A Must Read: An Absolute Outrage!!!

If you read our Wednesday wall post, you saw the Chicago Tribune article (linked below) entitled “TransUnion battling attempts to ban employment credit checks.” Hands down, this is the best press coverage employment credit checks have ever received for the simple reason that it exposes some of the TransUnion backroom slime tactics they’re deploying to kill anti-employment credit check legislation at the state level. Rest assured the same tactics are being deployed at the Federal level as well with HR3149. Big PAC money and an army of lobbyists conducting backroom arm twisting and underhanded manipulation at every turn. Read the article below and make up your own mind on what type of company they are. Guess what . . . that’s not the outrage.

HERE IS THE OUTRAGE!!! If you read the article on Wednesday, you discovered the same time that we did the most egregious horrible atrocity we can imagine.

“TransUnion's chairman, Penny Pritzker, serves on the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, charged with advising Barack Obama's economic recovery efforts. Some say her company's lobbying efforts, which have extended to Oregon and Connecticut, undermine the nation's goals of getting back to work more than 15 million unemployed people in the U.S.”

Quite frankly, our mouth fell to the floor upon reading the above. We knew we were fighting lobbyists and hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC money from the big three credit bureaus, but this? The words “Economic Recovery” and “TransUnion” used within 100 miles of each other, much less in the same sentence, is beyond comprehension and beyond outrageous . . . It’s like combining good and evil, right and wrong, greed and charity. What could be more diametrically opposed to economic recovery than TransUnion starving the people and locking them out of the workplace? Admittedly we tend to be verbose, rant and ramble on, but with this combination of polar opposites, we have but two words, “HELL NO!”

In our press release linked below, we’re calling for President Obama re-think and disassociate by purging Pritzker from the board effective immediately. Any members not outraged or who disagree with this reaction are of course free to skip this week’s media outreach efforts and continue on with our ongoing state newspaper outreach efforts (see link below), but before you do so, at least get educated on Pritzker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Pritzker The TransUnion connection is bad enough, but via her connections to the failed Superior Bank in Chicago she’s implicated in the sub-prime mortgage melt down and predatory lending (the starter drug for bad credit) that disproportionately exploits racial minorities. (According to the Federal Reserve, African-Americans were three times more likely to receive higher priced loan products than non-Hispanic whites in 2005 and 2006. More than half of the high-priced loans issued to African-Americans during 2006 are now at risk of foreclosure, being over 60 days past due. Black home ownership, which had seen dramatic gains in the early part of the decade, hit a sharp decline as a result of the foreclosure crisis.) So based on all this, we don't think she's should be near an economic recovery board, much less on one . . . but you make up your own mind.

So if you’re even half as outraged as us, click on Monday’s activity requests and let’s get started booting her posterior out of the White House and of this board.

Monday’s Activity Requests:
http://hr3149.blogspot.com/2010/04/activity-requests-monday_29.html

Link to copy of the press release scheduled to go out on Monday morning . . .
http://hr3149.blogspot.com/2010/05/may-3-2010-press-release.html

CT Article Link: “TransUnion battling attempts to ban employment credit checks”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0429-credit-checks-transunion--20100428,0,5056644.story?page=1

What we hope to accomplish: Best case scenario, Pritzker resigns or gets booted, however we’re not naïve or under any illusions about our power. With almost 3,000 members now, we are large enough to alert the media to shine a bright light where it needs to shine and to stir the pot. Pritzker is a controversial figure and was nixed as a candidate for Commerce Secretary so there is hope we can nix her from this board. That’s why your outreach letters to the media this week are more than critical, they’re essential! Without a huge number of members writing every media outlet provided, we can’t demonstrate to the media that “we the people” are outraged. Worst case scenario, Pritzker gets marginalized and becomes a political liability and anti-employment credit check legislation gets lots of free press coverage which brings more warriors to the fight. Exposing the TransUnion connection makes any veto almost impossible without political consequences from “the people” so we win with just press coverage alone.

If you choose to opt out of this week’s activity requests we respect your prerogative and trust that you will simply continue forward with your state newspaper outreach effort. If you’re a new member, the link below will get you up to speed. We're a diverse group and don't expect a lock-step buy-in with every position we take or initiative we pursue.

Massive Newspaper Outreach Campaign – Ongoing . . .
http://hr3149.blogspot.com/2010/04/massive-newspaper-outreach-campaign.html

More background on Pritzker

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/pritzker-saved-obama-much_b_145339.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/28/obama-finance-chair-linke_n_88884.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/obama-pritzker.html

http://gdaeman.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-is-penny-pritzker-and-why-is-she.html