Americans celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday to honor his contributions to our Republic. His struggle against racial prejudice and discrimination brought the words of the Founders–“that all men are created equal”–to true fruition.

Dr. King used non-violent protest, and an appeal to universal principles, to bring Americans together. His birthday should be a holiday that unites us.

Instead, Democrats are using it to divide Americans.

Consider the sermon offered by White House adviser Valerie Jarrett yesterday, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Dr. King preached. She told the audience: “Teachers, and firefighters, and policemen, whose jobs are now in jeopardy because Congress–well let me be specific–because [of] the Republicans in Congress.”

Those in the audience laughed and applauded at Jarret’s brazen–and false–partisan attack.

Democrats have rewritten the history of the civil rights struggle to portray Republicans as the villains, when in fact most segregationists were Democrats. Republicans, in fact, voted for civil rights laws in greater proportions than Democrats. Moreover, Dr. King himself had been a Republican. Regardless, Dr. King was careful not to divide Americans along party lines in his struggle for justice–nor would he approve of it today.

Another Obama administration official who is exploiting Dr. King’s memory for political gain is Attorney General Eric Holder, who used the holiday to renew his attack on voter ID laws in South Carolina, falsely claiming they are racially discriminatory.

It is Holder, in fact, who practices racial discrimination by refusing to apply voting laws equally, notably in the New Black Panther Party case, an open-and-shut example of voter intimidation. (more…)

JOE BIDEN:  [handing President phone]  Axelrod calling from Chicago, Boss.  He sounds pissed.

OBAMA:  Hey Axe!  Whassup?

No, I don’t know who leaked our decision to abandon blue collar whites.  Soon’s we find the S.O.B., we’ll dress him up like a banker and drop him into the middle of an OWS protest.

You’re kidding.  We gotta reverse course because word got out?

Okay, I understand: you want me and Joe to be regular people for a while.  Suggestions?

Avoid Camp David.  Fine.  Too rustic for my taste, anyway.  Anything else?

Wait until after the election to eminent domain Lafayette Square and build a White House pitch and putt complex?  No problem.  That it?

What?!  Aw, c’mon, man!  You can’t be serious.  That would demean the office of the Presidency.

All right, all right, I’ll do it.  Yeah, we’ll brainstorm more ideas, too.  Okay, later. [hangs up]

BIDEN:  Chief?

OBAMA:  First thing tomorrow, Joe, you and I begin hanging new drapery in the East Room.

JAY CARNEY:  I’ll alert the networks to have camera crews in place by 10:00 a.m., sir.

BILL DALEY:  Your 9:00 o’clock tee time with Tiger at Congressional, Mr. President?  I’ll call him and canc. …

OBAMA:  Ixnay!  SNL’s Fred Armisen owes me big for resuscitating his career.  Request his presence here at dawn in work clothes and cap.   Jay, don’t give the signal to start taping until Fred and Joe are atop their ladders.  No close ups.

(more…)

OBAMA:  It’s finally happened.  O’Reilly’s obtained copies of my college records and interviewed an old weed buddy.  The wingnuts will have an orgasm when they learn I took a course at Occidental called “Bongs Through the Ages.”

JAY CARNEY:  The Factor’s devoting a whole show to the revelations next week, sir.  Word is, he’ll read excerpts from your Harvard Law senior thesis, “Tart Reform: a New Paradigm for the Oldest Profession.”

OBAMA: Good lord!  I’ll be ridiculed for something I didn’t even write.  How do we stop this?

DAVID PLOUFFE:  Posing as a fired MSNBC whistleblower, I’ll e-mail O’Reilly and set up a meet in Fort Marcy Park tonight, sir.  You call in a favor from the Teamsters.  Tomorrow morning, joggers’ll find old “Fair and Balanced” clutching a note expressing remorse for forging documents meant to discredit you.

OBAMA:  Um, maybe something less extreme.  Leon?

PANETTA:  Our Black Projects team developed a marble-sized nuke that’ll fry transmissions in a localized area, sir.  I can task a Predator to deliver it over Fox Headquarters as O’Reilly goes on.

