“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” - Lao Tzu
Big Journalism.com: The funny thing is, Andrew would give me an endless hard time for quoting Lao Tzu--pretentious, he’d say.
But Andrew did live larger than life--which made his sudden passing so truly hard to believe and accept. He was a flame that burned twice as bright. It was in his DNA. I know. I knew him since he was less than one year old. (Some pictorial proof below.)
But if Andrew’s flame burned half as long, his legacy will never burn out. To the contrary, it will only burn brighter and brighter. It is one of love and laughter, of an amazing family consisting of his widow Susie and their four extraordinary young children, and of a friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.
It burns in my heart and the heart of all those who loved him and whom he so deeply affected.
It also burns as his mission continues and expands at Breitbart News Network.
In his book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!(which was largely written at my kitchen table while I hovered over Andrew forcing him to focus) he wrote some words I find particularly pertinent about that mission.
First:
The left does not win its battles in debate. It doesn't have to. In the twenty-first century, media is everything. The left wins because it controls the narrative. The narrative is controlled by the media. The left is the media. Narrative is everything. I call it the Democrat-Media Complex--and I am at war to gain back control of the American narrative.
Second:
Walk toward the fire. Don't worry about being called a racist, a homophobe, a sociopath, a violent heteronormative xenophobe with fascistic impulses. They say all those things about you because they're keeping you inside the Complex, forcing you to respond to their playbook. They want to stop you in your tracks. But if you keep going, if you tell them you can stop their verbal bullets and keep walking, you'll send messages to people who are rooting for you, who agree with you. That's how you build an invincible movement willing to play by its own rules.
As CEO and President of Breitbart News Network, and as Breitbart.com attests over the last year, let me assure you that Andrew’s mission and vision only grows brighter with every day that passes.
Now, as promised, let me show you a few pictures. Why? Because for all of us who knew Andrew personally, and especially for those who did not--supporters and detractors alike--at the end of the day, I think it is important on this anniversary, to humanize Andrew. He was a man who did extraordinary things that guarantee him a place in the history books of this great country, but still a man.
We should all take personal inspiration from that. No matter who we are. No matter where we came from. No matter which side of the aisle we are on. There is nothing we cannot do if we live with passion and are willing to sacrifice and fight for what we believe in. Andrew embodied that very premise.
I call the following picture, “First Business Meeting.” It took place in 1972 over the hood of my Mom’s Ford Country Squire, with authentic, fake wood paneling. What could be so serious to four year olds? I have no idea.
Cut to Halloween, late-70’s. This was a last minute costume. The key: some eye black, two Dodgers caps (like we didn’t have 20 or so lying around), and Andrew’s father’s extra-large orange shirt.
A little more friendly than 1976:
Lastly, this picture was taken as an afterthought at the end of the photo shoot for Andrew’s Righteous Indignation book cover, slightly over a year before Andrew passed away. I’m grateful to Andrew’s brother-in-law, Marc Atlan, both for originally suggesting we take it, and then for presenting it to me several days after Andrew’s death.
I love Andrew, my brother. And I miss him more than words can express. Thank you to everyone who over the last year has provided his loved ones comfort and support, and who today remember him and his family in their thoughts and prayers.
Authorities said a Los Angeles County coroner’s official, Michael Cormier, appears to have died from poisoning.
“At this point we haven’t ruled out foul play,” said Lt. Alan Hamilton of the Los Angeles Police Department. “It is one of the things being considered. We are waiting for the coroner’s results.”
Law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said that finding the presence of poison does not necessarily mean the death was a homicide because the substance could have accidentally entered his system. According to sources, arsenic was one poison being examined as potential cause but stressed no final determination has been made.
Cormier, 61, died last week after being taken to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank from his North Hollywood home. Earlier he had complained of pain and vomiting.
Hospital staff notified police about concerns surrounding the cause of Cormier’s death.
Ed Winter, deputy chief coroner, said that an autopsy had been performed but that a determination of the cause of death has been deferred pending further tests.
Investigators have also interviewed his family and friends. Messages left at the home Friday went unanswered.
Authorities examined Cormier’s Auckland Avenue home for clues in the death. Sources said several hazardous materials experts and officers searched the small home.
Cormier, who also worked as a coroner’s photographer, had registered a small business under the name MAC Autopsy Services at the home.
By now, you may already have seen the 1991 video footage of Barack Obama, who was then a 30-year-old student at Harvard Law School, speaking in glowing terms about Harvard professor Derrick Bell, whom Obama described as a man known for “speaking the truth” and for an “excellence of … scholarship” that had not only “opened up new vistas and new horizons,” but had “changed the standards [of what] legal writing is about.” “Open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell,” Obama urged the sizable crowd which had gathered to show their support for Professor Bell that day.
Since the release of the video, Obama’s backers have been quick to dismiss it as nothing more than a young scholar’s affectionate tribute to a liberal academic icon who not only made major intellectual contributions to his profession, but who also was a leading champion of racial “diversity” in higher education. For instance, CNN host Soledad O’Brien, when interviewing Breitbart.com’s editor-in-chief Joel Pollak yesterday about the significance of the video, described Bell benignly as “the first tenured African American professor of law at Harvard University,” and characterized the gathering merely as “a rally in support of racial equality among the faculty at Harvard Law School.” O’Brien then asked her guest, with apparent bewilderment, “What part of that was the bombshell? Because I missed it. I don’t get it. What was a bombshell?”
