Vetting Obama 2012: Obama and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

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Who “sent” Obama to the Political Arena?

Doing the job the Liberal media biased MSM’s can’t or won’t do.

#Vetting Obama 2012

From Keywiki.org (Trevor Loudon)

Barack Obama and the Committees of Correspondence

Founding

The process of forming Committees of Correspondence (CoC) began in late 1991 when approximately one third of the Communist Party USA membership split from the party to form a new organization.

The former communists joined with former Maoists, Trotsyites, socialists and anarchists to launch CoC at Berkeley, California in 1992 and to convene the official founding conference in Chicago in 1994.

In 2000, Committees of Correspondence (CoC or CofC) became Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).

Obama and the Committees of Correspondence

The Committees of Correspondence (CoC) worked with Obama in Chicago through the New Party, the Alice Palmer campaign and the anti Iraq War movement.

In 2008 Committees of Correspondence actively campaigned for Obama and several supporters were endorsers of the Progressives for Obama website.

CCDS leader Manning Marable, writing in the December 2008 issue of British Trotskyite journal Socialist Review, explained Obama’s relationship to the Chicago left.^[1]

What makes Obama different is that he has also been a community organiser. He has read left literature, including my works, and he understands what socialism is. A lot of the people working with him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party or as independent Marxists. There are a lot of people like that in Chicago who have worked with him for years…

Manning Marable was almost certainly referring to the numerous former Chicago Communist Party USA members working with Obama who had become members or supporters of Committees of Correspondence.

Timuel Black

Timuel Black

Timuel Black is an historian, activist and nonogenarian icon of the Chicago left. Black is a veteran of the Socialist Party USA and Democratic Socialists of America. For several years he has served on the Committees of Correspondence advisory board.

Timuel Black’s relationship to Barack Obama stretches back until at least the early 1990s^[2];

So it’s no surprise that in 1991, when a community organizer named Barack Obama returned to Chicago with a Harvard law degree, he sought advice from Black. Seventeen years later, on November 4, 2008, Black and his wife, Zenobia, watched the election coverage in their home with friends. “When we learned that he had made it, that there was no turning back, the house just went wild

In 1995 Timuel Black attempted to mediate a dispute between Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer and her chosen successor Barack Obama.

Alice Palmer had allegedly promised Obama her State Senate seat if she was successful in a run for the U.S. Congress.

She wasn’t successful, but Obama refused to stand aside and went on to win the seat unopposed-after getting all his opponents (including Palmer) disqualified on voting technicalities.

“I liked Alice Palmer a lot. I thought she was a good public servant,” Obama said. “It was very awkward. That part of it I wish had played out entirely differently.”

His choice divided veteran Chicago political activists.

“There was friction about the decision he made,” said City Colleges of Chicago professor emeritus Timuel Black, who tried to negotiate with Obama on Palmer’s behalf. “There were deep disagreements.“

Despite the mess, Timuel Black became and remains an admirer of the ambitious young politician.

“My first impression was this was a very, very brilliant young man,” Black says.

Black said Obama’s biggest obstacle would not be from whites, but from blacks.

“The biggest thing he has to face is the accusations by some blacks that he is not black enough…He has to overcome that without being so black that he alienates potential white supporters.”

Timuel Black addressed a largely black audience at the Woodson Regional Library auditorium on Feb. 11, 2007^[3].

Speaking of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign he said;

“Obama is the test of how deep racism is in this country…Barack is the recipient of the struggle of other generations…That means that you feel proud of your ancestors, your successes…(Obama), based on the opportunities that were opened to him by others, is in the position to prove to the world whether the United States of America is a true democracy, or is a continuing hypocrisy.”

Timuel Black was involved in Obama’s campaign committee during his successful 2004 U.S. Senate race.

In December 2008 Barack Obama sent a note to Timuel Black‘s 90th birthday celebrations, which read in part^[4];

For forty years, he shaped our young men and women into those citizens. And though he may have retired from the teaching profession nearly two decades ago, he never stopped being a teacher. We are all his students in a classroom that never closes.

Carl Davidson

Carl Davidson

Carl Davidson was a leader of the Students for a Democratic Society, a staff writer for the Maoist publication The Guardian and an activist with the pro China Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) and the League for Revolutionary Struggle^[5], before joining Committees of Correspondence on its founding in 1992.

One of the Committees of Correspondence‘s early projects involved establishing the radical New Party in the early 1990s.

Committees of Correspondence played a leading role in the orgainization, alongside activists from ACORN, SEIU, Democratic Socialists of America and the Institute for Policy Studies.

In the mid 1990s Carl Davidson was leading activist in the Chicago New Party, where he worked closely with New Party member and candidate Barack Obama^[6].

I’m from Chicago, too, and known Obama from the time he came to the New Party to get our endorsement for his first race ever. I’ve been in his home, and as an IL legislator, he’s helped or community technology movement a number of times. He said all the right things to the ACORN and New Party folks, and we endorsed him, but I noticed too, that he seemed to measure every answer to questions put to him several tmes before coming out with it.

Carl Davidson was one of several Chicago area residents, including Don Rose, Marilyn Katz and James Weinstein, who first came together as Chicagoans Against War in Iraq in September 2002 to campaign against the war in Iraq.

In June 2003, they changed their name to Chicagoans Against War and Injustice^[7].

On October 2 2002 Chicagoans Against War in Iraq organized the famous anti war rally in Federal Plaza Chicago, where Illininois State Senator Barack Obama made his name as a strong opponent of the war. Some of the people around Davidson, later held a fundraiser for Obama when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004^[8].

He spoke at our first antiwar rally. He spent most of his speech detailing all the wars in history he supported, then finally made a distinction between just wars and ‘dumb’ wars, and going into Iraq, which was still six months down the road then, was a ‘dumb war,’ and he flatly opposed it. Good, that put him on our side, and some of us organized a fundraiser for him for his Senate race.

Danny K. Davis

New Party News Spring 1996 page 2, Danny Davis center, Barack Obama right

Illinois Congressman Danny K. Davis is a member of Democratic Socialists of America and also has connections to Committees of Correspondence.

According to Chicago DSA’s New Ground of September 1994^[9];

“Over 500 delegates and observers (including 140 from Chicago) attended the founding convention of the Committees of Correspondence (CoC) held here in Chicago in July.

New Ground reported that speakers…included Charles Nqukula, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party, Dulce Maria Pereira, a senatorial candidate of the Workers Party of Brazil, Angela Davis of CoC, Andre Brie of the Party of Democratic Socialism of Germany (a revamp of the old East German Communist Party). Guests during the Convention included Cook County Commissioner Danny Davis, Chicago Aldermen Helen Shiller and Rick Munoz, a representative of the Green Left Weekly of Australia and a representative of the Cuban Interest Section.“

In 1994 Danny Davis, Chicago, was listed on a “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence^[10].

Davis has been a long time friend and supporter of Barack Obama-one his most loyal political allies.

In the mid 1990s, Danny K. Davis joined the Chicago New Party (along with Barack Obama ) during his successful Congressional 1996 campaign on the Democratic Party ticket.

New Party News Spring 1996 page 1, celebrated the Davis’ Congressional victory and went on to say;

“New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)…”these victories prove that small ‘d’ democracy can work’ said Obama”.

Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers

In 1994, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, Chicago, were listed on a “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence.^[10]

Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, former leaders of the terrorist Weather Underground Organization hosted Obma’s first known political gathering in their home in 1995.

Bill Ayers‘ ties to Obama run deep^[11];

The two men were involved in efforts to reform the city’s education system. They appeared together on academic panels, including one organized by Michelle Obama to discuss the juvenile justice system, an area of mutual concern. Mr. Ayers’s book on the subject won a rave review in The Chicago Tribune by Mr. Obama, who called it “a searing and timely account.”

Mr. Obama further expanded his list of allies by joining the boards of two well-known charities: the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation.

These memberships have allowed him to help direct tens of millions of dollars in grants over the years to groups that championed the environment, campaign finance reform, gun control and other causes supported by the liberal network he was cultivating. Mr. Brazier’s group, the Woodlawn Organization, received money, for instance, as did antipoverty groups with ties to organized labor like Chicago Acorn, whose endorsement Mr. Obama sought and won in his State Senate race.

Earl Durham

A former member of the Communist Party USA national committee, Earl Durham‘s name appeared on 1994 “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence.^[10]

Professor Durham went into “education reform” in the 1970s and in the 1990s founded the organization Community Organizing and Family Issues.

Barack Obama served on the organization’s sponsoring committee in 1994/95^[12].

Marilyn Katz

Marilyn Katz

Now a prominent Chicago public reations professional and Democratic Party activist, Katz has a background in Students for a Democratic Society and the socialist New American Movement.

In 1994 Marilyn Katz, Chicago, was listed on a “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence.^[10]

Katz, with Carl Davidson helped organize Obama’s appearance at the 2002 Chicago anti Iraq War rally.

She has worked closely with Barack Obama since meeting him through his position at Miner, Barnhill & Galland in the 1990s.

It was through the law firm that Mr. Obama met Marilyn Katz, who gave him entry into another activist network: the foot soldiers of the white student and black power movements that helped define Chicago in the 1960s.

“For better or worse, this is Chicago,” said Ms. Katz, who has held fund-raisers for Mr. Obama at her home. “Everyone is connected to everyone.””

Katz was a major fundraiser and a delegate at the Democratic Party convention for Obama.

Mike Klonsky

Mike Klonsky is a former leader of the Students for a Democratic Society, the pro China October League and the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist).

In 1994 Mike Klonsky, Chicago, was listed on a “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence.^[10]

Mike Klonsky is a long time friends with Carl Davidson and Bill Ayers and was involved with some of the educational project which Ayers and Obama worked together on.

Until June 2008 Mike Klonsky ran a Blog on Barack Obama‘s campaign website.

It was pulled at very short notice after adverse publicity began surfacing on the blogosphere.

Alice Palmer

Alice Palmer

A long time Communist Party USA sympathiser, Alice Palmer traveled extensively in the old Soviet Bloc and was a leader of the Soviet front International Organization of Journalists.

In 1994 Alice Palmer and her husband Buzz Palmer, Chicago, were listed on a “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence.^[10]

Barack Obama was Alice Palmer’s chief of staff when she ran for Congress in the mid 1990s. She was the main sponsor of Obama’s early political career until he took her old Illinois State Senate seat in 1996.

It was Alice Palmer who introduced Barack Obama to the meeting in the home of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Lou Pardo

Also a member of Democratic Socialists of America, Lou Pardo worked with Obama on voter registration in 1992. In the mid 1990s Pardo was active, with Obama in the Chicago New Party.

In 1994 Lou Pardo, Chicago, was listed on a “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence.^[10]

Committees of Correspondence and Progressives for Obama

Progressives for Obama was originated by socialists, for socialists.

Of the four main founders, two Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Barbara Ehrenreich are senior members of Democratic Socialists of America. The fifth founder, Chicago activist Carl Davidson, the organization’s webmaster is now one of four co-leaders of Committees of Correspondence.

Of the website’s endorsers^[13] James Campbell, Barry Cohen, Van Gosse, Zenobia Johnson-Black, Marilyn Katz, Fred Klonsky, Eric Mar, Jay Schaffner, Dan Swinney, Harry Targ, John Trinkl and Mildred Williamson have proven Committees of Correspondence connections.

2008 election

Shortly before the November 2008 election CCDS issued a statement “A Critical Moment-a message to CCDS membership” calling for a major effort to defeat the Republicans and elect Obama.^[14]

With less than three months remaining before the November 4th general election, CCDS members together with all left and progressive forces are urged to work wholeheartedly to ensure a massive defeat at the polls for John McCain and his war-mongering, neo-conservative, right-wing sponsors.

Only a massive turnout of new, young, African American, Latino, Asian American, trade union, and progressive voters casting a ballot for Barack Obama can insure this defeat. We must find ways to argue the stakes inherent in a McCain win on key issues: ending the war, the faltering economy, creating “green” jobs, a sustainable environment, universal health care, and restoring the right to organize unions.

The various smears, racism and fear mongering surrounding the first viable African American presidential candidacy are making inroads among large segments of the public. CCDS members have a role to play in challenging the racism, joining with broad efforts like that of the petition campaign against Fox TV’s racist characterizations of the Obamas organized by the Color of Change. Hip hop artist, Das and 150 others delivered 620,000 signatures to Fox TV’s studios in Manhattan in July.

