Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals”

Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals” explained Posted by Yorkshire on 30 January 2012, 10:50 pm

If we really remember the 2008 campaign with Hillary and Obama the Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky would creep into the Campaign. For the last week or so, the Name Saul Alinsky has come up. Who was Alinsky? Progressives will tell you he’s great. Conservatives will tell you Barack Obama is the Poster Child for these rules. I would say just in the last few days Romney has employed Rule 13 on Gingrich, with success. Also in 2008 from the Hillary camp we heard and saw this rule in action: 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Romney is using it, and for Radicals and Progressives relish Rule #5: 5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. I think we have seen some of this here on the Blog.

Saul Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals” explained
Union organizers are often highly trained. In many unions this training includes indoctrination in Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.”

Saul Alinsky was a ruthless radical organizer. He would stop at nothing to win. Before he passed away in 1972 he published a book called “Rules for Radicals” in which he outlined his power tactics and questionable ethics.

Anyone interested in staying, or becoming, Union Free, whether in an organizing campaign or in a decertification or deauthorization election, ought to become familiar with these rules.

This can be very valuable information. As one expert observer points out “Rules for Radicals are reversible and can be used against the Left.”

Here’s a brief summary of the rules. We are indebted to the Public Service Research Foundation for this information.

Rules for Power Tactics:
1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

I think the best example we see over and over is the charge of Racism

Because Alinsky was sensitive to criticism that he wasn’t ethical, he also included a set of rules for the ethics of power tactics. You can see from these why his ethics were so frequently questioned.

Rules to test whether power tactics are ethical:
1. One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.
2. The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.
3. In war the end justifies almost any means.
4. Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.
5. Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
6. The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.
7. Generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.
8. The morality of means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.
9. Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition to be unethical.
10. You do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral garments.
11. Goals must be phrased in general terms like “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” “Of the Common Welfare,” “Pursuit of Happiness,” or “Bread and Peace.”

More Good Stuff Here:

http://theunionnews.blogspot.com/2008/10/summary-of-saul-alinskys-rules-for.html

She could have wished to meet Justin Bieber; instead she just wanted to be a soldier!

Cystic fibrosis is a terrible disease, one which compromises lung function and leads to systemic organ degradation, slowed growth and physical weakness. Once nearly always fatal in early childhood, the condition can be managed via modern medicine, but the sufferer will always be in a disease management regimen.

For someone with cystic fibrosis, what we would consider a “normal life” is just not a reality. Alyssa Braden, 13, of Garland, Texas, suffers from cystic fibrosis, and wanted nothing more than to be a soldier in the United States Army. For three days, the Make A Wish Foundation, and the 193^rd Infantry Brigade at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, made her wish come true.

Private wish: Teen fulfills dream of being a Soldier

By Cursha Pierce-Lunderman, Fort Jackson Leader

FORT JACKSON, Sc.c. — Alyssa Braden could have had any wish in the world fulfilled. But — in lieu of meeting a celebrity or visiting a theme park — the diminutive teen chose to get down and dirty.

Her wish? To join the Army.

The 13-year-old from Texas has spent the past week training with battalions in Fort Jackson’s 193rd Infantry Brigade through coordination with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Alyssa participated in morning physical training sessions, rappelled down Victory Tower, conducted convoy training missions, qualified on an M16, and saw the life that she would live as a Soldier in training.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation allows children to dream big by granting a “wish” to those suffering from a life-threatening medical condition. Alyssa said she chose joining the Army as her wish because her cystic fibrosis makes it impossible for her to enlist in the future due to Department of Defense medical restrictions.

“My uncle was in the Army and he’s my favorite uncle,” Alyssa said. “When I saw him, I just always thought of him as a hero and I wanted to be like him.”

During recent family discussions, Alyssa and her family realized that she would have some trouble joining the Army.

“We have been talking to recruiters with her older sister,” said Alyssa’s mother, Maggie Braden. “When Alyssa found out about asthma issues in the Army, she was devastated because she knows what she has is much worse than that.”

According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, cystic fibrosis is a chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system characterized by the body’s production of unusually thick, sticky mucus that often clogs the lungs, leading to life-threatening lung infections. Those who suffer from the disease often deal with wheezing and shortness of breath, frequent lung infections and persistent coughing.

