Obama's Radical Friends - & Appointments

Over the weekend, Obama used his power to make recess appointments to appoint Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. This is an incredibly radical appointment as Becker, former counsel for the AFL-CIO and the SEIU is pro-union to a degree that would make an old Soviet proud. As the Washington Examiner explains some of his more radical positions:

Craig Becker . . . claims management should be barred from National Labor Relations Board hearings on labor-management disputes, and he is a strong advocate of Card Check, the union bosses' proposal to do away with secret ballots in workplace representation elections. . . .

So why is President Obama using his power of recess appointments -- the right of a president to put somebody in an executive branch position until the next Congress convenes, which in the present case will be January 2011 -- to install Becker as the deciding vote on the NLRB? The answer to that question, of course, starts with what the five-member NLRB does, which is oversee the administration of the National Labor Relations Act, the basic rule book for labor-management relations since it was signed by FDR in 1935. There is also the fact that last month Becker's nomination fell eight votes short of the 60 needed to defeat a threatened Republican filibuster in the Senate, which left a recess appointment as the only way Obama could get his man on the NLRB.

Expect Becker to come on like a man possessed once he is ensconced at the NLRB because nobody expects the next Congress to be any more receptive to his appointment than the current one. But nine months of Becker on the NLRB is better than nothing, especially because the Senate has been markedly unsympathetic to Card Check, despite it being the union bosses' No. 1 legislative priority.

This insane appointment is one that could well damage our already weak economy - changing the relationship between employers and unions in fundamental ways - and all outside the ballot box.

Of course, this is far from Obama's only appointment of radical individuals far outside the mainstream. Let's go down a short list:

Andy Stern - as head of the SEIU, represents numerous public sector union employees - the scourge of state and local budgets across America. Public sector unions operate outside of market forces and have every reason to seek bigger government and higher taxes. Obama appointed Stern to his deficit reduction commission which is to do the job of Congress and the President in deciding how to direct the future of taxes and spending in America.

Kevin Jennings - a radical homosexual who advocates sexualizing our children beginning at Kindergarden and, in the past, has taught "fisting" to students as young as fourteen years old. This man has no business being allowed near a single child, yet he was given an appointment outside of Congressional purview as Obama's Safe Schools Czar.

David Axelrod - Obama's counterpart to Karl Rove; is a purely political advisor with no experience in the military or in intelligence. What makes Axelrod a radical choice is that Obama includes him not merely in political decision making, but in all aspects of Presidential decision making, including military and intelligence decisions. That is a radical change from prior Presidents and marks the fact that Obama sees everything, including our national security, as subordinate to political concerns.

John Holdren - Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He has in the past advocated for forced abortions and the use of sterilizing agents in drinking water in order to control America’s population. He believes that a baby may only ultimately become a human being if given the proper resources during the early years after birth. He is also a ridgid advocate of Global Warming who has dismissed Climategate out of hand as meaningless.

David Ogden - appointed by Obama to the post of Deputy Attorney General. He has in the past taken positions supporting abortion on demand, child pornography, and come out in opposition to parental notification laws on abortion.

Leon Panetta - this appointment was a purely political appointment to head our nation's major intelligence agency in time of war. Panetta had zero experience in intelligence. It is impossible to know how bad a job he has done since virtually all that the CIA does is shrouded in secrecy. Whatever may be the case, the appointment of a neophyte to this agency during two wars and an omnipresent terrorist threat was radical indeed. It marked Obama as elevating politics over national security.

Dawn Johnsen - Obama nominated her for, but has yet to appoint her to, the position of heading the Office of Legal Council. That is a critical a position that requires the occupant to, among other things, provide opinions of legality of proposed operations by the CIA. She is a doctranaire leftist idealogue whose previously articulated positions would virtually tie the hands of our government in dealing with terrorists.

Melody Barnes - appointed by Obama to the Head of Domestic Policy Council. She is a radical, progressive femenist who supports unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand. She also see capitalism as a "flawed economic philosophy."

Harold Koh - a lawyer who adheres to the radical position that international law should play a central role in interpreting our Constitution, essentially rendering the terms of our Constition meaningless and amenable to any personal policy preferences of five justices on the Supreme Court. It would substitute the policy preferences of unelected justices for the legislature. Moreover, Koh has led an attack on the first amendment right to free speech, finding it too liberal and advocating that court's interpret it more restrictively. And he has advocated allowing for use of Sharia law to be applied in appropriate cases in U.S. courts.

Van Jones - formerly appointed by Obama as the Special Advisor of Green Jobs to the White House, Jones was a self-described communist and a 9-11 truther.

Mark Lloyd - Obama's appointment to Diversity Officer for the FCC. Lloyd is sort of the Rev. Wright of the FCC. He would subordinate concerns with "freedom of speech and the press" to racial and other policies. His biggest concern as diversity officer is getting rid of whites. "We have to be conscious of the need to put more people of color, gays, and other people in the positions of power that white people currently hold. We're in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power." He is, not surprisingly, a big supporter of the Fairness Doctrine as a means of silencing conservative opinion.

Chai Feldblum - appointed by Obama as Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Feldblum is a radical advocate of gay lesbian transgender rights in America and does not advocate merely equality for the LGBT community, but would seemingly support advocating for an LBGT lifestyle as the new norm in American society. Indeed, Feldblum would evlevate LGBT rights above the conscious of Christians and others who do not wish to accept the LGBT lifestyle on religious grounds. Some of his recent comments on this topic: “[F]or all my sympathy for the evangelical Christian couple who may wish to run a bed and breakfast from which they can exclude unmarried straight couples and all gay couples, this is a point where I believe the “zero sum” nature of the game inevitably comes into play. . . . Government should “not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT people. . . . “[I]t is essential that we not privilege moral beliefs that are religiously based over other sincerely held core, moral beliefs” about homosexuality."

I could go on and on, but am tired of writing and linking at this point. There are many other radical "progressives" Obama has appointed to positions of power. And indeed, they will clearly effect our nation in fundamental ways. The job of the next President will not be merely to roll back all the damaging legislation put in place by Obama and Crazy Nancy, but to undo the destructive influence of the radical progressives Obama has put in positions of power virtually throughout the government.