The many faces of Hillary Clinton

Pictures via an LGF open thread.

I don't know why people complain that Hillary looks "programmed" or "calculating."

She looks as natural and inviting as an Autumn breeze to me.

There will be no questions allowed during the Planetary Emergency

Remember - the science is settled and there is no dispute that anthropogenic global warming is real.

That's why it's standard practice for Al Gore to ban the press during his (very expensive) appearances.

Gore, who reportedly receives $100,000 for personal appearances, apparently has a standard contract that bans the fourth estate from all of his speeches. No one seems to know why, and we can’t ask — on account of we’re out here, and he’s in there.

The Smoking Gun has Gore's standard contract. Terms include:

* No press, no questions, no statements, no interviews
* No photographs (perhaps they make Gore's ass look fat)
* No recording (audio or video) of Gore
* An Apple MacBook Pro must be provided for his presentation.

Brother, can you spare a carbon offset?

Hat tip: Vanderleun.

Ahmadinejad prefers Obama

Iran's terrorist-in-chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to have endorsed Barack Obama.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Spanish El Pais newspaper that the real circles of power in America would not allow Senator Barack Obama to enter the White House, adding that he would have no problems if the junior senator from Illinois were to be elected.

No problem indeed.

Credit for this exclusive photo goes to Junior Cub Reporter Biff Spackle, who continues to do a masterful job locating one-of-a-kind snapshots.

Hat tip: Marina

Bill Moyers' hard-hitting Hitler Interview

This is the full transcript of Moyers' Q&A with the Reichsführer. If I'm not mistaken, Moyers earned a Pulitzer in the 40's for this interview.

BILL MOYERS: In 1933, Adolph Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany with only 44% of the vote. He inherited a struggling country with high inflation and staggering unemployment. How did you unite the country behind you?

ADOLF HITLER: Through the pursuit of peace. Europe will not have peace until the Jewish question has been disposed of.

MOYERS: But by the 1940s, you'd repaired the German economy and unemployment was nearly eradicated.

HITLER: The world has sufficient capacity for settlement, but we must finally break away from the notion that a certain percentage of the Jewish people are intended, by our dear God, to be the parasitic beneficiary of the body, and of the productive work, of other peoples.

MOYERS: Let's start with first things. When did you hear the call to leadership? How did it come?

HITLER: From millions of men . . . one man must step forward who with apodictic force will form granite principles from the wavering idea-world of the broad masses and take up the struggle for their sole correctness, until from the shifting waves of a fre thought-world there will arise a brazen cliff of solid unity in faith and will.

MOYERS: Contrary to some of the rumors that have been circulated about Germany, what are the realities of your Jewish community?

HITLER: Jewry must adapt itself to respectable constructive work, as other peoples do, or it will sooner or later succumb to a crisis of unimaginable proportions.

MOYERS: Are you saying that for the citizens of Germany leave the world of unemployment, leave the world of discrimination, leave the world of that daily struggle and come to...

HITLER: If the international finance -- Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war yet again, then the outcome will not be the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!

MOYERS: Lots of controversy about "Nazism". As I understand it, Nazism attempts to achieve a peaceful world through the establishment of a people's state.

HITLER: A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape.

MOYERS: Adolf Hitler, thank you very much for this opportunity.

HITLER: Well, thank you for having me Bill. Thank you sir.

MOYERS: That's it for the JOURNAL. We'll see you next week and on line.

I'm Bill Moyers.
* * *
Linked by: Don Surber. Thanks!

Hungry Africans thank Al Gore

Thanks, Al Gore.

The world just had one of the coldest winters on record.

And the price of food has skyrocketed...

...thanks to your "global warming" -- oops, I meant "climate change" -- initiatives.

Problem is, researchers, environmentalists and scientists of all political persuasions say that your "carbon offset" businesses are money-making scams and do absolutely nothing for the environment.

And the current lack of sunspots likely indicates a solar cooling cycle beyond human control.

We're hungry, Al Gore. Thanks for all of your help.

New Obama campaign logo

No need to thank me.

