What is a community organizer? ACORN stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles expose ACORN fraud

Citizen journalists exposed ACORN on camera. Now the Obama/Democrat politicians have to sever their ties with the socialist group famous for ballot stuffing, voter registrations by the tens of thousands and illegal loans by the thousands (helping fuel the financial meltdown).  The two citizen journalists asked for tax advice on opening up a house of prostitution and got some good tips from ACORN staff members. 

 

The interview was taped and now Obama has some explaining to do. Why did he pick 9-11 for the first annual day of service? Now ACORN will forever be tied to a tragic day in American history. ACORN is a brownshirt political activist group hired to rig local elections and beef up poor and illegal numbers for federal aid.  What a shitty organization? My god! 

 

Two employees at the Baltimore, Maryland, branch of the liberal community organizing group ACORN were caught on tape allegedly offering advice to a pair posing as a pimp and prostitute on setting up a prostitution ring and evading the IRS.

The video  was recorded and and posted online Thursday by James O’Keefe, a conservative activist. He was joined on the video by another conservative, Hannah Giles, who posed as the prostitute in the filmmakers’ undercover sting.

Wonder why the New York Times or Washington Post didn’t think of doing this kind of real journalism? I think you know the answer.

The video shows the pair approaching two women working at the ACORN Baltimore office and asking them for advice on how to set up a prostitution ring involving more than a dozen underage girls from El Salvador. One of the ACORN workers suggests that Giles refer to herself as a “performing artist” on tax forms and declare some of the girls as dependents to receive child tax credits.

“Stop saying prostitution,” the woman, identified by the filmmaker as an ACORN tax expert, tells Giles. The other woman tells them, “You want to keep them clean … make sure they go to school.”

Both woman appear enthusiastic to help. The tape is on YOUTUBE. Google it. 

James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited one of ACORN’s New York offices in August, where they picked up handy tips on how to lie on housing forms to cover up a prostitution business (”Honesty is not going to get you the house,” one ACORN official advises) and how to hide cash from their illicit business (”When you buy the house with the backyard, you get a tin…and you bury it down in there…cover it…and put the grass over it…”).

Watch the whole thing at Big Government. This is now the third videotaped sting exposing the ACORN racket’s law-undermining, truth-sabotaging counseling sessions.

If the Census Bureau no longer trusts ACORN to collect data as a result of these videotapes, why is Congress still allowing taxpayer money to be funneled to the ACORN Housing Corporation?

AHC has received an estimated $16 million in taxpayer funds between 1997-2007, according to the Employment Policies Institute.

 ACORN is now managing apartments in Bedford-Stuyvesant for the newly completed Atlantic Avenue Apartments.

 

The video footage — which has been edited and goes to black in some areas — was recorded and posted online Thursday by James O’Keefe, a conservative activist. He was joined on the video by another conservative, Hannah Giles, who posed as the prostitute in the filmmakers’ undercover sting.

The video shows the pair approaching two women working at the ACORN Baltimore office and asking them for advice on how to set up a prostitution ring involving more than a dozen underage girls from El Salvador.

One of the ACORN workers suggests that Giles refer to herself as a “performing artist” on tax forms and declare some of the girls as dependents to receive child tax credits.

 

 

 

 

Governor Sarah Palin, in her Wednesday night speech to 40 million Americans said, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.” Sarah hit a grand slam with that one.

 

But what exactly were Barack Obama’s actions as of community organizer in Chicago?

 

It’s been hidden from the news that Obama was a member of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN. Google ACORN and you may be surprised to find that it is a liberal/socialist organization involved in voter fraud. Look up the lawsuits ACORN is involved in.

 

 

Obama’s community organizing involved training grievance-mongers from ACORN.

Last week, Milwaukee’s top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigatioins of 37 ACORN employees accused voter registration fraud on a massive level.

 

Obama’s campaign apologized for failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were “accidently” filed with the Federal Election Committee as money sent to “get-out-the-vote” and “advance work.”

 

The New York Post has more quotes today from upset community organizers. Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, says: “I don’t like seeing the really hard work that goes on in really poor communities being demeaned by cheap politicians.”

 

Hard work such as signing up non U.S. citizens as Democrats with voter cards.

 

The Arkansas connection
You know Acorn. You know the grassroots organization, now a national power, got its start here, led by Wade Rathke (pictured), who spent the group’s formative years wheeling and dealing in Little Rock before moving to New Orleans. The local affiliate remains a powerful voice for poor people.

