French Socialists Object to Equality

And here I thought socialism was all about making everyone equal:

French Socialist politicians voiced outrage on Tuesday at the parading of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn handcuffed and unshaven in the United States before he has a chance to defend himself on charges of attempted rape.

Arrested on Saturday and charged with sexually assaulting a chambermaid at a luxury New York hotel, Strauss-Kahn was made by police to walk manacled in front of cameras on his way to a courthouse, and his appearance before a judge was televised.

Former Culture Minister Jack Lang described the treatment of the Socialist presidential frontrunner -- whose political career is now in tatters -- as a "lynching" that had "provoked horror and aroused disgust."

The U.S. justice system, he said, was "politicized" and the judge appeared to have been determined to "make a Frenchman pay" by denying the head of the International Monetary Fund bail even though his lawyer had offered to post a $1 million bond.

To many Americans, the handling of Strauss-Kahn reflected an egalitarian tradition that all crime suspects get the same treatment, regardless of their wealth or power.

Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry denounced "degrading images" and said France was lucky to have a law on the presumption of innocence that bars media from showing defendants in handcuffs before they are convicted.

In the true spirit of socialism Strauss-Kahn has been brought down from his lofty perch as a high powered, rich bureaucrat and made to live like the worst among us. They shouldn't be upset - they should be proud.

Obama's First Term is Over

At least as far as governing goes.  He's now in campaign mode and I don't expect him to do much else until November 2012.  From Top of the Ticket:

Contrary to Barack Obama's schedule yesterday, the next presidential election is not the first Tuesday in May of 2011. It's still 558 days away on the first Tuesday in November 2012.

But you'd never know it by the president's blatant cross-country campaigning and fundraising that appeared to have little to do with governing Wednesday and contained even more of those confusing visual contradictions that reveal this president's political priorities.

Read the rest of it here.  it's all about winning re-election now because Obama knows that once he's completely unfettered by politics in a second term he can finish off the country and turn us into the socialist utopia of which he's long dreamed.

The ACLU-Commie Connection

Ever wonder why the ACLU seems to regularly side with organizations and issues that seem to oppose traditional American values?

Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party.

Kengor found a May 23, 1931 letter in the archives signed by ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, written on ACLU stationery, to then American Communist Party Chairman William Z. Foster asking him to help ACLU Chairman Harry Ward with his then-upcoming trip to Stalin’s Russia.

The letter suggests Ward intended to visit the Soviet Union to find “evidence from Soviet Russia” that would undermine the capitalist profit motive.

Baldwin wrote the letter at a time when Stalin was deporting 1.8 million Ukrainian peasants to Siberia under his policy of the forced collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million Ukrainians in the two years that followed.

The Ukrainian government considers this to have been an act of genocide.

Foster was a key figure in the early years of the American communist movement who belonged to the ACLU’s National Committee in the 1920s, according to FBI documents. He later wrote a book titled “Toward Soviet America” in 1932 and also testified under oath before Congress that he opposed American democracy.

There's nothing surprising about any of this. Communists of that day, and ACLU lawyers of today, know the best way to bring down America was to use its own rules and laws against it, and there's nobody better at that than the ACLU. The connection seems pretty obvious.

The Bearded Marxist and His Fellow Travelers

Democrat Chris Coons, the former "bearded Marxist" who is running for Senate in Delaware, has a rather shady group of friends:

Talk about an inconvenient truth.

After all the furor over alleged racist signs or words at Tea Party rallies, the media is ignoring the shocking fact that 12 of the 25 groups endorsing Delaware Democrat Chris Coons for the United States Senate over Republican Christine O'Donnell have turned up on the quite official list of the "One Nation Working Together" rally -- as formal co-sponsors with supporters of the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. And, no kidding, the Communist Party.

Did I mention the Coons 12 are also holding hands with the International Socialist Organization? Plus the Democratic Socialists of America?

You read that right.

And the media wants to you believe that Christine O'Donnell is crazy.

Today's Reading List

You might want to get your pre-order in for this one:

Part biography, part history, part detective story, RADICAL-IN-CHIEF reveals the carefully hidden tale of Barack Obama’s political past. Stanley Kurtz, whose research helped inject the Bill Ayers and ACORN issues into the 2008 presidential campaign, presents the results of more than two years of digging into President Obama’s radical political world. The book is filled with previously unknown information about the president’s past, tied together by a bold argument about what Obama’s deepest political convictions really are.

