Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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?
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."....
Thomas Brewton opines that Obama's foreign policy "is depressingly flabby compared to the approach of our first liberal-progressive President, Teddy Roosevelt.":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.
Read in full.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.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Is Barack Obama Another John F. Kennedy?
Barack Obama on Saturday remarked:
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:
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.
"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.
Friday, May 16, 2008
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:
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?
"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.- Read in full.
"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....."
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:
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:
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..."
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, May 9, 2008
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'?'
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'?'
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
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."
Monday, May 5, 2008
"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.
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:
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:
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
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."
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
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.
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.
"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.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Barack Obama Denounces Pastor's 'Supposed' Remarks as 'Possibly' Inaccurate
Barack Obama on Rev. Jeremiah Wright's latest tirade: "I somewhat mildly almost denounce the sound bites supposedly made by Reverend Wright as possibly inaccurate because I may or may not have heard them and if I did hear them I didn't remember them…probably". - The Spoof.com
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
More On The Tony Rezko/Barack Obama Partnership
In 2005 Senator Obama purchased a house for $300,000 less than its owners were asking, while Tony Rezko - an Obama fund raiser, now indicted on federal fraud charges - simultaneously bought the adjacent lot from the same seller at full price.
From the Chicago Sun Times "Eye on Rezko"comments section:
According to the Cook County Illinois land records, the deed for the house that the Obama’s purchased for $300k less than the asking price is from Frederic Wondisford and his wife, Sally Radovic, to the Obama’s Northern Trust Company Land Trust #10209 (established as such for “confidentiality”) is dated 15 June 2005 and is recorded 21 June 2005 as Document #0517233010. Declared value is $1,650,000.00.
The deed for the vacant lot is from Wondisford/Radovic to Rita M. Rezko. This deed is dated 15 June 2005 and recorded a day earlier, on 20 June 2005 as Document #0517133004. Declared value is $625,000.00.
Examination of the Cook County records very clearly indicates that Rita M. Rezko conveyed the entire lot to Obama’s Northern Trust Company Land Trust #10209 on 11 January 2006 and recorded 16 February 2006 as Document #0604733162. Declared value is $104,500.00.
VERY IMPORTANTLY, thorough and careful examination of all Cook County land records fails to locate a deed back to Rita M. Rezko from the Obama’s Northern Trust Company Land Trust #10209.
There is a “wild’ deed indicated from Rita M. Rezko to “5050 S. Greenwood LLC”. This is an Illinois limited liability corporation with the same address as Rezmar Corporation that is registered to the indicted Tony Rezko. (This deed is considered “wild” because it is not supported by any ownership deed from the Obama’s Land Trust.)
Furthermore, Tony Rezko’s registered corporation, 5050 S. Greenwood LLC, then pledges the entire vacant lot in favor of a mortgage THAT IS STILL OPEN with Fifth Third Bank for the amount of $375,000.00. This is Document #0703357023 recorded 2 February 2007.
THUS, THE ENTIRE VACANT LOT IS TITLED TO SEN. BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA (IN THEIR LAND TRUST FOR CONFIDENTIALITY) AND ALLOWED BY SENATOR BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA TO BE PLEDGED BY A TONY REZKO CORPORATION TO SECURE A LOAN.
This is contrary to what has been stated by Senator Obama; contrary to what has been stated by Senator Obama’s campaign staff: and contrary to what has been reported.
It must be noted that a seemingly intelligent Harvard educated attorney does not make such unknowing errors as stated above. The above is obvious intent not “oversight”.
Update 4/30/08: See the Cook County Recorder Of Deeds for more info. This comment in the Sun Times is also being dissected on the Free Republic website where some of the commenters are diligently trying to ascertain its veracity. The reader may glean some additional insight from some of those comments - particularly from comment #11 and on.
And then there is this argument in comment #18: "After giving this another five minutes of thought, I suspect this is not suspicious after all. I am thinking that after Rita Rezko bought the lot as an individual, she decided that she should not keep ownership that way (almost certainly related to their legal problems). So she transferred the lot to a corporate entity called Greenwood LLC. The poster mistook that transaction for her selling the entire parcel to Obama. She didnt. She just transferred it from personal to corporate ownership, the latter being an LLC in which she presumably had an interest."
From the Chicago Sun Times "Eye on Rezko"comments section:
According to the Cook County Illinois land records, the deed for the house that the Obama’s purchased for $300k less than the asking price is from Frederic Wondisford and his wife, Sally Radovic, to the Obama’s Northern Trust Company Land Trust #10209 (established as such for “confidentiality”) is dated 15 June 2005 and is recorded 21 June 2005 as Document #0517233010. Declared value is $1,650,000.00.