OBAMA:  Set it up.  But we need a cover story.  Janet, order the National Weather Service to warn of severe thunderstorms in the vicinity just before detonation.

(more…)

BILL DALEY: You shouldn’t have used the phrase “leading from behind” last spring when you spoke off the record about Libya, Mr. Vice-President.

BIDEN:  Well, I didn’t, Billy boy.  I said Hillary was leading with her behind.  Or maybe I said the whole NATO operation was like the blind leading the blind.  I don’t remember.  But the guy misquoted me.

OBAMA:  No lasting harm.  Research and Destroy knocked that off the front pages fast with the Cain revelations.

DAVID PLOUFFE:  Oh, Mr. President, the Smithsonian taxidermist just delivered Gaddafi’s head.

OBAMA:  Okay.  Tell Housekeeping to mount it above the mantel in the Residence, next to bin Laden’s.  And remind them to leave room for Baby Assad and Boehner.

VALERIE JARRETT:  Sir, the Libya bump is fading since Fox reported diehard Islamists have seized control of the country and Gaddafi’s massive stock of surface-to-air missiles.

BIDEN:  Damn Ailes, trying to make people think we shoulda known that could happen. (more…)

As the mainstream media continue to obsess about a painted rock in Texas, the Solyndra story continues to grow.

“A number of us are concerned that the president is visiting Solyndra…  Many of us believe the company’s cost structure will make it difficult for them to survive long term. . . . I just want to help protect the president from anything that could result in negative or unfair press.”

Those words appeared in an email from Solyndra investor and Obama fundraiser Steve Westly to Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett in May 2010.  The correspondence is yet another indication that the White House had immediate warning signs that the $535 million loan guarantee of stimulus money pushed through by the Obama Department of Energy (DOE) was at great risk.

President Obama visited Solyndra despite the warnings, and the resulting video footage of the photo-op has become the perfect b-roll to accompany stories describing the failed “green jobs” initiative that the president held up as a shining example of how his administration was “Winning the Future.”

(more…)

JAY CARNEY:  Sir, word from the Senate on your American Jobs Act.  Majority Leader Reid is complaining of constipation.  Says he’s been pushing since yesterday, but he can’t pass the bill.

OBAMA:  Merde!  After I did all the heavy lifting.  Damn do-nothing Congress.

VALERIE JARRETT:  Good thing you’re leaving the country next week, sir.  No one can blame you if the measure tanks when you’re abroad on official business.

OBAMA: Where am I off to?

BILL DALEY:  You’ll begin your working tour of Scotland’s golf courses on Monday, sir.  Meanwhile, the First Lady and several dozen close friends and family members are already aboard the presidential yacht, Alinsky, en route to the Galapagos for a holiday.

OBAMA:  Message her confirmation that we’ll rendezvous a week from Friday on the Côte d’Azur.  When do I return home?

DALEY:  Um, we want to be flexible, sir.  Tell him, Poll Boy.

CHUCK TODD:  Recent surveys indicate hiring spikes and an uptick in consumer confidence when you’re away, sir.  It’s as if some great weight was lifted from. . . . .

OBAMA:  I get it, Chuck.  All right.  Add Ireland to my itinerary.  Inform Michelle I’ll join her on the Riviera October 1^st.  Eric, do you have this “Gunwalker” thing under control? (more…)

BILL DALEY: Boehner’s office just called, sir.  He’s changed his mind.  Says you can address the joint session next Friday at 2:00 a.m.

OBAMA:  Cheeky b**tard.  All right, accept.  Eric, have Federal marshals available to round up and escort legislators to the Chamber.  Encourage them to be rough with Republicans.

JAY CARNEY: Our dirty tricks team affixed a wireless speaker under Joe Wilson’s seat, sir. We’ll trigger it to replay “You lie!” four minutes into your remarks.

BRIAN WILLIAMS:  Afterward, our technicians will enhance the audio, pinpoint the source, and nail him.  Wilson will deny, but voiceprint analysis confirms it’s his voice.

OBAMA:  And another firestorm.  Man never learns.

