John Fund on “Obama’s Chicago Way”

An interesting –and frustrating– article by John Fund today about how the roiling scandals of the Obama administration are finally beginning to convince journalists that, instead of a Unicorn Prince who would deliver us all to an age of enlightened progressivism that actually worked, what we got (and they moved heaven and earth to elect) was a national version of the Chicago machine:

The scandals swirling around the Obama administration have many journalists scratching their heads as to how “hope and change” seem to have been supplanted by “arrogance and fear.” Perhaps it’s time they revisit one of their original premises about Barack Obama: that he wasn’t influenced by the Chicago Daley machine. You know: the machine that boosted his career and whose protégés — including Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and his wife, Michelle — he brought to Washington with him.

The liberal take on the president was best summed up by Slate magazine’s Jacob Weisberg, who wrote last year that Obama “somehow passed through Chicago politics without ever developing any real connection to it.” It’s true that Obama initially kept some distance from the machine. But by the time he ran for the Senate in 2004, his main political Sherpas were Axelrod, who was then the chief consultant to Mayor Richard M. Daley, and Jarrett, the mayor’s former deputy chief of staff. As Scott Simon of NPR noted: “While calling for historic change globally, [Obama] has never professed to be a reformer locally.” The Daley machine, which evolved over 60 years from a patronage-rich army of worker bees into a corporate state in which political pull and public-employee unions dominate, has left its imprint on Obama. The machine’s core principle, laid out in an illuminating Chicago Independent Examiner primer on “the Chicago Way,” is that at all times elections are too important to be left to chance. John Kass, the muckraking columnist for the Chicago Tribune who for years has warned that Obama was bringing “the Chicago way” to Washington, sums up his city like this: “Once there were old bosses. Now there are new bosses. And shopkeepers still keep their mouths shut. Tavern owners still keep their mouths shut. Even billionaires keep their mouths shut.”

“We have a sick political culture, and that’s the environment Barack Obama came from,” Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, warned ABC News when Obama ran in 2008. He noted that Obama had “been noticeably silent on the issue of corruption here in his home state.”

Part of the frustration I mentioned is that so many tried to tell the press that this guy could not have arisen from Chicago’s corrupt political culture without being dirtied himself by it — indeed, becoming part of it. Fund quotes several, and I’d add to that Michelle Malkin who, I think, coined “Chicago on the Potomac” to describe the Obama administration, and David Freddoso, whose “The Case Against Barack Obama” accurately laid out in 2008 what we’re now seeing take place under the bright lights of the national stage…. but too few paid any attention.

Where I think Fund, or, more accurately, journalist Chris Robling, whom he quotes, is off the track a bit is where we see this:

“Obama’s ideology may come from Saul Alinsky’s acolytes, but his political tactics come straight from the Daley playbook.”

…as if they’re separate streams. Actually, it’s more like they sprang from the same poisoned well; Daley and Alinsky may share the same political tactics, but Alinsky added the leftism, putting the urge to power at the service of an ideology. There’s a good article at Breitbart, “The Community Organizer in Chief, Part One: The Alinsky Ethics.” Worth reading for its own sake, Lee Stranahan quotes this gem from Alinsky’s Playboy interview:

Alinsky then goes on to boast about his association with the Chicago Mob, including Al Capone and Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti, who Alinsky says he called “The Professor.” Alisnky approached the criminals under the guise of doing student research. Nitti and the other mobsters not only accepted Alisnky but actually revealed everything about their operation to him. This included extortion and murder. 

“PLAYBOY: Didn’t you have any compunction about consorting with — if not actually assisting — murderers?

ALINSKY: None at all, since there was nothing I could do to stop them from murdering, practically all of which was done inside the family. I was a nonparticipating observer in their professional activities, although I joined their social life of food, drink and women: Boy, I sure participated in that side of things — it was heaven. “

Now there’s a moral precept for you; when there are no men, be thou an observer who shares food, drink and women. 

Alinsky continues:

“And let me tell you something, I learned a hell of a lot about the uses and abuses of power from the Mob, lessons that stood me in good stead later on, when I was organizing.”

So is revealed the real face of Community Organizing for you: the ethics of Al Capone.

The ethics of Al Capone (just under a more respectable guise with the Daleys) blended with Alinskyite Socialism and taken to Washington, D.C.

Obama’s “Chicago Way.”

Shocking? Insider trading on #Obamacare, facilitated by the White House?

I use the question mark because, at this point, after stomping on freedom of speech in the IRS scandal and the utter cynicism behind the Benghazi cover-up, I’m not so sure I’d really be shocked by plain-old cronyism. In fact, a little workaday graft might be refreshing.

Time to call the SEC?

Wall Street investors hungry for advance information on upcoming federal health-care decisions repeatedly held private discussions with Obama administration officials, including a top White House adviser helping to implement the Affordable Care Act.

The private conversations show that the increasingly urgent race to acquire“political intelligence” goes beyond the communications with congressional staffers that have become the focus of heightened scrutiny in recent weeks.

White House records show that Elizabeth Fowler, then a top ­health-policy adviser to President Obama, met with executives from half a dozen investment firms in 2011 and 2012. Among them was Kris Jenner, a stock picker with T. Rowe Price Investment Services who managed its $6 billion Health Sciences Fund.

Separately, an officialin the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid spoke in December with managers of hedge funds, pension plans and mutual funds in a conference call. The official, Andrew Shin, was pressed during the 50-minute call for information about upcoming Medicare decisions but declined to discuss matters still under agency review, according to people familiar with the call.

That call and the White House meetings Fowler attended were arranged by political-intelligence firms, an expanding class of consultants in Washington that specialize in providing government information to Wall Street.