The deed for the vacant lot is from Wondisford/Radovic to Rita M. Rezko. This deed is dated 15 June 2005 and recorded a day earlier, on 20 June 2005 as Document #0517133004. Declared value is $625,000.00.
Examination of the Cook County records very clearly indicates that Rita M. Rezko conveyed the entire lot to Obama’s Northern Trust Company Land Trust #10209 on 11 January 2006 and recorded 16 February 2006 as Document #0604733162. Declared value is $104,500.00.
VERY IMPORTANTLY, thorough and careful examination of all Cook County land records fails to locate a deed back to Rita M. Rezko from the Obama’s Northern Trust Company Land Trust #10209.
There is a “wild’ deed indicated from Rita M. Rezko to “5050 S. Greenwood LLC”. This is an Illinois limited liability corporation with the same address as Rezmar Corporation that is registered to the indicted Tony Rezko. (This deed is considered “wild” because it is not supported by any ownership deed from the Obama’s Land Trust.)
Furthermore, Tony Rezko’s registered corporation, 5050 S. Greenwood LLC, then pledges the entire vacant lot in favor of a mortgage THAT IS STILL OPEN with Fifth Third Bank for the amount of $375,000.00. This is Document #0703357023 recorded 2 February 2007.
THUS, THE ENTIRE VACANT LOT IS TITLED TO SEN. BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA (IN THEIR LAND TRUST FOR CONFIDENTIALITY) AND ALLOWED BY SENATOR BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA TO BE PLEDGED BY A TONY REZKO CORPORATION TO SECURE A LOAN.
This is contrary to what has been stated by Senator Obama; contrary to what has been stated by Senator Obama’s campaign staff: and contrary to what has been reported.
It must be noted that a seemingly intelligent Harvard educated attorney does not make such unknowing errors as stated above. The above is obvious intent not “oversight”.
Update 4/30/08: See the Cook County Recorder Of Deeds for more info. This comment in the Sun Times is also being dissected on the Free Republic website where some of the commenters are diligently trying to ascertain its veracity. The reader may glean some additional insight from some of those comments - particularly from comment #11 and on.
And then there is this argument in comment #18: "After giving this another five minutes of thought, I suspect this is not suspicious after all. I am thinking that after Rita Rezko bought the lot as an individual, she decided that she should not keep ownership that way (almost certainly related to their legal problems). So she transferred the lot to a corporate entity called Greenwood LLC. The poster mistook that transaction for her selling the entire parcel to Obama. She didnt. She just transferred it from personal to corporate ownership, the latter being an LLC in which she presumably had an interest."
Sunday, April 13, 2008
A Coup De Grâce for Hillary - Carter and Gore to End Clinton Bid
Excerpted from the Scotsman.com
Democrat grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president...
...Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats."They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."...
....Neither of them is likely to object to the role of bringing down the curtain on Clinton. While neither man has formally endorsed either her or Obama, both have clashed in the past with the Clintons.
Gore blames his loss to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election on the impeachment of Clinton triggered by his White House affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Carter, who has carved out a successful career as an international mediator, is believed to detest the flashy style of the Clintons. He recently told an interviewer that his entire family are committed Obama supporters. Read article in full
Democrat grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president...
...Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats."They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."...
....Neither of them is likely to object to the role of bringing down the curtain on Clinton. While neither man has formally endorsed either her or Obama, both have clashed in the past with the Clintons.
Gore blames his loss to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election on the impeachment of Clinton triggered by his White House affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Carter, who has carved out a successful career as an international mediator, is believed to detest the flashy style of the Clintons. He recently told an interviewer that his entire family are committed Obama supporters. Read article in full
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Barack Obama Defends Criticism of McCain's "100 years" comment
Barack Obama recently criticized John McCain for allegedly saying he'd be willing to send American troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq. Meredith Vieira, co-anchor of the "Today Show" interviewed Barack Obama and asked him the following: "Senator McCain never said he wanted a 100 more years of war. He just felt American troops should be a long term presence the way they are in Japan and South Korea. So are you willing to admit that you have distorted his statements?"
Watch the YouTube video to see Barack Obama's contentious exchange with Meredith Vieira:
Watch the YouTube video to see Barack Obama's contentious exchange with Meredith Vieira:
Michelle Obama: You can't have all your Cake and Eat it too!
From the Charlotte Observer Via Q and O - Michelle Obama was quoted as saying: "If we don’t wake up as a nation with a new kind of leadership ... for how we want this country to work, then we won’t get universal health care. The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."