Now, more than 13 months ago after being referred to the Make-A-Wish, she was able to see her wish fulfilled. She said her time with the Soldiers and drill sergeants at Fort Jackson has lived up to her dreams.

More at the link.
_________________________________
Cross-posted on THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL

No Comment at present …

Not to jump to any conclusions, but what a coincidence …

” http://www.truthbeforedishonor.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi ”

Counterfeit of John's Truth Before Dishonor blog is suspended

“http://iowaliberal.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi”

They must have forgotten to pay the bill?

Another Obama Administration “green” investment goes bankrupt.

 

From Ed Morrissey:

Another green-tech stimulus recipient files for bankruptcy

posted at 3:40 pm on January 26, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

In last year’s State of the Union speech, Barack Obama hailed the great investment he made with taxpayer dollars in the manufacturer of advanced solar panels, only to have Solyndra go down the tubes — taking more than a half-billion dollars in taxpayer money with it.  In this year’s SOTU speech, Obama bragged about having sunk money into “partnership” with the private sector to become a world leader in car-battery sector.  Right on time, that “partner” filed for bankruptcy, too:

An Indiana-based energy storage company that received a $118.5 million stimulus-law grant from the Energy Department filed for bankruptcy Thursday.

Ener1 is asking a federal bankruptcy court in New York to approve a plan to restructure the company’s debt and infuse $81 million in equity funding. …

The Energy Department, in 2009, approved a $118.5 million stimulus-law grant for EnerDel, a subsidiary of the company that develops lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. The grant was part of a broader program aimed at promoting the development of electric-vehicle battery technology.

President Obama touted the program in his State of the Union address this year.

“In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries,” he said.

We saw this coming last October, when CBS first reported on Ener1′s shaky financial position.  At that time, the company had spent $53 million of the grant and had pledged to create 1700 jobs from it in total.  When the story got reported, Ener1 traded at 11 cents a share, down from its December 2008 peak of $9.40 and the $3 per share price when the Department of Energy decided to invest in a company that had lost two-thirds of its value.  The share price was five cents by the beginning of this month, and is now at two cents a share.

Don’t forget, too, that the $53 million spent by October created jobs … 33 of them.

Perhaps green-tech stimulus recipients should call on Obama to refrain from giving them SOTU shout-outs.

And what does the Obama Administration say? Jen Stutsman, spokesman for the Energy Department, said:

The Department of Energy’s grant to EnerDel is supporting a cutting-edge battery manufacturing plant that is producing batteries in America that are being sold across the country and around the world. This grant is part of the department’s efforts to commercialize promising vehicle technologies that will help America to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and ensure U.S. companies can compete in the global auto industry. While it’s unfortunate that Ener1, the parent company, has entered a restructuring process, the new infusion of $80 million in private capital demonstrates that the technology has merit. As the company has said, the restructuring is not expected to impact EnerDel’s operations and they do not expect to reduce employment at the site.

NASDAQ delisted Ener1′s stock (HEVV) last October:

Earlier this week, Ener1 was notified by the NASDAQ Stock Market LLC that it has not complied with the exchange’s filing requirement for continued inclusion in Listing Rules 5250(c)(1). The rule requires the timely filing of period financial reports with the SEC. The company failed to file its form 10-Q for the three-month period ended June 30, 2011, on a timely basis, violating the rules set by NASDAQ.

And there’s even more:

According to the SEC filing, Ener1 failed to meet an Oct. 17 deadline to file a quarterly report for the period ended June 30. In addition, the company said NASDAQ determined that Ener1 violated shareholder approval requirements in amending a line of credit.

Ener1 already was in danger of losing its NASDAQ listing because its stock price has not met the $1-per-share minimum price requirement to trade on the exchange since July. NASDAQ warned the company in September that it was not meeting listing requirements.

Ener1’s shares tumbled from more than $4 a share in January, when Vice President Joe Biden visited EnerDel’s Greenfield battery plant, to less than a dollar in a matter of months. Shares traded at 20 cents each Wednesday morning, down 6 cents since Tuesday’s close.

The company has experienced a series of setbacks this year. Most recently, several lawsuits have been filed, claiming the company misled investors about its financial condition.

Investors began filing the suits in August, days after Ener1 said it would restate earnings for 2010 and for the first quarter of this year. Ener1’s 2010 financial loss of $69 million eventually was restated to a loss of $165 million.