It is important to find ways to pressure the Obama campaign from an independent platform, and resist efforts to demoralize, sidetrack, and divide the movement to elect Obama. Progressives For Obama (P4O) is one such vehicle. It emerged in March 2008 during the primary campaign and has become a viable voice of critical support from the left, aiming to countervail the growing right-wing pressures on the Obama campaign.

We urgently ask CCDS members to link up with local campaigns and organizations like Progressives for Obama (P4O) to infuse the election campaign with the issues that matter most – and making the campaign at the base a deeply progressive project.

The NEC, at its most recent meeting, discussed issuing a message urging members in local areas to help build Progressives for Obama. At the launch of P4O, a draft call was issued by Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Danny Glover. Carl Davidson, a member of the NCC of CCDS, is a key organizer and moderator of the P4O web blog. The list of endorsers has grown impressively to include leaders of labor, peace and justice organizations, and leading progressive individuals.

Carl Davidson added his own addendum to the message, urging CCDS members to work with Tent State, Progressives for Obama, Progressive Democrats of America, United for Peace and Justice and The Nation magazine.

Work locally to expand the electorate in a younger, more progressive direction. Register new voters, and work with other groups, including the young people around the Obama campaign. If it’s a normal election, McCain can win. If it’s not, and turnout is new and different, we have a good shot. It really boils down to that.

Get out the vote. Registering doesn’t help if they don’t go to the polls. Again, work with others and the Obama youth, to do this. Be resolute, don’t get sidetracked by the bumpy ride, stick to the slogan, “Stop McCain, Stop the War, Vote Obama 2008!”

Get outside the usual comfort zones and make new allies. We’re going to need them to wage struggle with the Obama White House in 2009…

Hook all this up with a local progressive blog or two or three, or start one yourself…Be a public face, then link to others across the country and with us nationally. This is the scaffolding of a national network.

If you’re up for adventure, come to Denver for the Democratic National Convention. Hook up with Tent State, P4O, PDA, UFPJ and the Nation Magazine. We’ll put you to work!

CCDS members have a lot to contribute as an independent force committed to advance the fight for peace and for a massive jobs program in this year’s crucial elections. From this perspective we urge members to consider joining and or supporting Progressives for Obama with our ideas, activism and financial support.

For those members and friends who are supporting other independent candidates, we urge that we go forward together to register new voters, fight hard on the issues and lay the groundwork for expanding and consolidating the progressive majority.^[14]

Barbara Lee

In 1991/92, the Communist Party USA split, with many members leaving to form, the Committees of Correspondence.

At the Committees of Correspondence founding conference, Berkeley California, July 17-19, 1992, Barbara Lee was a candidate for the CoC National Coordinating Committee, while still a Democratic California State Assembly person.^[15]

[...]

Van Jones and the Committees of Correspondence

Van Jones and Barack Obama

Barack Obama‘s former “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones also had strong ties to the Committees of Correspondence.

Van Jones and his own Marxist-Leninist organization, STORM worked closely for years with members of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Bay Area left identity Betita Martinez, a CCDS Advisory Board member^[17]was close to Jones and helped “mentor” his Ella Baker Center for Human Rights staff. Martinez, Committees of Correspondence supporters Max Elbaum and Felicia Gustin, Van Jones and Adam Gold of STORM served together on the organizing committee^[18]of anti-Iraq War newspaper War Times.

When leading Committees of Correspondence member Max Elbaum released his book “Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che” in 2002- Van Jones contributed these comments on the flyleaf;

By unearthing a hidden history of radical U.S. politics, Max Elbaum has erected an invaluable bridge between the generations. Finally, we have one book that can successfully connect the dots between the battles of the 1960s and the emerging challenges and struggles of the new century.”

In February 2006 Van Jones was guest speaker at a Committees of Correspondence fund raiser in Berkeley. Kendra Alexander was a Communist Party USA and Committees of Correspondence leader^[19].

The second annual CCDS and Kendra Alexander Foundation Banquet will take place on Sunday, February 19 at the Redwood Gardens community room in Berkeley with Van Jones, a pioneering human rights activist known as a steadfast opponent of police brutality and mass incarceration, as keynote speaker.

Jones is now working to create environmentally friendly, “green-collar” jobs for formerly incarcerated persons.

The banquet is titled “Towards Building a Progressive Majority” and benefits the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the Kendra Alexander Foundation. The Foundation was named in honor of the visionary leader of the Committees of Correspondence.

References

1. ↑ The four legged stool that won the U.S. presidential election, Socialist Review, December 2008
2. ↑ http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-2009/Bright-Knights/Timuel-Black/
3. ↑ http://www.windycitizen.com/2007/02/21/bronzeville-oral-history-engages-new-generation
4. ↑ http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/tim-black-barack-obama-and-all-that.html
5. ↑ http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/fugitive-days-by-bill-ayers-9400
6. ↑ http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2007w03/msg00182.htm
7. ↑ http://www.noiraqwar-chicago.org/?page_id=2
8. ↑ http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2007w03/msg00182.htm
9. ↑ http://www.chicagodsa.org/ngarchive/ng36.html#anchor810069
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6} Chicago CoC “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” 10.14.94
11. ↑ New York Times May 11, 2008
12. ↑ http://www.cofionline.org/about_cofi.php?id=11
13. ↑ Progressives for Obama blog
14. ↑ ^14.0 14.1 Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, A Message to CCDS Membership, August 10, 2008
15. ↑ CoC official ballot paper
16. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-barbara-lee/today-i-endorsed-barack-o_b_76177.html
17. ↑ http://www.cc-ds.org/advisory_bd.html
18. ↑ http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/wartimes.html
19. ↑ http://lists.portside.org/cgi-bin/listserv/wa?A2=ind0601d&L=portside&P=1708

SOURCE

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RELATED LINKS:

The Communist Slogan “Forward” now Adopted by Obama

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Joel Rogers and the New Party

 

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Barack Obama and the socialist New Party

 

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**Accolades to Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand patriot that has worked tirelessly to expose Communism and Socialism within America**

Trevor Loudon

Trevor Loudon’s book released in 2011

Without America, there is NO freedom.

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Obama Campaign Again Urging Supporters to Report on Non-Believers. Is the Obama Campaign being Gestapo-esque?

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From Canada Free Press:

Obama Campaign Again Urging Supporters to Report on Non-Believers

By Warner Todd Huston

May 27, 2012

Turning back to that page out of Stalin’s handbook for good citizenship, the Obama campaign has revived its program of asking Americans to inform on fellow citizens when they see someone, some organization, some politician, or some news outlet “attacking” the Obammessiah.

Some of you may recall the black eye that team Obama got when it tried to do this before. Obama’s Attack Watch was heavily lampooned. (See Video Below)

One of the best tools that the East German and Soviet regimes had to keep the average citizen of their oppressive regimes in line was a program that urged citizens to tattle on their neighbors, that taught children to tell on their parents, and expected workers to rat out their co-workers. If someone came to the government informing on a fellow citizen, that citizen was praised and rewarded.

Now, Team Obama has gone all Stalin on us again with yet another such effort, this one called the Obama Truth Team. The new effort sports a page on the Obama-Biden website where you can “Fight Back: Report an Attack.” (See screen shot of page HERE)

There, Team Obama gravely informs its acolytes that they can “report” on anyone not spouting Team Obama’s mantra.

  Received a robo-call or an email forward full of falsehoods? Found a misleading leaflet in your mail?

Tell us about it, and help fight back against the attacks on President Obama and his record.

There is also a hand-dandy form you can fill in to inform on whomever you think is not sufficiently sold on America’s Svengali in Chief.

But, Obama has done this now at least four times. Along with today’s new effort, there was Attack Watch, Fight the Smears, and Flag.gov. Obama has indulged the tattletale system many times in his short tenure at the White House.

The sad fact is that this whole mien is thoroughly anti-American.

More here………..

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ADD THIS:

OBAMA’S TRUTH TEAMS: ‘FIGHT BACK, REPORT AN ATTACK’

Excerpted:

Back in February, The Blaze reported on Obama’s “Truth Teams,” described on the official site as “a network of [President Obama's] supporters who are committed to responding to unfounded attacks and defending the President’s record.”

“When you’re faced with someone who misrepresents the truth, you can find all the facts you need right here—along with ways to share the message with whoever needs to hear it,” the site continues.

(Related: Obama Campaign Launches ‘Truth Teams’)

However, after consistent ridicule (particularly over the “Attack Watch” section of the site), the Truth Teams started flying lower on the political radar.

Now, it seems, they are re-joining the fray.

Screen shot of the ‘Report an Attack’ site via barackobama.com

According to ABC’s Jake Tapper, Barack Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter is inviting supporters over email to “report an attack” at the Truth Team’s “Fight Back: Report an Attack” page.

“Received a robo-call or an email forward full of falsehoods?  Found a misleading leaflet in your mail?” it asks.

“Tell us about it, and help fight back against the attacks on President Obama and his record.”

Aside from the hypocrisy of the Obama campaign saying things like, “fight back” and “attack” after ceaselessly criticizing Sarah Palin for almost identical language, Jake Tapper is reporting that the email “conflates smears with criticisms” by citing a largely debunked study at the outset.

The study, by Market Watch, essentially claims that Barack Obama not the big spender everyone believes him to be, telling readers “it didn’t happen.”

Tapper writes:

Here’s the problem: the Market Watch [study] has been refuted by several fact checkers as severely flawed, notwithstanding its citation by White House press secretary Jay Carney…

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker gave Carney three Pinocchios, writing that the “data in the article are flawed, and the analysis lacks context — context that could easily could be found in the budget documents released by the White House.”

The Associated Press came to a similar conclusion…

In Tapper’s estimation, then, the White House is “muddying the waters” between criticism andactual falsehoods in citing this particular study as an “attack,” when independent sources have proven that it is simply not true.

Saying that Obama is a big spender is not an “attack;” it is simply stating the facts.

More here………

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A bit of history…….

Although the Gestapo is generally associated with SS Leader Heinrich Himmler, it was actually founded by Hermann Göring in April 1933.

Upon becoming Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler had appointed Göring as Minister of the Interior for the State of Prussia, Germany’s biggest and most important state, which controlled two thirds of the country, including the capital, Berlin, and the big industrial centers. As Minister of the Interior, Göring thereby had control of the police.

The first thing he did was to prohibit regular uniformed police from interfering with Nazi Brownshirts out in the streets. This meant that innocent German citizens had no one to turn to as they were being beaten up by rowdy young storm troopers drunk with their newfound power and quite often drunk on beer. These young Nazi toughs took full advantage of police leniency to loot shops at will and terrorize Jews or anyone else unfortunate enough to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On April 26, 1933, a decree was issued creating the Secret Police Office (Geheime Polizei Amt) which quickly became known as the GPA. But this abbreviation was far too similar to the GPU abbreviation used by the Soviet Political Police in Russia. Thus, the name was changed to Secret State Police (Geheime Staats Polizei). The actual term ‘Gestapo’ was supposedly created by a Berlin postal official who wanted a name that would fit on a regulation-sized postal rubber stamp. Gestapo was derived from seven letters within the full name Geheime Staats Polizei. Unknowingly, the postal official had invented one of the most notorious names in history.

Göring promptly began using the Gestapo to silence Hitler’s political opponents in Berlin and surrounding areas and also to enhance his own personal power. Much to his delight, Göring discovered that the old Prussian state police had kept many secret files on the private lives of top Nazis, which he studied with delight.

On February 10, 1936, the Nazi Reichstag passed the ‘Gestapo Law’ which included the following paragraph: “Neither the instructions nor the affairs of the Gestapo will be open to review by the administrative courts.” This meant the Gestapo was now above the law and there could be no legal appeal regarding anything it did.

Indeed, the Gestapo became a law unto itself. It was entirely possible for someone to be arrested, interrogated and sent to a concentration camp for incarceration or summary execution, without any outside legal procedure.

Justice in Hitler’s Germany was completely arbitrary, depending on the whim of the man in power, the man who had you in his grip. The legal policy as proclaimed by Hitler in 1938 was: “All means, even if they are not in conformity with existing laws and precedents, are legal if they subserve the will of the Führer.”

Surprisingly, the Gestapo was never actually a very big organization. At its peak it employed only about 40,000 individuals, including office personnel and the plain-clothes agents. But each Gestapo agent operated at the center of a large web of spies and informants. The problem for the average citizen was that no one ever knew for sure just who those informants were. It could be anyone, your milkman, the old lady across the street, a quiet co-worker, even a schoolboy. As a result, fear ruled the day. Most people realized the necessity of self-censorship and generally kept their mouths shut politically, unless they had something positive to say.

