8.5 billion dollars.

That’s what is on the plate for the community group, ACORN if our leadership allows the organization to continue operating and receive money already slated to go to them.

We are so lost in the smoke now, that there are lawmakers who are actually remaining silent in the face of the videotape collected by two young people. So, should we take their silence to mean that they don’t mind the concept of under-age girls being imported illegally for prostitution – indeed, that they don’t mind a community organization offering housing to support such a business.

In the Senate, a motion to strip the funding from ACORN passed 83 for and seven against. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Roland Burris (D-IL), Robert Casey (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) were the seven who voted to allow ACORN to continue unmolested.

If the measure goes through, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will make ACORN ineligible to receive HUD grants for programs such as housing, education and outreach.

ACORN’s funding prior to this could be measured in the range of $40 to $50 million. With that money they are happy to fund and encourage illegal businesses of this type. Just imagine, what would be possible with the nearly $8.5 billion slated to go to ACORN in the near future.

I have mentioned Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist who developed an unusual approach to the development of thought and concepts. His work was published following his death in 1934. Vygotsky’s work has been echoed in our nation’s schoolrooms for decades and is touted by the online “Encyclopedia of Marxism” as a “superior understanding of the relationship between the educator and the educated, in which the educator must ‘negotiate’ with the child or student who is credited with an active role in the learning process.”

More importantly, the quote goes on to say that “especially in the United States, Vygotsky has found a following among Community Development workers who value his concept of a ‘Zone of Proximal Development,’ in which leadership is able to facilitate intellectual and social development in struggles by communities to change their circumstances, leading to a subsequent benefit in an all-round development of conceptual ability.”

So why do I bring up Vygotsky again?

Progressivism education in the United States developed from the 1930s and promoted the ideas of social reconstructionism, active citizen participation in all spheres of life, and pulling all public institutions into democratic behaviors. The movement was greatly influenced by the writings and lectures of an educator named John Dewey. Dewey began to test his theories in the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago, which he had opened in 1896. He believed that through education, society could formulate its own purposes, and organize means and resources.

Subsequently, if you track the progressive movement in the school system, you end up with individuals like Mike Klonsky, a Maoist and friend of Weatherman terrorist group founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Klonsky originally received a $175,000 grant from the William Ayers/Barack Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop. But the Annenberg Challenge was started with a grant of $500 million to support school reform in public schools throughout the United States and in Chicago, a $49.2 million grant. That money was used to build a structure of public schools paired with universities, nonprofit groups, and the Chicago Teacher’s Union. This organization helped produce a follow-on group, the Chicago Public Education Fund, which works to develop “principal and teacher leadership.”

Ayers served with Obama on Woods Fund, and promoted him to head the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which eventually spent some $160 million in the Chicago Public School system. Their cooperation on the Challenge effort occurred between 1995 and 2001.

The Challenge was developed to build support for Local School Councils. The School Councils were set up to watchdog teachers, principals and school administrators. The Challenge, in Chicago, spent millions of dollars through a “Leadership Development Initiative” to recruit and train individuals for the school councils. This idea, backed by Bill Ayers, was sent to the Board of Directors, chaired by Barack Obama.

But long before that, Klonsky, an Obama supporter and friend of Ayers (all the way back to the Students for a Democratic Society – SDS), was setting the groundwork, attempting to develop support for progressive education in the United States. Klonsky founded a maoist party in the U.S. and spent a lot of his time between 1979 and 1981, as Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) chairman. To attempt to garner support from Chinese leaders, he made numerous trips to China for state dinners and years later, his “Small Schools Workshop” received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Challenge headed by Obama and Ayers.

The 70s marked the beginning of several organizations: The Industrial Areas Foundation, Citizen Action, National People’s Action, PICO, DART and the Gamaliel Foundation. Citizen Action was founded by Heather Booth; another member of the Alinsky’s SDS. That group later transformed into the infamous Weather Underground. Booth’s husband was both a member of SDS and the IAF. Booth, herself, was a radical organizer and activist since the 1960s and is the co-founder and President of The Midwest Academy, which according to their website, “is a leading national training institute for the progressive movement and social change.”
The Academy, according to their website, “advances the movements for social change by teaching a strategic, rigorous, results-oriented approach to social action and organization building.”

Booth enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1963 becoming a member of the Freedom Summer Civil Rights Project and was a leader of the Progressive Student Political Committee. She is connected to another individual who had his start in the 1970s – Wade Rathke,

Rathke started working for NWRO (National Welfare Rights Organization) in Springfield, Massachusetts. According to his biography listed on his official blog, after working for NWRO, Rathke started a group in Arkansas.

That group became ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) – eventually touted as the largest organization of lower income and working families in the United States. Wade ran ACORN for 38 years and also was the founder and is the Chief Organizer of Local 100, Service Employees International Union. SEIU worked with members in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas in 1980. Lastly, Wade is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Social Policy, a quarterly magazine for activists and scholars.

Rathke proclaims on his blog “that through the hard work of hundreds of community organizers and thousands of community leaders across the country, ACORN has won landmark victories in the areas of community reinvestment, fair lending, living wages, education reform, environmental justice, and other issues.”

Education reform.

Today, SEIU Local 100, headquartered in New has been involved in organizing “public sector public workers, including school employees.” Rathke himself says he is a longtime member of the Tides Foundation, which provides services to new and existing nonprofit organizations promoting social change.

About 131 million people were reported voting by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. This number represents an increase of 5 million from 2004 with voters 18 to 24-years-old as the only age group to show a statistically significant increase in turnout, reaching 49 percent. This statistic is significant only because, when taken with many other factors, it suggests that it is possible we have an entire generation of people, possibly “grown or farmed” within the public school system, to support the kind of structure being assembled within the administration today.

At the very least, Barrack Obama arrived at exactly the right time and the right place – and was exactly the right guy, as far as folks like Ayers and Rathke and Klonsky are concerned. Timing is often everything, and this timing was a progressive celestial alignment.

Lastly, the question being asked so often is “why is the majority of the media are not focusing on major stories, such as the breaking ACORN scandal – and why are they operating with shameless bias?”

The answer may be wrapped up in the whole progressive education package, which has been pressed upon an entire generation of people. As just one example, the educational organizations started by the Annenberg Foundation have almost exclusively centered their attention on journalism and communication as they apply to politics, social sciences, healthcare issues, digital technology and the intersection of the media and public policy with these studies at various grade levels – even within our public school system. One of these organizations, Annenberg Media, has been responsible for distributing multi-media educational resources to schools throughout the nation.

