A COUP, THROUGH and THROUGH (3 of 3) is the final installment in the 3-part series describing the fraud pulled off at the 2008 DNC Services Corporation Presidential Nominating Convention in order to ensure Barack Obama would receive the nomination so that his name would appear next to the D on the general election ballot. The groundwork for the present article, “The Coup at the Convention,” was laid in the first 2 (two) installments, A COUP, THROUGH and THROUGH (1 of 3); and A COUP, THROUGH and THROUGH (2 of 3). Trust me, if you understand what got us here, to the convention, then you are now at the same jumping off point as those people who were determined to steal the nomination. Yep; just like you, from here on in, they were winging it, too. Because something they hadn’t anticipated happened at the start of the convention which could have derailed their best laid plans to obtain the nomination. Indeed, as I wasn’t there, it is only in retrospect I can explain to you what I later realized is about to go down, notwithstanding as it turns out, I was responsible for what happened next.

The Coup at the Convention

Judging by how hard they had fought to elbow Clinton out of the race at the beginning of the primary and caucus contests, powerful parties interested in placing Obama in the White House knew from the start, the only certain way to force this flawed candidate on the American people was to limit his exposure to public scrutiny by sewing up his nomination well in advance of the August 25 nominating convention. They failed, miserably. Indeed, while publicly maintaining since February, his nomination was a fait accompli; even they didn’t feel comfortable enough until August 14 that, having strong-armed a sufficient number of pledged delegates and paid off the rest, no matter what, they would pull off the nomination in an open roll call vote of pledged delegates from all states on the floor of the convention; to concede consistent with past practice the name of any other candidate seeking the nomination should also be formally entered into the roll.

Yes, they were confident on August 14 and for almost the next 11 (eleven) days that their Herculean investments in his candidacy over the past couple of years would pay off, better late than never. And in the end, even accounting for the open roll call vote of pledged delegates from every state, from the floor of the convention, he would walk away with the nomination.

Have Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) recruit Obama in the summer of 2006 to run against Clinton for the 2008 Presidential nomination? Check. Immediately thereafter, have DNC Chair Howard Dean rig the delegate apportionment process so as to ensure that Clinton, despite winning on account of real votes cast in state contests for her, would nonetheless lose and Obama, despite losing the actual vote count, would win? Check, check, and check. Have him appoint Pentacostal Preacher Leah Daughtry, DNC Chief of Staff, to be the CEO of the 2008 DNC Services Corporation Presidential Nominating Convention? Check. Have him make Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and 3rd in line of Presidential succession, the Chair of the 2008 Convention thus enabling her to control the nomination process (and after making him the nominee, to co-sign the Certification of his Nomination swearing to election officials he is Constitutionally eligible to be President to get them to print his name on the ballot in states whose laws only allow on the ballot the names of candidates who are legally qualified for the job)? Check.

Then, on August 25, the first day of the convention, something unexpected happened which began to unsettle his henchmen; and which, by Tuesday, August 26, the second night of the convention, had panicked them into pulling a bait and switch on the scheduled roll call vote of pledged delegates from all states on the floor of the convention, scrambling to preserve the chance that just through the use of that roll call, he could get the nomination.

That’s when they scrapped the scheduled open roll call vote of all states on the floor of the convention, simultaneously orchestrating a convoluted ploy affording them plausible deniability, they had not.

The ‘change’ in voting procedure, fashioned by both the Clinton and Obama camps Tuesday night, was rolled out to the press in Wednesday morning’s conference call. (Even the word “change” was never used.) Bill Burton, spokesperson for the Obama campaign, handed off the details to Jenny Backus; and she only prefaced her remarks by saying, she would “talk a little bit today, um, about some of the, um, process that you will see that will happen tonight, um, at the convention.”

Last night, convention secretary Alice Germond; ah, Jeff Berman, who is a senior adviser to the Barack Obama campaign; and Craig Smith who is a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton sent out a joint note to, um, all of the state delegation chairs with some information about, um, Wednesday’s roll call vote. Ah, basically, um, here’s the guidance that we can give you, ah, so far. Ah, last night and this morning, state delegations received vote tally sheets for their delegates. Um, throughout the day today they’ll be distributing those tally sheets to their delegates. Um, the cheat sheets will be completed by 4pm mountain time. Eh, today from about 3 to 5pm mountain time the voting and roll call procedure will happen. Um, the convention will gavel open at 3, ah, there’ll be, um, 3 nominating speeches, um, for Senator Clinton, a nominating speech and seconding speeches, ah, and then a nominating speech and 3 seconding speeches for Senator Obama. Ah, they will, ah, each candidate’s speeches will total, ah, no more than 15 minutes, so that’ll be about a half an hour of speeches. Once the speeches are concluded the vote tally sheets will be collected, ah, by the office of the secretary, ah, and then we will begin the roll call of the states and the delegation chair or her designee will announce the totals for each candidate. So, that’s the procedure how the roll call vote is gonna work today.

Um, and, ah, you can look forward to later this morning, ah, a joint statement from the Clinton and Obama office about who will be giving those nominating speeches, um, for each of us.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/27/roll-call-details-hammered-out/?fbid=yBSb83MFwB9

A reporter from BBC (whose name I did not get) asked, “…in reference to the roll call vote, I just wanted to confirm that there’s not going to be stoppage of, of any sort of states, that all 50 states will have their say and their vote tallies announced, right? There won’t be any kind of stopping?” Id.

Ms. Backus replied, “Um, the guidance that we’re giving you on the roll call vote is basically exactly what I just, ah, said to you right there. Um, it will go from, ah, 3 to 5pm mountain, ah, which is 5 to 7pm eastern, um, and that’s the procedure on how it’s gonna work.” Id.

Joe Manus, St. Louis Post Dispatch asked, “So the roll call will be at the beginning of tonight’s proceedings; and will the states be doing their unofficial tallies like this morning at the breaksfast?” Id.

“States will, um, begin to do their, um, unofficial tallies at the breakfast and throughout the day, um, and they will turn in those tally sheets, ah, this evening after either during or after, um, the nominating speeches before the call of the roll begins.” Id.

In sum, Ms. Backus told the press, pledged delegates will begin voting at their hotels this morning and throughout the day as delegation chairs distribute the “cheat sheets” to members of their delegations, only until 4:00 mountain time, when they are due to be delivered to the floor of the convention to be added into state totals which will be announced during the roll call of all states on the floor of the convention beginning at 3:00 mountain time.

Get it?

Delegates awoke on Wednesday, August 27, and shuffled off to another round of state delegation breakfasts where, in addition to their coffee and tea, they were now served up this bitter elixir from their delegation chairs. They would have to cast votes for their candidates after breakfast, in the hotel, behind closed doors, and then re-group on the floor of the convention.

Their response? Total confusion.

At least according to this account published in the Austin Chronicle at 1:33 on Wednesday afternoon, describing what had happened that morning when Boyd Richie, Chair of the Texas Democratic Party (“TDP”), a super delegate who had committed to Obama before the end of the primary/caucus contests, announced the new plans to the Texas delegation. (All mistakes appear in original.)

“Finally, a Roll Call Vote”

Boyd Richie announced a change to the Roll Call Vote process at this morning’s Delegate Breakfast. After receiving our delegate credentials, we were directed to a small room in the west wing of the host hotel. Inside the room we presented our delegate credential and ID, then placed our president preference (Obama, Clinton, or Abstain) and signed our name. This was our official vote. The list will be copied and published then delivered to the Pepsi Center via a shuttle bus around 12:30pm (Emphasis added by jbjd.)

Mr. Richie stated that officials staying at other hotels would still have the opportunity to vote later today. (Emphasis added by jbjd.)

Chairman Richie was upset both visibility and emotionally when some delegates asked whether observers would be present during the voting process. “We’re all Democrats”, said Richie in an angry tone. Finally, after several interruptions from some delegates requesting an observer, he asked the Obama registered agent Ron Kirk and Hillary registered agent Garry Mauro whether they wanted observers. Registered agents are the official representatives for campaigns. Mr. Kirk said they [Obama delegates] were not interested in having observers. As he said this, some Obama supporters began to chant, “Unity, unity.” In place of Mr. Mauro, John Oeffinger represented the Hillary campaign and honored the request of Hillary delegates to assign observers. John then immediately scrambled about the ballroom to schedule observers in shifts.

Strangely, we’ve also been told that we’ll vote again this evening. Mr. Richie said he did not know the process for delegates that wish to change their vote from what they placed on this morning’s ballot. (Emphasis added by jbjd.)

After voting, we were sent to a table to obtain our seating assignment for this evenings Roll Call Vote at the Pepsi Center.

So, how many times do we vote? Which one counts? I guess we’ll find out tonight.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/News/Blogs/index.html/objID666330/blogID/

“How many times do we vote?” “Which one counts?” Mr. Richie’s announcement there was a “change” in the voting procedure obviously left the Texas delegation with the impression, the ‘process’ used by the DNC to choose their Presidential nominee was ‘play it by ear.’

In contrast, that same morning, at 9:43, the Rocky Mountain News announced convention committee CEO Leah D. Daughtry described the voting process was ‘business as usual,’ pursuant to the ‘rules.’

“Convention roll-call plans set for tonight”

COLORADO CONVENTION CENTER — Each state at tonight’s session of the Democratic National Convention will announce the results of its delegate tally during a roll call that has been the source of much speculation and controversy this week.

Convention committee CEO Leah D. Daughtry said the roll call will take place as it has in previous conventions, despite speculations that a compromise between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might result in a departure from the usual process.

“The roll call is guided by the rules of the party,” Daughtry said at this morning’s convention press briefing. “It will proceed just as the rules dictate. (Emphasis added by jbjd.) Every state and every delegate will have the opportunity to vote. Everyone will be represented. Everyone will have their votes counted.”

The roll call will begin with each state announcing its delegate vote totals for the two Democratic candidates after a series nominating and seconding speeches for Clinton and Obama, Daughtry said.

