The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, Sedition, and Treason? QAnon too

[Crafty_Dog]

Glen Beck has been doing an outstanding job of developing awareness of just how radical, seditious, and corrupt the President Obama's appointments and friends are.  This thread is for putting the spotlight on these people
===============
SEIU's Andy Stern

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8558

[ccp]

And that is why friend's of Obama do their best to marginalize Beck, Palin, tea partiers, and others as "fringe of the fringe".
Distract attention away from the message and character assasinate the messenger.
The MSM is happy to do it.

Thanks God for Fox.

[Crafty_Dog]

"As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come [to Copenhagen] for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home, and you have put together a phenomenal set of ideas that, no matter what the outcome is, we should be proud of as a city." --Michelle Obama, "sacrificing" for Chicago to land the 2016 Olympic Games

To which Rush Limbaugh replied, "I'm thinking that Michelle Obama needs a little dictionary lesson. Let's not forget, this is the woman who is not proud of her country unless she's getting what she wants from it. She said during the campaign, the first time she'd been proud of her country was when Obama was nominated or done something. So she sacrificed herself to get in a big, luxurious jet -- a Boeing 757 -- to fly to Copenhagen, where she's pampered and treated like she were a goddess. Yes, this is a 'sacrifice.' Meanwhile, we have had at least four of our [volunteer] military men and women killed while living in tents in the most godforsaken spot on earth.... All the while she and her husband need a few more weeks to decide whether he can risk angering his base to send reinforcements to help them! So Michelle, you need to look at a Merriam-Webster Dictionary and study the word 'sacrifice' 'cause it's obviously a word you did not learn in your Ivy League education."
===============
Is a Lack of Vetting What Obama Meant by 'Transparency'?
Back on the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed his would be the most "transparent" administration in U.S. history. Perhaps what he meant was that the mainstream media would look past the foibles of those he selects for high positions under his watch.

The latest "for instance" comes in the person of "Safe School Czar" Kevin Jennings. Apparently, in the eyes of Jennings, a "safe school" is one where it's safe for an adult male to pursue a homosexual relationship with a student. Jennings denied condoning a relationship between a 15-year-old student and an adult male and threatened to sue a fellow teacher who called his refusal to report the incident "unethical." But since then, an audiotape has surfaced on which Jennings related to an Iowa homosexual advocacy group that he told the student to make sure to use a condom when seeing the older man. To most of us, allowing -- and even promoting -- statutory rape is grotesque, unquestionably illegal and grossly negligent, but to Obama, it appears to be qualification for the job.

Meanwhile, a recent GOP amendment prohibiting the creation of "czar" positions unless Congress confirms appointees was killed by a procedural move made by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Chicago).

patriotpost

[G M]

Barry-O's corruptocrats lose!

I bet the plane ride back with Lt. Worf will be very, very long. Maybe the empty-suit can start trying to be the president now?

[Crafty_Dog]

Lt. Worf? 

[G M]

The first klingon.

[ccp]

Well why should the US get the games - again - we had Los Angeles not too long ago, we had Atlanta in 1996.

The Obama interest was not for Chicago, Illinois, or the US.

It was all about OBama.

He would have just another forum to showcase just how wonderful he is and to continue pushing his agenda.

IMO that was what it was all about.

[Crafty_Dog]

In my opinion WND is often a careless source-- anyone have something on this matter from a more definitive source?

Sunstein: Americans too racist for socialism
Defends communism, welfare state but says 'white majority' oppose programs aiding blacks, Hispanics

Posted: October 07, 2009
10:35 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
JERUSALEM – The U.S. should move in the direction of socialism but the country's "white majority" opposes welfare since such programs largely would benefit minorities, especially blacks and Hispanics, argued President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.

"The absence of a European-style social welfare state is certainly connected with the widespread perception among the white majority that the relevant programs would disproportionately benefit African Americans (and more recently Hispanics)," wrote Sunstein.

The .czar's controversial comments were made in his 2004 book "The Second Bill of Rights," which was obtained and
reviewed by WND.

In the book, Sunstein openly argues for bringing socialism to the U.S. and even lends support to communism.
"During the Cold War, the debate about [social welfare] guarantees took the form of pervasive disagreement between the United States and its communist adversaries. Americans emphasized the importance of civil and political liberties, above all free speech and freedom of religion, while communist nations stressed the right to a job, and a social minimum."
Continued Sunstein: "I think this debate was unhelpful; it is most plausible to see the two sets of rights as mutually reinforcing, not antagonistic."

 
Sunstein claims the "socialist movement" did not take hold in the U.S. in part because of a "smaller and weaker political left or lack of enthusiasm for redistributive programs."
He laments, "In a variety of ways, subtle and less subtle, public and private actions have made it most difficult for socialism to have any traction in the United States."

Sunstein wants to spread America's wealth

WND first reported Sunstein penned a 2007 University of Chicago Law in which he debated whether America should pay "justice" to the world by entering into a agreement that would be a net financial loss for the U.S. He argues it is "desirable" to redistribute America's wealth to poorer nations.

A prominent theme throughout Sunstein's 39-page paper, entitled " Justice" and reviewed by WND, maintains U.S. wealth should be redistributed to poorer nations. He uses terms such as "distributive justice" several times. The paper was written with fellow Eric A. Posner.

"It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise, or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid," wrote Sunstein.
He posited: "We agree that if the United States does spend a great deal on emissions reductions as part of an international agreement, and if the agreement does give particular help to disadvantaged people, considerations of distributive justice support its action, even if better redistributive mechanisms are imaginable.

"If the United States agrees to participate in a climate change agreement on terms that are not in the nation's interest, but that help the world as a whole, there would be no reason for complaint, certainly if such participation is more helpful to poor nations than conventional foreign-aid alternatives," he wrote.

Sunstein maintains: "If we care about social welfare, we should approve of a situation in which a wealthy nation is willing to engage in a of self-sacrifice when the world benefits more than that nation loses."

Sunstein proposed 'socialist' bill of rights
In "The Second Bill of Rights," WND also reported, Sunstein proposed a new "bill of rights" in which he advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state. Among his mandates:
 The right to a useful and remunerative job in the or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

 The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

 The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

 The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

 The right of every family to a decent home;

 The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy

 The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

 The right to a good education.

On one page in his book, Sunstein claims he is "not seriously arguing" his bill of rights be "encompassed by anything in the Constitution," but on the next page he states that "if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself."
Later in the book, Sunstein argues that "at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America's constitutive commitments."
WND has learned that in April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled "The Constitution in 2020," which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.
Sunstein has been a main participant in the movement, which openly seeks to create a "progressive" consensus as to what the U.S. Constitution should provide for by the year 2020. It also suggests strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.
Just before his appearance at the conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he "will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party." 

[DougMacG]

"anyone have something on this matter from a more definitive source?"

