economy, jobs and credit be our first priority they ignored the masses. They send Obama on hopeless foreign missions that almost seemed designed to fail in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iran and North Korea, while alienating our fragile relations with Japan, China and Russia.

They cranked up the biggest deficit spending in history, added more to the national debt than any president in history, left over 10.2% of Americans without jobs, 2 million Americans are still facing foreclosure after all the billions spent to save the housing market, and the list goes on and on.



The Chicago and Goldman gang ruling the White House and programming the president live for special interests, defend the special interests over the public interest, continue unabated everything that got us into this mess in the first place, and have no regard for the American public. In their opinion, they act as if it is their time to control the White House, not Obama's, and they intend to leave a permanent legacy even if it destroys the country in the process. Arrogance at this level has never been seen in our history.

3. Using political expediency to ignore his own campaign promises.

During the campaign Obama made a lot of promises to a lot of people in the context of his promise to do things different in Washington, change the way politicians did business, be open and honest about government business, eliminate lobbyists and special interests from dictating legislation, and a bunch of other great sounding things.

To the liberals and socialists he promised the redistribution of wealth and to punish the Wall Street executives who brought about the near destruction of America. He promised to close Guantanamo prison, make peace with our enemies, get better deals from our allies, and who knows what else. Once elected a few bones were thrown to his people but they were soon forgotten in the avalanche of special interest money that the Obama gang and Congress starting collecting from special interests no sooner than they had been elected.



The campaign promises disappeared in a sea of cash that flowed into Washington when the rest of America was going broke, losing their jobs, losing their pensions and losing all faith in our government. The net result is the Chicago and Goldman gang in the White House has preserved the Wall Street Special Interest Control of our nation's capitol.

4. Surrounding himself with the Chicago gang, Goldman Sachs alumni and old time political hacks.

Much has already been written about the gang of old pros surrounding the president and dictating his every move. Every day their handiwork becomes more obvious whether it is Israel ignoring the president's warnings on settlements (Emmanuel), Wall Street continuing to get away with pillaging the US Treasury (Emmanuel, Geithner and Summers) or the host of other former Goldman and Clinton people surrounding our president who promised to drive out the demons.

For more information about the palace guard and the amazing control they maintain over the president check out the following articles from the Coltons Point Times.

http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2009/11/presidents-palace-guard-nixon-had.html

http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2009/10/bet-on-obama-turns-to-gold-for-goldman.html

http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2009/10/will-new-jersey-be-fooled-again-goldman.html



5. Failing to achieve any foreign policy breakthroughs.

Obama said he had the experience to turn around our foreign policy debacles starting with the day he took office. Yet another promise lost to political expediency. The rest of the world refused to be dictated to on how to fix the economies. We dropped the missile defense shield for Poland on the day of the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Russia and China refuse to be parties to punishing nuclear renegade Iran. No one is helping out with North Korea. The International Olympic Committee tossed out the Chicago bid sought by Obama. Europe waits to see what will happen in Afghanistan. We are still in Iraq at full strength, still fighting in Afghanistan with a request for 40,000 more troops on the table.

Israel builds more settlements in spite of Obama's harsh warning not to. The Palestinians are not even attending peace meetings. Gore's global warming initiative has been rejected by the major powers of the world. The G8, G20 and every other world economic group has turned on the US as the cause of the world economic collapse, and impatiently waits for us to do something, anything, to fix it.



6. Protecting the rich while ignoring Main Street.

Thanks to Obama we have provided directly and through the Federal Reserve about $24 trillion to six major banks to cover their losses in the derivative, swaps, futures, commodities, hedge fund and other unregulated speculative ventures.



The same banks now are setting records in profits. The same banks are scheduled to give their executives $162 billion in bonuses this year. The same banks are not providing credit to businesses and consumers and not repaying any of the excess and speculative profits they made while destroying the savings, pensions and jobs of those they are licensed to help.



7. Allowing his ego to get in the way on precarious rights issues.

Obama and Eric Holden, his attorney general, both said they were holding criminal trials of five terrorists including the leader of the World Trade Center bombing in New York. They also promised they were doing this to show the world how they can try and then carry out the execution of these criminals under our civilian legal system. Now that would make Obama and Holden the prosecutor, judge and jury for these terrorists who, thanks to Obama, now have to be considered innocent until proven guilty. The action by our leaders may very well result in damaging the government case to convict these guys.

When he criticized the cop who arrested one of his friends without hearing any of the circumstances he also jumped the gun. Furthermore, his spending of well over $18 million to create a White House web site then refusal to release any contract details on why it cost so much when other government offices offered to do it for about $600,000 seems like a slap in the face of people who want openness, transparency and higher ethics in government.



So, where do we go from here? Mistakes are normal in the first year of a new Administration. Sometimes the people hired are too caught up in their own agenda to realize they serve all the people. When that happens the new leader must take action to fix the problems. These Cardinal Sins are mostly the result of poor policy, poor reading of the public, and arrogance on the part of the president's staff. He can fix those problems and still have a successful reign as president.

Transition administrations, those that take over from an opposing force like Obama replacing Bush take one year to learn the system and a second year to get the right people in place to do their work. The last two years they try and implement the policies that make sense. Obama has plenty of time to correct the problems. It will take leadership, patience, firm action to replace the people not serving the public interest, and a bit of humility. When he finally takes up the fight for the people rather than the special interests he can gain that support like Reagan did.

Most people like Obama and believe that when he starts listening to the right people he will get it right. He should start by listening to himself, his campaign promises, and the hope he instilled in people to give him a chance in the first place. People did not give up on the promise, the Obama gang did. Straighten out the gang and the people can be served. That is the difference between a politician and a leader, between a shooting star and a reliable sun. People want to see the sun rise every day. They want something they can count on. They want to be heard.

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