What did I tell ya...

The ‘Recession’ Is a Media Myth
Tuesday , April 01, 2008 By John R. Lott, Jr.
During the 2000 election, with Bill Clinton as president, the economy was viewed through rose-colored glasses. According to polls, voters didn’t realize that the country was in a recession. Although the economy started shrinking in July 2000, most Americans through the entire year thought that the economy was fine.
But over the last half-year, the media and politicians have said we were in a recession even while the economy was still growing.
Gas prices are going up. The economy is slowing. Talk of recession is seemingly everywhere. While the majority of people rate their personal finances positively, consumer confidence in the economy has plunged to a 16-year low, well below what it was during the last year of the Clinton administration when we were in a recession.
A Nexis search on news stories during the three-month period from July 2000 through September 2000 using the keywords “economy recession US” produces 1,388. By contrast, the same search over just the last month finds 3,166. Or, even more telling, take the three months from July through September last year, when the GDP was growing at a phenomenal 4.9 percent. The same type of Google search shows 2,475 news stories.
Over 78 percent more negative news stories discussed a recession when the economy under a Republican was soaring than occurred under a Democrat when the economy was shrinking.
A little perspective on the economy would be helpful. The average unemployment rate during President Clinton was 5.2 percent. The average under President George W. Bush is just slightly below 5.2. The current unemployment rate is4.8 percent, almost half a percentage point lower than these averages.
The average inflation rate under Clinton was 2.6 percent, under Bush it is 2.7 percent. Indeed, one has to go back to the Kennedy administration to find a lower average rate. True the inflation rate over the last year has gone up to 4 percent, but that is still lower than the average inflation rate under all the presidents from Nixon through Bush’s father.
Gas prices are indeed up 33 percent over the last year, but to get an average of 4 percent means that lots of other prices must have stayed the same or gone down. On other fronts, seasonally adjusted civilian employment is 650,000 people greater than it was a year ago. Personal income grew at a strong half of one percent in just February.
Despite all that, this last week, Barack Obama proclaimed “As most experts know, our economy is in a recession.” Hillary Clinton made similar staements last fall. Yet, as any economist knows, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and we haven’t even had one single quarter of negative growth reported. The economy slowed down significantly during the end of last year, but that was after a sizzling annual GDP growth rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter.
Housing has obviously been a big drag on the economy, but many other sectors of the economy, such as exports, have been doing well, some extremely well. For example, aerospace exports increased by over 13 percent last year.
The media’s focus on the negative side of everything surely helps explain people’s pessimism. In a recent interview Fox’s Neil Cavuto claimed this bias “is all part of the media’s plan to get a Democrat in the White House.”
Indeed, research has indicated that media bias is real. Kevin Hassett and I looked at 12,620 newspaper and wire service headlines from 1985 through 2004 for stories on the release of official government releasing numbers on the unemployment rate, number of people employed, gross domestic product (GDP), retail sales, and durable goods.
Even after accounting for how well the economy was doing (e.g., what the unemployment rate was and whether it was going up or down), there was still a big difference in how positive or negative the headlines were. Democratic presidents got about 15 percent more positive headlines than Republicans for the same economic news.
Yet, the hysteria created by this coverage can have another cost. It creates pressure for government to “do something,” even if that rush to do something actually ends up hurting the economy. For example, Obama’s promises last week “to amend our bankruptcy laws so families aren’t forced to stick to the terms of a home loan” will only further drive down the value of mortgage-backed securities, making any unstable financial institutions that hold them even more likely to fail. In the long term, who is going to want to loan money when the contract can be rewritten at a later date?
The news media have generated a lot of fear. Ben Stein has a point when he says “The actual economic conditions are not that bad. I think if we have a recession, if we have a serious recession, a great deal will lie at the media’s feet.” Hopefully a little perspective will enter the picture before even more harm is done.
The joke is that the media does this every four years.
They talk the economy up when the Democrats rule the roost. Then they invent a Dust Bowl depression every time the evil Republicans are holding sway.
And ever mind the pesky facts, such as how we are now at never before achieved lows in unemployment.
Their masters in the DNC must be served.
Related Articles:
Reuters Poll Proves US Is Already In Recession
Shocker: Economists Say No US Recession
Obama Still Demanding We Have A Recession
Hillary's (Very Latest) Communist Manifesto
Chelsea's 'Distressed Debt' Hedge Fund Co.
Bill Clinton: We Have To Slow Down Economy
NYT Sobs: Illegals Only Sending $300B Home
Hillary Blamed Tax Cuts For 2001 Recession
NYT: Good Times Economy Was Only Mirage
Shocker: Soros Talks Down The US Economy
War News Good? Let's Create A Recession
NYT Continues To Undermine The Economy
Hillary Tries To Talk Economy Into Recession
Time Mag Pronounces "The End of Easy Money"

