Archive for the ‘Van Jones’ Category
Burt’s Eye View: Catching Up With the News
Posted by Burt Prelutsky in Obama, Politics, Van Jones on October 8th, 2009
I wasn’t surprised that Rep. Joe Wilson felt compelled to apologize to President Obama for calling him a liar. I also wasn’t surprised to hear that within 24 hours, thousands of liberals had sent in over $200,000 in contributions to Wilson’s opponent in next year’s election even though they knew nothing about him except that he was running against Wilson. I was heartened to hear that once the word got out, Wilson received a million bucks. But, frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the other 434 members of the House had censured, expelled or ridden Rep. Wilson out of Washington, D.C., on a rail. I mean, where the heck does this guy get off speaking the truth in the hallowed halls of Congress?
Speaking of Congress, although the research isn’t yet complete, the early indicators are that, rumors to the contrary, you can not get swine flu from exposure to Henry Waxman.
Scientists at London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine confirmed that 50 years of research found that, aside from price, there was no nutritional difference between conventionally-grown foodstuffs and the ugly, under-sized items you find in the organic section at the supermarket.
Comedian Jeff Foxworthy made his name explaining how you could tell if you were a redneck. I trust you understand that fame and fortune such as he achieved aren’t my motivation. But merely as a public service, I thought I’d point out how to recognize if you’re a racist. For instance, if you think that Jesse Jackson is an extortionist; that Al Sharpton is a con man; that Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright and Van Jones are three of a kind; and that the Black Congressional Caucus, ACORN, the SEIU, the Black Panthers, Eric Holder and Barack Hussein Obama, present a clear and present danger to our Republic, you are what passes for a racist in 2009.
Frankly, I keep waiting for Obama to doff the mufti and start appearing in some nicely tailored uniform for, clearly, the cult of personality has been introduced successfully for the first time ever in our nation’s history. If you disagree, what would you call that red, white and blue Obama symbol that has pretty much supplanted the presidential seal in the past year? And outside of such places as the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Mussolini’s Italy, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, have you ever seen so many posters and pictures of a national leader?
Perhaps because I don’t watch very much TV, I’ve only recently become aware of a TV commercial which could easily have been written and produced by the White House, possibly under the auspices of the NEA. In the commercial, a black deliveryman for Miller High Life shows up in a private box at the race track and confiscates all the beer from the rich white people and then hands the bottles over to the regular folks at the track, all the time muttering that the people who actually paid for the stuff don’t deserve it because they’re “hoity-toity.”
I realize it’s only a commercial, but if we have redistribution of wealth and health care, can redistribution of brewskis be far behind on that great-come-and-get-it-day?
Like everyone else, I noticed that in his address to Congress, Obama, who had been insisting all along that there were about 45 million people in America without health insurance, was suddenly, without explanation, referring to 30 million. It seems to me that if he can miraculously make 15 million people just disappear, all he has to do is give two more speeches to completely eliminate the problem.
Finally, I recently saw ObamaCare summed up rather succinctly by a picture of an elderly American set adrift on an ice floe. Of course, knowing David Axelrod, Rahm and Ezekiel Emmanuel, John Holdren, Cass Sunstein and the AARP, as I have come to know them, I’m sure they’ll find a swell way to sell it to us. My guess is that they’ll simply call their final solution to the problem of all those pesky old folks wanting medical attention Obama’s Magical Ocean Cruises.
ACORN and SEIU: Anatomy of a Shakedown
Posted by Anita MonCrief in ACORN, Featured Story, Obama, Politics, Van Jones, Wade Rathke on September 27th, 2009
Across America community organizations operate in impoverished, disadvantaged, low-income or minority communities. No matter the phrase used to describe the special interest, a group exists to represent it. Often these organizations initially have good intentions and seek to give back and serve the community in which they operate. When government money, power and influence become part of the equation however, lofty principles tend to fall by the wayside. Other organizations are created to cause chaos and disrupt the system.
The Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was perceived by many as a well-intended organization, but it appears that the association that Wade Rathke founded was increasingly driven to cause chaos and disrupt the system whenever it could.
BEFORE the Dale Rathke embezzlement finally became last year, John Fund, in “Grapes of Rathke: ACORN, a liberal activist group, comes under scrutiny. About time,” reported:
“Current and former Acorn employees say the problems in Kansas City and St. Louis are no accident. ‘There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,’ says Nate Toler, currently head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in Merced, Calif. In 2004 he worked on an Acorn voter drive in Missouri, and says Acorn statements aren’t to be taken at face value: ‘The internal motto is “We don’t care if it’s a lie, just so long as it stirs up the conversation.”