In a similar spirit of willful blindness, Media Matters describes Derrick Bell as “a respected academic” and “an influential figure in the Civil Rights movement.” This portrayal is reminiscent of Barack Obama’s pathetic characterization, a few years back, of Bill Ayers as “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood.” But just as the reality of Bill Ayers was far more interesting than Obama indicated at that time, the truth about Derrick Bell is likewise far more compelling than the pablum the left has provided in the wake of this latest video. For you see, by the time Barack Obama was delivering his glowing remarks about Derrick Bell in 1991, the professor had already established—and would continue to cultivate for another two decades—a reputation as someone who thoroughly, resolutely detested the United States and who viewed the nation’s institutions and its people as irremediably racist. In short, until his death last October at the age of 80, Bell was secular academia’s version of Jeremiah Wright—a raging, fulminating racist without the clergyman’s robe. And something about his philosophy resonated strongly with Barack Obama.
Derrick Bell is best known as the founding father of Critical Race Theory, an academic discipline which maintains that society is divided along racial lines into (white) oppressors and (black) victims, similar to the way Marxism frames the oppressor/victim dichotomy along class lines. Critical Race Theory contends that America is permanently racist to its core, and that consequently its legal structures are, by definition, racist and invalid. A logical derivative of this premise, according to Critical Race Theory, is that the members of “oppressed” racial groups are entitled—in fact obligated—to determine for themselves which laws and traditions have merit and are worth observing. Such a perspective’s implications for the ability of civil society to function at all, are nothing short of monumental.
Below Bell is saying that our society may not be able to exist without racism and that white people feel entitled because they are white. Obama got the academic version of Jeremiah Wright before he was fed the theological version.
Derrick A. Bell Visited the White House Twice in 2010
by: Lachlan Markay
Visitor logs show that Derrick A. Bell visited the White House twice since President Obama took office. The logs show two visits by an individual of that name on January 29 and 31, 2010.
Derrick Albert Bell, the late Harvard professor and controversial scholar in the field of Critical Race Theory has been thrust into national headlines after conservative bloggers at Breitbart.com posted video of Obama lauding his work at a 1991 rally at Harvard.
Via Lachlan Markay at Heritage, we learn a Derrick A. Bell visited the Obama White House twice in 2010. The White House did not return a request for comment. The visits were on 1/29/2010, a Friday and 1/31/2010, a Sunday. For now, a web search of news reports did not turn up why Bell may have been in Washington that particular weekend.
Heritage could not independently confirm that the Derrick A. Bell listed is the same individual who spoke at the rally. The White House did not return a request for comment.
In the video, Obama tells the crowd to “Open your hearts and open your minds to the words of professor Derrick Bell.” Those words tended to be quite controversial. Bell is widely credited with pioneering the field of Critical Race Theory, a radical school of legal thought that holds that the American legal and political systems are inherently racist.
OBAMA: “Open up your hearts and your minds” to racialist prof…
But remember the beer summit and another professor… Professor and Historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr.?
Gates says Obama’s racism and radicalism just might not beProfessor Bell’s fault, but rather the fault of Obama’s anti-colonialist father Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. I would say that it is a combination… Obama’s radical progressive views, his internal rage as well as his racism come from a combination of his father, Obama Sr.; his grandparents, who attended the Little Red Church where they also took Obama’s mother, were Communists; his youthful mentor Frank Marshall Davis; his college professors including Professor Bell and his pastor of 20-years Jeremiah Wright… plus everyone they connected him to. Take that cast of characters and add the indoctrination of Saul Alinsky (the Alinsky Method) and Cloward and Piven plus the puppet-master George Soros and his The Shadow Party allies and you can ask yourself, “How could Obama not be The Manchurian President?”… chosen, programmed and placed into the most powerful office in the world for just this moment in time (when America had fallen asleep, the media was controlled so no longer connected the dots and the globalists, with their tentacles in groups like the CFR were ready to make their move), still surrounded by all the same radicals or their children which includes Timothy Geithner and the ever elusive Valerie Jarrett (both have parental and childhood ties to Obama and his family and people now in Obama’s inner circle in the White House). And then there are all the unknowns.
But hold unto your hats… just when you think it can’t become anymore incestuous…
Derrick Bell article edited by Elena Kagan in college says the U.S. Constitution is the “original sin”
So not only is Elena Kagan a conflict of interest in the ObamaCARE SCOTUS case, because she was Solicitor General for Obama while the bill was being past, but she also edited an article by Derrick Bell while at Harvard that makes clear that Critical Race Theory sees the U.S. Constitution as a form of “original sin.” So not only is Kagan a conflict of interest in maybe the most important case ever to hit the Supreme Court, she is also anti-constitution that she is supposed to uphold and defend as SCOTUS judge. Great. From Breitbart:
In November 1985, the Harvard Law Review published an article by Derrick Bell that was a “classic” in the development of Critical Race Theory. The article was edited by then-student Elena Kagan, and was cited by Prof. Charles Ogletree in support of her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama in 2010. The article makes clear that Critical Race Theory sees the U.S. Constitution as a form of “original sin”–a view later embraced by Obama as a state legislator, and reflected in his actions and appointments. The following is an excerpt from the non-fiction portion of the article; much of what follows is a fictional story that Bell intended as a parable of racial “fantasy.” (99 Harv. L. Rev. 4) - fireandreamitchell ^
Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.
