The Occupy Oakland protest took another violent turn in the dusk hours today when protesters went head-to-head with riot police after a series of defiant actions.  According to the Associated Press, some of the protesters  “broke into a vacant building, shattered windows, sprayed graffiti and set fires” as well as “threw concrete chunks, metal pipes, lit roman candles and Molotov cocktails.” Police indicated that an estimated 3,000  protesters had gathered earlier in the day at the port, the 5th busiest in the nation, “effectively shut[ting it] down.”

Many of the Occupy Oakland movement protesting at the city’s port declared their solidarity with the Longshoremen’s union in Washington state.  In September, longshoremen Port of Longview in Washington stormed a grain shipping terminal, cut the brake lines on rail cars and held security personnel hostage, resulting in violent clashes between union workers and police.  The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on August 31st had issued a complaint against the union, condemning its “violent and aggressive” actions.

From the Monthly Review, John Hamilton interviews Oakland, CA International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 member and co-chair of the Million Worker March Movement, Clarence Thomas (not the SCOTUS Clarence Thomas), who explains why the Occupy movement is supporting the ILWU and closing of the port:

The partial transcript from Monthly Review is below:

“One of the reasons why they are doing it is because they are trying to defend ILWU workers in Longview, Washington, who are facing a behemoth of agribusiness, EGT.  The driving force behind EGT is a leading agribusiness concern called Bunge. . . .  Longshoremen have a debt of gratitude to the people who have organized this action today. . . .  30% of the funding of our pensions comes from that grain operation in the Pacific Northwest.  This is an attempt to rupture the jurisdiction of longshore workers that we’ve had for over 77 years in this country.  Wall Street is on the move, on the waterfront, looking for new profits, and the community are standing with the ILWU.

(more…)

A few weeks ago I brought you the story of the California Federation of Teachers passing a resolution “reaffirming” support for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.  He was convicted of killing, execution-style, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Despite numerous appeals and efforts by far leftists to spring him from prison, he’s serving a life sentence in an open-and-shut case.

The Fraternal Order of Police issued a strongly-worded letter to American Federation of Teachers’ President Randi Weingarten, parent union to the CFT.

The union’s absurdly radical action is now producing its consequences.

I received an email from a CFT and AFT member resigning his union membership over the kerfuffle.  He wrote in part:

(more…)

The Fraternal Order of Police isn’t happy that their union brethren in California recently passed a resolution in support of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.  Now sitting on death row for executing Philadelphia policeman Daniel J. Faulkner, Mumia has become a rallying point for the left.

On April 14, FOP National President Chuck Canterbury issued a scathing letter to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.  In part, it read:

I cannot understand why the CFT, which like us represents rank-and-file employees, would support a murderer.  In fact, Abu-Jamal’s victim was a rank-and-file law enforcement officer and a member of F.O.P. Local Lodge #5 in Philadelphia.  I can only assume that the membership did so out of ignorance of the facts or that they were misled by this killer’s propaganda machine.  I want to set the record straight and would respectively, yet urgently, request that you and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) publicly reject this repugnant resolution.

Not likely.  According to PublicSchoolSpending.com, an AFL-CIO spokesperson said the union had no plans to respond to the FOP letter.  The AFT had no comment as of 12:30 pm ET after repeated attempts.

Maybe Canterbury is beginning to understand just how far-left and radical the AFT is.  How sad for the police officers.

The FOP letter ended ominously:

(more…)

I believe there is a difference between rank-and-file teachers and the leadership of radical teachers’ unions.  The trouble is, the rank-and-file sits idly by as the radicals embarrass them, time and time again.  Perhaps we’ve reached the point where the rank-and-file can rightfully be accused of being complicit of such behavior.

Why aren’t teachers angrily denouncing a recent resolution passed by the California Federation of Teachers in which the union “reaffirms support for death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal?”

The American Federation of Teachers, led by Randi Weingarten, has to date issued no statement in opposition to this offensive resolution.

And what does the AFL-CIO, the parent to the AFT think?  More importantly, what do the police members of the AFL-CIO think?  After all, Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing one of their own.

Or don’t they care?

At what point will the teachers’ unions be more concerned with the pitiful state of public education than they are about the fate of a convicted cop killer, or other unrelated issues like gay rights, national health care or American foreign policy?

