Obama's Communist Connections - The Saga Continues

Pundita recounts how in 1996 - in his run for the Illinois State Senate - Barack Obama sought out the endorsement of the "New Party", a Marxist Political coalition.

He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers.

"... the New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials -- most often Democrats. The New Party's short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist third party.

"Most New Party members hailed from the Democratic Socialists of America and the militant organization ACORN. The party's Chicago chapter also included a large contingent from the Committees of Correspondence, a Marxist coalition of former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA members.

"The New Party's modus operandi included the political strategy of "electoral fusion," where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth......

..."Though Illinois was not one of the states that permitted electoral fusion, in 1995 Barack Obama nonetheless sought the New Party's endorsement for his 1996 state senate run. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers."

Update: RezkoWatch just forwarded this information from a reader.

"More proof of Obama's socialism. In 1996 he ran as member of New Party...Obama won his State Senate seat as a member of the New Party, an extreme left wing group run by a former Jesse Jackson campaign manager. Its mind-blowing that Obama could have got to the top of theDemocrat ticket without one wise man screening him. Well the Dems made this bed, now they must live with these shocking truths about the type of communist-like changes Obama would bring to the America....

"....Some of these chapters — such as those in Chicago and Little Rock —had their main bases of support in the low-income community organizing group ACORN, along with some support from various labor unions (especially ACORN-allied locals of the Service Employees InternationalUnion)... So it really should be no mystery as to why Ayers of all people was the one to crack the champaign bottle over Obama's maiden voyage into the political waters."

From the Columbus Free Press 1996 - "New Party" Online News - Election Update:

"NP member and State Senate candidate Barack Obama won uncontested."

From New Zeal - January 8 2008:

Obama Was Endorsed by the far Left "New Party"....Two organisations formed the backbone of the New Party-the Democratic Socialists of America and the US's largest radical organisation, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "But back in Chicago, the (ACORN) is more important than Iraq or Washington. ACORN and its associated Midwest Academy, both founded in the 1970s, continue to train and mobilize activists throughout the country, often using them to manipulate public opinion through "direct action." It's sometimes a code for illegal activities.

"Prior to law school, Barack Obama worked as an organizer for their affiliates in New York and Chicago. He always has been an ACORN person -- meeting and working with them to advance their causes.

"Through his membership on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago ... Obama has helped ensure that they remain funded well. Since he graduated from law school, Obama's work with ACORN and the Midwest Academy has ranged from training and fundraising, to legal representation and promoting their work...."


New Ground 42 Sep/Oct 1995: "About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to update members on local activities and to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates....

..."The political entourage included Alderman Michael Chandler, William Delgado, chief of staff for State Rep Miguel del Valle, and spokespersons for State Sen. Alice Palmer, Sonya Sanchez, chief of staff for State Sen. Jesse Garcia, who is running for State Rep in Garcia's District; and Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer. Obama is running for Palmer's vacant seat..."

New Ground 47 July/August 1996: "The NP's '96 Political Program has been enormously successful with 3 of 4 endorsed candidates winning electoral primaries. All four candidates attended the NP membership meeting on April 11th to express their gratitude...

"...Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration..."

Clearly the young Barack Obama had no aversion to enlisting Marxist help to further his political career.

From New Zeal - March 29 2007:

Now the Communist Party USA is claiming Barack Obama as its spiritual heir.

US academic Gerald Horne, a member of the editorial board of the Communist Party USA's theoretical journal, Political Affairs, wrote this piece in its latest online version.

"In Hawaii [there] was an African-American poet and journalist by the name of Frank Marshall Davis, who was certainly in the orbit of the CP – if not a member – and who was born in Kansas and spent a good deal of his adult life in Chicago, before decamping to Honolulu in 1948 at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson.

"Eventually, he befriended another family – a Euro-American family – that had migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the steps of Davis eventually decamped to Chicago.

"In his best selling memoir ‘Dreams of my Father’, the author speaks warmly of an older black poet, he identifies simply as "Frank" as being a decisive influence in helping him to find his present identity as an African-American, a people who have been the least anticommunist and the most left-leaning of any constituency in this nation –

"At some point in the future, a teacher will add to her syllabus Barack’s memoir and instruct her students to read it alongside Frank Marshall Davis’ equally affecting memoir, "Living the Blues"...

Will the CPUSA back Barack?"

Apparently, yes.

From New Zeal - June 17 2007:

I'm getting a bit worried about Democratic US presidential hopeful, Barack Obama. First a senior US communist, Gerald Horne, writes an article in the CPUSA's "Political Affairs" explaining that Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis was a member of the Communist Party.Now it turns out that the Communist Party USA campaigned to elect Obama to the US Senate in 2004.What does the CPUSA know about Barack Obama that the rest of America doesn't?

From the Communist Party USA's People's Weekly World 24.4.04:

"Activists from Illinois were immersed in the campaign to elect Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate. Obama won a landslide victory in the March 16 Democratic primary. If Obama wins in November, he would be only the third African American senator since Reconstruction.

“This was a historic victory. It was a victory for political independence and grassroots, coalition, and issue oriented politics over the machine and money,” said John Bachtell, Illinois CP district organizer."

New Zeal January 11 2008 - From a letter to the Peoples Weekly World:

"Now, beyond all the optimism I was capable of mustering, Mr. Obama won Iowa! He won in a political arena 95 percent white. It was a resounding defeat for the manipulations of the ultra-right and their right-liberal fellow travelers. Also it was a hard lesson for liberals who underestimated the political fury of the masses in these troubled times.

"Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle. Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary “mole,” not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.

"The old pattern of politics as usual has been broken. It may not have happened as we expected it to happen but what matters is that it happened. The message is clear: we can and must defeat the ultra-right, by uniting the broadest possible coalition that will represent an overwhelming majority of the people in a new political dynamic. We must quickly shed yesterday’s political perspective and get in step with the march of events."

Why do the Communists love Obama so?

From New Zeal January 12 2008:

Barack Obama Was Endorsed by Chicago Marxists [the DSA - Democratic Socialists of America.]

The DSA was formed in 1983 by from a coalition of former Trotskyists, "new left" activists, ex Socialist Party and Communist Party members.

DSA is now the US's largest Marxist organisation, however its moderate name has allowed it to infiltrate other parties, including the New Party, the Working Families
Party, the Greens and particularly the Democratic Party.

DSA is strong in Chicago where it has real influence in the left wing of the Democratic Party.It was in the incestuous circles of the Chicago Democratic Party/Socialist left that the young lawyer, Barack Obama began his political career.

In March 1996 Chicago DSA endorsed four candidates for the Illinois elections, including Barack Obama:


"Chicago DSA Endorsements in the March 19th Primary Election:"

"....Barack Obama is running to gain the Democratic ballot line for Illinois Senate 13th District. The 13th District is Alice Palmer's old district, encompassing parts of Hyde Park and South Shore....Luckily, Mr. Obama does not have any opposition in the primary. His opponents have all dropped out or were ruled off the ballot.But if you would like to contribute to his campaign, make the check payable to Friends of Barack Obama, 2154 E. 71st, Chicago, IL 60649. If you would like to become involved in his campaign, call the headquarters at (312) 363-1996."

From New Zeal - January 19 2008:

Carl Davidson is a leading US Marxist. He is former member of the '60s radical group Students for a Democratic Society and spent many years working in various Maoist organizations.

