Democrat Dependency über Alles
ACORN scandals blow-up Union-Backed, Voter Fraud Group and Rathke Brothers Attract Increasing Scrutiny Excerpts: The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, is a network of nonprofit community groups formed nearly 40 years ago on the premise that banks, corporations and insurance companies, immersed in greed, have kept poor and predominantly minority neighborhoods desperate. Within the past couple months, however, its leaders have been engaged in the more mundane task of spinning a scandal that already has claimed its most visible leader. To longtime ACORN critics, it’s a case of belated just deserts. At the center of this storm are ACORN co-founder and chief organizer Wade Rathke and his brother, Dale. Wade Rathke is an almost legendary figure in progressive Left circles. Beginning in the Sixties as an SDS activist, he would go on to apply his talents to the National Welfare Rights Organization, whose principle legacy during its years of existence was a large expansion of welfare eligibility and dependency. Out of this experience came ACORN in 1970. Initially based in Little Rock and eventually in New Orleans, ACORN has become a giant oak tree. The group’s early agitprop rhetoric, as expressed in its People’s Platform, made clear its intent for the years ahead: We are the majority, forged from all minorities. We are the masses of many, not the forces of few. Enough is enough. We will wait no longer for the crumbs at America’s door. We will not be meek, but mighty. We will not starve on past promises, but feast on future dreams. Full article Union News Blogspot WASHINGTON POST Fred Hiatt Feb. 10, 2010 Why is Obama killing off D.C.'s voucher program? Excerpts: The Obama administration said it was going to respect science and respond to evidence -- a contrast, many Democrats said, to the previous regime. So why is President Obama killing off the program that offers the best chance to find out if school vouchers work? Congress has been paying for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps more than a thousand District children attend private schools. It gives a chance of a future to children who otherwise would be condemned to attend failing schools. How can that be bad? Generally, opponents offer two arguments. One is that it won't solve the whole problem. Well, no. That's why everyone should support what Chancellor Michelle Rhee is trying to do to improve all D.C. schools. But even she supports the scholarship program. She testified before the Senate last September that until her reforms have had a few more years to take root, she can't guarantee a quality education to every District child. No wonder that every year there have been many more applicants for the vouchers than vouchers to give out. Full article Fred Hiatt Washington Post Nov. 24, 2009 Jobless Rate for Young Black Men: 34.5% Washington Post: Tough Economy Has Hit 16-to-24-Year-Old Black Men Especially Hard This story was written by V. Dion Haynes. These days, 24-year-old Delonta Spriggs spends much of his time cooped up in his mother's one-bedroom apartment in Southwest Washington, the TV blaring soap operas hour after hour, trying to stay out of the streets and out of trouble, held captive by the economy. As a young black man, Spriggs belongs to a group that has been hit much harder than any other by unemployment. These days, 24-year-old Delonta Spriggs spends much of his time cooped up in his mother's one-bedroom apartment in Southwest Washington, the TV blaring soap operas hour after hour, trying to stay out of the streets and out of trouble, held captive by the economy. As a young black man, Spriggs belongs to a group that has been hit much harder than any other by unemployment. Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population. And last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment in the District, home to many young black men, rose to 11.9 percent from 11.4 percent, even as it stayed relatively stable in Virginia and Maryland Excerpts: Full article V. Dion Haynes Washington Post Real Clear Politics July 21, 2009 Corzine Stays Negative As Voters Deliver Poor Marks Excerpts: As a new Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll shows that Gov. Jon Corzine (D) gets low marks from New Jersey voters on most issues, his campaign has launched another negative attack on former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (R). It shows the Republican nominee leaving a recent Congressional hearing that investigated no-bid contracts his office awarded. Full article Real Clear Politics NEW YORK TIMES The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M. By DAVID E. SANGER Published: May 31, 2009 Excerpts: WASHINGTON — It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism. Brian Deese, who interrupted his law school career, is the little-seen force behind the revamping of the American auto industry. But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry. Nor, for that matter, had he given much thought to what ailed an industry that had been in decline ever since he was born. A bit laconic and looking every bit the just-out-of-graduate-school student adjusting to life in the West Wing — “he’s got this beard that appears and disappears,” says Steven Rattner, one of the leaders of President Obama’s automotive task force — Mr. Deese was thrown into the auto industry’s maelstrom as soon the election-night parties ended. Full