Voting has already begun, as delegates began receiving tally cards this morning. (Emphasis added by jbjd.)

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/27/convention-roll-call-plans-set/

“Guided by the rules of the party…just as the rules dictate?” Rules? What rules?

Certainly not the Delegate Selection Rules, 2, Participation, F:

In accordance with Article Nine, Section 12 of the Charter of the Democratic Party of the United States, votes shall not be taken by secret ballot at any stage of the delegate selection
process…?

http://s3.amazonaws.com/apache.3cdn.net/3e5b3bfa1c1718d07f_6rm6bhyc4.pdf

Or Article Nine, Section 12 of the Charter:

All meetings of the Democratic National Committee, the Executive Committee, and all other official Party committees, commissions and bodies shall be open to the public, and votes shall not be taken by secret ballot.)

http://s3.amazonaws.com/apache.3cdn.net/58e635582dc516dd52_5wsmvyn09.pdf

This drivel points to why I said in COUP (2 of 3), it’s useless trying to reinstate order to the Democrat’s Presidential nominating process by falling back on the rules, regulations, and Charter of the Democratic Party.

By 12:53, Ben Smith at Politico was announcing Barack Obama’s campaign has reverted to plans for a traditional roll call on the convention floor… (Emphasis added by jbjd.)

There’s a bit of confusion about the plans for a roll call, and some Democrats say they’re dissatisfied by a process that has them voting in private, by state. But that’s the old-fashioned way, says my colleague Andy Glass, who’s covered these for years.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/A_traditional_roll_call.html

But whichever version of events you bought into – “just as the rules dictate”; “the old-fashioned way”; or ‘play it by ear’ – one thing was clear. From the outside looking in, it wasn’t easy to recognize these events for what they were: the signal that Obama’s warriers had decided at the last minute to scrub the scheduled open roll call vote of pledged delegates from all states on the floor of the convention, which was expected to have been followed by Clinton’s release of her pledged delegates, and then another vote after that, which was supposed to give him the nomination.

Incredible, huh. Thousands of eye witnesses in Denver, including the press, scrutinizing every detail of the goings on inside the convention, and no one asked why whoever was in charge had decided to scrap the open roll call of pledged delegates. Why? Because they lacked the information necessary to recognize what they were observing. So, what was this ‘thing’ that happened under everyone’s nose yet flew under the radar, so significant it caused Obama’s allies in the DNC to re-orient the nomination process at the last minute in order to hide votes for Clinton from her pledged delegates as the preferred means to guarantee his nomination?

Word had spread to the Clinton pledged delegates sent to the convention from those 13 vote binding states, including CA, that the laws in their states required them to hold fast to their candidate through at least the first round of voting at the convention; and that their Attorneys General had received complaints Obama’s people were subverting the law by trying to get those delegates to promise to switch their votes to him, even before they got to the convention. We know that at least one of those A’sG, Thurbert Baker (D-GA), instructed that state’s pledged delegates to obey the law. Consequently, these delegates were going to obey the law, and vote for her through at least the first round. Some, including Clinton pledged delegates from CA, even after that.

So, why was this such a big deal? BECAUSE OBAMA AND HIS CONSORTS HAD ONLY AGREED TO HOLD AN OPEN ROLL CALL VOTE ON THE FLOOR OF THE CONVENTION RELYING ON THE FACT, SEVERAL HUNDRED CLINTON PLEDGED DELEGATES FROM VOTE BINDING STATES WOULD HAVE NO IDEA THEY WERE ‘PLEDGED’ PLEDGED TO CLINTON WHEN THEY REACHED THE FLOOR OF THE CONVENTION. Thus, those pledged delegates who had already been successfully co-opted to switch their votes to him, added to those who would enthusiastically switch to him in the fabricated momentum of the occasion; plus those who would fatalistically give in to the feigned inevitability of his nomination, would easily put his numbers over the top.

But didn’t I say, in COUP (1 of 3), Obama’s agents would have known which states had vote binding laws before they twisted the arms of Clinton delegates in those states since the state delegate selection Plan sent to the RBC for approval had to include details of any state laws respecting the conduct at the convention of pledged delegates from that state? Yep; that’s what I said. So now you’re probably thinking, ‘well, jbjd, if Obama’s people knew about the laws in those states by looking at those delegate selection Plans then, wouldn’t any delegates seeking guidance as to their conduct at the convention by examining the state Plan, be able to read about the state’s vote binding status, too?’ Nope. Know why? Because there was nothing in those state Plans about vote binding laws. And now you are probably shaking your heads. Why did I say the Plans submitted to the RBC explain how Obama’s people knew in advance which states had vote binding laws if the Plans contain no information about vote binding laws!

To answer this question, you have to read the fine print in the RBC Regulations.

Section 2, Submission and Review of Plans, regulation 2.2, Formal Submission, reads, “Each State Party Committee shall include the following documentation with the submission of its Plan to the RBC…” “I., “… a copy of all state statutes reasonably related to the delegate selection process…” Id. Did you catch that? The rules don’t say, this documentation about special state laws regarding how pledged delegates must vote at the convention is a part of the state delegate selection Plan. The RBC rules only tell the state committee, when submitting the delegate selection Plan for our approval, you have to attach this additional information.

In other words, this additional information forwarded to the RBC by the state party about special state laws respecting party delegates – this would include laws spelling out how to submit to state election officials the name of the Presidential nominee to be printed on the state ballot – does not become a part of the accompanying state delegate Plan. Wanna see?

Here’s California’s approved 2008 Delegate Selection Plan. Nothing in either the Table of Contents or the body of the Plan, references any special laws requiring pledged delegates to vote for the candidate voters in that state elected them to represent, on the floor of the convention.

This means that pledged delegates wading through the various DNC documents for guidance as to how they should vote at the convention would only find this line on p. 19 in the DNC Call for the 2008 Convention:

All delegates to the National Convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them. (Emphasis added by jbjd.)

“Good conscience.” But nothing about the law!

Here’s just a sample of language I pulled together from the laws in some of those vote binding states.

“Each person selected as a delegate shall sign a pledge that the person will continue to support at the national convention the candidate for President of the United States the person is selected as favoring until 2 convention nominating ballots have been taken.” OR

“Each political party shall, on the first ballot at its national convention, cast this Commonwealth’s vote for the candidates as determined by the primary or party caucus.” KY

“Each delegate or alternate delegate to the national convention of his political party shall cast their vote on all ballots for the candidate who received this state’s vote.” OK

“Each delegate to the national convention shall use his best efforts at the convention for the party’s presidential nominee candidate who received the greatest number of votes in the presidential preference election until the candidate is nominated for the office of president of the United States by the convention.” AZ

“As a delegate to the national convention of the Democratic Party, I pledge myself to vote on the first ballot for the nomination of president by the Democratic Party as required by Section 1-8-60 NMSA 1978.” NM

“Delegates and alternates shall be bound to vote on the first ballot at the national convention for the candidate receiving the most votes in the primary.” VA

“The delegates to the national conventions shall be bound by the results of the preferential presidential primary for the first two (2) ballots and shall vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged.” TN

In an Opinion now appended to his state’s binding vote law, the words of the Attorney General of GA reach the heart of similar laws enacted in all of these states: “This section reflects the legitimate interest of the state in insuring orderliness in the electoral process, and it provides a means of presenting the political preferences of the people of this state to a political party.” GA

(Can you imagine how long it took me to research the election laws in all 50 states in order to find the 13 states that bound their delegates at the convention?)

The majority of pledged delegates from vote binding states were unaware of their special status coming into the convention. How can I prove this? And, more importantly, how do I know that news of their obligations under the vote binding laws of their states still managed to reach Clinton pledged delegates? And that this new found knowledge was a game changer to the roll call vote?

In the summer of 2008, I was only one of hundreds of citizen activists who became immersed in the machinations of the Presidential nominating process of the Democratic Party. As I previously explained, one of my contributions was to ‘discover’ and then publicize the existence of those 13 vote binding states. As I wrote in A COUP, THROUGH and THROUGH (2 of 3), my work did not immediately ignite the endorsement of people who could have spearheaded a massive public education campaign in advance of the convention. GA was the one state in which I and my team of Georgians were able to get out a concerted campaign to alert both Clinton pledged delegates and AG Baker, Obama’s agents were breaking the law. And, as a result, AG Baker reminded delegates in that state, “pledged” means pledged. Id. Eventually, in the days immediately preceding the convention, my work on vote binding states did attract the attention of members of the party who, previously unaware these laws existed, saw the strategic value of the work to support the Clinton campaign. Id.

But what I hadn’t yet told you, is that my work on vote binding states also attracted the attention of another citizen activist, from CA, who not only managed to get inside the convention, but who also had a hand in assembling packets of information that were distributed to all delegates. Guess what she slipped into these delegate packets? Yep; my materials on the laws regarding the votes of pledged delegates from vote binding states.

