Recovery.gov Redux. It’s more than just an $18 million website makeover (Repost)

RBO first posted July 12, 2009, about Recovery.gov’s makeover. That article follows. But first, here’s the latest brouhaha:

Plus: A regular RBOer sent along this observation:

I keep thinking about the Smartronix site. It is very simple to create fill-out form in flash, setting parameters that exclude misinformation. You do it like this: You set the parameters to only accept certain information, i.e. let’s say Florida has 13 districts. You create a form with boxes to be filled out. You write a simple flash script that stipulates if FL is entered in the “state” box then the parameters of numbers acceptable for entry in the “district box” can be no lower than 1 and no higher than 13. That would prevent anyone from entering a wrong number, because the form would not accept a 0 or number higher than 13. A wrong number would be an invalid entry. This is Flash scripting 101.

Smartronix is being paid $9-18 mil and couldn’t do this? And of course most journalists know nothing about this so don’t pursue it…

There is something very wrong about this…

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The General Services Administration “sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site,” ABC News Rick Klein reported July 8:

“Recovery.gov 2.0 will use innovative and interactive technologies to help taxpayers see where their dollars are being spent,” James A. Williams, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, says in a press release announcing the contract awarded to Maryland-based Smartronix Inc. “Armed with easy access to this information, taxpayers can make government more accountable for its decisions.”

The contract calls for spending $9.5 million through January, and as much as $18 million through 2014, according to the GSA press release.

As one blog points out, that’s $1.6 million a month.

The Recovery.gov July 10 press release states:

The initial outlay, $9,516,324, covers many facets: redesign and construction of a new website; installation of hardware and software infrastructure; hosting and operations for the website; more robust data storage; an enhanced content-management system; and contract labor support and other features. If the Recovery Board exercises options under the contract, the cost could total $17,948,518 over a period ending in January 2014.

FYI: If you require more details, the contract number is GS-35F-0362J. This is a general purpose contract with specifics found here in categories 132 8; 132 12; and 132 51. You can read the contract terms and conditions here. [If this link fails, go here, scroll down to Smartronix entry, then clip on contract icon.

Why the six-month rush?

[Earl E. Devaney, the Recovery Board chairman] explained that the Recovery Board needed also to move swiftly because recipients of Recovery funds—perhaps 200,000 or more—will begin submitting reports to the Recovery Board [October 10]. That information will be posted almost immediately on Recovery.gov, he said.

Note that Devaney is no slouch in the sleuthing department. Dan Fletcher wrote February 24 at TIME:

Devaney will work with Vice President Joe Biden to monitor for wasteful spending and issue periodic reports to the public. It’s a familiar watchdog role for the long-time government servant. During his tenure at Interior, Devaney uncovered the shady dealings of disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an investigation that eventually led to Abramoff’s imprisonment and the resignation of Interior’s no. 2, J. Steven Griles, for lying under oath about his own role in the scandal. Devaney previously worked as the chief of criminal enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency, where he was responsible for heading up all the agency’s criminal investigations.

Gautham Nagesh reported July 9 at Nextgov.com:

Under the contract, Smartronix is expected to provide the Recovery Board with a dynamic Web site that will allow the public to track exactly how stimulus funds are spent [allegedly right down to the last dollar spent in their neighborhoods]. Recovery Board spokesman Ed Pound emphasized that the contract involves much more than simply redesigning the Web site and includes building an online infrastructure that can interface with the system that the Environmental Protection Agency uses for reporting and collecting stimulus data.

About Smartronix

Smartronix Inc. is an existing government contractor. Headquartered in Hollywood, Maryland, with branches in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Texas, and Arizona. The company provides “NetOps, cyber security, enterprise software, defense and commercial, and health IT solutions” to federal clients, including all branches of the U.S. military as well as DoD and other government agencies.

BusinessWeek reports Smartronix key executives as Arshed Javaid, President; Robert M. Shea, Strategic Adviser; David MacRae, Executive Vice President; and Rob Baker, Director of Strategic Enterprise Initiatives.

David Freddoso reported July 9:

[...] according to FEC records, Smartronix president, Mohammed Javaid, vice president Alan Parris, and partner John Parris have together given $19,000 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D) since 1999. There is no record of a Smartronix employee contributing to any other federal politician.

That would be Mohammed Arshed Javaid, a member of the advisory panel for OPEN Washington DC (Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America).

Transparency

Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to increasing government transparency, commented July 9:

The real problem is transparency. The real problem is that while many are outraged at the cost, you can’t presume that the government isn’t spending its money wisely unless you know both what Government is paying and what they’re paying for. We don’t know what they’re paying for, yet.

Jim Gilliam of Make the Future updated:

Smartronix hasn’t responded, and apparently they can’t, because only the contracting agency, which would be RAT (Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency) is allowed to say anything. Which means none of the people working on this “transparency” project are allowed to talk about it.

Why a redux?

RBO wrote February 19 the bill responsible for establishing the aforementioned RAT Board (“Appropriations House”, Title V — Financial Services and General Government of the American Recovery and Investment Act), signed by POTUS February 13, mandated creation of the Recovery.gov website within 30 days of its signing.

The site was not only up and running but also blocked to Google and other search engines within the first 24 hours, signaling immediate concerns about transparency.