article David E. Sanger The New York Times NEW YORK POST Last updated: 5:03 am May 16, 2009 Excerpts: CIA Director Leon Panetta yesterday let House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Democrat, have it with both barrels. Without naming his one-time House colleague -- who, a day earlier, had charged that Panetta's agency "mislead[s] us all the time" -- the CIA chief sent an agency-wide memo citing "the long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business." As for Pelosi's accusation that the agency lied about what she'd been told in 2002 about waterboarding, Panetta said: "It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress . . . CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing 'the enhanced techniques that had been employed.' Full article New York Post POLITICO GOP-ers may block Solis confirmation
By MANU RAJU 1/16/09 6:18 PM EST Senate Republicans are frustrated over the answers they say they're not getting from Rep. Hilda Solis. Full article Manu Raju Politico Excerpts: Senate Republicans, frustrated over the answers they say they're not getting from Rep. Hilda L. Solis, may try to block her confirmation as Barack Obama's secretary of labor. "She answered no questions," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "If she won't answer the questions, how can you support the nomination?" During the California Democrat's Jan. 9 confirmation hearing, Solis repeatedly told senators that she could not speak for the incoming Obama administration on the card check bill, and she told Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) that she was "not qualified" to speak about maintaining right-to-work laws that prohibit workers from paying union dues as a condition of employment. CHICAGOTRIBUNE.COM John Cass Dec. 31, 2008 Full article John Cass CHICAGOTRIBUNE.COM Excerpts: > Since he was federally charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been wrongly caricatured as some kind of hapless jester prancing on the edge of madness. Jesters hold rattles with a likeness of their heads on the end of a stick, and they hop off into a corner, prattling to themselves. That's what jesters do. Jesters don't pick up the race card in a nationally televised news conference and slam it into the face of every Democrat in the U.S. Senate, a palm heel strike to the tip of the nose, leaving all of them watery-eyed, their lips stinging. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NOVEMBER 21, 2008 The Waxman Democrats What the coup against Dingell means for business. Full article THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Excerpts: * John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party. The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came of political age during the 1970s over the last lion of New Deal liberalism, and it is symbolic of the party's change in culture and policy priorities in the Barack Obama era. Henry Waxman Sitting chairmen are nearly impossible to depose, never mind one with the seniority and record of Mr. Dingell, who has served longer than anyone else in the House. The Democratic caucus nonetheless stripped him of his 28-year position atop the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has great power over the climate change and health-care bills that Mr. Obama hopes to pass next year. Instead, California's Henry Waxman, who was elected by a reported 137 to 122, will do the honors. (We say "reported" because the vote was by secret ballot, which in a rich irony Democrats want to prevent for union organizing votes.) Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed to be neutral, though it was clear all along that she was twisting arms on Mr. Waxman's behalf. "I assume that not playing a role is playing a role," as Charlie Rangel, another venerable committee chairman, put it yesterday. Ms. Pelosi loathes Mr. Dingell's independence -- especially on environmental matters. REAL CLEAR POLITICS August 29, 2008 Dem Platform is for Whiners By Robert Robb Full article Robert Robb Real Clear Politics Excerpts: The Democrats have titled their party platform, "Renewing America's Promise." A more honest and accurate title would be, "We'll Give You More." The soul of the Democratic philosophy is summed up in this passage from the platform: "For decades, Americans have been told to act for ourselves, by ourselves, on our own. Democrats reject this recipe for division and failure." Note the disdain for the ethos of self-responsibility. Democrats do not merely regard it as insufficient. Instead they regard the idea that people should provide for themselves as divisive. SLATE What Kind of Plagiarist Is Joe Biden?The unusually creepy kind. By Jack Shafer  Custom Search Also in Slate: David Greenberg argued that Joe Biden's plagiarism shouldn't be forgotten. Shmuel Rosner examined the "erratic pragmatism" of Biden's Middle East policy. Joe Biden Full article Jack Shafer Slate Excerpts: Joe Biden's return as a vice-presidential candidate signals forgiveness—at least from Barack Obama—for having plagiarized a leading British politician during Biden's campaign for the Democratic Party's 1988 presidential nomination. The Biden episode merits revisiting because as acts of plagiarism go, it was spectacular, and because it points to other dicey chapters in his life. To know Biden in full, you must appreciate his parts. Biden's puttering campaign for president effectively died on Sept. 13, 1987, when the