Several years ago, liberal majorities in the House & Senate (and Clinton as well as a economically left-leaning Bush) urged loose lending standards to borrowers previously considered unqualified.

http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/08/25/new-york-times-on-fannie-mae-in-1999-loose-lending/

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203633104576623083437396142.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_News_BlogsModule

Mistake #2

Wall Street gambled on this government-backed (Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac) game, and failed.

http://reason.com/archives/2008/10/01/the-roots-of-the-crisis

Mistake #3

Instead of letting them fail, the Keynesians came in and bailed them out.

http://www.htrnews.com/article/20111014/MAN0601/110140592/Other-views-Why-we-should-angry-Wall-Street

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc&feature=player_embedded

Mistake #4

Enormous U.S. government financial obligations, present and future, helped to precipitate the large economic downturn.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

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http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/03/news/economy/fiscal_commission_plan_breakdown/index.htm?iid=EL

Mistake #5

Then, misguided “economic” policies enacted under the near complete liberal control of the House, Senate and Executive branches of the U.S. government, further entrenched the economy in the existing recession.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-louis-xv-budget/2011/02/17/ABtfSnQ_story.html

Now, seeing their elected President fail to revive economic vitality after 3 years, liberals gather to “Occupy Wall Street,” in an attempt to pin all of the blame on Wall Street.

Rightly, some of the blame belongs with Wall Street.  However, Wall Street only represents Mistake #2.  We The People could have prevented Mistakes #1, 3, 4, and 5 by taking control of our government, which would have greatly nullified or perhaps completely prevented Mistake #2- it is unlikely that Wall Street would have leveraged up so high on Mortgage-Backed Securities, if they hadn’t been guaranteed by theU.S.government.  And even ignoring that, the consequences would not have entrenched the economy this deep in recession for this long had Mistakes #3, 4, and 5 not occurred.

So now we see the Occupy Wall Street protest, a largely peaceful protest movement against social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of corporate money and lobbyists on government.

The part of the protest against the influence of corporate money and lobbyists on government is one that both the political right and left could agree on.  This influence likely contributed to Mistakes #1, 2, 3, 4 & 5.  If that was the exclusive focus of the protest, it would be a much larger and more powerful protest, and one I would whole-heartedly support.

Any part about Corporate Greed above and beyond, or separate from, the government influence part of the protest, is ridiculous.  We live in an economically free country and that’s that.  But this part of the protest against Corporate Greed is real, and leads us to the 3^rd part of the protest’s focus: Social and Economic Inequality

Here’s where the Economic Socialists joined (or perhaps started) the protest.  Many in the Occupy Wall Street movement are active because they believe that the answer to our economic problems lies in government force.  They want the government to step in and take money from some people and give it to others.  This is done in the form of taxes, health care legislation, housing programs (see Mistake #1).  This is called Socialism and has failed in every instance throughout history, often with horrific conclusions.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has garnered greater attention in the recent days, due to reports of police brutality occurring against peaceful protestors.  It is true that some police brutality has occurred in a few isolated instances, which is despicable.  However, much of the police brutality depicted in the media, particularly in online videos and blogs, is dishonestly depicted, leaving out possible motives for police intervention- such as:

“…in New York , Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said police had arrested 14 demonstrators, after they sat down in roadways blocking traffic, overturned trash bins, knocked over a police scooter and hurled bottles.” http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/14/us/occupy-wall-street/?hpt=ibu_c2

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“Cops put barricades up on the sidewalk….As organizers attempted to have an assembly behind barricades…chaos broke out and several people were pepper sprayed. Even more were arrested.

At the same time, a violent conflict erupted between police and organizers spanning the length of the park on Broadway. The tension rose until one man, who demonstrators say threw something at a cop, sprinted through the park.”  http://censorshipinamerica.com/2011/10/06/footage-surfaces-of-police-brutality-at-occupy-wall-street-rally/

Of course there are dozens of incidents that could be shared, but let’s draw some conclusions that all reasonable people can agree on:

In the 2 instance above, police force was instigated only after laws were broken (blocking traffic, crossing barricades), including chaotic behavioral displays (knocking over police vehicle and throwing bottles, throwing an object at police).

In other instances, perhaps most publicly in the Bolognacase, it is likely that real police brutality occurred in a gross way.  Of course these cases are inexcusable.  I was, however,  heartened to hear that an investigation by the DA’s office is already under way. http://www.observer.com/2011/09/did-bologna-use-too-much-pepper-spray-district-attorneys-office-investigates/

Golf Course Rock Art- Take Hwy 191 South to the golf course turn off (about 4 miles from Main & Center).  Turn left and go to Spanish Trail Road (about 1 mile just past the fire station).  Go straight through the roundabout onto Westwater Drive.

