Socialist Obama: It Could Be

By Tom Graham - Part 2 (Editor: Graham continues his brief, begun here, for specific policy evidence of President Barack Obama's socialist ideals and intentions.) Another one-two level economic mainstay, the construction industry, especially housing, is also an Obama target. Control of housing is cleverly approached from different angles. The issue of increasing traffic congestion makes public transit projects popular. However, the moving of people without autos is only an incidental byproduct of “transit oriented development.” This features aggressive campaigning by advocates of very high-density, heavily-subsidized housing. Although this was around before the emergence of Obama, it was announced during the Democratic Convention that the attack would now be aggressively pursued. Various groups connected to the “Progressive” movement see this as a step in control and Socializing of housing.

Good to their word, the Obama administration announced in mid-January that priorities for transit project funding would be based on the level of development opportunity created. The criteria of reducing travel time would be rescinded. Can everyone out there spell “Socialized housing?”

Many real estate brokers will recall implement-ation of the Community Reinvestment Act, whereby they were urged, sometimes threatened, to direct minority buyers away from “ghetto” enclaves, ostensibly for the goal of integration. Radical activist Saul Alinsky campaigned for implementation of the Act with the hope that it would lead to the crippling of banks, overloading of welfare rolls, and disruption of local governments. This strategy was taught to ACORN volunteers by Obama. The policy required brokers to abandon the universal practice of qualifying buyers by verifying enough income to afford the expense of home ownership. Brokers were instructed to direct buyers to certain lenders who package risky “sub-prime” loans into incorporated instruments with phony high ratings. Brokers and bankers had lived through the sub-prime underwater loan fiasco of the 80s, and the incredible incompetence of Resolution Trust, which was organized to dispose of the millions of HUD-foreclosed properties.

Astute brokers and investors predicted that resurrection of sub-prime lending would flood the market with homes having more debt than value. Few realized it would total trillions and cause the current national financial disaster. This contrived “crisis opportunity” paves the way for Socialist takeover. People without adequate income, encouraged by liberal policies to purchase homes, will build little equity and lack pride of ownership. They become ripe for Socialized housing. We haven’t met anyone who doesn’t consider the sub-prime market to be the cause of the current recession. Nor are there many who don’t believe this crisis to be a forerunner to government interference with housing and the construction industry.

The debacle hasn’t discouraged more of the same. Lenders are scraping the bottom for unqualified buyers and aggressively advertising loans of 105%-110% of value. An example of the market: 65% of all Nevada households owe more than their home’s value, according to American CoreLogic. Three days after Christmas, Obama gave blank checks to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without announcing any strategy, encouraging speculators to pour money in. Analysts consider it money down a rat-hole.

FHA guaranteed a quarter of all US home loans in ’09, having learned nothing from the 80s. For the first time in history cash reserves are below the Congressional stipulated minimum. The government has taken over 80% of Fannie and Freddie, and will take the remainder after the forthcoming complete failure, which in turn will lead to complete control of the housing industry, in contrived Communist style.

Obama has blamed loans that couldn’t be paid back for the crisis, although the architect of sub-primes and long-time Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines, is one of his economics advisors. It should also be well noted that as general counsel for ACORN, Obama sued banks to force them to make loans to low income buyers.

The President views health insurance as a right, and as an egotistical personal goal, worth political risks. In all the thousands of incomprehensible pages of proposed legislation, there lurks the “public option.” Make no mistake about this, titled “affordable choice,” being the entire motivation behind the issue of health care reform.

First of all, this is a classic case of manufacturing a problem and selling a solution to the non-existent situation. The 47 million uninsured hype is a count of everyone who may be without a policy for as little as one day during a year. Subtract the young and healthy who can afford insurance but choose not to have it, and those in the country illegally, and the figure is 5 million. Of course the “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens makes them eligible for health care entitlement.

Accounting for one-sixth or one-fifth of the economy, depending on who does the calculation, it is an essential element of the Socialist movement. Little intelligence is needed to see that private health care providers and insurance firms cannot compete with subsidized government programs that have no bottom line commitments. Consumers rationally choose the cheaper. The public is told that creates competition that will drive costs down. At the same time, they oppose the ultimate competition of an interstate market, because that would stall Socialization.

A key element of the confusing legislative mess is a federal subsidy for most people’s insurance. The fine print reveals that this will not take effect until 2014. Legislation calls for mandatory purchase of specified insurance to force everyone out of their chosen policies. Willful failure can result in a $25,000 fine and a year in jail, or $250,000 plus five years in jail for felony evasion. People who want additional, more costly “Cadillac” plans will be taxed. Preferential deal-making by Obama provides exemption from the tax for union members, who constitute the majority of “Cadillac” plan holders, as well as an Obama voter base.