New York Times' Maureen Dowd reported that he had pinched major elements of a recent and celebrated speech by Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. That speech, included in this May 1987 Labor Party broadcast, begins at the 7:23 mark. REAL CLEAR POLITICS July 17, 2008 It Should Be a Democratic Year By Susan Estrich Full article Susan Estrich Excerpts: July polls don’t tell you who’s going to win in November. Just ask President Dukakis or President Gore, both of whom were well ahead in July and went on to lose in the fall (although Mr. Gore still doesn’t quite see it that way). Or ask President Clinton, who was running third in some polls after clinching his party’s nomination, and won comfortably in the fall. Polls are, at best, snapshots of the present, not predictors of the future. But that doesn’t mean they’re meaningless. There’s a reason that news organizations, and campaigns themselves, spend time and money to try to get the picture right, even if that’s all it is. Polls give you an insight into the dynamic of the race ahead; they highlight the problems, or the challenges, facing the candidates, their strengths and weaknesses. So here’s the bottom line. The polls make me nervous. Not desperate, not hopeless, not resigned, but nervous. Barack Obama should be ahead right now. Way ahead. Not even close is how it should look, even though I wouldn’t for a minute tell you that if it were that would seal the deal. But the fact that my old candidate Mike Dukakis was running better 20 years ago against George Bush than Obama is today against John McCain makes me nervous. It should be a sign to some of the whiners on my side, still worried about whether Obama is liberal enough or whether he’s doing enough to help Hillary, that it’s time to stop whining and start working. Otherwise, it will be hello President McCain. THE NEW YORK TIMES Op-Ed Columnist Lurching With Abandon By BOB HERBERT Published: July 8, 2008 Full article Bob Herbert NY TIMES Excerpts: In one of the numbers from “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye sings, with a mixture of emotions: “We haven’t got the man ... we had when we began.” Back in January when Barack Obama pulled off his stunning win in the Iowa caucuses, and people were lining up in the cold and snow for hours just to get a glimpse of him, there was a wide and growing belief — encouraged to the max by the candidate — that something new in American politics had arrived. His brilliant, nationally televised victory speech in Des Moines sent a shiver of hope through much of the electorate. “The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face,” said Senator Obama, “who will listen to you and learn from you, even when we disagree, who won’t just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know.” THE HILL Obama tacks away from his left-wing base By Alexander Bolton Posted: 06/23/08 07:42 PM [ET] Full article Alexander Bolton The Hill Excerpts: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is shifting to the center after months of battling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for the hearts of the Democratic Party’s liberal base. His recent strategy of political triangulation has already sparked a fight with MoveOn.org, a powerful liberal advocacy group. MoveOn.org has challenged Obama for supporting a compromise on intelligence surveillance legislation that many Democrats oppose. POWER LINE June 19, 2008 Does Obama know what he's talking about? Full article Power Line Excerpts: Speaking in unscripted environments on important issues, Barack Obama betrays a troubling lack of knowledge. He does not appear to know what he's talking about. In his interview with ABC's Jake Tapper earlier this week, for example, Obama advocated an approach to combating terrorism that is supposedly more attuned to legal issues than the Bush administration's: It is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States. But we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. Let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that in previous terrorist attacks, for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. Andrew McCarthy (the lead prosecutor of the perpetrators of the 1993 WTC attack) comments: This is a remarkably ignorant account of the American experience with jihadism. In point of fact, while the government managed to prosecute many people responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing, many also escaped prosecution because of the limits on civilian criminal prosecution. Some who contributed to the attack, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, continued to operate freely because they were beyond the system’s capacity to apprehend. Abdul Rahman Yasin was released prematurely because there was not sufficient evidence to hold him — he fled to Iraq, where he was harbored for a decade (and has never been apprehended). REAL CLEAR POLITICS May 24, 2008 Rev. Wright Connection Still Haunts Obama By Michael Barone Full article Michael Barone RCP Excerpts: As Barack Obama makes his slow but steady way toward the Democratic nomination, the assumption in the admiring precincts of the press corps is that voters have dismissed as irrelevant his longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But that may prove as mistaken as the assumption, back in 1988, that voters would not be impressed by Michael Dukakis's 11-year support of a law granting weekend furloughs to