Media Corruption and the Two Party System
AIM Report | By Cliff Kincaid | September 17, 2009
This was one of the major cover-ups of the political campaign, and the cover-up continues.
What drives President Barack Obama to want to seize control of the health care and energy sectors of the U.S. economy? Obama was trained as a Marxist from his days as a young boy in Hawaii when his grandfather picked Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis as his mentor. In college, as Obama tells the story, he picked his "friends" carefully, in order to avoid being perceived as a sell-out, and those friends included the "Marxist professors." Later, in Chicago, he would become a political associate of another Marxist professor, Bill Ayers of the University of Illinois. Does anybody see a pattern here?
Based on what we have seen at some of the town hall meetings, there are some Americans who don't want to see the U.S. go down the Marxist road. This is the time for the media to tell the truth about Obama and his agenda.
Unfortunately, we have now been treated to a new dishonest Obama book, Renegade, by Richard Wolffe, supposedly about "The Making of a President." Far from being a "renegade," the evidence shows that this President is probably the most far-left ideologically of any major political party nominee in history. Even as new questions emerge, however, it is still a challenge to get the media to report on the truthful but damaging information that is already a matter of public record.
Wolffe, who worked for the Financial Times and Newsweek, would seem to be in a position to shed light on "the making" of this President. Even though he is described as a "political analyst for MSNBC television, appearing frequently on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Hardball with Chris Matthews," he claims to have obtained "exclusive interviews with Barack Obama" for his book. These were opportunities to examine aspects of Obama's still mysterious background.
But it's apparent that Wolffe didn't ask the important questions. Only two pages of the Wolffe book are devoted to Frank Marshall Davis, a father figure in Obama's early life, and nothing is said about the evidence -in the form of 600 pages of his FBI file-about his communist views or membership in the CPUSA.
Whitewashing A Communist
The Wolffe book describes Davis as a "leading black activist" and "strong advocate for racial justice" whose "political writings" on "civil rights and labor issues" made him "the target of a McCarthyite denunciation" by the House Committee on Un-American Activities Committee.
Notice the use of the term "McCarthyite" being associated with a House committee. McCarthy, of course, was a senator. Wolffe uses the term "McCarthyite" to make the point, which is false, that Davis was not in any sense a communist or fellow-traveler. Wolffe understands that many people have been conditioned by academia to recoil at the thought of anything associated with McCarthy-ism.
The false information provided by Wolffe is similar to what the Obama campaign said about Davis when it was discovered last year that the mysterious "Frank" from Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, was in fact Frank Marshall Davis. If Davis were such an innocent figure, why didn't Obama give us his full name and tell us whether he accepted or rejected Davis's communist views? It was later revealed that Davis, a notorious drinker, was a pornographer and a sex pervert, adding to the concern about the nature of the Obama-Davis relationship. Sex sells, except when it involves the President's childhood mentor.
This was one of the major cover-ups of the political campaign, and the cover-up continues.
Nothing is said by Wolffe about the fact that the 600-page FBI file on Frank Marshall Davis covers the years 1944-1963, meaning that he was under investigation or surveillance for at least 19 years. One document refers to Frank Marshall Davis having CPUSA affiliations dating back to 1931. The evidence also shows that Davis was involved in communist activities in the 1970s, during the time he mentored Obama in Hawaii. Davis was on the FBI's security index, meaning that Davis could be arrested or detained in the event of a national emergency. The FBI material documents Davis's anti-white and pro-Soviet views, infiltration of the Hawaii Democratic Party, and other activities.
Wolffe's book also describes communist terrorist Bill Ayers as "the former 1960s radical" who was just an "acquaintance" of Obama's. This is so superficial as to be laughable. But it's not a laughing matter to be associating with someone who bombed police stations. That is why Obama and his campaign repeatedly tried to play down the relationship, and why Ayers went into virtual hiding during the campaign.
Nevertheless, Wolffe has been hired at a "public affairs" firm called Public Strategies, whose CEO and president is former Bush White House official Dan Bartlett, "one of President Bush's most trusted advisors," his bio says. The hiring of Wolffe shows that Bartlett and his cronies do not put ideology or philosophy ahead of making bucks in the Obama era.
