Apollo Alliance--BIGGEST Untold, Unknown Story

[righteousmomma]

Glenn Beck has been talking about Acorn and now Apollo Alliance off and on for a week now.

So I decided to look into it.

First NCTexan got me started with "connections" at muckety.com and then I started googling.

Ever since 2007 I have been harping on a George Soros connection with the Democrats etc and "someone" pulling the strings so here is one convoluted incestuous green mess of ooze and slime:

 

 

The Apollo Alliance describes itself as:

 

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs. Inspired by the Apollo space program, we promote investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, and emerging technology, as well as in education and training. Working together, we will reduce carbon emissions and oil imports, spur domestic job growth, and position America to thrive in the 21st century economy.

 

Watchdog UndueInfluence.com describes the Alliance in more direct terms:

 

True believers with an absolute belief that government is the solution to all social and economic problems, allied with labor unions, subsidy-seeking companies and global warming / weather control advocates.

As Beck outlined on his show, the “coalition” are the same usual suspects, “spun off” in late 2007 from “its founding organizations, Campaign for America’s Future and Center for Wisconsin Strategy.” As Beck reported, the Apollo Alliance is “a project of the Tides Center, a 501 ©(3) nonprofit organization.”

 

Again we turn to UndueInfluence.com for a description for CAF:

Labor-dominated lobbying and electoral network heavily influenced by progressive plutocrats and secret donors working on anti-corporate, anti-military, welfare-state, and other “progressive” programs. [...] Helped incubate the Apollo Alliance, now a project of Tides Center.

 

Check out the names and associations of the 130 founders (1996), which includes such luminaries as former SDSers Tom Hayden, Todd Gitlin, Heather Booth and Steve Max; familiar names as New Party, Institute for Policy Studies and Progressives for Obama members Frances Fox Piven, Barbara Ehrenreich and Jim Hightower; plus SEIU’s Andrew Stern and AFL-CIO’s John Sweeney.

 

Apollo’s current board of directors includes:

# Phil Angelides, Chairman, Canyon Johnson Urban Communities Fund

# Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council

# Robert Borosage, President, Institute for America’s Future

# Leo Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers Union

# Gerald Hudson, International Executive Vice President, Service Employees International Union

# Mindy Lubber, President, CERES

# Nancy McFadden, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for PG&E Corporation

# Kathleen McGinty, former Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

# Terence M. O’Sullivan, General President, Laborers’ International Union of North America

# Ellen Pao, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers

# Michael Peck, Principal, MAPA Incorporated

# John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress

# Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club

# Dan W. Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google

# Joel Rogers, Director, Center on Wisconsin Strategy

 

Socialists, Communists, Maoists

 

Not to travel too far down the rabbit hole, watchdog UndueInfluence.com reports that Robert Borosage’s Institute for America’s Future (IAF) is connected with Campaign for America’s Future. In 2004 IAF board members included Los Angeles Mayor and Obama Economic Transition Team member, Antonio Villaraigosa, of whom Trevor Loudon has written, and AFL-CIO president and Democratic Socialists of America member, John Sweeney (named in many articles here).

 

If you scroll down to the funding section of UndueInfluence.com’s article you will find a George Soros connection. In 1999 IAF received $100,000 in start-up funding and $465,000 in 2005 from Soros’s Open Society Institute. The Tides Foundation gave IAF $100,000 in 2001, $225,000 in 2004, $218,791 in 2005, and $152,196 in 2007. You may recall from earlier RBO posts that Tides works as a donor money laundering operation.

 

Also, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation gave IAF $100,000 in 2005. Yesterday RBO connected Democratic mega donors Herbert and Marion Sandler to Henry Louis Gates Jr., Obama friend and mentor and the subject of the recent Gates-Gate scandal.

The Apollo Alliance has a long list of endorsers, including Green for All, the organization founded by “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones; Change to Win, an ACORN entity; ACORN itself; SEIU (son of ACORN); the Ella Baker Center, another Van Jones entity; and the Working Families Party (need we say ACORN?).

 

RBO has done a number of articles on San Francisco Bay Area radical agitator and committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Van Jones, which you can read here; here; here, here; here; here; here; and here.

 

In RBO’s March 7 article, Meet Arthur Z. Schwartz: ACORN’s new mouthpiece and another Obama radical supporter, we went into some detail about ACORN affiliate, the Working Families Party — which is also affiliated with the George Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance and the New Party on whose ticket Obama first ran in 1995 for the Illinois State Senate.

Just in case you are not yet sufficiently familiar with ACORN, browse RBO’s ACORN Reader.

 

And if that is not enough to boggle the mind, visit RBO’s The Obama Socialist / Marxist / Communist Reader

.

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com ... -alliance/

 

Here are some more names with "alliances" to Apollo:

 

People related to Apollo Alliance:

Philip N. Angelides - chairman

Frances G. Beinecke - director

Robert L. Borosage - director

Cathy Calfo - executive director

Dan Carol - co-founder

Leo W. Gerard - director

Mindy S. Lubber - director

Kathleen McGinty - director

Carl Pope - director

Joel Rogers - director

 

Apollo Alliance past relationships:

Lucy Blake - CEO

Van Jones - director

Regis McKenna - director

Robert Redford - director

Jerome Ringo - president

Keith Schneider - communications director

 

Van Jones is our new Green czar.

 

 

Van Jones, the self-described former communist turned Obama "Green Jobs Czar," was interviewed by Newsweek’s Daniel Stone for a July 28, 2009 web-only story.

The article begins:

 

Washington is spending $60 billion to create the careers of the future, but not a single green job yet exists. Obama’s ‘green czar’ explains.

 

Except Jones doesn’t really “explain” anything at all. Instead, Jones tells Newsweek that the real problem is that no one in authority can agree about just what a “green job” actually is:

 

Well, we still don’t have a unified definition, and that’s not unusual in a democracy. It takes a while for all the states and the federal government to come to some agreement. But the Department of Labor is working on it very diligently. Fundamentally, it’s getting there, but we haven’t crossed the finish line yet.

 

Since Jones literally wrote the book on “green jobs” (2008’s The Green Collar Economy), this revelation doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

 

Indeed, continues the reporter:

 

Several environmental advocates polled by Newsweek defined green jobs the way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously defined obscenity: I’ll know it when I see it.

 

Good to know “experts” like that are responsible for spending

 

 

 

His bio is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jones

 

Philip Angelides: Former California treasurer Philip Angelides was named yesterday by Democratic lawmakers to lead a panel investigating the causes of the financial crisis. The panel has subpoena power and may identify firms and individuals judged responsible for contributing to the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

More:

http://www.alternet.org/rss/the_wire_pr ... o_project/

 

---------------------------------------------------

More to follow, I am sure--uummm wonder how Gore fits in here--must go muck.