Barack Obama’s Communist Mentor, Frank Marshall Davis
From Accuracy in Media - In his biography of Barack Obama, David Mendell writes about Obama's life as a "secret smoker" and how he "went to great lengths to conceal the habit." But what about Obama's secret political life? It turns out that Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a communist. In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.
However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."
The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.
Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand-based libertarian activist, researcher and blogger, noted evidence that "Frank" was Frank Marshall Davis in a posting in March of 2007.
In Obama's own book, Dreams From My Father. He writes about "a poet named Frank," who visited them in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of "hard-earned knowledge" and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had "some modest notoriety once," was "a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago..." but was now "pushing eighty." He writes about "Frank and his old Black Power dashiki self" giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at the age of 18.
This "Frank" is none other than Frank Marshall Davis, the black communist writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. In the summer/fall 2003 issue of African American Review, James A. Miller of George Washington University reviews a book by John Edgar Tidwell, a professor at the University of Kansas, about Davis's career, and notes, "In Davis's case, his political commitments led him to join the American Communist Party during the middle of World War II-even though he never publicly admitted his Party membership." Tidwell is an expert on the life and writings of Davis.
Is it possible that Obama did not know who Davis was when he wrote his book, Dreams From My Father, first published in 1995? That's not plausible since Obama refers to him as a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and says he saw a book of his black poetry.
The communists knew who "Frank" was, and they know who Obama is. In fact, one academic who travels in communist circles understands the significance of the Davis-Obama relationship.
Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks are posted online under the headline, "Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party."
Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 "at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson," came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man's mentor, influencing Obama's sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago.
As Horne describes it, Davis "befriended" 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."
It was in Chicago that Obama became a "community organizer" and came into contact with more far-left political forces, including the Democratic Socialists of America, which maintains close ties to European socialist groups and parties through the Socialist International (SI), and two former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), William Ayers and Carl Davidson.
The SDS laid siege to college campuses across America in the 1960s, mostly in order to protest the Vietnam War, and spawned the terrorist Weather Underground organization. Ayers was a member of the terrorist group and turned himself in to authorities in 1981. He is now a college professor and served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago. Davidson is now a figure in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA, and helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War.
Both communism and socialism trace their roots to Karl Marx, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, who endorsed the first meeting of the Socialist International, then called the "First International."
According to Pierre Mauroy, president of the SI from 1992-1996, "It was he [Marx] who formally launched it, gave the inaugural address and devised its structure..."
Apparently unaware that Davis had been publicly named as a CPUSA member, Horne said only that Davis "was certainly in the orbit of the CP [Communist Party]-if not a member..."
While blacks such as Richard Wright left the CPUSA, it is not clear if or when Davis ever left the party.
However, Obama writes in Dreams From My Father that he saw "Frank" only a few days before he left Hawaii for college, and that Davis seemed just as radical as ever. Davis called college "An advanced degree in compromise" and warned Obama not to forget his "people" and not to "start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit."
For his part, Horne says that Obama's giving of credit to Davis will be important in history. "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 and when that day comes, I'm sure a future student will not only examine critically the Frankenstein monsters that US imperialism created in order to subdue Communist parties but will also be moved to come to this historic and wonderful archive in order to gain insight on what has befallen this complex and intriguing planet on which we reside," he said.
Dr. Kathryn Takara, a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who also confirms that Davis is the "Frank" in Obama's book, did her dissertation on Davis and spent much time with him between 1972 until he passed away in 1987.
In an analysis posted online, she notes that Davis, who was a columnist for the Honolulu Record, brought "an acute sense of race relations and class struggle throughout America and the world" and that he openly discussed subjects such as American imperialism, colonialism and exploitation. She described him as a "socialist realist" who attacked the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Takara says that Davis "espoused freedom, radicalism, solidarity, labor unions, due process, peace, affirmative action, civil rights, Negro History week, and true Democracy to fight imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy. He urged coalition politics."
Is "coalition politics" at work in Obama's rise to power?
Trevor Loudon, the New Zealand-based blogger who has been analyzing the political forces behind Obama and specializes in studying the impact of Marxist and leftist political organizations, notes that Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, has written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator's victory in the Iowa caucuses.
"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle," Chapman wrote. "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."
Read full article at Accuracy in Media.
However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."
The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.
Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand-based libertarian activist, researcher and blogger, noted evidence that "Frank" was Frank Marshall Davis in a posting in March of 2007.
In Obama's own book, Dreams From My Father. He writes about "a poet named Frank," who visited them in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of "hard-earned knowledge" and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had "some modest notoriety once," was "a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago..." but was now "pushing eighty." He writes about "Frank and his old Black Power dashiki self" giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at the age of 18.