Just who or what was responsible for Recovery.gov’s creation and maintenance? you ask. As RBO reported earlier, Chris Soghoian at Cnet News wrote:

Also, the stimulus bill requires that the site be run by the new Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, but it seems to currently be under the control of the White House Web team–the same folks who revamped Whitehouse.gov and whose use of the robots.text search engine-blocking code was expanded after the site initially was praised by bloggers for its openness.

RBO also reported:

Another piece to this puzzle is that those former Deaniac bloggers at Blue State Digital not only revamped WhiteHouse.gov but are also behind Recovery.gov.

Nancy Scola at techPresident wrote February 18:

Drupal developers are abuzz with the realization that the White House’s new Recovery.gov site was built using the free and open-source content management platform Drupal.

[...] using Drupal for Recovery.gov is a sign that the White House is engaged in an open relationship with Blue State Digital, the firm that’s been the home of both the campaign Internet director and the White House Internet director. BSD uses their own proprietary CMS.

There you have it. Blue State Digital ran this op beginning in February. Obviously something didn’t quite work out.

Which leaves us with the pregnant question as to what that “something” might be.

One possible clue comes from the same RBO report:

As it turns out, Blue Digital State, Matthew Taylor reported January 26 at The Guardian (UK), “has been employed to help create a grassroots network across the UK as part of the campaign to stop the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, becoming the far-right party’s first MEP.”
The firm began work last week and has already signed up thousands of supporters and donors. As part of the first stage of its campaign BSD and an anti-fascist magazine, Searchlight, has sent thousands of emails asking each recipients to forward it to five friends and make a small donation. The software means campaigners can then track who opens the emails, where they are sent and what happens when they arrive at the other end – tailoring future emails to groups and individuals.

“The crucial thing about this campaign is that everybody is given a task so they become activists with a stake in what we are doing,” said Nick Lowles, who is leading the Hope not Hate drive. “The software allows us to tailor emails to different groups and get information out there to hundreds of thousands of people.

“We have had more small individual donations in the past two weeks than we have had in three or four years and the technology is already allowing us to build a vibrant, bottom-up activist movement.”

Blogger wtwu wrote January 26 at SpyBlog.org.uk:

Political campaigns, wherever they are on the political spectrum, should not be using the same sort of tricks as email spammers and those who try to sneakily hunt down anonymous whistleblower sources and contacts, since this will betray the Sensitive Personal Data of their supporters, to some of their political enemies.

Since the Blue State Digital server infrastructure is based in the USA, with lax Data Protection and large scale snooping on foreigners (and on US citizens) by US Government agencies, who else gets to read the Communications Traffic Data of any particular group of political activists or campaign supporters who have been targeted this way?

Blue Sky Digital were touting their “grassroots” campaign online expertise and tools, to various campaign groups and pressure groups recently.

We might perhaps support some of the aims of this campaign, but not if it uses sneaky email tracking, which contravenes the fundamental data protection principle of prior, informed consent, and which probably also contravenes the Direct Marketing industry codes of practice and European Union wide laws.

Note the emphasis on “large scale snooping on foreigners (and on US citizens).”

We’re just saying.

Glenn Beck Show November 19, 2009

Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck Show November 19 zeroed in on redistribution of wealth and global Marxism, the Porkulus bill, the 2000+ page Pelosi/ReidCare bill, and the gross national debt — oh, and the U.S. Constitution. The word of the year for 2010 will be “unsustainable.”

Pay special attention to clip 4 in which Beck lists some of the taxes embedded in the Senate version of the health care bill.

See clip 5 for a Rep. John “Earmark” Murtha, D-Corruption report.

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Glenn Beck Show November 18, 2009

Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck Show November 18 focused on America’s full-blown economic meltdown.

But first: Beck revealed that the NEA’s recommended reading list includes two Saul Alinsky treatises: Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals. The NEA brags that Alinsky’s books are An inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!

However, if you don’t want to waste your time reading, the NEA provides a Cliff Notes version on its website. The recommendation closes with:

Alinsky was hated and defamed by powerful enemies, proof that his tactics worked. His simple formula for success…

“Agitate + Aggravate + Educate + Organize”

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has more.

Beck also featured the U.S. Department of Health & Human Service’s U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an “independent panel of experts” (and its “suggestions” about screening for breast cancer, including the years in a woman’s life to have/not have mammograms). As Beck notes, the 10-member Task Force does not include a single oncologist (although it does include two OB-GYNs).

By the way, breast self-exams are pooh-poohed as an unproductive waste of time. Beck does a wonderful manly demonstration.

Moe Lane at RedState.com has more on the Democratic Party’s war on breasts.

Now wait for it: The socialist Workers World Party wants to Revive Class Struggle in the U.S. “as the capitalist crisis brutally strips the workers and oppressed of their jobs, homes and health, and the need to strengthen international workers’ solidarity in the face of corporate globalization and increasing militarism and war.”

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Batchelor: POTUS Book of Jobs

John Batchelor writes on his blog:

Jobs Are the Presidency

POTUS remarks while still in China that he is suddenly aware that the full moon flood tide of spending that his administration has enjoyed the last eleven months has now overrun the beach. What is to be done?