[Geee]

RM, One could spend hours a day on Muckety. You probably know I posted many things on WA from Muckety. It sometimes makes you very depressed to see all the connections because you feel as if there is no way to get around 'them'. It is sometimes hard to find some of the connections because these people are very deceptive and change a word or two in there name or transpose so that it doesn't show up in Muckety or Google. Soros many tentacles are famous for this.

 

Did you notice that Podesta was in Korea with Clinton?

[clearvision]

Thanks for the great work righteousmomma!

[pollyannaish]

This is excellent! Thank you so much righteousmomma!

 

One thing is very clear to me: This isn't a conspiracy...it's a very carefully thought out movement.

[righteousmomma]

This is excellent! Thank you so much righteousmomma!

 

One thing is very clear to me: This isn't a conspiracy...it's a very carefully thought out movement.

 

I agree--it is no conspiracy it is a planned movement.

 

There was something that I just could not get my memory to grab hold of about Tides.re :

 

If you scroll down to the funding section of UndueInfluence.com’s article you will find a George Soros connection. In 1999 IAF received $100,000 in start-up funding and $465,000 in 2005 from Soros’s Open Society Institute. The Tides Foundation gave IAF $100,000 in 2001, $225,000 in 2004, $218,791 in 2005, and $152,196 in 2007. You may recall from earlier RBO posts that Tides works as a donor money laundering operation.

Then the following link reminded me--it is the Heinz-Kerry connection.

 

 

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderP....asp?fndid=5184

 

 

* Net Assets: Tides Foundation - $142,007,356 (2006); Tides Center - $43,969,744 (2006)

* Grants Received: Tides Foundation - $68,725,557 (2006); Tides Center - $49,859,754 (2006)

* Grants Awarded: Tides Foundation - $67,319,624 (2006); Tides Center - $5,566,058 (2006)

 

 

Established in 1976 by California-based activist Drummond Pike, the Tides Foundation was set up as a public charity that receives money from donors and then funnels it to the recipients of their choice. Because many of these recipient groups are quite radical, the donors often prefer not to have their names publicly linked with the donees. By letting the Tides Foundation, in effect, "launder" the money for them and pass it along to the intended beneficiaries, donors can avoid leaving a "paper trail." Such contributions are called "donor-advised," or donor-directed, funds.

 

Through this legal loophole, nonprofit entities can also create for-profit organizations and then funnel money to them through Tides -- thereby circumventing the laws that bar nonprofits from directly funding their own for-profit enterprises. Pew Charitable Trusts, for instance, set up three for-profit media companies and then proceeded to fund them via donor-advised contributions to Tides, which (for an 8 percent management fee) in turn sent the money to the media companies.

 

If a donor wishes to give money to a particular cause but finds that there is no organization in existence dedicated specifically to that issue, the Tides Foundation will, for a fee, create a group to meet that perceived need.

 

In 1996 the Tides Foundation created, with a $9 million seed grant, a separate but closely related entity called the Tides Center, also headed by Drummond Pike. The Tides Center functions as a legal firewall insulating the Tides Foundation from potential lawsuits filed by people whose livelihoods or well-being may be harmed by Foundation-funded projects. (These could be, for instance, farmers or loggers who are put out of business by Tides-backed environmentalist groups.) In theory the Foundation's activities are restricted to fundraising and grant-making, while the Center focuses on managing projects and organizations; in practice, however, both entities do essentially the same thing.

 

The Tides Center's Board Chairman is Wade Rathke, who is also a member of the Tides Foundation Board. Rathke, a protege of the late George A. Wiley, serves as President of the New Orleans-based Local 100 of the Service Employees International Union, and is the founder and chief organizer of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

 

Maya Wiley, daughter of George A. Wiley, sits on the Tides Center's Board of Directors.

 

Chip Berlet sits on the Board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a Tides Center project formed in 2005 to combat "the growing power of the religious right" and to "fight for the separation of church and state." Berlet is a senior analyst for Political Research Associates, and has had affiliations with the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Christic Institute, the Socialist Workers Party, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Tides Foundation promotes a multitude of leftist agendas, as evidenced by its assertion: "We strengthen community-based organizations and the progressive movement by providing an innovative and cost-effective framework for your philanthropy." Among the crusades to which Tides contributes are: radical environmentalism; the "exclusion of humans from public and private wildlands"; the anti-war movement; anti-free trade campaigns; the banning of firearms ownership; abolition of the death penalty; access to government-funded abortion-on-demand; and radical gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender advocacy. The Foundation is also a member organization of the International Human Rights Funders Group, a network of more than six-dozen grantmakers dedicated to finaning leftwing groups and causes.

 

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Tides formed a "9/11 Fund" to advocate a "peaceful national response." Tides later replaced the 9/11 Fund with the "Democratic Justice Fund," which was financed in large measure by the Open Society Institute of George Soros, who has donated more than $7 million to Tides over the years. Reciprocally, the Tides Foundation is a major funder of the Shadow Party, a George Soros-conceived nationwide network of several dozen unions, non-profit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to the left, and which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats.

 

Tides also set up a Peace Strategies Fund and an Iraq Peace Fund, the latter of which has granted money to such groups as MoveOn.org, the National Council of Churches, the Arab-American Action Network, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the pro-Castro groups United for Peace and Justice and Center for Constitutional Rights. In addition, Tides funds "A Better Way Project," which coordinates the activities of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War Coalition/Keep America Safe Campaign.

 

Tides and the organizations it supports interact closely with one another on a regular basis. For example, Drummond Pike sits on the Board of the Environmental Working Group along with David Fenton, founder of Fenton Communications.

 

Recent recipients of Tides Foundation grants include: the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute; the American Civil Liberties Union; the ACORN Institute; the Agape Foundation; Alliance For Justice; American Family Voices; the American Friends Service Committee; the American Immigration Law Foundation; the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Amnesty International; the Border Action Network; the Brennan Center for Justice; Campaign for America's Future; the Center for American Progress; the Center for Community Change; the Center for Constitutional Rights; the Center for Reproductive Rights; Changemakers; the Children's Defense Fund; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; the Council on American-Islamic Relations (as revealed in FrontpageMagazine); Democracy Now!; Earth Day Network; Earth Island Institute; Earthjustice; Environmental Defense; Environmental Media Services; the Environmental Working Group; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; the Feminist Majority Foundation; Free Press; Funding Exchange; Global Exchange; Grantmakers Without Borders; Grassroots International; Greenpeace; Human Rights First; Human Rights Watch; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; Institute for America's Future; Institute for Policy Studies; Institute for Public Accuracy; the Israel Policy Forum; the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy; the Jane Addams Peace Association; the League of Conservation Voters; the League of United Latin American Citizens; the League of Women Voters; the Liberty Hill Foundation; MADRE; Medecins Sans Frontieres; Media Matters for America; Mercy Corps; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Mexico Solidarity Network; the Middle East Children's Alliance; Mothers & Others for a Livable Planet; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty; the National Council of Churches; the National Lawyers Guild; the National Network of Grantmakers; the National Organization for Women Foundation; the National Wildlife Federation; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Nature Conservancy (of California and of New York); the New Israel Fund; the New World Foundation; Nonviolent Peaceforce; the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Oxfam America; the Pacifica Foundation; Peace Action; the Peace Development Fund; People for the American Way; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Planned Parenthood; the Ploughshares Fund; Population Connection; the Progress Unity Fund; Project Vote; the Proteus Fund; the Public Citizen Foundation; the Rainforest Action Network; the Rainforest Alliance; the Rockefeller Family Fund; the Ruckus Society; the Sentencing Project; September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows; the Sierra Club; the Shefa Fund; Sojourners; the Threshold Foundation; TrueMajority Action; Trust for Public Land; the Union of Concerned Scientists; USAction; Veterans For Peace; Waterkeeper Alliance; the Wilderness Society; Witness For Peace; Women's Action for New Directions; and the World Wildlife Fund.