Around 1992 Davidson joined hundreds of former Maoists, Trotskyists and about a third of the Communist Party USA in a new Marxist coalition-the Committees of Correspondence.

Davidson remains a leading member of this organization, now known as the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Davidson serves on the steering committee of the communist dominated US peace umbrella organization, United for Peace & Justice and is co-chair of the equally radical Chicagoans Against War & Injustice...

...In the mid '90s Davidson played a key role in the Chicago branch of the New Party.This was a Marxist led poltical coalition designed to endorse and elect leftist public officials.

The bulk of its members came from CoC, the equally radical Democratic Socialists of America and the US's largest militant left grass-roots organization, ACORN.

It was through the New Party that Davidson first met the aspiring Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama. Davidson was an ardent supporter of Obama for several years and helped organize the famous peace rally in Chicago in where Obama pinned his colors to the anti-Iraq war cause.

As Obama has modified his (public) anti war position in recent times, Davidson has become somewhat disillusioned with his former hero.

In early 2007 Davidson penned this piece on Obama;From the Marxism Mailing List archive

"I'm from Chicago, too, and known Obama from the time he came to the New Party to get our endorsement for his first race ever. I've been in his home, and as an IL legislator, he's helped or community technology movement a number of times.

He said all the right things to the ACORN and New Party folks, and we endorsed him, but I noticed too, that he seemed to measure every answer to questions put to him several times before coming out with it. -

From New Zeal - January 26 2008:

The USA's largest Marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America has consistently supported Barack Obama-particularly through its influential Chicago branch.

While Obama has mixed with DSA members for many years, socially and politically, he has only occasionally been publicly identified with DSA sponsored events.

Obama makes an apparent, if obscure reference to DSA in his 1995 autobiography "Dreams From My Father". Discussing his time studying political science at New York's Columbia University, in the early 80s, Obama reveals that he"went to socialist conferences at Cooper Union and African cultural fairs in Brooklyne.”

"Cooper Union" is the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a privately funded college in Downtown Manhattan. For many years, from the early '80s until 2004, Cooper Union was the usual venue of the annual Socialist Scholars Conference-almost certainly what Obama was referring to.

SSC was for many years the largest socialist gathering in the USA, attracting up to 2,000 participants...

SSC was no love-in for aging hippies and peace loving "democratic" socialists.Speakers often included members of the Communist Party USA and its offshoot, the Committees of Correspondence, as well as Maoists, Trotsyists, black radicals, gay activists and radical feminists.

Barack Obama speaks of "conferences" plural, indicating his attendance was not the result of accident or youthful curiosity....

....In 1988 Obama left Chicago to study at Harvard Law School. He returned in 1992 and in 1996 he ran for Illinois State Senate with the endorsement of DSA - Democratic Socialists of America.

That endorsement was partially earned by Obama's performance at a DSA sponsored forum held at Chicago University in early 1996.

From Chicago DSA's New Ground March 1996

"Over three hundred people attended the first of two Town Meetings on Economic Insecurity on February 25 in Ida Noyes Hall at the University of Chicago. Entitled "Employment and Survival in Urban America", the meeting was sponsored by the UofC DSA Youth Section, Chicago DSA and University Democrats.

"The panelists were Toni Preckwinkle, Alderman of Chicago's 4th Ward; Barack Obama, candidate for the 13th Illinois Senate District; Professor William Julius Wilson, Center for the Study of Urban Inequality at the University of Chicago..."

Toni Preckwinkle and William Julius Wison ...have links to DSA. Michael Dawson has been a leader of the DSA and Communist Party infiltrated Black Radical Congress.

Barack Obama's flirtation with DSA seems to have begun in the early '80s and may continue to this day.

Cheney Liberated Auschwitz?

From James Taranto:

By now you've heard about this slip-up from Barack Obama:

"I had an uncle who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps. The story in our family was that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months," Obama said.

Obama's campaign later issued a statement saying it was his great-uncle, not his uncle, who participated in liberating the Buchanwald concentration camp, not the Auschwitz death camp. The latter was liberated by the Soviet army.

But what caught our attention was the bit about the attic. Compare to this CNN report from November:

"Obama: Cheney is 'a crazy uncle in the attic"

Obama was referencing the recent revelation by the Vice President's wife, Lynne Cheney, that he [Obama] and the Vice President are distantly related.

"For the first time in a long time, the name George Bush will not appear on the ballot," he told the crowd of about 500 people at Converse College in Spartanburg.

"The name Dick Cheney, my cousin, will not appear on the ballot," Obama said. "We had been trying to hide that cousin thing for a long time. Everybody's got a black sheep in the family. A crazy uncle in the attic."

And where was Barack Obama when crazy old Dick Cheney was liberating Auschwitz? Let's just say he had other priorities. - Source: Wall Street Journal

Obama, A Waffler Par Excellence

Barack Obama's propensity for flip-flopping has reared its ugly head once again.

In a recent speech in Pendleton Oregon, Barack Obama stated the following:

"Iran, Cuba, Venezuela—these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet."

But in an interview with the Chicago Tribune in September 2004, Obama opined that the Iran was a greater threat than Russia.

Obama told the Tribune that the US one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs.

"Violent Islamic extremists are a vastly different brand of foe than was the Soviet Union during the Cold War," he asserted, "and they must be treated differently."

“With the Soviet Union, you did get the sense that they were operating on a model that we could comprehend in terms of, they don’t want to be blown up, we don’t want to be blown up, so you do game theory and calculate ways to contain,” he said. “I think there are certain elements within the Islamic world right now that don’t make those same calculations...."

The following is an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune interview.

September 25, 2004

U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs.

Obama, a Democratic state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood, made the remarks during a meeting Friday with the Tribune editorial board....

...Obama said the United States must first address Iran’s attempt to gain nuclear capabilities by going before the United Nations Security Council and lobbying the international community to apply more pressure on Iran to cease nuclear activities. That pressure should come in the form of economic sanctions, he said.

But if those measures fall short, the United States should not rule out military strikes to destroy nuclear production sites in Iran, Obama said.

“The big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures, including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point are we going to, if any, are we going to take military action?” Obama asked.

Given the continuing war in Iraq, the United States is not in a position to invade Iran, but missile strikes might be a viable option, he said. Obama conceded that such strikes might further strain relations between the U.S. and the Arab world.

“In light of the fact that we’re now in Iraq, with all the problems in terms of perceptions about America that have been created, us launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in,” he said.

“On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse. So I guess my instinct would be to err on not having those weapons in the possession of the ruling clerics of Iran. … And I hope it doesn’t get to that point. But realistically, as I watch how this thing has evolved, I’d be surprised if Iran blinked at this point.”...

...Obama said that violent Islamic extremists are a vastly different brand of foe than was the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they must be treated differently.

“With the Soviet Union, you did get the sense that they were operating on a model that we could comprehend in terms of, they don’t want to be blown up, we don’t want to be blown up, so you do game theory and calculate ways to contain,” Obama said. “I think there are certain elements within the Islamic world right now that don’t make those same calculations...."

Incidentally, on July of 2004 - while discussing the war in Iraq with the ChicagoTribune - Obama stated:

"There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.”

Of course, that statement clearly condradicts his recent statements on Iraq. But what's even more interesting than the actual flip-flop itself is how he inserted those last three words - "at-this-stage" - allowing himself some wiggling room to shift his position on Iraq if need be - proving once again that when it comes to waffling, no one does it better than Obama!

