Congressional Letter Questions Obama’s Commitment to Bipartisanship

 

The letter is penned by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA).  

In the letter, they question the president’s true commitment to Bipartisanship and implore the White House to conduct all talks in public. In addition, they also ask the president to take the reconciliation process off the table.

Here is the letter:

February 8, 2010
The Honorable Rahm Emanuel
Chief of Staff
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. Emanuel:

We welcome President Obama’s announcement of forthcoming bipartisan health care talks. In fact, you may remember that last May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground on health care, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats. Since then, the President has given dozens of speeches on health care reform, operating under the premise that the more the American people learn about his plan, the more they will come to like it. Just the opposite has occurred: a majority of Americans oppose the House and Senate health care bills and want them scrapped so we can start over with a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses.

Just as important, scrapping the House and Senate health care bills would help end the uncertainty they are creating for workers and businesses and thus strengthen our shared commitment to focusing on creating jobs. Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people?

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the President is “absolutely not” resetting the legislative process for health care. If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate.Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation? As the President has noted recently, Democrats continue to hold large majorities in the House and Senate, which means they can attempt to pass a health care bill at any time through the reconciliation process.

Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people.If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand? Our ability to move forward in a bipartisan way through this discussion rests on openness and transparency. Will the President include in this discussion congressional Democrats who have opposed the House and Senate health care bills? This bipartisan discussion should reflect the bipartisan opposition to both the House bill and the kickbacks and sweetheart deals in the Senate bill.Will the President be inviting officials and lawmakers from the states to participate in this discussion?

As you may know, legislation has been introduced in at least 36 state legislatures, similar to the proposal just passed by the Democratic-controlled Virginia State Senate, providing that no individual may be compelled to purchase health insurance. Additionally, governors of both parties have raised concerns about the additional costs that will be passed along to states under both the House and Senate bills. The President has also mentioned his commitment to have “experts” participate in health care discussions. Will the Feb. 25 discussion involve such “experts?” Will those experts include the actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), who have determined that the both the House and Senate health care bill raise costs – just the opposite of their intended effect – and jeopardize seniors’ access to high-quality care by imposing massive Medicare cuts? Will those experts include the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which has stated that the GOP alternative would reduce premiums by up to 10 percent? Also, will Republicans be permitted to invite health care experts to participate?

Finally, as you know, this is the first televised White House health care meeting involving the President since last March. Many health care meetings of the closed-door variety have been held at the White House since then, including one where a sweetheart deal was worked out with union leaders. Will the special interest groups that the Obama Administration has cut deals with be included in this televised discussion?Of course, Americans have been dismayed by the fact that the President has broken his own pledge to hold televised health care talks. We can only hope this televised discussion is the beginning, not the end, of attempting to correct that mistake. Will the President require that any and all future health care discussions, including those held on Capitol Hill, meet this common-sense standard of transparency and openness?Your answers to these critical questions will help determine whether this will be a truly open, bipartisan discussion or merely an intramural exercise before Democrats attempt to jam through a job-killing health care bill that the American people can’t afford and don’t support. ‘Bipartisanship’ is not writing proposals of your own behind closed doors, then unveiling them and demanding Republican support. Bipartisan ends require bipartisan means.

These questions are also designed to try and make sense of the widening gap between the President’s rhetoric on bipartisanship and the reality. We cannot help but notice that each of the President’s recent bipartisan overtures has been coupled with harsh, misleading partisan attacks. For instance, the President decries Republican ‘obstruction’ when it was Republicans who first proposed bipartisan health care talks last May. The President says Republicans are ‘sitting on the sidelines’ just days after holding up our health care alternative and reading from it word for word. The President has every right to use his bully pulpit as he sees fit, but this is the kind of credibility gap that has the American people so fed up with business as usual in Washington.We look forward to receiving your answers and continuing to discuss ways we can move forward in a bipartisan manner to address the challenges facing the American people.

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Notes:

Now you have  the letter  that the leftists will try to twist and shill to keep trying to label the Republicans as the party of NO.

The leftists are looking to  split  the Republican party; force votes knowing what the outcome will be to try to paint the Republicans and Conservatives as obstructionists.  This is their plan to try to maintain a stranglehold on Congress.

WHO really are the obstructionists? (Could it possibly be infighting between the Leftists and the Blue Dog Democrats?)

The Democrats have had the MAJORITY in Congress since 2006.  They even increased their numbers in 2008.  They gained a filibuster proof magic number of 60 in the Senate until the passing of Ted Kennedy (even had a seat warmer until Scott Brown won the seat).  Yet they will flog the dead horse of Republicans obstructing any meaningful legislation from passing?

 

Look for the TRUTH. 

Drillgate: Internal Emails Shows Obama Team Lying to Public

 

Vince Haley writes an article at Big Government.com about the deception of off-shore drilling.