Anyone foolish enough to say something risky or tell an anti-Nazi joke in mixed company might get a knock on the door in the middle of the night or a tap on the shoulder while walking along the street. Letters were also sent out demanding an appearance at No. 8 Prinz Albrecht Strasse, the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, to answer a few questions. The Gestapo prison center in Berlin (the Columbia-Haus) became notorious as a place where pedestrians strolling outside the building could hear screaming coming from inside.

More here……….

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Reiterated from above….

Tapper’s estimation, then, the White House is “muddying the waters” between criticism and actual falsehoods in citing this particular study as an “attack,” when independent sources have proven that it is simply not true.

Saying that Obama is a big spender is not an “attack;” it is simply stating the facts.

The Obama campaign wants you to spy on others………and report to them.

AMERICA!

Are the Obama tactics teetering on the precipice of being Anti-American?

YOU DECIDE.

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An Excerpt from a blog I posted back in 2008

Obama’s Cunning Tactics Against America….

The most hypocritical statement I have heard lately was that Fox News was not “fair and balanced.” That makes me just laugh myself to tears. The main MSM’s of CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS have basically been bought off to make sure nothing bad or curious about Obama gets to the eyes and ears of America! To prove my point, any of you reading this: Do you know these people or names? Dr. Al-Mansour, Marilyn Katz, Penny Pritzer, Norm Chomsky, Carl Davidson, Tom Hayden, Michael Klonsky, John McKnight, Valerie Jarrett, Rashid Khalidi, Robert Malley, James Zogby, Raila Odinga, The Midwest Academy, The Gamaliel Foundation, Heather Booth, George Soros, Auchi, Mayor Daley of Chicago, The New Party……just to name a few. If you are at a loss, I suggest you either look them up or stop being blind! And I mean BEFORE November 4, 2008. There is a wealth of knowledge on the internet. Try Googling one of the names above and put Obama after, for example: Marilyn Katz Obama just like that and hit enter. America has already heard about the Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn connections to Obama; I have blogged a timeline to prove he is not just “a man in my neighborhood”, Tony Rezko, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. I am talking about thepeople you don’t know about.

That is if you can just take the time to VET who Obama “really” is. What his true plans for America are!

It has been hinted that he is promoting a Socialism agenda. He is, but he is pushing the “far left” Socialism agenda. Let me give you a hint: The Socialism party is also known as the “Workers Party”. Focus word isworkers. Even Michelle Obama hinted at this at the rally in North Carolina. “Barack will not allow you to go back to the lives you knew, uniformed, unengaged.” also this: “In order for Barack to get the programs he needs, some Americans will have to give up their pieces of pie so other’s can have more.” Even Barack Obama has hinted at a National Civilian Security Force (as large as and funded as well as our military?) at a rally in Colorado. What does he need this civilian security force for? Now because this has been brought up, he mentions “volunteerism” like a national Peace Corps. He promises our youth a college education, BUT they will be required to volunteer in a “civil service duty” capacity. A question here would be: Who is paying for this college education? College is not free, so will our colleges be nationalized?No freedom of college choice anymore? You will go to college for a specific degree for national duty? Obama’s Healthcare program is nothing more than “socialized” medicine. We will see a decline in the amount of Medical School graduates. Why? Because they will not be able to start a practice where they want to. The government will tell them what they can practice and where. Kind of in the fashion of “spreading the wealth.”The major Unions of America, AFL-CIO, SEIU, AFSCME are all Socialized. Their presidents like Andy Stern are all part of the Democratic Socialists of America. Why do you think they are working to take away “secret balloting” of whether to unionize companies? Voting will then turn to “vocal” balloting. If you vote against unionizing, would there be retribution against you? My guess would be a resounding, YES. The workers union.Obama’s connections to Louis Farrakhan. The Nation of Islam. The one that has called Obama the “Messiah.” Louis Farrakhan has even mentioned that Obama has awakened our youth. “And when the Messiah speaks, they listen.” What does Michelle Obama say about this? Something to the effect that Louis Farrakhan came out and supported Barack too soon. Too soon?

The connections to Dr. Al-Mansour. This should be a wake up call if nothing else. The one that says, “Cut off the noses and ears of the white man, take off his skin…kill them.” All in the name of God….. Go to UTube and put in his name and just watch one of the videos where he speaks of Apartheid and the white man. He is connected to Obama. Sutton, who was the lawyer for the Black Panther Party, stated in a video recently that Obama received a letter of recommendation from John L. McKnight of the Gamaliel Foundation as well as a letter of recommendation from Dr. Al-Mansour for Obama to go to Harvard. Add to this between Dr. Al-Mansour and a Saudi Arabian billionaire, Obama had his Harvard education paid for; no student loan as Obama speaks about.

There have been hints that Obama really wants to promote a Islamo-fascist doctrine if he should become POTUS. Connections to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. who preaches Socialism minus scripture; ties to Africa and Khadafy (Muslim), Louis Farrakhan (Muslim), etc. African theology a la James Cone is basically black Muslim teachings. I don’t mean the passive Muslim teachings either….. Remember the words of Wright: “Rich white people”, “Economic justice”, “Economic redistribution”…. “God damn AmeriKKKa”….Raila Odinga, Obama’s supposed cousin that promotes Islamo-fascism in Kenya, (that he campaigned for in 2006) and wants to invoke Sharia Law. These ARE connections to Barack Obama. Does this give you pause? It should! I don’t believe for a second that either Barack OR Michelle could sit in the Trinity United Church of Christ for twenty years and NOT hear one word of malfeasance against America! Barack helped funnel money through the Woods Foundation to this church. There are hints that Barack helped with a grant to give this church 15 MILLION dollars in government grant money to this church. Yes America, the preacher that damns America has received millions of taxpayer money with the help of Barack Obama.Young children singing praises for Obama’s Hope and Change. Middle school boys dressed in camouflage stomping and chanting about Obama. Theyouth: Remember what I said about Louis Farrakhan’s praises of the Messiah? UTube has the videos of this.

Obama’s promises to America. Has anyone really asked him what his visions for America really are? I liken Obama to a “snake oil salesman”: one who will speak what he thinks they want to hear, yet hides his trueagenda. With the “Progressives” in Congress (Socialists within the Democratic Party) gaining power this election season and they hope to have 60 seats in the Senate in November to fight filibustering on legislation; anything Obama wants……

Our Constitution already in jeopardy. The Firstamendment has been violated with suppression of the real news about Obama being emitted. Now Nancy Pelosi (Socialist) wants to renew the Fairness Doctrine which in turn will suppress any “violations” of what they want you to hear. The Second amendment of the right to bear arms has been tested by Obama in reference to the Washington, D.C. gun legislation; with his statement of rural America clinging to their “guns and religion”. Those of us that have registered guns will have them “collected.” The Nineteenth amendment of voter’s rights and free and fair elections is being tested through the ACORN investigation. Are you getting the picture yet America? Will our Constitution, written by the founding fathers be replaced for a manifesto?Will there be another Civil War in America’s history? One of Patriots against Socialism? Is this the Change Obama speaks about? Remember the words of previous patriots for America. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Judge not a man by the color of his skin, but of his Character within. Or Patrick Henry: I have but one life to give for my country;give me liberty or give me death

****How much of the above STILL holds true in 2012?***

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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”

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Obama/Democratic Socialists of America Ad. Who is David Axelrod? Who is Don Rose?

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From Trevor Loudon:

May 24, 2012

While connected to the US’ largest Marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America, for at least 30 years, Barack Obama can only be linked through documentary evidence, to one DSA sponsored event.

From Buzzfeed:

In this little-seen advertisement that ran in the Hyde Park Herald in 1996, Obama was listed on a panel sponsored by the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America , University of Chicago Democrats, and University of Chicago DSA.

Hyde Park Herald, Chicago, February 1996

According to a Chicago DSA report of the event:

”Barack Obama observed that Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in the 1960s wasn’t simply about civil rights but “demanded jobs as well”.

One of the themes that has emerged in Barack Obama’s campaign is “what does it take to create productive communities”, not just consumptive communities. It is an issue that joins some of the best instincts of the conservatives with the better instincts of the left.”‘

‘Obama felt the state government has three constructive roles to play.’

‘The first is “human capital development”. By this he meant public education, welfare reform, and a “workforce preparation strategy”. Public education requires equality in funding. It’s not that “money is the only solution to public education’s problems but it’s a start toward a solution… A true welfare system would provide for medical care, child care and job training. While Barack Obama did not use this term, it sounded very much like the “social wage” approach used by many social democratic labor parties.

‘The state government “can also play a role in redistribution, the allocation of wages and jobs. As Barack Obama noted, when someone gets paid $10 million to eliminate 4,000 jobs, the voters in his district know this is an issue of power not economics. The government can use as tools labor law reform, public works and contracts.””

Finally, Illinois “needs an industrial strategy. How do we create more jobs for everyone? Illinois has no strategy for encouraging high wage, high productivity jobs”.”

Of the other panelists shown above, William Julius Wilson and Joseph Schwartz were both confirmed DSA members, Toni Preckwinkle was a long time DSA affiliate and Michael Dawson was later a founder of the Marxist lead Black Radical Congress and a supporter of Obama friend and former Weather Underground terrorist leader Bill Ayers.

LINK

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 The New Party:

 The New Party was a political organization founded in 1992 by Daniel Cantor and Joel Rogers, with the objective of electing leftist or socialist individuals to public office in several states; the goal was to move the Democratic Party further to the left, with the ultimate objective of creating a major third party whose platform is Marxism.

Daniel Cantor, a former staffer with Jesse Jackson during his 1988 presidential campaign, and sociology/law professor Joel Rogers from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) created the New Party, drawing many members from the Democratic Socialists of America and the civil organization group ACORN; the chapter in Chicago included former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA members who had gathered together under the group name “Committees of Correspondence”. Among their most prominent members was Barack Obama, first picked to succeed Illinois state senator Alice Palmer while in the home of Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in 1995.

“Electoral fusion” was encouraged by the New Party in the states where it was legal to do so (Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho,Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, Vermont); this act consisted of “a method of voting that allows minor parties to have their own ballot line with which they can either endorse their own candidates or endorse the candidates of other parties”[1]. Usually, the candidate so endorsed was a Democrat, and occupying more than one ballot line during the vote.

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Alice Palmer-Obama’s Soviet Sympathising Patroness

At every point in Barack Obama’s spectacular career, there has been a socialist ready to help.

Few people have done as much to help Barack Obama as did Alice Palmer. Few have been so quickly abandoned.

The story of how Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer anointed the up and coming Barack Obama as her chosen successor is well known. In 1995 Palmer introduced Obama to many of Chicago’s radical elite in the home of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn. Also present was Obama’s long time friend, neighbour and supporter Quentin Young, a member since 1983 of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Young was once accused by the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities of being a member of the Communist Party USA-specifically the North Chicago based communist doctors branch, the Bethune Club.
According to the New Yorker July 21 2008

On on September 19th, Obama invited some two hundred supporters to a lakefront Ramada Inn to announce his candidacy for the State Senate…Alice Palmer introduced Obama, and an account in the Hyde Park Herald quoted more from her speech than from his; it was, after all, chiefly her endorsement that certified him as a plausible candidate. “In this room, Harold Washington announced for mayor,” Palmer said. “Barack Obama carries on the tradition of independence in this district. . . . His candidacy is a passing of the torch.”

A passing of the torch it was. Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor,who had died in office in 1987, was elected by a coalition led by the Communist Party and a group of Marxists who went on to form Democratic Socialists of America.

It was Harold Washington’s success that had inspired Barack Obama to come to Chicago in the first place.

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Security Implications? Obama’s Man Axelrod Was Mentored by Marxist Radicals

From Trevor Loudon at http://www.newzeal.blogspot.com

Obama File 85 Security Implications? Obama’s Man Axelrod Was Mentored by Marxist Radicals

Obama File 84 here

Few would dispute that Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod are two of President Barack Obama’s key advisors.

I wrote here that Valerie Jarrett’s father-in-law Vernon Jarrett, worked with Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis, in at least three communist dominated organizations in late 1940s Chicago.

Davis then went on to eventually mentor the young Barack Obama in Hawaii.

David Axelrod too has connections that that stretch back to post War Chicago communism.

While a New Yorker by birth, David Axelrod studied political science at the University of Chicago in the early 1970s. Later, while a start-out journalist with the Hyde-Park Herald, Axelrod was mentored by two older journalists cum political activists, Don Rose and David S Canter.

According to the Chicago Tribune

In his early years as a political consultant, Axelrod, following in the footsteps of his mentor, the political strategist Don Rose, carved out a reputation for himself as a skillful specialist working for local progressive candidates…says Rose. “I think he’s a principled, generally progressive guy… .”