What do we really know about Obama?

From Larry Liddell - the Clarcksdale Press Register:

You should see the things that cross my desk every day.

It ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, truth to fiction, serious to comic and everything in between.

The other day, you might remember the top ranking members of the Republican Party verbally assaulted Democratic front-runner Barack Obama as well as his wife and mother.

Now, I do not agree with attacking the family of political candidates. It’s one thing for a person to run for office and that person is fair game. But, a person’s family should be off limits. It could be that a member of one’s family doesn’t even want the person running to run for office.

Then, across my desk came a missile that is pretty revealing about Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who Obama referred to the other day as “the dominant figure in my formative years.”

Now, folks, ever since he began running for the U.S. presidency, he has characterized his mother as a “conservative girl from Kansas,” but as hard as I try, I can’t find anything conservative about her. It seems that she was actually a radical leftist and cultural Marxist.

She allegedly lived in the Seattle area as a teenager and, instead of being conservative Methodists or Baptists, his mother’s parents were members of a left-wing Unitarian Church in Bellevue, Washington, that was nicknamed “The Little Red Church” because of its Communist leanings.

In an interview, Barack Obama referred to his mother as “the dominant figure in my formative years. The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics.”

Remember the Mercer Island High School his mother attended?

Well, it seems it was allegedly a hotbed for pro-Marxist radical teachers. And Ann Dunham was a leading student at the school, where two of her professors, Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman, were both Frankfurt School-style Marxists who taught a critical theory curriculum that included rejection of societal norms, attacks on Christianity and the traditional family with assigned readings by Karl Marx.

Dunham died in 1995, when Barack was 34.

Now, Barack Obama wants to become president, so he blasts President Bush and Republican presidential nominee John McCain for launching “exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and that alienates us from the world.”

No, Obama, the stuff that has divided our country and alienates us from the world is the exact stuff that your mother believed during your formative years.

Marxism and Communism. These two political philosophies will divide any Christian-based, Democratic nation every time.

I will leave you good people with two things to worry about: (1) what political philosophy does Barack Obama believe in, and (2) who is financially backing Barack’s run for the Presidency?

He’s been running for a year now and we still don’t know much more about the guy than when he first announced. Think about it. - Read in full.

Excerpted from the Chicago Tribune - March 2007:

In his best-selling book, "Dreams From My Father" and in campaign speeches, Obama frequently describes the story of his mother... as a tale of the Heartland. She's the white woman from the flatlands of Kansas and the only daughter of parents who grew up in the "dab-smack, landlocked center of the country," in towns "too small to warrant boldface on a roadmap."

Implicit in that portrayal is this message: If you have any lingering questions or doubts about the Hawaiian-born presidential candidate with a funny name, just remember that Mom hails from America's good earth. That's the log cabin story, or his version of Bill Clinton's "Man from Hope."

That presentation, though, glosses over Stanley Ann Dunham's formative years, spent not on the Great Plains but more than 1,800 miles away on a small island in the Pacific Northwest....

Stanley Ann's family moved to Seattle in 1955.

...Consistent with the 1950s, there were undercurrents of turmoil. In 1955, the chairman of the Mercer Island school board, John Stenhouse, testified before the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee that he had been a member of the Communist Party.

At Mercer High School, two teachers -- Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman -- generated regular parental thunderstorms by teaching their students to challenge societal norms and question all manner of authority. Foubert, who died recently, taught English. His texts were cutting edge: "Atlas Shrugged," "The Organization Man," "The Hidden Persuaders," "1984" and the acerbic writings of H.L. Mencken.

Wichterman taught philosophy. The hallway between the two classes was known as "anarchy alley," and students pondered the challenging notions of Wichterman's teachings, including such philosophers as Sartre and Kierkegaard. He also touched the societal third rail of the 1950s: He questioned the existence of God. And he didn't stop there.

"I had them read 'The Communist Manifesto,' and the parents went nuts," said Wichterman, .."The kids started questioning things that their folks thought shouldn't be questioned -- religion, politics, parental authority," said John Hunt, a classmate. "And a lot of parents didn't like that, and they tried to get them [Wichterman and Foubert] fired."

The Dunhams did not join the uproar. Madelyn and Stanley [Stanley Ann's father] shed their Methodist and Baptist upbringing and began attending Sunday services at the East Shore Unitarian Church in nearby Bellevue.

"In the 1950s, this was sometimes known as 'the little Red church on the hill,' " said Peter Luton, the church's senior minister, referring to the effects of McCarthyism. Skepticism, the kind that Stanley embraced and passed on to his daughter, was welcomed here.

For Stanley Ann, the teachings of Foubert and Wichterman provided an intellectual stimulant and an affirmation that there indeed was an interesting life beyond high school dances, football games and all-night slumber party chatter.... - Read in full.

Obama and McCain's Communist Connections, Slightly Different

From Accuracy in Media:

Senator McCain’s communist connections consist of bombing the communists during the Vietnam War and then being shot down, badly injured, captured, and tortured by them. On the other hand, Senator Barack Obama was mentored by an identified Communist Party member in Hawaii who had functioned as a Stalinist agent. That was before Obama developed cordial relationships with communist terrorists who openly supported the communist regime that tortured McCain and killed 58,000 of our fellow Americans.

Can we have some coverage of the contrast between the two candidates on Memorial Day? It’s not just a matter of McCain serving in the military and Obama not doing so. It’s a matter of which side they were on.

McCain was on the American side during the Vietnam War. He personally risked his life and carried out the U.S. policy of resisting the communist military conquest of South Vietnam. Obama had friendly associations with those who had been on the other side and they helped launch his political career in Chicago. Obama can’t solve this problem by occasionally wearing an American flag lapel pin.

Keep in mind that we are not talking about associating with those who simply opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Obama’s friends, such as Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, cheered for a communist victory and visited Havana, Cuba and Hanoi, North Vietnam to bring that about. Like his comrades in the communist Students for a Democratic Society, Tom Hayden of “Progressives for Obama” wrote a letter urging a communist military victory over the U.S. These were people who actually supported the enemy.

In the case of Frank Marshall Davis, Obama’s childhood mentor, we are dealing with someone who was on the communist side long before the Vietnam War. Davis supported Stalinist Russia even after the Hitler-Stalin pact. This relationship may help explain why Obama would leave Hawaii, associate with Marxist professors and attend socialist conferences in college (as he admits in his book, Dreams From My Father), and then associate with terrorists, communists, and socialists in Chicago, where he would launch his political career. Davis was a key influence over the young Obama, filling his head with anti-American thoughts...

...But rather than focus on Davis, some in the media are making fun of McCain’s war injuries. Brent Baker reveals that, during a report on the release of McCain’s medical records, Dr. Jon LaPook asserted on CBS News that “people” notice that McCain is “not able to raise his arm” and think “doesn’t that look funny?” Baker asked, “Who thinks McCain’s limitation, caused by an attack on him after his plane crashed in North Vietnam and he was denied medical care, looks funny? In what circles does CBS’s doctor travel?"...

...Significantly, the basic facts of the Obama-Davis relationship were originally disclosed by Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, who talked about Obama coming under the influence of Davis during a speech at the reception of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University..

...Horne is not the only significant figure to talk about the influence of “Frank” on Obama. Dr. Kathryn Takara of the University of Hawaii... an Obama supporter, confirmed that Davis was a significant influence over Obama during the three or four years that he attended the Punahou prep school. These would have been the years 1975-1979.