February 9, 2010

If you’re the President of the United States or one of his political appointees and you’re ideologically opposed to new oil and natural gas development offshore, what do you do when the public registers its overwhelming support for new drilling in public opinion polls?

You dance, delay, and deceive. You speak melodious words about seeking the wisdom of the public in making these decisions and then ignore evidence of the public will when you get it, or worse, you hide it.

First came the dance.  In August 2008, after soaring gas prices and a dramatic shift in public opinion caused President Bush, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reverse their positions on offshore drilling, then-Senator Obama also changed. The Democratic presidential nominee reversed his own position and that of his party, saying he was open to offshore drilling as part of an overall energy plan.  The Democratic Congress followed a month later by quietly dropping the 25-year Congressional ban on offshore drilling.

Then came the delay. In January 2009, President Obama inherited a draft five year offshore drilling plan prepared by the outgoing Bush administration.  The plan was already receiving public comment as part of the elaborate rule making process followed by federal agencies.  Ken Salazar, Obama’s new Secretary of Interior, determined the decision about new offshore drilling was so important that he ordered a six-month extension to the comment period.

Third comes the dishonesty.

In April of 2009, during a discussion about offshore exploration in San Francisco, Salazar said that President Obama directed him to “to make sure that we have an open and transparent government” and that “these are not decisions that are going to be made behind closed doors.” Salazar went on to say that President Obama wanted to make sure that DOI was “maximizing the opportunity for the public to give us guidance on what it is that they want to do.”

Yet, more than four months after the comment period ended, the Department of the Interior has failed to make any public announcement about the results, even though sources have told American Solutions for months the comments show a 2-1 advantage in support of offshore drilling.

It took American Solutions almost four months and the power of the Freedom of Information Act to finally uncover indirect confirmation that, out of over 530,000 comments submitted, pro-drilling comments outnumbered anti-drilling comments by a 2-1 margin.

In an email dated October 27, 2009, Liz Birnbaum, director of the Minerals Management Service, informs other Interior officials that a preliminary tabulation of the results of the comment period had not yet gone to Secretary Salazar, adding “[s]o the Secretary can honestly say in response to any questions that he’s [SIC] has not yet seen the analysis of the comments – staff is still working on it. I did, however, confirm to him the 2-1 split that these guys [at American Solutions] are emphasizing.”

When a public employee is on record condoning purposeful deception of the American people, the taxpayer should no longer have to fund his or her job.  Secretary Salazar should immediately fire Liz Birnbaum for purposefully deceiving him, and in turn, the American people.  It’s not possible for the Secretary to honor pledges of openness, honestly, and transparency in government if his staff is going to deliberately undermine such pledges.

Public opinion polls already measure near 70% support for offshore drilling, so the results from a public comment period that reflect the same public sentiment should not be surprising.  But after all this talk of wanting the public’s input, Secretary Salazar and his team must find it a real stumbling block to have to explain all their anti-energy development actions in light of the comment period results to which they previously attached such great importance.

This newly gained insight into the anti-energy exploration mindset within the Department of the Interior allows a new perspective of President Obama’s mention of offshore development in his recent State of the Union address.  Here is the one paragraph in which the President described offshore development:

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.  And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

To the passive listener, it sounded like President Obama expressed at least rhetorical support for offshore drilling.

But the President only says we must make “tough decisions” on offshore drilling, deliberately refusing to apply that standard to other decisions on energy.

But tough for whom? Certainly not for the public that overwhelmingly supports more offshore drilling.

Indeed, the only person facing a tough decision is the President since an important part of his political base is opposed to new American energy development.

Bucking public opinion would indeed be a tough decision for this President, but he has shown himself quite comfortable with bucking public opinion to pursue stunningly unpopular policies on health care and cap and trade.

In short, it’s a fair conclusion that the tough decisions the President identified in his State of the Union was his intended decision not to pursue any new offshore oil and gas development. The actions by Salazar and his team are entirely consistent with that conclusion.

What makes all of this dispiriting, especially this month, is that with 15 million Americans out of work and with the President’s recently submitted budget projecting trillion dollar annual deficits for the next ten years and a near tripling of the national debt by 2020, the President is throwing away a golden opportunity over the next three decades to create millions of new jobs and generate more than $270 billion in annual economic growth from new oil and gas development, including $54 billion annually in federal tax receipts that could help lower the federal deficit and the national debt.

Link

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If offshore drilling is so offensive; what about onshore drilling for Natural Gas?

Natural Gas:

Dry Natural Gas Proved Reserves by Area – 2006

Source: EIA – Office of Oil and Gas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHY wouldn’t Obama want to actually CREATE jobs, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, actually IMPROVE the economy?

 

 

Beware of “Designing Men”: A Speech to Heed

 

This is an excerpted portion of a speech given in American’s Historical past.  Can you guess who spoke these words?