 

Tides also runs a tax-exempt "alternative media source" called the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), a leading provider of Web technology to the radical left.

 

Between 1993 and 2003, at least 91 foundations made grants to the Tides Foundation. These included the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Annie E. Casey Foundation; the Arca Foundation; the AT&T Foundation; the Barbra Streisand Foundation; the Bauman Family Foundation; Ben and Jerry's Foundation; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the Blue Moon Fund; the Bullitt Foundation; the CarEth Foundation; the Carnegie Corporation of New York; Changemakers; the ChevronTexaco Foundation; the Columbia Foundation; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the Energy Foundation; the Fannie Mae Foundation; the Ford Foundation; the Foundation for Deep Ecology; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; the Heinz Family Foundation; the Hoffman Foundation; the Homeland Foundation; the Howard Heinz Endowment; the J.M. Kaplan Fund; the James Irvine Foundation; the JEHT Foundation; the Jenifer Altman Foundation; the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; the Joyce Foundation; the Lear Family Foundation; the Liberty Hill Foundation; the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the Nathan Cummings Foundation; the New World Foundation; the Open Society Institute; the Pew Charitable Trusts; the Ploughshares Fund; the Proteus Fund; the Public Welfare Foundation; the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund; the Righteous Persons Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the Roberts Foundation; the Rockefeller Family Fund; the Rockefeller Foundation; the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy; the Stern Family Fund; the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust; the Summit Charitable Foundation; the Surdna Foundation; the Threshold Foundation; the Turner Foundation; the Vanguard Public Foundation; the Verizon Foundation; the Vira I. Heinz Endowment; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; and the Woods Fund of Chicago

One particularly notable donor to the Tides entities is Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Senator John Kerry. From 1994 to 2004, the Heinz Endowments, which Mrs. Kerry heads, gave the Tides Foundation and Center approximately $8.1 million in grants. Until February 2001, Mrs. Kerry also served as a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which has given Tides numerous six-figure grants.

The Tides Foundation and Tides Center also receive grants from the U.S. federal government. Between 1997 and 2001, these grants included the following: $395,219 from the Department of Interior; $3,350,431 from the Environmental Protection Agency; $3,487,040 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development; $208,878 from the Department of Agriculture; $39,550 from the Department of Energy; $93,500 from the Small Business Administration; $10,986 from the Department of Health and Human Services; and $84,520 from the Centers for Disease Control U.S. Agency for International Development.

[righteousmomma]

OK, it is all coming back to me--The Wood foundation of Chicago is on that Tides list of Foundation grants??

That was directly connected to Obama!

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/oba...fund_of_ch.html

 

Obama and the Woods Fund of Chicago

By Richard Henry Lee

Barack Obama served on the board of directors of Woods Fund of Chicago from 1993 to 2001. During that time, the tax exempt foundation made some interesting grants, including one to Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, headed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the time. Grants were also made to ACORN, a left wing voter registration group and to a partnership for constructing low income housing. The fund also used Northern Trust for financial services, which is the same company that provided Obama his 2005 mortgage.

 

In 2001 the board of directors included Obama, William Ayers, the former Weather Underground radical terrorist, and serving as chairman was Howard J. Stanback who headed New Kenwood LLC, a limited liability company founded by now-convicted felon Tony Rezko and Allison Davis, Obama's former boss at the law firm of Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland.

 

Grant to Obama's Church

 

The Woods Fund in 2001 awarded a $6,000 grant to Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, headed by his now ex-pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The grant was probably awarded since Obama did not receive his $6,000 director's pay in 2001. He had received $6,000 in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Even though the grant may have been made in lieu of Obama's pay, the Fund's own web page in 2001 states that religious organiztions are not eligible for grant consideration.

 

The reason for the grant to Obama's church may have been because Obama might have felt bad for not having donated much previously. According to the Obamas' tax returns, they deducted $2350 in charitable donations in the year 2000 and a lesser amount of $1470 in 2001. Their adjusted gross income was $240,000 in 2000 and $270,000 in 2001. According to a Chicago Tribune story, the Trinity United Church of Christ encourages its members to donate 10% of their income, yet the Obamas gave only $400 in 1998 to TUCC. The $6,000 grant may possibly have been made to keep Obama in the good graces of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The tax code apparently allows such contributions.

 

The grant is especially interesting in view of Obama's sudden conversion to the faith based initiative started by President Bush.

 

Northern Trust Connection

 

As reported previously, the Obamas' financed their upscale Hyde Park home in 2005 through a mortgage with Northern Trust and obtained a better than average mortgage rate. Coincidentally, Woods Fund had started using Northern Trust investment services a couple of years earlier. The 2005 Woods Fund 990-PF tax filing shows that the fund paid $105,583 in fees and also participated in a Northern Trust private equity fund. Ayers and Stanback were still on the board of directors at that time so it is possible that one of them was somehow involved in helping Obama choose Northern Trust.

 

Funding for ACORN

 

ACORN is well known to readers of AT as a left wing voter registration group which seems to skirt the rules. Woods Fund made annual grants of around $70,000 annually to ACORN from 2001 to 2005 for a total of $355,000. There appears to be no grant to ACORN in 2006.

 

Investment in Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners

 

The Boston Globe has a recent article about Chicago's housing problems including Woods Fund's investment in Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners (NRP). The Chicago Sun Times has an earlier story about this investment with much more detail. Allison Davis (Obama's former boss) asked Woods Fund to invest $1,000,000 in NRP. Obama voted in favor and Stanback abstained since he worked for Davis as noted above. The Sun Times reports:

 

City records show Davis used some of the money to build a 72-unit apartment building for senior citizens at 87th and Ashland. The $10 million project -- built with a $5.7 million loan from the city -- netted Davis nearly $700,000 in development fees, city records show. His son Cullen Davis is paid to manage the building, which opened three years ago with a ceremony featuring Mayor Daley.

 

 

Davis, who's now business partners with Daley's nephew Robert Vanecko, has known Obama for years. Obama began serving on the Woods Fund board in 1993, the same year he was hired as an associate lawyer with Davis' small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill. Obama kept working there until he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

 

 

Obama voted for the investment, but Stanback abstained because he worked for Davis. Davis has donated $25,000 to Obama's various political campaigns according to the Sun Times.