From 1966 until 1975 Don Rose and his partner David S Canter co-owned a small newspaper called the Hyde Park Kenwood Voices. The paper’s radical tone suited the neighbourhood. It tended to follow the Communist Party line-campaigning for example to abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

The paper sympathetically covered the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Party convention and the SDS convention that gave birth to the Weather Underground.

It gave a voice to prominent figures of the Hyde Park left. These included several future Obama mentors such Abner Mikva, Leon Despres, Timuel Black and Quentin Young.

Chicago SDS activists Paul Booth and Rennie Davis were “Voices” contributors-Davis wrote a November 1967 article about his visit to communist North Vietnam with future Progressives for Obama founder Tom Hayden.

The paper covered Quentin Young’s 1972 trip to North Vietnam and his son Ethan’s, 1970 sojourn in Cuba with the Venceremos Brigades.

“Essentially what I see myself working for is socialism in the United States…”said Ethan. “Exactly how it will emerge, I’m still not sure…but that’s what I’ll be working for”.

Don Rose and David Canter took the young David Axelrod under their wing. Axelrod was a regular visitor to the Canter household and the radical duo took it upon themselves to “mentor” and “educate…politically“, a the young journalist.

Don Rose later wrote a reference letter for Axelrod that helped win the internship at the Chicago Tribune which launched his career.

At the time Rose was active in a Communist Party front, the Alliance to End Repression.

The Alliance was set up to abolish the Chicago “Red Squad”, the police unit charged with monitoring communist and radical organisations.

Rose’s personal Red Squad file accused him of being a “member of the anarchists”.

The Alliance’s executive director was Communist Party member Richard Criley. Other Party members involved in the organization included Abe Feinglass, Jack Spiegel, Jesse Prosten and Norman Roth.

Also active in the Alliance was former Communist Party member Milton Cohen , Quentin Young, Timuel Black and Rabbi Arnold Wolf. All four went on to join Democratic Socialists of America, while Young, Black and Wolf all became close personal friends of Barack Obama.

Don Rose also chaired another Communist Party front, the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights, succeeding comrade Richard Criley.

Rose had been radical since the 1940s when he joined Henry Wallaces’s communist controlled Progressive Party.

In the ’50s Rose was involved in the campaign for nuclear disarmament and in the ’1960s was active in the civil-rights movement. He was Dr. Martin Luther King’s Chicago press secretary for several years.

In 1968 Rose was asked to serve as press secretary to the Chicago Mobilization Committee-the Students for a Democratic Society/Communist Party influenced alliance that wreaked havoc at the Chicago Democratic Party Convention.

It was during these violent times that Rose coined the famous phrase-”the whole world is watching”

Through the mobilization Committee Rose met Marilyn Katz, the SDS security officer for the demonstrations.

Marilyn Katz, Chicago 1968

By the late 1970s Rose was linked to the Chicago coalition of former Trotskyists, Socialist Party members and communists that would in 1982 form Democratic Socialists of America.

In 1982 David S Canter and nine others invited black Democratic Party Congressman Harold Washington to stand for the Chicago mayoralty.

Vernon Jarrett also played a role in persuading Washington to stand, but whether he was part of the ‘nine” is unclear.

Washington had a long history with Chicago’s communists and socialists. When he accepted, the Communist Party and Democratic Socialists of America formed a multi-racial alliance behind Washington.

Washington, right at a 1981 Democratic Socialist dinner in Chicago

The alliance targetted black voters in a huge voter registration drive on the city’s south side.

Rose, Katz and Canter all worked on the successful campaign and all later secured jobs in Washington’s administration.

In 1987 Washington successfully re-stood, aided by a young political adviser-David Axelrod.

Though Washington died in office shortly after, the communist/socialist alliance lived on.

In 1992 the alliance elected the Communist/DSA friendly Carol Moseley Braun to the US Senate.

In 2004 it helped put Barack Obama into the same Senate seat.

According to Salon January 2008

When Barack Obama was 22 years old, just out of Columbia University, he took a $10,000-a-year job as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. It was a shrewd move for a young black man with an interest in politics…

The politician who truly set the stage for Obama’s rise was also a South Side congressman: Harold Washington, who was elected mayor of Chicago in 1983…In New York, Obama read about Washington’s victory and wrote to City Hall, asking for a job. He never heard back, but he made it to Chicago just months after Washington took office…

Washington dropped dead of a heart attack in his second term. But the confidence he instilled in black leaders became a permanent factor in Chicago politics. His success inspired Jesse Jackson to run for president in 1984, which in turn inspired Obama…Washington also strengthened the community organizations in which Obama was cutting his teeth…Obama’s Project Vote, which put him on the local political map, was a successor to the South Side voter registration drive that made Washington’s election possible.

Chicago has two unique advantages, says political consultant Don Rose. First, it’s in Cook County, which contains nearly half of Illinois’ voters. Second, the local Democratic Party is a county wide organization. After Chicago’s Carol Moseley Braun beat two white men to win the 1992 Democratic Senate primary, precinct captains in white Chicago neighborhoods and the suburbs whipped up votes for her in the general election.

“They had to go out and sell the black person to demonstrate that the party was still open,” says Rose, who sees “direct links” from Washington to Moseley Braun to Obama.

Rose, Canter and Axelrod all worked on Moseley Braun’s 1992 campaign. Marilyn Katz worked with Obama on Project Vote, the huge voter registration drive that ensured Moseley Braun’s victory.

By the early 2000s Rose, Katz and another Obama associate and former SDS member Carl Davidson had formed Chicagoans Aainst the War in Iraq.

It was this group that organised the 2002 Chicago anti war rally where Obama famously came out strongly against the Iraq War.

The speech was a major turning point in Obama’s career. Obama carefully consulted David Axelrod before staking out his position.

Katz incidentally was an Obama fundraiser in 2008 and is an endorser of the Progressives for Obama website. “>Carl Davidson helped found the organisation and moderates its website.

In August 2008 Don Rose and Marilyn Katz gave an interview to the DSA linked journal In These Times, just before Obama’s “coronation” at the Democratic Party Convention in Denver.

Here are some excerpts

ITT 40 years ago this week, Chicago police battled protesters at the DNC. Two ’60s radicals remember the madness, and look to Denver for change…

The ‘68 Democratic National Convention debacle remains a symbol of everything that went wrong with American politics, society and culture in that tumultuous and iconic year. It was five days of mayhem in the Windy City, five days that left the Democratic Party in shambles…

In August 1968, those explosive battles put Chicago at the epicenter of one of the most searing political and social upheavals of the 20th century. In August 2008, a U.S. senator from Chicago will be anointed the first black major-party nominee for the presidency of the United States.

Don Rose…the political wise man has helped elect mayors and senators since then, from Harold Washington to Paul Simon. Now 77, Rose – a mentor to David Axelrod, Obama’s top campaign strategist…

The 1983 election of Harold Washington as Chicago’s first black mayor came courtesy of a progressive coalition of blacks, Latinos and so-called “Lakefront liberals.” Katz and Rose were there, once again, as advisors and operatives.

Katz My straight line goes from ‘66/’68 to the folks who began to work together and formed the core group of the Harold Washington campaign. (Almost) everyone I worked with in 1982 I had met as a kid in ‘68. I believe that Barack Obama could only have emerged in Chicago. Why? Because since ‘68 there was a web of relationships between black civil rights groups, anti-war groups, women’s activities, immigrant rights activities, that has sustained and grown…

ITT What we did here in Chicago had international implications: In ‘68 there was a workers’ movement in Paris, there was a worldwide movement of students. We lost that in the intervening 40 years. Now in 2008, with Barack Obama, we have a renewed sense that the whole world is watching again.

Katz I think that millions of young people are flocking to Barack, as we did to the anti-war movement…

ITT The Democratic Party will gather once again later this month. Everybody is expecting a big party in Denver. Will it be an Obama coronation? Is that what we should be looking for?

So how do you resolve Obama’s move to the center? What about holding his feet to the fire? Don’t we need to keep him true to progressive issues?

Katz: We have to get him into office so then we can be the left opposition. I think it is a delicate balance between those of us who are progressive, how much you push, how much you don’t want to put him in very difficult positions that would embarrass him or give John McCain some advantage…

The other half of the David Axelrod mentoring team, David S Canter (1923/2004) had an even more exotic background.

Born in Boston, David Canter was the son of Harry J Canter secretary of the Boston Communist Party.

While the Communist Party candidate for Massachusetts secretary of state, Canter was arrested for carrying a placard “FULLER—MURDERER OF SACCO AND VANZETTI” ” attacking Governor Fuller for the execution of anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Harry Canter was tried, convicted and jailed for a year for criminal libel in May 1929.

After his release Canter senior moved his family, including son David to the Soviet Union. The boy must have stayed in the “workers paradise” for some time because according to his obituary in the Chicago Sun-Times of August 30, 2004;

“After his release, Mr. Canter’s father moved the family from Boston to Russia, where the young man developed a love for Russian literature…”

By 1946 the family had turned up in Chicago, where Harry Canter worked for many years as Secretary of Chicago Local 16 of the International Typographical Union.

Harry Canter later moved to San Fransisco, where he remained active in leftist causes. David Canter however remained in Chicago, where he was active in Communist Party circles and briefly as editor of the student paper Chicago Maroon.

In 1958 David Canter graduated from the John Marshall Law School. He also edited the Packinghouse Workers Union newspaper “Champion” newspaper.

According to communist historian Max Friedman

The Packinghouse Workers Union was a long time CPUSA-influenced, if not controlled union that later merged with the Meatcutters to form the CPUSA-run Amalgamated Meatcutters & Butcherworkmens’ Union, lead by identified CPUSA labor leader Abe Feinglass, who was also a VP of the Soviet-KGB front, the World Peace Council..Some hearings on the Packinghouse Workers were held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and one revealed that the future Rep. Charles Hayes (D-Ill, Chicago) was a high-ranking member of the CPUSA in the Meatcutters Union along with Feinglass.

By 1960 David Canter had teamed up with well known Chicago Communist Party member and colleague from Chicago Maroon days, Leroy Wolins.

The pair owned a company Translation World Publishers, which specialised in publications from and about the Soviet Union. The company soon attracted the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which suspected Canter and Wolins of being conduits for Soviet propaganda.

The committee questioned Canter and Wolins on payments recieved from the Soviet Union

The committee also questioned Canter about his membership of the Communist Party.

The committee went on to find that;

Translation World Publishers was an outlet for the distribution of Soviet

propaganda…this publishing house was subsidized by Soviet funds and was created by known Communists to serve the propaganda interests of the U.S.S.R.

In 1963/64 the Soviet Union actively tried to undermine Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, in favour of Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater lost the election paving the the way for Johnson’s “Great Society”.

In their 1989 book “THE KGB AGAINST THE MAIN ENEMY-How the Soviet Intelligence Service Operates against the United States” the US’s premier communist researcher Herbert Romerstein and former KGB officer Stanislav Levchenko examined Soviet attempts to blacken Goldwater’s name and other Soviet campaigns of the time;

The false charge that Goldwater was a racist was only one of the smear campaigns used against his candidacy by the Soviets and their surrogates. The American Communists covertly covertly assisted in this “active measures” campaign.

A 1963 booklet claimed that Goldwater was conspiring with the John Birch Society to organize a “putsch,” or violent insurrection, to take over the United States in 1964. The booklet, Birch Putsch Plans for 1964, contained no address for the publisher, Domino Publications. The author used the not-very imaginative pseudonym, “John Smith…” There was nothing to tie this publication to the communists until an ad for the book in the pro-communist National Guardian for April 25, 1963, listed the publisher as “Domino Publications, Suite 900, 22 West Madison Street, Chicago, Ilinois.”

This was in fact the address of Translation World Publishers, which was registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of the Soviet Union. The co-owners, LeRoy Wolins and David S. Canter, were identifed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as members of the Communist Party USA.

In 1965 Domino Publications of Chicago published a pamphlet attacking the NATO multilateral nuclear force (MLF). The pamphlet, by David S. Canter, was titled MLF-Force or Farce? It presented the Soviet arguments against the NATO nuclear defense.

By 1966 David Canter was working as an insurance salesman and publishing Hyde Park Kenwood Voices with Don Rose.

As stated above, by the early 1980s David Canter was actively trying to move Chicago to the left through Harold Washington.

After Washington accepted Canter’s proposal, his vacant congessional seat was taken up by Charles Hayes, the secret Communist Party member from Canter’s old Packinghouse Workers Union.

