Saturday wrap

Obama: Plays politics, dreams big, threatened by minarchists, scripts P2P whitewash, controls internet, cops attitude, MOb'ed up, accomplishments cited. Mismanagement: Prog War fail, unlimited gov't rules, monopoly unionism, NEA unit oppresses teachers, leftwing liturgy, lion of unionism, Pelosi shames Congress, endless terms, NBA fouls refs, Teamster strike fail, CUPE strike fail. International: Chávez haunts Kennedys, communists liberate Vietnam from blogger, Chávez perfects New Prog State.

Hyperpartisan Obama playing politics with Stimulus projects ... The Obama administration said Friday that two Democratic senators falsely took credit for steering millions of dollars to projects in their home state, even as officials acknowledged that the Homeland Security secretary met with the lawmakers and discussed financing the projects. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano denies politics played any role in distributing stimulus money. The Associated Press reported this week that her department did not follow its own priority list when selecting projects. (washingtonexaminer.com)


Obama's New Prog War Fail ... An American service member died Friday when his vehicle struck a bomb in eastern Afghanistan, making August the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nearly eight-year Afghan war. The death brought to 45 the number of Americans killed this month in the Afghan war — one more than the previous monthly record, set last month. At least 732 U.S. troops have died since the U.S.-led invasion of late 2001. Nearly 60 percent of those deaths occurred since the Taliban insurgency began to rebound in 2007. (statesman.com)


The New Racism: Limited Government ... The problem is that many have issues with President Obama’s policies, not that he’s black. There is the strong belief that the road he wants to take us down is not good for the country. That is what wanting him to fail means. People of all kinds at town hall meetings are against ObamaCare and for limited government. (blogs.kansascity.com)

Related cartoon: Obama's Pipe Dream

(sfexaminer.com)


We don't need no stinkin' competition ... Though not explicit in the state constitution, collective bargaining is implied as such because it is a term of art, Barker said. To drive home the point, SNEA called in an expert witness on labor and law — Joseph Slater, a professor of law and values at the University of Toledo College of Law. Slater provided for the court a historical backdrop of labor law in the United States, citing numerous cases and statutes that involved collective bargaining for private and public sector workers. “Collective bargaining is a term of art that necessarily includes the idea of exclusive representation because that’s the way it has always been in America,” Slater said in his testimony. (news-leader.com)


Oppressive fat-cat union oppresses labor-state teachers ... A group of teachers in the North Clackamas (OR) School District took the initiative Thursday, amid losing their jobs because of budget cuts, by gathering signatures in an effort to have their voices heard by their union. The teachers, who gathered outside their union office, said they want a response from the union and put their demands in writing in the form of a petition. Those speaking out said it shouldn't have reached this point, and they would have accepted the district's offer, favoring a wage freeze to save jobs. “We took a poll in the spring and they got our opinion and the majority said wage freeze,” said Monica Whiteley, who was laid off. “So I would like them to look at the poll or honor it and have us look at the memo of understanding that is out there.” They said they feel the union hasn't been listening or communicating. “I have felt like my voice has not been heard. I wasn’t asked was I OK with losing my job,” said Jenny Klassen, another laid off teacher. (katu.com)


Minarchist libertarians threaten Obamunism ... Our present political system is coming unglued, a victim of its own contradictions. It is apparent even to those in great denial that there is something terribly wrong, that the center cannot hold, and that we are rapidly adrift in a very bad direction. The widespread anger that has been shown in town hall meetings all over the country is a sign that mainstream Americans have begun to have a sense of foreboding, and they are angry at the position in which we now find ourselves. People are looking for answers, but the old solutions obviously are not working. Any number of writers has emerged to propose remedies that were unthinkable only a few short years ago, but which are now becoming acceptable topics of discourse. These topics include such ideas as government being the cause, rather than the solution, to our current predicament. These ideas received rhetorical support from at least one of our recent presidents, but his actions, however well intentioned, continued to contribute to the problem. The libertarian position, on the other hand, is now beginning to receive increased attention and support, and there have appeared any number of fine writers who have contributed to the literature of liberty. One such line of libertarian thinking accepts that the institution of government is legitimate, but that government should be confined to certain well-defined tasks and must be strictly limited to a very small size and influence. This is known as minarchism, and it is a widely held and respected position of libertarian thought. (lewrockwell.com)