Nancy Pelosi, Chair of the 2008 DNC Convention, was a member of the CA delegation. She addressed the CA delegates at their first delegation breakfast on Monday, August 25. Listen as she not-so-subtly twisted arms to get Clinton pledged delegates to violate CA law. Imagine, the Chair of the 2008 DNC Convention, soliciting Clinton pledged delegates to abandon the will of the voters, in defiance of the law, in order to support her candidate of choice? Imagine being a Clinton pledged delegate sitting in the audience under the watchful eye of the powerful Madame Speaker; holding a packet of materials that informed you for the first time, you are from a vote binding state. How free do you suppose you would feel to question what she was saying, let alone to express disdain at what she was asking you to do?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-kWDNzdGUw]

Another member of the CA delegation receiving this information was Attorney Gloria Allred, a Clinton pledged delegate. Watch while she informs reporters when Monday’s breakfast was over, that fellow delegates had asked her to research whether the law required them to vote for Clinton on the first round of balloting. (Some confusion arose because CA election law applicable to either the D or the R Presidential preference primary is codified in separate sections. But D delegates are bound by law to the candidate voters elected them to represent, arguably until a candidate is nominated at the convention.) Ms. Allred makes a point of saying, she will vote for Clinton on the first round in order to carry out the will of the voters who elected her; but makes clear, she does not yet know whether such a result is required by law.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTUfweNfkKA]

By Tuesday morning’s breakfast, Ms. Allred had researched CA election law. Here she is after breakfast, informally trying to get word out to Clinton pledged delegates, they are bound to vote for their candidate at the convention. (I wish I could see the papers she is waving around. Maybe one of these was my letter to AG Brown complaining Obama was poaching Clinton delegates in his state and asking him to intervene?)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTgbmhLaKIo&feature=more_related]

Later that same day, speaking at the end of a rally to celebrate the 88th anniversary of women’s suffrage, the 19th Amendment, Ms. Allred, claiming she was denied the opportunity to formally address fellow delegates at breakfast, now informs the crowds, in CA, the primary is “binding.” She points out, ‘voting for Clinton is consistent with DNC rules which say, use your “conscience” to represent the voters who elected us, since they elected us to vote for Clinton…’

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3vftT9Hunc&NR=1]

She reasons, ‘even if Hillary releases, we owe an obligation to the voters.’

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlqkKKJe2xQ]

That night, Pelosi, Obama, Dean, and Reid, et al. decided to call off the open roll call vote of all states scheduled to take place Wednesday evening on the floor of the convention.

So, instead of waiting until after the first round of voting during the open roll call of all states on the floor of the convention, Clinton released her delegates early Wednesday afternoon. AFTER THE FIRST ROUND OF VOTING (albeit behind closed doors at the hotel). Now, technically, according to some of these vote binding laws, pledged delegates from vote binding states were free to vote for the candidate they in “good conscience” (from the DNC Delegate Selection Plan) concluded was a “fair reflection” (from the DNC Charter) of the will of the voters who (indirectly) elected them. And they might have, except for one thing: having already voted once, back at the hotel, they would have no opportunity to vote again.

This last minute early release of Clinton delegates from their pledges could have created another problem if it hadn’t also escaped detection. See, since Clinton did not release her delegates until Wednesday afternoon; when Clinton pledged delegates from vote binding states voted at their hotels Wednesday morning, they had to vote for her according to the law. Thus, any vote totals from those 13 vote binding states that were then transmitted to the Secretary should have reflected the number of delegates appointed as the result of votes cast in the state for the candidate, at the time of the primary or caucus contest, right? Not surprisingly, they did not.

Here are the numbers of Clinton pledged delegates awarded as the result of votes voters cast for her in those vote binding states: AZ – 31, CA- 204, GA-27, IN-38, KY-37, MA-55, NH-9 NM-14, OH-74, OK-24, OR-21, TN-40, and VA-29. This makes a total of 609, just from those vote binding states. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/D-HF.phtml The total number of votes from Clinton delegates just from those vote binding states we saw ‘vote’ from the floor of the convention, before NY, should have been 415. But it wasn’t. Not even close. (The low number of Clinton votes becomes even more suspect when you consider, in addition to votes from Clinton pledged delegates from vote binding states, the totals would also have included votes from Clinton pledged delegates who were not legally bound to vote for her but who, in “good conscience,” would have honored the voters who elected them by sticking to their candidate, at least on the first round.)

The DNC refuses to release an ‘official’ tally of votes cast in the hotels, by whom. I received an email from a KY Clinton pledged delegate who said her delegation chair, Jennifer Moore, ignored her request for a list of that state’s votes, too. Shortly after the convention, the DNC did release some kind of tally sheet that included ALL states, not just those states voting on the floor of the convention; but they rescinded that list shortly thereafter. The GreenPapers published that list, with links, that are now inoperative. In the 2 (two) years since the convention, the DNC has failed to post another list.

According to Andy Glass at Politico, “…there’s not even any formal mechanism within national party rules for each delegate’s vote to be recorded. What’s recorded is the vote of each state delegation.” Id.

The CA delegation passed. The reason? According to Don Frederick at the LATimes, “because a tally of its 441 votes had not been completed when the state’s name was called.” But hadn’t they already voted back at the hotel? (Evidently, Mr. Frederick is another one of those reporters who is unaware of the laws in those vote binding state. He writes, “Clinton did not receive a majority in any of the recorded tallies — and in most, Obama’s backing was overwhelming. But Clinton’s support was notable in a few instances, including Arizona (40 votes for Obama, 27 for her), Kentucky (36 for him, 24 for her) and Massachusetts (65 for him, 52 for her).” “Notable”? How about, ILLEGAL? AZ, KY, and MA are all vote binding states.)

This means, while we can establish which of Obama’s agents suborned Clinton pledged delegates in vote binding states to violate their pledge; we cannot determine which of those delegates ended up breaking the law. Including those pledged delegates who are PLEO’s, or party leaders and elected officials, like mayors, governors, city councilors, and legislative leaders. And this brings us to the heart of the matter involving Clinton pledged delegates from vote binding states: the unpledged PLEO’s, better known as super delegates.

See, here’s the thing. As long as pledged delegates from vote binding states remained unaware of their bound status, Obama could have managed to convert an only slight (contrived) lead in pledged delegates into a landslide win. Only, this landslide was in jeopardy once pledged delegates from vote binding states learned they were bound by the law. But so what? Even without any shenanigans with respect to any of the pledged delegates, based strictly on the number of pledged delegates awarded immediately after the primary and caucus contests ended; neither Clinton nor Obama had the requisite number of votes from pledged delegates alone to win the nomination. Certainly not on the first round. At some point, if the typical give and take expected of such political theater could not produce a nominee, the unpledged PLEO’s would have broken the impasse. And the majority of these unpledged PLEO’s had already come out publicly in support of Obama, even in states where Clinton had won the popular vote. In other words, whatever happened along the way, in the end Obama was set to run off with the nomination.

So, why the mad rush to take the nomination just from votes cast by pledged delegates?

Recall what I wrote in A COUP, THROUGH and THROUGH (1 of 3):

DNC rules provide if voting at the convention fails to support one candidate over the other then, special super delegates will add their votes to the totals to reach the number required for nomination. So they were also furiously pouring money into the PAC’s and war chests of these super delegates, in return for which the candidate received a public pledge of support positively correlated to the superior size of his financial investment.

The people who staged the 2008 DNC Services Corporation Presidential Nominating Convention needed the pledged delegates to pull off Obama’s nomination because they did not want you to see that the votes of those unpledged super delegates had been bought and paid for, well in advance of the convention, by his wealthy benefactors…

From OpenSecrets:

For those elected officials who had endorsed a candidate as of Feb. 25, the presidential candidate who gave more money to the superdelegate received the endorsement 82 percent of the time. In cases where Obama had made a contribution since 2005 but Clinton had given the superdelegate nothing, Obama got the superdelegate’s support 85 percent of the time. And Clinton got the support of 75 percent of superdelegates who got money from her but not from Obama. For this update to the Feb. 14 study the Center combined contribution data with a list of superdelegates and their endorsements compiled by The Politico as of Feb. 25.

http://www.opensecrets.org/capital_eye/inside.php?ID=338

…including Madame Pelosi, his biggest ‘vote fairy godmother’ of all.

From Dr. Lynette Long, in NoQuarter:

“Bought and Paid For! By Nancy Pelosi”

As Americans sat glued to their television sets watching the most hotly contested presidential primary in American history, pundits counted pledged delegates won in caucuses and primaries and discussed the highly prized superdelegates’ endorsements. Eventually it would be these superdelegates, Democratic officials, governors, and members of congress, who would determine the nominee, since neither contestant won enough pledged delegates in the 52 primary contests.

What the pundits forgot to tell the American public was that these superdelegates were doing some counting of their own. They weren’t counting how many of their constituents had voted for Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, but rather how much money was being put into their war chests by the Obama campaign and the Democratic hierarchy. This money, moved from one candidate to another via PAC’s, would determine their endorsements and ultimately the nomination….

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/13/bought-and-paid-for-by-nancy-pelosi/

And that’s why they pulled off the coup that hid hundreds of votes of Clinton pledged delegates from vote binding states at the 2008 DNC Services Corporation Presidential Nominating Convention.

Conclusion

For readers expecting a sort of summation of the ‘lesson learned’ from all three installments of “A COUP, THROUGH and THROUGH,” the main focus of which series was the fraud pulled off at the 2008 DNC Services Corporation Presidential Nominating Convention, I offer this.

“I can only imagine Clinton would have made a much better President than Obama but, based on how he obtained the nomination, I anticipated he would make a much better crook.” jbjd.

And just what is this issue? Well, Gibbs is now trying to convince people that Obama is really a mainstream Christian, not one who buys into Black Liberation Theology, as this article from the Daily Caller, White House Distances Obama From Liberation Theology, highlights.

Um, what? Since when? Well, since Gibbs decided to make this ridiculous claim followng Glenn Beck’s recent rally in Washington, DC:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs implied Thursday that President Obama does not subscribe to a version of Christianity dubbed as “liberation theology,” and argued that the president’s beliefs are more akin to traditional Protestantism.

“The president is a committed mainstream Christian,” Gibbs said, when asked whether Fox News personality Glenn Beck has been correct in describing Obama’s faith system as “liberation theology.”

“I have no evidence that would guide me as to what Glenn Beck would have any genuine knowledge to what the president actually does or does not believe,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs did not say outright that the president rejects liberation theology, which in general interprets the gospel of Jesus Christ as primarily a mandate to help the poor and needy, but also has many streams and variations on finer matters and points of emphasis.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Gibbs said. When pressed again, he said, “I can only imagine where [Beck] conjured that from.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

He doesn’t know from where Glenn Beck got that idea? Really?

Well, perhaps Spokesweasel Gibbs should have watched the following video before making such an assertion:

Or maybe Gibbs should have done a little Google search on Black Liberation Theology, TUCC, and Jeremiah Wright. He would have found articles like this one, “Black Liberation Theology, In Its Founders Words.” And in this particular story, he would have noted very clear connections between Black Liberation Theology, TUCC, and Jeremiah Wright.

Oh, and then there is this one from The Christian Century, “Africentric Church: A Visit to Chicago’s Trinity UCC.” In this particular article, Gibbs would have found this:

[snip] James Cone, the pioneer of black liberation theology, is a much-admired figure at Trinity. Cone told me that when he’s asked where his theology is institutionally embodied, he always mentions Trinity. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Seriously, dude – it wasn’t that long ago, and we are not that stupid or gullible.

I cannot help but wonder how my former professor, James Cone, feels about this new disavowal from Obama’s camp. Or my former TA, Dwight Hopkins, another theology professor, and fellow congregant at TUCC. Though after the way Obama treated his former “uncle,” Jeremiah Wright, maybe they aren’t all that surprised. Or they shouldn’t be. I know I am not. How about you?

The mythology surrounding the sad death of Pat Tillman in the mountains of Afghanista is back in the news with a new movie by Amir Bar-Lev called “The Tillman Story”. Folks on the left are convinced that Tillman was murdered because he opposed “the war.” Which war is irrelevant, but in the leftist meme Tillman got whacked because he had soured on the Bush war on terror and his fellow soldiers knew it and did the dirty deed.

For those on the right Tillman was an iconic hero. Lord knows that the Bush White House, the Rumsfeld Pentagon and the media in general seized on Tillman’s death to promote the concept of hero. Tillman was the poster child for the warrior who eschewed fame and fortune and laid down his life for his nation. At least that was the story.

But here’s what really happened.

Pat was killed by friendly fire on April 22, 2004. Only folks who have never been in combat insist that Pat’s death was deliberate and intentional. But shit happens in war, particularly when you have inexperienced combat leaders in the field, imperfect communications and fading daylight. When you are in the field you do not get to operate by the same safety procedures and precautions that govern a firing range. Tillman’s death was an accident.

The subsequent exploitation of Tillman’s death was not an accident. Unfortunately, General Stan McChrystal catches alot of blame for this exploitation. I think it is unfair. Yes, it is true that McChrystal signed off on the Silver Star recommendation for Tillman even though he believed there was growing evidence that Pat died from bullets fired by his fellow soldiers. But there was an innocent explanation–McChrystal actually thought at the time he was sparing the family and hoped the honor of the award would ease their pain. He was wrong and naive.

The record shows that McChrystal warned his superiors that the “facts” about Tillman’s death were troubling:

On April 29, Major General Stanley McChrystal — commander of the task force that the Rangers served in Afghanistan, and head of the most secretive joint-service force in the US military — sent a memo to John Abizaid, telling him to warn everyone all the way to Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, an investigation “will find that it is highly possible Cpl. Tillman was killed by friendly fire… I felt that it was essential that you received this information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country’s leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Cpl. Tillman’s death become public.”

I remember the day when Tillman was killed. I was working on a military exercise at Fort Bragg. When the news came in everyone was stunned and saddened. I realize that those opposed to the war like to think of Stan McChrystal as a Neanderthal. But I have yet to meet a soldier who served under McChrystal and actually knew the man who does not lionize him. Why? McChrystal cared more for his troops than he did his own promotion possibilities. That’s why Stan spent so much time on the frontlines. The same cannot be said of General David Petraeus. As I have written before, he was known while he was a cadet at West Point as the kind of guy who would marry the Superintendant’s daughter in order to advance his career. Guess what? He did.

At the time of Tillman’s death most of McChrystal’s attention was consumed by the growing insurgency in Iraq. Afghanistan had become a second tier priority. But he was not in a position to dictate the allocation of military resources. The ones truly responsible for exploiting Pat Tillman’s death for purely crass political reasons occupied the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs and the White House. But history is not fair. I fear that McChrystal will become the convenient, easy scapegoat.

None of this brings Pat Tillman back to life. He’s dead and buried. The war in Afghanistan continues. More than likely there will be more friendly fire incidents and more grieving, angry mothers. None of this diminishes the honor that Pat Tillman deserves. He did sacrifice a material life in a cause he believed to be just and honorable. It also is true he had become disillusioned. His dream had not panned out. He was still enough of a professional to try to finish out his commitment. That fairy tale, sadly, ended and ended tragically. More than six years have passed since his death and the casualties from this incident continue to pile up.

Now can I give you some Main Street advice?  Get yourself some new advisors.  Maybe some earthbound ones.  Because, after listening to your speech on the economy from the White House Rose Garden last Friday, I, along with most of Main Street America, got the distinct impression you live on another planet.

“We are confident we are moving in the right direction.”

–President Obama, September 3, 2010

Seriously?  Have you seen the polls?  Wrong direction is so universally felt it bridges the partisan divide.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of all voters say the country is heading down the wrong track

–”Right Direction or Wrong Track (9/01/10)“, Rasmussen Report

And as to the economy:

Eighty-one percent (81%) of the public rates the county’s economic conditions as poor… Forty-four percent (44%) of people questioned describe economic conditions as very poor…

– ”CNN Poll: Number of people who say economy in very poor shape on rise“, PoliticalTicker

So where did your “right direction” “confident we” come from, Mr. President?  Is the “we” the CEOs and upper management few whose salaries have barely felt the pinch of this recession?

American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages [in 2009] than they took home in the 1970s. Back in those years, precious few top executives made over 30 times what their workers made. In 2009, we calculate in the 17th annual Executive Excess, CEOs of major U.S. corporations averaged 263 times the average compensation of American workers.

–Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Sam Pizzigati, Kevin Shih, “Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession,” Institute for Policy Studies

Maybe the “confident” are members of Congress whose salary (not including the $1.5 million per member in discretionary office accounts, perks, travel expenses and health benefits) actually increased by $8,800 (more than 5 percent) between 2007 and 2009.  While at the same time :

The per capita personal income in the Unites States shrunk by more than half a percentage point, or $254, from 2007 through 2009, according to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

• 2009: Per capita personal income, $39,138 – Congress pay, $174,000
• 2008: Per capita personal income, $40,166 – Congress pay, $169,300
• 2007: Per capita personal income, $39,392 – Congress pay, $165,200

–Tom Murse, “Even in Recession, Congress Pay Grew“, About.com

And could those “moving in the right direction” be the wealthy — many of whom are in Congress:

The 50 wealthiest lawmakers were worth almost $1.4 billion in 2009, about $85.1 million more than 12 months earlier, according to The Hill’s annual review of lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms.

Twenty-seven Democrats along with 23 Republicans make up the 50 richest in Congress; 30 House members and 20 senators are on the list.

–Kevin Bogardus and Barbra Kim, “Wealthy lawmakers increased their riches as U.S. economy sputtered in ’09″, The Hill

One thing the Main Street “we” are confident about, Mr. President, is that you are not listening to us.  Because if you had, you never would have said:

“The key point I’m making right now is that the economy is moving in a positive direction,”

– President Obama, September 3, 2010

Optimism and persistence are powerful tools Mr. President, but they need to be grounded in reality. The only thing moving in a positive direction these days are corporate profits.  And profits are no longer attached to Main Street jobs (h/t Kevin Drum at Truthout).

Once again proving the old fallacy that a rising tide lifts all boats.

So tell me Mr. President, what is “right” about an economy that continues to bleed jobs?

22 million Americans are now jobless. Add in those who are working part-time who’d rather be working full-time, and we’re up to 25 million.

–Robert Reich, “The Great Jobs Depression Worsens, and the Choice Ahead Grows Starker“, Robert Reich Blog

And to even get unemployment back to our pre-recession 5% will require:

…the economy to generate about 17 million jobs — or about 285,000 a month for five straight years — according to Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

–Alana Semuels, “For many unemployed workers, jobs aren’t coming back“, Los Angeles Times

Where is the “positive” when the three fastest growing occupations barely pay above minimum wage?  And when the fastest growing occupations won’t keep a family of three above the poverty line?

…wage of $8.28 an hour would earn an annual salary of $16,560, based on a typical 2,000-hour work year: That salary is just below the 2009 poverty threshold for a family of three.

–Kai Filion & Andrea Orr, “Jobs … but low pay“, Economic Policy Institute

And who can be among the “confident we” when:

Bankruptcy filings rose 20 percent in the 12-month period ending June 30, 2010… According to statistics released Tuesday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, a total of 1,572,597 bankruptcy cases were filed in federal courts in that period….Non-business filings for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2010 totaled 1,512,989…Business filings totaled 59,608.

–”Bankruptcy Filings Jump 20 percent“, WebCPA

Surely you don’t think home-owners who are losing their homes are “moving in the right direction,” Mr. President.  And they are not the few:

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007…

–Alan Zibel, “One in 10 with a mortgage face foreclosure“, dallasnews.com

Nearly 528,000 homes were repossessed by lenders in the first six months of the year, putting 2010 on pace to eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009,…In all about 1.7 million homeowners received foreclosure notices from January to June, which is about one in every 78 US homes.

–”US Could See Record 1M Foreclosures in 2010“, Newser.com

Mr. President, our economy is not a bad rumor that needs to be squashed.   Nor a mental health issue we just need to get over.  We are not a nation of hypochondriacs or fear mongers or socialists.  The American people are not looking for freebies or hand outs.  MAIN STREET NEEDS JOBS TO SURVIVE.

“We’re moving in the right direction…We just need to speed it up.”

–- President Obama, September 3, 2010

Earth to President Obama:  Main Street America is in a death spiral.  Adding speed to our downward movement isn’t helpful.

I have a few tunes for you for the day. First up, the Judds back in the day:

Any Labor Day music selection must include this classic by Dolly Parton:

And just because it is a freaking awesome song by Carly Simon, “Let The River Run” from the movie, “Working Girl”:

Have a great day, friends!

Where have the jobs gone? And who’s to blame? I think there is plenty of blame to go around. We’ve all watched it happen, slowly unfolding before our eyes. Sometimes we’re the victims. Sometimes we’re the perps.

But we’ve all got to face some unpleasant realities. First and foremost: many of those jobs are lost forever, gone like the village blacksmiths and the milkmen, the stenographers and telephone operators. And soon, it looks like newspapers and land-line telephones will be gone, and all those jobs with them.

Who’s to blame? I guess it’s ox-goring time.

Blame technology for devising so many machines and gadgets that do the work of people, making everything in life way too easy, and in the process turning us into a bunch of lazy slobs who have lost our work ethic. Maybe God is punishing us with this Great Recession for our slothful ways.

Blame ourselves for becoming slothful. And for spoiling our kids. Maybe not us, but someone we know. Who looks a lot like us.

Blame the unions (and community organizers!) for driving up the price of labor, and demanding more and more benefits from employers — to the point it pushed corporations to seek cheaper labor outside the United States. Add up the cost of wages and benefits for union workers, and compare it to foreign wages, and it’s no surprise enterprising capitalists take the better deal. We’re not only lazy, we’re greedy and demanding, biting the hands that feed us.

And blame population booms and immigration… even equal rights movements. They all contributed to increasing the number of people competing for a limited number of jobs. We’re a better society for having leveled the playing field for both genders and all races, which allows fair competition for jobs, with legal protections from discrimination, but this has resulted in more and more people competing for a limited number of good jobs. We’ve divided the job pie into so many pieces, the slices are microscopic.

But most of all, blame the greedy capitalists, the bankers and investors, the corporate bosses, and the rich in general. Most of them put their profits above the general welfare of the common people. If they can make twice as much money by moving their businesses outside the United States, you can bet your last dollar that they will do just that. Screw the Great Society.

Sorry for using this cliche, but the “paradigm has shifted” in the world of employment. Many types of work seem to be gone forever due to our changing world, but it’s certainly not the first time, and we’ve always come back from radical changes before, so I assume we will again. We have no choice but to adapt. It’s a matter of survival, and our survival instincts will always be based on supply and demand. Survival of the fittest… or the shrewdest.

In the short time of 50 years, and mere blip on the radar of the gods but most of a lifetime for the rest of us, the entire world has changed. America had just been transformed from a wilderness to an industrial giant to a Super Power in the course of 150 years, three blips on the radar, at the time most of us were being born. The generation of our parents (or maybe their parents) was the culmination of the American work ethic, the high point. The bar they set for us was much lower than where it was set for them. The bar for the current generation of kids is on the floor.

The progression of the spirit that built this country, from the earliest explorers and settlers to the “Greatest Generation,” who saved the world from the Forces of Evil, has produced a “Great Society” of laziness and entitlements. It’s almost as if having lived through the Victorian Age, Prohibition, The Great Depression, two World Wars, and the advent of the Atomic Age, they just wanted life to be easier for their children and grandchildren. A noble wish from hard-working folks for their families and society. Too bad it back-fired.

Spare the rod and spoil the child… so the proverb goes. It’s such an archaic and cruel concept, isn’t it?  But it’s more than just a saying, and more than a symbol of the brutality of our ancestors. It’s a metaphor that conveys a vivid mental picture in a very few wise words. The wisdom is not that you should beat your children with rods to make sure they don’t get spoilt. The wisdom is that raising your children to be civilized and principled adults sometimes takes stern measures. Certainly there are cultures around the world that still practice brutal disciplines on their children, but it doesn’t make the kids better citizens. Terrorists maybe.

On the other extreme, pampered children often grow up devoid of the work ethic, lacking in principles of responsibility, and with an unbridled sense of entitlement. They expect to get their way because they always have. They are not contributing to our community resources, they are draining them. It’s not their fault. It’s the way we raised them and their parents. Devolution.

The most common occupations of our forebears were based on providing food and shelter. The agrarian cultures of the world began some 5,000 years ago (that we know of), and their development marks the beginning of civilization (as we know it). Those who grew up on working farms, even today, usually have had jobs at home, or chores of some kind. Even some city kids have had necessary chores or responsibilities, although not usually as “work”-like as farm chores. City kids have soft hands… and artificial tans.

As our society became more civilized, we passed laws to prevent child exploitation for cheap labor, which had the immediate effect of liberating children from a kind of slavery. But they were still expected to contribute to the bread-winning on a part time basis. If they weren’t needed for household chores or the family occupation, they were expected to produce income for their own needs and often surrender their earnings to the family. They had a job to do, like every other responsible member of the family. Some had it harder than others; some had it real hard. Some still do. But far too many today are spoiled. Spoiled means rotten, ruined, or gone bad. Yep, that word describes far too many of today’s younger people.

It seems that every generation has contributed to the increasingly unquenchable thirst to make life easier on themselves, and more so for their children. As our culture has become more advanced over the generations, the nature of work has changed with it. But it’s always, always, always shaped and driven by supply and demand. Sometimes it’s driven by war or basic survival. It was the convergence of industrial technology and the acute need for civilian workers during World War II, that brought American women into the industrial workplace in large numbers for the first time. After the war, women were competing for factory and construction jobs that had previously been almost solely men’s jobs. In return, men were allowed to be nurses and receptionists. Fair is fair.

With the population growing via reproduction and immigration, the job pie kept getting cut into smaller and smaller pieces. And as factories became more robotized and automated, fewer workers were needed. The fever of consumerism helped fuel the fires of manufacturing, but with each new development of automation, more jobs were lost forever. Rosie the riveter was replaced by a robotic arm that looks like something out of a Star Wars movie.

I don’t know the scientific research in this area, but it sure seems to me that as we got lazier and more demanding as workers, the owners began looking for alternative labor sources: Mexico, Japan, and other countries with a less pampered workforce. As American workers organized to put the business owners over a barrel, other countries gladly accepted jobs from American companies who had gotten fed up with the demands of American workers, with their pansy-assed 8-hour workdays and 5-day workweeks.

The capitalistic merchant class, manufacturers, and investors, with the lawyers and bankers providing legal protection and financial security, began building factories and offices in developing countries. This slashed labor costs, not only in the factories themselves but in the supporting occupations like providers of raw goods, warehousing, shipping, and even office staff. Being in a different country also allowed them to sidestep American protectionism, like tariffs and embargoes. They made more money all around for their American owners and investors. By keeping and laundering their profits in other countries’ banks, they also avoid paying income taxes to the U.S. But somehow, all that money makes it way back into the bank accounts or mattresses of the American elite. Tax free. Real patriotic bunch.

A paradigm shift means, technically, that we’ve reached a point of no return. When it was proven that the earth is round, for example, all the maps had to be changed. So American businesses, having proven they can make more money by moving jobs out of the U.S., are not going to start bringing those jobs back home, just because it would benefit the country’s economy. They won’t do it unless we pass protectionist laws that force it. That won’t happen, because American business is now interlaced with businesses all over the world. Businesses in other countries now own American businesses, and vice versa. It’s like one big extended family. If you’ve ever argued with your spouse or children about which side of the family to spend a holiday with, you should understand how these internationally-owned businesses can’t go back to being American businesses that keep all their holdings on U.S. soil. How would that work? Would the foreign investors have visitation rights at least?

OK, so… “Where did the jobs go?” Where was your car made? How about your computer? Your TV? Your clothes? Like it or not, we buy foreign-made goods, and when we call the company’s customer service, we talk to a foreigner. I just checked my stuff, and I can now name three countries in Asia that I do business with, all with the customer service based in India, where apparently it is believed they speak flawless American English.

Supply and demand. That’s the simple rule of commerce that will never change. Right now, there is a surplus of the supply of American workers compared to the demand for their services. In the 90s, it was the other way around, with many companies finding it difficult to fill all their positions. Let’s hope we can get back to that in our lifetimes.

There are no easy answers, obviously. When jobs come back, I suspect they will be different jobs than the ones we lost. We can’t expect our government to become isolationist and protectionist because we now live in a world economy. But it wouldn’t hurt if we started passing a few tax laws that give businesses incentives to keep their jobs here at home. Perhaps even the disincentive of tax penalties for companies that move jobs out of America. Especially if you have to talk to a guy named Randy in India when you call customer service for your device that was made in China!

And it wouldn’t hurt unions and other labor organizers to accept cuts in wages and benefits on the condition that businesses continue to provide good jobs. And the same for elected officials — they should cut their pensions and benefits by 75%! We should all do our part, as a nationwide effort to rebuild our economy. Shared sacrifice was part of the all-out effort that our forebears put into building this great country and protecting it from the forces of evil. I’d like to see some of these “public servants” donate their salaries to charity and “just say no” to perks.

We need to find a way to get back to that kind of community effort. We need to regain our work ethic. And we need to make damn sure we support elected officials who demonstrate leadership and strength of character, in the tradition of the spirit that made America great. There must be one somewhere!

I asked and answered, “Who’s to blame?” I blamed quite a few. Now, I’m asking you.

And why would Malkin say such a thing in her post? This is why:

[snip] Trumka and Obama will cast Big Labor as an unassailable force for good in American history. But when it comes to terrorizing workers, Trumka knows whereof he speaks.

Meet Eddie York. He was a workingman whose story will never scroll across Obama’s teleprompter. A nonunion contractor who operated heavy equipment, York was shot to death during a strike called by the United Mine Workers 17 years ago.

Workmates who tried to come to his rescue were beaten in an ensuing melee. The head of the UMW spearheading the wave of strikes at that time? Richard Trumka.

Responding to concerns about violence, he shrugged to the Virginian-Pilot in September 1993: “I’m saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned.” Incendiary rhetoric, anyone?

[...]

