Paranoid Obama channels Nixon ... The business of handling "enemies," nevertheless, needs review and reappraisal at the highest White House level, meaning the presidential level. As White House frustration mounts over criticism of the health care, so unreasoning rage mounts and, unfortunately, finds outlets. The Obamans are fouling their own nest. A few days ago the story was pettish administration attacks on Fox News. Mean ol' Fox was being ugly about the health care reform -- suggesting overhaul of the overhauls in progress. No way! The White House communications director stuck out her tongue at the Foxies. Then Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, trying to advance the agenda on CNN and ABC respectively, made things worse, declaring (in Axelrod's words) that Fox, far from presenting news, was "pushing a point of view." (patriotpost.us)
Related video: Obama demeans self
Smeared by Obama ... Sorry to disillusion those of you who are still in denial about President Barack Obama's true socialistic and dictatorial nature, but this guy's militancy against his perceived enemies puts Richard Nixon's White House to shame. His war on Fox News is just his latest salvo. Obama's perceived enemies are all those who have the temerity not to roll over for his extreme agenda. They all must be demonized, marginalized and silenced by a president who has turned the Oval Office into a glorified street-organizing headquarters to attack his opponents. Indeed, this self-described uniter is the most divisive president in memory, and his uncontrollable ego can't countenance legitimate dissent. (wnd.com)
Community Organizers: Born to polarize ... "The thirteenth rule of radical tactics: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." - Saul Alinsky, the Father of Community Organizing, Rules for Radicals; p.128. There's a whole lot of polarizing going on in Obama's America. Unity is out, apparently. Polarization is still in. And Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are the new Bush. One would need to be a complete ninny outfitted with blinders and earplugs not to know this by now. One blaring truth rears its ugly head to any open-minded person who takes a hard look at Barack Obama's personal and political history. His history is shot clear through with polarizing effects, both intentional and unintentional. One might almost say that Barack Obama was a born polarizer. (americanthinker.com)
Wednesday is SEIU Day for the NLRB ... Following your review of this post, if you believe this issue is as important as we do, please forward this to your contacts who may be small business owners, or in human resources or labor relations. In two days, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (ironically called HELP) will be voting to confirm union radical Craig Becker's nomination to the National Labor Relations Board. This is being done without a hearing on Becker or his radical views. Craig Becker is assistant general counsel to both the SEIU and AFL-CIO. For background on Becker, go to LaborUnionReport's blog on Becker here. The Workforce Fairness Institute has posted an online petition (here) for people interested in stopping Becker from being confirmed to the NLRB. There are only two days left, today and tomorrow, for people to take action. (laborunionreport.blogspot.com)
Related video: Meet Craig Becker, AFL-CIO Obamunist
Shocker: SEIU, AFSCME rejected in labor-state ... Illinois workers who are paid by the state to care for severely disabled people in their homes have voted down an effort to unionize. More than 3,000 home health care workers mailed in their ballots this month; the ballots were counted on Monday and most of those workers voted not to join a union, according to Alan Symonette, an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, which counted the vote. The workers could have voted to join the American Federation of State, county of Municipal Employees or the Service Employees International Union, but more than half of them voted to remain non-union. (cbs2chicago.com)
Unpresidential ... This has been a recurring theme in President Obama's rhetoric. As we noted last week, he frequently refers to the "mess" that he "inherited." But the presidency is not an inheritance, it is a responsibility that Obama sought. To the extent that the country is a "mess," it is not "somebody else's mess"; it is all of our mess. If Obama's policies make matters worse rather than better, it won't be his mess either; all of us will have to live with the consequences. It's fine for an opposition candidate to decry the "mess" created by the party in power, as Obama did last year and Republicans are doing now. But this style of rhetoric is unpresidential. It's reminiscent of the petulant teenager who tries to evade responsibility by asserting, "I didn't ask to be born!" Except that the teen's statement is literally accurate. No one asks to be born. Barack Obama did ask to be president. (online.wsj.com)