And, to top it all off, the company has even applied for $290 million in federal loan guarantees.

So, what do we have? A company that the Obama Administration thought should get a grant, because they were in an approved kind of business, that failed to make legally required filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and which allegedly misled its shareholders about its financial condition. How is it that the regulation-and-oversight-happy Obama Administration could give Ener1 a $118.5 million grant yet somehow fail to monitor what was going on with the company?¹

EnerDel develops lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, something the Obama Administration really, really likes. But, as THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL has reported previously, General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt has not been selling very well, and in the United Kingdom there are actually more public electric car charging stations than there are electric cars on the road. The Obama Administration, for political reasons, invested over a hundred million in taxpayer dollars in a company which couldn’t pay its bills, wouldn’t meet its legal requirements, and possibly misled investors, because it was in the business of developing batteries for cars that nobody wants to buy.

This is the kind of thing that happens when the government gets involved in picking winners and losers, based on what kind of business proposals the companies can make: some are going to turn out OK, and others are going to turn out bad. And that’s why the government shouldn’t be involved in this kind of thing at all: if Ener1 had been a good business investment, it shouldn’t have needed the $118.5 million grant, but would have attracted that kind of investment from the private sector.

________________________________

1. To be fair about it, “the company has received support from Republicans as well. The Bush administration awarded Ener1 $10 million in grants, and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels awarded EnerDel $7.1 million in tax credits.” ↩

Internet ID Theft, GoDaddy, Terms Of Service Violations

I just got done sending a take-down notice to GoDaddy. I am not a lawyer and I obviously did not employ a lawyer to write my message, but I sent it to GoDaddy, the service I allege one of the two Iowa Liberal administrators used to create the counterfeit Truth Before Dishonor site.

My notice to GoDaddy:

You sold the domain name “truthbeforedishonor.com” to someone who intentionally counterfeited my site. He created his blogsite, Truth Before Dishonor, and his name “John Hitchcock”, later changed to “J. Hitchcock”, as a deliberate attack against my site and me. His whole intention was to steal my internet identity (in blog name and in author name, both) in order to defame me and cause harm to me. As his domain name and his author name are both intentional violations of your terms of services, I am requesting you immediately close his domain.

I am keeping a copy of this correspondence for future reference.

–John Hitchcock
https://truthbeforedishonor.wordpress.com

And the pertinent part of GoDaddy’s TOS agreement:

ii You will not impersonate another User or any other person or entity, or submit content on behalf of another User or any other person or entity, without their express prior written consent.

iv You will not use this Site or the Services found at this Site in a manner (as determined by Go Daddy in its sole and absolute discretion) that:
…
Promotes, encourages or engages in defamatory, harassing, abusive or otherwise objectionable behavior

As the radical Leftist internet Identity Thief, counterfeiter, and defamer agreed when buying his counterfeit TBD domain, he would not do exactly what he intentionally did in buying the name and in using my name in his publishings. The low-life Leftist who did this did so in direct violation of GoDaddy’s Terms of Service Agreement, which is standard-issue boilerplate legal terms that can be found practically everywhere.

As DNW noted over on The First Street Journal, I am in fact holding two comments from the ID thief in moderation, in case I need to use them for any particular legal purposes. It is my intent to close down the fraudulent and counterfeit site that was created for defamatory purposes and in an attempt to reduce my internet footprint through use of internet identity theft.

Three Obama Failures in Oil – The Anti-Jobs President Strikes Again – Don’t Look for These in the State of the Union

Three separate, but co-mingled incidents recently happened that has left many scratching their heads in disbelief. All of these have the Obama Administration, or Obama’s fingerprints all over them. The first on is in Brazil. It was kind of funky that BO talked out of both sides of his mouth last year. While he closed the Gulf of Mexico to virtually all oil exploration, he encouraged Brazil to open deep water exploration and development of a new oil field in the Atlantic. He said at that time he would give Brazil $2Billion to help develop. (But there is some dispute about that) And he did say that the USA would be their No.1 customer. Well, we won’t be, Brazil signed a $10Billion deal with the Chinese to develop the field.