I'll gladly forego any royalties in return for a Best of Jeremiah Wright DVD.

The idiocy of Charles Schumer reduced to a single sentence

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) describes his reluctance to pump oil from the United States' Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

What does the president do? He takes out the old saw of ANWR. ANWR wouldn't produce a drop of oil in ten years...

That's exactly what Democrat Bill Clinton said fourteen years ago, when he vetoed legislation that would have permitted drilling in ANWR's coastal plain. Had Clinton signed off then, we'd have started producing oil four years ago.

EIB adds:

The New York Times laments that [high prices haven't reduced demand]. Let me see if I can help the New York Times. "As oil prices soared to record levels in recent years, basic economics suggested that consumption would fall and supplies would rise as producers drilled for more oil. But as prices flirt with $120 a barrel, many energy experts are becoming worried that neither seems to be happening..."

"...But for a variety of reasons including sharply higher drilling costs and a rise of nationalistic policies that restrict foreign investment, these countries are failing to increase their output...." What do you think the key here is? Nationalistic policies? "A rise of nationalistic policies that restrict foreign investment..."

Can I translate that for you? Communist/socialist countries nationalizing their oil businesses kicking out the experts, the oil companies in drilling, producing, and refining. Could I mention Hugo Chavez? Hugo Chavez just nationalized all the oil in Venezuela... Whenever you want to find an interruption and something that doesn't make sense in economics and the laws of supply and demand, I guarantee that somewhere at the root level of it; you're going to find a liberal or a socialist or a communist attempting to manage the market or steal all the profits for him or herself... It's no wonder that Norway and Mexico and Russia -- Russia's got its own political upheavals going on right now; they've got their own political problems, too.

Remember to thank your Democratic representative for $4 gas.

I never had sexual relations with that pastor.

I am outraged by the comments that Wright made.


The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago.


He was not the person I heard every Sunday for the last 20 years.


His comments yesterday were not only divisive and destructive...


...but they give comfort to those who prey on hate.


I never heard any of these inflammatory statements before.


I discovered yesterday that I really didn't know my spiritual advisor of the last two decades.


In other words...


...I never inhaled his wisdom.


What??!? Hell, it worked for Bubba!!

* * *
Gateway Pundit: Obama: "I Seek Daily to Imitate His Faith" ...Until Today
Campaign Spot: Obama's Philadelphia Speech Looks Ridiculous Now
Volokh: "Obama on Wright: He really means it this time"
Linked by: Instapundit, Pajamas Media and American Digest. Thanks!

Lewis: The moment of truth for the left has arrived

Today's must-read is James Lewis, who asserts that "the moment of truth for the left has arrived" and does so in compelling fashion.

Hate mongers collect injustices. If you and I did that, we could collect an endless laundry list about all the bad things somebody did to us. Maybe we have been hurt by men, or by women. Maybe we have been hurt by rich people, or by the angry poor. Maybe we have been hurt by Jews or blacks or whites, and we can put all our built-up rage on their heads.

It's been done many times in the human past; that's exactly the psychology we see at work in Africa, the former Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, and various Muslim nations (among others), when explosive massacres take place. Mob psychology has been manipulated by demagogues throughout history. This is simply the another version of the Kluxers and Jim Crow lynch mobs. Today I see that psychology clearly enough on the Left, but outside of the ranting rooms of verifiable paranoids I don't see it many other places in this country.

Ace provides background on Wright's inspiration.

[Wright said] "I do not in any way disagree with James Cone. Jim is a personal friend of mine."

The leading theorist of Black Liberation Theology is James Cone... In Cone's cosmology, whites are "the devil," and "all white men are responsible for white oppression... What we need is the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy.

Sounds inclusive to me.

PrairiePundit adds that celebrated racist nut Louis Farrakhan is now providing security for Rev. Wright.

In front of 30 television cameras, Wright's audience cheered him on as the minister mocked the media and, at one point, did a little victory dance on the podium. It seemed as if Wright, jokingly offering himself as Obama's vice president, was actually trying to doom Obama; a member of the head table... confirmed that Wright's security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.

Goodbye, Barack. Don't let the door hit you on your ass when you leave the building.