In Illinois, Trumka told UMW members to “kick the s**t out of every last” worker who crossed his picket lines, according to the Nashville (Ill.) News. And as the National Right to Work Foundation, the leading anti-forced unionism organization in the country, pointed out, other UMW coalfield strikes resulted in what one judge determined were “violent activities … organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Uh, yeah – just a bit. It goes on from there, and I recommend you read the rest.

The bottom line is this man, Trumka, who called for this level of violence, is now the head of the AFL-CIO, and hanging out with the President of the United States on a regular basis. There is something very wrong about that.

And how about Trumka’s recent target, Gov. Palin? Well, this is something that might surprise you – and then again, maybe not. Alert NQ reader Sybill highlighted just the kind of person Sarah Palin is. This video sure says a lot:

Right? About the only other person at that level I can see jumping in and doing something like this is – you got it – Hillary Clinton. Wow.

Another alert NQ reader, Yttik, provided the following video to close this out today. Given the attacks Tea Party members and Sarah Palin have been enduring since its inception, it seems a fitting end for someone who has come to represent the Tea Party movement. And it is toe-tapping good, too:

Dang straight. That’s “We, the people,” and we DO have a voice.

Thanks for the links and suggestions, folks. Talk about this, or anything else on your mind today!

As a little kid I remember going to the Fun Zone at Balboa Park and asking the strange looking lady in a glass box urgent questions such as, “Will I ever get a puppy?” and “Can I get another teacher because the one I have is mean?” For a nickel she would blurt out a five or six word answer. “Yes, you can count on that.” Or, “This is not in the cards for you.”

Sometimes I wonder if this is how Barack Obama gets his answers. He seems increasingly incapable of critical, empathic, in-depth thinking. Did he just ask some soothsayer, “Is the war in Iraq over?”

Frank Rich’s must read column in today’s New York Times nails it. Though focusing on the “bloodless speech” Obama delivered on the supposed end of combat in Iraq, Rich takes on the full sobering range of disconnects between the realities of our country’s current health and the inability (or unwillingness) of our leaders to acknowledge and seriously address all that is wringing us dry.

Here are a few quick quotes, but please do yourself a favor and read this entire insightful article.

What was so grievously missing from Obama’s address was any feeling for what has happened to our country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose “end” he was marking…Obama asked the country to turn the page on Iraq as if that were as easy as, say, voting for him in 2008. His brief rhetorical pivot from the war to the economy only raised the question of why the crisis of joblessness has not merited a prime-time Oval Office speech of its own. That Obama did consider Iraq worthy of that distinction — one heretofore shared only by the BP oil spill — was hardly justified by his tepid pronouncements of progress (“credible elections that drew a strong turnout”) or his tidy homilies about the war’s impact. “Our unity at home was tested,” he said, as if all those bygones were now bygones and all the toxins unleashed by this fiasco had miraculously evaporated once we drew down to 50,000 theoretically non-combat troops.

And yet here we are, slouching toward yet another 9/11 anniversary, still waiting for a correction, with even our president, an eloquent Iraq war opponent, slipping into denial. Of all the pro forma passages in Obama’s speech, perhaps the most jarring was his entreaty that Iraq’s leaders “move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that is just, representative and accountable.” He might as well have been talking about the poisonous political deadlock in Washington. At that moment, there was no escaping the tragic fact that instead of bringing American-style democracy and freedom to Iraq, the costly war we fought there has, if anything, brought the bitter taste of Iraq’s dysfunction to America.

If only we had a leader who was grounded in the here and now, could tell it like it really is, and make the right calls. If Obama actually believes his own rhetoric (or whatever it is he is fed by his “fortune tellers” who, by now, may be getting weary themselves) we are in for a long, hard rain.

UPDATE: John Batchelor is off tonight, and Larry Johnson will not be appearing. Check back next Sunday for Larry’s next appearance.

Larry Johnson is a regular on the “experts panel” every Sunday night on John Batchelor’s syndicated radio show that airs nightly from 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. ET. You can listen live to every show via iTunes, and you can also listen to podcasts of previous shows.

Check today’s schedule (not up yet) for topics and co-guests during Larry’s appearance and for the full four-hour broadcast. If there’s no schedule, you can usually count on hearing Larry between 10:05 and 10:35 p.m. ET.

Here’s how to listen to the live show, using iTunes:

1. Click Radio.
2. Double-click News/Talk Radio.
3. Scroll down and double-click WABC-AM.

Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself. Today, Al Qaeda’s best hope is to find a troubled young man who has been radicalized over the Internet, and teach him to stuff his underwear with explosives.

I do not minimize Al Qaeda’s intentions, which are barbaric. I question its capabilities. In every recent conflict, the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries but massively exaggerated their strength. In the 1980s, we thought the Soviet Union was expanding its power and influence when it was on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy. In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap. . . .

In a crucially important Washington Post reporting project, “Top Secret America,” Dana Priest and William Arkin spent two years gathering information on how 9/11 has really changed America.

Here are some of the highlights. Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has created or reconfigured at least 263 organizations to tackle some aspect of the war on terror. The amount of money spent on intelligence has risen by 250 percent, to $75 billion (and that’s the public number, which is a gross underestimate). That’s more than the rest of the world spends put together. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet—the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons. Five miles southeast of the White House, the largest government site in 50 years is being built—at a cost of $3.4 billion—to house the largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs: the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.

This new system produces 50,000 reports a year—136 a day!—which of course means few ever get read. Those senior officials who have read them describe most as banal; one tells me, “Many could be produced in an hour using Google.” Fifty-one separate bureaucracies operating in 15 states track the flow of money to and from terrorist organizations, with little information-sharing.

Can we agree that we need to go after terrorists using every tool at our disposal? I have spent the last 16 years working with the US military forces that have the counter terrorism mission. These are elite, highly specialized forces. Most of their activities are top secret. I wish I could tell you that George W. Bush unleashed the fury and that these guys have been killing terrorists right and left. Not quite true. George Bush did give them plenty of authority to hunt down and kill terrorists. The problem is that the terrorists don’t cooperate. They, the terrorists, do not operate in in large groups. They do not occupy fixed bases. They do not build infrastructure. I wish they did. It would make killing them so much easier.

Instead, finding them requires the kind of work that police and intelligence agencies do. The point is simple–although using special ops warriors to whack bad guys is appealing to us emotionally, they rarely get to act outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Further compounding the task of finding terrorists is the fact that they are not numerous. They don’t wear uniforms. Then there is the problem of getting permission to enter a country and carry out military operations. Fiction writers like Vince Flynn make up bullshit that we send five guys on a small plane and they carry out an operation. That’s Flynn’s vision, it is not reality.

Locating and finding terrorists is really a task best carried out by police and intelligence agencies. Unfortunately, we have created a Rube Goldberg system that is not coordinated and has ballooned into a massive jobs program for white people. Here’s the truth, we can cut the intel community by 25% and not lose any serious capability.

We need to find a balance. This means we accept terrorism as a threat we should take seriously but we do not need to spend millions of dollars to fight a small number of fanatical ragheads. There are too many corporations who have used terrorism as wedge to get Federal money. There are too many Government bureaucracies now using terrorism to justify their existence. We need some sanity here folks and Fareed’s article is an important reminder of that fact.

Okay – I have to stop right there. Can I just tell you how much I resent it when men tell women how they should talk? That would be a big pet peeve of mine. So, from the get-go, I am already irritated with this man. You might be, too, after you hear what he has to say:

Am I right? What a piece of work Trumka is. Never mind that Palin resigned her position because of the incessant, ceaseless hounding by Democratic operatives filing frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit, taking her time and money, as well as taking her attention away from the state for which she was supposed to be working. I imagine if someone hounded Trumka mercilessly for every word he had spoken, every deed he had ever committed, he, too, would have resigned his position, be it a mine worker or AFL-CIO president. But he has never experienced anything along those lines, not even close. Easy for him to pass judgment.

And passing judgment is exactly what he is doing. This seems to be the theme for the week with Vanity Fair publishing the worst kind of baseless smear masquerading as an article by Michael Gross on Sarah Palin, using anonymous sources, and operating from the most misogynistic point of view. Even her most outspoken detractors find this article sexist.

Just who is Richard Trumka that he feels he can arrogantly condescend to Sarah Palin and tell her to watch her mouth? Well, he’s an ally of Obama’s, for starters. I am sure that is not a surprise, is it? There is more to him, to be sure, as the following video highlights:

Yep – this frequent visitor to the White House also calls for a world-wide tax, and is a great “progressive” of the country. Great.

Well, as you can imagine, Gov. Palin didn’t exactly take his words lying down. As the Christian Science Monitor reported in its article by Dave Cook, “AFL-CIO President to Sarah Palin: “Change Or Be Linked With McCarthyism,” she had plenty to say back to Mr. Trumka:

[snip] Palin, Alaska’s former governor, responded to Trumka’s comments last week on her Facebook page. She noted that her husband is a proud former union member. Addressing his criticism of her language, Palin said, “It’s kind of ironic that a union boss has the gall to accuse anyone of threatening violence. After all, we remember the violent attempts by [the Service Employees International Union] to intimidate those who wanted to make their voices heard in last year’s town halls. And unlike Trumka, I never threatened that any effort to break a picket line would lead to violence.”

Palin added, “I never called union members ‘thugs.’ You lie. I called some union leaders ‘thugs.’ And I refuse to apologize for that because they have acted like thugs – at least in this day and age.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

Oh, SNAP – I think Palin took this round, don’t you?

McCarthyism – good grief, how did Trumka possibly make THAT leap? No doubt, he expected a ratchet response from her, that she would tone down her rhetoric lest she be compared to someone of McCarthy’s reputation. She didn’t bite, and gave it right back to him.

Love her or hate her, that woman has more intestinal fortitude than most of her detractors could even imagine. What it really says to me is that they are afraid of her, hence the constant desire to tear her down, whether by the president of the AFL-CIO or some Vanity Fair writer.

We’ve seen this before. It is the MO of those who are threatened by powerful women. Hillary Clinton gets this a lot, too. Who can ever forget the treatment she received from her husband’s presidency through the 2008 election? Only now is she starting to get her due, after so many years of doing an incredible amount of work.