RADICAL-IN-CHIEF marshals a wide array of never-before-seen evidence to establish that the president of the United States is indeed a socialist. Tracing an unbroken thread of socialist

Radical-in-Chief Pre-order 

activities and political partnerships, from Obama’s youth through his community organizing days and beyond, the book confirms that the president’s harshest critics have been right about his socialism all along.

RADICAL-IN-CHIEF also exposes the truth about community organizers–the socialist beliefs they hold and hide, and how they trained and groomed a president. Obama’s community organizer colleagues had a strategy for slowly and stealthily turning the United States into a socialist nation. The Obama administration is carrying out that strategy today.

This book will forever change our national debate about who Barack Obama is.

"We Have Plenty of Money"

They just have to figure out how to take it from you:

While the federal government sinks deeper into debt than any time since World War II, former White House “green jobs” adviser Anthony Van Jones said it was time to stop worrying about budget deficits and pressure Washington to take more money from American businesses to fund larger social and infrastructure projects.

“This is a rich country. We have plenty of money, and if you don’t believe me, ask Haliburton,” Jones told a group of progressive bloggers and activists at the Netroots Nation convention Friday. “There’s plenty of money out there; don’t fall into the trap of this whole deficit argument.”

“The only question is how to spend it,” he added.

American corporations currently face the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world, according to the Tax Foundation.

This guy is not an outlier. The Administration is full of people like this who believe the purpose of businesses and corporations is to generate tax revenue for the government.

 Oh, and by the way, that's YOUR purpose too.

The People May Be Smarter Than We Thought

At least 55% of them (from The Campaign Spot):

The latest poll by Democracy Corps, the firm of James Carville and Stan Greenberg, has Republicans leading on the generic ballot among likely voters, 48 percent to 42 percent.

Deep in the poll, they ask, “Now, I am going to read you a list of words and phrases which people use to describe political figures. For each word or phrase, please tell me whether it describes Barack Obama very well, well, not too well, or not well at all.”

On “too liberal,” 35 percent of likely voters say it describes Obama “very well,” 21 percent say “well,” 21 percent say “not too well,” and 17 percent say “not well at all.” In other words, 56 percent of likely voters consider Obama too liberal.

When asked about “a socialist,” 33 percent of likely voters say it describes Obama “very well,” 22 percent say “well,” 15 percent say “not too well,” and 25 percent say “not well at all.”

In other words, 55 percent of likely voters think “socialist” is a reasonably accurate way of describing Obama.

The question now is how many of those 55% want a socialist president?

US Heading Down an Unsustainable Road

Obama's socialist redistribution scheme is having a damaging effect on the economy:

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.

The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.

Hope. Change.

Elena Kagan, Avowed Socialist

Elena Kagan won't be a stealth nominee who will suddenly turn moderate as some of the lefty blogs fear.  From Red State:

This proves Elena Kagan is an open and avowed socialist. The woman declares that socialists must stick together instead of fracture in order to advance a socialist agenda, which Kagan advocates.

You can see for yourself right here (PDF).

Keep in mind that Kagan wrote her thesis at the height of the cold war praising a group that collaborated with our enemies

This ought to spark some interesting conversations.

Political Quote of the Day

From Rep. Paul Ryan, talking about the Greek debt crisis (h/t Say Anything):

What we are seeing is the failure of European socialism and social welfare states. What is basically happening here is this sovereign debt crisis could come over and spread to us. We’ve got to make sure we put in the right kind of fiscal controls, the right kind of balancing to prevent this from happening. Because what’s happening is the markets are questioning the viablility of sovereign debt. The markets are questioning whether or not governments are going to be able to live up to all the promises and debt that they have racked up. …
Sooner or later you run out of spending other people’s money with welfare states.

The Democrats haven't learned that yet, but they will.

Political Cartoon of the Day

Seen on Facebook:

I saw the future of Greece and other socialist countries just last night. My wife and I went to Dairy Queen and sat next to a young family with a boy, probably age one or so, in a stroller. The family was sharing their ice cream with him, something he was pretty insistent about. The longer the wait for the next spoonful the more agitated he'd get.

Suddenly, the ice cream supply gave out. There was no more, and the kid went into a full angry rage. How could this happen? How could there be an end to the ice cream?

I mentioned this was Greece's future, but it's really their present. They country is in a full screaming rage that the government "ice cream" has run out.  Their emotional maturity level pretty much matches the one-year old at Dairy Queen.  That rage will spread to other socialist countries as their "ice cream" runs out too.

And our day is coming.