Special Access
According to Wolffe's bio at Public Strategies, "As Senior White House Correspondent for Newsweek, Wolffe covered President Obama and his inner circle from the launch of his presidential campaign through the president's first few months in office." In addition to his work on MSNBC, the bio says that he has appeared on Fox News, "as well as international media, including the BBC."
It is apparent that British-born "Senior Strategist" Wolffe brings access to Obama's inner circle and perhaps the President himself for the corporate and other clients of the Public Strategies lobbying group, which even has a Mexico affiliate.
This kind of advertised access to Obama's "inner circle" helps explain why the truth about Davis and Ayers was concealed from the readers of his book. Wolffe obviously wants to protect his "sources," who could be helpful to the Public Strategies group.
"As recently as July 20, Wolffe was spotted visiting the White House for a meeting with senior adviser David Axelrod," reported Politico. That same day, Politico reported, Wolffe wrote a column for The Daily Beast website quoting "a senior White House official" saying Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's job was safe. "Such information could have been very useful to the Financial Services Forum, a Public Strategies client comprised of the chief executive officers of 17 of the top U.S. financial institutions," the paper said.
Ironically, however, Politico is a "Media Partner" of Public Strategies and they co-sponsored a recent poll on Obama's job performance. So the conflicts of interest are expanding. What's more, Politico published a plug for the Wolffe book on June 2. Politico has now published an August 18 follow-up flattering story about Bartlett and other former Bush officials emerging as effective public relations practitioners.
This is how Washington's "inner circle" works. The truth matters less than how it is perceived and shaped by the insiders from both major political parties. These people are all about making money and deals, not seeking truth.
WHY THE WASHINGTON POST CENSORED ROBERT NOVAK
In his book, The Prince of Darkness, the late journalist Robert Novak described how the Washington Post, which carried his columns, censored one of them. The censored column concerned the activities in Washington, D.C. of Cuban agent-of-influence Orlando Letelier. Novak describes how the Post's editorial page editor, Philip Geyelin, "spiked" the column because of "displeasure with the column's content."
Letelier, a Chilean Marxist working for Cuba, had been manipulating the media and Congress before his death from a car bomb in 1976. Novak had received Letelier's incriminating briefcase papers, recovered after his death.
"I retell this story because the incident was so unusual in my long, friendly relationship with the Washington Post," Novak said. Novak was always a strong anti-communist, just like Accuracy in Media founder Reed Irvine, who also covered the significance of the Letelier briefcase papers.
The story is worth retelling now, not only because of the passing of this great journalist, but because America's enemies continue to be very well organized in Washington, D.C., especially in regard to the "new Cuba"-Venezuela.
The Post has long been blind to the activities of communist agents in the nation's capital. Consider the coverage of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. The August 24 edition of the paper has an excellent editorial about what Chavez is doing to silence the opposition in Venezuela, threaten his neighbors, and oppose America's national security interests in Latin America. The editorial is even critical of how the Obama Administration has handled the problem.
But the paper has failed to tell the story of what the Chavez regime has been doing here.
The Latin America Information Office, once known as the Venezuela Information Office (VIO), is the official registered agent for the Chavez regime in Washington.
Natali del Carmen Fani, former associate director of the VIO, told me in a telephone conversation on August 14 that the VIO would not have sponsored the trip to Venezuela made by communist terrorist and now Professor Bill Ayers back in 2006. She said the regime's Ministry of Education probably sponsored and paid for Ayers' trip. Ayers has said this was his fourth trip to Venezuela.
Foreign Agent
Ayers' son Chesa Boudin, the Red-diaper baby of Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, both of whom went to prison for murder, played a role in this. Boudin worked for Chavez in the presidential palace and was an interpreter for Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn when they traveled to Venezuela in 2005 and talked to various audiences concerning a film about their days as members of the communist terrorist Weather Underground.