POTUS sounds uncertain: “…without spending money, there may be some tax provisions, that can encourage businesses to hire sooner rather than sitting on the sidelines…. we’re taking a look at those…”

And what makes POTUS uncertain? “… if we keep on adding to the debt even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that would lead to a double dip recession….”

All this lawyerly spin can be translated bluntly. The trillions spent on the stimulus package and TARP and the various housing/foreclosure/mortgages/rescue plans have not worked to stop the job losses and offer no promise at this time to start jobs growing again. POTUS is now faced with explaining why his stimulus bill didn’t stimulate (in fact it transferred federal tax money to state coffers) in the first place. POTUS supposes that if he offers tax breaks to employers that this will create jobs in the private sector.

However POTUS is aware (someone may have briefed him quietly) that the spending has wrecked the dollar and created an asset bubble in commodities (denominated in the shrinking dollar), and that this long term destruction of the dollar puts the economy at risk again of retracting.

[Note: If you have been following the Glenn Beck Show clips you will recall that Beck talked about the Asset Bubble on the Tuesday, November 17 show. Watch here.]

What Is to Be Done II?

Alan Murray and John Bussey, WSJ, report from the WSJ CEO conference this past week (above) that they learned what has gone wrong is that the Obama administration has pushed companies into a job freeze because they cannot plan on costs.

What costs? The costs of the shrinking dollar. The costs of the threatened health care reform bill. The costs of the now postponed but not rejected cap and trade. The costs of the possibility that the EPA will declare greenhouse gasses a pollutant and start to tax by fiat. The cost of the FCC declaring that all phone users and internet providers must pay for universal free access for all. The costs of the repeal of the Bush tax cuts? Enough.

Alan Murray, John Bussey and Evan Newmark all reported (above) that the CEO’s uniformly complained that they cannot and will not hire again until they can get firm numbers of the costs of the Obama administration’s wish-list of polices.

Most striking to me was that the Obama White House sent Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orszag and Christina Romer to answer polite, impatient, futile questions from the CEOs. But Congress did not show up, not Mrs. Pelosi nor Harry Reid nor their deputies. The implication is that Congress will not speculate about what it will cost to pay for what Congress mandates by Democratic majority legislation the next year. Murray and Bussey both indicate that Team Obama understands the CEO complaint. Does Congress?

And who is running that trillion dollar printing press in Washington? The name on the door is Obama.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

No evidence yet that the Obama administration understands the theory that the Federal and State budgets drain money from the economy that would be put to work growing the economy, which means jobs. No evidence that the Obama administration understands that the government intervention in the marketplace, with TARP, stimulus, mortgage bailouts, GM and Bank of America and Citi zombie status, that all this finagling and manipulating and favor-seeking and plain smoke and mirrors keeps the economy from stabilizing. You cannot hire if you do not have confidence in the housing and banks and dollar. POTUS holds yet another Jobs summit at the White House on December 3, and then departs to Allentown, Pennsylvania. No jobs in Allentown since 1976 and Jimmy Carter. This will be a test of POTUS logic. How does he propose to stimulate job growth in a region that lost growth after Bethlehem Steel cleared out, and that hasn’t seen hiring since VE Day? SEIU?

Do Nothing vs Do Something

David Wessel, WSJ, writes that the Obama administration is uncertain what to do about the joblessness because there is another camp, outside government, that says to Do Nothing at all. To wait. (I am in the do nothing camp, with the caveat that I would undo the damage already done by shelving the fevers in Congress, the EPA, strengthening the dollar, shutting off the junk food to the zombies and so forth.)

The Obama administration is in the Do Something camp. Even then, the Obama team is uncertain if it should do more and more, such as expensive tax credits for hiring (similar to what POTUS mentions above) or just tinker cheaply (the recent $250 check to seniors for drugs). The uncertainty itself is a source of panic, because while the administration waits to make a decision, the damage already done to the dollar by the failed spending makes it difficult for the markets to stabilize and the private sector to budget and hire.

In sum, I do not hear any voice in the White House remark that the problem could be (is) Congress and the White House.

John Paulson Bets on Gold

Meanwhile, the fun story of the day is that the billionaire market giant John Paulson is building a new hedge fund to start January 1 that will buy gold, gold shares, gold-mining and so forth. Paulson’s opinion is that gold is just starting a bull run, hanging today at $1150. The market smiled.

This isn’t about gold supply. This is the dollar, the new Fifty Cent piece of Planet Earth. Buy gold now. Sunday night September 14, 2008, the night Lehman Brothers died, I can recall Jimmy Rogers in Singapore telling me that gold was up $23 an ounce. Around $770. Buy gold that night, in the panic of the next weeks of 2008 when Congress passed the trillion dollar TARP giveaway to the bankers and their cronies, and you are now up better than 40%. If you think the dollar is going to rally with the Obama administration’s current policy, sell. If you don’t, can gold go anywhere but up?

Klein: U.S. ‘totally supporting’ Palestinian land grab. Operating in areas that are supposed to be controlled by Israel

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports:

While the Obama administration has demanded a halt to Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, it is “totally supporting” the building of official Palestinian institutions in those same areas plus in the strategic West Bank, a top Palestinian Authority official told WND.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a recent report by Israel’s Shabak Security Services that the PA has been opening officials institutions in what are termed areas B and C.

