Guess who screened White House appointments!

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL

Think tank developed by prez links socialist party to presidential picks

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – Was a far-left think tank partnered with the community activist group ACORN and founded with input from President Obama instrumental in securing the appointment of controversial White House "environmental czar" Van Jones?

A key member of the think tank reportedly was also a founder of a socialist party that, evidence indicates, included Obama among its members.

In March, Jones was named the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

His appointment drew criticism after a WND report exposing that Jones was as an admitted radical communist and black nationalist leader. The Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck hammered away at Jones' communist ties.

Months before Obama took office, however, Jones was recommended for the environmental pick in a report by business scholar Chuck Collins, an associate of philanthropist George Soros and a longtime leftist activist linked to some socialist causes.

Collins is director of the Tax Program for Shared Prosperity at Demos, a far-left think tank that has partnered with ACORN and its ally, Project Vote, on several projects. Demos personalities were among ACORN's top defenders when the organization was accused of rampant voter fraud in 2008.

According to Demos' own website, while Obama was a state senator in 1999, he served on the working group that founded Demos.

Collins penned a piece that listed his top picks for the Obama administration, including Jones, at the radical Institute for Policy Studies.

Through a socialist party, Obama may be more closely linked to Collins, who recommended Jones.

Researcher Trevor Loudon of the New Zeal blog dug up official newspapers of the socialist-oriented New Party that list Collins as among the party's founding builders in its fall 1994 edition. Collins is listed with approximately 100 other activists in an article entitled, "Who's Building the New Party?"

Obama belonged to socialist party

In a controversy never fully addressed by Obama, WND previously reported evidence showing Obama was a member of the New Party, which sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

While running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the New Party, according to confirmed reports during last year's presidential campaign.

The New Party, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists of America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA, was an electoral alliance that worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party's aim was to help elect politicians to office who espouse its policies.

Among New Party members was linguist and radical activist Noam Chomsky.

Obama's campaign last year denied the then-presidential candidate was ever an actual member of the New Party.

But the New Zeal blog dug up print copies of the New Party News, the party's official newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, listing him as a New Party member and printing quotes from him as a member.

Barack Obama pictured in New Party publication (Courtesy New Zeal blog)
The party's spring 1996 newspaper boasted: "New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary). The paper quoted Obama saying "these victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work."

The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.

New Ground, the newsletter of Chicago's Democratic Socialists of America, reported in its July/August 1996 edition that Obama attended a New Party membership meeting April 11, 1996, in which he expressed his gratitude for the group's support and "encouraged NPers (New Party members) to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration."

Becoming a New Party member requires some effort by the politician. Candidates must be approved by the party's political committee and, once approved, must sign a contract mandating they will have a "visible and active relationship" with the party.

The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known as electoral "fusion," which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the Supreme Court.

Following the initial reports of Obama's purported membership in the New Party, Obama associate and former Chicago New Party activist Carl Davidson posted a statement on several blogs claiming his former party was not socialist, but he admitted it worked with ACORN.

"[The New Party] was a pragmatic party of 'small d democracy' mainly promoting economic reforms like the living wage and testing the fusion tactic, common in many countries but only operational in New York in the U.S. The main trend within it was ACORN, an Alinskyist outfit, which is hardly Marxist," wrote Davidson.

But the socialist goals of the New Party were enumerated on its old website.

Among the New Party's stated objectives were "full employment, a shorter work week, and a guaranteed minimum income for all adults; a universal 'social wage' to include such basic benefits as health care, child care, vacation time, and lifelong access to education and training; a systematic phase-in of comparable worth and like programs to ensure gender equity."

The New Party stated it also sought "the democratization of our banking and financial system – including popular election of those charged with public stewardship of our banking system, worker-owner control over their pension assets, community-controlled alternative financial institutions."

Many of the New Party's founding members were Democratic Socialists of America leaders and members of Committees of Correspondence, a breakaway of the Communist Party USA. Obama attended several DSA events and meetings, including a DSA-sponsored town hall meeting Feb. 25, 1996, entitled "Employment and Survival in Urban America." He sought and received an endorsement from the DSA.

According to DSA documents, the New Party worked with ACORN to promote its candidates. ACORN, convicted in massive, nationwide voter fraud cases, has been a point of controversy for Obama over the presidential candidate's ties to the group.

In 1995, the DSA's New Ground newsletter stated, "In Chicago, the New Party's biggest asset and biggest liability is ACORN.

"Like most organizations, ACORN is a mixed bag. On one hand, in Chicago, ACORN is a group that attempts to organize some of the most depressed communities in the city. Chicago organizers for ACORN and organizers for SEIU Local 880 have been given modest monthly recruitment quotas for new New Party members. On the other hand, like most groups that depend on canvassing for fundraising, it's easy enough to find burned out and disgruntled former employees. And ACORN has not had the reputation for being interested in coalition politics – until recently and, happily, not just within the New Party."


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Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, is known for his regular interviews with Mideast terror leaders and his popular segments on America's top radio programs. His newly released book is "The Late Great State of Israel: How Enemies Within and Without Threaten the Jewish Nation's Survival." Follow Klein on Twitter.

The Obama Agenda Bogs Down

Democrats got what they wanted in the stimulus bill. The public knows it.