The other groups started by the Foundation were: The Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California, The Annenberg Center for Health Sciences at the Eisenhower Medical Center, The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

In conclusion, I believe that somewhere in the smoke, the truth exists – that there is a direct connection between the progressive education movement, ACORN and organizations like it, and the problems we are facing today, from the collapse of the housing market to the bailouts and now, even universal healthcare. The public school system gave Obama his springboard into the “community organizing” efforts which eventually led him to the White House, but at its’ base, community organizing claims to be about providing for families and children.

Of course, then we are presented with examples like the current ACORN scandal and we are left to wonder what kind of things these groups really are organizing in our towns and cities – and what lessons our children really are learning in school.

This is precisely why it is so difficult to follow all this – there’s so much smoke, it is obscuring the view of the flames. Something is on fire, but what it is – and where it is, seems difficult to determine.

But without an environment conducive to Marxism, there can’t be activity like we are seeing now at the highest levels of government. Creating that environment in a nation like ours requires years of focused development. The forest needs to be dry, with a lot of undergrowth and dead wood – and the season needs to be dry with very little relief, to start the big wildfires. And today, dear reader, the forest, which is our society – our economy and our way of life, is very dry indeed.

And the fires have started.

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I remember pestering my parents about smoking.

My sister and I grew up during the time when the school system was being saturated with anti-smoking material. I remember it as any childhood memory – everything was bigger. The teachers were all-knowing, authority. “Smoking was bad. Smoking can be bad for people around you… etc.” Who knew what that would eventually become in today’s world? Not only was smoking bad for us, but the whole tobacco industry were beyond bad. Now if you’re seen with a cigarette in public, you might almost feel a need to run.

And it was all started in the school system. “Tell your parents that smoking is bad,” they said. And we did. We pestered my mom until she quit. When we went after my aunt, my mom told us to back off. We did. They did the same with alcohol of course – and probably a bunch of other stuff we didn’t notice.

So what are today’s school rooms and today’s hot-button topics going to be like?

I now know.

The gutless leadership we have in our country would love to send ACORN door to door, but they no longer have to. The 2010 census will be pushed into school rooms everywhere, and children will be told to push the program on parents who may not be interested in cooperating.

Think this can’t possibly be true?

Renee Jefferson-Copelan, chief of the Census Schools Program has said that “it’s great to reach the children because children are such strong voices in their homes.” Between January and March, the Census Bureau will put into play a week of “census education” in schools. During that week, posters, teaching guides, maps and lessons will be used to indoctrinate children in more than 118,000 schools. That’s 56 million children.

Our children.

But it doesn’t stop there. Not just grade-school persuasion will be in-play, but citizen volunteers are already actively recruiting college-age students across the nation to “build support for President Obama’s agenda” while they earn college credit while being “change” advocates.

Obama’s political campaign actually merged with the Democratic National Committee in January and is now being called Organizing For America. OFA is now offering internships on several websites including the teen favorite social networking site, Facebook.

“As an Organizing Intern, you’ll work side by side with OFA staff and community leaders to help build support for President Obama’s agenda,” reads some of the recruitment material. “You’ll learn core organizing principles that are crucial for any campaign and play an important role in building our organization in your state.”

Volunteers must commit to working at least 12 hours a week according to the OFA website and could receive college credit from their schools for doing so.

Set in tranquil blue tones, the Obama site also urges viewers to organize locally with their special online tools, titled lovingly, my.barrackobama.com.

“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington… I’m asking you to believe in yours,” reads the Obama quote which tops the website page.

So where does the use of children by the current administration stop? I’m not sure it does. If they are allowed to proceed with their census programming, one can easily imagine the use of children as mouthpieces for healthy eating, and teen informants who drop the dime when they catch their parents enjoying French fries or ice-cream. Guess I won’t have to inform on Ben and Jerry’s anymore to the White House. Kids all around the country will be doing it for me.

In 1922 an organization was started for youth in another country. Called the HJ, the organization had recruited nearly 25,000 youths from 14-years-old and up. A junior version of the group was also set up for boys aged 10 to 14. These children were viewed as future “supermen,” and were indoctrinated in the various views of their country’s ultimate leader.

The youth groups were organized into local cells on a “community” level. By the end of 1932, more than 107,000 children were involved in the program. One year later, there were 2,300,000 members. By 1936, there were five million and by that time, membership by children was required even when the parents protested. The membership had reached eight million by 1940.

So how did this juggernaut of the young get started? The nearest anyone can accurately determine, the genesis of the whole thing started with an article by Gergor Strasser in the 1920s. The title of the article, “Make Way You Old Ones,” gained momentum in an environment, which was bringing focus to the young. The propaganda focused on harnessing and exploiting the emotions of the young within the political arena.

This youth group, the HJ, were of course, the Hitler-Jugend.

The Hitler Youth.

I need some tobacco, some good rum and maybe some French fries. Care to join me?

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I can’t sleep – usually it is because of the bad dreams, which have been with me since my time in Somalia. Tonight it’s less heavy.

I’m worried about the Brown Shirt squads.

I just don’t know what to do about them. When they come knocking on my door offering a nice big, framed photo of Big Brother (with its’ embedded wireless camera and microphone) do I just smile and invite them in? Do we all sit around the tiny suburban home with the smell from the bad city sewer lines ( also a potentially shovel-ready project) – or do I yell them down and loose the dogs and see who makes it to the fence-line faster; an overweight Obamanator or an overweight English Bulldog.

I’m betting on the dog. That’s because the Bulldog doesn’t care about the re-education programs. He doesn’t care if 2+2=4 or if it equals 5.

And should I join the “mobs” at the town hall meetings? Should I go and picket, yell down a few senators or other useless functionaries and assorted pieces of inanimate office furniture? Should I write angry notes, make angrier phone calls to congressmen, which will all go unanswered? Should I get the H1N1 virus immunization as soon as it is offered – so as to avoid the huge lines in front of the new government-run clinics? Or should I hope the Pig flu takes me out and spares me a world without Twinkies and potato chips and all the other stuff THEY want to take away from us?

And that last one is an interesting question, isn’t it? As I get older, I can appreciate the siren call of the brightly colored chip bags in the grocery store. I can appreciate the smell of pipe smoke and the taste of good rum, but it’s all going to be legislated away – so we can all be healthier. The president will continue to smoke and drink, but that behavior will be re-educated out of us. They’ll sign Richard Simmons on as the new aerobics czar, next. We’ll all be jiggling the sad remains of those sweets away in the park – endless rows of Orwellian Citizens, dancing to some old Lionel Richie songs or something. Yeah, we will be all “dancing on the ceiling,” because we will be so light, we will float there, like some forgotten helium balloons.

