Daily Archives: May 29, 2018

05/29/18

“Black Is A Color, Not A Race”

By: Mychal Massie | The Daily Rant

I am fed up with hearing “black conservative this, black conservative that,” and “black conservatives say this” and “black conservatives say that,” ad nauseum. And don’t get me started on my contempt for the “African-American” assignation. My personal empirical experience(s), persuades me that when a cogent and articulate opinion is presented, said is based upon something far superior to a crayon color.

I am furthermore persuaded that the strength of any discourse, intellectual or not, is based upon the ability to present reasoned opinion and that is not based upon skin-color.

My business cards include the following personal quote: “Black is a color, not a race.” I am persuaded that it is time for America to move beyond crayons and coloring books. And using verbal crayons is exactly what is being done with this damnable insistence upon the prostitution of “skin color. It is tantamount to taking a crayon and trying to color without going outside the lines.

It is insulting to my intelligence to be recognized exclusively as a “crayon color” and even more egregious to have people ascribe merit or value based upon same. Being recognized, as a crayon color is not a portrait of embracing self worth, it is tantamount to saying the person cannot find self worth in any capacity outside of the crayon box.

We are Americans and it is time that “One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all,” is taken as an absolute. I’m not interested in the complaints that venal skin color mongers and stenotopic dullards whose cosmological world view is based upon the number of streets in their neighborhood, who see prejudice and so-called racism behind every bush and under every bed.

How does being a color make a person more knowledgeable, give them a higher degree of professionalism, make them more politically astute, or a Godlier minister? Spare me the social jeremiads and the mournful ballads of inculcated immiseration. And by all means spare me the cacophonic orchestrations of how bad slavery was blah-blah-blah. Preceding a professional assignation for me or anyone else with a crayon color prefix should be viewed as demeaning and insulting.

There are those who claim to be conservative(s) but who grip a crayon color prefix as if it were a solid gold or platinum caduceus.

Being reduced to a crayon color as the prefix before professional endeavor and or ideological construct is the most insidiously baneful form of alienation and derogation today. It’s a cancer that’s preventing a unified fabric of America and sadly, even the well-intended are blind to same.

People should want to be recognized as the best of “all” not the best of a particular color. As I’ve oft argued, being the best of a particular color has only marginal value. It is a perverse form of self-induced alienation that by definition marginalizes a person/people. I work to be the best of all. That is a challenge worth getting up each morning to pursue.

The very nature of being a crayon color is the suggestion that “the person is different.” And the difference is based upon that which is the absolute worst method of quantifying, i.e., skin-color.

An example of that which I speak is the recent incident at a Rittenhouse Square Starbucks, involving two young men who happened to be a “color.” It is well documented that Starbucks has an unimpeachable historical record of insulting people and groups. They’ve insulted President Trump supporters, they’ve offended Christians, they’ve gone out of their way to insult and offend law enforcement, military, and legal American citizens. But somehow the treatment that experienced by two young men who were a “color” made it worse. Starbucks’ record of insulting law enforcement is well known. But it wasn’t until the crayon color pimps saw there was a market to be exploited financially that the color-coded Muslim front group called the “Black Star Project,” began their well-practiced claims of “racism.”

These people cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim to be oppressed and have new cars, new “Air Jordan’s,” jobs, and the trappings of disposable cash. They cannot claim to be oppressed and be millionaires and billionaires. They cannot practice the lifestyles of the poor and promiscuous and complain about not having enough to eat. I could site many more examples, but my point is understandable.

It’s no different for those who claim to be free of the emotional and psychological imprisonment of “the others” and fixate upon being a crayon color.

There will be those who offer protestation alleging those who think as I do are ashamed of their race, sellouts and fools desiring to be the “skin color” with less melanin. However, they’re who are ignoring the fact – “black is a color not a race.”

One side of the crayon color coin demands to be a color but becomes indignant when reduced to same and treated as such. Those on the other side of the crayon color coin claim to be free of the psychological shackles while clinging to the trappings of same.

05/29/18

Trumps’ 3 Executive Orders Take on Government Employees

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Primer: Why are there unions in the federal government anyway? Anyone?

Highlights from the 2017 data:

–The union membership rate of public-sector workers (34.4 percent) continued to be more than five times higher than that of private-
sector workers (6.5 percent). (See table 3.)

–Workers in protective service occupations and in education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rates (34.7
percent and 33.5 percent, respectively). (See table 3.)