This week’s contest is dedicated to Andrew Breitbart. And for those of you so inclined, IOwnTheWorld has the tee shirts as pictured above for sale, with all profits going to Andrew’s widow Susie and their four young children. Also be sure to check out Andrew’s final book: Righteous Indignation
You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.
Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category, and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.
It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?
THE VETTING: Ben Smith Releases ‘Selectively Edited’ Obama Race Video
Earlier today, Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith announced on Twitter that video researcher Andrew Kaczynski had released “the mysterious Harvard/Obama/race video that the Breitbart folks have been talking about.”
The video, which Kaczynski says was “licensed from a Boston television station,” shows a young Barack Obama leading a protest at Harvard Law School on behalf of Prof. Derrick Bell, a radical academic tied to Jeremiah Wright--about whom we will be releasing significant information in the coming hours.
However, the video has been selectively edited--either by the Boston television station or by Buzzfeed itself. Over the course of the day, Breitbart.com will be releasing additional footage that has been hidden by Obama's allies in the mainstream media and academia.
Breitbart.com Editor-in-Chief Joel Pollak and Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro will appear on The Sean Hannity Show to discuss the tape. The full tape will be released tonight on Fox News' Hannity.
Sources inform Breitbart.com today that Pam Dickler, director of the 1998 production of The Love Song of Saul Alinsky in Chicago that included a panel discussion featuring then-State Sen. Barack Obama, has a video tape of the play.
And she won’t release it.
Interesting in the light of Michael Savage’s encouragement in his article of a week ago: Was Breitbart Assassinated?, to get the tapes… any and all that Breitbart and his colleagues had or had access to out now.
“I’ve got videos – this election we’re going to vet him,” Breitbart said at CPAC, promising they would show how “racial division and class warfare are central” to the “hope and change” that Obama”sold in 2008.”
Savage said that if Breitbart’s colleagues have the videos, they should post them as soon as possible and make them viral “or they’ll never see the light of day.”
“There is only one archive tape of the play and I have it,” Dickler informed our source. “It is not in Chicago.”
Dickler told our source that she doesn’t believe she’s ever watched the tape, and she doesn’t know if it “can be viewed.” But she added: “No one is going to see the tape.”
She said she felt “very protective over it … due to all of the interest from conservatives recently.” She also told our source that the poster for the play was never supposed to be distributed.
Dickler added that there were no transcripts of the panel discussion.
“They didn’t know he was going to go on to become the president,” she said. “If they had known that, they would have of course kept any transcripts, but there were never any taken.”
Mainstream journalists have attempted to dismiss yesterday's column by Andrew Breitbart about the play by claiming that Obama had merely attended the production--a defense hinted at by Chicago Reader columnist Michael Miner's initial column.
However--as even Miner noted--Obama did not merely attend the play; he was featured on the poster and in the panel discussion that followed.
So, if the play’s so harmless, why are Obama’s allies hiding it? Why not release the video tape?
As usual, we have been set up! Team Obama found abortion activist Sandra Fluke and used her and the left-leaning (MSM) media to spin the latest attack on the Freedom of Religion and the Constitution out of the news and into a women’s rights and and contraception issue. Add the fact that Rush Limbaugh stepped into it and which they blew out of proportion… so now that is all we are talking about. That’s right we allowed the left to spin this into the wrong issue… again.
Consider this: The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack wonders if Obama will tell his super PAC to return Bill Maher’s million dollar donation after the HBO host has repeatedly called conservative women by words we cannot print here. However, McCormack‘s point about Maher’s offensive joke at the expense of Rick Santorum’s wife is important and printable:
He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job.
The Weekly Standard writer reports that the White House has not responded to questions about returning Maher’s donation. And yet, the calls for Rush Limbaugh’s head are growing louder.
Despite issuing an apology for calling Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke a “slut,” there is still a concerted effort to silence Limbaugh. Websites calling for his termination are popping up daily. Sponsors and stations that are part of Limbaugh’s empire are under attack.
Some have wondered where is the “equal justice” when it comes to controversial comments made by media personalities. CNN’s “Early Start” featured a rant from Ashleigh Banfield that shows the co-anchor cheering the loss of sponsors from Limbaugh’s program, but makes no mention of the frequent, inappropriate and vulgar characterizations of conservative women by many on the Left: (Full article HERE with video)
‘Fluke’-ing it for Obama - Canada Free Press, by Judi McLeod
In the name calling simmering side-war of the raging, Obama-manufactured Contraception Battle dominating the presidential race, Sandra Kay Fluke got away with never being called out for what she really is: a “prop”. Make that a bone fide Obama prop. And that Fluke got through all the hoops without being outed as a prop is proof positive that the Obama regime continues uninterrupted to blissfully write the Big Narrative on life under coming Marxist rule. As sure as another Obama holiday stands in the offing, props are part of this regime’s bag of slick tricks. Read full Original Article
Monday’sFactor Talking Points Memo & Top Storywas ‘Is Obama using contraception controversy to win over female voters?’ O’Reilly also discussed this situation guests: Mona Charen & Sally Quinn. “The Democrats may have bamboozled the GOP -- they were able to turn a religious freedom controversy into a women's health care controversy, potentially courting female voters in the process...” Talking Points Video HERE
Revealed: Abortion Agenda of Campus Group Headed by Sandra Fluke
(The Blaze) Sandra Fluke’s appearances on-camera thus far, as well as Rush Limbaugh’s well publicized reaction to her Congressional testimony, have turned her into a martyr for the Left. But as TheBlaze has reported, holes still remain in her story. For instance, Fluke is really 30-years-old (not the 23 that has been reported), and specifically went to Georgetown to fight their contraception policy – far from the innocent, wide-eyed victim she’s tried to portray herself to be.
