[Flashback February 2011- these same occupy rent-a-protesters showing us their civility that they like to lecture Sarah Palin on.]
The elite media likes to tell you that the Tea Party are hateful racists, in spite of the fact that there is no good evidence to demonstrate that. However getting people to say these types of things at almost any left of center protest is easy (especially on most any college campus where there are plenty of unhinged Marxist professors and indoctrinated students in one place). I have seen it first hand as a former counter protester myself. What are the odds of seeing this on NBC News?
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest.
The IRS considers them a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity because they are “non-partisan” (non partisan my ear…), so yes indeed being tax exempt means that YOU help subsidize them.
WASHINGTON — Top Democratic fundraisers and lobbyists with links to the White House are behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stands to get $450 million in stimulus money, even though a Chinese company would operate the farm and its turbines would be built in China.
The farm’s backers also have close ties with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who, at the height of his hard-fought re-election bid this fall, helped blunt congressional criticism over stimulus dollars possibly going to create jobs in China by endorsing a proposal by the Chinese company to build a factory in his home state. Although his campaign received thousands of dollars in donations from the wind farm’s backers and Reid stood on stage with them at a campaign event they hosted, his office declined to answer any questions about the wind farm’s organizers or their plans for Nevada.
The wind farm, first announced more than a year ago, would consist of 300 2-megawatt wind turbines, each perched atop a 26-story-tall steel tower and spinning three blades — each half the length of a football field. The farm would span three counties and 36,000 acres in West Texas land best known for its oil. Dubbed the Spinning Star wind farm, the project’s 600-megawatt capacity is, theoretically, enough to power 180,000 American homes and would be the sixth-largest wind farm in the country.
It is being planned by an unusual joint partnership between the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a Dallas investment firm with strong ties to Washington and the Democratic Party, and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, an upstart Chinese supplier of wind turbines. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate the Chinese are bringing financing and the turbines.
What the Americans are supplying is the local know-how and political clout in Washington, where decisions on how to distribute billions in loan guarantees, stimulus grants and financial incentives are made.
The clock is ticking for Spinning Star: To claim the stimulus grant it must arrange its financing and begin work on the wind farm by Dec. 31. Besides the $450 million stimulus grant, A-Power’s SEC filings indicate the joint-venture also will pursue a Department of Energy-backed loan guarantee. According to the SEC filings, the project is waiting to hear if it will receive the loan guarantee before financing will follow to build the turbines.
I have repeatedly talked about “Consolidation” as Obama’s economic theory. Dick Morris is on Sean Hannity right now saying that Obama wants to have one big union, one big corporation in each industry, along with one big government. He is describing Obama’s merging of Corporatism and Socialism. “The left voted for socialism and got Goldman Sachs” says Morris.
Anyone mind of I just gloat for a moment /wink. I started saying this well over a year ago on my old college blog. We try to always bring you the cutting edge.
Those who understand politics and corruption know what this means. This gives political appointees time to destroy documents, colluded to “get stories straight” and time to plan prior restraint and/or retaliation against those trying to gain information. This is the administration that promised unprecedented transparency. … If Bush had done this….
WASHINGTON – A House committee has asked the Homeland Security Department to provide documents about an agency policy that required political appointees to review many Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a letter obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.
The letter to Homeland Security was sent late Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It represents an early move by House Republicans who have vowed to launch numerous probes of President Barack Obama’s administration, ranging from its implementation of the new health care law to rules curbing air pollution to spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Associated Press reported in July that for at least a year, Homeland Security had sidetracked hundreds of requests for federal records to top political advisers to the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano. The political appointees wanted information about those requesting the materials, and in some cases the release of documents considered politically sensitive was delayed, according to numerous e-mails that were obtained by the AP.
The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to ensure the quick public release of requested government documents without political consideration. Obama has said his administration would emphasize openness in providing requested federal records.
According to Issa’s letter, Homeland Security’s chief privacy officer and FOIA official told committee staff in September that political appointees were simply made aware of “significant and potentially controversial requests.”
Mary Ellen Callahan told them that political appointees reviewed the agency’s FOIA response letters for grammatical and other errors and did not edit or delay their release, the letter states. She also told the committee that Homeland Security abandoned the practice in response to the AP’s article, according to Issa’s letter. [WHAT!!. LOL – Political appointees are not going to have grammar nearly as good as a secretary/PR pro in a federal department. This reasoning is laughable. apparently the practice was not abandoned as the administration indicated – Editor]
On Sunday, Oversight panel spokesman Frederick Hill said Issa sent the letter “because the committee has received documents that raise questions about the veracity of DHS officials” on the matter. He did not elaborate.
Issa asked the agency to provide the documents by Jan. 29.
Homeland Security officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last summer, officials said fewer than 500 requests were vetted by political officials. The department received about 103,000 requests for information in a recent 12-month period.
The agency’s directive said political appointees wanted to see FOIA requests for “awareness purposes,” regardless of who had filed them. The AP reported that the agency’s career employees were told to provide political appointees with information about who requested documents, where they lived, whether they were reporters and where they worked. [This is disturbing because what we have seen from the NYT, Washington Post, CBS,NBC.ABC,CNN.MSNBC is that in unison, within minutes of the shooting in Arizona these elite media outlets immediately using the same spin blamed Sarah Palin and other conservatives. Several of these same outlets talking heads chastised Sarah Palin for not speaking out, and when they did they in unison said that she was injecting herself into the news. This reminds me of the 2000 election when G.W. Bush picked Dick Cheney for VP the news in unison said that Cheney was picked because he had “gravitas” (implying that Bush had none). Why have a state-run media when the so-called legit media is willing to act as the PR arm of the Democratic leadership? A reporter is looking into something he shouldn’t, so the administration leans on said reporter’s bosses and bye-bye FOIA. – Editor]
According to the directive, political aides were to review requests related to Obama policy priorities, or anything related to controversial or sensitive subjects. Requests from journalists, lawmakers and activist groups were to also to be examined.
Under a new policy last summer, documents are given to agency political advisers three days before they are released, but they can be distributed without those officials’ approval.
This is an administration that does not act in good faith.
UPDATE I – Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Confirms: Democrat Energy Policy is To Push For Less Energy and More Deficit Spending.
Democrat energy policy: Less drilling, more deficit spending. Pinheads like Debbie Schultz have said that there would be “no immediate” new oil if we started drilling today is cute, but they have been saying that for 20 years. Now if we started more drilling back then, or even five years ago it would be an entirely different story. By the way Obama’s illegal drilling ban has already cost many thousands of jobs.
If I start digging a well, it will not immediately result in more water, so lets all have massive thirst. If you start your car, it will not immediately result in you being at work, so lets ban cars and have trains….
Someone is voting for these idiots.
NOTE – If Sarah Palin had uttered the shear nonsense that Schultz puts out on a regular basis it would be the headline almost every other night on the news.
Schultz has been making these kind of orbital statements for a long time. I think it is time for Rush Limbaugh to start giving her a little of what the Democrats need right now:
Editor’s Note – This was a post from just a few months ago and is a little reminder that the “Occupy” protest going on in New York right now was planned in a galaxy not so far away by the same usual suspects.
