I just read a very bizarre blog post about entrenched incumbent Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch by Fox News anchor Greta van Susteren and then watched an equally distressing interview van Susteren conducted last night with Sarah Palin regarding Hatch.

First, the title of van Susteren’s blog post: “Is someone trying to manipulate the UTAH Tea Party vote unfairly away from Senator Orrin Hatch?”

Van Susteren absurdly suggests that dark, sinister, unnamed, and uninformed forces in Utah with outside backing are somehow trying to take away Hatch’s seat through nefarious means. She’s clearly talking about D.C.-based fiscal conservative groups like FreedomWorks and Club for Growth that support possible GOP primary challenger and current Rep. Jason Chaffetz (whom I also support). But she won’t come out and just name these groups. What gives?

Moreover, she fails to explain how it’s bad for a few Beltway-based groups to “manipulate” the race by encouraging primary challengers, but it’s fine for Beltway-based van Sustern to influence readers with her ill-informed dissection of the race and her promotion of Hatch’s purported Tea Party bona fides.

Hatch’s people have lined up big national guns from outside Utah to help him hold on to his power and perks. It seems clear to me Hatch is calling in every last chit he has amassed over four decades in the Beltway. It’s the only rational explanation for the beyond-laughable promotion of Hatch as a — gag — “Tea Party visionary.”

Whatever their reason for coming to Hatch’s aid, I wish some of these outside supporters of the incumbent would show a little more self-awareness and refrain from accusing other non-Utahans of “manipulating” the race and disregarding facts when their own fundamental understanding of the history and agenda of the Tea Party movement is so fatally flawed.

Utah voters themselves sent a clear, potent message that entrenched incumbency is no argument for more entrenched incumbency last May when they booted Hatch’s Senate big government Republican colleague Bob Bennett from office in the primary. Were they “manipulated,” too?

Van Susteren’s sloppy blog post (which doesn’t include a single hyperlink) provides erroneous facts about the Tea Party movement, erroneous characterizations of the core Tea Party agenda, and erroneous analysis of Hatch’s fiscal record after three decades in office. After insinuating that unprincipled motives are fueling those who oppose Hatch, she wraps up with a rather specious conclusion that based on Hatch’s creaky old support for the balanced budget amendment, she “would think that fact alone would make him the champion (the visionary?) of the Utah Tea Party.”

She ends with a question: “Am I wrong?”

Flabbergastingly so.

First, let’s correct her errors about the birth of the Tea Party movement and its core agenda. She says she “decided to take a look at the facts and investigate a bit.” This is what she says she found:

First, The Tea Party appeared on the scene in about April 2009.

Second, 18 months later, in November 2010, the Tea Party exercised its political muscle and elected Tea Party Members of Congress. The mantra of the new Members of Congress, and what the Tea Party Congressional winners ran on is, “balanced budget amendment.”

Wrong. And wrong. Seriously, how long did she spend “investigating?”

The seeds of the Tea Party protest movement sprouted in February 2009 as grass-roots citizens outside the Beltway gathered to protest the massive Obama porkulus, generational theft, and the White House push for massive expansions of the government mortgage entitlement. On Feb. 19, CNBC’s Rick Santelli issued his now-famous “Tea Party” call — prompted, many people forget, by Obama’s mortgage entitlement expansion plans (proposals we’ve protested whether from Democrats or moron Republicans). Let me remind you that John McCain supported a behemoth $300 million mortgage entitlement expansion that dwarfed Obama’s — and it was the failure to provide a clear contrast to the Democrats’ Santa Claus politics that helped doom McCain and the 2008 GOP presidential bid.

Foremost on the agenda of grass-roots Tea Party activists was the need to stop new bipartisan bailouts and block Obama’s new spending programs. Investor’s Business Daily’s David Hogberg and Patrik Jonnson at the Christian Science Monitor were the first national media reporters to provide a fair and balanced look at protesters mad at both parties for bailout-a-palooza in late February:

To be sure, the federal spending package includes tax cuts for most Americans, and Obama has promised to eventually halve a US deficit the Democrats have largely blamed on the Bush administration.

But protesters like Kevin Tanner of South Dakota said deficit spending by both parties has unnerved Americans. “The Republicans have their own problems because we elected them and they didn’t do what we wanted,” says Mr. Tanner.

Many protesters expressed a sense that basic American freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are threatened by new Washington policies seen by many as more socialistic than capitalistic. The proposed taxpayer bailout of homeowners who may have inflated their earnings in order to secure mortgages is one example, says Jeff Crawford, a protester from Dacula, Ga.

“The first year after the Mayflower arrived, the colonists tried a communal method of storing and sharing food and it failed miserably,” says Mr. Crawford. “Why are things any different now?”

Eighteenth-century symbolism was rife at the Atlanta event as speakers drew comparisons with the Boston patriots who dumped the King’s tea in Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation, an act that began the American Revolution and the founding of the United States.

Some kids at the Atlanta protest wore tri-cornered hats, and one held a sign that said, “When I grow up I want to be free.”

In Tampa, two dozen protesters held handwritten signs with slogans like “Keep Your Bailout; I’ll Keep My Freedom.” About 300 people showed up in 25-degree weather in Wichita, Kansas, and someone brought a pig.

In St. Louis, local media expected about 50 people to show up while actual turnout surged to over 1,000 people.

