The training ground for community organizers – Midwest Academy

The Midwest Academy in Chicago is the institute for training organizers in unions and communities. Amazingly, I can’t find a photo of this “academy” anywhere on the web. Their address is a floor in a Chicago building.

Several of it’s board of directors are connected to SEIU and AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.)

A quick read of their board page and the connections these avowed progressives have with the current Obama regime and his supporters is pretty interesting:

For example, Jackie Kendall was part of the team that developed and delivered the first Camp Obama trainings for volunteers going to Iowa the summer of 2007 through the Iowa Caucuses.

Jacky Grimshaw was a member of the Energy and Transportation Task Force of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and has been a longtime activist for social justice.

Cathy Hurwit currently serves as chief of staff to Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), where she also has responsibility for universal health care, senior and labor issues.  Prior to joining Rep. Schakowsky’s staff in January 1999, she was a legislative affairs specialist at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Alicia Ybarra became part of the 1996 electoral political action drive of the Service Employee International Union member NY local 1199.  She has also worked with Unite For Dignity and Jobs with Justice in Miami, Florida organizing and training Latino and Haitian immigrants.  Alicia is currently working as the Training Director of SEIU International.

Don’t you love these names: Jobs for Justice and Unite for Dignity. Isn’t it interesting that they are working to organize Haitian and Latino immigrants – future democrat progressive voters?

They claim to have trained over 25,000 community organizers (most famous of whom is Andy Stern) since their creation in 1973, by co-founders Paul and Heather Booth. Paul Booth was a member of the SDS. It’s funded by The Woods Charitable Trust and Open Society Institute (George Soros.)  Obama and Bill Ayers both sat on the board of The Woods Charitable Trust. And if you listen to NPR or watch PBS, you will recognize the  John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

As I’ve been reading in Radical-in-Chief by Stanley Kurtz, the same names all seem to keep showing up in one connection after another.

Micheal Medved: New and younger faces in the GOP

from TownHall.com

It’s true that the November elections brought prominent winners in both parties, but the contrast between Democratic and Republican victors is highly revealing.

The biggest Democratic success stories involved re-elected Sens. Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, and new California governor Jerry Brown – all age 70 or above! The GOP, meanwhile, hailed breakthrough victories for 39-year-old Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida, 43-year old Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, 38-year old Governor Nikki Haley in South Carolina, 42-year- old Sen. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, 47-year-old Sen. Rand Paul in Kentucky, and many other youthful candidates bringing fresh, conservative perspectives to high office. Moreover, with Hillary Clinton ruling out a future presidential race, Joe Biden reaching age 74 by 2016, and John Edwards utterly unthinkable, what younger generation Democratic star could plausibly succeed Obama?

The Democrats, in other words, have become a party of shop-worn retreads while the GOP bench is full of next-generation leaders of potential national stature, including Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Rick Perry of Texas, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Senators John Thune of South Dakota, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and many more.

Looking toward the future, the rising stars of the GOP not only look more vibrant and dynamic than the Pelosi/Reid Democrats, they also count as increasingly diverse.

After the recent elections, skeptics can no longer deride the GOP as an all-white party of grumpy old men. Marco Rubio, 39, became the new Senator from Florida while fellow Latino Republicans Bryan Sandoval in Nevada and Susana Martinez in New Mexico became the nation’s only two Hispanic Governors. Jaime Herrera, age 31, captured a Democratic Congressional seat in Washington State, while Raul Labrador did the same in Idaho. Two more Hispanic Republicans– Bill Flores and Quico Canseco—knocked out incumbent Democrats in Texas. In South Carolina, Indian-American Nikki Haley won for Governor while black conservative Tim Scott beat Strom Thurmond’s son (among others) for a Congressional seat. Alan West, an African-American Iraq War hero, trounced an incumbent white Florida Democrat.

In the new Republican House of Representatives, eight members of the GOP majority will proudly qualify for a potential “Republican Hispanic Caucus.” Geraldo Rivera may dismiss such victories as “window dressing,” (as he did recently on Fox News) but they have changed both image and substance of the GOP.

 

NIA President: Beware of Massive Food Inflation – Fox Business Video – FoxBusiness.com

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NIA President: Beware of Massive Food Inflation…, posted with vodpod

NPR in panic mode over possible cuts

NPR said it’s “imperative” that it receives federal funding in light of a recommended cuts by the leaders of President Obama’s fiscal commission.

“Federal funding has been a central component of public radio stations’ ability to serve audiences across the country,” NPR said in a statement. “It’s imperative for funding to continue to ensure that this essential tool of democracy survives and thrives well into the future.”

from TheHill.com

If this is so “‘essential” to American democracy, then it should survive in the open market.  Why it is that talk shows like Rush, Beck, Hannity and Levin can all sustain themselves without federal aide but AirAmerica went belly up? Could it be that there is virtually no market for liberal radio?  Just like newspapers and magazines, radio money comes from selling advertising. If any talk show can’t get ad dollars because no one is listening, that’s not the taxpayers problem. Conservative radio stands or falls on it’s own, so should liberal radio.

Maybe Vivian Schiller should have thought of how “imperative” that funding is to NPR before she had an underling fire Juan Williams and then inferred that he was in need of psychiatric help.

Firing Williams because he was a commentator on Fox News unmasked the hypocrisy of NPR and the desire to restrict free speech when it’s not YOUR speech certainly harmed NPR in the eyes of most Americans. But beyond that, financing public broadcasting is a waste of tax dollars. We can all survive without PBS and NPR.

 

 

Beck called it, Media Matters accuses him of being an Anti-Semite

These people are so predictable.

And predictably stupid.