Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
By Jim Simpson.
Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst.
Mom and I hope Jim becomes a regular contributor to GOPMom.com
America waits with bated breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.
Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama’s connections to his radical mentors — Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama’s radical connections since the beginning.
Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama’s life comprise a who’s who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.
But even this doesn’t fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.
The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis
In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?
Why?
One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.
I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don’t laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.
The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:
The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:
“Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org)
Newsmax rounds out the picture:
Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation’s wealth.
In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of “crisis” they were trying to create:
By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.
No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:
- The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
- The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
- The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.
Capitalizing on the racial unrest of the 1960s, Cloward and Piven saw the welfare system as their first target. They enlisted radical black activist George Wiley, who created the National Welfare Reform Organization (NWRO) to implement the strategy. Wiley hired militant foot soldiers to storm welfare offices around the country, violently demanding their “rights.” According to a City Journal article by Sol Stern, welfare rolls increased from 4.3 million to 10.8 million by the mid-1970s as a result, and in New York City, where the strategy had been particularly successful, “one person was on the welfare rolls… for every two working in the city’s private economy.”
According to another City Journal article titled “Compassion Gone Mad“:
The movement’s impact on New York City was jolting: welfare caseloads, already climbing 12 percent a year in the early sixties, rose by 50 percent during Lindsay’s first two years; spending doubled… The city had 150,000 welfare cases in 1960; a decade later it had 1.5 million.
The vast expansion of welfare in New York City that came of the NWRO’s Cloward-Piven tactics sent the city into bankruptcy in 1975. Rudy Giuliani cited Cloward and Piven by name as being responsible for “an effort at economic sabotage.” He also credited Cloward-Piven with changing the cultural attitude toward welfare from that of a temporary expedient to a lifetime entitlement, an attitude which in-and-of-itself has caused perhaps the greatest damage of all.
Cloward and Piven looked at this strategy as a gold mine of opportunity. Within the newly organized groups, each offensive would find an ample pool of foot soldier recruits willing to advance its radical agenda at little or no pay, and expand its base of reliable voters, legal or otherwise. The radicals’ threatening tactics also would accrue an intimidating reputation, providing a wealth of opportunities for extorting monetary and other concessions from the target organizations. In the meantime, successful offensives would create an ever increasing drag on society. As they gleefully observed:
Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the drain on local resources persists indefinitely.
The next time you drive through one of the many blighted neighborhoods in our cities, or read of the astronomical crime, drug addiction, and out-of-wedlock birth rates, or consider the failed schools, strapped police and fire resources of every major city, remember Cloward and Piven’s thrill that “…the drain on local resources persists indefinitely.”
ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear
In 1970, one of George Wiley’s protégés, Wade Rathke — like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn’t accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke’s group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income “rights.” Shortly thereafter they changed “Arkansas” to “Association of” and ACORN went nationwide.
Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing, voting rights, illegal immigration and other issues. According to ACORN’s website: “ACORN is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low-and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country,” It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts.
Voting
On voting rights, ACORN and its voter mobilization subsidiary, Project Vote, have been involved nationwide in efforts to grant felons the vote and lobbied heavily for the Motor Voter Act of 1993, a law allowing people to register at motor vehicle departments, schools, libraries and other public places That law had been sought by Cloward and Piven since the early1980s and they were present, standing behind President Clinton at the signing ceremony.
ACORN’s voter rights tactics follow the Cloward-Piven Strategy:
- 1. Register as many Democrat voters as possible, legal or otherwise and help them vote, multiple times if possible.
- 2. Overwhelm the system with fraudulent registrations using multiple entries of the same name, names of deceased, random names from the phone book, even contrived names.
- 3. Make the system difficult to police by lobbying for minimal identification standards.
In this effort, ACORN sets up registration sites all over the country and has been frequently cited for turning in fraudulent registrations, as well as destroying republican applications. In the 2004-2006 election cycles alone, ACORN was accused of widespread voter fraud in 12 states. It may have swung the election for one state governor.
ACORN’s website brags: “Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote.” Project vote boasts 4 million. I wonder how many of them are dead? For the 2008 cycle, ACORN and Project Vote have pulled out all the stops. Given their furious nationwide effort, it is not inconceivable that this presidential race could be decided by fraudulent votes alone.
Barack Obama ran ACORN’s Project Vote in Chicago and his highly successful voter registration drive was credited with getting the disgraced former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun elected. Newsmax reiterates Cloward and Piven’s aspirations for ACORN’s voter registration efforts:
By advocating massive, no-holds-barred voter registration campaigns, they [Cloward & Piven] sought a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C. that would re-distribute the nation’s wealth and lead to a totalitarian socialist state.
