Barack Obama - Radical Appointments

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Radical and Controversial Appointments made by the Obama administration.

David Bonior

David Bonior has connections to the radical Washington D.C. "think tank" Institute for Policy Studies. He has also been involved in the Democratic Socialists of America.

Bonior was touted as a likely Obama Labor Secretary but withdrew his name from contention. Obama then delegated Bonior, a member of his Transition Economic Advisory Board, to broker a re-unification of the US labor movement, bringing the Change To Win grouping and the AFL-CIO back together under one banner.

According to the RBO blog;

The NYT’s David Greenhouse reported that, on January 7, the union presidents first met with Bonior, a member of Obama’s economic transition team...Bonior helped “arrange and oversee” the meeting.

The union presidents issued their joint call after the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama signaled that it would prefer dealing with a united movement, rather than a fractured one that often had two competing voices.

Rosa Brooks

Rosa Brooks is a senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy. Until her appointment to the Obama administration she served on the Georgetown Law full-time faculty. Brooks, who wrote a weekly opinion column for the Los Angeles Times, holds degrees from Harvard, Oxford, and Yale Law School.

Carol Browner

In 2005 Carol Browner served on the board of Center for American Progress as the Principal of the The Albright Group.

Carol Browner is President Barack Obama's "Global Warming Czar". Browner ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. Until she was tapped for the Obama administration, she was on the board of directors for the National Audubon Society, the League of Conservation Voters, the Center for American Progress and former Vice President Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.

Heather Higginbottom

Heather Higginbottom was appointed as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy on November 24, 2008. she was formerly with the Obama for America campaign. On October 30, 2001, while working for Senator Kerry, she addressed a Boston Democratic Socialists of America organized forum entitled "Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform".

Patrick Gaspard

Patrick Gaspard is a Brooklyn-based, 41-year-old Democratic operative who became, in June 2009, a White House director of the office of political affairs. In 1995 Patrick Gaspard was an organizer for the New Jersey chapter of the New Party.

Kevin Jennings

Kevin Jennings was appointed Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education by the Obama administration.

Jennings has come under fire for a number of controversies during his time as a teacher, and then as the founder and director of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. In 1988 a student told him that he had met an older man in a bus station bathroom, and gone home with him. Jennings understood that the boy was fifteen-years-old, however instead of reporting the incident as required under law, he said to the boy, "You know, I hope you knew to use a condom.". Jennings has used a pornography and pedophilia publisher to publish three text-books he has written. Jennings' admiration for Harry Hay, an outspoken supporter of the North American Man/Boy Love Association has also come under question. In his work for GLSEN, Jennings has railed against what he terms as the "promotion of heterosexuality" in schools. He was also involved in two notorious "Teach-Out" Conferences, during which student participants were given explicit instructions on a number of sexual techniques, and where Planned Parenthood distributed "fisting kits".

Ron Bloom

from left: Barack Obama, Ron Bloom and Lawrence Summers

When Presient Obama came into office, Ron Bloom became an aide to Rattner at the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry. When Rattner resigned after just five months, Bloom took over as car czar.

In September 2009 Bloom accepted a new position overseeing manufacturing policy for the Obama administration.

Bloom said his decision to join the administration was, in part, the product of a broader sense of engagement and desire to improve the world, which he developed in his Habonim years.

“That’s part of what I try to do in my work life...That’s one of the things that made me want to work for Obama.”

Van Jones