But they deny anything hinky or downright corrupt went on. So there. That’s settled. And, besides, they don’t remember.

But didn’t Obama say something about “punishing our enemies and rewarding our friends?”

Sounds like this might be “part B.”  

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

America’s #IRS: the true agent of voter suppression?

Democrats and their Leftist allies in the racial grievance industry have long claimed that efforts to require identification in order to vote, a measure meant to protect the integrity of elections, were really meant to suppress minority voters, even equating them with Jim Crow laws.

We all know this is noxious nonsense, of course, but what if there really was an effort to suppress a particular group’s votes, and what if that effort were carried out not by modern-day descendants of Bull Conner with whips and dogs, but by an arm of the US government using bureaucracy to discourage people from participating in the political process?

And what if it was the IRS?

NRO’s John Fund, who’s written extensively on election integrity matters, explains:

But it now turns out there may have suppression of the vote after all. “It looks like a lot of tea-party groups were less active or never got off the ground because of the IRS actions,” Wisconsin governor Scott Walker told me. “Sure seems like people were discouraged by it.”

Indeed, several conservative groups I talked with said they were directly impacted by having their non-profit status delayed by either IRS inaction or burdensome and intrusive questioning. At least two donors told me they didn’t contribute to True the Vote, a group formed to combat voter fraud, because after three years of waiting the group still didn’t have its status granted at the time of the 2012 election. (While many of the targeted tea-party groups were seeking to become 501(c)(4)s, donations to which are not tax-deductible, True the Vote sought to become a 501(c)(3).) This week, True the Vote sued the IRS in federal court, asking a judge to enjoin the agency from targeting anyone in the future.

Cleta Mitchell, True the Vote’s lawyer, says we’ll never know just how much political activity was curtailed by the IRS targeting. She has one client who wanted to promote reading of the Constitution, but who didn’t even hear back from the IRS for three years – until last Monday, when the IRS informed this client that some questions would be sent.

“I was about to file with the IRS when other tea-party groups started to get harassed,” Pennsylvania activist Jennifer Stefano told Time magazine. “I remember checking with the IRS to see if they wanted the group [Facebook] page or my personal page, and they said ‘All of it.’”

Even if this wasn’t enough to throw the 2012 election Obama’s way (although White voter turnout was way down from 2008 to 2012), Fund makes it clear that many activist groups had their efforts hampered, some to the point of giving up altogether, by the IRS harassment. And the effect of that on get-out-the-vote and voter-education efforts could be substantial.

It’s one of the issues Congress has to address while dealing with this scandal: in addition to targeting Americans for holding “unapproved” political opinions and trampling on their rights of free speech, the IRS’ actions threaten public confidence in the integrity of our elections, themselves.

It’s the Chicago Way taken nationwide.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#WarOnJournalism: Who’s been snooping in Sharyl Attkisson’s computers?

Hmmm… Maybe FOX’s James Rosen and the AP aren’t the only targets of the White House’s ire? Here’s a radio interview CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson did with WPHT’s Chris Stigall in which she mentions unknown parties have accessed her home and work computers since February, 2011:

You’ll recall that both my blog-buddy ST and I have mentioned Attkisson several times on our blogs for being one of the few remaining MSM reporters actually willing to hold the administration to account for their actions, Fast & Furious and Benghazi being the most notable. She so got under their skin that, as Allahpundit reminds us, a DoJ official screamed and cursed at her over the phone. Attkisson herself has recently said that she has been shut out by her White House sources. There have been rumors (1) that David Rhodes, president of CBS News  and brother of Ben Rhodes, a would-be fiction writer and now an Obama national security deeply involved in Benghazi, might fire Attkisson for being too aggressive in her coverage of the White House… where his brother works.

Keep in mind that the DoJ got access to James Rosen’s GMail account by affirming to a judge that they believed he was engaged in a criminal conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act, and then got a court order forbidding Google from telling Rosen of the access. And now we hear that somebody has been accessing Attkisson’s computers.

What was going on in February 2011? The Fast and Furious scandal, having been rumored for months, was finally breaking into the mainstream news, and Attkisson was filing stories that weren’t settling for administration spin.

And about that same time, she gets hacked.

What. A. Coincidence.

Footnote:
(1) Attkisson has said there has been no pressure from any CBS News executive regarding her Benghazi reporting.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: Obama met with Treasury union chief the day before the targeting began

It could be a coincidence: a meeting between a very union-friendly president and the head of the union that includes IRS employees, a union described as very “anti-Tea Party,” and then the very next day the IRS begins targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups, stalling their applications for non-profit status:

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st.

The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this way:

“Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30″

In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:

“April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.”

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

I’m not yet ready to call this a “smoking gun,” but I do think Ms. Kelley should be hauled before the Ways and Means committee and made to answer some very pointed questions about their conversation and just what, if any, instructions or “encouragements” were given to her union members.

But I’m sure this is all one big coincidence.

via Jim Hoft.

RELATED: John Fund on “Three signs there’s a cover-up.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: Officials in Washington, California targeted Tea Party groups

Hey, remember when IRS official Lois Lerner said that only a wayward local office in Cincinnati was improperly investigating conservative groups?

Yeah, well… about that:

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.

IRS employees in Cincinnati also told conservatives seeking the status of “social welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists.

Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, told reporters on Friday the “absolutely inappropriate” actions were undertaken by “front-line people” working in Cincinnati to target groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names.

In one instance, however, Ron Bell, an IRS employee, informed an attorney representing a conservative group focused on voter fraud that the application was under review in Washington. On several other occasions, IRS officials in D.C. and California sent detailed questionaires to conservative groups asking more than a dozen questions about their voter outreach and other activities, according to the documents.

