Excerpt: "In 2007, according to government records, Aprodeh received funding from Oxfam America, George Soros's Open Society, the John Merck Foundation, the city of Barcelona, the Dutch embassy and a U.S. government agency called the Inter-American Foundation, among others. On Friday, the Peruvian government asked Aprodeh to explain how its NGO status allows it to intervene on behalf of terrorists, as it did in the European Parliament."
my note: Great example of how non profit orgs, others, including our own government fund ideas contrary to what the populace believes they fund. To begin exploring the subversion originally sought out by Cox Committee and the Reece Committee (1952-1955) please visit:
http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=FinalWarn02-5#Committee
AND
http://www.garynorth.com/Reece%20Report%20(1957).pdf
Wall Street Journal
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
April 28, 2008; Page A17
Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the Colombian rebel group FARC.
The Europeans' decision is maddening. But it is also instructive, in that it shows how terrorists can advance their cause with the help of nongovernmental organizations. Under such headings as "human-rights" advocacy, NGOs that share the ideology of the far left toil away daily in Peru, trying to legitimize their buddies who, behind the scenes, continue their "armed struggle." The kicker is that these NGOs are often funded by foreign governments and philanthropists.
Peruvian Congressman Rolando Sousa, who I interviewed in Lima 10 days ago, knows a lot about the problem. He headed a congressional subcommittee that looked into the activities of the Bolivarian Movement in Peru. Its findings are now before a special commission with subpoena power that is likely to uncover even more. But he's already learned enough to cause alarm.
Mr. Sousa says that Mr. Chávez's Bolivarian Movement sits on a three-legged stool. Two of the legs are legal, the third is not. The first leg is official Venezuelan "diplomacy." Discounted oil shipments have bought the allegiance of 19 countries in the region. Other ploys, such as the purchase of Argentine debt and aid for Ecuadorian energy projects, are likewise designed to create dependence and establish Venezuelan dominance.
The second leg of the stool is the effort to establish ideological control within unions and grassroots organizations. These organizations have created a series of nonprofit "associations," which, Mr. Sousa says, operate internally like political parties, with official titles like "secretary of foreign relations" and "secretary of doctrine."
The names of these NGO associations – like "Houses of Alba" (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) and "Houses of Friendship" – may sound innocuous. But, says Mr. Sousa, "What matters is their objective which, like a coin, has two sides. One side is open. The other is hidden."
George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute.
Openly, the associations administer eye clinics, literacy programs and health centers manned by Cuban doctors. Behind the scenes, the congressman warns, they work to indoctrinate the poorest Peruvians in the ideology of the extreme left.
The third, illegal leg of the stool is the most dangerous. Mr. Sousa cites two groups: the "Continental Bolivarian Coordinator" and the "Bolivarian Congress of the People." His committee found that both are recruiting and using the most extreme elements of the country – anarchists, terrorists and the radical left – to produce "the social conditions . . . the chaos" necessary to create the impression that democracy is not working.
Once this is accomplished, the grassroots organizations – nurtured by the NGOs – are standing by, ready to bring the extremists to power through the ballot box. The strategy was used in Bolivia to bring down the Sánchez de Lozada government in 2003 and bring Chávez puppet Evo Morales to power.
There is now ample evidence linking Mr. Chávez, the mastermind of the Bolivarian Movement, to terrorism, courtesy of the computers seized from the camp of dead Colombian guerrilla Raúl Reyes. At this time the connection, beyond ideology, between the Bolivarian NGOs and the Bolivarian terrorists remains blurry, notes Mr. Sousa. But the special congressional commission may bring the relationship into focus.
Meanwhile the work of other foreign-funded NGOs in the interest of terrorist organizations warrants urgent attention. Take the Peruvian "human-rights" group Aprodeh, which labored in Europe to get the MRTA off the terrorist list there, even though Peru still considers it a grave threat to its security.
In 2007, according to government records, Aprodeh received funding from Oxfam America, George Soros's Open Society, the John Merck Foundation, the city of Barcelona, the Dutch embassy and a U.S. government agency called the Inter-American Foundation, among others. On Friday, the Peruvian government asked Aprodeh to explain how its NGO status allows it to intervene on behalf of terrorists, as it did in the European Parliament.
No wonder the term NGO has become a dirty word in Peru. In an interview in Lima last week, Peruvian President Álan Garcia told me that "anticapitalism" NGOs funded by foreigners also play a major role in blocking development. "It's something that amazes me," he said.
Me too. Especially considering the fact that the victims of the poverty and violence that their agenda produces are Peru's most vulnerable.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Russia-Al-Qaeda Axis
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, March 19, 2008
There are two factions of the Chechen Resistance: one of them more or less democratic and the other Islamist. Recently, Chechnya had a constitutional crisis: the Islamists persuaded the then acting President, Dokka Umarov, to announce that the Chechens were joining the global jihad against all the infidels, not only Russia. Umarov also proclaimed himself to be the Amir of the 'Caucasus Amirate', of which Chechnya would be only a part.
The last democratically elected Chechen parliament said it did not recognize this decision, which amounted to Umarov's resignation as the president of the Chechen Republic. So the parliament assumed supreme power and formed the government led by Ahmed Zakayev, who has always been known as the most pro-Western of Chechen politicians. He is one of the veteran leaders of the Chechen Resistance and he is now the Prime Minister in exile of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
Today, Frontpage Interview’s guest is Ahmed Zakayev.
FP: Ahmed Zakayev, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Zakayev: Thank you, always at your service.
FP: Is the Chechen Resistance nationalist or Islamist?
Zakayev: Neither. Even though Chechens are in absolute majority in Chechnya, the proponents of our independence include representatives of various nationalities and religions. The Chechen Resistance unites those who value freedom. For example, in different periods we were joined by Ukrainians and Russians, people from Caucasus and from Arab countries, etc. Our enemies do their best to present our fight as that of Chechens against Russians, or Muslims against Christians, but that is not the case. In Russia, as well as in other countries, we find understanding that Russia’s own way to freedom and democracy goes through the liberation of Chechnya. For rights of individuals are unthinkable in any multinational country where whole nations are denied their rights.
FP: What are the dangers that if Chechnya gains independence that it may become an Islamist beach-head, like the danger that an independent Kosovo poses now?
Zakayev: To begin with, the secession of Kosovo is a significant step towards stability in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole. I am sure that an independent Kosovo is also good for the Serbian people, because it helps them to recover from the dangerous virus of Chauvinism. One has to be insane to believe that Europe should have accepted national discrimination against Kosovo Albanians just because of their religion.
The idea of ‘Islamist beach-head’ certainly needs some clarification. I do not know, for example, what phrases like ‘Christian beach-head’ or ‘Judaic beach-head’ or ‘Buddhist beach-head’ might mean. I guess ‘Islamist beach-head’ is supposed to mean something bad. So I can say that recognition of Chechnya’s independence will have only positive consequences: more or less similar to what I’ve said about Kosovo’s independence.
FP: Well, I guess we would disagree on applying equivalency in terms of danger to an Islamist beach-head to a Christian, Judaic or Buddhist beach-head, but this debate will have to take place in another forum.
Tell us about the recent crisis in Chechnya.
Zakayev: As I have stated on numerous occasions, declaration of the Amirate (or ‘Emarate’, in the written version) by Dokka Umarov was an FSB provocation. To be more precise, the ‘Emarate’ is the critical stage in the development of a long-term provocation, started by the KGB against USSR’s Muslims as early as in 1988.
In that year, the ‘Party of Islamic Revival of USSR’ was founded. Its mission was simple enough: to split every Muslim nation by dividing it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims.
In 2000 one of my colleagues and I described the ‘Vahhabism’ (Islamic radicalism) as the Kremlin’s vaccine against the movement for national independence. It is easy enough for the FSB to feed and manipulate that trend. Apart from the secret agents they have infiltrated in Chechnya, they also have ‘their people’ in Arab countries, who offer both money and advice to ‘Islamists’ – without advertising their friendship with Moscow, of course.
For all those years, the main mission of the ‘Islamic’ ideologists was to discredit and disorganise the Chechen Resistance. As for the declaration of the ‘Amirate’, it was an attempt of a formal, legal self-denunciation of Chechnya’s independence, independence established long ago in full accordance with the renewed Soviet legislation and the principles of international law.
To give our Parliament their due, they reacted by taking adequate constitutional measures. As a result, this well-calculated FSB provocation came to nothing but Dokka Umarov’s resignation from his position of Chechen Republic’s acting President.
FP: Tell us a bit more about how the FSB is operating in Arab countries and its people offering both money and advice to Islamists.
Zakayev: The FSB (KGB) is the most experienced terrorist organisation in the world, whose foundations were laid even before the Bolsheviks captured power in Russian Empire in 1917. For over a half of the 20th century, the KGB operated on every continent and effectively terrorised the whole world.
Having one sixth of the world’s dry land under its control, the FSB is in no shortage of resources. However, its most important instrument of influence is the constantly updated ‘Know How’ in every kind of terrorist activity, including kidnappings, explosions, hijacking planes, hostage-taking, use of poisons and nuclear materials for assassinations, etc. The most important ‘Know How’ is the FSB’s ability to form and develop extremist ideologies. Two examples of that are the Al Qaeda and the Wahhabism among Muslim nations in Russia.
Without going into much detail, let me remind your readers that notorious Aiman al Zawahiri spent half a year in Russia in 1997, just before he went to Afghanistan to join Osama bin Laden. That fact was publicly admitted by the FSB Chief Gen. Patrushev, who claimed, however, that the FSB failed to establish al Zawahiri’s identity. In fact, he had been known to the KGB from the old times when Egyptian president Anvar Sadat was assassinated. My late friend Alexander Litvinenko directly named Al Zawahiri as an FSB secret agent. Personally, I have no doubt that Al Zawahiri is the one who really pulls the strings in Al Qaeda.
The seeds of Wahhabism in Russia were sown in 1989, when the Party of Islamic Revival was founded in Astrakhan. Ever since then, the activities of so-called Islamic extremists in Russia and some Muslim post-Soviet republics are guided by the Kremlin’s short-term considerations.
The FSB keeps and guards its loyal agents at the top of its every project, wherever it takes place.
FP: How is the war going these days?
Zakayev: Basically, it is a typical guerrilla war. The invaders often use aircraft and artillery. Our troops are ordered to refrain from large-scale military operations. This is because we are convinced that the time works for us.
FP: Does the government-in-exile control the resistance fighters inside Chechnya?
Zakayev: I would like to stress that it is only a part of the Chechen Government which is really in exile. There are ministers who stay in Chechnya or have returned to Chechnya, and they are responsible for controlling our troops inside the country. First of all, that function is performed by the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
FP: What do you think of the terrorist methods some Chechens used in the past?
Zakayev: As a Minister of ChRI Government and representative of our elected President Aslan Maskhadov, I always condemned any terrorist attacks, regardless of who organised them or who took responsibility for them. The provocative anti-Chechen nature of those attacks has always been obvious to me.
You know, in the summer of 1998 Russia passed a law on the struggle against terrorism (I do not remember its exact title now). Interestingly, at that time there were negotiations between Russia and Chechnya on various problems of cooperation between the two countries, including cooperation in law enforcement. Undoubtedly, those forces who initiated the new Russian legislation knew for sure there would be terrorist attacks soon.
FP: What do you think about the foreign jihadi groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah?
Zakayev: Al Qaeda is a global provocation, designed to clash the Islamic world with the Western world, thus weakening the both sides as much as possible. Those who capitalise on that are Russia, China and their allies in the totalitarian camp.
The task of Hamas and Hezbollah is to prevent peace between Palestinians and Israelis. That benefits Russia, Iran, and Arab dictators.
All the three organisations have nothing to do with the interests of the Muslim world. They are obedient puppets in the hands of others.
FP: Expand for us a bit on how Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamist terror groups help Russia, Iran, and Arab dictators.
Zakayev: First of all, they raise tensions in an oil-rich region. The higher the tensions are, the higher the oil prices. Imagine for a moment what would happen to Russia, Iran or Arab countries if they suddenly lost their oil revenues. In a sense, the whole foreign policy of all these countries is targeted at selling oil for the highest possible price.
Secondly, Russia, Iran and a number of Arab countries have authoritarian regimes, whose internal opponents would be very much attracted to Western democracy at the time of stability. Therefore, fighting a war against the Western democracies is vital for those regimes’ survival. Using Al Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah, they can fight the West in foreign lands and with foreign hands; so they don’t care about casualties.
Another thing which unites Russia and Iran is their objective interest to prevent stability among the Sunnis. In case of Iran, the reason for that is the hostility along the Shia-Sunni lines. As for Russia, it fears that a stable and united Sunni world would ask it to free the dozens of Sunni nations which are still kept by force under its colonial domination.
FP: What kind of danger would you say Russia poses to the West?
Zakayev: The conflict between Russia and the West is a conflict between authoritarianism and democracy. No peaceful coexistence is possible here. If you do not advance, you retreat. Today, Russia is on the offensive, and has advanced quite far, mostly because of some Western leaders’ short-sightedness. I am confident of the eventual victory for democracy, but to make it happen soon, the West has to start a decisive offensive. Unfortunately, the democratic camp today is less united than the authoritarian one led by Russia, China and Iran.
A delay of the West’s offensive means prolonged sufferings to millions of people, not only in the authoritarian countries, but also far beyond their borders, because the Neo-Bolsheviks have now armed themselves with the ‘international Islamic terrorism’. It is a kind of their big stick with remote control.
FP: How do you see the future independent Chechnya - should it be democratic or not? What should its foreign policy be?
Zakayev: I would say that independent Chechnya shall be a model democratic country. Its foreign policy shall be based on openness and preparedness for mutually beneficial cooperation with everyone.
FP: When and how might Chechnya finally win its independence?
Zakayev: Nobody can name an exact date when Russian invaders shall leave Chechnya. One thing I do not doubt is that every day brings us closer to the moment of liberation.
FP: What policy do you think the U.S. should pursue vis-à-vis Putin?
Zakayev: If it was for me to decide, the U.S. would pursue no policy towards Putin or Medvedev personally. That is to say, stop looking into their eyes. Unless Russia becomes democratic, it is going to keep undermining the West, be that under Putin or anyone else. We must remember that Gorbachev embraced openness and democracy not before he was driven into a corner. So, a sure way to make Russia democratic is to make life as hard as possible for its ruling regime.
FP: Ahmed Zakayev, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Zakayev: Thank you for your questions.
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, March 19, 2008
There are two factions of the Chechen Resistance: one of them more or less democratic and the other Islamist. Recently, Chechnya had a constitutional crisis: the Islamists persuaded the then acting President, Dokka Umarov, to announce that the Chechens were joining the global jihad against all the infidels, not only Russia. Umarov also proclaimed himself to be the Amir of the 'Caucasus Amirate', of which Chechnya would be only a part.
The last democratically elected Chechen parliament said it did not recognize this decision, which amounted to Umarov's resignation as the president of the Chechen Republic. So the parliament assumed supreme power and formed the government led by Ahmed Zakayev, who has always been known as the most pro-Western of Chechen politicians. He is one of the veteran leaders of the Chechen Resistance and he is now the Prime Minister in exile of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
Today, Frontpage Interview’s guest is Ahmed Zakayev.
FP: Ahmed Zakayev, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Zakayev: Thank you, always at your service.
FP: Is the Chechen Resistance nationalist or Islamist?
Zakayev: Neither. Even though Chechens are in absolute majority in Chechnya, the proponents of our independence include representatives of various nationalities and religions. The Chechen Resistance unites those who value freedom. For example, in different periods we were joined by Ukrainians and Russians, people from Caucasus and from Arab countries, etc. Our enemies do their best to present our fight as that of Chechens against Russians, or Muslims against Christians, but that is not the case. In Russia, as well as in other countries, we find understanding that Russia’s own way to freedom and democracy goes through the liberation of Chechnya. For rights of individuals are unthinkable in any multinational country where whole nations are denied their rights.