As various charges and complaints have materialized over the years, it seems that ACORN uses the communities in which they are located as staging grounds for national power grabs. With multiple states and entities receiving federal funds, ACORN plays to win. Aiding ACORN are groups like DEMO’s, the Democracy Alliance, Soros Open Society Institute, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Washington Examiner has covered ACORN’s: “Muscle for the Money” program:
“ACORN’s so-called ‘muscle for money’ strategy extorts ‘donations’ from targeted government and corporate officials by offering them Mafia-like protection from protests by the group’s own paid thugs, many of them convicted felons. ACORN has also blocked bank mergers until the targeted financial institutions agreed to change their lending policies to ACORN’s satisfaction.”
While it is easy to see the benefit for ACORN to go after Sherwin Williams or Jackson Hewitt, it was their 2007-2008 ventures with SEIU against the Carlyle Group that deserve a closer inspection. In 2007 SEIU began a series of “grassroots” actions designed to pressure the Carlyle Group to the bargaining table.
“The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) staged a protest outside the Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters of The Carlyle Group as part of the union’s bid to organize Manor Care, the Toledo-based nursing home giant Carlyle is buying for $6.3 billion.”
It seems that, at the beginning of the campaign, SEIU wanted a slice of the $6.3 billion that was on the table from the sale of Manor Care. For SEIU and ACORN, organizing in poor communities takes a little bit of finesse and a lot of political theater. When SEIU could not muster up the required public outrage, they switched tactics. SEIU released a press statement, in late 2007, warning of the possible health risks posed by the Carlyle Group:
“To highlight the health risks that could go undetected if Carlyle refuses to disclose information about its sewer sludge business, SEIU held a demonstration today outside Carlyle’s Washington DC offices with demonstrators dressed in hazmat suits. This week SEIU began contacting environmental groups, and state and municipal governments that contract with Synagro to raise concerns about Carlyle’s lack of transparency and to encourage these groups to join the call for Carlyle to disclose potential risks of its sewer sludge business.
The focus on Carlyle’s sewer sludge business is part of a larger national effort by SEIU to hold Carlyle accountable for the impact of its actions on taxpayers, workers, and communities. More information is available at www.CarlyleExposed.org
Turning up the heat appears to be textbook “muscle for the money,” yet it wasn’t enough to produce the desired results, so SEIU raised the prospect of possible terrorism and threats to national security:
“Global buyout firm the Carlyle Group’s announcement that it seeks to acquire Booz Allen’s government consulting business should raise serious questions about the ramifications for national security and demands immediate government oversight to ensure adequate controls exist should the deal be completed…
“We shouldn’t allow the unchecked greed of buyout billionaires like David Rubenstein to put our communities at risk,” said Stephen Lerner, Director, and SEIU Private Equity Project. “With billions of taxpayer dollars at stake in these contracts, accountability and transparency is a primary concern since the Carlyle Group operates behind a veil of secrecy.”
Veil of secrecy? Interesting. On cue, enter ACORN and Barack Obama. After staged demonstrations across the country and several tactical changes, SEIU hires ACORN as a “consultant” to protest the Carlyle Group. ACORN readily accepts the money, but has one problem – how to turn the people out, to make them care about the issue. Using the same tactics that Stanley Kurtz detailed in his article about ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN spins the fight against the Carlyle Group as rich (whites) versus poor (blacks):
“White financiers are all flooding up to the Waldorf Astoria this morning for the opening of today’s Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst confab!…
ACORN and The Working Families Party and their coalition are calling for a protest at noon.
‘The Carlyle Group is the poster child for an industry that has made billions by fleecing taxpayers and loading up companies with unsustainable levels of debt,’ said Dan Cantor, Executive Director of the Working Families Party.
‘David Rubenstein made $260 million last year, yet he paid taxes at a lower rate than the doorman at this hotel. Not only that, companies like Carlyle don’t pay their fair share in corporate taxes.’ said Pat Boone, President of NY ACORN.
As the recent Van Jones exposes on Glenn Beck have illustrated, most roads lead back to radical organizations formed in the 1970’s and tie in with the current administration. While ACORN broke up business meetings in New York and DC, they developed a catchy slogan to sum up their “battle”
“Chanting, ‘It’s Not Fair, Pay Your Share’, protestors entered the ballroom while two protest leaders dropped a banner from the balcony above the ballroom that read ‘Why does David Rubenstein pay taxes at a lower rate than an NYPD officer?’