“For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false,” said Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the law firm Foley & Lardner LLP who sought to communicate with IRS headquarters about the delay in granting tax-exempt status to True the Vote.

“True the Vote” is an organization dedicated to election integrity and fight vote fraud. What a shock it was hassled during… an election year.

So, we’ve gone from “front-line people” to the agency’s General Counsel, one step below the Commissioner, who, um… testified there was no such thing going on.

Except there was, and it wasn’t just local and it wasn’t just “front-line people.”

Between this, Benghazi, the DoJ-AP scandal, and the budding Sebelius/HHS solicitations scandal, this week has already turned bad for Team Hopenchange.

Can’t wait to see what comes out between now and Friday. 

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Shock and surprise: Diane Feinstein’s husband’s company lands big high-speed rail contract

“Train wreck”

Because, at nearly $35,000,000 per mile, they surely had to be the cheapest:

Out of the entire universe of those who could have won the first phase construction contract for California’s high speed rail boondoggle, who would stand out as the last person who would win it if there were no political patronage.

Put another way, who is the most likely person to win it if there is political patronage?

Both questions have the same answer: Richard Blum, the husband of California senator Diane Feinstein.

So, who won the contract? Blum, of course, as the principle owner of Tutor Perini, the lead firm in the three-firm consortium selected by the California High Speed Rail Authority.

Yes, Diane, it really does look that bad to us little people.

The group lead by Tutor Perini bid $985,000,000 to build the initial 29-mile stretch, roughly from Fresno to Madera, which doesn’t include the costs for electrification and land purchase. And, as Laer points out at Crazifornia, they started with this section because it’s the cheapest. (I can’t wait to see what the bids are to lay track through the mountain passes…)

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the principle owner of the company is husband to a powerful United States senator, who happens to be from the state building said rail system. I mean, it’s not as if there have been any allegations of self-dealing before.

I’m about as shocked as Louis was in Casablanca:

via Katy Grimes

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Chicago cops for rent?

And that’s not a metaphor for police corruption; these are uniformed police officers “financially sponsored” by individual citizens or groups. In other words, rented:

A philanthropist or business could sponsor a police beat and put more off-duty cops on the streets under a plan being put forth by a downtown Chicago lawmaker on the City Council.

Alderman Brendan Reilly originally pitched the idea last October but is pushing it again following weekend incidents of teen mob activity on the Magnificent Mile, an upscale area of the city.

Under his plan, off-duty officers would work minimum six-hour shifts and make $30 an hour. The money would be paid by businesses, civic groups and churches at a time when city finances are stretched thin. The officers would be in full uniform and under the command of police supervisors.

“This is a way to make use of well-trained police officers who are moonlighting doing other things, bringing them back on the street to do what they do best, which is great police work,” Reilly said.

To say this is a bad idea would be to insult bad ideas. Moe Lane provides one answer to “what could go wrong?”

Those would be rented cops, and the difference will become clear the moment that somebody very important from one of those “businesses, civic groups and churches” happens to commit a trivial, surely-not-worth-mentioning, purely technical violation of the law.

Look at it another way: Order in a society such as ours depends on the law being applied equally — blindfolded Justice holding the scales, and such. And that includes the police serving all the public, because, in large part, all the public pays for the police. While we all know there are imperfections and exceptions, the acceptance that this is generally so is important to social order.

Alderman Reilly’s proposal, regardless of his protests otherwise, would break that perception. I don’t care how much anyone might say “they’re still Chicago police and they still enforce the law,” the fact is that their pay will come from individuals, not the public. As Alexander Hamilton said:

In the main it will be found that a power over a man’s support (salary) is a power over his will.

In other words, “You work for me.”

You can imagine what wonders this could work on a society based on the rule of law and its equal application.

That a loony idea such as this can even be floated is indicative of how far down the drain liberal, Blue-model governance has taken a once-great city like Chicago. (Detroit, on the other hand, is at the end of that drain…) The city’s finances are so strapped by out of control pension costs and greedy unions, as well as businesses fleeing high-tax Illinois, that they are having trouble paying for basic services such as police.

Is the next step RoboCop?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Mere coincidence: campaign contributions lead to government loans?

“Obama loan officer at work.”

Say it ain’t so! “Cause for Action,” which bills itself as a “government accountability” group, took a look at “green energy” loans made by the Department of Energy (1) and found a (not so) surprising correlation between energy companies that made campaign donations and those that were awarded loans (2).

Cronyism in the halls of Chicago-on-the-Potomac? You make the call:

Could the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program  be characterized as a breeding ground for cronyism in the distribution of loans through the 1703, 1705, and Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Guarantee Programs? (3)

Cause of Action was able to determine, through publicly available data combined with a FOIA production, that for corporations who have received a loan guarantee of any amount, the likelihood that it made campaign contributions increases significantly. Of the data available, 95% (.95) of DOE loan recipients with less than $1 billion in annual revenue documented political contributions by the organization or senior level staff. Comparatively, only 31% (.319489) of similarly sized organizations that did not receive loans made political contributions in one way or another.

So, winners who happened to make contributions outnumbered losing donors by more than three to one. As they used to say on Laugh-in, “verrrryyy interesting!”

Now, you’ll note the report does not say to whom the donations went. But, look at it this way: parties that lose elections rarely get to hand out the big bucks.

But only a racist would see cronyism, here.

via Steven Hayward, who has other examples of Green failures.

Footnotes:
(1) Until recently headed by Steven Chu, of Solyndra fame. Those Obama “investments” sure pay off, don’t they?
(2) Also known as taxpayer (that’s us) money either taken from us directly or borrowed on our credit.
(3) That last is, I believe, the program under which electric car-manufacturers Tesla and Fisker got their Green loans. Oddly, principals at both companies are big Obama donors. Small world, eh?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#Benghazi — There are still a few genuine reporters left

The dead would like answers, too.