 

Obama fact check page is wrong

 

Obama's fact check web page concerning the Boston Globe article claims that Woods Fund has not actually made any payments to Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners, yet the 2002 990-PF tax filing shows in fact that Woods Fund has an investment of $408,000. As of 2006, the investment was $908,000 out of $1,000,000 committed. Someone needs to fact check the fact checkers.

 

Investments

 

One interesting investment Woods Fund made was to purchase shares of Countrywide Financial Corporation stock in 2005. As of 2006, the investment was worth $382,000. At the end of 2006, the stock was selling at $42.50. Today it is $4.25 after the sub prime mortgage fiasco.

 

Another is Wal-Mart, the company every liberal likes to hate. In 2005, Woods Fund had $327,000 invested in Wal-Mart stock. The investment seems to coincide with the approval for the first Wal-Mart store in Chicago in 2004. It is still remarkable that someone like Ayers would be on the board of a fund investing in the bête noire of liberals.

 

Obama's long association with the Woods Fund is another chapter in his involvement in left wing ideology and it is one which deserves additional scrutiny. Certainly the many associations of Obama with members of the Chicago political machine are noteworthy. Also Obama's term on the board overlapped three years with Bill Ayers. Since the board met quarterly, Ayers and Obama could have been together at least 12 times.

 

If someone wants to research more about Woods Fund, their non-profit tax forms from 2001 to 2006 are available onlne here.

 

Richard Henry Lee is the pseudonym of a retired Illinois state employee.

on "Obama and the Woods Fund of Chicago"

[Geee]

RM is that the Daley nephew who is being investigated now for some real estate deals with the city?

[righteousmomma]

RM is that the Daley nephew who is being investigated now for some real estate deals with the city?

 

Most likely-- but I will ask "my source" in Chicago and let you know.

[Geee]

LOL. Excellent excellent work by the way. I have saved some of my research on my computer fortunately, but the rest is lost in oblivion with WA. I know how exhausting this researching can be, but you sometimes get lost in it trying to follow the webs and really lose track of time.

[righteousmomma]

LOL. Excellent excellent work by the way. I have saved some of my research on my computer fortunately, but the rest is lost in oblivion with WA. I know how exhausting this researching can be, but you sometimes get lost in it trying to follow the webs and really lose track of time.

 

That is so sad--truly--to lose research. I live in fear of losing my genealogy tree data so I have enough paper trail backup to paper the White House.

.

Btw,

Robert Vanecko, Mayor Daley's nephew received $68 million in city pension investments that Daley doesn't know anything about.

[Geee]

Well, its just so tough to keep track of all that graft, you'll have to cut him some slack.. I think that is the article I read about a month ago though is about the pension investments. I do remember reading something about housing projects also, but it is so hard to keep track of all the Chicago corruption.

[spikeytx86]

Great find guys!

[righteousmomma]

Well, its just so tough to keep track of all that graft, you'll have to cut him some slack.. I think that is the article I read about a month ago though is about the pension investments. I do remember reading something about housing projects also, but it is so hard to keep track of all the Chicago corruption.

 

TRUE!! A new corruption eruption every day. Since our son in law covers the Federal Court we read a lot of Trib articles.

John Kass is our favorite columnist (probably the only conservative too) at the Tribune. He has written tons of columns mentioning the pension fund, the nephew and the other usual suspects with much tongue in cheek humor.

[Valin]

righteousmomma

 

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs. Inspired by the Apollo space program, we promote investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, and emerging technology, as well as in education and training.

 

I've got a twenty dollar bill that say this is where the vast majority of their budget goes.

 

Educating who, training who? What are they training to do? I've got another twenty dollar bill that says it's not actually designing next-generation vehicles.

[righteousmomma]

righteousmomma

 

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs. Inspired by the Apollo space program, we promote investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, and emerging technology, as well as in education and training.

 

I've got a twenty dollar bill that say this is where the vast majority of their budget goes.

 

Educating who, training who? What are they training to do? I've got another twenty dollar bill that says it's not actually designing next-generation vehicles.

 

I concur!

[Valin]

righteousmomma

 

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs. Inspired by the Apollo space program, we promote investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, and emerging technology, as well as in education and training.

 

I've got a twenty dollar bill that say this is where the vast majority of their budget goes.

 

Educating who, training who? What are they training to do? I've got another twenty dollar bill that says it's not actually designing next-generation vehicles.

 

I concur!

 

 

 

What we need is more community organizers...a community organizer on every block. They could have really neat uniforms...I'm thinking something in brown

[NCTexan]

What we need is more community organizers...a community organizer on every block. They could have really neat uniforms...I'm thinking something in brown

 

I was thinking more like something is a "basic black".

These community organizers from the BPP looked very "smart" in their uniforms when they were setting things straight in Durham after the Duke Lacrosse travesty.

 

It makes me feel secure having these uniformed patriots patrolling the streets of my metro area.

 

 

BTW, I think that they're already "connected" to the administration... so start up costs will be minimal. H/T to Eric Holder.

[Valin]

What we need is more community organizers...a community organizer on every block. They could have really neat uniforms...I'm thinking something in brown

 

I was thinking more like something is a "basic black".

These community organizers from the BPP looked very "smart" in their uniforms when they were setting things straight in Durham after the Duke Lacrosse travesty.

 

It makes me feel secure having these uniformed patriots patrolling the streets of my metro area.

 

 

BTW, I think that they're already "connected" to the administration... so start up costs will be minimal. H/T to Eric Holder.

 

 

This is the kind of thing where people of goodwill can disagree.

being og Germanic extraction I lean towards something in brown

 

What can I say....Very Smart.

[NCTexan]

And straight from today's whitehouse.gov. We have given the bully pulpit microphone to....

 

The right Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr. ... speaking on the new Green Economy no less!

 

 

From wikipedia:

Lennox Yearwood, Jr., is a minister, community activist, and one of the most influential people in Hip Hop political life.

 

He currently serves as President of the Hip Hop Caucus in Washington, D.C. The Hip Hop Caucus is a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan, organization that engages young people in urban communities in elections, policy making and service projects.

 

During the 2004 Presidential election, Rev. Yearwood created the first ever Hip Hop Team Vote Bus Tour, to ensure that young people were challenging the established political order in a most profound and substantive manner.

 

He was also the founder of Hip Hop Voices, a subsidiary of Voices for Working Families (AFL-CIO).

 

Yearwood organized a hip hop concert at 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. dubbed "Shut It Down", calling for the end of what Yearwood claims to be torture at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and for the camp's closure. The concert featured Dead Prez and several other hip hop artists. Amnesty International and the ACLU helped with the event.

 

More of the Reverend in action:

 

 

The Nexus of Evil has come together... and is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

[nickydog]

Nonpartisan, eh?