From the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America website

The 1983 Norman Thomas – Eugene V. Debs Dinner was held at the McCormick Inn on Saturday, May 7…Newly elected Mayor Harold Washington was unable to attend at the last minute. Carl Shier, who was to have introduced him, read a message from him instead, and spoke of DSA’s considerable role in Washington’s election campaign. Congressman Ron Dellums provided the Thomas – Debs address…

A majority of the “grip & grin” shots, interestingly enough, included Charles Hayes, who (regardless of whether he had actually announced at the time of the Dinner) was already running for the Congressional seat left vacant when Harold Washington won the Chicago mayoral election.

Future Cook County Clerk David Orr and Charles Hayes at Chicago DSA’s 1983 Thomas-Debs Dinner

In October 2004 David Canter’s son, Chicago IT consultant Marc Canter, blogged about his father’s relationship with Harold Washington;

One day I stumbled downstairs into our kitchen to meet Harold Washington talking to my father. Harold was the Congressman from our district and my father was explaining to him how he could split the white vote and become the first black mayor of the city of Chicago.

My father had been mentoring, encouraging and working with Harold for 15 years by then and it worked. They won the election and Harold became history…

My father encouraged black politicians to get their piece of the pie…

My father never charged for helping anyone out – and it was only until he was 65 did he ever accept a job from anyone he helped. He was one of those idealistic reds.

Indeed David Canter would not initially take a job under Washington, but after his 1987 re-election Canter relented and became deputy commissioner of streets and sanitation.

Marc Canter has also written;

My brother worked for Harold in D.C. when he was still a Congressman and got a job as a lawyer prosecuting crooked cops – when Harold came to power. My father remained in the inner circle and helped out on all sorts of political and community activities.

Barack Obama was later a beneficiary of the work done for Washington.

From The Nation February 6th 2007

Axelrod and Forest Claypool…opened their own consulting shop, handling mostly long-shot candidates until 1987, when Chicago Mayor Harold Washington hired the firm to help with his re-election. Four years earlier, Washington had won a historic victory…As the Tribune’s city hall bureau chief, Axelrod had ringside seats. “Nineteen eighty-three, that was a phenomenal election. Harold Washington–extraordinary guy. I mean, he was the most kinetic campaigner and politician that I’ve ever met. It was inspiring the way the African-American community came alive around the prospect of electing Harold… .”

Axelrod sees Obama, who was working in Chicago as a community organizer during the Washington years, as a marker of progress, writing the second act of a story that Washington started…

Twenty-one years later, when Barack ran for the US Senate in the primary against six very strong candidates, he carried every ward on the northwest side except one…I was thinking, and I told Barack, that Harold Washington is smiling down on us

While David Canter and Barack Obama probably met through the 1992 Moseley Braun campaign, the two were also both active in Independent Voters of Illinois.

David Canter had become active in the organisation in the 1940s and remained involved up to his death in 2004.

IVI was set up to campaign for endorsed candidates-especially “progressive” candidates.

The government took an interest in IVI as far back as 1944,

In 1944 the FBI prepared a more extensive intelligence report on an active political group, the Independent Voters of Illinois, apparently because it was the target of Communist “infiltration.” The Independent Voters group was reported to have been formed:

“…for the purpose of developing neighborhood political units to help in the re-election of President Roosevelt and the election of progressive congressmen. Apparently, IVI endorsed or aided democrats for the most part, although it was stated to be “independent.”

Other prominent IVI activists included familiar faces Milton Cohen, Timuel Black and Trotskyist turned Socialist Party member Saul Mendelson.

Like Cohen and Black, Mendelson also went on to join Democratic Socialists of America.

When Mendelson died in 1998, Carol Moseley Braun and Barack Obama both spoke at his memorial service.

Both Barack and Michelle Obama were members of IVI and the organisation endorsed Obama during his 2004 US Senate race.

In July 2004 IVI celebrated its 60th anniversary. Members of the event committee included

Timuel Black and Socialist Party veteran Leon Despres, DSA and Progressives for Obama member Wetty Wilhoitte, a whole host of DSA connected activists and politicians, Dick Simpson, Bernice Bild, Barbara Flynn Currie, Bob Mann, Joe Moore, David Orr, Toni Preckwinkle, Sue Purrington, Carol Moseley Braun and of course David S Canter and Barack Obama.

That may have been the last time Canter and Obama met-he died the following month.

On the 30th of September 2008 Marc Canter wrote in his blog

My father was an old-time politico in Chicago and one of his old buddies – Don Rose writes a column for a Chicago web site called the ‘Chicago Daily Observer’.

In today’s column he writes that Obama has taken a 50-42 lead in the polls.

I’m saying this in honor of my father who fought for civil rights, against the Vietnam War and would be tickled pink to see what Barack is up to.

I know he’s looking down from wherever he is – and laughing right now.

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#VET OBAMA 2012

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Why is Sen.Chuck Schumer and Other Top Democrats Silent about Obama’s Attacks on Private Equity Firms? Hypocrisy Abounds.

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From the Washington Free Beacon:

SILENT SCHUMER

PROMINENT DEMOCRATS REMAIN QUIET IN THE FACE OF OBAMA’S PRIVATE EQUITY ONSLAUGHT

BY: Bill McMorris  

May 25, 2012

Image source: AP

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President Barack Obama’s attack on Bain Capital and private equity has evoked silence from leading allies in the Democratic Senate and vigorous opposition from prominent supporters. Those staying silent are also some of the heaviest recipients of Wall Street cash, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

Standing silent during the controversy over Obama’s “Steel” ad, which blames Republican nominee Mitt Romney for mass layoffs at several factories (of which took place after Romney left the company) are some of the most media hungry Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), the third ranking Democrat in the Senate, and freshman Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), declined a New York Times interview to discuss the controversy on Wednesday. Neither senator has returned calls from the Washington Free Beacon, nor did second ranking Democrat, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, and former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.).

“Many top Democrats are quietly hedging their bets. They’re thinking, ‘What if Obama doesn’t win?’ They’re still going to be in D.C.,” said a top Senate Republican aide. “What you’re seeing could be one of the first indicators that not all Democrats are confident Obama can hold on.”

The silence from Democratic leadership has surprised Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute, a free-market think tank.

“These guys aren’t shy about criticizing the banks,” she said. “Durbin was out there talking about Bank of America for charging $5 debit fee charges, which they didn’t even go through with … It’s curious.”

Schumer’s silence has drawn the attention of many political observers, including former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.

“Silence of the Schumer. Senator who bankrolled D takeover of Sen w private equity & wall street $ stays mum as O attacks,” Fleischer tweeted on Thursday.

A New York-based political consultant that has worked on both sides of the aisle is not surprised that Schumer has stayed mum.

“No one has heisted more money out the backdoor of Wall Street than Chuck Schumer,” the consultant said. “He’s not going to talk about Bain even if he does believe those things.”

Schumer is not up for reelection until 2016, but he has already raised millions of dollars from financial companies, including about $325,000 from private equity sources between 2007 and 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Bain Capital is Kerry’s largest donor, contributing $76,200 since 2007. [Emphasis added] Durbin netted nearly $150,000 from private equity companies and law firms specializing in private equity during that time.

That is chump change, however, compared with Gillibrand’s private equity haul.

The freshmen senator elected to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010 raised nearly $1.8 million from private equity sources during the time under review. [Emphasis added]

“They’ve made a calculation that they have to go all-in on private equity, and I think they made the calculation that their hypocrisy would catch on,” the Senate aide said. “Somehow Obama’s camp thought they can be hypocritical and get away with it, and they didn’t.”

Obama attended a $38,500-a-plate fundraiser hosted by Tony James, an executive at Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, on the same day that the Bain ad hit airwaves. [Emphasis added] The fundraiser frustrated Obama supporters in the investment world, one of whom told the New York Times that attendees “were incredulous” at the timing.

Financiers are not the only people left scratching their heads at Obama’s attack on private equity. Leading Democrats, including former Obama auto czar Steve Rattner, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, California Sen. Dianna Feinstein, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, and former congressmen Harold Ford Jr. and Artur Davis, have come out against the ad. Obama surrogate and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a rising star in the party, caused national headlines when he called the ad “nauseating” on NBC’s Meet the Press, pointing out that Bain Capital helps to pay for government and union retirement plans. [Emphasis added]

The state retirement system of Schumer’s New York holds about 10 percent of its $150 billion assets in private equity firms, though it holds no investments in Bain Capital specifically. The system depends on investments to make 82 percent of its annual retirement costs.

The industry has impressed union officials.

“There’s been a steady trend upward in the private equity area … you can’t really argue against the results,” said Don Kelly of New York’s Civil Service Employees Association. “We don’t do social investing. The investment strategy is to make money for the pension fund and secure our benefits for thousands of state workers and relieve the taxpayers burden.”

CSEA spokesman Stephan Madarasz said that the union “is not at odds with the president,” but is “comfortable with private equity.”

“You don’t want to tar everybody with the same brush,” he said.

Romney should use the unpopularity of the anti-Bain ad to seize on the issue of Wall Street, experts said.

“Romney can’t just ignore finance; he shouldn’t give Obama an advantage that he doesn’t deserve,” Gelinas said. “Public trust in the financial system is at an all time low since Obama took office, so people obviously don’t trust Obama to control ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks.”

Keep reading here………….

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RELATED LINKS:

President Obama Won’t Be Returning His Donations From Bain Capital

 

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A Democrat Hypocrite? Anti-Walmart Democrat Rep. Shelley Berkley From Nevada Owns Walmart Stock

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Obama Co-Chair Is Venture Capital Vampire

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Democrat Party against big, evil Wall Street and Private Equity firms unless they line their pockets and campaigns with large donations.

Hypocrites!

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A Democrat Hypocrite? Anti-Walmart Democrat Rep. Shelley Berkley From Nevada Owns Walmart Stock

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Wait for the denial; she will claim she “didn’t know” in 3…..2……1

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From Breitbart/Big Government:

ANTI-WALMART NV DEM SENATE CANDIDATE OWNS $35K IN WALMART STOCK

by Ben Shapiro

May 24, 2012

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV), the liberal Senate candidate challenging Senator Dean Heller (R-NV), is an ardent friend to Big Labor. At least that’s a centerpiece of her campaign against Heller – and with good reason, since Nevada is heavily unionized.

Union support will be critical to Berkley’s campaign. And Berkley has spent the last few years backing their agenda. One of her preferred targets has been Wal-Mart, the retail giant Big Labor hates for its frequent use of part-time workers to avoid unionization issues. In 2006, Berkley publicly associated with the “Change Wal-Mart, Change America” campaign to get the company to amend its hiring practices.

But while Berkley talks a good game with regard to the pro-union agenda, her financial records show that her husband’s trust owns approximately $35,000 worth of stock in Wal-Mart. In fact, the stock was purchased after Berkley associated with the “Change Wal-Mart, Change America” campaign – it was bought in May 2008. So while Berkley maintains that union tactics aren’t harming the economy, and while she has specifically targeted supposedly anti-union companies, her husband is busy investing in companies that won’t deal with unions. Clearly, Berkley isn’t quite as pro-union in her personal life as she is in her legislative career.

This isn’t the first time Berkley’s and her husband’s finances have created a mess for the Congresswoman to clean up. In March, the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into her alleged attempts to strong-arm federal regulators to help the business interests of her husband, who is involved with a kidney transplant program in Nevada.

This latest revelation about Wal-Mart shouldn’t be surprising. Berkley is not new to the union pandering game. Back when she was casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s highest-ranking political deputy, she played bad cop to the unions on a routine basis. When Adelson started spending money on Republicans, however, she bucked – and Adelson fired her.

Is Berkley a hypocrite? It’s borderline, but the assets hit close enough to home that she had to include them in her Congressional personal financial disclosure forms. She will surely be answering some difficult questions from her union supporters in upcoming days.

SOURCE

**Emphasis added**

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Hypocrisy #2:

Reminds me of someone in the House of Representatives:

**All credit for this section goes to JOSEPH FARAH and WND***

Joseph Farah writes:

 Posted: November 06, 2006 <<<Note Date!

Nancy Pelosi: Caviar commie

 You’ve all heard the expression “limousine liberal.”

The phrase doesn’t begin to do justice to the hypocrisy of Nancy Pelosi.

That’s why I’ve dubbed her a “caviar commie.”

It’s more accurate, and I’ll prove it.

First of all, if Democrats win the House tomorrow, Pelosi won’t only be the first woman speaker, she will also be the wealthiest.

How much is this unassuming “grandma” worth? The Center for Responsive Politics puts her in the $55 million neighborhood. Pretty nice neighborhood, huh?