Transparent Corruption: Anatomy of Obama's P2P whitewash ... New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson won’t be charged in a yearlong investigation of an alleged pay- to-play scheme, even though “pressure from the governor’s office resulted in the corruption of the procurement process,” the state’s top federal prosecutor said in a letter. The investigation revealed “that CDR and its officers made substantial contributions to Governor Richardson’s political organizations during the time that the company sought financial work with the NMFA,” according to the letter. “The investigation further revealed that pressure from the governor’s office resulted in the corruption of the procurement process so that CDR would be awarded such work.” Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesman for Richardson said in a statement: “The prosecutor’s letter is wrong on the facts and appears to be nothing more than sour grapes.” Norman Cairns, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in New Mexico, declined to comment. (bloomberg.com)


Obama's ugly grand experiment with fascism exposed ... There was a bill this spring introduced by West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller that would give the president the ability to disconnect the private sector from the Internet. The bill has been brewing for a couple of months and has now resurfaced with much more vague language essentially stating the same rules of authority. The Deputy Communications Director for the senate is responding saying that the president has always had these powers. Of course when George Bush was highlighting supposed powers that the president didn’t have, all of the Democrats were shouting unconstitutional. With these kinds of bills and the actions that have been taking place I just can’t help but wonder who’s running the show. Sure this is the senate but the senate usually or at least shouldn’t just arbitrarily start throwing the president new powers. The government’s taking over private companies one minute and hiring a private army of thugs the next minute. The president wants to dictate who can live and who can die and now he’s working on implementing tools to take over one of the last bastions of free speech that he doesn’t control At the same time Obama’s diversity czar is working on eliminating talk radio. (examiner.com)


Obama cops an attitude ... After hearing the president’s racial comment on TV ... and his comments about the stupid police department, I realize his mental attitude. Having been nothing more than a community organizer in Chicago, you can readily detect his attitude about his mother’s race. His actions of spreading the wealth, spreading hate and discontent among the ghetto people in Chicago, his actions and words give him away. It must have been a lucrative job, working for ACORN and their thugs. He never had any other job until then. He got involved with the Chicago radicals and terrorist bunch and was their man .... They groomed him for the Senate. He didn’t do much there because when voting came up, he would just vote present. Did he think he wasn’t capable enough to make a proper decision? We know now as our president, he says something wrong and immediately he pleads the out-of-context excuse or else a better use of wording. We get on TV — Obama propaganda and what an intelligent and accomplished speaker he is. None of the media has ever noticed how he utterly disintegrates in his speeches when his TelePrompTers malfunction. A first year English student at Indian Hills would make Obama look pathetic especially if he had to write and prepare his own material. (ottumwa.com)


Progressive rag compared First Lady to Angela Davis ... In June, the Obama campaign, on a Web site it had created to debunk rumors, said that Michelle Obama had never spoken from the pulpit of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and used the phrase "whitey." Rumors were circulating on conservative Republican blogs and talk radio shows that she'd launched into such a diatribe at the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church and that it was captured on tape. "She has been absolutely savaged by the talk shows. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity pull her apart almost every day," said Myra Gutin, a communications professor at New Jersey's Rider University and the author of "Barbara Bush: Presidential Matriarch." "They think she's unpatriotic and has a hidden agenda." The New Yorker magazine added fuel to the fire with a July cover cartoon depicting the Obamas standing in the Oval Office with a picture of Osama bin Laden over a fireplace with an American flag burning in it. Barack Obama, in Muslim garb, is fist-bumping an angry-looking wife clad in combat fatigues, with a cartridge belt and rifle slung over her shoulder and a 1960s Angela Davis-style Afro atop her head. (idahostatesman.com)


