What, Marx or Lenin Weren't Available?

This really is beyond outrageous. Obama has just appointed SEIU President Andy Stern to his newly minted "deficit reduction commission." This is the same radical joker who was tied at the hip with ACORN and its founder, Wade Rathke. He has a past awash in the politics of left wing radicalism. This is the same man who, less than three months ago, was leading demonstrations in California - a state teetering on the brink of financial collapse - in opposition to any public sector cutbacks or wage freezes. More on this deeply anti-capitalist, deeply socialistic man from Big Government:

We saw their fury throughout 2009: “Capitalism is Dead”, “Kill the Corporation”, “Bust Up Big Banks”, “Greed Kills”, “Bank of America, Bad for America”. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) led an all-out assault on Wall Street – and on capitalism and corporations – coining words and phrases that have since become common staples in the vocabulary of the bank-bashing craze. That fury hit a fever pitch last March when word of the AIG bonuses went public. It was the SEIU out in front of the protests, at AIG offices, and bussing protestors to the homes of AIG executives.

The months that followed saw more of the same. In April, SEIU hailed the ousting of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner. That same week, it stepped up its battleplan with the Mother of all Corporate Campaigns against Ken Lewis, Bank of America CEO and Chairman – complete with videos, rolling billboards, smear sites, petition drives, letter campaigns, media blitzes and more, while it placed equal attention on Bank of America, forcing the company to respond with a $40 million image boosting campaign of television and print ads. . . .

As this very fine article also goes on to discuss in detail, SEIU is using its control of employee pension funds to oust anti-unionists from boards and to further the process of unionizing the employees in many of the institutions in which it invests.

And this is the guy Obama wants to decide for America how to fix our economy? You have got to be kidding. I wrote a detailed post recently on the unions, and in particular, public sector unions, discussing this cancer on our society and how they were anti-free market, anti-capitalist, predatory and, at this point, pose a massive threat to our economy and our educational system. The SEIU is major part of problem, not a part of the solution.

Obama's "deficit reduction commission" is a travesty to begin with. He is appointing a commission - weighted towards Democrats - in order to shift his and the Congress's Constitutional responsibilities for the hard questions America faces. It is the opposite of leadership. This is not like the 9-11 Commission where the major issue was findings of fact in a small, discrete area. We are talking here about the government spending and taxation - the most fundamental duties of Congress and the President. And now he is not only shifting the responsibilities, he is giving a major say on the future of our economy to radical union leader Andy Stern. This is utterly beyond belief.

What Republicans should do is explain in detail how this "deficit reduction commission" is a fundamental shirking of the responsibilities of Congress, they should highlight Obama's appointment of Stern, and they should refuse to participate in the Commission.

Virtually everything Obama does leaves my jaw hanging. He is President at a critical moment in history, with our economy in a shambles and major foreign dangers and challegnes staring us in the face. I worry daily that the damage he has done already with his massive spending and his mishandling of foreign policy - and all that he is poised to do - may not be able to be undone.