Free Republic

I recently read the new biography of Trotsky by Oxford don Robert Service, published in 2009 by Pan Books. It is well-written and surprisingly interesting. The book does a great public service in describing the life of the actual Trotsky, whose previous “biographies” were little more than hagiographies written by his toady worshippers (people like Isaac Deutscher). The last time that I had taken any interest in Trotsky was when I was a teenager and had fleeting delusions of believing in “socialism.” Reading the new book as an adult and as an economist, I found it a useful opportunity to...

President Obama's Roanoke speech was not really an insult to businessmen. No, in fact, it was far worse: it was a threat. Worse still, it was a threat rooted in a long and ugly racial history in the United States. Consider that Obama mentioned, early in his remarks, teachers and urban infrastructure like roads. When Obama says "you didn't build that," he is employing the rhetorical strategies of two subcultures that he remains closely involved with: (1) the urban Democratic political machines that often shake down both businesses and minorities using City Hall's power over permits, union jobs, fines, and...

Learn who Alinsky was and why he matters. Expanded coverage of how to counteract each of the tactics. Should you use these methods? Why the most popular tactics are not the most effective. General tips to make you better on twitter and Facebook along with methods to combat Alinsky tactics in social media. Methods to win arguments with Liberals, ways to drive them nuts, and how to keep them from driving you nuts. How to spot Obama for America (OFA) and not waste your time with them. Recognizing the Left’s big players and how they influence others. A full chapter...

Obama’s ACORN operative in the White House Patrick Gaspard, a former Working Families Party associate, is helping shape domestic policy– Obama political advisor Patrick Gaspard holds the same White House position his Bush-era predecessor, Karl Rove, did. But before he was the White House political czar he worked in several far left organizations as activist and agitator. NLPC.org reported: One of the more disturbing aspects of the Obama-ACORN connection is that the White House political affairs director is one Patrick Gaspard. Gaspard doesn’t register on the media radar screen in the way that his immediate Bush-era predecessor, Karl Rove, did....

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html The Working Families Party (WFP) (www.workingfamiliesparty.org) is New York's most energetic, independent and progressive political party. Formed in 1998 by a grassroots coalition of community organizations, neighborhood activists, and labor unions, we came together to build a society that works for all of us, not just Wall Street CEOs and the well-connected. WFP is independent from corporate and government funding and in-addition we are community based; community funded and equally uninfluenced by both major parties. Our agenda focuses on economic and social justice, corporate accountability, job creation, environmental protection, and investment in education and healthcare. For the past twelve...

Student Protests in Tucson Arizona are only the beginning of a much larger scale of protests and direct actions in planning stages right now. As the Ethnic Studies controversy continues in TUSD, orchestrated by County Redistricting Commissioner and Student Equity Director Augustine Romero, and Director of Ethnic Studies Sean Arce, even more groups that met at the communist May Day rally at Tucson Greyhound park on May 1 of this year are planning large scale Social Justice protests. The groups present included Derechos Humanos, Humane Borders, Border Action Network, members of the Pima County Interfaith Council, The Brown Berets, MEChA...

One man was arrested for shooting at another down the street from a West Side Chicago police station Thursday night, police said, citing preliminary information. The second man, who told police he was being shot at, also was taken into custody when officers caught up with him and found a gun in his possession, police added.

Preliminary Findings Suggest Pilot Error in Air France Crash By ANDY PASZTOR And DANIEL MICHAELS The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems, including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with preliminary findings from the plane's recorders. The final moments inside the cockpit of the twin-engine Airbus A330, these people said, indicates the pilots seemingly were confused by alarms they received from various automated flight-control systems as the plane bucked through some turbulence expected on...

Community activists in St. Louis became concerned a couple of years ago that local banks weren't offering credit to the city's poor and African American residents. So they formed a group called the St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance and began writing complaint letters to federal regulators. Apparently, someone in Washington took notice. The Federal Reserve has cited one of the group's targets, Midwest BankCentre, a small bank that has been operating in St. Louis's predominantly white, middle-class suburbs for over a century, for failing to issue home mortgages or open branches in disadvantaged areas. Although executives at...

Acting as if they are Tea Party members of Butte County, Democrats have been going around posting fliers with racists images on them.  It seems that those who are comfortable with national unemployment at double digits, Chico unemployment at 12.3%, unemployment for 18 & 19-year old's above 25%, inflation nearing double digit annually, and $5 gasoline prices that have made most families cancel summer vacation plans, are so afraid of the Tea Party that they want to disrupt it's rally being held in Chico's Downtown Plaza on Monday April 18th. It's the same old tactics being used by the...