–Men continued to have a higher union membership rate (11.4 percent) than women (10.0 percent). (See table 1.)

–Black workers remained more likely to be union members than White, Asian, or Hispanic workers. (See table 1.)

–Nonunion workers had median weekly earnings that were 80 percent of earnings for workers who were union members ($829 versus $1,041). (The comparisons of earnings in this release are on a broad level and do not control for many factors that can be important in explaining earnings
differences.) (See table 2.)

–Among states, New York continued to have the highest union membership rate (23.8 percent), while South Carolina continued to have the lowest (2.6 percent). (See table 5.)

Trump signs executive orders making it easier to fire feds, overhaul official time

President Donald Trump signed three executive orders Friday that aim to reduce the time it takes to fire poor-performing federal employees and overhaul federal employees union rights, including cuts to official time.

In a conference call with reporters on Friday, senior White House officials said the executive orders call back to a promise Trump made at his State of the Union address, in which he sought to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to award good federal employees and to remove poor performers more quickly.

“Today, the president is fulfilling his promise to promote more efficient government by reforming our civil service rules,” said Andrew Bremberg, the assistant to the president and the director of the Domestic Policy Council. “These executive orders will make it easier to remove poor-performing employees and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used.”

One of the executives orders aims to make it easier for agencies to fire poor-performing employees and makes it harder for those employees to hide adverse employment information when seeking re-employment at another agency.

The Government Accountability Office has found it takes between six months and a year, on average, to remove federal employees flagged for misconduct, plus an average of eight more months to resolve appeals.

“Every year, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey has consistently shown that less than one-third of federal employees believe the poor performers are adequately addressed by their agency,” Bremberg said.

Under this EO, agencies will be required to report disciplinary actions records and management of poor performers to the Office of Personnel Management.

Data from the Office of Personnel Management shows that federal employees are 44 times less likely to be fired than a private-sector worker.

The Trump administration first sought to make it easier to fire federal employees under the  VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act.

Under that authority, the Veterans Affairs Department, under the first full year of the Trump administration, fired 2,537 people — about 500 more federal employees than the agency let go in 2016.

Cuts to official time

A second executive order would significantly reduce the amount of time that federal employees can be paid for union work while on-the-clock.

Under the executive order, federal employees would not be able to spend any more than 25 percent of their work hours on through official time.

The executive order calls on agencies to renegotiate contracts with labor unions and reduce official time by about two-thirds.

The White House claims more than 470 Veterans Affairs Department employees, including 47 full-time nurses, spend 100 percent of their work-hours on union-related business.

Renegotiated labor contracts

A third executive order would curtail the labor contract bargaining window between government and unions.

The terms of regotiated contracts would be overseen by a new Labor Relations Working Group, which the EO orders OPM to establish.

In addition, the executive order would require federal union contracts be posted to an online database, with the goal of promoting transparency.

Senior White House officials said a drawn-out bargaining benefits union negotiations. Federal agencies, they said, paid $16 million in salaries for union negotiators in 2016.

Elevating federal workforce? Or an ‘assault’ on feds?

OPM Director Jeff Pon said the executive orders will protect federal employees who are doing their jobs, while making it more efficient to remove those who are not.

“By holding poor performers accountable, reforming the use of taxpayer-funded union time, and focusing negotiations on issues that matter, we are advancing our efforts to elevate the federal workforce.  The vast majority of our employees are dedicated public servants who are dedicated to their missions and service to the American people.  It is essential that we honor their commitment, and these measures reflect just that,” Pon said in a statement.

J. David Cox, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the president’s trio of executive orders would chip away at federal employees rights.

“This is President Trump taking retribution on an apolitical civil service workforce,” Cox said.

National Treasury Employees Union President Tony Reardon called the executives orders “an assault on federal employees.”

“Rather than promote efficiency in the federal sector, the administration is demanding federal workers lose their ability to challenge unfair, arbitrary and discriminatory firings and other actions. This would begin the process of dismantling the merit system that governs our civil service,” Reardon said in a statement.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), signaled his support for the executive orders.

“These reforms will improve accountability and productivity in the federal workforce, and I applaud the Trump administration for taking action to restore the public interest as the top priority of government operations,” Johnson said.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the chairman of the Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Subcommittee, said the EOs would reign in employee unions’ influence over government operations.