She said Obama had been introduced to Davis by his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who considered Davis a “strong black male figure” and thought he exerted a “positive” influence over the young man in his high-school years.

Asked why she thought Obama didn’t identify Davis in his book by his full name, she replied, “Maybe he didn’t want people delving into it.” She said that this could have had something to do with Davis’s lifestyle, rather than his politics. “Frank’s was a place where you could have drinks,” she said...

...There are many in the liberal and conservative media who want desperately to avoid this subject. The liberals want to protect Obama. The “conservatives” avoiding the subject don’t want to be accused of “McCarthyism” if they mention it.... - Read in full.

Britain Apprehensive Over Barack Obama's Iran Policy

Excerpted from the Times Online:

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has raised questions over Barack Obama’s policy on Iran, which officials in Washington and Europe fear threatens to undermine the tough stance adopted by the West towards Tehran over recent years.

The Foreign Secretary, on his visit to the US this week, has held talks with all three presidential campaigns, including those of Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

But when he met Mr Obama’s team of foreign policy advisers on Wednesday, Mr Miliband is understood to have queried the presumptive Democratic nominee’s declared willingness to meet leaders from rogue states such as Iran...

...British intelligence chiefs are understood to have identified Iranian nuclear proliferation as the second greatest security threat, behind Islamic terrorism but ahead of renewed aggression from Russia.

There is also deep concern about Iran’s support for Iraqi Shia militias or terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. “The role of Iran as a source of instability in the region is undoubtedly a concern,” Mr Miliband said this week. “No one can watch armed militias coming on to the streets in defiance of UN resolutions with equanimity.”

Exact accounts of the conversation with Mr Obama differ and there is certainly acute anxiety on the part of the British not to be seen as stoking political controversy in America’s presidential elections....

...In a televised debate last summer, Mr Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet the leaders of countries such as Iran and Cuba without preconditions during his first year in office. He replied: “I would.” But this week he appeared to pull back, saying he would still be willing to meet Iranian leaders but not before what he described as “preparations” — and not necessarily with President Ahmadinejad...

...Mr Miliband, in a press conference with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, reiterated Britain’s support for the united front on Iran adopted by the US and its European allies, which he believes is beginning to pay dividends...

..Mr McCain’s foreign policy chief, Randy Scheunemann, would not comment on his own meetings with Mr Miliband. But he said: “Obama’s position is obviously different to that of Britain and France. Otherwise Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy would have already met the President of Iran without conditions. - Read in full.

Stocks Afraid of Obama!

Larry Kudlow surmises: "Stocks don't like Obama."

One of the things we’ve learned during the Democratic primary battle is that Hillary’s victories are bullish for stocks and Obama’s wins are bearish. The clearest example was Hillary’s massive West Virginia victory. Stocks opened strong the following day. But after Obama’s big North Carolina win, a night he nearly carried Indiana, stocks opened way down...

...Since Obama took Oregon convincingly, he really carried last night’s elections and now stands on the verge of gaining the Democratic nomination. Not surprisingly, stocks opened down 80 points this morning

Markets don’t like Obama. If he wins....taxes are going up big time. This is especially true for the capital-gains tax, which is the single most important levy on assets of all kind, including stocks.....

Read the rest.

Also read how a blogger's incisive argument has one real estate agent wondering why she's supporting Obama: My encounter with an Obamaniac

Obama's Flip-Flopping and his Appeasement of the US Electorate

Barack Obama's policy of appeasement has already been discredited throughout history as an ineffectual and disastrous policy. But what about his policy of appeasement right here in the US? Can he win over the minds and hearts of voters by flip-flopping and waffling on various political issues in order to appease a wide array of voters?

In January of 2004, Barack Obama said it was time "to end the embargo with Cuba" because it had "utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro."

[Perhaps this is the reason Fidel Castro endorsed his candidacy. Of course, former Nicaraguan President and Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega also endorsed his candidacy.]

But in 2007 Obama said, "As president, I'll maintain the embargo -- it's an important inducement for change because we know that Castro's death will not guarantee freedom." - Source

He has flip-flopped on Nafta; on the war in Iraq; on a US troop withdrawal from Iraq; on his willingness to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad; on PAYGO; on the US Patriot Act, on repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and on public financing - and the list goes on....

Only time will tell if this kind of waffling - as a means of appeasing the entire US electorate - will help him win the general election. But one thing is for certain - Obama's policy of appeasement and his constant flip-flopping has certainly helped him lock up the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Obama Backs off From Pledge to Talk with Iran

Excerpted from the Guardian:

With the November election in his sights, Barack Obama has backed away from his promise last year to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions during his first year in the White House.

His campaign has stopped mentioning Ahmadinejad by name, and noting that there must be "preparations" for such an encounter.

"He wants to talk to the Iranian leadership," Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor and Obama supporter told Fox television yesterday. "But he wants diplomatic preparation before doing that."

On Tuesday, Obama's foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, told CNN that he did not necessarily mean he would meet Ahmadinejad when he offered to open talks with Iran. "He hasn't named who that leader will be," she said. "It may, in fact be that by the middle of next year, Ahmadinejad is long gone...." (OOPS!)

The emerging position is much more guarded than Obama's pledge during a YouTube debate last July to meet the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea without preconditions during his first year in the White House.... Read in full.

"Smokey the Parrot" Endorses Obama

Obama Stiffs UN in Iranian Nuke Negotiations

From the New York Post:

BUOYED by their modest electoral success last month, critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's provocative foreign policy were preparing to launch a series of attacks on him in the Islamic Majlis, Iran's ersatz parliament. But then Ahmadinejad got an unexpected boost from Barack Obama.

Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator and now a Majlis member, was arguing that the Islamic Republic would pay a heavy price for Ahmadinejad's rejection of three UN Security Council resolutions on nukes. Then the likely Democratic presidential nominee stepped in.

Obama announced that, if elected, he wouldn't ask Iran to comply with UN resolutions as a precondition for direct talks with Ahmadinejad:

"Preconditions, as it applies to a country like Iran, for example, was a term of art. Because this administration has been very clear that it will not have direct negotiations with Iran until Iran has met preconditions that are essentially what Iran views, and many other observers would view, as the subject of the negotiations; for example, their nuclear program."

"Talking without preconditions" would require America to ignore three unanimous Security Council resolutions. Before starting his unconditional talks, would Obama present a new resolution at the Security Council to cancel the three that Ahmadinejad doesn't like? Or would the new US president act in defiance of the United Nations - further weakening the Security Council's authority?

President Bush didn't set the preconditions that Obama promises to ignore. They were agreed upon after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran was in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Acting in accordance with its charter, the IAEA referred the issue to the Security Council.

Dismissing the preconditions as irrelevant would mean snubbing America's European allies plus Russia and China, all of whom participated in drafting and approving the resolutions that Ahmadinejad doesn't like.

Such a move would make a mockery of multilateral diplomacy - indeed, would ignore such diplomacy in exactly the way that critics claim the Bush administration has.

Obama clearly hasn't asked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy what they think of the United States' suddenly changing course and granting Ahmadinejad's key demand in advance.