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Tens of thousands of trade union supporters marched through India's capital on Wednesday to express frustration with high food prices and endemic corruption. At least 40,000 demonstrators, some coming by train from outside the capital, marched through the city toward Parliament, Delhi Traffic Police constable Sham Lal said. Organizers put the number of protesters at about 100,000. Participants came from trade unions linked with both the opposition Communist Party and the governing Congress Party. Many carried red Communist flags showing a hammer and sickle as they made their way down streets decorated in Communist Party posters....

In a press conference held on Monday afternoon in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit responded to criticism by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday, saying that "They have practically declared war on Egypt via several satellite stations. The Egyptian people reject and opposes this declaration." "They want for there to be chaos in Egypt as there is in their country," Gheit said of Hizbullah. "I tell this man [Nasrallah]: No, no! Our armed forces can defend our homeland from people like you. Your interest in creating chaos is not in the best interest of...

A recent study by Steve Farkas and Ann Duffett should strike fear into the parents of students across America. This new study, entitled “Cracks in the Ivory Tower?: The Views of Education Professors Circa 2010,” takes an in-depth look at how today’s education professors view their role in society and in preparing the future teachers of our nation’s children. The results are distressing. Observe this nugget from the study’s key findings: Asked to choose between two competing philosophies of the role of teacher educator, 68 percent believe preparing students “to be change agents who will reshape education by bringing new...

You read that right. Gang members in the most violent city in the nation criticized the police for being ineffective in combating...gang violence.

Federal regulators on Friday seized ShoreBank, the fabled South Side bank known for its community lending, and turned its good assets back over to its management team to be reopened as Urban Partnership Bank. The management team, which had joined ShoreBank only recently and which sources say includes former First Chicago Corp. executives Bill Farrow and David Vitale, entered into an agreement -- called a loss-share transaction -- on $1.41 billion of ShoreBank¹s assets with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), according to a press release issued tonight. The 15 branches of ShoreBank wll reopen Saturday as branches of Union...

Witness community organizers at work. We’ve heard about how these groups have shaken down banks for decades in order to get the banks to issue risky loans. Here they are, caught on video, storming a bank at the exact moment President Obama signed his disastrous Wall Street bill. ....

A non-profit nation of hundreds of taxpayer funded 501(c)(3)s has grown up around refugee resettlement in the U.S. A recent government-sponsored study finds "U.S. resettlement communities are awash with ECBOs that exist in name only but provide little meaningful assistance." ("Practitioner Lessons from Ethnic Community Self-Help Programs," ISED Solutions, August 2009) Some of the ECBOs (Ethnic Community Based Organizations) apparently exist only to bring in grants and contracts for themselves. But this will not be mentioned in the flurry of meetings, memoranda, and recommendations around an initiative to "help restore the capacity of the US Refugee Program to serve increased...

Wake up to the West Texas Organizing Strategy (WTOS) Businesses, institutions and politicians need to learn the difference between communities of interest and radical political groups masquerading as such.As was discussed on Pratt on Texas back in 2007, the West Texas Organizing Strategy is an official arm of the radical Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation. You’ll find them listed on the IAF’s website among a few dozen other hives of Saul Alinsky socialist groups around the nation. That Lubbock has one should be a concern to Liberty lovers.From the IAF website: “The current generation of IAF organizations began in the mid-1970's...

UPDATE: 4:00 P.M. Click here for the Fox News segment from this afternoon. Fox News’ Megyn Kelly has finally broken the wall of silence on major news coverage of the brutal beating of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s top fundraising staffer. A full transcript follows below. Della Burning, mother of Jindal staffer Allee Bautsch, confirmed that her daughter had been savagely beaten. She refused to discuss whether or not politics were involved (although at one point in the interview she did say the report was “accurate” when New Orleans Police Information Officer said slurs hurled at her daughter during the attack...

When U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and his aides walked into Cardinal Daniel DiNardo's conference room at the Catholic Chancery one afternoon three weeks ago to talk about immigration reform, they were greeted by the archbishop, Lutheran Bishop Michael Rinehart and a dozen rabbis and clergy members from a variety of denominations. They were also greeted by about 6,000 postcards piled in stacks on the large conference table around which the group would sit.... At a time when anger is the currency of the political realm, much of it aimed at illegal immigrants, the religious leaders were saying to Cornyn that...