Go ½ mile to a small pullout on the left.

Rock Art Panel is from Ground to 30 ft high x 90 ft wide. (“Reindeer & sled” on far right).

Birthing Scene- Take Kane Creek Drive (By McDonalds, at the corner of Main & Kane Creek Drive, turn West and go .8 miles to the intersection of Kane Creek Drive and 500 West (set odometer at 0.00).

Stay left and go on Kane Creek Drive for 2.3 miles  (here is a rock art site w/ protective fence).  Go another 1.2 miles (another rock art site- easier seen on the trip back).

Keep going past the cattle guard, pavement turns to graded gravel.

1.7 miles past the cattle guard there will be 2 very small pullouts just before the road goes up a hill. (There is more parking up the hill.)  The obvious boulder just down below the road about 75 feet west has the rock art.

MOAB  JEEP TRAILS

One good place to rent is Moab Tour Company http://www.moabtourcompany.us/id29.html

Shafer Trail (Easy) (Shafer trail to Canyonlands’ Mesa Arch, then return to Moab via Long Canyon trail.) 2 ½ hours & need 4 wheel drive (narrow and bumpy and would probably put quite a strain on the suspension of a standard passenger car.)

From Moab, head north on Highway 191. Turn left on Potash Road\ Highway 279. Continue south on this road for about 16.5 miles until the pavement ends. You’ll find the trailhead here.  Distance to trailhead- 18.2 miles. 2 hours. Point to point, but can be done as a loop with Long Canyon. Find the trailhead off Potash Road\Highway 279, about 16.5 miles from its junction with Highway 191.

From Moab, go north on U.S. Highway 191 to its junction with Utah Highway 279.                Turn left on Highway 279 and go all the way to its end at the potash plant.                                  The route turns to dirt road, and starts climbing up terraces along the Colorado River.                   The road passes the evaporation ponds of the potash plant.
The road enters Canyonlands National Park.  The Shafer/Long Canyon Loop ascends the Shafer Road in a series of long, stunning switchbacks.                                                                 The road ascends to the mesa top, joining the paved road in Canyonlands National Park.

Optional: short detour to Musselman Arch (45 minutes round-trip). Take a left on the WhiteRim trail (pass the bathroom) for 3.1 miles and there is a sign then go back to the intersection and continue up the Shafer trail.  Excellent & highly recommended.  Easy to find—there are good signs directing you where to go.  On the way to Musselman is a sign for a short walk to Gooseneck point – not bad, but Musselman Arch is highly recommended.

While you’re in Canyonlands, stop and do the Mesa Arch trail.  ½ mile roundtrip- easy hike.

Return via Long Canyon (Easy/intermediate)- 45 minutes-

Turn right (north), and travel approximately 5 miles to the intersection with Highway 313.  Turn right on Highway 313 toward Dead Horse Point State Park.                                              Go about two miles- then turn left onto an improved dirt road.                                                This is the Long Canyon Road. Follow it across the mesa top to a view of the red rock fins near Moab. The road then descends steeply into Long Canyon.                                          The Long Canyon Road rejoins Utah Highway 279.                                                                 Turn left on this to return to Moab.

Gemini Bridges (Easy)- – 48 miles, 14 miles of off-road, 2 ½ hours.

- From center of Moab, go North on Highway 191 for 9.8 miles (about 5 miles past Arches entrance)- turn left across a cattle guard near an old ore car by RR tracks (set your odometer 0.0).  Cross the tracks, turn left and parallel the tracks, then veer right toward the cliffs and climb towards Little Canyon (gap in Rim).  Stay on best trails (avoid strong spur trail leading left into a side canyon).

Turn right (straight) from the “Wash Bottom” area (4.8 mile mark) to climb the steep dugway.  Trail passes a gate and winds higher.  Stay on main trail as spurs leave to the left and then at the fork (6.2 mile mark), avoid the good road to the left that leads to lower Bull Canyon). Take the Right Fork (6.2 mile mark) in a sweeping bend to the right.  Winding higher, ignore 2 spurs left.  At the “Y” junction (7.4 miles)- Keep Left & follow markings.  At 6.8 Mile Mark, deep hole in canyon wall (twin spans).  Return part way toward “Y” junction, but take the short-cut (8.0 Mile Mark) to the left, joining the main trail (which is the right-hand fork of the “Y.”).  Turn left on this main trail (8.1 Mile Mark).  Travel a graded road westerly to Highway 313 (13.8 Mile Mark).

Turn right and head back to Highway 191 or turn left to go to Dead Horse Point & Island in the Sky.

A left turn also takes you to the Long Canyon trail, which is another way back to Moab.  Once you’ve turned left onto the highway and gone a little ways, you’ll take the Dead Horse Point turnoff, then after going about another 2 miles on the Dead Horse Viewpoint road, you’ll turn-off the highway onto a dirt road on the left.  Head straight on the dirt road and don’t turn left or right (As you travel the dirt road, you’ll avoid turning at the first 2 left turns, then avoid a right turn, then avoid another left turn, then avoid 2 more right turns—soon you’ll be heading naturally left and looking to your right down into a canyon.  You’ll come down a steep narrows area then come out on a gentler road and pass under a huge boulder soon connecting back to the paved road.  Turn left to be back in Moab in a few minutes.

Tusher Tunnel (Easy) (branches off from 3D Trail)- Head towards Arches N.P. from Moab.  Then going past Arches, go a total of about 17.5 miles from Moab to the turnoff to the Mill Canyon Road (just South of the airport).  Turn left onto Mill Canyon road & follow the signs of the 3D trail until you come to a distinct fork in the road. Tusher Tunnel is found by traveling on the left fork for a couple hundred yards.

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3D Trail (Moderate 3)- To get to the 3D trail, take the Mill Canyon Road just South of the airport. Follow the signs of the 3D trail until you come to a distinct fork in the road. Obstacles: Not far beyond Courthouse Rock is Airport View Hill where a few stock vehicles that still carry highway tire-pressure may try more than once.

Fins & Things (Difficult 3 ½)

The best parts of the trail can be done without doing the whole trail.  About 1 ½ hours.  If you choose to just do these “best” parts, do the start and before long it crosses the main road,  exit on the main road and then go do the last loop on the trail.  It is easy to find these spots using the trail guide they give you at the sand flats pay booth, using the campsite letters on that map for guidance.

MOAB GOOD EATS

Love Muffin – 150 N Main

Great breakfast burritos & sandwiches—Open only for Breakfast & Lunch.

Zax Restaurant- 100 S Main

All you can eat buffet, but food & feel is more like a nice restaurant.

Pizza, salads, soup.

Milt’s Stop & Eat- take 3rd S towards Slickrock trail & turn right on 400 E – on your left on the corner of Mill Creek Dr.

Burgers, fries, shakes

President of The United States of America

“…when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

“…whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term. That determination, then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute.”

“I’ve got two daughters…. if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

“…I chose my friends carefully…The Marxist Professors…”

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal healthcare plan… A single-payer healthcare plan– universal healthcare plan. That’s what I’d like to see”

“He (President Obama)…opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage…and also believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation.”

White House’s Civil Rights website

“I went to socialist conferences…”         (Discussing his time at New York’s Columbia University, in the early 80s)

“…the Supreme Court never ventured into..redistribution of wealth…the Warren Court didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution…One of the..tragedies of the civil rights movement, was..there was a tendency to lose track of..activities..that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and..we still stuffer from that.”

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket..whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that (cost) on to consumers.”

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

“…the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day…the Framers had that same blind spot…the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.“

Rahm Emanuel

President Obama’s Chief of Staff

“…everyone..between 18 & 25 will serve 3 months of basic training and understanding..civil defense…a universal service…required of everybody”

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

John Holdren

President Obama’s Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy

“The fetus…given..experiences and..food during the..early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,”

“…laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution…”

“It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions…”

“Adding a sterilant to drinking water…To be acceptable…it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.”

“The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”

“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region…the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”

“…neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce…women could he required to bear children, just as men can constitutionally be required to serve in the armed forces…Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?”

Mark Lloyd

President Obama’s FCC Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer

“In Venezuela with Chavez, really an incredible revolution- a dramatic revolution – to begin to put in place, saying that “we’re going to have impact on the people of Venezuela”….and (Chavez) came back and had another revolution. And Chavez then started to take the media very seriously in this country.”

“There are few things I think more frightening in the American mind than dark skin black men. Here I am.”

“(Diversity requires asking) who is going to step down (so) someone else can have power?”

“…the Fairness Doctrine is not enough…unless you put some teeth into that..with some hard, structural rules in place that are going to result in fairness.”

(The above quote refers to the “Fairness Doctrine,” which is defined as the government imposition of responsibility on a broadcaster to provide coverage that the government deems to fairly reflect differing viewpoints.)

Kevin Jennings

President Obama’s Safe Schools Advisor

“I can envision a day when straight people say, ‘So what if you’re promoting homosexuality?’… That is our mission from this day forward.”

Harold Koh

President Obama’s pick for State Department’s legal adviser

“What role can transnational legal process play in affecting the behavior of several nations whose disobedience with international law has attracted global attention after September 11th — most prominently, North Korea, Iraq and our own country, the United States of America? For shorthand purposes, I will call these countries ‘the axis of disobedience.’”

Kenneth Feinberg

President Obama’s Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation, Treasury Appointment

“…I have discretion to decide what it is that these people should make…my determination will be final… Anything is possible under the law.”

Cass Sunstein

President Obama’s Close friend & Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

“We ought to ban hunting“

“Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine…fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms.”

“[Humans’] willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen … as a form of unconscionable barbarity…morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination of human beings.”

“A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.”

“Consider the view that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns.  The view..may be wrong…”

“If rats are able to suffer, then their interests are relevant to the question of how, and perhaps even whether, they can be expelled from houses.”

“I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views. The First Amendment should not stand as an obstacle to democratic efforts to accomplish these goals.”

“…an important but neglected part of America’s heritage: the idea of a second bill of rights…creating rights to employment, adequate food and clothing, decent shelter, education, recreation, and medical care.”

“Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust “government intervention” and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions.”

“It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise…or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid.”

Van Jones

Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in the White House, Presidential Appointment

Leading member of STORM, which described itself as having a “commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism…And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral.”

“By August, I was a communist.“

“I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.”

“I’m willing to forego the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of the radical ends.”

(When asked if he is a Marxist -in Feb. ’09)

“The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities.”

“Right after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat if the civil rights leaders had jumped out and said, ‘OK now we want reparations for slavery, we want redistribution of all the wealth, and we want to legalize mixed marriages.’ If we’d come out with a maximum program the very next day, they’d been laughed at. Instead they came out with a very minimum. ‘We just want to integrate these buses.’   But, inside that minimum demand was a very radical kernel that eventually meant that from 1964 to 1968 complete revolution was on the table for this country. And, I think that this green movement has to pursue those same steps and stages…So the green economy will start off as a small subset and we are going to push it and push it and push it until it becomes the engine for transforming the whole society.”

Valerie Jarrett

President Obama’s Senior Adviser

Anita Dunn

White House Communications Director

Manning Marable

Columbia University Professor

“Obama…understands what socialism is. A lot of the people working with him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party or as independent Marxists. There are a lot of people like that in Chicago who have worked with him for years.”

Sonia Sotomayor

President Obama’s Nominee for the Supreme Court

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

“Court of Appeals is where policy is made…and I know this is on tape and I should never say this…”

“…I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.”

Robert Reich

Chosen by Obama for his Transition Economic Advisory Board

Jeremiah Wright

President Obama’s pastor for 20 years

Wright said about Obama:  ”When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!”

Obama also said about Wright: “Did I ever hear him (Jeremiah Wright) make remarks that would be considered controversial while I sat in the church? Yes.”

Quotes by Wright:

“And they will not only attack you if you try to point out what’s going on in white America, the U.S. of KKK A.”

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant?! Because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our front yard? Americans chickens are coming home to roost.”

“The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

“Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people….Hillary would never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.”

“Grateful for the opportunity to bring you a word of Thanksgiving from those who don’t ordinarily get a hearing unless they go along with the program, sing in tune with whatever is the popular tune and stay in lockstep with the political pundits who tell us what is politically correct, what is permissible and what will be tolerated from a person of color in this land, the land of the greed and the home of the brave excuse me, the land of the greed and home of the slave…My work with liberation theology, with Latin American theologians, with the Black Theology Project and what the Cuban Council of Churches taught me 30 years ago the importance of Marx and the Marxist analysis of the sociologies of the vulnerable and the oppressed who were trying desperately to break free of the political economies undergirded by this country that were choking them and cutting off any hope of a possible future where all of the people would benefit.”

Michelle Obama

President Obama’s Wife

“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country…”

William Ayers

Close associate and supporter of the President, Obama launched his political career in Ayer’s home.

“I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”

George Soros

Andy Stern

President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

John Podesta

Podesta was appointed President and CEO of the Center for American Progress (CAP) at its founding on July 7, 2003. He was hand-picked for the job by CAP founders George Soros (see George Soros on this list as well) and Morton H. Halperin

“Van Jones (see Van Jones on this list as well a self-avowed radical revolutionary communist) is an exceptional and inspired leader who has fought to bring economic and environmental justice to communities across our country.”