[righteousmomma]

Re the Big Labor being Obama's gestapo:

 

Apollo Alliance connection :

Socialists, Communists, Maoists

 

Not to travel too far down the rabbit hole, watchdog UndueInfluence.com reports that Robert Borosage’s Institute for America’s Future (IAF) is connected with Campaign for America’s Future. In 2004 IAF board members included Los Angeles Mayor and Obama Economic Transition Team member, Antonio Villaraigosa, of whom Trevor Loudon has written, and AFL-CIO president and Democratic Socialists of America member, John Sweeney (named in many articles here).

 

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/20...bor-commissars/

 

 

 

In Obama File 75, Trevor Loudon writes on his blog:

 

Control of organised labor is a key component of the Obama administration’s power plan.

 

The Communist Party USA’s People’s Weekly World for January 31, 2009, quoted President Obama as saying:

 

“I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it’s part of the solution.”

 

Obama wants to unify the labor movement under a centralised socialist leadership, answerable to him.

 

This will provide President Obama and the Democrats with money and armies of loyal foot soldiers for their battles with the Republicans, “disloyal” Dems and non compliant businesses.

 

It will also enable Obama to neutralise resistance to amnesty and citizenship for more than 10 million illegal workers curently in the US-which will almost certainly lock in millions of extra votes for Obama and the Democrats.

 

One organisation, American Rights at Work (ARW) has served as a key transmission belt from Obama to the labor movement. It is now looking increasingly like becoming Obama’s key control mechanism over the union movement.

 

ARW has strong ties to Obama’s old friends Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the ultra left “think tank” Institute for Policy Studies (infamous in the 1970s and ’80s for its reported links to Soviet and Cuban intelligence services)and surprisingly one of the US’s largest mosques.

 

Here’s a “who’s who” of key American Rights at Work personnel.

 

David Bonior, ARW President: A confirmed DSA member, Bonior was honored in December 2008 by Detroit DSA at its 10th annual Frederick Douglass-Eugene V. Debs Dinner.

 

 

 

According to Talking Union:

 

David Bonior served in Congress for 26 years rising through the leadership to become the Democratic Caucus Whip. During his tenure in Congress, Bonior fought to raise the minimum wage, protect pensions, support unions, and extend unemployment benefits. He led the fight to oppose NAFTA in 1993. He worked to prevent war in Central America in the 1980s and again to prevent the Iraq War in 2002. After leaving Congress, Bonior co-founded American Rights at Work, a labor advocacy and research organization, which has made passage of the Employee Free Choice Act its major legislative priority. Bonior was recently appointed to the Obama economic team.

 

Bonior was touted as a likely Obama Labor Secretary but withdrew his name from contention. Obama then delegated Bonior to broker a re-unification of the US labor movement, bringing the Change To Win grouping and the AFL-CIO back together under one banner.

 

According to RBO April 21:

 

The NYT’s David Greenhouse reported that, on January 7, the union presidents first met with Bonior, a member of Obama’s economic transition team…Bonior helped “arrange and oversee” the meeting.

 

The union presidents issued their joint call after the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama signaled that it would prefer dealing with a united movement, rather than a fractured one that often had two competing voices.

 

 

 

In 2002 Bonior and two other Democratic Congressmen, Jim McDermott and Mike Thompson, traveled to Iraq on a fact-finding mission. It was later revealed that Iraqi intelligence had funded the trip through a Michigan-based Muslim group headed by Muthanna Al-Hanooti.

 

David Bonior also has IPS connections:

 

Representative David E. Bonior (D-Michigan), House Democratic Whip, presented the 1997 Letelier-Moffitt Memorial Human Rights Domestic Award to Carlos and Alicia Marentes from Sin Fronteras, during a joyful and moving ceremony held at the historic Lincoln Theatre in Washington, D.C., on Saturday September 27, 1997… The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS}… organizes this event to honor the memory of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who where murdered in 1976 when a bomb exploded in their car near Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to the Unites States and Moffitt were at that time working in the IPS.

 

Letelier reportedly was an agent of the Cuban intelligence service, the DGI.

 

Until her appointment as Obama’s Labor Secretary, Solis was a California Congresswoman and ARW Treasurer.

 

Hilda Solis has ties to DSA, the Socialist International and Communist Party USA. She travelled to Cuba “purpose not disclosed”" in April 2001 sponsored by the radical William C. Velasquez Institute, to the tune of $1,214.50

 

Mary Beth Maxwell : Also once tipped as a potential Obama Labor Secretary, Maxwell was ARW executive director until recently appointed as a senior adviser to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

 

Prior to her 5 years at ARW Maxwell was National Field Director for Jobs with Justice an IPS partner organization known for employing DSA and Communist Party USA activists.

 

Julian Bond : Serves on the ARW Board of Directors and was a longserving chairman of the NAACP and is a veteran of the Communist Party/Students for a Democratic Society organized Venceremos Brigades to Cuba. In the late 1970s Bond was vice president of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee-predecessor of DSA.

 

Bond was honored at Chicago DSA’s 1993 Debs Dinner.

 

In November 2006, Bond returned to Cuba “to take a first-hand look at the island’s health system, and especially to find out about the Latin American Medical School (ELAM) and its nearly 90 US students.”

 

During the 1970s Bond was an occasional lecturer at IPS and a board member of the IPS spin-off Institute of Southern Studies.

 

Carl Pope : Serves on the ARW Board of Directors and is Executive director of the Sierra Club.

 

In 1966 Pope was active in Students for a Democratic Society protests at Harvard University.

 

Pope is a board member of the green/labor caolition, the Apollo Alliance with DSA member Gerry Hudson and IPS Trustee and former director Robert Borosage.

 

Pope also works closely with another former Apollo Alliance board member, Van Jones. A “former” revolutionary communist, Jones now works with Hilda Solis as a “green jobs” advisor to president Obama.

 

In September 2007 Pope addressed an IPS organized Teach In “Confronting the Global Triple Crisis at George Washington University.

 

Wade Henderson : Serves on the ARW Board of Directors and is president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of some 200 organizations.

 

Henderson presented the IPS’s 2007 Letelier-Moffitt human rights award to anti Iraq War group Appeal For Redress:

 

Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, described the domestic award winner Appeal for Redress as “a democratic movement within the military” calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from the war in Iraq.

 

The organization is composed of more than 2,000 active duty service members, war veterans, and military families and “has rapidly become the most influential force within the U.S. armed services to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq,” according to IPS.

 

Harley Shaiken : Serves on the ARW Board of Directors and is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the university of California, Berkeley. Shaiken is a leading anti globalisation activist and advocate for relaxing US sanctions against Cuba.

 

Shaiken has worked closely on “disarmament, economic conversion and economic democracy” with IPS founder Marcus Raskin and IPS scholar and DSA member Noam Chomsky.