Depending on your point of view, you’ll be saddened or gladdened to learn this shocking news:

The New York Times reports today that founder Rathke’s brother embezzled $1 million from the organization eight years ago and the matter was handled internally.He stayed on the payroll until a month ago, when whistleblowers finally forced him out.

Wade Rathke said the organization had signed a restitution agreement with his brother in which his family agreed to repay the amount embezzled in exchange for confidentiality.

Wade Rathke stepped down as Acorn’s chief organizer on June 2, the same day his brother left, but he remains chief organizer for Acorn International L.L.C.

He said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a “weapon” into the hands of enemies of Acorn, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to its often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers.

Wade Rathke said he learned of the problem when an employee of Citizens Consulting alerted him about suspicious credit card transactions. An internal investigation uncovered inappropriate charges on the cards that led back to his brother.

“Clearly, this was an uncomfortable, conflicting and humiliating situation as far as my family and I were concerned,” he said, “and so the real decisions on how to handle it had to be made by others.”

If one of the prosperous businesses or public officials Rathke and Acorn have bedeviled and humiliated over the years had offered this alibi for wrongdoing, they would be in Lompoc right now.

California dream turning into a nightmare for middle class

California has turned into a high-tax, socialist state where the working middle class has to support millions of illegals and highly paid government employees. The state income tax has now broke the 10 percent barrier. The number of people leaving has for the first time in 70 years outpaced the incoming number, (including illegals).

Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida had the nation’s top foreclosure rates. In Nevada, one in every 70 homes received a foreclosure filing, while the number was one every 147 in Arizona. Rounding out the top 10 were Idaho, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Oregon and Ohio.

Among metro areas, Las Vegas was first, with one in every 60 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing. It was followed by the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area in Florida and five California metropolitan areas: Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino and Bakersfield.

The Scobleizer has written a good blog post on the subject. Scoble is an IT and social media guru in Silicon Valley who often visits Texas. He interviewed the Texas governor, Rick Perry and they Twitter each other. Even after the real estate bubble burst in 2005-06, and homes fell in price by 20 percent each of the last three years, homes are still overpriced and only 10 percent of California  households can afford median-priced homes. Nationally, 50 percent can afford the median-priced home.

The state of California has lost it’s glamorous image. I think of it now as a congested, welfare state with the highest taxes in the United States and the largest “public” workforce to support. Did you know that most of the government employees retire at full pay after 20 years of service?

http://scobleizer.com/2009/03/24/is-california-is-setup-for-a-brain-drain/comment-page-2/#comment-2008731

Joel Kotkin of the SF Chronicle wrote this piece in 2007.

California has been losing ground in the new millennium. In 2004-05, it fell to 17th, behind not only fast-growing Arizona and Nevada but also Oregon, Washington and rival “nation-state” Texas.

Job creation has been even less impressive. In the Bay Area and Los Angeles, it can only be considered mediocre or worse. If not for the strong performance of the interior counties of the state — what Bill Frey and I call the “Third California” — the state already would be rightly considered a laggard when it comes to creating employment.

More disturbing, as California’s population has grown — largely from immigration — per-capita income growth has weakened. From the 1930s to as late as the 1980s, Californians generally got richer faster than other Americans. In 1946, Gunther reported, Californians enjoyed the highest living standards and the third-highest per-capita income in the country.

Today, California ranks 12th in per-capita income. And it’s losing ground: Between 1999 and 2004, California’s per-capita income growth ranked a miserable 40th among the states.

This slow growth reflects a gradually widening chasm between social classes. Although the rest of the country has also experienced this trend, the gap between rich and poor has expanded more rapidly in California than in the rest of the country.

Today, notes a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California, California has the 15th-highest rate of poverty of all American states. When cost of living adjustments are made, only New York and the District of Columbia fare worse. Tragically, many of California’s poor are working. Somehow, this does not seem the best road to the governor’s dream of a “harmonious” society.

How did this happen to our golden state? There are many causes.

Certainly poverty has been greatly exacerbated by huge waves of immigration, particularly from Mexico and other developing countries. But other states — including Texas and Arizona — have also absorbed many immigrants, as well as people from the rest of this country, and have not experienced similarly strong jumps in their poverty rates.