“These executive orders strive to make the federal government more efficient, not only for the taxpayer, but for our great federal workers. We have thousands of federal employees who work very hard for the nation; it’s important that their work is not frustrated by the poor performance of a small few,” Lankford said.

05/29/18

Chinese Spy Networks in Britain and United States

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

The agents are thought to have handed over secrets while still in service for France’s external DGSE intelligence agency, similar to Britain’s MI6 and America’s CIA, Ms Parly told CNews television. The third person – believed to be the wife – has been indicted for “concealment of treasonable crimes” and placed under “judicial control”, meaning judges keep close tabs on her pending trial. More here.

France has confirmed the arrest of two French intelligence officers who are accused of spying for the Chinese government. It appears that the two officers were captured and charged in December. However, their arrests were not publicized at the time, because French counterintelligence officials wanted to avoid alerting more members of a possible spy ring, which some say may include up to five French citizens. It was only last Friday, a day after French media published leaked reports of the arrests, that the French government spoke publicly about the case.

France’s Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, told France’s CNews television on Friday that two French intelligence officers were “accused of extremely serious acts of treason” against the French state. The two officers had been charged with delivering classified information to a foreign power”, she said. Parly added that the spouse of one of the officers was also being investigated for participating in acts of espionage on behalf of a foreign country. When asked to identify the country that the two officers are accused of spying for, the minister refused to respond. But the Agence France Presse news agency cited an anonymous “security source”, who said that the two intelligence officers were being suspected of spying for China and that they had been captured following a sting operation by French counterintelligence officers.

French television station TFI1 said on Friday that both spy suspects are officers in the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), France’s primary external intelligence agency. The station added that at least one of the two suspects was stationed at the embassy of France in Beijing when French counterintelligence became aware of the alleged espionage. According to some reports, the two suspects had retired from the DGSE by the time they were arrested, but committed their alleged espionage while still in the service of the spy agency. French government officials have refused to provide information about the length of the alleged espionage or the nature of the classified information believed to have been compromised. Additionally, no information is available about whether the two alleged spies were working in cooperation with each other. The BBC asked China last week about the arrests in France, but the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was not aware of the incident.

*** As a reminder, the United States has its own Chinese spy network. Jerry Chun Shing Lee was charged with aiding China dismantle a U.S. informant network in China in exchange for money. He has pleaded not guilty.

© Provided by South China Morning Post Publishers Limited

It was this past February that FBI Director Chris Wray provided testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Chinese spies have fully infiltrated U.S. universities. Additionally, China continues to gain access and in many cases successfully, of U.S. technologies and intellectual properties through telecommunications companies, academia and most especially with joint business adventures.

China has launched an ‘all society’ approach to gain access to intellectual property and some universities are pushing back on the warnings put forth by Director Wray as there are an estimated 400,000 Chinese students studying in the United States, many attending cash-strapped colleges.

05/29/18

US Warships Challenge Chinese Islands: FONOP

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

USS Higgins

The US Navy sent two warships to a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea on May 28 in its latest symbolic protest against China’s claims there.

Reuters first reported that the USS Higgins and the USS Antietam ventured within 12 miles of the Paracel Islands in a demonstration the Pentagon calls a “freedom of navigation operation” or FONOP. The move signals US rejection of China’s claims of political control in the South China Sea.

The objective of their sail-by was a speck of land called “Woody Island,” where China has developed airstrips and port facilities in recent years as part of a broader strategy of establishing bases in these islands to demonstrate and exercise its political claims. This spring, China landed strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons on the island, a symbolic display of its deterrent power, and satellite imagery showed the arrival of surface-to-air missiles this month.

**

The Vietnamese government protested China’s move as a violation of its sovereign claim to the islands—exactly the language used by China to protest US actions today after sending its own warships to warn away the Americans.

** See more here.

The island is one of many that lay behind the “nine dash line,” a diplomatic term of art for China’s political vision for the South China Sea, which is at the center of a web of claims by nearby nations:

In March, the US sent a destroyer on a FONOP to the Spratly Islands. In response, China increased its naval activity there, including a parade of warships that was also captured by Planet satellites. Tensions in the South China Sea have been simmering for years, but are now complicated by China’s role in North Korean nuclear talks and growing trade disputes with the Trump administration.

*** Meanwhile in April of 2018:

Surveillance photos suggest it has already broken its promise to not land military aircraft on its artificial islands. And there are claims the facilities have begun jamming US forces.