It begs the question: why? Why are these people so threatened by powerful women? Powerful men are treated like gods (just look at Obamessiah), even if they have done little or nothing to have that power. It often seems that powerful women must be torn down at all and any cost. If you can use their kids to do it, so much the better. It is a disturbing trend, one I cannot wait to see end. One day, some day…

The GOP’s Oompa-Loompa.

Political newcomer Joe Miller, a Tea Party-endorsed Senate candidate [said] that politicians backed by the movement simply want to “restore the constitutional foundation of the country.”

Miller said the Constitution favors his support for privatizing Social Security and phasing out Medicare.

“If one thinks that the Constitution is extreme then you’d also think that the founders are extreme,” he said on the CBS “Face the Nation” program. “We just simply want to get back to basics.”

Holy moley. The Dems are not just fightin’ a bunch of feisty, Constitution-quotin’ Tea Partiers. The Dems are also fightin’ the resurgence of the heroes and heroines of Western movies, brought to life with characters like the shotgun-totin’, pretty-as-all-get-out Sarah Palin and her ridin’ partner, the manly oh so manly Joe Miller.

One of those visuals could be enough to trample the Dems. The two visuals together are like the dynamite that blasted mountain after mountain to pave the way West, connecting the West to the rest of the country and bringing electricity and water to every region of the once distant and parched Wild West.

We Americans are desperate to feel potent and powerful again. It’s no wonder we Americans are transfixed by these new rough-and-ready cowboys and cowgirls.

Carly Fiorini is leading Barbara Boxer in most polls. Joe Sestak is now down 10 points in the Pennsylvania Senate race. And Dino Rossi has pulled ahead of Patty Murray in Washington state. (See my footnote below about Rossi/Murray.*)

Congress is going to look, and sound, a whole lot different next year. We may all find ourselves tuning into C-Span to watch those fiery freshmen start to mow down Obama’s health care bill and more.

Here’s quite the pull-no-punches story in, of all places, a San Francisco newspaper: “A big wave is headed Nancy Pelosi’s way and few places to duck“:

The news just keeps getting worse for Democrats as the Labor Day weekend marks the final, formal heat in the race to November. The Cook Political Report is now saying 70 — that’s 70 with a seven — House seats are in jeopardy. The Gallup poll is showing a 10-point spread on the generic ballot favoring the GOP.

Republicans need to win 39 to retake the House just two short years after Democrats swept to the giddiest heights of power in Washington: a young fresh leader in the White House, a filibuster-proof Senate, and a powerful House majority led by San Francisco’s own liberal champion, Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

This November is shaping up as a wave election, and Pelosi is too far from shore to scramble to safety, and not far enough out to duck the big one heading her way. Nothing Democrats do in the next two months is going to bring the unemployment rate down. Period.

If Pelosi finds herself handing the gavel to House Republican leader John Boehner in January, it would be a miracle if she is not at least challenged as leader of the new minority Democrats. She is already being dissed in the hinterlands by terrified House moderates and conservatives who are trying desperately to show their independence.

What could really hurt Pelosi is this: her most loyal allies are the longest-serving members, the old bulls who fell from power in 1994 and suffered 12 long, unforgettable years in the GOP wilderness. Watch them retire in droves at the prospect of living through that again.

As ecstatic as they were when Obama took office, they know full well what faces the administration with GOP control of the Hill. …

Get this Joe Miller guy. What a candidate.

He beat incumbent U.S. Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), even though she “had 20 times the money” that Miller did, reports the Wall Street Journal. Murkowski voted against Obamacare, but she still got mowed under. She has the privileges of incumbency, which help states enormously in getting the federal contracts and monies that states — particularly under-populated, isolated states like Alaska — depend on. AND SHE STILL GOT BEAT.

Now riding into November, Joe Miller is already six points ahead of Democratic candidate Scott McAdams, a far better-known Alaskan who is mayor of Sitka.

Joe Miller’s handsome visage and his bio remind me somewhat of Scott Brown, who literally shook the world when he won “the Kennedy Senate seat” in Massachusetts. (You may recall the prominent news stories on Brown’s win in newspapers from the UK to the Mid-East to Southeast Asia. The entire world was transfixed by the astonishing upside-down victory of Scott Brown and what it said about the state of the American people’s fury and desperation about the conditions in Washington, D.C.)

You should check out the fascinating study and bio of Miller in the Washington Post: “Tea party’s Joe Miller: What he plans if Alaska sends him to Washington.” Here’s a snippet — this is a bit longer than I usually like to offer up from a printed article, because of etiquette and as recognition of the money it costs newspapers to create excellent articles like this one — but I am sure you’ll want to keep reading and will visit the Washington Post site to read it all:

FAIRBANKS, ALASKA – The people who live in the farther-flung cities of this farthest-flung state take a frontier pride in their physical and cultural distance from the cushy “Lower 48.” Many will tell you that they are especially wary of the federal government’s attempts to regulate the way they live. But this wariness had always been matched by the strong desire here to make sure their representatives in Washington kept millions of federal dollars flowing into their underdeveloped state.

Which makes it all the more curious that Alaska’s next U.S. senator is likely to be political novice Joe Miller, a “tea party” hero with an uncompromising view that government spending is out of control and has to stop – even if that means Alaska gets less.

Miller’s win in the Republican primary left the rest of the country – including shocked political handicappers and the Senate GOP leadership – asking: “Who is this guy?”

Like many Alaskans, Miller, 43, came from somewhere else. He grew up in Kansas, the son of a minister and bookstore owner. As a kid, he had a passion for hunting – deer, pheasant, quail – and military history.

In an interview, he recalled dressing up as Gen. Lafayette for a parade commemorating the nation’s bicentennial in 1976. He was accepted to all three service academies and chose West Point. “The best decision I could’ve made,” he said.

“I developed a real affinity for the founders and what they stood for, the sacrifice they made on behalf of their country, and that really had staying power,” he said.

Miller left the Army to attend law school at Yale, where a professor who knew him well recalled a passionate, conservative young man who could have found a place at any East Coast law firm but chose instead to move to Alaska for a semester-long internship.

“It was unusual for students at Yale,” said George Priest, the professor. “Yale, given its stature, makes entry into the Eastern legal establishment much more available than other schools. Miller was a smart guy. He could have clerked on courts on the East Coast if he wanted. He could have done extremely well going back to his home in Kansas. Instead, he’s a real adventurer. He wanted to strike out and go to this frontier and make a name for himself.”

Miller recalled the allure of Alaska this way: “It was the love of the outdoors; the big, wide open spaces; the rustic, hard-core environment you’ve got up here – all of it attracted me.”

Miller and his wife, Kathleen, have eight children (two are from her previous marriage), and they live on 20 acres about 15 miles outside Fairbanks. He hunts elk with his sons, and his beard, which seems perpetually to be one week from coming in, evokes the plaid-shirted Brawny paper towel man. … READ ALL.

It is clear that Miller is one smart guy. Damn well educated too, and at West Point and Yale (!). But those elite environments didn’t change him. It is evident that he has a unequivocal sense of who he is and what he stands for, to which he is unflinchingly loyal.

And he has the looks to go with his character. In other words, he’s fascinating. But he’s not colorful, and he’s not kooky like Sharron Angle. He’s got brains and a hell of a lot of knowledge, including military experience, to go with his hardcore principles.

I have no doubt that he’ll win in November. Last night I watched his opponent Scott McAdams bumble through an interview and sighed … besides being inarticulate, he was hoplessly vague and uncertain of his own views. Miller will mow over McAdams just like he sprang out of NOWHERE to now down Lisa Murkowski, despite her legendary political status in Alaska, all her money, and her crucial status in the U.S. Senate. All that Miller had lacked was visibility, but Sarah Palin’s endorsement took care of that little problem.

Some of his views make me shudder — especially his views on Social Security and Medicare. He’s as extreme as Nevada GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle, but he is a far smarter, savvy candidate than she.

He’s just one vote out of one hundred. He’ll be a newbie with few privileges. His rigidly far-right views will make fellow Republican Scott Brown look as liberal as Ted Kennedy. But he’ll be somethin’ to watch, alright. And how.

* Footnote about the Murray/Rossi senate race in Washington state: It’s an interesting race. First, some facts about the two:

Dino’s more an executive type. He’s not really a senator type, and I have a hunch that the Senate is not what he really wants (although he can do the gig since he did the Washington state senate from 1997 to 2003). Dino wanted to be governor, ran twice for governor and lost both times. However, shortly after that first Tuesday of November 2004, Dino was certified as governor-elect. Check this out:

In the 2004 election that would become the closest gubernatorial race in United States history, Rossi was certified as governor-elect before losing a second hand recount to Democrat Christine Gregoire.

Dino’s got a large army of loyal backers who KNOW in their hearts — and heads — that the Seattle Democrats cheated to give Christine Gregoire her 2004 win by messing with ballots in King County, the county that is home to Seattle and environs. It could be true. Even when I was still a loyal Democrat (before I got brutalized by the Obamabots in 2007-2008), I had my doubts about what happened in those King County Election Dept. offices…. besides their being dedicated Democrats who surely despised Rossi, those employees are a bunch of lazy lifers who are shockingly sloppy in their care of ballots. A lot of the irregularities discovered during the investigation had more to do with outright laziness and inattention than calculated vote-tampering.

Dino’s name has been knocked around for quite a while as a prospective opponent of Patty Murray, but he held back since she’s easily won reelection in the past, and Dino obviously didn’t want to add a third statewide defeat to his record, which would then essentially become his political obituary.

But the GOP heavyweights — the top dogs in the Republican party nationwide –saw a real chance to beat Patty Murray, who’s powerful in the Senate but only because of her seniority, not her brains or particular talents. She’s a dogged worker who won as the mom in tennis shoes but has never grown in Washingtonians’ perception of her. They know she’ll work hard. Beyond that, they’ve not seen in her a growth in national stature.