Some of you may recall that I’ve in the past praised Sharyl Attkisson of CBS for her work on the Fast and Furious scandal. For a long time, she was almost the only MSM reporter asking serious questions about what happened in that “felony stupid” fiasco

Sharyl’s also been digging into the massacre at our consulate in Benghazi last September 11th, in which our ambassador and three other Americans died at the hands of Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists. While she’s had plenty of questions for the White House, the most transparent administration ever has given no answers. Frustrated with the stonewalling, Attkisson yesterday took to Twitter to ask her questions before the public. Here are is a series of particular interest to me:

A Benghazi victim’s family member stated that Mrs. Clinton told him she would find and arrest whoever made the anti-Islam video. ..

— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) January 22, 2013

Remember that guy who was rousted out of his home by the LA Sheriffs in the dark of the night because he had the temerity to exercise his right to free speech? (Please, the parole violation was just a fig leaf of an excuse, if that.) That’s who Attkisson is talking about.

To continue:

. Is this accurate? If so, what was Mrs. Clinton’s understanding at the time of what would be the grounds for arrest?..

— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) January 22, 2013

…and…

The Administration is reported to have asked that the anti-Islamist YouTube video initially blamed in Benghazi be removed from YouTube…

— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) January 22, 2013

Love this next one:

.. If true, what is the Administration’s view regarding other videos or future material that it may wish were not published, but are legal?

— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) January 22, 2013

And finally…

What is the Administration’s criteria in general for requesting removal of a YouTube or other Internet video?

— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) January 22, 2013

Naturally, the mooks of Chicago-on-the-Potomac have refused to answer any of these or Attkisson’s other questions.

Secretary Clinton is scheduled to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee today on the Benghazi massacre… assuming she doesn’t have another concussion. I would right a fat check to any congressman on the committee who asked Clinton these questions, refused to let her dodge answering, and demanded to know how, in her opinion, the video maker’s arrest and imprisonment comports with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and his natural right of free speech. (1)

Meanwhile, I’ll continue hoping for more real reporters like Sharyl Attkisson, instead of the progressive cheering section that comprises most of the MSM. (Not that I’ll hold my breath; none of these questions are difficult to think of. The media’s shame is that there are so few willing to ask them.)

via Ace, who has a great post on “old school journalism.”

Footnote:
(1) Again, don’t try to tell me this was all over a parole violation. If you believe that, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

UPDATE: Clinton has begun her opening statement — no mention of the video maker’s arrest.  As Bryan Preston concludes, it’s either “stunningly incomplete, if not blatantly dishonest.“

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Cynical minds think alike, @jimgeraghty edition

Writing in today’s issue of his Morning Jolt newsletter (1), National Review reporter Jim Geraghty gave his impression of the deeper meaning of Vice President Biden’s task force on gun violence and its likely recommendations:

If I were truly cynical, I would think that the Obama White House would prefer to put forth a package of reforms that was rejected by House Republicans (and a few Democrats) so that every high-profile shooting between now and November 2014 can be blamed on John Boehner and those unreasonable, uncompromising House Republicans.

Nah, they wouldn’t be so callous as to exploit human deaths that way, would they?

Like the sun rises in the East.

Footnote:
(1) Sorry, it’s an email newsletter, so no direct link. But you can subscribe for free! And you should, otherwise the cool kids will all laugh at you.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Peaceful union supporters threaten blood and civil war

Democracy, union-style.

Forget the rule of law. This is rule by fist:

Jimmy Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said Tuesday he expects Michigan unions and lawmakers to break out into “civil war” after the state legislature passed right-to-work bills that would weaken unions’ power.

“This is just the first round of a battle that’s going to divide this state. We’re going to have a civil war,” Hoffa said on CNN’s “Newsroom.”

The Republican-controlled state House passed two bills that had already been approved by the GOP-dominated state Senate. Gov. Rick Snyder, also a Republican, is poised to sign the bill, which would allow workers at union-represented employers to forgo paying dues.

As thousands of protestors gathered at the state capitol on Tuesday, Hoffa called the legislation a “tremendous mistake” and “a monumental decision to make” by outgoing lawmakers in a lame duck session.

“What they’re doing is basically betraying democracy,” he told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin. “If there’s any question here, let’s put it on the ballot and let the people of Michigan decide what’s good for Michigan.”

Proponents of the legislation say it gives workers more freedom, while opponents say a less robust union presence will negatively affect workers’ rights. Hoffa also argued that those who don’t pay union dues will be considered “free riders,” as they’re getting the same benefits from union representation without the cost.

Hoffa pointed to Michigan’s recovering auto industry, saying the Wolverine State has bounced back from the recession without being a “right to work” state.

“This is basically a step backward,” he argued.

(CNN via Zero Hedge)

And if anyone knows about thuggery and violence, it’s a Hoffa.

What Jimmy Junior is saying here is, in a nutshell, that the duly-elected representatives of the people of Michigan, acting in accordance with their state’s constitution, have no right to amend the state’s labor laws. Even though there is strong evidence that the people have already spoken. Under the Hoffa theory of democracy, the mob has the vote and the veto, and he who has the biggest, most violent mob wins. The only debate that counts is “me” outshouting “you,” which means I win.

So, shut up or I’ll kill you.

Now, you’d think this attack on constitutionalism, the rule of law, and representative democracy would draw the united condemnation of the state’s legislators, who are sworn to uphold the US and Michigan constitutions.

