If you haven’t read by now all the headlines on this story, you’ll want to start at the beginning and read the first post, SEIU Storms Private Residence, Terrorizes Teenage Son of Bank of America Exec. Because as each day passes, new facts are popping up. The story seemed so outrageous at first. After all, the thought of over 500 screaming and chanting protesters surrounding a Bank of America lawyer’s private residence while the man’s teenage son, home alone, hid frightened inside a bathroom – it’s just so extreme, even by SEIU’s standards.
I knew something was up when the following day, Fortune magazine editor Nina Easton, a neighbor of the targeted residence, published an account of the incident and was almost immediately attacked by what seemed like practically a coordinated dogpile of writers from several specific sources.
In almost mirror fashion to the Town Hall events last August, when both the Huffington Post and Media Matters seemingly tried to cover up and dismiss the violent acts that SEIU committed against Kenneth Gladney, the same players were again out in full force. As our Larry O’Connor wrote, both outlets behaved less like journalists and more like arms of the SEIU press office, dismissing SEIU’s bad behavior and attacking an innocent party with fabricated conflicts of interest as a method of distraction and intimidation.
Bob Borosage, Erica Payne, and John Podesta
And now we learn this: Erica Payne, the guest who was invited to appear Friday on Megyn Kelley’s Fox News show and proceeded to blame the Tea Parties for the behavior of SEIU? She was co-founder of Democracy Alliance, the very organization that spawned and is a donor to Media Matters. SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger is also the Vice-Chair of its Board.
Payne’s appearance was a lucky development for SEIU – it fit right into the union’s media defense plan. First came the regurgitation of SEIU talking points from Huffington Post and Media Matters, and now this TV appearance from Payne. As it turns out by the way, Payne is also a Huffington Post blogger herself, and a glowing fan of Media Matters, among several other progressive associations that are too many to note in this post.
Throughout her several minute segment, as our Larry O’Connor explains, Ms. Payne repeatedly distracts viewers away from the real story to fixate instead on an obscure lone incident that was supposedly related to the Tea Party movement. (She also repeatedly implies that a house’s gas line was cut by that individual when in reality, it was the gas line to an outdoor barbecue grill that was allegedly vandalized). The attempt was entirely transparent and laughable. Her rhetoric was scripted and her points forced into the storyline in a clumsy and awkward fashion. So much so that as I watched it myself, I became suspicious. I realized I had seen her name before, and I knew Ms. Payne definitely had an agenda.
That’s what led me to look through my research and recognize Payne’s name as the co-founder of Democracy Alliance (before she departed and became involved with helping some of the other progressive infrastructure groups get started). The main founder Rob Stein, is a former Clinton Treasury official who was Chief of Staff in the Department of Commerce from 1993 through 1995.
Oddly enough, before taking his position at Bank of America as Deputy General Counsel for the company’s Bank Regulatory and Public Policy legal group, Gregory Baer, the target of SEIU’s protest, also served in the Treasury Dept. under President Clinton where he was Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions. There, Baer coordinated Treasury policy on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and led the development of presidential initiatives on financial privacy and consumer protection – not unlike the new position that Eric Stein holds today. Baer also previously served as managing senior counsel at the Federal Reserve Board.
Other than the fact that he works for Bank of America, why target Greg Baer?
In 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed and portions of the Glass-Steagall Act were repealed to allow banks, brokerages and insurance companies to merge in order to provide a full array of financial services to consumers. Baer had direct responsibility for policy in this area, and as a Democrat, his views on deregulation are today often criticized by the more liberal-progressive Democrats.
In fact, the Huffington Post published a piece last November by Robert Scheer, who was critical of deregulation and even specifically called out Greg Baer for what Scheer perceives as Baer’s role in the financial crisis.
“Baer went to work as a corporate counsel for Bank of America, which announced his appointment with a press release crediting him with having “coordinated Treasury policy” during the Clinton years in getting Glass-Steagall repealed. As a result of deregulation, B of A too spiraled out of control and ended up as a beneficiary of the Treasury’s welfare program.”
I won’t use this post to debate the merits of Mr. Scheer’s arguments one way or the other, rather I include his article to demonstrate the public criticism of Baer from members of his own political party.
Further, I point out that again, the information came courtesy of one of the same two outlets that seem to have become a ubiquitous support mechanism to the SEIU. It’s interesting, to say the least, that so many of the same people involved with the Boards and funders and patrons of these two organizations are now popping up as players in the public eye of this protest incident.
- We’ve already seen the example that illustrates the funds paid by SEIU to Media Matters, along with a timeline of the articles that were published by Media Matters just prior to those donations.
- We’ve already seen the example that illustrates the outstanding debt that SEIU owes to Bank of America
- We’ve already seen examples of the union’s prior intimidation in their efforts to force unionization of bank tellers.
- Below, you’ll see an example of SEIU’s contributions to Democracy Alliance, an organization for which SEIU’s Anna Burger serves as Vice-Chair, and that provides funds to Media Matters
- Below, you’ll see an example of SEIU’s patronage to Huffington Post. Their purchase of a subscription service is most likely for some form of legitimate advertising or email campaign services; but this establishes that SEIU has a working relationship with HuffPo as a customer.
I’m especially curious to know why Greg Baer was selected in the first place. Who suggested him and for what reasons? And did it have anything to do with Baer’s time in the Clinton administration, where his policies on deregulation apparently became a more current trigger for some of the progressive rage regarding the financial crisis? Did any of the progressive new media outlets, through their mutual relationships with one another, have any input or advance knowledge of Baer as a target?
It may be a tangled web of progressive organizations out there, but the same few always seem to make their way to the surface. Perhaps it’s too soon to tell if there’s any conflict of interest in any of their activities, but we’ve got plenty more research we’re holding onto. One thing is for certain, we will keep watching and waiting.
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