Despite her protestations about those “tax cuts for the rich,” she has never mentioned returning them to the federal Treasury where they rightfully belong. Go figure.

As I have reported previously in this space, Pelosi, the winner of the 2003 Cesar Chavez award from the United Farm Workers, hires only non-union workers on her $25 million Napa Valley vineyard.

Maybe this explains her firm opposition to any efforts to enhance border security and the flow of illegal cheap labor into the country from Mexico, speculates Investor’s Business Daily.

According to Peter Schweizer’s account in “Do As I Say (Not As I Do),” the luxury resort and restaurants she partly owns are also strictly non-union. The exclusive country club she partly owns failed to comply with existing environmental regulations for the past eight years – including a failure to protect endangered species.

Those rules are for mere mortals, not the caviar Comintern.

Maybe you’re saying, “Farah, I can see why Pelosi would be called a ‘limousine liberal’ based on what you report, but why do you take it so far as to call her a ‘caviar commie’”?

Good question. And here’s the rest of the story.

As only WND has reported, Pelosi is a long-time member of the “Progressive Caucus” – or, as I call it, the Congressional Red Army Caucus.

In fact, she has even served on the executive committee of the socialist-leaning Progressive Caucus, a bloc of about 60 votes or nearly 30 percent of the minority vote in the lower chamber.

 Until 1999, the website of the Progressive Caucus was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America. Following an expose of the link between the two organizations in WND, the Progressive Caucus established its own website under the auspices of Congress. Another officer of the Progressive Caucus, and one of its guiding lights, is avowed socialist Rep. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s chief organizing stated goal is to work within the Democratic Party and remove the stigma attached to “socialism” in the eyes of most Americans.

“Stress our Democratic Party strategy and electoral work,” explains an organizing document of the DSA. “The Democratic Party is something the public understands, and association with it takes the edge off. Stressing our Democratic Party work will establish some distance from the radical subculture and help integrate you to the milieu of the young liberals.”

Nevertheless, the goal of the Democratic Socialists of America has never been deeply hidden. Prior to the cleanup of its website in 1999, the DSA included a song list featuring “The Internationale,” the worldwide anthem of communism and socialism.

Another song on the site was “Red Revolution” sung to the tune of “Red Robin.” The lyrics went: “When the Red Revolution brings its solution along, along, there’ll be no more lootin’ when we start shootin’ that Wall Street throng. …” Another song removed after WorldNetDaily’s expose was “Are You Sleeping, Bourgeoisie?” The lyrics went: “Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie. And when the revolution comes, We’ll kill you all with knives and guns, Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie.”

Excerpted; read entire article at link below:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52798

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VIDEO: Violent Union Thugs Using Ball Bat on Effigy of SC Gov. Nikki Haley!

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Exactly WHO is provoking the War on Women?

From Canada Free Press:

By Warner Todd Huston

May 23, 2012

Here we have another union thug acting out a desire for violence. This time it’s Donna Dewitt, the President of the South Carolina AFL-CIO (a grand title for a chief thug, eh?), using a baseball bat to smack a piñata sporting the face of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley on it.

Now, imagine, folks, if these were Republicans using a ball bat on an effigy of a Democrat Gov. — and a female one at that. This story would be the story of the day all over the news and would go on for weeks at a time. We’d never hear the end of it from the Old Media.

Democrats do it… and crickets.

In fact, if this was a video of Republicans doing such a thing, the GOP candidate for president would be tarred with their actions. Right now we’d be hearing calls from every last Democrat, every last member of the media (but I repeat myself) for Governor Mitt Romney to disavow this violence.

Again. Democrats do it…. and crickets.

Remember back when all Sarah Palin did was put the icon of a target on a map of targeted districts during the 2010 election? Remember how that became a symbol in the Old Media of the “violence” being urged by those evil Republicans? Well, here we have a ball bat being used on the face of a female Governor and… yep, crickets.”

Additionally, this is violence being acted out on a female politician. Again, imagine if Republicans were being so sexist against a female Democrat. That is yet another angle that Democrats would include in their lies about the so-called “Republican war on women.”

Democrats do it… more crickets.

If you ever wanted to see an example of the double standard of the Old Media establishment, this is one.

Trouble viewing video?  Click Here.

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CNN tries to expose this; what is the Union President’s response?

SC Union Boss On Bashing Gov Haley Pinata: “It Was Very Hard To Break”

Trouble viewing video?  Click Here.

***Listen to her EXCUSES……***

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Do the members of the AFL-CIO realize that Donna Dewitt, the President of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, and the members cheering on her actions represent their entire union?

Do the union members of the AFL-CIO condone this?  Is this what unions have become?

A history of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s past:  Eddie York

Trumka — The Eddie York Slaying in 1993

Trouble viewing video?  Click Here.

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Additional Link:

While Richard Trumka Trumpets About “out of control CEO pay”: Union Boss Salary Hypocrisy

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While Washington, D.C. Thrives and Federal Workers Salaries/Bonuses are High…..The Unemployed Elsewhere in America get…..

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Do Rank & File Union Members in America Know they are now Officially Communists by Proxy?

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Obama a Tea Partier back in 1997? Seen Walking in Front of a Gadsden Flag?

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Hey, Maxine Waters: Want to still stand behind your comments about the Tea Party?

Nancy?

Harry?

Bill Maher?

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From Breitbart:

EXCLUSIVE – THE VETTING – BARACK OBAMA, THE FIRST TEA PARTIER

By John Sexton

May 23, 2012

Image:  Breitbart.com

In 2009, President Barack Obama reportedly called members of the Tea Party “teabaggers.” It turns out that our fourth greatest president,first in so many things, may have been the first “teabagger” himself, as seen in the 1997 photograph above. Yes, that really is Barack Obama wearing a regimental coat and carrying a tricorn hat in his hand. And that flag behind him really is a Gadsden flag, with its serpent and its “Don’t Tread On Me” slogan. You may want to let all of this sink in a bit, especially if you’re a Tea Party-bashing progressive.

Neither Democrats nor the media have been particularly kind to the Tea Party. There is hardly space to go through all the times the Tea Party has been compared to terrorists (including by the Vice President) or fascists, or the many times it has been accused of racism by progressives in supposedly mainstream news outlets. That’s a book-length story of its own.

But given the photo above, it is certainly a good time to think back upon some of the ridicule Tea Party members were forced to endure for evoking the Revolutionary War era by their dress and choice of symbols.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was one of many who saw mockery of the “teabaggers” as the first recourse. (The word was used so often by liberals in 2009 that Oxford made it a Word of the Year finalist.) Liberal sites like Talking Points Memo presented attendees who dressed up the way Obama did above as weirdos. The ever-predictable Bill Maher got hoots from his audience when he donned his own tricorn hat (complete with dangling tea bags) to bash the Tea Party on TV.

President Obama blamed the “teabaggers” for his failures, according to Jonathan Alter’s book The Promise: President Obama, Year One, complaining that his own 2009 stimulus “helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.” (Vice President Joe Biden is blaming them still.)

Yet in the dramatic battles over trumped up charges of Tea Party racism and extremism, Obama never mentioned his own “Tea Party” episode–and neither has anyone in the media, even as Obama’s allies and friends on the left ridiculed the Tea Party for seeking to make the same symbolic connections to the country’s founding.

The media’s failure is all the more glaring, given that the forgotten photograph has been in plain view for fifteen years. It appeared on the front page of Chicago’s Hyde Park Herald on July 9th, 1997, and was taken by legendary photographer Nancy Campbell Hays. (The larger version of the image is below this article. The original, which was donated to the University of Chicago, is not yet available for public view; the image obtained by Breitbart News was very dark, and so it was lightened in Photoshop).

The Herald‘s caption below the photograph read:

Hey, look over here! Something catches the attention of Sen. Barack Obama (13th), Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (25th), Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and Stephanie Franklin as they lead the annual “4th on 53rd” parade.

In 1997, Obama was beginning his first term as a state senator in Illinois. He and his fellow politicians were asked to lead the “4th on 53rd” parade, which is Hyde Park’s 4th of July celebration–one not too different from many other places in America, it turns out. All the politicians who attended were expected to dress the part. The Herald even published a story the week before, on July 2nd, confirming in advance that Obama would be “wearing colonial attire.”

With most politicians, wearing colonial dress for a public celebration like the 4th of July would be considered a bit colorful, but not extraordinary.

In Obama’s case, it’s more like proof of hypocrisy.

More here………

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Obama wearing a regimental coat of a Colonial “Free America”during Independence Day activities……..

Tea Party March on Washington 2009

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Obama Administration Spends $20 Million Dollars to Hire PR Firm Porter Novelli to “Sugar Coat” Obamacare. Who is Bill Novelli?

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Porter Novellli, the PR firm has/had ties to AARP.

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From Big Government:

OBAMA ADM. SPENDS $20 MILLION ON A PR FIRM TO SELL OBAMACARE

By Wynton Hall

May 22, 2012

The Obama Administration has signed a $20 million contract with top public relations firm Porter Novelli to sell citizens on the “benefits” of the unpopular Obamacare law.

As Sen. Jim DeMint’s office points out, however, the new $20 million taxpayer-funded Obamacare PR blitz is just a drop in the bucket of the total government expenditures to promote government policies.

According to a recent Congressional Research Service Report, government agencies have “spent more than $900 million on contracts for advertising services in FY 2010, a figure that does not include all agency expenditures.”

During last year’s Super Bowl, President Obama’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services dropped $3.1 million on a misleading ad campaign with Andy Griffith to boost Medicare enrollments among seniors.

In 2009, the Obama Administration also spent $26 million in stimulus money to hire Ogilvy Public Relations to set up a “publicity center.”

The $900 million figure advertising figure does not include “in-house” work by a governmental agency’s internal communications staff. For this reason, the Congressional Research Service says it is “unclear how much the executive branch, let alone the federal government as a whole, spends on communications each year.”

LINK

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Porter Novelli is tied to AARP:

About William (Bill) D. Novelli: Sourced from Center for American Progress “Event” link

Medicare policy has risen to the top of the congressional agenda this year. Health care reform is gaining support in Washington, D.C. and in many places around the country. Given the size of Medicare, changes made in that program can not only affect beneficiaries but also have a very large impact on health care policy across the board. Key elements in getting Medicare right include eliminating the overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans and reforming Medicare fee-for-service.

Following the welcome and introduction from Cassandra Butts, Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy at the Center for American Progress, Bill Novelli, CEO of AARP will give remarks regarding Medicare Advantage plans and Medicare fee-for-service. The discussion will close with questions from the audience.

Keynote address by: 
William D. Novelli, CEO of AARP

Introductory remarks by: 
Cassandra Q. Butts, SVP for Domestic Policy, Center for American Progress

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About William (Bill) D. Novelli: Sourced from Center for American Progress “Event” link

Biographies

William D. Novelli is CEO of AARP, a membership organization of over 38 million people age 50 and older, half of whom remain actively employed. AARP’s mission is to enhance the quality of life for all as we age.

Prior to joining AARP, Novelli was President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, whose mandate is to change public policies and the social environment, limit tobacco companies’ marketing and sales practices to children, and serve as a counterforce to the tobacco industry and its special interests. He now serves as chairman of the board.

Previously, he was Executive Vice President of CARE, the world’s largest private relief and development organization and co-founder and president of Porter Novelli, now one of the world’s largest public relations agencies and part of the Omnicom Group, an international marketing communications corporation.

Novelli is a recognized leader in social marketing and social change and has managed programs in cancer control, diet and nutrition, cardiovascular health, reproductive health, infant survival, pay increases for educators, charitable giving, and other programs in the United States and the developing world.

Source: Center for American Progress

**From event titled Getting Medicare Right**

July 11, 2007

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Related Link:

Is AARP Innocent? Have They Found Loopholes? Or Are They “Buds” with the White House?

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Reiterated from above: *Emphasis added for focal point*

Novelli is a recognized leader in social marketing and social change and has managed programs in cancer control, diet and nutrition, cardiovascular health, reproductive health, infant survival, pay increases for educators, charitable giving, and other programs in the United States and the developing world.

William D. Novelli is CEO of AARP.

William Novelli is co-founder and president of Porter Novelli.

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Bill Novelli is tied to Andy Stern of SEIU as co-producers of “United We Fail” Campaign

From the Divided We Fail website:

“AARP, Business Roundtable and Service Employees Union (SEIU) launched Divided We Fail to engage the American people, businesses, non-profit organizations, and elected officials in finding bi-partisan solutions to ensure affordable, quality health care and long-term financial security – for all of us.

