Marathon Pundit: Scrubbing SEIU from the stories on the FBI terror-ties raids in Chicago

Joseph Iosbaker, Republic Windows protest

"So I owe those unions. When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away." Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope.

"We are going to paint the nation purple with SEIU." Barack Obama, 2008.

Well, the Service Employees International Union is back in the news. Well, not really. But it was for a little while.

Last week FBI agents raided the homes of several anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Now I know why the Wisconsin State Police patrol Interstate 94 so vigilantly. The G-Men were looking for ties between anti-war activists and Middle Eastern and South American terrorist groups. One of the homes raided belonged to Stephanie Weiner and her husband, Joseph Iosbaker, the chief steward of SEIU Local 73.

From Pat Hickey's ...With Both Hands:

Joseph Iosbaker is an SEIU Leader. The sheepish Chicago Media went weak in the knees when Mr. Iosbaker and SEIU used the closing of the Republic Windows factory several years ago as a forum for disgraced Governor Blagojevich. Now, Iosbaker is being investigated in a terrorist plot.

The Chicago media is following the lead of what they are told and tasked. SEIU is disappearing from the news reports on Iosbaker and his wife Wright College instructor Stephanie Weiner. They may be linked to anti-Israeli and Colombian FARC terrorism and that is what the Federal Bureau of Investigation is . . .investigating.

Iosbaker and Weiner have not been accused of wrongdoing, nor have any of the people whose homes have been raided.

But the scrubbing of the SEIU ties to this story in the media is troubling, especially since the union is a force on the national scene. (An unfortunate thing, yes, regarding that last point.)

And it's the media's duty to tell an accurate story. If they don't, people will get their news from other sources, such as my blog. Or Hickey's.

Iosbaker has been described in numerous media reports as a longtime anti-war activist. Now, I don't know if Iosbaker was chief steward of SEIU Local 73 at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but its anti-war resolution from 2003 is worth a peek:

WHEREAS, 43 million people in the U.S. have no health care insurance, unemployment has risen to about 6%, public services are being slashed because of budget shortfalls, and the federal surplus has turned into a deficit of $157 billion, our nation should be devoting more attention to the economy and to justice here at home rather than a first-strike, unilateral war that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Almost comedic, isn't it? Under the man who wants to "Paint the nation purple with SEIU," unemployment is almost 10 percent, the debt is now $1.3 trillion, the national debt is $13 trillion.

Public services? Well, Obama has been the best friend of government bureaucrat has ever had.

As for those without health insurance--maybe SEIU Local 73 is where Obama was getting his information. Early on in the ObamaCare push, he was claiming that there were 47 million uninsured Americans. A few months later he was declaring there were only 30 million.

Mainstream media: When SEIU is involved, don't obscure it. Instead, dig deeper.

SEIU is a story.

Technorati tags: