A First Lady of the (Highly Paid) People

Jim Crum sent me this list of salaries of Michelle Obama's staff.  Note that five of her staff earn over $100,000 per year. I am certain that they make major contributions to the public welfare. Certain.

 

1. $ 172,2000  - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff) 

2. $140,000  - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director
    of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)

3.  $113,000  - Rogers, Desiree G.  (Special Assistant to the President and
    White House Social Secretary) 
4.  $102,000  - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and
    Director of Communications for the First Lady) 
5.  $100,000  - Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and
    Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
6.  $90,000  -  Medina   , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady) 
7.  $84,000  - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First
    Lady) 
8.  $75,000  - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the
    First Lady) 
9.  $70,000  - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the
    First Lady) 
10.  $65,000  - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
    Secretary) 
11.  $64,000  - Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
    Secretary) 
12.  $62,000  - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events
    Coordinator For The First Lady) 
13.  $60,000  - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for
    the First Lady) 
14.  $57,500  - Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First
    Lady) 
15.  $52,500  - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press
    Secretary to The First Lady) 
16.  $50,000  - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special=2 0Assistant for Scheduling and
    Traveling Aide to The First Lady) 
17.  $45,000  - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For
    The First Lady) 
18.  $43,000  - Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office) 
19.  $40,000  - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to
    the First Lady) 
20.  $36,000  - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary) 
21.  $35,000  - Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)

Catalano Resigns as Chair of Ulster County GOP

Robin Yess just forwarded this e-mail to me.  Mario Catalano's resignation as chair of the Ulster County GOP opens a race for county chair to Robin, a liberty-oriented Republican, and Roger Rascoe, a retired corrections officer whose wife works for State Senator Bonacic.

From: ...@aol.com [mailto:...@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 9:36 PM
To: ...com; ...@hvi.net; ...@hvc.rr.comp
Subject: Re: County Reorganizational Meeting

Dear Republicans, the county reorganizational  meeting will be held Thursday September 16th this year. In compliance with the new bylaws, voting for the next chairman will be conducted using a weighted vote for the first time. As we successfully accomplished the selection of our Comptroller candidate using this method, I feel confident in our ability to get it done again.

I am also writing to inform you that I will not be seeking re-election as County Chair. When I originally sought the position, I made it clear that I would serve for 3 to 5 years and then pass the gavel to someone else. This September will be 3 years, and so it is time to move on.

I do not believe that anyone should serve a long term as chair, as I firmly believe that it is important to the party to have a continuous flow of "new blood" to make sure that we remain energized. I would encourage you all to ask each of the candidates how they feel about that.

I also wish to thank each and every one of you for your assistance during these past 3 years. I believe the party is rebounding from years of apathy and neglect. This is evidenced by our winning two county wide races for open seats in the District Attorney's office and County Judge race. We also overwhelmingly re-elected our County Clerk last year. Even in the Obama Tsunami, we almost pulled out a win in the Comptrollers race.  On top of that, when I became chairman, we were a 12-21 minority in the legislature. In 3 years we  now have a 18-15 majority.To all of you who assisted in these efforts I say well done.

One final note. A letter will be going out to each committee person shortly. As leaders, I am giving each of you a "heads up", so you will not be caught off guard.

Finally, I will pledge my support to whomever you select to secede me. I will continue to work to elect Republicans, and will be available to help each and everyone of you should you require my assistance.

May God Bless America, and all of you,

Mario T Catalano

Chairman

Ulster County Republican Committee

My Piece Too Politically Incorrect for Karkhanis's Patriot Returns

My good friend Sharad Karkhanis publishes a newsletter that goes to about 13,000 City University of New York faculty and employees called Patriot Returns. To give you an idea as to how controversial Patriot Returns is, Sharad just settled a multi-year libel suit by one of the union officers whom he had ruthlessly satirized for years.  Sharad has asked me to write for him a number of times, most recently concerning David Seidemann's law suit against the faculty union and concerning the Charles Rangel Center at the City University of New York (forthcoming). 

But even Patriot Returns is too tame for some of my stuff.    I had submitted a piece to him concerning an article in the faculty union's newsletter, the Clarion.  Karkhanis told me that it is simply too controversial even for Patriot Returns.  The New Caucus is the extreme left-wing "party" that runs the CUNY faculty union. I suppose my claim that the CUNY faculty is more racist than the membership of the Tea Party is simply too hot for anyone in academia to handle, even though it is true.