Illegal Immigration
As I have written elsewhere, the Radical Left’s offensive to promote illegal immigration is “Cloward-Piven on steroids.” ACORN is at the forefront of this movement as well, and was a leading organization among a broad coalition of radical groups, including Soros’ Open Society Institute, the Service Employees International Union (ACORN founder Wade Rathke also runs a SEIU chapter), and others, that became the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. CCIR fortunately failed to gain passage for the 2007 illegal immigrant amnesty bill, but its goals have not changed.
The burden of illegal immigration on our already overstressed welfare system has been widely documented. Some towns in California have even been taken over by illegal immigrant drug cartels. The disease, crime and overcrowding brought by illegal immigrants places a heavy burden on every segment of society and every level of government, threatening to split this country apart at the seams. In the meantime, radical leftist efforts to grant illegal immigrants citizenship guarantee a huge pool of new democrat voters. With little border control, terrorists can also filter in.
Obama aided ACORN as their lead attorney in a successful suit he brought against the Illinois state government to implement the Motor Voter law there. The law had been resisted by Republican Governor Jim Edgars, who feared the law was an opening to widespread vote fraud.
His fears were warranted as the Motor Voter law has since been cited as a major opportunity for vote fraud, especially for illegal immigrants, even terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal: “After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote…”
ACORN’s dual offensives on voting and illegal immigration are handy complements. Both swell the voter rolls with reliable democrats while assaulting the country ACORN seeks to destroy with overwhelming new problems.
Mortgage Crisis
And now we have the mortgage crisis, which has sent a shock wave through Wall Street and panicked world financial markets like no other since the stock market crash of 1929. But this is a problem created in Washington long ago. It originated with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), signed into law in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. The CRA was Carter’s answer to a grassroots activist movement started in Chicago, and forced banks to make loans to low income, high risk customers. PhD economist and former Texas Senator Phil Gramm has called it: “a vast extortion scheme against the nation’s banks.”
ACORN aggressively sought to expand loans to low income groups using the CRA as a whip. Economist Stan Leibowitz wrote in the New York Post:
In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of “redlining”-claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation.
In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications-but the overwhelming reason wasn’t racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.
ACORN showed its colors again in 1991, by taking over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the CRA. Obama represented ACORN in the Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank, 1994 suit against redlining. Most significant of all, ACORN was the driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton Administration that greatly expanded the CRA and laid the groundwork for the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac borne financial crisis we now confront. Barack Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort. With this new authority, ACORN used its subsidiary, ACORN Housing, to promote subprime loans more aggressively.
As a New York Post article describes it:
A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.
Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department.
Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with “100 percent financing . . . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . . . even if you don’t report it on your tax returns.” Credit counseling is required, of course.
Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed “the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted.” That lender’s $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003.
The lender they were speaking of was Countrywide, which specialized in subprime lending and had a working relationship with ACORN.
Investor’s Business Daily added:
The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical “housing rights” groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama. (Emphasis, mine.)
Since these loans were to be underwritten by the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the implicit government guarantee of those loans absolved lenders, mortgage bundlers and investors of any concern over the obvious risk. As Bloomberg reported: “It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit.”
And if you think Washington policy makers cared about ACORN’s negative influence, think again. Before this whole mess came down, a Democrat-sponsored bill on the table would have created an “Affordable Housing Trust Fund,” granting ACORN access to approximately $500 million in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revenues with little or no oversight.
Even now, unbelievably — on the brink of national disaster — Democrats have insisted ACORN benefit from bailout negotiations! Senator Lindsay Graham reported last night (9/25/08) in an interview with Greta Van Susteren of On the Record that Democrats want 20 percent of the bailout money to go to ACORN!
This entire fiasco represents perhaps the pinnacle of ACORN’s efforts to advance the Cloward-Piven Strategy and is a stark demonstration of the power they wield in Washington.
Enter Barack Obama
In attempting to capture the significance of Barack Obama’s Radical Left connections and his relation to the Cloward Piven strategy, I constructed following flow chart. It is by no means complete. There are simply too many radical individuals and organizations to include them all here. But these are perhaps the most significant.
The chart puts Barack Obama at the epicenter of an incestuous stew of American radical leftism. Not only are his connections significant, they practically define who he is. Taken together, they constitute a who’s who of the American radical left, and guiding all is the Cloward-Piven strategy.
Conspicuous in their absence are any connections at all with any other group, moderate, or even mildly leftist.They are all radicals, firmly bedded in the anti-American, communist, socialist, radical leftist mesh.
Saul Alinsky
Most people are unaware that Barack Obama received his training in “community organizing” from Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation. But he did. In and of itself that marks his heritage and training as that of a radical activist. One really needs go no further. But we have.
Bill Ayers
Obama objects to being associated with SDS bomber Bill Ayers, claiming he is being smeared with “guilt by association.” But they worked together at the Woods Fund. The Wall Street Journal added substantially to our knowledge by describing in great detail Obama’s work over five years with SDS bomber Bill Ayers on the board of a non-profit, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, to push a radical agenda on public school children. As Stanley Kurtz states:
“…the issue here isn’t guilt by association; it’s guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.”