Chart: Kithbridge.

Linked by: The Anchoress. Thanks!

Sharpton 2.0 works to set back race relations four decades

Wright's mission now appears clear: set back race relations several decades and secure a John McCain victory.


Counter-protesters at the National Press Club (Jonn Lilyea photo)
In today's stop on his personal publicity tour, Wright offered this homily:

"This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright," said Rev. Jeremiah Wright this morning at the National Press Club, explaining why he was emerging before a national audience, regardless of what harm it might do to the candidacy of one of his parishioners, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. "This is an attack on the black church."

No, Reverend, this is an attack on your despicable lies and Chomsky-style moral equivalence.

In fact, I like to call Wright Jeremiah Froman, Chicago's Moral Equivalence King.

...we are doing is the same thing al Qaeda is doing under a different colored flag, calling on the name of a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem...

...The government lied in its founding documents, and the government is still lying today..

...The government lied about Pearl Harbor. They knew the Japanese were going to attack...


... The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposefully infected African-American men with syphilis...

...The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color...

...The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strikes law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no, not God bless America, God damn America, that's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God, and she is supreme...

God cursed America? In the bible? I must have missed that day at Sunday School.

Charles Johnson adds:

Associated Press Democratic hack Nedra Pickler, who shall henceforth be known as Nedra “Obvious” Pickler: Analysis: Wright does Obama little good.

That’s the kind of high-quality, incisive analysis you can only get from the mainstream media.

The way I figure it, Hillary Clinton is secretly funding Jeremiah Wright. What else would explain Wright turning up just before the Indiana Primary?

Time Magazine's Joe Klein has a different take: Wright envisions himself as Sharpton 2.0.

Wright's purpose now seems quite clear: to aggrandize himself -- the guy is going to be a go-to mainstream media source for racial extremist spew, the next iteration of Al Sharpton--and destroy Barack Obama.

Update: Transterrestrial agrees and has more.

Update II: Bill O'Reilly: "Compared to Moyers, Larry King waterboards his guests."

Indiana's outrageous new requirement: voters must be alive

Don Surber celebrates today's victory of live voters over dead ones. As you might have guessed, Democrats had sided with the notion that illegal aliens, felons and deceased persons should have their say on election day.

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold an Indiana law aimed at ending voter fraud. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the decision. Stevens said the law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process'."

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented. AP said they voted against Bush vs. Gore in 2000. But that is wrong as that passed 7-2. And of course, that 2000 decision has nothing to do with the Indiana requirement that you show a photo ID.

"We cannot conclude that the statute imposes 'excessively burdensome requirements' on any class of voters," Stevens said. Indeed, the 2 plaintiffs who sued include a snowbird who was registered to vote in both Florida and Indiana. She was refused permission to vote in Indiana because she flashed her Florida driver's license.

In short, the law works.

Put simply, the only thing voter ID deters is fraud.

Without identification, a person cannot apply for welfare, can't drive, can't fly, can't hold a job, can't have a bank account, can't apply for either social security, Medicare or Medicaid, and can't apply for food stamps or WIC.

So much for hurting the "elderly, poor and minorities."

The only folks opposing voter ID appear to be those who demand fraudulent voting, otherwise known as "Democrats."

Jammie Wearing Fool snarks, "...if we can only get this enforced in the other 49 states, there'd be a lot of dead Democrats no longer voting."

Other reax: Macsmind, SCOTUSblog, STACLU, WSJ legal blog (hat tip: Larwyn).

The train-wreck up north

"Access to a waiting list is not access to health care" --Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin, Supreme Court of Canada (Chaoulli v. Quebec)

Last year, the Canadian government issued a series of reports to address the outcry over long wait times for critical tests, procedures and surgeries. Over a two year period:

  • Wait times for knee replacements dropped from 440 to 307 days.
  • Wait times for hip replacements dropped from 351 to 257 days.
  • Wait times for cataract surgeries dropped from 311 to 183 days.
  • Wait times for MRIs dropped from 120 to 105 days.
  • Wait times for CT scans dropped from 81 to 62 days.
  • Wait times for bypass surgeries dropped from 49 to 48 days.