Obama’s press secretary advised us after Christmas that the administration’s goal was to stop plans where employees are given better than average insurance plans as part of their compensation. Those considered excessive by Obama czars would be eliminated. Articulating Obama’s position, Speaker Pelosi stated that health insurance companies are the problem, and there would be a crackdown, including a requirement that they spend 85% of their revenues on benefits.

A temporary back-off to mollify the skeptical popular majority, calls for the private companies to participate in “non-profit” plans. If there is foot-dragging, the public option will be triggered. The trigger is a foregone finality. This is one major segment of the economy that could start out as Communist with the intent to make it Socialist. A feature of all plans is the requirement that people cannot be denied membership because of pre-existing ailments. This would be like insuring your car after an accident. In other words, health insurance becomes a Socialist redistribution of wealth.

Of course with the possible loss of a filibuster–proof Senate, “Obamacare” it is not a done deal. The closed-door meetings, taking the place of traditional open bi-cameral conferences, have so-far failed to produce Congressional agreement. The administration may ignore political repercussions and fight for this ultimate command-and-control segment of government, while ignoring the lack of Constitutional provision for any of it.

A major element in soaring medical costs, frivolous lawsuits, could be corrected with tort reform. However, this has been carefully sidestepped at the direction of trial lawyers, who are the second largest contributors to the Democratic Party.

A big step toward Socialized medicine is the proposal to reduce Medicare age to 55 or lower. Where the money comes from is anybody’s guess. Taking $500 billion out of one Medicare pocket and putting it into the other pocket is the plan to help pay for it. The SCHIP “children’s program,” insuring people up to age 25, and as old as 37 in some cases, and covering many who are financially sound, is another inroad to Socialized medicine.

You have noticed the TV ads endorsing reform. These are part of a sweetheart deal with Obama, who promised favors to the drug industry in return for a $150 million ad campaign, paid for by pharmaceutical firms. With monumental hypocrisy the left demonizes the drug industry, while simultaneously taking their money.

Columnist and self-styled economist Paul Krugman has announced that Obamacare critics are the “lunatic fringe.” He added, “…now that (Republican) policies of tax cuts and deregulation have led us into an economic quagmire, their prescription for recovery is…tax cuts and deregulation.”

A recent metaphor likened the Socialist health insurance takeover struggle to the Greek myth, where Sisyphus is condemned to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. Although Obama may temporarily pull back after the Massachusetts message, we cannot envision abandonment of this capstone of his first year whether he is a Socialist or a Communist.

Socialist Obama: Could it be?

By Tom Graham - Part 1 During a recent “Meet the Press” the host, with feigned indignation, asked a Senator, “You’re not calling the President a socialist, are you?” Without waiting for a response, he repeated the question for emphasis. This performance highlights the hijacking of political semantics. “Socialist” was replaced by “Liberal” which, in turn, became a pejorative, and now “Progressive” is preferred, and used in titles of dozens of political and welfare advocacy groups. Constantly morphing ideas and permutations of definitions make it hard to compartmentalize politicians. An accepted basic view is that Socialism advocates state or collective ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods. That essential hallmark of freedom, private ownership of property, is prohibited. Note how the current abuses of eminent domain stretch the traditional definitions of public use.

Marx called Socialism a transition between capitalism and Communism. As any high school sophomore should be able to recite from Marx’s Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, “To each according to his needs; from each according to his ability.” An advocate of these ideas is indeed a Socialist. To quote National Socialist German Workers’ Party leader, Adolph Hitler, “The needs of society come before the individual’s needs.”

Before labeling Obama and his inventory of actions, we must also note the academic definition of Communism. “All economic activity is controlled by the state, dominated by a single political party.” Further: “A system based on holding all property in common, with actual ownership by the state.” Differences between the categories, reduced to simplest form: Socialism actually takes ownership while Communism totally controls enterprise, which ostensibly could remain private. This administration’s actions overlap both, with the common goal of doing away with Capitalism. Degrees of success are temporarily limited by public resistance. Constitutional protections are rejected as archaic annoyances.

Obama, equipped with glibness and arrogance, was dismissed as a buffoon by serious economists. His experience was largely limited to preaching Alinsky to ACORN volunteers. Without apologies, he surrounded himself with cabinet and advisor appointees, and a cadre of czars with no accountability, most of whom have serious ethical, legal and moral taints. The czars have no Congressional approval. Uniformly visible in that group is the disturbing tendency to demonize the concepts of private property ownership and free markets. The last 18 presidents averaged 46% of their advisers from the private sector. Obama has 8%.

As perennial presidential candidate Norman Thomas, and others, famously said, “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation without knowing how it happened.”

Fabianism (strategy of establishing Socialism by gradual means), used with patience by subversive movements world-wide, is not in vogue with this administration.