After the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party protests in April 2009, the next wave of protests in the summer of 2009 focused on Obamacare and costly federal health care spending, regulations, and mandates. Sorry to burst van Susteren’s bubble, but the balanced budget amendment — while important to many founding Tea Party activists and candidates — was simply not what drove so many thousands of first-time fiscal activists onto the streets and into town halls and polling booths.

Weirdly, van Susteren then writes that “I had some research done for me” (by whom?) and hypes the “stunning” (to whom?) information that — gasp! — Hatch sponsored Senate BBA resolutions in 1979 and 1997 (dates which she puts in bright red, bold font).

“Stunning?” This is all widely known information that Hatch’s supporters have been publicizing from here to eternity and which can be unearthed in a 10-second Google search.

More to the point: Since when does balanced budget amendment support alone solidify a pol’s Tea Party credentials and when did van Susteren become notary public of said credentials?

Grass-roots Tea Party activists inside and outside Utah have myriad problems with Hatch’s three-decade-long voting record.

Let me repeat what I said two weeks ago when Hatch called himself a Tea Party person:

Orrin Hatch is the antithesis of the Tea Party spirit. He is a mascot for big-spending Beltway entrenched incumbency who has consistently joined hands with destructive Democrats.

He slobbered over corruptocrat Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.

He co-sponsored the $6 billion national service boondoggle and dedicated it to his good friend Teddy Kennedy, with whom he also joined hands to create the ever-expanding SCHIP entitlement.

He supported tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from day one, lavished praise on Joe Biden’s balls, and embraced and defended Attorney General Eric Holder’s nomination because, he said, “I like Barack Obama and I want to help him if I can.”

He was an original sponsor of the open-borders DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout and voted for the massive TARP bailout.

And there’s much, much more from his support for Fannie/Freddie bailouts to farm subsidies and beyond.

Most importantly: How do Utah Tea Party people feel about Tea Party pretender Orrin Hatch?

The same way they feel about his former big-spending entrenched incumbent in Utah — former Sen. Bob Bennett…

As I noted back in April 2009:

If only the condescending cable TV anchors at CNN and MSNBC had paused from wallowing in gutter puns about tea bags, they might have reported an even more significant phenomenon: Tea Party protesters were as vocal in their criticism of Republicans as they were of Democrats. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a crowd of 2,000 repeatedly booed GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, who both supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, and protested GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman’s decision to accept $1.6 billion in porky stimulus funds.

Refresh your memories of how Utah Tea Party activists booed Hatch, Bennett, and McCain 2.0 presidential candidate and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman (at 1:24 in the video) in Salt Lake City in April 2009:

The video somehow escaped the attention of van Susteren’s researchers.

And yet on her TV show interview with Sarah Palin Thursday night, van Susteren accused Tea Party folks of factual omissions:

If you do a little research,” Van Susteren noted, it was easy to find that Sen. Hatch was a longtime champion of the balanced budget amendment, and that he had been ardently against excess spending for decades. “Some of these people in the Tea Party movement won’t recognize it. They won’t look at the facts,” she argued. “Within the Tea Party movement, there is a disregard for the facts.”

She then went on to minimize opposition to Hatch as “small” and criticized Hatch’s critics as “disruptive.” Van Susteren looked perplexed and irked that Tea Party people would want to turn out an elected incumbent in the Republican Party.

Hello? From day one, the nascent Tea Party movement has always been about holding both parties accountable for their records. “Disruption” of Washington business as usual is the entire raison d’etre of the grass-roots revolts and out-of-control taxing and spending. Token support for a balanced budget amendment means nothing if the BBA sponsor has spent nearly 40 years — as Hatch has — rubber-stamping expansion after expansion of the welfare and entitlement state, then hooking up with corruptocrat Dems like Chris Dodd and Teddy Kennedy to preserve and protect pet boondoggles.

Most devastating of all, Palin offered ZERO rebuttal of van Susteren’s nonsense and agreed that Tea Party folks should “work with” Hatch instead of “shoving him out.”

Watch:

Transcript:

VAN SUSTEREN: You know, I see a lot of good, hard-working Americans who are in the Tea Party movement. And then, you know, from time to time, I see things like — you know, today — today, I wrote on Gretawire a blog about what’s going on within the Tea Party movement to Senator Orrin Hatch. I mean, he’s getting attacking by a small portion of the Tea Party movement for not being Tea Party-ish enough, and it’s — and it fundamentally goes around the balanced budget amendment, which is so — which is the mantra of the Tea Party movement.

So people like Orrin Hatch, who now especially — he’s rising up with quite aggressive talk about the balanced budget amendment and other things that he has seen for all these years need to be done. We need to be agreeing and embracing his idea and working with him to make sure that that happens, instead of shooing him away and shooing him out of a Tea Party movement, if you will, when he agrees with such a basic fundamental principle that we must see implemented, and that’s just simply balancing the doggone federal budget!

Is this the same Palin who just a few weeks ago boldly (and rightly) wrote: “Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries.”

To quote of my favorite Palinisms: WTF?

***

AmeriCorps’s favorite scandal-plagued mayor
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, FOTO (Friend of the Obamas)

A prominent Democratic politician who had been banned from receiving federal aid three years ago over fraud charges is once again raking in government funds from the very same program he abused. It pays to be a FOTO — Friend of the Obamas.

