Accuracy in Media

While meaningless United Nations hand-wringing over the North Korean nuclear weapons program garnered the headlines, the world body is moving ahead with a global conference to lay the groundwork for world government financed by global taxes. The communist head of the U.N. General Assembly is leading the effort, but he is getting crucial support from “progressive” economists who advise the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party.

The United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development, previously scheduled for June 1-3, will now take place on June 24-26.

U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto is the U.N. point man on these “global governance” issues. We noted his role at the United Nations in a column last October. Now, even the New York Times is paying attention to what this crackpot has been up to.

D’Escoto, the Times said, believes the way out of the global financial crisis “should be lined with all manner of new global institutions, authorities and advisory boards,” including the Global Stimulus Fund, the Global Public Goods Authority, the Global Tax Authority, the Global Financial Products Safety Commission, the Global Financial Regulatory Authority, the Global Competition Authority, the Global Council of Financial and Economic Advisers, the Global Economic Coordination Council, and the World Monetary Board.

D’Escoto is the former foreign minister of Communist Sandinista Nicaragua and Catholic Priest of the Maryknoll Order who advocates Marxist-oriented liberation theology and won the Lenin Peace Prize from the old Soviet Union. D’Escoto also claims a Master’s of Science from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

The Times interviewed Paul Oquist, D’Escoto’s senior adviser for the conference, who sat beneath portraits of Fidel Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, among others.

The problem is that the Times, in its story, “At U.N., a Sandinista’s Plan for Recovery,” didn’t mention until the 13th paragraph that the official U.N. list of “experts” behind the plan include an American economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning professor from Columbia University who supported and contributed to Obama’s presidential campaign and advises Congressional Democrats on economic policy.

Stiglitz, an advocate of nationalizing U.S. banks, is also a member of the Socialist International Commission on Global Financial Issues and his name appears on a separate list of 15 “special advisers” to D’Escoto obtained from the U.N. by Inner City Press. Another name on the list-Noam Chomsky-is on the board of the Communist Party spin-off, the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Working With A Castroite

Aides to D’Escoto “point out repeatedly that the president got many of his ideas from a distinguished panel of experts led by an American economist and Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz,” the Times noted.

Stiglitz, a former Clinton official and financial contributor to the Democratic Party and its candidates, wrote the book, Making Globalization Work, in which he argues for a variety of global tax schemes that would cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. Last October he met behind closed doors with congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to devise the economic “stimulus” plan of more federal spending and debt.

Incredibly, Stiglitz was quoted in a U.N. press release last October as saying that the United Nations, which is notorious for corruption, had to intervene in the financial crisis because it was “the one institution that was inclusive and had political legitimacy…”

Another one of the “experts” the Times neglected to mention was Robert Johnson, former managing director at Soros Fund Management and board member of the Institute for America’s Future, a sponsor of a June 1-3 “progressive” conference in Washington, D.C. that will honor pro-Castro Rep. Barbara Lee and socialist labor leader John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO.

 The Hand Of Soros

The Soros-funded Open Society Institute gave the Institute for America’s Future $500,000 in 2008 in the area of “Idea Generation and Policy Change.”

Johnson also serves on the board of the Democracy Alliance, a wealthy liberal group that includes Soros and is committed to “fostering collaboration among progressive leaders and institutions…” 

Johnson’s involvement in the United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis demonstrates how this “collaboration” is occurring at the global level and involves representatives of socialist and communist governments at the U.N.

Other “experts” on the D’Escoto panel come from Russia and China, with one of his “special representatives,” Oswaldo Martinez, identified only as being from Communist Cuba, with no biography attached. Another D’Escoto “special representative,” socialist and Jesuit Priest Francois Houtart, is the author of “Socialism for the 21st Century.”