Ron Bloom

President Obama’s Senior Advisor for Manufacturing

“Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense.”

Jim Wallis

Obama’s Spiritual Advisor

“We’ve [he and Obama] been talking faith and politics for a long time.”

“My Dorothy Day story happened in Chicago. She was just leaving as we were coming on the scene. So we were living in Chicago. So I ran 20 blocks. And in the parlor of the Catholic Worker— and in walks the great lady. Dorothy wrote a book about her life called “Love is the Measure.” But she wasn’t ever soft. Very tough. So you’re a radical student like me, right? You’re a Marxist like me, right?’  (I said) ‘Yeah’”

http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-advisor-jim-wallis-explores-wealth-marxism-social-justice/

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1833(scary stuff- background of Wallis’ open activism for Marxism)

Craig Becker

Nominated by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Obama’s “Card Check” Nominee Hits Road Block

Thomas Jefferson

“The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution.”

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

“I hope a tax will be preferred [to a loan which threatens to saddle us with a perpetual debt], because it will awaken the attention of the people and make reformation and economy the principle of the next election. The frequent recurrence of this chastening operation can alone restrain the propensity of governments to enlarge expense beyond income.”

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

“To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

Benjamin Franklin

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic.”

James Madison

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.””

“With respect to the 2 words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of the government- far from it.  We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Abraham Lincoln

“But new reapers will arise, and they, too, will seek a field. …And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?–Never! Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.–It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.”

“I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery].”

“I never mean to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by the Legislature, by which slavery in this Country may be abolished by slow, sure and imperceptible degrees.”

“It is demonstratively clear, that on this Estate [Mount Vernon] I have more working Negroes by a full moiety, than can be employed to any advantage in the farming system….To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species. To hire them out, is almost as bad, because they could not be disposed of in families to any advantage, and to disperse the families I have an aversion.”

“I have another motive that ‘is indeed more powerful than all the rest, namely to liberate a certain species of property which I possess…”

http://www.historynet.com/george-washington-his-troubles-with-slavery.htm

Thomas Jefferson

“Sir,—I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind to send me on the ‘Literature of Negroes.’ Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunity for the development of their genius were not favorable and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making toward their re-establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family. I pray you therefore to accept my thanks for the many instances you have enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the day of their relief; and to be assured of the sentiments of high and just esteem and consideration which I tender to yourself with all sincerity.”

(Letter of February 25, 1809 from Thomas Jefferson to French author Monsieur Gregoire, from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (H. A. Worthington, ed.), Volume V, p. 429. Citation and quote from Morris Kominsky, The Hoaxers, pp. 110–111.)

“I congratulate, you fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe.” ⁽ Fred L. Israel and J. F. Watts, Thomas Jefferson’s recommendation to end the African slave trade (1806)2000, pg 38)

“Nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition, not only of the trade, but of the condition of slavery; and certainly, nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object.” –Thomas Jefferson to Brissot de Warville, ME 6:428

“Do not mistake me. I am not advocating slavery. I am not justifying the wrongs we have committed on a foreign people… On the contrary, there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity.” –Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, ME 14:184 ⁽http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1290.htm)

“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.” (Autobiography, 1821)

James Madison

“We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” (Constitutional Convention, June 1787)

http://www.montpelier.org/explore/community/slavery_and_madison.php

“[The Convention] thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.” (Records of the Convention, August 25, 1787)

American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil. (State of the Union,1810)

Patrick Henry

“I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.” (letter to Robert Pleasants, January 18, 1773)

John Adams

“Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States … I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in … abhorrence.” (letter to Robert Evans, June 8, 1819)

John Jay

“It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.” (letter to R. Lushington, March 15, 1786)

William Livingston

“I would most ardently wish to become a member of it [the society in New York] and… I can safely promise them that neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity… May the great and the equal Father of the human race, who has expressly declared His abhorrence of oppression, and that He is no respecter of persons, succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.”

Charles Carroll

“[W]hy keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil.” (New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898, Vol. II, pg. 231.)

James Wilson

“Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law… The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all.” (The Works of James Wilson, Robert Green McCloskey, editor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), Vol. II, pg. 605.)

Alexander Hamilton

“The existence of slavery makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason or experience.” (http://www.c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/alexander_hamilton.html)

Benjamin Franklin

“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.” (An Address to the Public, November 1789)

Barrack Obama
President of The United States of America

1. “…I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

2. “…I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereo soul out and the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. “

3. “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal healthcare plan… A single-payer healthcare plan– universal healthcare plan. That’s what I’d like to see” (2003)

4. “Let’s say I proposed a plan that moved to a single-payer system, let’s say- ‘Medicare-Plus’ – essentially, everybody can buy into Medicare, for example.”