DAVID PLOUFFE:  Lotta voters throwing the Kool-Aid back in our faces, sir.  I wonder if a speech touting investment in urine-powered cars and prefabricated bamboo homes will help your numbers.

OBAMA:  Anyone with a better idea?

CARNEY:  Do a 180, sir: have a “Come-to-Jesus Moment” before the whole country, announcing you’ve finally realized you’re a socialist ideologue. (more…)

BILL DALEY:  The delegation is here, sir.

OBAMA:  All right.  Bring them in.  Let’s get this over with.

[enter Clintons, DNC Chair, Reid, Pelosi, Pollster John Zogby, Jesse Jackson, George Soros]

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ:  John, tell the President what you told us.

ZOGBY:  The debt-ceiling deal hasn’t helped you, sir.  We’ve just completed a telephone survey of 1000 people.  10% said they would hold their noses and vote to reelect you; 10% complained the aides were mean, the kids never visited, and the home smelled like disinfectant; and 80% vowed to vote for your opponent, whoever he is.

OBAMA:  Bad, yes, but there’s still time to  . . . .

NANCY PELOSI:  Tell him the rest, John.

ZOGBY:  The survey was limited to Democrats in Ms. Pelosi’s district, sir.  Of those who swear you won’t get their vote, 40% say they plan to register and cast ballots in neighboring districts as well.

PELOSI:  Obviously, they’re good Democrats, sir.  They’ve simply had it with you.

OBAMA:  So, you want me to stand down in 2012 for . . . Hillary?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ:  God no, sir.  It’d look like we pushed you out.  Poof goes the black vote.  We want you to run but . . . welcome her primary challenge.

VALERIE JARRETT:  Ah, I get it.  He’s supposed to lose gracefully, then stump for Hillary next fall in places like Harlem, Watts, and Liberty City, where his approval rating is holding steady at 97%.  I’d pass, sir.

HILLARY:  Way I look at it, Mr. President, Billy Jeff here broke trail for you in the 90s.  “First Black President,” and all.  You owe us.

(more…)

OBAMA:  Ryan’s the one who’s giving their caucus spine.  And he still won’t budge?

VALERIE JARRETT:  No, sir.  His family . . .  release them?

OBAMA:  Not yet.  Give it another day or two.  Let Mrs. Ryan have formula for the baby, though.

BILL DALEY:  What about Kucinich?  He’ll block the House from doing anything that passes muster with Senate Democrats.

OBAMA:  Get him on the horn.

[Daley dials, hands phone to President]

Hey Dennis, how ya doin’?  Look, if the Boehner plan blows up in the House, we think we can get the Senate to swallow the Reid Plan.  But first we have to get it through your chamber, and as long as you don’t . . . .  Well, yes, I remember our discussion.  [sighs] Yes, I agree to your terms.  [hangs up]

DAVID PLOUFFE:  What did you just promise him, sir?

OBAMA:  On my next overseas trip, we’ll install a booster seat in Air Force One’s co-pilot chair, and he’ll pretend to fly the plane.

JARRETT:  Well, that’s not too bad.

JOE BIDEN: I hate to bring it up, Boss, but I busted my butt with the Gang of Six, and uh, you said . . . . (more…)

OBAMA:  So I said, “Damn right, George.  The Force is with me.”  Anyway, it’s official: Lucas will produce and Spielberg will direct Barack CoJones and the Compound of ISI, with Denzel Washington playing me and Cat Stevens as Osama. Release date: October 2012.

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS:  I’ll announce healthcare waivers for Paramount, Lucasfilm Ltd., and Amblin Entertainment at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning, Mr. President.

DAVID PLOUFFE: We should beef up your macho bona fides in the short term, sir.

VALERIE JARRETT:  And tie it into family values.  Visit your destitute brother in Africa and give him a few bucks, sir.  Then go into the bush without your Secret Service detail and kill a lion with a spear.  Gutsier than Palin shooting a moose with a 30-06 at two hundred yards.

OBAMA:  Maybe I’ll do just that once I force Netanyahu to risk national suicide for a shot at peace.  Leon, where’s Iran at right now.

PANETTA:  [checks wall map] Same place as yesterday, sir.