ACORN may be fading away, thanks to government restrictions on its funding in the wake of the scandal in which its counselors advised undercover journalists on how to evade the law. But this does nothing to change the environment that propelled the radical activist group to national power. ACORN is part of a huge network of nonprofits that continues to promote a big-government agenda in cities across America using taxpayer money. That network is alive and well today, even if ACORN itself dies. This movement's roots go back to the godfather of community organizing, Chicago's Saul Alinsky, who in the...

Mayhem spreads throughout city overnight after meetings to end violence November 15, 2009 7:51 AM After community activists pleaded Saturday for a day without killing, violence erupted throughout the city after the stroke of midnight on Sunday, leaving at least two people dead and several injured. At about 12:06 a.m., Frederick Evans, 20, of the 6800 block of South Ada Street was found shot to death in an alley in the 500 block of West 58th Street. He was shot in his back and chest. Witnesses told police Evans was involved in a dice game shortly before midnight, according to...

The National Education Association has made a glowing assessment of radical socialist community organizer Saul Alinsky and is enthusiastically recommending American public school teachers read two of his books, including one dedicated to Satan. On its website, the NEA dubs Alinsky "an inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!" It recommends Alinsky's "Reveille for Radicals," a 1946 book about the principles and tactics of "community organizing," and "Rules for Radicals," a 1971 text that articulated a socialist strategy for gaining political power to redistribute wealth from the "haves" to the "have-nots." The NEA, the largest...

In the midst of New York's 23rd District race, a disturbing amendment allowing inmates to volunteer for non-profits was given the thumbs up from New York voters by an overwhelming 67 percent. According to the New York Times, The amendement would allow New York's State Legislature to write a law allowing prisoners to volunteer at churches, social service groups, and other nonprofit organizations. As of December of 2008, around 60,000 inmates are currently serving time in the state's correctional facilities, according to New York's Department of Correction

East Bay ACORN chapters have shut down many of their local services as a result of the national scandal surrounding voter registration fraud and videotapes shot by undercover conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp, in which the organization's workers offer advice about cheating on taxes and operating a brothel with underage immigrant girls. "We do a lot of good work in the community for low- and moderate-income families and minorities," said Contra Costa ACORN Director John Adams. "But whatever perception is out there about ACORN nationally hurts us locally." ACORN has offices in Oakland and Richmond; each...

With the revelation that White House Director of Political Affairs, Patrick Gaspard, has close ties to Bertha Lewis and to ACORN, Matthew Vadum and Erick Erickson appear to be onto something significant. While the Gaspard matter needs further investigation before we form any hard conclusions, it certainly seems to confirm that President Obama’s ties to a whole series of ACORN-controlled organizations are neither minor nor by any means long-past. In fact, making use of what Erickson and Vadum have discovered about Gaspard, we can trace these links still further. There’s been a good deal of attention to ACORN of late,...

I have pieced together how much ACORN staff members make and what does the Job entails. All information from ACORN.

In the war on the czars, Glenn Beck and the GOP are picking up reinforcements from an unlikely source: the Democratic Party. The Fox News host and leading Republican lawmakers have been hammering President Barack Obama for weeks over a proliferation of policy “czars” — presidential appointees who don’t have to be confirmed by the Senate and aren’t easily held to account by Senate oversight committees. Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin joined the anti-czar chorus Wednesday, asking Obama to detail the roles and responsibilities of all of the czars in his administration and to explain why he believes the...

UNDERCOVER journal ism is only acceptable when it fits a liberal agenda. That's the message from professional reporters and left-wing activists outraged by the successful video stings targeting President Obama's old friends at the left-wing, tax-subsidized outfit ACORN. Summing up the ACORN Housing Corp. philosophy, a Brooklyn ACORN official told BigGovernment.com's James O'Keefe (playing a pimp) and Hannah Giles (posing as a prostitute) bluntly: "Honesty is not going to get you the house." ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson blasted the investigation as gotcha journalism. That would be gotcha multiplied by at least five: The pair has so far caught ACORN operatives...

As ACORN grapples with a scandal that in recent days has led the Census Bureau to sever ties and the Senate to block housing funding , other groups with similar stated goals are left to wonder how the fallout might affect them. But the group is on its heels after conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos .... The Senate voted 83-7 Monday to block Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN. ....Housing and Urban Development Department ... provides funding to 25 groups that, like ACORN, have a national profile and similar...