Also included in the mix is Theresa Heinz Kerry’s favorite charity, the Tides Foundation. A partial list of Tides grants tells you all you need to know: ACLU, ACORN, Center for American Progress, Center for Constitutional Rights (a communist front,) CAIR, Earth Justice, Institute for Policy Studies (KGB spy nest), National Lawyers Guild (oldest communist front in U.S.), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and practically every other radical group there is. ACORN’s Wade Rathke runs a Tides subsidiary, the Tides Center.
Carl Davidson and the New Party
We have heard about Bomber Bill, but we hear little about fellow SDS member Carl Davidson. According to Discover the Networks, Davidson was an early supporter of Barack Obama and a prominent member of Chicago’s New Party, a synthesis of CPUSA members, Socialists, ACORN veterans and other radicals. Obama sought and received the New Party’s endorsement, and they assisted with his campaign. The New Party also developed a strong relationship with ACORN. As an excellent article on the New Party observes: “Barack Obama knew what he was getting into and remains an ideal New Party candidate.”
George Soros
The chart also suggests the reason for George Soros’ fervent support of Obama. The President of his Open Society Institute is Aryeh Neier, founder of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As mentioned above, three other former SDS members had extensive contact with Obama: Bill Ayers, Carl Davidson and Wade Rathke. Surely Aryeh Neier would have heard from his former colleagues of the promising new politician. More to the point, Neier is firmly committed to supporting the hugely successful radical organization, ACORN, and would be certain back their favored candidate, Barack Obama.
ACORN
Obama has spent a large portion of his professional life working for ACORN or its subsidiaries, representing ACORN as a lawyer on some of its most critical issues, and training ACORN leaders. Stanley Kurtz’s excellent National Review article, “Inside Obama’s Acorn.” also describes Obama’s ACORN connection in detail. But I can’t improve on Obama’s own words:
I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career (emphasis added). Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work. - Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007 (Courtesy Newsmax.)
In another excellent article on Obama’s ACORN connections, Newsmax asks a nagging question:
It would be telling to know if Obama, during his years at Columbia, had occasion to meet Cloward and study the Cloward-Piven Strategy.
I ask you, is it possible ACORN would train Obama to take leadership positions within ACORN without telling him what he was training for? Is it possible ACORN would put Obama in leadership positions without clueing him into what his purpose was?? Is it possible that this most radical of organizations would put someone in charge of training its trainers, without him knowing what it was he was training them for?
As a community activist for ACORN; as a leadership trainer for ACORN; as a lead organizer for ACORN’s Project Vote; as an attorney representing ACORN’s successful efforts to impose Motor Voter regulations in Illinois; as ACORN’s representative in lobbying for the expansion of high risk housing loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to the current crisis; as a recipient of their assistance in his political campaigns — both with money and campaign workers; it is inconceivable that he was unaware of ACORN’s true goals. It is inconceivable he was unaware of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.
Fast-forward to 2005 when an obsequious, servile and scraping Daniel Mudd, CEO of Fannie Mae spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus swearing in ceremony for newly-elected Illinois Senator, Barack Obama. Mudd called, the Congressional Black Caucus “our family” and “the conscience of Fannie Mae.”
In 2005, Republicans sought to rein in Fannie and Freddie. Senator John McCain was at the forefront of that effort. But it failed due to an intense lobbying effort put forward by Fannie and Freddie.
In his few years as a U.S. senator, Obama has received campaign contributions of $126,349, from Fannie and Freddie, second only to the $165,400 received by Senator Chris Dodd, who has been getting donations from them since 1988. What makes Obama so special?
His closest advisers are a dirty laundry list of individuals at the heart of the financial crisis: former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson; Former Fannie Mae CEO and former Clinton Budget Director Frank Raines; and billionaire failed Superior Bank of Chicago Board Chair Penny Pritzker.
Johnson had to step down as adviser on Obama’s V.P. search after this gem came out:
An Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) report[1] from September 2004 found that, during Johnson’s tenure as CEO, Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses. This enabled top executives, including Johnson and his successor, Franklin Raines, to receive substantial bonuses in 1998.[2] A 2006 OFHEO report[3] found that Fannie Mae had substantially under-reported Johnson’s compensation. Originally reported as $6-7 million, Johnson actually received approximately $21 million.
Obama denies ties to Raines but the Washington Post calls him a member of “Obama’s political circle.” Raines and Johnson were fined $3 million by the Office of Federal Housing Oversight for their manipulation of Fannie books. The fine is small change however, compared to the $50 million Raines was able to obtain in improper bonuses as a result of juggling the books.