But Patty’s constituents lso know she’ll vote with the Democrats and for Obama’s agenda, no matter what her constituents may tell her. She’s a loyal dog sitting at the feet of the Democratic leadership, crawling her way up onto Harry Reid’s lap — and it’s no coincidence that little short Patty is always standing next to Harry in the official photos of the Senate leadership.

Further, behind that “mom in tennis shoes” persona is a person who is NOT tuned in to the people she supposedly represents. I know. I’ve called her D.C. office many times, and every time I have been shocked by the rudeness with which my comments have been received. When I called last year to express my concerns about the stimulus bill, the staffer IMMEDIATELY assumed I was a conservative Republican and tuned me out. I asked her to read back the notes she’d taken on my comments. She hadn’t written what I said. I forced her to rewrite her comments three times before I was satisfied. She was furious with me. I was far more furious with her. But the worst feeling that I had was that I was utterly disheartened by the lack of concern — the inability to listen — to me or to any of her constituents.

I can’t quite believe that I may vote for Dino Rossi. Since 2003, I’ve been 100% sure I’d never vote for Rossi for any job. Ever. But now? And after that experience I had in 2009 with her haughty, officious, demeaning staff members, which was like every other experience I’ve had when I’ve called her office (and it’s in stark contrast to the concerned response I get when I call Senator Maria Cantwell’s office), I just may vote for him. As a protest.

If I vote for Murray, I am voting for Harry Reid. I can’t stomach that thought.

I’d have the same internal conversations if I lived in California. I’d be heavily leaning towards voting for Carly Fiorina, who’s a very smart, very ambitious, very tuned-in person with great potential to ascend, in time, to leadership positions in the Senate. Rossi is like Fiorina in that way too: He is nothing if not ambitious, and he’d become a force in the Senate. If I lived in Alaska, I’d truly have a hard time because Miller’s views are so very extreme, but what I’ve seen of McAdams tells me that he’d be another lapdog like Murray.

There’s something that ALL true experts on voting patterns know. People vote with their hearts, not their heads. Nobody wants to admit to himself or herself that his or her heart decides who they’ll vote for. Nobody. So we always talk about what we think of the candidate and the candidates’ positions on issues. But, in our heart of hearts, that’s not how we decide who we vote for.

That’s always scared the hell out of me. That my emotions rule my decisions. But it is what it is. All I can do is pray that my emotions are being influenced by the best possible information and impressions. But can we ever be sure? I wonder.

But I am NOT wondering about the emotions of the American people these days. We are so damn pissed off, we could blow the lid off the roof of Congress. And we may just do that.

CBS: Face the Nation. Miller: Transfer Govt. to States, People
Republican nominee for the Senate in Alaska Joe Miller discussed with Bob Schieffer his stance on the distribution of power in the government and his support on decreasing federal aid money to states.

2nd UPDATE: Here’s a 30-second spot for Miller’s campaign, titled “Credentials” — this also points out that Miller was in Desert Storm and has a master’s degree in economicss along with his degrees from West Point and Yale Law School.

Wow – that is a whole lot of states – maybe Obama can use some of his Obama dollars (aka, Stimulus) to increase the staff at DOJ. He’s gonna have to, if almost half the country enacts legislation to mirror federal law. (Please don’t think about that one too hard – it will just make your head explode.)

And about that whole DOJ lawsuit targeting AZ…Well, I should say, ONE of their lawsuits targeting Arizona, the one directed at Sheriff Arpaio. Oh, yes – the DOJ is handing out these lawsuits in Arizona like they are candy. Not only are they suing the state, but they are suing the Maricopa Community Colleges for – get this – discriminating against would be employees by asking for additional paperwork. And why did they do this? Because the would be employer asked for a Green Card. And the DOJ is filing suit for that? WTH?

(UPDATE) Yes, this is how the DOJ stated their, um, “concern”:

[snip]The Justice Department said a valid driver’s license and a Social Security card are usually sufficient to show that a person is authorized to work. Requesting a green card amounts to “immigration-related employment discrimination,” said Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Federal law forbids treating “authorized workers differently during the hiring process based on their citizenship status,” Perez said. He said the department’s Office of Special Counsel would bring legal actions against employers who impose “unnecessary and discriminatory hurdles to employment for work-authorized noncitizens.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.”

Again, I say, WTH??? Asking for a Green Card is discriminatory?? You have got to be kidding me. Is the DOJ aware of the law passed in 1940 requiring naturalized and legal aliens to carry their papers at all times? Good grief.

Then there is Sheriff Arpaio, who allegedly committed Human Rights violations. Except maybe he didn’t, as this Daily Caller piece by Byron York indicates, “New Evidence Undermines Fed’s Case Against Arizona.” Oh, yeah – this is a doozy:

[snip] Despite the splash of attention from the newest lawsuit, the Justice Department’s investigation of Arpaio could end badly for Holder. When the Department first informed Arpaio that a probe was under way, back in March 2009, it sent a letter saying the investigation would focus on “alleged patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.” But now we learn that just six months before that, in September 2008, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, did its own investigation of Arpaio’s office — and gave it a clean bill of health. Arpaio’s lawyers recently got a copy of the ICE report through the Freedom of Information Act.

[...]

The report, crammed with acronyms and bureaucratese, is not light reading. But struggle through it, and the key sentence is this: “The OI and DRO supervisors consider the conduct and performance of the MCSO … officers to be professional and meeting the requirement of the MOA.” Translated, that means officials from the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Investigation (OI), along with officials from the Detention and Removal Operations office (DRO), concluded that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), in its handling of illegal immigrants, acted in a professional manner and complied with a memorandum of agreement (MOA) under which the government gave them the authority to enforce federal law. That agreement included a ban on racial profiling.

[...]

What happens now? It’s been nearly a year and a half since the investigation began, and the Justice Department has not charged the sheriff’s office with violating anyone’s civil rights. Instead, Thursday’s lawsuit goes after Arpaio for allegedly failing to cooperate fully in the probe.

[...]

Failing to find proof of real discrimination in Maricopa County could ultimately doom the administration’s entire crusade in Arizona. The much-publicized suit against the new immigration law is based on the possibility that it might result in future discrimination, but at the same time the department is struggling to find evidence of civil rights violations in Arpaio’s office, which uses enforcement techniques similar to those outlined in the new law. There’s a real chance that in the end Obama’s war on Arizona will come to nothing. (Click HERE to read the full post.)

Honestly, the whole concept of our Department of Justice suing one of our states for enforcing federal Immigration law is so mind boggling, I hardly have words to describe it. Visualize Scooby Doo’s shaking his head, and that’s what I am doing.

Fortunately, a regular at No Quarter, Noogan, summed it up well with this comment:

This is the issue that crystalizes my fear and loathing of this administration. Everything about it stinks to high heaven. It’s unconscionable. The Federal government suing the state of Arizona for passing a law which mirrors Federal law; at the same time allowing ICE and other government arms of the state to ignore Federal law? This is simply outrageous. It’s breathtakingly tyrannical.

It’s stunningly unconstitutional. Along with allowing the President of Mexico to come here, speak before Congress, maligning this country? These acts are the reason for the widely held suspicions about Obama; and no matter how many times liberals and the professional left mock the anger about it, the fact remains: The President of the United States is violating the Constitution, behaving as a dictator. That’s a very good reason to suspect the man.

I simply don’t have words to express my loathing of Eric Holder and Obama….

Thank you, Noogan. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

One thing is crystal clear – Obama and his Department of “Justice” have it in BIG time for Arizona. They are throwing anything they can against the wall hoping SOMETHING sticks to bring Arizona down. So far, though, all they are doing is demonstrating a callous disregard for the laws they are sworn to uphold.

The DOJ and Obama Administration are sure going to have their hands full if half the country follows Arizona’s lead of trying to enforce Federal law.

Wow. I have to stop now, before my head explodes…

Overall, annual premiums for families reached an average of $13,770 this year, up 114% since 2000.

Will Obamacare address and mitigate the underlying forces driving this increase? Honestly, I am not optimistic. I view Obamacare as nothing more than another of the redistribution and rationing programs in which those who can pay will absorb the costs for those who can’t. But how are these increases truly being absorbed? To an ever increasing extent, the cost of healthcare is being shifted from the employer to the employees. The WSJ further highlights this reality in writing:

Employers passed health-insurance costs onto employees at a sharply higher rate this year, and businesses’ premiums grew more slowly than they have in a decade, according to an annual survey of companies.

The increased cost-shifting reflected an acceleration of a trend that has been on the rise for years. As companies struggle to cut costs amid difficult economic times, more of them are reducing benefits they offer workers or making workers pay more for them. Still, companies are paying nearly three-quarters of workers’ health-care premiums.

Employees paid an average of about $4,000 toward their family coverage this year, up 14% from last year, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. But total insurance premiums paid by the employer and the employee rose just 3% for a family plan—the slowest rate of growth in 10 years, according to the data.

The nonprofit research groups surveyed about 2,000 large and small companies between January and May.

“It’s the first time I can remember when employers have coped with costs by shifting it all to workers,” said Drew Altman, the Kaiser Family Foundation’s president and chief executive.

The survey showed workers with family plans are now paying 30% of their premiums, compared with 27% last year and 26% five years ago.

Businesses explained the shift by pointing to stark choices between cutting staff and reducing benefits.

“It’s no surprise, since businesses are struggling to keep their doors open,” said James Gelfand, director of health policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “The premium increase may have been modest but it’s still a premium increase and businesses can’t absorb those costs.”

As the increased costs are shifted to employees, what is the knock on economic impact? There is no doubt that discretionary consumer spending will suffer a further drag. That reality is nothing more than Principles of Economics 101.

Larry Doyle

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I have no affiliation or business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. As President of Greenwich Investment Management, an SEC regulated privately held registered investment adviser, I am merely a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.