UPDATE – ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Organizer Is Marketing Analyst Whose LinkedIn Lists Work For Investment Bankers – LINK
Occupy Wall Street ‘Stands In Solidarity’ With Obama Front Group Funded by the Wealthy Financiers and Bankers They are Protesting – LINK
[Editor’s Note – and if these partially misguided protesters get their way the Democrats will pass a tax increase law that will not benefit the students, it will benefit the super rich because, as is the case with all of these “soak the rich” efforts, they either chase wealth out of the country and/or exceptions for those who are politically connected get included in the tax code and it will not be the GE’s and Google’s who pay, it will be the small and medium-sized competition who will get soaked.]
Steve Lerner SEIU
UPDATE –Steven Lerner, the man in the video overtly plotting a new economic crisis, has visited the White House four times as well as the Treasury Department.
CAUGHT ON TAPE: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America
A former official of one of the country’s most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to “destabilize” the country.
The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street’s grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.
The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend.
UPDATE I – Glenn Beck: This is a clear case of economic terrorism – LINK.
UPDATE II – SEIU sued under RICO statute (Via The Blaze):
Cockroaches, bugs, mold, and flies. These are just some of the props and rumors allegedly employed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) against the American unit of French catering company Sodexo. And the company’s had enough.
Fed up with tactics that include intimidation, extortion, and yes, sabotage that apparently includes plastic cockroaches, Sodexo filed a lawsuit against the SEIU last week under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
“We work constructively with unions every day but the SEIU has crossed the line by breaking the law,” Robert Stern, general counsel for Sodexo USA, said in a statement. “We will not tolerate the SEIU’s tactics any longer.”
SEIU has been fighting to represent 80,000 hourly Sodexo employees, which is above and beyond the 180,000 hourly employees who are already union members. The union regularly stages protests against the company to make its point, like this one last fall on the campus of George Mason University. The video alleges SEIU bused in protesters, who can be heard chanting, among other things, “As long as it takes, whatever it takes, we’ll be in your face!”
Sodexo’s complaint, filed in federal court in Alexandria, VA, alleges acts of SEIU blackmail, vandalism, trespass, harassment, and lobbying law violations designed to steer business away from, and harm, the company.
And just what exactly might those acts look like? Sodexo gives the details:
The complaint alleges that the SEIU, in face to face meetings, threatened Sodexo USA’s executives that it would harm Sodexo USA’s business unless they gave in to the union, and then carried out its threats through egregious behavior, including:
throwing plastic roaches onto food being served by Sodexo USA at a high profile event;
scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold and flies;
lying to interfere with Sodexo USA business and sneaking into elementary schools to avoid security;
violating lobbying laws to steer business away from Sodexo USA, even at the risk of costing Sodexo USA employees their jobs; and
harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing.
The complaint, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, seeks an injunction against the SEIU and its locals and executives, as well as monetary damages to be determined by the court.
UPDATE III – Member of Congress to Attorney General Eric Holder – LINK.
CBS News Online: ATF Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010 – LINK
ABC News Online: Fast and Furious: GOP Says Eric Holder is ‘Either Incompetent’ or ‘Misleading Congress’ – LINK
Fox News: House Republicans Request Special Counsel to Probe Holder on ‘Fast and Furious’ – LINK
Weekly Standard: CBS News Reporter Says White House Screamed, Swore at Her Over Fast and Furious – LINK
Investors Business Daily: Cash for Cartels – LINK – See more below.
CBS News Silences Fast and Furious Reporter – LINK
Arizona Sheriffs Association: Attorney General Holder Lied Under Oath. Special Prosecutor Needed – LINK
Video: Allen West asks for Eric Holder’s resignation – LINK
Obama: We’re working on gun control “under the radar” – LINK
***** Original Story*****
Bill Newell, the former Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s Phoenix Field Office has said over and over again under oath, that at no point didn’t ATF allow guns to be trafficked into Mexico.
This map along with the other documents released today prove otherwise and now over 200 people are dead as a result. Remember this was all an effort to create an excuse to pass more sweeping gun control laws. Any administration capable of this is capable of anything.
WASHINGTON – Late Friday, the White House turned over new documents in the Congressional investigation into the ATF “Fast and Furious” gunwalking scandal.
The documents show extensive communications between then-ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office Bill Newell – who led Fast and Furious – and then-White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly. Emails indicate the two also spoke on the phone. Such detailed, direct communications between a local ATF manager in Phoenix and a White House national security staffer has raised interest among Congressional investigators looking into Fast and Furious. Newell has said he and O’Reilly are long time friends.
ATF agents say that in Fast and Furious, their agency allowed thousands of assault rifles and other weapons to be sold to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels. At least two of the guns turned up at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December.
The email exchanges span a little over a month last summer. They discuss ATF’s gun trafficking efforts along the border including the controversial Fast and Furious case, though not by name. The emails to and from O’Reilly indicate more than just a passing interest in the Phoenix office’s gun trafficking cases. They do not mention specific tactics such as “letting guns walk.”
A lawyer for the White House wrote Congressional investigators: “none of the communications between ATF and the White House revealed the investigative law enforcement tactics at issue in your inquiry, let alone any decision to allow guns to ‘walk.'”
Among the documents produced: an email in which ATF’s Newell sent the White House’s O’Reilly an “arrow chart reflecting the ultimate destination of firearms we intercepted and/or where the guns ended up.” The chart shows arrows leading from Arizona to destinations all over Mexico.
In response, O’Reilly wrote on Sept. 3, 2010 “The arrow chart is really interesting – and – no surprise – implies at least that different (Drug Trafficking Organizations) in Mexico have very different and geographically distinct networks in the US for acquiring guns. Did last year’s TX effort develop a similar graphic?”
The White House counsel who produced the documents stated that some records were not included because of “significant confidentiality interests.”
Also included are email photographs including images of a .50 caliber rifle (left) that Newell tells O’Reilly “was purchased in Tucson, Arizona (part of another OCDTF case).” OCDTF is a joint task force that operates under the Department of Justice and includes the US Attorneys, ATF, DEA, FBI, ICE and IRS. Fast and Furious was an OCDTF case.
An administration source would not describe the Tucson OCDTF case. However, CBS News has learned that ATF’s Phoenix office led an operation out of Tucson called “Wide Receiver.” Sources claim ATF allowed guns to “walk” in that operation, much like Fast and Furious.
Congressional investigators for Republicans Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) have asked to interview O’Reilly by September 30. But the Administration informed them that O’Reilly is on assignment for the State Department in Iraq and unavailable. [How convenient]
UPDATE II – Cash for Cartels
Investors Business Daily:
The funneling of thousands of American guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the operation known as Fast and Furious was not a botched sting operation or the result of bureaucratic incompetence. It was not designed to interdict gun trafficking, but to facilitate it.
We now know that it involved not just the use of straw buyers, but also agents of the federal government purchasing weapons with taxpayer money, ordering the licensed dealers to conduct the sales off the books, then calling off surveillance of the gun traffickers and refusing to interdict the transfer of the weapon or arrest the people involved.
According to documents obtained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), agent John Dodson was ordered to buy semiautomatic Draco pistols and was provided a letter by ATF group supervisor David Voth authorizing FFLs (federal firearms licensees) to sell Dodson the guns without filling out the required form.