OBAMA:  Militarily, Leon.

PANETTA:  Oh.  We estimate they’ll have one Hiroshima-level nuke by Labor Day.  As you ordered, sir, our forces in the region remain on alert and are prepared take out Israel’s air force if an attack on Iran appears imminent.

JARRETT:  That would certainly give the lie to wingnuts who say you don’t have the guts for preemptive action, sir.

BILL DALEY:  Biden’s here . . . I think.

(more…)

(continued from Part 2)

It should come as no surprise that on the campaign trail, President Obama refused to be interviewed about Saul Alinsky, the community organizing guru who wrote Rules for Radicals, a how-to guide for destroying American capitalism and democracy.

Presumably Obama, who taught courses on Alinsky’s brutal, sometimes violent organizing techniques, declined to speak to reporters about the late guru. He must have realized that such an interview would throw an unwanted spotlight on Alinsky’s radicalism, and by extension, his own. Such counterproductive publicity would also have undermined the candidate’s efforts to reinvent himself as a moderate. Alinsky’s adherents now dominate the modern Democratic Party establishment. Apart from President Obama himself, they include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, Federal Communications Commission diversity chief Mark Lloyd, Obama’s ex-green jobs czar Van Jones, former DNC trainer Heather Booth, Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to name just a few. “Who the hell isn’t [an Alinskyite] in this administration?” asks conservative author David Horowitz.

And President Obama hasn’t been the only longtime ACORN operative working in the White House. There’s also the low-profile Patrick Gaspard who, until recently, was White House political affairs director, one of the titles Karl Rove held in President Bush’s White House.

In a move that ought to disturb anyone who cares about the integrity of the democratic process, earlier this year Gaspard took over the reins of the Democratic National Committee as its executive director—just in time to begin initial preparations for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Gaspard hails from the same world of radical left-wing community organizing that made Barack Obama who he is today. Gaspard is an expert in the harsh, street-smart organizing tactics taught by Alinsky. He’s the hatchet man Obama sent to New York over a year ago to strong-arm then-Gov. David Paterson into dropping his reelection campaign. As executive director running the DNC’s day-to-day operations, Gaspard will oversee Organizing for America, a project of the DNC supposedly modeled on Alinskyite organizing principles.

(more…)

Excerpted from Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street. Published by Sentinel. Copyright Charles Gasparino, 2010.

But despite his trials, [Lloyd] Blankfein had taken time out of his grueling schedule to help a firm that wasn’t a Goldman client, not even a prospective one. The firm was ShoreBank Corporation, a small community bank located in Chicago that lent money to inner-city businesses and was exploring the possibility of financing nascent and as-yet-unprofitable “green” businesses through so-called conservation loans and environmental banking, according to the bank’s Web site.

The bank’s self-described mission was to “change the world.” And yet despite its seemingly good intentions, the bank’s urban commercial borrowers were suffering greatly from the lower property values and high unemployment that stemmed from post–financial crisis recession. Without Blankfein’s help (and the help of other
major Wall Street firms) ShoreBank would follow the fate of dozens of other banks during the great recession and face almost certain collapse and government liquidation.

To be sure, helping out a struggling bank that wasn’t even a client was a most un-Goldman-like thing to do. Goldman dealt with only the biggest companies in corporate America or with superwealthy individuals (typically, those with $10 million or more to invest with the firm). More thanthat, this was a firm that had a reputation for screwing just about any company, clients included, when business was on the line. Goldman, of course, would deny that assertion. Even so, in the normal course of business, a bank like ShoreBank, with its modest funds and do-gooder reputation, wouldn’t even appear on Goldman’s radar as a potential customer.

Yet for some seemingly inexplicable reason, Lloyd Blankfein—who had a net worth close to $500 million and until recently had never heard of ShoreBank—started imploring his friends at other firms, like Morgan Stanley, GE Capital, and others, to help this little bank. Not that Blankfein suggested there was money to be made here. Quite the contrary; it was simply the right thing to do.

To any casual observer, this puzzling scenario raises the question: Why would Blankfein possibly want to save ShoreBank?