convicts sentenced to life without parole, an issue brought up in the primaries by Al Gore but largely ignored in press coverage at the time. Evidence for this comes in the exit polls from the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries on May 13 and 20. In both, about half the voters -- and these are voters in the Democratic primary -- said that they believe Obama shares Wright's views either somewhat or a lot. And slightly under 50 percent of these voters said that Obama is honest and trustworthy. To be sure, these were primaries in which Obama was beaten, and beaten badly, by Hillary Clinton -- 67 percent to 26 percent in West Virginia, 66 percent to 30 percent in Kentucky. So they would be inclined, one might believe, to think ill of Obama. Yet it is not universally the case that voters who choose one candidate in a hotly contested election doubt whether the other candidate is honest. You can oppose someone who you believe to be trustworthy. Only 38 percent of Americans voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George McGovern in 1972. But probably a higher percentage believed that they were basically honest. THE WASHINGTON TIMES Democrats again whistling Dixie By Sean Lengell and Donald Lambro May 18, 2008 Full article By Sean Lengell and Donald Lambro The Washington Times Excerpts: Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama won a string of Southern primaries but carrying the South in the general election is considered a long shot. Democratic leaders, emboldened by recent special House election victories in long-standing Republican districts, are gaining confidence they can retake the Deep South and other former political strongholds ceded decades ago to the GOP. While even the most optimistic Democrats aren't predicting a return to the Dixiecrat era, when Southerners would rather vote for a "yellow dog" than a Republican, the party is having more success in recruiting politically attractive candidates who reflect the political culture of their districts. Read the article below from the CLUB FOR GROWTH. To visit that site go to Democrat Dependency To Club For Growth An Ugly Regulatory Bill Andrew Roth We sent the following letter to all members of the U.S. House today. If you are a House staffer, please note the BOLD text at the bottom of the letter. Dear Representative, Club for Growth strongly opposes HR 5546, the misnamed "Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008." The legislation proposes price controls that would harm consumers, hurt economic growth, and stifle innovation. The bill's innocuous sounding title hides an ugly reality -- establishment of a new all-powerful bureaucracy inside the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. These bureaucrats would set prices for the credit card business, and they would publish their rate determinations in the Federal Register. This is a horrible idea and if it becomes law it will hurt consumers and stifle innovation in a market that has produced incredible efficiency gains. It also threatens economic growth as it would raise the specter that Congress would impose additional government price controls on other industries. We can understand the frustration of retailers who feel that credit card fees are too high. Yet the answer is not to run to Congress and ask that it set up a new government apparatus to set prices. The answer should instead be more competition and to identify and eliminate laws that might inhibit such competition. This bill takes one step in that direction -- allowing retailers to band together without fear of violating antitrust laws. If the bill had stopped there, then we would not oppose it. Instead the bill moves in a more sinister direction, giving defacto control on innovation and prices to "Electronic Payment System Judges" in the Justice Department. The standard for their price setting would be cost plus a "normal rate of return in such a hypothetical perfectly competitive marketplace." This, of course, is absurd. Businesses do not run on a hypothetical, they are run in the real world. One fact that proponents don't mention is that this bill would likely raise prices for many consumers. The fact is many credit card holders get discounts for using their credit cards in the form of rebates, coupons, airline tickets or hotel stays. By accepting such credit cards, retailers are often offering an on the spot discount. For others who can't afford to pay in cash on the spot, a card allows retailers to get paid promptly while leaving the debt collection duties and headaches to the credit card companies. If retailers don't like the prices they have to pay for processing credit cards, they have other choices. To name just two: they can offer cash discounts, which are 100% legal; or they can offer their own credit cards. Finally, a new competitor is on the scene, the RevolutionCard, which according to its website's pitch to retailers "works just like the traditional credit cards you're used to. With one big difference: No interchange fees. Which means you keep more of your profits with every sale." We strongly urge you to oppose this legislation and let the marketplace continue to foster innovation and more consumer choices. If this bill goes to the House floor for consideration, the Club for Growth will key-vote a "NO" on its 2008 congressional scorecard. Sincerely, Pat Toomey President Democrat Dependency
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