Most significantly, Penny Pritzker, the current Finance Chairperson of Obama’s presidential campaign helped develop the complicated investment bundling of subprime securities at the heart of the meltdown. She did so in her position as shareholder and board chair of Superior Bank. The Bank failed in 2001, one of the largest in recent history, wiping out $50 million in uninsured life savings of approximately 1,400 customers. She was named in a RICO class action law suit but doesn’t seem to have come out of it too badly.
As a young attorney in the 1990s, Barack Obama represented ACORN in Washington in their successful efforts to expand Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) authority. In addition to making it easier for ACORN groups to force banks into making risky loans, this also paved the way for banks like Superior to package mortgages as investments, and for the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite them. These changes created the conditions that ultimately lead to the current financial crisis.
Did they not know this would occur? Were these smart people, led by a Harvard graduate, unaware of the Econ 101 concept of moral hazard that would result from the government making implicit guarantees to underwrite private sector financial risk? They should have known that freeing the high-risk mortgage market of risk, calamity was sure to ensue. I think they did.
Barack Obama, the Cloward-Piven candidate, no matter how he describes himself, has been a radical activist for most of his political career. That activism has been in support of organizations and initiatives that at their heart seek to tear the pillars of this nation asunder in order to replace them with their demented socialist vision. Their influence has spread so far and so wide that despite their blatant culpability in the current financial crisis, they are able to manipulate Capital Hill politicians to cut them into $140 billion of the bailout pie!
God grant those few responsible yet remaining in Washington, DC the strength to prevent this massive fraud from occurring. God grant them the courage to stand up in the face of this Marxist tidal wave.
And God save us from Barack Obama.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K50TS0UZE7w
Please. This is the same lame stuff that radical liberals like Michael Moore tried to do to Bush and Cheney. Is G.W. a member of the Skull and Bones society - oh NO! Cheney is affiliated with Halliburton - the sky is falling! Prescott Bush helped Hitler rise to power - evil doer! The Illuminati are coming, the Illuminati are coming! Bush and Cheney planned the attack on the towers! G.W. and Cheney started the war on purpose so that their companies would make money! The war was for oil! McCain is the Manchurian Candidate! Cheney wants to hide all of his evil deeds. Blah, blah, blah. It’s all the same happy horse*&$# that I see here. Just switch things around a bit Acorn = Skull and Bones, Credit Crisis as diversionary tact = Bush’s “lies” about the war, Obamas ties with Radicals = the Bush’s ties with Saudi’s, Nazi’s, etc. I like conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but they belong in books like the DiVinci Code, not in the news. Waste of time. Next…
This is just a continuation of the book “Rule by Secrecy” by Jim Marrs - who also wrote a book called “Alien Agenda”. Can you say nutjob? A friend gave me the book once - you can read all about the Chicago radicals and their attempt to undermine the government there. Utterly laughable stuff. The only credence to Marrs’ book is that he went so far as to do the same in regard to the radical right - creating a vast web of conspiracies that would make your graphic look like an elementary school art project. And it also seem so credible and likely. Do you have a sign over your desk that reads “I want to believe.” Agent Mulder, is that you?
Why isn’t Kevin Bacon’s picture in that graphic, he must also be within six degrees of separation? No?
You know, Panoptic, I find it hard to believe that you would find all of this so hard to believe. Even if only half of it is true, it’s incredibly disturbing. You can try to demean the theory all you like, we ‘re just putting it out there for people to read.
I’m guessing you’re another pseudo-intellectual Liberal who likes believing that if just the right guy gets into office, rainbows will appear and unicorns will once again grace our green earth. You are probably so far above it all, you don’t even vote. I’ve lived in Sucks-a chusetts for four years now and guys like you are a dime a dozen. Scorn, scorn, scorn is all you know. Why don’t you offer a theory or idea of your own?
But never fear, there are more than enough verifiable reasons to not elect Obama to the Presidency, staring with he’s a lying crap bag. See, I didn’t even have to add the “Communist” part.
As John McCain and Sarah Palin travel the country, greeting overflowing venues and basking in the cheering crowds, the thugs at ACORN are being rounded up by the Feds (why is ACORN working so diligently to steal this election for the Dems if Obama is really so far ahead in the polls?) and the media stands by dumbfounded. Seems there is a little fire in the Republican engine after all. Smell that? That’s fear.
I don’t see what’s wrong with wanting to have the right guy in office.
Calling Obama a lying crap bag is getting old, and is no more constructive or instructive than calling McCain an unprincipled, unstable and warmongering adulterer. Stick to arguing about the issues if you want to be persuasive.
There are also plenty of half-truths that make McCain look like a lying crap bag. And plenty of verifiable reasons for not electing McCain to the Presidency.
