Feds target former leader of Chicago-based socialist party

[2 articles]

Terror probe targets couple with links to president

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=209501

Feds target former leader of Chicago-based socialist party

September 30, 2010
By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM ­ President Obama has ties to yet another Chicago activist
whose home was raided last week by the FBI as part of a terrorism
probe, WND has learned.

Last Friday, as part of an investigation into material support for
terrorist organizations, the FBI raided eight homes, including that
of Chicago anti-war activist Joseph Iosbaker and his wife Stephanie Weiner.

In 1998 the duo worked as leaders of the Chicago New Party, a
controversial 1990s political party that sought to elect members to
public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far
leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

WND previously reported newspaper evidence showing Obama was a member
of the New Party.

As WND reported yesterday, another activist whose home was raided by
the FBI was Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of the Arab
American Action Network, or AAAN.

Obama, while serving as a paid director of the far-left nonprofit,
the Chicago Woods Fund, provided two grants to the AAAN, which was
founded by a longtime Obama associate, Columbia University Professor
Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi's wife, Mona, is president of the AAAN. Obama
served at the Woods Fund alongside Weather Underground
terrorist-group founder Bill Ayers.

Iosbaker, meanwhile works at the University of Illinois at Chicago
and is a local chapter leader of the Service Employees International
Union, or SEIU, whose former president, Andy Stern, was listed as the
most frequent visitor to the White House.

Iosbaker and his wife were Chicago leaders of the socialist New Party.

The pair held a news conference, along with several Chicago "peace"
organizations, claiming their home was raided because of their
activism against war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Isobaker told reporters FBI agents took his children's art and poetry
and put it into evidence bags.

When asked why they thought they were targeted, Isobaker's wife,
Weiner, said "I came from a family that marched against the Vietnam
War. I'm proud that my children, as well, are organized."

Obama is closely tied to Isobaker's New Party.

Marxist activist Carl Davidson, a founder of the New Party, recalled
in a WND interview Obama's participation with his party.

"A subcommittee met with [Obama] to interview him to see if his stand
on the living wage and similar reforms was the same as ours," stated Davidson.

"We determined that our views on these overlapped, and we could
endorse his campaign in the Democratic Party," Davidson said.

Davidson remembers Obama attending a New Party meeting to thank
attendees for voting for him.

Using qualifying language, Davidson said that to his knowledge Obama
was not a member of the New Party "in any practical way."

Becoming a New Party member requires some effort on behalf of the
politician. Candidates must be approved by the party's political
committee and, once approved, must sign a contract requiring they
will have a "visible and active relationship" with the party.

Asked whether Obama signed the New Party contract, Davidson replied
there was "no need for him to do so."

"At the end of our session with him, we simply affirmed there was no
need to do so, because on all the key points, the stand of his
campaign and the New Party reform planks were practically the same,"
Davidson told WND.

Among the New Party's stated objectives were "full employment, a
shorter work week, and a guaranteed minimum income for all adults; a
universal 'social wage' to include such basic benefits as health
care, child care, vacation time and lifelong access to education and
training; a systematic phase-in of comparable worth and like programs
to ensure gender equity."

The New Party stated it also sought "the democratization of our
banking and financial system ­ including popular election of those
charged with public stewardship of our banking system, worker-owner
control over their pension assets [and] community-controlled
alternative financial institutions."

Many of the New Party's founding members were Democratic Socialists
of America leaders and members of Committees of Correspondence, a
breakaway of the Communist Party USA.

Obama attended several DSA events and meetings, including a
DSA-sponsored town hall meeting Feb. 25, 1996, entitled "Employment
and Survival in Urban America." He sought and received an endorsement
from the DSA.

While running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat,
Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the New Party,
according to confirmed reports during last year's presidential campaign.

The New Party worked alongside the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party's aim was to
help elect politicians who espoused its policies.

Among New Party members was linguist and radical activist Noam Chomsky.

Obama listed as member of socialist party

Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 denied he was ever an actual
member of the New Party.

But print copies of the New Party News, the party's official
newspaper, show Obama posing with New Party leaders, listing him as a
New Party member and publishing quotes from him as a member.

The party's spring 1996 newspaper boasted: "New Party members won
three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State
Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia
Martin (Cook County Judiciary).

The paper quoted Obama saying, "These victories prove that small 'd'
democracy can work."

The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not
members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.