Maybe Obama hasn't been properly briefed about the "preconditions" he gets so worked up about. He cites Iran's "nuclear program" as a precondition. Wrong: No one has asked, or could ask, Iran to stop its nuclear program - period. On the contrary, Iran's participation in in the Non-Proliferation Treaty gives it the right to seek help from other signatories, including the US, to access the latest technology in developing its nuclear industry - for peaceful purposes.

The Security Council isn't asking the Islamic Republic to do something dishonorable, humiliating or illegal. All it's asking Ahmadinejad to do is to stop cheating - something the Islamic Republic itself has admitted it has done for 18 years. The Security Council has invited Iran to "suspend" - not even to scrap - a uranium-enrichment program clearly destined for making bombs, in violation of the NPT.

Iran has not a single nuclear-power station and thus doesn't need enriched uranium - except for making bombs. Its sole nuclear plant is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2009. But that can't use the type of uranium that Iran is enriching; the station requires fuel of a different "formula," supplied by Russia, which is building the project, for the next 10 years. (And the Russians have offered to provide fuel for the plant's entire lifetime of 37 years.)

Another precondition asks Tehran to explain why it is building a heavy-water plant at Arak - when it has absolutely no plans for plutonium-based nuclear-power stations. The Arak plant's only imaginable use is to produce material for nuclear warheads.

Finally, the IAEA and the Security Council are asking Tehran to allow international inspectors access to all sites related to the nuclear project - access that Iran is obliged to provide under the NPT.

In short, the minimum show of goodwill on Ahmadinejad's part would be to comply with the UN resolutions before he goes to the White House for talks with President Obama on other issues.

Obama's words on "preconditions" have helped ease domestic pressure on Ahmadinejad to comply with the United Nations and the IAEA. The Iranian president is telling his domestic critics to shut up until after the US election. Why, after all, should he make concessions that a putative President Obama has already dismissed as unnecessary?

Obama: Speak With Thine Enemy and Carry a Small Stick; You will go Far!

Investor's Business Daily, commenting on Barack Obama's assertion that Ronald Reagan's negotiations with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, .."allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall."....

Yes, Reagan talked with Gorbachev. But he resisted the Soviet advance from Nicaragua to Grenada to Afghanistan. He put Pershing missiles in Europe. He launched the Strategic Defense Initiative and said "nyet" when Gorbachev wanted us to deal it away. When Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," the end of the Cold War already was a fait accompli.

Would Obama have done or said any of this?

...Obama dislikes being called an appeaser. But would he say to Iran: No deal unless you disown and disarm Hezbollah? We doubt it. More likely he'd sacrifice a country such as Lebanon to Tehran's ambitions in a modern-day Munich.

In his book, "Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons," Obama adviser Joseph Cirincione, director of nuclear policy at the center for American Progress, says he favors Israel giving up its nuclear weapons to ensure Iran doesn't obtain nukes. That's called appeasement.

Cirincione also was quoted in 2006 calling Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's nuclear reactor a "failure." But the raid on Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor was an unqualified success that kept the Iraqi dictator from having a nuclear weapon when he invaded Iran a decade later.

Thomas Brewton opines that Obama's foreign policy "is depressingly flabby compared to the approach of our first liberal-progressive President, Teddy Roosevelt.":

In his 1904 State of the Union message, Teddy announced the “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine: “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society…may force the United States... to exercise an international police power.” In various Latin American trouble spots, Teddy didn’t hesitate to send in America Marines to quell revolutions and to take control of local government operations to protect what he conceived to be American interests.

While such conduct is hardly recommendable, it is decisively true that the rest of the world, for the first time, began to take the United States seriously in foreign affairs and to tread lightly whenever their actions might infringe upon our national interests.

An enduring effect of his activism was that Teddy became the model for his young cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Both had been marinated in the exhilarating and then novel doctrines of socialism while at Harvard. According to liberal-progressive historian Samuel Eliot Morison (The Oxford History of the American People), Teddy had long been radical in his domestic policy views.

In his 1912 Bull Moose Party campaign for the Presidency, Morison wrote:

"[Teddy's] ideas, clarified and systematized as the “New Nationalism,” included…the relatively new conception of social justice - the reconstruction of society by political action…He declared that the rich man “holds his wealth subject to the general right of the community to regulate its business use as the public welfare requires,” and that the police power of the state should be broadened to embrace all necessary forms of regulation."

Teddy would have approved Senator Obama’s socialistic program of higher taxes, greater regulation, price controls, and deficit spending to redistribute income. But Teddy would have taken one look at the foreign policy sensitivity of Senator Obama and his liberal-progressive colleagues and dismissed them as a bunch of spineless namby-pambies.

Read in full.

Is Barack Obama Another John F. Kennedy?

Barack Obama on Saturday remarked:

"If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the president of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy because that's what he did with Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev...."

However, contrary to Barack Obama's affinity for negotiating with tyrants, John F. Kennedy's foreign policy towards communist dictators and tyrants was certainly not pacifistic by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he ardently supported regime change in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

The 1961 "Bay of Pigs Invasion", an unsuccessful attempt by armed Cuban exiles in southwest Cuba to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro, was planned and funded by the United States during John F. Kennedy's Presidency.

The invasion failed partly due to Kennedy's decision to alter crucial elements of the operation to make it appear as if the Cuban exiles had planned it, so that his administration could claim "plausible deniability" and avoid responsibility for the invasion as a U.S. operation.

Kennedy ended up canceling a series of air strikes designed to finish off Castro's air force. He also changed landing sites.

The cancellation of the air strikes, the change of the landing sites, and ultimately, the lack of U.S. air cover and support during the invasion, sealed the fate of the mission and the lives of many of the men of the invasion force.

The invasion was a total failure and Kennedy was severely embarrassed by it. - Source

In June 1961, only a few weeks after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at a summit in Vienna where they discussed the future of Berlin.

Khrushchev, emboldened by his impression of Kennedy as young, naive, and weak [as a result of the botched Bay of Pigs invasion], adopted a blunt and confrontational stance toward the American delegation. Kennedy was badly outmatched by Khrushchev, and shortly after the summit, the Soviets built the Berlin Wall, which remained intact until the end of the Cold War.

After the Vienna Summit, Khrushchev told his assistants that he wondered whether anyone who had abandoned the Cuban invading forces on the beaches would have the will to launch a nuclear attack. And Kennedy himself later said about the Vienna summit: "Worst thing in my life. He [Khrushchev] savaged me," and "I think I know why he treated me like this, he thinks because because of the Bay of Pigs... I had no guts."

In the aftermath of the botched Bay of Pigs invasion and the Vienna Summit debacle, the Soviet Union began building missile sites in Cuba. On October 14 an American U-2 flight photographed the missile sites. Kennedy, realizing it was imperative for him to respond strongly this time around, deployed a naval task force of nineteen ships to prevent missiles from entering Cuba. He also threatened to sink any ship interfering with the "quarantine" of Cuba

Between October 24-27, when U.S. and Soviet strategic forces were on "red alert" [missile sites cocked for firing, submarines deployed, bombers loaded with H-bombs flying into position], an American air strike against the missile sites, to be followed by an invasion of Cuba, had been ordered to begin if Khrushchev did not agree to remove the missiles from Cuba by October 28. Khrushchev finally relented and removed the missiles from Cuba.

Larry Gilman describes Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis as follows:

"U.S... policymakers had verified, as they believed, that "showing resolve" (threatening to use military force) was more effective than diplomacy, the United Nations, or international law—with the proviso that the U.S. should be more willing to commit conventional (non-nuclear) military forces in a crisis, in order to keep back from the nuclear abyss."