Yeah, we’ll be lighter, but we won’t be free. Big Brother will be watching from that painting on your wall. He will look suspiciously like President Obama. Weird, huh?

I’m no different from anyone else. I don’t like people screwing with our nation – I don’t like dumb congressmen – I don’t like dumber union people – and heavies who attack people exercising their rights at these rallies. I don’t like the tenets of organizations like the Black Panthers. I think haters are among the most lost in our society. I don’t like smears against our regular citizens, I don’t like environmental legislation, which does nothing more than line the pockets of the rich and powerful – the buddies of those same Congressmen – while it forces unionization on contractors who do not want to be unionized (this is basically another form of money and power grab – and it’s legal!)

I don’t like any of it.

But I do like the fact that America is coming alive. I like the fact that the Tea Parties are continuing to grow. I like the feeling I get when I see congressmen running for the door at some meeting, because they are becoming afraid of the people. They should be afraid – or maybe they should act like men instead of mice or worms – and stand their ground.

Got balls? Guess not.

It’s 3:15 a.m. This is a condition I came away with from my time in the service. But I would never trade it for a chance to have the slate wiped clean. I loved serving my country. I loved wearing the uniform. I loved the military – even on the hard days. And I don’t ever remember being released from my oath – “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

So, while I am a civilian now and as such, some of this may no longer apply to me (the UCMJ, chain of command, etc), I will defend this country still, against all enemies foreign and domestic.

I don’t know about you, but it seems like we’ve taken a lot of the foreign enemies out of the equation, lately. Our troops have hammered the foreign killers into the dust – and continue to do so. But it’s the domestic versions – mostly those trying to turn a free nation into some kind of socialist experiment… those are the ones we need to keep our eyes on. Like the bulldog, we have to try to figure out whether they are really our leaders – or just a different kind of enemy – or maybe like the bulldog, we should just not try to add 2+2, and just chase them to the fence-line and bite them on the butt.

I’m looking at the bulldog now – he’s eyeing me dubiously.

So seriously, what do we do with those who would make this the USSA?

Vote ‘em out. Vote ‘em all out.  In the meantime, keep yelling the maggots down at these town hall meetings. Verbally hammer them mercilessly. And for those who wish to meet us on a more personal footing – who wish to beat us down physically in the streets…

You are outnumbered. You are outclassed (way outclassed in this case). Remember this…
We are coming for you. We are coming for you all.

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George Soros, one of the wealthiest men in the world, as well as one of the largest hedge fund owners, is behind Obamacare.

Health Care for America Now (HCAN), endorsed by President Obama as the coalition pushing his health-care (euthanasia) reform, is a project of billionaire British-agent speculator George Soros, his Tides Foundation, and the Saul Alinsky counter-insurgency networks Soros used to ramp up the Obama Presidential candidacy.

Though labor unionists will come into Washington on June 25 to rally and lobby for the Obama “reform,” the HCAN organization sponsoring the D.C. events explicitly opposes the single-payer health-care plan favored by labor and by most Americans.

The group was established in July 2008 as an adjunct to the Soros operations supporting the Obama candidacy. At the outset, HCAN National Campaign Director Richard Kirsch wrote (July 16, 2008, Huffingtonpost) under the headline, “Why Not Single-Payer?” “I want to take a moment and address those of you who have been asking why Health Care for America Now is not focusing on creating a single-payer health insurance system.” Kirsch explains that he used to believe in that sort of thing, but came to realize it would scare people.

Here’s a little more about HCAN from an op-ed by Michelle Malkin:

HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by The Atlantic Philanthropies — a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: notorious Democratic donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites. By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose “Progressive Future” youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clip-boards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamacare.

And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-plagued SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients’ rights) and Obama’s old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Oh the tangled web we weave.  The tentacles of all the progressive organizations are intertwined as much as the sub-prime market was woven throughout the stock market.  These progressive groups with their new super majority finally feel as though they can pass through their agenda.

It doesn’t cease to amaze me how connected all of these groups are.  This begs the question – who is the head of the snake?  Is it George Soros?  There was a lot of speculation and perhaps a lot of fact, of his attempting to bring down the United Kingdom.  Many of these radical left wing groups are funded and run by the same individuals.  I hope that somebody can someday figure out the exact tree/web/links in the chain, and make a movie out of it.  It could be called The Twilight Zone – never mind that movie already exists… but perhaps something similar!

George Soros is also involved in another scheme that has not received much attention at all.  He has received over $300K of taxpayer dollars to open a restaurant in a very run-down, poor area of New York where, on average, people only make about $30K per year and pay their taxes like law-abiding citizens.  Mind you, this man made millions, if not billions, last year during the collapse so please keep that in mind as you read about his ties to progressive groups, his encouragement for government run health care and cap & trade, etc.

George Soros is opening up another Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in the old rust belt of up-state New York; Troy.  His company, Soros Strategic Partners, owns over 70% of the famous rib joint among other things like moveon.org, factcheck.org, hedge funds, not to mention he is also the single largest contributor to the DNC.

When Soros found the right building to create an additional franchise, the building came with a gift of approximately $218K of back taxes.  Normally, the back taxes on a building would be tacked on to the purchase price of the property but, because it’s Soros and as we’ve seen with ACORN and his other groups, he can just bully his way into welfare for the rich and additional perks that men like him could afford on their own.

Further, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is getting a five-year deferment on the property tax that improvements on its property would have otherwise obligated it to. That five-year lag will continue for 20 years.

Meaning that Dinosaur Bar-B-Que will spend the next two decades paying less than its fair share of property taxes – while the locally owned businesses against which it competes will have to pay their full obligation.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is also being given exemption from $60,000 in sales tax for materials used to improve its building, and the $53,000 fee for recording its mortgage is being waived.

These are just further examples of progressive policies and individuals becoming cancers on our society.

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From Anita MonCrief:

Schumer, Gutierrez and Waters Honored for Governing the “ACORN Way” at Anniversary Celebration

If there are any lingering doubts that ACORN has been an organization that was squarely in the tank for Democrats, ACORN (which has never been coy about its thuggery and aspirations of political power) has offered proof in their own words. ACORN’s 39th Anniversary celebration takes place on June 17th, 2009 and it promises to be filled with a who’s who of Democrats.