Quoted:

“In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens?

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.

[snip]

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.”

~~George Washington’s Farewell Address 1796

 

(Excerpted) Read the full speech HERE.

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Note:  Highlighted, emboldened and italicized words done as focal points in speech.

Coincidence? Obama, Frank Marshall Davis and the Earl Durham Connection

 

This is posted at the request and permission of Trevor Loudon at http://www.newzeal.blogspot.com

Obama File 96: Coincidence? Obama, Frank Marshall Davis and the Earl Durham Connection

Obama File 95 here

In this post I highlighted the link between Barack Obama’s communist childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis and Chicago journalist Vernon Jarrett, father-in-law of senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.

I cited the link as evidence that the communist networks that touched Obama in both Hawaii and Chicago were connected.

Vernon Jarrett and Frank Marshall Davis worked together in a communist front, the Citizen’s Committee to Aid Packinghouse Workers in 1948 Chicago-the same year Davis moved to Hawaii.

More than forty years later Vernon Jarrett followed Obama’s career in Chicago and used his newspaper column to promote Obama’s successful Senate campaign in 2004.

The question is-did some of Frank Marshall Davis’ old Chicago comrades aid Barack Obama’s career in Chicago more than four decades on?

This post looks at another link between Frank Marshall Davis and Obama’s Chicago network

The Abraham Lincoln School for Social Sciences was a Chicago institution of the 1930s and 1940s, run by the Communist Party USA.

The faculty members included known Party members Frank Marshall Davis, David Englestein, William L. Patterson, Geraldyne Lightfoot, Claude Lightfoot, Ishmael Flory and Earl Durham.

Frank Marshall Davis went off to work for the Hawaiian Communist Party, gradually sinking into obscurity. His former comrade and colleague, Earl Durham rose to the top of the communist ladder and went on to make a major impact on Chicago education and politics.

Earl Durham served in numerous leadership posts in the Communist Party USA. He was elected to the Communist Party National Committee at the Party’s 16th National Convention held in New York City on February 9-12, 1957, at which time he was also chosen to serve on the party’s 11-member national administrative committee.

At a meeting of the Party National Administrative Committee in May 1957, Durham was named as youth affairs secretary of the party. He was subsequently appointed as one of nine party secretaries, who functioned as “a collective leadership” for the Communist Party USA.

After working studying the psychopharmacology of heroin addiction, Earl Durham made the decision to earn a master’s degree at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. On graduation he was hired by the School as a professor, where “he was able to influence many students to consider community organizing as a career”.

One former student Ron Sanfield blogged;

I was a graduate student at the U of Chicago in the 1970s, and had Earl Durham for a professor.

Even though it was more than 30 years ago, I can still vividly remember those exciting sessions in his classroom. He challenged us to confront the realities of community organization, and what it REALLY meant. He challenged us to confront our feelings about race, about class, about the gap in America between rhetorical words and deeds.

One day, he told us, “If you really wanted to be doing community organization, you would be ‘out there in the streets’, not in here in this ivory-tower university” —

and taught us about Saul Alinsky who had walked those very same streets of Hyde Park and other Chicago neighborhoods.

In the early 1980s Earl Durham worked with the Communist Party and Democratic Socialists of America to elect Chicago’s first black mayor, long time communist front activist Harold Washington.

It was Washington’s election in 1983 that inspired Barack Obama to move to Chicago. Obama even unsuccessfully wrote away for a job in the Washington administration.

Earl Durham’s brother, writer Richard Durham, served as Washington’s speechwriter.

While never a confirmed party member , Richard Durham participated in several communist controlled organizations. In the 1950s, Durham worked as the national program director of the communist controlled United Packinghouse Workers of America. At the same time he founded the Chicago’s Du Bois Theater Guild, with Vernon Jarrett and Oscar Brown, Jr. , a Communist Party member member and another former official of Frank Marshall Davis’ “Citizen’s Committee to Aid Packinghouse Workers”.

In the ealy 1980s, until Richard’s death in 1984, both Durham brothers served on the board of the Black Press Institute, the Chicago propaganda organization run by pro-Soviet Illinois State Senator, Alice Palmer.

In 1995 Alice Palmer launched the political career of her chief-of-staff Barack Obama, at a meeting in the Hyde Park home of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

In 1989, Earl Durham had served on the board of the Chicago Committee in Solidarity with Southern Africa, along with Alice Palmer another long time Obama friend and supporter Timuel Black.

Later, Timuel Black was a leader of the Communist Party breakaway group Committees of Correspondence.

A 1994 Chicago Committes of Correspondence “Membership, subscription and mailing” in my possession includes the names of Earl Durham, Alice Palmer, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Earl Durham wrote the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, which shifted decision-making to the school level and created Chicago’s unique Local School Councils.

