| Obama: Autopsy exposes root causes, no turning back, it's good to be George, clings to collectivism, H8s talk radio, buys pols via SEIU. Mismanagement: Rules for Radicals: The Chicago Way, $10b union payoff buried in ObamaCare, Trumka backs force over persuasion, U.S. burns cash, labor-state blues, front-group plague, boycott Whole Foods, NEA flexes muscles. International: Putin disses Obama, Chávez New Prog triumph. |
Autopsy exposes multiple Obama failures ... Gallup surveys from January 2009, the month of Obama's inauguration, through June 2009, show that 40% percent of respondents described themselves as conservative -- 31 percent "conservative" and 9 percent "very conservative." Only 21 percent of respondents described themselves as liberal -- 16 percent "liberal" and 5 percent "very liberal." That 2-to-1 margin is big news even if the New York Times doesn't see it as newsworthy. Or to rephrase an old question, if liberalism crashes to the ground and the Times doesn't report it, does that mean it didn't happen? "You know this is important polling news, because the establishment media is pretending it doesn't exist,"
wrote Tom Blumer last week in the Wall Street Journal. "You can't find a relevant reference to it in searches on 'Gallup' at the New York Times, AP.org, the Washington Post, or the LA Times." What went wrong for Obama is everything. (spectator.org)
No turning back on Obamunism ... Even more than the New Deal and the Great Society, Obama's agenda expresses the mentality of a class that was nascent in the 1930s but burgeoned in the 1960s and 1970s. The spirit of that class is described in Saul Bellow's 1975 novel "Humboldt's Gift." In it Bellow wrote that the modern age began when a particular class of people decided, excitedly, that life had "lost the ability to arrange itself": "It had to be arranged. Intellectuals took this as their job ... This arranging has been the one great gorgeous tantalizing misleading disastrous project. A man like Humboldt, inspired, shrewd, nutty, was brimming over with the discovery that the human enterprise, so grand and infinitely varied, had now to be managed by exceptional persons. He was an exceptional person, therefore he was an eligible candidate for power." So, shrewd and nutty people such as Rep. Barney Frank are brimful of excitement about arranging American life. What will stop them? The president accurately says Americans are "reluctant shareholders" of GM, AIG and Citigroup. But is he? (ibdeditorials.com)
Rules for Radicals used against the Right, Left ... The late Saul Alinsky was a leftwing community organizer extraordinaire and an early mentor to Barack Obama. Alinsky literally wrote the book on tactics that the powerless should use against the powerful, as Noam Cohen noted in yesterday’s New York Times. Dick Armey paid tribute to Alinsky’s methods: “What I think of Alinsky is that he was very good at what he did but what he did was not good.” And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Armey and other organizers of the town hall protests over health care have paid even higher tribute to Alinsky by adopting his tactics. (blogs.ajc.com)Bonus links:
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• More Saul Alinsky stories: here
• 'Rules for Radicals' at amazon.com
Chicago-style politics infect U.S. ... Schlafly bemoans an incident at Democrat Russ Carnahan's (Missouri) town hall meeting in early August in which SEIU (Service Employees International Union) “thugs, clad in purple shirts, punched in the face, brutally beat and kicked in the head when he was down an African American named Kenneth Gladney, while hurling a torrent of racial slurs. The SEIU goons were following White House advice: ‘Don't do a lot of talking,’ and if they encounter resistance, ‘punch back twice as hard’ ... The Purple Shirt Brigade picked on Gladney because he was passing out historical American flags with the inscription ‘Don't Tread on Me,’ and the Left won't tolerate African-Americans as conservatives. Gladney was taken to the hospital, and six people were arrested.” (examiner.com)
Obamalosi Dems promise unions $10 billion payoff ... After enraged constituents started showing up at Congressional town-hall forums to oppose ObamaCare, the unions acted quickly to counterdemonstrate on behalf of the Democratic agenda item. In at least one case, union representatives used violence to intimidate and harrass ObamaCare opponents. The same union, which represents a large percentage of government workers and would be presumably immune from any health-care reform action, issued memos demanding volunteers to “drown out” opposition to ObamaCare. But why? This report from the Detroit Free Press explains that the unions have a good reason — actually, ten billion good reasons: "Antilabor forces say it’s welfare for the UAW and Democrats’ union allies. Labor supporters say it falls short of what’s needed as tens of thousands of union members are pushed into early retirement as employers cut back health care coverage. They’re both talking about a $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills that could help the UAW’s retiree health-care plan and other union-backed plans." (hotair.com)
It's good to be George: Obama-Soros P2P via Trotskyite Lula ... It did not take long for the Obama administration to repay the evil leftist, George Soros, for his 35 million dollars in bribe money. Within the past month, Obama, desperate to keep his failing coalition together, used 140 million dollars of money stolen from our grandkids, to hand out as bribes on the streets of New York. Soros "donated" 35 million more. I say "donated" because it really was not a donation, it was money Soros used to "prime the pump." And boy did it pay off for Soros. The Hopey Change administration just saw to it that TWO BILLION DOLLARS is going to be sent to a Brazilian Company, which Soros owns controlling interest, so that Brazil can drill for oil. So while Obama acts to destroy the American Oil Industry, he makes sure that Brazil can be energy independent, and that Soros can continue to get rich on the backs of Americans...not even born yet. (mccookgazette.com)