Conclusion: While Kennedy did engage in diplomacy with Khrushchev, it was primarily the threat of military force that convinced Khrushchev to pull his missiles out of Cuba.

If anything, Kennedy's lack of resolve and forcefulness during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Vienna Summit may have actually fueled the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It is also important to note that in September 1962, both the Senate and the House overwhelmingly voted to sanction the use of force, if necessary, "to prevent the creation or use of an externally supported offensive military capability endangering the security of the U.S."

In Barack Obama's view, this kind of "tough talk and saber rattling" only serves to strengthen the enemy. But ultimately, it was this kind of "tough talk" that eventually resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The reader should also take note that the Bay of Pigs invasion was not the only incident in which John F. Kennedy attempted to effect regime change abroad.

In November 1961 Kennedy deployed a US naval task force with 1,800 US Marines off the Dominican coast, in an effort to oust Dominican leader, Rafael Trujillo Jr. from power. Kennedy favored Joachim Balaguer as the temporary ruler of the Dominican Republic. As Kennedy remarked at the time: "Balaguer is our only tool. The anti-communist liberals are not strong enough. We must use our influence to take Balaguer along the road to democracy." As a result of the US Marine deployment, Trujillo and his supporters left the country.

The "Kennedy Doctrine", as defined by Wikipedia, "refers to foreign policy initiatives of John F. Kennedy towards Latin America, during his term in office between 1961 and 1963. Kennedy voiced support for the containment of Communism and the reversal of Communist progress in the Western Hemisphere."

While Kennedy did display a lack of resolve during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Vienna Summit - a weakness which may have been the catalyst for Russia's decision to deploy nuclear missiles to Cuba - the reader can see for himself that unlike Barack Obama, Kennedy sought to remove tyrants from power, while Obama seeks to coddle them.

Do Obama and Pelosi Owe the President an Apology?

Barack Obama and his supporters are up in arms over comments President Bush made while speaking to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel - criticizing those who seek to appease terrorists.

"We have a protocol, a custom, informally around here, that we don't criticize the president when he's on foreign soil," Pelosi said. "One would think that would apply to the president, that he would not criticize Americans when he is on foreign soil."

But in actuality, it was Barack Obama who was attacking and undermining the President while he was on foreign soil.

According to DEBKAfile’s political sources - h/t Ginacobb.com - "Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had sent representatives to the international conference in Jerusalem to solicit campaign supporters in Israel.

"Clinton’s was ex-ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and Obama’s were Dennis Ross, formerly of the US state department and ex-special Middle east envoy, and Dan Kurtzer, another former ambassador to Israel.

"Whereas Indyk kept a low profile, Ross and Kurtzer were in and out of the offices of Israeli leaders including prime minister Ehud Olmert. They promised that Israel had nothing to fear from Barack Obama as president, or his offer to meet the presidents of Iran and Syria for face to face discussion on the issues outstanding between them and the United States. They insisted that this offer did not apply to Palestinian terrorists like Hamas." - Read in full.

But Ross and Kurtzer were doing much more than that. They were also using their visit to criticize President Bush's Middle East policies.

From Haaretz:

"Two representatives of the United States' previous administration.... on Tuesday criticized the policies of current U.S. President, George W. Bush and the conduct of the Annapolis Middle East peace process.

"Special Middle East coordinator in the Clinton administration, Dennis Ross, and former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer were speaking in the framework of the "Facing Tomorrow" Presidential Conference in Jerusalem.

"Ross... [now an Obama adviser] said that last November's Annapolis conference was not planned properly, that all of the parties should have agreed in advance on at least some of the main principles and that more groundwork should have been done to give both the Israelis and the Palestinians the sense that the event could make a difference for them....

"Kurtzer, an adviser on foreign policy and the Middle East to Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama criticized the Annapolis process and said the current administration in Washington is not seriously advancing the
negotiations....."

- Read in full.

So in essence, Barack Obama's advisers were attacking President Bush on foreign soil - during Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations.

Senator Obama, Speaker Pelosi - how about an apology?

Obama Frighted By False Fire?

Excerpted from Ekupono.com

In William Shakespeare's well known epic of Hamlet, the young prince of Denmark finds himself afflicted with visions of his father's restless, vengeful spirit who alleges that Hamlet's uncle Claudius poured poison in his ear to slay him.... Hamlet, being a man of discernment, decides to hold a play for King Claudius which simulates the murder of Hamlet's father.

If Claudius is unmoved and unshaken, Hamlet knows that his visions were false. But if Claudius reacts harshly, "the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" (Act II, Scene II). Predictably, when the time comes for the play to be presented, Claudius rises to his feet in self condemnation, at which Hamlet remarks, "What! Frighted with false fire?" (Act III, Scene II).

President Bush in his address to the Israeli Knesset on Thursday ...remarked:

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along..... We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

...Who would have known that out of the blue, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, would have decloaked himself and claimed that Bush's speech was actually a cheap shot against him! To quote Hamlet, "What! Frighted by false fire?" Surely Barack Obama must have a guilty conscience or at the minimum a fragile self esteem, because nowhere in that speech does Bush make mention of him.

COCKTAIL PARTY EFFECT, FREUDIAN SLIP, MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, YOU DECIDE!

Psychologists tell us of a "cocktail party effect" in which the human brain, despite a cacophony of noise, can always filter out when one's name is being called out in a crowd. No matter how many people are speaking, no matter how much noise there is, when someone's name is called, the brain has a strange way of making the person called out stop and look.

It's funny that Democrat Hillary Clinton didn't say, "How dare Bush call me an appeaser."...It's also doubly funny that John McCain didn't say, "How dare Bush call me an appeaser." ...Come to think of it, we didn't hear from Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, Ralph Nader, or Bob Barr, all of who want to be president, say, "How dare Bush call me an appeaser" regarding Bush's ...comments.

But isn't it fascinating that Barack Obama would stand up and say that Bush called him out? Sounds like the cocktail party effect has Obama frighted with false fire, his conscience caught. Can we say Freudian slip? - Read in full.

And today McCain campaign aide Tucker Bounds issued the following statement:

"It was remarkable to see Barack Obama’s hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned. These are serious issues that deserve a serious debate, not the same tired partisan rants we heard today from Senator Obama..."

An Endorsement From Osama

Obama, Chamberlain, and Iran

Brave New Obamaian World - The Year 2115

H/T - The Audacity Of Hypocrisy

Obama's Inability to Hire Good Help Rears Its Head … Again

From ABC news' Political Punch: h/t Accuracy in Media.

We started covering Sen. Barack Obama's inability to hire good staffers in June 2007, when he blamed staffers for some opposition research trying to link Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, to outsourcing in India; for injecting some venom in the David Geffen/Hillary Clinton fight; and for missing an event with firefighters in New Hampshire.

In December, we noted again that Obama was blaming the answers on a 1996 questionnaire on a staffer; and was blaming his touring with "cured" ex-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin (which antagonized gays and lesbians) on bad vetting by his staff.

Those five buck-passing incidents were apparently not enough.

Yesterday, in an interesting New York Times look at Obama's rise in Chicago politics, we learned that in 2004 some Jewish supporters became alarmed to learn that in a questionnaire Obama refrained from denouncing Yasir Arafat, or from expressing strong support for Israel's security fence.

