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Team Obama's Albany problem
NY Post ^ | July 06, 2010 | Editorial

Posted on 07/06/2010 3:23:21 AM PDT by Scanian

The Obama team has been knocked for bringing "Chicago style" politics to Washington -- but if you ask us, things down there are starting to smell suspiciously like . . . Albany.

A terrifying thought.

Politico reported last week that one of the president's top political advisers, Patrick Gaspard, took home nearly $40,000 last year from one of the country's most powerful labor unions -- without telling a soul.

You'd think that's the sort of trick that only New York state legislators, who regularly engage in off-the-books moonlighting for special interests, would be brazen enough to try.

Yet Gaspard has the ear of the president of the United States.

The cash was part of a severance package from health-care-union giant SEIU 1199, for whom Gaspard previously worked as political director.

Though required by law to disclose such income, he failed to do so.

The White House now says it's fixing the error, calling the update a "small administrative change."

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ethicsviolations; gaspard; payoffs; seiu
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1 posted on 07/06/2010 3:23:25 AM PDT by Scanian
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To: Scanian

Blatant disrespect for the law. SOP.


2 posted on 07/06/2010 3:30:24 AM PDT by b4its2late (I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here.)
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To: Scanian

Move along...nothing to see here...just a small administrative error......

corrupt bas-turds....


3 posted on 07/06/2010 3:32:58 AM PDT by Adder (Note to self: 11-2-10 Take out the Trash!!!)
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To: Scanian

Prior to working on Obama’s campaign team, Gaspard worked nine years as the executive vice president for politics and legislation for the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East labor union, the largest local union in America.[3][4] He helped coordinate political activity and government relations on behalf of 300,000 members. In 2006, Gaspard served as the acting political director for SEIU International during the national union’s successful effort to help Democrats capture majorities in the House and Senate. In 2004, Gaspard was the National Field Director for America Coming Together. Gaspard worked for Governor Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, the 1988 Jesse Jackson presidential bid and numerous congressional candidates and campaigns. In 1989, he worked on the successful and historic David Dinkins mayoral campaign.[5] Gaspard is a former community organizer around school reform issues.
[edit]Personal life

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haitian parents, Gaspard moved with his parents to the United States when he was three years old.[1] He is married and has two children.


4 posted on 07/06/2010 3:42:14 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: b4its2late

Gaspard is a community organizer who spent most of his career working with labor unions to organize protests and lobby for health care and education benefits. Until shortly before he joined Obama’s 2008 campaign as political director, Gaspard was a registered lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). During the Democratic presidential primary, Gaspard used his labor ties to drive huge get-out-the-vote efforts in states with large union populations like Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio


5 posted on 07/06/2010 3:45:54 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: Scanian

This POS needs to resign. If any of us as Freepers would have done the same the IRS would be there hounding us for the money plus late fees. Typical Obozo administration - above the law. Just wait to the final judgement day they will get their just dues - eternity in hell


6 posted on 07/06/2010 3:53:00 AM PDT by hondact200 ( Lincoln Freed the Enslaved. Obama Enslaves the Free. Obama is Americas Greatest Threat)
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To: Scanian

Monday, September 28, 2009

Patrick Gaspard, ACORN, and Obama   [Stanley Kurtz]
With the revelation that White House Director of Political Affairs, Patrick Gaspard, has close ties to Bertha Lewis and to ACORN, Matthew Vadum and Erick Erickson appear to be onto something significant. While the Gaspard matter needs further investigation before we form any hard conclusions, it certainly seems to confirm that President Obama’s ties to a whole series of ACORN-controlled organizations are neither minor nor by any means long-past. In fact, making use of what Erickson and Vadum
have discovered about Gaspard, we can trace these links still further.

There’s been a good deal of attention to ACORN of late, and deservedly so. Yet for all the fuss, what is arguably the most important Obama-ACORN tie of all has gotten short shrift. During the 2008 election, Obama’s close links to the far-left New Party were revealed and explored (although not by the mainstream press). Yet many seem to have forgotten that the New Party, particularly in Chicago, was dominated by ACORN (and by an ACORN-controlled SEIU union local). During the campaign, I detailed Obama’s New Party ties in two pieces, “Something New Here,” and “Life of the New Party.” Important evidence of Obama’s pursuit of the New Party endorsement can also be found in the September-October 1995 issue of “New Ground,” newsletter of the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Obama’s New Party ties matter because they show that his links to ACORN went far beyond shared on-the-ground organizing, legal representation, training, or even funding (although all of those ties existed and were important). By running for office with the New Party, Obama was effectively indicating that he shared ACORN’s radical political goals.


7 posted on 07/06/2010 3:53:03 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: kcvl

Is Gaspard BLACK??? If so....NOTHING will happen to him.


8 posted on 07/06/2010 4:00:20 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion...the Human Scarifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Ann Archy

http://www.cityhallnews.com/newyork/imgs/media/data/images/news/categories/Patrick-Gaspard.jpg


9 posted on 07/06/2010 4:02:39 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: kcvl

Looks like a Black PUNK GAY.


10 posted on 07/06/2010 4:04:54 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion...the Human Scarifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Ann Archy

Gaspard was born in Haiti but moved with his parents to the United States when he was three years old.


11 posted on 07/06/2010 4:04:58 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: Ann Archy

Former community organizer
Worked for Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1988
Was an organizer for the New Party, a Marxist political coalition, in the 1990s
Served as Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union’s Local 1199
Was a leading activist with the Working Families Party, an outgrowth of the New Party
Served as political director for Bertha Lewis, who was the head of ACORN’s New York chapter
Was appointed in 2009 to be Director of President Barack Obama’s Office of Political Affairs


12 posted on 07/06/2010 4:07:40 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: kcvl

He’s more FEMININE than Bertha Lewis for SURE!