These reforms created an opening which was heavily exploited by radicals like Bill Ayers and Mike Klonsky and the up and coming Barack Obama.

In the mid 1990s Earl Durham and Barack Obama almost certainly crossed paths in a new Chicago organization, Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI). Earl Durham was founding board member of the organization, while Barack Obama served in 1994-95 on the COFI sponsoring committee.

COFI, like many Chicago community groups was a respectable “front” for radical activism.

Some of Obama’s radical COFI colleagues included;

*Ken Rolling, signer of a 2008 statement in support of Bill Ayers

* Jackie Grimshaw, Obama’s Hyde Park next door neighbour, Democratic Socialists of America honoree board member of the radical DSA controlled Midwest Academy.

* Barbara Engel, served with Bernardine Dorhn in 1991 on a committee of the communist front organization, Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights.

*Anne Hallet, signer of a 2008 statement in support of Bill Ayers, active with both Illinois and national ACORN.

*Judy Hertz, involved with Illinois ACORN and the Midwest Academy.

*Elce Redmond, recently close to the Chicago Communist Party and active in the Committees of Correspondence/Democratic Socialists of America dominated Chicago Political Economy Group.

*Mary Scott-Boria, 1998 co-president of the Democratic Socialists of America influenced Progressive Chicago Area Network (PROCAN).

*Ellen Schumer, board member of the Committees of Correspondence/Democratic Socialists of America infiltrated, Obama, Ayers, Dohrn and Earl Durham supported Crossroads Fund.

That Barack Obama has mixed with Alinskyites, communists and socialists for his entire time in Chicago is beyond doubt.

That Barack Obama was mentored in Hawaii from the age of 11 to 18 by communist Frank Marshall Davis, is also well documented.

Vernon Jarrett and Earl Durham were both connected with Frank Marshall Davis.

Both men and their interconnected circles helped, directly or indirectly, Barack Obama’s rise through the world of Chicago far left politics.

Would Barack Obama be the leader of the Free World today, had it not been for Frank Marshall Davis, Vernon Jarrett, Earl Durham and their Chicago comrades?

What do you think?

Does it matter?

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My own added end note:  Vernon Jarrett was Valerie Jarrett’s father-in-law. 

Does it matter to you that Obama’s (“half his brain”) confidant, Valerie Jarrett has these connections?

Is Valerie Jarrett Obama’s “handler”?

YOU DECIDE.

 

 

Jesse Kelly For U.S. Congress from Arizona: The Conservative Revolution of 2010

 

The following is an opinion piece written by Jesse Kelly and published in the Arizona Capitol Times. Jesse Kelly is  a Republican candidate for AZ’s 8th Congressional District who is a Combat Marine Vet, who stands by his Conservative values.

 

Published: February 5, 2010 at 8:11 am

“This morning the British army in Boston…disgracefully quitted all their strongholds in Boston and Charlestown, fled from before the army of the United Colonies, and took refuge on board their ships…The joy of our friends in Boston, on seeing the victorious and gallant troops of their country enter the town almost at the heels of their barbarous oppressors, was inexpressibly great.”

- As reported by an American newspaperman after the first Washington- led, American victory in Boston, 1776.

Just think about what conservatives have accomplished in 2010. Not in my wildest dreams could I have thought that a fiscally conservative candidate could be Massachusetts’ newest senator. Like General Washington’s victory at Dorchester Heights, the war for the future of liberty in America won its first great battle in the Bay State.

Like many of you, I saw the storm clouds gathering for more than a year. The previous administration began an attack on the Constitution and our free-market system through big government conservatism.

President Obama continued the assault on our liberties by putting big government into overdrive. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Gabrielle Giffords supported nationalizing our industries, taking over our health care and strangling us with environmental regulation.

Pundits on every cable news channel are likening this year to 1994; however, they are missing the fundamental difference between that year and this: 1994 was a Republican revolution, 2010 is a conservative revolution.

No sitting congressman or senator is safe this year. Both Republican and Democratic voters are shouting, “This is not about political teams! This is about limited government, fiscal sanity and free-market solutions to our nation’s problems!”

It is fundamentally important for incumbents and challengers to realize that if Republicans are conservatives, they will win. If Republicans are merely tax cutters, but have a record of out-of- control spending, they will lose. If Democrats are conservative, they will win. If Democrats vote with Pelosi, they will lose.

The greatness of the conservative revolution of 2010 lies in its ability to act as a driving force for America far longer than its Republican counterpart 15 years prior. The Republican revolution of 1994 was successful in its onset, but failed to be a lasting movement because it was not completely rooted in conservatism. Identity without ideology is empty, and the longer the Republican Party occupied the seats of power in Congress, the easier it was for them to stagnate and whither from the vine.