FP: What are the dangers that if Chechnya gains independence that it may become an Islamist beach-head, like the danger that an independent Kosovo poses now?
Zakayev: To begin with, the secession of Kosovo is a significant step towards stability in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole. I am sure that an independent Kosovo is also good for the Serbian people, because it helps them to recover from the dangerous virus of Chauvinism. One has to be insane to believe that Europe should have accepted national discrimination against Kosovo Albanians just because of their religion.
The idea of ‘Islamist beach-head’ certainly needs some clarification. I do not know, for example, what phrases like ‘Christian beach-head’ or ‘Judaic beach-head’ or ‘Buddhist beach-head’ might mean. I guess ‘Islamist beach-head’ is supposed to mean something bad. So I can say that recognition of Chechnya’s independence will have only positive consequences: more or less similar to what I’ve said about Kosovo’s independence.
FP: Well, I guess we would disagree on applying equivalency in terms of danger to an Islamist beach-head to a Christian, Judaic or Buddhist beach-head, but this debate will have to take place in another forum.
Tell us about the recent crisis in Chechnya.
Zakayev: As I have stated on numerous occasions, declaration of the Amirate (or ‘Emarate’, in the written version) by Dokka Umarov was an FSB provocation. To be more precise, the ‘Emarate’ is the critical stage in the development of a long-term provocation, started by the KGB against USSR’s Muslims as early as in 1988.
In that year, the ‘Party of Islamic Revival of USSR’ was founded. Its mission was simple enough: to split every Muslim nation by dividing it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims.
In 2000 one of my colleagues and I described the ‘Vahhabism’ (Islamic radicalism) as the Kremlin’s vaccine against the movement for national independence. It is easy enough for the FSB to feed and manipulate that trend. Apart from the secret agents they have infiltrated in Chechnya, they also have ‘their people’ in Arab countries, who offer both money and advice to ‘Islamists’ – without advertising their friendship with Moscow, of course.
For all those years, the main mission of the ‘Islamic’ ideologists was to discredit and disorganise the Chechen Resistance. As for the declaration of the ‘Amirate’, it was an attempt of a formal, legal self-denunciation of Chechnya’s independence, independence established long ago in full accordance with the renewed Soviet legislation and the principles of international law.
To give our Parliament their due, they reacted by taking adequate constitutional measures. As a result, this well-calculated FSB provocation came to nothing but Dokka Umarov’s resignation from his position of Chechen Republic’s acting President.
FP: Tell us a bit more about how the FSB is operating in Arab countries and its people offering both money and advice to Islamists.
Zakayev: The FSB (KGB) is the most experienced terrorist organisation in the world, whose foundations were laid even before the Bolsheviks captured power in Russian Empire in 1917. For over a half of the 20th century, the KGB operated on every continent and effectively terrorised the whole world.
Having one sixth of the world’s dry land under its control, the FSB is in no shortage of resources. However, its most important instrument of influence is the constantly updated ‘Know How’ in every kind of terrorist activity, including kidnappings, explosions, hijacking planes, hostage-taking, use of poisons and nuclear materials for assassinations, etc. The most important ‘Know How’ is the FSB’s ability to form and develop extremist ideologies. Two examples of that are the Al Qaeda and the Wahhabism among Muslim nations in Russia.
Without going into much detail, let me remind your readers that notorious Aiman al Zawahiri spent half a year in Russia in 1997, just before he went to Afghanistan to join Osama bin Laden. That fact was publicly admitted by the FSB Chief Gen. Patrushev, who claimed, however, that the FSB failed to establish al Zawahiri’s identity. In fact, he had been known to the KGB from the old times when Egyptian president Anvar Sadat was assassinated. My late friend Alexander Litvinenko directly named Al Zawahiri as an FSB secret agent. Personally, I have no doubt that Al Zawahiri is the one who really pulls the strings in Al Qaeda.
The seeds of Wahhabism in Russia were sown in 1989, when the Party of Islamic Revival was founded in Astrakhan. Ever since then, the activities of so-called Islamic extremists in Russia and some Muslim post-Soviet republics are guided by the Kremlin’s short-term considerations.
The FSB keeps and guards its loyal agents at the top of its every project, wherever it takes place.
FP: How is the war going these days?
Zakayev: Basically, it is a typical guerrilla war. The invaders often use aircraft and artillery. Our troops are ordered to refrain from large-scale military operations. This is because we are convinced that the time works for us.
FP: Does the government-in-exile control the resistance fighters inside Chechnya?
Zakayev: I would like to stress that it is only a part of the Chechen Government which is really in exile. There are ministers who stay in Chechnya or have returned to Chechnya, and they are responsible for controlling our troops inside the country. First of all, that function is performed by the General Staff Chief of the Armed Forces of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
FP: What do you think of the terrorist methods some Chechens used in the past?
Zakayev: As a Minister of ChRI Government and representative of our elected President Aslan Maskhadov, I always condemned any terrorist attacks, regardless of who organised them or who took responsibility for them. The provocative anti-Chechen nature of those attacks has always been obvious to me.
You know, in the summer of 1998 Russia passed a law on the struggle against terrorism (I do not remember its exact title now). Interestingly, at that time there were negotiations between Russia and Chechnya on various problems of cooperation between the two countries, including cooperation in law enforcement. Undoubtedly, those forces who initiated the new Russian legislation knew for sure there would be terrorist attacks soon.
FP: What do you think about the foreign jihadi groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah?
Zakayev: Al Qaeda is a global provocation, designed to clash the Islamic world with the Western world, thus weakening the both sides as much as possible. Those who capitalise on that are Russia, China and their allies in the totalitarian camp.
The task of Hamas and Hezbollah is to prevent peace between Palestinians and Israelis. That benefits Russia, Iran, and Arab dictators.
All the three organisations have nothing to do with the interests of the Muslim world. They are obedient puppets in the hands of others.
FP: Expand for us a bit on how Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamist terror groups help Russia, Iran, and Arab dictators.
Zakayev: First of all, they raise tensions in an oil-rich region. The higher the tensions are, the higher the oil prices. Imagine for a moment what would happen to Russia, Iran or Arab countries if they suddenly lost their oil revenues. In a sense, the whole foreign policy of all these countries is targeted at selling oil for the highest possible price.
Secondly, Russia, Iran and a number of Arab countries have authoritarian regimes, whose internal opponents would be very much attracted to Western democracy at the time of stability. Therefore, fighting a war against the Western democracies is vital for those regimes’ survival. Using Al Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah, they can fight the West in foreign lands and with foreign hands; so they don’t care about casualties.
Another thing which unites Russia and Iran is their objective interest to prevent stability among the Sunnis. In case of Iran, the reason for that is the hostility along the Shia-Sunni lines. As for Russia, it fears that a stable and united Sunni world would ask it to free the dozens of Sunni nations which are still kept by force under its colonial domination.
FP: What kind of danger would you say Russia poses to the West?
Zakayev: The conflict between Russia and the West is a conflict between authoritarianism and democracy. No peaceful coexistence is possible here. If you do not advance, you retreat. Today, Russia is on the offensive, and has advanced quite far, mostly because of some Western leaders’ short-sightedness. I am confident of the eventual victory for democracy, but to make it happen soon, the West has to start a decisive offensive. Unfortunately, the democratic camp today is less united than the authoritarian one led by Russia, China and Iran.
A delay of the West’s offensive means prolonged sufferings to millions of people, not only in the authoritarian countries, but also far beyond their borders, because the Neo-Bolsheviks have now armed themselves with the ‘international Islamic terrorism’. It is a kind of their big stick with remote control.
FP: How do you see the future independent Chechnya - should it be democratic or not? What should its foreign policy be?
Zakayev: I would say that independent Chechnya shall be a model democratic country. Its foreign policy shall be based on openness and preparedness for mutually beneficial cooperation with everyone.
FP: When and how might Chechnya finally win its independence?
Zakayev: Nobody can name an exact date when Russian invaders shall leave Chechnya. One thing I do not doubt is that every day brings us closer to the moment of liberation.
FP: What policy do you think the U.S. should pursue vis-à-vis Putin?
Zakayev: If it was for me to decide, the U.S. would pursue no policy towards Putin or Medvedev personally. That is to say, stop looking into their eyes. Unless Russia becomes democratic, it is going to keep undermining the West, be that under Putin or anyone else. We must remember that Gorbachev embraced openness and democracy not before he was driven into a corner. So, a sure way to make Russia democratic is to make life as hard as possible for its ruling regime.
FP: Ahmed Zakayev, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Zakayev: Thank you for your questions.
Karen Kwiatkowski: The Soldier Who Spoke Out
NOTE: Read this keeping in mind that through September 2007, when Ron Paul was still engaged in the race, he led all candidates for most donations from military, second was Obama, followed by McCain. Why? Then remind yourself adjusted for total share of votes how remarkable it is that Ron Paul led in this constituency. Why?
Max Follmer
The Huffington Post
March 18 2008
As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.
Karen Kwiatkowski spent two decades as a career military officer in the United States Air Force before being assigned in the spring of 2002 to a post as a political/military desk officer at the Defense Department's office for Near East South Asia (NESA). Her new assignment was to work on policy papers for the Secretary of Defense and other top brass at the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, she was assigned to a newly-formed bureau inside the Pentagon called the Office of Special Plans, which was created to help the Pentagon deal with issues in Iraq.
As Huffington Post Senior Editor Marc Cooper wrote in a profile of Kwiatkowski for LA Weekly:
Though a lifelong conservative, Kwiatkowski found herself appalled as the radical wing of the Bush administration, including her superiors in the Pentagon planning department, bulldozed internal dissent, overlooked its own intelligence and relentlessly pushed for confrontation with Iraq.
Deeply frustrated and alarmed, Kwiatkowski, still on active duty, took the unusual step of penning an anonymous column of internal Pentagon dissent that was posted on the Internet by former Colonel David Hackworth, America's most decorated veteran.
Kwiatkowski retired from the military in 2003, just as the U.S. was invading Iraq. She spoke with Huffington Post about what going on at the Pentagon in the run-up to the war, and her reflections on the fifth anniversary of the invasion. A selection of her thoughts are below:
On her arrival at her new assignment and what she found was going on at NESA and the Office of Special Plans:
The biggest shock I had in May 2002 was finding that the war plan for invasion of Iraq was in its second draft - it was ready to go. We were ready to invade Iraq in the Spring of 2002. What had not happened, was the public case for this had not been made yet. So what I got to watch was the public case for war being made, and in part being made by people who worked in the Pentagon - mainly political appointees. You know military people like me, we are not creating agendas. And if military people were [going to be] creating agendas, you know, they would be conservative - small "c" conservative. But what we had were these political appointees creating an agenda to go along with the direction that Centcom had already received from Rumsfeld, and Cheney I guess, but primarily Rumsfeld. And that direction was "we're going into Iraq." I man, I was surprised that we were so ready to go when there was no intelligence justification for it, and no public case for war had been made at all. But that, of course, was beginning to happen. But that public case for war was made after the actual decision to go to war, I think. The decisions were made a long time in advance, but on what basis these decisions were made we're not 100 percent sure.
On the mood inside the Pentagon among career military officers:
There was a good sense of betrayal and also anger. And not just in me, but in a lot of the folks that I worked with - the colonels and a lot of the folks I worked with. The civilian leadership, with no justification, with no intelligence rational,e and with no real planning was pushing forward with this war and they were going to do it on the cheap, and they were going to invade, and they were going to make up reasons why. We were angry. We were feeling like we were being manipulated. This was a time of anger and frustration and it was across the board, across the military. I don't think there were too many senior military people who didn't feel like their advice was not being taken. And the guys in the Defense Intelligence Agency felt that their assessments were being rejected. And the only folks who weren't being rejected - and there were some in those agencies and there were some military guys, you know, the Petraeus kind of guy, even though Petraeus wasn't a factor then - but these highly politicized guys who will say whatever the political leaders want regardless of the facts. Those guys were the only ones, and that frustrated the military guys. We've always had contempt for those guys who will truth and their own integrity to go along with the chance for getting in good with the boss. It was amazing how many military people were not on board at all with what these civilians were doing. And yet we take our orders, we do what we're told or we quit.
On her decision to start publishing anonymous columns:
We had gotten instructions that anything we wrote in policy papers that mentioned weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, or Iraq would not be written by us through consultation with intelligence, which is how we used to do it. We would just call [the Office of] Special Plans, and Special Plans would give us the talking points. And we would use those. Now as we were doing that, and I was doing that in September of 2002, President Bush and Vice President Cheney were giving speeches and they were echoing these classified talking points that were getting from the Office of Special Plans. And we knew they weren't true! So it is one thing to be lied to by an agency, "oh this is how you do it," but then apparently the President is either being lied to - or is the source of this false information - or the Vice President is being lied to - or is the source of this false information.
So you know, there was this huge sense of betrayal, and of something not being right. But it was the President's and Vice President's speeches in September and early October 2002 that brought me to write. Now, I was frustrated before then and wrote some of these dark humor essays that were later published anonymously.
As I am seeing this I am talking to intelligence people and they are shaking their heads. There was a lot of frustration. But I really didn't intend to push them out there until I realized this was larger than stupid mismanagement at the Pentagon, and it was bigger than that. Now this war plan had been finalized for months before and the President still hadn't made his case, and to the extent that he was making his case his was making it on false information.
On how people dealt with their frustrations at work:
What people did was they left their jobs. If they were close enough to retire, they did. A lot of folks, if the had a three-year tour, they called back their services and said "get me out of here." I worked with two guys who got different positions.
I retired and wrote, anonymously, of course, because I didn't want to go to Leavenworth. That was pretty disloyal of me. I mean, heck, they shut down the military blogs. They got people so they couldn't put stuff on YouTube. There's a lot of stuff that you probably see as being honest that the military historically and today sees as being disloyal. So that would certainly have fallen into that category.
On her reaction to what has happened over the past five years:
Kind of resignation in many ways. It seems very superficial, you know, the public trial and hanging of Saddam Hussein. I mean, why kill him so quick? Because he is part of the story they didn't want told. You know, these false assurances of this we were doing and that we were doing.
And this fantasy that the surge has improved things. The partitioning of Iraq - you have to wonder if that happened by design. Because certainly that's counter to everything that Saddam Hussein as a national socialist was working for. You know, he was turning people into Iraqis. And I think that's what we wanted to get rid of. You know, we didn't want a strong modern Arab nation sitting on top of the 3rd largest oil reserves in the world. You know, that's not justification for war; that's not constitutional.
Everything that has rolled out since that invasion has continued along the same politicized cover story in Iraq. And you know, where are the reporters in Iraq? They're in the Green Zone. If they're out of the Green Zone, they're dead. They're dead people. There's no news. It's all artificial. Unless of course, for the 4,000 dead soldiers and the 100,000 people with PTSD.
Interview conducted, edited and condensed by Max Follmer.
Max Follmer
The Huffington Post
March 18 2008
As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.
Karen Kwiatkowski spent two decades as a career military officer in the United States Air Force before being assigned in the spring of 2002 to a post as a political/military desk officer at the Defense Department's office for Near East South Asia (NESA). Her new assignment was to work on policy papers for the Secretary of Defense and other top brass at the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, she was assigned to a newly-formed bureau inside the Pentagon called the Office of Special Plans, which was created to help the Pentagon deal with issues in Iraq.
As Huffington Post Senior Editor Marc Cooper wrote in a profile of Kwiatkowski for LA Weekly:
Though a lifelong conservative, Kwiatkowski found herself appalled as the radical wing of the Bush administration, including her superiors in the Pentagon planning department, bulldozed internal dissent, overlooked its own intelligence and relentlessly pushed for confrontation with Iraq.
Deeply frustrated and alarmed, Kwiatkowski, still on active duty, took the unusual step of penning an anonymous column of internal Pentagon dissent that was posted on the Internet by former Colonel David Hackworth, America's most decorated veteran.