To some degree or another, The administration has addressed all the elements of the Socialist or Communist state, with varying degrees and a common thread of shrinking Capitalism with alarming speed. The advice of Obama mouthpiece Rahm Emanuel is, “Never miss an opportunity to take advantage of a crisis.” Tactics of Chicago-style patronage, populism and corruption, unabashedly taken to the national level, have caught many flat-footed.

To correct what he blames his predecessor for, “long years of drift,” Obama is moving to control major industries in Communist fashion. What better start than the showpiece of American industry for a century, automobile manufacture? The President has no desire to own the auto companies, merely to control them. Perhaps he has read of the disastrous Soviet attempts at controlling manufacture with bureaucrats making all decisions.

Obama wants control while allowing experienced management to take care of the details. Bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler certainly were never meant to be loans, but rather a grab of equity. The action instantly took 78.3% of General Motors by the government, followed by a gift of 17.5% to the auto workers union. Bond value was whittled down to maybe 10% of GM equity. Investors without rational recognition of Communist control strategy held out hope for a rebound.

A sidebar of the auto industry takeover was the “Cash for Clunkers” fiasco which, at taxpayer expense, amounted to a marginal cost per car of $24,000. It had an effect of about 32 thousandths-of-one-percent CO2 reduction. It stimulated car purchases at the expense of future business a few months down the road. For example, by the end the year, Colorado new car registrations were 29.8% less than last year.

Al Gore & the Aztec Priests

By William Watson When the Spanish first arrived in Mexico, they discovered that Aztec high priests sacrificed 10,000 still-beating hearts to the god Quetzalcoatl every December 22nd in order to cause the days to stop growing shorter. This religious belief was confirmed, as the days began to grow longer again. Al Gore is the high priest of our new religion, global warming. He insists that if we sacrifice our standard of living, our economy, and millions of American jobs, that we can save the planet and stop global temperatures from increasing. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for us, global temperatures began to drop before he was able to perform his sacrifice.

Throughout the 1990s I believed in global warming and taught it as fact in university geography courses, mostly due to the liberal media and education which I received at the University of California. It wasn’t until I read Senator Inhofe’s 2005 speech before the Senate, that my faith in Global Warming began to be seriously challenged. Inhofe called Global Warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” I then began to reconsider my position on the issue.

I learned of the Medieval Warming Period, that Vikings farmed in Greenland and the earth continued to warm until the 14th century. This Medieval Warming Period was ignored by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a way reminiscent of Joseph Stalin erasing Bolsheviks who fell out of favor by simply erasing them from photographs. Instead the IPCC invented the “hockey stick” graph claiming that the earth’s temperature was basically unchanged until the 19th century when it began to drastically increase.

The data (which we now know was falsified by environmental “scientists”) shows that after the Medieval Warming Period, the earth began to cool until the Little Ice Age of the 16th to 18th centuries. Then it began to warm again through the 19th and 20th centuries. Al Gore insists this was caused by human activity, but I began to wonder what degree humans could complete with heat produced by solar radiation. I became convinced that any contribution by humans would be infinitesimal compared to the energy produced by our sun.

In 2007 I heard the Danish climatologist/economist Bjorn Lomborg speak to the Denver World Affairs Council on the costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol. He reminded us of the importance of doing a cost/benefit analysis, warning that “we are in danger of implementing a cure that is more costly than the original affliction: economic analyses clearly show that it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures." Shortly thereafter, I read Christopher Horner’s “Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming”, and while on a fellowship to Oxford that same year saw the UK documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle.” Most convincing was their graph showing the correlation between solar radiation and average global temperatures, confirming my hunch that the sun was overwhelmingly the major contributor.

Over the past several years ice caps and glaciers have begun to grow again. Even my heating bills show that 2009 was colder than 2008, which was colder than 2007. Yesterday it snowed in Houston, setting a record. Those who are convinced that humans really make a difference to global temperature now should encourage us to burn coal and oil to save the planet from a coming Ice Age. However, it is more likely due to the regular fluctuations of solar radiation, which we should learn to live with, rather than allowing dishonest scientists and politicians to sacrifice our global economy, or for that matter 10,000 still-beating hearts.

Strategic Operations and the Jihadi Enemy

By John Guandolo As we look at recent events, it becomes clear that the evidence points to the fact that these were not just acts of jihad linked by Islamic doctrine. They were also operations which drew on most or all of the key elements that we see in overseas operations, and which have we previously seen prior to or during operations here in the States. Here is what we might call their five-part planning matrix, along with a look at how it maps out for two homeland incidents this year as well as the strike in India last year.