5. “I went to socialist conferences at Cooper Union and African cultural fairs in Brooklyn.”
(Discussing his time at New York’s Columbia University, in the early 80s)

6. “But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that, generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways, we still stuffer from that.”
(A caller, “Karen,” asked if it’s “too late for that kind of reparative work economically?” And she asked if that work should be done through the courts or through legislation.)
“Maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor…I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way.”

John Holdren
Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy

7. “The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being”

8. “I think ultimately the rate of growth of material consumption is going to have to come down and there’s going to have to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume in terms of energy and material resources in order to leave room for people who are poor to become more prosperous.”

Carol Browner
Assistant to the President, White House Office of Energy and Climate Change, Presidential Appointment, Established 2009, $172,200 Salary

Member of Socialist International (until 2008). She was one of 14 Socialist International leaders of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society.
(Socialist International changed her web mini-bio once she was named to head Obama’s energy team.)

Mark Lloyd
FCC Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer, Established 2009

9. “In Venezuela with Chavez, really an incredible revolution- a dramatic revolution – to begin to put in place, saying that “we’re going to have impact on the people of Venezuela”….the property owners and the folks who were then controlling the media in Venezuela rebelled- work(ed), frankly with folks here in the U.S. Government, worked to oust him….. and (he- Chavez) came back and had another revolution. And Chavez then started to take the media very seriously in this country.”

10. “(Diversity requires asking) who is going to step down (so) someone else can have power?”

Ron Bloom
Senior Advisor for Manufacturing

11. “Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they’re convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it’s an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend, you should get a dog.”

Kenneth Feinberg
Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation, Treasury Appointment, Established 2009

12. “The statute provides these guideposts, but the statute ultimately says I have discretion to decide what it is that these people should make and that my determination will be final… Anything is possible under the law.”

Cass Sunstein
Close friend of the President & Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

13. “In what sense in the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?… Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day …”

14. “My major aim in this book is to uncover an important but neglected part of America’s heritage: the idea of a second bill of rights. In brief, the second bill attempts to protect both opportunity and security, by creating rights to employment, adequate food and clothing, decent shelter, education, recreation, and medical care.”14. “Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust “government intervention” and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions.”

15. “It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise…or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid.”

Free Press
A Marxist group that worked with Obama to help develop his tech policies.
Free Press has three confirmed meetings now with Obama’s FCC to work on new Internet regulations. The FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, chose Free Press spokeswoman, Jen Howard, to be his press secretary.

Free Press also co-authored “The Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio.”

Robert McChesney founded “Free Press.” He is the former editor of “Monthly Review,” which he himself has described as one of the most important Marxist publications in the world. He is a backer of Hugo Chavez, the crackdown on the media, and even suggested that owners of a TV station that was critical of Chavez should be arrested for treason.
Robert McChesney quotes:
16. “Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to be necessarily part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself. Also, there is no real answer, but to remove, brick by brick, the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”

17. “We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it.”

18. “The fight against hyper-commercialism becomes especially pronounced in the area of digital communications.”

Van Jones
Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in the White House, Presidential Appointment, Established 2009

19. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th [1992], and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist.“

20. “I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.”In 1994, helped form a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia. They protested police brutality and got arrested for crashing through police barricades.

Van Jones was a founding & leading member of STORM, which described itself as having a “commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism.”

21. ‘We agreed with Lenin’s analysis of the state and the party,’ reads the manifesto. ‘And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Tse-tung and Amilcar Cabral.’ Cabral is the late Marxist revolutionary leader of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands. WND previously reported Jones named his son after Cabral and reportedly concludes every e-mail with a quote from the communist leader.

When asked if he is a Marxist -in Feb. ‘09:
22. “How is that capitalism working for you? How is that capitalism working for you? How is that capitalism working for you this year?… This movement is deeper than a solar panel, deeper than a solar panel. Don’t stop there. Don’t stop there. No, we’re going to change the whole system. We’re going to change the whole thing….In this stage of the struggle, and I’ll only speak to this stage of the struggle, I’m the best ….capitalist ever had. Thank you very much.
…And this won’t we have to prepare for this to be a long process even though it probably won’t be. We have to prepare ourselves. We can’t just push the people…We have to listen, listen, listen, listen. And then learn. And then co lead, try to coauthor a different future with folks. And we have to assume that’s going to take a long time, but sometimes what should have taken another 20 years, Barack Hussein Obama, can take a season…..And this won’t we have to prepare for this to be a long process even though it probably won’t be.”