A copy of the letter obtained by David Codrea of the Gun Rights Examiner tells dealers to “accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62X39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson” to be used “in the furtherance of the performance of his official duties.”
Scribbled on the letter is this note: “Picked up guns 6/10/10. Paid cash.”
According to Fox News, Dodson then sold the guns to known illegal buyers who took them to a stash house. Voth disapproved Dodson’s request for 24-hour surveillance and ordered the surveillance team to return to the office.
Dodson stayed behind, against orders. A week later, when a vehicle showed up to transfer the weapons to their ultimate destination, he called for an interdiction team to move in, seize the weapons and arrest the traffickers. Voth refused, and the guns disappeared without surveillance.
Flashback March 2011. Amazing how the elite media lets us forget about these litthe scandals isn’t it?
Michelle Malkin
This has been going on repeatedly in this administration. To see the complete story and back ground, be sure to check out this great piece by Michelle Malkin.
Ted Kennedy reached out to Russia to undermine Reagan.
Democrats opposed Reagan’s efforts to end the Cold War.
Democrats favored Daniel Ortega when he aligned with the Soviets in the 80’s
NPR was just caught expressing a willingness to funnel illegal terrorist funds from the Muslim Brotherhood to itself.
On college campus around the country the progressive secular left and the MSA, which is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, collude to harass Christians and Jews and to stifle free speech.
The Daily Caller has acquired the talking points that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, supplied to its supporters as an aid in attacking the Muslim radicalization hearing New York Republican Rep. Peter King held Thursday. Save for Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s incoherent ramblingson Thursday, Democrats’ statements and testimony against King’s hearing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, largely mirrored MPAC’s talking points.
MPAC recommended that its supporters accuse King of “pure political posturing,” and told them to say, “these hearings appear little more than a political circus with Rep. King as the ringleader.” MPAC also recommended supporters say that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of their “narrow scope.” Finally, it said supporters should say that the hearings were unnecessary because “active” partnerships between law enforcement and the American Muslim community already exist.
California Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson hit on the “pure political posturing” point in the MPAC memo. She compared King’s hearings to those of the McCarthy era.
Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, asked why King wasn’t investigating the Ku Klux Klan, something that plays right into the MPAC “suggested message” that the “hearings hurt our national security” because of a “narrow scope.”
“I think that all criminals should be prosecuted. I think that all terrorists should be investigated which is why I said we ought to investigate all of them and that would include the KKK,” Green said. “Over a hundred years of terrorism why not investigate them too. They are rooted in a religion as well. Check their website out. You’ll see.”
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison regurgitated all the MPAC talking points in his testimony at the beginning of the hearing.
“Ascribing the evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong; it is ineffective; and it risks making our country less secure,” Ellison said. “Targeting the Muslim American community for the actions of a few is unjust. Actually all of us–all communities–are responsible for combating violent extremism. Singling out one community focuses our analysis in the wrong direction.”
A spokesman for Ellison told TheDC that the congressman didn’t receive the MPAC talking points and “wrote his testimony himself.” Spokespeople for Green and Richardson did not immediately respond to TheDC’s request for comment.
The MPAC’s talking points aren’t something that surprise Ben Lerner of the Center for Security Policy. He said they are just another example of a self-described “rights” group shifting the debate away from the issues at hand and onto whatever they want to talk about.
“Serious people are trying to raise serious questions about the issue of homegrown terrorism and radicalization in the Muslim community,” Lerner said in a phone interview. “A lot of what these ‘so-called mainstream’ Muslim organizations are doing is throwing out insults and labels to anyone who has tried to delve into this. They’re not offering any serious, substantive responses to the concerns that are being raised by Congress.”
Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start – and no one seems to have noticed.
On April 8, a group he’s funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros’s goal for such an event is to “establish new international rules” and “reform the currency system.” It’s all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.”
The event is bringing together “more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders’ to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Soros wants a new ‘multilateral system,” or an economic system where America isn’t so dominant.
More than two-thirds of the slated speakers have direct ties to Soros. The billionaire who thinks “the main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat” is taking no chances.
Thus far, this global gathering has generated less publicity than a spelling bee. And that’s with at least four journalists on the speakers list, including a managing editor for the Financial Times and editors for both Reuters and The Times. Given Soros’s warnings of what might happen without an agreement, this should be a big deal. But it’s not.
Wait till you see who else on on the attendee’s list. Find out HERE.
George Soros is the number one money man of the radical left and the Democratic Party.
Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year—double what it was 10 years ago. And unlike in 2001, when there was a small federal surplus, this year’s projected budget deficit is more than $1.6 trillion.
Several trillions more in debt have been accumulated by state and local governments. States are looking at a combined total of more than $130 billion in budget shortfalls this year. Next year, they will be in even worse shape as most so-called stimulus payments end.
For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we’ve been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we’re determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.
Both Democrats and Republicans have done a poor job of managing our finances. They’ve raised debt ceilings, floated bond issues, and delayed tough decisions.
In spite of looming bankruptcy, President Obama and many in Congress have tiptoed around the issue of overspending by suggesting relatively minor cuts in mostly discretionary items. There have been few serious proposals for necessary cuts in military and entitlement programs, even though these account for about three-fourths of all federal spending.
Yes, some House leaders have suggested cutting spending to 2008 levels. But getting back to a balanced budget would mean a return to at least 2003 spending levels—and would still leave us with the problem of paying off our enormous debts.
Federal data indicate how urgently we need reform: The unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid already exceed $106 trillion. That’s well over $300,000 for every man, woman and child in America (and exceeds the combined value of every U.S. bank account, stock certificate, building and piece of personal or public property).
The Congressional Budget Office has warned that the interest on our federal debt is “poised to skyrocket.” Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is sounding alarms. Yet the White House insists that substantial spending cuts would hurt the economy and increase unemployment.
Plenty of compelling examples indicate just the opposite. When Canada recently reduced its federal spending to 11.3% of GDP from 17.5% eight years earlier, the economy rebounded and unemployment dropped. By comparison, our federal spending is 25% of GDP.
Government spending on business only aggravates the problem. Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay.
Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.
The purpose of business is to efficiently convert resources into products and services that make people’s lives better. Businesses that fail to do so should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than be bailed out.
But what about jobs that are lost when businesses go under? It’s important to remember that not all jobs are the same. In business, real jobs profitably produce goods and services that people value more highly than their alternatives. Subsidizing inefficient jobs is costly, wastes resources, and weakens our economy.
Because every other company in a given industry is accepting market-distorting programs, Koch companies have had little option but to do so as well, simply to remain competitive and help sustain our 50,000 U.S.-based jobs. However, even when such policies benefit us, we only support the policies that enhance true economic freedom.
For example, because of government mandates, our refining business is essentially obligated to be in the ethanol business. We believe that ethanol—and every other product in the marketplace—should be required to compete on its own merits, without mandates, subsidies or protective tariffs. Such policies only increase the prices of those products, taxes and the cost of many other goods and services.
Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers—not governments—to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.
