BDS group to spend $8.5 million against lame duck president
The BDS crowd is going on a therapeutic spending spree:
A liberal advocacy group plans to spend $8.5 million in a drive to make sure President Bush’s public approval doesn’t improve as his days in the White House come to an end.
Americans United for Change plans to undertake a yearlong campaign, spending the bulk of the money on advertising, to keep public attention on what the group says are the failures of the Bush administration, including the war in Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the current mortgage crisis.
In selling the plan to fundraisers, the group has argued that support for President Reagan was at a low of 42 percent in 1987 but climbed to 63 percent before he left office. “All of a sudden he became a rallying cry for conservatives and their ideology,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of the group. “Progressives are still living with that.”
The group is a nonprofit corporation that made a splash by airing ads against Bush’s plans to overhaul Social Security in 2005. The group has conducted polls and focus groups and is now raising money for their anti-Bush effort. It gave a Power Point presentation to representatives of about 30 liberal and labor organizations last week.
It plans to announce the campaign at a press conference Thursday afternoon during a forum featuring liberal critics of the administration. It also aims to air its first ad in advance of Bush’s State of the Union speech on Monday.
Who’s behind Americans United for Change? The usual suspects, union bosses, and political losers. Here’s background info from the WaPo published last year:
Leadership:
Brad Woodhouse, president, a former press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and press secretary for Erskine Bowles’s unsuccessful Senate bid in North Carolina against Elizabeth Dole.
Suzanne Granville, deputy executive director and former official in the AFL-CIO’s women’s department.
Donors and key players:
Tom Matzzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org, who has helped fund Americans United as MoveOn pursues its own antiwar campaign. He headed online organizing for John F. Kerry’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 2004 and was online mobilization director for the AFL-CIO.
Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME, the union of state and municipal employees and a fixture in Democratic fundraising.
John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, who saw his union splinter with upstart service workers unions but has worked with the splinter group to help fund Americans United.
Andy Stern, president, the Service Employees International Union, a leader of the splinter group and an aggressive backer of Democratic political causes.
Anna Berger, head of Change to Win, the umbrella labor organization and budding AFL-CIO rival.
Larry Cohen, president, Communications Workers of America, who has moved to unionize white-collar, high-tech workers and may see antiwar activism as a hook.
Reggie Weaver, president of the National Education Association, the powerful teachers lobby.
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After “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”, Harriet Miers, Prescription Drug Benefits, et al, I really don’t think they’ll need to worry about President Bush being named along side of President Reagan.
However, let them waste their money trying to affect the past. We’ll invest our money in trying to affect the the future.
Wow. Leaders of two of the least effective groups of people on the planet–bureaucrats and public school teachers–are after Bush. I hope George doesn’t lose any sleep at night knowing that these attack gerbils are gunning for him.
I love it. Let them continue to waste money trying to influence opinion about a man who can’t even run again. The left continues to run against Bush / Cheney with apparent inability to understand that he’s not a political opponent any more. I’m guessing they’ve spent too much time watching the Chelsea and America show on YouTube.
Cry me a freakin’ river! GET OVER IT! As if progressivism espouses anything intelligent Americans would want. They’re not progressives, they’re regressives, trying to tell us that their brand of socialism is just marxism light and that it will work.
Name me a successful socialist country.
crickets chirping…
I am amused by this.
What, are they trying to make sure no one votes for him in the next election?
Why don’t they just contribute the money to go toward S-CHIP or some other program “for the children?” Instead of acting like the overgrown spoiled children they are. If you add up all the money Soros and his ilk have given to the destruction of our country, our way of life, and their BDS I bet it could house, cloth, feed, pay for medical costs, and educate a lot of people.
Moonbats stepping up their attacks on Bush.
Have they ever stopped them. Will we notice a difference?
Bullseye!
Seriously…. they even sling mud at him during the debates…… And sadly many many Americans want these people running our nation.
Your tax dollars at work!
Its takes all kinds of people to make up the population of Earth.Idiots come to mind.
Perhaps they will work equally hard to have the Barret Report released? O.K. i’m back to reality now.
i thought liberals cared about the poor. a whole lot of poor people could be fed with 8.5 million.
Good thing Bush is not considered a Conservative. LOL.
oh, and i bet 5million of that 8.5million will be for “overhead”…
They can’t be that big losers if they are good for $8.5M.