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081014/NEWS09/810140299
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education... 10/13/2008

Powerline wrote about Sunstein a year ago: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/10/021903.php and the book is partially published online at googlebooks: http://books.google.com/books?id=cj00Zjh1XIkC&dq=sunstein+second+bill+rights&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=sp3OSrSHCMjPlAee0uSoCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAw
----
One thing unique about these Marxists and the right to healthcare, a job, a home, an education and the rest of the Second Bill of Rights is that with the original Bill of Rights, your right to speech, bear arms, be free of unreasonable search etc. did not create a burden on someone else to provide something for you.
----

From Powerline Oct. 2008:

Obama's Constitution
October 28, 2008 Posted by Scott Johnson at 5:36 AM

Yesterday the Obama campaign called on University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein to tamp down the furor over Obama's advocacy of "redistributive change" and overcoming of the Constitution's "negative rights" in his 2001 radio interview. Politico's Ben Smith reliably channelled Professor Sunstein's spinning on behalf of Obama.

Professor Sunstein was actually the right man to call on to explain Obama's remarks. They derive directly from Sunstein's advocacy of Roosevelt's so-called second Bill of Rights. Sunstein devoted a book to the subject in 2004 -- The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever. Roosevelt set forth his "second Bill of Rights" in his January 1944 State of the Union Address:

    In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all--regardless of station, race, or creed.

    Among these are:

    The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

    The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

    The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

    The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

    The right of every family to a decent home;

    The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

    The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

    The right to a good education.

Tom Palmer usefully explicated the political thought underlying Sunstein's argument in his review of the book. By contrast with the doctrine of rights conferred by God and nature set forth in the Declaration of Independence, Sunstein holds:

    You owe your life -- and everything else -- to the sovereign. The rights of subjects are not natural rights, but merely grants from the sovereign. There is no right even to complain about the actions of the sovereign, except insofar as the sovereign allows the subject to complain. These are the principles of unlimited, arbitrary, and absolute power, the principles of such rulers as Louis XIV. Intellectuals have assiduously promoted them; think of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes.

Thus Palmer deems Sunstein a "new intellectual champion of absolutism" who advances "the radical notion that all rights -- including rights usually held to be 'against' the state, such as the right to freedom of speech and the right not to be arbitrarily imprisoned or tortured -- are grants from the state."

At the American Constitution Society's "Constitution 2020" jamboree at Yale Law School in 2005, according to my daughter's notes, Sunstein explained:

    * With growth and change, political rights enshrined in Constitution are inadequate.

    * Need economic bill of rights. Ingredients of Second Bill of Rights--only with these rights will we have security

    * Long tradition of American political thought--states owe to every citizen a degree of subsistence. Second Bill of Rights made possible by attack on distinction between negative and positive rights. Effort to separate them is unfit for the American legal framework.

    * Roosevelt . . . did not favor return to narrowly construed judgments of those who drafted the Constitution.

    * By 2020, it's going to be about time for the Second Bill of Rights to be reclaimed. . . . Beauty of Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights is its concreteness--right to education, etc.

The debate on the left, alluded to in Obama's remarks and addressed in Sunstein's book, has been whether Congress or the courts should promulgate the welfare state agenda. Three years ago Sunstein et al. modestly posited the fulfillment of their welfare state dreams in 2020. With left-wing Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, and with Obama's ascendance, it looks like the future is now..

UPDATE: Via RealClearPolitics I see that Professor Sunstein is also spinning directly on behalf of Obama over at TNR. Maybe he'll explain some time after the election, if candor ever becomes the order of the day, what Obama meant when he referred to "the tragedies of the civil rights movement."

And from the Buckeye state, a reader reports:

    I live in Toledo, Ohio. Prior to Obama's trip here in which he met Joe the Plumber, the October 12 issue of The Toledo Blade had a signed statement by the co-publisher and editor-in-chief on the first page asking Obama whether he would agree with FDR's "Second Bill of Rights" guaranteeing "the right to a job, the right to a decent home, the right to adequate medical care, and the right to a good education." The statement includes a link to the audio clip and transcript of FDR proposing it.

    The letter was accompanied by a front page article discussing it, claiming "many" believe these ideas should be invoked, including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). The article stated that an answer from Obama as to whether he supports the idea is important to all Americans. The Blade claimed Obama agreed in principle to the ideas expressed in the second Bill of Rights: "Mr. Obama declined to give a simple yes or no answer, but in a written response and in an answer to the same question shouted at him, Mr. Obama appeared to agree in principle."

    Here's the article in the Blade detailing Obama's visit, noting: "U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers."

    This is scary stuff, but it obviously has the support of the Blade, Sen. Brown and Rep. Kaptur. I've frankly been surprised this hasn't received more attention as I think it sounds nutty to most Americans. At least I hope so.

Hope! Maybe that's the missing ingredient in the McCain campaign.

[ccp]

Doug,
True personal responsibility is losing favor it seems to me.
Our way of life is getting too hard for many.
Thus we see more people taking advantage wherever they can.
Soaking the system is a way of life in America.
And Obama is exponentially expanding this.  There is no no question in my mind he is ruining our country as we knew it.
Question is what will become of us?

The bigger the "system" the larger the number of people who will jump on board and take it for whatever they can.
I don't know that people cannot see this.  I don't know they need Glenn Beck or others to educate them.
I think they just don't give a hoot.  It seems to me people are just giving up and jumping on the dole bandwagon.

[ccp]

eom

[Crafty_Dog]

What's this business I'm hearing about a NAMBLA pedophile being part of the BO team?

[Crafty_Dog]

pasting here as well GM's post from the Sharia thread:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6274387/Obama-adviser-says-Sharia-Law-is-misunderstood.html

Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood

President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.
 
By Andrew Gilligan and Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 8:00PM BST 08 Oct 2009

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism".

They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that "promiscuity" and the "breakdown of traditional values" were what Muslims admired least about the West.

She said: "I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.

"The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.

"The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases."

Sharia in its broadest sense is a religious code for living, which decrees such matters as fasting and dressing modestly. However, it has also been interpreted as requiring the separation of men and women.

It also includes the controversial "Hadd offences", crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.

Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with "maximum criminal punishments" and "laws that... to many people seem unequal to women," but added: "Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood."

The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir's website.

Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration's determination to reach out to the Muslim world.

She is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a project which aims to scientifically sample public opinion in the Muslim world.

During this week's broadcast, she described her White House role as "to convey... to the President and other public officials what it is Muslims want."

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Miss Mogahed was “downplaying” Sharia Law.

“There is a reason sharia has got a bad name and it is how it has been exercised. Regrettably in the US there have been acts of injustice perpetrated against women that are driven by the Sharia-type mindset that women are objects not human beings,” she said.

She cited the example of Muzzammil Hassan, a Buffalo man who ran a cable channel aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes and was charged earlier this year with beheading his wife after she filed for divorce.

“Americans understand by example, it’s not as if we are an ignorant mass of people. Just as we don’t broad brush all Muslims, so should Dalia not downplay the serious nature of sharia law.”

[G M]

What's this business I'm hearing about a NAMBLA pedophile being part of the BO team?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-appointee-lauded-NAMBLA-figure-63115112.html

Obama appointee lauded NAMBLA figure
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
10/01/09 12:40 PM EDT
Kevin Jennings, President Obama's Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug FreeSchools at the U.S. Department of Education, is in hot water this week for having failed to report that a 15-year-old sophomore student in his school had told him of having sex with an older man.

But failure to report what appeared to be a case of statuatory rape of a child may be the least of Jennings' worries. Lori Roman of Regular Folks United points to statements by Jennings a decade or more ago when he praised Harry Hay of the North American Association for Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which promotes the legalization of sexual abuse of young boys by older men.