 

Shaiken also has close ties to David Bonior and other DSA members. According to the website of DSA’s Greater Detroit local:

 

Seventy people attended the eighth annual Frederick Douglass-Eugene V. Debs Dinner held at UAW Local 600 in Dearborn on Saturday, November 18th [2006]. The dinner is the major fundraising event each year for Detroit DSA…The keynote speaker was globalization expert Harley Shaiken who gave a chilling description of the consequences of corporate globalization as well as some suggestions as to how progressive activists can fight this phenomenon.

 

Shaiken was also widely touted as a potential Obama Labor Secretary.

 

Imam Sayed Hassan Al Qazwini : Serves on the ARW Board of Directors and leader of the Dearborn Michigan (David Bonior’s old congressional district) based Islamic Center of America (ICOA) and founder of the Young Muslim association. Born in Karbala, Iraq Qazwini’s family moved to Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After a religious education in Iran, Qazwini followed his family to the US in 1992.

 

Discover The Networks reports:

 

On November 15, 1998, Qazwini’s ICOA sponsored an event — attended by more than 1,000 primarily Arab Muslim-Americans — where the featured speaker was Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Qazwini and his fellow organizers introduced Farrakhan as “our dear brother,” “a freedom fighter,” and “a man of courage and sacrifice.”

 

According to political journalist Debbie Schlussel, Qazwini professes to oppose al Qaeda but nonetheless: (a) maintains a close affiliation with the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; is friendly with Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who issued the 1983 fatwa that resulted in the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 241 American servicemen; and © openly supports both Hamas and Hezbollah.

 

Qazwini met with then presidential candidate Barack Obama in May 2008

imam-sayed-hassan-al-qazwini-with-o

 

Journalist Debbie Schlussel writes:

 

Imam Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Center of America, said in an email that he met with Obama at Macomb Community College. A mosque spokesman, Eide Alawan, confirmed that the meeting took place. During the meeting, the two discussed the Presidential election, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Iraq war, according to Qazwini.

 

At the end of the meeting, Qazwini said he gave Obama a copy of new book, “American Crescent,” and invited Obama to visit his center.

 

The meeting with Obama came about after Qazwini had asked David Bonior, the former U.S. Rep. from Michigan, if he could meet with Obama during his visit. Qazwini was not selected to be part of a group of 20 people who met with Obama, but Qazwini later got a private meeting with Obama, Alawan said.

 

“They gave him an opportunity for a one-on-one,” Alawan said. . . .

John Sweeney: Serves on the ARW Board of Directors and is president of the US’s largest labor federation the AFL-CIO.

 

Sweeney joined DSA around 1995 shortly before becoming AFL-CIO president. Sweeney soon reversed the ban on Communist Party members holding office in AFL-CIO affiliated unions. Sweeney now heads a federation almost totally dominated by communists, socialists and former “new lefters”.

 

Sweeney is also a member of the powerful Trilateral Commission and enjoys close ties to IPS, even honoring Brazil’s Marxist president “Lula” on their behalf.

 

The following comes from the website of the IPS affiliated TransNational Institute:

 

September 23, 2003

27th annual Letelier-Moffitt Memorial Human Rights Awards

The Institute for Policy Studies invites you to celebrate the legacy of

Orlando Letelier & Ronni Karpen Moffitt

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

The Organization of American States

6 pm Reception / 7 pm Dinner and Human Rights Program

 

International Award Recipient: Nancy Sanchez Mendez

Presented by Jan Schakowsky, United States Representative…

 

Special Recognition Award: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil*

Presented by John Sweeney, President, AFL-CIO

*in absentia

 

There are several clear threads running through American Rights at Work — pro Cuba, anti Iraq War, pro DSA, pro IPS.

 

Most AWR officials would struggle to get a security clearance to clean latrines at any US military base. Yet three AWR alumni — Bonior, Solis and Maxwell — now work closely with President Obama at the heart of the US government.

 

No less than four ARW board members were touted for the Labor Secretary job. Talk about socialist nepotism — did anyone else have any chance at all?

 

Several ARW figures are close to DSA, IPS or both. DSA and IPS both have close ties to the Communist Party USA and the equally militant Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

 

All four organisations have had members or associates convicted or accused of spying for foreign governments. All are militantly anti-American and openly or covertly pro Marxist socialism.

 

ARW is perfectly positioned to build a socialist-led, Obama-friendly labor movement.

 

But will Obama’s Labor “Commissars” be tough enough to keep America’s unruly “proletariat” in their place?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So now we have:

The nation’s biggest labor unions are bringing their muscle to bear to the raucous health-care debates that have erupted over the last week in Congressional town hall meetings across the country.

 

John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, sent out a call to arms Thursday for rank-and-file members to counteract what he called the “right-wing ‘Tea Party Patriots’ ” who have been disrupting the meetings.

[pollyannaish]

Nonpartisan, eh?

 

 

Hello.

 

My name is George O. One of your neighbors emailed your comment to flag@whitehouse.gov and I am following up to clear up any misunderstandings.

 

Nonpartisan as you have defined it is disruptive. Nonpartisan actually is defined as those who USED to be a republican, but now support the great and glorious goals of our dear leader, Barak Obama. As a good American, I'm sure you can understand the importance of using your language appropriately and we appreciate your patriotic efforts to correct this situation.

 

We will retain your contact information and will check back in with you in a few weeks.

 

Your cooperation is appreciated.

 

Best,

George O.

Community Organizer and Grassroots supporter

for the United States Government and the office of the President

[pollyannaish]

So now we have:

The nation’s biggest labor unions are bringing their muscle to bear to the raucous health-care debates that have erupted over the last week in Congressional town hall meetings across the country.

 

John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, sent out a call to arms Thursday for rank-and-file members to counteract what he called the “right-wing ‘Tea Party Patriots’ ” who have been disrupting the meetings.

 

Well, if for some reason you wanted to spark riots and violence...this would be the recipe. Wow.

 

 

Edited to add: What the HECK! "If you get hit, punch back twice as hard." Holy cow.

[NCTexan]

 

Ya don't say nothin' against da Bears, da Union or da One!

[righteousmomma]

I am going to post a loooong rant by Rush. It is worth the read if you consider the "between the lines" for what is being said and what this kind of thinking portends not only for Rush but all of us conservative and white citizens, I find nothing humorous in Rush's revelations about

The Southern Poverty Law Center. Julian Bond is founder.

It is worth a muckety.com

http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp

 

 

 

White House Uses ABC News to Push Despicable

Strategy Linking Rush to Threats Against Obama

August 14, 2009

 

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, the White House is on defense, totally on defense. They are disheveled; they are unraveling; they are becoming unhinged. Secret deals with Big Pharma have been uncovered. This upsets the left. And they are starting in the White House now to replicate the failed attempts by Bill Clinton to get rid of me. It's Friday. Let's roll......

............

 

All right, let's just get right to it. ABC News, Brian Ross, Good Morning America today, here is a montage.

 

ROSS: It's been a very ugly week as the rhetoric about the president and the threats against him have deeply worried the people who track this country's hate groups. The contentious debate over health care has helped to bring the vitriol into the open. Rush Limbaugh compared a logo for the plan to a Nazi symbol.