By FRED BARNES

It usually doesn't happen this quickly in Washington. But President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are finding that the old maxim that what goes around, comes around applies to them, too. Less than six months into his term, Mr. Obama's top initiatives -- health-care reform and "cap and trade" energy legislation -- are in serious jeopardy and he has himself and his congressional allies to blame.

Their high-pressure tactics in promoting and passing legislation, most notably the economic "stimulus" enacted in February, have backfired. Those tactics include unbridled partisanship, procedural short cuts, demands for swift passage of bills, and promises of quick results.

With large majorities in Congress and an obsequious press corps, Mr. Obama was smitten with the idea of emulating President Franklin Roosevelt's First 100 Days of legislative success in 1933. Like FDR, Mr. Obama tried to push as many liberal bills through Congress in as brief a time as possible.

He made a rookie mistake early on. He let congressional Democrats draft the bills. They're as partisan as any group that has ever controlled Congress, and as impatient. They have little interest in the compromises needed to attract Republican support. As a consequence, what they passed -- especially the $787 billion stimulus -- belongs to Democrats alone. They own the stimulus outright.

That makes them accountable for the hopes of a prompt economic recovery now being dashed. With the economy still faltering and jobs still being lost, Mr. Obama's credibility is sinking and his job approval rating is declining along with the popularity of his initiatives. Republicans, who had insisted the stimulus was wasteful and wouldn't work, are being vindicated.

The political fallout that mattered most, however, has been among Democrats in the House who will face tough re-election fights next year. They're in a state of near-panic over the lingering recession. Their confidence in Mr. Obama is fading, and they no longer believe in quickly passing the president's agenda. Cap and trade has been put off until the fall and health-care reform is starting to stall.

For Mr. Obama, this is all a potentially disastrous turn of events. On Capitol Hill, delay favors the opposition and tends to lead to defeat. The longer a bill sits around, the more its contents are dissected and the less likely it is to pass. Mr. Obama realizes this fact, which is why he is pressing for a quick vote on his health-care reform.

His plan has been to exploit the economic downturn to enact his entire agenda, not just the stimulus. The president's position, which he repeated again this week, is that his health, energy and education reforms are necessary to create a sustainable economic recovery. It's a clever political argument, but it makes little economic sense and few people buy it.

That's not all. The stimulus is such a large increase in spending that it turned the deficit into a political issue. There is a growing national wariness to adding billions (or trillions) to the budget, even for a relatively popular cause like health care.

Had Mr. Obama and Democrats proceeded differently, they'd have better odds now for enacting their agenda. They are victims of their own tactics.

Republicans hold 41% of the seats in Congress. That's a position of weakness, but not completely powerlessness. Rather than ignoring GOP proposals, Democrats might have been better off giving Republicans 20% of the stimulus funds to spend. Republicans probably would have spent it on tax reforms that encourage economic growth. Had that happened, the stimulus might have provided a mild boost to the economy by now.

Or what if Democrats had heeded Republican advice and trimmed the size of the stimulus? The economy wouldn't be any worse for it, but the deficit and public fear of it would be smaller.

During the presidential campaign last year, Mr. Obama said he was committed to bipartisanship. But congressional Democrats aren't, as he surely knew. They rejected input from House Republicans on the stimulus -- without a peep of protest from the president. Minor concessions to three Republicans gave them the 60 votes to pass the bill in the Senate.

The president's vow of bipartisanship wasn't the only promise to crumble. Democrats said they'd give Republicans (and the public) 48 hours to read a bill before a vote. But the final version of the 1,071-page stimulus package was unveiled in the House at 1 a.m. on Feb. 13 and passed later that day after one hour of substantive debate. Every Republican voted no. The Senate vote came 16 hours after the three renegade Republicans agreed to an amended version of the stimulus.

In urging fast action, Mr. Obama sounded apocalyptic: "If we do not move swiftly to sign the [stimulus] into law, an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe. . . . Millions more Americans will lose their jobs. Homes will be lost. Families will go without health care."

Once the stimulus passed, Democrats said the impact would be practically instant. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) predicted "an immediate jolt." Economic adviser Larry Summers said, "You'll see the effects almost immediately." White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said it would "take only weeks or months" to be felt.

A similar sequence of appeals, claims, promises and a speedy vote was followed when the cap and trade bill, which would put a ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions, came before the House on June 28. The bill's architect, Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), presented a crucial 300-page amendment at 3 a.m. It passed 16 hours later.

But even that was not fast enough. Mr. Waxman was irritated by House Republican leader John Boehner's hour-long address in opposition. As Mr. Boehner spoke, Mr. Waxman demanded he be cut off. He wasn't, but after Mr. Boehner finished, Mr. Waxman asked the presiding officer, who was then Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D., Calif.), how long the "two minute speech" had lasted. "The customary amount of time" for the minority leader, she replied.

Mr. Waxman's testiness won't make final passage of cap and trade easier. Nor will the Obama administration gain from its crude attempt last week to punish -- and silence -- Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) for saying the stimulus should be cancelled. Four cabinet members wrote to his governor, Republican Jan Brewer, to ask if she wanted to forfeit stimulus money for her state.

Mr. Obama's health-care and energy initiatives, the core of his far-reaching agenda, were bound to face serious opposition in Congress in any case. Hardball tactics and false promises have only made the hill he has to climb steeper. Now he may lose on both. The president and his congressional allies should have known better.

Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on Fox News Channel.