 New Caucus Racism

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D. *

Recently, William Tabb, professor emeritus of Queens College, made accusations of racism against the so-called Tea Party in the pages of the Clarion, the newsletter of the CUNY faculty union.  In fact, the Tea Party is a highly decentralized and diverse group that is scattered across thousands of locales around the country. Racism may exist in some locales, just as racism may exist in some quarters of CUNY.   I have attended eight meetings of the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party near my home town as well as one or two in my home town of Olive, New York.  I did not detect a single instance of racism.  There is more racism on the CUNY faculty than in the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party.  I very much doubt that Professor Tabb or the NAACP have done any research as to whether there is actual racism.  I am a former contributer to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which made similar kinds of irresponsible allegations. I voiced my concerns to Morris Dees, the founder, directly, and have ceased any involvement with that organization.  

Competent academic research poses hypotheses and then attempts to falsify them through evidence.  Professor Tabb offers no evidence. Rather, he asserts unfounded, lynch-mob style accusations.  This disturbs me.  Professor Tabb is a distinguished professor from Queens College.  If his standards are so low as to make wild, ungrounded accusations about Tea Party racism one must wonder about standards among the New Caucus in general.

 In response to Professor Tabb's allegations of racism, I did an informal survey of the Professional Staff Congress's representation of various minorities.  I counted the number of African-Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans, Asians and South Americans in its leadership group.  My finding is that the proportion of minorities who are officers of the Professional Staff Congress is lower than the proportion of minority group members who have have attended the Kingston/Rhinebeck Tea Party.  In other words, the evidence is that Barbara Bowen, Steve London and the rest of the New Caucus are MORE RACIST THAN THE TEA PARTY.

My affirmative action plan is straightforward. The CUNY faculty needs to replace PSC's president, Barabara Bowen.

*Mitchell Langbert is associate professor of business at Brooklyn College. He blogs at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com.

Bureau of Land Management and US Forestry Service Racketeering Organizations--Sheriff Defends Wayne Hage, Threatens Force

 Congressman Maurice Hinchey recently proposed to turn the Hudson Valley into a federal park.  The legal ramifications of this proposal have been ignored by the area's woefully uninformed media. Mike Marnell forwarded this series of videos, which illustrates how federal regulation can easily escalate into ugly violence against landowners. This video appears on Daily Paul.com.

In the video Sheriff Tony DeMeo describes that the Bureau of Land Management and the Forestry Service attempted to steal Wayne Hage's, a rancher's, water rights in order to stop him from ranching.  This resulted in a law suit.  During the course of the law suit Hage was surrounded by armed federal agents who violently stole his cattle. In 2006 Hage died but the law suit continues.  Special Agent Matthews tried to seize Hage's cattle again following Hage's death.  Demeo describes Matthews as ignorant of basic concepts of the US Constitution.

In response to repeated threats of violence from the two federal agencies, Sheriff Demeo told them that  he would enforce the Constitution.  He told the a US Forestry Service official that he would arrest their agents if they illegally harassed Hage.  A US attorney threatened DeMeo with arrest.  DeMeo told his deputy that if the US government used armed agents he would employ his swat team against them and arrest them.  DeMeo had to explain basics about civics, specifically about the Bill of Rights, to ignorant federal employees. DeMeo told them that they could not seize cattle without a court order. BLM attempted to serve Hage with a bogus summons for leaving garbage in a dumpster on his own property.

Surprisingly, a federal court gave the land rights to Hage (the spirit of racketeering has not reached the lower level federal courts...yet) and awarded him $4 million.  The federal government continues to issue trespassing summonses against Hage's son and heir, the rightful owner of the land.  DeMeo asserts that the case is related to an attempt by the federal government to monopolize control of food production.

In 2004 BLM petitioned Nevada counties to give them law enforcement authority.  Sheriff DeMeo opposed this proposal to breach the Tenth Amendment.  This is the kind of affront to expect in the wake of a federalized Hudson Valley Park. 

Boy Scouts Boo Obama Video

H/t Jim Crum.



Jim writes:

Rather than speak to the BoyScouts on a 100th anniversary, he decided to go tape a show for The View, and then go on vacation.


Priorities?

These young men we not fooled by the shallow show of support, or the poor understanding of leadership shown by Mr. Obama. What he did was a serious insult, and they got the message loud and clear. The better question is whether Mr. Obama got their message or not.

JJC.