China gets jump on U.S. for Brazil’s oil
By Kelly Hearn – Special to The Washington Times

BUENOS AIRES — Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro — below a mile of water and two miles of shifting rock, sand and salt — is an ultradeep sea of oil that could turn Brazil into the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Moron this story here and there:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/19/china-gets-jump-on-us-for-brazils-oil/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

And this article: Obama’s Brazilian Oil Disaster

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49008

————————————————————————————————————————
Then we go to No.2. Number two is the rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline by TransCanada to bring oil to southern refineries from Alberta. It was reject to appease the evironMENTALists and the Left because any other excuse makes no economic sense at all. Canada has more oil than it needs for its own population. They sell 90% of their exports to us. Since it appears BO has to support his Far Left Base, rejection was easy. What small environment issues could have bee worked out while constructing the pipeline. In the meantime, Canada may sell the oil to China (is there a theme here?)

Keystone XL pipeline proposal rejected — for now
TransCanada will apply again, CEO says
By Laura Payton, CBC News

The U.S. government has denied an application by TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline, the State Department announced Wednesday.

A statement released by the department said it doesn’t preclude the Calgary-based TransCanada from applying again with a different route, and the company said in a press release that it will do just that.
Moron this story here:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/01/18/pol-keystone-xl-pipeline.html

———————————————————————————————————————–

And then No.3. Unofficially the unemployment rate is around 15% in spite of the alleged official rate of 8.5%. One state has the lowest unemployment rate at 2.5% and it is North Dakota. Why? The Bakken Oil Field. There is a giant oil BOOM in ND. At the oil fields, oil is extracted by Fracking which is injecting a fluid under high pressure to fracture the shale and release the oil. ND figures it need thousands of more workers for these fields. But, it’s BO to the rescue, not in a good way. His friends the EnvironMENTALists hate fracking. So, how does BO stop this success story, why the EPA of course.

EPA May Place Moratorium on Further Fracking Until 2013
Posted by Bakken Oil on Nov 30, 2011 in News

In a quite remarkable recent story in the Bismark Tribune, Lynn Helms the Director of the Department of Mineral Resources, stated be believes the EPA is on track to halt hydraulic fracturing as soon as January of 2012.

With billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and over 200 rigs currently working in the area, this would be a monumental setback for the industry.

Moron this story here:

http://www.bakkenoil.org/epa-place-moratorium-fracking-2013

They Always Resort To Vicious Threats

And oftentimes, actually following through on their malicious threats.

It’s happened to Patterico.
It’s happened to Professor Jacobson.
It’s happened to many, many Conservative bloggers.

Some Leftist nutjob doesn’t like what a Conservative has to say on a blog, so the Leftist nutjob threatens that Conservative’s livelihood, and maliciously attempts to destroy that Conservative’s livelihood. I previously showed Zach Edwards’ attempt to do it to Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State (and Edwards could go to prison for it). Now, we have an example that hits far closer to home.

From the keyboard of the radical Leftist Perry Hood of the state of Delaware:

Is it possible, Mr Koolo, that you are as well a hypocrite. Yes you are, we all are.

It is a demonstrable fact on this blog that you are distracted and that you are obsessively nasty in your behavior, just exactly like Hube was, all so you can “take care of Wagonwheel”.

Instead of using your school time, I want you to devote said time and energy to your teaching and your students. It is that for which I am paying you. Then in the evening you are welcome to use your free time to come on here and disgorge yourself of all the venom which you can drum up, which I will then usually ignore, because most of your remarks are personal and truly inconsequential wrt having a meaningful debate and discussion.

How would it sit with you if I forwarded a copy of some of your daytime posts, with their time stamps, to your administration? I doubt very much if you are in truth proud of them, or taking school time to send them out, therefore you would not like that I’m sure. I simply don’t know how else to deal with a bully like you, Mr Koolo, who uses school time to send this stuff out. If you have no concern about the use of school time, and you are proud of all of your posts, then we have another more complex problem here.

Let’s keep it to debates and discussions, during personal free time at home, in which case strong disagreement is to be expected based on ideological grounds, like my disagreements with our Editor. This is what this blog is supposed to be all about, according to our Editor. If he won’t enforce his own rules uniformly, I will help him to do so, knowing that I myself have been out of line on occasion, and you too Mr Koolo.

Now get back to work, Mr Koolo! We are depending on you to do a top notch job in educating our children, without stupid distractions of extreme negativity on school time.

It is very clear that the radical Leftist Perry Hood, in his great hatred for Koolo’s communications, is threatening a malicious assault on Koolo’s livelihood in an attempt to shut Koolo up.

Of course they were double-crossed! The only surprise is that they didn’t know it would happen.

In debates that I had, primarily on liberal websites, about allowing same-sex couples to marry legally, my primary concern was that including same-sex relationships under the definition of marriage would open a legal hornet’s nest, in which a same-sex couple could sue a church which refused to perform a wedding ceremony for them. My friends on the left ridiculed that idea, saying that the First Amendment would prevent that. Well, the following story isn’t that, but it’s creeping closer:

Obama Administration Mandates Religious Employers Cover Contraception Cost, Catholic Bishops Furious

Posted on January 20, 2012 at 8:21pm by Tiffany Gabbay

The Catholic Bishops of the United States are reportedly furious over what they call the “literally unconscionable” decision by the Obama Administration to require that contraception be included in virtually all health plans provided by religious-affiliated institutions to their employees.

The announcement means that the mandate and its narrow exemption will not change. Rather, there will be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Much more at the link.

From

Catholics Fight Health Rules

Social-Service Agencies Say They Need Broader Exemption From Requirements on Contraceptives
By KRIS MAHER, SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

Catholic organizations have ramped up opposition to new federal health-care requirements to cover contraceptive services, saying the rules may prompt them to drop insurance or shut down.

Beginning next August, employers have to provide coverage for contraception and other preventive services for women such as screening for gestational diabetes and domestic-violence counseling under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, part of the federal health-care law passed in 2010.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services exempted religious organizations that employ and serve people of the same faith from having to provide contraception services, but this exception has been criticized as too narrow by church leaders, as well as some members of Congress.

“Jesus himself, or the Good Samaritan of his famous parable, would not qualify as ‘religious enough’ for the exemption, since they insisted on helping people who did not share their view of God,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.

Catholic social-service agencies, universities, hospitals and nursing homes wouldn’t be exempt because they frequently employ and serve non-Catholics. “The point is we’re being asked to pay for services that go against our beliefs,” said Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik in an interview. “This looks like the government telling us what we can and can’t believe and what we can and can’t do.”

It’s a perfect storm: the Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide health care coverage, and the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to push regulations which would require religious organizations to include items to which they are theologically opposed. And it’s also the perfect double-cross: the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops supported President Obama’s health care reform legislation, with only the proviso that freedom of conscience exemptions be included; they were very happy with the Stupak Amendment, which specified that the ACA would not require abortion coverage. The Stupak Amendment was required to get a sufficient number of Democrats to vote to pass the legislation, but then it was stripped out in the Senate. The Bishops who had given their support to the bill as long as abortion wasn’t included. Then, in March 2010, well after the Senate cloture vote in December of 2009, they had to send a statement to parishioners, because the language prohibiting the forced coverage of abortion had been deleted:¹

As long-time advocates of health care reform, the U.S. Catholic bishops continue to make the moral case that genuine health care reform must protect the life, dignity, consciences and health of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. Health care reform should provide access to affordable and quality health care for all, and not advance a pro-abortion agenda in our country. Genuine health care reform is being blocked by those who insist on reversing widely supported policies against federal funding of abortion and plans which include abortion, not by those working simply to preserve these longstanding protections.

• On November 7, the U.S. House of Representatives passed major health care reform that reaffirms the essential, longstanding and widely supported policy against using federal funds for elective abortions and includes positive measures on affordability and immigrants.
• On December 24, the U.S. Senate rejected this policy and passed health care reform that requires federal funds to help subsidize and promote health plans that cover elective abortions. All purchasers of such plans will be required to pay for other people’s abortions through a separate payment solely to pay for abortion. And the affordability credits for very low income families purchasing private plans in a Health Insurance Exchange are inadequate and would leave families financially vulnerable.
• Outside the abortion context, neither bill has adequate conscience protection for health care providers, plans or employers.
• Congressional leaders are now trying to figure out how the rules of the House and Senate could allow the final passage of a modified bill that would satisfy disagreements between House and Senate versions.

The Catholic bishops are trusting souls, and they are in the forgiveness business; perhaps they never expected that President Obama would double-cross them, but more worldly Catholics knew all along that such would happen.

And now the bishops are complaining that the Affordable Care Act will force them to abandon the Church’s position on artificial contraception, but those oh-so-compassionate and forgiving clerics brought it on themselves! By supporting increased federalization and control of health care coverage, for the good and noble motive of seeing to it that everybody had coverage, they put themselves and their Catholic institutions under the authority of people who have absolutely no qualms about abortion or paying for abortion or artificial contraception, and mandating its inclusion; the bishops gave to Democratic politicians and federal bureaucrats who believe that the Church’s position on contraception is ridiculous authority over health care insurance offered by Catholic institutions.

The bishops are pretty much left with two options: they can support the Republican presidential nominee, since every Republican candidate has promised to do away with the health care reform legislation, or they can pray that the Supreme Court, which has taken the case and will decide on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, will declare it to be unconstitutional. With five of the Justices being Catholics,² it’s always possible that the Obama Administration’s position on this will be more encouragement for them to toss out the whole abysmal thing.
__________________________________________
Also writing on this:

• William Jacobson at Le*gal In*sur*rec*tion
• Darlene Click on Protein Wisdom

__________________________________________

1. The link is to Ed Morrissey’s column on Hot Air discussing it, because the internal link directly to the USCCB has expired. ↩
2. Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy are the Catholic Justices; they are also the most intelligent and conservative ones. ↩

Voter Fraud, Perjury, Identity Theft, And Democrat Involvement

Jason Bauer and Mike McGuinness, two former Democrat Party officials in Oakland County, Michigan, have been convicted on various criminal counts regarding their fraudulent attempts to add fake “Tea Party” candidates to the 2010 ballots, all in an attempt to steal the 2010 elections for Democrats.

Jason Bauer, a former Oakland Country Democratic Party official, was sentenced to one year of probation and $2,600 in fines for his involvement with a 2010 fake Tea Party scheme. Bauer is the second person involved in the plot to be sentenced. Former Oakland County Democratic Party Chair Mike McGuinness pleaded no contest in October to charges of perjury and forgery.

Zach Edwards, an Obama operative, has been arrested on Identity Theft charges. He (allegedly) stole the identities of Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State and/or his brother in an attempt to manufacture a fraudulent email trail to use in an accusation of ethics violations.

It’s difficult to know whether to tell this story in straight or reverse chronology, but either way, it raises eyebrows about the tactics that Iowa Democrats will deploy in 2012. Let’s take this in reverse. The story starts with an arrest yesterday in Des Moines of Zach Edwards, who works at Link Strategies as its Director of New Media, for identity theft targeting the Iowa Secretary of State, Republican Matt Schulz:

Zachary Edwards was arrested Friday and charged with identity theft.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a news release saying Schultz’s office discovered the scheme on June 24, 2011 and notified authorities.

The criminal complaint says Edwards fraudulently used or attempted to use the identity of Schultz or Schultz’s brother with the intent to obtain a benefit. No other details were given.

Link Strategies is a well-connected consulting firm with a long relationship to Senator Tom Harkin. In fact, Link Strategies has a testimonial on its website from Harkin, extolling their work and giving LS credit for his success.

And who exactly is Zach Edwards? Ed Morrissey points out that Link Strategies scrubbed their site, trying to hide Zach Edwards’ ties. But as Ed Morrissey says, nothing ever really disappears from the internet. Glenn Reynolds found Edwards’ Link Strategies bio.

Zach Edwards got started in web-based research while based in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2006 . After a stint as a part-time political blogger and local democratic volunteer, he joined the Obama campaign in early 2007 as an intern organizing North-West Las Vegas. In September 2007, Zach joined the Obama New Media department as co-director of the Nevada New Media team and then moved on to direct New Media operations in five other primary states (New Mexico, Texas, North Carolina, and South Dakota).

During the 2008 General Election, Zach was the Iowa Director of New Media. In this capacity, he worked closely with communications, research and field operations to provide cutting-edge organizing tools and new media-based opposition research; which was emulated in battleground states across the country. After the election, Zach began working at Link Strategies as the Director of New Media, where he provides innovative web-based research tools, video analysis and production, and web-based communication tools to assist our clients.

So Zach Edwards was not a “nobody” involved in criminal activities. He was a major Democrat and Obama operative, and had been such for at least four years.

