One Down, Three To Go

Today marks the end of the first year of the regime of BHO. And what a year it has been! Definitely a lot of material for us bloggers within that first year.

Before I get into the rant about BHO's first year, my most heartfelt "congrats" goes out to Scott Brown (you little piece of eye candy!) for finally bringing honor back to the Senate seat in Massachusetts. Now go kick some a$$, buddy!!! Time to rant.

The first order of business for the administration was to order the closing of Gitmo. Heaven forbid that we treat those kept there as enemy combatants in the war on terrorism. Now, we have the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and ilk slated to take place in New York City, the very place where they killed thousands of Americans on 9/11. It's a travesty and an insult.

Unprecedented spending also took place within that first year. Cash for Clunkers, stimulus money, bank bailouts, and the takeover of two of the major three automakers headlined for weeks. Unemployment has risen to over 11%, and many Americans are still being asked to tighten their belts while the government spends OUR money like drunken sailors on shore leave. What ever happened to living within our means?

The housing market took a nosedive within the last year due to Bawney Fwank and his cronies telling banks that they couldn't "red line," a practice of not lending money to those in high-risk neighborhoods. The result was people acquiring loans for houses they couldn't pay back, and massive foreclosures ensued. Of course, the blame was cast entirely on to the previous administration.

Cap and Trade was front and center for a while, but has taken a back seat of late. The ingenious idea of taxing carbon dioxide (plant food) was spawned during the whole "global warming" hysteria, a notion that has since been debunked and proven to be a statistical fraud. Yet the lefties of this country still echo Chicken Little's message of "The sky is falling!" in hopes of keeping their globalist agenda alive.

In the past year, our president has bowed numerous times to world leaders, sending the message that we are weak. Way to go, you moron! Dictators the world over have been given an almost royal treatment. Kim Jong Il received a personal letter from BHO asking that North Korea halt their nuclear development program. The result? An underground test fire of a nuke. Hugo Chavez was given a warm reception by BHO, and Hugo reciprocated with the gift of a book from his favorite Communist author. How appropriate.

The rise of terror activity during the past year has given Americans cause to once again worry, but the threat is constantly being downplayed. The shooting at Fort Hood that claimed 14 innocent lives, the foiled Christmas Eve bombing attempt, and other miscellaneous plots that were foiled have emboldened the enemy. Is BHO waiting for another 9/11 to recognize exactly what we are up against? It sure seems that way.

We've seen radical czars appointed within the past year. From Cass Sunstein to Kevin Jennings, the radical left has gained a foothold in the government as never seen before. Van Jones, the former Green Jobs Czar, has been the only one run out of town in disgrace. The rest of them keep pushing their respective agendas on the American people regardless of whether the people agree or not. The czars see this as their only chance to push their ideals into the mainstream, and they're not going to give up until the citizenry rebels.

ACORN, the community group who helped get people to vote more than once in many instances during the presidential election, was busted by a couple of undercover citizens giving advice on how to get government money to pay for a prostitution ring. While federal funding of the group was temporarily suspended, they're once again receiving our tax dollars. The sister group of ACORN, the SEIU, has picked up where ACORN left off in shady dealings with Andy Stern, the group's president, making numerous White House visits.

Lastly, the push for socialized medicine in this country under the benign name of "healthcare reform" has come to fruition. Over half the population doesn't want it, but BHO, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of the socialists have decided that they know what's best for Americans, and they plan on giving the American people a healthcare-reform colonoscopy. So much for the voice of the people.

With all that has happened in the past year, our only hope is that November brings a Congress that is willing to stand up and voice the opinion of the American people when we say "NO MORE!" Should that not come to pass, our liberties in this country will be on life support. And we all know how this administration would handle that medical emergency.

The Catholic Church: Bought by Soros?

While trying to catch up on some blog reading and commenting this morning, I ran across a post over at teresamerica urging people to not donate to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) due to their willingness to donate to ACORN. I agree wholeheartedly.

Wanting a little more info, I came across an article written by Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media. Donating to ACORN is just the tip of the iceberg.

According to the article, George Soros, an avowed atheist, has been channeling money to certain Catholic groups via his Open Society Institute. The groups receiving funds from Soros have been groups of progressive Catholics who have been on the forefront in the Obamacare debate and the debate on amnesty for illegal aliens.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has received at least $200,000 from the Open Society Institute. This group backs Pope Benedict XVI's mission of using religion to further a socialist agenda.