Leftwing liturgy: United Way for Saul Alinsky ... Each November around Thanksgiving every Roman Catholic parish takes up a collection for the nonprofit Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), a program run under the auspices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Last November, under intense pressure from Catholic parishioners, CCHD finally stopped collecting money for the fraud-ridden radical group ACORN. But the Bishops’ Conference continues to support other radical community activist groups with similar goals, such as the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) founded in Chicago by Saul Alinsky, the founding father of “community organizing.” President Obama, a self-professed community organizer, has ties to both ACORN and CCHD. (capitalresearch.org)

Bonus links:
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• More Saul Alinsky stories: here
• 'Rules for Radicals' at amazon.com


Lion of Organized Labor will be missed by socialists ... The labor movement and other mass organizations of the people unleashed a torrent of tributes to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, hailing him as a “hero” who fought to the final hours of his life for civil rights, health care and workers’ rights to union protection. (pww.org)


Meet Hugo Chávez, friend of The Kennedys ... Political pundits say former Rep. Joe Kennedy II (D-Massachusetts) may be in the running to be successor in the U.S. Senate to his leftist uncle Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) who died earlier this week. Kennedy is a friend and ally of Hugo Chávez, who as Venezuela's head of state controls Petroleos de Venezuela SA which in turn controls the U.S.-chartered CITGO. Just like Uncle Ted, Joe Kennedy is a communist enabler too. At the direction of Chávez, CITGO provides low-cost fuel to Kennedy's nonprofit, Citizens Energy Corporation, which he created in 1979 to provide discounted home heating oil to low-income people in Massachusetts. The CITGO effort is part of Venezuela's campaign in the U.S. to put a smiley face on Chávez's iron-fisted rule. (spectator.org)


Nancy Pelosi casts shame on Congress ... The newly declassified CIA report on the interrogation of Islamist terrorists notes "in the fall of 2002, the agency briefed the leadership of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of both standard techniques and EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques)." The CIA, according to the report, "continued to brief the leadership of the Intelligence Oversight Committees on the use of EITs and detentions in February and March 2003." And here's the zinger: "The general counsel says that none of the participants expressed any concern about the techniques or the program ..." For months, Speaker Pelosi has claimed she and other high-ranking Democrats in Congress who were briefed by the CIA during President Bush's first term "were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used." (ibdeditorials.com)


Solution offered for corrupt, hypocritical politics ... Do you remember when the Democrats came into power on President Obama's coattails promising the most ethical, bipartisan and transparent administration in history? With that recollection I thought that it might be helpful to mention two — no, three — examples of liberal hypocrisy at its best. When auto executives flew to a House hearing in their corporate jets the committee liberals went apoplectic in their scolding the executives for their wasteful habits. But, now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ordered several luxury jets to be at the disposal of our servants in Congress. Their hubris now shows in their calling citizens "un-American" and "angry mobs" when they express dissatisfaction with the representation they are required to pay for, and in their thinking that it is beneath their dignity to even read a bill which will drastically affect the lives of 300 million Americans. From my viewpoint the absolute least thing that we must do is push for term limits. This would appear to be the only message from the "angry mobs" that they will hear. (poconorecord.com)