They don’t have to be sleezy, they just need to remind people of the Bush record, from “uniter” to “mission accomplished” to “heckuvajob Brownie” to social security “reform” (attack) to tax cut/exploding deficit.
But on the subject of sleeze, did you hear about the wingers who are opposing Hillary Clinton with a 527 organization called (I’m not making this up) C. *. N. T., “Citizens United and Not Timid”.
LGM I keep asking you over and over about what Demos/libs would do about terror besides surrending but yet have no answer. The vast majority of yanks do not want to live under Islam law and most don’t want to be oil dependent on the arabs. Edwards wants to create jobs but yet damns the companies that provide them. I still don’t know what Kerry’s Hillary’s and the others plan on terror yet. They are going to let Iraq go to the terrorists next. Whats next, are you going to let Western Europe go Islamic too?
An old farmer once heard that old saying, “It takes all kinds to make the world go around.” To which he replied, “It don’t take all kinds, we’ve just got all kinds!”
To paraphrase Edwards, no BDS hate campaign has ever bought healthcare for a deserving young child!
They should put their money where their mouths are.
Stupid gits!
lgm, not “losers.” this is a common liberal tactic. to take part of a quote; this was a special flavor of intellectually dishonest seeing as the entire phrase “political losers” was italicized. “political losers”…which is exactly what they are. they’ve failed to get much of their agenda passed. what would you call that? a winner?
as for “reminding” people. i would agree, if these groups weren’t notorious for white lies, outright lies, bold face lies, and distortions. but, i support their right. ultimately, the American public has deemed the left’s tactics unseemly, and i’m sure they’ll shoot themselves in the same foot close to the general election.
The irony is, if they’re citing failures, they should really be making ads about their own organizations, which have failed utterly to make their point with the American people.
Isn’t it pathetic that this election is being set up as a chance to elect one guy who can’t run for office again (via spousal proxy) and defeat another guy who can’t run for office again? “A vote for Hillary! is a vote for Bill and a vote against Dubya.” Huh? What?
It’s kinda hard to make the case that we’re the shining beacon of democracy in the world during dangerous times when our leaders are being chosen in such an unserious manner.
garyt said (#17):
There’s not much chance this answer will help, but here goes:
(1) Stop provoking them (Ron Paul’s line). Tell Israel to stop stealing Arab land or withdraw our $30B/year support. Stop torture. Stop supporting repressive regimes in Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Withdraw from Iraq. Rebuild Afganistan.
(2) Stop crying wolf. All those “terror cells” we’ve found in the US turned out to be kids playing with sticks rather than actual terrorists.
(3) Respect the law. Illegal torture does not provide useful information. Illegal wiretapping does more harm than good.
(4) Protect America. Inspect shipping imports. Guard chemical and nuclear plants. Don’t use homeland security to protect ammusement parks in Wyoming.
Besides all that, who really gives a rat’s fat, wet rear end about so-called “approval ratings”?
Sheesh!
Somebody please find these people something constructive to do!
They could at least use the money to help people pay their sub-prime mortgages.
I think if I was a union member I’d be pissed that my union officers were wasting time and money on this kind of thing.
Union workers of America, vote em out and elect people that actually care about you.
You do realize that Israel are constantly under rocket attack in the south (near Sderot)? The blockade of Gaza comes as a response to Hamas launching rockets from that territory into Israel. If you look at news over the past few years, it is always the Arab world that provokes an encounter. The summer war of 2006? Kidnapped Israelis. Yom Kippur War? Invasion by Arab neighbours.
You’re telling us that Israel has no right to defend itself against people who are out for their blood? The irony of the current situation in Gaza is that the people living there depend on Israel for aid yet their Hamas led government refuses to recognize the state of Israel, and seeks to provoke a confrontation by launching rockets into Israel. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you …
What about the global Muslim Brotherhood, i.e. “ummah Islam”? What are they doing about the situation in Gaza apart from blaming Israel? Oh that’s right, Egypt is denying responsibility for Gaza and are having their security forces beat back any Gazans who breached their security wall. Sounds very brotherly to me. Anyone find it funny that they have a *wall* built around their border to keep their Muslim “brothers” out too?
You are right when you say that your answers do not help. Only when you ground your understanding of the world in reality will you be able to provide answers that will actually work. Your utter failure to address the true situation in Israel (no, jumping on the blame Israel bandwagon doesn’t cut it) provides enough insight into how warped your view of the world truly is.