RELATED:
ACORN, Democrats, FM2 And More, published in May 2009, covering multi-year, multi-state, wide-spread fraudulent activities by ACORN to benefit Democrats.

Democrats Fraudulently Making “Tea Party” Candidates, published in August 2010, covering multi-state fraud involving major Democrat officials and operatives in multiple states.

Michigan Crushes “Tea Party” Candidates, published in September 2010, covering Bauer and McGuinness’ attempts to put fake “Tea Party” candidates on the ballot and the Michigan Supreme Court’s nixing the candidates.

Michigan “Tea Party” And Felony Election Fraud, published in March 2011. Oakland County (Michigan) Democrat Chair Mike McGuinness and Operations Director Jason Bauer charged with multiple Election Fraud felonies. (See above, where they were both convicted.)

BO To Pipeline Jobs – Sell The Oil To China

BO says he wants jobs. Reality today – he doesn’t. BO said he likes good paying Union jobs. Guess what Unions, he doesn’t. BO wants to be re-elected, not when you give the ammo to say you’re anti-job. So all this talk of private jobs is HOT AIR from BO. This action tells me he hates people who work and he wants his Socialist plan of dependency.

Obama administration to reject Keystone pipeline
By Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson, Wednesday, January 18, 11:39 AM

The Obama administration will announce this afternoon it is rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate a massive oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, according to sources who have been briefed on the matter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2012/01/18/gIQAwoVE8P_story.html

I Hear Little Bells Ringing

A Quote To Remember

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. … When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

— Paul, nee Saul of Tarsus

Is There a Dime’s Worth of Difference???

Is there really that much difference between BO and Mitt Romney? These are the Establishment choices, and it appears the Establishment does not care who wins. As Ron Smith late of WBAL Radio talk show host for years has always said there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the parties. And it looks like this year they will get their puppet nominees.

I’ll bet that he voted for Obama!

Obama admin continues its racial quest using “disparate impact”

If anything demonstrates the current administration’s radicalism on racial issues, it’s its predilection to utilize the concept of “disparate impact” to justify remedial measures — even when there has been NO demonstrated discrimination/prejudice/bigotry whatsoever. The latest incident comes from Pepsi, where the company “has agreed to pay $3.13 million and provide job offers and training” to [primarily] African-Americans after the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) went after it for — GASP! — not granting full-time employment to applicants who had arrest records:

In a press release on Wednesday, the Obama administration announced that Pepsi “has agreed to pay $3.13 million and provide job offers and training”after a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission “investigation revealed that more than 300 African Americans were adversely affected when Pepsi applied a criminal background check policy that disproportionately excluded black applicants from permanent employment.” The press release says that, under that policy, “job applicants who had been arrested pending prosecution were not hired for a permanent job even if they had never been convicted of any offense,” and that the policy “also denied employment to applicants from [sic] employment who had been arrested or convicted of certain minor offenses.”

The very concept of “disparate impact” preposterously overrides what should be how law deals with discrimination. It automatically assumes “invidious intent” on the part of the so-called offender. Did Pepsi actually plan to exclude blacks with its policy? Of course not. The fact that blacks disproportionately have more criminal records doesn’t factor into the equation — even though it obviously should. And, as it should in other arenas, like school discipline (also mentioned in the link above). Consider: Would the EEOC seriously consider investigating the NBA or NFL for its “disparate impact” against white athletes? Of course not. The leagues set a standard, and if players meet it, they’re put on a team. How is Pepsi’s standard any different? Doesn’t a company have a justifiable interest in security … by excluding criminals from employment (or certain areas of employment)? Of course it does. But this doesn’t matter to “progressive” racial bean counters.

Another example of this lunacy comes from our old (literally) pal Perry. At First Street Journal, he’s been hijacking numerous threads attempting to convince (futilely) anyone who will listen that voter ID laws are “voter suppression” — utilizing the “disparate impact” reasoning. African-Americans, among others, will be “disproportionately affected” by such laws. But, as was argued by, among others, commenter “Koolo” there, such a rationale must explain an “invidious intent.” Programs like affirmative action are permissible because their discrimination is not, supposedly, “invidious.” Likewise, a general requirement that voters show a photo ID at a polling station is not “invidious,” despite how much progressive morons like Perry think they are.