According to the 1993 Oslo accords, territories defined as area A are entirely administered to and controlled by the Palestinians; area B is administered by the PA but controlled by Israel; whereas area C, including eastern Jerusalem, is supposed to be entirely administered and controlled by Israel.

In defiance of those accords, the Palestinians in recent months have opened up official institutions, including PA ministry offices, in area C.

A WND investigation previously determined the U.S. has been aiding the Palestinians in developing infrastructure in eastern Jerusalem, including on property legally owned by Jews.

That situation has been unfolding in multiple area C neighborhoods, such as the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods of Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis, which are close to the Jewish neighborhoods of Neve Yaacov and Pisgat Zeev in Israel’s capital. Kfar Akeb, Qalandiya and Samir Amis are located entirely within the Jerusalem municipality.

A tour then of the Jerusalem neighborhoods found some surprising developments. Official PA logos and placards abound, including one glaring red street sign at the entrance to the neighborhoods warning Israelis to keep out.

Another official sign, in Kfar Akeb in Jerusalem, reads in English, “Ramallah-Jerusalem Road. This project is a gift form (sic) the American people to the Palestinian people in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and PECDAR. 2007.” The sign bears the emblems of the American and PA governments and of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The displays were not present during a previous WND tour of the neighborhoods in 2006.

Some local schools in the Jerusalem neighborhoods are officially run by the PA – some in conjunction with the U.N. – with many teachers drawing PA salaries. Civil disputes are usually settled not in Israeli courts but by the PA judicial system, although at times Israeli courts are used depending on the matter.

Councils governed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization oversee some municipal matters. USAID provides the PA funds for road and infrastructure projects.

Israeli security officials said the local Jerusalem police rarely operate in peripheral eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods. Instead security has been turned over to the Israel Defense Forces and Border Police, who work almost daily with PA security forces. The PA police operate in the Jerusalem neighborhoods in coordination with Israel.

Shmulik Ben Ruby, spokesman for the Jerusalem police, confirmed the arrangement.

“If there are fights between some local families, sometimes we involve the PA police to make peace between the families,” he told WND. “Yes, the PA police can operate in these neighborhoods in coordination with the IDF and Border Police.”

Dmitri Ziliani, a spokesman for the Jerusalem section of Fatah, confirmed to WND the Palestinians have set up local command in some neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

“We were covering the best ways to improve our performance on the street and how we can be of service to the community,” Ziliani said.

Ziliani the PA holds regular official meetings in Jerusalem in anticipation of a future Palestinian state encompassing all of eastern Jerusalem.

“Our political program as Fatah dictates there will be no Palestinian state if these areas – all of east Jerusalem – are not included,” Ziliani told WND.

According to Israeli law, the PA cannot officially meet in Jerusalem. The PA previously maintained a de facto headquarters in Jerusalem, called Orient House, but the building was closed down by Israel in 2001 following a series of suicide bombings in Jerusalem. Israel said it had information indicating the House was used to plan and fund terrorism.

Thousands of documents and copies of bank certificates and checks captured by Israel from Orient House – including many documents obtained by WND – showed the offices were used to finance terrorism, including direct payments to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group.

Meanwhile, Obama had demanded a complete halt to Jewish construction in the strategic West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly has refused.

Palestinians routinely build in those territories, at times the construction takes place illegally on Jewish-owned land.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Jerusalem that a settlement freeze should not be a precondition for relaunching stalled talks with the Palestinians. However, WND reported the Palestinian Authority rejected a proposal by Clinton for Israel to largely scale back Jewish construction in exchange for the resumption of talks.

Klein: Lawmaker from Netanyahu’s party slams ‘racist’ Obama. Takes issue with U.S. demand to halt Jewish construction

Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily, reports:

A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party today slammed as racist President Obama’s longstanding demand for a halt to Jewish construction in the strategic West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

“President Obama should not interfere with the rights of the Jewish people to live in Jerusalem,” said Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon (right). “This … is a racist demand, saying that Jews cannot live in Jerusalem, only Arabs.”

Danon continued: “Our duty is to the nation that chose to deepen the settlement across Judea and Samaria, and of course Jerusalem. We will fulfill that duty, even at the cost of ignoring Obama and his advisors.”

The Knesset member was speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony initiating 124 new apartments in a Jewish housing complex in the eastern section of Jerusalem.

In a separate statement, he told WND “the answer to Obama’s racist request not to permit Jewish building in Jerusalem was given today when we initiated the construction of another Jewish neighborhood in Nof Zion (eastern Jerusalem.)”

“The people in Israel are united behind Netanyahu’s position regarding eternal rights of Jews to build and live in Jerusalem,” he added.

Danon’s strong words came shortly after Obama stated in a Fox News interview today that settlement activity in Jerusalem and the West Bank complicated efforts by his administration to re-launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations while it also embitters the Palestinians.

Obama was specifically responding to a plan to build new homes within a Jerusalem neighborhood called Gilo, where already some 40,000 Israelis live.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement “at a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed.”

