How About a Conspiracy Without a Theory?

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 22, 2011

How About a Conspiracy Without a Theory?

You are going to hear more and more of this in the news--just like with the Acorn business, just like with the Van Jones business, just like with the Islamist and Left alliance business, just like so many intellectual disclosure campaigns Glenn Beck has spearheaded.

This time he caught a conspiracy in the making on tape. He doesn't even have time to concoct a theory. It's just all laid out for him by the players.

Unions are planning on targeting JP Morgan Chase in May to see if they can prompt a collapse of that bank. The idea is to get about 500 thousand people to default on their Chase mortgages, convincing them with demonstrations, etc.

Here it is from the horse's mouth

There's also more coverage on The Blaze:

Revealed — The Left’s Economic Terrorism Playbook: The Chase Campaign by a Coalition of Unions, Community Groups, Lawmakers and Students to Take Down US Capitalism and Redistribute Wealth & Power

Here are the videos from that link, including the uncut version.

You can expect this one to grow.

Michael

Selene · March 22, 2011

Michael:

I was going to post this also.

Thanks. Yes, these folks are for real.

No amount of denial will change the facts.

Adam

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 22, 2011

Adam,

There's one thing I said that could be misconstrued. I said the unions are planning on doing this stuff.

Actually, the unions are not going to do it directly. They are merely going to pay others to do their dirty-work for them. As the gentleman said on the tape, there's plenty of money they have that can be used for this.

So the unions are going to fund it, but try to cover their behind with deception.

Michael

Reidy · March 22, 2011

As of just before 1 pm east coast time no regular news outlets have picked this up. Let's wait and see if it's for real.

Selene · March 22, 2011

Adam,
There's one thing I said that could be misconstrued. I said the unions are planning on doing this stuff.
Actually, the unions are not going to do it directly. They are merely going to pay others to do their dirty-work for them. As the gentleman said on the tape, there's plenty of money they have that can be used for this.
So the unions are going to fund it, but try to cover their behind with deception.
Michael

Correct.

Elements have been building the peripheral organizations for decades. The unions would not want to have their ID on this one.

Selene · March 22, 2011

As of just before 1 pm east coast time no regular news outlets have picked this up. Let's wait and see if it's for real.

Pete:

Now that is an interesting standard to judge whether something is "real."

Philip Coates · March 23, 2011

What would be the purpose of the unions for this conspiracy?

Reidy · March 23, 2011

It still hasn't made the news, and that's no surprise. A guy with no organization behind him (SEIU fired him for promoting this scheme), no money and no popular or media support is talking smack. Happens every day.

Robert Campbell · March 23, 2011

From what I've been able to learn about this scheme, the guy who's promoting it was canned by SEIU.

Whether he can assemble the forces required remains to be seen.

Robert Campbell

Peter · March 23, 2011

By BRIAN STELTER

The New York Times

updated 1 hour 37 minutes ago 2011-03-23T15:52:18

The possibility that Glenn Beck will exit the Fox News Channel at the end of the year has prompted a big question in media circles: if he leaves, how will he bring his considerable audience with him?

Two of the options Mr. Beck has contemplated, according to people who have spoken about it with him, are a partial or wholesale takeover of a cable channel, or an expansion of his subscription video service on the Web.

Reports this week that Joel Cheatwood, a senior Fox News executive, would soon join Mr. Beck’s growing media company, Mercury Radio Arts, were the latest indication that Mr. Beck intended to leave Fox, a unit of the News Corporation, when his contract expired at the end of this year.

Notably, Mr. Beck’s company has been staffing up — making Web shows, some of which have little or nothing to do with Mr. Beck, and charging a monthly subscription for access to the shows.

Were Mr. Beck to set off on his own, it would be a landmark moment for the media industry, reflecting a shift in the balance of power between media institutions and the personal brands of people they employ.

Mr. Beck, a conservative who often comes under criticism for his attacks on progressives and apocalyptic predictions, hosts a syndicated radio show in the morning and a Fox News show in the afternoon.

He has a “passionate media brand with a clear point of view,” said Larry Kramer, a media consultant and the author of “C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today.” Mr. Kramer compared Mr. Beck to Arianna Huffington and Howard Stern, two people who have spun their personalities into media empires.

