Big Labor Money Unites Media Matters and the White House

[Geee]

Big Government:

 

In light of recent investigative reports from the Daily Caller that reveal close coordination between Media Matters for America and the White House, BigJournalism and BigGovernment have undertaken the task of revisiting some of our prior reporting on the media watchdog group and our list of its donors. We thought it prudent to highlight some of the mutual financial connections to the Obama White House and MMFA, starting with Big Labor.

In all, labor unions have donated at least nearly $500,000 directly to MMFA over the last three years.

During the heated health care reform debates in 2009, there were a series of incidents that occurred, the timing of which seemed to suggest there may have been coordination between MMFA, various White House personnel and some of those donor labor unions.

The build-up of activity culminated in a heavy presence of opposing members from both the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Tea Party at a town hall meeting in St Louis, Missouri on August 6th, 2009. Earlier that day, Obama advisers David Axelrod and Jim Messina told senators in a two-hour health care brainstorming session for the Democratic Caucus, “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard.”

Obama’s Organizing for America sent out a mass email on the same day. Later that evening, the now infamous incident involving the beating of Kenneth Gladney by members of SEIU occurred.