 

RUSH ARCHIVE: The Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo.

ROSS: And the Internet is full of references to the president as Hitler or as a socialist or as a racist. To date, the Secret Service has disrupted at least three different assassination plots tied to white supremacist groups. In a new report, the Southern Poverty Law Center says that since Obama took office, there has been a sharp growth in the so-called militia groups

RUSH: This is 100% total manufactured BS. It all comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center and a guy named Mark Potok. I don't know how to pronounce his name but Mark Potok is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project. He's a columnist at the Huffington Post. He is the source of all of these hate crime stories, and he has been for years. There is also an article at ABC posted by Brian Ross on their website. Much of this article has been dutifully spouted almost word-for-word in literally dozens of articles generated by Mr. Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center. They only differ, really, in citing contemporary details to make the story seem fresh, but they're ultimately the same claims that Potok has been making from the start. If you Google "Potok" and "hate" and "racism," it returns 21,600 hits. This guy has been trying to gin this up since before Obama was inaugurated. In fact, even since before Obama was elected

 

This whole thing is calculated to divide and distract. It indicates just how unhinged and out of whack the White House is on this.

This story is likely a White House plant just as the little girl who asked Obama the softball question in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The sad thing is I predicted all of this. It's despicable.

 

The race card is being played because Obama's facing opposition to his plan to seize one-sixth of the American economy. This is an intentional effort to divide the country. This is community national agitating at its worst. This is all that Obama, a community agitator, knows. Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Brian Ross, Nancy Pelosi said the town hall attendees were Nazis. Where are the stories? The White House is gathering an enemies list. People are getting e-mails from David Axelrod and they don't know how he got their address. It's the snitch website. Do you people understand what's happening? People are sending in stories and e-mails, if you're getting an e-mail from Axelrod and the White House, I guarantee you it's a result of the snitch website.

The White House is clearly out of whack. Where's the outrage over this in the State-Run Media? Nancy Pelosi said town haul attendees were Nazis. Dick Durbin called our interrogators at Gitmo Nazis. Rahm Emanuel's brother has been an advocate of death panels. He's advising the White House. They say there are no death panels, and yet the Senate removed the death panels from their bill. How could there have been no death panels if they removed them in the first place? They had to be there in order to be removed. Where's the outrage? The American people are legitimately outraged about what is being planned here, and this is how they are treated. Rising militia groups, rising hate crimes, white supremacists, worried about doing harm to Obama, and then in advance trying to link me to it. This is Jeremiah Wright. I predicted this. I said Obama was going to spark race problems when anybody disagreed with whatever his policy was, the people that defend him are going to come out and say it's all based on race. It's all happening.

 

This is like the snitch website at the White House. It's meant to have a chilling effect on free speech, but neither the American people nor I will be intimidated. They know why they oppose Obama's health care, and these efforts here to make every one of these town hall attendees a potential assassin and part of a militia or part of a white supremacist group is despicable, it is shameful. This is 2009. And this is also the EIB Network, a place where there is no fear of standing up for the United States of America. Now, let's go back to Good Morning America today. Here's a portion of the report by Brian Ross. This portion begins with Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who is the source for all of these claims made in Brian Ross's report at Good Morning America.

 

POTOK: I think that the president has, in effect, triggered fears among fairly large numbers of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country.

ROSS: Officials tell my colleague Pierre Thomas at ABC News that the president's daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats. But White House officials privately admit deep concern and have told the Secret Service to keep security tight, even if the president himself objects.

RUSH: Wait a minute, Brian. You just said here that the president's daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats, then why the story? Why the story? Why even do this if the White House says there's no increase in threats? And how do we tabulate threats anyway? And, by the way, where was all this reporting when there were books on how to assassinate George W. Bush, when there was a movie about the assassination of George W. Bush? Where was all this concern, Mr. Ross? Where were all the reports on the wacko leftist groups who wanted Bush dead and who were actively out there saying so and describing how to do it? Where were your reports then? This is straight out of the playbook. They don't change. They're just recycling everything because they're in a state of panic. They are losing their signature issue. They are losing the American people.

So now after attacking the American people via these town hall meetings, calling them unruly mobs, now let's go to the mat even further and let's say they're potential assassins. Then let's add to it just because he's black, people want their country back. Remember, it was Howard Dean, Brian, and Mr. Potok, all through 2004 who was running around saying we want our country back. "I want my country back! This is not Rush Limbaugh's country. It's not Rush Limbaugh's flag. We want our country back." This is absolutely despicable what these people are trying to do in advance, and let's go back. This is April 24th, 1995, in Minneapolis.

CLINTON: We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that by their very words, that violence is acceptable. You ought to see -- I'm sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today. It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.

 

RUSH: In 1995, President Bill Clinton attempting to blame me for the bombing at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Today, ABC News and Brian Ross, stenographer for Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Rahm Emanuel now set it up that if Obama is harmed, it's my fault. I seem to remember all this talk before the immaculation of unity and post partisanship and a new era of love and togetherness that would be this country as a result of President Obama's election. I remember all of the hope and all of the goodwill that the red states and the blue states would come together and all become pink, and we wouldn't know the difference from one to another. And now look where we are. We have the president of the United States and his henchmen attacking ordinary, everyday Americans as an unruly mob, as Nazis, as white supremacists, as racists. This is coming, from the White House that was going to unify this country, and dutifully, falling right in line, the dupes at state-controlled ABC and Brian Ross.

 

Let's go through this story paragraph by paragraph. The Secret Service are investigating a Maryland man who held a sign reading "death to Obama and death to Michelle and her two stupid kids" outside a town hall meeting this week. In New Hampshire, another man stood across the street from a presidential town hall with a gun on full display. The Secret Service ought to be investigating this stuff, just like when Bush was president. This is nothing compared to what Bush faced, and where was the concern then? Journalists loved it when the Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at George W. Bush. They were disappointed it didn't hit him. They loved every movie and book filled with hate about George W. Bush, and they told us that we must respect the art that was contained in every book and movie about the assassination of George W. Bush.

 

"Los Angeles police officers apprehended a man Thursday after a standoff with him inside a red Volkswagen bug car in Westwood, California. The latest disturbing case, even though officials said the man had mental problems." Yeah, union thugs are beating up Americans at town halls. Where are those stories, Mr. Ross? The American people don't have the Secret Service to protect 'em. Now, the article just cited a case of a mentally disturbed man. But look at the next sentence.

"I don't think these are people simply who are mentally ill or off their rocker," said Mark Potok. In ABC's own story they quote officials as saying the guy in Westwood was mentally disturbed and then they go right to this Southern Poverty Law Center guy,

 

"I don't think these are simply people who are mentally ill or off their rocker. In a very real sense they represent a genuine reaction, a genuine backlash against Obama."

 

"Experts say a sharp growth in so-called militia groups that helped spawn a wave of domestic terrorism in the 1990s."