Recent studies show that the poorest 10% of the population living in countries with the greatest economic freedom have 10 times the per capita income of the poorest citizens in countries with the least economic freedom. In other words, society as a whole benefits from greater economic freedom.
Even though it affects our business, as a matter of principle our company has been outspoken in defense of economic freedom. This country would be much better off if every company would do the same. Instead, we see far too many businesses that paint their tails white and run with the antelope.
I am confident that businesses like ours will hire more people and invest in more equipment when our country’s financial future looks more promising. Laying the groundwork for smaller, smarter government, especially at the federal level, is going to be tough. But it is essential for getting us back on the path to long-term prosperity.
Mr. Koch is chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc. He’s the author of “The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World’s Largest Private Company” (Wiley, 2007).
[Flashback of a piece I wrote in March 2011 – Editor]
While most Americans are not aware of it, the EU has become expensive, wasteful, and more undemocratic. It is becoming a regulatory leviathan rife with corruption and power hungry genuine Maoists and other communists rising to the top. I wish I could say I was exaggerating. The EU is becoming a mess and the discontent is on the rise.
This is a series of six short videos.
By the way, if you thought that Chris Christie is tough, wait till you see this guy.
The EU pushes for proposals and is trying to impose limits on sovereignty without a democratic process. They create offices and insert bureaucrats with power given to them that no one votes for and no one knows who they are. Many of which end up being former communist bloc apparatchiks. MEP Farage gets so upset in this video going after one of these new made up office holders that he gets a bit personal, but in Euro politics this is much more widely accepted. Notice how Farage directly insults certain leftists, they object, which gives him the excuse to remind them of the horrible names that they have called the opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. Irony has a special beauty, especially when it leads you to the front door of hypocrisy. Which leads Farage right back to the undemocratic ways that the EU operates. It is not always fun to watch someone get insulted, but I encourage you to get through this as the end wraps it all together quite well intellectually.
Bureaucracy vs Democracy
Untold millions are suffering for your EU State dream to continue…
One hundred and thirty six years ago this week, Winston Churchill—arguably the leading statesman of the twentieth century—was born. The son of a British father and an American mother, Churchill is often remembered for his formidable oratory skills and his love of fine cigars. Yet Churchill was also a great friend to America whose warnings about the empty promises of the nascent welfare state have come to fruition.
A great admirer of America, Churchill especially praised our founding document: “The Declaration is not only an American document. It follows on the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great title deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking peoples are founded.” Though Britain and America were two separate nations with different forms of governments, they were united in principle: “I believe that our differences are more apparent than real, and are the result of geographical and other physical conditions rather than any true division of principle.” As Justin Lyons explains in “Winston Churchill’s Constitutionalism: A Critique of Socialism in America,” Churchill’s ideas about individual liberty, constitutionalism, and limited government “stemmed from his explicit agreement with the crucial statements of these principles by the American Founders.”
When Churchill saw America’s principles of liberty, constitutionalism, and limited government, threatened with the rise of the welfare state, he admonished America to resist this soft despotism. In “Roosevelt from Afar,” Churchill admits that the American economy was suffering when FDR took office, but FDR used this crisis as an opportunity to centralize his political authority [Sound familiar? LINK – IUSB Vision Editor] rather than to bolster the free market through decentralized alternatives. Churchill commends Roosevelt’s desire to improve the economic well-being for poorer Americans [FDR’s New Deal never got non-farm unemployment below 20%. What it accomplished was a great expansion of government power, prolonged misery for the American people, and a supreme court that abandoned the idea of limited government after the court stacking threat. – IUSB Vision Editor], but he critiques Roosevelt’s policies toward trade unionism and attacks on wealthy Americans as harmful to the free enterprise system. Drawing on Britain’s experience with trade unions, Churchill understood that unions can cripple an economy: “when one sees an attempt made within the space of a few months to lift American trade unionism by great heaves and bounds [to equal that of Great Britain],” one worries that result could be “a general crippling of that enterprise and flexibility upon which not only the wealth, but the happiness of modern communities depends.” Similarly, redistribution of wealth through penalties on the rich harms the economy: “far from depriving ordinary people of their earnings, [the millionaire] launches enterprise and carries it through, raises values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth is not to capture commonwealth.” Ultimately, attacks on the wealthy only serve as a distraction from other economic issues.
We can readily recall Churchill’s foresight in foreign affairs—his warnings about appeasing Hitler and the rise of the Soviet Union—but we forget his warnings about America’s welfare state. Unlike the progressives in America and abroad, Churchill recognized that tyranny is still possible—even with a well-intentioned welfare state. Political change does not necessarily mean change for the better. Throughout the nineteenth century, political progress was assumed to be boundless and perpetual. After “terrible wars shattering great empires, laying nations low, sweeping away old institutions and ideas with a scourge of molten steel,” it became evident that the twentieth century would not live up to the nineteenth century’s promise of progress. Democratic regimes—even in America—would not be immune from destruction and degradation.
Years later, Churchill’s warnings about trade unionism and redistribution have proven accurate. Though our current economic situation seems bleak, we must also remember (as Churchill reminds us) that politics is not a mere victim of history. Just as progress is not inevitable in politics, neither is decline. Isn’t it time we looked to our old friend Winston Churchill?
Sustainability. It sounds like such a yummy word, such a responsible word. Doesn’t it?
Do not be fooled. Sustainability is a euphemism for leviathan government, eco-extremism, the consolidation of wealth and power to an elite few, and the central planning of not just our economy, but our communities as in where and how we live.
The more the planner’s plans fail the more the planners plan, so in reality these ideas are anything but sustainable.
Academics and administrators who push this nonsense are violating the most basic academic rules of conduct. The purpose of an education is to prepare people to think for themselves, not to indoctrinate them. Believe it or not academics there is a difference between a school and a political party. Consider this a friendly warning; if you keep going down the path you are going, which is making public education subversive, you are inviting legislation to fix these problems permanently. The American people are waking up and they have had just about enough of government’s nonsense and that very much includes your behavior. Straighten up or face legislation that will either mandate your curriculum for you or defund your institutions.
Do you teach sustainability? Do you research sustainability? Will you promote sustainability? Are you setting an example in sustainability? Give us details.
Rather intrusive questions like these are popping up in faculty surveys across the country. This week, two Argus volunteers—one on the East coast, one on the West—wrote to us after they were each startled by the bluntness of their universities’ inquiries.
Faculty members at San Diego State University recently received an email from Provost Nancy Marlin asking them to “take a few minutes to respond to San Diego State’s first survey on faculty teaching and research related to sustainability.”
The survey asks nine questions. The first is, “Do you teach sustainability focused courses?” Fine print under the question explains that these are “Courses in which the primary content focuses on the Environment, Social Justice, Economic Equality, Human Health; Resource Management; Environmental Ethics, Economics or Law; Sustainable Tourism Management, Conservation and/or Preservation, Land Use Planning and Development, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management.”
While such subjects as the environment, ecosystem management, conservation, and resource management make immediate sense as names for stewardship of the earth, a few aren’t so obvious. Social justice, economic equality, economics, and law don’t seem to be specifically “sustainability focused” or fit with the environmental theme.