Think again:

“There will be blood,” State Representative Douglas Geiss threatened from the floor of the Michigan House of Representatives today as the body debated legislation that would make Michigan the nation’s 24th right to work state.

“I really wish we had not gone here,” Geiss continued. “It is the leadership in this house that has led us here. The same leadership that tried to throw a bomb right on election day, leading to a member switching parties, and came in at the 11th hour with a gotcha bill. For that, I do not see solace, I do not see peace.”

This isn’t democracy or republicanism: it’s mob rule. It’s extortion — “Nice state you have there. Shame if something happened to it.” It’s intimidation, using the threat of violence to impose their will. Now, where have I seen this before?

We know why they’re doing this, of course. It’s not because the union leadership and their Democratic allies are worried about workers’ wages and working conditions: right to work states have been shown to have slightly higher wages and better job choices. And most if not all states have workplace safety and worker’s compensation laws on the books. It’s not as if right-to-work will mean a return to a dime-a-day and child labor. They would still have the right, as every worker should, to form a union and press for collective bargaining. And they still would have the right to withhold their labor should conditions not be satisfactory.

No, what the union bosses and their politician allies are frightened of is the prospect of losing the millions they collected in forced exactions (dues) from their members, money which is then funneled to pliant politicians in the form of campaign contributions and other political spending, in return for laws benefiting the unions at the expense of the taxpayers and regardless of the economic consequences to the state.

They fear the end of their kickback racket.

Whatever the noble origins and ends of trade unionism, we’re seeing now the true face of the corruption that’s overtaken it. Faced with long-term decline, perhaps irreversible if left to the free market, they can only maintain their power in places where law compels membership and tribute.

Threaten that, and they promise blood.

RELATED: What is it with union goons and their hatred for Black small businessmen? First it was Kenneth Gladney, beaten by an SEIU mob in Missouri a few years ago, and now they’ve wrecked the business of Clint Tarver, who ran a hot dog cart outside the state capitol in Lansing. Shouldn’t be surprised I guess; unions have a long history (PDF) of racism. If you want to help Mr. Tarver rebuild his business, click here.

ALSO: Patterico on the Stalinist effort by the online Left to whitewash the violence in Lansing and blame the victim.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

OfA shocked -SHOCKED!!- to find vote fraud going on in its offices

Following up on this story, I guess O’Keefe’s videos exposing corrupt behavior in ACORN and Planned Parenthood offices have made the DNC/Obama campaign (1) a little… sensitive to pain:

The Democratic National Committee has terminated the employment of Houston, Texas, Organizing For America Regional Field Director Stephanie Caballero after she was caught on camera calling voter fraud “cool” and “so funny” while advising a presumably-liberal voter how to vote twice.

In a comment to the liberal Talking Points Memo, DNC spokeswoman Melanie Roussell accused James O’Keefe and Project Veritas of selectively editing their videos – but admitted that what Caballero did on his tape was wrong and she’s now been fired.

They obviously haven’t learned the whole lesson, though. You never, ever accuse O’Keefe and Project Veritas of selective editing, because then they release the whole video and, well, the pain gets worse.

Not that I have much sympathy for them. None at all, in fact.

Via Moe Lane, who notes that this is apparently the first in a series of videos.

Footnote:
(1) But I repeat myself.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obama campaign staff caught abetting double voting. UPDATE: correction

Oh, my. James O’Keefe of ACORN and Planned Parenthood fame strikes again:

James O’Keefe has done it again — this time capturing video of a paid Obama Organizing for America director in Houston, Texas, assisting a double-voting scheme directed toward Florida. In the video, an undercover Obama “volunteer”  tells Organizing for America’s Stephanie Caballero that she wanted to vote twice to help reelect President Obama.

The undercover “volunteer” tells Caballero, “I’m going to vote by ballot and then I have mine here too.”

After the volunteer tells Caballero her plan, Caballero volunteers to help the double voter get the forms to request an absentee ballot in Florida. “I’ll print that out and you just have to mail it back,” Caballero says.

The undercover “volunteer” says, “I don’t want to get in any trouble, but like I said, if no one’s gonna know.”

The paid Obama Organizing for America director’s response: [Laughter] “Oh my God this is so funny! It’s cool though!”

(…)

Later, when the plan to vote twice is put into effect, Caballero coyly and laughingly asks: “Are you going to do what I think you are going to do?” — namely vote twice. When the volunteer says, “Well, if no one is going to know.” Caballero then prints out and gives the forms to the volunteer to vote twice.

Be sure to click through for the video.

The article’s author, former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams, points out the far, far left connections of Ms. Caballero and asks a pertinent question, one posed by O’Keefe himself in the video: What proof is there that this is just, as OfA will inevitably claim, an “isolated incident?”

That’s why we need a large turnout on Election Day — we have to get past the margin of theft, something the Left is all too willing to engage in.

CORRECTION: Thanks to Legal Insurrection, I’ve discovered OfA is not technically the Obama campaign itself, but an arm of the DNC formed by Obama. As Professor Jacobson points out, this is likely a distinction without a difference, but I want to be accurate. And with the DNC out of cash, one wonders if OfA can afford all those extra ballots…

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Two photos that should cost Barack Obama his job

The first from the ruins of our consulate in Benghazi:

(Click the image for a larger version)

Those are the bloody hand prints of an American, desperately fleeing for his life. They are the fruits of the Obama-Clinton policy of “smart power” and speak more loudly than any words can of the administration’s utter failure. (Courtesy of the Daily Mail via QandO)

Then there’s the home front:

(Courtesy LA Times. Click the image for a larger version)

That is a free man being taken away by police under pressure from an administration desperate to blame anyone but itself for the collapse of its Mideast policy. While he may have violated his parole, he was investigated because his speech made the government uncomfortable. My blog-buddy ST has already vented her outrage; my own feelings are a burning contempt for this open display of Chicago-style thugocracy — Benito nods in approval. And Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, is livid:

When taking office, the President does not swear to create jobs. He does not swear to “grow the economy.” He does not swear to institute “fairness.” The only oath the President takes is this one:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

By sending — literally — brownshirted enforcers to engage in — literally — a midnight knock at the door of a man for the non-crime of embarrassing the President of the United States and his administration, President Obama violated that oath. You can try to pretty this up (It’s just about possible probation violations! Sure.), or make excuses or draw distinctions, but that’s what’s happened. It is a betrayal of his duties as President, and a disgrace.