New Ground, the newsletter of Chicago's Democratic Socialists of
America, reported in its July/August 1996 edition that Obama attended
a New Party membership meeting April 11, 1996, in which he expressed
his gratitude for the group's support and "encouraged NPers (New
Party members) to join in his task forces on voter education and
voter registration."

The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known
as electoral "fusion," which enabled candidates to run on two tickets
simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New
Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the
Supreme Court.

According to DSA documents, the New Party worked with ACORN to
promote its candidates. ACORN, convicted in massive, nationwide voter
fraud cases, has been a point of controversy for Obama over his ties
to the group.

In 1995, the DSA's New Ground newsletter stated, "In Chicago, the New
Party's biggest asset and biggest liability is ACORN.

"Like most organizations, ACORN is a mixed bag," the newsletter said.
"On one hand, in Chicago, ACORN is a group that attempts to organize
some of the most depressed communities in the city. Chicago
organizers for ACORN and organizers for SEIU Local 880 have been
given modest monthly recruitment quotas for new New Party members. On
the other hand, like most groups that depend on canvassing for
fundraising, it's easy enough to find burned out and disgruntled
former employees. And ACORN has not had the reputation for being
interested in coalition politics ­ until recently and, happily, not
just within the New Party."

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Union Terror Link?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/548817/201009291830/Union-Terror-Link-.aspx

09/29/2010

Labor Raid: The FBI raids the Chicago home of a local union leader
looking for terrorist connections as the union's former chief is
investigated for corruption. Why are we not surprised?

Thuggery and corruption are not quite synonyms for unionism, but it
gets very close when you consider the Service Employees International
Union, formerly led by Andy Stern.

From being involved in fraudulent voter registration in Texas to
beating up Tea Party activists outside town hall meetings in
Missouri, SEIU's reputation is well-established.

Now we can possibly add a linkage to terrorism.

On Friday, the FBI searched eight addresses in Minneapolis and
Chicago. Among those addresses was the North Side home of Chicago
anti-war activists Joe Iosbaker and his wife, Stephanie Weiner, whose
home was searched for 12 hours.

The agents said they were looking for evidence relating to terrorist
activity. Warrants suggested agents were looking for links between
anti-war activists and terrorist groups in Colombia and the Mideast.
An FBI statement said those investigated were suspected of activities
"concerning the material support of terrorism."

The national media largely ignored the story, and the Chicago media
reported it as the 1968 Democratic National Convention ­ anti-war
activists being intimidated and investigated and manhandled by
oppressive law enforcement.

Iosbaker and Weiner said the government targeted them because they've
been outspoken against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S.
funding of conflicts abroad. That's the way local media covered it ­
local activists being hassled by the man.

As Warner Todd Huston over at Gateway Pundit reports, "one little
fact seems to have escaped the notice of these hard-nosed
journalists. Iosbaker is an SEIU union member. And not just a
rank-and-file member but an official."

Iosbaker is no less than the Chief Steward for SEIU Local 73. One
would think that a high-ranking union official linked to support of
international terrorism would be national news, especially when our
success in the war on terror abroad has caused a change in tactics
and the rise of what is known as "homegrown terrorism."

The sometimes violent anti-war movement and the SEIU have a long
history of linkages.

Wade Radthke, a former Students for a Democratic Society member,
founded Acorn and SEIU.

Stern, also an SDS member, cut his community and union-organizing
teeth with the SDS. He was trained in the tactics of radical activism
at the Midwest Academy, formed by former SDS members Paul and Heather Booth.

Stern has said that if those who disagree with command-and-control
government do not bow to the power of SEIU persuasion, they will bow
to the persuasion of SEIU power.

Certainly Kenneth Gladney discovered this when thugs wearing purple
SEIU shirts beat him up after he tried to sell "Don't Tread on Me"
paraphernalia outside a Missouri town hall meeting on health care.
Shades of the "Days Of Rage."

Now Stern is also under investigation by the FBI. The probe centers
on a six-figure contract that Stern got for his oddly named book, "A
Country That Works," that trumpets government and union power. SEIU
locals, using coerced union dues, bought thousands of copies as Stern
pocketed a large advance.

The FBI is also investigating Stern's role in paying money to an SEIU
leader in California who allegedly did no work.

Unions were formed on the premise of helping exploited workers. Now
it is the unions and their bosses, particularly the SEIU, doing the exploiting.

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