The need for health and financial security is something we all share, not just for ourselves, but for future generations. It is the promise of America.”

Andy Stern, president of SEIU, Bill Novelli, CEO of AARP, and John Castellani, president of Business Roundtable, joined Mike Cuthbert, host of Prime Time Radio (all pictured here) for a discussion of these issues.

LINK

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President Obama and AARP CEO Bill Novelli on entitlements

February 25, 2009<<<Note date

Trouble viewing video?  Click Here.

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Bob Guzzardi: AARP Insurance

A very, very Profitable $1.3 BILLION NonProfit: AARP and its salespeople – nonpartisan advocate or insurance agent? Follow the Money in this Liberal Bait and Switch

Millionaire Democrat Morgan Freeman and Millionairess Democrat Jamie Lee Curtissell AARP Insurance for Multi-billion dollar profitable nonprofit AARP, formerly American Association of Retired People, presenting itself as nonpartisan, advocate for seniors and retired people – you know, “the old, the sick and the infirm”. In fact, it is hugely profitable insurance company.

Some might think that AARP advocates for the interest of seniors; others may think this is “Bait and Switch”. AARP is a very profitable insurance company pretending to be “ do- gooder “, benefitting seniors and retired people and like so many Liberals, AARP is getting rich from big government. Most conventional “for profit “ insurance companies don’t hide that they are insurance companies

“Today, AARP is a large, complex and sophisticated enterprise with over $2.2 billion in total assets and generated over $1.4 billion in revenue in 2009.” AARP’s Budget and Revenues By any measure, AARP is a large enterprise. More than ten years ago, AARP paid approximately $206 million for its headquarters in Washington, DC.25 In 2009, the parent organization, AARP, Inc., alone spent over $3.4 million in legal fees, over $713,000 in accounting fees, and over $218 million compensating its officers, directors, and employees.”

WaPo March 31^st 2010

“ [The US government ] released a report that estimates the seniors lobby could make an additional $1 billion over 10 years on health insurance plans whose sales are expected to pick up under the new law. They also questioned seven-figure compensation for some AARP executives.

The report was also critical of AARP’s executive compensation and travel policies. In 2009, then-CEO William Novelli received $1,647,419 in total compensation, including $350,000 in severance.”

Ways and Means report:http://waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/AARP_REPORT_FINAL_PDF_3_29_11.pdf

Charts: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/AARP_Charts.pdf

AARP response: http://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/info-03-2011/website_overview.html including AARP’s President’s Lee Hammond’s video response.

But what Americans don’t know is… that the AARP brand dominates the private Medicare insurance market.” American Spectator David Catron March 30, 2011 The American Association for Retiree Plunder

“For those of us who toil in the vineyards of health care finance it has long been obvious that the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is, for all intents and purposes, an insurance company disguised as an advocacy group. Thus, it was something of surprise when AARP announced its support for ObamaCare in the fall of 2009. Why would a financial conglomerate so dependent on insurance-related revenue endorse a bill that promised to wreck the health insurance industry? Then, the penny dropped. One of the ways the Democrats proposed to “pay” for their health care law was by cutting the Medicare Advantage (MA) program by $200 billion. This would inevitably drive many carriers out of the MA market and herd millions of seniors back to the more expensive coverage of traditional Medicare.

How would that benefit AARP? Traditional Medicare imposes much higher deductibles and co-pays on its beneficiaries than does MA, and the vast majority of AARP’s revenue derives from sales of “Medigap” policies that purport to cover those out-of-pocket expenses. In other words, the AARP endorsed a law that does real financial harm to seniors in order to reap a crop of new customers when ObamaCare guts Medicare Advantage. And it gets worse: Most of the victims of this cynical strategy will be low-income and minority seniors. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), nearly 60% of MA beneficiaries have annual incomes of $10,000 to $30,000. Moreover, nearly 30% of Medicare Advantage enrollees are minorities, compared to about 20% for traditional Medicare.

AARP received “an $18 million grant in the economic stimulus package for a job training program that has not created any jobs. ” More to the point, the Democrats granted AARP a long list of special dispensations from the most onerous features of ObamaCare. As Chris Jacobs of the Republican Policy Committee has noted, AARP received exemptions from the prohibition on pre-existing condition exclusions and the $500,000 cap on executive compensation for insurance industry executives.

Jacobs also points out that the Democrats exempted AARP from the tax they imposed on insurance companies in general, “even though according to its own financial statements AARP generated more money from insurance industry ‘royalty fees’ than it received from membership dues, grant revenues, and private contributions combined.”

SOURCE

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Porter picked by HHS to conduct $20m campaign

Virgil Dickson

May 18, 2012

WASHINGTON: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has selected Porter Novelli to launch a national multimedia education campaign mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

The contract is worth $20 million. The organization selected the firm after an RFP process that included Weber Shandwick and Fleishman-Hillard.

“The campaign will inform the American people about the many preventive benefits now available to those with Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act,” a representative from the Department of Health & Human Services said. …

More here…….

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Questions:

1.  WHO is paying the $20 MILLION dollars?  Should the Obama campaign pay for it since it basically is continuing to push his top agenda? Why should the American taxpayer pick up this tab?  Will more money be borrowed to pay for this?

2.  Was the selection of Porter Novelli really a fair selection under the RFP?  Ties to Obama; Bill Novelli was representing AARP on Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit on the road to sustainability through health care reform.

3.  Does Obama think that by utilizing a “sugar coating on this Obamacare medicine” that American’s might accept it more favorably?  Currently over 60% of Americans DO NOT want Obamacare.

 Remember William (Bill) D. Novelli advocates social change.

Prior to joining AARP, Novelli was President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, whose mandate is to change public policies and the social environment, limit tobacco companies’ marketing and sales practices to children, and serve as a counterforce to the tobacco industry and its special interests. He now serves as chairman of the board.

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From Georgetown University website:

Bill Novelli is a professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He teaches in the MBA program and has created and leads the Global Social Enterprise Initiative at the School. He also is Co-Chair of the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), a national organization dedicated to reforming advanced illness care by empowering consumers, changing the health care delivery system, improving public policies and enhancing provider capacity. From 2001 to 2009, he was CEO of AARP, a membership organization of over 40 million people 50 and older. During his tenure, AARP achieved important policy successes at national and state levels in health, financial security, good government and other areas. It also doubled its budget, added five million new members and expanded internationally.

Prior to AARP, Mr. Novelli was President of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, whose mandate is to change public policies and the social environment, limit tobacco companies’ marketing and sales practices to children and serve as a counterforce to the tobacco industry and its special interests. He now serves as chairman of the board.

Previously, he was Executive Vice President of CARE, the world’s largest private relief and development organization. He was responsible for all operations in the U.S. and abroad. CARE helps impoverished people in Africa, Asia and Latin America through programs in health, agriculture, environmental protection and small business support. CARE also provides emergency relief to people in need.

Earlier, Mr. Novelli co-founded and was President of Porter Novelli, now one of the world’s largest public relations agencies and part of the Omnicom Group, an international marketing communications corporation. He directed numerous corporate accounts as well as the management and development of the firm. Porter Novelli was founded to apply marketing to social and health issues, and grew into an international marketing/public relations agency with corporate, not-for-profit and government clients. He retired from the firm in 1990 to pursue a second career in public service. He was named one of the 100 most influential public relations professionals of the 20th century by the industry’s leading publication.

Mr. Novelli is a recognized leader in social marketing and social change, and has managed programs in cancer control, diet and nutrition, cardiovascular health, reproductive health, infant survival, pay increases for educators, charitable giving and other programs in the U.S. and the developing world.

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For Seniors wanting a different option than ARRP:

American Seniors.org

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American Seniors Association Criticizes Medicare Advantage
Deception Engineered by Obama

  Obama to eliminate popular free-market competition Medicare Advantage, but doesn’t want America’s seniors to know until after November election.

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Financial Advisors and Academia Discussing/Influencing World Markets and Finance? News: U.S. Treasury Gives China “Direct Link” to U.S. Treasury Auction System.

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IMPORTANT NEWS REPORTED YESTERDAY, May 21, 2012

From The Blaze:

U.S. TREASURY GRANTS CHINA ‘DIRECT COMPUTER LINK’ TO AUCTION SYSTEM

By Becket Adams

China no longer needs to go through Wall Street when it wants to purchase copious amounts of U.S. debt — they can go right to the source: the U.S. Treasury.

This is the Treasury’s “first-ever direct relationship with a foreign government,” according to a recent report from Reuters.

But what does this mean? It means that unlike every other central bank in the world, the People’s Bank of China won’t have to place orders for U.S. debt through the Wall Street banks appointed by the feds as “primary dealers” to bid on Treasury auctions.

“China, which holds $1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, still buys some Treasuries through primary dealers, but since June 2011, that route hasn’t been necessary,” Emily Flitter writes for Reuters.

So how does China bid on U.S. debt? Simple: through a “direct computer link” to the U.S. Treasury’s auction system. China has been bidding on U.S. debt without working through the aforementioned Wall Street banks as “primary dealers” — although every other bank is required to.

Surprisingly (unsurprisingly?), the deal between the Treasury and China wasn’t publicly announced.

“Direct bidding is open to a wide range of investors, but as a matter of general policy we do not comment on individual bidders,” Matt Anderson, a Treasury Department spokesman, told Reuters.

Why keep it on the down low? Reuters posits that by keeping Wall Street’s knowledge of the debt purchases to a minimum, and therefore containing what is already a politically contentious debate, it’ll keep the prices down for China’s bank.

[...]

Considering the fact that China is America’s greatest creditor, as well as the fact that they are becoming increasingly antagonistic in cyber security attacks, maybe – just maybe – granting the Communist country a direct computer link to the treasury auction system isn’t the wisest decision.

Read the full Reuters report here.

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Of IMPORTANT NOTE: Zhou  Xiaochuan, the Governor of the People’s Bank of China is a member.  Is this why Geithner spoke so fondly of Zhou talking about a World Currency in place of the US dollar?

http://www.group30.org/bios/members29.htm

Democrat or Republican…..it does not matter to the Bildeberg Group or the Trilateral Commission.  The Federal Reserve and the IMF are working for a One World Governance…..the groundwork has been laid and we are speeding toward their planned “end”…….

Obama connected to George Soros……Soros and his Open Society dreams…..Soros’ Open Society Institute is a Contributor and Supporter of the Group of 30; will we see Soros’ dreams come to fruition?

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Group of Thirty:

Established in 1978

The Group of Thirty is a private, nonprofit, international body composed of very senior representatives of the private and public sectors and academia.

Knowledgeable

The Group of Thirty aims to deepen understanding of international economic and financial issues, to explore the international repercussions of decisions taken in the public and private sectors, and to examine the choices available to market practitioners and policymakers.

Influential

The work of the Group of Thirty impacts the current and future structure of the global financial system by delivering actionable recommendations directly to the private and public policymaking communities.

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Would it bother YOU to discover this supposed non-for-profit Institution had connections to the IMF, the Federal Reserve and the World Bank?

The Group of Thirty hosts an International Banking Seminar every year.  Look here to see who attended in 2011.

International Banking Seminar 2010

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Would it bother YOU to discover this group is lead by connections to the Obama Administration, the Washington Post, etc.? Ever hear of the Volcker rule?

Group of Thirty members

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Trouble viewing video?  Click Here.

President Obama calls for new restrictions on the size and scope of financial institutions to rein in excessive risk-taking and protect taxpayers. The proposed legislation is called the Volcker Rule in recognition of the efforts of former Federal Reserve Chairman and current Presidents Economic Recovery Advisory Board Chairman Paul Volcker. January 21, 2010.

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RELATED LINK:

Larry Summers: Director Of National Economic Council, Top Adviser To Obama

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Timothy Geithner, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury is a former member of this group.  Supposedly stepped down after Obama won the election.