He won’t resign, of course. First, the President has the appreciation of free speech that one would expect from a Chicago Machine politician, which is to say, none. Second, he’s not getting any pressure. Indeed, the very press that went crazy over Ari Fleischer’s misrepresented remarks seems far less interested in the actions of an administration that I repeat, literally sent brown-shirted enforcers to launch a midnight knock on a filmmaker’s door.

But Obama’s behavior — and that of his enablers in the press — has laid down a marker for those who are paying attention. By these actions he is, I repeat, unfit to hold office. I hope and expect that the voters will agree in November.

Read it all. (h/t Blue Crab Boulevard)

If we weren’t so close to the election, I’d be calling for President Obama’s impeachment for dangerous incompetence and gross abuse of power.

But we don’t need Congress to clean house for us. As Glenn points out, we have an election in less than two months. Send these photos and the linked articles to anyone you know who’s still undecided. Make them aware of what’s happening.

A vote for Obama is a vote for American decline and to entrench “gangster government,” the thugocracy, and liberal fascism.

It’s up to us to put a stop to it.

LINKS: Twitchy — “This is not America.”  In 2008, I and others wrote about Obama’s contempt for free speech. Hey, my fellow citizens, we tried to tell ya…

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The Dependency Agenda is the Democrats’ Agenda

To promote the publication of their latest Broadside, Encounter Books has released the following video that illustrates the real reason behind the welfare state and, especially, Johnson’s “Great Society:” the creation of a permanent class of voters dependent on federal largesse who, in order to keep those checks coming, would also be reliable Democratic voters.

Cynicism, defined:

Think I’m just a foaming at the mouth right-winger? Consider: As the video points out, the so-called War on Poverty not only stopped the decline of poverty in its tracks, it increased it by keeping people dependent. The poverty rate under Obama is the highest it’s ever been since the Census Bureau started measuring it. Welfare reforms passed under Clinton, meant to encourage people to get off welfare as quickly as possible, have been gutted. Food Stamps are no longer a temporary, emergency measure to help the most needy, but something you encourage as many people as possible to get on, even throwing parties to celebrate dependence.

While I’m sure some liberals supported these measures out of a genuine (and genuinely misguided) desire to help people, the real goal is to create a patron-client relationship that will ensure Democratic majorities for generations to come, just as the New Deal did from 1932 to 1994. Or, as LBJ put it, when speaking about his Great Society program:

“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”

Cynical? Nah…

The Dependency Agenda is available in both paper and Kindle formats.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

No more “Mr. Nice Mitt”

And it’s about time:

Standing before hundreds of roaring partisans in this sweltering Pittsburgh suburb Tuesday, Mitt Romney delivered a 30-minute speech that sounded, at times, like a greatest hits compilation of his favorite Obama-knocking stump speech lines. The president was, Romney said, “out of ideas,” and “looking for someone to blame,” and a “crony capitalist.”

One thing he was not: “A nice guy.”

In speeches from Des Moines to Dallas, Romney has always been careful to hedge his tough digs at Obama with a civil nod toward the president’s moral character: “He’s a nice guy,” the Republican has often said. “He just has no idea how the private economy works.” But Tuesday’s speech included no such hedge — and one campaign adviser said there’s a reason for that.

“[Romney] has said Obama’s a nice fellow, he’s just in over his head,” the adviser said. “But I think the governor himself believes this latest round of attacks that have impugned his integrity and accused him of being a felon go so far beyond that pale that he’s really disappointed. He believes it’s time to vet the president. He really hasn’t been vetted; McCain didn’t do it.”

Indeed, facing what the candidate and his aides believe to be a series of surprisingly ruthless, unfounded, and unfair attacks from the Obama campaign on Romney’s finances and business record, the Republican’s campaign is now prepared to go eye for an eye in an intense, no-holds-barred act of political reprisal, said two Romney advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the next chapter of Boston’s pushback — which began last week when they began labeling Obama a “liar” — very little will be off-limits, from the president’s youthful drug habit, to his ties to disgraced Chicago politicians.

“I mean, this is a guy who admitted to cocaine use, had a sweetheart deal with his house in Chicago, and was associated and worked with Rod Blagojevich to get Valerie Jarrett appointed to the Senate,” the adviser said. “The bottom line is there’ll be counterattacks.”