Netanyahu’s office responded to Obama’s criticism by dispatching an aid who sent reporters a message calling the building plan in Gilo “a routine process.”

The aid explained that like other foreign leaders Netanyahu does not normally review municipal building plans in local neighborhoods. The aid added that Netanyahu saw Gilo as “an integral part of Jerusalem.”

“Construction in Gilo has taken place regularly for dozens of years and there is nothing new about the current planning and construction,” the aide added.

Obama had demanded a complete halt to Jewish construction in the strategic West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, which Netanyahu publicly has refused. Palestinians routinely build in those territories, at times the construction takes place illegally on Jewish-owned land.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Jerusalem that a settlement freeze should not be a precondition for relaunching stalled talks with the Palestinians. However, WND reported the Palestinian Authority rejected a proposal by Clinton for Israel to largely scale back Jewish construction in exchange for the resumption of talks.

Glenn Beck Show November 17, 2009

Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck Show November 17 was all about the “insanity of the economy” and lots of bubbles.

But first: The bad news: National Debt Now Tops $12 Trillion. The worse news: Is Obama planning a $3 trillion income tax increase? The moronic news: Chance of Great Depression Now 5%…

POTUS Bows to Chinese President Hu Jintao
h/t Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit, who writes: “Watch around the 1:00 minute mark as he makes several small bows, and one deep one.”

People Who Did NOT Bow to Japanese Emperor Akihito
h/t NewsBusters

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqj3PEto1To\

Batchelor: Four Decades After Nixon and Mao

John Batchelor writes on his blog:

Nixon Bows to Mao, February, 1972

The Obama administration’s political guru David Axelrod appears painfully on the defensive re the unexpected bow by POTUS to Hirohito’s son Akhito during the state visit to Tokyo.

Coincidentally perhaps, the deep bench of Obama supporters have ordered up a YouTube clip of Richard Nixon’s foreign policy triumph on his premier visit to Beijing in 1972. Why? The Chinese film crew that covered the Nixon meets Mao audience on the first day captured a momentary bow by RMN to Mao. See for yourself. Not a deep bow. Not much of a bow. Closer to a head nod with an overripe, stagy deference to an obviously swollen, stooped, decrepit, predatory and self-conscious potentate.

Nixon was in high spirits for the camera. Kissinger was right beside him. This Mao audience was not arranged for the American cameras; but later the film was passed to the White House. The bulk of the clip features historian Winston Lord and administration op Chuck (pre Watergate) Colson in what looked to have been constructed as a campaign ‘72 promotional film

Nixon in China 1972

What is most impressive to me is that Nixon and his team understood Mao’s weakness and exploited it perfectly. China is vain. It is obsessively self-regarding. It calls itself the Middle Kingdom, the center of the Earth. For China, the world revolves around its GPS.

And for the degenerate Mao, who confused his own fate with China’s fate, the performance by the all-powerful Cold Warrior POTUS Nixon was blinding, persuasive, overwhelming. The brief scene we have here of Nixon and Kissinger and Mao demonstrates that Nixon understood that by traveling to the Forbidden City, by flattering and toasting Mao, by carrying on agreeably and respectfully, he was cracking open the fear and loathing that Mao’s regime felt and creating an opening for the West, for the consumer culture of capitalism and individualism. It was a long play. Nixon was certainly also playing for the short term gain in Vietnam, and against the dull thugs in Moscow. Perhaps the law of unintended consequences provided the answers.

Obama In China 2009

POTUS performance the last days has demonstrated the unusually passive courtliness that marked his trips to Europe and the Middle East. It has been called apology touring. The still mysterious greeting to Saudi King Abdullah in London last Winter — was it a bow? a stumble? — now joins the clearly unexpected and remarkable bow to Japanese Emperor Ahkito last week as examples of peculiar POTUS conduct.

To my knowledge, POTUS did not bow to President Hu of China. It was the bow to Akhito that has made the headlines. It is too close to an apology; it might be an apology; and that is unacceptable, anachronistic history. POTUS in China with Hu was not in an apologetic or even amiable temper. Late reports from the traveling media are incomplete but distinctly laced with disappointment about the visit.

The final media event was a parallel appearance by POTUS and Hu, during which no questions were taken, no agreement was demonstrated, and observers believed that the two executives appeared discomfited by one another. The list of disagreements was not short: the dollar deterioration, the fixed yuan, trade balance, protectionist tariffs, internet transparency, Iran sanctions and then the raft of human rights crises in China and in the conquered territory of Tibet and Xinjiang all caused by Chinese imperialism and backwardness. Tibet and Xinjiang abuses sting especially. We are told that POTUS approached China softly, softly in order to encourage cooperation, in order to illustrate his administration’s change of temperature from the Bush administration. The legend has been that the Obama team will find diplomatic successes where the Bush team found conflict and failure. The results of the first occasion are forgettable. The pugnacious Robert Gibbs tried sarcasm (and cynicism), quipping to the media that the White House hadn’t expected, “the waters would part and everything would change over the course of almost 2 1/2 days in China.”

