In Black Caucus, a Fund-Raising Powerhouse

NY Times ^ | 2/13/2010 | ERIC LIPTON and ERIC LICHTBLAU

[nj26]

When the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to pay off the mortgage on its foundation’s stately 1930s redbrick headquarters on Embassy Row, it turned to a familiar roster of friends: corporate backers like Wal-Mart, AT&T, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company.

Soon enough, in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house...

From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least $55 million in corporate and union contributions, according to an analysis by The New York Times, an impressive amount even by the standards of a Washington awash in cash. Only $1 million of that went to the caucus’s political action committee; the rest poured into the largely unregulated nonprofit network....

But the bulk of the money has been spent on elaborate conventions that have become a high point of the Washington social season, as well as the headquarters building, golf outings by members of Congress and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.

[avacado]

Huh? The Congressional Black Caucus has corporate backers? These are people of Congress!!! They have corporate backers?

Good grief! That's just wrong!

[Question Liberal Authority]

How much did the Congressional White Caucus spend for their stately townhouse?

[Ouderkirk]

Yeah that’s nice Eric LicksBalls.

Imagine if they had Congressional White Caucus. What would you have to say about that. We all know the answer.

[nj26]

Just another shakedown, in the style of Jesse Jackson.

[bert]

They are preparing for November and a Republican House. Once again they will have their illegitimate political asses banned from the Capitol.

[ETL]

"Black Caucus, a Fund-Raising Powerhouse"

Correction: "Black-RACIST, COMMUNIST Caucus, a Fund-Raising Powerhouse"

Fidel Castro meets with 3 visiting US lawmakers
By WILL WEISSERT
April 7, 2009

HAVANA – Signaling its willingness to discuss improved relations with the Obama administration, Cuba on Tuesday granted three visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus the first meeting with Fidel Castro by American officials since he fell ill in 2006.

[snip]

"Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., current head of the 42-member caucus, said at a news conference in Washington after the group's return that lawmakers met for nearly two hours with Fidel Castro and found him 'very healthy, very energetic, very clear thinking.'

Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., who also met Fidel with Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said Castro 'looked directly into our eyes' and asked how Cuba could help Obama in his efforts to change the course of U.S. foreign policy. Richardson said she had the impression that 82-year-old Fidel wants to see changes in U.S.-Cuba relations in his lifetime.

Raul Castro, added Lee, 'said everything was on the table.' ..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090407/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_us
________________________________________________________

Roland Burris and Rep. Bobby Rush (speaking)
at a Chicago news conference announcing
Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of
Burris to the U.S. Senate Dec. 30, 2008.
CBS
________________________________________________________

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
PROFILE: BOBBY RUSH:

* Democratic Member of Congress

* Member of the radical Progressive Caucus

* In 1968, went AWOL from the U.S. Army

* Co-founder of the Illinois branch of the Black Panther Party

* In 1969, served six months in jail for an illegal weapons conviction

* Advocates reparations for African Americans

"Bobby Rush has described his involvement with the Black Panthers as part of his maturation process, as a youthful indiscretion that he abandoned immediately after Hampton's death. He described his role mostly as running the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children program.

But Bobby Rush served six months in jail for a 1969 illegal weapons conviction and, even after his release, in 1971 his comrades were still describing him as the 'Deputy Minister of Defense' for the Black Panther Party in Illinois. In 1992 the socialist magazine In These Times praised fledgling congressional candidate Rush, writing that he 'has continued to support progressive policies and has never disavowed his Panther past...."

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1198
________________________________________________________

From the Maoist Internationist Movement:
[1960s/original] Black Panther Party [BPP] Archives
From the article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS

"On May 1st, May Day [1969], the day of the gigantic Free Huey rally, two of Alioto's top executioners vamped on the brothers from the Brown Community who were attending to their own affairs. These brothers, who are endowed with the revolutionary spirit of the Black Panther Party defended themselves from the racist pig gestapo.

Pig Joseph Brodnik received his just reward with a big hole in the chest. Pig Paul McGoran got his in the mouth which was not quite enough to off him.

The revolutionary brothers escaped the huge swarm of pigs with dogs, mace, tanks and helicopters, proving once again that "the spirit of the people is greater than the man's technology."

To these brothers the revolutionary people of racist America want to say, by your revolutionary deed you are heroes, and that you are always welcome to our camp."

Source: Maoist Internationist Movement
Article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS (May 11, 1969):
http://web.archive.org/web/20041230150623/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bpp/index.html
________________________________________________________

Bobby Rush surrenders. Photo by Larry Graff,
December 6, 1969

Black Panthers spokesman Bobby Rush (second from right) surrenders to Renault Robinson (right), president of Afro-American Patrolman's League, following the Fred Hampton shooting. He was joined by Hampton's brother, William (left), and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Images © Chicago Sun-Times

http://www.suntimes.com/realchicago/1960s/57.html

[MozarkDawg]

Imagine if they had Congressional White Caucus. What would you have to say about that. We all know the answer.