Changes in the economy are clearly suspect. From the 1930s to the 1980s, California created a broad spectrum of opportunities for white- and blue-collar workers alike. Even the 1990s expansion, suggests Debbie Reed of the policy institute, helped reduce poverty by expanding a wide range of employment opportunities.

Today, economic growth in California — like that in much of the Northeast — seems tilted largely toward elites. Once a state known for its relative social democracy, the Golden State is becoming what Citigroup strategist Ajay Kapur has dubbed a plutonomy, dominated largely by a small wealthy class and their spending.

For example, despite all the hype about the renewed Internet boom in Silicon Valley, there has been only modest expansion of employment, even in the past year. Undoubtedly lavish takings by a relative handful of engineers, managers and investors are boosting high-end restaurateurs in San Francisco and revving up BMW sales, but benefits don’t seem to accrue as much to assemblers, midlevel managers and other high-tech workers.

Similarly, the governor’s entertainment industry friends, as well as art and developer elites close to Mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Gavin Newsom, may feel these are the best of times. But Los Angeles and San Francisco, along with Monterey, now suffer a poverty rate of more than 20 percent, among the highest level in the country.

Parallel to these developments, California is losing its once broad middle class, the traditional source of its political balance and much of its entrepreneurial genius. Outmigration from the state is growing and, contrary to the notions of some sophisticates, it’s not just the rubes and roughhouses who are leaving.

Indeed, an analysis of the most recent migration numbers shows a disturbing trend: an increasing out-migration of educated people from California’s largest metropolitan areas. Back in the 1990s, this was mostly a Los Angeles phenomena, but since 2000, the Bay Area appears to be suffering a high per-capita outflow of educated people.

This middle class flight is likely driven by two things: greater opportunities outside the state and the cost of housing in-state. Over the past 50 years, housing prices in coastal California in particular have grown much faster than elsewhere; the Bay Area’s rate of housing inflation over the past 50 years has been twice the national average.

Given the shrinking per-capita income advantage for being in California, moving elsewhere increasingly makes sense, particularly for those who do not already own homes and don’t have wealthy parents. In some parts of the state, barely 10 percent of households can now afford a median-price home; in the rest of the country that number is roughly 50 percent.

These trends suggest that California could be devolving toward an unappealing model of class stratification. As educated white-collar and skilled blue-collar workers leave, businesses in the state will be forced to truncate their operations — perhaps having an elite research lab, design office or marketing arm in California but shunting most midlevel jobs elsewhere.

Obama picks Hillary! Obama picks Hillary! Not!

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Update: It’s Biden. Who said Democrats couldn’t keep a secret?

Obama didn’t want Hillary Clinton and the machine around him for the rest of his life. Can you blame him? Wouldn’t you rather shoot the breeze with Joe Biden? Sure.

By Mick Gregory

With McCain’s lopsided win in the debate held by Rev. Warren in California, the DNC leadership are in a panic. They will try and force Obama to pick Hillary as his running mate.

That’s my prediction. We’ll have to see if Hillary wants to chance it with this stalled campaign. Maybe there is so much worry, that Hillary will get the nomination in Denver. Obama has to nip it in the bud and name Hillary his VP before the revolt takes over the convention and makes Hillary the candidate and Obama has to settle for Veep.

Ralph Nader agrees with me.

“He just has to swallow hard and do what JFK did” in picking rival Lyndon Johnson in 1960, said the liberal activist and maverick presidential candidate.

According to Nader’s logic, Obama may dislike Hillary, but will conclude he has no choice but to get over it if he hopes to leave next week’s convention in Denver with a unified party and a decent shot against John McCain in the fall: “The polls show 25 percent of her supporters have not gotten on board.”

“He’s got to be very concerned by the [neck-and-neck] polls and by what happened at Saddleback,” added Nader, referring to the recent candidates forum hosted by evangelist Rick Warren. “He got beat in Saddleback—big time.”

Nader said his own sources—and, to be blunt, they sound a bit sketchy—lead him to believe that Clinton remains in serious consideration. A friend, he said, recently saw Clinton family intimate Vernon Jordan on Martha’s Vineyard and reported the “usually very effusive” Jordan to be suspiciously “tight-lipped.”

It was only in May that Sen. Barack Obama cockily proclaimed he would debate Sen. John McCain “anywhere, anytime.” But in June, Obama said no to McCain’s challenge to have 10 one-on-one town hall meetings

— ibdeditorials.com.