Hugo Chavez's attempts to win friends and influence people have been mostly associated with the highly-publicized efforts of the Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. to provide cheap oil in the United States to poor people through former Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy and his Citizens Energy Corporation.
On the propaganda front, filmmaker Oliver Stone announced in January that he intends to do a sympathetic film about the Marxist ruler.
Less well known is the "Suitcase scandal" in which five foreign nationals were arrested and charged in the U.S. with being unregistered foreign agents of the Chavez regime and attempting to conceal the role of Chavez in smuggling $800,000 in cash from the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) to then-Argentine presidential candidate Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Four were convicted and sentenced but Antonio José Canchica Gómez, an alleged agent of the Venezuelan Directorate of Intelligence, DISIP, remains a fugitive.
Venable LLP, a law firm, was hired by the Venezuelan Embassy in the U.S. and registered as a foreign agent for Venezuela to "Provide strategic advice and counseling to the embassy with respect to fostering of Venezuelan/U.S. relations" and to "work to help arrange meetings with contacts in [the] U.S. Congress, the U.S. executive branch, and U.S. private sector." The December 30, 2008, agreement, signed by Lorenzo David Diaz, Minister Counselor and Chief of Staff of the embassy, and Michael D. Sherman, a partner at Venable, also included an objective to "Discreetly seek to obtain information about the likely foreign policy thinking of the Obama Administration towards Latin America in general and Venezuela in particular."
A written report by April 15, 2009, was supposed to be prepared. However, Sherman informed me on August 10 that his firm no longer represents the embassy and that any report or communication with the embassy is covered by the attorney-client privilege and can only be waived by the client.
The Venezuelan Embassy (1099 30th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007) has consular offices in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, San Juan, and Washington, D.C.
AIM editor Cliff Kincaid had the opportunity soon after he came to Washington to understand first-hand why a paper like the Post shies away from exposing the activities of communist agents of influence in the nation's capital.
Lawrence Stern, the national news editor of the paper, passed away in 1979, and Reed Irvine asked Cliff Kincaid to attend and observe his memorial service. Cliff was astounded when a man identified as Teofilo Acosta was introduced and told the service: "I'm from Cuba. I am Marxist-Leninist. I am human. Larry Stern was my friend, one of my best friends. I loved him." Acosta was publicly known as a First Secretary in the Cuban Interests Section that has been set up inside the Czech Embassy in Washington. In reality, he was a Cuban intelligence agent.
Hence, one reason the Post shies away from exposing the activities of communist agents is that their reporters and editors may associate with them. The husband of Post reporter Dana Priest works for the Center for International Policy (CIP), a far-left group created with the assistance of Letelier.
A one-time registered foreign agent for Venezuela, Jennifer Schuett, had been a "program associate" with the Cuba program of the CIP and a participant in the "Imperatives for a New Cuba Policy" conference sponsored by the group in October 2007. The Cuba program, headed by Wayne Smith, former Chief of Mission at the U.S. interests section in Havana (1979-82), declared support for full normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba and claims the communist regime is not sponsoring terrorism. Schuett says she was a registered agent for Venezuela between September 2008 and May 2009, working on "public diplomacy" and connecting communities in the U.S. and Venezuela.
Deborah James, now the Director of International Programs at the "progressive" Center for Economic and Policy Research, was the first executive director of the VIO and a registered foreign agent. She previously served as Director of the WTO program at Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch and Global Economy Director at Global Exchange.
In this regard, her bio at Global Exchange, which sponsors trips to Venezuela and Cuba, says merely that, "In 2004, Deborah served as the first Executive Director of the Venezuela Information Office in Washington, DC, an organization that reframed public debate of the exciting progressive social transformation happening under Hugo Chávez's leadership and successfully shifted US foreign policy towards Venezuela."
Coming Dictatorship
This "progressive transformation" includes active collaboration with the narco-terrorists known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In fact, the U.S. Treasury Department on September 12, 2008, designated two senior Venezuelan officials, Rangel Silva and Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, and one former official, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, as materially assisting the narcotics trafficking activities of the FARC.