Nixon in China 2009

Reviewing again the video on Nixon’s first trip to visit Mao, I am astonished at the scale of the challenge. Nixon knew that he was entreating a grotesquely demonic tyrant. Still Nixon handled himself with zeal and a kind of operatic joy. We know now that Mao was defeated in a profound fashion. The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution were Apocalyptic delusions, the triggers for murder cults and a still unaccounted for mass murder. Mao’s regime would destroy itself with back-stabbing, and Mao’s heirs would wither, so that what is today the Standing Committee of the Politburo is a diluted rat poison made up of kleptocrats, gangsters, sharpies, whiners. What bursts with energy is the China that will shove aside the Beijing bullies. Nixon saw it, or at least Nixon deserves credit for making it possible to see. Does POTUS see it?

The future of China is in the hands of those men and women POTUS denied by not speaking loudly for Tibet, for the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, for the Christians, the democrats, the bloggers, the freedom lovers. Nixon trusted freedom to win. Does POTUS?

Boo Reed: Keep the Change

Loudon: Alice Palmer Re-examined, Was Obama’s First Political Boss a Soviet “Agent of influence”?

Trevor Loudon writes on his New Zeal blog:

Alice Palmer is a Chicago-based academic, activist and former friend, employer and political ally of Barack Obama.

In the mid 1990s Alice Palmer, then an Illinois State Senator, employed Obama has her chief of staff, when she attempted an ill-fated run for the US Congress.

Obama was part of Friends of Alice Palmer, alongside controversial property developer Tony Rezko and Democratic Socialists of America members Danny K. Davis, Betty Wilhoitte and Timuel Black, who is also a member of Committees of Correspondence.

Later Palmer introduced Obama as designated successor to her Illinois State Senate seat, in the living room of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, while DSA member, former communist and long-time Obama friend Quentin Young looked on.

The Palmer/Obama relationship soured after Obama refused to step down when Palmer decided she wanted her State Senate seat back after her Congressional bid failed.

Obama went on to win the seat unopposed, after he knocked Palmer and his other rivals off the ballot, by challenging the legitimacy of their nominating signatures.

Alice Palmer was the first rung of Obama’s ladder to power.

It has long been known that Alice Palmer was a communist front activist, as were many in Obama’s orbit.

More seriously however, new evidence shows that Alice Palmer had high level connections behind the “Iron Curtain” and may have been a Soviet “agent of influence”–that is, she was a conduit of Soviet propaganda and policy–to the US and the “third world”.

What is the evidence?

Alice Palmer and her husband Edward “Buzz” Palmer had radical connections in Chicago and abroad going back at least into the 1970s.

In 1980, Buzz Palmer and Alice Palmer were invited by the Maurice Bishop-led government of the Caribbean island of Grenada to attend celebrations marking the first anniversary of the country’s Cuban/Soviet backed “revolution”, which was overturned by US troops three years later.

It is unclear whether or not they attended, but Alice Palmer was to work closely a few years later with Bishop’s US educated press secretary, Don Rojas.

Alice and Buzz Palmer established the Black Press Institute (BPI) in Chicago around 1982. In a December 24, 1986, interview with the Communist Party USA paper, People’s Daily Word, Alice Palmer explained BPI’s role in influencing decision makers such as the Congressional Black Caucus.

After the 1960s some of us looked around and observed there was no national Black newspaper…So we started the Black Press Review. We received the Black newspapers from around the country, reprinted articles and editorials that gave a sense of the dynamics and the lives of Black people, and sent them out to the Congressional Black caucus and other opinion leaders, saying “Look, here is what Black America is thinking and doing”.

BPI’s journal, New Deliberations, carried articles such as “Socialism is the Only Way Forward” and “Is Black Bourgeoise Ideology Enough?”

In 1983 Alice Palmer traveled to Czechoslovakia to the Soviet front, World Peace Council’s Prague Assembly–the first of several known trips to East Bloc countries.

From 1983 to 1985 Alice Palmer was an Executive Board member of the Communist Party USA front group, the US Peace Council, an affiliate of the World Peace Council.

Of the 48 US Peace Council officers in 1983-1985, at least ten–Sara Staggs, Rob Prince, Michael Myerson, Frank Chapman, Otis Cunningham, James Jackson, Atiba Mbiwan, Pauline Rosen, Jose Soler and Denise Young–were known Communist Party USA members or supporters.

A further eight were involved in the 1990s in a Communist Party splinter group, Committees of Correspondence. They were Gus Newport, Mark Solomon, Linda Coronado, Barbara Lee, Kevin Lynch, Anne Mitchell, Arlene Prigoff and Alice Palmer herself.

In 1985 Alice Palmer was part of a delegation of 16 Afro-American journalists to the Soviet Union, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

The trip was organized by Maurice Bishop’s former pressman, now International Organization of Journalists executive, Don Rojas. Palmer’s BPI and the National Alliance of Black Journalists also helped out.

Alice Palmer told the People’s Daily World of December 24 1986:

The trip was extraordinary because we were able to sit down with our counterparts and with the seats of power in three major capitals–Prague, Berlin and Moscow. We visited with foreign ministers, we talked with the editors of the major newspapers in these three cities…

It was a very unusual trip because we were given access…Every effort was made to give us as much as we asked for…We came back feeling that we could speak very well about the interest of the socialist countries in promoting peace.

In March 1986 Alice Palmer covered the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress in Moscow for the Black Press Institute.