These "improvements" are unheard of in the United States. Waiting 48 days for a bypass or 105 days for an MRI could very well be a death sentence.

The public has fought for 50-plus years to build a publicly funded Medicare system that they’re now telling us isn’t quite working for them. -- Health Care in Canada Round Table 2005

A Commonwealth Fund 2005 International Health Policy Survey (slide 16) showed that 41% of patients in the UK and 33% of patients in Canada waited more than 4 months for non-emergency surgery,. Only 8% American patients waited more than 4 months for surgery.

Meanwhile, in Hamilton, Ontario, hospitals are receiving an infusion of cash to cut wait times for diagnostic procedures and certain surgeries, which have become intolerable.

And these are precisely the type of government-controlled health-care systems proposed by the Democratic candidates. Not only are they destined for failure, they will cost thousands of lives. And with the UK and Canada as examples, everyone can see the train-wreck coming.

Oops. Another Line o' the Day.

Bidinotto:

Katie [Couric], forget worrying about "carbon footprints." The only footprint you should worry about is the one soon to appear on the backside of your skirt, when CBS finally bounces you out on the sidewalk of 52nd Street.

Line o' the day: a party divided

Flopping Aces offers the #1 reason Barack Obama Won’t Be President:

Despite the promise of bringing about national unity and international respect for the United States…the guy can’t even unite his own party.

Excellent point, kemo sabe.

RFK, Jr.'s latest hilarious satire

We last heard from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. when he promoted the whackadoodle leftist meme that the Rethuglicans stole the 2004 election. Not the 2000 election, mind you, but 2004 -- the very year the Kerry campaign bused thousands of out-of-state voters to Wisconsin where they could easily vote early and often in a state with "same day voter registration."

83,000 people executed a same-day registration for Milwuakee County, which is more than 20% of all voting-age residents in the county. Now, Wisconsinites may procrastinate a bit, but in order to believe that number, you'd have to expect that 20% of the county had moved or became newly eligible within the past two years (after the previous national cycle). Not only that, but the state now reports that 10,000 of those registrations cannot be verified, a whopping 12% of all same-day registrations and almost the entire margin of victory for Kerry for the entire state.

While RFK's Rolling Stone story is worthy of its own laugh-track, his latest in Vanity Fair is sure to cause giggling even in the rarefied, low-oxygen atmosphere of Kosworld.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to ‘abolish’ carbon usage and sees a direct comparison to the end of slavery.

According to Kennedy, “industry and government warnings” about avoiding “economic ruin” should not be heeded because abolishing slavery did not cripple the British economy as was predicted “Instead of collapsing, as slavery’s proponents had predicted, Britain’s economy accelerated,” he argued.

...The piece ended on a utopian note with Kennedy imagining that carbon abolition would result in America "[living] free from Middle Eastern wars and entanglements with petty tyrants who despise democracy and are hated by their own people.”

Kennedy didn't describe now the U.S. could eliminate carbon emissions, which will require retooling all automobiles, humans (who exhale carbon dioxide) and volcanoes.

Update: Global Warming Insanity looks like a promising new site that will track much of the carbon craziness.

Update II: Bidinotto highlights the climate menace represented by the Olympic Torch.

"This scourge of criminal bacon-dogs must end!"

The streets of LA are safe from the social tragedy known as bacon-dogs.

"This bacon is a potentially hazardous food."

"It's $1000 [fine] or six months in jail."

This devastating treat has ruined too many lives already. Thank goodness the civics professors running LA have cracked down on these pork-addicted scofflaws.

Translating Barack Obama

Your helpful guide to Obama-speak.

* * *

On Obama's missing flag lapel pin.

Obama on Friday: "This is a phony issue... So let me address it right now... The reason that I don't always wear a flag pin is not that I disrespect the flag, it's that when I started wearing a flag pin after 9/11, I gotta admit that sometimes I would misplace it and so I didn't always put it on."

Obama in October: "You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Translation: I lost my flag pin on 9/11.