The "Chavista" network in the U.S. also includes the Venezuela Solidarity Network, which is housed at the Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ) in Washington, D.C. The headquarters of the AGJ is a townhouse building at 1247 E St. SE, Washington, D.C., 20003. This location has also served as an address for ANSWER-the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism group. A search of records discovered that the address was the ANSWER contact for "anti-war" actions in 2003 and 2004. One flier declared: "You can also make a tax deductible donation by writing a check to A.N.S.W.E.R./AGJ and sending it to A.N.S.W.E.R., 1247 E St. SE, Washington DC 20003."
ANSWER was a front of the Workers World Party, a communist group so extreme that it promotes the Stalinist regime of North Korea as well as the FARC. The Workers World Party publishes the Workers World newspaper.
The WWP was the subject of an April 1974 investigative report of the House Committee on Internal Security. The report, "The Workers World Party and its Front Organizations," documented how WWP members had been involved in prison revolts and support for Arab terrorists and communist regimes. WWP leaders were pictured, including one who had traveled with the Weather Underground- and Cuban-sponsored "Venceremos Brigades" to Cuba for communist indoctrination.
Bill Ayers' wife Bernardine Dohrn was one of the coordinators of the Venceremos Brigades.
Yet, Post reporters Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, authors of a new book about the presidential campaign, refer to Ayers as just "a 1960s antiwar radical who had been a founder of the Weather Underground, a group that bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon." Notice that there is nothing in their account about the continuing investigation into the alleged roles of Ayers and Dohrn in the 1970 bombing murder of a San Francisco policeman.
What's more, the description is false. Ayers wasn't "antiwar;" he was pro-war. He wanted the communists to win in Vietnam. This is why his Prairie Fire manifesto was dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, an anti-war candidate.
In its editorial about Ayers' comrade Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the Post laments that the Obama Administration has failed "to call attention to the genuine and serious hostile actions that Mr. Chávez has taken against his neighbors and the democratic opposition in his own country. Those should rightfully be the subject of urgent inter-American consultations. That they are not shows how far the administration is from mounting effective Latin American diplomacy."
This is yet another indication that the paper doesn't seem to understand that Obama, Ayers and Dohrn are all on the side of Chavez. There should be no confusion.
Robert Novak understood what was happening in Washington and exposed it. His voice and pen will be greatly missed.
DEAR FELLOW MEDIA WATCHDOG SEPTEMBER-B 2009
YOUR POSTCARDS TO THE TARGETS WE RECOMMEND IN OUR AIM Reports are having a dramatic impact. In this issue of my notes, I will be recommending postcards in connection with two Obama appointees-Communist Van Jones as "Green Jobs" Czar and Mark Lloyd, a pro-Marxist at the Federal Communications Commission.
IN THEIR CANONIZATION OF THE LATE SENATOR KENNEDY, OUR MEDIA failed to note that he left a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, to die in the bottom of a submerged car, and that while he was on shore trying to salvage his political future, she was probably alive for several minutes breathing into an air pocket, before the water had completely rushed in. A notorious womanizer, he had left a party, probably a drunken orgy, with this poor girl and his car went off a bridge. It is also scandalous that he was given a Catholic funeral service, when he opposed so much of the pro-life agenda. The other scandal involved Kennedy making an offer to help the Soviets to undermine President Reagan. This was written up by Herbert Romerstein in Human Events and Paul Kengor in his book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. It is clear that liberals intend to exploit his death to try to pass "Obamacare." So he may do more damage to the country in death than in life. However, John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods Market, has enraged the left by coming out against the liberal approach. His grocery stores are known for selling natural and organic products. He says, "While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system."
THE OMBUDSMAN FOR THE PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE, MICHAEL GETLER, HAS reported that "I got more than 50 postcards from around the country objecting to the airing on July 14 on PBS's POV, or point of view, documentary series, of a program titled The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court.' Although it was nice to receive something other than e-mail for a change, all these postcards said exactly the same thing and were supplied by an organization known as Accuracy in Media, a conservative organization that, in this case, felt the program had a definite bias in support of the International Criminal Court, and that PBS should air a film opposed to the ICC..."
