| Obama: Too busy for ACORN, anti-judiciary, Talbott exposed, hearts collectivism, H8s Senate advise & consent. Mismanagement: Thank you Woodrow Wilson, Angela Davis rocks, news unionists heart ACORN, union thugs rule labor-states, Michael Moore fail, A.C. Townley exposed, Teamsters: the original ACORN, Green: The New Red. |
Obama lied, his presidency died ... You’ve got to love Michael Moore. He’s running around promoting his new film that says capitalism is a terrible system, a rotten-to-the-core philosophy. But hold it. Didn’t Moore have to raise money to make the movie through capitalistic vehicles? Or did his dad give him the dough? In one of his many interviews, Moore began lecturing President Obama: “You are one of us. ... This is not the time to be the representative of the private health insurance industry. We need you to stand up. ... And we want universal healthcare for every single American, and we want it controlled in a single- payer system.” Wow, anything else, Mike? I’d love to know how Obama feels about being told what to do by the likes of Michael Moore, a man who admires the Cuban political system. I’d like to believe the president tunes out radical stuff, but there is growing evidence that he does not. When asked about the ACORN scandal, Obama said he wasn’t paying much attention to it. Hard to believe, but possible. He also said he had more important things to worry about. True, but you can walk and chew gum at the same time. The president should have condemned the corruption at ACORN, a group that fervently supports him. But the president did not. (venturacountystar.com)
Progressive props owed to Woodrow Wilson ... We've heard President Obama say that he needs to get the nation back on the track. Do you ever wonder when the nation got off the track? Obama would have us believe that it was his predecessor who derailed our nation. It was not, however, during President George W. Bush's term. I submit that it was during President Wilson's term — in 1913, to be precise. In 1913, three monumental events took our nation permanently off the track. First, on February 25, the Sixteenth Article in Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was certified to have been ratified by the required number of states. Second, on May 31, the Seventeenth Amendment was certified. Third, on December 23, Congress created the Federal Reserve System. All of these amendments/laws are unconstitutional. (nrtoday.com)
We don't need no stinkin' judiciary ... Eight months into office, President Barack Obama is moving far more slowly than his predecessor to fill federal court vacancies, leaving liberals waiting for the judiciary to tilt to the left. At stake are precedent-setting rulings on issues that divide liberals and conservatives: immigration, the death penalty, discrimination, campaign finance and abortion. As of Oct. 1, Obama has submitted only eight nominees to fill 20 current appeals court vacancies. During his first full eight months in office, former President George W. Bush had nominations for filling 23 of 34 vacancies, according to figures compiled by the Alliance for Justice, a liberal court-watching group. Obama has nominated only 10 people for 75 currently vacant district court judgeships. At this time in his first term, Bush had sent the Senate 32 district judge nominees for 81 then-vacant seats. (newsday.com)
Thank you, Angela Davis! ... Last Thursday night, Angela Davis, the veteran activist and ‘60s icon of black power politics, was greeted by a rousing ovation in a filled-to-capacity Leacock 132 before she even uttered a word. Davis was on campus to deliver Media@McGill’s Beaverbrook Lecture that sought to take a closer look at the complex relationship between race, power and the media in the U.S. As she scanned the auditorium, Davis acknowledged that most in attendance weren’t yet born when she first gained infamy in 1970, when she was arrested, charged and tried for three capital crimes - conspiracy, kidnapping and homicide. (reporter.mcgill.ca)
Who is Madeleine Talbott? ... "Because Gaspard's employment with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is acknowledged by no less an authority than ACORN founder Wade Rathke himself" and quoted Rathke's blog statement "that [SEIU] 1199's former political director, Patrick Gaspard...was ACORN New York's political director before that...." No doubt about it: that's what's in Rathke's blog. But should Rathke be trusted? Vadum incidentally noted that "the lines between ACORN and radical left-wing SEIU...become fuzzy in places," "SEIU Local 880 in Chicago is headed by longtime ACORN insider Keith Kelleher" and the ACORN "website has been receiving a thorough scrubbing in recent months" and "two SEIU locals mysteriously disappeared" from the list of affiliated organizations. Two named defendants "mysteriously disappeared" when the final version of the complaint that the ACORN 8 filed with the United States Justice Department just before it was filed. Those two named defendants were Keith Kelleher and his wife, Madeleine Talbott. Kelleher and Ms. Talbot are ACORN leaders who were based in Illinois even before now President Obama. Ms. Talbott was President Obama's mentor and beneficiary back in Illinois when he turned to community organizing. Vadum wrote that "the American public is beginning to realize that ACORN is a vast criminal conspiracy whose reach extends to the highest levels of the U.S. government" and "Obama's statement that he's barely aware of ACORN's problems is nothing short of ridiculous ..." (postchronicle.com)Bonus links:
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• More Saul Alinsky stories: here
• 'Rules for Radicals' at amazon.com
We're all collectivists now ... Fears of creeping collectivism have been part of our political debate for more than 100 years. Conservatives are not wrong to be concerned about the seemingly unstoppable growth of the government. But our mixed economy and sacrosanct entitlements are political facts that not even Ronald Reagan meaningfully reversed. As two historians recently said in The New York Times, the real political question is on whose behalf the government intervenes. Arguing that would make for a more serious, realistic debate than the one suggested by the scare-word "socialism," which obscures more than it illuminates. We're all more snuggly with statism than we can stand to admit. (dallasnews.com)