Roman provides damning details and links here. She also notes that Jennings wrote the forward "to a book called Queering Elementary Education. And another fellow you may have heard of wrote one of the endorsements on the book jacket—Bill Ayers." Ayers, of course, is the Weather Underground bomber from the 1960s who is just an "acquaintance" of Obama.

Every presidential administration ends up with scandals inspired by controversial appointees, but typically those tend to revolve around financial improprieties, conflicts of interest, or some other form of white-collar misconduct. For Obama, the scandals seem to be develping in a pattern of disclosures revolving around radical left ideology that raises questions about their fitness for any job in government.

And that in turn raises the inevitable question: Is nobody minding the White House personnel store?

UPDATE: Who was Harry Hay?

Folks at Media Matters are agitated by the above post and others pointing out Jennings' praise of Harry Hay and the latter's link to NAMBLA. Hay was not an employee or official of NAMBLA, but was during his later years, according to his entry on Wikipedia, a frequent defender of the group, including this 1983 statement: "f the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world."

MM has a point - Jennings praise of Hay was not specifically in the context of the latter's support of NAMBLA. Readers will decide for themselves whether it is appropriate for an individual who publicly praised an advocate of pedophilia to be appointed Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for Safe and Drug-Free Schools.   

[Crafty_Dog]

Names I'd like to see us keep track of:

Mark Llloyd:  Diversity Czar at the FCC
_ McChesney (?) Chairman of the FCC?  Has he appointed an admitted revolutionary marxist as spokesperson (working from memory here on something from the Glenn Beck show)

Harold Koh:  This man IMO has the potential to be one of the most pernicious and seditious of all BO's appointments.   Double check me on this, but IIRC he was a Harvard Law Prof who now is something like Assistant Secretary of International Law at the State Department.  I have read some of this guy's writings.  People, this is a man seriously dedicated to the subversion and submission of US sovereignty to the United Nations and similar international entities.  For his skills sets this man is uniquely well positioned to do great harm.

I past below a copy of a post from the Cognitivie Dissonance thread because his name appears in it.  This is a perfect example of the sort of damage that this man is determined to do.
==========
Saturday, October 10, 2009
More Stonewalling from the Most Transparent Administration in History   [Andy McCarthy]
So much for the "unprecedented level of openness in Government" promised by our Nobel Laureate in Chief. While Attorney General Eric Holder continues stonewalling the Civil Rights Commission on the Justice Department's stunning dismissal of the civil rights case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, we now learn the State Department is stonewalling Congress on the legal reasoning behind the administration's support for Chavez-wannabe, Manuel Zelaya.

Senator Jim Demint writes in the Wall Street Journal about his factfinding visit to Honduras, where Zelaya — a thuggish would-be dictator who was trying to destroy the rule of law in his country — was ousted as president in a manner consistent with the Honduran constitution. The Obama administration — which couldn't roll over fast enough when Ahmadinejad had to steal the already-rigged Iranian "election" and the regime brutally jailed, tortured and killed dissenters — is playing hardball with Honduras (at least when it's not slapping Israel and the Dalai Lama around), demanding that the thug be restored to power. But, as Sen. Demint notes, "the only thorough examination of the facts to date—conducted by a senior analyst at the Law Library of Congress—confirms the legality and constitutionality of Mr. Zelaya's ouster. (It's on the Internet here .)"

So why is the administration bullying a poor, tiny, Western democracy?  Demint continues:

In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens. When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a "coup," he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh's report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied. [Emphasis added.]

As Ed Whelan and I pointed out when Koh was up for confirmation, the former Yale Law School dean is the nation's leading transnationalist. He has zero respect for national constitutions (including ours), preferring a post-sovereign order in which international law profs, transnational organizations, and free-lancing judges will be our overlords. What is happening with Honduras is exactly what anyone who familiarized himself with Koh's record would have predicted. Yet, he was confirmed by a 62-35 margin, with support from the usual GOP suspects:  Lugar, Voinovich, Snowe, Collins, and Martinez.

Will these Republicans who helped foist Koh on us now join others demanding that President Transparency release Koh's legal opinion on Honduras? (I won't ask about the 19 Republican Senators who thought Holder would be a fabulous, non-political Attorney General ...)

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWNhMWYwZTZkNTc5MmU3MTFlODY1MjI3OTk2NGQwMzM=



Saturday, October 10, 2009
More Stonewalling from the Most Transparent Administration in History   [Andy McCarthy]
So much for the "unprecedented level of openness in Government" promised by our Nobel Laureate in Chief. While Attorney General Eric Holder continues stonewalling the Civil Rights Commission on the Justice Department's stunning dismissal of the civil rights case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, we now learn the State Department is stonewalling Congress on the legal reasoning behind the administration's support for Chavez-wannabe, Manuel Zelaya.

Senator Jim Demint writes in the Wall Street Journal about his factfinding visit to Honduras, where Zelaya — a thuggish would-be dictator who was trying to destroy the rule of law in his country — was ousted as president in a manner consistent with the Honduran constitution. The Obama administration — which couldn't roll over fast enough when Ahmadinejad had to steal the already-rigged Iranian "election" and the regime brutally jailed, tortured and killed dissenters — is playing hardball with Honduras (at least when it's not slapping Israel and the Dalai Lama around), demanding that the thug be restored to power. But, as Sen. Demint notes, "the only thorough examination of the facts to date—conducted by a senior analyst at the Law Library of Congress—confirms the legality and constitutionality of Mr. Zelaya's ouster. (It's on the Internet here .)"

So why is the administration bullying a poor, tiny, Western democracy?  Demint continues:

In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens. When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a "coup," he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh's report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied. [Emphasis added.]

As Ed Whelan and I pointed out when Koh was up for confirmation, the former Yale Law School dean is the nation's leading transnationalist. He has zero respect for national constitutions (including ours), preferring a post-sovereign order in which international law profs, transnational organizations, and free-lancing judges will be our overlords. What is happening with Honduras is exactly what anyone who familiarized himself with Koh's record would have predicted. Yet, he was confirmed by a 62-35 margin, with support from the usual GOP suspects:  Lugar, Voinovich, Snowe, Collins, and Martinez.

Will these Republicans who helped foist Koh on us now join others demanding that President Transparency release Koh's legal opinion on Honduras? (I won't ask about the 19 Republican Senators who thought Holder would be a fabulous, non-political Attorney General ...)

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWNhMWYwZTZkNTc5MmU3MTFlODY1MjI3OTk2NGQwMzM=

[Crafty_Dog]

One of Big Labor's priorities in Washington is to place allies in key government jobs where they can overturn existing labor policy without battles in Congress. This is a very good reason for the Senate to hold a hearing on the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Mr. Becker is associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is most recently in the news for its close ties to Acorn, the disgraced housing shakedown operation. President Obama nominated Mr. Becker in April to the five-member NLRB, which has the critical job of supervising union elections, investigating labor practices, and interpreting the National Labor Relations Act. In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, Mr. Becker argued for rewriting current union-election rules in favor of labor. And he suggested the NLRB could do this by regulatory fiat, without a vote of Congress.

Yet now that he could soon have the power to act on this conviction, Mr. Becker won't tell Congress if this is what he still believes. In written responses to questions from Republican Orrin Hatch, Mr. Becker promised only to "maintain an open mind about whether [his] suggestions should be implemented in any manner." That sounds like his mind is made up but he won't admit it lest it hurt his confirmation.

