We prefer to write about what has happened rather than what might happen. But some probabilities, accusations, and conjectures are likely enough and interesting enough to be noticed before they’re certainties.

Which is why we’re drawing attention to a story about a trade union official’s suspected connection with terrorism both in South America and in the Middle East.

Investor’s Business Daily reports and comments:

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.

That’s the extreme left revolutionary Andy Stern who was reported last October, 2009, to be more often received by Obama at the White House than any other visitor.

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 … anti-war activists being intimidated and investigated and manhandled by oppressive law enforcement. …

Iosbaker is … 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 …

But no. The mainstream media will ignore the story if they can, and if they can’t, spin it as a story of mean right-wing anti-union bias.

(We confess to anti-union bias. One of the great achievements of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was, in our opinion, her victory over the economy-wrecking British trade unions, especially the National Union of Mineworkers in 1985.)

As we all know, people of Andy Stern’s and Iosbaker’s political persuasion are not union leaders for the love of the workers: they are left revolutionaries who hope to use the unions as a means to their ends. Read about Andy Stern here.

Iosbaker and Weiner were active members, with Barack Obama, of the New Party in Chicago. Read about it here at Gulag Bound. It was formed by an alliance of three organizations:

• The Democratic Socialists of America – the largest Marxist organization in America
• ACORN
• SEIU

Also heavily involved were the Communist Party USA breakaway group Committees of Correspondence and far left ‘think tank’ the Institute for Policy Studies.

Obama “not only worked closely with these New Party candidates”, he himself was a member of it.

All of which should have been made known to the electorate by the media during the presidential campaigns of 2008, but was not.

It’s useful to bring it up now, when Obama and his Democratic hurrah-chorus are calling Constitutionalists, Republicans, and Tea Party people “extremists”. (See here and here.)

Concerning Obama’s membership of the extreme left New Party, this from ‘the corner’ of the National Review:

New Party: Where’s the Press?   [Stanley Kurtz]

In "Something New Here," I laid out Barack Obama’s ties to the far-left New Party. Blogger Trevor Loudon, of New Zeal, did the pioneering work on this issue. Today, Loudon has posted good quality scans of New Party documents and pictures confirming Obama’s membership. We’ve seen most of this information before (although only recently), but never so clearly.

With all its lengthy background pieces, has the New York Times ever noted that Barack Obama was endorsed by, and was a member of, the New Party? What about theWashington Post? Has any major television network, any national news magazine, or any major daily newspaper ever mentioned that Barack Obama was endorsed by, or was a member of, the New Party? If any such outlet has ever mentioned that fact, have they ever gone on to explain in any depth exactly what the New Party was? For example, have they laid out the extremely close ties between the New Party in Chicago and ACORN? Especially with issue of Obama’s ties to ACORN so much in the news, isn’t this a major story right now?

Can any blogger out there answer these questions? I repeat: Has any major television network, any national news magazine, or any major daily newspaper ever mentioned Barack Obama’s membership in, or endorsement by, the New Party, and then gone on to explore and explain what the New Party was, including its ties to ACORN? Isn’t the membership of a major party nominee and currently favored candidate to become president of the United States in a third party a major news story? Is it not the height of press irresponsibility to ignore this fact?

Now some folks might be disturbed by Obama’s New Party membership and/or endorsement, and some may not. But isn’t this something the American people are entitled to know and decide on for themselves?