Kwiatkowski retired from the military in 2003, just as the U.S. was invading Iraq. She spoke with Huffington Post about what going on at the Pentagon in the run-up to the war, and her reflections on the fifth anniversary of the invasion. A selection of her thoughts are below:
On her arrival at her new assignment and what she found was going on at NESA and the Office of Special Plans:
The biggest shock I had in May 2002 was finding that the war plan for invasion of Iraq was in its second draft - it was ready to go. We were ready to invade Iraq in the Spring of 2002. What had not happened, was the public case for this had not been made yet. So what I got to watch was the public case for war being made, and in part being made by people who worked in the Pentagon - mainly political appointees. You know military people like me, we are not creating agendas. And if military people were [going to be] creating agendas, you know, they would be conservative - small "c" conservative. But what we had were these political appointees creating an agenda to go along with the direction that Centcom had already received from Rumsfeld, and Cheney I guess, but primarily Rumsfeld. And that direction was "we're going into Iraq." I man, I was surprised that we were so ready to go when there was no intelligence justification for it, and no public case for war had been made at all. But that, of course, was beginning to happen. But that public case for war was made after the actual decision to go to war, I think. The decisions were made a long time in advance, but on what basis these decisions were made we're not 100 percent sure.
On the mood inside the Pentagon among career military officers:
There was a good sense of betrayal and also anger. And not just in me, but in a lot of the folks that I worked with - the colonels and a lot of the folks I worked with. The civilian leadership, with no justification, with no intelligence rational,e and with no real planning was pushing forward with this war and they were going to do it on the cheap, and they were going to invade, and they were going to make up reasons why. We were angry. We were feeling like we were being manipulated. This was a time of anger and frustration and it was across the board, across the military. I don't think there were too many senior military people who didn't feel like their advice was not being taken. And the guys in the Defense Intelligence Agency felt that their assessments were being rejected. And the only folks who weren't being rejected - and there were some in those agencies and there were some military guys, you know, the Petraeus kind of guy, even though Petraeus wasn't a factor then - but these highly politicized guys who will say whatever the political leaders want regardless of the facts. Those guys were the only ones, and that frustrated the military guys. We've always had contempt for those guys who will truth and their own integrity to go along with the chance for getting in good with the boss. It was amazing how many military people were not on board at all with what these civilians were doing. And yet we take our orders, we do what we're told or we quit.
On her decision to start publishing anonymous columns:
We had gotten instructions that anything we wrote in policy papers that mentioned weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, or Iraq would not be written by us through consultation with intelligence, which is how we used to do it. We would just call [the Office of] Special Plans, and Special Plans would give us the talking points. And we would use those. Now as we were doing that, and I was doing that in September of 2002, President Bush and Vice President Cheney were giving speeches and they were echoing these classified talking points that were getting from the Office of Special Plans. And we knew they weren't true! So it is one thing to be lied to by an agency, "oh this is how you do it," but then apparently the President is either being lied to - or is the source of this false information - or the Vice President is being lied to - or is the source of this false information.
So you know, there was this huge sense of betrayal, and of something not being right. But it was the President's and Vice President's speeches in September and early October 2002 that brought me to write. Now, I was frustrated before then and wrote some of these dark humor essays that were later published anonymously.
As I am seeing this I am talking to intelligence people and they are shaking their heads. There was a lot of frustration. But I really didn't intend to push them out there until I realized this was larger than stupid mismanagement at the Pentagon, and it was bigger than that. Now this war plan had been finalized for months before and the President still hadn't made his case, and to the extent that he was making his case his was making it on false information.
On how people dealt with their frustrations at work:
What people did was they left their jobs. If they were close enough to retire, they did. A lot of folks, if the had a three-year tour, they called back their services and said "get me out of here." I worked with two guys who got different positions.
I retired and wrote, anonymously, of course, because I didn't want to go to Leavenworth. That was pretty disloyal of me. I mean, heck, they shut down the military blogs. They got people so they couldn't put stuff on YouTube. There's a lot of stuff that you probably see as being honest that the military historically and today sees as being disloyal. So that would certainly have fallen into that category.
On her reaction to what has happened over the past five years:
Kind of resignation in many ways. It seems very superficial, you know, the public trial and hanging of Saddam Hussein. I mean, why kill him so quick? Because he is part of the story they didn't want told. You know, these false assurances of this we were doing and that we were doing.
And this fantasy that the surge has improved things. The partitioning of Iraq - you have to wonder if that happened by design. Because certainly that's counter to everything that Saddam Hussein as a national socialist was working for. You know, he was turning people into Iraqis. And I think that's what we wanted to get rid of. You know, we didn't want a strong modern Arab nation sitting on top of the 3rd largest oil reserves in the world. You know, that's not justification for war; that's not constitutional.
Everything that has rolled out since that invasion has continued along the same politicized cover story in Iraq. And you know, where are the reporters in Iraq? They're in the Green Zone. If they're out of the Green Zone, they're dead. They're dead people. There's no news. It's all artificial. Unless of course, for the 4,000 dead soldiers and the 100,000 people with PTSD.
Interview conducted, edited and condensed by Max Follmer.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
McCain: 'CONTRACT WITH CONSERVATIVES' OR, A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL?
By Mary Starrett
February 22, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
The battered and bruised “conservatives” have begun yet another abusive relationship. So used to being smacked around, they simply cannot see their way clear to pack their bags and leave the party or the candidates who’ve been mistreating them. McCain’s history should be enough proof the man can’t be trusted, yet it appears, like those who repeatedly find themselves in sick relationships, these voters simply cannot get enough of that which they do not want. The “conservatives” are supporting a candidate who has, to the letter, shown he does not stand for anything said “conservatives” say they must have in a candidate.
Case in point is an analysis by Bobby Eberle, President of GOPUSA- a “company dedicated to promoting grassroots conservative philosophy.” Eberle focuses on what’s called “The Contract With Conservatives” This “contract” outlines the presumably non-negotiable points conservatives say they must have in a party and a presidential candidate. This “list” also shows they are the very same principles and issues John McCain has never, ever adhered to in his entire political career.
It’s difficult to imagine that intelligent people would ignore such glaring departures from their stated “principles.”
The Contract with Conservatives actually may better be termed “McCain’s Not Conservative- Let Us Count the Ways:”
The Contract outlines issues such as:
Immigration Reform
Secure America's borders
Enforce employment laws
No amnesty
On a scale from 1-10 McCain scores a -0 on this one.
The good senator from one of the states most devastated by the effects of the illegal invasion not only VOTED for amnesty, but he teamed up with Sen. Ted Kennedy to come up with an amnesty bill!
Once again, Contract with Conservatives? No, Deal with the Devil.
Tax Reform
Make President Bush’s tax cuts permanent
That one’s especially laughable since McCain voted against the tax cuts twice- once in 2001 and once in 2003.
Contract with Conservatives? Nope, same deal with Satan himself.
The Contract has clear imperatives for:
Judges
Vigorously nominate and support the confirmation of judges who follow the law, not those who legislate from the bench
Wage a real fight against left-wing attempts to block judicial nominees
Again, McCain scores a -0 on this one. He undercut the Republican’s efforts to stop the Democrats from filibustering nominees instead of voting them in or out.
How about the Contract specifications on:
Life
Respect the rights of the unborn and promote laws which will protect innocent human life
Support the overturning of Roe v. Wade
Block any efforts to fund or promote embryonic stem cell research
John McCain has shown his disdain for the pro-lifers (not to mention the unborn) with his support of federally funded embryonic stem cell research. Add to this his Super Tuesday endorsement by The Republicans for Choice Political Action Committee (LifeSiteNews.com). They decided that McCain was the “best candidate to make the Republican Party pro-choice” following Rudy Giuliani's withdrawal from the race.
Last, and certainly not by any means least, McCain scores in the super-negative numbers on this one:
Free Speech
Repeal the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act
Embrace First Amendment rights
The McCain-Feingold bill, under the guise of “campaign finance reform” did more to trample free speech in this country than any other piece of legislation. Now “conservatives” say this chilling First Amendment-destroying legislation must be repealed in one breath and with the next endorse for president the man who came up with it !
Deal with the Devil, to be sure, made by utterly insane people who wonder why our Republic has foundered.
John McCain finds all these demands rather irritating. It has been well documented that when John McCain is irritated he doesn’t hold back, turning the air blue with language usually reserved for the barracks or the bar room. His invectives can’t be printed here. The day after his Super Tuesday wins, McCain told his conservative critics to “just calm down.”
Those of us who have left the God-forsaken Old Party and work to advance true conservative political ideals know the two “Big Box” parties are so much alike we will not see any of the “change” we hear so much about by sticking by them. Millions of us have left the batterers behind, but we’ll continue to suffer the effects of the decisions made by those who have chosen to stay in their sick relationships. A look at the 2006 elections and the turnout in the Republican primaries, however, does show that some have seen the light.
Newt Gingrich even noticed it when he said:" [On Super Tuesday], there were 14.6 million Democrats who thought the presidential nomination was worth voting for, and there were 8.3 million Republicans on Super Tuesday," Gingrich said. "That is a warning of a catastrophic election."
GOPUSA’s Bobby Eberle has been battered so long he actually believes:
“ The Republican Party is best equipped to deliver… leadership. The time has come when conservative voters can no longer be taken for granted. For our time, effort, money, and votes, we need a pledge. We need a pledge from our presidential nominee to uphold the core Republican values that built this party, and which have taken a backseat to politics in recent years.
Bobby, conservative voters will continue to be taken for granted because they continue to believe the GOP will listen this time…..
All it takes, I suppose is the statement “and this time I mean it!”- a little whining and a “Contract.”
This “contract” is by no means the only evidence that otherwise bright, well-educated people can be by some accounts quite insane. Take the pronouncements of the Family Research Council (frc.org) president Tony Perkins who said he had a few ‘suggestions” for John McCain: “convince people that he is a strong conservative." If he hopes to reassure social conservatives and shore up the base… first, Senator McCain should announce that he now supports President Bush's policy on denying funds for experiments involving human embryos. The bottom line is that values voters are a stubborn lot….” (www.frcaction.org)
Stubborn? Apparently. If so-called “values voters” had been honest with themselves, they’d have realized their “values” had been systematically jettisoned in favor of the big government statists who now control both political parties. Those bruised and battered voters in both parties would do well to read the platform of the Constitution Party.
Those who batter ask: “Where are you going to go if you leave me?”
Those who’ve been battered now have an answer.
© 2008 Mary Starrett - All Rights Reserved
February 22, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
The battered and bruised “conservatives” have begun yet another abusive relationship. So used to being smacked around, they simply cannot see their way clear to pack their bags and leave the party or the candidates who’ve been mistreating them. McCain’s history should be enough proof the man can’t be trusted, yet it appears, like those who repeatedly find themselves in sick relationships, these voters simply cannot get enough of that which they do not want. The “conservatives” are supporting a candidate who has, to the letter, shown he does not stand for anything said “conservatives” say they must have in a candidate.
Case in point is an analysis by Bobby Eberle, President of GOPUSA- a “company dedicated to promoting grassroots conservative philosophy.” Eberle focuses on what’s called “The Contract With Conservatives” This “contract” outlines the presumably non-negotiable points conservatives say they must have in a party and a presidential candidate. This “list” also shows they are the very same principles and issues John McCain has never, ever adhered to in his entire political career.
It’s difficult to imagine that intelligent people would ignore such glaring departures from their stated “principles.”
The Contract with Conservatives actually may better be termed “McCain’s Not Conservative- Let Us Count the Ways:”
The Contract outlines issues such as:
Immigration Reform
Secure America's borders
Enforce employment laws
No amnesty
On a scale from 1-10 McCain scores a -0 on this one.
The good senator from one of the states most devastated by the effects of the illegal invasion not only VOTED for amnesty, but he teamed up with Sen. Ted Kennedy to come up with an amnesty bill!
Once again, Contract with Conservatives? No, Deal with the Devil.
Tax Reform
Make President Bush’s tax cuts permanent
That one’s especially laughable since McCain voted against the tax cuts twice- once in 2001 and once in 2003.
Contract with Conservatives? Nope, same deal with Satan himself.
The Contract has clear imperatives for:
Judges
Vigorously nominate and support the confirmation of judges who follow the law, not those who legislate from the bench
Wage a real fight against left-wing attempts to block judicial nominees
Again, McCain scores a -0 on this one. He undercut the Republican’s efforts to stop the Democrats from filibustering nominees instead of voting them in or out.
How about the Contract specifications on:
Life
Respect the rights of the unborn and promote laws which will protect innocent human life
Support the overturning of Roe v. Wade
Block any efforts to fund or promote embryonic stem cell research
John McCain has shown his disdain for the pro-lifers (not to mention the unborn) with his support of federally funded embryonic stem cell research. Add to this his Super Tuesday endorsement by The Republicans for Choice Political Action Committee (LifeSiteNews.com). They decided that McCain was the “best candidate to make the Republican Party pro-choice” following Rudy Giuliani's withdrawal from the race.
Last, and certainly not by any means least, McCain scores in the super-negative numbers on this one:
Free Speech
Repeal the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act
Embrace First Amendment rights
The McCain-Feingold bill, under the guise of “campaign finance reform” did more to trample free speech in this country than any other piece of legislation. Now “conservatives” say this chilling First Amendment-destroying legislation must be repealed in one breath and with the next endorse for president the man who came up with it !
Deal with the Devil, to be sure, made by utterly insane people who wonder why our Republic has foundered.
John McCain finds all these demands rather irritating. It has been well documented that when John McCain is irritated he doesn’t hold back, turning the air blue with language usually reserved for the barracks or the bar room. His invectives can’t be printed here. The day after his Super Tuesday wins, McCain told his conservative critics to “just calm down.”
Those of us who have left the God-forsaken Old Party and work to advance true conservative political ideals know the two “Big Box” parties are so much alike we will not see any of the “change” we hear so much about by sticking by them. Millions of us have left the batterers behind, but we’ll continue to suffer the effects of the decisions made by those who have chosen to stay in their sick relationships. A look at the 2006 elections and the turnout in the Republican primaries, however, does show that some have seen the light.
Newt Gingrich even noticed it when he said:" [On Super Tuesday], there were 14.6 million Democrats who thought the presidential nomination was worth voting for, and there were 8.3 million Republicans on Super Tuesday," Gingrich said. "That is a warning of a catastrophic election."
GOPUSA’s Bobby Eberle has been battered so long he actually believes:
“ The Republican Party is best equipped to deliver… leadership. The time has come when conservative voters can no longer be taken for granted. For our time, effort, money, and votes, we need a pledge. We need a pledge from our presidential nominee to uphold the core Republican values that built this party, and which have taken a backseat to politics in recent years.
Bobby, conservative voters will continue to be taken for granted because they continue to believe the GOP will listen this time…..
All it takes, I suppose is the statement “and this time I mean it!”- a little whining and a “Contract.”
This “contract” is by no means the only evidence that otherwise bright, well-educated people can be by some accounts quite insane. Take the pronouncements of the Family Research Council (frc.org) president Tony Perkins who said he had a few ‘suggestions” for John McCain: “convince people that he is a strong conservative." If he hopes to reassure social conservatives and shore up the base… first, Senator McCain should announce that he now supports President Bush's policy on denying funds for experiments involving human embryos. The bottom line is that values voters are a stubborn lot….” (www.frcaction.org)
Stubborn? Apparently. If so-called “values voters” had been honest with themselves, they’d have realized their “values” had been systematically jettisoned in favor of the big government statists who now control both political parties. Those bruised and battered voters in both parties would do well to read the platform of the Constitution Party.
Those who batter ask: “Where are you going to go if you leave me?”
Those who’ve been battered now have an answer.