 

What experts? Are they the same experts you cite on the economy that are constantly surprised no matter what the news? There is one source for all this, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mark Potok in this case, and ABC News and Brian Ross simply took the dictation.

 

Here's this paragraph "Garrett, former FBI agent, said statements like one recently made by Rush Limbaugh comparing logo for the White House plan to a Nazi symbol 'legitimizes people who are on the edge to go do something or say something.'"

 

What about Pelosi? What about who started all this? Where is the reporting of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, third in line to the White House, third in line to the presidency, calling half the people in this country Nazis? Let's not forget who started this. Now, grab audio sound bite number two again. I want to make one more comment about this before we go to our first obscene profit time-out.

 

POTOK: I think that the president has, in effect, triggered fears among fairly large numbers of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country.

ROSS: Officials tell my colleague Pierre Thomas at ABC News that the president's daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats. But White House officials privately admit deep concern and have told the Secret Service to keep security tight, even if the president himself objects.

RUSH: Okay, there's no increase in the threat matrix. Why, then, if they're so frightened are they sending him out to so many public places? There are all kinds of ways to reach the American people. Why send him out there? If they're this concerned, if they've got one of their State-Run Media organs now putting on television and on the website they fear the assassination of this president, why are they putting him out there, then? Stop and think about that.

 

 

RUSH: One other thing about this, ladies and gentlemen. I don't get their point, either -- either the White House's point or ABCs point or this guy from the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's utterly illogical. They say what I did -- I compared an Obama logo, an Obama insignia to a 1930s insignia that the Nazis used -- and in making that comparison, they say I'm calling Obama a Nazi and therefore Nazi sympathizers are...what? Threatening him because of this? How does that make any sense whatsoever as a simple matter of logic? I compare a Nazi logo to an Obama health care logo... That would cause Nazi sympathizers to be upset with me, not Obama. It is I who's denouncing all of this.

 

Brian Ross also played a role in helping Pelosi become speaker a few years back with Mark Foley, don't forget.

 

He was spoon-fed information, held it back until the most critical time in the 2006 elections. He ought to actually try reporting rather than repeating, because that's what Brian Ross is becoming known for is repeating things that certain Democrats and liberals tell him.

 

But I want to know how it is, when I take an Obama logo and say, "Wow, that looks like something I've seen from the thirties, from Nazi Germany," how in the world does that rev up Nazis and sympathizers in this country to be mad at Obama? They'd be mad at me. So they're just grasping. They're reaching at straws, folks, grasping at straws. They are desperate to make this about anything other than Obama and the debacle that this health care plan has become. What's also amazing about this, if I may say this, is this is a play from their playbook. As you heard, Clinton tried this in 1994.

 

The Democrat Party has tried to make me the issue. They have tried to demonize and villainize me since I have been behind the Golden EIB Microphone. They distorted my comments and actions about Michael J. Fox in the Claire McCaskill commercials. They have distorted me on this. They distorted me on Bill Clinton and so forth. It never works. I'm still here. Clinton's reduced to making speeches to the netroots convention in Pittsburgh yesterday. I am still here. Hillary is in Africa. I am still here. My audience is larger than ever. What do they think they're gaining here? It's typical for them because they have no other way to go. They cannot stand behind the goodness of their ideas because there isn't much. They can't stand behind the honesty of what they're trying because they can't be. So they are cornered.

 

Now they're sending out e-mails to innocent Americans from the White House, Joe Axelrod -- or David Axelrod. I'm sorry. I keep calling him "Joe" because a friend of mine used to run the Kansas City Kings basketball team named Joe Axelson. So I've had that on my mind. David Axelrod. People are saying, "I didn't send the White House an e-mail. How did he get my address?" What do you think the snitch website is all about? These people are in a corner. They saw a crisis. They saw an opportunity in the crisis. They rely on the power of the "gift" of personality that Obama has, and it's not helping them. It's hurting them, because Obama is detached from reality. He doesn't speak about specifics.

 

Sarah Palin comes out and says, "There are death panels in this bill," and that really got Obama because he had to quote her and say, "Oh, there are people who say there's death panels in this bill. How can that be?" Remember, folks: We don't treat the healthy. We cannot save money by cutting back on what we spend on the healthy because we don't spend anything on the healthy. We only spend money on the sick, and if we're going to cut costs that means we're going to have to stop spending as much as we do on the sick, and that's the elderly. If there aren't death panels in here, I'll guaran-damn-tee you there are not life panels! But there are and were, death panels in it because the Senate has announced, "We're going to pull 'em out. We're going to get rid of all that stuff." So they were there. They are cornered. So we've got 'em.

 

RUSH: Look what I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, from November 15th of last year, state-controlled Associated Press, headline: "Obama Has More Threats Than Any Other President-Elect -- Threats against a new president historically spike right after an election, but from Maine to Idaho law enforcement officials are seeing more against Barack Obama than ever before," and guess who the source is? Mark Potok, Southern Poverty Law Center! Saturday, November 15th, 2008: "Obama Has More Threats Than Any Other President-Elect." This guy has a fetish! This guy has a single-minded focus and purpose on this.

"It is not surprising that a black president would galvanize the white supremacist movement, said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who studies the white supremacy movement."

So he was trying to gin this up last November, and he got the Associated Press to run with it. He got Brian Ross to repeat it today on ABC's website and Good Morning America. Now, let me just say something here and then I'll go to more audio sound bites. There is no bigger supporter of Israel than me. Not Obama. Me! The Jew haters, the anti-Semites, they're not part of my circle. They're not part of my life. I don't run around with anti-Semites. I don't run around with people that don't like Jews or hate Israel.

It was Obama who surrounded himself with such people -- and I never heard one word from Brian Ross or the Southern Poverty Law Center about Khalidi or Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers or any of the rest of them. As a matter of our own foreign policy, it is not I who urged dealings with the Islamo-Nazi regime in Iran. It's not I who insist that Israel make itself weaker to appease Hamas and Hezbollah. It is Obama doing all of this. It is not I who's putting the shoulder on Israel comparing the Holocaust to the Israelis defending themselves against missiles hitting their cities from Gaza. That would be Obama who did that. It is Obama who compared the Holocaust to the Israelis defending themselves with defense missiles launched from Gaza. It is Obama who has surrounded himself with anti-Semites and anti-Israel people for all of his life. Not me.

 

 

RUSH: Let me ask you a question, ladies and gentlemen. If someone ran an intelligence project like at the Southern Poverty Law Center that actually went out there and researched and identified an increased threat level to the president of the United States, and if one's objective were to help the president avoid such threats, rather than one's objective being something else, like fundraising, publicity seeking, libeling opponents, whatever, what would you do? If you were out there really researching death threats, and you find an increased threat level to the president, what would you do? You would quietly call the Secret Service. You would quietly pass along whatever information you had developed. You would not go public with it because that would tend to incite and create copycat behavior. You would be quiet about it. Damn right I'm questioning the motives of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "