I’m not sure if I’m surprised or not to read that SEIU’s Andy Stern decided to resign his lofy power post today. After all, it’s been well publicized that Andy Stern is the guy who tops the list for visits to the Obama WH in the official log. And we can only guess what the unofficial log is since Norm Eisen, a special counsel to the president, declares that the log is incomplete, and adds a few “false positives” on a WH blog.
A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings. Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few “false positives” – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else. In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly (“R. Kelly”), and Malik Shabazz). The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.
~~~There’s an important lesson here as well. This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information.
uh huh… lot’s of “William Ayers, Michael Moore’s, Jeremiah Wrights’s” with the “confusing” same names with access to the WH. But I digress…. Just how often was Andy Stern there, and why is a 59 year old retiring from a serious powerhouse position this early with a friendly WH admin in power?
Call me suspect….. I smell payola. So my first question is, what’ Andy’s new job in the sundry new government agencies created with O’healthcare to be?
On his “retirement”, Stern is touting the achievement of a lifetime. Per The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, Stern “….feels that he’s outlived his usefulness and would rather turn his union over to younger folks with new ideas…” But of course, that’s all per the “associates”. Ambinder also pulls another heart tugging reason… he “…never got over the death of his young daughter, Cassie, in 2002.”
Okay…..
But a man, used to power and influence, is just going to retire from all of at age 59? Despite what is probably a kick arse pension plan, call me skeptical. I’ll have to go thru the 2000 pages plus to find the likely landing site for a union honcho to guess. But all I can say is this.
So what’s Andy’s new position? Gee… can’t wait to find out….
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
Stern will be Barokeydoke’s new “Thug Czar”
Supreme Court Justice Stern?
He may have a new assignment?
We are so screwed.
Looks like Stern already got his spot at the Obama gravy train…
Source
I write fiction daily and couldn’t do it without the constant inspiration from this administration. Every day, I feel the revelation of newer and improved plot twists in conspiracies and alliances I was too innocent to imagine. It just shows, there is a silver lining to every thundercloud.
My feeling is that Stern is pivotal in SEIU-ACORN-voting fraud-money laundering-loan and tax fraud, through his organizations: the serious investigation of any of them would inevitably tie to him and to 0. The boy has so many fingers in so many pies that he is powerful, yet a great weakness in the foundation of the house of cards. If 0 had sense, he’d put Stern on ice to keep the house from collapsing. Having seen few signs of sense as we know it in 0, we think he’ll give Stern a better job.
Or not. Maybe 0 realizes how many ways Stern can be traced to serious scandal, and is going to throw him under the bus, before it gets further into the campaign season. “Bwhahaha, Stern! You called the shots long enough! Now I am the one with the power!” Or would it be “Sorry, Andy. It’s just business.” I can’t wait for the next installment.
The fish has started to stink, no, it has been stinking……
I’m going to make a prediction here…. Barrak “The Zero” Obama will be the one thrown under the bus in 2012 and Hillary Clinton will be the Demorcratic presidential nominee… an application of the Overton window. We all know that The Zero is a marionette whose strings are being pulled by someone else. By 2012 it will be apparent that The Zero has zero chance of re-election. Hillary, radical left in the days before Obama will appear to be middle of the road, if not down right conservative by comparison.
That’s my prediction for 2012 and I’m sticking to it…. Six pack of beer says I’m right… any takers?
@Donald Bly…Hmmm, interesting thoughts. I wouldn’t bet against something like that happening. Maybe Obama will just nominate her to the SCOTUS to avoid that scenario.
Donald, a friend and I have been discussing the DNC 2012 nomimee status. He, like you, thinks it will be Hillary. I don’t see that as impossible, but I have a few caveats that need to be thrown in.
1: The DNC leadership will have to convince Obama to voluntarily step down for whatever reason. They have a history of hanging on to incumbent losers, and I can’t see them publicly forcing an incumbent out… most especially the “historic first black President”. This doesn’t jive with their attempts to appear the party of the minority message. How would they ‘splain that away?
2: The above depends upon O’cooperation. And frankly, unless he’s got a cushier spot to land, I don’t see this man going quietly. Willingly give up that power? Doesn’t fit with the personality.
That said, it’s interesting that Hillary isn’t on the short list of SCOTUS replacements (heard that on the news… a WH mouthpiece says “no”, she’s staying SOS). Not that I think she has any qualifications for that anyway. But if he wanted to move her out of the way… permanently…. all he had to do was throw her on the list for a permanent appointment to the High Court, eliminating that political competition.
Whether he didn’t because he didn’t find her qualifications up to snuff, or he’s thinking about bowing out in 2012 and tossing the baton to Hillary, remains to be seen. It is entirely possible he wants to beat feet since most of the ugly fiscal repercussions will be appearing in his second term. Perhaps he may feel that if he is away from the Oval Office, the sheeeeet on the fan doesn’t blow off on his legacy. But still…. yield that power? Hard to say.
Here’s the story confirming HRC is not on the SCOTUS short list.
@anticsrocks, Obama’s EO creating the deficit panel was at the end of January, and Stern’s been an appointee since the end of February at least. There is no compensation, and unless the panel’s existence is extended by another EO, it’s lifespan is two years.
Don’t think Stern hops the union ship for a non-paying temporary gig.
@Mata…Okies, thanks for clearing that up, I wasn’t aware it was a non-paying gig. You are right, he wouldn’t jump the union ship to be a volunteer. However that being said, I wouldn’t put it past El Presidente to make Stern another Czar.
We already know that Podesta was a co-founder, along with Soros and Clinton of the Center for American Progress. We also know that The One’s agenda and his “team” was put in place by Podesta when he headed up the transition team. Hillary’s greatest weakness was foreign policy, she gets the nod for Secretary of State to give her that credential. Obama, is a sacrificial lamb, he’s done what he was meant to do… take the country to a far left position knowing full well that there would be a massive backlash. Regardless of The One’s ambitions, he may very well only know what he “needs” to know and his handlers have purposefully kept him in the dark. Obama may very well think especially when one considers his apparent arrogance, that he got where he is on his own merit. Anyone with a modicum of intellect knows that he’s a fabrication and his “success” is a fabrication.
The One probably feels that as long as HRC is out of country, doing Secretary of State things, she is no threat to him. However, should she step down from the post, to run full time for the presidency, Obama’s weaknessess will be exposed. He’ll find that the MSM is not “his” lap dog but the lap dog of those that pull his strings. Hillary will be the recipient of MSM adoration and Obama will be left out to dry during the ensuing primary battle. We’ll also see the financial deep pockets supporting HRC.
Now maybe Obama knows that he’s got to go and that he was always meant to be a sacrificial lamb… maybe he doesn’t. But… with a fresh face in HRC, and a GOP that has been gearing up to defeat a bid by The Zero, the Dems can forget all about the idiocy that occured during the Zero’s tenure and have HRC calling for radical change to right the wrongs that were the result of The Zeros ineptness. It gives the Dems a way of washing away their past sins… and a new crisis for interventionist policies.
There are a number of scenarios out there that involve the Won being a sacrificial goat–or a stalking horse, opening up entirely different possibilities. When it comes to human behavior, Occam’s razor has a lot of problems. It doesn’t allow for events due to emotional outbursts, for instance. Fanatics on any idea are special wrenches in the monkey works, and I do believe a lot of leftist fanatics have gotten influential.
Was thinking, slightly OT, that everyone who reads a blog should make an effort to read contrarian blogs as a reality check. I do, even though they make me sick a lot of the time.
But if you only read what your friends say, you get a distorted view of the opposition size and fervor, and also miss out on their insights. What various unions make of this is probably more telling than what we speculate here.
If you haven’t seen it already, you might want to check this out:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/04/seiu-invested-tens-of-millions-on-obama.html
suek,
Yes, I knew about that, and that is one possible scandal. Rep. Issa may be on this. But, there are so many pension funds and union funds in the same leaky boat that it has to be more to trip up Stern, it has to be some documented conspiracy to defraud or similar in relation to this. Otherwise, we’re getting numb to the blatant crime and the Dems will do the usual “he’s doing it too” distraction. I think there is also some tie-back to Blago, and no doubt to Rahm, and of course there is ACORN with its document dumps showing SEIU ties and manipulation–there’s a long history of questionable associations. The most amazing thing is that this gang can be attacked on so many fronts, yet absorb the punches.
@Donald Bly, while you may want to cite the HRC faithful hopping to the O’campaign, the fact is they may have done so because it was in him they saw the “winner”. HRC carried “baggage”. Obama was a fresh, excitable face with all the right “cards” in his favor against a guaranteed loser… the GOP and McCain.
It’s totally against historic precedent to assume they are planning a “sacrificial lamb” in Obama. It’s also political suicide. I disagree with your premise and reasoning, but I don’t entirely discount the end prediction.
As I said, the only way Obama isn’t the nominee is if he steps aside willingly, and quietly. At this point, I can’t see him doing that. Perhaps further downline when the unemployment is still high, the deficit/debt becoming more obvious, he’ll do so to avoid the rightful fallout and leave it to HRC to carry that onus.
And frankly, I’m not sure she’d want to be picking up his scattered turds. She’s a brighter lightbulb than that.
@MataHarley
I’m not saying that HRC wasn’t in the game to win in 08, nor am I saying that the HRC supporters didn’t see a better bet in The One for taking the WH in 08. The people pulling the marionette strings aren’t stupid nor are their plans static. My belief is that HRC simply had too much baggage in 08 and not enough foreign policy credentials, but once the horse changed plan B went into operation.
I’m sure that picking up “scattered turds” would constitute a “crisis” and one should never let a good “crisis” go to waste. At this point, The Zero is so damaged he’s a liablity. His handlers know it too…. Perhaps The Zero is the only one that doesn’t realize it. That’s one of the problems with arrogance, it blinds one to reality.
In 2008 I was mostly reading the lefty blogs, following the power struggle between 0 and HRC. I’d say hell hath little fury compared to the Hillcrats and PUMAS. Many claimed to vote for McCain because 0 was so odious. And all the stuff about the BC started with HRC supporters. And the Islamic connection, Rev. Wright, all that. They definitely hated 0 as much as any on the right.
It seemed to me like something happened, somehow the leverage on HRC was too much, several of her friends died, and she caved. You could see her frustration. This was a terrible shock to her supporters, they had endured some really nasty trolling for her and then she started backing 0. So if he’s got the goods on her, he still has it and she can’t fight it or she would have. Either that or she’s the world’s best actress. It seemed to me that there was a point where it was obviously futile to overcome the hate and cheat machine of the MSM, SEIU/ACORN, the usual race-baiters, etc. Any winner other than 0 would have faced a term of constant racism charges and personal attacks, in order to get him back on the ballot in 2012, and maybe HRC and JMC both could see that the only way to overcome 0 was let him win and let the ugliness come out for everyone to discover.
Great post.