After what happened at Lake Forest, Calif.’s evangelical Saddleback last Saturday evening, we may have found that debating is Obama’s Achilles’ heel. Whether or not you like the idea of such events being held in religious venues, the plain-and-simple method of questioning used by Saddleback pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren revealed fundamental differences between these two men.

“It’s one of those situations where the devil is in the details,” Obama said at one point. He could have been referring to his own oratorical shortcomings when a teleprompter is unavailable. We learned a lot more about the real Obama at Saddleback than we will next week as he delivers his acceptance speech in Denver before a massive stadium crowd.

The stark differences between the two came through the most on the question of whether there is evil in the world. Obama spoke of evil within America, “in parents who have viciously abused their children.” According to the Democrat, we can’t really erase evil in the world because “that is God’s task.” And we have to “have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil.”

For McCain, with a global war on terror raging, there was no equivocating: We must “defeat” evil. If al-Qaida’s placing of suicide vests on mentally-disabled women and then blowing them up by remote control in a Baghdad market isn’t evil, he asked: “You have to tell me what is.”

Asked to name figures he would rely on for advice, Obama gave the stock answer of family members. McCain pointed to Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq’s scourge of the surge; Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who “had his skull fractured” by white racists while protesting for civil rights in the 60s; plus Internet entrepreneur Meg Whitman, the innovative former CEO of eBay.

When Warren inquired into changes of mind on big issues, Obama fretted about welfare reform; McCain unashamedly said “drilling” — for reasons of national security and economic need.

On taxes, Obama waxed political: “What I’m trying to do is create a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code.” McCain showed an understanding of what drives a free economy: “I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth.”

To any honest observer, the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama have been evident all along. What we saw last weekend was Obama’s shallowness juxtaposed with McCain’s depth, the product of his extraordinary life experience.

It may not have been a debate, but it was one of the most lopsided political contests in memory. — iht.com

I have to agree, this was the most lopsided debate win I’ve seen in my life.

I can’t wait to see a few debates. I know there will be only two or three now. And the Democrats will have to try and put the fix in with the “right” kind of journalists asking the questions.

Newspaper jobs at 15-year low. A Harbinger of things to come.

U.S. media employment in December fell to a 15-year low (886,900), slammed by the slumping newspaper industry. But employment in advertising/marketing-services — agencies and other firms that provide marketing and communications services to marketers — broke a record in November (769,000). Marketing consulting strongly lead that growth.

Companies still invest in marketing, but they have more options now such: digital initiatives, direct marketing, promotions and events, just to name a few. That creates more opportunities for consultants to help define strategies.

Meanwhile, dissident shareholder Harbinger Capital Partners has increased its stake in newspaper publishing company New York Times Co. to 11.8 percent, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday. The Harbinger investors are going to take control and eventually do away with the two-tier stock that gives all the voting rights to the elitist family while they spend the investors money on global trips and penthouse condos.
Harbinger, working together with Firebrand Partners founder Scott Galloway, a New York University business professor, has criticized the Times for not aggressively building up its digital businesses.

The investors have nominated four candidates for election to the board at the Times’ annual shareholder meeting on April 22.

On Tuesday, Harbinger reported owning 16.9 million shares of the New York-based publishing company. Earlier this month, Harbinger disclosed that it had raised its stake to more than 10 percent from 5 percent.

Ad agencies also have evolved, expanding beyond simply creating and placing ads. Indeed, Ad Age DataCenter research has shown that U.S. marketing-communications agencies collectively in 2005 for the first time generated less than half of their revenue from traditional media and media planning/buying.

Falling stocks

Marketing consultancies over the past year added 14,500 jobs (up 10.8%), nearly matching staff cuts at newspapers (down 16,900 or 4.7%), reported in AdAge.

Funny, that’s what I am, a marketing consultant now.

Meanwhile, back at the Bay Area newspapers the staff of the left over Knight-Ridder papers that were bought by the fire sale specialists, Dean Singleton’s Media News Group. The publisher told the entire staff that this is the first time the Contra Costa Times lost money since 1991, again about 15 years ago. Isn’t that something?

So we’re announcing today that we’re extending to all employees a one-time voluntary separation opportunity, commonly known as a buy-out. Everyone except Operating Directors and me will get the opportunity to apply for a buy-out. Each of you will have the opportunity to apply. We are distributing a packet with all the details. If you don’t get one within 24 hours, by 2 p.m. Wednesday, please contact your department manager or Human Resources.