In the conservative revolution of 2010, candidates like me see the Republican Party as an organized medium for conservatism. While Republican values are malleable and ill-defined, conservative values are fixed, well reasoned and applicable to everything from political theory to everyday living.

In my race, in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, I am battling against a big-government Republican in the primary and a big- government Democrat in the general. It’s time to open up the Western front in the conservative revolution in 2010.

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Jesse Kelly’s website:

 http://www.votejessekelly.com/

Frances-Fox-Piven: Glenn Beck Seeks Foreign, Dark Skinned, Intellectual Scapegoats

 

From Kyle Olson at Big Government.com

Link

 

Throughout much of 2009, Glenn Beck extensively covered the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” that was first brought into the public domain in a May 1966 article in The Nation magazine.  In the article, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, two Columbia professors, developed a strategy by which the welfare system could be overwhelmed with demand, broken, and replaced with a “guaranteed annual income.”

Beck has successfully made the argument that the Cloward-Piven Strategy was a blueprint for success at overwhelming that system.  Don’t think it worked?  Ask the leaders of New York City.  The strategy worked so well, the mass rush for welfare benefits bankrupted the city in the 1970s.

So as Beck has brought new light to this strategy, no one has asked Frances Fox Piven’s opinion.  Until now.

Pay special attention from 2:15 to end of video!

Piven dismisses Beck’s opinion as “silly.”  But she also went a step farther.

“So, it’s an old technique of right-wing ideologues – finding a scapegoat, somebody preferably who is not a farmer, right, an intellectual, and attributing things that go wrong in American society to somebody who’s foreign or dark skinned or an intellectual.”

 

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End note:  Piven’s own words: “foreign”…….WHAT does Piven know about Obama?

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A comment on the above article by a reader worth repeating here:

Well, at least she has her Alinsky down pat: Isolate your target, ridicule, destroy. In typical Progressive fashion, she is ascribing to her opponent the very thing she herself is doing.

While Beck says unflattering things about her, his comments are almost entirely directed at her belief system and ideals.

These people are so full of themselves, they have lost any connection to reality. They really believe the stuff they’re saying, believing it to be profound and wrapping it up in an ‘everybody knows this is true’ attitude. They see the gathering pitchforks coming over the horizon and haven’t the slightest clue as to what it means.

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Grassroots Movement? Country First…….

 

Mark Odenbach writes an article at Canada Free Press:

We The People have to be courageous in the dismantling of the Progressive structure that has been built into our system of government

Grassroots Movement?

February 7, 2010

The Tea Party movement, The 912 Project, etc., which seem to be gaining popularity in response to big government tyranny, are simply the people of this Country spontaneously remembering what our Founders envisioned for an engaged populous.  A government Of The People, By The People, and For The People must be made up of The People engaged in their own governance.  The awakening of Civic Responsibility in this Country was forestalled by an insidious plan foisted upon us by the Progressive Left.  We have been lulled to sleep by the whisperings of peaceful security by the Serpent of Socialism.

That we are actually awakening, in spite of being drugged into complacency, is quite remarkable.  What was the stimulus that awakened us at this time, instead of any other during this long sleep?  Was It the “perfect storm” of Progressive control in all three branches of our Federal government?  Was it the arrogant, out-in-the-open assault on our Free Market Liberties?  Was it our President going on a world-wide United States Apology Tour?  Was it the acceleration of government spending that promises to enslave our posterity under the ownership of un-American countries?  It could have been any one, or all of these and other unabashed thefts, of the liberties which enabled this Country to become the most powerful force for freedom in the history of the world.

As a product of the Progressive educational system, I was not well-educated in the responsibilities that are required of a free people in a Democratic Republic.  I found the study of history boring at best.  My teachers were less interesting than watching grass grow.  There was no life to the past.  I was deprived of the knowledge that freedom is not free.  Had We The People been awake when I was being taught in school, perhaps 30 years of my life would not have been wasted as an unengaged pawn of the Progressive elites.  What could the United States of America have been if We The People had been doing the job our Founders gave us all along?  We have taken a “nap” of almost 100 years.  I think I know how Rip Van Winkle must have felt.

Time to roll up our sleeves and take care of the business of governing

The Progressives have been caught off-guard by our awakening but that will only last a little while.  They are patient, as evidenced by their insidious plan that has been enacted over the last ten decades.  Truly patient indeed.  I have hope for the United States of America.  We have stirred just in the nick of time.  There is much to undo.  We The People have to be courageous in the dismantling of the Progressive structure that has been built into our system of government.  It is very analogous to a cancer that has metastasized to all parts of our body.  It will take a multi-pronged approach to treatment.  It cannot be done all at once, and it will be very painful.  We have let the disease grow, unchecked, for far too long.

Americans are a resilient people.  We have freedom and liberty bred into our genetic makeup.  We have a strong survival instinct, and this will be tested in the years and decades to come.  Our task of Refounding this Nation is overwhelmingly huge but that is no reason to curl up in a corner and wait for the inevitable.  Fighting against the odds is something we, as a people, excel at.

