Between 2000 and 2010, CTA spent over $210 million on political campaigning

◼ more than any other political donor in California. - Discover The Networks

In fact, this total exceeded the combined political expenditures of the pharmaceutical, oil, and tobacco industries during that same period. From 2003-2012, only eight-tenths of 1% of CTA's political contributions went to Republicans. The rest went to Democrats, making CTA the largest supporter of the Democratic Party in California.

...An affiliate of the National Education Association, the California Teachers Association (CTA) is the Golden State's largest labor union. Founded in 1863, CTA currently represents some 325,000 teachers, counselors, librarians, social workers, psychologists, nurses, office workers, bus drivers, and maintenance staff employed in approximately 1,000 K-12 school districts statewide. Other CTA members include community-college and California State University faculty.

As recently as the 1960s CTA was a politically moderate entity that eschewed labor activism, as reflected by then-executive director Arthur Corey's 1962 declaration that: “The strike as a weapon for teachers is inappropriate, unprofessional, illegal, outmoded, and ineffective. You can’t go out on an illegal strike one day and expect to go back to your classroom and teach good citizenship the next.” The union began drifting leftward in 1975, however, when California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill permitting the state's teachers to bargain collectively. Over the ensuing 37 years, CTA staged more than 170 strikes.

Among the most well-funded institutions in America today, CTA's revenues derive mostly from mandatory annual dues that, in some cases, can amount to more than $1,000 per member. The Association's income in 2009 exceeded $186 million, all of it tax-exempt.

For many years, CTA has used its massive resources to fund its ever-expanding political activism. Learn more at Discover The Networks

What Is a “Saul Alinsky Radical”?

◼ By Discover The Networks

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has referred to Barack Obama as a “Saul Alinsky radical” whose values run counter to those of America’s founders. Who was Saul Alinsky? What was his message? What influence did it have on Obama?

Though Alinsky is rightfully understood to have been a leftist, his legacy is more methodological than ideological. He identified a set of very specific rules that ordinary citizens could follow, and tactics that ordinary citizens could employ, as a means of gaining public power. His motto was, “The most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired results.”

◼ See also: CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY (CPS)
◼ See also: ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS FOR REFORM NOW (ACORN)

◼ Obama helped fund 'Alinsky Academy' - Teaches tactics of direct action, confrontation and intimidation - Aaron Klein/WND
"The Woods Fund, a nonprofit on which Obama served as paid director from 1999 to December 2002, provided startup funding and later capital to the Midwest Academy.... Obama sat on the Woods Fund board alongside William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization.... 'Midwest describes itself as 'one of the nation's oldest and best-known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change.'... Midwest teaches Alinsky tactics of community organizing."

FAIR IMMIGRATION REFORM MOVEMENT (FIRM)

◼ The open-borders arm of the Center for Community Change - Discover The Networks

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) was established in 2000 as a project of the Center for Community Change (CCC), whose Immigrant Organizing Committee (IOC) functions as the governing body of FIRM and is itself composed of some 30 organizations, including: the Gamaliel Foundation, the New York Immigration Coalition, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and Casa de Maryland.

FIRM describes itself as “a national coalition of grassroots organizations fighting for immigrant rights at the local, state and federal level.” "Deeply committed to long-term social change," FIRM aims to diminish "the crushing impact that America’s broken immigration system has on immigrant families."

...Following the Saul Alinsky model of social-change activism championed by CCC luminaries like Heather Booth, FIRM funnels a large portion of its financial resources into activist training programs. Many of its top trainers are prominent figures serving in prestigious and powerful positions. Three of them -- Marshall Ganz, Michele Rudy, and Jake Waxman -- work at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Another FIRM trainer, Joy Cushman, serves as the Organizing Director at the New Organizing Institute. She also worked as a coordinator for the Obama Organizing Fellows Program, and as a trainer and Deputy Field Director in several states during Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. ...read the rest.

DEMOCRATS TURN AGAINST ISRAEL...

◼ Israel rift roils Democratic ranks - Politico via Drudge

Two of the Democratic Party’s core institutions are challenging a bipartisan consensus on Israel and Palestine that has dominated American foreign policy for more than a decade.

The Center for American Progress *, the party’s key hub of ideas and strategy, and Media Matters, a central messaging organization, have emerged as vocal critics of their party’s staunchly pro-Israel congressional leadership and have been at odds, at times, with Barack Obama’s White House, which has acted as a reluctant ally to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government.

* Created by the Democratic National Committee, developed by a secret White House brain trust, and initially funded by the George Soros / Herb Sandler / Hillary Clinton money lists, the Center for American Progress is an echo chamber for the Democratic Party and left-wing politics in general. A favorite source of NPR (National Public Radio) stories.