Here are some of the things I hope you’ll keep in mind as you review the buy-out information:

Your getting a packet is not in any way a reflection on your performance or value to the company. Everyone is getting a packet.

Announcements regarding the need to reduce costs also were made this afternoon in San Jose, at the Mercury News, and in San Ramon, at the Shared Services Center. This is a BANG-wide effort.

This program is part of a general cost reduction program. We also will be taking other steps unrelated to our compensation costs to bring down operating expenses. We’ll have more to say later about these other steps, such as limiting days for inserting and reducing the size of the TV tab.

We are not announcing the number of job eliminations. For one thing, the number can change depending on who applies and is accepted for a buy-out. Second, we are seeking a dollar savings, not a reduction in a specific number of jobs. But I will say this: The number of jobs that will be eliminated will be significant. So each employee needs to give the buy-out opportunity full consideration.

Applying for a buy-out doesn’t mean you’ll get one. The decision whether or not to accept a buy-out application will be made by senior management based on our business needs.

If we do not get and accept enough buy-out applications to reach our cost savings goal, we will have to do involuntary layoffs. We won’t know where we stand on layoffs until after the buy-out acceptance deadline, which will be March 3rd. Very quickly thereafter, we will make a decision on layoffs.

To encourage employees to apply for a buy-out, the severance benefits for voluntary buy-outs are twice the severance benefits for involuntary layoffs. The severance payouts and benefits associated with buy-outs and layoffs are contained in the information packet.

These are very difficult times. They demand that we move quickly and decisively. It is easy to get discouraged, to wonder about the future of newspapers and companies like ours. Personally, I still believe in the power of newspapers and, specifically, the power of our newspapers and Web sites. We deliver the biggest media audience in the East Bay, and that will be the key to our growth in the future as we rebound from these economic challenges. And we will rebound.

The senior management team appreciates your understanding and continued dedication to moving us forward.

John Armstrong, President & Publisher

Obama just missed winning the jackpot in Nevada — Hillary’s union activists muscle in. Now reported: election districts in New York’s Harlem had zero votes for Obama. More than 80 voting districts in New York had zero votes for Obama.

By Mick Gregory

Updated when relevant reports come in.
Feb. 16, 2008:
Wire reports summarized in a 1 col.x 5 inch story burried within the Houston Chronicle mentions:

No (0) votes for Obama in Black voting district in New York.
Black voters are heavily represented in the 9th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to rustls from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Obama.
That anomaly was not the only one. A review by the New York Times of unofficial results on primary night found some 80 election districts where Obama did not recieve even one vote, including districts where he ran a respectable race in the ajoining districts

This while Kucinich is paying for a recount in New Hampshire where he received (0) votes and low to (0) counts for Obama.

Has the Clinton machine been vote tampering again like they tried to do in Miami for Al Gore?

Why isn’t this a front page news article? Are you concerned that the U.S. election process is corrupt?

Obama wins South Carolina with 54% of the vote to Hillary’s 26%. Oops. The Bill factor didn’t help much, did it.
Maybe it was because the Clinton machine doesn’t have clout in South Carolina.

US Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign on Sunday said that it had received reports of voting irregularities in Nevada’s nominating caucuses, which were won by rival Hillary Clinton.
Spokesmen for Obama’s campaign told reporters that a Clinton party handout urged registration lines for the caucuses Saturday to close at 11:30 am, whereas state party rules said anyone in line until 12:00 pm was to be allowed to participate.

“Despite clear rules and timelines laid out by the Nevada Democratic Party that caucus doors should remain open and voter registration should continue until noon, the Clinton campaign encouraged their operatives to close the caucus doors at 11:30 am, a half hour before that deadline,” said spokesman Bill Burton.

“This caused confusion and led to people leaving the caucuses before having the chance to participate.”

Clinton won the state’s nominating contest with 51 percent of the vote, while Obama received 45 percent. The victory increased the former first lady’s lead over Obama, after she also won the New Hampshire primary on January 8.

Obama won the Democrats’ first nominating caucuses in Iowa at the beginning of the month. His campaign called for a full review of the Nevada vote but insisted it was not calling into question the results.

“We found an unusually high number of reports that the Clinton campaign was insisting that 11:30 was the deadline,” said general counsel Bob Bauer, adding that at least 300 complaints had come in.

“We are not calling the results into question at all. We want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Bauer said.