This "Frank" is none other than Frank Marshall Davis, the black communist writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. In the summer/fall 2003 issue of African American Review, James A. Miller of George Washington University reviews a book by John Edgar Tidwell, a professor at the University of Kansas, about Davis's career, and notes, "In Davis's case, his political commitments led him to join the American Communist Party during the middle of World War II-even though he never publicly admitted his Party membership." Tidwell is an expert on the life and writings of Davis.
Is it possible that Obama did not know who Davis was when he wrote his book, Dreams From My Father, first published in 1995? That's not plausible since Obama refers to him as a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and says he saw a book of his black poetry.
The communists knew who "Frank" was, and they know who Obama is. In fact, one academic who travels in communist circles understands the significance of the Davis-Obama relationship.
Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks are posted online under the headline, "Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party."
Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 "at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson," came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man's mentor, influencing Obama's sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago.
As Horne describes it, Davis "befriended" 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."
It was in Chicago that Obama became a "community organizer" and came into contact with more far-left political forces, including the Democratic Socialists of America, which maintains close ties to European socialist groups and parties through the Socialist International (SI), and two former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), William Ayers and Carl Davidson.
The SDS laid siege to college campuses across America in the 1960s, mostly in order to protest the Vietnam War, and spawned the terrorist Weather Underground organization. Ayers was a member of the terrorist group and turned himself in to authorities in 1981. He is now a college professor and served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago. Davidson is now a figure in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA, and helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War.
Both communism and socialism trace their roots to Karl Marx, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, who endorsed the first meeting of the Socialist International, then called the "First International."
According to Pierre Mauroy, president of the SI from 1992-1996, "It was he [Marx] who formally launched it, gave the inaugural address and devised its structure..."
Apparently unaware that Davis had been publicly named as a CPUSA member, Horne said only that Davis "was certainly in the orbit of the CP [Communist Party]-if not a member..."
While blacks such as Richard Wright left the CPUSA, it is not clear if or when Davis ever left the party.
However, Obama writes in Dreams From My Father that he saw "Frank" only a few days before he left Hawaii for college, and that Davis seemed just as radical as ever. Davis called college "An advanced degree in compromise" and warned Obama not to forget his "people" and not to "start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit."
For his part, Horne says that Obama's giving of credit to Davis will be important in history. "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 and when that day comes, I'm sure a future student will not only examine critically the Frankenstein monsters that US imperialism created in order to subdue Communist parties but will also be moved to come to this historic and wonderful archive in order to gain insight on what has befallen this complex and intriguing planet on which we reside," he said.
Dr. Kathryn Takara, a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who also confirms that Davis is the "Frank" in Obama's book, did her dissertation on Davis and spent much time with him between 1972 until he passed away in 1987.
In an analysis posted online, she notes that Davis, who was a columnist for the Honolulu Record, brought "an acute sense of race relations and class struggle throughout America and the world" and that he openly discussed subjects such as American imperialism, colonialism and exploitation. She described him as a "socialist realist" who attacked the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Takara says that Davis "espoused freedom, radicalism, solidarity, labor unions, due process, peace, affirmative action, civil rights, Negro History week, and true Democracy to fight imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy. He urged coalition politics."
Is "coalition politics" at work in Obama's rise to power?
Trevor Loudon, the New Zealand-based blogger who has been analyzing the political forces behind Obama and specializes in studying the impact of Marxist and leftist political organizations, notes that Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, has written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator's victory in the Iowa caucuses.
"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle," Chapman wrote. "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."
Read full article at Accuracy in Media.
Clinton 'speechless' over Obama
On a day when American foreign policy is on the line, Sen. Hillary Clinton said she is "somewhat shocked'' and "speechless'' over Sen. Barack Obama's assertion that he has more expertise in the matter than she.
Obama had told supporters at a fundraiser in San Francisco over the weekend, when asked about his ruminations over a potential running mate: "I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I'm not as expert on. I think a lot of people assume that might be some kind of military thing to make me look more commander-in-chief-like. Ironically, this is an area -- foreign policy -- is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Sen. Clinton or Senator McCain."
"Well I’m somewhat shocked by that since I don’t see any evidence of it,'' Clinton said.
Read full article
Obama had told supporters at a fundraiser in San Francisco over the weekend, when asked about his ruminations over a potential running mate: "I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I'm not as expert on. I think a lot of people assume that might be some kind of military thing to make me look more commander-in-chief-like. Ironically, this is an area -- foreign policy -- is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Sen. Clinton or Senator McCain."
"Well I’m somewhat shocked by that since I don’t see any evidence of it,'' Clinton said.
Read full article
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