© 2008 Mary Starrett - All Rights Reserved
Saturday, March 01, 2008
McCain's appeal before CPAC rings hollow
originally under title of "Mitt's gone, Bill's back"
by Ilana Mercer
February 08, 2008
It doesn't take much to sunder a debate about the Republican Party's inconsequential core. The Rush Limbaugh-led insurrection against John McCain gave the fleeting impression that the movement was on the cusp of such a reckoning. No longer.
In close succession, Romney resigned, and McCain wowed the Conservative Political Action Conference. Behind the scenes, Bill Kristol practiced his curtain calls. Kristol is the uncrowned comeback kid – the attractive, affable neoconservative mastermind has backed McCain's campaign for some time now. Philosophically, Kristol is the king of consistency. Neoconservative all the way. Like McCain. Just as it appeared the neocons were slowly being inched out, they're back.
It's proving well nigh impossible to Kill Bill.
Kristol has been doing the rounds in the media, anointing McCain as the "leader of the conservative movement" – his words. Peggy Noonan, another court courtesan, has been quaking and quivering about McCain on the networks. (Will she pen an ode for McCain's nether reaches as she did for Bush's in "He's Got Two of 'Em"?) It all sounds terribly familiar.
I'll grant McCain this: His speech before the CPAC was a vast improvement on the pathological, unremitting lies of Bush and his spokesmen. "Yes, there were WMD in Iraq; yes, Saddam planned 9/11; yes, he shopped for yellow cake in Niger; yes, democracy is on the march in Iraq; yes, the economy at home is humming; yes, Iranian speedboats attacked U.S. warships" – Bush babble, I believe, is less a consequence of congenital stupidity than it is of the confusion caused by incessant, habitual lying.
McCain came clean. But he chose the objects of his confession carefully, lingering on his opposition to the small-potatoes of agricultural subsidies, rather than on his proposal, as part of the unholy McCain-Kennedy-Specter trinity, to legalize 20 million deadwood illegal immigrants. "God's children," in his words. Be mindful that McCain is not done with amnesty. Following the victory in South Carolina, McCain denied, to Sean Hannity's face, that he had been wrong in his support for amnesty. Now he promises to "address other aspects of the problem," after "securing our borders first." What does that mean? You be the judge.
McCain spoke about beating government back, having just the other day blessed the latest deficit spending, that obscene stimulus package. Moreover, opposing tax cuts once over a long political career could be put down to the ravages of age and an unsupple mind. But, by National Review's count, McCain voted for higher taxes 50 times, often on the grounds that such cuts benefit those who pay the lion's share of the tax burden. McCain's sense of justice matches his understanding of the economy.
McCain's newfound fealty to the free market is suspect. Profits are the street signs of the free market – without profits there'd be no products. But in the course of disparaging Mitt Romney for making it in the private sector – politics, remember, is a form of sheltered employment – McCain badmouthed the thing that makes the free market go around: "I didn't manage for profit, I led for patriotism."
So said the beneficiary of life-long sheltered employment, who couldn't "manage for profit" if he tried. Indeed, his CPAC mention of Edmund Burke notwithstanding, McCain is not very bright. He finished 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy. He also lost five jets. IQ ace Steve Sailer has suggested that if you're looking for competence in the White House, McCain may not be your man: "To lose one plane over Vietnam may be regarded as a heroic tragedy; to lose five planes here and there looks like carelessness."
"Reaching across the aisle to get things done" – now that's staple McCain Speak; it has been throughout his campaign. It's also a euphemism for relinquishing principles in favor of political expediency. The political animal known as McCain has too often moved in packs dominated by Democrats and other left-liberals. As part of the duo McCain-Feingold, he instated "a federal speech code, enforced with jail terms of up to five years," as Jonathan Rauch noted. As a member of the "Gang of 14," and against constitutionalism, McCain and his homie, Sen. Lindsay Graham, colluded with Democrats in an attempt to sabotage Bush's conservative judicial nominees. Had McCain's minders in the media dug for dirt as diligently as they did on Ron Paul, they'd discover that he voted for hard-core lefties Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer for the Supreme Court. In 2004, McCain considered running on the John Kerry ticket.
Enough said.
A man for all seasons (not), McCain has opposed exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The McCain-Lieberman bill expresses his enthusiasm for the Malthusian environmental monomania – McCain shares the gaseous Al Gore's belief that there is an inherent discord between our system of production and the environment. McCain's contempt for development and consumer freedom "will cost the average U.S. household at least $600 per year by 2010, rising to at least $1,000 per year by 2020," as well as 39,000 jobs in 2010, and at least 190,000 jobs by 2020, in the Heartland Institute's estimation.
The McCain-Lieberman collaboration gave neocon David Brooks and crunchy con Andrew Sullivan goose bumps. Both "fantasized" of launching a McCain-Lieberman Party. With war and global warming on the brain, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a neoconservative by any other name, is firmly behind McCain's candidacy.
From the pollution he has left along his political path McCain can run but cannot hide. Republicans wisely rejected war in Kosovo. McCain, once again, jettisoned party loyalty to call for bombs from above and "more boots on the ground." More recently, it's been "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran," and the promise of a 100 year war in Iraq, bound to break that bank he now vows to make solvent. Under the loving gaze of the media, McCain's jingoism is ever evolving.
Fred Barnes, a neoconservative, has dismissed anti-McCain conservatives as "talk-radio mafia." Another McCainiac, Michael Medved, has framed McCain's apparent opposition to the "Fairness Doctrine" as a sign of his man's pure conservatism. A wicked, illiberal effort to control speech and property, the "Fairness Doctrine" is a litmus test not necessarily for a conservative, but for any decent individual, on the left or right. Like Bill Kristol's dad, Medved's ideological trajectory has taken him from the left to the neoconservative left. Unlike the clever Kristol, Medved's shabby argument reveals a less impressive intellectual arc.
Neocon Kristol, over on the op-ed pages of his new editorial home, the New York Times (an appointment that speaks to how cozy the left-neocon cabal truly is), has, excitedly, been admonishing mutinous conservatives, while reciting gory poetry in honor of McCain. Limbaugh he has maligned as suffering from "McCain Derangement Syndrome." (Kristol, however, correctly calls conservatives on their enthusiastic support for the equally problematic candidacy of "Benito" Giuliani.)
Cut to 2000, with Kristol and Brooks making mischief together – or magic, depending on whose side you're on. The two collaborated on a piece, "The Politics of Creative Destruction," in which they argued that McCain would revive, rather than repress, the State. I concur with Stephen Bainbridge when he contends that:
If the Bush era has taught us nothing else, it is that we must be skeptical of interventionist foreign policies whether grounded in the national greatness "conservatism" of a Teddy Roosevelt or the neo-"conservatism" of a Bill Kristol. It produced a foreign policy quagmire that eviscerated any opportunity to advance the conservative agenda at home. ... Importantly when it comes to McCain, his interventionism is fundamentally contrary to the traditions of mainstream conservatism.
Back in 2000, McCain's two neocon loyalists lauded him for his unshakable belief in great government, and for resurrecting the promise of "national-greatness conservatism." Given the neocons' "creative destruction" in the interim, the two have been a little less vocal about their aching desires. Their strategic silence makes it easier for McCain to lay claim to the Reagan mantle. He has no business so doing. Contra McCain, Reagan believed the state ought to get out of the way.
Indeed, most illuminating in the McCain CPAC speech was his vow to be "an advocate for the rights of man everywhere in the world." "We can complain about various McCain positions, like McCain-Feingold," Bainbridge observes, "but in a sense those are tactical issues." Agreed: The philosophical significance of McCain lies in his violence-for-values verbiage; in how he deceptively frames the bloodletting in Iraq and elsewhere around the world as the heroic upholding of individual rights. Thanks to the malign McCain, it looked as though the neoconservative whey was finally separating from the conservative curd. What was to remain was not the best concoction, but it promised to be a far cry from the previous accursed ideological amalgam.
I had hoped that, in the dust-up between conservatives and neocon-dominated establishment Republicans, McCain would serve as the curdling bacteria. I was wrong.
by Ilana Mercer
February 08, 2008
It doesn't take much to sunder a debate about the Republican Party's inconsequential core. The Rush Limbaugh-led insurrection against John McCain gave the fleeting impression that the movement was on the cusp of such a reckoning. No longer.
In close succession, Romney resigned, and McCain wowed the Conservative Political Action Conference. Behind the scenes, Bill Kristol practiced his curtain calls. Kristol is the uncrowned comeback kid – the attractive, affable neoconservative mastermind has backed McCain's campaign for some time now. Philosophically, Kristol is the king of consistency. Neoconservative all the way. Like McCain. Just as it appeared the neocons were slowly being inched out, they're back.
It's proving well nigh impossible to Kill Bill.
Kristol has been doing the rounds in the media, anointing McCain as the "leader of the conservative movement" – his words. Peggy Noonan, another court courtesan, has been quaking and quivering about McCain on the networks. (Will she pen an ode for McCain's nether reaches as she did for Bush's in "He's Got Two of 'Em"?) It all sounds terribly familiar.
I'll grant McCain this: His speech before the CPAC was a vast improvement on the pathological, unremitting lies of Bush and his spokesmen. "Yes, there were WMD in Iraq; yes, Saddam planned 9/11; yes, he shopped for yellow cake in Niger; yes, democracy is on the march in Iraq; yes, the economy at home is humming; yes, Iranian speedboats attacked U.S. warships" – Bush babble, I believe, is less a consequence of congenital stupidity than it is of the confusion caused by incessant, habitual lying.
McCain came clean. But he chose the objects of his confession carefully, lingering on his opposition to the small-potatoes of agricultural subsidies, rather than on his proposal, as part of the unholy McCain-Kennedy-Specter trinity, to legalize 20 million deadwood illegal immigrants. "God's children," in his words. Be mindful that McCain is not done with amnesty. Following the victory in South Carolina, McCain denied, to Sean Hannity's face, that he had been wrong in his support for amnesty. Now he promises to "address other aspects of the problem," after "securing our borders first." What does that mean? You be the judge.
McCain spoke about beating government back, having just the other day blessed the latest deficit spending, that obscene stimulus package. Moreover, opposing tax cuts once over a long political career could be put down to the ravages of age and an unsupple mind. But, by National Review's count, McCain voted for higher taxes 50 times, often on the grounds that such cuts benefit those who pay the lion's share of the tax burden. McCain's sense of justice matches his understanding of the economy.
McCain's newfound fealty to the free market is suspect. Profits are the street signs of the free market – without profits there'd be no products. But in the course of disparaging Mitt Romney for making it in the private sector – politics, remember, is a form of sheltered employment – McCain badmouthed the thing that makes the free market go around: "I didn't manage for profit, I led for patriotism."
So said the beneficiary of life-long sheltered employment, who couldn't "manage for profit" if he tried. Indeed, his CPAC mention of Edmund Burke notwithstanding, McCain is not very bright. He finished 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy. He also lost five jets. IQ ace Steve Sailer has suggested that if you're looking for competence in the White House, McCain may not be your man: "To lose one plane over Vietnam may be regarded as a heroic tragedy; to lose five planes here and there looks like carelessness."
"Reaching across the aisle to get things done" – now that's staple McCain Speak; it has been throughout his campaign. It's also a euphemism for relinquishing principles in favor of political expediency. The political animal known as McCain has too often moved in packs dominated by Democrats and other left-liberals. As part of the duo McCain-Feingold, he instated "a federal speech code, enforced with jail terms of up to five years," as Jonathan Rauch noted. As a member of the "Gang of 14," and against constitutionalism, McCain and his homie, Sen. Lindsay Graham, colluded with Democrats in an attempt to sabotage Bush's conservative judicial nominees. Had McCain's minders in the media dug for dirt as diligently as they did on Ron Paul, they'd discover that he voted for hard-core lefties Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer for the Supreme Court. In 2004, McCain considered running on the John Kerry ticket.
Enough said.
A man for all seasons (not), McCain has opposed exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The McCain-Lieberman bill expresses his enthusiasm for the Malthusian environmental monomania – McCain shares the gaseous Al Gore's belief that there is an inherent discord between our system of production and the environment. McCain's contempt for development and consumer freedom "will cost the average U.S. household at least $600 per year by 2010, rising to at least $1,000 per year by 2020," as well as 39,000 jobs in 2010, and at least 190,000 jobs by 2020, in the Heartland Institute's estimation.
The McCain-Lieberman collaboration gave neocon David Brooks and crunchy con Andrew Sullivan goose bumps. Both "fantasized" of launching a McCain-Lieberman Party. With war and global warming on the brain, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a neoconservative by any other name, is firmly behind McCain's candidacy.
From the pollution he has left along his political path McCain can run but cannot hide. Republicans wisely rejected war in Kosovo. McCain, once again, jettisoned party loyalty to call for bombs from above and "more boots on the ground." More recently, it's been "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran," and the promise of a 100 year war in Iraq, bound to break that bank he now vows to make solvent. Under the loving gaze of the media, McCain's jingoism is ever evolving.
Fred Barnes, a neoconservative, has dismissed anti-McCain conservatives as "talk-radio mafia." Another McCainiac, Michael Medved, has framed McCain's apparent opposition to the "Fairness Doctrine" as a sign of his man's pure conservatism. A wicked, illiberal effort to control speech and property, the "Fairness Doctrine" is a litmus test not necessarily for a conservative, but for any decent individual, on the left or right. Like Bill Kristol's dad, Medved's ideological trajectory has taken him from the left to the neoconservative left. Unlike the clever Kristol, Medved's shabby argument reveals a less impressive intellectual arc.
Neocon Kristol, over on the op-ed pages of his new editorial home, the New York Times (an appointment that speaks to how cozy the left-neocon cabal truly is), has, excitedly, been admonishing mutinous conservatives, while reciting gory poetry in honor of McCain. Limbaugh he has maligned as suffering from "McCain Derangement Syndrome." (Kristol, however, correctly calls conservatives on their enthusiastic support for the equally problematic candidacy of "Benito" Giuliani.)
Cut to 2000, with Kristol and Brooks making mischief together – or magic, depending on whose side you're on. The two collaborated on a piece, "The Politics of Creative Destruction," in which they argued that McCain would revive, rather than repress, the State. I concur with Stephen Bainbridge when he contends that:
If the Bush era has taught us nothing else, it is that we must be skeptical of interventionist foreign policies whether grounded in the national greatness "conservatism" of a Teddy Roosevelt or the neo-"conservatism" of a Bill Kristol. It produced a foreign policy quagmire that eviscerated any opportunity to advance the conservative agenda at home. ... Importantly when it comes to McCain, his interventionism is fundamentally contrary to the traditions of mainstream conservatism.
Back in 2000, McCain's two neocon loyalists lauded him for his unshakable belief in great government, and for resurrecting the promise of "national-greatness conservatism." Given the neocons' "creative destruction" in the interim, the two have been a little less vocal about their aching desires. Their strategic silence makes it easier for McCain to lay claim to the Reagan mantle. He has no business so doing. Contra McCain, Reagan believed the state ought to get out of the way.
Indeed, most illuminating in the McCain CPAC speech was his vow to be "an advocate for the rights of man everywhere in the world." "We can complain about various McCain positions, like McCain-Feingold," Bainbridge observes, "but in a sense those are tactical issues." Agreed: The philosophical significance of McCain lies in his violence-for-values verbiage; in how he deceptively frames the bloodletting in Iraq and elsewhere around the world as the heroic upholding of individual rights. Thanks to the malign McCain, it looked as though the neoconservative whey was finally separating from the conservative curd. What was to remain was not the best concoction, but it promised to be a far cry from the previous accursed ideological amalgam.
I had hoped that, in the dust-up between conservatives and neocon-dominated establishment Republicans, McCain would serve as the curdling bacteria. I was wrong.
Obama’s Communist Mentor
By Cliff Kincaid | February 18, 2008
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.
Obama's communist connection adds to mounting public concern about a candidate who has come out of virtually nowhere, with a brief U.S. Senate legislative record, to become the Democratic Party frontrunner for the U.S. presidency. In the latest Real Clear Politics poll average, Obama beats Republican John McCain by almost four percentage points.