But perhaps more revealing than what Fluke has publicly said is what she has declined to say. Her testimony before Congress, for instance, included precisely zero references to recreational sex or to abortion. Instead, Fluke would have her audience believe she’s only interested in non-sexual reasons for needing contraceptive pills – such as treating ovarian cancer. According to one study, the number of people to whom this applies is about 14 percent of all contraceptive users.
But is this really all Fluke’s agenda is? Based on the affiliations she herself has cited, that question may be more complicated. Near the beginning of her testimony, Fluke said the following (emphasis added):
My name is Sandra Fluke, and I’m a third year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school. I’m also a past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. I’d like to acknowledge my fellow LSRJ members and allies and all of the student activists with us and thank them for being here today.
So if Fluke has these sorts of ties to an organization and mentions them by name for the purposes of appreciation, readers will probably assume she supports their agenda.
But what is that agenda? For that matter, how is “reproductive justice” defined? A quick look at the Law Students for Reproductive Justice’s website provides the answer:
Perhaps the most relevant pull quote is as follows:
Reproductive Justice (RJ) represents an emerging framework, an analytical tool, a movement building strategy, and a desired outcome. RJ advocates concentrate on the realization of the rights to have a child, to not have a child, and to birth and parent the children with dignity. More specifically, we aim to construct legally tenable, realistically accessible avenues for informed, consensual, unobstructed decision-making about education, sex, contraception, sterilization, abortion, procreation, birthing, and parenting.
There is no mention of treatments for ovarian cancer, or cysts, or any other disorder that would involve contraceptive medicine being used for non-contraceptive purposes. The inclusion of abortion is also a recurring theme. The Blaze uncovered one video (that has now me removed by the powers that be… along with two others that disappeared on this subject) released jointly by self-identified LSRJ alumni and the Center for Reproductive Rights that refers to abortion as a “human right” and is essentially a primer for activists on how to attack anti-abortion legislation using international human rights law. The video was released with participation from a former President of Fordham University’s chapter of LSRJ (also a Catholic university) and was made during the same time that Fluke was President of Georgetown’s chapter. It also foreshadows current events eerily in some places (full quotes with emphasis added after the missing video):
A woman’s right to access an abortion, like her other reproductive rights, is rooted in fundamental human rights, including the right to life, the right to health, the right to dignity, the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to information, the right to self-determination, the right to education, the right to privacy, and the freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. [...]
Abortion bans are a prime example of discrimination against women under this framework, or at least that’s what we would argue, because only women will ever be affected by restrictions on abortion, because only women will ever get pregnant.[...]
So laws like the Hyde amendment, which withholds Federal funding for Medicaid abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or where a woman’s life is endangered, have a disproportionate effect on low-income women and women of color, and so we would argue they constitute discrimination. [...]
The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution doesn’t require the government to fund all medical services through [Medicare and Medicaid]…The Court refuses to find a constitutional obligation to treat women on Medicaid, I wouldn’t say fairly. [...]
We go around and we do interviews with people and we try to elicit or find out ways in which they have had their reproductive rights violated, and then we apply a legal analysis that shows the way those reproductive rights violations are also human rights violations. And this is sort of useful not only because I think those stories are very humanizing, but also because…it helps us move the conversation.[...]
Abortion providers are really being targeted for informal harassment and even assault and formal legislative discrimination because of the work they do, because they help women access reproductive health care services, and access abortion services, which means they’re really being attacked for helping women exercise their human rights. [...]
We’re currently working on a third fact-finding about access to care in communities where the only health care provider is a Catholic hospital, or the only existing health care provider is a Catholic hospital, or merges with a Catholic hospital and becomes a Catholic hospital, and what kinds of restrictions arise in those situations.
The video also mentions reports that try to portray abortion providers as “human rights defenders.“ One of the women in the video calls the Hyde amendment a ”human rights violation” directly. In other words, if Fluke is anything like the organization she proudly represents, then her speech before Congress had little to nothing to do with anything but abortion and contraception specifically being used in a reproductive context.
Rather belatedly, we are becoming aware that this supposedly typical Georgetown coed is not very typical at all:
[B]irth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if “gender reassignment” surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law. The title of the article . . . is “Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons” and was published in the Journal’s 2011 Annual Review
Remember, as Byron York previously reported, Fluke was rejected as a last-minute substitute witness at a Feb. 16 committee hearing because staffers for Chairman Issa were unable to discover Fluke’s claim to expertise relevant to the subject of the hearing. This law school journal article is the sort of thing that might have been discovered about Fluke’s background, had the Democrats who put Fluke forward as a witness done so with the usual 72-hour advance notice. Here’s one brief quote from the article:
Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered.
Now, imagine Fluke trying to defend this language about “heterosexist” policies in a public hearing, with Republican members of the committee questioning her about whether religious institutions (or private businesses, or taxpayers) should also be required to foot the bill for “gender reassignment.”
Of course, this only makes sense. We wouldn’t want these foreign transpeople to go back to wherever they (illegally) came from and say that they’d been the victims of American “heterosexism,” would we? Then President Obama would have to issue another apology to the foreigners we had victimized.
UPDATE II: Welcome, Mark Levin radio listeners! A few words by The Great One certainly did kick the online traffic into high gear.