(more…)

Conservative author Dinesh D’Souza recently published an insightful, much-discussed article in Forbes, “How Obama Thinks.”

Drawing upon Obama’s writings and history, D’Souza concludes that his policy agenda—so at odds with traditional American values and principles—is rooted chiefly in the anti-colonialist intellectual influence of his Kenyan-born father:

What then is Obama’s dream? We don’t have to speculate because the President tells us himself in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. According to Obama, his dream is his father’s dream. . . .

[T]o his son, the elder Obama represented a great and noble cause, the cause of anticolonialism. . . . Anticolonialism is the doctrine that rich countries of the West got rich by invading, occupying and looting poor countries of Asia, Africa and South America . . . .

Obama Sr. was an economist, and in 1965 he published an important article in the East Africa Journal called “Problems Facing Our Socialism.” Obama Sr. . . saw state appropriation of wealth as a necessary means to achieve the anticolonial objective of taking resources away from the foreign looters and restoring them to the people of Africa . . . . As he put it, “We need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now.” The senior Obama proposed that the state confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit. In fact, he insisted that “theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.”

Like father, like son, says D’Souza:

It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America’s military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father’s position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America’s power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe’s resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.

(more…)

With a bad-blood, confidence-destroying battle royale going on between Team Obama and business, you would think a highly publicized White House jobs summit would have produced some kind of positive announcement that gives a nod to the business point of view.

After all, as part of his so-called “business charm offensive,” the president is arguing that “it’s the private sector that has always been the source of our job creation, our economic growth, and our prosperity; and it’s our businesses and workers who will take the reins of this recovery and lead us forward.”

He also says “the free market depends on a government that sets clear rules that ensure fair and honest competition,” and that “too much regulation or too much spending can stifle innovation, can hamper confidence and growth, and hurt business and families.”

But uncertainty over the regulatory-and-tax rules of the road is exactly what has buffaloed business and stifled the animal spirits that are so necessary for investment and job creation.

(more…)

Hamas ally Jodie Evans and President Barack Obama, October 15, 2009.

Democrat party front group Media Matters for America has released several statements in recent days seeking to throw reporters off the trail of the strong ties between President Barack Obama and Jodie Evans, co-founder of the terrorist support group Code Pink.

Media Matters attempts to influence public opinion by getting their politically-slanted, factually-challenged reports in the hands of sympathetic liberal reporters who then either regurgitate Media Matters’ propaganda to the public as news or use it as guidance to bury news.

In this case, Media Matters was responding to a report by World Net Daily’s Aaron Klein, picked up by Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit and Big Government, and by Glenn Beck, tying Obama to leaders of the so-called Gaza Freedom Movement, the group behind the terror flotilla intercepted by Israel as the six ship convoy attempted to break a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt on the terrorist enclave of Gaza.

Much of the information forming the basis for Klein’s report was originally researched and published at Big Government months ago, which Klein (a solid researcher in his own right who has added much to this story) acknowledged at the time.

Klein reported last weekend that Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers, his wife Bernardine Dohrn and Obama funder Jodie Evans each had ties to Obama and the Gaza Freedom Movement.

(more…)

The Central Illinois 9/12 Project became one of the first to expose — beginning this past March on BigGovernment.com – Shorebank’s extensive green and microfinancing agendas, in anticipation of that bank’s impending bailout.  Shorebank, a Chicago-based, community-based investment bank, is focused on domestic and foreign microfinancing, is heavily engaged in the financing of “green” projects and “green” jobs, and has a host of ties to the Obama and Clinton administrations.  Most recently, we wrote in April about Shorebank seeking a “bailout” from larger financial firms that have previously received bailout money from the federal government. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky had previously proposed that the bank receive funds from the State of Illinois to help cover its loss of capital since the beginning of the nation’s economic downturn in 2008.

As we previously wrote, Shorebank would potentially be eligible for TARP funds if it were to be recognized as a “Community Development Financial Institution.” In order to to received needed federal TARP money and prevent seizure by the FDIC, Shorebank needed to receive appropriate matching funds from private sources.  News stories have been released over the past several days indicating that Shorebank has potentially received such funding.