The Obama campaign thugocracy has been trying to make hay with scurrilous class-warfare attacks on Romney’s record at Bain, his wealth, and even his integrity, flat-out saying he’s either a liar or a felon. They’ve desperately released another squirrel to distract people with by calling for Romney to release far more of his tax returns than required by law, implying there must be something shady in them, otherwise, why would Romney be so “secretive?” (Sadly, some conservatives are helping. (1)) Playing nice and trying to be a gentleman in response just won’t work. (See: McCain campaign, 2008)

The proper reply is to strike back, not with whiny anger, but to forcefully speak the truth about not only your own record, not only the other guy’s record, but the truth about his beliefs and character — why that makes him unfit and you fit for high office. Romney’s surrogates started this a bit on Sunday and Monday, but, yesterday, the candidate himself laid into Obama in a speech (no teleprompter) that had conservatives cheering as he attacked Obama for saying about successful business owners “you didn’t build that:“

The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn’t build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn’t build McDonald’s, that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft, you go on the list, that Joe and his colleagues didn’t build this enterprise, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it’s wrong. [Applause]

And by the way, the President’s logic doesn’t just extend to the entrepreneurs that start a barber shop or a taxi operation or an oil field service business like this and a gas service business like this, it also extends to everybody in America that wants to lift themself up a little further, that goes back to school to get a degree and see if they can get a little better job, to somebody who wants to get some new skills and get a little higher income, to somebody who have, may have dropped out that decides to get back in school and go for it. People who reach to try and lift themself up. The President would say, well you didn’t do that. You couldn’t have gotten to school without the roads that government built for you. You couldn’t have gone to school without teachers. So you didn’t, you are not responsible for that success. President Obama attacks success and therefore under President Obama we have less success and I will change that. [Applause]

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t think anyone could have said what he said who had actually started a business or been in a business. And my own view is that what the President said was both startling and revealing. I find it extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a President of the United States.  It goes to something that I have spoken about from the beginning of the campaign.  That this election is, to a great degree, about the soul of America. Do we believe in an America that is great because of government or do we believe in an America that is great because of free people allowed to pursue their dreams and build our future?

(Transcript courtesy of Ed Morrissey)

Emphasis added. That is the necessary ingredient when fighting back against Chicago-style gutter politics. The whole speech is at The Right Scoop. It’s well-worth the 30 minutes of your time it takes to watch; for once Romney is speaking with passion and conviction, seemingly off the cuff. Want to know how good it was? Even Michelle Malkin was near-ecstatic:

I believed in what he was selling: A vision for restoring American greatness and defending success.

Obama’s inability to hide his ideological contempt for entrepreneurs & individual success has helped Romney self-actualize.

If he gives this speech with the same zeal and optimism from now until November — offering a clear, unapologetic contrast to Barack Obama’s bitter politics of resentment, class warfare, and entitlement, Mitt Romney will win.

And there’s the key: this can’t just be a one-time or one-week strategy. Every speech he makes from now on, whether from a small-town bandstand before a dozen people or the podium of the Republican convention in front of the nation, has to strike these same themes. He can’t be afraid to call Obama out for what he is, nor to show proudly who he himself is. It’s what America wants to hear and wants to see in him — and not the defeatist, dependent, decline-is-our-choice crap Obama is pushing.

Do that, and I guarantee a Republican landslide in November.

Footnote:
(1) The whole tax return kerfuffle is just a lame distraction. Even if Romney turned over every single tax return he ever filed, Obama and the Democrats would demand more: Bain corporate minutes, Romney emails, his credit card records — anything they can use to fish for the least little thing they can spin as possibly suspicious, and just to plant the idea in the public’s mind that Romney is hiding something by simply making the demands. Instead, Romney should say he’ll release the returns — when Obama turns over his college transcripts, state senate papers, and the Fast and Furious documents. And then see how fast the Democrats drop this line of attack.

RELATED: The Tatler previews Romney’s next attack: Obama “has given up on job creation.” From Gateway Pundit, you know those infamous Bain layoffs? It seems the main in charge of Bain at the time was not Mitt Romney, but one of Obama’s most important donors. Ooops.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

(Video) Obama favors the donor class over the middle class

A new ad from the Romney campaign:

With unemployment over 8% for the longest stretch since the Great Depression (and, if you count the barely employed, it’s been over 14% since Obama took office), who is the president watching out for? Who is he taking care of?

Those who take care of him.

PS: Romney 2012. Because he made his money the old-fashioned way — he earned it.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

A desperate President spoils the DREAM — Updated — Obama has a public hissy

His “reboot” speech on the economy yesterday having turned out to be a miserable flop, President Obama will unveil today Plan B: pander shamelessly to an important ethnic group:

The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin giving work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of a growing Latino electorate that has opposed administration deportation policies.

And from the the New York Post:

Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a US high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. They also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed. The officials who described the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it in advance of the official announcement.

The policy will not lead toward citizenship but will remove the threat of deportation and grant the ability to work legally, leaving eligible immigrants able to remain in the United States for extended periods. It tracks closely to a proposal offered by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida as an alternative to the DREAM Act.

To borrow a famous phrase, let me be clear: regardless of what euphemism the administration chooses, this is nothing more or less than an amnesty.

It’s also a cheap, cynical political move by a cheap, cynical Chicago pol who sees his reelection chances shrinking. (When a Democratic president has to worry about Michigan…) It’s the Alinskyite community organizer in action: take a controversial issue and propose a “solution” that sets group against group, guaranteeing polarization on the issue. It’s purpose is two-fold: both groups become intransigent, preventing a compromise that would weaken your influence, and “your” group welds to your side, because they’ll think you’re with them against the other guy.

When, really, all you care about is keeping their support for your own goals. In this case, that means votes in November.

If that were the end of it, this would be nothing more than the pathetic, desperate gesture of an increasingly pathetic, desperate president. But this coming announcement does real harm:

Standing on its own, the measures are not a bad compromise on one area of the immigration problem: children brought here as minors by their parents. Call me a RINO, but I’ve never seen how justice or American national interest is served by punishing children for the decisions of their parents.