From their website comes this list of things that is in the latest encyclical by the Pope. Hold on to your lunch, folks.

• “Another important consideration is the common good. To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it. Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good.”
• “If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it."
• “The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone.”
• "Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility."

Now we have an insight into exactly what the Pope thinks of socialism. He's in favor of it. And since this group supports the mission of the Pope, George Soros and his Open Society Institute will continue to fund them. It's disgusting to see a religion sell out to anyone let alone liberals.

Also receiving money from OSI is the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), a group who has been on the front lines of having Obamacare cover illegal immigrants. The group was established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1988 and has received at least $530,000 from the Soros-backed OSI.

While celebrating the passage in the House of Pelosicare, CACG had this to say about the whole debacle.

“As Catholics, we applaud the efforts of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Bart Stupak, and others who helped extend current restrictions on federal funding of abortion to health plans participating in the public [health] exchanges.”

Not so fast, pal. According to Judie Brown of the American Life League, some of the provisions still in Pelosicare allow for federal funding of abortion and other life issues, something the Catholic Church is supposed to be dead-set against. Please read Mr. Kincaid's article to see for yourself.

The CACG advisory council reads like a who's who of leftist groups. Some of the groups that are represented on the advisory council: SEIU, AFL-CIO, Georgetown University, and Boston College. No wonder the Catholic Church has been throwing their support behind card check.

The SEIU representative on the advisory council of CACG is a man by the name of Tom Chabolla, assistant to SEIU president Andy Stern. Prior to this gig, Chabolla served as associate director of programs for CCHD, directing money to ACORN to the tune of $7.3 million over the past 10 years.

The Gamaliel Foundation, an interfaith group with a socialist agenda, still continues to receive money from CCHD. They've been pushing hard for continued financial support through CCHD and is citing that it is “under attack from those with a partisan agenda to de-fund groups committed to organizing for social justice.” It says: “Many Gamaliel Foundation affiliates rely on funding from CCHD to serve their communities.” Yeah. ACORN's done a great job of that, eh?

Gamaliel says on its website that “Barack H. Obama, former Gamaliel organizer, is the 44th president of the United States,” and that this makes the organizing community proud. It also has a story about Obama friend and White House adviser Valerie Jarrett speaking to a Gamaliel event in Washington, D.C. of 2,500 activists. Jarrett is the official who said that “we” had recruited communist Van Jones to the White House. Another speaker was Melody Barnes, Obama’s Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Before coming to the White House, Barnes was the executive vice president for Policy at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP). Van Jones also worked at CAP before going to the White House. CAP CEO and President John Podesta, who served as President Clinton’s chief of staff, is a major “progressive Catholic” and member of the ACORN advisory council, and served as a professor at Georgetown University.

Interestingly, Tom Chabolla of the SEIU and formerly of the CCHD was on the dinner committee for the 33rd Annual Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner, which was held on May 7, 2009 in Washington, D.C. One of the winners was none other than Van Jones.

While appealing for more funds through CCHD, the Gamaliel Foundation received $300,000 from OSI in 2008.

Let them continue to go to Soros for their funding as they seem to be of like minds. They'll see not another dime from me.

Connecting More Dots: SEIU

The other day, I posted a timeline, courtesy of World Net Daily, that showed the relationship between ACORN and the current occupant of the White House. It sparked my interest, so I decided to do some more research online. The corrupt dealings of this administration just keep coming and coming and coming...

Glenn Beck has done a stellar job of reporting the corruption by the organization who receives millions of OUR tax dollars every year. In fact, I feel that Beck should be sharing a Pulitzer Prize with the two undercover filmmakers who videotaped all the crap that has come to light in recent weeks.

Beck has recently called the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), headed by president Andy Stern, the sister organization of ACORN. If they are the sister organization, this is a relationship that is more incestuous than any from the hills of Appalachia.

Recently, the SEIU has made the news by using thug tactics at Tea Party protests across the country. Intimidation and physical force are their weapons of choice.

While we now know about the ties between the Oval Office and ACORN, what about the ties between ACORN and the SEIU?? Let's take a look.