* * *
And on Fox News, Chris Wallace asked a question about bipartisanship.

WALLACE: ...Over the years, John McCain has broken with his party and risked his career on a number of issues, campaign finance, immigration reform, banning torture... Senator, if I may, I think one of the concerns that some people have is that you talk a good game about, let’s be post-partisan, let’s all come together... I just want to speak to the larger issue.

The gang of 14... a bipartisan coalition... came together, you weren’t part of it. On some issues where Democrats have moved to the center, partial-birth abortion, Defense of Marriage Act, you stay on the left and you are against both... And so people say, do you really want a partnership with Republicans or do you really want unconditional surrender from them?

OBAMA: No, look, I think this is fair. I would point out, though, for example, that when I voted for a tort reform measure that was fiercely opposed by the trial lawyers, I got attacked pretty hard from the left... During the [John] Roberts [Supreme Court...] nomination, although I voted against him, I strongly defended some of my colleagues who had voted for him on the Daily Kos...

...It is true that when you look at some of the votes that I’ve taken in the Senate that I’m on the Democratic side of these votes, but part of the reason is because the way these issues are designed are to polarize. They are intentionally designed to polarize...

Translation: I won't side with Republicans on any issue, but I will post warm homilies about them on The Daily Kos.

Tony Rezko's investor and Barack Obama

Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter provides an excellent overview of "Barack Obama's Auchi Problem."

Who is Nadhmi Auchi? He's a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who reportedly dealt with Saddam Hussein's regime prior to the Gulf War and whose bank trafficked most of the funds involved in the massive UN Oil-for-food scandal. Convicted of fraud in France in 2003, his request to enter the U.S. in 2005 was denied.

But someone with pull at the State Department was able to secure a visa for him in 2006. The executive summary:

Tony Rezko pimped out Barack Obama to impress Nadhmi Auchi, a bad operator who found the political culture in Chicago and Illinois amenable to his kind of investment acumen. The only problem was that Rezko's deal was in trouble, and Rezko himself was caught up in, among other scandals, a minority-contracting scam with the Dalely administration. At the same time, Rezko was wheeling and dealing with the Blagojevich administration and everyone in the political universe knew he was under federal investigation for it but Obama asked for his help buying a $1.6 million mansion and appeared at a couple of events to help Rezko impress Auchi and others.

Now Obama's memory is faulty because there's that pesky question of judgement, as well as the stain on his meticulously burnished image as a beacon of hope and reform because his relationship with both Rezko and the Machine and politics-as-usual is deeper than he's ever cared to admit. Have I missed anything? Does that make sense now? Do you get the feeling there's still more to the story that we don't know about?

Via RezkoWatch, Rick Moran notes that during a March 14, 2008 with the Chicago Sun-Times, Barack Obama denied helping Auchi enter the country but doesn't know whether his staff assisted the controversial billionaire.

Q: Did you ever help Auchi enter the country?
A: No.
Q: Or your office?
A: Not that I know of.

Moran goes on to explain the shady ties.

Obama himself has been extraordinarily vague about any possible meetings, saying that while he very well may have met Auchi, he doesn’t recall it... [There are serious questions about] the source of money that Rezko used to buy a side lot to Obama’s mansion at a time when he told a court he was flat broke and heavily in debt.

[A] holding company belonging to Auchi... loaned Mr. Rezko $3.5 million dollars just three weeks before Obama and Rezko closed the sale on the property simultaneously –a stipulation by the previous owners that both the lot and house be sold at the same time– thus allowing Obama to purchase his dream house.

...Auchi has a reputation in Great Britain of collecting politicians “the way that other people collect stamps.”

Let's recap.

So Auchi – friend of Saddam, international fraudster, and business partner to one of Chicago’s premiere fixers– gave Rezko the money that allowed Obama to purchase his house. Without the loan, Rezko would not have been able to afford the $125,000 downpayment on the lot and Obama would not have been able to meet the terms set by the sellers.

Did Auchi know that part of that money would be used to help Obama purchase his house? Did Obama know where Rezko’s money came from?