Oversight: As the Senate votes to de-fund Acorn, add pimping, tax evasion and human trafficking to voter fraud paid for with taxpayer dollars and you have an organized criminal enterprise. It's time to investigate.After Acorn workers were caught on tape in three cities allegedly abetting what they believed was a fraudulent-mortgage and sex-trafficking scheme, the Senate has voted overwhelmingly to strip the group of funding in the Transportation/Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. The amendment, offered by Nebraska Republican Sen. Mike Johanns, passed by an 83-to-7 margin and marked the third time this year that Republicans have tried to block...

Stimulus: The group that pushed banks into the risky loans that brought the economy down is now eligible for a huge chunk of stimulus cash. The stimulus plan does create jobs — for community activists.As in any agreement, contract or piece of legislation, the devil is in the details. So it is with the stimulus package percolating in Congress. Analysts are beginning to figure out that only a small percentage of the money will actually trickle down into the economy in the first two years, not enough to do much stimulating. Yet in this package is a $4 billion pot...

The scandal surrounding the left-wing activist organization ACORN has spread to New York, with employees at its Brooklyn office caught on video helping supposed ladies of the night get loans for their dream houses of ill repute. Rather than reminding the women that prostitution is dangerous and illegal and advising them to change their careers, counselors at the social-services group shockingly offer suggestions on how they can launder their earnings.

One day after two ACORN officials in Baltimore were fired for offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute to engage in child prostitution and a series of tax crimes, another secretly shot videotape has surfaced that shows the same couple getting similar advice from ACORN officers in Washington. The newly released videotape, shot on July 25, shows ACORN staffers explaining to the pair how they can hide the woman's professed work — prostitution — and get a loan that will help them establish a brothel. James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as the...

I think a lot of people are missing something here, I hoped I could bring focus to it more. This girl Kenya is trying to buy a house. That gets lost in the child prostitution part(and for good reason) but what it does is expose a part of the mortgage crisis that us conservatives have talked about for a while. ACORN couldn't do what it's doing without all the help it gets from government. Not just the 501c3 status, but also all the laws on the books that make way for politically correct loans. Now let's say this all actually...

<p>ACORN officials offered to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents, according to an audiotape acquired by FOXNews.com.</p>

Monday, August 24, 2009 A Texas woman faces trial this month in Austin on charges she threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated an Austin-based group that planned to bomb the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., last fall. Katyanne Marie Kibby, 25, was indicted in June by a federal grand jury in Austin. She is accused of retaliating against Brandon Darby, the community activist-turned-informant who helped federal prosecutors win convictions against Bradley Neal Crowder, 24, and David Guy McKay, 23. Prosecutors say the e-mail threat was made Jan. 10. That was two days after Crowder reached a...

When I attended the last Chicago Olympics town hall, I met Holly Krig, of the Northside Action for Justice, a group that bills itself as... a grassroots, member-controlled organization that builds power for low and moderate income people in order to advance the cause of economic and social justice on the north side of Chicago and across the globe.

Southwest Detectives are going door to door trying to get information about a robbery and assault that left a 100-year-old man beaten to the ground. According to police, the disturbing attack happened in broad daylight on the 6700 block of Grovers Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia. "He placed his hands around his neck, threw him to the ground and began striking his head against the cement sidewalk," said Lt. John Walker. "He took the man's groceries and $30 out of his pocket and fled on foot." Neighbors, who said the man was "very nice" and "friendly," are shocked and concerned that...

There's a certain irony here. The 20th-century community organizer who used 21st-century tools for his people-powered White House campaign now finds himself besieged by citizens airing their grievances at 19th-century-inspired town-hall-style meetings. Barack Obama's top legislative goal hangs in the balance and his popularity is suffering as critics co-opt his tech-savvy organizing methods, tag him as a boogeyman and disrupt local gatherings on his proposed health care overhaul. Is the groundbreaking campaigner, whose White House political arm is aptly called Organizing for America, being outmaneuvered? "That's a fair summary of where things are at the moment," said Sanford Horwitt, a...

WAVE: Apply Now YES! I want to help lead the strongest movement of working families in America. Individuals interested in employment with SEIU's organizing department should complete this application form. Please fill out all the fields. Applications without a full resume and cover letter will not be considered for this program.