Mr. Becker also won't give a clear answer about his role in preparing several pro-labor executive orders issued by President Obama shortly after inauguration. Mr. Becker's name was found in at least one of the documents, suggesting that he had written it.

When asked by Sen. Hatch if he was "involved or responsible in any way" for these executive orders, Mr. Becker responded: "I was not responsible for [the specific executive orders] except as described below. As a member of the Presidential Transition Team, I was asked to provide advice and information concerning a possible executive order of the sort described. I was involved in researching, analyzing, preliminary drafting, and consulting with other members of the Transition team." In other words, Mr. Becker was the main author but would rather not say so explicitly.

Why not? Well, perhaps because Mr. Becker seems to have been on the SEIU payroll at the time he did his "drafting." Many people take leaves of absence from their private jobs when serving on a transition team, but Mr. Becker says he was on "vacation." And his "vacation" seems to have been sporadic. "My work on the Transition Team was not full time or continuous . . . When I was not on vacation in order to work on the Transition Team, I continued to perform my regular work for both SEIU and the AFL-CIO." The White House has made a public show of banning paid lobbyists from certain Administration jobs, but it let a paid union operative draft government documents benefiting unions.

There's more. One of the many accusations leveled against former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is that he accepted money from the SEIU in return for taking actions giving collective bargaining rights to Illinois home health-care workers. While Mr. Becker denies any knowledge of, or role in, contributions to the former Governor, he does admit that he provided "advice and counsel to SEIU relating to proposed executive orders and proposed legislation giving homecare workers a right to organize and engage in collective bargaining under state law."

Mr. Becker says he "worked with and provided advice" to SEIU Local 880 in Chicago, a beneficiary of the newly unionized health workers, and one of two SEIU locals currently in the national spotlight for its deep ties with Acorn. Mr. Becker denies working for Acorn or its affiliates, but as recently as April Acorn co-founder Wade Rathke praised Mr. Becker by name, noting "For my money, Craig's signal contribution has been his work in crafting and executing the legal strategies and protections which have allowed the effective organization of informal workers, and by this I mean home health-care workers."

The NLRB has both GOP and Democratic members, and nominees are typically packaged together to avoid hearings. In this case, the GOP nominee is Brian Hayes, an aide to Senator Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.), who is eager to see Mr. Hayes confirmed with Mr. Becker and another Democrat, Mark Pearce. But Mr. Becker would sit with the majority, with the ability to dictate labor policy, and the stakes are too high to let him pass without more Senate and public scrutiny.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXJjoruQs0Y

[Crafty_Dog]

"We get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao [Tse-tung] that political 'power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.'" --Comrade Ron Bloom, the White House manufacturing czar, in February 2008 when he was president of the United Steelworkers Union

[Crafty_Dog]

Volcker: Bernanke Didn't Go Far Enough (chrismartenson)

Volcker wants to keep major commercial banks that enjoy federal-deposit guarantees away from big-time speculative trading. "They shouldn't be doing risky capital-market stuff," Volcker told NEWSWEEK before the Fed announcement. But, he adds, the president "obviously decided not to accept" his recommendations. Volcker says he was used as "some kind of symbol of responsibility and prudence" by the administration during the campaign, and now speaks to Obama only occasionally.

[Crafty_Dog]

Second post of the day:

The hit parade of charming folks just keeps rolling along:

Bill Wilson: Why did Obama appoint Craig Becker to the NLRB?
By: Bill Wilson
OpEd Contributor
October 22, 2009
Last year, in the midst of campaign season, the Democrats promised the American people a new era of transparency in how the government makes decisions. Based on recent conduct of the U.S. Senate, the public could be forgiven for believing that these promises were never intended to be kept.

This past Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions met in an executive session to consider President Obama's nominees to various positions dealing with labor and employment issues. Among those considered were the nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB).

Rather than hold public hearings on the qualifications of the nominees, the committee barred the public when they cast their votes. No testimony was allowed. Nor was any chance for public cross-examination.

The committee's members just showed up behind closed door for a quick up and down vote. Even worse, two of the three NLRB nominees were approved by the Committee on a voice vote.

The third, Craig Becker, received a roll call vote, but only after Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, demanded a hearing and roll call vote. The request for a hearing was denied.

Unfortunately, in Becker's case, significant issues in his background merit careful inspection. Becker is a longtime union activist who has spent considerable time and energy fighting to reduce union members' rights in order to give union management more control over workers. He has even argued that workers should not have the right to decide to not have a union.

His current employers, two large unions, where he serves as associate general counsel, are engaged in a colossal attempt to strip even more rights away from workers, through their support for the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which would abolish the secret ballot in workplace representation elections.

Becker's strong advocacy against union workers and in favor of imposed unionization raises serious questions as to whether he can be neutral when deciding union cases. Adjudicating these cases comprises a significant part of the NRLB's duties.

Ironically, Becker acknowledged in a 1993 law review article that elections are the best way to handle unionization issues. Yet, outside of academia, he has advocated the opposite.

In that article, Becker stated: "In the face of bitter antagonism to its incipient efforts to impose a system of representation on industry, the Board [NLRB] shifted course and resorted exclusively to the most unimpeachable democratic instrument -- the election."

Elections being the most unimpeachable democratic instrument, then why not continue to use them instead of imposing the card-check system which has the considerable potential for abuse and fraud?

Questions like this demand answers. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats turned their back on transparency and openness, probably because they don't want the hard questions explored.

Some solace can be found knowing that at least one member of the committee tried to bring Becker's background into the light for public inspection. But his nomination was approved by the committee regardless.

Becker is not the type of government leader we need. The issues in his background require serious scrutiny in a full, fair, and open public hearing. Denying the public the opportunity to observe this scrutiny was not the proper course of action. And for that reason among many, Becker's nomination should not be approved should it reach the full Senate.

The Senate should conduct its work in public for all to see and should not resort to executive meetings to move nominees forward behind the public's back. So much for openness in government. So much for campaign promises gone awry.

 

 

 

Bill Wilson is president of Americans for Limited Government.
 

 
 
 
 

 
Find this article at:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Why-did-Obama-appoint-Gary-Becker-to-the-NLRB_-8420449-65299607.html 

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/10/26/frank_we_are_trying_on_every_front_to_increase_the_role_of_government.html

[DougMacG]

The Paul Volcker observation is telling.  Like Colin Powell, a very impressive endorsement during the campaign.  He was showcased for credibility just when he was needed.  Now he is ignored.
------

 But Biden!?!  This thread can't cover Obama's choices without looking into this one.  It was disguised as a conventional, balancing reach for the ticket to the center of the party and to the senior, establishment player.  But after learning of Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, the NAMBLA guy and on and on, I am forced to think that Joe Biden was strategically a head-fake.  We were to think that Obama would move to the center no matter how incompetent a pick he would have to settle with.  Instead we got clever and strategic Marxists and ruthless Chicago thugs.  Like a good magician, we were looking at Biden while Obama was hiring czars away from Stalin and Mao. (JMHO)

[Crafty_Dog]

Some say that Biden was/is life insurance for the President. 

[G M]

November 23, 2009
Cloward-Piven Government
By James Simpson

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact.


In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then, the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck television show, Bill O'Reilly, and now Mark Levin.