AIM recently disclosed that Obama has well-documented socialist connections, which help explain why he sponsored a "Global Poverty Act" designed to send hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid to the rest of the world, in order to meet U.N. demands. The bill has passed the House and a Senate committee, and awaits full Senate action.
But the Communist Party connection through Davis is even more ominous. Decades ago, the CPUSA had tens of thousands of members, some of them covert agents who had penetrated the U.S. Government. It received secret subsidies from the old Soviet Union.
You won't find any of this discussed in the David Mendell book, Obama: From Promise to Power. It is typical of the superficial biographies of Obama now on the market. Secret smoking seems to be Obama's most controversial activity. At best, Mendell and the liberal media describe Obama as "left-leaning."
But you will find it briefly discussed, sort of, 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..."
In addition to Tidwell's book, Black Moods: Collected Poems of Frank Marshall Davis, confirming Davis's Communist Party membership, another book, The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946, names Davis as one of several black poets who continued to publish in CPUSA-supported publications after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. The author, James Edward Smethurst, associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, says that Davis, however, would later claim that he was "deeply troubled" by the pact.
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." Davis also complained about foot problems, the result of "trying to force African feet into European shoes," Obama wrote.
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.
Davis, in his own writings, had said that Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and a secret member of the CPUSA, had suggested that he take a job as a columnist with the Honolulu Record "and see if I could do something for them." The ILWU was organizing workers there and Robeson's contacts were "passed on" to Davis, Takara writes.
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."
Let's challenge the liberal media to report on this. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?
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.
Obama's communist connection adds to mounting public concern about a candidate who has come out of virtually nowhere, with a brief U.S. Senate legislative record, to become the Democratic Party frontrunner for the U.S. presidency. In the latest Real Clear Politics poll average, Obama beats Republican John McCain by almost four percentage points.
AIM recently disclosed that Obama has well-documented socialist connections, which help explain why he sponsored a "Global Poverty Act" designed to send hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid to the rest of the world, in order to meet U.N. demands. The bill has passed the House and a Senate committee, and awaits full Senate action.
But the Communist Party connection through Davis is even more ominous. Decades ago, the CPUSA had tens of thousands of members, some of them covert agents who had penetrated the U.S. Government. It received secret subsidies from the old Soviet Union.
You won't find any of this discussed in the David Mendell book, Obama: From Promise to Power. It is typical of the superficial biographies of Obama now on the market. Secret smoking seems to be Obama's most controversial activity. At best, Mendell and the liberal media describe Obama as "left-leaning."
But you will find it briefly discussed, sort of, 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..."
In addition to Tidwell's book, Black Moods: Collected Poems of Frank Marshall Davis, confirming Davis's Communist Party membership, another book, The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946, names Davis as one of several black poets who continued to publish in CPUSA-supported publications after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. The author, James Edward Smethurst, associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, says that Davis, however, would later claim that he was "deeply troubled" by the pact.
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." Davis also complained about foot problems, the result of "trying to force African feet into European shoes," Obama wrote.
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.
Davis, in his own writings, had said that Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and a secret member of the CPUSA, had suggested that he take a job as a columnist with the Honolulu Record "and see if I could do something for them." The ILWU was organizing workers there and Robeson's contacts were "passed on" to Davis, Takara writes.
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."
Let's challenge the liberal media to report on this. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?
John McCain funded by Soros since 2001
Candidate's Reform Institute also accepted funds from Teresa Kerry
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics.
In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.
McCain used the institute to promote his political agenda and provide compensation to key campaign operatives between elections.
In 2006, the Arizona senator was forced to sever his formal ties with the Reform Institute after a controversial $200,000 contribution from Cablevision came to light. McCain solicited the donation for the Reform Institute using his membership on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, he supported Cablevision's push to introduce the more profitable al la carte pricing, rather than packages of TV programming.
Yet, the Reform Institute still employs the McCain campaign's Hispanic outreach director, Juan Hernandez, as a senior fellow of its Comprehensive Immigration Reform Initiative.
As WND reported, Hernandez serves as a non-paid volunteer for the McCain campaign. A dual Mexican-U.S. citizen, he was a member of former President Vicente Fox's cabinet, representing an estimate 24 million Mexicans living abroad. Hernandez, with a "Mexico first" message, has argued aggressively against building a fence on the Mexican border, insisting the frontier needed to remain wide open so illegal immigrants could easily enter the U.S.
The July 6, 2001, homepage of the Reform Institute archived on the Internet lists founder McCain as chairman of the group's advisory committee.
Prominent senior officials on the McCain 2008 presidential campaign staff found generously paid positions at the Reform Institute following the senator's unsuccessful run for the White House in 2000.
Rick Davis, McCain's current campaign manager, was paid $110,000 a year by the Reform Institute for a consulting position, according to the group's 2003 Form 990 filing with the IRS.
In 2004, Davis advanced to the position of Reform Institute president, with an annual salary of $120,000, according to the group's 2004 Form 990.
In 2005, Davis remained president, but his salary dropped back to $45,000 a year, with a time commitment of five hours per week, according the 2005 Form 990.
Carla Eudy, a senior advisor on McCain's 2008 presidential campaign who until recently headed fundraising, was paid $177,885 in 2005 to serve as the Reform Institute's secretary-treasurer.
Other McCain presidential campaign staffers who have found employment at the Reform Institute include Trevor Potter, McCain's 2000 legal counsel, and Crystal Benton, the senator's former press secretary, who served as institute's communications director in 2005 for an annual salary of $52,083.
The Reform Institute regularly has supported McCain in various legislative efforts, including on campaign finance reform, global warming and "comprehensive immigration reform," all efforts widely opposed by many in the party's conservative base.
Arianna Huffington, syndicated columnist and creator of the HuffingtonPost.com, has served on the Reform Institute's advisory committee since the group's inception.
According to FrontPage Magazine, Teresa Heinz Kerry has provided more than $4 million to the Tides Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by anti-war activist Drummond Pike in 1976 with a history of funding causes such as abortion, homosexual-rights activism and open borders.
Financial contributors while McCain was chairman of the Reform Institute also have included the Educational Foundation of America, a group that supports abortion and opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.
The Soros-Kerry funding connection with McCain was first exposed by Ed Morrissey at the Captains Quarters blog in 2005.
Subsequently, David Horowitz's DiscoverTheNetworks.org website and Michelle Malkin's blog gave renewed attention to the Reform Institute's funding ties.
See also below a link for information on how George Soros is linked to McCain-Feingold legislation attack on free speech.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56745
Or see this link to learn more about the connection between a Russian billionaire allied with Putin and alleged ties to Russian organized crime, McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, and Rick Davis' former position as President of the George Soros-funded Reform Institute.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56854
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics.
In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.
McCain used the institute to promote his political agenda and provide compensation to key campaign operatives between elections.
In 2006, the Arizona senator was forced to sever his formal ties with the Reform Institute after a controversial $200,000 contribution from Cablevision came to light. McCain solicited the donation for the Reform Institute using his membership on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, he supported Cablevision's push to introduce the more profitable al la carte pricing, rather than packages of TV programming.
Yet, the Reform Institute still employs the McCain campaign's Hispanic outreach director, Juan Hernandez, as a senior fellow of its Comprehensive Immigration Reform Initiative.
As WND reported, Hernandez serves as a non-paid volunteer for the McCain campaign. A dual Mexican-U.S. citizen, he was a member of former President Vicente Fox's cabinet, representing an estimate 24 million Mexicans living abroad. Hernandez, with a "Mexico first" message, has argued aggressively against building a fence on the Mexican border, insisting the frontier needed to remain wide open so illegal immigrants could easily enter the U.S.
The July 6, 2001, homepage of the Reform Institute archived on the Internet lists founder McCain as chairman of the group's advisory committee.
Prominent senior officials on the McCain 2008 presidential campaign staff found generously paid positions at the Reform Institute following the senator's unsuccessful run for the White House in 2000.
Rick Davis, McCain's current campaign manager, was paid $110,000 a year by the Reform Institute for a consulting position, according to the group's 2003 Form 990 filing with the IRS.
In 2004, Davis advanced to the position of Reform Institute president, with an annual salary of $120,000, according to the group's 2004 Form 990.
In 2005, Davis remained president, but his salary dropped back to $45,000 a year, with a time commitment of five hours per week, according the 2005 Form 990.
Carla Eudy, a senior advisor on McCain's 2008 presidential campaign who until recently headed fundraising, was paid $177,885 in 2005 to serve as the Reform Institute's secretary-treasurer.
Other McCain presidential campaign staffers who have found employment at the Reform Institute include Trevor Potter, McCain's 2000 legal counsel, and Crystal Benton, the senator's former press secretary, who served as institute's communications director in 2005 for an annual salary of $52,083.
The Reform Institute regularly has supported McCain in various legislative efforts, including on campaign finance reform, global warming and "comprehensive immigration reform," all efforts widely opposed by many in the party's conservative base.
Arianna Huffington, syndicated columnist and creator of the HuffingtonPost.com, has served on the Reform Institute's advisory committee since the group's inception.
According to FrontPage Magazine, Teresa Heinz Kerry has provided more than $4 million to the Tides Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by anti-war activist Drummond Pike in 1976 with a history of funding causes such as abortion, homosexual-rights activism and open borders.
Financial contributors while McCain was chairman of the Reform Institute also have included the Educational Foundation of America, a group that supports abortion and opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.
The Soros-Kerry funding connection with McCain was first exposed by Ed Morrissey at the Captains Quarters blog in 2005.
Subsequently, David Horowitz's DiscoverTheNetworks.org website and Michelle Malkin's blog gave renewed attention to the Reform Institute's funding ties.
See also below a link for information on how George Soros is linked to McCain-Feingold legislation attack on free speech.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56745
Or see this link to learn more about the connection between a Russian billionaire allied with Putin and alleged ties to Russian organized crime, McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, and Rick Davis' former position as President of the George Soros-funded Reform Institute.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56854
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Subprime bailout: Violation of 5th Amendment
by Walter Williams
A subprime lender is one who makes loans to borrowers who do not qualify for loans from mainstream lenders. It's a market that has evolved to permit borrowers with poor credit history and an unstable financial situation the opportunity to get home mortgages. The catch is they pay a higher and typically an adjustable rate mortgage. Encouraged by the housing bubble, easy credit, along with the expectation that housing prices would continue to appreciate, many subprime borrowers took out mortgages they could not afford in the long run, particularly if interest rates rose and housing prices depreciated.
As with most economic problems, we find the hand of government. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, whose provisions were strengthened during the Clinton administration, is a federal law that mandates lenders to offer credit throughout their entire market and discourages them from restricting their credit services to high-income markets, a practice known as redlining. In other words, the Community Reinvestment Act encourages banks and thrifts to make loans to riskier customers.
According to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov. 4, 2007, titled "Black Atlantans often snared by subprime loans," by Carrie Teegardin, a national study of credit scores, not just mortgage loan applicants, found that 52 percent of blacks have credit scores that would classify them as subprime borrowers compared with 16 percent of whites.
(Column continues below)
Many lenders did make loans to people who had no realistic ability to pay them back. But that doesn't qualify as fraud, although there might have been a bit of exuberance in the repackaging of the mortgages into securities and selling them to investors. Some argue that many borrowers defrauded the banks by misrepresenting their income, the so-called "no doc" loans or "liar's loans."
President Bush's plan to deal with the subprime crisis is to freeze interest rates on adjustable rate mortgages. Freezing interest rates would stop people's mortgage payments from increasing. That is a gross violation of basic contract rights and would appear to be a Fifth Amendment violation. If a contractual agreement is willingly entered into and agreed upon by a borrower and lender, it is binding and if broken by one party or the other, harsh penalties should ensue.
Now here comes government, under the Bush plan, to declare millions of contracts null and void. The long-run effect of the Bush plan is to make lending institutions even more selective in choosing borrowers. Then there's the question: If government can invalidate the terms of one kind of contractual agreement where the borrowers can't pay, what's to say that it won't invalidate other contractual agreements where the borrowers encounter hardship, and what will that do to financial markets?
The Bush bailout, as well as Federal Reserve Bank cuts in interest rates, is a wealth transfer from creditworthy people and taxpayers to those who made ill-advised credit decisions, and that includes banks as well as borrowers. According to Temple University professor of economics William Dunkelberg, 96 percent of all mortgages are being paid on time. Thirty percent of American homeowners have no mortgage. Delinquency rates were higher in the 1980s than they are today. Only 2 to 3 percent of all mortgages are in foreclosure. The government bailout helps a few people at a huge cost to the rest of the economy.
Government policy got us into the subprime mess, and government's measure to fix the mess is going to create more mess. As such I'm reminded of Marcus Cook Connelly's spiritual play, "Green Pastures," where God laments to the Angel Gabriel, "Every time Ah passes a miracle, Ah has to pass fo' or five mo' to ketch up wid it," adding, "Even bein' God ain't no bed of roses." That's something the president and congressmen should think about and leave the miracle business up to God.
A subprime lender is one who makes loans to borrowers who do not qualify for loans from mainstream lenders. It's a market that has evolved to permit borrowers with poor credit history and an unstable financial situation the opportunity to get home mortgages. The catch is they pay a higher and typically an adjustable rate mortgage. Encouraged by the housing bubble, easy credit, along with the expectation that housing prices would continue to appreciate, many subprime borrowers took out mortgages they could not afford in the long run, particularly if interest rates rose and housing prices depreciated.
As with most economic problems, we find the hand of government. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, whose provisions were strengthened during the Clinton administration, is a federal law that mandates lenders to offer credit throughout their entire market and discourages them from restricting their credit services to high-income markets, a practice known as redlining. In other words, the Community Reinvestment Act encourages banks and thrifts to make loans to riskier customers.
According to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov. 4, 2007, titled "Black Atlantans often snared by subprime loans," by Carrie Teegardin, a national study of credit scores, not just mortgage loan applicants, found that 52 percent of blacks have credit scores that would classify them as subprime borrowers compared with 16 percent of whites.
(Column continues below)
Many lenders did make loans to people who had no realistic ability to pay them back. But that doesn't qualify as fraud, although there might have been a bit of exuberance in the repackaging of the mortgages into securities and selling them to investors. Some argue that many borrowers defrauded the banks by misrepresenting their income, the so-called "no doc" loans or "liar's loans."
President Bush's plan to deal with the subprime crisis is to freeze interest rates on adjustable rate mortgages. Freezing interest rates would stop people's mortgage payments from increasing. That is a gross violation of basic contract rights and would appear to be a Fifth Amendment violation. If a contractual agreement is willingly entered into and agreed upon by a borrower and lender, it is binding and if broken by one party or the other, harsh penalties should ensue.
Now here comes government, under the Bush plan, to declare millions of contracts null and void. The long-run effect of the Bush plan is to make lending institutions even more selective in choosing borrowers. Then there's the question: If government can invalidate the terms of one kind of contractual agreement where the borrowers can't pay, what's to say that it won't invalidate other contractual agreements where the borrowers encounter hardship, and what will that do to financial markets?
The Bush bailout, as well as Federal Reserve Bank cuts in interest rates, is a wealth transfer from creditworthy people and taxpayers to those who made ill-advised credit decisions, and that includes banks as well as borrowers. According to Temple University professor of economics William Dunkelberg, 96 percent of all mortgages are being paid on time. Thirty percent of American homeowners have no mortgage. Delinquency rates were higher in the 1980s than they are today. Only 2 to 3 percent of all mortgages are in foreclosure. The government bailout helps a few people at a huge cost to the rest of the economy.
Government policy got us into the subprime mess, and government's measure to fix the mess is going to create more mess. As such I'm reminded of Marcus Cook Connelly's spiritual play, "Green Pastures," where God laments to the Angel Gabriel, "Every time Ah passes a miracle, Ah has to pass fo' or five mo' to ketch up wid it," adding, "Even bein' God ain't no bed of roses." That's something the president and congressmen should think about and leave the miracle business up to God.