Obama clings to collectivist failure ... Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, widely credited with taking aggressive action to avert an economic catastrophe after the financial meltdown last fall, will be nominated by President Barack Obama for a second term, The Associated Press learned Monday night. Obama plans to make the announcement on Tuesday during a break from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard. A senior administration official discussed the nomination on the condition of anonymity because it was not yet public. In remarks prepared for the announcement, Obama praised Bernanke for leading the country through a financial crisis and, with his expertise on the Great Depression, helping to prevent a similar crisis. (newsmax.com)
Must. Stop. Talk Radio. ... A conservative media watchdog says the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress is a "pretty bad" organization that opposes many things that have made the United States great, and has a very deep-pocketed beneficiary who is committed to the leftist agenda. As previously reported on OneNewsNow, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission expressing his concerns about Mark Lloyd, who now serves as the new FCC associate general counsel and chief diversity officer. Grassley pointed out that prior to his FCC appointment, Lloyd served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he coauthored a paper titled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," which implied that there are not enough liberals on the talk radio dial. Seton Motley, the director of communications at the Media Research Center, says the Center for American Progress is a bad group. "The Center for American Progress is very anti-free speech, very anti-free market. All things that made this country great irk them tremendously," he notes. "So yes, they are a pretty bad organization." And Motley says billionaire George Soros is helping fund the organization. (onenewsnow.com)
Trumka: Do ObamaCare Now! ... As The Hill reports, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is on hold until labor leaders help President Obama pass his socialist healthcare policies this year, at least as far as the AFL-CIOs Richard Trumka is concerned. On Monday, August 24, Trumka pledged to dedicate his union to Obamacare in a web chat event put on by the liberal website Firedoglake.com. Trumka also discussed the issue on his blog posting. “The President/and Emanuel have both said they don’t intend to bring Employee Free Choice Act up until Health Insurance Reform is done,” Trumka wrote on the blog. “Which gives us an additional reason to do Health Insurance Reform now!” (theunionlabelblog.com)
And now: Cash for Kitchen Appliances ... Washington just doesn’t get it. Spending beyond our means is what got this country into trouble in this first place. Political gimmickry like Cash for (fill-in-the-blank) only exacerbates the root cause. Government has no business encouraging people to take out car loans or home loans — or buy new refrigerators or dishwashers — when they should be saving their money instead. They don’t get it. Via Business Week: "A $300 million cash-for-clunkers-type federal program to boost sales of energy-efficient home appliances provides a glimmer of hope for beleaguered makers of washing machines and dishwashers, but it’s probably not enough to lift companies such as Whirlpool (WHR) and Electrolux out of the worst down cycle in the sector’s history. Beginning late this fall, the program authorizes rebates of $50 to $200 for purchases of high-efficiency household appliances. The money is part of the broader economic stimulus bill passed earlier this year." (michellemalkin.com)
Kentucky: Labor-State Blues ... Boeing is a huge aerospace corporation that employs directly and indirectly more than 150,000 people and it recently announced that it is searching in the South for sites to build another plant. Unfortunately, Kentucky won’t be in the running because it’s not a right-to-work state. In Seattle, where Boeing is currently building the 787 Dreamliner, it is running about two years behind, in part because of a strike by 25,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Last fall, the machinists union staged a 57-day strike at factories around Seattle. It was the union’s fourth strike in 20 years. This is why Boeing is considering a second assembly plant for its 787 to make up for the repeated delays. Boeing is said to be looking at sites in South Carolina and Texas because they are right-to-work states, which means that employees aren’t required to join a union if one exists at a company. It sure would have been nice to have been even looked at by Boeing, considering the need for jobs in Kentucky, but wasn’t considered because it isn’t a right-to-work state, unlike most states to the south of us. (bgdailynews.com)
Tiny, corrupt labor-state shuts it down ... Rhode Island will shut down its state government for 12 days under a plan Gov. Don Carcieri outlined Monday to balance a budget hammered by surging unemployment and plummeting tax revenue. The shutdown will force 81 percent of the roughly 13,550-member state work force, excluding its college system, to stay home a dozen days without pay before the start of the new fiscal year in July. The closures come as the worst recession in decades has eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars in tax collections and pushed unemployment to 12.7 percent, the second-highest jobless rate in the nation behind Michigan. (cnsnews.com)