Our publicly-subsidized con artist is Sacramento mayor and former NBA star Kevin Johnson. He donated the maximum individual amount to Obama for America, campaigned across the country for Obama in 2008, and bragged to California media during his mayoral run about his friendship and access to both Barack and Michelle Obama. The Obama administration’s Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) recently bestowed Johnson’s city with an AmeriCorps grant worth more than $650,000.

The money will flow into Sacramento’s “Get Fit Now! Initiative,” which will hire 124 AmeriCorps members “to teach fitness and nutrition education to children and offer adult fitness classes for their parents. They will also set up school-based gardens where children will learn how to grow fresh vegetables.”

That’s a lot of fertilizer-shovelers employed in the name of “public service.” If the award smells funny, it should. For Johnson, AmeriCorps has indeed been all about service – self-service, that is.

In 2008, the independent Inspector General overseeing AmeriCorps, Gerald Walpin, concluded that Johnson and aide Dana Gonzalez had squandered hundreds of thousands of a nearly-million-dollar grant earmarked for his non-profit youth organization, St. HOPE. Based on Walpin’s investigation, AmeriCorps’ parent organization (the aforementioned CNCS) suspended Johnson and Gonzalez’s access to federal funds. Here’s a refresher on their fraud and abuse that led to the ban:

*Using AmeriCorps members to “recruit students for St. HOPE Academy;”

*Improperly using AmeriCorps “members to perform non-AmeriCorps clerical and other services” that “were outside the scope of the grant and therefore were impermissible” for “the benefit of St. HOPE.”

Johnson didn’t get jail time. Instead, the Democratic U.S. Attorney in Sacramento cut a cozy settlement deal so Johnson could avoid criminal prosecution. The deal also allowed Johnson to re-pay just a fraction of the money he siphoned from AmeriCorps coffers for personal gain – and it freed Johnson to receive federal Obama stimulus money for Sacramento. (My most recent check of the Recovery.gov website shows the city has taken in at least $32 million in stimulus cash.)

In keeping with this administration’s brutal war on whistleblowers, Inspector General Walpin was unceremoniously fired and smeared by Team Obama. The White House baselessly questioned the veteran watchdog’s mental health and accused him of political interference. The First Lady then installed her former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, in AmeriCorps’ top management to ensure – in Mrs. Obama’s own words – that they remained the program’s “No. 1 cheerleaders.”

Even more troubling, Johnson continues to reap government tax dollars for youth programs while he remains dogged by questions about his predatory behavior with teenage girls. A little-noticed section of the joint November 2009 report by GOP Sen. Charles Grassley and GOP Rep. Darrell Issa on Walpin’s firing revealed that the AmeriCorps inspector general’s investigator “became aware of allegations of inappropriate contact between Johnson and three female St. HOPE students.” Their stories mirror a similar incident involving Johnson (then 29 and playing for the Phoenix Suns) and a 16-year-old girl dating back to 1995.

Johnson’s attorney, Kevin Hiestand, approached at least one of the St. HOPE students describing himself only as ‘a friend of Johnson’s,’ and ‘basically asked me to keep quiet,’” according to the student. She had complained to St. HOPE officials that Johnson groped her sexually after instructing her to grade papers with him in her apartment. The report also highlighted what clearly looks like a hush-money and witness-tampering attempt: “According to her interview with OIG investigators, about one week later, Kevin Johnson offered her $1,000 a month until the end of the program, which she refused to accept.”

Erik Jones, a teacher at St. HOPE, reported to the police that one of his students told him Johnson “started massaging her shoulders and then reached over and touched her breasts.” Jones quit his job in protest over the seeming cover-up of Johnson’s harassment and wrote in his resignation letter that “St. HOPE sought to intimidate the student through an illegal interrogation and even had the audacity to ask me to change my story.”

Another student recounted for investigators how Johnson “kissed her cheek, brushed up against her,” and touched her thigh on various occasions – as well as flipping up her skirt on a St. HOPE-sponsored trip to Harlem. She didn’t report the incidents to AmeriCorps officials at the time because she “feared she would be terminated.”

Another St. HOPE official, Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez, also left Johnson’s non-profit over the whitewash. Michelle Rhee, Johnson’s fiancé and former D.C. schools chief, was a St. HOPE board member at the time. The Grassley-Issa report noted that “According to Wong-Hernandez, Rhee learned of the allegations and played the role of a fixer, doing ‘damage control’” and vouching for Johnson’s character.

He’s a “good guy,” Rhee told Walpin.

Taxpayers — and especially parents of teenage girls and AmeriCorps workers in Sacramento schools — should beg to differ.

America, the Dependent
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

So much for the new era of fiscal responsibility. The federal government’s dependency drones have been spared the chopping block. After vowing to eliminate funding for President Obama’s bloated $6 billion AmeriCorps social justice army, House Republicans retreated — and will shrink the AmeriCorps budget by a minuscule 6.7 percent.

Politicians originally sold AmeriCorps as an alternative to big government — a program to “renew the ethic of civic responsibility and the spirit of community throughout the United States.” With bipartisan support, the program has morphed into an all-purpose progressive slush fund. Instead of reining in the national service boondoggle, Washington has turned taxpayer-subsidized helping hands into a legion of Nanny State handout helpers. Goodbye, AmeriCorps. Hello, FoodStampCorps.