“We are going to notify the Nevada Democratic party that we want a full review of this, and make sure we have in front of us a full picture to make sure this behavior is highlighted and discouraged in the future.”

Like New Hampshire, Nevada was another do-or-die situation for the Hillary machine.
Right out of Stalin’s playbook, voter suppression was on and the pro-Hillary teachers unions, Teamsters and government workers unions went all out for the machine — Hillary.

And just like BIG BROTHER/BIG SIS, the truth of voter suppression and cheating were flipped around and turned on Obama supporters. This power grab is serious business.

To go over the facts here, the only publicly reported radio ad anything like what Clinton refers to is one that encourages Republicans and independents to caucus, but doesn’t mention Hillary.

And the Vegas papers haven’t found any evidence of the kind of straightforward voter suppression Clinton reports. The Obama campaign has suggested the Clinton campaign file formal complaints if it has evidence.

“This is ludicrous,” Culinary Workers political director Pilar Weiss told Politico. She said the union is “aware that some workers aren’t going to vote our way” and doesn’t engage in intimidation.

“The fact that they lost a lawsuit aimed at suppressing workers’ votes, and that now they’re trying to hold on to these baseless claims is ridiculous,” she said.

Weiss also said Clinton’s claim is “technically impossible.” Clinton supporters can ask union organizers — who are actively promoting Obama’s candidacy — to add their names to the lists of workers who will take time off to caucus today. But signs posted around the casinos advertise another avenue to get the time off: Workers can go around the union and ask their managers directly.

“We have found it shocking that President Clinton has gotten so engaged in promoting these accusations,” she said.

My friend and attorney nicknamed Marjon* told me about this story.

Turn out the lights, the party is finally over for Hillary. Her lawsuit filed to hinder casino workers from voting was thrown out by an honest judge.

Here is another example of how the Democrat machine is anything but democratic. Hillary’s teachers union tried to block out casino workers from voting in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses. Was the mainstream media reporting this? An AP reporter had the story on the wires, but very few newspapers bothered to pick it up. Meanwhile, Dennis Kocinich is paying $70,000 for a recount of the New Hampshire primary because of evidence of voter fraud by the Hillary Rodham-Clinton machine.

The Nevada results that come in Saturday will put Obama on top before Florida, South Carolina and Super Tuesday.

Here are the details from the AP report:

A union with ties to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton failed in court Thursday to prevent casino workers from caucusing at special precincts on the Las Vegas strip.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan was presumed to be a boost for Clinton rival Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential caucuses Saturday because he has been endorsed by the union representing many of the shift workers who will be able to use the precincts.
“State Democrats have a First Amendment right to association, to assemble and to set their own rules,” Mahan said.
Nevada’s Democratic Party approved creation of the precincts to make it easier for housekeepers, waitresses and bellhops to caucus during the day near work rather than have to do so in their neighborhoods.
The state teachers union, which has ties to Clinton, brought the suit against the special precincts shortly after local 226 of the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Obama for the Democratic nomination. The union is the largest in Nevada, with 60,000 members. The Clinton campaign said it was not involved in the suit.
The suit contended party rules allowing the precincts gave too much power to the casino workers and violated federal equal protection guarantees.
But the judge said, “We aren’t voting here, we’re caucusing. That’s something that parties decide.”
He said it is “up to the national party and the state party to promulgate these rules and enforce them.”
The Democratic National Committee ratified the state party’s rules in August.
Campaigning in San Francisco, Obama welcomed the judge’s decision, saying, “Any alternation would have disenfranchised maids, dishwashers, bellhops, people who work on the strip. Some of the people who set up the rules apparently didn’t think that we would be as competitive as we were and tried to change at the last minute.”
Nevada State Education Association — a pro-Hillary union — initiated the lawsuit.

*Marjon is the blind fearless lion of Afghanistan who would bite at the wind.

The Ramadan fires: 10 wildfires threaten the most expensive neighborhoods from Malibu to San Diego

Mick Gregory

Could terrorists have started the fires? Please don’t ask. In liberal circles you are racisit if you even think Islamic terrorists would do this.

Update: News is coming out that several of the fires are looking like arson according to officials of Orange County. For continuous updates, see my other story “Coverup: Were Wildfires Set by Terrorists?”