The Alinsky, Cloward & Piven, OWS attacks from the Progressive left will just increase and intensify through the 2012 Election cycle. This firestorm for Rush will pass, but many others with a lower profile and less funds may not be able to weather a like Progressive storm. The only real question is will enough Americans see they are being played and will those attacked be able to take the higher road under fire to avoid being ‘rushized’? Should Obama win re-election this is just a precursor of life to come for anyone who disagrees with Team Obama’s goals and platform.
Prior to his passing, Andrew Breitbart said that the mission of the Breitbart empire was to exemplify the free and fearless press that our Constitution protects--but which, increasingly, the mainstream media denies us.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” – “Who guards the guardians?” Andrew saw himself in that role—as a guardian protecting Americans from the left’s “objective” loyal scribes.
Andrew wanted to do what the mainstream media would not. First and foremost: Andrew pledged to vet President Barack H. Obama.
Andrew did not want to re-litigate the 2008 election. Nor did he want to let Republicans off the hook. Instead, he wanted to show that the media had failed in its most basic duty: to uncover the truth, and hold those in power accountable, regardless of party. From today through Election Day, November 6, 2012, we will vet this president--and his rivals.
We begin with a column Andrew wrote last week in preparation for today’s Big relaunch -- a story that should swing the first hammer against the glass wall the mainstream media has built around Barack Obama.
***
In The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama claims that he worried after 9/11 that his name, so similar to that of Osama bin Laden, might harm his political career.
But Obama was not always so worried about misspellings and radical resemblances. He may even have cultivated them as he cast himself as Chicago’s radical champion. In 1998, a small Chicago theater company staged a play titled The Love Song of Saul Alinsky, dedicated to the life and politics of the radical community organizer whose methods Obama had practiced and taught on Chicago’s South Side.
Obama was not only in the audience, but also took the stage after one performance, participating in a panel discussion that was advertised in the poster for the play. Recently, veteran Chicago journalist Michael Miner mocked emerging conservative curiosity about the play, along with enduring suspicions about the links between Alinsky and Obama. Writing in the Chicago Reader, Miner described the poster:
Let's take a look at this poster.
It's red—and that right there, like the darkening water that swirls down Janet Leigh's drain [in Psycho’s famous shower scene], is plenty suggestive. It touts a play called The Love Song of Saul Alinsky, Alinsky being the notorious community organizer from Chicago who wrote books with titles like Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals. On it, fists are raised—meaning insurrection is in the air.
And down at the very bottom, crawling across the poster in small print, it mentions the panel discussions that will follow the Sunday performances. The panelists are that era's usual "progressive" suspects: Leon Despres, Monsignor Jack Egan, Studs Terkel . . .
And state senator Barack Obama.
Miner obscured the truth. His article only reveals only a small portion of the poster. Here’s the whole poster:
So, what’s in the play? It truly is a love song to Alinsky. In the first few minutes of the play, Alinsky plays Moses – yes, the Biblical Moses – talking to God. The play glorifies Alinsky stealing food from restaurants and organizing others to do the same, explaining, “I saw it as a practical use of social ecology: you had members of the intellectual community, the hope of the future, eating regularly for six months, staying alive till they could make their contributions to society.”
In an introspective moment, Alinsky rips America: “My country … ‘tis of whatthehell / And justice up a tree … How much can you sell / What’s in it for me.” He grins about manipulating the Christian community to back his programs. He talks in glowing terms about engaging in Chicago politics with former Mayor Kelly. He rips the McCarthy committee, mocking, “Everyone was there, when you think back – Cotton Mather, Hester Prynn, Anne Hutchinson, Tom Paine, Tom Jefferson … Brandeis, Holmes … Gene Debs and the socialists … Huey Long … Imperial Wizards of all stripes … Father Coughlin and his money machine … Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd … and a kicking chorus of sterilized reactionaries singing O Come, All Ye Faithful …”
And Alinsky talks about being the first occupier – shutting down the O’Hare Airport by occupying all the toilet stalls, using chewing gum to “tie up the city, stop all traffic, and the shopping, in the Loop, and let everyone at City Hall know attention must be paid, and maybe we should talk about it.” As Alinsky says, “Students of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your juicy fruit.”
The play finishes with Alinsky announcing he’d rather go to Hell than Heaven. Why? “More comfortable there. You see, all my life I’ve been with the Have-Nots: here you’re a Have-Not if you’re short of money, there you’re a Have-Not if you’re short of virtue. I’d be asking more questions, organizing them. They’re my kind of people – Hell would be Heaven for me.”
That’s The Love Song of Saul Alinsky. It’s radical leftist stuff, and it revels in its radical leftism.
And that’s Barack Obama, our president, on the poster.
This is who Barack Obama was. This was before Barack Obama ran for Congress in 2000—challenging former Black Panther Bobby L. Rush from the left in a daring but unsuccessful bid.
This was also the period just before Barack Obama served with Bill Ayers, from 1999 through 2002 on the board of the Woods Foundation. They gave capital to support the Midwest Academy, a leftist training institute steeped in the doctrines of -- you guessed it! -- Saul Alinsky, and whose alumni now dominate the Obama administration and its top political allies inside and out of Congress.
Stanley Kurtz, author of Radical-in-Chief
, described the Midwest Academy as a "crypto-socialist organization.” Yet almost no one has heard of Midwest Academy, because the media does not want you to know that the president is a radical's radical whose presidency itself is a love song to a socialist "community organizer."
The reason Newt Gingrich surged in the Republican primary contest in January is that he was attempting to do the press's job by finding out who the current occupant of the White House actually is. Millions also want to know, but the mainstream media is clearly not planning to vet the President anytime soon. Quite the opposite. For example, Miner tries to turn Obama’s appearance on the Alinsky panel into a plus for the president:
Obama was on the panel that talked about Alinsky the last Sunday of the play's run at the Blue Rider Theatre in Pilsen. Neither Pam Dickler, who directed the Terrapin Theatre production, nor Gary Houston, who played Alinsky, can remember a word Obama said. But he impressed them. "You never would have known he was a politician," says Dickler. "He never said anything at all about himself. He came alone, watched the play, and during the panel discussion was entirely on point and brilliant. That evening I called my father, who's a political junkie, and told him to watch out for this man, he's going places." Houston was just as taken by Obama—though he remembers him arriving in a group.
But is it a good thing to impress the sort of people who show up to laud The Love Song of Saul Alinsky? Here are the other members of the Obama panel:
Leon Despres: Despres knew Saul Alinsky for nearly 50 years, and together they established the modern concept of “community organizing.” Despres worked with secret Communist and Soviet spy Lee Pressman to support strikers at Republic Steel in Chicago in 1937; the strike ended in tragedy when 14 rioting strikers were killed and many wounded in a hail of police bullets. Despres worked with another Communist Party front, the Chicago Civil Liberties Committee, but eventually left because of the “Stalinism” of its leaders.
Also in 1937, Despres and his wife delivered a suitcase of “clothing” to Leon Trotsky, then hiding out from Stalin’s assassins in Mexico City. Despres and his wife not only met with the exiled Russian Communist, but Despres’s wife sat for a portrait with Trotsky pal and Marxist muralist Diego Rivera while Leon took Rivera’s wife Frida Kahlo to the movies. Quentin Young: From 1970 until at least 1992, Quentin Young was active in the Communist Party front organization, the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights – a group dedicated to outlawing government surveillance of radical organizations. He was also a member of the Young Communist League. Young, a confidante and physician to Barack Obama, is credited with having heavily influenced the President’s views on healthcare policy.
Timuel Black: An icon of the Chicago left, Black was originally denied officer training because military intelligence claimed he had secretly joined the Communist Party. Black also worked closely with the Socialist Party in the 1950s, becoming president of the local chapter of the Negro American Labor Council, a organization founded by Socialist Party leader A. Phillip Randolph.
In the early ‘60s Black was a leader of the Hyde Park Community Peace Center, where he worked alongside former radical Trotskyist Sydney Lens and the aforementioned Communist Dr. Quentin Young. Black served as a contributing editor to the Hyde Park/Kenwood Voices, a newspaper run by Communist Party member David S. Canter. By 1970, Timuel Black was serving on the advisory council of the Communist Party controlled Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights.
Timuel Black says he has been friends with domestic terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, “going back to 1968, since long before I knew Barack.” In April 2002, Black, Dohrn and Democratic Socialists of America member Richard Rorty spoke together on a panel entitled “Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?” The panel was the first of two in a public gathering jointly sponsored by The Center for Public Intellectuals and the University of Illinois, Chicago. Bill Ayers and Barack Obama spoke together on in the second panel at that gathering. Communist academic Harold Rogers chaired Timuel Black’s unsuccessful campaign for Illinois State Representative.
Studs Terkel: A sponsor of the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace in 1949, which was arranged by a Communist Party USA front organization known as the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions.
Roberta Lynch: A leading member of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and a leader of the radical Marxist New American Movement (NAM).
Are we expected to believe that “Baraka Obama” was a countervailing voice of reason on a panel of radicals?
The reason that Obama's Alinskyite past, and his many appearances in political photography and video from the 1990s, are conspicuously missing from the national dialogue is that State Senator Barack Obama's reinvention as a reasonable and moderate Democratic politician could not withstand scrutiny of his political life.
Because the mainstream media did not explore his roots, the American public remains largely ignorant of the degree to which Obama’s work with ACORN and his love of Alinsky were symbolic of his true political will.
If any of the candidates can resist the media, and parlay Newt’s strategy into a nomination, we’ll have the choice between an imperfect but well-known Republican and the real “Baraka” Obama, not the manufactured one the media prefers.
The outpouring of love and respect for Andrew Breitbart came from all sides as people heard about his untimely death (except from a few pathetic sources who have been excoriated from all sides.)
Greg Gutfeld, co-host of The Five and host of Redeye gave a great tribute to Andrew Breitbart on The Five the afternoon of Andrew’s death. Andrew Breitbart and Greg Gutfeld were friends and political cohorts with a like sense of humor. Gutfeld thanked Breitbart for his introduction of Greg to Fox. Then last night on Redeye they ran a one hour tribute to Andrew Breitbart who appeared on that show many times, including on the first two shows. Greg Gutfeld said of his friend: Breitbart was the spiritual leader of the modern conservative, libertarian cause.
InfoWars.com reports Breitbart died hours before planned release of damning Obama footage.
In a stunning coincidence, It appears Andrew Breitbart suffered his untimely death just hours before he was set to release damning video footage that could have sunk Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Around three weeks ago on February 9 during the ‘Blog Bash’ event in Washington DC, Breitbart made a prophetic comment that takes on a somewhat chilling nature given the fact that he died in the early hours of March 1st.
Breitbart and his company were getting ready to launching a new site on Sunday, 03.05.12, that they have been working on for 2-years. Andrew has been working around the clock and there is speculation that with his heart problems that schedule could have contributed to his death. The site is set to launch on schedule.
Glenn Beck Puts Aside Any Past Differences To Eulogize Andrew Breitbart
The news of Andrew Breitbart’s passing took many by surprise. Only some people were live on the radio when it happened. That’s what happened to Glenn Beck and crew this morning. Stunned by the news, it took Beck a minute or so to collect his thoughts as he rushed through a number of reactions (including exclaiming that there needed to be an autopsy to check for foul play as well as a request that his co-hosts would do the same if he ever died suddenly). After that though, he reflected on his relationship to the man and what Breitbart contributed to the conservative cause.
However, before any of that happened, Breitbart and Beck held each other in high esteem and, this morning, Beck made it clear that he wanted to go back to those times:
“People try to make a big deal out of this ‘feud’ I had with Andrew. I didn’t have one with Andrew, he may have had one with me, but I didn’t have one with him. I tried to do what I felt was right, and if people disagree with me, they disagree with me.”
Beck went on to tell the story of the first time he ever talked to Breitbart; a phone call in which Breitbart offered his Fox News show the first crack at the O’Keefe video that went on to create the huge ACORN scandal.
Beck finished by talking about the fact that his sites and Breitbart’s have since become rivals but made it clear there was no bad blood.
”Even though they’re a competitor of ours’, I hope the company goes on. They’ve broken a lot of stories. A lot of stories. We need more voices not fewer voices.”
The Blaze: Breitbart was set to release Obama tapes - The news coming out now that has conspiracy theorists whipped into a frenzy: Breitbart was set to release tapes of Barack Obama while still in college. No indication ‘yet’ as to exactly what is revealed on those tapes, but one would have to suspect a lot about his political leanings and motivations will come to light. DETAILS.
The photos below were taken at the CPAC Conference 2012 – and less than twenty two short days later we have lost bigger than life Conservative Warrior Andrew Breitbart. n/t to Tracey LoudonNew Zeal
Andrew Breitbart and Trevor at CPAC 2012
Andrew Breitbart and Cliff Kincaid (Accuracy in Media) at CPAC 2012
The bitterness of Andrew Breitbart's premature departure may be tempered if his courage inspires conservatives to press the case that President Obama's life story, as accepted by the media and McCain campaign in 2008, contains a series of discrepancies, frauds, and lies-by-omission. Americans have been had by a manufactured biography that does not bear close examination. Breitbart knew it, talked about it, and was the foremost public advocate of re-vetting the candidate who escaped serious scrutiny in 2008.
The overwhelming consensus of the GOP establishment is that Americans like Barack Obama. There is no profit in attacking him personally. Shut up about all the disturbing signs that he was groomed by a series of troubling mentors, centered his adult life on the Alinsky Left in Chicago, and had his career managed by ruthless pros who saw the electoral potential of an "clean, articulate black guy" with Ivy credentials, a slim build, and a terrific smile. continue at American Thinker: LINK Here.
I cannot say that I knew Andrew Breitbart well, but I knew him, spent time with him at a tea party event in Santa Ana (where he and his father-in-law Orson Bean spoke) and it felt like he was a friend I’d known forever. And from what I hear, he made everyone feel that way. He was fun, exuberant, and bigger than life. It was one of my first tea party events and he welcomed me and let me hangout with the “Big” Dogs. He was definitely a friend of the people, of America and of the fight to “right” our ship of state!
Andrew’s death at only 43 is a terrible loss and he will be missed. Andrew was a powerful force and an outspoken light in the wilderness for the conservative movement. He leaves behind a wife (daughter of Orson Bean) and 4-small children that he adored and a political family that loved him as well.
Breitbart was not always political, his parents were secular liberals; he grew up in Southern California. His first big job was for the very liberal Huffington Post. Like many who get involved in the trenches and see the reality they find their voice and often move to the right (like David Horowitz).
Most recently, Breitbart made a splash at CPAC and he is well known for exposing Anthony Weiner and providing a platform in the battle against ACORN. Andrew Breitbart had his own special style, almost a mirror image of Abbey Hoffman… an actor and warrior, but for the right. He loved his work, loved fighting for the cause and against the left, loved the political theatre and even loved making enemies. He was on a mission. As my dear friend Terresa Monroe Hamilton from the NoisyRoom, who knew him better than I, writes below, “I will miss you my friend!”
Marion Algier~
Conservative Blogger and Publicist – Andrew Breitbart
Sometimes, God takes his warriors home early and so was the case today with Andrew Breitbart.
The Conservative Blogosphere is in shock and mourning today as the news of Andrew’s passing circulates – he was 43. I am numb and am very sad – today I lost a friend and mentor. His family lost a caring husband, a wonderful father and their center of gravity. Conservatives lost a happy warrior, a leader and a true scrapper. The loss is immeasurable. He was described as “the Upton Sinclair of the mainstream media.”
Breitbart was walking near his house in the Brentwood neighborhood shortly after midnight Thursday when he collapsed, his father-in-law Orson Bean said.
Someone saw him fall and called paramedics, who tried to revive him. They rushed him to the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center, Bean said. Breitbart had suffered heart problems a year earlier, but Bean said he could not pinpoint what happened.
I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and—famously—I enjoy making enemies.
Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I’ve lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I’ve gained hundreds, thousands—who knows?—of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night.
Andrew is at rest, yet the happy warrior lives on, in each of us.
I will grieve today and for a long time for his passing and our loss. But one thing I am certain of, Andrew would want us to fight on and double down. If you ever had a doubt about what we do or if you ever felt weary, Andrew is screaming from Heaven, get over it! Move on and fight!! For myself, that is what I will do. The researchers and bloggers I know will do the same, because the fight is far bigger than any one of us. Should another fall, more will rise and carry on because we have to. Our country and our loved ones depend on it.
“What a powerful force,” Santorum said. “What a huge loss, in my opinion, for our country and certainly for the conservative movement.”
The lion of the New Media has gone home. We remain. Honor him by fighting harder and getting better focused.
Sarah Palin on Breitbart:
We are all stunned and saddened by the news of Andrew Breitbart’s passing. Andrew was a warrior who stood on the side of what was right. He defended what was right. He defended the defenseless.
It is so sad to consider his four young children who have lost their dad. All our prayers are with his family now. May God comfort his wife and children.
Many of us will have life-long memories of our work or encounters with Andrew. May we draw on those to help forward the cause of fighting for what is right. For me, just one of those memories was in Pella, Iowa, last year after the premiere of “The Undefeated.” Andrew held court in the restaurant at the local hotel talking about his favorite topic: how “culture is upstream of politics” and how conservatives must be unafraid to fight the leftwing media, cultural, and political establishments. The loss of his voice in this fight will be deeply felt, but thankfully his work lives on at his “Bigs,” and thank God for his inspiration and leadership.
God bless you, Andrew. Rest in peace, friend. We will continue the fight.
DEAR READER: In the first decade of the DRUDGEREPORT Andrew Breitbart was a constant source of energy, passion and commitment. We shared a love of headlines, a love of the news, an excitement about what's happening. I don't think there was a single day during that time when we did not flash each other or laugh with each other, or challenge each other. I still see him in my mind's eye in Venice Beach, the sunny day I met him. He was in his mid 20's. It was all there. He had a wonderful, loving family and we all feel great sadness for them today... MDRUDGE
Mitt Romney and his wife Ann said they were “deeply saddened by the unexpected loss and we send our prayers and condolences to his family and friends.”
“Ann and I are deeply saddened by the passing of Andrew Breitbart: brilliant entrepreneur, fearless conservative, loving husband and father,” Romney tweeted.
Sonnie Johnson, an African-American conservative who was a friend of Breitbart’s and introduced him before his speech at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in February, said that the “left loves to hate and demonize anyone who won’t bow down to their progressive or liberal agenda” and that when she was referred to by the left as an “Oreo” or an “Uncle Tom,” that Breitbart always stood up for her.
“He made me laugh when I was nervous and he made me proud to speak out,” Johnson said.
Conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon, a dear personal friend of Breitbart’s, simply described Breitbart as a “warrior.”
Democrat Bob Beckel said of Breitbart on The Five, “We got into a big back and forth over the Shirley Sherrod issue. We ended up as friends. “Breitbart was a great guy and went after people on policy not personally. I suggest that the left read his book Righteous Indignation to know what to expect from those he trained and those who will emulate him.”
“Andrew Breitbart was the most innovative pioneer in conservative activist social media in America,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tweeted. “He had great courage and creativity.” Adding, “No other conservative could match” Breitbart because he “combined technological knowledge, sound conservative principles, extraordinary energy and entrepreneurial aggressiveness in a unique way.”.
I’m sure Media Matters, George Soros and Progressives are dancing in the streets this morning. I wouldn’t celebrate too hard guys. We are coming for you. You will not stay in power and you will not succeed in your evil, destructive plans. You are at the top of our dance card and we can’t wait to take you for a spin. This only makes us more determined. You’ll long for the days when Andrew walked among you, because now he is working through each of us. Let’s dance.
To Andrew’s family – Susannah and his four children, our heartfelt condolences. May you find peace and strength in the coming days and know that you are not alone. There is so much love for you and Andrew – there are millions out here for you to lean on.
Andrew was the epitome of a warrior. He dared to go where others would not, so that America could regain her freedom. He was the leader of the Tea Party Movement and he was a giant in the New Media. He pioneered a future way to get news information that was honest and timely. He brought truth and light into the darkest of corners and tread unafraid amid evil and its supporters. He has not gone, just shifted his presence. His ventures in Big Hollywood, Big Peace, Big Journalism and Big Government will continue as will the Tea Party. Andrew, you will be missed, but we will keep fighting.
I will miss my friend – he always had a kind word for me and encouraged me. Rest in peace Andrew.
“This hits far closer to home than I would care to share at this time. “We got work to do.” Breitbart’s words at CPAC just recently:
“I’ve got videos. This election we’re going to vet him”
“To show why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008.”
“The videos are going to come out; the narrative is going to come out that Barack Obama met a bunch of silver ponytails back in the 1980s like Bill and Bernadine Dohrn, equally radical, who said one day we’re going to have the presidency. And the rest of us slept while they plotted....”
*Greg Gutfeld, co-host of The Five and host of Redeye gave a great tribute to Andrew Breitbart on The Five today. Andrew and Greg were friends and political cohorts with a like sense of humor. Gutfeld thanked Breitbart for his introduction of Greg to Fox. Tonight on Redeye, they will do a one hour tribute to Andrew Breitbart who appeared on that show many times. Greg Gutfeld said of his friend: Breitbart Was The Spiritual Leader of the Modern Conservative, Libertarian Cause.
Now the left is demanding that Limbaugh be taken off the air… so typical, 