Over on Capitol Hill, then Senator Obama, acting in a manner that would quickly become one of the trademarks of his administration, employed ACORN tactics to project his power into the situation:
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on October 10, dispelled the idea that Congress would get around to addressing the hotly debated tax bill this fall when he issued a statement through a spokesman: “Given the difficulty in getting any legislation through the Senate and the little time left this year for moving other issues important to the American public, it is unclear whether there is sufficient time to address the appropriate tax treatment of private equity firms.”
…U.S. Senator Barack Obama, for instance, issued this statement on news of Reid’s stance: ‘If there was ever a doubt that Washington lobbyists don’t actually represent real Americans, it’s the fact that they stopped leaders of both parties from requiring elite investment firms to pay their fair share of taxes, even as middle-class families struggle to pay theirs.’
Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union put in its two cents, staging another protest against the Carlyle Group on Oct. 10, this time using a street theater performance complete with wheel barrows, a fat-cat corporate tycoon character and money sacks.”
Publicly, the Carlyle Group seemingly did not bow to pressure from the union or ACORN, but some may consider their “across the aisle” support of Obama as a major concession. As a “financial kingmaker,” the group seems to have added a much needed legitimacy to the young and inexperienced candidate. A conclusion could be drawn that SEIU and others were willing to sacrifice leverage at the bargaining table for leverage in the White House:
In seizing control of Congress last year and hoping to win the White House next year, Democrats have presented themselves as the champions of change, the party that will shake up politics and return tax balance so that America has the resources it needs to deal with its problems.
Good stuff, that. Solidly in line with the party’s tradition. Ditto proposals pending in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees to boost taxes on the hedge fund and private-equity business, arguably one of the highest-paid, least-taxed industries around.
So . . . what should we make of the thick wads of campaign cash from that same industry going to Chicago’s top-ranking congressional Democrats: presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the No. 4 House Democrat?
…Another D.C. lobbying group, Public Citizen, has identified more than a dozen industry chieftains who have bundled together at least $50,000 each in contributions to Mr. Obama’s campaign. Included are two principals in Carlyle Group, a Washington private-equity firm.
While the Carlyle Group appears on the surface to be a victim of SEIU and ACORN’s shenanigans, their ties to the current administration have been carefully crafted. The group not only donated heavily to the Obama campaign, but two of Obama’s tech and telecom policy team were employees of the Carlyle Group, including William Kennard.
In addition to these connections, Carlyle president David Rubenstein – who sits on the board of the University of Chicago – did acquire Booz Allen Hamilton and Obama apparently decided to keep the special interests in the “family“:
“Mike McConnell will return to work for Booz Allen Hamilton, where he will direct the firm’s strategy in obtaining and implementing government contract…You see, at the very same time that he will be working at Booz Allen Hamilton on obtaining government contract related to ongoing Total Information Awareness operations in our government, Mike McConnell will retain a position in the government at the request of President Obama.”
A cursory look at these connections leads one to ponder if what we have here is a shakedown between friends. Did SEIU want in on a new deal that involves their “turf” and instead see an opportunity to acquire more power by enlisting the help of ACORN? Did ACORN deliver the ground troops and have Barack Obama apply the pressure on Capitol Hill? Either way, and unfortunately for Barack Obama, trouble usually follows his shady friends and his dealing with the Carlyle Group have caused some ACORN sized headaches. The Carlyle Group’s involvement in a pension scandal was the most recent:
“Among the money managers named in the indictment are the politically connected private equity players Carlyle Group and Quadrangle Group, whose co-founder Steven Rattner, leads the Obama administration’s auto-industry-bailout efforts.”
If the Sopranos and Obama’s treatment of the ACORN scandals are any indication, “muscle for the money” seems to come with a certain amount of “protection” whether it be silence from the administration, theJustice Department, or the main stream media, or just a slap on the wrist for one of their cronies. ACORN, SEIU and Obama may have moved on to the next target. but continue to use race and class as tactics and people as pawns in their power grabs. Now, however, more and more Americans are realizing it.