Grassroots?  I think not.  We are simply starting to be the citizens that we should have been all along.  We should be well rested from the century-long vacation that we have had.  Time to roll up our sleeves and take care of the business of governing.

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“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”

 -Samuel Adams”

 

Post note:  Progressives have infiltrated the Educational System.

Our daughter recently took an Ethics class in College.  If she submitted a paper with a fiscally Conservative; social moderate view, she received low grades.

However, if she wrote papers with a Progressive, nanny state view; she received A’s!

So….our daughter had to LIE about her true views in order to pass a class in college?

To the Government:  HANDS OFF OUR CHILDREN!

 

 

Obama + the Democrats in Congress and Orwellian Doublethink(speak)

 

Ronald Cherry at American Thinker writes about HOW our Congress doublethinks and speaks as if they truly BELIEVE what they say is the truth.

February 08, 2010

Orwellian Doublethink

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs (the lie and the truth) in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.” George Orwell – 1984

If one wishes to experience and understand Orwellian Doublethink, look no further than the American Democratic Party. Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D) of Maryland and co-sponsor Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D) of Michigan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a constitutional amendment bill to overturn the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling allowing unlimited corporate money in elections.  The proposed amendment will read:

“SECTION 1. The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity. SECTION 2. Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.”

 

From the website we find this comment:

“Free speech rights are for people, not corporations,” says John Bonifaz, Voter Action’s legal director and the director of http://www.freespeechforpeople.org .” 
Now read the 1^st Amendment

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” 

Our 1^st Amendment legally secures the individual’s God-given right to Liberty including individual free speech and press; and assembly with other individuals – the individual’s freedom to form a group such as a corporation. It is self-evident that if individuals are free to speak and publish, and free to form a group; then the group is free to speak and publish. Thomas Jefferson agreed with this obvious truth:

“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind (or liberate) each of them separately.”  Thomas Jefferson.

 

Now recall Orwellian Doublethink as stated above:

First the truth: Congress via a Constitutional Amendment hereby destroys the free speech and press of assembled individuals – a freedom given by God and protected by the First Amendment:

1. “The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity.”

Second the Orwellian lie: Congress via a Constitutional Amendment will not hereby destroy free speech and press:

2. “Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.”

Totalitarian government can only exist through the clever use of lies. One way to accept a government lie is by exercising the insanity of Orwellian Doublethink. Orwell’s 1984 character, Julia; an enemy of Big Brother’s Totalitarian government, “did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of lies becoming truth;” where “the heresy of heresies was common sense.”

One way free people can remain free is to think – to recognize truth – to reject the labyrinthine Orwellian world of Doublethink – to exercise the sanity of common sense. Common sense is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously (the truth and the lie), and accepting only the truth… with the truth always one leap ahead of the lie.

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End thoughts:

1.  Do you find it almost absurd that the Democrats, especially Obama was given 74 MILLION dollars by the SEIU towards his election? The SEIU is in itself a corporation of sorts.  The SEIU Master Trust could be construed as an “investment firm”; they invest their members money into Management Funds.

(excerpt from SEIU’s own website): the SEIU Master Trust–a consortium of pension funds with approximately $1.3 billion in assets–demand that the companies’ boards overhaul their executive compensation structure so top executives do not reap bonuses and other incentivized pay rewards regardless of the companies’ performance.

http://www.seiu.org/2009/04/seiu-master-trust-demands-investigation-of-billions-in-payouts-for-executives-in-29-of-its-portfolio.php

2.  George Soros’ baby, the Democracy Alliance and his own Shadow Party invested MILLIONS into the Presidential election back Obama in 2008.  There were accusations of foreign credit card “donations” during Obama’s campaign.  Did our Federal Government or the FEC ……EVER look into this?………NO.

Another thought ahead of the Orwellian doublethink: Is Obama afraid foreign donations will be scrutinized by the Supreme Court decision? Read the following and decide for yourself.

 

For example, on Oct. 14, an individual using the name “O.J. Simpson” participated in Obama’s latest small-donor fundraising drive, making a $5 donation through the campaign’s Web site. 

Giving a Los Angeles address, he listed his employer as the “State of Nevada” and his occupation as “convict.” The donor used a disposable “gift” credit card to make the donation. 

The Obama campaign sent O.J. a thank-you note confirming his contribution, and gave him the name of another donor who had agreed to “match” his contribution. 

Four minutes earlier, an individual using the name “Raela Odinga” also made a $5 contribution, using the same credit card. 

The real Raela Odinga became prime minister of Kenya in April and has claimed to be a cousin of Obama’s through a maternal uncle. 