Shorebank has reportedly received $20 million from General Electric, $20 million from Goldman Sachs, and $20 million from Citigroup – with additional large funds being promised by J.P.Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. Shorebank also has received funds from the Northern Trust Corporation, State Farm, and Harris N.A.  It has been reported that the bank could also receive funds from Wells-Fargo and PNC Financial Services.  Assistance from these financial institutions puts Shorebank’s raised capital from private sources within the range needed to make it eligible for TARP funds.

As we reported previously, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Chase all received tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money from TARP.  Does this then mean that Shorebank is being bailed out by bailout money?

(more…)

Because nobody who’s anybody reads the The New York Times these days, except the die-harders and dead-enders along West End Avenue, as well as the editors of Time and Newsweek, you may not know who “Clueless” Clark Hoyt is, but it really doesn’t matter because he doesn’t know who you are, either.  For those scoring at home in their pajamas, Mr. Hoyt is the “public editor” of the Times, i.e. the hapless fellow who has to write those tedious Sunday reports to the readers, in which he explains why whatever the Times did was right and whatever they didn’t do… well, hey, they didn’t know about it!  What do you think they are, a “newspaper of record” or something?

Some editors told me they were not immediately aware of the Acorn videos on Fox, YouTube and a new conservative Web site called BigGovernment.com.  When the Senate voted to cut off all federal funds to Acorn, there was not a word in the newspaper, although a report in the Caucus blog that day covered the action. When the New York City Council froze all its funding for Acorn and the Brooklyn district attorney opened a criminal investigation, there was still nothing.

Well Mr. Hoyt, welcome to the world of the “undernews” – Mickey Kaus’s apt word for the news that everyone in the blogosphere knows about but, apparently, no one who gets his news strictly from the Times, other major newspapers, the newsweeklies, and most of the networks has the slightest inkling of.

(more…)

[Note: This is the latest segment in an ongoing series about Code Pink and its co-founder Jodie Evans.  Click here to read earlier articles.]

In a move by the Obama administration that is gallingly cynical and would be considered treasonous in a less progressive era, a message sent by Code Pink and an article published by the left wing online publication AlertNet indicates the White House is working with the left wing terrorist support group Code Pink to agitate the public and undermine President Barack Obama’s newly announced Afghanistan war policy.

Top Obama funder, Code Pink co-founder and terrorist supporter Jodie Evans wrote at AlterNet of a White House initiated phone call she received last week, two days after Obama’s Afghan war speech at West Point. The Obama official said the administration wanted to “consult” with Code Pink in response to the group’s e-mail campaign targeting the White House with opposition to the president’s surge strategy.

However, it appears that the Obama administration was already in consultation with Code Pink before this reported phone call. In its message to supporters, Code Pink guaranteed their e-mails would be read by someone in the White House.

(more…)

In Part 1 of this series we detailed the events leading up to the assault on Kenneth Gladney on August 6^th and revealed the document written by Margarida Jorge at Health Care for American Now (HCAN) a front group funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which laid a blueprint for the unions to follow that evening at Rep. Russ Carnahan’s town hall meeting.  Yesterday, in Part 2, we exposed a second town hall meeting that occurred the same night in Tampa Bay, FL with Rep. Kathy Castor that followed the same structure and had very similar results.  We also detailed the relationships of key decision makers at HCAN, Rep. Carnahan’s office and the White House and showed how they were all inter-related at SEIU, the Obama for America campaign and the two accused of assaulting Kenneth Gladney that evening.

Margarida Jorge

On the evening of August 6^th hundreds of citizens were shut out of the meeting and not allowed to question their elected official while hundreds of SEIU members were ushered in a side entrance to sit in reserved seats in the front of the hall.  This followed precisely the instructions penned by Margarida Jorge of HCAN.

• We need to stack our folks in the front to create a wall around the Member…
• Get to your location early and make sure you set up the venue in a way that ensures that the attendees you want are at the front and that any protesters who come are sequestered as far as possible from the stage.
• Make sure that you assign marshals to take care of moving the crowd, keeping people organized and orderly, and acting as security

(more…)