Good questions all. And, thus far, conclusive answers have not been forthcoming.

But if Obama's campaign is truly about "judgment", his associations with extremely shady characters like Rezko and Auchi -- involving possible quid pro quo dealings -- do not speak well for him.

House Democrats demand pullout from Chicago "quagmire"

After a bloody month of shootings with dozens dead, Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid demanded that the federal government take action. Five young people were killed on Wednesday after police say they were "definitely targeted." This brought the total to 15 murders and forty shootings in less than a week.

"Chicago has become a quagmire for police and other armed officials. The occupation of Chicago has simply not worked. This administration's failure to control the catastrophic surge in violence means that we need to pull out. We must let the people of Chicago deal with the situation themselves," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, "Our armed presence in Chicago has attracted extremists to the cause of violence. It is because we are there that this situation has spun out of control. We need a timeline for police withdrawal from Chicago... and we need a commitment from the government to have all armed personnel out of the city by the July 1."

Lines o' the day

President George W. Bush, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, explaining why the Democratic candidates were unable to attend.

Hillary Clinton couldn't get in because of sniper fire and Senator Obama's at church.

Just think - Pamela Anderson and Mitt Romney in the same room. Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Obama and Communism: bumped and updated

Executive Summary: Barack Obama's relationship with former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers appears to go beyond their Woods Fund board membership. Even today, Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, sound utterly unrepentant over their attempts to overthrow the U.S. government in order to install a pro-communist regime.

Perhaps coincidentally, Obama's name was recently discovered on a captured FARC computer. In the documents, FARC -- Colombia's brand of pro-communist terrorists -- implied that it had met with Obama's representatives to secure his support after the election. Interestingly, Dohrn has traveled to Colombia in the recent past in order to organize against Colombia's pro-U.S. government. Is it possible that Dohrn served as a cutout between Obama and FARC? That much is not yet clear, but the question deserves to be asked.

Additionally, Obama's official campaign blogger is Sam Graham-Felsen, who appears to be a hardcore communist by dint of his relationship with Socialist Viewpoint, which promotes the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

Barack Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund's website. While sources such as the Chicago Sun-Times provide a laundry list of Obama's problematic relationships (Rezko, Farrakhan, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Austan Goolsbee), none may prove more damaging than fellow Woods fund directors William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

While the Woods Fund backs highly questionable groups such as the Arab-American Action Network (AAAN) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) -- with attendant ties to MEChA and the New Black Panther Party -- it is Obama's relationship with Ayers that merits additional scrutiny.

Obama's longtime friendship with Ayers goes beyond their dual presence on the Woods Fund board.

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn... [they are] unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.

Neither Ayers nor the Obama campaign would describe the relationship between the two men. Dr. Young described Obama and Ayers as “friends...”

“...Ayers was a terrorist. Bernardine Dohrn was a terrorist. Ayers has never offered one word of apology — he glories in it, thinks it’s terrific. And that to me is not what I would call acceptable or mainstream behavior,” said Dan Polsby, a former law professor at Northwestern who is now dean of George Mason University Law School. “If Obama takes a different view on that — well, OK, that’s data about Obama.”

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune adds:

Obama minimized his relationship by acknowledging only that he knows Ayers. But they have quite a bit more of a connection than that. He's appeared on panels with Ayers, served on a foundation board with him and held a 1995 campaign event at the home of Ayers and his wife, fellow former terrorist Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers even gave money to one of his campaigns... Yet [Obama] showed no qualms about consorting with Ayers and Dohrn.

But who is Ayers? And what did he really do?

Documents provided by the FBI, released under a freedom-of-information act request, provides some unique insights into the nature of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), which was founded by Ayers. I've reproduced a few key snippets of information from the site as background.

This material documents the WUO's unchanging belief in armed struggle and the necessity of the international communist movement to guide their struggles to create revolution in the United States...

Whereas in 1969 the Weatherman extolled CASTRO... and CHE GUEVERA..., in 1976 their formulations relate more closely to the... Chinese revolution... [the statements of the group include:]

"The goal is the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism."