Luckily half truths are also half lies, so unless you can prove which is which, to me it’s pretty meaningless. Since you admit this story that you posted on your site is a half-truth, then it is also meaningless. That’s my opinion, so you can’t claim I don’t have one.
haha, lively night - welcome back ian
Thanks ATG. I wanted to tell you earlier, but I had already vowed to stop posting (I guess that makes me a flip-flopper) that I agree with a comment you made in response to mine regarding teenage pregnancies and shame. You are right, shame is not what we should be going for. I agree with the rest of your post 100%.
I was actually paraphrasing Jay Severin, a conservative talk radio host, when I was talking about shame. He made those comments when he was talking about the “pregnancy pact” in Gloucester, MA - he was outraged by the lack of shame in today’s liberal culture. I was hoping that some conservatives who agreed with the way Severin treated that issue would see the hypocrisy in the way they are treating Bristol’s pregnancy.
Panoptic:
The only difference between my piece here and the others you mention, is that mine are based in fact. If anything, I have underestimated the breadth of the strategy. I didn’t make any of it up. People came up with these ideas, wrote about them then put them into action. Look into it. You can read their own statements. But please don’t presume to dismiss facts just because you can’t get your mind around them. It is the main trouble with liberals. They think ignorance is a qualification.
Barack Obama’s entire background is with the radical left. His orientation is socialist. If that’s okay with you then go ahead and vote for him, but I would suggest you look around and try to find any socialist government in place that has not ruined its economy and increased the misery of its people. And because we hold a unique spot in the world power structure, the fundamental realignment of ideologies in this country will not be ignored by our enemies. They still want to destroy us and that candidate will put us in a very vulnerable position.
GOPMOM: Blaming the Democrats for our current political condition is like blaming your doctor for the aids epedemic. Nobody could call themselves a rational person let alone a passionate conservative (republican) for spouting such nonsense. The fact is, ignorance and greed are not kin to one party or another, one race or another, they love everybody.
I could spend 10 minutes in photoshop and make a family tree linking McCain to all kinds of slime… Keating, Liddy, Singlaub, Ifshin…worst of all BUSH!!!
Not to mention the concerns about his collaboration with vietnam after his capture.
McCain has is own reverand Wright in John Hagee who has said Katrina happened because it was punishment for gay rights.
…or Rod Parsley who has said publicly that our mission in life is to wipe out Islam.
…or how about Palins support of the Alaskan Independents just this year, who want to break away from America altogether.
So I would ask you to do a little research on your party before you trash on the other. McCain has a lot of bones in his closet and much worse than Obama.
For all of you republican Obama haters, I find this quite funny.
Those of you who seam to think Obama is so un American: The Us Constitution states, you must be a “natural born” citizen to be eligible for the presidency.
John McCain was born Aug 29 1936 Panama Canal Zone Panama
Barack Obama was born on Aug 4 1961 in Honolulu Hawaii
Just recently, Claire McCaskill, a prominent backer of Barack Obama has introduced the “Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act†into the Senate. It states that when parents are on military duty abroad, their children can still be deemed “citizens” of the United states. Take a guess at who co sponsored the bill???
Obama 08
Jim Simpson: “They think ignorance is a qualification.”
“ruined its economy and increased the misery of its people”
“the fundamental realignment of ideologies in this country”
“will put us in a very vulnerable position”
Hellooo???? Is this thing on????
Do you live in a box?
> I could spend 10 minutes in photoshop
Typical liberal, Spend $699 on Photoshop when $99 OmniGraffle does a fine job.
Wow, I guess I miss a lot when I go to bed at 9:00. Welcome back, Ian. I promise not to get snotty if you do the same. And welcome to David.
That said, where are all the girls? Why am I stuck debating guys all the time? And haven’t you guys started to get a bit nervous? Have you seen the crowds? Have you watched the news? It seems even Ohio is about to (rightly) turn back to red, now that all the cats and dogs won’t be voting. Actually, no dog I know would ever vote for Obama - so it just must be all those stray cats from Cuyahoga Co. (OK, I’ll come clean, I’m originally from Ohio and know Cleveland well. I worked for the Ohio Rep Party a long, long time ago - as an unpaid intern BTW.)
So, I’d like to start a new discussion with all of you. I’m curious if it’s Obama or if you’d just be voting for whoever the Dem is - and if that is because of McCain being the Rep candidate or just to vote against any Rep. I’d like to know what you think of all this “fairness” talk. And HOPE and CHANGE. Because other than the code connections to Communism, I don’t know what that means to others - it means nothing to me. So, I’m going to post a new note, outlining as best as I can in 15 minutes or less (busy day) why I’m voting for McCain/Republican candidate and I’d love to hear from you.
Early on, I probably would have considered McCain if he was running against a Democrat that I liked less. But given the way the campaign has gone, McCain’s reversal of pretty much every position he was ever a “maverick” on, and the Palin pick, I don’t think I would have ever seriously considered him. Add that to the fact that I genuinely love Barack Obama, and it’s not even close for me this year.