Thank you, but no thank you.
Mother Nature say’s, don’t feed the trolls.
Sorry LGM y99u are delusional.
#1 is off the table. The very existence of a secular, non-muslim country is provocation enough in the eyes of the Wahabbists (whomthe Saudis fund and shelter), Salafists and other islamofascist militant groups.
Their ideaology is threatened by the very existence of unfetter peoples and free speech, and the inability to apply force to stop speech they do not like. Kinda like doctrinaire liberals at most universities, now that I think about it. They aim to destroy such societies since we are obstacles to the world-wide Caliphate they beleive thier religion demands of them.
Apparently you and others like you are so grossly ignroant about this that you continue to make assumptions that they are just like us. After serving in Saudi and the middle east, and other ares, they most assuredly are NOT liek us (except possibly the Fred Phelps people). And there is the nugget of your problem – you refuse to realize that core truth: there are irrational people who will act irrationally. Hatred is a strong driver for them, and igrnoing them doe not work – all that is neccesary for Evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing(Burke, apoc).
Secondly, there are and were legitimate threats that were stopped. Jsut because they were not publicized does nto mean they didnt happen. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Your naysaing without a bit of factual support again shows the emptiness of your position and the invincible ignorance behind it. You are so convinced of your ideaology that you deny reality when it opposed you. When you let that influnce your life, then thats derangement, you poor fellow.
Third, the “illegal” wiretapping was in fact NOT illegal. It is legal to listen to calls between terrorists with one end overseas, especially in wartime. FDR established this, and it is within the pwoers of the commander in cheif to order such intelligence gathering to defend the nation. And it DOES produce workbale intelligence product. All your warbling about and obfuscating will not change it.
And as for “torture” – waterboarding is completely legal. I know because I had it done to me as part of our aircrew SERE training in Washington State. And it has produced information. It is on record as breaking several key people. Its not the info you get immediately from a waterboardign session, its that you break them that makes later conventional interrogation techniques effective. If you knew anything about interrogation methods you’d have known that. Yet again your ignroance blind you.
Now afterall that, you might find it odd, but I have no disagreement at all about your point 4. We need to fence and patrol BOTH borders, patrol the coastlines more effectively, and be much more strict on shipping and cargo inspections.
If you read that website, you will see that there is contact information available. It gets even worse. Check out http://www.who.is/whois-org/ip-address/citizensunitednottimid.org/. See who is the registrant? Domains By Proxy. Now why would someone go through all that trouble, to hide behind a proxy when registering a domain name? And it’s only been registered less than 2 weeks ago. Suspicious? You bet.
Perhaps … perhaps it’s Hilary Clinton trying to manufacture outrage like her iron my shirt video? Who knows. But what we do know is that non-inquisitive people tend to swallow such things hook, line and sinker.
Oh and LGM, even the most blind amongst your type can see that abandonment of Iraq woudl result in a horrid blodbath and the establishemnt of a hostile Islamofascist governmetn that woudl shelter and train terrorists who would consider attacking the US a paramoutn mission.
So stop withthe stupid “withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan”. We tried it in Afghanistan inthe 1990’s, and look where it got us.
That should say there is *NO* contact information available. I want to buy an edit button
It never fails to amuse when they refer to themselves as “progressives.” They are so ashamed of the liberal ideology that they refuse to accept the name that goes with it. Do they really think that people are so dumb that they can be fooled by the name change? It’s their policies that the people disagree with, not their name. Conservatives proudly call themselves conservatives.
If they’re stupid enough to fall for that Citizens United Not Timid site, they’re stupid enough to buy anything.
Why does this quote come to mind when reading about this.
lgm,
What color is the sky in your world? Take the blue pill, please.
“…plans to spend $8.5 million in a drive to make sure President Bush’s public approval doesn’t improve…”
“The group is a nonprofit corporation …”
Am I the only one thinking that they are in violation of their nonprofit tax status by engaging in partisan politics?? How is this blatant violation of the tax code (read “crime”) being overlooked?!
“Look for the union libel
when you are reading that paper or blog.
Remember somewhere our union’s stewing,
our wages going to keep MoveOn high on the hog.
Bush works hard, and we’re complaining.
Thanks to our dues for paying our way!
So always look for the union libel,
it says we’re trying to screw the U.S.A.!