Obama-ACORN declares war against all ... In a free society, most individuals, families, and firms will deal with that problem through such homely measures as creating and husbanding wealth, planning for the future, and living within their means. Some, however, will be indifferent to such discipline and will demand more than they can afford. Enter thus ACORN and the Dems — the party of government. ACORN, like our president, is in the “community organizing” business — a euphemism for putting (some) people in a position to better demand things from government. Some of those demands are perfectly legitimate: reduce crime; fix the potholes. But others, the demands ACORN specializes in, are not thus “common.” They can be satisfied, in a world of scarcity, only by taking from some and giving to others. And that’s what the housing and health care debates today are largely about. And it’s why on both, the Dems are having difficulty getting their act together, because however much they turn a blind eye toward scarcity or pretend that they all agree, the truth is that they represent discrete constituencies, with discrete conflicting interests. That’s what happens when we’re all thrown into the common pot. What once was decided by individuals, reflecting their own particular interests, is now decided by government — and it’s a Hobbesian war of all against all. (cato-at-liberty.org)
Obamalosi Democrats: New Prog fail ... A poll released this weekend shows that only 34% of Californians approve of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) job performance, down 14 points from March. The study, conducted by the Field Research Institute, also showed that 44 percent of respondents disapproved of her job performance while 22 percent held no opinion. In the organization’s last poll in March, 48 percent of respondents approved of Pelosi’s job performance while 35 percent disapproved. Democrats approved of Pelosi’s performance as leader by a count of 51-23, with 26 percent expressing no opinion. Republicans overwhelmingly disapproved of her performance; 7 percent approved, 79 percent disapproved, and 14 percent said they held no opinion. 39 percent of “non-partisans” approved of her while 37 percent disapproved with 24 percent responding that they had no opinion. Pelosi’s job approval has previously sunk to similar lows in October and December 2007 during President George W. Bush’s second term. (thehill.com)
NFL pwned by race-baiting Rush-hater ... With the union contract set to expire after the 2010 season, Goodell faces tough decisions. He knows that union negotiations will be different this time, because DeMaurice Smith, who replaced the late Gene Upshaw as head of the players’ union, has made it clear he is going to be a more contentious opponent at the bargaining table. (parade.com)
Your money isn't good enough ... Another such person would be DeMaurice Smith, the head of the NFL Players Association. What is interesting about Mr. Smith, the well-connected Washington attorney, is that besides being head of the NFL’s players union he also served on President Obama’s transition team and is a good friend to Attorney General Eric Holder. Fancy that! It makes you wonder if his leading the opposition against Limbaugh has less to do with race and more to do with personal partisan politics. Few people have been more pronounced in their lampooning and criticism of Smith’s pal Obama than Limbaugh. The president has made it quite clear he would like to be free of such unhelpful criticism. He is on record as saying he would prefer the people who got America into this “mess” not to “do a lot of talkin’.” “I don’t mind cleaning up after them,” the President said, “But don’t do a lot of talking.” Not very unifying, those words. But then Barack Obama isn’t looking to become an owner of an NFL franchise. (delcotimes.com)
Civil rights leader blasts disgraceful DeMaurice ... Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization Of A New Destiny, issued the following statement about the scandalous and shameful way NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith treated Rush Limbaugh, effectively blocking his bid as part of a group to purchase the St. Louis Rams: "As an American civil-rights leader I am deeply disturbed by the unfair treatment Rush Limbaugh received at the hands of the NFL and the smear campaign orchestrated by many in the media to brand him a 'racist.' "Rush Limbaugh was denied the opportunity to own a part of an NFL franchise because he's a conservative straight white male and a staunch critic of Barack Obama's agenda. (pr-canada.net)