Watch your P's & Q's...and abc's too!

Talk about being killed in action...when your weapon is only your pen...

Clerics Back Death Fatwa For Writers

Riyadh: A group of Saudi clerics has come out in support of a colleague who issued a fatwa saying two writers deserve to die if they did not retract views that he said made them apostates.

Shaikh Abdul Rahman Al Barrak, one of the kingdom's most revered clerics, said in a rare fatwa last week the columnists should be tried for apostasy for "heretical articles" published in Al Riyadh newspaper and put to death if they do not repent.

They questioned the Sunni view in Saudi Arabia that adherents of other faiths should be considered unbelievers, which Al Barrak said implied Muslims were free to follow other religions and their faith was on a par with other religions.

A group of 20 clerics, all associated with Al Barrak, issued a statement asking God to support him in the face of a "wicked attack" by liberals with "polluted beliefs".

"We know the Shaikh's knowledge in religion and status in the Islamic nation and trust Muslims place in his opinions ... The fatwa is based on the book of God [Quran] and the path of the Prophet [PBUH]," they said in the statement posted on websites.

"The Shaikh's words were clear in placing the issue in the hands of the temporal authorities when he said that there must be a trial. We affirm there should be a trial."

Liberal reformers are engaged in a battle with religious hardliners over the direction of the country.

"This is in my view the largest show of force in the Wahhabi movement in a long time," said Ali Al Ahmad, a Saudi opposition figure based in Washington.

And they still don't know anything! WAKE UP AMERICA

CAIR Exposed: Part 1
As IAP Offshoot, CAIR Followed Pro-Hamas Agenda from the Start
Steven Emerson
From the Hamas ties of its founders in 1994 to its solicitous stance toward accused terrorists today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has demonstrated that its actual mission is far removed from the civil rights advocacy it claims to pursue.

Still standing as perhaps the clearest evidence of CAIR's insidious role, two key leaders of the group attended a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia called by Hamas members and supporters to devise a strategy for torpedoing the Oslo Accords aimed at Middle East peace.

An analysis of secret recordings of the meeting led the FBI to conclude that the gathering was held "to determine… [the participants'] course of action in support of Hamas' opposition to the [Oslo] peace plan and to decide how to conceal their activities from the scrutiny of the United States government."

Coupled with their support for the Jihad in the Middle East, the attendees recognized the critical importance of domestic lobbying in the United States. One discussed encouraging the Islamic community "to be involved in the political life of this country," adding, "We should assist them in this task. This will be an entrance for us to put, through the Islamic community, pressure on the Congress and the decision makers in America."

That's where CAIR came in. Participants in that 1993 meeting discussed tailoring their message to an American audience, speaking of outright deception at times and of softening their rhetoric at others, as the following exchange between CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad shows:

Awad: What is important is that the language of the address is there evenfor the American. But, the issue is how to use it...
Omar Ahmad: There is a difference between you saying "I want to restore the '48land" and when you say "I want to destroy Israel". ....
Awad: Yes, there are different but parallel types of address. Thereshouldn't be contradiction. Address people according to their minds.When I speak with the American, I speak with someone who doesn't know anything. As for the Palestinian who has a martyr brother or something, I know how to address him, you see?