Reports the Times: "In an e-mail message, Mr. Obama blamed a staff member for the oversight, and expressed the hope that 'none of this has raised any questions on your part regarding my fundamental commitment to Israel’s security.'"

In January, during MSNBC's presidential debate in Las Vegas, Obama was asked about a document put together by one of his South Carolina staffers that listed comments made by the Clinton campaign that some perceived to be attempting to stoke racial fires. "In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?” asked Tim Russert.

"Our supporters, our staff get overzealous," Obama said. "They start saying things that I would not say, and it is my responsibility to make sure that we're setting a clear tone in our campaign.”

In February in a meeting with the Chicago Tribune, Obama was asked about an earmark that went to the University of Chicago while his wife Michelle Obama worked there.

"I don’t think that I was obligated to recuse myself from anything related to the university," Obama said, adding, "when it comes to earmarks because of those concerns, it’s probably something that should have been passed on to [U.S. Sen.] Dick Durbin, and I think probably something that slipped through the cracks. It did not come through us, through me or Michelle, and Michelle has been very careful about staying separate and apart from any government work. But you could make a good argument that this is something that slipped through our cracks, through our screening system.”

In a March 2008 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times to answer questions about Tony Rezko, Obama was asked about the fact that Obama had told the newspaper in November 2006 that he had never been asked to do anything to advance Rezko's business interests. But the Sun-Times had subsequently learned about a October 28, 1998 letter Obama wrote to city and state housing officials on behalf of a housing project for seniors that Rezko was working on.

The letter, Obama said, "was essentially a form letter of the sort that I did all time. And that I wasn’t, by the way, aware of...” Read the rest.

Obama Blocked the 'Born Alive Infant Protection Act'

Excerpted from CNS News: Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever.

He is so pro-abortion that he refused as an Illinois state senator to support legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions...

...State and federal versions of this bill became an issue earlier this decade because of "induced labor abortion." This is usually performed on a baby with Down's Syndrome or another problem discovered on the cusp of viability. A doctor medicates the mother to cause premature labor. Babies surviving labor are left untreated to die.

Jill Stanek, who was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., testified in the U.S. Congress in 2000 and 2001 about how "induced labor abortions" were handled at her hospital.

"One night," she said in testimony entered into the Congressional Record, "a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have the time to hold him. I couldn't bear the thought of this suffering child lying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived."

In 2001, Illinois state Sen. Patrick O'Malley introduced three bills to help such babies. One required a second physician to be present at the abortion to determine if a surviving baby was viable. Another gave the parents or a public guardian the right to sue to protect the baby's rights. A third, almost identical to the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act President Bush signed in 2002, simply said a "homo sapiens" wholly emerged from his mother with a "beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles" should be treated as a "'person,' 'human being,' 'child' and 'individual.'"

Stanek testified about these bills in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee, where Obama served. She told me this week he was "unfazed" by her story of holding the baby who survived an induced labor abortion.

On the Illinois Senate floor, Obama was the only senator to speak against the baby-protecting bills. He voted "present" on each, effectively the same as a "no."

"Number one," said Obama, explaining his reluctance to protect born infants, "whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child, a 9-month old -- child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it -- it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute."

That June, the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (although it failed to become law that year). Pro-abortion Democrats supported it because the following language was added: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this section."

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer explained that with this language the "amendment certainly does not attack Roe v. Wade."

On July 18, 2002, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid called for the bill to be approved by unanimous consent. It was.

That same year, the Illinois version of the bill came up again. Obama voted "no."

In 2003, Democrats took control of the Illinois Senate. Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services committee. The Born Alive Infant bill, now sponsored by Sen. Richard Winkel, was referred to this committee. Winkel also sponsored an amendment to make the Illinois bill identical to the federal law, adding -- word for word -- the language Barbara Boxer said protected Roe v. Wade. Obama still held the bill hostage in his committee, never calling a vote so it could be sent to the full senate.

A year later, when Republican U.S. senate candidate Alan Keyes challenged Obama in a debate for his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Bill, Obama said: "At the federal level there was a similar bill that passed because it had an amendment saying this does not encroach on Roe v. Wade. I would have voted for that bill."

In fact, Obama had personally killed exactly that bill. Source - CNS News

Also see Jill Stanek's post - "Obama, Wright, and the Christ Hospital connection". 'Did Jeremiah Wright influence Obama to oppose Illinois' 'Born Alive Protection Act'?'

Obama and Odinga, a Curious Relationship

Raila Odinga, the current Prime Minister of Kenya, recently boasted that he has a “close personal friendship” with Barack Obama. When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila and spoke in praise of him at rallies in Nairobi. Obama’s praise for Odinga was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila’s “stooge.”- Source, The Midnight Sun

Barack Obama's father, a native Kenyan, was closely aligned to Raila's father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a former Vice President of Kenya and a Marxist enthusiast who once boasted that "Communism is like food to me"

Here are some facts about Raila Odinga, the man Barack Obama has befriended and lauded:

In August of 2007 - while running for the Kenyan Presidency - Raila Odinga signed an agreement with Kenyan Muslim leaders promising, among other things, the implementation of Sharia law in certain parts of Kenya, censorship of Christian programming on government airwaves, and a ban on Christian open-air gatherings in Muslim areas as well.

[Incidentally, when Raila Odinga lost the presidential election in December, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of people were burned to death in a church set on fire… Throughout Kenya, hundreds of people were politically murdered. Source-The Midnight sun]

The following are just a few quotations from Odinga's agreement with the Muslims leaders:

"Within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions."

"Within one year facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters."

"Popularize Islam, the only true religion, in the Coast and North Eastern Regions by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes."

"No Muslim residing in Kenya whether a citizen, visitor or relative of any of the above shall be subjected to any process involving the laws of a foreign country and in particular any Muslim arrested or suspected of Terrorism or any other International crime shall only be tried within the borders of Kenya and shall be granted a competent lawyer of his/her choice at the expense of the Government."

Not only does the above violate international treaties on criminal extradition, but also means that Kenya would be essentially a safe haven for terrorists -- the Taliban tried a similar ploy with Osama bin Laden.

"Impose a total ban on open-air gospel crusades by worshipers of the cross in the Coast and North Eastern regions."

"Outlaw gospel programs (preaching, purported faith healing, etc.) on KBC, the National Broadcaster."
Sources - Eakenya.org, The Obama Odinga Connection - on the sidebar, The Midnight Sun

And here's another interesting tidbit: Odinga named his son Fidel Castro.

In an interview with the New York Times [see the end of the video] Odinga defended that decision saying: "That was in the 60's. [Odinga starts to laugh] It was very fashionable to be leftist. Fidel Castro then symbolized the resistance against imperial domination. Of course, the world has since changed."

"Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's pastor, stole my wife"

Barack Obama’s controversial spiritual mentor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, has been accused of stealing the wife of a parishioner who went to him for marriage counselling.

Delmer Reed has told friends he believed it was no coincidence that his former wife, Ramah, divorced him and married Mr Wright shortly after the Chicago pastor gave him advice on their troubled marriage in the early 1980s.

Roosevelt Thomas, a lawyer who handled the Reeds’ divorce in 1983, confirmed to the New York Post that Mr Reed long believed Rev Wright moved in on his wife after counselling them.

The allegation, which is flatly denied by the Wright family, compounds the embarrassment that Mr Obama has already suffered from his links with Rev Wright. Read the rest.