Obama donor “Raela Odinga” listed his address as “2007 Stolen Election Passage” in “Nairobi, KY.” This credit card donation raised no alarm bells in the Obama campaign. 

A few minutes earlier, “Daffy Duck” gave $5 to the Obama matching campaign, listing his address as “124 Wacky Way, Beverly Hills, Calif.” 

But just as with Odinga’s address, the “Wacky Way” address failed to raise any alarm bells or security traps on the Obama Web site. Daffy Duck also used the same credit card. 

Within the hour, three other new donors gave $5 to the Obama campaign. They were: 

Bart Simpson, of 333 Heavens Gate, Beverly Hills, Calif. 

Family Guy, of 128 KilltheJews Alley, Gaza, GA. 

King Kong, of 549 Quinn Street, Capitol Heights, Md. Newsmax learned of these contributions, which were all made on a single $25 Visa gift card (oddly, the total was $30), from a source that requested anonymity. Calling himself “Bart Simpson,” the tipster said he had been following the Newsmax investigation of Obama’s campaign finance irregularities “with great interest,” and believed that some of the small donations were coming from gift cards — “you know, the type of disposable debit card you can pick up at Rite-Aid or just about any supermarket.”

 http://newsmax.com/KenTimmerman/obama-illegal-donations/2008/10/21/id/339941

 

Another article:

Call for an Audit of Obamas Campaign Finances

by Pamela Geller

Back when Obama was running for President, I broke a number of campaign donation stories that should have blown the race wide open. The Obama campaign committed the most egregious violations of election contribution laws, and they were dismissed with a wave of the hand. Millions came in from foreign countries — which is illegal: the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) “prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly.”

I broke the jaw-dropping story about how tens of thousands of dollars came in to the Obama campaign from a Hamas-controlled camp in Gaza. Al-Jazeera actually ran video of Obama phone banks in Gaza. One large contributor to the Obama campaign was Monir Edwan, who was listed on FEC documents as contributing to Obama from the city of Rafah in the state “GA.” If you were reading quickly, you might have thought it was just a contribution from Georgia. But there is no city of Rafah in the Peach State. Monir Edwan sent money to Obama from Rafah, Gaza.

Monir Edwan, one of Obama’s Gazan donors, said he sold Obama t-shirts that the campaign had sent him in Gaza for around $9, and that a profit was made. “Some young men,” Edwan explained, “even bought the T-shirts for 60 shekel ($17.29), which is a lot to spend in Gaza on a t-shirt, but that is how much Gazans like Obama.” I love it: jihadis in Obama Tees. How fitting.

(Excerpted): Continue reading HERE.

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Final thought:  WHY are Obama and the Leftist Democrats screaming “Foul” when the sunshine has been highlighted upon their own past election donations?

YOU DECIDE.

Federal Court: No, the Government May Not Prevent Further Discovery of the Takeover of AIG

 

**All Credit for the following is to the author and biggovernment.com**

Frank Gaffney writes at Big Government.com:

February 5, 2010

This week we broke the story of possible criminal wrongdoing in the government takeover of insurance giant AIG. In the last several months, the US government has tried, unsuccessfully, to throw out plaintiff Kevin Murray’s case, alleging that the government’s takeover of AIG puts it in the position of supporting and promoting Islam and Shariah finance. 

In the discovery process attorneys for Murray, David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise (of the Thomas More Law Center), discovered that the takeover itself may have been illegal, and have attempted to get Treasury Secretary under oath to try and untangle this mess. Again, the Fed and the Treasury Department tried to stonewall. 

This past Tuesday, Federal district court judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff rejected the Treasury Department’s and the Fed’s effort to prevent any further discovery while the government attempts to convince the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to overrule Judge Zatkoff’s earlier ruling rejecting the government’s motion to dismiss the federal lawsuit challenging the government’s takeover of AIG on First Amendment-Establishment Clause grounds. 

Tim Geithner: The “extraordinary move to depose a sitting Treasury Secretary” 

The lawsuit, captioned Murray v. Geithner et al., was brought by attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise, representing the plaintiff, Kevin Murray, a tax payer and former combat Marine who served in Iraq. The federal lawsuit alleges that the U.S. government’s takeover and financial bailout of AIG was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. 

Specifically, at the time of the government bailout (September-December 2008), AIG was (and still is) the world leader in promoting Shariah-compliant insurance products. Shariah is Islamic law, and it is the identical legal doctrine that demands capital punishment for apostasy and blasphemy and provides the legal and political mandates for global jihad followed religiously by the world’s Muslim terrorists. By propping up AIG with tax payer funds, the U.S. government is directly and indirectly promoting Islam and, more troubling, Shariah. 

After the court rejected the government’s motion to dismiss the case and granted Plaintiff’s attorneys until May 2010 to conduct discovery into the AIG takeover, the government filed a motion asking Judge Zatkoff to certify the case for immediate appeal of his denial of the motion and to stay all further discovery. Today the government got its answer: No and no. 