This context helps explain why federal authorities have tied the CAIR to Hamas in three separate court filings in the past year. Prosecutors place CAIR on the Muslim Brotherhood's "Palestine Committee." An internal Palestine Committee document in 1994 lists CAIR as one of its "working organizations" along with IAP. Other records show that committee was created to advance the Hamas agenda within the United States.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has assembled a thorough dossier on CAIR's origins and activities which we present in installments during the next two weeks. You can read today's segment here.
Among the highlights in today's report:
- CAIR was incorporated less than a year after the Philadelphia meeting by three officials of the now-defunct Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), long a central player in Hamas' U.S. support network and a group that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service deemed in a 2001 memo to be "part of Hamas' propaganda apparatus."

- As recently as the summer of 2007, the Dallas trial charging the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) with providing material support for Hamas produced extensive evidence that IAP -- CAIR's parent -- played a central role in the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee. Much of that evidence relates to Mousa Abu Marzook, now deputy political chief of Hamas, who served on the board of directors of IAP in 1989.

The trial exhibits included a memo taken from the home of Ismail Elbarrasse, a former assistant to Marzook, which defines in chilling fashion the role the Muslim Brothers play in North America:
The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack…

- CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial. While the group contested that designation in court papers, it may have to live with it through a second trial scheduled for August. A mistrial was declared October 22nd after jurors could not reach unanimous verdicts on HLF and four individual defendants. A fifth defendant was acquitted on all but one count against him, that of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
- IAP clearly subscribed to a Jihadist view of what was needed in the Middle East. The December 1988 edition of Ila Filastin , the group's Arabic-language publication, carried this statement: "The call for Jihad in the name of Allah is the only path for liberation of Palestine and all the Muslim lands … We (Hamas) promise Allah, in continuing the Jihad way and with the martyrdom's way."
Meanwhile, IAP's English-language Muslim World Monitor and Arabic periodical Al-Zaitounah, frequently praised Hamas terror attacks. An October 1994 Al-Zaitounah headline, for example, blared, "In Its Greatest Operation, Hamas Takes Credit for the Bombing of an Israeli Bus in the Center of Tel Aviv."
- IAP promoted the Hamas agenda at its annual conferences, with members of the terrorist group making frequent appearances. It raised substantial funds at these conferences for HLF, then Hamas' primary fundraising arm in the United States. All proceeds from IAP's convention in 1996, for example, went to HLF. Rafeeq Jaber, one of CAIR's founders, had become IAP president earlier that year. In a 2003 civil deposition, Jaber acknowledged IAP's contract with HLF required them "to promote [HLF] in every way we can."
- Declining an opportunity to distance CAIR from IAP in September 2003 Senate testimony, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad opted instead to defend the group as "a grassroots organization which continues to function legally and has only been ‘linked' through allusion and no charge of criminality has been brought against the organization."
- It was Awad and CAIR founding chairman Omar Ahmad who had attended the Hamas-organized Philadelphia session in 1993 – though proof of their participation was not revealed publicly until years later. Both men insisted, as late as 2003, that they could not recall having attended.
# # FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security and the author of five books on these subjects, most recently "Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US." Steve also writes for the Counterterrorism Blog. read full author bio here

DO YOU HAVE THE STOMACH...and, AND THE BIG WHOPPER

And now a word from Hitler Kissinger.



More from Lou...



You can kiss your dollars good-bye!



Obama's Other Side...there's always two sides to every story.

And the big whopper...
Hillary Clinton Busted on Bosnia and Caught On Film

Hillary claims, publicly that on a trip to Bosnia in 1996, her plane had to land "under sniper fire" and "no greeting ceremony", she also says, they "ran with our heads down and was basically told to run to our cars". Footage of that trip contradicts her.