Jim, why don’t you stick to economics. We could use a little help in that area. It would be a better use of your time, which you apparently have in spades. Jim Marrs also provides sources (more than you I might add) and is just as compelling as your story. The problem with both his and yours is that everything is taken out of context. If you were drawing a real diagram most of those lines would appear as dotted lines at best. I can indeed wrap my head around what you’re writing and I remain unimpressed. Typical NeoCon - when people don’t agree with you it’s because they don’t “get it.” Get off your high horse buddy. And if you want to exchange personal insults here’s one for you: haven’t you done anything of record in the last 15 years or do you still need to cling to that job you held for fifteen minutes at the Whitehouse as your only claim to fame?
Wrench, Photoshop is superior to OmniGraffle and since many liberals are in college or affiliated with colleges they get it at a discount. Besides, if you wanted a second rate alternative why buy OmniGraffle when you could just use Gimp for free? All the cool liberals running Linux are using it.
Panoptic:
Well at least you’re admitting what you are, although like most liberals, you don’t have the guts to identify yourself by name. The connections are not tenuous. As I said in the article, there is just too much out there. The article would have to be a book. Why don’t you post an article, and show us all exactly how clear your understanding of things is? It’s easy to selectively criticize. Get off your own high horse and show yourself worthy of holding an opinion. You haven’t impressed me at all. And given the amount of time you seemingly spend obsessing over this one site - I count four comments - I wouldn’t be pointing fingers about who has spare time on their hands. Unless, that is, you are one of the many Soros-funded, $5.00/hour army, who scout the web, looking for conservative posts to trash. Otherwise, I don’t see where all you folks find the time.
I must admit, I give you credit for be willing to respond to my comments. I’m not part of the Soros Army. I’m not trying to impress you here; after all, I’m not the author of this article. I thought it was your job as author to put forth an impressive argument? No? You expect lowly liberal commentators like myself to carry the burden of writing something impressive on this blog? If I wanted to post articles like yours, I’d start my own blog. This is kind of how blogs work Jim. The blogger writes something for people to read and then people comment on it. If you don’t want to be criticized I’d suggest you stop writing articles.
I’m glad you even have the time to count my comments! You are a thorough researcher of blog comments, I’ll give you that. And you’re making me feel a little important taking time out of your busy day responding to me.
What does it matter who I am anyway? The author is dead. Once my comments hit cyberspace they’re out of my control. It makes no difference to me that you give your name, I still don’t know who you are. If I said I was Bob Crumpley would that help you?
Maybe GOPMom and Wrench should give their names. Or do they not have the guts to do it either Jim? Some people like a little privacy and respect the privacy of others, I wouldn’t expect a NeoCon to understand that though.
Quick. How many comments am I up to now Jim?
Jim,
Here’s something of substance in response to:
“In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?”
There have been studies done and published in peer reviewed journals about the value of holding the majority in the senate. You seem to hold to the partisan theory - that the majority holds a significant procedural advantage (Aldrich and Rohde 1998; Cox and McCubins 1993). Most studies argue the opposite - that the procedural rules in the house and senate don’t benefit the majority to any statistically significant degree (Krehbiel 1991, 1993, 1998; Shnickler and Rich 1997a, 1997b; Mayhew 1974).
Now there’s another compelling study that was done in 1999 by Cox and Magar that went about it in a different way. They looked at PACs, that is, political action committees and their donations to members of the congress. The study showed that the group with the majority gets more money; therefore, the value of retaining the majority for individual senators is that they will receive more monetary contributions. As usual it boils down to money. When the majority shifts, so don’t the contributions REGARDLESS of the shift in ideologies. The same money controls both parties. So the only motive any congressman or woman has is to retain the majority is a continued flow of cash from PACs, not to impose their ideology. That’s true for both sides. What’s most interesting in this is it debunks the theory that either party has any real long standing mavericks. Turncoats, or those that oppose their party and threaten the stability of the majority, receive less money and have a MUCH greater chance of being defeated in the next election cycle. Businesses don’t like change and they insure, to the best of their ability, that it doesn’t happen.
Mr. Simpson,
Here are some ‘facts’ I’ve gathered from other sites. These people also believe that what they are writing is fact.
1. Obama is the Anti-Christ. Source: Revelations Chapter 13 (I haven’t checked up on this, but I’ll take their word for it).
2. Obama is going to turn the White House into a safe haven for illegal immigrants.
3. Obama dislikes Jews and white people.
4. Obama is going to paint the White House brown after he takes office.
5. Obama is a radical Muslim.
6. Obama is himself the devil in disguise - as opposed to being ‘just’ the Anti-Christ.
7. Obama has cloven feet.
8. Obama is going to invite the leaders of terrorist and rogue countries to the White House for dinner and discuss the end of days.