That’s because there’s a lot more to sustainability than just the environment. For a great many of its proponents, the environment serves as a cover to smuggle in a host of other ideologies. As the University of Delaware framed it in its 2007 residence life materials, “sustainability is a viable conduit for citizenship education and the development of a particular values system.”
Part of that “particular values system,” we’ve found, is a proclivity to big government, economic redistribution, and politically correct preferences for certain identity groups. That’s how sustainability is able to include ideas such as social justice, economic equality, economics, and law. Indeed, the top of the survey says:
Sustainability curriculum and research activities are not limited to considerations of environmental impact of human development or climate change but include content on interrelated social, economic, ethical, and environment dimensions.
The tension between sustainability’s shared aims is commonly depicted in a Venn diagram, with three interlocking circles labeled “Environment,” “Economy,” and “Society.”
This intrusion into partisan politics and economics is what makes “sustainability” unfit to be “the foundation of all learning and practice in higher education,” as powerful advocacy groups such as Second Nature are trying to make it.
Second Question:
But let’s move on to the second, more important question: “Do you incorporate sustainability as a distinct course component or deal with a single sustainability issue in any of your courses that are not specifically sustainability focused? Please indicate how many courses you teach that have a sustainability related course component.”
Selecting a number, 0-9, is the sole possible response here. Answering “no” isn’t an option—in fact, only four out of the nine questions have a “no” option.
This question is a net to catch all courses that aren’t explicitly sustainability focused (which are themselves quite widely defined). The implication is that there is no course that sustainability can’t touch, no subject too self-contained for sustainability to be squeezed in.
There’s where that phrase “the foundation of all learning and practice in higher education” comes in. Sustainability, say its advocates, should be the primary goal of academic learning. Not only if you’re studying to be an environmental engineer—or even an economist or lawyer—but also if you want to be a nurse, a mathematician, or a philosopher. Like diversity, sustainability doesn’t stop with administrators but turns a greedy eye toward the curriculum. And it won’t be content with just some of it.
Third Question:
The third question presses for specifics: “How do you incorporate sustainability into your courses that are not sustainability focused? Check all that apply:”
Followup Question:
A follow-up question to this one is intended to gauge faculty members’ commitment levels: “Would you be willing to integrate (or integrate more thoroughly) sustainability concepts in the courses you teach that are not sustainability focus [sic]? This may be phrased as a question, but its message is loud and clear. Essentially it means, “Get on board with our agenda.”
“No, it does not relate to my subject,” and “No, I am not interested in sustainability” are in the drop-down menu as options. It would be interesting to know how respondents who select these answers will be marked in the university’s records. Will they be asked or given incentives to reconsider?
Fourth Question:
Conforming Students to the New Ethics.
The answer set for the fourth question is where things really get strange. Most courses are now required to announce in advance a list of student learning outcomes—things students should have mastered by the end of the semester. Student learning outcomes as a concept tends to encourage professors to come up with low aims and high-sounding words. Here are the ones SDSU wants to see, some of which sound as if they came from the educational jargon generator:
Do the courses you teach include any of the following student learning outcomes? Check all that apply:
Understand and be able to effectively communicate the concept of sustainability
Develop and use an ethical perspective in which students view themselves as embedded in the fabric of an interconnected world
Become aware of and explore the connections between their chosen course of study and sustainability
Develop technical skills or expertise necessary to implement sustainable solutions
Understand the way in which sustainable thinking and decision-making contributes to the process of creating solutions for current and emerging social, environmental, and economic crises
Contribute practical solutions to real-world sustainability challenges
Synthesize understanding of social, economic, and environmental systems and reason holistically
“An ethical perspective”? We’ve seen sustainability’s strange, non-humanistic definitions of “ethics,” its stricter-than-Puritan moral codes, and its overtly religious nature. We’ve also seen that a nation’s manner of educating shapes the character of its people. So what character quality does sustainability ethics seek to instill in students? The ability to “view themselves as embedded in the fabric of an interconnected world.”
What does that even mean? It sounds more like burying your face in a planet-sized pillow than using “an ethical perspective.” The word perspective is also troublesome. Higher education’s role is not to tell students which perspectives they should adopt, but to give them the tools to develop their own.
There Is a Right Answer –
In her email, Provost Marlin said that taking this survey is “critical” in order to “ensure that San Diego State is more competitive in many of the external ‘green’ ratings and rankings, which are increasingly important to students.” She does not point to any evidence that incorporating sustainability into more of the curriculum will give students a better education or give faculty members a deeper knowledge of their disciplines. The rationale, instead, is to do something that students think is important. This seems on plane with parents who appease their children by giving them whatever they want. Is that wise? Is it good for students in the long run?
SDSU’s choice to conduct this kind of assessment has some serious implications. Such a survey has the weight of institutional authority behind it. If you’re a faculty member and receive Provost Marlin’s email, you’re going to feel obliged to answer a certain way, and to indicate some eagerness to get on the bandwagon. Again, while there aren’t known incentives or consequences for answering one way or the other, this one-track survey says clearly, “Follow the pattern we laid out for you.”
This pressure means that many professors will exaggerate their interest in sustainability, which likely means the university will brag about its high faculty involvement rate. Green ratings will soar and outsiders (including prospective students) will get the “right” picture.
As of today, hundreds of college and university presidents have vowed to make sustainability “part of the curriculum for all students.” The president of Unity College declared, “It has to be ubiquitous, it has to be done by everyone, it has to be part of the whole infrastructure.” Colleges and universities are on the verge of a major overhaul of higher education to refit it around sustainability. Questions such as, “How do you incorporate sustainability courses?” are only the beginning.
The second video below makes some very good points that are undeniable. The rhetoric used by the Communist Party and the Democratic leadership is indistinguishable. In the name of class envy and helping people both seek to use crisis to expand their power and subjugate the citizen. In the process most people do not get the help they need and things get worse, but the politicians do gain the power [Examples of crisis that leads to bureaucrats taking power 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
This video explains the point brilliantly – Financial Crisis 101 in three and a half minutes:
To those who have not done their homework, or spent some years on most any college campus, this may seem crazy or shocking. The following video challenges you to go to the Communist Party web site and look for yourself at CPUSA.org
!
“The mere fact that over 100 million people have been murdered in the name of communism does not matter. The fact that a bank exec makes some money on my home mortgage and an oil executive gets rich because I drive my car is the REAL atrocity. Come to think of it I hate doctors and engineers and anybody who makes my life better.”
[By the way the reason the media report is so glowing is because RT = Russia Today – Editor]
The first “great” progressive thinker is Walter Lippmann. He is the founder of modern American journalism and advisor to President’s Wilson and FDR. He wrote this:
Throughout the world, in the name of progress, men who call themselves communists, socialists, fascists, nationalists, progressives, and even liberals, are unanimous in holding that government with its instruments of coercion must by commanding the people how they shall live, direct the course of civilization and fix the shape of things to come. They believe in what Mr. Stuart Chase accurately describes as “the overhead planning and control of economic activity.” This is the dogma which all the prevailing dogmas presuppose. This is the mold in which are cast the thought and action of the epoch. No other approach to the regulation of human affairs is seriously considered, or is even conceived as possible. The recently enfranchised masses and the leaders of thought who supply their ideas are almost completely under the spell of this dogma. Only a handful here and there, groups without influence, isolated and disregarded thinkers, continue to challenge it. For the premises of authoritarian collectivism have become the working beliefs, the self-evident assumptions, the unquestioned axioms, not only of all the revolutionary regimes, but of nearly every effort which lays claim to being enlightened, humane, and progressive.
So universal is the dominion of this dogma over the minds of contemporary men that no one is taken seriously as a statesman or a theorist who does not come forward with proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs. Unless he is authoritarian and collectivist, he is a mossback, a reactionary, at best an amiable eccentric swimming hopelessly against the tide. It is a strong tide.
The first great thinker of the “progressive movement” openly states that progressivism and American liberalism are simply flavors of communism designed to control men and the economy by ever increasing the role of the state in our lives. This is not extremism folks, or fear mongering, it is simply the objective truth by their own words.
AFL-CIO LEADER ACCEPTS COMMUNIST PARTY AWARD: ‘I STAND WITH THEM’
Those who doubt the connection between the communist party and the unions need only to read accounts of a recent awards ceremony to see how both groups view each other.
On Sunday, December 5, the Communist Party USA gave awards to a pair of labor leaders and a former state legislator and assistant attorney general.* Among the recipients was Connecticut AFL-CIO head John Olsen, who not only gladly accepted the award, but garnered “loud applause” when he said he stands with CPUSA.
CPUSA’s webzine People’s World reports Olsen was given the award at the Voices for Jobs, Equality & Peace – People’s World Amistad Awards Concert celebrating the 90th anniversary of the CPUSA.
“James Hillhouse High School auditorium was filled with the fabulous jazz sounds of Jeff Fuller & Friends, labor songs by Bill Collins of the Rabble Rousers, and poetry by Baub Bidon and Ken Brown,” the article describes the event. But besides offering a mental picture, it also gives a glimpse of Olsen’s acceptance speech, in which he says he will stand with the Communist Party:
“Anyone who stands with me for workers’ rights, I stand with them,” said John Olsen to loud applause as he acknowledged the Communist Party and took a strong stand against fear mongering and baiting, including the anti-socialist baiting of President Barack Obama.
The article goes on to praise the union for its work, and explains how important the union is in fighting for CPUSA causes:
The AFL CIO and local unions are now developing their legislative agendas. For the first time in 22 years, a Democratic governor was elected in Connecticut. It is widely recognized that union members made the difference in voter turnout.
Those who understand politics and corruption know what this means. This gives political appointees time to destroy documents, collude to “get stories straight” and time to plan prior restraint and/or retaliation against those trying to gain information. This is the administration that promised unprecedented transparency. … If Bush had done this….
WASHINGTON – A House committee has asked the Homeland Security Department to provide documents about an agency policy that required political appointees to review many Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a letter obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.
The letter to Homeland Security was sent late Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It represents an early move by House Republicans who have vowed to launch numerous probes of President Barack Obama’s administration, ranging from its implementation of the new health care law to rules curbing air pollution to spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Associated Press reported in July that for at least a year, Homeland Security had sidetracked hundreds of requests for federal records to top political advisers to the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano. The political appointees wanted information about those requesting the materials, and in some cases the release of documents considered politically sensitive was delayed, according to numerous e-mails that were obtained by the AP.
The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to ensure the quick public release of requested government documents without political consideration. Obama has said his administration would emphasize openness in providing requested federal records.
According to Issa’s letter, Homeland Security’s chief privacy officer and FOIA official told committee staff in September that political appointees were simply made aware of “significant and potentially controversial requests.”
Mary Ellen Callahan told them that political appointees reviewed the agency’s FOIA response letters for grammatical and other errors and did not edit or delay their release, the letter states. She also told the committee that Homeland Security abandoned the practice in response to the AP’s article, according to Issa’s letter. [WHAT!!. LOL – Political appointees are not going to have grammar nearly as good as a secretery/PR pro in a federal department. This reasoning is laughable. Appearently the practice was not abandoned as the administration indicated – Editor]
On Sunday, Oversight panel spokesman Frederick Hill said Issa sent the letter “because the committee has received documents that raise questions about the veracity of DHS officials” on the matter. He did not elaborate.
Issa asked the agency to provide the documents by Jan. 29.
Homeland Security officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last summer, officials said fewer than 500 requests were vetted by political officials. The department received about 103,000 requests for information in a recent 12-month period.
The agency’s directive said political appointees wanted to see FOIA requests for “awareness purposes,” regardless of who had filed them. The AP reported that the agency’s career employees were told to provide political appointees with information about who requested documents, where they lived, whether they were reporters and where they worked. [This is disturbing because what we have seen from the NYT, Washington Post, CBS,NBC.ABC,CNN.MSNBC is that in unison, within minutes of the shooting in Arizona these elite media outlets immediately using the same spin blamed Sarah Palin and other conservatives. Several of these same outlets talking heads chastised Sarah Palin for not speaking out, and when they did they in unison said that she was injecting herself into the news. This reminds me of the 2000 election when G.W. Bush picked Dick Cheney fro VP the news in unison said that Cheney was picked because he had “gravitas” (implying that Bush had none). Why have a state run media when the so called legit media is willing to act as the PR arm of the Democratic leadership? A reporter is looking into something he shouldn’t, so the administration leans on said reporter’s bosses and bye bye FOIA. – Editor]
According to the directive, political aides were to review requests related to Obama policy priorities, or anything related to controversial or sensitive subjects. Requests from journalists, lawmakers and activist groups were to also to be examined.
Under a new policy last summer, documents are given to agency political advisers three days before they are released, but they can be distributed without those officials’ approval.
When liberal investor George Sorosgave $1.8 million to National Public Radio , it became part of the firestorm of controversy that jeopardized NPR’s federal funding. But that gift only hints at the widespread influence the controversial billionaire has on the mainstream media. Soros, who spent $27 million trying to defeat President Bush in 2004, has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.
Prominent journalists like ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethical code stating: “avoid all conflicts real or perceived.”
The investigative reporting start-up ProPublica is a prime example. ProPublica, which recently won its second Pulitzer Prize, initially was given millions of dollars from the Sandler Foundation to “strengthen the progressive infrastructure” – “progressive” being the code word for very liberal. In 2010, it also received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from the Open Society Foundations. In case you wonder where that money comes from, the OSF website is www.soros.org. It is a network of more than 30 international foundations, mostly funded by Soros, who has contributed more than $8 billion to those efforts.
The ProPublica stories are thoroughly researched by top-notch staffers who used to work at some of the biggest news outlets in the nation. But the topics are almost laughably left-wing. The site’s proud list of “Our Investigations” includes attacks on oil companies, gas companies, the health care industry, for-profit schools and more. More than 100 stories on the latest lefty cause: opposition to drilling for natural gas by hydraulic fracking. Another 100 on the evils of the foreclosure industry.
Throw in a couple investigations making the military look bad and another about prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and you have almost the perfect journalism fantasy – a huge budget, lots of major media partners and a liberal agenda unconstrained by advertising.
One more thing: a 14-person Journalism Advisory Board, stacked with CNN’s David Gergen and representatives from top newspapers, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster. Several are working journalists, including:
• Jill Abramson, a managing editor of The New York Times;
• Kerry Smith, the senior vice president for editorial quality of ABC News;
• Cynthia A. Tucker, the editor of the editorial page of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
ProPublica is far from the only Soros-funded organization that is stacked with members of the supposedly neutral press.
The Center for Public Integrity is another great example. Its board of directors is filled with working journalists like Amanpour from ABC, right along side blatant liberal media types like Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post and now AOL.
Like ProPublica, the CPI board is a veritable Who’s Who of journalism and top media organizations, including:
• Christiane Amanpour – Anchor of ABC’s Sunday morning political affairs program, “This Week with Christiane Amanpour.” A reliable lefty, she has called tax cuts “giveaways,” the Tea Party “extreme,” and Obama “very Reaganesque.”
• Paula Madison – Executive vice president and chief diversity officer for NBC Universal, who leads NBC Universal’s corporate diversity initiatives, spanning all broadcast television, cable, digital, and film properties.
• Matt Thompson – Editorial product manager at National Public Radio and an adjunct faculty member at the prominent Poynter Institute.
The group’s advisory board features:
• Ben Sherwood, ABC News president and former “Good Morning America” executive producer
Once again, like ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity’s investigations are mostly liberal – attacks on the coal industry, payday loans and conservatives like Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. The Center for Public Integrity is also more open about its politics, including a detailed investigation into conservative funders David and Charles Koch and their “web of influence.”According to the center’s own 990 tax forms, the Open Society Institute gave it $651,650 in 2009 alone.
The well-known Center for Investigative Reporting follows the same template – important journalists on the board and a liberal editorial agenda. Both the board of directors and the advisory board contain journalists from major news outlets. The board features:
• Phil Bronstein (President), San Francisco Chronicle;
• David Boardman, The Seattle Times;
• Len Downie, former Executive Editor of the Washington Post, now VP;
• George Osterkamp, CBS News producer.
Readers of the site are greeted with numerous stories on climate change, illegal immigration and the evils of big companies. It counts among its media partners The Washington Post, Salon, CNN and ABC News. CIR received close to $1 million from Open Society from 2003 to 2008.
Why does it all matter? Journalists, we are constantly told, are neutral in their reporting. In almost the same breath, many bemoan the influence of money in politics. It is a maxim of both the left and many in the media that conservatives are bought and paid for by business interests. Yet where are the concerns about where their money comes from?
Fred Brown, who recently revised the book “Journalism Ethics: A Casebook of Professional Conduct for News Media,” argues journalists need to be “transparent” about their connections and “be up front about your relationship” with those who fund you.
Unfortunately, that rarely happens. While the nonprofits list who sits on their boards, the news outlets they work for make little or no effort to connect those dots. Amanpour’s biography page, for instance, talks about her lengthy career, her time at CNN and her many awards. It makes no mention of her affiliation with the Center for Public Integrity.
If journalists were more up front, they would have to admit numerous uncomfortable connections with groups that push a liberal agenda, many of them funded by the stridently liberal George Soros. So don’t expect that transparency any time soon.
A small tax-exempt political group with ties to wealthy liberals like billionaire financier George Soros has quietly helped elect 11 reform-minded progressive Democrats as secretaries of state to oversee the election process in battleground states and keep Republican “political operatives from deciding who can vote and how those votes are counted.”
Known as the Secretary of State Project (SOSP), the organization was formed by liberal activists in 2006 to put Democrats in charge of state election offices, where key decisions often are made in close races on which ballots are counted and which are not.
Pay attention to this part:
Named after Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, so-called 527 political groups — such as SOSP — have no upper limit on contributions and no restrictions on who may contribute in seeking to influence the selection, nomination, election, appointment or defeat of candidates to federal, state or local public office. They generally are not regulated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), creating a soft-money loophole.
While FEC regulations limit individual donations to a maximum of $2,500 per candidate and $5,000 to a PAC, a number of 527 groups have poured tens of millions of unregulated dollars into various political efforts.
SOSP has backed 11 winning candidates in 18 races, including such key states as Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, New Mexico and Minnesota.
This is where illegal and foreign money and foreign governments influence our elections. The excuse the Soros funded group uses is that it claims Republicans stole the 200 presidential election on Florida. Of course when a group of newspapers went to Florida and recounted themselves they also concluded that president Bush had won fairly.
But let me tell you what wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair when Al Gore’s lawyers used a technicality to toss out military ballots in Florida. There were valid reasons why the Supreme Court ruled for President Bush in the Bush v. Gore lawsuits: the Florida Supreme Court was allowing Democrats to change the election rules on the fly during the count; and Gore’s lawyers and a partisan Florida Court wanted to allow selective recounting of discarded votes, meaning that only in areas where Gore had a substantial lead would the votes be recounted. President Bush’s team said that if there was going to be a recount it had to be all of the state and under one set of rules – and on that part of Bush v. Gore the Supreme Court agreed 7-2.
Of course Soros’ group has already stolen elections in Minnesota. USA Today, among others, report that Al Franken won his Senate seat through fraud.
Justice Department whistle blower J. Christian Adams went public after the Justice Department dismantled the integrity division of the section in charge of making sure that “Motor Voter” was enforced properly and that dead people were removed from the voter roles. The Obama Justice Department has made it clear that they will not take action in vote intimidation cases if the victims are white and/or the perpetrators are black.
How The Department of Justice Allowed Vote Fraud in Minnesota
Former Department of Justice attorney J. Christian Adams has blown the whistle on politicization within Justice in enforcing election laws, specifically the laws requiring cleaning voter rolls of the deceased and convicted felons. While the main focus of the media (such as it is) has been on the politics of the issue, Adams wants to get more of a focus on the consequences of politicization. He talks with Twin Cities talk-show host Chris Baker about the impact of this politicization in Minnesota, a subject that Minnesota Majority knows all too well. The conservative organization has spent the past 20 months attempting to get the attention of the DoJ on this very subject, to no avail:
Minnesota Majority has experienced the DOJ’s refusal to investigate these kind of cases first-hand. On November 17th of 2008 (immediately following the 2008 General Election and while the Coleman-Franken recount battle was getting underway), Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis sent a certified letter to then Voting Section chief of the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ, Christopher Coates, requesting an investigation into apparent failures to comply with HAVA by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. No response was forthcoming.
Since the DOJ in Washington DC failed to follow up on Davis’ complaint, Minnesota Majority contacted the local FBI office and lodged the same complaint. Special Agent Brian Kinney responded and visited the Minnesota Majority office to examine Minnesota Majority’s findings. At that time, he said, “based on what I see here there is more than enough evidence to initiate an internal complaint.” He gave his assurances that he would bring the matter to the attention of his supervisors. There was no further follow-up.
By October of 2009, Minnesota Majority had compiled evidence of further violations of HAVA in Minnesota, including a finding that ineligible felons were not being detected and flagged for challenge or removal from the voter rolls. This resulted in hundreds of fraudulent votes by ineligible felons being counted in Minnesota’s 2008 election. Davis sent another certified letter to Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates. Like the first complaint from nearly a year prior, the second letter went unanswered.
Minnesota Majority’s experience supports J. Christopher Adams’ claims that the DOJ’s policy is not to pursue violations of HAVA’s anti-fraud provisions. The dismissal of the voter intimidation charges against members of the New Black Panther Party who brandished nightsticks outside a Philadelphia polling place during the 2008 General Election was the last straw for Adams, who resigned in protest. He claimed that his superiors also ordered himself and other attorneys not to comply with subpoenas issued by the US Civil Rights commission, placing them in what Adams called, “legal limbo.”
Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates, who worked with Adams on the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case was demoted and transferred to a post in South Carolina earlier this year.
The Civil Rights Commission has subpoenaed Coates to testify on the matter but his DOJ employers are currently blocking his testimony.
Why would the DoJ block testimony from one of its attorneys on the internal policies of Justice?
The following is part one of a 1985 interview with Ex-KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov. In this interview, Bezmenov outlines the four step systematic demoralization and indoctrination techniques utilized for decades against America.
The interview is prophetic, describing effects we can see all around us today.
The goal of demoralization according to the KGB: To change the perception of reality of every American so that they are unable to come to sensible conclusions for their own good and defense in spite of abundant information. To get the targets in such a mindset so that no amount of evidence will ever convince them that leftism is wrong. Pump the targets’ heads with the ideology of their enemy which the KGB has successfully done (in their point of view) to at least three generations of students with next to nothing opposing it. The demoralized either knowingly or unknowingly work towards the goals of the KGB until the real Marxists come to power.
According to the KGB, those journalists, professors, activists, union leaders, film directors and other idealistically minded Marxists who believe in the “beauty of collectivism” think that they will be coming to power; when these “useful idiots” don’t they will be the first to become disillusioned and become the revolution’s worst enemy. According to the KGB they will have to be executed because revolutionaries know how to wage a counter-revolution. They have to go because they know too much. Other useful idiots who still believe even after the revolution become disillusioned when they or their communities have to feel the boot (hence the old saying a conservative is a liberal who got mugged).
[Editor’s Note – This is why when such revolutions are complete the new Marxists who are put in charge kill the old Marxists. In almost every case of such a revolution history shows this to be true. Even Hitler had his “Night of the Long Knives” in which he killed his “brown shirts” and other revolutionaries who used violence to help him come to power. After all if they would use violence to betray their own country they would be a deadly enemy if they later turned against Hitler. As history has demonstrated, the first rule of every successful revolution is “kill the revolutionaries” This is a lesson that the KGB taught its agents. They practiced it when Stalin purged the Trotskyites.]
During the demoralization process those in influential circles who will not accept “the beauty of collectivism” will be subject to character assassination.
It is called Taqiyya, deception. Preach peace, love and tolerance while attacking anyone who would critique Sharia Law or the other parts of Islam that are anti-American and anti-civilization.
The Islamic Circle is such a group, like CAIR, which documents obtained by the FBI among other evidence shows that this Islamic Circle group you will see in the video below, is in fact a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and oldest radical Islamic group in the world, whose founding goes back to the Grand Mufti in WWII. This group wanted to help Hitler to carry out “the final solution” against the Jews.
To see the evidence about the Islamic Circle you can get the narrative, filled with links and the documents themselves right HERE.
[Editor’s Note – Notice that the anchor said that the councilwoman made statements about Muslims. No she didn’t. She made a statement about Islam itself, which is a theo-political, legal and cultural belief system. This is another example of reporters just making dumb mistakes.]
Islam is not a religion of peace, a statement I will be happy to debate anytime. Most Muslims do not take their religion to militant levels of seriousness, but since he Koran, the Hadith and Islamic precedent are what they are we cannot be afraid to acknowledge that many of the militant groups are interpreting these documents correctly. We also cannot forget the lesson of Lebanon. Lebanon was a modern Christian country. When Islamists started coming in many Christians wanted it stopped, but they insisted that they were about peace, love, democracy and “social justice”. The numbers continued to grow. It was not long before Christians were being killed, and the Islamist numbers grew to the point where they started to get power in the government. Anyone who wanted to slow down the immigration was dealt with by the tactics you see in this video above into silence, or otherwise eliminated. Now look at what has happened. Within a few short years the Christians are out of power, being slaughtered and many had to flee. Then Lebanon started launching missiles against Israel.
Now Lebanon is a Iranian satellite state controlled by Hezbollah. These same tactics were used the 70’s in Iran. Jimmy carter and Zbignew Brzezinski were so fooled that they helped the Mullahs come to power. The same tactics have been used in Egypt where now it seems that the Muslim Brotherhood may take over the country, and Obama helped them by helping them force Mubarak out. The same tactic is being used in Sweden and France and England. All of these countries are having problems with Islamic Rape gangs targeting young girls. Those who speak out against the gangs in Europe get the treatment you saw in that video, and these militant Islamists combined with their allies on the radical left have set up the hate crime laws and their biased enforcement to makes it dangerous for others to speak out against them.
Bill O‘Reilly and Glenn Beck don’t always see eye-to-eye — they don’t always agree on everything. But one thing that O’Reilly is agreeing with Beck on now is that there are those on the left who would love to see an economic collapse so that they can remake the system. Chief among those cheerleaders, O’Reilly says, is Beck’s “spooky guy” — George Soros.
Bill O’Reilly resisted accepting this premise for a long time; years even. But as the evidence mounted up it became hard to ignore.
The Democrats are the party of the status quo when it comes to Social Security and Medicare while the governments own numbers admit that these programs will go bankrupt and crash very soon. The reductions in spending discussed in the video were not real cuts at all, they were only reductions in Obama’s proposed budget, and even so it was not even a 1% cut in that budget proposal. The truth is that spending was higher this year than last year, so in reality there were no real cuts, yet the left was still upset.
One of the big problems with Medicare is that the bureaucracy is expensive and truly gargantuan. Billions of dollars go to fund those government jobs that should go to seniors care. The Democrats benefit in the short run and the long run by letting Medicare collapse. In the short run, Medicare not being reformed will mean countless thousands of government employees, will be paying Democrats and the government union dues which is used to finance Democrat political campaigns. Government employees make between 30% and 300% more than their private sector counterparts depending on the job field. That is right folks, Medicare funds are essentially being used to fund Democrat political campaigns.
In the long run, when Medicare explodes seniors will be forced into ObamaCare, which can ration care and push doctors into just “giving gramps the pain pill” kind of care. This is why the Democrats raided half a TRILLION DOLLARS of Medicare funds to pay for the ObamaCare implementation. The administration had moved to implement “death panels” like language but outrage forced them to delay implementation. The bottom line is that ObamaCare gives the President, or the HHS bureaucrat the regulatory authority to implement “death panel” like rationing with the stroke of a pen.
Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who spoke out against Islamic violence, so the leftist parties used one of their appointed cronies to prosecute him for “hate crimes”, all while admitting that everything he said is true.
We have seen leftist groups coordinate with the Muslim Brotherhood backed Muslim Students Association on campus. David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer have been talking about it for years. Glenn Beck has also highlighted this issue on his program. Leftist groups in coordination with MSA have joined forces to disrupt campus speeches made by traditionalists, Israeli’s, Republicans etc.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 