It is possible that Mr. Beck and Fox could agree to a new contract. But his relationship with the channel has been fraught from its earliest days in 2009, and lately both sides have been anonymously sniping at the other.

Asked on Tuesday whether Fox News intends to renew his contract, a Fox spokeswoman said, “it’s not up until December” and declined to comment further.

Mr. Beck declined an interview request about his future plans, but through a spokesman, he provided a statement. “Roger Ailes has built the most important voice in America today — Fox News — and it is an honor to do my show there every night,” he stated. “I have no intention whatsoever of doing the show I am doing now on Fox anywhere else.”

Mr. Beck has been contemplating a cable channel of his own for more than a year, according to the people who have spoken with him about it, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. Beck may not be able to actively pursue such an arrangement until his Fox contract is up.

Presuming he leaves, Mr. Beck could follow a road paved by Oprah Winfrey when she started OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network in January. He could schedule his own talk show and the shows of others on one of the many cable channels seeking a ratings jolt. Or, following Martha Stewart’s road to the Hallmark Channel, he could start smaller, taking over a few hours of a channel’s schedule.

But a cable channel takeover, even in part, carries enormous risk, as Ms. Winfrey and Ms. Stewart can attest — they have more real estate now, but the ratings comparisons are not favorable. For Mr. Beck, the risk may be heightened by the fact that many advertisers have shunned him on Fox, in part because of a boycott that started after he called President Obama racist in 2009.

Furthermore, having cable channel turf may carry less importance in the future as more people access TV shows online.

Mr. Beck’s other option is to expand Insider Extreme, the subscription portion of his Web site, glennbeck.com, by hosting an exclusive show there and by adding other content.

Insider Extreme already simulcasts Mr. Beck’s three-hour radio show; shows a fourth hour hosted by his sidekicks; shows a daily show hosted by S. E. Cupp, a conservative commentator; and occasionally features documentaries.

Mr. Beck is also in business with Dr. Keith Ablow, a well-known psychiatrist; they sometimes co-host free webcasts.

Mercury Radio Arts, which is privately held, has not released any figures for the $9.95 subscription service. Last April, one month after Insider Extreme started, Forbes magazine estimated that the Web operations earned Mr. Beck $4 million a year, twice as much as the $2 million he earned from Fox.

On the Web, unlike on television, Mr. Beck owns the data about his subscribers.

People who have spoken to Mr. Beck say that neither option — a cable channel or what would essentially be an Internet channel — would be aimed at competing with Fox News, which is enormously popular on cable. Rather, it would try to extract more value out of Mr. Beck’s loyal fans. The comparison to Mr. Stern may be apt: his audience on satellite radio is smaller than it was on terrestrial radio, but the profits are higher.

Already, some of Mr. Beck’s fans have followed him to a news and opinion Web site, theblaze.com, and to stage shows.

Mr. Kramer noted that Mr. Beck did not necessarily have to choose between cable and the Internet — he could come up with “some form of hybrid.” That’s how Ms. Winfrey formed OWN — she contributed Oprah.com while her partner contributed the cable channel space. But Mr. Kramer cautioned, Mr. Beck is “not Oprah yet.”

This story, "Glenn Beck Contemplates Starting Own Channel," originally appeared in The New York Times.

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 23, 2011

Here is the biographical blurb of Stephen Lerner from the Huffington Post:

Stephen Lerner

I bolded the SEIU part.

Architect of the groundbreaking Justice for Janitors campaign, Stephen Lerner has spent more than three decades successfully uniting hundreds of thousands of janitors, farm workers, garment workers, and other low-wage workers into unions and lifting entire communities out of poverty.
Lerner currently directs SEIU's banking and finance campaign, mobilizing SEIU members and other community groups across the country into action to break the decades-long stranglehold Wall Street and big banks have had on our economy and democracy. Through this campaign SEIU is also partnering with unions and groups in Europe, South America, and elsewhere to build a campaign to hold financial institutions accountable in a global economy.
In his previous role as director of the union's private equity project, Lerner launched a multi-year campaign to expose the overleveraged, unregulated and unsustainable feeding frenzy of private equity firms during the boom years and the economic disaster that would follow once the bubble burst.
Lerner is a frequent contributor on national television and radio programs and has published numerous articles charting a path for a 21st century labor movement focused on growth and meeting the challenges of a global economy.