Political Quote of the Day

From Rev. Al Sharpton (from Gateway Pundit):

Last month Al Sharpton claimed, “Americans overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected Barack Obama.”
On Sunday the Democratic Leader stuck to his socialist theme. Sharpton told a congregation in Connecticut,“The dream was to make everything equal in everybody’s house”
So, can we call them socialists now?

I'll bet the Rev. Al has more cool stuff in his house than I have in mine. Can I just go over there and "equal" things up?

And as I recall the dream was that people would be judged "by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin".  Somewhere the dream was turned into a socialist nightmare.

Political Cartoon of the Day

Seen on Facebook:

Sen. Max Baucus: Obamacare Was An "Income Shift"

I seem to remember Joe the Plumber asking Obama about "spreading the wealth around" which sounded an awful lot like socialism. Joe was pilloried for suggesting that Obama had socialism in mind for his policies.

Today Sen. Max Baucus confirmed that the purpose of Obamacare is not to fix health care, but to redistribute income (from Hugh Hewitt):

In an unusual speech on the Senate floor moments ago, Max Baucus declares that the "healthcare bill" to be "an income shift, it is a shift, a leveling to help lower income middle income Americans." Baucus continued, "[t]oo often, much of late, the last couple three years the mal-distribution of income in America is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind. Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America."

Of course, many of us knew that was the goal all along.

Political Quote of the Day

From that font of wisdom Al Sharpton (h/t Newsbusters):

“First of all, then we have to say the American public overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected President Obama,” Sharpton said. “Let’s not act as though the president didn’t tell the American people – the president offered the American people health reform when he ran. He was overwhelmingly elected running on that and he has delivered what he promised.”

Obama got 53% of the vote. Even if every one of those people wanted socialism you can't call that an "overwhelming" win. Reagan winning 49 states - that was overwhelming.

And, of course, most of those people wanted hope, change, rainbows and unicorns, and although they were warned that socialism would result, they didn't want to believe it. They were fools. If America "overwhelmingly" wanted socialism why has Obama's approval numbers dropped into the low 40's and his disapproval numbers into the high 40's? Who's getting "overwhelmed" now?

Racial Socialism

That's where we're headed according to James Lewis at American Thinker:

The United States today has slipped toward race-based socialism: That's the true name for an overwhelming bias for one race above others, in employment, promotion, and educational opportunities. Our media are constantly stirring the witch's brew of racial grievances, constantly making black people feel aggrieved and white people feel accused. Our schools drive that lesson home with young and innocent kids in a totally ruthless way. Repeat that for twelve years of schooling and TV, and you have a brainwashed kid.

That is what European socialists have done with class envy for the last hundred years: whip up the poor against the middle and the rich. It's in their standard bag of tricks. The American Left has just added racial grievances to class anger and resentment, always feeding more and more power to the racial socialists to buy peace for the very grievances they have whipped up in the first place. The NAACP today practices racial socialism. So does Obama. "Racial Ssocialism" drives the Left's current assault on American values. That's why Jeremiah Wright is such a significant part of Obama's life. Wright specialized in whipping up racial anger for political purposes. Obama's career was powered by it.

Only 12.3 percent of Americans are black, and they cannot command a majority vote. It's therefore necessary to add gender socialism, because half the population are women. If enough women can be made to feel rage against normative America, along with blacks, Hispanics, and the poor, you've got majority control of the country. You can add the wackier Greens, the ones who fall for the global warming scam, the anti-nuclear scam, and all the other anti-scientific Luddites who vote Left. The Democrats control our major cities with a coalition of those whipped-up grievance groups.

We are no longer a society run by talent, work, and opportunity. Like ancient Egypt and Sumer, we are a society where the ruling class exploits its productive workers by taxing their labor, talent, and ability to recognize and use new opportunities.

Barack H. Obama is the logical outcome of racial socialism. You can see it in his words and actions, and his very physical stance, all signaling his sense of superiority, the flip-side of feelings of inferiority he is reacting against. Obama's core support came from the Leftist alliance of grievance groups in spite of his total lack of relevant experience. Obama is objectively the least qualified person to be elected to the presidency. But the media could not say that, because it would have been non-P.C. to tell the truth.

Obama's election was a kind of guilt propitiation by the American people for the history of slavery. But that is bizarre. Living people are not responsible for what others did two hundred years ago. That is a racist idea -- it makes sense only if whites have Evil Genes -- just like traditional anti-Semitism and hatred for blacks as a race.

Read the rest of it here.