23. “And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn’t want, where it was all hot and windy. Well, guess what? Renewable energy? Guess what, solar industry? Guess what wind industry? They now own and control 80 percent of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth! Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt.”

Valerie Jarrett
Senior Adviser to Obama
24. “Van Jones, we were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We’ve been watching him, really, for — it’s not that over — for as long as he has been active out in Oakland and all of the ways that he has — creative ideas that he has. And so now we have captured that and we have all of that energy and enthusiasm in the White House.”

Anita Dunn
White House Communications Director
25. “And then the third lesson and tip actually come from two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Tse-tung and Mother Teresa — not often coupled with each together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices. You’re going to challenge. You’re going to say, ‘Why not?’ You’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here’s the deal: These are your choices. They are no one else’s. In 1947, when Mao Tse-tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, ‘How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this against all of the odds against you?’ And Mao Zedong said, you know, ‘You fight your war, and I’ll fight mine.’”
(For a quick primer on Mao Tse-tung:
“Mao’s responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking.”
from: Fenby, Jonathan. Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present.

Jerry Kellman
In 1985, freshly graduated from Columbia University and working for a New York business consultant, Barack Obama decided to become a community organizer. He got a call from Jerry Kellman, an organizer working on Chicago’s far South Side…Kellman was looking for an organizer for the new Developing Communities Project (DCP), which would focus on black city neighborhoods…Obama moved to Chicago to be part of the Jerry Kellman organization as a community organizer…Kellman was a Saul Alinsky protege…Among the primary goals of Saul Alinsky, author of “Rules for Radicals” (and known as the “father of modern American radicalism”), was radical socialism and redistribution of wealth. Alinsky taught his proteges to “hide” their true goals by any means necessary. Lying was fine. The objective of Alinsky and Kellman was to turn people against the white establishment.
Michelle Obama’s Alinsky Connection Is Through Barack

Manning Marable
“Obama represents a generation of what might be called post-racial black politicians-by which I mean they espouse a politics that minimises matters of race. They do not like to talk about race and subsume it under the rubric of poverty and class. So they are generally left of centre, or liberal, on social and economic policy. Obama is a progressive liberal…What makes Obama different is that he has also been a community organiser. He has read left literature, including my works, and he understands what socialism is. A lot of the people working with him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party or as independent Marxists. There are a lot of people like that in Chicago who have worked with him for years…”

John L. McKnight
In the early to mid-1980s, McKnight helped train Barack Obama in the agitation/infiltration tactics of Alinsky, whose ‘Reveille for Radicals‘ has been a blueprint for the revolutionary activism of “community organizers” since its 1946 publication, as has Alinsky’s 1972 book ‘Rules for Radicals.‘ From McKnight and other expositors of the Alinsky method, Obama today claims to have received the “best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School.”
Discover the Networks: John L. McKnight

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
Discover the Networks: Democratic Socialists of America

Frank Marshall Davis
Father-figure to President Obama

Member of Communist Party USA (CPUSA) (In the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii) The CPUSA had tens of thousands of members, some of them covert agents who had penetrated the U.S. Government. It received secret subsidies from the old Soviet Union. There was a 601 page FBI file on him. Was a mentor to Obama from age 10-18.
Obama’s Mentor, Frank Marshall Davis

26. Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as “Frank.” and says Davis called college “An advanced degree in compromise” and warned Obama not to forget his “people” and not to “start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that ####.”

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.

Robert Reich
Economic advisor of Barrack Obama

27. “I will actually give you a speech…of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is and a candidate will never say, but what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where citizens were honored….Let me tell you a few things on healthcare. Look, we are we have the only healthcare system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. That’s true. And what I’m going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people, but that means you. Particularly you young people. Particularly you young, healthy people- you are going to have to pay more. And by the way, we are going to have to, if you are very old- we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive. So we’re going to let you die.”

Bernie Sanders

Obama campaigned for this self-avowed socialist.
Bernie and Barack

President Obama was ranked the most liberal senator in this article, even more liberal than self-avowed socialist Bernie Sanders:
National Journal’s 2007 Vote Ratings

Jeremiah Wright
Obama’s pastor for the past 20 years
28. “Grateful for the opportunity to bring you a word of Thanksgiving from those who don’t ordinarily get a hearing unless they go along with the program, sing in tune with whatever is the popular tune and stay in lockstep with the political pundits who tell us what is politically correct, what is permissible and what will be tolerated from a person of color in this land, the land of the greed and the home of the brave excuse me, the land of the greed and home of the slave…My work with liberation theology, with Latin American theologians, with the Black Theology Project and what the Cuban Council of Churches taught me 30 years ago the importance of Marx and the Marxist analysis of the sociologies of the vulnerable and the oppressed who were trying desperately to break free of the political economies undergirded by this country that were choking them and cutting off any hope of a possible future where all of the people would benefit.”