Sadly for new puppies everywhere, this announcement is also another nail in the coffin of the Main Stream Media, as the RSVP at the bottom is that of The Advance Group, a major firm specializing in public relations. The Advance Group has many contacts in the MSM, but this event has been surprisingly kept under wraps. How is it possible that ACORN, who is in the middle of a ground war with bloggers and right leaning newspapers across the country (MSM reports only when they have to), has managed to plan a major event in DC with little media scrutiny. The email accompanying the attachment is also very telling, the full text appears below. The ACORN ties of each honoree or member would require another 10 to 15 posts.

—–Original Message—–

From: pol.nat.2@acornmail.net [mailto:pol.nat.2@acornmail.net]

Sent: Monday, June 08, 2009 7:53 PM

To: undisclosed-recipients:

Subject: ACORN 39th Anniversary Celebration Honoring Senator Schumer and

Representatives Gutierrez & Waters {INVITE}

Dear friends,

I would like to thank you for your generous contribution and support for ACORN in 2009. I am writing to invite you to attend or sponsor ACORN’s 39th Anniversary Celebration. We are hosting an event in Washington, DC on June 17 to honor the work of Senator Charles Schumer, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Rep. Maxine Waters and AFT President Randi Weingarten. We’ll also be recognizing our newly formed Advisory Committee: Dave Beckwith, Henry Cisneros, Eric Eve, Harvey Hirschfeld, Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, John Podesta and Andy Stern. We’d be delighted if you join us and, of course would love it if you could help sponsor the event even if you can’t be there in person.

With the help of so many generous supporters, in 2008 ACORN organized, helped register, and spoke face-to-face with more than a million low-income voters who changed history when they went out to vote—many for the first time—in the historic November election.

In 2009 we are engaged as a strong partner in the progressive movement, fighting to make the change people voted for a reality and win real action on healthcare, housing, comprehensive immigration reform and more.

Of course, not everyone appreciates our work as much as you and I do: Right-wing extremists continue to attack ACORN with unfounded allegations. Various conspiracy theories allege that ACORN has taken control of the Census, the FCC, the banking system, and $8 billion in federal funds; alas, it is all false! In many ways it is an honor to be an A-list enemy of people like Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity. But it isn’t cheap or easy to combat outlandish attacks while redoubling our efforts to organize ordinary people for progressive change.

And that’s why we need your help. Please join others who support our work. Please consider sponsoring our 39th Anniversary Celebration and on June 17, 2009.

Attach is an invitation to our event with options to buy tickets or sponsor at various levels. You can return the form with your check to ACORN (or tax-deductible contribution to the ACORN Institute) to:

ACORN Anniversary Celebration

739 8th Street SE

Washington, DC 20003

(Or you can donate online at www.acorn.org/donate. Just drop me a note to say you did and if we should reserve you tickets for the event on June 17th.)

For more information about our 39th Anniversary event or the work we are doing, please contact me directly at pol.nat.2@acornmail.net or (612)-385-2576. Thank you for your support and for all you do.

Sincerely,

Josie Mines

ACORN Civic Engagement Staff

pol.nat.2@acornmail.net

o.(651) 917-3680 – c.(612) 385- – fax (202)379-1786

P.S. ACORN’s grassroots leadership believes we are experiencing a once-in-a-generation opportunity and must not squander this moment. Your generosity is needed now more than ever. Thanks.

I suspect this once-in-a-generation opportunity involves radical change in America, and a quick look at the honorees gives the appearance that this is actually a victory party. Like many high ranking Democrats, Charles Schumer has quite a history with ACORN. A Schumer website press release states;

“The U.S. Senate gave final approval Wednesday to a measure proposed by U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Robert P. Casey (D-PA) to grant $100 million in funding to housing non-profits on the front lines of the fight to prevent a national foreclosure crisis from the subprime lending fallout. The measure—which would provide resources to government-approved agencies that help negotiate between borrowers and lenders to keep families in their homes—was contained in the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) spending bill that passed the full Senate this morning.”

…The initiative by Sens. Schumer, Brown, and Casey has been welcomed by the nonprofit entities, which have seen demand for their services soar in recent months. Among the groups supportive of the effort are: National NeighborWorks Association, Center for Responsible Lending, Consumer Federation of America (CFA), National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

In addition to high profile Democrats with a pattern of doing favors for ACORN, the newly formed ACORN Advisory Committee is made up of familiar faces. For space and time reasons, I will not touch upon Andy Stern, President of SEIU, but his presence on the committee should be duly noted. However, former head of Obama’s Transition Team, John Podesta continues to openly support the “non-partisan” group. A “transcript of a management conference call dated March 20, 2006 states that:

“During a December 2006 Year End/Year beginning ACORN staff meeting in New Orleans, Podesta traveled there to speak to staff in a December 15 2006 session entitled: Preparing for Power: The Next Cycle?

Very interesting title and I am sure ACORN will state that it is a coincidence. Podesta also seemed to not only be yet another ACORN/Sandler link but also a go to guy for finance. In a management conference call dated March 20, 2006 it states that:

“WFP Ballot Line: Chris Entrikin to get signs in SC and hiring an operative to help with it. OR the committee is not going to the ballot in 06. In WA Clare C. (Crawford) meeting with honchos to see if going to ballot in 06. MA. Fundraising problems. AFSCME wants to block endorsement by state Fed. We did briefing w/John Podesta to help drum up $$. No word yet.”

Henry Cisneros, another member of the committee served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under President Clinton. ACORN’s own website describes this access to Democrats in power in a section called Insider Opportunites:

“Democratic control of the federal government meant that ACORN had increased access to top officials with more sympathetic ears. ACORN members began regular meetings with Henry Cisneros, HUD Secretary under President Clinton, on a variety of issues. ACORN organizing began to include more tenant groups under the ACORN Tenant Union (ATU), and Cisneros was increasingly helpful.”

In the section entitled Focus on Partnerships ACORN says:

“In July of 1994, ACORN invited insurers to a national Insurance Summit in Chicago where the Neighborhood and Home Safety Program was presented. The keynote speaker at the Summit was HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, who lauded ACORN’s efforts and pledged to investigate violations of the Fair Housing Act by insurers. Summit participants included the eight largest companies which write over 40% of the country’s homeowners insurance. They took a tour of a typical ACORN neighborhood and attended a session explaining the benefits and success of neighborhood organizing and programs. After the summit, ACORN entered into negotiations with a number of the participating insurers to put the Neighborhood and Home Safety program into effect.”

