There are the swelling numbers of unemployed now homeless, including military veterans. Now students are joining the ranks of the homeless. There is no government funding for homeless shelters. And existing shelters are swamped. Meanwhile, Obama’s administration is trying to shutter the Boeing plant in South Carolina. The Boeing story is becoming a major campaign issue, infuriating middle-class people who believe that the federal government shouldn’t mess with companies that want to hire Americans rather than get cheaper labor overseas. But Obama is more interested in keeping his Labor groupies happy and Labor’s campaign cash flowing.

Why did I post the photo of Michelle Obama — besides noticing that TOTUS is part of the group hug? Do you see the “cuff” bracelets she is wearing? Well, here we go: “Michelle Obama dazzles New York in $42,150 diamond bracelets“:

Michelle Obama dazzled in true First Lady style at the DNC fundraiser this week, her left wrist dripping with diamonds as she supported her husband at the party event.

In total, she sported an astonishing $42,150 worth of bracelets to the New York Democratic Party dinner.

Designed by Texas-based jeweller, Katie Decker, the three white gold cuffs glittered and sparkled, catching the spotlight as she spoke to the high-powered audience.

The First Lady, 47, chose to wear Miss Decker’s Lotus cuff, with 2.9 carats of diamonds, costing $15,000, the Gothic cuff with 2.17 carats of diamonds, costing $15,350, and the $11,800 Quatrefoil bracelet with 1.73 carats of diamonds to the Gotham Hall event.

According to Houston’s culturemap.com, Mrs Obama’s stylist found the sparkling cuffs in Miss Decker’s showroom at SoHo’s Fragments store. …

So Michelle has a stylist. Every woman needs one.

In Steve’s excellent post — “The Real Barack Obama” — we learn how the indolent, disinterested Obama spends his days — in shorts and flip-flops, watching sports on TV — while earning a $400,000 annual salary. About the only times we see Obama are when he is feigning concern for the nation’s unemployed while his real agenda is to raise money for his reelection campaign.

By the way, several months ago, Larry Johnson posted material that sounds eerily similar to what Steve posted. I wonder if the White House source is the same person. Maybe not — there are some differences in style and the person’s self-described access to the White House. Check out Larry’s post, “Is Barack Losing It?”

So if Obama doesn’t appear interested in the job of president, what does he do day after day? Well, he takes his meetings just like any other president would, though even then, he seems to lack a certain focus and on a few occasions, actually leaves with the directive that be given a summary of the meeting at a later date. I hear he plays a lot of golf, and watches a lot of television – ESPN mainly.

I’ll tell you this – if you want to see President Obama get excited about a conversation, turn it to sports. That gets him interested.

You start talking about Congress, or some policy, and he just kinda turns off. It’s really very strange. I mean, we were all led to believe that this guy was some kind of intellectual giant, right? Ivy League and all that. Well, that is not what I saw. Barack Obama doesn’t have a whole lot of intellectual curiosity.

When he is off script, he is what I call a real “slow talker”. Lots of ummms, and lots of time in between answers where you can almost see the little wheel in his head turning very slowly. I am not going to say the president is a dumb man, because he is not, but yeah, there was a definite letdown when you actually hear him talking without the script. . . .

You’ll also want to revisit Larry’s post to read about Obama’s serious problem with paranoia and his inappropriate behavior with staff (such as throwing temper tantrums).

Here we have it: A president who is utterly unconcerned about the jobs crisis and lives a lifestyle the rest of us can only dream of.

A $42,000 bracelet would keep a single mother and children in housing and food for over two years, if they budget carefully.

Just saying …

I AM FURIOUS.

Politico has a good article about the Boeing plant situation. From “South Carolina Boeing factory turns sour for Obama“:

“It’s like a lightning rod,” said Gary Chaison, an industrial relations professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “The Boeing case is so dramatic. All the anti-union forces and all anti-Obama people are coalescing.”

At the same time the president was selling his American Jobs Act in the Rose Garden last week, Mitt Romney was visiting Boeing’s South Carolina factory. The former governor of Massachusetts drew loud cheers for suggesting that any stimulus package should include legislation telling the board to drop its complaint.

“It’s an egregious example of political payback where the president is able to pay back the unions for the hundreds of millions of dollars they have put into his campaigns at the expense of American workers,” Romney said.

Newt Gingrich toured the new plant and called for cutting the NLRB’s funding, while Jon Huntsman did his own swing through the manufacturing facility, advocating that the president step in before it scares business from South Carolina. Rick Perry has accused Obama of stacking the board with “anti-business cronies.”

Despite the assertions of his critics, Obama’s hands are tied — and the case could get dragged out for years with delays and appeals. Beyond vetoing any congressional proposals, if they make it to his desk, the president has little influence over the complaint or the board’s acting general counsel Lafe Solomon. [WHEW!]

P.S. That airplane that Boeing is building in South Carolina? It is “the world’s most fuel-efficient commercial jet.”

Wouldn’t that classify the positions held by the thousands of workers Boeing has hired in South Carolina as “green jobs”?

That hasn’t had an impact on the NLRB, though, which filed a suit against Boeing since it will not be using union labor here (SC is a “right to work” state). Bear in mind that NO union jobs were cut because of this move, Boeing still has plants in Washington State, and in fact, their union positions have increased.

This has been an on-going battle, with the tacit acceptance by the White House of the NLRB trying to dictate to what states companies can, and cannot, have their businesses.

So, it is in that framework that Thomas Geoghegan, an attorney in Chicago, wrote this WSJ editorial, “Boeing’s Threat to American Enterprise; When major firms move to the South, it’s usually a harbinger of quality decline. Why let that happen?”

I’m sorry, what? Is he really saying that companies that move their business South automatically suffer in quality? Why, yes he is:

[snip] We should be aghast that Boeing is sending a big fat market signal that it wants a less-skilled, lower-quality work force. This country is in a debt crisis because we buy abroad much more than we sell. Alas, because of this trade deficit, foreign creditors have the country in their clutches. That’s not because of our labor costs—in that respect, we can undersell most of our high-wage, unionized rivals like Germany. It’s because we have too many poorly educated and low-skilled workers that are simply unable to compete.

We depend on Boeing to out-compete Airbus, its European rival. But when major firms move South, it is usually a harbinger of quality decline. Over and over as a labor lawyer in the 1980s and ’90s, I saw companies move away from Chicago, where the pay was $28 an hour, to some place in South Carolina or Louisiana where the pay was about half that. While these moves aggrieved me as a union lawyer, it might have consoled me as an American if those companies went on to thrive globally.[snip] (Click here to read the rest of this drivel.)

See, because if you are having to pay twice as much to compensate the unions, you are better off. Uh huh.

It’s a miracle we Southerners can even get our dumb asses out of bed every day, ain’t it??

Now, I thought about going on my own little rant, and believe you me, I could – but there were a whole bunch of comments at the WSJ that really say it all:

Buck Hebner: After reading y’all’s comments, I realize what an astute move the WSJ made publishing this lawyer’s editorial. The WSJ staff must be howling with laughter. This one editorial accomplishes what a hundred conservative viewpoints fail to do, show readers the true stakes of this battle. In a few paragraphs, Mr. Geoghegan unmasks the true intentions of big Labor and progressive policy. They believe stirring up sectional hate and class-warfare will help them achieve their goals of unlimited Federal power and personal gain.

150 years after the Civil War was fought, the South is rising again. Not as an antagonist to the North, but as a economic engine that will help all of America become stronger through economic competition. The WSJ should be commended. Thank you.

Roger Simpson: First, Boeing did not “move” any work from Washington; as they have repeatedly stressed, the work to be done in South Carolina is new work, and there is nothing wrong economically with adding jobs to a state that could sure use them. Second, the notion that Washington citizens are somehow more “skilled” than South Carolinians is sheer arrogance, and has no basis in reality. Such babble was used when the auto manufacturers moved jobs there, and we have seen how ridiculous it was.

The real issue is that Big Labor cannot afford for people to find out that the work of $28/hour workers (who still are not satisfied with their lot) can be done just as well by $14/hour workers in another state, and without complaint. Especially a state which does not cater to the class of self-important, professional protesters, who take a cut from every worker’s check to line their own pockets, while presuming to negotiate en masse for an entire group of indivdual free citizens.

Wilson Jones II: I hope this cat remembers that Southerners probably made the steel that holds his building up (Nucor), made his blood pressure meds (Glaxco Smith Kline), assembled his BMW…. AND we were smart enough to put together a rocket that put man on the moon… Now give me some Kickapoo Joy Juice as i listen to the theme from Deliverence…

Millard Ramsey: I can’t stop laughing long enough to compose a response to this piece. I live in Chattanooga where VW has seen fit to invest $1 billion in a plant that will employ thousands of those “unskilled” Southern workers. Looks like VW has given up on quality too.

Alan Davis: Kia in Georgia, Hyundai in Alabama, BWM in South Carolina, and the list goes on and on. The rush to low quality must be the new business model.

I might add, Gulf Stream Jets are made in Savannah, GA, Toyotas are made in Kentucky, oh, and not only are Hyundais made in Alabama, but so are Mercedes Benz SUVs, and NASA is there, too, with Peterbilts being built in Denton, TX.

If you want some good laughs, though, go read the 40+ pages of comments about this incredibly offensive, arrogant, condescending, and flat out Southernist BS from this Chicago lawyer.

Boeing has every right to build its plants wherever the hell it sees fit. And our government should not be in the business of telling businesses where they can have those plants. Hell, even the Seattle Times is claiming that “Obama Administration Putting Politics Before The Economy” with this misguided assault against Boeing, and SC. No freakin’ kidding. This is all payback.

And speaking of payback – remember when Obama shoved the (also misguided) stimulus down our throats to bail out companies like GM? He claimed that the Administration would not be micromanaging GM? Well, hold on to your seats – he lied. Yes, Obama lied. In fact, the Treasury Department DID essentially run GM, and get this:

[snip] These messages reveal that Treasury officials were involved in decision-making that led to more than 20,000 non-union workers losing their pensions. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Holy shit. Well, that just goes to show you this NLRB debacle is not an aberration, but business as usual. Cutting TWENTY THOUSAND non-union pensions – are you kidding me with this?

Oh, but then again, what the hell do I know? I’m just a Southerner, after all…

I am sure this will be a shock to you, but fully 20% of Obamacare waivers are in Nancy Pelosi’s district. (Okay, I cannot restrain myself – how much does it look like Obama is telling Nancy, “don’t you worry, sweetie, I will always love you” or something along those lines? Feel free to add your own caption below.)

You are just not going to believe this. Well, maybe you would, but it is just a tad aggravating, as The Daily Caller reports:

Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.

That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved.

[...]

Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.

Gee, aren’t you also surprised to learn that union chapters were also getting waivers? Oh, I am so sure.

But allow me to give you a glimpse into the kinds of restaurants these are in Former Speaker Pelosi’s district getting waivers:

For instance, Boboquivari’s restaurant in Pelosi’s district in San Francisco got a waiver from Obamacare. Boboquivari’s advertises $59 porterhouse steaks, $39 filet mignons and $35 crab dinners.

Then, there’s Café des Amis, which describes its eating experience as “a timeless Parisian style brasserie” which is “located on one of San Francisco’s premier shopping and strolling boulevards, Union Street,” according to the restaurant’s Web site.

“Bacchus Management Group, in partnership with Perry Butler, is bringing you that same warm, inviting feeling, with a distinctive San Francisco spin,” the Web site reads. Somehow, though, the San Francisco upper class eatery earned itself a waiver from Obamacare because it apparently cost them too much to meet the law’s first year requirements.

The reason the Obama administration says it has given out waivers is to exempt certain companies or policyholders from “annual limit requirements.” The applications for the waivers are “reviewed on a case by case basis by department officials who look at a series of factors including whether or not a premium increase is large or if a significant number of enrollees would lose access to their current plan because the coverage would not be offered in the absence of a waiver.” The waivers don’t allow a company to permanently refrain from implementing Obamacare’s stipulations, but companies can reapply for waivers annually through 2014. [snip] (Click here to read the rest of this story.)

Not to be too cynical or anything (!), but sure seems like a bit of a payback for Pelosi shoving through this monstrosity of a bill. But that’s just a guess on my part.

And if THESE companies are struggling to pay for Obamacare with their high dollar menu, what does this administration think is going to happen with small business owners who AREN’T charging comparable rates for comparable services? Will they, too, get waivers? I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one, if I were them. Well, unless they happen to be in Nancy’s district, and likely a place she frequents (okay, I made that up, but c’mon, it’s pretty likely, isn’t it, that she patronizes the restaurants mentioned above? I think so.), otherwise,t hey are just SOL.

Just like the rest of us are.

Once again, this is a glaring example of just how much this is less about the people of this country, and more about political payback. All I can say is I hope the courts do the right thing for US and rule this new law un-Constitutional.

Caption time – what is Obama saying to Pelosi? And consider this an Open Thread. Feel free to talk abt the Govinator’s love child, why this IMF chairman, Dominque Strauss-Kahn still has his job after raping someone but Wolfowitz lost his for a consensual relationship, or Trump, Obama’s bin Laden bounce already bouncing away, or whoever/whatever is on your mind…

UPDATE: I advise you to not be drinking anything when you read this. Ready? Okay – so, HHS is claiming that Pelosi had NOTHING to do with the 20% of waivers granted in April going to HER district. Nope, zippo, zilch, nada, the big donut hole. Huh uh, nothing at all. Oh, you believe them, don’t you? After all, they’re the government – they wouldn’t lie to you, would they?! Wow…

The SEIU also held California hostage when it was trying to reduce its payouts by bringing in their good buddy, Obama, to tell Ah-nold that he would get NO federal money if he touched the SEIU wages. Must be nice to have friends in high places, right? We are talking a union with only a little over 2 million members. That is some level of influence for so few people relatively speaking (the US has over 307 million people).

There is an even seedier side to SEIU, too. Who can forget this scene when a Tea Party member was assaulted by SEIU members:

That is but the tip of the iceberg. Here is another example of SEIU violence which, ironically, is directed toward people it wants as members:

If you go to YouTube, and do a search on “SEIU violence,” you will get more hits than most people have time to watch.

But as Erik Erickson pointed out at , what SEIU did over the weekend is taking their brand of intimidation to a whole new low. As he noted, had there not been a reporter (Nina Easton) living next door to the target house, chances are good we would not have known about their little weekend in Maryland.

What’s Really Behind SEIU’s Bank of America Protests?

(Photo by Nina Easton)

Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb–literally.

Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that — in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action — makes his family fair game.

Waving signs denouncing bank “greed,” hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer’s steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

So these are the depths to which the SEIU, an incredibly powerful (thanks, Obama) union with very close ties to Barack Obama, has sunk. They went to someone’s HOUSE to protest, terrorizing – yes, terrorizing – a young teenager:

Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly “outed” him, and slipped through his front door.

“Excuse me,” Baer told his accusers, “I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.”

When is a protest not a protest?

Now this event would accurately be called a “protest” if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be “mob.” Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might “incite” these trespassers.

Yes, “mob” is the perfect word for what the SEIU members did:

What’s interesting is that SEIU, the nation’s second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President’s Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs — executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer — at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.

In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.

Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives — with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it’s any executive — and they’re on the front stoop. After Baer’s house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).

Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that’s not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.

When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU’s point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting “emotional.” Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: “Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear.”

Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, “People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing.”

Isn’t that just typical? Rather than actually addressing Ms. Easton’s concerns, she is dismissed as being “emotional.” So, let’s add “sexist” to the increasingly long list of things SEIU is, sadly too many of which are negative. But to Lerner’s accusations:

Bank of America officials dispute Lerner’s assertion about the “damage they are doing,” citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank’s support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.

SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers — and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank’s image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union’s lender of choice — and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.

Banks: The new punching bag

But SEIU’s intentions, and BofA’s lender record, are ripe subjects to debate in Congress, on air, at shareholder hearings. Not in Greg Baer’s front yard.
Why the media wasn’t invited

Sunday’s onslaught wasn’t designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.

Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union’s leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.

Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He’s not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.

In the 1990s, the Baers’ former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the “politics of personal destruction.” Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we’ve crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.

To say this “politics of personal intimidation” is unacceptable is a gross understatement. But it seems to be the MO of far too many Obama supporters (e.g., New Black Panthers in Philly, intimidation and machinations of caucuses in Texas, and on it goes). Where does it stop with these people?

Going to someone’s house, in 14 buses, no less, on a weekend, with no permit to protest, and a DC police escort to this home in Maryland, terrorizing a 14 year old boy, takes this to a whole new level, or new depth, however you want to spell it. I spell it, “D-E-S-P-I-C-A-B-L-E.”

UPDATE: Now the DC Metro Police claim they contacted Montgomery County Police, and broke away at the border. The Chief said one police officer accidentally crossed over. A Montgomery Police Captain claimed since the SEIU dispersed peacefully from the front STOOP of the house, there were no arrests. Thanks to ~~JustMe~~ for the link to the video of the SEIU members. I will keep an eye out for the video of the two police officers making their claims regarding the Metro PD, and the Montgomery PD. Currently, there is a major contradiction between what Captain Paul Stark is saying, and the statement issued by Cpl Daniel Friz who said there was NO courtesy call that a protest was heading toward Montgomery County, and that the DC police were ON SITE in MD. Someone ain’t telling the truth here. Wonder why??

FINALLY, here are the two police officers giving their side. Bear in mind that AFTER this interview, the underling in Montgomery County contends there were NO phone calls from Metro DC police:

In normal times, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’ buffoonery would have garnered more critical public attention.

But these are not normal times. These are the times of hope’n'change.

So, Hilda’s inadequateness goes largely without comment as we try not to drown beneath the flood of bizarre goings-on within the Obama administration.

But she’s doing her best to get noticed.

Hilda would ever so much like to repeal reporting regulations that allow union members to see how union bosses spend their dues.

Hmm. Can’t think of much good that could come of that.

There was an age when trade unions carried out vital work. It was, unfortunately, about 200 years ago, when factory owners had a penchant for shoving children, sorry “workers of advanced youth”, into machinery, chimneys, mines, etc. But those days are gone.

In the UK, trade unions now account for up to 90 per cent of donations to the Labour Party.

As far as single-issue pressure groups go, it’s pretty hard to beat effectively owning your own political party.

I’m just waiting for Hilda to get together with James Hoffa, though.

Together, there’s surely nothing they can’t accomplish.

The title tells the story:

Then blogger J. Justin Wilson reveals the depressing details:

I just got off the AFL-CIO’s kick-off conference call with Obama. What a tragedy of errors.

First of all, Sen. Obama was about 40 minutes late to the show. You can image how fantastic 40 minutes of Muzak went over. Finally, John Sweeney introduced Obama.

Next …

After rattling off nearly the exact same speech he delivered a few months ago to the AFL-CIO (see above [video]), Obama proceeded to hang up. Click. Just like that.

Someone at the AFL-CIO muttered something like “is that it?” and then we went back to hold music.

A lady came back on and made an excuse, saying Obama’s line was cut off and that he would come back on the call. Minutes pass, and then she came back on and said that Obama had left the building. …

Go to “Stood Up and Hung Up” to view a video and to listen to the actual phone call.

Oh well. I completely understand.

It is such an annoyance to have to talk to those “typical” little people.

:::::

P.S. Originally I described the blog as “pro-labor.” That is not entirely true. However, the facts of the event — backed up with an AUDIO — remain true.

• Our TexasDarlin pointed out the favorable treatment the Obamas received compared to the “neglected slums” of their impoverished neighbors in unimaginably horrific “public” housing that Obama helped privatize so that his rich longtime buddies — like Tony Rezko and Allison Davis — could scoop up tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money while the properties were left in such disrepair that many became uninhabitable.
• LisaB addressed the mysterious payments of property taxes for the Obamas.
• Now, Flopping Aces resurrects the mystery of Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi who helped an in-debt Tony Rezko (in exchange for what?) around the time Rezko somehow managed to help the Obamas buy their mansion:
  

  While there is no evidence that the bank in question had a program like Countrywide did, it sure does smell like political favoritism. Not as big of a deal as Johnson’s, Dodd’s, and Conrad’s, but you combine that with Tony Rezko’s involvement in the house deal when Rezko did not have the money to buy the property (at which point Iraqi financier Auchi comes in) and you get a fishy smell.

Ah. Nadhmi Auchi. Flopping Aces, a few months ago, reported:

Who is Auchi? He is an associate of Saddam’s who gave Rezko some big bucks and soon after receiving those big bucks Rezko helped Obama purchase a new home by buying the empty lot next to it at the same time. Auchi was convicted of fraud in France and was banned from entering the US in 2005. …

How in debt is Tony Rezko? During his federal trial, in March 2008, it was reported he is $50 million in debt. In fact, ABC News used this headline, which I cited in my story, “ABC News: Rezko $50 million in debt [Updated x3]“:

Rezko In Debt $50 Million; How Did He Afford Obama Lot?
Court Transcript Says Rezko Depends on Family Handouts of $7,500 a Month

In the same story, I wrote:

[F]rom the ABC News summary: Rezko “told the judge he had no current source of income, saying his last business deal involving a proposed power plant in Iraq had been cancelled.” That venture involved convicted Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi. See Larry Johnson’s story, “Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?“

Of course, the Rezko scandal hasn’t derailed Obama, so protected by the media. If the Clintons were similarly indebted to an indicted (and now convicted) slumlord who bilked taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars, you’d hear the story ad nauseum.

Here’s more from my March story that owed much to ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross’s digging — including the laughable purchase of the adjacent lot by Mrs. Rezko, who had no financial means and obviously couldn’t rely on her heavily in-debt husband — which begs the QUESTION: Who supplied the money that enabled the Rezkos to make possible the purchase of the Obamas’ $1.6 million mansion?

Rezko’s bleak financial picture raises the question of how the Rezkos were able to buy a vacant lot adjoining the home of Sen. Barack Obama in 2005, at a time Rezko says he was already in deep debt.

Rezko also reveals in the testimony, before Judge Amy St. Eve on Jan. 16, 2007, that he already knew he was under federal investigation at the time of the land purchase and had hired a criminal defense attorney to deal with the “feds.”

Obama says he sought Rezko’s help because the house he wanted to buy in Chicago’s Hyde Park came with an adjoining lot the seller wanted to sell at the same time.

Unable to afford it himself, Obama says Mrs. Rezko bought it for $625,000, and then later sold a strip of the lot back to Obama so he would have a larger yard. Obama says he paid Mrs. Rezko a fair market price. …

Here’s a bit more from the ABC News story:

… Mrs. Rezko makes $37,500 a year.

[...]

According to the transcript, Mrs. Rezko sold the vacant lot a few weeks before the hearing, with all proceeds going to pay previous debts.

Asked how he was able to pay his lawyer, Joseph Duffy, Rezko said family and some unnamed “friends” were paying his legal bills.

Duffy told the judge, “Mr. Rezko has not provided us any money since his indictment.”

Rezko told the judge he had no current source of income, saying his last business deal involving a proposed power plant in Iraq had been cancelled.

He said he had an ongoing relationship with Nadhmi Auchi, a London-based Iraqi billionaire convicted on French fraud charges, who Rezko described as a close friend and business associate. …

Okay, you “professional” journalists — like Politico’s Ben Smith who calls the Washington Post story “padded” and is done with it:

– Tell me how the Rezkos got the money to enable the Obamas to buy the mansion they couldn’t afford.

– Tell me that Nadhmi Auchi’s money didn’t give the Rezkos the funds they needed to buy the vacant lot required for the Obamas to close the sale on the mansion.

– Tell me what Nadhmi Auchi got out of helping Tony Rezko. Billionaires don’t get that rich by helping desperate businessmen who are under federal indictment and facing long prison sentences.

– Tell me that major Obama campaign contributor Susan Crown, on the Board of Directors of Northern Trust mortgage company since 1997, didn’t make a phone call or two to make sure the Obamas got a favorable mortgage loan.

– Tell me why Barack Obama promised Maytag workers he’d fight for their jobs and took their hard-earned money for his campaign, then turned around and got a big donation from Maytag board member Lester Crown (as well as his family and friends), but never said a word to Crown about saving those workers’ jobs?

And, while we’re at it:

– Tell me why state senator puppetmaster Emil Jones put Barack Obama on the state senate pensions committee for three months, during which time that committee defeated an effort to consolidate state pensions? At the same time that Tony Rezko was fighting the consolidation because it would have defeated his schemes for dipping into individual minority-owned pension management companies.

Dear readers, if you want to know more about Nadhmi Auchi and Tony Rezko, click here. We’ve been on these stories since last year.

Again: If Nadhmi Auchi were involved with Hillary Clinton, every American would know his name and his sordid dealings with Saddam Hussein, his conviction in France, and his billionaire status.

But it’s rare that a journalist gets to write about stories like these, let alone get any prominent coverage of his or her story.

Effective May 1, 2008, as matter of principle, I am resigning from CSEA as President of Chapter 645 and as a CSEA union member.

My reason for this principled decision is because I can’t support or work on behalf of a union that allows and condones bigotry and racist remarks by Keynote Speakers and does not publically and forcefully correct the error when brought to the Presidents’ attention.

On Tuesday April 29th, a paid CSEA keynote speaker by the name of Lee Mun Wah, gave a presentation to the assembled members of CSEA. Throughout Lee Mun Wah’s presentation of “multi-cultural diversity,” he repeatedly blamed European white males for the suffering of others.

In addition, I understand CSEA has not endorsed a presidential candidate, but permitted the Keynote Speaker, Lee Mun Wah, to use the CSEA platform to, by his words, endorse a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, defending hate speech by Senator Barak Obama’s spiritual mentor Reverend Wright, while denigrating the other two candidates.

I, sir, am a white male of Scottish heritage and personally had absolutely nothing to do with the imprisoning of Japanese American’s during WWII, or the death of Lee Mun Wah’s mother, or ANY of the racist examples he put forth. I will not be associated with an organization that permits the use of “white guilt,” calls me a bigot or ANY other form of racism and does nothing to address it.

I cannot stand by while a photo of the jet crashing into the World Trade Towers is used for marketing purposes in describing a “stereotypical” group of younger people. Among the many innocent lives to perish, I had friends die in that building that day, on 9/11/01. How dare CSEA use that tragic event, in the manner it did.

Nor can I condone, when a training “skit” is used to depict a registered Republican and a member of CSEA listening to the members of the audience laugh in condemnation, and so such disrespect. It saddens me that the CSEA leadership shows the same indifference, lack of respect and in-sensitivity for CSEA members,. that Lee Mun Wah showed. I expressed my views to CSEA leadership and was ignored. Your lack of response to my serious concerns is deplorable.

In closing, I held the belief that CSEA’s mission was about the workplace rights and well being of its union members. That belief has been damaged beyond repair because of your indifference to my real concerns, and I will make it my duty to alert media outlets that CSEA is more interested in multi-cultural racism and citizenship for illegal aliens, then the welfare of its own members.

I was and will be, deeply offended by Lee Mun Wah remarks and CSEA’s lack of response in repudiating them.

Respectfully,

Adrian Gillies

The civil war now being waged in the Democratic Party gives us an opportunity to redefine liberalism and the Party itself. The sexism and elitism by the blogger boyz is one part of this civil war. It’s largely a class war:

The Democratic primaries have been skewed for decades by the presence of large numbers of upper-middle class elitists concerned about environmentalism, race and gender quotas, balanced budgets, good government, corruption, gridlock, excessive partisanship, and related issues. They are not interested in the minimum wage, trade union rights, stopping home foreclosures, and other kitchen table concerns of the less well off.

The blogger Anglachel has written brilliantly on the class divide in the party. She captures perfectly the attitude of the Typical Chardonnay People Obama confided to last weekend:

the “wine track” cadre of the Democratic party has no clue about working class America except for their own strange blend of bitter, bible-thumping rubes who just can’t grasp the big picture, the poor things, and keep voting against their own interests.

Snob-gate has made me think about why I’m a proud American and Democrat and the direction we should move our party. Here’s a few reasons:

We are the heirs of the world’s most enlightened revolution.
We believe the United States is a force for good in the world.
We believe that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are sacred documents.
We believe brave men and women gave their lives so others can have liberty.

We despise prejudice towards any group; there is no historical context which makes any form of racism acceptable.
We reject sexism or stereotypes of both men and women, gays or lesbians, blacks or whites, city dwellers or farmers.
We respect all faiths and forms of belief or non-belief.

We have been entrusted to continue the legacy of the New Deal.
The mission of the Democratic Party is to expand opportunity for all.
We believe an expanding and prosperous middle-class is good for
both business and labor.
We believe poor Americans should be given the opportunity and
responsibility to improve their own lives, and we will help them do it.

We believe that all work has dignity and that everyone deserves to be paid a living wage.
We believe a smart environmental policy can save the planet and create jobs.
We believe a farmer or a housewife can have as much or more wisdom than a famous journalist.
We believe in safe working conditions, fair pay, health care for all, a dignified retirement, and respect for our veterans.
We should have military strength sufficient to defend our nation and our allies.
We believe in our country and our flag and all who serve it.

It’s one thing when someone’s repeating things that he may or may not know is inaccurate when it comes to Hillary’s record on NAFTA.  I refrained from posting on all this before because I gave Senator Obama the benefit of the doubt – maybe he just didn’t know he’d gotten it wrong.

But folks have been pointing out the error if his ways for a week or more now and he’s still making false claims about Hillary’s record – in fact he did it again today.  It’s no longer a mis-read or a mistake – now he’s just flat out lying and I’m calling bullshit on his lies.

This isn’t change we can rely on – it’s more of the same bullshit and Chicago smack-down politics.

Make the jump – there’s more…

As I’ve pointed out on many occasions, states in the rust belt are hurting. Plants are shutting down and folks are out of work in Michigan and Ohio, so BO knows NAFTA’a a hot button issue back in the Midwest.  He’s using fear and lies to turn voters against Hillary in his stump speeches, and in flyers that he’s sending to their homes.   From today’s Washington Post…

CINCINNATI — Hillary Rodham Clinton angrily accused her Democratic rival Saturday of deliberately misrepresenting her positions on NAFTA and health care in mass mailings to voters, adding, “Shame on you, Barack Obama.”

Clutching two of Obama campaign mailings in her hand for emphasis, the former first lady said, “enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove’s playbook.”

She said by his actions, Obama was giving “aid and comfort to the very special interests and their allies in the Republican Party who are against doing what we want to do for America.”

“Meet me in Ohio,” she said. “Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.” The two are scheduled to debate Tuesday in Cleveland.

In her criticism of Obama, she asked, “Since when do Democrats attack one another on universal health care?”

(For those who may have missed it, loads of people have called BO out on stopping short of truly universal health care here here, here, and here.  Ok back to the Washington Post article…)

The second mailing, on the North American Free Trade Agreement, quotes a 2006 Newsday article suggesting Clinton believed the agreement had been a “boon” to the economy. NAFTA and other trade agreements are extremely unpopular in Ohio, which has suffered an exodus of blue-collar jobs to other countries in part due to such agreements.

“I am fighting to change NAFTA,” she insisted. “Neither of us were in the Senate when NAFTA passed. Neither voted one way or the other.”

Clinton said Newsday had corrected the record about her views on the agreement. Indeed, the paper published a blog item earlier this month saying Obama’s use of the word “boon” was unfair.

“Obama’s use of the citation in this way does strike us as misleading,” the paper said. “The quote marks make it look as if Hillary said “boon,” not us. It’s an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try to win an office.”

From ABC’s Jake Tapper…

In the fierce fight for votes here in Ohio, where NAFTA is not popular among many blue collar Democrats, Obama has repeatedly attacked Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for the trade deal pushed by President Bill Clinton and passed in Congress in November 1993.

“Yesterday [Saturday], [Clinton] said NAFTA was ‘negotiated’ by the first President Bush, not by her husband,” Obama said today. “But let’s be clear: It was her husband who got NAFTA passed. In her own book, Sen. Clinton called NAFTA one of Bill’s successes.”

Obama also relayed to the small crowd at the National Gypsum plant a number of quotes from Clinton he said indicated she had praised the trade agreement — including one from 2004, when she allegedly said, “I think, on balance, NAFTA has been good for New York and America.”

Said Obama, “One million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio. And yet, 10 years after NAFTA passed, Sen. Clinton said it was good for America. Well, I don’t think NAFTA has been good for America — and I never have.”

Hillary’s team hit back with the following in an effort to set the record straight.  Take a look…

Obama Continues To Mislead on Hillary and NAFTA

2/24/2008 1:54:42 PM

“Senator Obama’s insistence on repeating attacks that have been demonstrated to be false by independent entities proves once and for all that his speeches about the new politics are just words. That’s not change you can believe in.”

—Clinton spokesman Phil Singer

Today, Sen. Obama said the following:

And yesterday, Senator Clinton also said I’m wrong to point out that she once supported NAFTA. But the fact is, she was saying great things about NAFTA until she started running for President.

This is false. Hillary criticized Sen. Obama for sending out a mailer that claimed she said NAFTA was a “boon to the economy” when she never did. Today, the University of Pennsylvania’s FactCheck.org concluded “We do judge that the Obama campaign is wrong to quote Clinton as using words she never uttered, and it has produced little evidence that she ever had strong praise of any sort for NAFTA’s economic benefits.”

Also, Hillary has been critical of NAFTA long before she started running for President. For example, here’s Hillary in March 2000:

What happened to NAFTA I think was we inherited an agreement that we didn’t get everything we should have got out of it in my opinion. I think the NAFTA agreement was flawed. The problem is we have to go back and figure out how we are going to fix that. [Working Families Party, 3/26/00]

Sen. Obama touts his consistent opposition to NAFTA. But speaking in Illinois in 2004 Obama said the United States “benefited enormously” from exports under NAFTA and talked about the need to continue to pursue trade agreement like NAFTA that support “a system of free trade in this nation that allows us to move our products overseas.”

(Please see above link for hyper links to sources)

Hillary’s setting the record straight with two new ads in Ohio – people need to know the truth about Hillary and NAFTA and these ads will go a long way in getting that information out…

Proud – with Senator John Glenn

And Level

Help her get these ads up on the air in Ohio.  Dig deep – send what you can.  Don’t let these lies stand unchallenged.

DONATE NOW!

I stopped being “in awe” of candidates a long time ago. I don’t want a symbol. I don’t think any candidate is above the fray, nor can be — and probably shouldn’t be. I’m left cold by “elusive” messages. I just want the one who does the work and knows her stuff. And, I’ll tell you, if I were for Obama, I’d be feeling very uncomfortable about reports like these:

• “The Mendacity of Hope: What We Want to Believe About Obama,” by Washington Post‘s Richard Cohen, Jan. 1, 2008
• “The Delusional Style in American Punditry,” by the New Republic‘s Sean Wilentz, Dec. 19, 2007 (“Forget experience: Opinion-slingers are mooning over Barack Obama’s instincts. Don’t they remember how badly that worked out last time?“)
• “Democrats are Not Choosing Obama,” by radio host Taylor Marsh, Jan. 1, 2008
• “Obama slams Gore,” by Kos — yes, the founder of Daily Kos who recently backed Obama
• “Obama goes Harry and Louise: The audio,” by Jedreport at Daily Kos, Jan. 1, 2008
• “Obama-labor relationship tense in Iowa,” by Politico‘s Ben Smith, Jan. 1, 2008

Let’s see: Forty-five percent of Obama’s support comes from non-Democrats. And a bedrock Democratic group, labor, is royally pissed at Obama — as are (I’ve been told) the worker bees and leaders of Iowa’s Democratic party who are very worried about his use of GOP talking points on Social Security and more. Then we have more and more writers pointing out the “mendacity” (a polite word for “lie”) in Obama’s speeches and in his advertisements.

Have you heard any other Democratic candidate — any of them — pull a “Harry and Louise” GOP-like attack in a false, smear-laden ad defending his or her health care plan? I need to ask this: Do any of those awe-struck non-Democrats supporting him even know who Harry and Louise are, or why that history matters?