9. Obama has a collection of aborted fetuses.
10. Obama was born fully grown - therefore he has no history.
11. Obama is going to appoint Rev. Wright to head a new department that will be responsible for collecting reparations.
12. Obama is solely responsible for the credit crisis.
13. Obama is a criminal because he violated the Libby Act.
14. Obama wants to tax 95% of small businesses.
Etc. etc…
See where I’m going with this.
Number 14 should say:
Obama wants to impose a backbreaking tax on 95% on small businesses.
Am I supposed to take this seriously? You guys have too much time on your hands.
As seriously as we take you, Mr. Simpson.
Jim, Bless your heart - my new greeting of choice. I love your article - it points out everything we need to know but are not being told. Keep up the good work. As you’ve noticed, we have a few readers who relish in their attempts to get a rise out of us - to no success. But we have plenty more who read, understand and pass on the message. I would not be surprised if they are in fact plants, encouraged to get us off message.
Their obstacle, though, is the truth. Not us, not ignorance, the truth. So no, you can’t take someone seriously who only regurgitates campaign talking points and what they see on MSNBC. Here’s something you might have already seen but I thought you might enjoy. The proof is in the pudding.
Obama Tax Plan: Back To Welfare?
Okay to be fair,
I’m not a fan of ACORN. And I suspect they targeted Democrats in their voter registration drive, which I don’t think is fair for the following reason:
ACORN claims to want to help low-income and moderate income families. If they run a voter registration drive they should be targeting low-income and moderate income families regardless of the city, county, or state they live in. It’s fine if they hold drives in areas with dense populations of low-income and moderate income families, but it should be based on that criteria alone, not age, race, or gender. I’d be interested to see a chart of where the drives were held and the criteria used to select those locations. Until I see that, I can only suspect them of wrong doing. Of course, that could be countered with another argument - they claim to support legislation that will raise the minimum wage, etc., which means, they could very well support politicians that show support for such legislation without deviating from their mission.
To me it’s a matter of their mission and whether or not it’s being represented or misrepresented. If an organization for African American voters wants to target African American voters that’s fine with me. The same for organizations that represent women and organizations with missions of registering democrats, republicans, Christians, etc.; if they want to target those demographics that’s fine with me - as long as that is clear in their missions. What I don’t like is an organization with a mission that claims one thing and does another - any Non-Profit should be dedicated to helping those people it claims to. If they don’t it’s wrong - and should be equated with stealing because those volunteers and contributors that keep the organization going expect that organization to follow through with its mission.
So far all I’ve seen are allegations - and I admit I’m leaning toward to fact that what they did was wrong (and even illegal).
To be honest I think the rest of the allegations in this article are bogus. This is the only one that truly gives me pause.
As far as the donations from Fannie and Freddy - I don’t like that either, but that’s unfortunately the dark side of all politics. In my opinion the cause of that crisis is unwaivering partisanship. Companies are willing to pay politicians who are part of the house and senate majority in order to maintain that majority, thus maintaining the status quo and their sway over government. If more politicians would break rank once in a while that system of buying the majority wouldn’t work so well. Think about it - businesses hold sway over the majority party, no matter what that party is (when Republicans were in the majority the PACs went to Republicans, when Democrats regained control the PACs went back to them - their political ideologies didn’t matter). Politicians don’t break rank because if they do they receive less money (thus having less campaign funds available to get them reelected) - and that’s a statistical fact (actually you could use that to see how much of a Maverick Mr. McCain really is - I haven’t done that yet, but I might. I honestly don’t know what the result would be).
Speaking of PACs:
Top Republican PACs 2007-2008:
National Auto Dealers Assn $1,497,000
AT&T Inc $1,430,950
American Bankers Assn $1,393,200
National Assn of Realtors $1,345,500
Associated Builders & Contractors $1,208,500
National Beer Wholesalers Assn $1,152,500
United Parcel Service $985,616
Every Republican is Crucial PAC $934,500
National Assn of Home Builders $911,000
Credit Union National Assn $907,799
Honeywell International $856,116
Freedom Project $825,398
American Dental Assn $790,450
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu $761,500
Koch Industries $757,000
AFLAC Inc $726,000
Union Pacific Corp $636,969
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp $626,500
Associated General Contractors $618,500
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $613,050
Top Democratic PACs:
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $2,614,300
Operating Engineers Union $2,311,672
American Assn for Justice $2,160,000
Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union $1,883,800
Laborers Union $1,782,000
National Assn of Realtors $1,776,500
Service Employees International Union $1,732,200
Plumbers/Pipefitters Union $1,721,475
Air Line Pilots Assn $1,716,500
American Federation of Teachers $1,684,250
Sheet Metal Workers Union $1,668,510
United Food & Commercial Workers Union $1,653,353
American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $1,575,185
International Assn of Fire Fighters $1,565,600
Communications Workers of America $1,560,809
National Air Traffic Controllers Assn $1,429,975
Ironworkers Union $1,395,550
Carpenters & Joiners Union $1,394,200
Teamsters Union $1,290,050
National Beer Wholesalers Assn $1,274,000
Which group represents the Average Joe Six-Pack?