Yes, across the Internet, the feds are recruiting AmeriCorps VISTA (“Volunteers in Service to America”) workers to apply for jobs as publicists for the welfare state. Their mission: to sign up as many people to federal food stamp rolls as possible. Because, you know, the record-breaking 12 million that have been added since Obama took office is apparently not good enough.

Here’s a typical job ad in Boston: “AMERICORPS VISTA: FOOD STAMP COORDINATOR (INTERNSHIP) Through this project, the Elderly Commission will be able to provide information, assistance and support to senior citizens of Boston in applying for food stamps. Develop a full knowledge of the Food Stamp program and application process. Assist seniors in senior housing and community centers to fill out Food Stamp applications; assist seniors with gathering necessary proofs together for applications; follow up with the Department of Transitional Assistance to ensure seniors receive awarded benefits. Recruit volunteers to be trained on the application of the Food Stamp program.”

In New York, Philadelphia and a total of 30 sites across the country, AmeriCorps and the Department of Agriculture are funding the “National Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps” to “increase access to food stamps.”

National Affairs managing editor Meghan Clyne reports that the administration is roping in left-wing churches to aggressively promote food stamps. With institutional support from first lady Michelle Obama, the FoodStampCorps will train church members to apply for food stamps after religious services; and “‘encourage eligible families to enroll their children in (government-subsidized) school meal programs’; if organizations operate day-care or after-school programs, they are advised to pursue reimbursement for meals and snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (a federally funded, state-administered welfare program). Places of worship are asked to serve as feeding sites for the Summer Food Service Program — another federally funded, state-run welfare project.”

With billions poured into the welfare state at the local, state and national levels and enrollment at an all-time high, why should taxpayers be underwriting make-work jobs for future Democratic flacks-in-training? Shouldn’t it already be the job of the vast network of existing social services and welfare agencies to publicize and assist food-stamp applicants?

More troublesome: AmeriCorps workers are themselves being encouraged to sign up for food stamp benefits — giving new meaning to “hands-on” (or rather, “hands-out”) experience.

An AmeriCorps blogger provided a thorough advice manual on working the system: “Plenty of jobs come with perks,” the worker wrote. “For some these come in the form of company cars, dental insurance, or a spending allowance. For VISTAs, it’s food stamps.” The step-by-step guide tells AmeriCorps workers: “If you apply for food stamps after you become an AmeriCorps VISTA member, you will have a decreased food stamp allotment. So if you’re debating applying, you should do it now.”

Another AmeriCorps tip for those preparing for their in-person eligibility interview with food stamp administrators: “These social service agencies are only open during regular business hours, so you will probably have to take the day off (some sites don’t count it against your 20 vacation/sick days).” Oh, and don’t forget to “bring a book.” Says the wise AmeriCorps welfare-system expert: “While food stamps are handled by a different agency in every state, they all generally have a reputation that mirrors that of the DMV: too little staff, too high demand, and wait times that can border on extreme. While my own wait was only three hours, I’ve heard some VISTAs waiting as long as eight. Yes, I know you may have an appointment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to see you at that time. So bring a book, an iPod, that screenplay you’ve been tinkering with — whatever, because you’re going to be waiting a while.”

Make no mistake: Americans are suffering as a result of this profligate administration’s job-stifling and anti-economic growth policies. No one questions the need for a basic safety net to care for those most in need of help. But the community-organizer-in-chief is squandering billions on failed Alinsky-ite rackets that are geared toward ever-expanding service not to the individual, but to the insatiable state.

***

Flashback: Americorps: Nursing a culture of dependency

Flashback: Roll call vote on $6 billion national service boondoggle: 14 GOP dissenters

Flashback: To GIVE and to SERVE: the $6 billion National Service boondoggle

Every government jobs training program is a boondoggle. It’s inevitable. See my post here for a brief, waste-clogged history of federal and local jobs initiatives that use taxpayer funds to redistribute unemployment.

The latest example comes from our nation’s capital, where they are paying youth jobs enrollees to go to the City Council…to lobby for more money for their program.

Crikey:

On Monday, District residents’ tax dollars went to pay Summer Youth Employment Program participants to attend a Council oversight session at which they lobbied for more funding for the program.

It’s just the latest outrage surrounding one of D.C.’s best-intentioned and worst-run programs.

SYEP, which hires about 20,000 D.C. youth for various minimum wage summer jobs, was budgeted at $22.7 million. But it’s already $11.5 million over budget — an overrun of 50 percent.

D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols said Monday that “the lack of fiscal discipline in the design and execution [of SYEP] is irresponsible, poses a threat to other vital District programs and the District’s fiscal stability in these austere economic circumstances.” She said this year’s cost overruns are nothing new — SYEP overspent by more than $56 million over the past two years.

According to NBC Washington’s PJ Orvetti, Mayor Adrian Fenty plundered the city’s welfare and homeless funds to shore up the program. And instead of killing it, he wants to extend it an extra week:

Councilmember Michael Brown, who heads the committee that oversees SYEP, told WTOP last month, “We have questioned from time to time what the motives are. Is the motive to just have as many people signed up as possible so you can say you gave X amount of people a job for summer? Or is the purpose to give young folks experience to the work environment?”