BUT…

By bypassing the legislative process and cutting out the elected representatives of the people, Obama is killing any chance for a compromise based on consensus, such as that proposed by Senator Rubio. (1) This is the same type of mistake (2) as that made by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, when it used judicial fiat to quash the political process. Obama’s selfish use of executive authority has thrown a gigantic monkey wrench  into the democratic process of compromise and consensus that was starting to get underway in Congress, effectively jamming it.

Obama also has shown, once again, his contempt for the constitutional order. While the president is granted broad (often too broad) regulatory authority by Congress, this kind of major change to the law clearly is the purview of the legislature. While presidents can and should refuse to enforce laws they believe unconstitutional, constitutionality is not what’s being argued here — Obama simply wants to change the law for his own benefit. And he’ll do it on his own, thank you.

That’s called “usurpation.” Maybe even “tyranny.”

It’s also, let’s face it, another “Look! Squirrel!” moment, designed to set us all yelling at each other while we forget about Obama’s pathetic record on the economy. Well played, Barack. This one might actually work.

This decision leaves open a question: What about the parents of these now-immune children? Are they granted immunity? Are they still subject to deportation? (Yeah, let’s see how that plays on the nightly news. (3) )

And it’s not without risks, as Bryan Preston points out:

The unemployment rate among young Americans stands well above the national average of 8.2%. Unemployment among black Americans stands officially at about 16%. The president’s policy plays one constituency that he sorely needs, Hispanic voters, against another that supported him in 2008 but has soured on him since, younger voters, and may hurt black voters looking for work as well.

On top of that, how will the unions react , given they’re already annoyed with Obama over Keystone and his failure to stand with them in Wisconsin? SEIU will probably be fine, but UAW and AFL-CIO? The latter two aren’t so keen on competition from immigrant labor. And let’s extend it a bit to areas hard-hit in the current economy: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina… Do we really think out-of-work or under-employed workers in those areas will be thrilled with this news? That now they’ll have more competitors for jobs?

Me, neither.

Obama may buy some votes with this trick, but I wonder if, in November, he’ll discover the price was too high.

Footnotes:
(1) And, gee, he just happens to steal the thunder from an up-and-coming conservative Hispanic senator. What a coincidence.
(2) Actually, in Obama’s case it wasn’t a mistake at all. It was the intent. The community organizer wants polarization.
(3) Gee, this couldn’t be something Obama wants, could it? Nah…

UPDATE: A statement from Senator Rubio:

“There is broad support for the idea that we should figure out a way to help kids who are undocumented through no fault of their own, but there is also broad consensus that it should be done in a way that does not encourage illegal immigration in the future. This is a difficult balance to strike, one that this new policy, imposed by executive order, will make harder to achieve in the long run.

“Today’s announcement will be welcome news for many of these kids desperate for an answer, but it is a short term answer to a long term problem. And by once again ignoring the Constitution and going around Congress, this short term policy will make it harder to find a balanced and responsible long term one.”

UPDATE II: Well, well, well. It seems that our president is, with this order, doing exactly what he said he couldn’t do just last year:

Faced by a young person who disproved his claim about his Administration’s treatment of these young people, the President now seemed to concede that students and young people eligible for the DREAM Act are being deported and says that it’s not his responsibility to change that: “America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the President, am obligated to enforce the law.  I don’t have a choice about that.  That’s part of my job,” he said. When Ramos asked a follow-up question about granting formal administrative relief to undocumented youth, Obama was even more forceful: “There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.”

Are we surprised? No. Everything, including the rule of law,  is subordinate to his reelection needs.

UPDATE III: President Thin-Skin does not like being questioned:

“This is not amnesty, this is not immunity, this is not a path to citizenship, it is not a permanent fix,” the president said before a person, reportedly Neil Munro of The Daily Caller, interjected with a question.

“Excuse me, sir; it’s not time for questions, sir,” said Obama, who didn’t take any questions at the announcement. “I’m not asking for an argument.”

“These kids deserve to plan their lives in more than two-year increments,” the president continued, adding that Congress still needed to take DREAM Act action because the order is just a “stop-gap measure.”

“It makes no sense to expel talented young persons who are, for all intents and purposes, Americans.”

As Obama walked away from the podium, a voice called out, “What about American workers who are unemployed while you import foreigners?”

Touchy, ain’t he?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Department of Injustice promotes voter fraud

To follow up on yesterday’s post about the Obama-Holder DoJ’s efforts to prevent Florida from cleaning up its voter rolls, here’s an excerpt from an editorial at IBD by Andrew Malcolm, who makes no effort to hide his disgust:

Washington has ordered Florida to end its effort to remove ineligible voters from the state’s voter rolls. This is breathtaking. It couldn’t be clearer that the government is actively promoting voter fraud.

(…)

So why shouldn’t voters have to authenticate their identities at the polls and prove they are eligible? Why should voting be so informal and lacking in rules that it invites fraud? Only muddled thinking — or an outright lack of thinking — could fail to make the connection.

It’s sad, but Democrats have made it clear that honest elections are not something they’re interested in. From easy registration that rewards indolence — motor voter laws, for instance — to strident opposition to rules that require voters to show they are who they say they are, the political left clearly likes messy elections.

Why? Columnist George Will answered that more than 20 years ago when he wrote:

“If mild registration burdens are sufficient to defeat a person’s inclination to vote, those burdens probably are filtering out the unmotivated, who are apt to be the uninformed.”

In other words, the Democrats’ opposition to clean elections is their tacit admission that they expect the uninformed to fall for their rhetoric and vote for them.

They also clamor for votes from the felons they coddle, the illegal immigrants they solicit and the criminally minded, politically rabid voters who cast ballots for dead voters or vote multiple times on election day — think of Democratic strongholds like Chicago and Philadelphia, where such shenanigans are common.

Read it all. Andrew’s on fire… and he’s right.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)