Philippines news service The Inquirer has obtained an aerial surveillance photo taken back in January which appears to show two Chinese Xian Y-7 twin engine aircraft on the recently constructed artificial island of Mischief Reef — also known as Panganiban Reef.

These are military combat transport aircraft, built to rapidly deploy special forces troops and munitions to a battlefield.

The news comes amid reports that electronic warfare equipment recently installed on the islands were last week directed at disrupting the passage of the United States Navy’s aircraft carrier, the USS Roosevelt.

FAIT ACCOMPLI?

Mischief Reef is within the internationally recognized 370km exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that applies to the Philippines. It is one of seven artificial islands arbitrarily constructed within the disputed Spratly Islands cluster. Three of these have large, 3km long military-grade runways.

China refuses to accept the UN economic zone standard, established after World War II to reduce international tensions, as well as an adverse ruling in 2016 by an international court of arbitration on the matter.

Instead, it insists it holds sovereign territorial rights over the whole 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea, right up to 20km of the coasts of bordering nations including Taiwan, Vietnam, Borneo and Malaysia.

“If they could land transports now, in the future they might want to land more provocative and destabilizing types of assets such as fighter jets and bombers,” research fellow Collin Koh at Singapore’s Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ Maritime Security Program, told The Inquirer.

ELECTRONIC MISCHIEF

The Wall Street Journal reports US intelligence officers have identified radar and communications jamming equipment being installed on Beijing’s artificial South China Sea island fortresses.

Such electronic warfare devices are designed to block an opponent’s radar from ‘seeing’ what is going on, and prevent ships and aircraft from communicating with each other and the outside world.

Now, a US Navy pilot appears to have confirmed that these facilities are active.

Serving aboard the USS Roosevelt aircraft carrier which passed through the South China Sea to visit the Philippines last week, he implied the immense warship and its aircraft had been targeted by these disruptive devices.

“The mere fact that some of your equipment is not working is already an indication that someone is trying to jam you.” the pilot told the Philippines’ GMA News Online.

“And so we have an answer to that,” the naval officer cryptically told the journalist invited aboard for a tour of the ship.

DELVE DEEPER: How does China’s military compare with the US?

The USS Roosevelt had passed through the disputed waterway at the same time as a major Chinese naval parade was being staged on behalf of its new President-for-life, Xi Jinping.

The pilot reportedly flew one of the US Navy’s EA-18G Growler aircraft — a modified Super Hornet intended to provide electronic warfare support for accompanying ships and aircraft.

“This is not something that the US will look kindly on or think they can overlook.” military analyst Omar Lamrani at geopolitical think-tank Stratfor told Business Insider .

Lamrani said that even though electronic jamming was nothing like shooting a weapon, such activity was provocative and “could lead to an escalatory pattern that could be negative for both sides.” More here.

05/29/18

#WhereAreTheChildren: A Quick Primer on ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Future Democrats riding on “La Bestia”

If it was not for Brandon Darby of Breitbart News, it is unlikely that anyone would have known about the “more than 125,000” “unaccompanied alien children” (government term) crossing the border into America after being lured by their own local newspapers. The surge in “children” (mostly male and mostly over 14-years-old) led to the federal government to “relaxing” identity requirements for foster parents.

On January 26 2016, the Washington Post reported:

“Andrea Helling, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Office of Refugee Resettlement…acknowledged that the agency briefly relaxed identity requirements for family members collecting children at the height of the surge in May 2014 to help place children more quickly.”

The inevitable result was that the Obama administration “failed to protect thousands of Central American children …leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers.” The WaPo article was based on a 56-page investigative report initiated by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) after “several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm.”

Perhaps the most terrifying part of the investigative report was this:

“And once the children left federally funded shelters, the report said, the agency permitted their adult sponsors to prevent caseworkers from providing them post-release services.”

Unacceptable.

That same day, January 26, 2016, then-President Obama told Democrats during a retreat that another Democrat would be the next president, he claimed that he was going to tackle urgent issues like the so-called “gender wage gap” by hosting a summit for women at the White House and Obama also weighed in on the controversy of not enough people of color winning Oscar awards.

There was no hashtag for children on January 26 2016.

In case you need a reminder, Obama’s “immigration advisor” Eliseo Medina gives the reason why Democrats are so interested in giving amnesty to illegal aliens. It has nothing to do with compassion, and everything to do with a one-party state.

President Trump knows it, too.

05/29/18

#WhereAreTheChildren: The stunning hypocrisy over the 2014 ‘migrants in cage’ photo

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Losing children is only bad if it happens on Trump’s watch.

If a reputable think tank or academic institution came up with the perfect experiment to prove anti-Trump hysteria, it would likely not compete with the breathtaking hypocrisy demonstrated this weekend over a photo showing unaccompanied alien children sleeping in a holding cell.

READ: #WhereAreTheChildren: A Quick Primer on ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’

The photo was taken in 2014, but many people mistakenly thought they photo was taken recently and used the occasion to express typical over-the-top outrage at President Trump without knowing anything about the circumstances of the photo. While it is expected that socialists and racebaiters such as Shaun King, Linda Sarsour and Qasim Rashid or activist actors such as Mia Farrow and Rosanna Arquette would leap before investigating the facts, many other “twitter verified” (have the blue check mark next to their names) and otherwise prominent democrats and journalists also jumped in with both feet, using the photo to lament about Trump holding children in cages.

Some of these partisan hacks include Jon Favreau, Obama’s speechwriter, Jake Silverstein, Editor in Chief of The New York Times Magazine, “award-winning journalist” Lauren Wolfe, NY Times Best-Selling Author of “I’M JUDGING YOU” Luvvie Ajayi, Senior investigative reporter Propublica T. Christian Miller, Editor of CounterPunch Jeffrey St. Clair,  The Rev. Leah D. Daughtry, the Chief Executive Officer of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and CNN Reporter Hadas Gold.

Here are some of the tweets (some are screenshots of deleted tweets) and stick around for a bit of commentary below.

Jon Favreau

CNN Reporter Hadas Gold

While Red Raccoon is not verified, he has a large social media reach:

Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA sums it up.

As an aside, when confronted by the fact that the article they are all promoting as an example of “Evil Trump” was from their God-King Obama, the reactions ranged from denial (deleting the tweet), to lashing out.

Lauren Wolfe, who writes for “The Nation” (the house journal of the oldest and most radical left think tank in D.C., the Institute for Policy Studies) had one of the most over-the-top “I am a victim” freak-outs about the whole thing, even creating a poll to illustrate how much of a victim she is.

Here is just a sample. Wow.

I have two takeaways from this:

  1. The circumstances don’t matter. The left really just wants to be outraged at Trump. This news story came out in 2014, and much worse came out in 2016 when it was revealed that Obama’s administration was not properly following up on the unaccompanied alien children, leading to repeated abuse. Those news stories barely registered as a blip in the news cycle. It is not about the kids, it is about ideology.
  2. One thing that genuinely surprised this author is that so many reflexively tweeted out the “migrants in cage” story without checking it. Is this evidence that these people genuinely believe the constant lies coming from people like Shaun King, who literally just deleted a bevy of tweets after he falsely called out a police officer -by name- for rape which turned out to be a completely fake story.

It is amazing that even after all this, the left does not understand why Americans distrust the mainstream media and voted for President Trump.

05/29/18

The Rainbow Conspiracy Part 5: Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition – Marxist/Maoist Model for Modern Democrats

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

Part 4 here.

This unholy alliance is working on a new Rainbow Coalition. This time its called the “New  American Majority” – and its coming to a polling place near you.

Jesse Jackson for President 1984

Former Stanford University Marxist-Leninist student radical Steve Phillips is now a San Francisco lawyer and a Democratic Party power broker. Married into the billionaire Sandler family, Steve Phillips is using his wealth and influence to move the Democratic Party and the country permanently to the far left. He is funding stealth leftist candidates of color across the country and directing huge resources into voter registration drives among Black, Latino and Asian American communities to create an unbeatable “New American Majority.”

In his book, Brown is the New White, Phillips makes it very clear that there is an unbroken line between Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition of the 1980s, the Obama movement of 2008 and the emerging “New American Majority.”

Steve Phillips should know, he was involved every step of the way.

I was a delegate to Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 campaigns, and I took a year off from college to serve as the California student coordinator of his 1988 campaign. Through that baptism by political campaign, I learned some lasting truths about politics and social change. Before Barack Obama went to law school, before Spike Lee made his first movie, before Shonda Rhimes could even dream of writing television shows featuring actors of color, a forty-two-year-old Black civil rights leader shook up the political system by running for president of the United States of America. To get from Martin in 1968 to Barack in 2008, we needed Jesse in 1984 and 1988.