The FBI Deputizes Business
By Matthew Rothschild, February 7, 2008
From the article:
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.
But that’s not all.
“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.
InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption, its website says. And any conversation with the public or the media is supposed to be carefully rehearsed.
“The interests of InfraGard must be protected whenever presented to non-InfraGard members,” the website states. “During interviews with members of the press, controlling the image of InfraGard being presented can be difficult. Proper preparation for the interview will minimize the risk of embarrassment. . . . The InfraGard leadership and the local FBI representative should review the submitted questions, agree on the predilection of the answers, and identify the appropriate interviewee. . . . Tailor answers to the expected audience. . . . Questions concerning sensitive information should be avoided.”
FULL ARTICLE
Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.
InfraGard started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats.
“Then the FBI cloned it,” says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.
InfraGard itself is still an FBI operation, with FBI agents in each state overseeing the local InfraGard chapters. (There are now eighty-six of them.) The alliance is a nonprofit organization of private sector InfraGard members.
“We are the owners, operators, and experts of our critical infrastructure, from the CEO of a large company in agriculture or high finance to the guy who turns the valve at the water utility,” says Schneck, who by day is the vice president of research integration at Secure Computing.
“At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector,” the InfraGard website states. “InfraGard chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories.”
In November 2001, InfraGard had around 1,700 members. As of late January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard.”
To join, each person must be sponsored by “an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.” The FBI then vets the applicant. On the application form, prospective members are asked which aspect of the critical infrastructure their organization deals with. These include: agriculture, banking and finance, the chemical industry, defense, energy, food, information and telecommunications, law enforcement, public health, and transportation.
FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. At that time, the group had less than half as many members as it does today. “To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard,” he said. “From our perspective that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America.” He added a little later, “Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense.”
He urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they “note suspicious activity or an unusual event.” And he said they could sic the FBI on “disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers.”
In an interview with InfraGard after the conference, which is featured prominently on the InfraGard members’ website, Mueller says: “It’s a great program.”
The ACLU is not so sanguine.
“There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,” the ACLU warned in its August 2004 report The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.
InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption, its website says. And any conversation with the public or the media is supposed to be carefully rehearsed.
“The interests of InfraGard must be protected whenever presented to non-InfraGard members,” the website states. “During interviews with members of the press, controlling the image of InfraGard being presented can be difficult. Proper preparation for the interview will minimize the risk of embarrassment. . . . The InfraGard leadership and the local FBI representative should review the submitted questions, agree on the predilection of the answers, and identify the appropriate interviewee. . . . Tailor answers to the expected audience. . . . Questions concerning sensitive information should be avoided.”
One of the advantages of InfraGard, according to its leading members, is that the FBI gives them a heads-up on a secure portal about any threatening information related to infrastructure disruption or terrorism.
The InfraGard website advertises this. In its list of benefits of joining InfraGard, it states: “Gain access to an FBI secure communication network complete with VPN encrypted website, webmail, listservs, message boards, and much more.”
InfraGard members receive “almost daily updates” on threats “emanating from both domestic sources and overseas,” Hershman says.
“We get very easy access to secure information that only goes to InfraGard members,” Schneck says. “People are happy to be in the know.”
On November 1, 2001, the FBI had information about a potential threat to the bridges of California. The alert went out to the InfraGard membership. Enron was notified, and so, too, was Barry Davis, who worked for Morgan Stanley. He notified his brother Gray, the governor of California.
“He said his brother talked to him before the FBI,” recalls Steve Maviglio, who was Davis’s press secretary at the time. “And the governor got a lot of grief for releasing the information. In his defense, he said, ‘I was on the phone with my brother, who is an investment banker. And if he knows, why shouldn’t the public know?’ ”
Maviglio still sounds perturbed about this: “You’d think an elected official would be the first to know, not the last.”
In return for being in the know, InfraGard members cooperate with the FBI and Homeland Security. “InfraGard members have contributed to about 100 FBI cases,” Schneck says. “What InfraGard brings you is reach into the regional and local communities. We are a 22,000-member vetted body of subject-matter experts that reaches across seventeen matrixes. All the different stovepipes can connect with InfraGard.”
Schneck is proud of the relationships the InfraGard Members Alliance has built with the FBI. “If you had to call 1-800-FBI, you probably wouldn’t bother,” she says. “But if you knew Joe from a local meeting you had with him over a donut, you might call them. Either to give or to get. We want everyone to have a little black book.”
This black book may come in handy in times of an emergency. “On the back of each membership card,” Schneck says, “we have all the numbers you’d need: for Homeland Security, for the FBI, for the cyber center. And by calling up as an InfraGard member, you will be listened to.” She also says that members would have an easier time obtaining a “special telecommunications card that will enable your call to go through when others will not.”
This special status concerns the ACLU.
“The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment,” says Jay Stanley, public education director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty program. “There’s no ‘business class’ in law enforcement. If there’s information the FBI can share with 22,000 corporate bigwigs, why don’t they just share it with the public? That’s who their real ‘special relationship’ is supposed to be with. Secrecy is not a party favor to be given out to friends. . . . This bears a disturbing resemblance to the FBI’s handing out ‘goodies’ to corporations in return for folding them into its domestic surveillance machinery.”
When the government raises its alert levels, InfraGard is in the loop. For instance, in a press release on February 7, 2003, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General announced that the national alert level was being raised from yellow to orange. They then listed “additional steps” that agencies were taking to “increase their protective measures.” One of those steps was to “provide alert information to InfraGard program.”
“They’re very much looped into our readiness capability,” says Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. “We provide speakers, as well as do joint presentations [with the FBI]. We also train alongside them, and they have participated in readiness exercises.”
On May 9, 2007, George Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 entitled “National Continuity Policy.” In it, he instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security to coordinate with “private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.”
Asked if the InfraGard National Members Alliance was involved with these plans, Schneck said it was “not directly participating at this point.” Hershman, chairman of the group’s advisory board, however, said that it was.
InfraGard members, sometimes hundreds at a time, have been used in “national emergency preparation drills,” Schneck acknowledges.
“In case something happens, everybody is ready,” says Norm Arendt, the head of the Madison, Wisconsin, chapter of InfraGard, and the safety director for the consulting firm Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc. “There’s been lots of discussions about what happens under an emergency.”
One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation—and what their role might be. He showed me his InfraGard card, with his name and e-mail address on the front, along with the InfraGard logo and its slogan, “Partnership for Protection.” On the back of the card were the emergency numbers that Schneck mentioned.
This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.
But that’s not all.
“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.
I was able to confirm that the meeting took place where he said it had, and that the FBI and Homeland Security did make presentations there. One InfraGard member who attended that meeting denies that the subject of lethal force came up. But the whistleblower is 100 percent certain of it. “I have nothing to gain by telling you this, and everything to lose,” he adds. “I’m so nervous about this, and I’m not someone who gets nervous.”
Though Schneck says that FBI and Homeland Security agents do make presentations to InfraGard, she denies that InfraGard members would have any civil patrol or law enforcement functions. “I have never heard of InfraGard members being told to use lethal force anywhere,” Schneck says.
The FBI adamantly denies it, also. “That’s ridiculous,” says Catherine Milhoan, an FBI spokesperson. “If you want to quote a businessperson saying that, knock yourself out. If that’s what you want to print, fine.”
But one other InfraGard member corroborated the whistleblower’s account, and another would not deny it.
Christine Moerke is a business continuity consultant for Alliant Energy in Madison, Wisconsin. She says she’s an InfraGard member, and she confirms that she has attended InfraGard meetings that went into the details about what kind of civil patrol function—including engaging in lethal force—that InfraGard members may be called upon to perform.
“There have been discussions like that, that I’ve heard of and participated in,” she says.
Curt Haugen is CEO of S’Curo Group, a company that does “strategic planning, business continuity planning and disaster recovery, physical and IT security, policy development, internal control, personnel selection, and travel safety,” according to its website. Haugen tells me he is a former FBI agent and that he has been an InfraGard member for many years. He is a huge booster. “It’s the only true organization where there is the public-private partnership,” he says. “It’s all who knows who. You know a face, you trust a face. That’s what makes it work.”
He says InfraGard “absolutely” does emergency preparedness exercises. When I ask about discussions the FBI and Homeland Security have had with InfraGard members about their use of lethal force, he says: “That much I cannot comment on. But as a private citizen, you have the right to use force if you feel threatened.”
“We were assured that if we were forced to kill someone to protect our infrastructure, there would be no repercussions,” the whistleblower says. “It gave me goose bumps. It chilled me to the bone.”
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine and the author of "You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression." This article, "The FBI Deputizes Business," is the cover story of the March issue of The Progressive.
see also: http://www.fff.org/comment/com0802g.pdf for more information
From the article:
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.
But that’s not all.
“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.
InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption, its website says. And any conversation with the public or the media is supposed to be carefully rehearsed.
“The interests of InfraGard must be protected whenever presented to non-InfraGard members,” the website states. “During interviews with members of the press, controlling the image of InfraGard being presented can be difficult. Proper preparation for the interview will minimize the risk of embarrassment. . . . The InfraGard leadership and the local FBI representative should review the submitted questions, agree on the predilection of the answers, and identify the appropriate interviewee. . . . Tailor answers to the expected audience. . . . Questions concerning sensitive information should be avoided.”
FULL ARTICLE
Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.
InfraGard started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats.
“Then the FBI cloned it,” says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.
InfraGard itself is still an FBI operation, with FBI agents in each state overseeing the local InfraGard chapters. (There are now eighty-six of them.) The alliance is a nonprofit organization of private sector InfraGard members.
“We are the owners, operators, and experts of our critical infrastructure, from the CEO of a large company in agriculture or high finance to the guy who turns the valve at the water utility,” says Schneck, who by day is the vice president of research integration at Secure Computing.
“At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector,” the InfraGard website states. “InfraGard chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories.”
In November 2001, InfraGard had around 1,700 members. As of late January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard.”
To join, each person must be sponsored by “an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.” The FBI then vets the applicant. On the application form, prospective members are asked which aspect of the critical infrastructure their organization deals with. These include: agriculture, banking and finance, the chemical industry, defense, energy, food, information and telecommunications, law enforcement, public health, and transportation.
FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. At that time, the group had less than half as many members as it does today. “To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard,” he said. “From our perspective that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America.” He added a little later, “Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense.”
He urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they “note suspicious activity or an unusual event.” And he said they could sic the FBI on “disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers.”
In an interview with InfraGard after the conference, which is featured prominently on the InfraGard members’ website, Mueller says: “It’s a great program.”
The ACLU is not so sanguine.
“There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,” the ACLU warned in its August 2004 report The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.
InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption, its website says. And any conversation with the public or the media is supposed to be carefully rehearsed.
“The interests of InfraGard must be protected whenever presented to non-InfraGard members,” the website states. “During interviews with members of the press, controlling the image of InfraGard being presented can be difficult. Proper preparation for the interview will minimize the risk of embarrassment. . . . The InfraGard leadership and the local FBI representative should review the submitted questions, agree on the predilection of the answers, and identify the appropriate interviewee. . . . Tailor answers to the expected audience. . . . Questions concerning sensitive information should be avoided.”
One of the advantages of InfraGard, according to its leading members, is that the FBI gives them a heads-up on a secure portal about any threatening information related to infrastructure disruption or terrorism.
The InfraGard website advertises this. In its list of benefits of joining InfraGard, it states: “Gain access to an FBI secure communication network complete with VPN encrypted website, webmail, listservs, message boards, and much more.”
InfraGard members receive “almost daily updates” on threats “emanating from both domestic sources and overseas,” Hershman says.
“We get very easy access to secure information that only goes to InfraGard members,” Schneck says. “People are happy to be in the know.”
On November 1, 2001, the FBI had information about a potential threat to the bridges of California. The alert went out to the InfraGard membership. Enron was notified, and so, too, was Barry Davis, who worked for Morgan Stanley. He notified his brother Gray, the governor of California.
“He said his brother talked to him before the FBI,” recalls Steve Maviglio, who was Davis’s press secretary at the time. “And the governor got a lot of grief for releasing the information. In his defense, he said, ‘I was on the phone with my brother, who is an investment banker. And if he knows, why shouldn’t the public know?’ ”
Maviglio still sounds perturbed about this: “You’d think an elected official would be the first to know, not the last.”
In return for being in the know, InfraGard members cooperate with the FBI and Homeland Security. “InfraGard members have contributed to about 100 FBI cases,” Schneck says. “What InfraGard brings you is reach into the regional and local communities. We are a 22,000-member vetted body of subject-matter experts that reaches across seventeen matrixes. All the different stovepipes can connect with InfraGard.”
Schneck is proud of the relationships the InfraGard Members Alliance has built with the FBI. “If you had to call 1-800-FBI, you probably wouldn’t bother,” she says. “But if you knew Joe from a local meeting you had with him over a donut, you might call them. Either to give or to get. We want everyone to have a little black book.”
This black book may come in handy in times of an emergency. “On the back of each membership card,” Schneck says, “we have all the numbers you’d need: for Homeland Security, for the FBI, for the cyber center. And by calling up as an InfraGard member, you will be listened to.” She also says that members would have an easier time obtaining a “special telecommunications card that will enable your call to go through when others will not.”
This special status concerns the ACLU.
“The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment,” says Jay Stanley, public education director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty program. “There’s no ‘business class’ in law enforcement. If there’s information the FBI can share with 22,000 corporate bigwigs, why don’t they just share it with the public? That’s who their real ‘special relationship’ is supposed to be with. Secrecy is not a party favor to be given out to friends. . . . This bears a disturbing resemblance to the FBI’s handing out ‘goodies’ to corporations in return for folding them into its domestic surveillance machinery.”
When the government raises its alert levels, InfraGard is in the loop. For instance, in a press release on February 7, 2003, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General announced that the national alert level was being raised from yellow to orange. They then listed “additional steps” that agencies were taking to “increase their protective measures.” One of those steps was to “provide alert information to InfraGard program.”
“They’re very much looped into our readiness capability,” says Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. “We provide speakers, as well as do joint presentations [with the FBI]. We also train alongside them, and they have participated in readiness exercises.”
On May 9, 2007, George Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 entitled “National Continuity Policy.” In it, he instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security to coordinate with “private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.”
Asked if the InfraGard National Members Alliance was involved with these plans, Schneck said it was “not directly participating at this point.” Hershman, chairman of the group’s advisory board, however, said that it was.
InfraGard members, sometimes hundreds at a time, have been used in “national emergency preparation drills,” Schneck acknowledges.
“In case something happens, everybody is ready,” says Norm Arendt, the head of the Madison, Wisconsin, chapter of InfraGard, and the safety director for the consulting firm Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc. “There’s been lots of discussions about what happens under an emergency.”
One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation—and what their role might be. He showed me his InfraGard card, with his name and e-mail address on the front, along with the InfraGard logo and its slogan, “Partnership for Protection.” On the back of the card were the emergency numbers that Schneck mentioned.
This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.
But that’s not all.
“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.
I was able to confirm that the meeting took place where he said it had, and that the FBI and Homeland Security did make presentations there. One InfraGard member who attended that meeting denies that the subject of lethal force came up. But the whistleblower is 100 percent certain of it. “I have nothing to gain by telling you this, and everything to lose,” he adds. “I’m so nervous about this, and I’m not someone who gets nervous.”
Though Schneck says that FBI and Homeland Security agents do make presentations to InfraGard, she denies that InfraGard members would have any civil patrol or law enforcement functions. “I have never heard of InfraGard members being told to use lethal force anywhere,” Schneck says.
The FBI adamantly denies it, also. “That’s ridiculous,” says Catherine Milhoan, an FBI spokesperson. “If you want to quote a businessperson saying that, knock yourself out. If that’s what you want to print, fine.”