13 posted on 07/06/2010 4:09:05 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion...the Human Scarifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Scanian

As he grew into young adulthood, Gaspard came to admire Third World leftists and revolutionaries. He had a particular fondness for Aime Cesaire, a radical poet/politician from the French colony of Martinique. A member of the French Communist Party, Cesaire was a teacher to the Marxist theorist Frantz Fanon.

Gaspard entered the world of politics in the mid-1980s, when he became a community organizer who planned and coordinated New York City-based demonstrations for “social justice” in Haiti as well as a variety of school-reform issues. In 1988 he worked for Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, and the following year he served as a volunteer with Democrat David Dinkins’ successful NYC mayoral campaign.

In late 1995 Gaspard was working in New Jersey as an organizer for the New Party, a Marxist political coalition that then-Illinois state senate candidate Barack Obama had recently joined.

In 1997, outgoing Manhattan borough president Ruth Messinger, who was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), enlisted Gaspard to work for her (ultimately unsuccessful) mayoral campaign against Rudolph Giuliani.

After the Messinger campaign folded, Gaspard took a job as chief of staff to New York City Councilwoman and radical feminist Margarita Lopez.

In 1999, while Gaspard was still employed by Lopez, New York City was rocked by the controversial shooting (by four police officers) of a 23-year-old, black, unarmed illegal immigrant from Guinea named Amadou Diallo. The officers mistook Diallo for an armed man who resembled the description of a serial rapist they were seeking. In the wake of the incident, two officials (political director Bill Lynch and president Dennis Rivera) from one of the city’s most powerful and militant labor unions, the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU’s) Local 1199, recruited Gaspard to organize and lead the union’s “March for Justice” against alleged police brutality; he also led a series of additional demonstrations thereafter. Before long, Gaspard rose to become the union’s Executive Vice President.

By 2001, Gaspard was a leading activist with the New York Working Families Party (WFP), an outgrowth of the New Party


14 posted on 07/06/2010 4:11:02 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: Ann Archy

Patrick Gaspard’s brother Michael represents ACORN (and that ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis kept contact information for Patrick Gaspard).


15 posted on 07/06/2010 4:17:26 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: Adder

When Sean Bell was shot by New York City police in 2007, Al Sharpton reached out to Patrick Gaspard (while he was at SEIU 1199) to formulate a response.  According to Politicker NY, “In December 2006, Mr. Sharpton asked Patrick Gaspard to help him assemble an emergency meeting of about 300 activists, black nationalists, union and political leaders to decide on an appropriate response to the police shooting…”
Sharpton used the SEIU 1199 office to hold a protest organizational meeting.  According to The Observer, the union was represented by Gaspard at the meeting.
The People’s Organization for Progress, along with the New Black Panther Party, organized protests against the New York City police department, carrying signs saying such things as “KILL THE PIGS THAT KILL OUR KIDS.”
In October 2007, under Gaspard’s eye, the union hosted an event at its headquarters to mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Che Guevara “by the military dictatorship of Bolivia under the direction of the CIA.”
“The bitter truth for U.S. imperialism forty years later is that Che’s example and ideas are more powerful and resonant than ever among oppressed peoples of the world, especially the Americas,” an announcement of the event read. Yes, under Gaspard’s watch and likely authorization, the union hosted a celebration of Che Guevara’s life.  See an accouncement flier for a similar event.
Other participants included Communist Party USA, Freedom Socialist Party, People’s Organization for Progress, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action and many others.
SEIU 1199, in 2007, was a signatory on a petition to “free Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
Shortly after that, SEIU 1199 hosted the “International Secretary of the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign and Latin America correspondent for Marxist.com.”  SEIU 1199, under Gaspard’s leadership, has filled a radical role in New York and national politics.
Gaspard has contributed to the Working Families Party, a political party founded—and still co-chaired—by ACORN.
He is still listed as a member of the advisory board to the Center for Working Families.  The CWF’s address is the same as New York ACORN.
In 2004, Gaspard worked for America Coming Together, a George Soros-funded 527 organization that worked in swing states to elect John Kerry president.  According to Michelle Malkin’s new book, Culture of Corruption:
.


16 posted on 07/06/2010 4:26:53 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: Scanian

How many years at minimum wage would equal one year of Mr. Gaspard’s take?
Do not forget the health care, dental, car& driver, housing allowance...


17 posted on 07/06/2010 5:05:56 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (The best is the enemy of the good!)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Gaspard is more vile than Van Jones...


18 posted on 07/06/2010 5:09:16 AM PDT by who knows what evil? (G-d saved more animals than people on the ark...www.siameserescue.org.)
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To: kcvl

.

Earlier you posted he was born in the Republic of Congo to Haitian parents???

.


19 posted on 07/06/2010 8:15:25 AM PDT by Roccus (......and then there were none.)
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To: Scanian
Speaking of an Albany problem, my House district, NY-29, still doesn't have a Critter. After initially stating that he would call for a prompt special election, Paterson then backtracked and, after being hauled into court, finally called for a special election...It'll be held on November 2nd. We've missed hundreds of votes, and will miss hundreds more.

Meanwhile, has anyone else noticed that the same MSM that was calling 24/7 for Paterson's resignation a while back, abruptly shut the heck up after Paterson refused to call for a prompt special election...

Did the Obama admin, the same admin that tried to bribe Sestak and that guy in CO, offer Paterson something if he'd refuse to call for a special election before November?

Inquiring minds want to know...

20 posted on 07/06/2010 8:22:54 AM PDT by mewzilla (Still voteless in NY-29. Over 250 roll call votes missed and counting...)
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