On another note, this is still from Beck's organization, but now a Congressman has gotten involved.

Congressman Wants Justice Department To Investigate 'Terrorist Plans' In Former Union Official's Bank Plot

by Jonathon M. Seidl

The Blaze

Mar. 23, 2011

From the article:

The Blaze has obtained an exclusive letter sent from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) to Attorney General Eric Holder regarding shocking video uncovered by The Blaze on Tuesday.
In the letter, Chaffetz references video, posted yesterday on this site, showing a one-time SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, outlining a plan to collapse the American economy — including crashing the stock market — so that unions can become more powerful.

I believe much more will be coming. The rest of the media usually ignores Beck's stuff until a couple of weeks or so have passed. They mock him, try to discredit him, belittle him, etc., then eventually start talking about the same stuff he presents.

That was the pattern with Acorn, Van Jones, etc, all stories Beck originally investigated and reported. It's funny how they even did that with the word "Caliphate," which is now a commonplace word in MSM reports.

Beck has lots of flaws, but when he comes out swinging like this, the story usually has a mountain of stuff behind it. He doesn't have 40 researchers on his personal staff (in addition to the Fox research people) for nothing.

Here's his show from yesterday where he discussed it. If I recall what I saw correctly, Lerner has been a guest at the Obama White House a couple of times or so.

As Beck says, if Holder can prosecute the Liberty Dollar guy and call that "economic terrorism," he should have no problem with this case. Heh.

Michael

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 24, 2011

Rush Limbaugh just did a thing on this. See here (The Blaze) for the videos and other links:

Rush Slams Bank Plot Author: ‘Pure 100% Anti-Capitalist‘ Who ’Despises America’

(Sorry. No time to comment right now.)

Michael

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 24, 2011

Here's a continuation, one more Beck show.

He gives a lot more information on Stephen Lerner.

And he announced that he was told that, in addition to Chaffetz, several other congresspeople are getting on board. But did not give their names.

It's growing and growing.

Incidentally, Beck's show on Friday is going to be about the Fed. He is calling it the "Creature from Jekyll Island," which is the title of a book by G. Edward Griffin dealing with the Fed. I hope Griffin is interviewed. I suspect he will be.

Michael

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 25, 2011

I read an article today by G. Edward Griffin. He is going to Beck's show tomorrow. The whole show will be devoted to instructing Beck's public about the true nature and history of the Fed. See here:

Glenn Beck will plug The Creature from Jekyll Island

G. Edward Griffin

March 24, 2011

Canada Free Press

From the article:

On Friday 2011 March 25, the entire Glenn Beck show will be devoted to an exposé of the Federal Reserve. I was invited to be a guest on the program and, when it was taped last Tuesday, I was amazed to find that Beck, not only has read the book but praised it highly. In fact, almost his entire opening monologue was based on the information and, in some cases, the very same phrases used in the book and in my lectures. I was delighted to know that someone, either Beck or his researchers, had spent a great deal of time studying The Creature from Jekyll Island. But what is even more encouraging is that several million viewers will be exposed to an hour of economic and monetary truth. This will bring us a giant step closer to actually slaying the Creature.

I look forward to this.

As for today's show, Beck did an excellent analysis of all the things that are not adding up in the Middle East and Obama's policies. Obama can't wait to talk about revolution and Mubarak, but hem haws over Iran and Libya. There is a pattern shaping up. When the Muslim country favors or is even lukewarm on Israel, Obama has strong views when the respective dictators oppress their citizens. When the Muslim country hates Israel, Obama doesn't have much to say in similar circumstances.

Beck presents a video of Samantha Power, the wife of Cass Sunstein and current Special Assistant to President Obama, basically saying Israel needs to be invaded. There's a lot more dots that Beck connects (including--ta daa!--the involvement of George Soros) but I'm out of time. So here is the show:

Michael

basimpson22 · March 25, 2011

Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Unions or the Big Banks? They're both playing the same types of games.

Edited March 25, 2011 by Aristocrates

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 25, 2011

Aristocrates,

For Beck, the good guys are small government people who believe in individual rights and personal responsibility.

The bad guys are people who believe in large government, collective rights and social justice.