GETLER SAID THAT HE ASKED POV EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SIMON KILMURRY ABOUT THIS and he replied: "While the ICC and the court's first Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo are the film's primary subjects, there is also significant air time given to opponents of the court such as former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. In addition, the POV website provides many other resources including an extended interview with Ambassador Bolton, and a wide range of opinions regarding the ICC, its mission and its effectiveness. The information in the film and on the website accurately clarifies much of the misinformation about the ICC including many of the claims that are made in the postcard mailings you have been receiving. Should other filmmakers wish to produce films that present a different point-of-view, then we shall be happy to consider them on their own merits as we do with all film submissions."
THE USE OF BOLTON WAS DESIGNED TO GIVE THE APPEARANCE OF OBJECTIVITY, BUT THE film obviously had a point of view. That is why it was part of the "Point of View" series. We put them on notice that we are watching and paying attention. This is another indication that these postcards do make a difference.
"IS GLENN BECK FINISHED?" WAS THE HEADLINE OVER AN ARTICLE ON A LEFT-WING website, insisting that a campaign against Beck's Fox News Channel program has cost him 36 advertisers and that his show may be cancelled as a result. The campaign against Beck is being waged by a group called Color of Change, whose co-founder, Van Jones, is now Obama's green-jobs czar. Not coincidentally, Beck has repeatedly singled out Van Jones for criticism, citing evidence of his communist past. The source of this evidence was New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon, the same researcher who originally unearthed the fact that Obama's mysterious mentor "Frank" in Obama's book Dreams from My Father was Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis. We confirmed that identification with a separate source and ran with the story last year, even obtaining the 600-page FBI file on Davis. It also came out that Davis was a sex pervert, doper, and pornographer. The Obama campaign eventually confirmed Frank's identity but tried to play down his relationship with Obama. Most media gave the scandal a ho-hum. But the Davis connection is the key to understanding Obama.
TREVOR LOUDON, WHO DESERVES FAR MORE CREDIT THAN HE GETS FOR SMOKING OUT THE communists in and around the Obama Administration, broke the Van Jones story back on April 6 and has run several follow-ups. Among other things, he revealed that Jones was a leading member of a Marxist organization known by the acronym STORM, which means Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement. Glenn Beck has questioned who "vetted" Jones for a job and whether the FBI was bypassed. Beck deserves enormous credit for tackling this important story. It may be as important as the Frank Marshall Davis scandal. Please send Nancy Sutley of the White House Office on Environmental Quality a postcard. Her lawyer has told me they have no documents shedding light on how Jones was hired.
BECK ALSO DESERVES CREDIT FOR EXPOSING THE FAR-LEFT VIEWS OF AN OBAMA APPOIN-tee to the Federal Communications Commission by the name of Mark Lloyd. The new Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer of the FCC, Lloyd gave testimony in 2005 in which he praised Paul Robeson, the communist actor and singer who was an apologist for Soviet dictator and mass murderer Joseph Stalin. While Robeson deserved praise for his artistic talents, there is no excuse at this late date for ignorance about Robeson's real record not only as a secret member of the Communist Party USA but as an apologist for communist tyranny. Lloyd's comments suggest that he would have preferred that the media not make an issue of Robeson's involvement in an international movement that has cost the lives of more than 100 million people.
AT A 2008 "MEDIA REFORM" CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY THE GEORGE SOROS-FUNDED Free Press organization, Lloyd declared that the Marxist revolution in Venezuela under Chavez was "incredible" and "dramatic" but that the "property owners and the folks who were then controlling the media in Venezuela rebelled" against the would-be dictator and supported a coup against him. However, Lloyd said that Chavez wised up and "then started to take the media seriously..." He was defending, in effect, the crackdown on a free press in Venezuela. Please send the enclosed postcard to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Also send a postcard to Senator Charles Grassley, who has questioned the Lloyd appointment. It is time for Congress to take a stand in favor of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. That means that Mark Lloyd has got to go. Grassley should lead the charge to seek his removal.