But one other InfraGard member corroborated the whistleblower’s account, and another would not deny it.
Christine Moerke is a business continuity consultant for Alliant Energy in Madison, Wisconsin. She says she’s an InfraGard member, and she confirms that she has attended InfraGard meetings that went into the details about what kind of civil patrol function—including engaging in lethal force—that InfraGard members may be called upon to perform.
“There have been discussions like that, that I’ve heard of and participated in,” she says.
Curt Haugen is CEO of S’Curo Group, a company that does “strategic planning, business continuity planning and disaster recovery, physical and IT security, policy development, internal control, personnel selection, and travel safety,” according to its website. Haugen tells me he is a former FBI agent and that he has been an InfraGard member for many years. He is a huge booster. “It’s the only true organization where there is the public-private partnership,” he says. “It’s all who knows who. You know a face, you trust a face. That’s what makes it work.”
He says InfraGard “absolutely” does emergency preparedness exercises. When I ask about discussions the FBI and Homeland Security have had with InfraGard members about their use of lethal force, he says: “That much I cannot comment on. But as a private citizen, you have the right to use force if you feel threatened.”
“We were assured that if we were forced to kill someone to protect our infrastructure, there would be no repercussions,” the whistleblower says. “It gave me goose bumps. It chilled me to the bone.”
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine and the author of "You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression." This article, "The FBI Deputizes Business," is the cover story of the March issue of The Progressive.
see also: http://www.fff.org/comment/com0802g.pdf for more information
Monday, January 21, 2008
Bush Administration: National Firearm Ban "Reasonable"
U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement noted since "unrestricted" private ownership of guns clearly threatens the public safety, the Second Amendment can be interpreted to allow a variety of gun restrictions. Clement was nominated by George W. Bush in March 2005 and confirmed in June of the same year. His clerkships include Antonin Scalia.
Full article follows:
by Bob Unruh
A Second Amendment advocacy organization is asking the Bush administration to withdraw a legal brief that leaders fear could be used to support "any gun ban – no matter how sweeping," as long as some court somewhere determines it is "reasonable."
The concern comes from Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, whose group is pleading with the Bush administration to withdraw an anti-gun brief filed by the U.S. Solicitor General in a Supreme Court case regarding a District of Columbia ban on handguns.
The document from U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement noted since "unrestricted" private ownership of guns clearly threatens the public safety, the Second Amendment can be interpreted to allow a variety of gun restrictions.
His brief suggests gun rights are limited and since they are subject to "reasonable regulation," all gun limits imposed by the federal government should be affirmed as constitutional.
"Given the unquestionable threat to public safety that unrestricted private firearm possession would entail, various categories of firearm-related regulation are permitted by the Second Amendment," he wrote in the brief.
But Gun Owners of America, a grass-roots lobby representing more than 300,000 Americans, said the opinion creates a huge threat to the constitutional provision banning the "infringement" of the right to bear arms.
"If the Supreme Court were to accept the Solicitor General's line of argument, D.C.'s categorical gun ban of virtually all self-defense firearms could well be found to be constitutional…" Pratt said.
Worse, when the standard for evaluating gun bans becomes "reasonable," there is nothing else needed in order for a court somewhere to decide that all guns should be forbidden.
"In contrast to other provisions in the Bill of Rights, which can only be trumped by 'compelling state interests,' the Second Amendment would be relegated to an inferior position at the lowest rung of the constitutional ladder, should the Justice Department prevail," said Pratt.
He said the legal opinion could have been written by a gun limit lobby and it could be used in support of a ban on all guns by a government proclaiming "this is a reasonable regulation" even while affirming the "right" to bear arms.
Paul Helmke, of the pro-gun control Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence, in fact earlier said he saluted the position paper.
But Pratt said it would be analogous to the situation in the state of Illinois, where the state constitution provides a right to keep and bear arms, "subject to the police power," he said. Not surprisingly, Illinois has one of the most restrictive atmospheres in the nation regarding guns, he told WND.
"Under the administration's amicus brief, a national ban on all firearms – including hunting rifles – could be 'constitutional,' even if the Supreme Court decides – on ample historical evidence – that the Founders intended the Second Amendment as an individual right," he continued.
"Rather than argue that 'shall not be infringed' is a categorical prohibition on government gun-banning, the administration has chosen to align itself with those who do not believe in self defense or civilian gun ownership," Pratt said.
He said his organization is issuing a public call for the Justice Department to withdraw the anti-gun statements, and is inviting other organizations to join in its battle against such a precedent.
In the case at hand, a Washington, D.C., ban on all handguns kept by residents in their homes for self-defense is being challenged.
Alan Gura, who is heading up the challenge, said he was troubled by Clement's actions, and described the statements as "hostile" to his Second Amendment position.
"We are very disappointed the administration is hostile to individual rights," he said.
Because of the specifics of the D.C. case, the ultimate ruling is expected to address directly whether the Second Amendment includes a right for individuals to have a gun, or whether local governments can approve whatever laws or ordinances they desire to restrict firearms.
The amendment reads, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Clement is the Bush administration's chief lawyer before the court, and submitted the arguments in the case that is to determine whether the D.C. limit is constitutional. He said the Second Amendment, "protects an individual right to possess firearms, including for private purposes unrelated to militia operations," and noted the D.C. ban probably goes too far.
But his brief urges the Supreme Court to decide most current restrictions on guns and gun owners cannot be overturned by citing the Second Amendment.
"Nothing in the Second Amendment properly understood … calls for invalidation of the numerous federal laws regulating firearms," he wrote.
The court's hearing on the case has not yet been held.
For more information:
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/us-supports-gun-rights-but-more-narrowly/
Full article follows:
by Bob Unruh
A Second Amendment advocacy organization is asking the Bush administration to withdraw a legal brief that leaders fear could be used to support "any gun ban – no matter how sweeping," as long as some court somewhere determines it is "reasonable."
The concern comes from Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, whose group is pleading with the Bush administration to withdraw an anti-gun brief filed by the U.S. Solicitor General in a Supreme Court case regarding a District of Columbia ban on handguns.
The document from U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement noted since "unrestricted" private ownership of guns clearly threatens the public safety, the Second Amendment can be interpreted to allow a variety of gun restrictions.
His brief suggests gun rights are limited and since they are subject to "reasonable regulation," all gun limits imposed by the federal government should be affirmed as constitutional.
"Given the unquestionable threat to public safety that unrestricted private firearm possession would entail, various categories of firearm-related regulation are permitted by the Second Amendment," he wrote in the brief.
But Gun Owners of America, a grass-roots lobby representing more than 300,000 Americans, said the opinion creates a huge threat to the constitutional provision banning the "infringement" of the right to bear arms.
"If the Supreme Court were to accept the Solicitor General's line of argument, D.C.'s categorical gun ban of virtually all self-defense firearms could well be found to be constitutional…" Pratt said.
Worse, when the standard for evaluating gun bans becomes "reasonable," there is nothing else needed in order for a court somewhere to decide that all guns should be forbidden.
"In contrast to other provisions in the Bill of Rights, which can only be trumped by 'compelling state interests,' the Second Amendment would be relegated to an inferior position at the lowest rung of the constitutional ladder, should the Justice Department prevail," said Pratt.
He said the legal opinion could have been written by a gun limit lobby and it could be used in support of a ban on all guns by a government proclaiming "this is a reasonable regulation" even while affirming the "right" to bear arms.
Paul Helmke, of the pro-gun control Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence, in fact earlier said he saluted the position paper.
But Pratt said it would be analogous to the situation in the state of Illinois, where the state constitution provides a right to keep and bear arms, "subject to the police power," he said. Not surprisingly, Illinois has one of the most restrictive atmospheres in the nation regarding guns, he told WND.
"Under the administration's amicus brief, a national ban on all firearms – including hunting rifles – could be 'constitutional,' even if the Supreme Court decides – on ample historical evidence – that the Founders intended the Second Amendment as an individual right," he continued.
"Rather than argue that 'shall not be infringed' is a categorical prohibition on government gun-banning, the administration has chosen to align itself with those who do not believe in self defense or civilian gun ownership," Pratt said.
He said his organization is issuing a public call for the Justice Department to withdraw the anti-gun statements, and is inviting other organizations to join in its battle against such a precedent.
In the case at hand, a Washington, D.C., ban on all handguns kept by residents in their homes for self-defense is being challenged.
Alan Gura, who is heading up the challenge, said he was troubled by Clement's actions, and described the statements as "hostile" to his Second Amendment position.
"We are very disappointed the administration is hostile to individual rights," he said.
Because of the specifics of the D.C. case, the ultimate ruling is expected to address directly whether the Second Amendment includes a right for individuals to have a gun, or whether local governments can approve whatever laws or ordinances they desire to restrict firearms.
The amendment reads, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Clement is the Bush administration's chief lawyer before the court, and submitted the arguments in the case that is to determine whether the D.C. limit is constitutional. He said the Second Amendment, "protects an individual right to possess firearms, including for private purposes unrelated to militia operations," and noted the D.C. ban probably goes too far.
But his brief urges the Supreme Court to decide most current restrictions on guns and gun owners cannot be overturned by citing the Second Amendment.
"Nothing in the Second Amendment properly understood … calls for invalidation of the numerous federal laws regulating firearms," he wrote.
The court's hearing on the case has not yet been held.
For more information:
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/us-supports-gun-rights-but-more-narrowly/
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Are Republicans Conservative? (Part I of III)
Part I of III
by Jeffrey Robbins
Introduction
As a Republican, do you find the positions and actions of your party increasingly difficult to defend in light of the principles upon which the party claims to continue to stand for, namely, limited government, non-interventionism, and laissez-faire capitalism? Do you find yourself "compromising" your principles election after election, justifying your vote for the party favorite as an earnest effort to avoid putting the next Clinton or Gore in power? The "lesser of two evils" mantra must ring a bell. Have you heard the Republican party-line that they simply "lost their way" during their four-year period of complete control of the federal government? Have you swallowed hard to make yourself believe it? Before you continue further down the path of Republican Party apologism, you owe it to yourself to read on and see how the pieces fit together, forming a far different picture than the one you believe you see.
It is particularly difficult to change the mind of Republican voters who maintain apologist stances in defense of their Party. You have certainly tried in vain to convince a Democrat that their Party ideals are bound to decline into Socialism or worse, Tyranny one day. At some point I imagine you told them that the government has no business being involved in what their Party proposes, that taxes are too high, that spending is too much, our Federal debt is unimaginable, etc. Since I have always operated in some form from the Right, I choose my words carefully and understand how difficult it may be to believe it when I say exactly the same thing to you: Your party's actions have led to socialism, and at worst may in fact lead to outright tyranny one day.
One quote still stands out to me in relation to the difficulty encountered as we begin such an argument. Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1897 said, “It is in the nature of a man’s mind. A thing which you enjoyed and used as your own for a long time, whether property or opinion, takes root in your being and cannot be torn away without your resenting the act and trying to defend yourself, however you came by it.” I speak from experience, as it was I, a Republican supporter of George H.W. Bush in 1990, who was first approached many years ago with the same proposition: post-World War II Republicans have come to share far more with Democrats in principle and action than either Party would care to admit or have widely known. I can say from experience that indeed, the first step is denial. I denied for many years, later took on casual study, and gradually as I built the study came to the same stunning conclusion. In fact, the difference between the Parties is not meaningful. The task before you, the study, the intellectual honesty required of you the reader, is within your ability I am certain. What you must set aside, albeit temporarily, is your allegiance (psychologically and philosophically) to what you believe is truly happening in government, which for years or perhaps many decades, have been imprinted and reinforced by nearly everyone and everything around you: the high school teachers, the professors you had in college, your friends who follow politics, Fox News, ABC, your favorite newspapers, the family members who enjoy discussing ideas, - all have very likely reinforced that there are differences between Democrats and Republicans worth arguing, debating, and fighting over. To them it is this conclusion that is not debatable. But here I sit, telling you quite the opposite.
It is my very sincere hope that for the future of our country you embark on this study yourself and ask difficult questions in pursuit of truth. I am not trying to win a debate here. No tricks to win a point. My pursuit herein is the truth and I ask the same of you. I present facts and evidence and after many books and pages read, stand firm that these facts and evidence point where I say they do. At a minimum, I appeal to your desire to hear a different viewpoint, to critique, discuss, and to learn. I do so in full realization that you are at stage one, denial.
The Contract With America - We Signed, They Didn't
Recall that in 1994 a Revolution swept the United States. It was called the Republican Revolution, complete with the "Contract With America." In January 1995, the change in power swept the Republicans to control the House for the first time in 40 years (from the 1952 election to 1954). In addition to the gain of 54 seats in the House, the pickup of 8 seats in the Senate also helped them gain control of the Senate. But the Republicans weren't done. Strong gains were made in the States as well with a pickup of 12 Governorships giving the Republicans the majority of State Governorships for the first time since 1972. They also gained a total of 472 seats across all of the State Legislatures thus gaining control of 20 State Legislatures from the Democrats and holding a majority of State Legislatures for the first time in 50 years. Republican voters wanted to extend this Revolution: they wanted control of the Presidency. Only with control of both houses and the Executive Branch could real change finally be made. While William J. Clinton won the 1996 campaign, it wasn't long before the Executive Branch was won back by the Republicans in 2000 with George W. Bush at the helm.
After the 2000 election, the dream of Republicans looked to be at hand, until GOP senator Jim Jeffords changed party registration to "Independent" in June 2001. The Senate switched to Republican control after the November 2002 elections, for the first time in decades giving the Republican party control of the federal government. From 2002-2006, the Republicans maintained clear majorities in the Legislative Branch and controlled the Executive Branch. The dream had arrived in its fullest form.
The dream ended in the 2006 elections, when Democrats won both the House of Representatives (233 Democrats, 202 Republicans) and the Senate (49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents caucusing with the Democrats) as well as the majority of state governorships (28-22). This event may be seen as the end of the Republican Revolution. Maybe it ended before it started. During the twelve-year Revolution of the "party of limited government," the Federal budget shot up from$1.461 Trillion (1994) to $2.6 Trillion (2006).
Let's revisit the Contract With America. One would expect the Contract created by the party of limited government to have clear Constitutional support for each provision: not so. William F. Jasper wrote of the Contract's Constitutional shortcomings just months after it was signed, in a 1995 article entitled "Gingrich's Constitutional Con": http://thenewamerican.com/node/1527 Jasper brought to light provisions such as the "Take Back Our Streets Act." The Republicans felt more Federal money should be spent on beat cops in the nations cities rather than night basketball programs. First, the Contract is silent on the Constitutional support for Federal funding for state and local law enforcement efforts. Secondly, our allegedly small government brethren opted for a new, bloated series of Federal grants to pay for more beat cops. Of course it was sold as "Republicans tough on crime, Democrats weak." And many bought it. A Republican (the Old Right) of many decades ago would have stood up and stopped the unconstitutional flow of money to begin with and by doing so, lowered your taxes. Another example from "Gingrich's Constitutional Con" is the "The National Security Restoration Act." Among other things, it would have lowered U.S. funding of U.N. "peacekeeping" missions to 25% from 32%. Again, the Contract is silent on the Constitutional authority for funding an organization with roots in people like Alger Hiss, but merely sought to placate the Republican masses by reducing (likely temporarily) the funding. Note, that even if this was heralded as a great first step, there was no language questioning the legitimacy of placing U.S. troops or U.S. law under U.N. auspices.
Even an apologist from The Cato Institute, Stephen Moore, concedes that the Contract, on many counts, was a dismal failure, in his article from June, 2004 at www.cato.org titled "Contract Revisited." Moore, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and president of the Club for Growth, was a staff member for former Rep. Dick Armey (R-Tex.). "It is chic these days to criticize the Contract with America and write it off as a failed revolution. That would be a misreading of history." Really? Here is Mr. Moore being a bit more honest:
"Most impressive of all, the Contract with America budget called for eliminating three whole Cabinet departments: Education, Commerce and Energy... Perhaps Republicans over-promised, but in the end, politics triumphed over good fiscal common sense. Ten years later, most of the useless programs still flourish. Here are some disappointing examples:
The Americorps program has grown 181 percent and President Bush wants to expand it further.