Study: High tax labor-states hurt workers ... Union employees bear more of the burden of high state corporate taxes than non-union employees, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. That suggests that in high-tax states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey, taxes take a bigger bite out of pay for union members than non-union workers in similar circumstances. Conversely, union workers may have more to gain from low taxes in places like Texas or Wyoming than non-union employees. The study by R. Alison Felix, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and James R. Hines, Jr., a University of Michigan professor, looks at "union wage premiums," or the average amount by which union hourly wages exceed non-union hourly wages. It analyzes how various levels of state tax affect those premiums. (nasdaq.com)
SEIU backs the best politicians money can buy ... Politicians who solicit campaign contributions from unions have a conflict of interest. That's the contention of Oak Lawn Mayor Dave Heilmann, although he didn't use those exact words. Trustee Richard Phelan (6th) responded to Heilmann's complaint with an e-mail that stated: "Elected officials have a clear and direct conflict when it comes to negotiating with municipal employees. Not only do we represent the management side of the bargaining and negotiations. All of us, at one time or another, have been the beneficiary of and/or the target of union bargaining unit donations and/or political activities. Let's look at the mayor, as the best example." Indeed, Heilmann first won election to office with the support of the Oak Lawn firefighters union. The previous administration had been threatening layoffs to patch a budget hole. Heilmann promised not to cut manpower. Times change. People alter their outlooks. Politicians lie during campaigns. (southtownstar.com)
Unionist political front group gets Dems free ad space on ballot ... The Connecticut Working Families Party announced Tuesday the cross ndorsement of seven Democrats running for office in November. One of those endorsed, state Rep. Tim O’Brien, D-New Britain, is the first mayoral candidate to be cross endorsed by the Working Families Party. “We’re thrilled to be endorsing such a strong slate this year in New Britain,” said Art Perry, a member of the party’s state committee. The Democratic candidates who also are endorsed by the Working Families Party will appear twice on the ballot: once on the Democratic line and also on the Working Families Party line. Votes cast on the Working Families line count toward the total number cast on both lines of the ballot. (newbritainherald.com)
UFCW conflates Whole Foods boycott ... Protesters and unhappy customers have taken to the streets and to social networking sites to express their displeasure regarding Whole Foods chief executive John Mackey’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed column on health care. Some are threatening to boycott the store altogether. The column, which appeared Aug. 12, was critical of President Obama’s health care plan. It urged the country to embrace a more free market health care system. “A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This ‘right’ has never existed in America,” Mackey wrote in the piece. Today members of the Washington-based based United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) demonstrated outside of Whole Foods stores in two locations in Ohio and plan to continue disseminating educational flyers to shoppers over the next few weeks. (progressivegrocer.com)
Corrupt jumbo union flexes political muscles ... Last month I highlighted a speech by NEA chief counsel Bob Chanin to the union's national convention in San Diego - an invective-laced stem-winder that could be summarized as follows: What's good for the union is good for public education. There was no evidence presented that corroborated this self-serving assertion, but the idea obviously had a receptive audience - including officials of the Vista Teachers Association, who seem to have the local school board on a short leash. That muscle was on display last spring when a cost-saving vote to do away with class-size reduction was immediately followed by a flurry of union-inspired actions that resulted in an apparently illegal meeting of three union-responsive board members (Carol Weise Herrera, Angela Chunka and Elizabeth Jaka) in the wee hours of the morning - and a two-step reversal of the class-size vote that included a "decent interval" to remedy any violation of the Brown Act. (nctimes.com)International Collectivism
Putin: We don't need no stinkin' Obama-Clinton Doctrine ... While Washington's eyes are on the Afghan theater, aggressive political stage-setting is underway in Russia's restless neighborhood. The Moscow powerhouse men are actively testing Washington's willingness to respond to their diplomatic bullying of countries like Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, countries that the Kremlin perceives to be in its natural "sphere of influence". How far can Moscow interfere in the internal affairs of these countries without being checked? Apparently, as recent diplomatic actions indicate, they feel quite free to do as they please. (examiner.com)
Chavista New Progs liberate oppressed Venezuelans ... The lights are going out in Venezuela. The Chávez-controlled legislature passed an education bill on Aug. 13 that will extinguish the last glimmers of free thought in the country's classrooms. The law is such a caricature of revolutionary legislation that it almost seems like a joke, like something out of Woody Allen's "Bananas." But it's not funny for Venezuelans. Schools will now be required to teach "Bolivarian doctrine," a vague catchall for Chávez's sloganeering. They will be supervised by "communal councils" (read commissars from the socialist party) and the central government will decide who can and who cannot enter universities and the teaching profession. The new law stretches government power beyond the schools, permitting the state to suspend media outlets that negatively affect the public's "mental health." This comes just three weeks after the government declined to renew the licenses of 34 radio stations. "We haven't closed any radio stations, we've applied the law," Chávez explained. "We've recovered a bunch of stations that were outside the law, that now belong to the people and not the bourgeoisie." Get it? They've been "liberated." (patriotpost.us)