There's no question that race drove Obama's candidacy, combined with a charismatic personality and soaring rhetoric. The mainstream media declined to do the kind of background investigation they would have done on any GOP candidate both out of fear of being accused of racism and because they really wanted the guy to win.

I personally think Obama will set opportunities for black candidates back for years, and especially for black Democrats. When you combine his record with the pathetic record of Gov. David Patterson in New York, voters will be a lot less likely to put their faith in black candidates for executive positions. Congressmen in heavily black districts won't have anything to worry about, but if they seek higher office they're going to have some problems.

Do You Have a Positive or Negative Image of Socialism?

That question was asked by the Gallup Poll, and for those who insist there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats, just look at the responses:

Democrats 53% positive, 41% negative

Republicans 17% positive, 79% negative

Believe me, there's a difference.

Putting Our Economy in the Hands of Dictators

All you need to know about the UN's Global Climate Summit can be wrapped up in this appearance by socialist dictator Hugo Chavez:

President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

And if that's not enough, let's bring in Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe whose racist, socialist policies are destroying his country:

The anti-capitalist theme was picked up on by Mr Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s veteran President, who is the target of Western sanctions over alleged human rights abuses.

“When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it’s we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere who gasp and sink and eventually die.”

I've heard Rush Limbaugh say for years that after the collapse of communism, radical environmentalism became the new home for all those disaffected socialists and communists because they see environmental policies the easiest way to gain control over people's lives. That certainly seems to be proven true these days.

In the America of not that long ago an American president wouldn't even consider signing on to global treaties promoted by foreign socialists that would hamstring America's economy. However, those days are over.

Obama is not a fan of this country. He bristles at the thought of American exceptionalism and doesn't think our nation should be elevated in any way above others. We're just another country, like Zimbabwe or Venezuela. For those who disagree with that assessment, you might want to read this piece at American Thinker.

Consequently, it's likely that he'll sign some sort of agreement that commits America...at least on paper...to reductions in carbon emissions that would be very damaging to our economy if ever enacted. However (at least for a little while longer) we still have a Constitution that requires Senate ratification of any such foreign treaties or agreements, and there's no way 67 Senators will vote for such an agreement.

That doesn't mean Obama won't still try to enforce it through EPA regulations. The EPA has given notice to Congress with their recent announcement declaring CO2 to be a dangerous substance that if Congress doesn't pass a cap-and tax bill, they'll enact regulations that will effectively do the same thing.

We're in the very best of hands.

The Environmental Priests and Their Fraudulent Religion

Charles Krauthammer takes a look at the global warming enthusiasts:

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but -- even better -- in the name of Earth itself.

Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment -- carbon chastity -- they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.

Only Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.

There's no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.

That's just the middle portion of a great article. Read the whole thing.

Krauthammer basically repeats a point I've heard Rush Limbaugh talk about for years - that environmentalism is the modern home for all those socialists and communists who had no place to go when the Soviet bloc collapsed. They lost their ability to control people through direct political power, so they sought control indirectly through environmentalism.

ClimateGate may send them packing looking for the next opportunity.

Where Did Obama Get His Ideas About Socialized Medicine?

From a socialist doctor friend, of course. Gateway Pundit has the details:

New Zeal reported this week on Barack Obama’s Marxist neighbor and doctor friend who taught him about the single-payer health care system.

The push to socialize US Heathcare came, not from from the “people”, but from small clique of Marxists, led by a man with close persional ties to president Barack Obama.

This group’s goal is fully socialized, government run “single payer” healthcare-as long promoted through Congressman John Conyers’ National Health Insurance Act, or HR 676.

The leader of this Marxist clique is Quentin Young-a retired Chicago physician, a life long Marxist activist and long time friend and political ally of Barack Obama.

According to radical journalist John Nichols writing in The Progressive;

Obama…learned about single-payer health care from his old friend and neighbor Dr. Quentin Young, the longtime coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Quentin Young told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, that while an Illinois State senator, Obama was a strong supporter of “single payer.”

Barack Obama, in those early days—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion…. ”

So who exactly is Dr. Quentin Young?
According to New Zeal:

Quentin Young is one of America’s most committed socialists, beginning with his time in the Young Communist League in late 1930s Chicago.

After WW2, into the mid 1970s, Young was closely associated with the Communist Party and was accused of belonging to the Bethune Club (a communist doctor’s club) by a US Congressional Committee investigating the riots at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

There’s much more.
Of course, this surprises no one.

Obama's past is a rogue's gallery of socialists, communists and anarchists. No wonder his ideas are so screwed up.