On June 20, 1986, the People’s Daily World published a BPI article by Alice Palmer on the CPUSA conference entitled “An Afro-American journalist in the USSR”.

The article praised Soviet “central planning” and included such statements as:

“We Americans can be misled by the major media. We’re being told the Soviets are striving to achieve a comparatively low standard of living compared with ours, but actually they have reached a basic stability in meeting their needs and are now planning to double their production.”

Palmer claimed that America’s white-owned press

… has tended to ignore or distort the gains that have been made [by the Soviets] since [the Russian Revolution of 1917]. But in fact the Soviets are carrying out a policy to resolve the inequalities between nationalities, inequalities that they say were inherited from capitalist and czarist rule. They have a comprehensive affirmative action program, which they have stuck to religiously — if I can use that word — since 1917.

Alice Palmer, as editor of the Black Press Review, was elected International Organization of Journalists vice president for North America at the organization’s 10th Congress, October 20-23, 1986, in Prague Czechoslovakia. Palmer’s IOJ duties were to include co-ordinating the activities of chapters in the US, Canada,
Mexico and the Caribbean.

The International Organization of Journalists was a well-documented Soviet front operation. It was based in Prague until its expulsion by the new anti-communist Czech government in 1995.

Like other Soviet fronts of the era, IOJ was staffed mainly by East Bloc personnel and was directed by the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which, in turn, was directly answerable to the Soviet Politburo.

The International Department, often with the assistance of the KGB, used fronts such as IOJ and World Peace Council for “active measures”–programs to covertly influence the policies of other nations, to better advance Soviet interests. These might range from spreading propaganda and disinformation to embarrassing publicity stunts or hoaxes to destroying the career of an enemy of the Soviet Union, or advancing the career of a friend.

A summary of a paper by Bob Nowell entitled “The Role of the International Organization of Journalists in the Debate about the “New International Information Order,” 1958-1978″ states:

This paper examines the International Organization of Journalists (IOJ), which it identifies as a Soviet-dominated organization. The paper suggests that the IOJ has capitalized on “Third World” countries’ discontent with Western news media by offering itself as the ideological leader and trainer of anti-Western journalists.

It then examines the function and methods of the IOJ in the context of post-World War II communist international front organizations; reviews the IOJ’s structure, publications, and training centers; and explores its role in shaping “Third World” arguments in the debate about the New Information Order. The paper argues that the IOJ’s efforts generally have served Soviet foreign policy on international communications.

Alice Palmer also traveled to the Soviet Union and Bulgaria during the IOJ conference trip, as presumably did the other five US delegates:

Jan Carew of BPI, a radical socialist journalist from Guyana.

Simon Gerson, US IOJ, a senior member of the Communist Party USA and perhaps significantly, the Party’s foremost expert on influencing election outcomes.

Jose Soler, US IOJ, then a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and the US Peace Council, now involved with the Communist Party USA.

Gwen McKinney and Leila McDowell, National Alliance of Third World Journalists.

McKinney and former Black Panther member Leila McDowell went on to work in public relations, including for 10 years as a business partnership. Their clients, collectively or separately, have included the SEIU, ACLU, NAACP, AFL-CIO, TransAfrica, “Red Diaper baby” Lani Guinier, Haiti’s deposed Marxist president Jean Bernard Aristide, the socialist governments of Angola and Mozambique, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Change.

In the early 1990s the McKinney/McDowell team influenced US government policy on Haiti when they organized and publicized a hunger strike by prominent radical activist Randall Robinson.

After 27 publicity-filled days, the Clinton White House caved in to Robinson and demanded of the Haitian military that exiled Marxist president Aristide be re-instated.

TransAfrica’s Randall Robinson conducted a dangerous but successful hunger strike that changed the Clinton Administration’s policy on Haiti. PR for the fasting activist was handled by the DC firm of McKinney & McDowell, whose other clients include President Aristide and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

In a December 24, 1986, People’s Weekly World interview with Chicago Communist Party USA member Mike Giocondo, Alice Palmer explained the IOJ’s use of the concept “media fairness”.

Giocondo: What is the IOJ’s approach to the question of fairness in the media? How does it relate to the concept of “objective journalism” which is stressed here in the US?

Palmer: The IOJ believes that there must be fairness in media, which is called for in a proposal for a New Information Order, which the IOJ supports. Fairness is not an abstraction, because journalists are not abstractions; we live in a world, we live in our particular societies, and therefore are caught up in whatever the dynamics of the situation are. This concept of “Objective journalism” that is taught in journalism schools…is not possible…What we are striving for is fairness and balance of information.

To give you a concrete example, the Black Press Institute recently held a media dialogue in Southern Africa in Washington DC on how to make the information more balanced as it comes out of South Africa. The IOJ and the BPI believe there should be balance, that there should be fairness in recognizing the complexities, and that a voice must be given to those who are struggling against oppression”.

Perhaps this is a clue as to the origins of the “Fairness Doctrine” that was long used to stifle conservative media in the US?

During her time as IOJ vice president, Alice Palmer worked with the highest levels of the Soviet propaganda machine–with the Soviet journal Izvestia, with Romesh Chandra and the World Peace Council and the IOJ leadership.

Alice Palmer told the December 24, 1986, People’s Daily World:

The IOJ has adopted positions on nuclear weapons, trying to do away with the nuclear threat in the world…

I will be heading a taskforce on peace and disarmament. And at the conference I was co-moderator, with the editor of Izvestia (a Soviet government publication), of a panel on peace and the news media. We came up with some very good suggestions. A number of the people complimented the Soviet Union for its efforts towards peace in these past few years-the moratorium and other things..

The IOJ has worked with the World Peace Council, and Kaarle Nordenstreng, Jiri Kubka and other IOJ leaders have worked closely with Romesh Chandra, the president of the World Peace Council.

IOJ delegations visit other countries to report on the peace proposals of the Soviet Union, so that people can hear about it. This by the way is an example of promoting fairness in the media.

The IOJ is the largest journalist organization in the world. its publications are published in 10 or 15 languages, and it reaches many people all over the world. So you can see that being fair in the media is very important, particularly in the Third World.

Alice Palmer saw journalists and the US “peace movement” as playing a very important role in the struggle for peace:

At the center of this is that the peace movement must stop the Soviet bashing. That is just not productive, it is not a good thing at all. I see over and over again that it is a barrier to our ability to work together in the United States and with the people of the Soviet Union for peace.

After her stint with IOJ had ended, Alice Palmer continued to work closely with US communists.

Ishmael Flory, a veteran leader of the Illinois Communist Party USA, was honored at a September 21, 1991, function at Chicago’s Malcolm X College, for his “outstanding contributions to the cause of peace, equality and justice.”

According to People’s Weekly World October 12, 1991:

“Ishmael Flory is truly a man for all seasons,” said State Senator Palmer, noting Flory’s unflagging zeal for promoting a progressive, people’s agenda for economic security, an end to racism and for world peace. “He never gives up.”

As late as 1994, when Palmer was known to be working with Barack Obama, she was also working closely with members of the Communist Party splinter, Committees of Correspondence.

It is now clear that Barack Obama has worked for years with Marxists with backgrounds in the Communist Party USA, Democratic Socialists of America and Committees of Correspondence.

That these groups have promoted Obama’s career, both in Chicago and nationally, is undeniable.

However the Alice Palmer case illustrates something even more concerning.

That is that a key Obama ally had, only a few years before meeting the future President, strong relationships with senior East Bloc officials.

Alice Palmer played an active role in promoting Soviet Bloc policy at the height of the Reagan era, when the Soviets and their proxies were threatening US interests in every corner of the globe.

A few years later Alice Palmer was actively promoting the career of a young activist lawyer. That man is now willing and able to negotiate arms control treaties with Alice Palmer’s old friends in Moscow.

This is a man who seems intent on promoting the interests of the former Eastern Bloc and the “third world”, over those of the USA.

Is this merely ironic — or is it potentially catastrophic?

Glenn Beck Show November 16, 2009

Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck Show November 16 focused on SEIU thuggery and #1 White House visitor, Andy Stern, the union’s president.

Watch TIP: Note the PURPLE.

But first: Beck also spent some time on AARP, asking the question why would they now back PelosiCare. Easy answer: $$$$$ — i.e. MediGap insurance.

Right on cue, AARP ran what is an obvious bait-and-switch called MedicareComplete. And the good news is you don’t even have to be a member to take advantage of AARP’s generous offer.

The bait-and-switch part, you ask? Well, when you type the url AARP provided in its tv ad — MedicareComplete.com — you are redirected to SecureHorizons.com, a UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company website that includes Medicare Advantage.

So, of course you don’t have to be an AARP member because this is not an AARP product. Well, not directly, that is:

Medicare Advantage plans

The AARP® MedicareComplete® Plans are SecureHorizons® plans insured or covered by an affiliate of UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, an MA organization with a Medicare contract. AARP MedicareComplete Plans carry the AARP name, and UnitedHealthcare pays a royalty fee to AARP for use of the AARP intellectual property. Amounts paid are used for the general purposes of AARP and its members. AARP is not the insurer. You do not need to be an AARP member to enroll.

AARP is going to get not only a big chunk of Medicare-related revenue from AARP members but also from Medicare recipients who are not AARP members — and, AARP doesn’t have to do anything except collect a royalty fee. How cool is that?

KSM in NYC: Blogger and frequent RBO commenter Peter Koelliker posted a thought-provoking comment that is well worth sharing:

In an earlier thread, I listed some of the institutions – the pillars of America – that Obama’s Left has destroyed or is in the process of destroying. As is so often the case, the most obvious example – the elephant in the room, particularly as it relates to this story – escaped me: American jurisprudence.

Remember, the circus that O.J.’s trial engendered? Remember the fallout? The damage to race relations; credibility? This trial has the potential to do all this and more. Picture the towers of buildings collapsing in dust and smoke. Now shift your minds to consider an abstract version of same: the collapse of the sundry institutions that have served our country so well for so long.

Not in his wildest dreams could KSM have expected that his plan would work so well; that we ourselves would hand him the nails to secure the lid on America’s coffin.

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All About the Purple Shirt People:

Beck on as South Park’s Eric Cartman:

Massacre at Fort Hood — It’s the gun’s fault!