Fenty communications director Mafara Hobson has said, “All we’re trying to do is give kids an opportunity to make additional money and have constructive activities leading up to school.” But Brown’s “X amount” has nearly tripled under Fenty, so it’s laughable to say there’s no politics at play.

The government cannot create jobs, it can only create payroll.

Put it on a bumper sticker and teach your children well.

Michelle Obama’s unwaivering committment to ensuring that our kids don’t get too fat to join the military rolls on unabated.

The Let’s Move program has been going on for some time, but now it’s being extended to include summer vacation. The motivation to move forward came as a result of one of the kids asking with great concern, “Mommy, have you plugged their pieholes yet?”:

CHICAGO — School is out for much of the country, and kids everywhere are looking forward to a few months off.

But nutrition and education experts warn that for too many kids, summer break is also a time when they backslide educationally and fall into bad eating habits.

On Tuesday, first lady Michelle Obama helped launch another component to her campaign to tackle childhood obesity, this time targeting summer vacation.

She joined several members of the Obama Cabinet in announcing the administration’s new “Let’s Read. Let’s Move.” campaign, aimed at promoting exercise, healthy eating, and reading among kids on break from school.

The campaign will be coordinated by the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent federal government agency that supports such programs as AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.

Well, if the First Family knows about anything, it’s what to do while on vacation.

From the Let’s Read, Let’s Move website:

So America’s greatest liability, a rapidly expanding and recklessly irresponsible government, wants to keep their tentacles on “America’s greatest assets” year-’round? No thanks.

Another stated goal is to “bring grocery stores to poor neighborhoods.”

So… we’re trying to get kids to lose weight by trucking the food in closer? What’s Michelle’s next brilliant move? Build bars next door to alcoholics to help them quit drinking?

And it’s an odd coincidence that the SEIU is also gung-ho over the “Let’s Move” program — I wonder why?

Tell Congress: Strengthen our Child Nutrition Programs

Successful, cost-effective child nutrition programs — school lunch and breakfast, child care and WIC, summer feeding and afterschool snacks and meals — play a critical role in helping children achieve access to quality nutrition, child care, and educational enrichment activities while improving their overall health, development, and school achievement.

“Free lunch includes complimentary purple wristband!”

The day before the unveiling of the new summer edition of “Let’s Move,” the government announced that $234 million will be granted to “organizations using service as a solution to social and economic issues” — including, of course, the aforementioned AmeriCorps.

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Wanna get depressed instantly?

Read this.

And an even more depressing reminder: Only 14 Senate Republicans opposed Obama’s massive expansion of the national service boondoggle.

God save us from bipartisanship.

Back on June 12, I detected Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over the Americorps IG scandal and flagged the First Lady’s former chief of staff-turned-Americorps senior adviser, Jackie Norris.

So, this is no surprise via Byron York:

Congressional investigators looking into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin have discovered that the head of AmeriCorps met with a top aide to First Lady Michelle Obama the day before Walpin was removed.

According to Republican investigators, Alan Solomont, then the chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, had denied meeting with Jackie Norris, at the time the First Lady’s chief of staff. But recently-released White House visitor logs show that Solomont met with Norris on June 9 of this year (as well as on two earlier occasions). President Obama fired Walpin on June 10 after an intense dispute over Walpin’s aggressive investigation of misuse of AmeriCorps money by Obama political ally Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California.

After being presented with the visitor logs, investigators say, Solomont explained that he met with Norris to discuss Corporation business but did not discuss the Walpin matter. When pressed, Solomont said he might have made an offhand comment, or a mention in passing, about the Walpin affair, but that he and Norris did not have a discussion about it.

Solomont’s explanations have left both Rep. Darrell Issa, ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Sen. Charles Grassley, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, frustrated and vowing to continue their investigation of the Walpin matter. In a letter to Solomont, sent Friday, Issa wrote that he has “serious questions about the veracity of your…testimony.”

The latest development in Blago-gate is no surprise, either:

Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers want the FBI to give up details of interviews conducted last year of President Obama, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and others as part of the investigation into the former governor.

In a Friday filing, Blagojevich attorneys also asked for information regarding first lady Michelle Obama. However, a source said late Friday that the FBI never interviewed the first lady.

Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers want the FBI to give up details of interviews conducted last year with President Obama (from top left), Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett and Rahm Emanuel. A source said Friday, the FBI never interviewed the first lady.

Then-President-elect Obama, Emanuel and Jarrett sat down with the FBI about a year ago — just after Blagojevich was arrested on charges of trying to sell Obama’s recently vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Obama revealed he was interviewed in a report he made public last December.

The defense request, filed in federal court, asks for “notes, transcripts and reports” of interviews with the Obamas, Emanuel, Jarrett and union chiefs Thomas Balanoff and Andy Stern.

Wherever there’s a Chicago-flavored stench, Michelle Obama’s name and those of her closest Windy City confidantes are sure to follow.

Too bad the rest of the dinosaur media is so mesmerized by the FLOTUS’s belts and dog stories. There are far more fascinating stories to uncover.

The Washington Examiner’s Byron York has the goods on the Americorps IG scandal and exploding sex scandal involving Obama crony/Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, DC schools chief Michelle Rhee, and Team Obama.

Hey, where’s that NYTimes “opinion media monitor” when you need him/her?