In what is an extremely well-written opinion, Judge Zatkoff scolded the government lawyers for filing the wrong motion at the wrong time and then proceeded to tell them they would have lost in any event because his earlier denial of the motion to dismiss was proper and well-considered. 

The Court’s recent decision is especially timely and critical for Plaintiff Kevin Murray because his attorneys had previously filed a motion to compel Secretary Timothy Geithner to sit for a three-hour deposition. The basis for the “extraordinary move to depose a sitting Treasury Secretary” arose because Plaintiff’s counsel had earlier deposed the witnesses provided by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board and the government witnesses either testified inaccurately or feigned ignorance. The only one with all the answers turns out to be Secretary Geithner. 

While forcing high government officials to sit for a deposition in civil litigation is extraordinary, federal rules allow a court to take this step when the government official has personal knowledge of a relevant element of the litigation and where the moving party has no reasonable alternative. In this case, attorneys Yerushalmi and Muise argued in their court papers that this exception fits their circumstances in spades. 

“The witness designated by the government to testify on behalf of the Fed was less than forthright in his sworn testimony,” Plaintiff’s counsel Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center explained.  “To his credit, he admitted he had prepared for his deposition by reading media reports and not actually reviewing the relevant documents. That might suggest that his lack of candor was willful blindness.” 

David Yerushalmi, who is co-counsel with Robert Muise, laid out the grounds for the motion: 

At the time of the takeover decision, Secretary Geithner was the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and he was the leading advocate of the AIG takeover. Moreover, he designed how the U.S. government would not only bail out AIG with tax payer dollars, but how the government would illegally take control of 80% of the voting shares through what was patently an illegal and invalid trust arrangement. It is apparent from the discovery we’ve conducted to date that this was done purposefully and with an intent to conceal the illegal takeover with a fraudulent trust. 

Attorneys Yerushalmi and Muise want to ask Secretary Geithner: 

• Why he forced AIG to take on so much debt that AIG’s credit rating, already in peril, was sure to collapse without yet additional government funds, essentially guaranteeing AIG would remain a ward of the state?
• Why he imposed such Draconian terms on AIG that there was no way it could survive without additional billions from U.S. tax payers?
• Why he then used AIG to secretly funnel 100% payoffs to AIG’s counterparties, including his colleagues and friends at Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and the European giant, Société Générale.  In other words, why did Geithner decide to destroy AIG’s chances of survival as a private entity while surreptitiously saving and preserving private ownership of other domestic and foreign financial companies? And,
• Why he took control of 80% of AIG’s voting shares without legal authority to do so and used a fraudulent trust arrangement to conceal the illegal takeover?

Breaking News: The court just today granted plaintiff Murray’s motion for leave to amend the complaint to include yet additional TARP funds provided to AIG after the filing of the complaint. While the court did not allow the plaintiff to add AIG as a defendant as he had also requested, Murray’s attorneys tell us that they had accomplished enough discovery to know where to look for the skeletons in AIG’s closet in any event.

Craig Becker Utilizes Alinsky Rules for Radicals and Gives False Testimony at Congressional Hearings

 

From The Union News:

2/5/10

Craig Becker Uses Rules for Radicals

For #1 SEIU-Obama priority, the ends justify the means

President Obama’s radical union-backed nominee to the National Labor Relations Board lied to a Senate confirmation panel earlier this week about his ties to the embattled leftist advocacy group ACORN.

The nominee is Craig Becker, who, at least until recently, was longtime associate general counsel to SEIU. Becker is considered radical in part because he believes that “employers should have no role in the unionization process,” according to Brian Johnson, executive director of the Alliance for Worker Freedom.

During a hearing Tuesday by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Becker this question: “Do you perform work for and provide advice to ACORN or ACORN-affiliated groups while employed by your current employers or on a volunteer basis?”

Becker responded, “Senator McCain, I have never done so.”

But that answer — that Becker “never” provided advice “to ACORN or ACORN-affiliated groups” — is demonstrably false. Evidence abounds that he gave advice to SEIU Local 880, which, as I will show below, was part and parcel of ACORN before it merged with another SEIU bargaining unit.

As the Wall Street Journal noted, Becker acknowledged previously that he had “worked with and provided advice” to Local 880.

And in a blog post last April, ACORN founder Wade Rathke couldn’t help bragging about Becker’s NLRB nomination, calling it “a big win no matter how you shake and bake it.”

Rathke, who is also founder and chief organizer of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans, reminisced about the good old days. “I can still remember Keith Kelleher negotiating the subsidy for SEIU Local 880 in Chicago and always making sure that there was the money for the organizers, but that SEIU was also still willing to allow access to Craig.”

(from spectator.org)

Listen carefully at 1:33 in video. 

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