The methodology is known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and we can all be grateful to David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks for originally exposing and explaining it to us. He describes it as:


The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.


Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were two lifelong members of Democratic Socialists of America who taught sociology at Columbia University (Piven later went on to City University of New York). In a May 1966 Nation magazine article titled "The Weight of the Poor," they outlined their strategy, proposing to use grassroots radical organizations to push ever more strident demands for public services at all levels of government.


The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces ... for major economic reform at the national level."


They implemented the strategy by creating a succession of radical organizations, most notable among them the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with the help of veteran organizer Wade Rathke. Their crowning achievement was the "Motor Voter" act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 with Cloward and Piven standing behind him.


As we now know, ACORN was one of the chief drivers of high-risk mortgage lending that eventually led to the financial crisis. But the Motor Voter law was another component of the strategy. It created vast vulnerabilities in our electoral system, which ACORN then exploited.

ACORN's vote registration scandals throughout the U.S. are predictable fallout.


The Motor Voter law has also been used to open another vulnerability in the system: the registration of vast numbers of illegal aliens, who then reliably vote Democrat. Herein lies the real reason Democrats are so anxious for open borders, security be damned.


It should be clear to anyone with a mind and two eyes that this president and this Congress do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emmanuel said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."


The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.


This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Barney Frank said, "the middle class will be too distracted to fight."


These people are our enemies. They don't use guns, yet, but they are just as dangerous, determined, and duplicitous as the communists we faced in the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and bush wars across the globe, and the Nazis we faced in World War II.


It is time we fully internalized and digested this fact, with all its ugly ramifications. These people have violated countless laws and could be prosecuted, had we the political power. Not only are their policies unconstitutional, but deliberately so -- the goal being to make the Constitution irrelevant. Their spending is off the charts and will drive us into hyperinflation, but it could be rescinded, had we the political power. These policies are toxic, but they could be stopped and reversed, had we the political power. Their ideologies are poisonous, but they could be exposed for what they are, with long jail sentences as an object lesson, had we the political power.


Every single citizen who cares about this country should be spending every minute of his or her spare time lobbying, organizing, writing, and planning. Fight every initiative they launch. It is all destructive. If we are to root out this evil, it is critical that in 2010 we elect  competent, principled leaders willing to defend our Constitution and our country. Otherwise, the malevolent cabal that occupies the government today will become too entrenched.


After that, all bets are off.


Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst. You may read more of his articles on his blog, Truth and Consequences.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clowardpiven_government.html at November 24, 2009 - 12:02:36 AM EST

[ccp]

I couldn't agree more with this analysis.  It is obvious to anyone who is objective.
Propaganda - it is a major tool of facism, naziism, communism and progressism.
BO is a major league propagandist.

I watched this AM on CNN the meeting with India's PRime minister while they played the National Anthem and there is BO with his patent camera pose; chin up, head slightly turned and hand over his heart (as though his bust is on Mt. Rushmore).  All I can think of is how paradoxical - this guy hates America and he stands during the National Anthem like he admires and is a proud of our country.
Photo op - while he leads us into socialism.  What a joke on real Americans.

[G M]

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967

Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis


First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called "crisis strategy" or "Cloward-Piven Strategy," as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one.

The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare -- about 8 million, at the time -- probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a "massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls."  Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level."

Their article called for "cadres of aggressive organizers" to use "demonstrations to create a climate of militancy." Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of "a federal program of income redistribution," in the form of a guaranteed living income for all -- working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act.

This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements -- mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown -- providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven's article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States -- often violently -- bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law "entitled" them. By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation.

Regarding Wiley's tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, "There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests - and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones."These methods proved effective. "The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley's wildest dreams," writes Sol Stern in the City Journal.  "From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city's private economy."As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it. The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness.

The Cloward-Piven strategy depended on surprise. Once society recovered from the initial shock, the backlash began. New York's welfare crisis horrified America, giving rise to a reform movement which culminated in "the end of welfare as we know it" -- the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which imposed time limits on federal welfare, along with strict eligibility and work requirements. Both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing of the bill as guests of President Clinton.

Most Americans to this day have never heard of Cloward and Piven. But New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to expose them in the late 1990s. As his drive for welfare reform gained momentum, Giuliani accused the militant scholars by name, citing their 1966 manifesto as evidence that they had engaged in deliberate economic sabotage. "This wasn't an accident," Giuliani charged in a 1997 speech. "It wasn't an atmospheric thing, it wasn't supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare."

Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness.

In 1982, partisans of the Cloward-Piven strategy founded a new "voting rights movement," which purported to take up the unfinished work of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Like ACORN, the organization that spear-headed this campaign, the new "voting rights" movement was led by veterans of George Wiley's welfare rights crusade. Its flagship organizations were Project Vote and Human SERVE, both founded in 1982. Project Vote is an ACORN front group, launched by former NWRO organizer and ACORN co-founder Zach Polett. Human SERVE was founded by Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, along with a former NWRO organizer named Hulbert James.

All three of these organizations -- ACORN, Project Vote and Human SERVE -- set to work lobbying energetically for the so-called Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton ultimately signed in 1993. The Motor-Voter bill is largely responsible for swamping the voter rolls with "dead  wood" -- invalid registrations signed in the name of deceased, ineligible or non-existent people -- thus opening the door to the unprecedented  levels of voter fraud and "voter disenfranchisement" claims that followed in subsequent elections.

The new "voting rights" coalition combines mass voter registration drives -- typically featuring high levels of fraud -- with systematic intimidation of election officials in the form of frivolous lawsuits, unfounded charges of "racism" and "disenfranchisement," and "direct action" (street protests, violent or otherwise). Just as they swamped America's welfare offices in the 1960s, Cloward-Piven devotees now seek to overwhelm the nation's understaffed and poorly policed electoral system. Their tactics set the stage for the Florida recount crisis of 2000, and have introduced a level of fear, tension and foreboding to U.S. elections heretofore encountered mainly in Third World countries. 

Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros's Open Society Institute and his "Shadow Party," through whose support the Cloward-Piven strategy continues to provide a blueprint for some of the Left's most ambitious campaigns.

[G M]

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/07/fistgate-barack-obamas-safe-schools-czars-2000-conference-promoted-fisting-to-14-year-olds/

Exhibit A for the elimination of the Dept. of Education.

[Freki]

GM

I found that very disturbing!  It is so bad as to be unbelievable.  If true why is this information not picked up by the media.  If true the lack of media attention is a whole level of disturbing above this sexualizing of youth.  Character dose not matter...isn't that what people were saying when questioned about it in the last elections?   I hope it is not true but if it is we are in real trouble.

[G M]

Biggovernment.com broke the ACORN story. The media did their best to not cover that story, didn't they?

[Crafty_Dog]

The outrages just keep rolling along. 

Can someone help me get the URL for Ron Bloom saying the free market is a joke or something like that?  Thank you.  Glenn Beck has played it quite a bit.