The footage in the video above was from Hillary Clinton's one and only trip to Bosnia and it shows Hillary's claims, as well as news footage of what actually happened. It was plausible and could have been believed except for the fact that there was news coverage, film footage of that trip showing her being greeted, the only thing covering her head was her hair and no one was running and there was no gunfire. The Washington Post says there are "numerous problems with Clinton's version of events." One of the Washington Post reporters, John Pomfret, covered that trip to Bosnia and according to him the, "Tuzla airport was "one of the safest places in Bosnia" in March 1996 and "firmly under the control" of the 1st Armored Division."
Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, below, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.This news comes on the heels of some other controversial statements from Hillary Clinton about her experience which have been contradicted by witnesses from the time relevant to those statements. One example is her claim that she was a major part of the Good Friday Agreement for Northern Ireland to which Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, Nobel Prize winner and former First Minister of the province says that Hillary Clinton's claim that she played a role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, is "a wee bit silly", and others involved called her no more than a cheerleader. Then her criticism of NAFTA and her claim that she was opposed to it, has been called into question by people who were present at a November 10, 1993 pro-NAFTA meeting for businesswomen. Laura E. Jones, executive director of the United States Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel, was there and said, "That's ludicrous. There was no question that everyone who spoke including the First Lady was for NAFTA, it was a rally on behalf of NAFTA to help it get passed. It's unquestionable. And there are many people out there who were there who remember the incident who work in this industry." That is confirmed by Julia K. Hughes, senior vice president of the same organization, who asserts, "This is such a non issue to us, because obviously it was a pro-NAFTA group and a pro-NAFTA event. It was a 100 percent pro-NAFTA event. No one suggested any inklings of doubt since part of the agenda was to promote enthusiasm for passage of NAFTA." When asked straight out if that included Hillary Clinton, the answer was clear, "Absolutely. She was the highlight of the event. She was absolutely the capper to the event. It was a positive rally. I assure you if there had even been a hint of waffling from her -- because we were in the last days before NAFTA passed and it was a pretty hectic time -- we would have freaked out." Now that over 11,000 documents have been released showing the former First Lady's schedules, many questions have arisen from them, but the Good Friday Agreement and the NAFTA discussion could still be seen, reasonably, as a "he said she said" type of problem. When it is one memory versus another memory, one can reasonably believe either person, but when it is Hillary Clinton saying something that is contradicted by film itself, this poses a big credibility problem. The contradicted claims and the video evidence of extreme exaggeration brings into question, for some, every claim of executive experience she makes now.

More Proof...The leadership of the Democratic Party are Marxists/Socialists

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.