Real Democrats know better than to fall for those kinds of tactics. But those 40% independents and 5% Republicans who want to vote for Obama? How can we know about them? What have they bothered to learn? Or are they in a state of rapture, not worried about those Democratic bedrock constituencies and issues?

And where do I begin to tell you? I can’t quote from every one of those important reports above. But you can read them. And you must. Then you must tell others about what you’ve read. Before it’s too late.

I will quote from the New Republic piece — which is a must-read in its entirety — about that “delusional” Boston Globe endorsement of Obama, because I have read more about what the TNR author is referring to:

The Boston Globe, in an ideal specimen of the delusional style, ran an editorial that endorsed Obama because he is biracial and grew up in “multi-ethnic cultures”–adequate substitutes, by the editorial’s lights, for serious background and expertise in foreign affairs. Obama, according to the Globe, has engaged in “a search for identity” and taken “a roots pilgrimage to Kenya,” all of which supposedly displays a “level of introspection, honesty, and maturity” that the newspaper longs for in a president. “Obama’s story is America’s story,” the Globe intoned–a sentence that comes as close as any distinguished newspaper ever has to perfect emptiness.

Let us hold aside that the book the Globe relied on in discovering these singular Obamaesque virtues, Dreams From My Father, contains composite characters and other fictionalized elements–not exactly a portrait of sterling honesty or authenticity. What is especially delusional is the Globe’s confidence that its own projections about Obama’s character and personality, as well as the mystical conclusions it draws from his ethnicity, are serious grounds for endorsing any candidate for any office, much less the presidency. … (From “The Delusional Style in American Punditry.”)

When the TNR author referred to Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father, which “contains composite characters and other fictionalized elements–not exactly a portrait of sterling honesty or authenticity,” I recalled my recent reading of the very lengthy Chicago Tribune biography of Obama that pointed out many stories that Obama regularly recounts about his youth that — when Chicago Tribune reporters checked them out — simply weren’t true. In one story he tells often, Obama brags that he learned the Indonesian language rapidly and easily, but the Tribune reporters talked to his former teacher who remembers how much he struggled and how his schoolwork suffered because he couldn’t grasp the language. (I’m not faulting him for struggling with a new language, but it worries me that he brags about mastering it easily when that’s not what happened.) There are more similar instances in the Chicago Tribune bio series.

Then there’s a truly fine diary by Jedreport today at Daily Kos: “Obama goes Harry and Louise: The audio.” It’s another must-read in full, but here’s just a bit of it:

… Krugman’s post was about a friend who had heard an ad by Obama attacking Edwards and Hillary on their universal health care plans. At the time, there was considerable skepticism amongst Kossacks that any such ad existed, and if it did exist, whether it actually evoked the conservative “fear big government” theme of the Harry and Louise commercials from 1994.

Well, Ben Smith at politico.com has obtained an audio recording of the radio ad and I can report to you that unfortunately Krugman and his friend were right. Although the ad is partially a defense of Obama’s plan, it does savage Hillary and Edwards on universal health care — specifically mandates — and it even evokes the style, and more importantly, the theme, of the Harry and Louise ads.

Jedreport then quotes from Krugman’s post last week:

Obama goes Harry and Louise

A friend sends me this:

Have you seen or heard about the radio ad that Obama is running in Iowa about health care?

It has a man and a woman talking, with the man leading off saying that health care mandates “force those who cannot afford health care insurance to buy it, punishing those who don’t fall in line.”

This is what I’ve been complaining about. I was willing to cut Obama slack on the lack of mandates in his plan, even though the economics says they’re necessary; I figured that in practice, if elected, he’d end up doing the right thing.*

I started ramping up the criticism when he started attacking his opponents from the right, making the lack of mandates a principle rather than a compromise — because that was poisoning the well, making it much harder for any future Democratic president to implement a plan that will work.

Jedreports provides a YouTube of the ad, and part of the transcript:

MALE: Here’s the big difference on health care: Senators Edwards and Clinton favor mandates, which the Daily Iowan says would “force those who could not afford health insurance to buy it, punishing those who don’t fall in line.”

FEMALE: Barack Obama believes the solution isn’t making it illegal not to have health care, it’s making it affordable.

The kicker? Jedreport points out that “The Daily Iowan is the newspaper of the University of Iowa.” He adds, “I knew Obama had a lot of support from college kids, but now he’s quoting them on health care policy?”

JedReport also corrects misleading or false information in the ad.

But I’m just floored that Obama would quote a student newspaper as an authoritative source on health care. Well, I guess that’s how far his ad people had to look after an internationally renowned economist and New York Times columnist like Paul Krugman has reluctantly had to expose the problems with Obama’s health plan.

I ASK YOU AGAIN: Do any of those young people, those 40% independents, and those 5% Republicans who support Obama — do any of them know who Harry and Louise are, or why that history matters?

Real Democrats remember. Remember it well.

Don’t give me “hope.” Don’t leave me in “awe.” If your health care plan sucks, improve it! If your plan leaves out 15,000,000 people, say that you’re taking steps to correct it. But don’t attempt to smear your opponents’ plans when both John Edwards’ and Hillary Clinton’s plans are vastly better than yours.

I’ll stick with the REAL Democrats who’ll be voting in these primaries. The majority of them are behind the other candidates.