Past Members

* deceased

Josef Ackermann	Montek Ahluwalia
Pedro Aspe	Abdul Aziz Al Quraishi
Roberto Campos*	Sir Roderick Carnegie
Max Corden	Andrew D. Crockett
Dick de Bruyne	Jose Martinez de Hoz
Andre de Lattre	Otmar Emminger*
Janos Fekete*	Victor K. Fung
Timothy Geithner	Alan Greenspan
Wilfried Guth*	Armin Gutowski*
Jawad Hashim	Thomas Johnson
Yoh Kurosawa*	Alexandre Lamfalussy
Anthony Loehnis	Fritz Machlup*
Jacques Maisonrouge	Stephen Marris
Michiya Matsukawa*	Jose Antonio Mayobre*
C.W. McMahon	Soburo Okita*
Suliman Olayan*	Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa*
I. G. Patel	Rupert Pennant-Rea
Claude Pierre-Brossolette	Karl Otto Pohl
Jacques Polak	Gordon Richardson*
Robert Roosa	William Ryrie
Anthony Solomon*	Robert Solomon
Herbert Stein*	Tasuku Takagaki
Cesar Virata	Rod Wagner*
Henry Wallich*	Sir Peter Waiters
Dennis Weatherstone*	Johannes Witteveen
The Honorable Janet L. Yellen

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Group of 30

From SourceWatch

The Group of Thirty, often abbreviated to G30, is an international body of leading financiers and academics which aims to deepen understanding of economic and financial issues, and to examine consequences of decisions made in the public and private sectors related to these issues.

The group consists of thirty members and includes the heads of major private banks and central banks, as well as members from academia and international institutions. It holds two full meetings each year and also organises seminars, symposia, and study groups. It is based in Washington, D.C.

The Group of Thirty was founded in 1978 by Geoffrey Bell at the initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation, which also provided initial funding for the body. Its first chairman was Johannes Witteveen, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

The Bellagio Group, formed by Austrian economist Fritz Machlup, was the immediate predecessor to the Group of Thirty. It first met in 1963, to investigate international currency problems, particularly the balance of payments crisis which faced America throughout the early 60s.

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From the Federal Reserve Bank’s own website:

January 2009

Timothy F. Geithner

Timothy F. Geithner became the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003. In that capacity, he serves as the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for formulating the nation’s monetary policy. President Obama nominated Mr. Geithner to be the 75th Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Senate confirmed him to the position on January 26, 2009.

Mr. Geithner joined the Department of Treasury in 1988 and worked in three administrations for five Secretaries of the Treasury in a variety of positions. He served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1999 to 2001 under Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.

He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 until 2003. Before joining the Treasury, Mr. Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates, Inc.

Mr. Geithner graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in government and Asian studies in 1983 and from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies with a master’s in International Economics and East Asian Studies in 1985. He has studied Japanese and Chinese and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan.

Mr. Geithner serves as chairman of the G-10’s Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the Bank for International Settlements. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Group of Thirty.<<<<

http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/orgchart/geithner.html

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Group of Thirty Events

The events hosted by the Group of Thirty are invitation-only forums in which very senior members of the banking, financial and regulatory community come together to discuss issues of common concern in off-the-record settings conducive to frank exchanges of views and positions.

Plenary Meetings

The Group meets in plenary session twice a year.  For your information we have included a list of the speakers at recent plenary sessions.

60th Plenary Session

December 4-6, 2008 <<<Note date: One month after Obama victory.

Hosted by Timothy Geithner<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Federal Reserve Bank of New York

See Complete Agenda
See Photographs 

Chairman:
Jacob A. Frenkel, Chairman, Group of Thirty, Vice Chairman, AIG Inc.

Host:
Timothy Geithner, President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Speakers:
William J. Brodsky, Chairman & CEO, Chicago Board Options Exchange

Jaime Caruana, Financial Counsellor, International Monetary Fund

http://www.group30.org/events.htm

The AGENDA of the Plenary meeting:

http://www.group30.org/agenda60.pdf

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Contributors and Supporters

The Group of Thirty is a 501c3 non-for-profit institution. Donations in support of our program and activities are tax deductible. If your institution would like to become active in and support our work, please contact the Group of Thirty staff for more information on (202) 331-2472 or via email on info@group30.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

Absa Group Ltd
Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development
Asociacion Española de Banca (AEB)
Austrian National Bank
Banca d’Italia
Banco Central de Chile
Banco de Galacia
Banco de Portugal
Banco Mercantil
Banco Santander
BancoSabadell
Bank Leumi le Israel BM
Bank of East Asia, Ltd.
Bank of Nova Scotia
Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ
Bankia
Banque Centrale du Luxembourg
Banque de France
BM&F Bovespa
BMCE Bank
BNP Paribas
Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
Caxton Associates
Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland
Central Bank of Barbados
Central Bank of Jordan
Central Bank of Malta
CIB Bank Ltd
Citicorp
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Credit Suisse
Danmarks National Bank
Debs Foundation
Deutsche Bank AG
Dubai Financial Services Authority
Ferguson, Roger
Gavea Investimentos
Goldman Sachs and Co.
Gulf International Bank
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
HSBC Holdings Plc.
Indian Banks’ Association
Itau Unibanco
Japan Credit Rating Agency
JPMorgan Chase
Kaufman Foundation
LCH Clearnet Group Limited
Mizuho Financial Group Inc
Monetary Authority of Singapore
Moore Capital Management
Morgan Stanley & Co., Int’l
National Bank of Hungary
Olayan Group
People’s Bank of China
Reserve Bank of Australia
Reserve Bank of India
Roth, Peter
Russo, Thomas
Sella Holding Banca
Singapore Government Investment Corporation
Soros Fund Management/Open Society Institute
Sullivan and Cromwell
Sveriges Riksbank
Swiss Re
The Challenger Foundation
Tudor Investment
UBS
UniCredito Italiano
Whitehead Foundation

http://www.group30.org/contributors.shtml

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  The connector in this story is Timothy Geithner, under Bush the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and now Obama’s Treasury Secretary. Geithner in June 2008 convened closed door meetings with 17 banks, essentially allowing them to propose and draft their own rules for the derivatives market.

    This led to advocacy by the Fair Finance Watch that Geithner’s meetings were in fact rule making that excluded the public in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, and by Inner City Press, as media, to get the meetings opened to journalists and the public.

  The Administrative Procedures Act (5 U.S.C. Section 553) and related laws require that when the government engaged in rule-making, it must provide notice to the public, and allow and weigh public comments.  The New York Fed under Geithner tried to rule-make without any involvement by the public, even the public most impacted by the subprime lending that underlies these processes. The New York Fed on June 9, 2008 met with a group of the largest banks to discuss, according to the Geithner himself

“Regulatory policy. These are the incentives and constraints designed to affect the level and concentration of risk-taking across the financial system. You can think of these as a financial analog to imposing speed limits and requiring air bags and antilock brakes in cars, or establishing building codes in earthquake zones. Regulatory structure. This is about who is responsible for setting and enforcing those rules. Crisis management. This is about when and how we intervene and about the expectations we create for official intervention in crises.”

     Press accounts made clear that the financial instruments and regulatory issues discussed behind closed doors are related to issues of public interest, which in fact are disproportionately impacting low- and moderate- income people and communities of color — subprime and predatory mortgages.

The financial institutions invited, in mid 2008, were:

Bank of America, N.A. – Barclays Capital – BNP Paribas – Citigroup – Credit Suisse – Deutsche Bank AG – Dresdner Kleinwort – Goldman, Sachs & Co. – HSBC Group – JPMorgan Chase – Lehman Brothers – Merrill Lynch & Co. – Morgan Stanley – The Royal Bank of Scotland Group – Societe Generale – UBS AG – Wachovia Bank, N.A.
Buy-Side Firms: AllianceBernstein – BlueMountain Capital Management LLC – Citadel Investment Group, L.L.C.

  Fast forward to March 2009, with Geithner despite tax evasion installed as Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury, and with Lehman having failed and Wachovia been swallowed by Wells Fargo. Now he is promoting monopoly powers in the market for an even smaller group of banks, just seven: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank — which despite European headquarters received billions of dollars in U.S. Troubled Assets Relief Program bailout funds through AIG.

Now the idea is to formalize the monopoly through legislation, not rule making. Industry friendly Congress people like Connecticut’s Chris Dodd are supporting the monopoly for the privileged. The fig leaf policy argument is that derivatives should runs through regulated banks. The push is made now, before it is formalized that non-banks, too, are regulated.  It is a pure power grab, with Timothy Geithner as the connector. And who is fighting this monopoly of the morally if not financially bankrupt? To be continued.

March 23, 2009

   Citigroup‘s Pandit put out this spin last week, “The work we have all done to try to stabilize the financial system and to get this economy moving again would be significantly set back if we lose our talented people because Congress imposes a special tax on financial services employees,” Mr. Pandit wrote in a memo distributed to Citi’s 300,000 employees.

 Bank of America‘s Ken Lewis claims that B of A is “part of the solution for the financial crisis” through its subsidized acquisitions of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch. Most say, part of the problem…

March 16, 2009<<<<Note date!

In DC, “Inevitable” Fraud as Obama Jokes with JPM Chase, Meets Citi and ExxonMobil

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press

WASHINGTON, March 12 — As President Barack Obama promises to find and “call out” misuses of the stimulus package, and to review the over 7,000 earmarks in the budget bill he signed this week, the chairman of his Recovery Act’s Transparency and Accountability Board, Earl Devaney, told the Press of a “naive impression that given the amount of transparency and accountability called for by this Act, no or little fraud will occur… some level of waste and fraud is unfortunately inevitable.”

   Accordingly, the same is true not only at the United Nations — despite Obama not mentioning the need for UN reform in his comments Tuesday after meeting Secretary General Ban Ki-moon — but also with the bank bailout funds of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Nevertheless, Obama joked with JPMorgan Chase‘s Jaime Dimon at the Business Roundtable’s gabfest Thursday in Washington. As a smaller banker asked the final question of Obama — no questions were taken after his meeting with the UN’s Ban —Obama said that banking has of late become complex, and that he could ask “Jaime” about it.

  Also on the White House’s list of Roundtable attendees was Citigroup’s longtime board member and now chairman Richard Parsons. Citigroup veered into predatory lending, JPM Chase at a minimum securitized it, while lending to payday lenders and pawnshops.           What then is so funny?

Obama’s successor as Senator from Illinois Roland Burris is said to have a brother who is going through foreclosure. A well-known Representative from the state of Illinois, sponsoring a pro-industry payday lending bill, has taken over $10,000 from the lender QC Holdings. If this is how politics will be in the current Washington, predatory lending can be expected to continue.

http://www.innercitypress.org/bankbeat.html

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Behold the Magic of High School Social Studies Education at a North Carolina School. Teacher Yells at Student for Asking a Question about Obama.

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Trouble viewing video?  Click Here.

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A comment about this video on this video:

Your public educational system at work. Why a woman that can’t string two words together is an educator in anything other than a port-a-potty, is a mystery. Furthermore her attempt to stifle dissent is anti-educational. She should be encouraging her students to express different viewpoints, not force uniformity or worshiping a human being. No worries – the Teachers Union will make sure she keeps her job, even though she’s incompetent and arrogant.

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Note to teacher:  It is not disrespect/slander if Obama himself wrote about it in his own book.

The above text comes directly from President Obama’s first memoir, “Dreams From My Father” and recounts an incident which occurred while he was in middle school.  When our president became the subject of taunts from his fellow classmates, he decided to shove a little girl named Coretta.   Although he chronicles his feelings of regret, he never does not offer her an apology.

LINK

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**This teacher didn’t even know that Rep. Joe Wilson was admonished by the House of Representatives about yelling “You Lie.”**

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via USA Today

House votes to admonish Rep. Wilson for outburst

September 15, 2009

Wilson has declined to back down on his position that he owed the House no apology for the outburst. Wilson did express sorrow to Obama, who accepted the apology.

The resolution added to the already-toxic atmosphere of partisanship in the House.

“At issue,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said earlier, “is whether we are able to proceed with a degree of civility and decorum that our rules and our democracy contemplate and require.”

Wilson, speaking after Democrat Hoyer, refused to back down. “I think it is clear to the American people that there are far more important issues facing this nation than what we’re addressing right now.” He said Obama had “graciously accepted my apology and the issue is over.”

The resolution marks the first time in the 220-year history of the House that a member had been admonished for speaking out while the president was giving an address, according to the Office of the House Historian. A resolution of disapproval is less severe than other disciplinary action available to the House, including censure or expulsion.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Wilson reiterated his regrets for shouting “You lie!” in the middle of Obama’s health care speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. “I would never do that again,” Wilson said. But he rejected demands from some of his colleagues, including House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., that he deliver a formal apology on the House floor.

“I have apologized to the president,” Wilson said. “I believe that is sufficient.”

There are precedents for the action against Wilson.

In 2003, House Republican leaders forced then-House Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., to apologize for calling the U.S. Capitol Police to evict Democrats from a meeting room.

Two years ago, the House voted 196-173 to table House Republican leader John Boehner’s resolution to censure Rep. Pete Stark after the California Democrat suggested that then-president George W. Bush enjoyed U.S. casualties in Iraq.

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Did YOU notice the comment by the teacher about the Tea Party at 8:48 to 9:17?

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