It was during the presidential elections of the 1980s that the seeds planted in the 1960s began to sprout and become visible in national politics. Jackson was fond of saying, “When the old minorities come together, they form a new majority.” The potential of this prophecy came into sharp focus in the 1988 campaign as Jackson won the presidential primaries in eleven states, led the race for the Democratic nomination near the halfway point, and finished as the Democratic runner-up with the most votes in history up to that time. The key to Jackson’s success—and Obama’s electoral victories twenty years later—was the power of connecting the energy of people of color and progressive Whites seeking justice, equality, and social change to a political campaign for elected office…

As a result of these types of efforts, millions of people of color and progressive Whites were inspired to register to vote and turn out at the  polls in 1984. Two years later, large and enthusiastic voting by people of color helped Democrats win closely contested U.S. Senate races in the heavily Black and Latino Southern and Southwestern states of Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and North Carolina, capturing control of the Senate from the Republicans. Because the embryonic New American Majority had begun to flex its power in this fashion…

So, if Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition is the model for Steve Phillips’s “New American Majority,” maybe it might be be worth traveling back to the eighties?

The National Rainbow Coalition grew out of Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign. During the campaign, Jackson began speaking about a “Rainbow Coalition,” an idea popularized by the late Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton.

At the 1984 Democratic National Convention on July 18, 1984, in San Francisco, California, Jackson laid out his plans with a speech entitled: “The Rainbow Coalition.”

According to Walter Shapiro:

The speech called for Arab Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, youth, disabled veterans, small farmers, lesbians and gays to join with African Americans and Jewish Americans for political purpose. Whereas the purpose of PUSH had been to fight for economic and educational opportunities, the Rainbow Coalition was created to address political empowerment and public policy issues. After his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination in 1984, Jackson attempted to build a broad base of support among groups that “were hurt by Reagan administration policies” – racial minorities, the poor, small farmers, working mothers, the unemployed, some labor union members, gays, and lesbians.

After hobnobbing with foreign communists such as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Cuban leader Fiden Castro and Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, Jesse Jackson had no problem welcoming American Marxists into his movement.

Jesse Jackson, Fidel Castro, Cuba 1984

According to activists Tre Kwon and Jemena Vergara:

At the time of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election, the political situation was moving rapidly to the right. The Democratic Party was in retreat, trying to find the way to recover from the blows. In 1984, the left wing of the Democratic Party and its satellite organizations attempted to win the primaries through the Rainbow Coalition, headed by known Civil Rights Movement figure, Jesse Jackson. The goals of the campaign were to oppose Reaganomics and gain support from Blacks, working-class people, immigrants, women, and the LGBT community.

A significant portion of the left found it necessary to back Jackson’s campaign, or risk missing out on an important political opportunity. Organizations like the League of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L), Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Line of March (LOM), the Communist Workers Party (CWP) and the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed Jackson’s candidacy.

The hard left didn’t just endorse the Rainbow, they ran it. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Rainbow Coalition was a “communist front.”

The Communist Party USA’s Daily World said on April 13, 1984, during the Presidential primaries:

The answer to Reagan and Bush is to redouble efforts to build and strengthen the all peoples’ front, a vital part of which is the campaign being waged on the issues by Jesse Jackson.

Communist Party vice presidential candidate Angela Davis chimed in:

The Jesse Jackson campaign is going to force the Democratic Party to speak on issues that they ordinarily would not address.

Leader Gus Hall, when asked who the Communist Party would support for President in the 1988 election, said:

As a political party we do not endorse candidates of other political parties. Communists as individuals work in the election campaign, even in the campaigns of other candidates, not only Communist candidates. I think our members will work for the candidates they think have the most progressive, most advanced positions. At this stage most members of the Party will be working for Jesse Jackson on the basis that he does have an advanced position. But we do not endorse any candidate, including Jackson.

A principal adviser to Jackson for more than 20 years was Communist Party USA veteran Jack O’Dell. O’Dell was International Affairs Director for Jackson’s Operation PUSH in Chicago from the early 1960s onwards and later for Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, where he served into the late 1980s.