[G M]

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printindividualProfile.asp?indid=2427

www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org Date: 12/8/2009 10:20:44 AM

 
RON BLOOM
 

Former organizer, negotiator, and research specialist for the Service Employees International Union
Supports federal-government control of the American health-care system
Said that "the free market is nonsense"
Said, "We kind of agree with Mao, that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun”
Became head of Barack Obama's Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry in July 2009
Became Senior Counselor to the President for Manufacturing Policy in September 2009


Born in 1956, Ron Bloom was raised in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. During his childhood, he was deeply involved with Habonim -- "a progressive Labor Zionist youth movement that emphasizes cultural Judaism, socialism and social justice." Bloom's experience with this movement had a major influence on his personal development and worldview. Many years later, in 2009, when accepting a post in the Barack Obama administration, Bloom noted that the lessons he had learned from Habonim – “identifying with the underdog, and … observing the world through a lens [of] people who don’t have as much and aren’t as lucky” -- remained “part of what I try to do in my work life.” “That’s one of the things that made me want to work for Obama,” he elaborated.

After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1977, Bloom took a job as an organizer, negotiator, and research specialist for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). While at SEIU, he observed that many union negotiators lacked the skills necessary for bargaining effectively with management:

"Unions were being backed into corners by companies and couldn't understand on a sophisticated level, the company's arguments ... Labor needed to be armed with the equivalent skills."

After his stint with SEIU, Bloom went on to work as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Full Employment; then as New England Regional Director of the Jewish Labor Committee.

In 1985 Bloom graduated from Harvard Business School and spent the next decade as an investment banker with several firms, most notably the New York-based Lazard Freres & Co. (where he was a vice president).

In 1996 Bloom joined the United Steel Workers (USW) union as a special assistant to the president. At that time, the USW president was George Becker, a co-founder of the Campaign for America's Future. Bloom retained his position as special assistant when Becker was replaced by Leo Gerard (who today serves as a board member of the Apollo Alliance) in 2001. Both Becker and Gerard have close ties to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Both have been honored by Chicago’s DSA chapter, for their “leadership in building working class solidarity across borders”; their “advocacy of fair trade over free trade”; and their “commitment to finding a better way to run the economy for working people everywhere.”

In June 2006 Bloom was a featured speaker at the metal industry’s Steel Success Strategies XXI conference in New York, where he said:

“The Steelworkers have some advice for industry execs on how to make sure there’s plenty for both shareholders and workers. The theme of this advice will be really quite simple -- be hard-headed and pragmatic capitalists -- run the companies and actively participate in the political process on the basis of what is good for your shareholders -- and not based on outmoded nostrums about unions, free enterprise, deregulation, free markets and free trade.

“In today’s world the blather about free trade, free markets and the joys of competition is nothing but pablum for the suckers. The guys making the real money know that outsized returns are available to those who find the industries that get the system to work for them and the companies within those industries that dominate them.”

Bloom supports federal-government control of the American health care system (“Management must support universal single-payer national health care”). He also believes the government should be authorized to regulate the production and provision of all forms of energy (“It is time to support a comprehensive national energy program”).

At a 2008 “distressed investors” forum, Bloom said:

“Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market. Or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money, ’cause they’re convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it’s an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao, that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.”

On July 13, 2009, Bloom replaced Steven Rattner as head of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry (a position popularly known as “Car Czar”). This position was created by Barack Obama to oversee federal bailouts of failing automobile manufacturers and the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler. On September 8, 2009, President Obama appointed Bloom to an additional post -- Senior Counselor to the President for Manufacturing Policy (a position popularly known as “Manufacturing Czar”).
 

[ccp]

There is probably a connection between this Jewish man and those who work for Obama and the push for stoppage of settlements in Israel and the appeasement of Palestinians as some sort of solution the the Middle East.

There appears to be a whole spectrum of philosophers but this guy is obviously a socialist (didn't history already prove that system of government doesn't work?)  and probably a person who agrees with Obama's strategy for Israel.

My mother once said there was an ancient saying, something to the effect that if you put 100 Jews in a room you will get 100 different opinions.

Behold what appears to me a confusing mess of theorist groups:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Zionism

[Crafty_Dog]

Thank you gents.

[Body-by-Guinness]

Did AmeriCorps official lie about possible First Lady link to IG firing?

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
December 14, 2009


Gerald Walpin
Congressional investigators looking into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin have discovered that the head of AmeriCorps met with a top aide to First Lady Michelle Obama the day before Walpin was removed.

According to Republican investigators, Alan Solomont, then the chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, had denied meeting with Jackie Norris, at the time the First Lady's chief of staff.  But recently-released White House visitor logs show that Solomont met with Norris on June 9 of this year (as well as on two earlier occasions). President Obama fired Walpin on June 10 after an intense dispute over Walpin's aggressive investigation of misuse of AmeriCorps money by Obama political ally Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California.

After being presented with the visitor logs, investigators say, Solomont explained that he met with Norris to discuss Corporation business but did not discuss the Walpin matter.  When pressed, Solomont said he might have made an offhand comment, or a mention in passing, about the Walpin affair, but that he and Norris did not have a discussion about it.

Solomont's explanations have left both Rep. Darrell Issa, ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, frustrated and vowing to continue their investigation of the Walpin matter. In a letter to Solomont, sent Friday, Issa wrote that he has "serious questions about the veracity of your&helliptestimony."  In a statement Saturday, Grassley said he is "concerned about the accuracy and completeness of Mr. Solomont's answers to questions."

Issa's letter to Solomont laid out in detail the sequence of events that led investigators to suspect there were problems with Solomont's testimony.  According to the letter, as well as discussions with knowledgeable sources, this is what happened:

After the president fired Walpin on June 10 -- without giving prior notice to Congress as required by law -- investigators in Issa's and Grassley's offices wanted to know more about what led to the firing.  Solomont agreed to be interviewed on July 15.

During that interview, Solomont was asked to give the names of people at the White House with whom he had discussed Corporation business.  He cited five people -- White House counsel Gregory Craig, counsel's office lawyer Norman Eisen, and three officials from something called the White House Office of Social Innovation.  Then Solomont was asked with whom he had specifically discussed the inspector general matter.  He said Craig and Eisen. According to investigators, Solomont did not mention Norris in response to either question.  Then, he was specifically asked whether he had talked with Norris.  He said no.

GOP investigators were particularly curious about Norris because First Lady Michelle Obama had taken a special interest in national service, and notes from a March conference call of the Corporation's board said that Mrs. Obama "will be playing a central role in the national service agenda."  Investigators also discovered that the First Lady had been "tasked with appointing the Corporation's next Chief Executive Officer," according to a report released last month by Grassley and Issa.  In addition, on June 4, the White House announced that Norris was leaving the First Lady's office to become a senior adviser at the Corporation.  Taken together, those events prompted investigators to ask whether the First Lady's office played any role in the Walpin affair.

But Solomont denied talking to Norris. Then, in November, White House visitor logs showed that Solomont had been to the White House 17 times between President Obama's inauguration and the July 15 interview, and had met with Norris on three of those occasions, including June 9. In a follow-up interview conducted December 8, Republican investigators asked Solomont why he had not previously disclosed his meetings with Norris.

According to a number of sources, White House staff who accompanied Solomont objected to the question, accusing investigators of trying to create a "gotcha" situation.  "Cutting short the questioning on this issue indicated an unusually defensive posture on the part of White House staff, including a lawyer from the Counsel's office," wrote Issa in the letter to Solomont. At that point, according to Issa, Solomont insisted he had mentioned his meetings with Norris during that first interview with investigators on July 15.  The Republicans were flabbergasted.  "This is simply false," Issa wrote to Solomont.  "The notes and recollections of multiple staff in the room at the time are clearly contrary to your recollection." Finally, Solomont told investigators that he had discussed Corporation business, but not the Walpin matter, with Norris.