Photoshop credit: American Power

My column today provides context for the SEIU bullying of Boy Scouts in Allentown, Pa. As you’ll see, there’s a long history of Big Labor thuggery against volunteers who threaten the union racket. On a related note, be sure to check out the video of Fresno homecare providers exposing how SEIU staff threatened them and changed their ballots to secure a razor-thin advantage in a controversial union election this June. As I’ve been reporting over the last several months, the home health care power grab across the country gives you a glimpse of the SEIU-endorsed Obamacare future.

When Big Labor bullies and volunteers collide
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

The Boy Scouts’ motto is “Be Prepared.” Who knew it meant preparing to defend themselves against Purple-Shirted union thuggery over community service? Kids, pay attention. This is a teachable moment for all of you on power, politics, and Big Labor’s culture of corruption.

Last week at a city council meeting in Allentown, Pa., a top official of the local Services Employee International Union chapter ranted about 17-year-old Scout Kevin Anderson’s park clean-up work. Anderson devoted some 200 hours to the job in order to earn an Eagle Scout badge. He picked up trash and helped clear a 1,000-foot walking path with fellow members of Boy Scouts Troop 301 of Center Valley.
But SEIU’s Nick Balzano gave them hell instead of thanks.

Balzano disparaged altruistic efforts in city parks and asserted that “there is (sic) to be no volunteers” since his union members were laid off. He then issued a witch hunt threat: “We’ll also be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails. We may file another grievance on that.” Citing union rules, he gave the Allentown city council, the Boy Scouts, and all potential volunteers an iron-fisted ultimatum: “None of them can pick up a hoe. They can’t pick up a shovel. They can’t plant a flower. They can’t clear a bicycle path. They can’t do anything. Our people do that.”

That’s right. Balzano was ready to bludgeon the Boy Scout because his gung-ho volunteerism posed a threat to the SEIU labor monopoly. The outrageous display of Boss Balzano’s union protectionism provoked a national furor. SEIU headquarters in Washington immediately blamed “the disreputable Fox News and other right-wing outlets like Michelle Malkin’s accuracy challenged blog” for the backlash. While decrying their critics’ “fiction,” SEIU distanced itself from Balzano, denying that he was a top union leader and dismissing his remarks as “unauthorized.”

Fact: U.S. Department of Labor records from 2008 (their most recent filing), show that Balzano is no rogue, rank-and-file member. He currently serves on the SEIU local’s Executive Board and previously served as president.

Fact: The union tried to minimize Balzano’s grievance threat as “inappropriate.” But the dirty open secret is that public-sector unions have routinely attacked volunteer workers who threaten their stranglehold.

Last June, union officials in Baraboo, Wisconsin filed a complaint against volunteer firefighters who built sandbag barricades to protect the city from record flooding. They whined that city Department of Public Works employees should have been called first and demanded overtime pay (for work they didn’t do) to compensate them.

Yes, kids, the city was knee-deep in water and the government union got mad that other people scrambled to work together in an emergency to put sand in bags, save homes, and help their neighbors. Public-sector unions aren’t about serving the public interest. They’re about serving their people, their power, and their self-preservation.

In Montpelier, Vermont, several years ago, the teachers’ union went after a superstar educator, Bill Corrow. The students, staff, and supervisors at his school loved the social studies teacher and Vietnam veteran. But the Vermont Educators Association hated him because he was a volunteer who did not accept payment for his elective course. Teachers’ unions are all for parents and schoolchildren volunteering their time to engage in political lobbying and power-expanding initiatives on the union’s behalf. But God help the community service-oriented individual with a passion for sharing his knowledge in their classrooms.

In California, union heavies in the Sacramento area sued a non-profit environmental group for using college-age volunteers on a state-funded project to clean up a canyon and build a community trail. Big Labor dusted off an old law to require that community service volunteers be paid prevailing wages for doing the same kind of clean-up that Allentown Boy Scout Kevin Anderson was punished for doing freely. The law was finally repealed, but not without a brass-knuckles fight.

As National Right to Work Committee president Mark Mix, whose group monitors forced union abuses, pointed out during the battle: “Discerning California union bosses’ real agenda…is not hard. Volunteer workers don’t have to pay compulsory union dues to serve their communities, but most paid workers on public projects in California do…[It] is yet another example of how government-authorized compulsory-union dues corrupt the political process and furnish unscrupulous union officials with an enormous incentive to act against the public interest.”

SEIU president Andy Stern in Washington speaks for all of Big Labor when he describes his organizing philosophy: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.” President Obama, who has made national service an administration priority, has been and will continue to be silent about the Big Labor bullies who make public enemies of Scouts with trash bags and hoes.

You see, kids, Obama owes Stern (his most frequent White House visitor) and his union brethren. SEIU alone poured more than $60 million in compulsory member dues into Obama’s campaign and leaned on its workers to “volunteer” to knock on doors, place phone calls, and send out mailers for the Democrat Party. No good deed goes unpunished by union bosses—unless it benefits their political empire.

***

Update: The Morning Call reports that Balzono and other SEIU execs in Allentown PA have quit…

Allentown union official Nick Balzano has been a political punching bag all week because he threatened to file a grievance against the city for allowing a Boy Scout to clear a walking path in a city park.

Three days of taking body blows nationally from conservative pundits, a rebuke from the Lehigh Valley’s congressman and even a lashing from his own union led Balzano to voluntarily resign his position Thursday as head of the local Service Employees International Union.