I found this quote on wikipedia when I was browsing the entry a while ago, a white MOC attempted to join the CBC to fulfill a campaign promise, his district largely black, he was denied, this from Rep. William Lacy Clay, Jr., D-Mo:

"Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept - there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it's our turn to say who can join 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives."

It strikes me that if the members of the Congressional Black Caucus actually feel that the rest of the House is an *unofficial White Caucus* then they have no business having any say as to who may or may not *join that club*, in essence, no more from them on anyone running for election to a House seat, I don't want to see them in the future on any pundit/talking-head show offering opinion or commentary on House races.

[ETL]

Member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from California's
9th district Incumbent
Assumed office April 7, 1998

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
PROFILE: BARBARA LEE:

* Democratic Member of Congress, co-chair of the radical Progressive Caucus

* Former agent of Black Panther leader and convicted killer Huey Newton

* Collaborated with the Marxist dictatorship of Grenada to deceive the U.S. Congress

* Voted against using military force against terrorists following the 9/11 attacks

* Has consistently voted against U.S.-led military action, regardless of circumstances

"While attending Mills College in Oakland, California during the early 1970s, Lee worked as a volunteer for the local chapter of the Black Panther Party's Community Learning Center. She also worked on the 1973 Oakland mayoral campaign of Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, and she served as a confidential aide to the Panthers' 'Minister of Defense,' Huey Newton."

[snip]

In the 1980s she worked as a staff member for the radical Left Democratic congressman Ron Dellums, who headed the House Sub-Committee on Military Installations. Aided by Lee, Dellums used his authority to impede U.S. foreign policy with regard to the Communist dictatorship of Grenada, where many Soviet bloc advisers, in conjunction with Cuban military personnel, were busy constructing an airport capable of accommodating Soviet military planes. As the ranking Democrat member of the House Armed Services Committee, Dellums traveled to Grenada to conduct an on-site "fact-finding" tour and on his return whitewashed the Grenadian dictatorship:

"Based on my personal observations, discussion and analysis of the new international airport under construction in Grenada, it is my conclusion that this project is specifically now and has always been for the purpose of economic development and is not for military use…. It is my thought that it is absurd, patronizing and totally unwarranted for the United States Government to charge that this airport poses a military threat to the United States' national security."

What legislators did not know at the time was that Dellums, before testifying to Congress, had previously submitted, through his emissary Barabara Lee, his prepared report (about the airport) to Grenada's Communist dictator for the latter's approval and/or revisions. The minutes of a Politburo meeting attended by that dictator and his military command stated:

"Barbara Lee is here presently and has brought with her a report on the international airport that was done by Ron Dellums. They have requested that we look at the document and suggest any changes we deem necessary. They will be willing to make the changes."

When Dellums retired in 1998, Barbara Lee won his vacated congressional seat and has held it ever since.

In June 2002, Lee joined 30 fellow members of Congress (including such notables as John Conyers, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Cynthia McKinney, and Maxine Waters) in filing a federal lawsuit to block President George W. Bush from withdrawing the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which had been signed in 1972 with the old Soviet Union. The lawsuit named Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as defendants.

[snip]

Author and political commentator David Horowitz has called Lee "an anti-American communist who supports America's enemies and has actively collaborated with them in their war against America."

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=936

[cherry]

I’m sure there was plenty of white women at the black conventions....

[ThePatriotsFlag]

They’ve got their own “clubhouse” ... oh pleeeese!

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

A case study of the effect of using fear to obtain money.

[Ouderkirk]

Time to call them what they are ...THE KLAN WITH A TAN

[Pharmboy]

...and tax-exempt black churches don’t do anything political. Right?/sarc

[neverdem]

While some caucus members still oppose the industry, 13 are co-sponsors of the industry-backed legislation that would ward off tough regulatory restrictions — an alliance that has infuriated consumer advocates.

“It is unfortunate that the members of the black caucus who are supporting this bill did not check with us first,” said Margot Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center. “Because the legislation they are supporting would simply pre-empt state laws that are designed to protect consumers against an industry that rips them off.”

The industry’s own bill, introduced by a caucus member, has not been taken up, but it does not really matter because the move to pass stricter legislation has ground to a halt.

“Without the support of the C.B.C.,” John Cleek, the president of the rent-to-own association, acknowledged in an industry newsletter in 2008, “our mission in Washington would fail.”

More like the Congressional Black Caucus Mafia.

[Malesherbes]

Another reason I don’t buy at Wal-Mart.

[Former Military Chick]

BTTT

We talk about moving away from racism. But, each time I see articles from the CBC or 3 African American leader’s go to the WH asking that jobs be put in the hands of the minority rather than all American’s I just throw my hands up.

We need to stop with congress using race as a caucus (leverage), the congress is about all American’s, darnit Washington DC, start thinking about all American’s and we might actually move from the color of skin and towards the success of ALL AMERICANS.

[rdb3]

Imagine if they had Congressional White Caucus.

You know, I can support that.

Seriously. Fair is fair.

[Always Independent]

Maybe their corporate sponsors need to be taught a lesson.

[Tzimisce]

...so can it still be said that black people can’t get ahead in the US?