There are no transcripts or recordings of either session, but staff members on both sides took extensive notes.

Republican investigators also want to know more about a series of events, some of them involving Norris, that occurred in the days leading up to Walpin's firing.  In his letter, Issa wrote that on June 4, the day Norris was appointed to her new job at the Corporation, "the White House was in the midst of deliberating action regarding Mr. Walpin."  The day before, June 3, Solomont sent an email to Eisen, the White House counsel's office lawyer, discussing possible temporary replacements for Walpin, and also giving Eisen Walpin's contact numbers, which on June 10 Eisen used to call Walpin and fire him.  "In light of all this," Issa wrote to Solomont, "it seems highly implausible that you would meet with Ms. Norris on June 9, 2009 and not discuss the IG.  Yet, you claimed in your December 8, 2009 interview that you only discussed other [Corporation] business with her."

The latest developments take place against the background of a continuing controversy over President Obama's nomination of Solomont, a major Democratic donor, to be U.S. ambassador to Spain.  In September, Grassley placed a hold on the nomination, saying he would block it until the Corporation provided documents Grassley had requested about the Walpin matter.  As a result of Grassley's hold, the Corporation recently released more documents -- although not everything Grassley requested -- and also made Solomont available for the December 8 interview.  It is unlikely that any of that would have been done had Grassley not blocked the Solomont nomination.

On Saturday, Grassley announced that he was withdrawing the hold.  "In order to obtain [the additional documents], I agreed to no longer object to proceeding to Mr. Solomont's nomination," Grassley said in a statement.  "I have kept my word and informed leadership that I no longer intend to object." Nevertheless, Grassley expressed serious concerns about the Walpin matter.  Not only is the White House continuing to withhold dozens of documents, Grassley said, but "I remain concerned about the accuracy and completeness of Mr. Solomont's answers to questions during both his July 15 and December 8, 2009 interviews."

Shortly after Grassley lifted the hold, another senator placed a new hold on the Solomont nomination.  For the moment at least, that senator remains anonymous.

 

 
 
Find this article at:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Did-AmeriCorps-official-lie-about-possible-First-Lady-link-to-IG-firing-79209617.html

[Crafty_Dog]

We'll see how long this stays out of the memory hole.  No doubt we can count on the Pravdas to keep track of this developing story.

[Body-by-Guinness]

Republicans make new accusations in Walpin firing
By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 19, 2009; A02

Congressional Republicans raised new concerns this week about the Obama administration's firing of Gerald Walpin, who served as inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service.

GOP lawmakers said White House visitors logs contradict statements made by the former chairman of CNCS, the agency that oversees AmeriCorps.

The White House asked Walpin to resign or face termination in June, after agency officials complained of a difficult working relationship with the Bush administration appointee. The dismissal earned a bipartisan rebuke from lawmakers concerned that the White House failed to follow proper procedures by not giving Congress 30 days' notice before removing Walpin.

The Obama administration later produced several documents to support the decision, including notes from a May agency board meeting where Walpin appeared confused and unable to answer questions. Walpin, 78, disputed those claims. The Obama administration also cited a parody newsletter produced by Walpin's office that included racial and sexual jokes about the federal procurement process. Walpin said it was misinterpreted.

Republicans questioned statements by Alan Solomont, CNCS's former board chairman who is also Obama's nominee to be ambassador to Spain. Solomont told Republican investigators in July that he only discussed the Walpin matter with the White House counsel's office, according to Republican aides. Visitor logs released in November show Solomont made 17 visits to the White House beginning in January, including a June 9 meeting with Michelle Obama's then-chief of staff, Jackie Norris. That meeting occurred five days after it was announced that Norris would leave her White House post to be a senior CNCS adviser and a day before Walpin was dismissed. Republicans suggest Solomont and Norris discussed the case.

"If the White House fired an IG without a thorough investigation, and only because a prominent political donor like Alan Solomont requested the action, that's simply not acceptable," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Issa aides asked Solomont to clarify his original statements during a Dec. 8 meeting arranged by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who has also investigated the matter. White House aides who accompanied Solomont cut the meeting short when Issa aides asked about those statements, according to Issa's office. The White House disputes that, saying Solomont answered all questions.

"The White House has worked closely with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and produced several thousands of pages of documents and e-mails about the decision to remove Mr. Walpin, and there's not a single shred of evidence to substantiate Congressman Issa's most recent partisan attack," White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said.

Lawyers for Walpin this week moved for a summary judgment of the federal wrongful termination case he filed in July in U.S. District Court in Washington. Walpin hopes a federal judge will reinstate him so he can complete an investigation into the Sacramento-based school founded by the city's mayor, Kevin Johnson. Walpin's office discovered that Johnson's St. Hope Academy had misused approximately $850,000 in AmeriCorps funding. The Justice Department settled the matter with Johnson.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR2009121804283.html

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIn8oHJp5mI

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/12/04/surreal-media-pushes-into-farooks-apartment-rifles-through-everything-there/

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/04/fbi-neglect-of-san-bernardino-crime-scene-fits-a-pattern/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://usherald.com/fbi-agent-says-u-s-terror-evidence-islamic-group-cair/

[G M]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIn8oHJp5mI

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/12/04/surreal-media-pushes-into-farooks-apartment-rifles-through-everything-there/

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/04/fbi-neglect-of-san-bernardino-crime-scene-fits-a-pattern/

Not an accident.

[G M]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIn8oHJp5mI

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/12/04/surreal-media-pushes-into-farooks-apartment-rifles-through-everything-there/

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/04/fbi-neglect-of-san-bernardino-crime-scene-fits-a-pattern/

Not an accident.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/10/report-obama-told-nsc-to-downplay-terrorist-angle-of-san-bernadino/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-terrorists-freed-by-obama-1452901430

[G M]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429423/left-betrayal-america?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral

Enemies, foreign and domestic.

[Crafty_Dog]

ttt

[Crafty_Dog]

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/25/fbi-files-valerie-jarretts-family-was-a-bunch-of-communists/

[DougMacG]

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/25/fbi-files-valerie-jarretts-family-was-a-bunch-of-communists/

And their daughter is an unDemocratic Socialist.  aka 'communist'.

[Crafty_Dog]

Some rather deranged pictures on this page, but if true, the content is worth noting:

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2016/03/07/obama-hires-former-hamas-terrorist-for-his-isis-advisor/

[G M]

Some rather deranged pictures on this page, but if true, the content is worth noting:

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2016/03/07/obama-hires-former-hamas-terrorist-for-his-isis-advisor/

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2310

[ccp]

Just another liberal Ivy leaguer who hates America and Israel.

That is part of the qualifications to work with Brock.

Hate Israel and blame America for everything.

[Crafty_Dog]

Islamist Activist Asks Obama to Support Libyan AQ Group
by John Rossomando
IPT News
March 18, 2016
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5217/islamist-activist-asks-obama-to-support-libyan-aq

 
 The revelation of his praise for Palestinians who chose "the jihad way" to liberation forced northern Virginia surgeon Esam Omeish to resign from a statewide immigration commission in 2007. But it hasn't stopped him from enjoying red carpet treatment from Obama administration officials.  Omeish briefly drew national attention in 2007 when he was forced to resign from the Virginia immigration panel. The move resulted from Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) video showing him praising for Palestinians who chose the "jihad way" during a rally in 2000.

This was no slip of the tongue. At a different event two months earlier, Omeish congratulated Palestinians who gave "up their lives for the sake of Allah and for the sake of Al-Aqsa. They have spearheaded the effort to bring victory upon the believers in Filastin, insha'allah [God willing]. They are spearing the effort to free the land of Filastin, all of Palestine, for the Muslims and for all the believing people in Allah."

Nonetheless, high-ranking Obama administration officials engaged with him despite this and his praise for Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. They consulted with him on Libya and included him in other events aimed at engagement with the Muslim community and countering violent extremism.
Now, Omeish is hoping those contacts will help him persuade U.S. officials to change gears in Libya, shifting support from a secular political figure to one with links to al-Qaida. He spelled out those ambitions in a Feb. 29 letter addressed to President Obama posted on Omeish's Facebook page.

It is co-signed by Emadeddin Z. Muntasser, secretary general of the Libyan American Public Affairs Council (LAPAC). Omeish is identified as the LAPAC president.  Before he was affiliated with the LAPAC, Muntasser was convicted in 2008 of failing to disclose connections between a charity he worked with and jihadist fundraising when he sought tax-exempt status for the charity.  Muntasser ran the Boston branch of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, which is considered a precursor to al-Qaida, federal prosecutors have said. It was founded by Osama bin Laden's mentor Abdullah Azzam. Under Muntasser's leadership, Al-Kifah's Boston office published a pro-jihad newsletter called Al-Hussam and distributed flyers indicating its support for jihadists fighting on the front lines in places such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Algeria.

Muntasser's charity, Care International, was "an outgrowth of and successor" to Al-Kifah, prosecutors say.

Omeish and Muntasser note in their letter that the U.S. has backed the "Libyan National Army," led by Khalifa Hifter, a former general under dictator Muammar Gaddafi. That's a bad idea, Omeish and Muntasser wrote, because "many in Libya believe [Hifter] has dictatorial aspirations ..."

"He sounds like the Ahmed Chalabi of Libya," said former Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon, a fellow at the Center for a Secure Free Society. "He wants America to fight his battles for him in order to gain the upper hand over his countrymen."

However, the letter makes no mention of ties between the group Omeish endorses, the Revolutionary Council of Derna, and al-Qaida. Instead, he and Muntasser casts the group as an effective counter to ISIS because the council has "stripped [ISIS] from its social support. [ISIS]'s foreign presence and violent ways made them an evil that local Libyans themselves rejected and defeated" in Derna.

The council's leaders included two men – Nasir Atiyah al-Akar and Salim Derbi – known to have had ties to al-Qaida.

After ISIS killed al-Akar, the Derna council eulogized him last June for his close ties to Abu Qatada, al-Qaida operative currently in Jordan. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reports from 2012 connect Akar to Abdulbasit Azzouz, who was al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's man in Libya at the time. Azzouz allegedly was involved with the attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans dead.
Derbi, also killed fighting ISIS, previously belonged to the al-Qaida linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and commanded the Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade, which also has al-Qaida ties.

Egypt's Al-Alam Al-Youm refers to the Revolutionary Shura Council as "a branch of al-Qaida."

Despite his ongoing connections to key White House decision-makers, Omeish appears headed for disappointment this time.

His letter is not likely to be read by the president's national security team, a White House source told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). The U.S. is prepared to support a "Government of National Accord" that is being developed, the White House said in a statement.

However, the Obama administration repeatedly has involved Omeish in policy deliberations about Libya.

White House logs show that Omeish visited nine times since 2011, including a Dec. 13, 2013 visit in which he was photographed with President Obama.
Omeish's encounter with the president came during the White House's annual Christmas party, a White House spokesperson said. President Obama never conducts policy discussions at such public meetings, the source said.

 Two photos appear on Omeish's Facebook page showing him with U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, widely considered an architect of the president's Libya policy, where she advocated for military intervention. She notably helped draft PSD-11, a secret presidential directive that led to the U.S. supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya among other places.

One photo shows Omeish meeting with Power in February 2012, when she worked as special assistant to the president and senior director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council. The other photo posted the day Obama announced Power's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. shows her standing next to Omeish.

White House officials thought enough of Omeish that they invited him to attend an April 2011 speech on Libya by President Obama at the White House. Omeish also attended the installation of Christopher Stevens, the late U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, and that of his successor, Deborah Jones, in 2013.

Omeish told The Washington Times following the Benghazi attack that he briefed Stevens before the ambassador began his duties in Tripoli.
Omeish and the Muslim Brotherhood

In addition to his comments about Palestinians and jihad, Omeish admits to prior personal involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. and served as president of the Muslim American Society, which has been described as the "overt arm" of the Brotherhood in America. His association with the Brotherhood likely dates back to his involvement in the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in the 1990s when he became the national organization's president, which was founded by Brotherhood members in 1963.

Omeish endorsed Libya's Muslim Brotherhood in a 2012 IRIN News article, stating that although it came in a distant second in Libya's 2012 elections, it "may be able to provide a better platform and a more coherent agenda of national action."

Libya's Muslim Brotherhood subsequently failed to implement a coherent agenda and became deadlocked with its liberal rival, the National Forces Alliance, over establishing a working constitution.  Brotherhood members opposed building a strong Libyan military that could have helped rein in the militias that have since created havoc. Numerous militias tied to the Brotherhood have contributed to Libya's instability. U.S. State Department officials contracted with the Brotherhood-linked February 17 Martyrs Brigade – a group that also had Al-Qaida ties – to provide security for the ill-fated U.S. consulate in Benghazi. A BBC report described the brigade as the best armed militia in eastern Libya. It additionally held al-Qaida sympathies, according to posts on its Facebook page. A State Department report called reliance on the February 17 militia in the case of an attack such as happened on Sept. 11, 2012 "misplaced."
LAPAC is but one of an alphabet soup of groups that Omeish helped found as a result of the Arab Spring, aimed at affecting U.S. policy toward Libya.
This includes Libyan Emergency Task Force,(LETF),Libyan Americans for Human Rights, Libyan Council of North America (LCNA), Libyan American Organization, American Libyan Council, American Libyan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ALCCI), Center for Libyan American Strategic Studies. Former Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. Ali Aujali appointed Omeish the official representative of the Libyan-American community, according to ALCCI's old website.

LETF lobbied for the U.S. and the international community to establish a no-fly zone to keep Gaddafi from bombing rebellious cities in early 2011. Omeish's LCNA worked to facilitate meetings between U.S. officials and Libyan rebels, including a meeting with John Kerry while he still was a U.S. senator. ALCCI works with the Libyan embassy in Washington to "certify and support trade relations between Libya and the United States."

It remains to be seen whether the advice from Omeish and Muntasser will be ignored. But their gambit, publicly posting their letter urging the president to support Islamists, indicates a confidence generated by years of access and consultation. That raises a host of troubling questions.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.worldnewspolitics.com/2017/03/04/pakistani-suspects-arrested-muslim-spy-ring-discovered-getting-massive-payments-democrats/