A little investigative reporting by the MSM would uncover the roots and seeds for the housing collapse at this very gathering. Each one of the honorees or committee members has put ACORN’s goals and aspirations to power over the true needs of the people. ACORN and its cronies were aware of what was happening, but chose to capitalize on a historic power grab, as this December 2006 quote from an ACORN year end report illustrates (emphasis mine):

“In 2006 we saw the cracks begin to form in the subprime mortgage market with foreclosures on the rise and hundreds of billions of dollars in ARMs resetting. All signs indicate that in 2007 things will be even worse and the system could rupture. We need to be right there when it does.”

Congratulations to Schumer, Gutierrez and Waters; your association with ACORN has left you with a myriad of things to celebrate, foreclosures, fraud, missing tax dollars and a legacy of thuggery.

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ACORN is becoming more of a spectacle and a mafia like outfit as the days pass.  It isn’t as if independent thinkers didn’t already realize that ACORN is a corrupt scheme that has been in place for years helping politicians get elected illegally.  The sad fact of the matter is that our taxpayer dollars fund this group and therefore we are paying for their antics and fraud, whether we want to or not.

The latest story from ACORN comes out of New York, where an angry mob of ACORN workers went after a NY lawmaker, James Alesi- Republican.  The mob knocked him down and spat in the face of his top aide.

The protesters were reportedly upset that two Democratic senators decided to caucus with Republicans, a move that when finalized by the state Senate would hand Republicans control of it. Majority Democrats have shut down the chamber to prevent the transfer of power.

States around the nation, as well as several Republicans in Congress, have called for an investigation into ACORN and the eventual ban of the organization.   Groups like ACORN are supposed to be common place in third world countries, not a Republic like the United States.

I’m still waiting for Obama to condemn this group…. I won’t hold my breath!

The below video is a great anti-ACORN clip:

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It’s getting harder and harder to believe if the government or the Democrat cronies will ever hold any institutions, organizations, or politicians on their side, accountable for their corrupt actions.  Michelle Malkin posted earlier on Attny. General Eric Holder’s latest judiciary decisions regarding the Black Panthers, and his ruling on Georgia voter verification.  The US Justice Department is also considering the release of two convicted corruptocrats in Alaska.  I’m not sure what is going on anymore these days…

It would come as no surprise to me if Eric Holder decides to exonerate ACORN, even if found guilty of such a heinous federal crime.  ACORN is currently facing charges brought against them in several states, the latest of which concerns 4 ACORN employees charged with voter fraud.

Four former ACORN workers in western Pennsylvania will face trial on charges that they forged, illegally solicited or illegally filled out voter registration cards before the November election.

That’s after a court hearing in Pittsburgh on Friday.

Twenty-year-old Pittsburgh resident Eric Jones waved his preliminary hearing. Three others were held for trial: 23-year-old West Mifflin resident Alexis Givner and two Pittsburgh residents, 21-year-old Ashley Clarke and 28-year-old Mario Grisom.

Prosecutors charged seven ACORN workers in May. One had already been ordered to stand trial and two others had their preliminary hearings postponed.

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has also come under scrutiny for registration irregularities in other states.

Now take for example the most current discovery in Minnesota, a state that was won narrowly last November… They have found that close to 3K voter registrations were illegal (not including imaginary characters like Mickey or Minnie).  They registered approximately 3K dead people!  I think the Democrats are getting their ideas from “Black Sheep” the Chris Farley movie!

A review of Minnesota’s statewide database of registered voters revealed at least 2,812 deceased individuals voted in last November’s general election, according to a new report by the “traditional values” advocacy group Minnesota Majority.

After obtaining the list of voters who participated in November’s election, the group hired an independent firm who specializes in “death suppression” for direct mailing lists to review the data. The process, which involved matching names and addresses to state death records, bore troubling results.

According to Minnesota statute 201.13, the commissioner of health is to report monthly the name, address, date of birth, and county of residence of voting-age deceased residents to the secretary of state.

Presumably the commissioner of health would not issue incomplete reports (read: no motive), the blame then falls elsewhere – namely, at the feet of Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, whose partisan leanings and curious alliance with vote fraud-magnet ACORN are becoming more salient by the day.

This needs to stop and it needs to be stopped now!  Is it that hard to have a fair election where one person = one vote?

Sign the petition!

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Obama, yesterday, launched his own news network.  Rather than allowing the White House press corps to take photos and interview the UCONN women’s team at the White House, they were denied access and told that the White House was creating their own news channel and would conduct all necessary reporting of the event themselves.

“After shaking hands with the team’s parents and members of Congress who showed up, the president walked the team over to his basketball court and shot hoops. The pool was held back from the stroll down the drive and around the corner, and couldn’t see the court. Poolers could hear periodic cheering coming from the other side of the bushes.”

Read the TV pool report: “Your Pool was not allowed to go over and shoot POTUS with the team shooting hoops.  We protested loudly.”

Now we know why: Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews, and chyrons identifying who’s speaking.

Also, just like a network, they have their own little logo!

So I have heard the term Pravda being paraded around again (the old Soviet run newspaper that meant ‘Truth’ in English), but that’s too boring, then there is OTV, of course for Obama TV, aptly named by Jake Tapper, GBCN which I figured could stand for Government Broadcasting Communism Network or my favorite, American Communism Obama Reinforcing Network or ACORN…

Whatever the name, it’s still pretty disturbing that an administration so hell-bent on controlling everything in the free market is also taking over the airwaves.  This is the socialism/communism creep; frog in a pot analogy.

What I don’t understand is that this should scare people, no matter what side of the aisle you are on, however, the Obama appeasers are still backing his every move.  If the White House or any government is putting out its own news it has to be biased.  It will be politically slanted based upon whichever party they are part of.  This is what Soviet Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, China, and Cuba do.  They do not allow dissent and they only put out “news” they deem acceptable – most of which promotes what they are doing – there can never be an opposing opinion less you end up in some prison or killed for that matter.  This is getting unbelievably ridiculous and the cult followers are getting scarier by the minute!

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” ~ Joseph Goebbels (Chief Propagandist of the National Socialist Party of Germany or Nazis)

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Two of the latest corruption/fraud stories coming out of the media, ABOUT the media, are from the New York Slimes!

I realize that this is incredibly surprising to hear about one of the most reputable news organizations in existence today, but it is important to remember that it can happen to any of us…/sarc.

The New York Times has finally admitted that it “spiked” the ACORN/Obama corrupt association story.

Acknowledging what the blogosphere has known for weeks, the New York Times finally went on record to admit that just before last Election Day it killed a politically sensitive news story involving corruption allegations that might have made the Obama campaign look bad.