Balzano said he and seven other executive officers of the local SEIU stepped down.

”I am proud of the work I and the rest of the executive board have done over the years,” he said.

He had ”nothing against Boy Scouts” and was just ”trying to protect my jobs,” said Balzano, who had served as union president for nearly a decade.

On Monday, I spotlighted SEIU thuggery in Allentown, Pa., over a Boy Scout’s volunteer work. SEIU’s Nick Balzano threatened to file a grievance when a teenager pursuing his Eagle Scout badge contributed too much free labor clearing walking paths and improving his neighborhood.

The story, first published in The Morning Call, was picked up by Fox News and provoked a big backlash against Big Labor bullies.

SEIU is hopping mad — and spinning. Badly:

A little fact vs. fiction is needed in the latest right-wing smear against SEIU.

Fiction: An SEIU local is filing a grievance against the city of Allentown, PA because a Boy Scout cleaned a local hiking trail.

Fact: There is no fact to this claim being pushed by the disreputable Fox News and other right-wing outlets like Michelle Malkin’s accuracy challenged blog.

Fiction: Nick Balzano, who unfortunately provided the initial response to queries on the matter, is the president of SEIU or an SEIU local.

Fact: Nick Balzano is with the Allentown chapter of SEIU Local 32BJ and is NOT the president of the local or the International. Indeed, his comments were completely unauthorized and inappropriate.

Fiction: SEIU is picking a fight with the Boy Scouts of America

Fact: Nothing could be further from the truth. SEIU has a history of supporting the Boy Scouts. Indeed, just last year SEIU 1199 President George Gresham was honored by the Greater Boy Scouts of New York.

Fact: SEIU has apologized to Mayor of Allentown for this misunderstanding and is in the process of getting in contact with the Allentown Boy Scouts of America Council to apologize to scout as well.

Fact: While Nick Balzano misspoke in his exchange with a reporter, his frustration over the recently laid off workers in Allentown is a sentiment shared by families all around Pennsylvania and this country. In the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton Metropolitan Statistical Area, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate 9.5%, up from 5.9% just one year ago.

SEIU 32BJ will continue its ongoing efforts to find these men and women jobs to support their families during the upcoming Holiday season and beyond.

Well, here’s a fact: You can hear Balzano’s comments at the city council meeting yourself right here.

Fact: The Morning Call continues to describe SEIU officer Balzano as “president of Allentown’s largest union.”

Fact: The audio makes it unmistakenly clear that Balzano was not “misspeaking” about his intent to file a grievance against the Boy Scout and against any other volunteer who dares pick up a hoe or shovel in Allentown.

Fact: The SEIU Purple Shirts have been caught with their brass knuckles showing. And it won’t be the last time.

The White House railroaded and smeared Americorps watchdog Gerald Walpin.

Now, Walpin has been cleared of any wrongdoing in his pursuit of taxpayer fraud and abuse by Obama crony mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson.

The Obama FBI has conveniently shut down a probe of Johnson’s fiscal shenanigans, of course. (Just like they covered for corruptocrat Bill Richardson in New Mexico and for the New Black Panther Party thugs in Philadelphia.)

And the smear merchants in Chicago-on-the Potomac refuse to apologize or budge. Natch. There’s too much at stake — a $6 billion national service slush fund for the friends of Barack and meddling Michelle Obama. Walpin is too much of a threat to the Americrooks racket.

The culture of corruption continues.

The volunteerism scandals Hollywood won’t be broadcasting
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

Hollywood hearts Obama. Obama hearts government-directed national service. That is why you won’t be able to change the TV channel all week without getting lectured about the need to get off the couch and Do Something. (After your favorite shows are over, of course.) Creeped out? You should be.

The entertainment industry, inspired by Obama’s $6 billion expansion of government volunteerism spending, is coordinating plot lines and ads to push public service. “The message will be nearly ubiquitous,” reports the Los Angeles Times, “starting in the morning with programs such as ‘Today’ and ‘The View,’ and then echoed on soap operas, prime-time series and late-night shows.” First Lady Michelle Obama, a relentless Americorps promoter who publicly extolled the Tinseltown initiative last month, will cap off the week with an appearance on the Jay Leno show on Friday.

But don’t expect Leno to ask Mrs. Obama about her reported meddling in personnel decisions at the scandal-plagued Americorps. Or about the program’s long history as a government boondoggle stuffed with make-work jobs, permanent bureaucracies, left-wing slush funds, and partisan lobbyists. More on that in a moment.

Spearheaded by a non-profit called the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), organizers deny any partisan or political motivation. But BigHollywood.com editor John Nolte published an internal memo from EIF titled “Answering the Call” that describes the entire, multi-year campaign as a direct response to President Obama’s call “for a new era of responsibility.” The massive, leftward tilt in Hollywood donations to Democrat campaign coffers speaks for itself. As do the celebrity vows of volunteer-mongers like Demi Moore, who pledged in a recent national service PSA not to be a servant to her fellow citizens or her country, but “a servant to Barack Obama.”

EIF is working in partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the parent organization of Americorps.

It’s the same CNCS that last year suspended Sacramento mayor/Obama crony Kevin Johnson from receiving federal funds after then-inspector general Gerald Walpin blew the whistle on massive fraud and abuse of AmeriCorps dollars for personal and political gain.