Obama Dissembling on Afghanistan

In an interview on 'Meet The Press' Sunday, Barack Obama said the US is not doing enough to root out Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. Source - MSNBC

However, since joining the Senate Foreign Relations panel, Obama has missed two of three Committee hearings on Afghanistan.

In their last debate before Tuesday's critical primaries in Ohio and Texas, Hillary Clinton criticized Obama for not holding any oversight hearings on Afghanistan on the European Affairs subcommittee, which Obama chairs.

Additionally: in his second trip overseas as a sitting senator, Obama was part of a congressional delegation that was scheduled to go to Afghanistan after visiting Iraq. Obama made the Iraq part of the trip but peeled off to visit Jordan and Israel instead of visiting Afghanistan, according to reports published at that time. Source - The Hill

See the following video for additional info:

Cats Feud Over Obama and Clinton

Barack Obama's Ties to Bill Ayers

In case you haven't already read Larry Johnson's post detailing the full extent of Barack Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, a relationship which predated Obama's run for the Illinois Senate by 8 years, and quite possibly long before that, we suggest you read it. Link

Radical from '60s stoked by Barack Obama

Excerpted from WorldNet Daily - He didn't bomb the Capitol or rob banks like his contemporaries in the Weather Underground.

But Carl Davidson, a former vice president of the Students for a Democratic Society who traveled to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro and still praises the dictator today, is another proud radical for Barack Obama, serving faithfully as webmaster for "Progressives for Obama."

He joins his old SDS collaborator, Tom Hayden, who traveled with Jane Fonda to meet with Vietnamese communist leaders during the height of the Vietnam war. In fact, Fonda, too, Hayden's ex-wife, is part of Progressives for Obama...

...On his blog, Davidson talks about meeting Castro in 1968: "He is a remarkable man, with a photographic memory, wide knowledge and keen insights. Cuba will change after him, though, as brother Raul is already looking into the socialist market economy in China and Vietnam, but will undoubtedly make any reforms 'in the Cuban way.' We should all wish Fidel and Cuba well, and double our voices against the blockcade.."

Davidson and Hayden take credit for launching the "Venceremos Brigade," hundreds of young Americans who were covertly transported to Cuba to help harvest sugar cane and mingle with the communist revolutionary leadership in Havana.

Davidson muses about how he could not support John Kerry for president in 2004 because he was not progressive enough. But he is stoked for Obama. Read in full.

Clinton, Obama Co-Sponsor McCain's Bid for the Presidency

Yesterday, the Senate passed a resolution declaring that McCain is a natural-born citizen, and eligibile to run for the presidency. The resolution was passed by unanimous consent. More surprising than the result, however, was the fact that the bill was... co sponsored by both Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). Read the rest.

Chris Matthews' Conundrum

Barackobama.com/Community Blogs - On MSNBC's "Hardball" Thursday, a panel of 3 all said they thought Barack Obama had already won the nomination.

Chris Matthews then asked the panel, "Well why do we keep saying it's a tie?" and without pausing to let anyone else answer, Matthews said kinda under his breath, "Because we have to, I guess."

Obama adviser: Israel must give up its nukes

From World Net Daily - Israel should give up its nuclear weapons to ensure Iran halts its illicit nuclear program, argues an adviser on nuclear issues to Sen. Barack Obama.

Joseph Cirincione, director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, also previously dismissed reports Israel's Sept. 6 airstrike targeted a Syrian nuclear reactor as "nonsense".

Cirincione was commenting on a Sept. 13 Washington Post story about possible links between Syria and North Korea - H/T Rezko Watch

Jeremiah Wright's Cuban Friends

Barack Obama insists that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is not his political mentor, but upon examining Wright's attacks on American foreign policy, it is difficult to imagine that Obama's own foreign policy, including his willingness to meet with Cuban leader, Fidel Castro and Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmidinajed, has not been influenced by Rev Wright's political ideology.

The following excerpts, detailing Rev. Wright's visit to Cuba in 1984, give us further insight into Mr. Wright's perverse ideologies:

From the Miami Press - Was it remotely conceivable that someone with Jeremiah’s Wright’s worldview and connections had somehow avoided a pilgrimage to the world capitol of Yankee-hatred, to worship and commiserate with its high priests?

Not a chance. Reverend Wright was part of Revered Jesse Jackson’s 300 person entourage to Havana in 1984. “Viva Fidel!” bellowed Reverend Jackson while concluding his speech at the University of Havana. “Viva Che Guevara!..Long Live our cry of Freedom!”

As mentioned, this was summer of 1984, so at the time the world’s longest-suffering black political prisoner suffered his incarceration and tortures in stoic defiance. “Nigger!” taunted his jailers between tortures. “We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!”

I do not refer to Nelson Mandela. No, this prisoner was being tortured a few miles away from the Revs. Jackson, Wright and their entourage of black American luminaries. The prisoner was a black Cuban named Eusebio Penalver and he was being tortured by Reverend Wright’s gracious hosts.

Mr Penalver’s incarceration and tortures stretched to 29 years which makes him the longest-suffering black political prisoner in modern history, surpassing Nelson Mandela’s record in time behind bars and probably doubling the horrors suffered by Mandela during this period.

Eusebio Penalver was bloodied in his fight with Castroism but unbowed for almost 30 years in its dungeons.

“For months I was naked in a 6 x 4 foot cell,” Eusebio recalls. “That’s 4 feet high, so you couldn’t stand. But I felt a great freedom inside myself. I refused to commit spiritual suicide.”

Shortly before his death in 2006, Senor Penalver told this writer, “Castro’s apologists, those who excuse or downplay his crimes– these people be they ignorant, stupid, mendacious whatever–they are accomplices in the bloody tyrant’s crimes, accomplices in the most brutal and murderous regime in the hemisphere...”

...Jackson and Wright’s Cuban pilgrimage was arranged by the Cuban Council of Churches, who sprang for the full $300,000 tab. “ I have been affiliated with the Cuba Council of Churches since the 1980s,” boasted Reverend Jeremiah Wright in a sermon just last year. “I have several close Cuban friends who work with the Cuba Council of Churches and you have heard me preach about our affiliation and the Black Theology Project’s trips to Cuba.” And naturally the kicker: “Our denomination’s Global Ministries is committed to calling for an end to the U.S. sanctions against Cuba.”

This same denomination, needless to add, clamored FOR sanctions against South Africa.

The Cuban Council of Churches, according to Cuban intelligence defector, Juan Vives, is an arm of Cuba’s ICAP (Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos) itself an arm of Cuba’s DGI, Cuba’s secret police, founded and mentored by the KGB and East German STASI.

The ICAP’s long-time chieftain was Rene Cruz Rodriguez whose meteoric rise through Cuba’s Stalinist bureaucracy was facilitated by his diligence as an early executioner, often beating out Che Guevara and Raul Castro themselves in his zeal to shatter the firing-squad victim’s skull with a coup d’ grace from his .45.

Courtesy of Cuban-American professor, Tony de la Cova, we have dramatic proof of how some of Jeremiah Wright’s “close friends” distinguished themselves as Cuban Revolutionaries. Read in full.

I was only 9, the Year Bill Ayers' Weathermen Tried to Kill Me

From John M. Murtaugh - New York Daily News
"During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama's answer: 'The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George'."

"Obama was indeed only 8 in early 1970. I was only 9 then, the year Ayers' Weathermen tried to murder me..." Read the rest.