International Socialist, Communist and U.N. Connections Is Barack Obama a Marxist Mole? 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." Symbol of African Socialist International 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 Committee on Un-American Activities, 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. Out of Nowhere 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. 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 Frank Davis Marshall: Obama’s mentor and a Communist Party member. 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 were 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. Karl Marx 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 (CCDS), an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA, and helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War. Another figure in the CCDS, Leslie Cagan, is an organizer of anti-Iraq War demonstrations through a group called United for Peace and Justice. Former congressional investigator Herbert Romerstein, an expert on communist activities, said most of the members of the CCDS came out of the CPUSA, where they functioned as stooges of the Soviet Union until the fall of that dictatorship. He said it has "a close working relationship with the Stalinist remnants in the former East Germany, now called the Party of Democratic Socialism…" Romerstein said these were the people who ran the concentration camps and the Communist Party apparatus in East Germany. Romerstein also cited evidence that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks Cagan organized the first meetings to plan opposition to any United States military action against those responsible. After Iowa Happy New Year and congratulations on a job well done. These have been trying times when the hyenas of war have again been turned loose on humanity by a greedy ruling class. Now, beyond all the optimism I was capable of mustering, Mr. Obama won Iowa! He won in a political arena 95 percent white. It was a resounding defeat for the manipulations of the ultra-right and their right-liberal fellow travelers. Also it was a hard lesson for liberals who underestimated the political fury of the masses in these troubled times. Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle. Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary “mole,” not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through. The old pattern of politics as usual has been broken. It may not have happened as we expected it to happen but what matters is that it happened. The message is clear: we can and must defeat the ultra-right, by uniting the broadest possible coalition that will represent an overwhelming majority of the people in a new political dynamic. We must quickly shed yesterday’s political perspective and get in step with the march of events. Frank Chapman (letter to Communist Party newspaper People’s Weekly World.) Via e-mail The Nature of the Threat 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. More Confirmation 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 Committee on Un-American Activities. 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." Obama’s Secret Socialist Connections Obama's socialist backing goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois state senate seat. Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul Mendelson, one of the "champions" of "Chicago's democratic left" and a long-time socialist activist. Obama's stint as a "community organizer" in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally ignored. Blogger Steve Bartin, who has been following Obama's career and involvement with the Chicago socialists, uncovered a fascinating video showing Obama campaigning for openly socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Interestingly, Sanders, who won his seat in 2006, called Obama "one of the great leaders of the United States Senate," even though Obama had only been in the body for about two years. In 2007, the National Journal said that Obama had established himself as "the most liberal Senator." DSA describes itself as the largest socialist organization in the United States and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. The Socialist International (SI) has what is called "consultative status" with the United Nations. In other words, it works hand-in-glove with the world body. Symbol of the Democratic Socialists of America The international connection is important and significant because an Obama bill, "The Global Poverty Act," has just been rushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with the assistance of Democratic Senator Joe Biden, the chairman, and Republican Senator Richard Lugar. The legislation (S.2433) commits the U.S. to spending hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign aid on the rest of the world, in order to comply with the "Millennium Goals" established by the United Nations. Conservative members of the committee were largely caught off-guard by the move to pass the Obama bill but are putting a "hold" on it, in order to try to prevent the legislation, which also quickly passed the House, from being quickly brought up for a full Senate vote. But observers think that Senate Democrats may try to pass it quickly anyway, in order to give Obama a precious legislative "victory" that he could run on. Howard Dean’s Socialist Ties Another group associated with the SI is the Party of European Socialists (PES), which heard from Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, back in 2006. Dean's speech is posted on the official Democratic Party website, although the European socialist parties are referred to as "progressive." Democrats, Dean said, want to be "good citizens of the world community." He spoke at a session on "Global Challenges for Progressive Politics." Following up, in April 2007, PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen reported that European socialists held a meeting "in the Democrats HQ in Washington," met with officials of the party and Democratic members of Congress, and agreed that "PES activist groups" in various U.S. cities would start working together. The photos of the trip show Rasmussen meeting with such figures as Senator Ben Cardin, Senator Bernie Sanders, officials of the Brookings Institution, Howard Dean, and AFL-CIO President John W. Sweeney, a member of the DSA. The Brookings Institution is headed by former Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott, a proponent of world government who was recently identified in the book Comrade J as having been a pawn of the Russian intelligence service. The socialist connections of Obama and the Democratic Party have certainly not been featured in the Washington Post columns of Harold Meyerson, who happens not only to be a member but a vice-chair of the DSA. Meyerson has praised convicted inside-trader George Soros for manipulating campaign finance laws to benefit the far-left elements of the Democratic Party. Obama's success in the Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses is further evidence of Soros's success. Indeed, Soros has financially contributed to the Obama campaign. It is not surprising that the Chicago Democrat, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, has endorsed Obama. Schakowsky, who endorsed Howard Dean for president in 2004, was honored in 2000 at a dinner sponsored by the Chicago chapter of the DSA. Her husband, Robert Creamer, emerged from federal prison in November 2006 after serving five months for financial crimes. He pleaded guilty to ripping off financial institutions while running a non-profit group. Before he was convicted but under indictment, Creamer was hired by the Soros-funded Open Society Policy Center to sabotage John Bolton's nomination as Ambassador to the U.N. One of the claims made against Bolton was that he had yelled at somebody 20 years ago. The allegation was made by a specialist in "recovered memories." After his release from prison, Creamer released a book, Listen to Your Mother: Stand up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, described by one blogger as the book that was "penned in the pen." A blurb for the book declares, "Some people think that in order to win, Obama consultant Axelrod Democrats need to move to the political center by adopting conservative values and splitting the difference between progressive and conservative positions. History shows they are wrong. To win the next election and to win in the long term, we need to redefine the political center." In addition to writing the book, Creamer is back in business, running his firm, Strategic Consulting Group, and advertising himself as "a consultant to the campaigns to end the war in Iraq, pass universal health care, change America's budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform." His clients have included the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org. In fact, his client list reads like a virtual who's who of the Democratic Party, organized labor, and Democratic Party constituency groups. Creamer's list of testimonials comes from such figures as Democratic Senators Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Harold Meyerson, MoveOn.org founder Wes Boyd, and David Axelrod, a "Democratic political consultant." Axelrod, of course, is much more than just a "Democratic political consultant." He helped State Senator Barack Obama win his U.S. Senate seat in 2004 and currently serves as strategist and media advisor to Obama's presidential campaign.