It’s the same CNCS that then sat by and meekly watched Team Obama and the U.S. Attorney in Sacramento railroad Walpin after the November 2008 election for doing his job.

It’s the same CNCS that has hired Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, as national service adviser to ensure – in her words — that corporation officials are their “No. 1 cheerleaders.”

It’s the same CNCS that smeared Walpin as “confused” and “disoriented” – and then sacked the honest, independent watchdog for raising questions on behalf of taxpayers.

And it’s the same CNCS that last month administered a mere slap on the wrist to the largest AmeriCorps program in the nation for massive fiscal mismanagement. As Youth Today, a niche publication that covers the national service sector reported recently, CNCS “docked the City University of New York (CUNY) $345,700 for this year, reducing its grant from $900,000 to $554,300.”

Former inspector general Gerald Walpin had uncovered a raft of grant violations, including criminal background check lapses and “pervasive problems of eligibility, timekeeping, and documentation” in an audit earlier this year. He challenged duplicative educational awards of more than $16 million. CUNY refused to return excess funds that it had drawn down, failed to revise procedures to prevent such grant abuse, and refused to provide proof documenting that its AmeriCorps participants actually existed.

Walpin advised AmeriCorps’ parent organization, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), to cut off any new funding and reexamine past government funding totaling upwards of $75 million. But internal notes from CNCS discussions show that they had more “concern about potential for damage being done” and were irked by the “bad timing” of Walpin’s audits. In the end, the agency settled for cutting its current grant by less than half and keeping CUNY on the dole.

So much for a “new era of responsibility.”

Walpin is suing to get his job back as the Obama political machine takes over the national service juggernaut. It’s a David-vs.-Goliath, made-for-TV plot line. But when the government-undermining message threatens the White House narrative, it’s not fit for prime time.

How are President Obama’s national service grants being used?

To train the next generation of union organizers, of course.

From the “Learn and Serve Clearinghouse” of lesson plans and curricular materials funded with taxpayer-subsidized service grants, here’s a course study in collective bargaining taught at the L.A. Unified School District (hat tip: @natlanthem):

A Collective Bargaining Simulation

Contact:
Los Angeles Unified School District
A Collective Bargaining Simulation
333 S. Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017 USA
Phone: 213-241-1000
E-mail: superintendent@lausd.net
Fax: 213-241-8442
Website: http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us

And here’s another one in which students participate in a union representation election, also funded with a grant to the LAUSD:

Union Representation Election

Contact:
Los Angeles Unified School District
Union Representation Election
333 S. Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017 USA
Phone: 213-241-1000
E-mail: superintendent@lausd.net
Fax: 213-241-8442

And another from the LAUSD role-playing a strike:

Homestead Strike Role Play

Contact:
Los Angeles Unified School District
Homestead Strike Role Play
333 S. Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017 USA
Phone: 213-241-1000
E-mail: superintendent@lausd.net
Fax: 213-241-8442
Website: http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us

Where are the lessons on SEIU corruption, Big Labor-Far Left shakedowns, home invasions, thuggery, and hypocrisy?

I hereby volunteer to donate free copies of Culture of Corruption to any L.A. public high school teacher seeking balance in the classroom. Contact me via email.

***

On a related note, Brian Faughnan reports on another example of federal meddling in curricular matters.

As if I needed any more evidence to bolster today’s column about the Obama junior lobbyist campaign in America’s schools, here’s another item fresh from the headlines in Utah:

A school principal has apologized for showing a video at an assembly that a politically conservative group leader is calling “radical, leftist propaganda.”

Children at Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington were shown a short video called “I pledge” on Aug. 28. The video opens with an image of President Barack Obama and part of a speech in which he says, “Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.” The video then features celebrities making pledges about how they will help the president and the world — and that’s where some say the problem lies…

… Gayle Ruzicka, president of conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said the video was blatantly political. She said other offensive pledges included, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” “I pledge allegiance to the funk, to the united funk of funkadelica,” and pledges to not use plastic grocery bags and not flush the toilet after urinating.

“It’s very inappropriate to show a radical, leftist propaganda piece that political to children,” Ruzicka said. “If parents want their children to learn about those things and do them in the home, wonderful, fine, but it’s not the place of the school to show a one-sided propaganda piece to children without parents knowing about it.”

Cieslewicz said such values should be decided in the home, not at school.

Coming to a classroom assembly near you…

ServiceWire has the announcement and broadcast schedule for the speech.

The Daily Paul picked up the story last week and linked to teachers’ manuals pegged to Obama’s address, which have now been linked on Drudge.

The documents have a heavy activist bent:

During the Speech:

• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:

What is the President trying to tell me?

What is the President asking me to do?

What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?

• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

• Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.

After the Speech:

• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:

What do you think the President wants us to do?

Does the speech make you want to do anything?

Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?

Schools have used students as little lobbyists on everything from illegal immigration to gay marriage to anti-war activism.

And most recently: Census collection.

Will Obama be able to resist issuing a call to youth arms to marshal help in passing his legislative agenda?

The thing is: He won’t need to make the call explicit.

Obama zealot teachers like this one across the country will do all the extra-curricular bullying and haranguing for him. Remember:

Partial transcript:

Reason number 999,999,965 to take control of your own children’s education.