You find both in all groups on the Left and on the Right. There are good guys in the Unions and in Bank managements, and there are bad guys in both.

Even in religion, if you believe religion is a personal matter between you and your God (or conscience), you are a good guy. If you believe in collective salvation (basically the value of the collective over the individual), you are a bad guy.

Many people on the collective side like to look down on Beck because he hits home against them big time with plain ordinary folks. Many people on the individual side like to look down on him because he doesn't fit their idea of what an intellectual should be.

Beck's commitment to principle instead of category makes him confusing for a lot of people. Just as soon as they have pegged him, he does something totally contrary to what they said he was.

I don't have a problem with his style. I come from hillbillies and I just don't give a damn about appearances when fundamentals like collectivism versus individualism are discussed. And so long as he holds belief in God is an individual matter (and even plugs Atlas Shrugged), I'm fine with him practicing his own beliefs even as he speaks of these matters.

Michael

Peter · March 25, 2011

Michael Stuart Kelly wrote:

Beck's commitment to principle instead of category makes him confusing for a lot of people . . . . .I don't have a problem with his style.

end quote

I am continually astonished at Beck, and then I have that “hide your head in embarrassment feeling,” when he goes “conspiracy” on us. Yet, he seems to always be proven right, usually in about two weeks. The State Run Media does not give a rat’s ass for the truth.

Donald Trump was on The View the other day, and when he questioned Obama’s birth certificate's authenticity, one of the loony left on the panel exclaimed, “Are you a birther?” Trump was ready for this emotional derision, and just kept hammering at the issue. That got my respect.

I have the same “birther / presidential vetting” doubts, but now they can wait until a Tea Party President is elected in 2012. If we do find, in a couple more rational years, that there was a conspiracy among the people who researched Obama’s past, I would like to see them tried for treason. And we could deport the alien back to his home planet ) BO go home!

Peter Taylor

Robert Campbell · March 26, 2011

Michael,

I watched yesterday's show.

Samantha Power's peculiar doctrines about "humanitarian" military intervention do help to explain the Obama administration's apparently disoriented behavior regarding Libya.

Beck has also been prescient about Obama being eager to promote off-shore oil drilling off Brazil while suppressing it off the United States.

Now whether the remnants of Qadhafi's army get put together with the Egyptian army and sent to the West Bank and Gaza to serve as a "mammoth protective force" against Israel remains to be seen.

But Beck fell well short of tying everything together neatly. I could also have done without his presentation of Karl Popper as sinister. Popper was originally a socialist; he became a weak classical liberal (a libertarian reviewer called his liberalism "namby-pamby"). Any appropriation of Popper's ideas by George Soros is best understood, however, as a means toward advancing the schemes of George Soros.

I had no idea that Soros had smoothed the path for Saif-al-Islam Qadhafi to be admitted to the London School of Economics, only to be embarrassed by Qadhafi Jr.'s subsequent behavior. That was an interesting connection.

Robert Campbell

basimpson22 · March 26, 2011

Touche Michael!

Michael Stuart Kelly · March 29, 2011

From what I've been able to learn about this scheme, the guy who's promoting it was canned by SEIU.
Whether he can assemble the forces required remains to be seen.

Robert,

Here's an update on this. Looks like lots of smoke and mirrors surrounding this guy.

Wade Rathke’s Startling Admission: ‘Economic Terrorism’ Engineer Stephen Lerner Is Still on SEIU Payroll

by Scott Baker

The Blaze

March 28, 2011

From the article, which is about ACORN founder Wade Rathke's recent blog post:

Rathke seems to answer the question we’ve been asking all week — does bank plotter Stephen Lerner still work for SEIU? Rathke says Lerner is still very much on the SEIU payroll:
"Lerner has not been “fired” by SEIU as they report. He was placed on paid leave last fall to think through his contribution to the union, but was certainly present at the recent international executive board meeting."
. . .
Rathke’s post not only claims that Lerner is on “paid leave,” he affirms Lerner’s status as a revered strategist in the labor movement:
"Lerner has written a number of well circulated papers over the last year expanding on his analysis of the impact of the recession and the need to frame larger campaigns around accountability of banks and the financial system for working Americans. He is an avowed advocate of developing campaigns to finally bring them to account."

Michael

How About a Conspiracy Without a Theory?

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in