Frontline, November 9, 1987

Actor Ossie Davis, a longtime Communist Party supporter, served on the Rainbow Coalition’s National Board in 1987, as did “former” Party members lawyer Arthur Kinoy, Kentucky civil rights activist Anne Braden and Party supporter Rev. Ben Chavis. Longtime Communist Party supporter (now Congresswoman) Maxine Waters also served, as did Manhattan Borough President and Party supporter Percy Sutton, reportedly a “money man” during Jackson’s 1984 run for the  Presidency.

Coleman Young, Mayor of Detroit and a longtime Communist Party member, was also a Rainbow supporter. Harry Hay, a “former’ communist and founder of the gay rights movement, was a local founder of the Lavender Caucus of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition during the early 1980s. Hay was “determined to help convince the gay community that its political success was inextricably tied to a broader progressive agenda.”

The Party was also active on the ground. For instance, longtime Iowa communist Ray Teeple was a leader of the state Rainbow Coalition, while Party supporter Tom Mohan was Iowa State Rainbow director.

Democratic Socialists of America largely missed the boat in 1984, but were all in by 1988.

Longtime Democratic Socialists of America supporter Heather Booth served on the 1987 Rainbow Board, as did DSA comrades Dolores Huerta of the United Farmworkers, Gray Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn, Hilda Hason of the Washington DC City Council and William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

DSA supporter Jan Pierce co-chaied the Rainbow’s Labor Commission. Shakoor Aljuwani became the DSA staff person working to build support for the Rainbow Coalition, focusing on building Labor for Jackson committees. In 1988, AFSCME leader and DSA comrade Stanley Hill was co-chair of the Jesse Jackson campaign in New York. DSAer Tim Carpenter was a “trusted aide” to the Rev. Jackson’s 1988 campaign, while comrade Rhys Scholes helped run things on the ground in Oregon. In Hawaii, DSA couple Nancie Caraway and future state Governor Neil Abercrombie were both prominent in the Rainbow Coalition.

Ben Nichols, Mayor of Ithaca New York, David Dinkins, Mayor of new York City, and Jim Scheibel, Mayor of St. Paul Minnesota, were all DSA comrades who owed their positions to the Rainbow Coalition.

Kurt Stand, a DSA comrade in Washington, DC helped the Spring 1988 issue of the Rainbow Organizer. At the time he led a spy ring, stealing military secrets for communist East Germany. He was later sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Rainbow Organizer Spring 1988

It was the Maoists however, who really ran the Rainbow organization.

The Communist Workers Party chased the Rainbow early on. Supporters of China and North Korea, the ultra-violent CWP originally disdained electoral politics, but changed tactics just in time to get behind Jesse Jackson’s 1984 bid. They mainly worked through their still existing New York front group Asian Americans for Equality.

In 1984, Asian Americans for Equality activist Bill Chong was National vice-chair of Asians for the Jackson Campaign. His comrade Linda Peng was New York State Asian American Jackson campaign coordinator. Regular contributor to the CWP’s Workers Viewpoint newspaper Mike Alexander became Mississippi state coordinator for the 1988 Jackson campaign.

In 1984, Communist Workers Party leader Phil Thompson toured the country rousing support for Jesse Jackson.

Phil Thompson Jackson tour

At a convention in mid-1985, the CWP formally dissolved itself, in its place arose a new organization, the New Democratic Movement, devoted to establishing “local power bases” inside the Democratic Party. There was nothing “democratic” about the new group. Jerry Tung, general secretary of the former CWP, explained his strategy to the faithful. “[O]nce you get people elected or appointed to office, you can award contracts to friends…. When you can raise money for political purposes, when you do it in the right place in the right atmosphere, and look right, and the [mainstream] party bosses are there, then that money makes them take you seriously.”

Former CWP members are still very powerful in the New York Democratic Party and also around Southern California Congresswoman Judy Chu.

Next in line to board the Jackson train was Line of March. Originally Maoist, by 1990, LOM was strongly supportive of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Line of March held multiple key positions in the Rainbow. LOM activists in the Rainbow included Carla Wallace, steering committee Kentucky Rainbow Coalition and Clarence Lusane, a leading Washington, DC activist. In 1984, LOM supporter Josie Camacho was Rainbow Coalition co-chair in California’s 8th District; in 1989, Larry Hobson was co-chair of the USC-Fresno Rainbow Coalition; and Leni Marin was chairman of Filipinos for Jackson.