ALERT: “Officials” blamed a wildfire that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week on a boy playing with matches, and said they would ask a prosecutor to consider the case.
The boy admitted to sparking the fire on Oct. 21, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Diane Hecht said Tuesday. Ferocious winds helped it quickly spread.

“He admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire,” Hecht said in a statement.

OK, that makes me feel safe. Officials know best.

Police did not release the boy’s name. Los Angeles County fire Capt. Michael Brown only would say Wednesday that he was younger than 13.

The boy was released to his parents, and the case will be presented to the district attorney’s office, Hecht said. It was not clear if he had been arrested or cited by detectives.

U.S. Capitol Police today (Nov. 2) were investigating the latest in a series of seven suspicious fires occurring in Senate office buildings.

A police spokesman said a small fire was discovered about 8:00 a.m. EDT in a 2nd floor woman’s restroom of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
The police said it was at least the 7th confirmed fire in the office buildings since late September. The fires are all suspicious in nature and Capitol Police are exploring the possibility that they are linked. You think? Nah, it was probably and act of nature, or a 12-year-old with matches.

Don’t speculate on siloed Islamic terrorists. Don’t scare the American people.

Ladies and Gentlemen–We Have Cloture! Now it is Time for Full Disclosure

Mick Gregory

The American people have spoken and shut down the elite 100 U.S. Senators who wanted to change America’s core values just to win future votes and get cheap labor.

We can secure our border with current laws and send all illegal law breakers back home. The men and women with the big hair can go home on summer vacation now.

We have to thank Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Dennis Miller for bringing our voices further.

“If only the Fairness Doctrine were in place,” Harry Reed and Ted Kennedy are shaking their heads in agreement.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas Announces She Will Vote Against Reviving the Mass Immigration Amnesty Bill.

Mick Gregory

Hooray for Kay!

Now both U.S. Senators from the great state of Texas are against the bill that would make illegal immigrants instant super citizens with more free legal and waived laws than any U.S. citizen.

How could that be, you ask? Read how sancutuary cities like San Francisco, and Houston, up until a cop was killed by an illegal immigrant, police were under orders to not harass Latin Americans for minor violations. Yet, your average Joe and Jane get tickets for having license plate dealer frames covering their license plates.

Next, the 20 million illegals’ children will jump to the head of the class at the best state schools, without regard to their SAT scores, their Hispanic heritage and new citizenship carries much more weight.

What a nightmare for the working middle class families; working stiffs to the elite politicians of what used to be the Democrats, now including moderate Republicans.

But I digress.

The bill will not make it now. It’s in an industrial shredder at this point.

Sen. Hutchison, who has been under intense pressure from the White House and Republican leadership to support a sweeping immigration overhaul, nevertheless announced today that she will vote against reviving the legislation when it returns to the Senate floor next week.

She was joined today by the state’s other senator, Republican John Cornyn, who had been expected by the bill’s supporters to take such a stance. They had aggressively lobbied Hutchison in hopes of adding her vote to the 60 necessary to revive the stalled legislation.

“I could not support (bringing the bill to a vote) in its present position,” Hutchison, criticizing the legislation as amnesty for illegal immigrants, said today.

As No. 4 in the Senate GOP leadership, Hutchison is the highest-ranking Republican to break from her party on a domestic policy issue of signal importance to President Bush.

“Until major changes are made that reject amnesty and a more open, fair process emerges for debating one of the most crucial issues facing our nation, I cannot support this immigration bill,” she said.

Cornyn added, “Passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill has been, and remains, one of my top priorities in the Senate. It has become clear however, that I and many others will not be able to introduce amendments to fix key areas of this very complex bill.”

“Talk radio was sort of the watchdog on this,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. “Who else was watching out? Who else was reading the bill?”

“A decent respect for our constituents means when they have very serious problems with an important piece of legislation, perhaps we should back off,” Sen. Sessions said.

The Republicans’ top vote hammer, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott of Mississippi, predicted today that bill backers would get the 60 votes to bring the bill back next week, though he acknowledged the vote could be a squeaker.

Trent, what happens when an illegal immigrant crashes into your black SUV on the way to the Senate? Nothing. That’s why you don’t get it. When they crash into us, they don’t bother to carry insurance. So our insurance pays and a month later, our premiums go up. What a great country!

Star Tribune publisher buys a mansion at the same time the paper layoffs reach 50–Isn’t that grand?