The Education Department budget has almost tripled since 1995.
The Goals 2000 budget has grown from $231 million to $700 million.
The wool and mohair subsidy was terminated (hooray) but then resurrected by Congress in 1997 and now spends more money than ever.
Amtrak subsidies were supposed to be phased out entirely by the year 2000. But this year the railroad asked for a $2 billion bailout and Congress is likely to grant it."
Did politics triumph over good fiscal common sense? Or perhaps, as you will see later on from Irving Kristol, was this expansion of government largesse and increased encroachment on your freedom part of the plan all along?
The Grand Old (Spending) Party
The Wall Street Journal noted the recent presidents' average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending:
Lyndon Johnson, fiscal years 1965-69, 4.3 percent
Richard Nixon, 1970-75, 6.8 percent
Gerald Ford, 1976-77, 8.0 percent
Jimmy Carter, 1978-81, 2.0 percent
Ronald Reagan, 1982-89, 1.3 percent decrease
G.H.W. Bush, 1990-93, 4.0 percent
Bill Clinton, 1994-2001, 2.5 percent
George W. Bush, 2002-04, 8.2 percent
(see also "The Grand Old Spending Party" at the Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa543.pdf
Taking a look at the list, I note the top 3 positions are occupied by Republicans. LBJ narrowly loses to Bush I for the fourth spot (That's four of five spots occupied by big government Republicans). The Heritage Foundation even chimed in on the question of the reality of spending by the Establisment parties:
"Conventional wisdom holds that non-defense discretionary spending has been cut to make room for defense spending increases. Conventional wisdom is wrong. According to OMB, non-defense discretionary outlays – adjusted for inflation – surged by 34 percent between 1999 and 2005. That is the largest six-year expansion since the 1970s. One way to compare current discretionary spending trends is by presidential administration:
Overall discretionary outlays rose 2.3 percent annually under President Clinton, compared to 9.7 percent annually under President Bush. Defense was
virtually frozen in nominal dollars under President Clinton, and has averaged 12 percent annual growth under President Bush. Non-defense discretionary
outlays rose 4 percent annually under President Clinton, versus 8 percent annually under President Bush.
Let me re-emphasize that last point: Non-defense discretionary spending has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton. Examples of
discretionary spending increases between 2001 and 2006 include the following:
Education is up 62 percent, or 10 percent annually; International affairs is up 74 percent, or 12 percent annually; Health research and regulation is up 57
percent, or 9 percent annually; Veterans’ benefits are up 46 percent, or 8 percent annually; Science and basic research is up 40 percent, or 7 percent annually. and Overall non-defense discretionary outlays are up 46 percent, or 7.8 percent annually."
HillaryCare vs. Medicare Part D
What began as an outcry against "HillaryCare" in Republican rhetoric turned into the enactment by the same Republicans of another leg of socialized medicine in Medicare Part D (the prescription drug expansion of Medicare orchestrated by Republicans in 2003). Who would have predicted that the smaller government, capitalist, market solution-oriented Party would bring us another step toward socialized medicine when they in fact controlled all three branches? Perhaps they thought we needed another unfunded multi-trillion dollar liability.
A November 2007 study by Columbia University found that the Medicare Part D drug plan cost $32 billion in 2006, its first year of existence. The study concluded that by 2015 the cost would accumulate to $797 billion. Frank Lichtenberg, a co-author of the study, stated: "Our findings do not necessarily mean that the Medicare Part D program is economically inefficient, because there are potential long-term health care savings when people can afford to take necessary medications. However, we need to think carefully about the economic implications of this program, which the federal government will ultimately have to raise taxes to pay for." (emphasis added) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/01/AR2007110101183.html
Of course the review of spending shows that it is not a phenomenon, as the Party would now have and desperately wants you to believe, of the last few Bush years. Indeed, the spending differences between Republicans and Democrats are negligible over many decades as you have seen.
Have voters for Republican candidates been able to depend on the Republican rhetoric that they represent smaller government, lower Constitutional spending, and free-market solutions? Even if we haven't been able to depend on Republicans to deliver Constitutional spending, smaller government, and lower future taxes, perhaps they have delivered in the Judiciary. In Part II of "Are Republicans Conservative?," we will explore the Supreme Court. It is the nomination of conservative Justices that many Republican voters pine for and point to in defense of their votes for, as we have learned in the preceding paragraphs, big-government Republicans.
(If you think a friend, whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent, would enjoy reading this, please send them the address for the blog http://wiconstitutionalist.blogspot.com/ or use the tool below (envelope with arrow) to send this article to a friend.) Knowledge grows when shared.
by Jeffrey Robbins
Introduction
As a Republican, do you find the positions and actions of your party increasingly difficult to defend in light of the principles upon which the party claims to continue to stand for, namely, limited government, non-interventionism, and laissez-faire capitalism? Do you find yourself "compromising" your principles election after election, justifying your vote for the party favorite as an earnest effort to avoid putting the next Clinton or Gore in power? The "lesser of two evils" mantra must ring a bell. Have you heard the Republican party-line that they simply "lost their way" during their four-year period of complete control of the federal government? Have you swallowed hard to make yourself believe it? Before you continue further down the path of Republican Party apologism, you owe it to yourself to read on and see how the pieces fit together, forming a far different picture than the one you believe you see.
It is particularly difficult to change the mind of Republican voters who maintain apologist stances in defense of their Party. You have certainly tried in vain to convince a Democrat that their Party ideals are bound to decline into Socialism or worse, Tyranny one day. At some point I imagine you told them that the government has no business being involved in what their Party proposes, that taxes are too high, that spending is too much, our Federal debt is unimaginable, etc. Since I have always operated in some form from the Right, I choose my words carefully and understand how difficult it may be to believe it when I say exactly the same thing to you: Your party's actions have led to socialism, and at worst may in fact lead to outright tyranny one day.
One quote still stands out to me in relation to the difficulty encountered as we begin such an argument. Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1897 said, “It is in the nature of a man’s mind. A thing which you enjoyed and used as your own for a long time, whether property or opinion, takes root in your being and cannot be torn away without your resenting the act and trying to defend yourself, however you came by it.” I speak from experience, as it was I, a Republican supporter of George H.W. Bush in 1990, who was first approached many years ago with the same proposition: post-World War II Republicans have come to share far more with Democrats in principle and action than either Party would care to admit or have widely known. I can say from experience that indeed, the first step is denial. I denied for many years, later took on casual study, and gradually as I built the study came to the same stunning conclusion. In fact, the difference between the Parties is not meaningful. The task before you, the study, the intellectual honesty required of you the reader, is within your ability I am certain. What you must set aside, albeit temporarily, is your allegiance (psychologically and philosophically) to what you believe is truly happening in government, which for years or perhaps many decades, have been imprinted and reinforced by nearly everyone and everything around you: the high school teachers, the professors you had in college, your friends who follow politics, Fox News, ABC, your favorite newspapers, the family members who enjoy discussing ideas, - all have very likely reinforced that there are differences between Democrats and Republicans worth arguing, debating, and fighting over. To them it is this conclusion that is not debatable. But here I sit, telling you quite the opposite.
It is my very sincere hope that for the future of our country you embark on this study yourself and ask difficult questions in pursuit of truth. I am not trying to win a debate here. No tricks to win a point. My pursuit herein is the truth and I ask the same of you. I present facts and evidence and after many books and pages read, stand firm that these facts and evidence point where I say they do. At a minimum, I appeal to your desire to hear a different viewpoint, to critique, discuss, and to learn. I do so in full realization that you are at stage one, denial.
The Contract With America - We Signed, They Didn't
Recall that in 1994 a Revolution swept the United States. It was called the Republican Revolution, complete with the "Contract With America." In January 1995, the change in power swept the Republicans to control the House for the first time in 40 years (from the 1952 election to 1954). In addition to the gain of 54 seats in the House, the pickup of 8 seats in the Senate also helped them gain control of the Senate. But the Republicans weren't done. Strong gains were made in the States as well with a pickup of 12 Governorships giving the Republicans the majority of State Governorships for the first time since 1972. They also gained a total of 472 seats across all of the State Legislatures thus gaining control of 20 State Legislatures from the Democrats and holding a majority of State Legislatures for the first time in 50 years. Republican voters wanted to extend this Revolution: they wanted control of the Presidency. Only with control of both houses and the Executive Branch could real change finally be made. While William J. Clinton won the 1996 campaign, it wasn't long before the Executive Branch was won back by the Republicans in 2000 with George W. Bush at the helm.
After the 2000 election, the dream of Republicans looked to be at hand, until GOP senator Jim Jeffords changed party registration to "Independent" in June 2001. The Senate switched to Republican control after the November 2002 elections, for the first time in decades giving the Republican party control of the federal government. From 2002-2006, the Republicans maintained clear majorities in the Legislative Branch and controlled the Executive Branch. The dream had arrived in its fullest form.
The dream ended in the 2006 elections, when Democrats won both the House of Representatives (233 Democrats, 202 Republicans) and the Senate (49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents caucusing with the Democrats) as well as the majority of state governorships (28-22). This event may be seen as the end of the Republican Revolution. Maybe it ended before it started. During the twelve-year Revolution of the "party of limited government," the Federal budget shot up from$1.461 Trillion (1994) to $2.6 Trillion (2006).
Let's revisit the Contract With America. One would expect the Contract created by the party of limited government to have clear Constitutional support for each provision: not so. William F. Jasper wrote of the Contract's Constitutional shortcomings just months after it was signed, in a 1995 article entitled "Gingrich's Constitutional Con": http://thenewamerican.com/node/1527 Jasper brought to light provisions such as the "Take Back Our Streets Act." The Republicans felt more Federal money should be spent on beat cops in the nations cities rather than night basketball programs. First, the Contract is silent on the Constitutional support for Federal funding for state and local law enforcement efforts. Secondly, our allegedly small government brethren opted for a new, bloated series of Federal grants to pay for more beat cops. Of course it was sold as "Republicans tough on crime, Democrats weak." And many bought it. A Republican (the Old Right) of many decades ago would have stood up and stopped the unconstitutional flow of money to begin with and by doing so, lowered your taxes. Another example from "Gingrich's Constitutional Con" is the "The National Security Restoration Act." Among other things, it would have lowered U.S. funding of U.N. "peacekeeping" missions to 25% from 32%. Again, the Contract is silent on the Constitutional authority for funding an organization with roots in people like Alger Hiss, but merely sought to placate the Republican masses by reducing (likely temporarily) the funding. Note, that even if this was heralded as a great first step, there was no language questioning the legitimacy of placing U.S. troops or U.S. law under U.N. auspices.
Even an apologist from The Cato Institute, Stephen Moore, concedes that the Contract, on many counts, was a dismal failure, in his article from June, 2004 at www.cato.org titled "Contract Revisited." Moore, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and president of the Club for Growth, was a staff member for former Rep. Dick Armey (R-Tex.). "It is chic these days to criticize the Contract with America and write it off as a failed revolution. That would be a misreading of history." Really? Here is Mr. Moore being a bit more honest:
"Most impressive of all, the Contract with America budget called for eliminating three whole Cabinet departments: Education, Commerce and Energy... Perhaps Republicans over-promised, but in the end, politics triumphed over good fiscal common sense. Ten years later, most of the useless programs still flourish. Here are some disappointing examples:
The Americorps program has grown 181 percent and President Bush wants to expand it further.
The Education Department budget has almost tripled since 1995.
The Goals 2000 budget has grown from $231 million to $700 million.
The wool and mohair subsidy was terminated (hooray) but then resurrected by Congress in 1997 and now spends more money than ever.
Amtrak subsidies were supposed to be phased out entirely by the year 2000. But this year the railroad asked for a $2 billion bailout and Congress is likely to grant it."
Did politics triumph over good fiscal common sense? Or perhaps, as you will see later on from Irving Kristol, was this expansion of government largesse and increased encroachment on your freedom part of the plan all along?
The Grand Old (Spending) Party
The Wall Street Journal noted the recent presidents' average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending:
Lyndon Johnson, fiscal years 1965-69, 4.3 percent
Richard Nixon, 1970-75, 6.8 percent
Gerald Ford, 1976-77, 8.0 percent
Jimmy Carter, 1978-81, 2.0 percent
Ronald Reagan, 1982-89, 1.3 percent decrease
G.H.W. Bush, 1990-93, 4.0 percent
Bill Clinton, 1994-2001, 2.5 percent
George W. Bush, 2002-04, 8.2 percent
(see also "The Grand Old Spending Party" at the Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa543.pdf
Taking a look at the list, I note the top 3 positions are occupied by Republicans. LBJ narrowly loses to Bush I for the fourth spot (That's four of five spots occupied by big government Republicans). The Heritage Foundation even chimed in on the question of the reality of spending by the Establisment parties:
"Conventional wisdom holds that non-defense discretionary spending has been cut to make room for defense spending increases. Conventional wisdom is wrong. According to OMB, non-defense discretionary outlays – adjusted for inflation – surged by 34 percent between 1999 and 2005. That is the largest six-year expansion since the 1970s. One way to compare current discretionary spending trends is by presidential administration:
Overall discretionary outlays rose 2.3 percent annually under President Clinton, compared to 9.7 percent annually under President Bush. Defense was
virtually frozen in nominal dollars under President Clinton, and has averaged 12 percent annual growth under President Bush. Non-defense discretionary
outlays rose 4 percent annually under President Clinton, versus 8 percent annually under President Bush.
Let me re-emphasize that last point: Non-defense discretionary spending has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton. Examples of
discretionary spending increases between 2001 and 2006 include the following:
Education is up 62 percent, or 10 percent annually; International affairs is up 74 percent, or 12 percent annually; Health research and regulation is up 57
percent, or 9 percent annually; Veterans’ benefits are up 46 percent, or 8 percent annually; Science and basic research is up 40 percent, or 7 percent annually. and Overall non-defense discretionary outlays are up 46 percent, or 7.8 percent annually."
HillaryCare vs. Medicare Part D
What began as an outcry against "HillaryCare" in Republican rhetoric turned into the enactment by the same Republicans of another leg of socialized medicine in Medicare Part D (the prescription drug expansion of Medicare orchestrated by Republicans in 2003). Who would have predicted that the smaller government, capitalist, market solution-oriented Party would bring us another step toward socialized medicine when they in fact controlled all three branches? Perhaps they thought we needed another unfunded multi-trillion dollar liability.
A November 2007 study by Columbia University found that the Medicare Part D drug plan cost $32 billion in 2006, its first year of existence. The study concluded that by 2015 the cost would accumulate to $797 billion. Frank Lichtenberg, a co-author of the study, stated: "Our findings do not necessarily mean that the Medicare Part D program is economically inefficient, because there are potential long-term health care savings when people can afford to take necessary medications. However, we need to think carefully about the economic implications of this program, which the federal government will ultimately have to raise taxes to pay for." (emphasis added) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/01/AR2007110101183.html
Of course the review of spending shows that it is not a phenomenon, as the Party would now have and desperately wants you to believe, of the last few Bush years. Indeed, the spending differences between Republicans and Democrats are negligible over many decades as you have seen.
Have voters for Republican candidates been able to depend on the Republican rhetoric that they represent smaller government, lower Constitutional spending, and free-market solutions? Even if we haven't been able to depend on Republicans to deliver Constitutional spending, smaller government, and lower future taxes, perhaps they have delivered in the Judiciary. In Part II of "Are Republicans Conservative?," we will explore the Supreme Court. It is the nomination of conservative Justices that many Republican voters pine for and point to in defense of their votes for, as we have learned in the preceding paragraphs, big-government Republicans.
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