LOL…”Jeff ‘Noodles’ Jones” doesn’t give you a clue lgm??
ROFL. i don’t want to say it…well, yes, i do. sucker.
Great for the economy and less money they have to spend for or against candidates actually running in November. These people are beyond help.
Losers, indeed. That Mattzie guy from Moveon is the one who led their campaign last summer to get congressmen to turn against the war and cut off funding. It didn’t work so well.
The senators who were going wobbly on Iraq got back on the the bus, and congressional support for the war actually increased.
lgm, responding to your first post: “They can’t be too big of losers if they’re good for $8.5M.”
Well, yes they can. Remember how much Soros poured into the 2004 presidential election? Aroun $24M? Well, his side lost.
A loser with money is still a loser.
Good stuff OC and lgm…enjoyed the discourse. OC, I have to disagree with you a bit regarding waterboarding however. In my somewhat expert opinion, waterboarding is pretty clearly illegal, and my buddies in the IC tell me that it is largely ineffective. Reasonably minds can almost always differ however, so you’re obviously entitled to your opinion.
garyt, hyperbole much?
It’s easy to waste $8.5 million dollars when you got it from union members who have no choice but to pay you dues!
I don’t care how much you dislike Bush; a campaign to make sure the hate won’t end with his presidency is pathetic. Next stop: BDS-ing any Bush 43 presidential library!
“You hate me… that’s good. Hate keeps a man alive!”
- From the film, “Ben Hur”
The one relevant thing that lgm got at in his post #16 was to hint at the reason why the donkeys and their clients are still running against George Bush: it worked for them in 2006 as a way to tar the entire Republican party, and they’re going back to the well in 2008.
We should not underestimate the potential efficacy of this idea. The 2008 election will be the last practical opportunity for the Angry, Vengeful Left to express its hatred toward the man who has driven them so crazy for the past several years.
Even if they’re not enthusiastic about Madame Hillary, they may still be roused to the polls for one last, heartfelt thrust of the middle finger into the air in the general direction of their nemesis, George W. Bush.
I thought this was the party of saving the chiiiildren?
Couldn’t they spend that money on helping others instead?
What a waste.
Waste of money.. Hope the ads run at 2am, along with other infomercials. Well, they have the “right” to waste their money.
Ordinary Coloradan said (#30):
Please read. I said “withdraw from Iraq, rebuild Afganistan.” What you say the left says and what they actually say may not be the same. If we had not invaded Iraq and left 100,000 troops in Afganistan they would not be the heroin capital of the world, the Taliban would not be making a comeback, and we might have been able to (re) build a country that would be an example to the world. Now it’s just another example of a US created failed state.
Please, what did we try?
LGM, we left them to their own devices, and ultimately, this menat they were in the hands of Pakistan’s ISI. Hence the Taliban ,and all that follows. (And we apparently are in no better shape to oppose the IS now than we were then with accomodationist forgein policy toward Pakistan being the same be it Bush or Clinton).
And I notice you completely skipped all the other points, including the Withdraw from Iraq rebuttal.
Nice try.
Among the donors Michelle listed was “Reggie Weaver, president of the National Education Association, the powerful teachers lobby.”
Let me tell you guys, there are still teachers in the public school system who are still fighting the BDS syndrome anywhere we can – and I’m a history teacher, so I’ve got even more opportunity to let kids gasp! think for themselves on these sorts of issues.
LGM sorry I am late in responding but just got home from work. First if Israel is the problem of Muslim anger then why are they pisssed off in Thailand and the Phillipines which both nations are far from Israel? I don’t want to sound too preachy but the bible says Israel won’t be going anywhere so shedding of Israel will not appease your Muslim friends. Muslims are already outraged and remember they had the 67 war and the Munich crisis before there was much USA involvement. Chamberlain also proved to us your appeasement doesn’t work. So why doesn’t Hillary, Billery, Edwards and the rest of them advocates these points out in the public? Are they ashamed of Democratic alternatives?
LGM what methods would you use to get intelligence. You think listening to rap music, lack of sleep is real torture? Remember when these guys get questioned they are not at some five star hotel but a prisoner of US forces. Would you surrender US cities nuclear hits to obtain your purity? Would FDR and Truman do this? Remember I used to be a democrat when the demos had some foreign policy sense.
Seriously, people like lgm have a very warped view of the world. There’s no point reasoning with them and providing historical precedents. They can never put two and two together.