Mick Gregory

There are public records being looked through by recently displaced writers. On May 14, the Minniapolis Star Tribune publisher, Par Ridder (any relation to the now defunct Knight-Ridder empire? You betchya!), currently busy cutting the careers out from under 150 or so of his employees, closed a deal to buy former news anchor Paul Magers’ ostentatious Lake of the Isles mansion for $2.73 million to be exact.

This ain’t Beverly Hills or The Woodlands.

The place is “ideal for entertaining,” like you hear repeated on HGTV. But the way Par’s been operating here in Minnesota, I have to wonder who among the “right people” will want to be seen accepting Par’s invitations?
Taxes? Oh, yeah. Last year taxes on the Magers Manse were $41,648, or about one year’s salary for one of those loyal old women Ridder canned from their classified jobs at the ‘Strib.’

One thing this proves, the media moguls aren’t as smart with their money as they used to be.
That 100-year-old shrine cost’s $2000 a month to heat in the winter. Oh, that’s right, Par will be wintering in Florida.

Par for the course.

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over–Thanks to Blogs and Radio Talk Shows — A Powerful Alliance Has Saved the Middle Class in America

Mick Gregory

Michael Savage is picking up his Freedom of Speech Award from Talkers Magazine tonight.

Congratulations, Dr. Savage!

Our long national nightmare is over.

The failure of the Senate immigration bill, called “stabbed and bleeding on the floor,” made shock waves in Washington DC, Thursday night and Friday morning.

I can boil it down to this — the bill would have instantly made 12 million (more like 20 million) illegal immigrants, new super citizens with more rights than the average American. The 12-20 million would have rights to free legal support paid for by the middle class American citizens who have to wait months to get a passport. The new super citizens’ children will get a place ahead of Americans in line at college admission, then, later for prestigious jobs at top PC corporations.

A New York Times report found out something that bloggers and talk show fans have known for quite a few years now, blogs and talk radio programs, not only Rush’s giant voice and the Free Republic blog, but now Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Dennis Miller and ManCow have garnered millions of loyal listeners. But that’s not the half of it; the citizen journalists on blogs such as Grassfire, Michelle Malkin, Matt Drudge and the smaller, prolific blogs such as Nuke Gingrich, Scott Allen, Patriot Lighthouse, Let Freedom Ring, and (several more linked to this site) have made their mark.

Voters like Monique Thibodeaux, highlighted in the Times’ article joined a nationwide campaign to derail the flawed bill.

Thibodeaux, an office manager at a towing company in suburban Detroit, became a political activist. Guided by conservative blogs, she made calls and sent e-mail messages to senators across the country and pushed her friends to do the same.

“These people came in the wrong way, so they don’t belong here, period,” Mrs. Thibodeaux, a Republican, said of some 12 million illegal immigrants who would have been granted a path to citizenship under the Senate bill.

“In my heart I knew it was wrong for our country,” she said of the measure.

Supporters of the legislation defended it as an imperfect but pragmatic solution to the difficult problem of illegal immigration. Public opinion polls, including a New York Times/CBS News Poll taken only last month, showed broad support for the bill’s major provisions.

But the legislation sparked a furious rebellion among many Republican and even some Democrat voters, who were linked by the Internet and encouraged by radio talk show hosts. Their outrage and activism surged to full force after Senator Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican who was an author of the bill, suggested early this week that support for the measure seemed to be growing. The assault on lawmakers in Washington was relentless. In a crucial vote Thursday night, the bill’s supporters, including President Bush, fell short by 15 votes.

“Technologically enhanced grass-roots activism is what turned this around, people empowered by the Internet and talk radio,” said Colin A. Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, a conservative group.

“The opposition to the amnesty plan is so much more intense than the intensity of the supporters,” said Mr. Hanna, speaking of the bill’s provisions to grant legal status to qualifying illegal immigrants, which the authors of the legislation insisted was not amnesty.

In the end, supporters conceded that they were outmaneuvered by opponents who boiled down their complaints to that single hot-button word, repeated often and viscerally on talk radio programs and blogs.

“It’s a lot easier to yell one word, ‘amnesty,’ and it takes a little more to explain, ‘No, it’s not, and if you don’t do anything you have a silent amnesty,’ ” said Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona, a Democrat who backed the measure.

I can boil it down to this — the bill would have instantly made 12 million illegal immigrants, new super citizens with more rights than the average American. The 12 million would have rights to free legal support paid for by the middle class American citizens who have to wait months to get a passport.