But the admission on Sunday, which came seven months after NYT staff reporter Stephanie Strom’s reporting about possibly illegal coordination between the Obama campaign and ACORN last year, took the form of a snarky column from Clark Hoyt, the Old Gray Lady’s “public editor.” Hoyt used the word “nonsense” to describe the allegations of impropriety leveled against ACORN and the Obama campaign.

When isn’t the NYT snarky and condescending?  It’s not like they have the country’s or the American citizens’ best interests at heart…

A little background:

The aborted story that gave rise to the Obama/ACORN controversy centers around information provided by Anita MonCrief, a former ACORN employee whom Hoyt acknowledges “fed information to Stephanie Strom of The Times for several articles on troubles within the group.” Apparently the information MonCrief provided was good.

We know this because Strom broke a number of important stories about ACORN and surely much of the information she used came from her trusted source Anita MonCrief. In July she reported that Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million from the group. She also reported that ACORN management covered up the embezzlement for eight years, withholding information even from ACORN’s national board.

The next month Strom reported that Tides Foundation founder Drummond Pike, a comrade-in-arms of liberal philanthropist George Soros, had personally covered what remained of Wade Rathke’s debt (the embezzler had agreed to a slow-as-molasses repayment plan that would have kept him in debt well into old age).

In September Strom reported on two ACORN national board members’ lawsuit aimed at forcing ACORN to provide financial documents regarding the embezzlement.

She followed up the next month with a story on ACORN’s efforts to sever its remaining ties with its founder. (Strom reported that Wade Rathke resigned as chief organizer of ACORN. In fact, Rathke was fired, as shown in the ACORN national board’s minutes of June 20, 2008, available at page 11 of the linked PDF file.)

The same month Strom wrote about an internal memo written by ACORN’s lawyer that alerted the group to potential legal problems related to its organizational structure.

But apparently MonCrief’s information was suddenly no good when it might have embarrassed the Obama campaign.

Heidelbaugh testified before a congressional committee in March that the nonprofit group violated a host of tax, campaign finance, and other laws. She said the Obama campaign sent ACORN its “maxed out donor list” and asked two of the avowedly nonpartisan group’s employees “to reach out to the maxed out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN.”

As if the withholding of a story that size during a presidential election wasn’t enough, there is also proof of plagiarism by one of NYT’s most prominent/famous columnists; Maureen Dowd.

It was a wild Sunday for New York Times columnist. It opened with her latest column in the newspaper, which closed by declaring that she had once opposed a wide-ranging probe of the uses of torture, and who authorized and knew about it, during the Bush administration but now favored it. This brought some praise liberal news sites and bloggers often critical of Dowd.

But by mid-afternoon she was on the hot seat for using a paragraph almost word-for-word from one of the most prominent liberal bloggers, Jost Marshall of Talking Points Memo, without attribution. Charges of “plagiarism” ensued.

By early evening, Dowd had admitted wrongdoing, in an email to Huffington Post, and said she wanted to apologize to Marshall. She also said that the Times would issue a correction tomorrow — and the copy was changed in her column to attribute the line of thought to Marshall.

She seemed to be suggesting, however, that she had merely heard the line of argument from a friend, who did not attribute it to Marshall. This wouldn’t explain, however, why the rather lengthy sentence, a full paragraph, matched Marshall’s writing virtually word for word.

Can I ask why this liberal rag is still in business or is used as a credible source?

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Given all the media coverage on Pelosi and the CIA briefings it comes as no surprise that there are other big news stories going on behind the scenes.  This is typical of this administration and the liberal super majority ~ they create a crisis or a smoke screen and work fast behind the scenes to pass an agenda item without the full knowledge of the electorate.

Several items of interest have gone on over the last week or so.  Although I have not been able to post as much as I would like to, I have been keeping abreast by listening to C-Span during the weekdays and much of what I have caught is not giving me that shiny happy feeling…

Some items of note are the Census Director hearing, health care, Internet Neutrality, media bailouts, media contributions to the Obama campaign, Cap and Trade, and executive pay caps.

Census:

Robert Groves, who we reported on a while back, had his hearing on Friday, interestingly enough, no votes were taken on Friday and therefore, almost all the senators had gone home to their home states.  Groves has been associated with faulty sampling that could game the system and was deemed unconstitutional back in the 90′s.  Although he is incredibly intelligent and qualified as a statistician, ethics, morals, and integrity are required to run the Census, since it is such a sensitive department.  The Census has the capability of changing the entire political/voting landscape of a country and could have a long lasting effect that would ensure the redistricting gives the upper hand to one party over the other if not done ethically or properly.  The Census has had past associations with ACORN, the same ACORN that is facing charges of voter fraud in more than over a dozen states.  ACORN was also reported to have been marking front doors and canvassing neighborhoods using GPS as recently as last week.

Health care:

The Senate version is mandating everyone carry health care as of 2013… exempting only illegal immigrants and those opposed for religious reasons. Odd concept since in some parts of the country, it is the illegal immigrant population driving up the costs.

All employers will be mandated to provide insurance to their workers, or face a “special tax”. Additionally, the government will be mandating the four levels of coverage provided by that employer… from lowest to highest. And no annual or lifetime limitations allowed either.
Not only will the government regulate the marketing of commercial insurance premiums to families and employers, they will also regulate premium prices, allowing workers to drop out and seek a better deal…. no doubt that offered by the federal government plan.

Not enough? They plan to dictate sales commissions as well.

Under the Senate proposals, the government would regulate not only insurance products, but also the marketing of insurance and sales commissions paid to insurance agents and brokers.

Under these auspices, the private insurer – who requires a profit to stay in business – cannot compete with the government who just sucks more out of the taxpayer as their costs increase. With government mandates controlling everything from premium price for coverage to marketing, their demise is imminent. Indeed, it is being orchestrated.

One of the most notable features of the Senate proposals is that workers could drop out of an employer’s group health plan and buy private insurance on their own, outside the workplace. The employer’s normal contribution for a worker would be paid to the insurance exchange.

Democrats said that people dropping out of employer plans would, in many cases, be eligible for tax credits to defray their premiums.

Employers worry that this feature would destabilize the health plans they provide to employees.

“If people can opt out of employer-sponsored insurance and get a tax credit, that will lead to a death spiral for employer-sponsored plans,” said James P. Gelfand, senior manager of health policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce.

“People who are sick will stay in employer plans, and many young, healthy people will opt out,” Mr. Gelfand said.

The House version accomplishes something similiar, using a government “health insurance exchange” that mandates participation by all private insurers. The government would also label all insurers with “quality ratings”…. a Good “House”keeping Seal of Approval, so to speak.