...Today the main tasks of our movement are: 1) to build an anti-imperialist working class movement that can join with the oppressed peoples, overthrow imperialism and establish socialism; and 2) To build a communist part to lead the struggle."

One of the central figures of the WUO was its co-founder, William Charles Ayers, who helped organize the Flint, Michigan "War Council" held Dec. 27-31, 1969.

It was at [this War Council] that the decision was made to go underground and to engage in guerilla warfare against the U.S. government... all of the attendees...


...were highly sympathetic to [the Marxist-Leninist] ideology.

As part of their plan to overthrow the U.S. government, the Weather Underground created weapons caches and bomb factories. An accidental explosion in one factory killed several WUO members.

Inspection of the apartment yielded an amount of explosives and bomb making paraphernalia... fingerprints of [Weather Underground] members were found in this apartment [including] William Charles Ayers.

...BILL AYERS is a while male who was born on December 26, 1944, in Oak Park, Illinois. AYERS was one of the authors of the "Weatherman Statement" upon which the WUO was founded... [and is] one of the leaders of the organization since its founding... AYERS submerged into the underground in early 1970 and remains therein. [WUO speakers have stated:]

"People still thank that U.S. imperialism is inevitable. Not only is it not inevitable, but it is losing... What we are about is becoming a part of a struggle that is going to defeat imperialism... World communism is going to turn around the process that has existed for thousands of years. The reason Cuba is poor now is because of 300 years of Spanish imperialism and 100 years of American imperialism..."

"Liberation comes only with the gun."

"...the WUO is headed towards a red-white army which will attack the U.S. from inside while the Viet Cong attacks from outside."

Lest anyone think Ayers is any less radicalized today, despite his collegiate credentials, one need only peruse a recent blog entry from April 13, 2008.

We need to organize and mobilize against illegal wars of conquest and domination, send a sharp warning right now as the powerful mobilize to bomb Iran under the banner of the same exhausted lies and rationalizations, and press the demand for peace in concrete terms:

1. Withdraw all mercenary forces immediately.

2. Set a date-certain—within three months—for all U.S. troops to leave Iraq and Afghanistan.

3. Dismantle all U.S. military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

4. Renounce all claims to the natural resources of Iraq.

5. Call for the creation of an independent international commission to assess and monitor the amount of reparations the U.S. owes to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is only a start, and it is still a choice—solidarity with all people, or endless war and death. As King reminded us, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable...

I’m against [imperialism], and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good—must win.

His wife, Bernardine Dohrn, is no more repentent than he. According to Next Left News, Dohrn spoke at the 2005 National Conference on Organized Resistance. In 2007, Dorhn wrote a letter to the editor of The Nation stating her disappointment in the coverage of her speech to students.

[There is an urgent need] to reject the framework of US military and economic empire, to forge active opposition to white supremacy and grapple with the issue of multiracial organization, and to reckon with the importance of direct action to organizing and educating...

To this day, she appears to recommend a revolutionary overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a socialist (Marxist-Leninist) state.

“We are living with a permanent war…and a…national security state. How do we go towards building a radical movement?" ...“Terrorism means any opposition to the US government.”

Turning to alternative models of development in the world, Dohrn spoke about Venezuela as a counterpoint to US cultural hegemony. In Venezuela she pointed out a “Democratic, Peaceful, Bolivarian, Revolutionary” government is feeding the people and providing healthcare, thanks to the presence of Cuban doctors... We must remember that “the Black freedom movement” is the cornerstone of our struggle...

“The US invented modern day terrorism".

...A committed radical and revolutionary at 63, Dohrn offered this insight: “The difference between reform and revolutionary struggles is linking the issues…” Addressing the entire audience she offered an apology: “I’m deeply sorry, we never thought we’d leave you this world.”

Put simply, Ayers and Dohrn -- Obama's friends and backers -- are Marxist-Leninists who decry capitalism and refuse to repent for their violent attempts to overthrow the U.S. government.

Interestingly, the twin themes of Obama and communist revolution echoed in a recent discovery of a terrorist computer in South America.

Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker notes an important snippet in Investor's Business Daily. Documents captured by the government of Columbia, which has battled a Marxist guerilla insurgency known as FARC, point to a relationship between the terrorist group and the Obama campaign.

...Admittedly, it pales compared with other material from the dead thug's computer - such as FARC efforts to obtain uranium or Hugo Chavez's $300 million support.

But the little Obama reference within the 15 FARC letters released by the Colombian government signals a disturbing pattern of contacts with rogue actors. It's not the first time, and Obama has yet to distance himself.

In a Feb. 28 letter, FARC chieftain Raul Reyes cheerily reported to his inner circle that he met "two gringos" who assured him "the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support 'Plan Colombia' nor will he sign the TLC (Free Trade Agreement)."

Aside from some interesting possibilities about who these "gringos" are - a congressional delegation did visit Ecuador and an international leftist "congress" was held in Quito around this time - the real question is why anyone secretly consorting with FARC would be able to speak for presidential candidate Obama...

Interestingly, Dohrn has visited Colombia to rail against the pro-U.S. government! Is it possible that she served as a cutout to FARC for the Obama campaign?

At the request of ... human rights groups, Cassel conducted another major investigation in 1998. He was asked to organize an unofficial tribunal to investigate a Colombian Air Force bombing... With help from colleague Bernardine Dohrn, director of the law school’s Children and Family Justice Center, Cassel convened an unofficial “tribunal of opinion” in Chicago. The tribunal, chaired by former Illinois Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon, unanimously found the Colombian government responsible for the bombing and recommended proper prosecutions. The government was invited to the tribunal and declined to participate, so Cassel and Dohrn went to Colombia to present their case to the people.

The American Thinker's Lance Fairchok provides one more data point. Obama's official campaign blogger is Sam Graham-Felsen, who appears to be a hardcore communist by dint of his relationship with Socialist Viewpoint, which promotes the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

The mission of Socialist Viewpoint is anything but mainstream. Except, perhaps, if you work for Barack Obama.

The Socialist Workers Organization was formed to advance the revolutionary Marxist political program in the United States. Our members are long time active participants in the socialist and labor movements. We agree with Karl Marx that society is divided into social classes whose interests are irreconcilable.

The capitalist ruling class of the United States exercises a virtual dictatorship not only over American society, but also over the entire world. This capitalist class rule is the basic cause of the poverty, wars, and the degradation of the natural environment...

Socialism, the ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the working class, and the removal of profit from the system of production, is the aim of Socialist Viewpoint, which reflects the political views of the Socialist Workers Organization.

Didn't we try that experiment in the Soviet Union? I mostly forget how it turned out, except for the one hundred million dead.

Just what is it with Barack Obama and Communism? His father, his spiritual mentor, his fellow Woods Fund board members and his official campaign blogger all seem to fit the Communist mold. I think Obama needs to explain his position on Communism and his odd reliance on the principles and personnel devoted to Marxism.

* * *
These important questions remain unanswered:

* Will Obama disclose his full relationship with Ayers and Dohrn?
* Will Obama disavow his relationship with Ayers and Dohrn as well as return any money that they have donated to him in the past?
* Were Obama's representatives speaking directly or indirectly with the communist terrorists known as FARC?
* Will Obama completely denounce Marxist-Leninist ideology, which was espoused by his father as well as friends like Ayers and Dohrn and groups such as FARC?
* Why did Obama employ a hard-core Marxist as his official campaign blogger?

Someone needs to ask these questions... and they need to be asked sooner rather than later.

Update: Gateway Pundit has intriguing new insights into the relationship between Ayers and Obama.

Death Burger 3583

That's what I'd call it -- but then, I have naturally high cholesterol. Bernie sent me the link to AOL's high calorie fast food featuring the superstar of fat.

That would be Wendy's Baconator, a heart-busting extravaganza of sodium, saturated fat and delicious beef n' bacon. Chock full of fat (103 grams, or roughly double the normal recommended daily intake), salt (1800 milligrams, almost an entire day's worth), and calories (1680, ditto), the Baconator features an unrivaled taste experience (and angina).

Quick! Rub the paddles together... Clear!