Free Republic

Looks like all those years of performing for Democratic candidates has paid off: President Obama is tapping rocker Jon Bon Jovi to serve on a new presidential advisory council. The White House announced Tuesday that Bon Jovi (or is it just Jovi?) will join the new 25-member White House Council for Community Solutions, a panel established to provide advice on "the best ways to mobilize citizens, nonprofits, businesses and government to work more effectively together to solve specific community needs."(continued)

A troubling headline at the Cincinnati Enquirer: Schism develops over Catholic campaignA 'schism' is a clear break in the Church as a response to heresy. 'Heresy' is a clear rejection of a dogma of the Church. Rich Leonardi, of Ten Reasons, is quoted: "The groups funded are consistently highly political and always political in one direction." And... "You end up with these very hard left groups with a very partisan agenda." Does that indicate a charge of 'heresy'? It's debatable. Tony Stieritz, director of social action at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, whose office Mr. Leonardi claims "sponsored a talk by a...

At LifeSiteNews there’s an intriguing report about happenings within the Chicago office of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development [CCHD]. I recommend the article in full, but would like to make a few observations. Rey Flores did a lot to reform Chicago CCHD. I appreciate the good reforms he made there and wish he had not been fired from his job. Having said that, it is not okay to continue to fund community organizing such as the protests against the Arizona Diamondbacks. (See here for my report at NewsRealBlog on that.) I was told by more than one friend within...

How to Create a Crisis and Steal a NationBy Aristotle the Hun, The Rev. Big Goon and Good Shepherd Sam Note: It will quickly be obvious to the reader why details have been obscured, omitted or fictionalized in this narrative of events that began nearly forty years ago. "Se non è vero, è ben trovato." Even small children know how to get what they want by creating a crisis. Witness any “temper tantrum.” My wife and I teach parenting skills. One of our sayings which we recommend to parents when dealing with a child’s “crisis strategy” is: “Poor planning...

Like Freddie or a bad penny, they just won’t go away. Despite numerous federal investigations and a series of videos that exposed unethical behavior (among them, one showing ACORN employees facilitating under age prostitution) … these “Community” organizers, aka Obama Get Out The Vote Campaign, ACORN has just rebranded itself … and yes, here in New England too. Apart from Communities United, ACORN chapters in 12 states have reorganized themselves into 11 new organizations. The largest appear to be Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, New York Communities for Change, and New England United for Justice (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island).

The Cambridge, Massachusetts Climate Emergency Congress (CEC) is more than a grassroots group of out-of-touch leftists. Rather, it is a casebook study of a new movement of "climate community activism" that pushes sustainability issues in municipal governments. It is a worldwide movement that bears watching. The largest player in this movement was founded in 1990 to fight ozone pollution under the name "International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives." It is now known as the ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability. ICLEI is a global organization of 1,124 municipalities and regional organizations. The Clinton Foundation's Climate Initiative is also a major force in...

"A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children - the youngest a third-grade boy - was a far-left political extremist who was "obsessed" with President Obama to the point of being off-putting."--Boston Herald, February 15, 2010 'Oddball' portrait of Amy Bishop emerges:http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100215oddball_protrait_emerges_suspects_family_pals_offer_clues/srvc=home&position=0___________________________________________________ "The woman accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville was a suspect in a 1993 attempted mail bombing, according to a report by The Boston Globe. The report broke the day after it was learned that Bishop fatally shot her brother in Braintree in 1986. More than fifteen years ago,...

Since the election of our first ex-community organizer as President, organizing for progressive change has declined. The reasons range from sharply reduced funding for organizers, to complacency after Democrats’ sweeping 2008 victories, to labor unions being forced to focus on protecting current workers from contract givebacks rather than organizing new members. The net result is that grassroots organizing – which prioritizes face-to-face contacts with the unconverted, empowers people rather than simply asking them to fulfill a task, and builds local coalitions for pressure campaigns targeting politicians – is being replaced by less effective e-mail mobilizations and other short-cuts. As the...

A race for mayor of Atlanta headed for a recount on Wednesday after a knife-edge election that exposed a racial fault line running through the biggest city in the U.S. Southeast. Former state Senator Kasim Reed declared victory overnight when official results from the runoff vote showed him beating city councilwoman Mary Norwood by 758 votes out of 83,000 cast. But Norwood declined to concede defeat and is almost certain to demand a recount under rules that permit one when less than 1 percent of votes cast separates the candidates. Norwood, who led an initial round of voting November 3,...