I gotta tell you, Ian. I want your job. I don’t even have a job and I don’t have the time to read blogs and look up stats all day long. I mean, you say you work, volunteer, etc but when do you sleep? Cook? Do laundry? Yard work? And there was no school today - who watches the kids?
Thanks, for the interesting numbers - did you notice the high discrepancy ( almost double to Dems - what was the grand total though?) between totals? Did you also notice that the donations to the Reps are from employers - the Dem donations are from employee organizations? That is very telling to me. I’d rather stick with the business owners not the employees.
The Republicans, who support small business (and big business), low taxes, high productivity and reward for performance truly represent Joe Six-Pack - I’m willing to admit he might not know it yet. The Dems claim to represent them but remember, it is in the best interest of the Dem party for the people to remain dependent on them.
How many union people do you know? I’ve been in a union twice (steel worker and grocery) and I could never understand what was the big deal - I saw no benefit. Every one I’ve ever known hates being in the union and many dread the changes an Obama administration would make to the voting procedures for unionizing. The unions are not like they used to be, when their formation was necessary because there was no government oversight. Now, the protections the union was once supposed to provide are now law - we don’t need them. And people should not be forced to join one or be pushed out of an industry.
I think you missed the bar here. Were you somehow trying to show that Democrats represent the little guy? No, they represent the guy sitting on his duff, doing nothing to get ahead because he’s comfortable where he is (except when the economy goes south-he’s the first to suffer then) and the wealthy elite who have nothing to fear from higher income taxes because they don’t earn any “earned income” and therefore don’t pay income taxes.
For a more local example, how warm and fuzzy do you feel about the firefighters union, who refuses to sign a new contract with the city of Boston that would require drug testing? Or how about the thugs masquerading as police officers, chasing flaggers off the job and tying up traffic (and sewer repairs) because they want the overtime?
As for which candidate might best combat this abuse of power in Washington, I’d say McCain is the most likely since he learned early in his career the dangers such “favors” create. Would I like to see Washington belong to the Joe Six-Packs of the country - yes. That’s why I’m for McCain/Palin. If we’re going to reform how we are represented, let’s do it. I don’t hear a lot of this kind of talk on the other side. The reform Obama is talking about is wealth redistribution - not representation reform.
More food for thought - if you are genuinely concerned about corruption and lack of representation in DC, don’t elect a President of the same party that controls Congress. Now that is scary - especially when that party is the one that wants to launder all our money through Washington.
I wouldn’t go down the path of which party receives more total dollars - the Republicans win (and before 2006 McCain was raking it in just like everyone else), besides raising money isn’t always bad. Your analysis that good workers get rewarded is a bit idealistic - if only that were always the case. Not to mention there are plenty of non-union businesses out there where the lazy (and if you’re a CEO or upper management - incompetent) get rewarded. Need examples ? Watch tonight’s news.
I have to agree with you about unions in general, the police officers/thugs, and the firefighters in Boston are good examples of the corruption reprented in modern unions. My wife and I both agree that unions, for the most part, have lost their place in our business culture.
I stand corrected on the statistics I gave you, but I disagree with your conclusion that Republicans are markedly better. The way I see it they’re both equally bad (and equally good) for the average Joe.
I had today off and I’m a very fast worker, typer, and researcher. I’d say I spend a maximum of one hour per day on blogs. A post like this one takes me less than five minutes to create.
Aside from this - I’ve played touch football with a group of friends, raked my lawn, vacuumed and steam cleaned the rugs, cleaned the bathroom, took care of six poodles - walked, fed, played with, administered medications, etc. (we foster poodles), replaced the hose on our sump pump, did the dishes (by hand), and updated my resume for a position on a local board I’ve been asked to serve on. All in a day’s work!
Now I’m taking my wife out for dinner.
The fun begins…
Ian, What did you do with the other 15 hours?
Haha, my mother was a stay at home mom too - I wouldn’t dare compare my day to her typical day, but for me this was a pretty full day.
This is part two of three — thought you’d like to know.
The Cloward-Piven Strategy, Part I: Manufactured Crisis
The Cloward-Piven Strategy, Part II: Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
The Cloward-Piven Strategy, Part III: Conspiracy of the Lemmings
Again, many thanks to all out there who spend their lives, or the better part of them, revealing the truth.
My Opinion: This seem to be related/connected here
Bernard Madoff: $50 Billion Vanished…
The 17th Floor, Where Wealth Went to Vanish
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/business/15madoff.html?em
Hope all U.S. Citizens will wake up.
[...] of gopmom.com kindly provided this rearrangement of the Jim Simpson flow chart accompanying his critically [...]