Michelle Obama
1st Lady

29. “Barack stood up that day (talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods), and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about ‘The world as it is’ and ‘The world as it should be…’…All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.”
(Compare this quote with quote from Saul Alinsky’s book, “Rules for Radicals:”
“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means… The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be.”
And
“What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, co-operation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health…We are talking about a mass power organization which will change the world…This means revolution.”

George Soros
4 visits to the White House in 2009
CNSNews.com reports that, “Not only did Soros donate to Obama’s campaign, but four other family members – Jennifer, sons Jonathan and Robert and wife Susan – did as well. Because of a special provision campaign finance laws, the Soroses were able to give a collective $60,000 to Obama during his primary challenge.”  http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/2009/08/barack-obama-gives-kicback-to-george-soros.html

30. “No, I think this would be the time because you really need to bring China into the creation of a new world order, financial world order.”

Andy Stern
22 Visits to the White House in 2009
President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
31. “And we are beginning, we have offices now in Australia and in Switzerland, in London, in South America, in Africa. We’ve been working with unions around the world. And what we’re working towards is building a global organization because workers of the world unite. It’s not just a slogan anymore. It’s a way we’re going to have to do our work…We’re trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll use the persuasion of power because there are governments and there are opportunities to change laws that effect these companies. I’m not naive. We’re ready to strike… (reporter asked: ‘It started last summer with the so called big box. Labor wanted it; business didn’t.’) We took names. We watched how they voted. We know where they live. There are opportunities in America to share better in the wealth, to rebalance the power, and unions and government are part of the solution.”

John Podesta
17 visits to the White House in 2009
Podesta’s most lasting contribution to the leftist cause came through his promotion of a strategy that White House aides dubbed “Project Podesta.” This was a system that enabled the Clintons to push through unpopular policies that neither Congress nor the American people wanted. Its implementation marked a dramatic tilt in the balance of power, giving the executive branch an unprecedented ability to force its will on the legislative branch. Project Podesta enabled the President to bypass Congress through the use of executive orders, presidential decision directives, White-House-sponsored lawsuits, vacancy appointments to high federal office, selective regulatory actions against targeted corporations, and a host of other extra-constitutional tactics.

Podesta was appointed President and CEO of the Center for American Progress (CAP) at its founding on July 7, 2003. He was hand-picked for the job by CAP founders George Soros (see George Soros on this list as well) and Morton H. Halperin

32. “Van Jones (see Van Jones on this list as well) is an exceptional and inspired leader who has fought to bring economic and environmental justice to communities across our country.”

ANY KIND OF LIFE INSURANCE BESIDES TERM- The amount of premiums you will pay for Whole Life, Universal Life, Variable Life, or Variable Universal Life Insurance are far too high in commissions to be worth the value of the Life Insurance Benefit. Life Insurance is insurance, not an investment. Do not buy a Life policy in the hope of using it as a savings account or investment vehicle. A Term Policy will be much cheaper, and protect you against risk- which is what insurance is for. Use the leftover money to invest in a real investment.

CANCER INSURANCE- sounds important, but it is going to cost you way too much to be worth it. There are many other priorities for your money that will give you much more bang for your buck.

TIME-SHARE CONDO- new time-share condos are always sold through high-pressure, well-planned sales presentations where they give you free stuff to entice you to come. If you insist on buying a time-share condo: get a better deal by buying a used one on the internet (there are lots of websites designed to help owners sell their time-share condos once they realize their mistake in buying one).

HYBRID CAR- it takes a good deal, and a good deal of driving, to make a hybrid purchase financially sensible (even if gas prices go back up to $4/gallon). So…I would discourage you from buying one unless you drive a lot, and find a good deal.

CAR LEASE- When the lease ends, you have no car to show for all those payments. Like furniture, when it comes to cars, ownership is always better than renting.

CREDIT CARD INSURANCE- Your credit card is always sending you these offers of insurance with your monthly bills…completely ignore them—you’ll be better off using the extra money to pay down the debt.

ACCIDENT OR DISMEMBERMENT INSURANCE- This type of insurance is unnecessary because your term life insurance already covers you if you die in an accident; your long-term disability insurance already covers you if you become disabled in an accident; and your emergency fund already covers you if you become injured in an accident.