NY Times Editor: Paper Was Too Slow to Cover ACORN Scandal
Posted by Publius in ACORN, Featured Story, Van Jones on September 27th, 2009
From New York Times Public Editor Clary Hoyt:
ON Sept. 12, an Associated Press article inside The Times reported that the Census Bureau had severed its ties to Acorn, the community organizing group. Robert Groves, the census director, was quoted as saying that Acorn, one of thousands of unpaid organizations promoting the 2010 census, had become “a distraction.”
Clark Hoyt
What the article didn’t say — but what followers of Fox News and conservative commentators already knew — was that a video sting had caught Acorn workers counseling a bogus prostitute and pimp on how to set up a brothel staffed by under-age girls, avoid detection and cheat on taxes. The young woman in streetwalker’s clothes and her companion were actually undercover conservative activists with a hidden camera.
It was an intriguing story: employees of a controversial outfit, long criticized by Republicans as corrupt, appearing to engage in outrageous, if not illegal, behavior. An Acorn worker in Baltimore was shown telling the “prostitute” that she could describe herself to tax authorities as an “independent artist” and claim 15-year-old prostitutes, supposedly illegal immigrants, as dependents.
But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes — closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser — suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs. Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.
Read the full article here.
Our President is a ‘Symbol-holic’
Posted by Dwight Schultz in Featured Story, Obama, Politics, Van Jones on September 23rd, 2009
The Obama administration betrayed our Eastern European allies on the symbolic 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Many in the media have chalked this up to historical ignorance, just as they claimed that “too great a workload” was responsible for his disgraceful but symbolic insult when, after receiving a pen holder fashioned from the timbers of the HMS Gannet that served for a time as an anti-slave ship, he slighted Gordon Brown with gave a gift of 25 DVDs .
However, Obama is animated by seemingly crude gestures made powerful by his position. He and his motivated White House staff, without explanation, used a black painted piece of plywood to cover up the letters IHS (Latin for “Jesus Savior of Men”) when he spoke at a Jesuit University (Georgetown), but while speaking abroad, our president deftly referred to the Koran as “ holy,” a descriptive primarily used by followers who believe in the Islamic faith. Why?
These choices are thoughtful, not thoughtless, and symbolic of current White House ideology. When Obama was simply a candidate, and not yet our chosen leader, he had already attempted to use a circular symbol suspiciously reminiscent of the presidential seal to signify that the prize was all but attained before the fact. It was adolescent pop psychology, symbolic and laughable, but a telling trait that should have warned us that we were dealing with a symbol-holic, and a degree of hubristic thinking that had danger written all over it.
Human symbols are the glue for his “green” and very radical political testament. It’s humorous to listen to the apologists excuse the appointment of Van Jones as a failure of vetting procedures. Jones is a soul mate, not a soul mistake. He’s a beloved symbol and a disciple who habitually uses the required neo-com radical lingo. Catch phrases such as “redistribution of wealth” or “redistributive justice” are the common symbolic logos of all of Barack’s brothers and sisters like Carol Browner, Cass Sunstein, John Holdren, and Valerie Jarrett.
Manipulating words for symbolic effect is an important aspect of Barack’s background skills. He proclaimed September 11th “a national day of service and remembrance” … service first and remembrance second. Service is an unnecessary little addition to that horrible anniversary that we certainly did not need, but for it to precede remembrance in the spoken or written phrase is an affront to our national dignity. Can you imagine every news report mentioning Joe Biden first whenever referring to our national leadership? It would be demeaning to the president.
Obama symbolically and purposefully diminished the real meaning of that day, the remembrance part, for his egotistical linguistic and ideological needs. In America we don’t have a problem with service, our problem is remembering certain truths that are self evident and remembering those who first enunciated those truths to the astonishment of the entire world.
Obama has traveled that world denigrating his own country wherever and whenever possible; bowing to a Saudi king and listening to communist Daniel Ortega savagely berate the US for an hour with nary a word offered in defense of the American people are just two examples. He also smiled warmly in the direction of Hugo Chavez, a porcine tub of human excrement who happens to be presently allied with holocaust deniers and killers of our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If Obama treats his own country with such obvious disdain, can we really be surprised by the way he treats new Eastern European allies? Betraying them on the 70th anniversary of the Polish invasion was not a mistake any more than the gift of 25 dvd’s was a mistake. It was for Barack a perfect degree of respect! They will deny it, but reneging on our missile treaty agreement on this specific historical date will always remind us of the harm done to our new relationships, and of those who so arrogantly chose to abuse symbolic remembrance.