Carville checks-in from another planet ... "The self-identifying conservative Republicans who make up the base of the Republican Party stand a world apart from the rest of America," write Carville and Greenberg. Conservative Republicans, according to the Democracy Corps research, don't trust Barack Obama; are scared by the speed with which the president and Democrats in Congress are attempting to enact new programs; don't like government takeovers of business; and believe that many of their fellow Americans don't fully appreciate the threat posed by the Democratic agenda. (washingtonexaminer.com)
Oppressive NLRB: No Longer Respects Bargaining ... The National Labor Relations Board finds itself in awkward position–having been ordered multiple times by the Federal Labor Relations Authority to bargain with its own employees. According to the NLRB Union, the NLRB has yet to bargain in good faith. Employees of the National Labor Relation Board, seeing what unionization has done to for so many others, decided to organize into one bargaining unit in 2005. Since then, the dispute has festered between the NLRB leadership and what seems to be about 1000 employees nationwide at 30 regional offices. A shout out to RedState for reporting on how the NLRB’s own union is picketing the new chairman of the NLRB, Wilma Liedman. She recently attended a luncheon recently in San Francisco, only to be yelled at greeted by her own employees. But this wasn’t the first time. (laborpains.org)
Desert drama for union-backed fraud group ... ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, faces still another high-stakes challenge — and more embarrassment — in Nevada, where it has been charged with 13 felony counts related to potential voter registration fraud during the 2008 campaign. This is the only state where ACORN, as an organization, is accused of criminal wrongdoing. Similar investigations in Pennsylvania and Florida have resulted in charges against individual canvassers the group hired to register voters. “With ACORN, one wonders how it could get worse for them,” said Tom Fitton, president of Washington-based Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group that has been digging into ACORN’s activities. “But a criminal conviction of the organization itself — that would be worse.” (lasvegassun.com)
New Progs subdue the Wild West ... The rise of the tea parties across Montana and the nation are a call to get involved. If we do nothing, then these people on the far left will dictate how we are going to live on the Front in the future. Currently, the Sonoran Institute has a full-time employee in Choteau, and six others in Helena and Bozeman. These people are sitting on city councils, growth policy committees, and zoning boards with the sole purpose of stopping economic development along the Front. This organization is funded by the Tides Foundation which is simply a way for people such as George Soros to hide the amount of money they are spending to keep you and me off the Front. This is only one organization of many. (greatfallstribune.com)
Oregon follows SEIU playbook ... The downturn in the capitalist economy is not news to the people of Portland, Salem, Medford, and the rural areas of Oregon, which saw high unemployment and underemployment during both the dot.com boom and the alleged Bush “recovery.” However, the current crisis is hitting Portland, and the rest of Oregon, particularly hard, with state-wide unemployment levels competing with hard-pressed California for fourth place nationally. (wsws.org)
Maryland pwned by SEIU ... Family child-care workers in Maryland beware. A union official will come knocking on your door soon. A collective bargaining agreement Gov. Martin O'Malley signed with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 500 last week gives the union broad access to the names, addresses - and ultimately the checkbooks of family child care providers who participate in the state's child care subsidy program. Gov. O'Malley described the first-ever collective bargaining agreement as a way to protect child-care workers. "The hard working professionals of SEIU are vital to the healthy future of so many Marylanders, and it's our obligation to ensure their rights as contracted workers are protected just as state employees are," he said. (washingtonexaminer.com)
Union members can check out any time they want ... Brooklyn College is part of the City University of New York, which is considered an "agency shop." As such, the Professional Staff Congress - the teachers' union - can charge non-union members for its collective bargaining efforts on their behalf. Tenured geology professor David Seidemann argued that this fee covered political aims unrelated to collective bargaining, forcing him to support ideological activity in violation of his First Amendment rights. Specifically, he claimed the union improperly charged him for the costs of its campaign to land a new contract with CUNY, the lobbying efforts of a state union affiliate, the costs of sending delegates to that affiliate's conventions, the salaries of union employees, and a national affiliate's media expenses. He also challenged the union's process for contesting these charges. The district court upheld the union's right to charge the plaintiff for all but a few public relations expenses. It also required Seidemann to arbitrate any future challenges before filing suit. The Manhattan-based federal appeals court disagreed and revived the case. (courthousenews.com)