In 1984, Lillian Galedo was a leader of Filipinos in the Rainbow Coalition. In 1988, Pam David was co-chair of Lesbians and Gays for Jackson,  Romy Garcia was a member of the interim steering committee of the Washington Rainbow Coalition and Vicki Alexander was the co-chair of Rainbow Coalition Women’s Commission and a Rainbow National Board member.

Line of March’s Frontline, April 11 1988

Line of March was probably the second most powerful faction inside the Rainbow. The number one spot went hands down to Steve Phillips’ comrades in the League of Revolutionary Struggle.

The LRS was behind Jackson right from the beginning. League leader Amiri Baraka was urging Jackson to run for President in the pages of Unity  as early as January 1984.

Unity January 25 1984

The League and its supporters dominated the Rainbow in California, Boston and to a slightly lesser degree in New York and Chicago. Altogether the League probably had at least a thousand members working inside the Rainbow.

Notable LRS/Rainbow members include Mike Murase and Butch Wing, who both served on the National Rainbow Board and were trusted Jackson advisers. LRS supporters Sasha Hohri (New York Asians for Jesse Jackson) and Nebraska farm activist Merle Hansen, who doubled as Jackson’s agricultural adviser, also served on the National Board. LRS comrade Eddie Wong was national field director for the 1988 Jesse Jackson for President campaign.

Further down the food chain, LRS supporter Tracy Takano served as chair of the Hawaii Rainbow Coalition, while comrades Mae Louie chaired the Boston Rainbow and Cliff Joseph led Artists for Jackson in New York. The LRS permeated Jackson’s organization in both 1984 and 1988. Today many of them are involved in the new Rainbow Coalition – currently in production.

Unity August 3, 1984

One more Rainbow sub-group deserves mention, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Strong in the Midwest, Boston and New York, Freedom Road (or its ancestor groups) dedicated many of their cadre and supporters to both Jackson campaigns.

FRSO comrade Bill Fletcher was the Boston labor coordinator for the Jackson campaign. Comrades Patrick McCann and Mike Meiselman were Rainbow leaders in Maryland, Jon Liss manned the barricades in Northern Virginia, while Kris Penniston was active in the Madison Wisconsin Coalition.  Boston FRSO supporter Gene Bruskin served as the labor director for the Rainbow Coalition.

According to Freedom Road:

Jackson had the most left platform of any major party candidate in the 20th century. He won support from a “broad array of forces—African Americans, naturally, and other oppressed nationality communities, but also several unions, white family farmers in the Midwest crippled by the Reagan Recession, gays facing the first great wave of AIDS deaths, feminists, students and more. Much of the organized socialist left in the US, and an even larger section of unaffiliated reds and revolutionaries threw themselves into the campaigns”.

Jackson’s newly formed  National Rainbow Coalition, billed as an independent form that would fight inside and outside of the Democratic Party for a radical agenda, provided a common project for comrades to work on and around. Now we could test and strengthen the unity we had built. In 1988, Jackson won nearly a third of the delegates, and the “Democratic Party moved hard to co-opt him”.

When Jackson slid into the Democratic Party mainstream he tried to bring his whole campaign with him. But FRSO members joined others fighting to keep their state Rainbows independent until he dissolved them.

Freedom Road’s Forward Motion magazine circa 1988

Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition earned a respectable 7 million votes in 1988. Most of his cadre were fired up to run again in 1992, but Jesse Jackson seemed more interested in moving “mainstream.” In 1990-91, the Communist Party split, as did the League of Revolutionary Struggle. The Line of March imploded in tandem with its beloved Soviet Union. The Rainbow’s base was severely weakened. There simply wasn’t the infrastructure to maintain the Rainbow and it soon collapsed.

The League of Revolutionary Struggle split two ways. The majority faction became the Unity Organizing Committee, remnants of which form the backbone of Steve Phillips’ PowerPAC+.

The smaller Socialist Organizing Network eventually folded into the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which also absorbed some remnants of the Communist Workers Party and Line of March, to become a major player in today’s American left.

In 2017, Freedom Road entered into an alliance with the Communist Party USA and Democratic Socialists of America to rebuild the Rainbow inside and outside of the Democratic Party. Freedom Road is also close to Steve Phillips and PowerPAC+

This unholy alliance is working on a new Rainbow Coalition. This time its called the “New American Majority” – and its coming to a polling place near you.

Look for Part 6 coming soon: “From Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition to Steve Phillips’ ‘New American Majority'”

A book entitled “The Rainbow Conspiracy” will be released in October 2018.