Consumers could sign up for insurance at hospitals, schools, Social Security offices and state departments of motor vehicles.

~~~

Under the Democratic proposals, the government would offer tax credits to help people buy insurance. The credit would be available to people with incomes up to four times the poverty level ($88,200 for a family of four).

The government would also provide tax credits to help small businesses buy insurance for employees. The credit would be available to businesses with up to 25 employees, and businesses with the lowest-wage workers would get more aid.

Read the rest here… the report goes into detail on how Obama lied after its meeting last weekwith top health care CEOs.

The below summary encapsulates a great argument against government intervention with the health care industry and especially the single payer system.  John Lechleiter of Eli Lilly spoke before the US Chamber of Commerce on May 15, 2009.  He did not get political but stated his concern that policy makers would enforce a system that would leave out innovation and would actually create the opposite results than what would be originally intended:

In remarks before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today, John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) said that federal policymakers’ attention to access, quality and costs in health reform should also include a focus on innovation – or the results could include “unintended side-effects.” Innovation, he said, helped boost the average Americans life expectancy from 47 to 78 years, a rise of 66 percent over the past century and “unprecedented in human history.” In his keynote speech before a group of business, government and health care representatives, Lechleiter identified specific policy proposals and their implications for patients and for developing breakthrough treatments and cures.

“Encouraging innovation needs to be the purpose of U.S. health care reform, not its victim,” Lechleiter said. “It’s innovation that explains why we are the healthiest, longest-lived and wealthiest human beings ever to occupy the planet.”

But, he asserted, if heath care reform does not encourage innovation, “then the important goals of expanding access, improving quality and controlling costs will prove illusory.”

He cited a Columbia University study that analyzed data from 52 countries and showed that, controlling for other factors, the availability of new medicines alone accounted for 40 percent of the increase in life expectancy during the 1980s and 1990s. He said the medical advances of the past century that made life-expectancy and quality-of-life gains possible included the invention of:

–  Antibiotics to cure infections
–  Vaccines that have nearly eradicated several conditions, such as polio
–  Effective treatments for a growing number of cancers, and
–  Medications that have lessened the toll of a number of dreaded diseases,
such that they are now considered chronic, manageable conditions.

He then observed, “The economic payback from these gains is difficult to overstate. The payback is years of productive work, economic value added, consumer spending and tax dollars paid – which together outweighs the costs of treatment overwhelmingly – even if you resist the idea of putting a number on the intrinsic value of being alive.”

Lechleiter expressed hope for similar future gains, but he pointed to major bellwethers warning that innovation is at risk:

–  The pharmaceutical industry, he said, is “in the midst of a wave of
defensive consolidations that will leave the world with even fewer
entities capable of taking an idea — a discovery — and turning it into
a medicine approved for patients.”
–  “Half of the smaller biotech firms in the U.S. have less than a
year of [operating] cash remaining, and a third are down to their last
six months”; and
–  Recent FDA new drug approvals have dropped sharply relative to the past
30 years.

Lechleiter rounded out his speech with a closer look at several areas of public policy under which, depending on the path taken in health reform, innovation will be enhanced or curbed. Prefacing his policy prescriptions, he said: “When it comes to sustaining innovation, the burden remains on us — as it should. We’re not asking for a handout or a bailout. Instead, businesses that live or die by health care innovation in the U.S. ask only that we be allowed to continue doing just that: proving the value of what we’ve developed or failing in the marketplace.”

He urged all stakeholders engaged in health reform to ensure that:

–  The value of medicines is evaluated by doctors and patients, who, when
properly informed, can choose from the available alternatives a drug
that’s medically appropriate and best for the individual patient;
–  Innovators get a return on investment that accurately reflects the value
of the innovations delivered, thus encouraging investment in new
treatments and cures for patients; and
–  Innovators retain ownership, for a reasonable period of time, of their
intellectual property, to provide the necessary incentives for
risk-taking that leads to innovation.

Such an approach to public policy, he contended, would usher in:

–  An era of “personalized medicine,” which would tap the
insights of the Human Genome Project and replace the usual
one-size-fits-all approach;
–  Market-based health reforms, including access to insurance for all
Americans, supported by public subsidies and tax credits rather than a
government-run option;
–  Solid comparative effectiveness research that informs on the benefits,
risks and costs of various treatment options but that does not trump
physician judgment, deny patients access to needed treatments or mandate
prices;
–  A 14-year data protection period for biologic drugs, which balances the
prospect of a return on investment with a clear path to lower-cost
copies.  The bipartisan “Pathways for Biosimilars Act” in
Congress takes this approach.

Internet Nuetrality and Google’s Power:

C-Span video here…

Google can pick and choose what sites can be in their searches or what will appear at the top of pages during those searches etc.  There is quite a bit of information in this video.  Google is also lobbying to be exempt from anti-trust laws.  Obama received a lot of money from Google and Silicon Valley so there is a good chance that he will possibly rule in favor of Google.  If Google is not held to anti-trust laws this could be a huge problem for any differing ideologies.

Media Bailouts (Exception to Anti-Trust Laws & Tax Cuts):

As Fox News and the Wall Street Journal increase reader and viewership, the liberally biased media continues to slip in ratings and consumers.  The serious issue at hand with government media bailouts is the slant of information.  The media would openly be in the pocket of government and would act as an arm of a particular party.  This begins to look more and more like Pravda, the propaganda….errr… media of Stalin & the USSR.  I say openly, because currently, much of the media is ultra liberal and is already a part of the DNC.

I am a strong believer in free enterprise and free markets, therefore, I adamantly disagree with bailing out any entity because it causes bias and goes against the basic principles of doing business in a capitalist society.  If a company cannot create a valuable business model it should file bankruptcy, plain and simple – this has caused a nation of lazy, complacent, entitled enterprises and individuals – moral hazard has become the norm.

Four of the suggestions coming out of the policy makers (Kerry):

– Bring copyright laws into the age of the search engine. Taking a portion of a copyrighted work can be protected under the “fair use” doctrine. But the kind of fair use in news reports, academics and the arts — republishing a quote to comment on it, for example — is not what search engines practice when they crawl the Web and ingest everything in their path.

Publishers should not have to choose between protecting their copyrights and shunning the search-engine databases that map the Internet. Journalism therefore needs a bright line imposed by statute: that the taking of entire Web pages by search engines, which is what powers their search functions, is not fair use but infringement.