Al Qaeda / Jihadi Op Planning:

1) A good target is a target until mission completion (World Trade Center 1993 = WTC 2001)

2) A good penetration location once is a good penetration location again (White House: Alamoudi)

3) The key operational guy always leaves before the Op (Ramzi Yousef: WTC 1)

4) Target preference is communicated via some medium (AQ discussing targeting US economic center)

5) Religious/Legal Approval for Op must be given (Blind Sheikh in US)

Hasan: FT HOOD

1) Military personnel are always a target (Sgt Akbar, et al)

2) Hasan was on DHS Taskforce (http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/PTTF_ProceedingsReport_05.19.09.PDF) see page 29 - odd.

3) The prior Muslim Chaplain at Ft Bragg left and put Hasan in charge as the lay Muslim Chaplain. Why did the Chaplain leave and when?

4) Target Preference Texas = http://armiesofliberation.com/archives/2009/10/10/yemens-al-qaeda-sets-targets-as-gulf-oil/

5) Email approval from Awlaki (see attached UNCLAS DHS reports)

Lashkar-e-Toiba: MUMBAI

1) NA

2) Recce Team of David Headley and Tahawwur Hassan Rana (Lashkar-e-Toiba) arrested in US by FBI last month

3) Both lived and traveled extensively to locations attacked in Mumbai and left prior to attacks.

4) Individuals in Pakistan and UK provided leadership for operation - and Headley met with several LET guys in India and went to Pakistan afterwards. Team apparently (evidence still being collected) went and reconned all locations. Headley was at Nariman House (Jewish) where he posed as a Jew.

5) Approval from Pakistan for operational team.

Boyd et al: North Carolina

1) Targets were numerous overseas, no specific targets in US

2) Unknown

3) Op didn't happen so unknown - also, this was a traveling jihadi roadshow...different from a singular attack

4) Bad guys traveled extensively and likely chose wide variety of targets (statements indicate they were to fight in Algeria, and conduct attacks elsewhere as well)

5) Unsure if approval was given in US or Pakistan. Group had direct ties to Gulbuddin Heckmatyar which means Pakistani ISI was giving guidance as well.

The author was a top counter-terrorism expert for the FBI before leaving the Bureau in 2008. He now works in the Washington area as a consultant and trainer, and is a fellow of the Centennial Institute in Denver.

The Human Face of Freedom

What the Berlin Wall Anniversary MeansBy Joe Gschwendtner

The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago this week. Anyone in Central or Eastern Europe today, 70 or older, has spent over two-thirds of their life under Communism or jackbooted Nazis. That is, unless your courage and ambition made you willing to risk life itself like our neighbor, Emerencia Marton Kanan. Emi was born into impoverished, post-war, Communist Hungary in 1945. At age four, weakened by ingested chemicals, Emi was near death on a straw bed until a man with rare Rh negative blood offered an 11th hour transfusion. Finally off the grim reaper’s list, she then contracted TB and was removed to a hospice/sanitarium. Written off again, her mom brought Emi to her native village Nyoger at a higher, more beneficial altitude. In one of life’s outlying moments, Emi survived on curd from the churn in the milk house to sate her hunger. Open spaces, food of the earth, and perhaps the scent of more freedom put the tuberculosis into remission.

Rough hewn and semi-skilled, Emi’s Dad was a hunted man. A former government worker, he was punished with menial jobs—shoveling coal and building Budapest subways in the 50’s. He had narrowly saved his own life earlier by having escaped a forced shipment to post-war Russian labor camps. He taught Emi two things: Freedom is worth fighting for and to never give up.

At 21 Emi met Frank. He was heady with ideas, ambition and dreams of freedom, ever plotting to escape Communism. Their romance was epic in speed and intensity. They were married in 1967 and Frank Junior arrived ten months later.

Even as Frank Senior planned their Iron Curtain escape, he left the collectives to set up a welding shop with friends in an attempt to rise above subsistence level. His dreams died with him when he was electrocuted by a faulty transformer. Emi was now a widow at age 22. She worked at a local school but her attention was riveted by politics and economics.

After hearing other stories of escape, Emi engineered her own. With $140 and a Communist visa to vacation in Yugoslavia, she located a smuggler who ran human flesh across the Adriatic to Italy. On short notice she convinced her mother to join her, and, along with her sedated son, fled in the night (a story paralleling Disney’s “Night Crossing”).

During eight months in a refugee camp and refusing “easy” prostitution money, Emi survived by ironing clothes for $1.50 a day. On her own terms, she finally secured a passage for three to Chicago. Emi, by dint of her own courage would go on to self-educate, re-marry, and find her way to Colorado and the investment industry, subsequently attaining stratospheric levels of success for a female in the 1970’s. She and her husband Pat now enjoy a reflective life together as they teach photographic techniques and market artistic old world photography in Castle Rock, Colorado.

If there is anyone who can prove the case of America, as land of the free and home of the brave, it is she……….

Joe Gschwendtner is a Castle Rock businessman and writer.