In the unfolding economic crisis, helping borrowers with troubled mortgages has become a growth business, landing Charlotte a dose of good economic news today for its beleaguered financial sector. At an office park in east Charlotte, Gov. Bev Perdue and other government officials gathered to announce an expansion by a non-profit organization that aims to add 1,014 jobs here over the next five years. Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, a nonprofit community advocacy and homeownership organization, plans to hire customer service specialists, mortgage counselors, negotiators and others to help low-income and minority borrowers. NACA, as the organization is known,...

Gov. Bev Perdue will be in Charlotte this morning for a “significant economic development announcement,” the head of the Charlotte Chamber said Wednesday. Chamber President Bob Morgan said that he, Perdue and local elected officials will gather at 9:30 a.m. on the fourth floor of 5855 Executive Center Drive. Morgan declined to say more, but the address is the same as the Charlotte office of the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America. Based in Boston, NACA is a national affordable lending program that focuses on low- and moderate-income families and properties. It offers loans with no down payments, closings costs or...

MAS' Esam Omeish Seeks Virginia Office Campaign Mum on MAS Ties, Radical Omeish Speeches IPT News May 1, 2009 The last time the public got a good look at Esam Omeish, he was resigning from a Virginia immigration panel, claiming that the posting of videos showing him praising Palestinians who chose "the jihad way" to liberate their land was part of a smear campaign against him. Now Omeish is diving into the deep end of smear campaigns, offering himself as a candidate for a partisan legislative seat in Northern Virginia. Omeish is among four Democrats vying to win their party's...

was in Vermont the other day and made the mistake of picking up the local paper. Impressively, it contained a quarter-page ad, a rare sight these days. The rest of the page was made up by in-house promotions for the advertising department's special offer on yard-sale announcements, etc. But the one real advertisement was from something called SEVCA. SEVCA is a nonprofit agency, just like the New York Times, General Motors Corp. and the State of California. And it stands for "Southeastern Vermont Community Action." Why, they're community organizers, just like the president! The designated "anti-poverty agency" is taking out...

Democrats are split on how to deal with Acorn, the liberal "community organizing" group that deployed thousands of get-out-the-vote workers last election. State and city Democratic officials -- who've been contending with its many scandals -- are moving against it. Washington Democrats are still sweeping Acorn abuses under a rug. On Monday, Nevada officials charged Acorn, its regional director and its Las Vegas field director with submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms last year. Larry Lomax, the registrar of voters in Las Vegas, says he believes 48% of Acorn's forms "are clearly fraudulent." On Thursday, prosecutors in Pittsburgh, Pa.,...

Obama signs huge expansion of youth brigades legislation © 2009 WorldNetDaily President Obama today signed into law the "GIVE Act," H.R. 1388, which massively expands the National Service Corporation and allocates to it billions of dollars, and one executive for the program now says it will allow for the "managing" of up to 8 or 9 million people. WND has reported on plans to create the corps since Obama told a campaign stop in Colorado Springs last year he wants a "Civilian National Security Force" as big and as well-funded as the U.S. military. The bill includes a "National Service...

“A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.” — Bertrand de Jouvenel Watching the increasingly rapacious conduct of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations) over the past few years and the considerable power and funds being gifted to it by this administration — while the press and Congress largely remain silent — I fear we are most surely heading into a government run by wolves. ACORN’s role in the past two presidential elections has hardly received the kind of coverage a press concerned about protecting the right to free elections would have accorded it. Aside from some...

Members of Congress heard testimony against the activist group ACORN on Thursday, exposing the group's illegal activity and mafia-style tactics. Pittsburgh lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh appeared before the a House Judiciary subcommittee alleging that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has violated campaign finance and tax laws in addition to their protest-for-hire and coerced donations. The source of the accusations was from the sworn testimony of ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief, who was a clerk for ACORN's sister organization called Project Vote. MonCrief, a Democrat and Obama supporter, testified last year that Barack Obama's campaign gave Project Vote a...

Through the holidays and beyond, high school students will be working feverishly to serve the needy — packing food baskets, ladling meals at soup kitchens, collecting toys for children in hospitals — all in the name of amassing the community service credits they need for graduation. Cynics call these programs a form of forced altruism. Proponents say that they widen students’ horizons while getting service work done. Either way, the backlash has begun: not only do college admissions officers roll their eyes at bogus-sounding claims, but high schools are scaling back the requirements, acknowledging that a lot of the so-called...