Such a rule would be no more bold a step than the one Congress took in 1996 rewriting centuries of traditional libel law for the benefit of tech start-ups. It would take away from search engines the “just opt out” mantra — repeated by Google’s witness during the Kerry hearings — and force them to negotiate with copyright holders over the value of their content.

– Federalize the “hot news” doctrine. This doctrine protects against types of poaching that copyright might not cover — the stealing of information not by direct copying but simply by taking the guts of the content. While the Internet has made news vulnerable to pilfering because of the ease of linking from one site to the next, the hot-news doctrine has limited use because it is only recognized in a few states.

Now that many news aggregator sites have taken “linksploitation” to a commercial level by selling ads wrapped around the links they post, Congress has the incentive it needs to pass a federal law protecting hot news. Such a law would give publishers an additional source of legal leverage outside of copyright to demand fair compensation for the content they create.

– Eliminate ownership restrictions. Media insolvency is a greater threat today than media concentration. Congress should abolish caps on ownership of broadcast stations and bars on newspaper and television ownership in the same market. These outdated rules belong to an era when the Web was a home for spiders.

– Grant an antitrust exemption. Congress first came to journalism’s defense with antitrust relief in 1970, when it permitted endangered newspapers to combine their business operations without fear of antitrust suits if their newsrooms remained independent.

As noted in the Kerry hearing, publishers need collective pricing policies for their Web sites to finally break out of the expectation of free content that is afflicting the industry. Antitrust immunity is necessary because most individual news sites can’t go it alone by walling off their content for fees — readers will simply jump to sites that are still free.

A temporary antitrust shelter would serve the public interest by enabling the industry to take steps today to preserve for tomorrow the journalism that benefits us all.

Individual states (Washington) are also giving some unfair treatment to their media by only cutting taxes for those entities and not other businesses.

– Use tax policy to promote the press. Washington state is taking a lead in the current crisis with legislation signed into law this week to slash business taxes on the press by 40 percent. Congress could provide incentives for placing ads with content creators (not with Craigslist) and allowances for immediate write-offs (rather than capitalization) for all expenses related to news production.

Yippeee!  And this is what Obama has to say on the matter:

What about those media contributions?

Follow the money.

Some people say rich millionaires own the networks so they support the GOP. That is not true.  They’re not owned by a lotta rich Republicans.

Actually, they’re owned by publicly held corporations. General Electric owns NBC, Disney owns ABC, Viacom owns CBS.

Follow the money. (And at the bottom see where FOX News owner News Corp gave it’s money. You will be surprised.)

The entire music/movie/tv industry gave to Mr. Obama $8.6 million dollars.
(I’ve spent a lotta time accumulating this information from Open Secrets at http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?cycle=2008&cid;… so I hope it’s of value to you.)

Follow the money.

Here is NBC and ABC breakdown. Didn’t have available CBS (Viacom)

Jeffrey Immelt who is the CEO of GE (NBC) and its PAC have contributed millions of dollars to the DNC and to the Obama campaign.
It gave a million and a half to Dems and about 800,000 to Republicans. $400,000 directly to candidate Obama, and about 80,000 to McCain.
A sister company of NBC, GE Financials (also owned by GE) gave it’s total contribution limits to Democrats. GE Financials is also getting a huge chunk back from the bank bailout.

MSNBC? Follow the money.

Interestingly, the third top contributor to Mr. Obama was Microsoft. Ever hear of MSNBC? And you wonder why it has a liberal slant? $800,000 to Obama from Microsoft, and $400,000 from GE (NBC). Thus the owners of MSNBC (Microsoft and GE) gave candidate Obama $1.2 million in soft money. Other PACS and organizations of GE and Microsoft also contributed to Mr. Obama.

Disney (ABC) gave $300,00 to Obama, $84,00 to Hillary and $21,000 to McCain.

Democrats are the biggest recipient of money from the companies that own broadcasting networks.

Follow the money.

The entire motion picture industry gave $12.7 million to Dems and $1.3 million to GOP.

Commercial TV gave $3.3 million to Dems and $2.2 million to GOP.

Viacom (CBS) is much harder to analyze, but I’ll get back to that.

So, if you follow the money, major broadcasting networks are big time sources of campaign money for Democrats.

Oh, and FOX News? Owned by the News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch? It gave $1.5 million dollars in contributions to campaigns, 68% of that went to Democrats, or roughly about $1.02 million dollars. Less than a half million went to GOP.

Cap and Trade:

The latest IBD/TIPP poll shows that cap and trade is a no go in the public eye.  More people are beginning to understand what it actually entails/means.  Indiana has also found a way around cap and trade this past week.

However, the Obama administration seems as though it may want to advance this agenda, but just under a different name.

How does the “The Clean Energy Divide” sound to you?

The Obama administration is exploring alternative names for cap and trade legislation.

People don’t really know what cap and trade means, but they don’t like it. So a new name is being concocted to gather support for the legislation.

It doesn’t look like the names “carbon tax” or “regressive tax” are in the mix, though. How does “clean energy divide” grab you?

WSJ: Seeking to bolster public support for climate legislation, the Obama administration is consulting pollsters who advocate avoiding phrases such as “cap-and-trade” and “global warming.” On Monday, the White House Council on Environmental Quality was scheduled to meet with Robert Perkowitz, president of ecoAmerica, a Washington-based nonprofit that uses “psychographic research” to “shift personal and civic choices of environmentally agnostic Americans,” according to its Web site.

“We’re trying to give them phrases that work,” Mr. Perkowitz said in an interview. He said that in a survey of some 2,000 Americans conducted by his group in March and April, less than half of the respondents said they would support a “cap-and-trade” policy, and that only 24% said they knew what the phrase means. “If you call it ‘clean energy dividend’…almost anything other than ‘cap and trade,’ you’ll get people responding a lot more favorably,” he said.

Isn’t that nice?  let’s trick the American people so we can still strap the poor and the middle class with tax hikes to obtain our faulty liberal green agenda so Al Gore can receive a bunch of profits as well as GE, Google and Microsoft…

Executive Pay Caps:

The Obama administration has begun serious talks about how it can change compensation practices across the financial-services industry, including at companies that did not receive federal bailout money, according to people familiar with the matter.

The initiative, which is in its early stages, is part of an ambitious and likely controversial effort to broadly address the way financial companies pay employees and executives, including an attempt to more closely align pay with long-term performance.

Administration and regulatory officials are looking at various options, including using the Federal Reserve’s supervisory powers, the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission and moral suasion. Officials are also looking at what could be done legislatively.

Socialism?  Fascism?  You be the judge…

Actually, just keep looking away and don’t pay attention to what’s really going on behind the scenes – rather watch the below video instead:

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