President Obama's early accomplishments cited ... Just a short list to bring you up to speed on many of President Obama's accomplishments to date. • Intentionally, or ignorantly, offended the Queen of England; then almost at the same time, bowed, in the name of the Untied States, to the despotic and repressive king of Saudi Arabia, whose Mohammedan ancestors were key players in the acquisition, transport, sale and use of black slaves. • Praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega; kissed U.S.-hater Hugo Chávez on the cheek; and endorsed Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia. • Announced that we would meet with Iranians, with no pre-conditions, even though that government aggressively supports terrorists in Iraq (which have killed and are killing U.S. soldiers); is likely, even as I write, building an atomic bomb; has invaded and taken over our embassy in their nation; and, very basically, hates and pledges to destroy the Christian United States. • Gave away billions to failed money exchangers (e.g., AIG) - also without pre-conditions. • Doubled our national debt. • Announced an end to our Space Defense Program, a day after the unstable North Koreans launched an ICBM toward us. • Despite the urgings of his own CIA director and prior CIA directors, released sensitive information on intelligence gathering then announced major restrictions on interrogation techniques used on dangerous, enemy combatant prisoners. • Accepted, without public comment, the fact that five of his cabinet members cheated on their taxes, and two other appointees withdrew after they couldn't take the heat. • Appointed a Homeland Security Chief who quickly identified as "dangers to the nation" groups including veterans of the military and opponents to abortion on demand, and who ordered that the word "terrorism" no longer be used but instead referred to such acts as "man-made disasters." • Spent millions, or billions, of your money and mine, circling the globe so he could openly apologize for America 's shortcomings and sins. • Told Mexicans the violence in their country was mostly caused by illegal guns from the U.S. rather than by their own corrupt and incompetent government. • Politicized the census by moving it into the White House from its Department of Commerce origins and announced that ACORN the organization under massive scrutiny amid allegations of election fraud would manage the process. (hernandotoday.com)


NBA bigs get up in referees' face ... NBA owners are taking a hard line on cutting costs, which has resulted in staff reductions for some teams and could even trickle over to the court. They insist on slicing the referee's budget by 10 percent, which could lead to a lockout next week when the five-year deal with referees expires. Chances are fans will see replacement officials at least during the exhibition season and perhaps beyond. The league wants to slice salaries, travel, pension payouts and other benefits. This will be a critical test because the big battle comes following the 2010-11 season, when the collective bargaining agreement expires with the players. The NBA is screaming that a sluggish economy has put a crimp in things and that teams need financial relief. (detnews.com)


Militant Teamster unionists strike fail ... A lawyer for a northern Nevada trucker's union says the Teamsters have decided to pull its picket lines, in place since Sunday evening, as a "demonstration of good faith." Both sides say they are working to get back to the negotiating table. (krnv.com)


Group home militant unionists strike fail ... Picket lines at four group homes in Lanark County were withdrawn Friday and the union representing striking workers was hoping officials with the Community Living Association Lanark County would return to the bargaining table. Ninety service workers of CUPE 1521.02 have been on strike since July 4 over pension plan, wages and rollback issues. The workers take care of Lanark group home residents who have intellectual disabilities. (ottawacitizen.com)


International Collectivism

Single party rule boosts Vietnam ... Vietnamese police have detained a blogger who was critical of the ruling Communist Party, his acquaintances said on Saturday, just days after another dissident blogger was told to leave the newspaper he worked for. Bui Thanh Hieu, who wrote online under the name "Nguoi Buon Gio", which means Wind Trader, was picked up by police in Hanoi on Thursday and has not answered his telephone or been heard from since, said one acquaintance, who declined to be named out of concern for his own safety. Hieu's detention appears to be the latest in a string of arrests and other steps to silence dissent seen by some political analysts as part of a clampdown on free of speech in the one-Party state. (in.reuters.com)


Progressive state of perfected democracy emerges in Venezuela ... In 2005, Chávez declared the aim of the revolution was to build socialism of the 21st century. This new kind of socialism, he said, would be a "humane socialism'' and emphasise democratic participation. Direct democracy and popular participation has certainly flourished in Venezuela, expressed in a range of organising forms including urban land committees, health committees, grassroots assemblies, workers' councils and communal councils. However, many of these developing bodies remain localised or disconnected from each other, and often come into conflict with the traditional structures of the capitalist state. A new but developing initiative that aims to connect and extend popular participation in the struggle towards a new political and economic system is the formation of "socialist communes." Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network member Kiraz Janicke, who is currently living in Venezuela, spoke to Daniel Sanchez, a leader of the Rebirth of the South Commune in the city of Valencia, about how the development of "people's power" is transforming Venezuela. (venezuelanalysis.com)