ACORN: What really happened in Philly ... Andrew Breitbart's Big Government will hold a press conference featuring James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the two daring young journalists who, posing as a "pimp" and "prostitute," exposed massive corruption within ACORN's offices throughout the country. The Press Conference will be held at the National Press Club of Washington, DC on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. According to Mr. Breitbart, "ACORN representatives claim James and Hannah were kicked out of Philadelphia. They also said publicly that unlike Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, San Bernardino and San Diego, James and Hannah never even mentioned prostitution before they were told to leave. James and Hannah will be joining me to set the record straight. After Wednesday, everyone will know what really happened in Philly." (reuters.com)
Militant teacher-strikers heart binding arbitration ... The Ottawa Township High School Board of Education is continuing with plans to start school again soon — with or without the teachers now walking the picket line. Following a bargaining session Sunday night that failed to produce an agreement, Board President George "Skip" Hupp asked teachers to return to school and continue bargaining if they did not wish to accept the board's proposal. He also invited teachers to cross the picket line to return to school. As of Monday, no OTHS Education Association members accepted the offer to return to class. The teachers union said they would only return to school without a contract if the board agreed to binding arbitration. (mywebtimes.com)
International Collectivism
Obama H8s constitutionalism ... It is extraordinary to see the Obama Administration -- backed by establishment liberal papers like the Washington Post and New York Times -- urging democratic Honduras to accept at least the temporary reinstatement of ousted president Manuel Zelaya. Hondurans should ignore this advice. Zelaya was ousted because he sought to alter the Honduran Constitution in order to enable him to run for a further term as president. This was illegal, because Article 4 of the Constitution limits the president to one four-year term. Article 4 in turn is subject to a constitutional prohibition on its alteration contained in Article 239, which states that "whoever changes or attempts to change" it "will be immediately removed from public office." (spectator.org)
We don't need no stinkin' human rights ... The world thinks better of the United States, we are told, because Barack Obama is in the White House. Maybe the world is wrong. It's fanciful, of course, to speak of what "the world" thinks about anything. It's safe to say that among Norwegian prize givers and Canadian avant-garde filmmakers, Obama is extremely popular. And certainly among bien pensant Americans, the advent of Obama is viewed as the moral pinnacle of American history. It has always been a particular vanity of the left to believe itself morally superior to others. But the claims for this presidency have been beyond extravagant. Global human rights, morality, and justice took a "great leap forward" (as Anita Dunn's favorite political philosopher might say) on Jan. 20. But in the space of just nine months, the Obama administration has betrayed the cause of human rights around the globe. (realclearpolitics.com)
Militant auto strikers turn violent ... The situation at a Gurgaon-based auto component factory in Haryana continued to be tense on Tuesday as angry workers of various automobile companies struck work and pelted stones at RICO factory, leading the police to declare Sec 144 in the affected areas. Thousands of workers collected outside RICO with sticks and stones in their hands and tried to forcefully enter the complex. As they failed to enter, the workers tried to vandalise the gate and pelted stones the office windows. Police moved in to control the situation and warned severe action. “If they take law in their hands, we will have to take action,” Jagdish N, DCP of East Gurgaon, told media persons. (zeenews.com)
LatAm leftwing Caudillos H8 limits ... Nicaragua's Supreme Court has authorized the re-election bid of President Daniel Ortega, ordering the election tribunal to register his candidacy for the 2011 election. The surprising court verdict changes the 1987 constitution, which prohibited consecutive presidential terms. Ortega had tried without success to get the National Assembly to amend the charter. The court decision also benefits 109 mayors and vice mayors of Ortega's ruling Sandinista Front, allowing them to run for re-election in 2012. (monstersandcritics.com)