The Union Label Blog has connected the dots. Keep in mind that while being associated with ACORN, the SEIU has the ear of BHO.

SEIU Locals 100 and 880 share the same address: 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans. Just up the street is the ACORN office at 1016 Elysian Fields Avenue. Wouldn't be that far to walk, eh?

The unions are to file disclosure statements regarding finances with the Department of Labor. According to Local 880's 2005 financial filings with the DOL, there's been some closed-door dealings going on. Loans and payments have been made to ACORN-run organizations.

• A loan receivable from SEIU Local 100, which started the year at $11,500 and ended the year at only $500—a note shows the loan wasn’t repaid in cash, but rather “reduced to in-kind service”
• “Gifts” totaling $151,694 to the L880 Political Action Committee, which is run out of ACORN’s Louisiana office
• Local 880 received $36,425 as a “contractual fee” from the L880 Political Action Committee
• Representational activities included $6,388 in non-itemized payments to the Chief Organizer Fund (Chief Organizer is Rathke’s title for most of his positions) at ACORN’s office and $66,870 in non-itemized payments to Citizens Consulting Inc., ACORN’s multi-use organization
• $177,430 paid to Citizens Consulting for “Accounting and Administrative Support” and non-itemized transactions for “General Overhead”
• $10,102 paid to Citizens Consulting for “Union Administration”

Local 100's financial filings reveal even more corruption.

• $8,098 in overhead paid to Citizens Consulting
• $9,523 paid to the “Peoples Equipment Resource Corp,” which is registered to Rathke at ACORN’s headquarters
• $6,300 to the Elysian Fields Corporation
• Accounts payable records show $73,984 to the Elysian Fields Corporation; $34,241 to Citizens Consulting; $13,795 to the Fifteenth Street Corporation; and $9,072to the 4415 San Jacinto Corporation—all of which are run out of ACORN’s New Orleans headquarters
• Loans payable included its original $11,500 debt to Local 880 and $8,907 to the Association for the Rights of Citizens—a group run by Local 880 and ACORN.48 Loans to these two organizations were reflected as early as 2000, with as much as $47,000 of money from members in Local 880 being used to support its less-successful sibling.

ACORN appears to have been hired by the SEIU to assail Wal-Mart for not unionizing their employees because the SEIU headquarters sent two installments totaling $500,000 to the "Wal-Mart Organizing Project." The checks were sent to 1016 Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans: ACORN's Big Easy Office.

Kevin Mooney at the Washington Examiner had more information that had been posted at The Other McCain. A 2007 LM-2 (financial disclosure form) shows SEIU Local 880, which is active in Illinois and Minnesota, donated $60,118 to ACORN for “membership services.” Organized labor has kicked it back in the form of gifts and grants to ACORN totaling $2.4 million, the LM-2’s reveal.

When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) decided to cut the pay of home health workers by two dollars an hour during the state's last budget crisis, saving $74 million. These workers are SEIU members. What was the union's reaction? They pressured the Obama administration to withhold $6.8 billion in stimulus funding in retaliation. In fact, SEIU representatives were invited by Obama to negotiations between federal and state government officials that were held via a conference call. Why is a union being asked to participate in negotiations between government officials when they hold no such position? A SEIU spokeswoman later defended the call as "an example of transparency." Yeah...right.

How does this tie to the White House other than the ACORN link? Obama appointed Craig Becker, the associate general counsel of Andy Stern's SEIU, to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Becker is radical on the issue of unions, and his opinions are very well known within the political circle.

Mr. Becker wants to implement his radical unionism on the American capitalist society. In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, he explained that traditional notions of democracy should not apply in union elections. He wrote that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings about elections, and from challenging election results even amid evidence of union misconduct. He believes elections should be removed from work sites and held on “neutral grounds,” or via mail ballots. Employers should also be barred from “placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots.”

More extraordinary, Mr. Becker advocated a new “body of campaign rules” that would severely limit the ability of employers to argue against unionization. He argued that any meeting a company holds that involves a “captive audience” ought to be grounds for overturning an election. If a company wants to distribute leaflets that oppose the union, for example, Mr. Becker said it must allow union access to its private property to do the same.

With all of this political favortism coming to the surface, how can Dear Leader distance himself from ACORN and SEIU when he is chin-deep in the muck?

Someone's getting thrown under the bus.