Saturday, June 30, 2012
The next step in a socialist uptopia
Welcome to Obamacare, folks.Democrats Next to Move to Unionize Obamacare Doctors | |
| By Warner Todd Huston Saturday, June 30, 2012 In another sign that our healthcare industry is soon to be just another arm of the Democrat Party, Chicago are Democrat Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky thinks it’s a great idea if doctors unionize. Doctors will be just like officious DMV employees. Just like lazy Streets and Sans guys. Like all those little bored, arrogant placemen that work for government. You, the patient, will no longer matter at all. Welcome to Obamacare, folks. We’re all the victim of a death panel now. |
Union thugs
Heat Wave to Test Power Grid As Utility Threatens Strike
Con Edison has authorized a strike if necessary; its contract expires at midnight Saturday
Hollywood Halfwit and that's being generous
Predictably, scratch a leftist and find a bigot. And in case her bigotry didn’t stand out enough, she kindly screamed it out in capital letters for you. She’s a giver.
Of course, we already knew that about Cher. Remember, she doesn’t even want to breathe the same air as Romney and his ‘racist homophobic women hating tea bagger masters.’ Wow, how enlightened and tolerant!
She ups the “tolerance” ante by hopping aboard the Mormon bigotry train today. This does help explain all her disjointed and unhinged meltdowns over Mitt Romney. It’s not really Mitt Romney; she just hates Mormons. Much like Obama’s Million Dollar Man, Bill Maher.
What caused her to expose her hatred today? Who knows? Cuckoo pants is incredibly hard to translate. But it had something to do with the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare yesterday. Last night, she threatened to kiss Chief Justice Roberts. *Shudder* Today? Noted economist Cher thinks President Obama isn’t explaining it right. Or something. It entails a lot of screeching capital letters, though.
Obamacare: tyranny in the name of compassion
The True Impact of the Obamacare Decision
Do Americans – do you -- really understand the gravity of what happened in the Supreme Court yesterday? Do you have any idea at all how the power of the Imperial Federal Government of the United States has been exponentially increased?
Answer? No, you probably don’t. You really can’t be faulted for that, I guess. After all, our wonderful government school system was designed to educate you, but only to the point that you don’t become a threat to your political rulers. The American people are a product of those schools, and the American people are, by and large, acting in the manner proscribed by those who “educated” them.
I spent the better part of yesterday listening to various pundits and reading blogs and columns about the ObamaCare decision. I think a lot of people are missing something here; missing something very important. The Court’s ruling on ObamaCare grants the Congress of the United States the power to command virtually any action – any action that would not in and of itself constitute a crime – of any individual in this country, and to demand compliance with that command or be penalized. The federal government can now regulate virtually any human activity in which you wish to engage, and to regulate whether or not you will be allowed to refuse to participate in that activity, so long as a penalty is attached to your noncompliance.
Perhaps I’m not making my point here; so let me try some scenarios:
Let’s say that you are not a homeowner, but you are wealthy enough to purchase a home if you wished to. Arguably, under today’s ruling the government could force you to purchase that new home. This the government could do in order to promote job creation in the construction industry, and it would be perfectly constitutional so long as a penalty is assessed for your non-compliance. The government would merely say that you are being taxed for your decision not to buy a new home, and our Supreme Court would uphold the law as a bona fide exercise of the government’s taxing power.
The government wants you to change your profession … move to another state … buy more cotton clothing … purchase an American-made car … own no less than a dozen pair of American-made shoes … limit your stock purchases to only unionized companies … put solar panels on your roof … perhaps even start watching MSNBC for a minimum of one hour every night. All of this the government might well be able to do so long as a penalty is levied for your failure to comply with the government directive. The penalty would, of course, be nothing more than a tax, and the regulatory requirement would merely be the government exercising its taxing power. Well … the watching MSNBC requirement might violate the 8th Amendment. They’ll just have to work around that one.
Remember when some reporter asked Nancy Pelosi if the individual mandate was constitutional? Her reply? “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Now she can simply say “Taxing authority, bub. Taxing authority.”
This is a sad day indeed for our Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled that Obama’s insurance mandate is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. It’s perfectly fine, though, since there’s a fine for non-compliance. This column is short – because the message is simple. Sit back now and try to imagine anything the federal government cannot require of you – just so long as there is a penalty if you say “no."
Creeping intolerance
American Muslims Stone Christians in Dearborn, Michigan
This extremely disturbing video shows what happened when a group of Christians tried merely to hold up signs about Christianity at the 2012 Dearborn, Michigan Arab Festival. The Christians were viciously attacked, verbally and physically, and ultimately stoned (see 9:30 minutes into the video).
Despite the U.S. Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, the police, who studiously ignored the mob violence, asked the sign-holders to leave saying they were "endangering the public." No police action was taken against the mob.
Despite losing two similar Freedom of Speech lawsuits in the past (one of which cost the City of Dearborn $100,000), the city refused to protect the sign-holders' constitutional rights, claiming lack of manpower. According to the police chief, two police officiers would have been needed to protect the Christians. The chief said this would be impossible, since there was a big crowd to watch. Ironically, there was no violence or threat of violence (hence no need for police presence or protection) at any other location at the festival except where the Christians were holding their signs.
At the end of the video, you will see the police threaten to arrest the Christians (who, incidentally, never retaliated at the mob). After the Christians leave with a police convy as an escot, their car is stopped and 12 officers appear to question and possibly arrest them.
For a full report, including an analysis of the legal issues involved (assault and battery, freedom of religion and freedom of speech) click here.
Radical leftists and the Obama administration
Eric Holder Covers Up for Radical Islamists
Attorney General Eric HolderU.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is in the spotlight after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold him in contempt because he is refusing to provide documents related to the Fast and the Furious scandal. But there's another scandal you should know about. For over one year, he has refused to hand over documents about the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tx), vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, confronted Holder about the matter on Thursday, June 21. Rep. Gohmert wants Congress to have access to documents from the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history. Five Foundation officials were found guilty of funding Hamas and evidence introduced by the federal government shows it was set up by the Muslim Brotherhood's secret "Palestine Committee" in the U.S.
Three prominent Muslim-American organizations were labeled by the federal government as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the trial-the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). The documents requested by Rep. Gohmert for the past year were provided to the Holy Land Foundation's defense team, yet are being denied to Congress.
"They are terrorists, and we wanted the documents you gave to the terrorists. We are a year later, and we still don't have them," complained Rep. Gohmert. Holder replied that he'd only provide what is already available publicly.
Watch Rep. Gohmert grill holder at a Congressional hearing on the subject:
Rep. Gohmert is one of five members of Congress requesting investigations into the influence of Muslim Brotherhood-tied organizations and individuals in the U.S. government. As I reviewedhere, this influence is far-reaching. It is very possible that the documents from the Holy Land trial would be embarrassing to many government officials, not to mention businesses andinterfaith groups that have embraced Brotherhood entities. At the very least, they could provide further justification for the labeling of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT as "unindicted co-conspirators."
The documents were originally requested on April 27, 2011 after reporter Patrick Poole broke the blockbuster story at Pajamas Media that Justice Department political appointees blocked the prosecution of one CAIR co-founder and, according to his high-level Justice Department source, other groups and individuals listed as "unindicted co-conspirators."
Poole learned that Assistant Attorney General David Kris wrote a memo dated March 31, 2010 titled, "Declination of Prosecution of Omar Ahmad," an individual who was present at a Muslim Brotherhood meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 to discuss how to support Hamas. The idea to create a new group was put forward at this meeting and Ahmad co-founded CAIR the next year. Ahmad was also personally listed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Holy Land trial. The given reason to drop the prosecution was potential jury nullification but the source is certain that it was a political decision.
According to Poole's source, "It was always the plan to initially
go after the [HLF] leaders first and then go after the rest of the accomplices in a second round of prosecutions." The original trial resulted in a mistrial, pushing back the planned prosecutions. The Obama Administration then came into office and they were stopped.
After the report broke, the Administration claimed that its predecessor had decided not to indict CAIR in 2004. Poole explains that this is true but it was because "They decided to get the bigger fish after they convicted the smaller fish." Rep. Peter King confirmed that FBI officials and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Texas, which prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation, were ready to begin the second round of prosecutions and were outraged at how the political appointees stopped them.
Congressional sources later told Poole that Assistant Attorney General David Kris also dropped the prosecution of several officials involved with the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Muslim Brotherhood front, and the SAAR Foundation/SAFA Group, which has disbanded since the federal government raided their offices. They were to be prosecuted on charges related to tax evasion and money laundering because Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader in the U.S., refused to testify and reveal their terrorist connections.
Poole reported that one of these protected officials is Jamal Barzinji. In October 2011, former Virginia Governor and current Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine spoke at an event honoring Barzinji. His ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are very well-documented.FBI documents all the way back from 1987-1988 identify him as a Brotherhood operative. He is also a founder of the radical Dar al-Hijrah mosque, which Treasury Department records say "is a mosque operating as a front for Hamas operatives in the U.S."
Rep. Gohmert slammed Holder for not prosecuting these groups and individuals when there is a "mountain of evidence" against them. He further revealed that "at least one of which now says it is working inside your [Holder's] agency to help advise on the purge of counter-terrorism training materials."
The role of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has already been discovered. MPAC was founded by Brotherhood ideologues and works in tandem with the aforementioned groups, but was not labeled as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Holy Land trial. Rep. Gohmert was apparently referring to CAIR, ISNA or NAIT.
On February 8, ISNA was part of an interfaith group that met with the FBI Director about the training materials. A FBI spokesperson said the agency would consider a proposal from the group to create a committee to review the materials. More recently, the White House's new Director for Community Partnerships, George Selim, said that "There is [sic] hundreds of examples of departments and agencies that meet with CAIR on a range of issues."
Fast and the Furious isn't the only controversy Holder is refusing to show documents about, but it's probably the only one you're hearing about.
Friday, June 29, 2012
The growth of Communist power in the US
This piece and the one below are courtesy of Gulag Bound:
Castro’s Puppet Works for ‘Progressive Congress’
A former AFL-CIO political director, who is now running a project to establish a “progressive Congress,” walked away in disgust last week when I tried to question her about a trip she had made to Castro’s Cuba. The exchange, such as it was, occurred at the “Take Back the American Dream” conference in Washington, D.C., where Karen Ackerman had appeared on a panel about how to elect progressive candidates in the 2012 elections and ensure Democratic Party control of the House and Senate.
“Why do you care?” she responded, as I pursued her with questions about a pro-Castro junket she took to the communist “island paradise.”
The trip to communist Cuba was one of several initially organized by Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn and run by the Cuban intelligence service, the DGI. Young people on the trips were indoctrinated in the communist philosophy and given training in terrorism. Dohrn and her husband, fellow communist terrorist Bill Ayers, were associates of Barack Obama when he was launching his political career in Chicago.
In years past, when Congress had internal security committees and subcommittees, travel to Cuba was investigated because of the concern about such trips being used for intelligence purposes against the United States. Most of the travel to Cuba in those years was illegal.
Ignoring this threat, President Obama has expanded travel to Cuba, even though the Castro regime has kidnapped and holds hostage an American foreign aid worker by the name of Alan Gross.
A new book, Castro’s Secrets, by Brian Latell, the CIA’s National Intelligence Officer for Latin America from 1990-1994, adds to the concern about those who traveled to Cuba by describing the case of a Venceremos Brigade veteran who worked or may still work as a university professor in the U.S.
In addition to her “subversive effectiveness in molding her students’ thinking,” she became “a trusted DGI influence and access agent,” he says. By that, he means that she was “a talent scout and proxy recruiter” for Cuban intelligence whose job was to arrange for others, including students, to work for the DGI. He writes that she had intended one of her recruits, a student, to gain employment at the CIA and work there as a Cuban mole. He was put under the control and direction of the professor’s own DGI case officer and was taught how to beat the CIA’s lie detector machine.
Latell says that his information comes from a major defector from Cuban intelligence, Florentino Aspillaga, who defected in 1987. He says Aspillaga did not know the identities of any of the American DGI agents but was acutely aware of how the Venceremos Brigades and travel to Cuba and meetings with DGI officials were used for intelligence purposes.
For his part, Latell says he is not sure if the plan to penetrate the CIA succeeded or not but that he is not aware of any evidence on the public record indicating that anyone meeting Aspillaga’s descriptions was ever prosecuted for being a spy or foreign agent.
Latell does not name the American university professor in his book. He tells me in a follow-up interview, “I did not want to know her name and Aspillaga did not tell me. And even if I knew it, I am sure the legal review of my manuscript would have removed it before publication. I don’t know, therefore, if she is still working for the Cubans.”
Karen Ackerman’s background, of course, is not in the intelligence community, but rather in Congress, the Big Labor movement, and the progressive community.
Before going to the AFL-CIO, she served as Chief of Staff for Democratic Rep. Lydia Velazquez, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Ackerman is today on the board of Progressive Majority, a political action committee “committed to progressive candidates and issues,” and runs an organization called “Progressive Congress Table,” which supports and endorses candidates for office.
But the term “progressive” goes far beyond what many would regard as a liberal Democrat, as an examination of Ackerman’s carefully concealed background demonstrates.
In addition to making a trip to Cuba to be indoctrinated in communist ideology, under the cover of harvesting sugar cane for Castro, the record shows that Ackerman was a member of a communist youth group and traveled to East Berlin during the Cold War for a “youth festival” that featured communist entertainment and propaganda. The slogan of the event was “For anti-imperialist Solidarity, Peace and Friendship.”
We had previously sent several letters to Ackerman personally when she functioned as the AFL-CIO’s political director, asking about her trip to Cuba. We had also asked then-AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney about Ackerman’s work at the giant labor federation and what he thought about her Cuba connection. All the letters were ignored.
At last week’s conference, she appeared friendly and talkative, “Call me Karen,” until I started asking questions about Cuba and she noticed my name badge.
The exchange went like this:
Kincaid: “Why haven’t you responded to my letters?”
Ackerman: “What letters?”
Kincaid: “About your trip to Cuba.”
Ackerman: “Oh. Those letters.”
As she walked away, I said, “You don’t want to talk about that?” “No” was the curt response. Later, she said, “Why do you care?”
The answer, quite obviously, is that a major political operative for the Big Labor and progressive movements has a controversial background that has connotations of associating with sworn enemies of the United States. But she doesn’t want to talk about it.
Ackerman has been a columnist for Politico, but her bio on the site of the publication makes no mention of her controversial involvement in communist activities. Politico says the bios are supplied by the commentators themselves.
The bio does say, however, that in 1997 she was appointed AFL-CIO Deputy Political Director and supervised the political program as well as directing the AFL-CIO PAC (Political Action Committee). In 2002, she accepted the position of AFL-CIO political director.
“She became the first woman ever to be appointed Political Director of the AFL-CIO,” Politico said. She may also have been the first open Marxist to have achieved that position—a subject she has tried to avoid for several years as we have tried to question her about it. The Ackerman case is an indication of how far to the left some American labor unions have drifted over the years.
The Pink Sheet on the Left, a publication that served for many years as an authoritative report on left-wing activities, said in 1976 that Ackerman was a member of the Young Workers Liberation League, the youth arm of the Communist Party, and had been an organizer with the communist-dominated Local 1199 of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees.
Her current bio includes the same affiliation, saying that she “has worked in the Labor and Progressive Movements all her adult life” and “began organizing hospital workers in the early 1970’s for Local 1199 in Philadelphia.”
It goes on, “She developed union member political programs to elect progressives (David Dinkins, Mark Green) and became Political Director of Public Employees Federation, SEIU/AFT. Ackerman joined the Sweeney team as AFL-CIO Deputy Political Director and in 2003 became Political Director. In 2008, under Ackerman’s leadership, the AFL-CIO waged its most aggressive union political program ever, reaching 13 million union members and their families, with 250,000 union volunteers.”
After attempting to contact her through letters and emails and failing to obtain a response, we reportedAckerman’s participation in a Venceremos Brigade trip to Cuba in the early 1970s. Another veteran of the brigades was Karen Nussbaum, also an AFL-CIO functionary.
On yet another occasion, according to a report in a communist newspaper, Ackerman attended the Tenth World Festival of Youth and Students in communist East Germany in 1973. Ackerman, identified as then being an organizer for labor union Local 1199 from Philadelphia, was quoted as saying, “What the festival has done for me, and I’m sure for many others, is help us to understand just what imperialism has done to the rest of the world. We tend to get demoralized struggling in the U.S., but when we see what others are struggling against and the victories they have won, it gives us strength.”
Most of the American delegates were Young Workers Liberation League members or anti-Vietnam War activists.
World Magazine, a publication of the Communist Party USA, reported that Ackerman “was particularly impressed” during her visit to the communist police state “with the bilateral meetings of the U.S. with the Vietnamese and Free German Youth of the GDR [German Democratic Republic.]”
At the time, Communist Vietnam was attempting to conquer non-communist South Vietnam through a military invasion and was torturing American POWs. More than 58,000 Americans died trying to keep South Vietnam free.
According to a March 16, 1970, report in the Congressional Record, some of the Venceremos Brigade “cane cutters” in Cuba at that time met with communist Vietnamese officials and greeted them with shouts of “Vietnam will conquer.” The Vietnamese presented the Americans with rings allegedly made of aluminum taken from U.S. aircraft shot down in Vietnam.
A Cuban official told the American members of the Venceremos Brigade that “Cuba, Vietnam, and you shall conquer.”
Ackerman has certainly conquered Big Labor, becoming in the process a prominent figure in the progressive movement that now wants to take control of both houses of Congress. But don’t ask her about her trips to Cuba or East Germany. And don’t expect the major media to take an interest.
Obama's friends: the Communist Party of the USA
CPUSA Says Re-electing Obama is “Absolutely Essential”
A writer for the Communist Party USA says that “…re-electing Obama is absolutely essential,” and warns that “divisions among Democrats and a potential wave of bad economic news can combine to threaten President Obama’s reelection.”
Marxist John Case, who writes for various CPUSA publications, has written a piece, “The danger of a Romney election,” for the party publication People’s World, which warns that “Re-electing Obama is not sufficient to bring economic recovery or even relief to our people. Only a different class configuration in political power can do necessary minimum reforms to give us a chance. But re-electing Obama is absolutely essential. Now is not the time for hand washing the complexities and tactics away—or failing to triage the most critical questions from those that are less critical. We cannot win everything at once!”
In reality, the CPUSA’s endorsement of Obama for a second term is not surprising. Various CPUSA officials, including Jarvis Tyner and Joelle Fishman, have openly expressed support for the U.S. President and his agenda.
Since 1988, the CPUSA has not run its own candidates for president and vice-president, preferring instead to work through the Democratic Party. Its support for Obama in 2008 and again this year has been open and outspoken.
The Case article offers a rationale, mostly on economic grounds, for getting Obama re-elected to a second term. He claims that the Republicans intend to do on a national level what Scott Walker has done as governor in Wisconsin—reduce government spending and the power of organized labor. Case refers to the prospect of a national “Walker-like regime.” Case laments the fact that “many private sector workers,” including 25 percent of Wisconsin union members, supported Walker.
In that case, as we have reported, Obama’ progressive allies were soundly defeated by Walker and his conservative backers.
Obama’s support in the CPUSA, a political entity once funded and directed by Moscow, has become an open secret, although the major media treat the subject as something not worthy of serious discussion. This silent treatment extends to the matter of Obama’s mentor, a member of the CPUSA named Frank Marshall Davis. Members of the party have known of Obama’s connection to Davis for many years, which may account for their support of the Democratic Party politician in 2008 and now in 2012. A congressional friend of Obama’s from his Chicago days, Rep. Danny K. Davis, still associates with the CPUSA and even accepted an award from them.
Obama isn’t the only Democrat getting various kinds of communist support. Workers World Party, an openly Marxist-Leninist party, endorsed Democrat Charles Barron for the U.S. House in the 8th Congressional District in New York City. However, in that primary election, which was held on June 26, Barron lost.
The Workers World Party newspaper referred to Barron, a city council member, as “a former Black Panther who continues to connect with many sectors of the progressive movement. He has marched alongside oppressed activists and Occupy Wall Street in the fight against poverty, budget cuts, foreclosures, racial profiling like stop-and-frisk, police brutality, the prison-industrial complex, and all forms of injustice at home and abroad.” It said Barron had won the endorsement of District Council 37, the city’s largest public employee union, representing 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees, and the black-oriented Amsterdam News.
The Workers World Party was investigated by the House Internal Security Committee for its support of the North Korean regime and Arab terrorist groups. But the House Committee was disbanded by liberals in Congress.
The CPUSA writer John Case has not been without criticism of Obama, saying that the Democratic President made a huge mistake by firing Van Jones as White House Green Jobs czar after his communist background came to light. Case wrote last year that Jones’ “Rebuild the Dream” campaign “contains all the elements that save the Obama presidency that discarded him, and the party that failed to come to his defense.”
There is speculation that Jones was fired because the chain of command that hired him led to the Oval Office, including Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and Obama himself.
Jones remains a major figure in the progressive movement backing Obama, however, and was a featured speaker at the “Take Back the American Dream” conference recently held in Washington, D.C. Participants in the conference included Communist Party activists Jarvis Tyner and Joelle Fishman.