A three-story downtown warehouse, initially planned as a condo conversion project, is being sold to a local nonprofit agency for its new headquarters. An investors group organized by Dave Jorgensen, a partner in VJS Construction Services, is selling the 45,000-square-foot building at 728 N. James Lovell St. to Community Advocates Inc. for $1.8 million, said Joe Volk, the agency's executive director. Community Advocates, which helps the poor deal with tenant-landlord disputes, problems with obtaining health care, and other basic needs, plans to renovate the building for its headquarters, Volk said Tuesday. The project will consolidate the group's main office, now...

InsideHigherEd.com writes: In the last few years, a conservative legal organization [Ed. -- Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation] has filed complaints and extensive information requests to at least 11 colleges and universities with regard to labor centers that conduct research about and offer programs for unions. ... The [American Association of University Professors'] statement questioned the basis for the Landmark actions and said that the association was trying to undercut the labor centers by waging an ideological attack on them. Further, the statement noted that colleges and universities have a range of offerings for different organizations in society, and that...

Can You Say Brook(en)? by: Bethany Stotts, October 09, 2009 What type of degree prepares students for community organizing? The California-based Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center adds another clue as to the type of training received by community activists of a left-leaning demeanor. Students with a Saybrook Human Science degree “may design a unique transdisciplinary plan to focus on individual academic and professional goals,” states the school website. “Graduates have studied such diverse topics as gender and violence; metaphysics and altered states of consciousness; alternative health; popular media and culture; technology; architecture; the meaning of sports; bio-ethics and...

The Obama Administration has placed a large premium on what it calls “national service.” It has launched a website, www.Serve.gov, that is reported to act as a clearing house for Americans eager to “give back” to their communities. Unfortunately, Americans looking for an opportunity to volunteer may get something they weren’t expecting. By typing “ACORN” into the search field entitled “What interests you” at Serve.gov, you’re transported to allforgood.org where you can choose from a list of volunteer opportunities, including “healthcare activist.” This particular “volunteer” opportunity is with the Tuscon ACORN office: ________________________________________________ Also, Obama has set up http://www.servir.gov/, the...

UPDATE! 8/4/09 The Apollo Alliance has now ADMITTED that they wrote the Stimulus Bill AND the Cap and Trade Bill. It will only be a matter of time before America learns THEY wrote the Healthcare Bill too!

As the Health Care Reform Town Hall meetings and Tea Parties heat up and the August Congressional summer session winds down, conservatives finally have a play book to help them gain traction on the slippery slope to socialism that they feel this country appears to be heading. “Rules for Conservative Radicals,” written by Michael Patrick Leahy (www.michaelpatrickleahy.com) takes the Alinsky viewpoints expressed in “Rules for Radicals,” and puts a moral, ethical, conservative spin on them.

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry. This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year's election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but...

Last month House Republicans released a report telling us something we all know, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN) has been engaging schemes to use misuse taxpayer money to support a partisan political agenda. The executive summary of the report includes this charge. "Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan agenda and to manipulate the American electorate," The report accuses ACORN of fraudulent activities, widespread corruption and calls for a...

Voter Fraud: Republican leaders want to defund and criminally investigate ACORN. Why should taxpayer dollars fund a "nonpartisan" organization that proclaims "Obama needs ACORN, and we need Obama."That the greatest attempt at voter fraud in the nation's history is being funded in large part at taxpayer's expense is more than a bit ironic. House Minority Leader John Boehner wants it stopped and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wants the group allegedly behind the fraud, ACORN, criminally investigated and prosecuted. ACORN calls itself a "nonpartisan" group seeking to register minorities and the poor. But its political arm has endorsed Barack Obama, who...

Public Discourse: The candidate who told his supporters "to argue with them and get in their face" now finds the shoe on the other foot. So they're taking names and encouraging you to turn in your neighbors.So this is hope and change — telling American citizens who in a democracy disagree with you that they are mind-numbed robots participating in mob action and expressing "manufactured" outrage. Considering that upward of 80% of those hooligans like their doctors, like their insurance and like their care, anger over your government-run health care was not that hard to assemble. It was not that...

Didn’t Barack Obama claim that community organizing was the most important part of his early political life? Wasn’t his work for ACORN presented as one of the chief qualifications for his becoming president? So, now that he’s won, how can this administration rail against Americans coming together in community organizations to oppose his healthcare policies? Isn’t organizing good? This is the same man that during the late campaign for president told his voters to “argue” with your neighbors and “get in their faces.” Now, all of a sudden, this is a president that is urging people to turn in their...