Czarist Obamunism exposed ... President Barack Obama is appointing so-called White House czars in profusion, and some of them, as well as people named to other kinds of positions in the administration, happen to be far-out ideologues. For some of us that’s troubling, but not for the left, which says, ho hum, big deal, go away, leave this president alone. Why, the left points out, President George W. Bush had lots of czars, and we know the leftists are forever holding Bush up as a model Obama should emulate ... or maybe I am wrong about this admiration. Maybe, as I am not the first to observe, this reference to Bush is just a dodge meant to deflect criticism from an idol who, in their eyes, can do no wrong, and so perhaps we should revisit some of the reasons some say these czar appointments are worrisome. (gosanangelo.com)
Why news unionists ignore ACORN ... My friends over at Union Free America have an excellent report on the activities of ACORN and unions. In the 2008 elections it achieved prominence both because of President Barack Obama’s previous association with it and because of the questionable legality of several of its voter registration activities. Another ongoing controversy is the extent to which union officials give their members’ dues dollars to organizations not supported by the members. Union members are assisted in the search for information about this by the U.S. Department of Labor’s very useful web site for union financial disclosure reports. (http://www.unionreports.gov) It contains a “payer/payee” search function so that by entering the name of the organization in question you can search the reports for all unions, and by modifying the reporting year, all the years of reports that are searchable online. Between 2005 and 2008, the years immediately available online, labor unions reported giving a total of $8,618,092 to ACORN. (theunionlabelblog.com)
Typical labor-state union thugs shout down lawmakers ... Today the state capital was abuzz with clamorous shouting from protesting union members. What was all the hullabaloo about? Union members organized in opposition to a press conference about a proposed bill to prohibit Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). PLAs are government contracts with mandated stipulations that benefit unions; such as required payments into union trust funds, required use of of union apprenticeships, and many other costly mandates. In practice PLAs are almost exclusively awarded to unionized companies. While union members may enjoy these lucrative contracts, PLAs only end up costing taxpayers money and private contactors jobs. Why not give everyone a fair chance to bid on government contracts? This is why State Representatives John Bear and Stan Saylor were holding a press conference in front of the capital – to inform Pennsylvanians on the injustices of PLAs. However when Rep. Bear got up to speak he was catcalled and booed by the mob of union members. His message was drowned out; in typical fashion organized labor used tactics of intimidation to silence the voice of opposition. What's worse is that we overheard union members mentioning that they were being paid $26 an hour to protest. (commonwealthfoundation.org)
Michael Moore Fail ... Michael Moore, champion of the working class, used non-union stagehands to film "Capitalism: A Love Story." The porcine provocateur is promoting his anti-Wall Street jeremiad by giving free tickets to unions, but the American Federation of Teachers has turned them down because Moore didn't hire any members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. "Michael Moore and one of our sister unions, IATSE, are in discussions about concerns the union has," the AFT told ABC News. "The AFT has decided against accepting tickets until those issues are resolved." (nypost.com)
Who was A.C. Townley? ... There was one man who paved the way for ACORN, its agenda and its tactics, and he rose to prominence a good twenty years before Saul Alinsky. His name was Arthur Townley. Please bear with me for a bit of history. A.C., as he was more popularly known, was a member of the Socialist Party in North Dakota. At the time, grain prices were manipulated, in his view, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What put him over the edge was when he overextended himself in an attempt to reap a hefty profit on flax, only to have the price drop, along with a bad crop. He lost a substantial amount of money. As a socialist, he naturally blamed the out-of-state capitalists and sought to do something about it. His solution: A state-controlled grain industry. According to “Political Prairie Fire,” written by Robert L. Morlan in 1955, Townley had a multi-point list of demands, including “State ownership of terminal elevators, flour mills, packing houses, and cold-storage plants,” as well as “Rural credit banks operated at cost.” (biggovernment.com)
Teamsters: The original ACORN ... Among the subjects covered in the report was the role the Teamsters and the rest of big labor expected Democrats and the Clinton administration to play in these schemes: The Subcommittee concluded the following: * From 1992 through the 1996 election cycle, the Teamsters waged a political campaign with a singular focus: to cultivate a strong, symbiotic relationship with the Clinton Administration and, more generally, the Democratic Party. * The IBT coordinated the union’s political efforts with other labor unions, the White House, and supposedly “independent” non-profit organizations. * IBT leadership appears to have linked political contributions to assistance from the politicians it supported * In addition to millions of dollars in direct political contributions made from DRIVE, IBT leaders appear to have tapped general treasury funds for $18 million more, which they spent in support of Democratic political candidates through tax-exempt organizations that conducted get-out-the-vote and issue advocacy activities; these contributions had the intended effect of assisting Democratic candidates. Such contributions may have violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974. * The IBT’s political action efforts contributed to the union’s near-bankruptcy. (hotair.com)
Green: The New Red ... I am sick to death of the economically illiterate environmental nonsense peddled in the media in an endless parade of bad thinking disguised as scientific discourse. The Green movement is a collectivist enterprise hell-bent on bending every knee in obeisance to a religious orthodoxy that will cripple the advancement of mankind and create third-world nations where first-world countries used to be, exponentially increasing infant mortality rates and reducing standards of living to make all of us look back on envy at the gold-plated living conditions of medieval serfs. The movement is a nasty brew of National Socialist "blood and soil" (see Anna Bramwells’s books), Marxist bromides and a child-like vision of how the universe works. (lewrockwell.com)