(more…)

Will 9/11 cheerleader Anthony “Van” K. Jones soon be sitting on the boards of respectable American corporations? That is his plan, according to a series of posts Jones made on Twitter this week.

Photo collage by New Zeal blog

Jones, an anti-American communist radical who has rebranded his image as a “patriot” after being adopted by the leftist elite, has come a long way from being a 9/11 cheerleader and record producer for cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal to striding the halls of power in Washington, D.C. and Princeton while traveling the country as a motivational speaker serving heaping helpings of eco-pablum to crowds of adoring liberals.

Jones was appointed in the Spring of 2009 by President Barack Obama to be his ‘green jobs czar’ but resigned his position several months later after hints of his radical past were exposed. At the time, Jones said he was a victim of a “vicious smear campaign” of “lies and distortions.”

Jones stated on Twitter his belief that the passage of time (but apparently not repentance) will make it harder to hold him accountable for his actions as a thirty-something Yale Law grad.

The older I get, the harder it will be for the Right to throw my past views in my face. Or mock my contributions. – 29 Mar (2011)

In the same conversation on Twitter, Jones spoke of his plans to join corporate boards.

(more…)

The Mainstream media (MSM) is currently peddling the Obama Administration myth that patriotic Americans, many of whom have served in our military or who otherwise have an American flag hanging proudly in their front yards, pose a grave threat to our nation’s security. We have seen calls for Republican leaders to denounce Tea-Partiers and other activist groups opposed to Obama’s agenda. We are currently seeing our nation’s Department of Justice being hijacked to score political points for the Far-Left.

Let us remember that it is leftists who support convicted cop-killers, organize to prevent other Americans from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights, consistently threaten violence, and otherwise have a long history of supporting foreign powers who wish our nation and its freedoms harm.

For many years, the anti-American culture of the extreme left has been largely ignored. Like a cancer running through the body politic, the culture of hating America has metasticised. It is now “uncool” to have a flag in the yard, support our troops or believe in American exceptionalism.

To better see how the left works and the threat it poses, let us take a look at the Left and the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC).

(more…)

From the April 2010 issue of Townhall magazine: Brandon Darby learned something from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Once a hard-core radical who sided with progressive revolutionaries, Darby prevented a left-wing terrorist attack on the 2008 GOP convention. Now, this America-loving patriot is the target of the domestic extremists he once called “friends.”

Did you know that a courageous former radical helped to avert a planned left-wing terrorist attack at the 2008 Republican National Convention that might have killed who knows how many Americans?

Neither did I until recently.

That’s because if you disrupt a terrorist attack on Americans by Islamic fundamentalists as Northwest Flight 253 passenger Jasper Schuringa did on Christmas Day, you’re a hero; however, if you take the initiative to undermine a terrorist attack on Americans by supposedly well intentioned left-wing fundamentalists, you might as well be a terrorist yourself.

Brandon Darby, who in recent years also refused leftists’ invitations to get involved in Venezuelan communist subversion here in America and in anti-Israeli terrorism in Palestine, learned this unpalatable truth the hard way.

(more…)

Several days ago, Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum published research here indicating an ACORN alumni in the White House (other than the president): Political Director Patrick Gaspard.  As I did three weeks prior at ACORNcracked.com, Matthew used a Wade Rathke blog as the source, which Rathke, the founder of ACORN,  immediately changed after Vadum’s report, citing “memory tricks.”  Politico led the way in poo-pooing the connection once Rathke played cover-up.

Rathke said it not only on his blog, but also at a book signing in New Orleans, which was recently covered in the Fox News Special: The Truth About ACORN.”  While we attended that book signing and were not able to get that portion on tape, the Fox documentary crew did.  Sadly, the remarks apparently ended up on the cutting room floor.

The fact is, Patrick Gaspard, Obama’s “Glue Man,” is more important than Van Jones ever hoped of being.  The fact is, one of the most critical and influential jobs in a White House, the Director of Political Affairs, is occupied by a former SEIU health care lobbyist and ACORN organizer.  To be exact, he was Executive Vice President–the #2–at SEIU 1199 in New York City.

After Gaspard was appointed to the White House, Carribbean Voice quoted him as saying, “I grew up in 1199…and I will always be an 1199er wherever I am.”  SEIU’s luxury is that now taxpayers are paying for it.

(more…)