Toward this end, the “Report of the Commission of Experts of the President of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System” raises the possibility of global taxes to finance one of President Obama’s legislative goals when he was a senator-committing 0.7 percent of Gross National Income as “official development assistance,” or foreign aid. This was the essence of Obama’s Global Poverty Act, which never came up for a full Senate vote because of increasing public awareness that it would commit the U.S. to spending $845 billion in additional foreign aid. 

Global Tax Agenda

Under the heading of “Innovative Sources of Financing” (page 109), the U.N. document declares that “For some time, the difficulty in meeting the UN official assistance target of 0.7 per cent of GNI of industrial countries as official development assistance, as well as the need for adequate funding for the provision of global and regional public goods (peace building, fighting global health pandemics, combating climate change and sustaining the global environment more generally) has generated proposals on how to guarantee stable sources of financing for these objectives.”

These proposals, the document says, include initiatives involving “taxation for global objectives.” It adds, “Two suggestions deserve special attention: a carbon tax and a levy on financial transactions.” The global carbon tax, the document says, could generate $130 billion a year, while estimates of the revenues from a currency transaction tax range from $15 to $35 billion. Other global taxation options are also examined.

However, as D’Escoto and his “experts” move ahead with the U.N.’s global economic conference, some of Obama’s representatives at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. seem to have grown sensitive to the communist’s frequent outbursts of loony leftism and anti-American rhetoric. Such remarks could bring unwarranted attention to what D’Escoto and the “progressive” American economists are trying to implement in the international economic realm.

For example, The Washington Post reported on American criticism of D’Escoto’s statements about Iran having no nuclear weapons program, exaggerating civilian deaths in Iraq, and calling for the release of Cuban Communist agents imprisoned in the U.S. D’Escoto “has repeatedly abused his position to pursue his personal agenda, and in doing so he diminishes the office and harms the General Assembly,” one U.S. official was quoted as saying.

The Times story about the upcoming global economic conference said that D’Escoto’s critics, who are “legion,” say that some of his proposals-“like levying an international tax on all financial transactions or replacing the dollar as the international reserve currency”-“are well beyond the role of the United Nations.” But none of these critics was identified as being in the Obama Administration or at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. Some of the critics seemed to be ambassadors from foreign countries who were peeved that they didn’t get more direct input into formulating the conference document.

However, other than being too outspoken about the elaborate plans for new global institutions and world government that are being drawn up, it would appear that D’Escoto’s goals and those of the Obama Administration correspond nicely. Perhaps that is because they share some of the same economic “experts” and Marxist philosophy.

 

 

PELOSI’S CONTROVERSIAL MARXIST CONNECTIONS

 Like the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not have to go through a background investigation in order to get a security clearance. This loophole in the law enables the president and members of Congress to automatically qualify for security clearances, even if they have controversial backgrounds and associations, by virtue of the fact that they get elected to high office in Washington, D.C.

In the case of Speaker Pelosi, who is second in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president, there is increasing concern about whether she can be trusted with national security secrets. But the concern not only involves her unsubstantiated charges against the CIA over what officials told her about the treatment of terrorists, but her close personal relationship with pro-Castro Rep. Barbara Lee and the “progressive” Hallinan family of San Francisco, once under scrutiny by the California Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities for their pro-Soviet propaganda efforts.  

Pelosi used a May 22 news conference to offer up other members of the House Democratic leadership as “human shields” to deflect questions from the press about the CIA controversy. They droned on about the liberal legislative agenda.  

At the very end of the news conference, as Pelosi was trying to leave the podium and had already issued an edict that she didn’t have anything more to say about the CIA matter, a reporter tried to ask a question about Rep. Steve King’s intention to introduce a resolution asking the House to suspend Pelosi’s security clearance until the controversy is resolved. The reporter asked, “And were you aware that Steve King is asking for your security clearance to be revoked?” But Pelosi walked away without commenting.

With the help of the mainstream media, Pelosi is obviously hoping that she can stonewall further inquiry. On a recent “Meet the Press,” on NBC,  Washington Post liberal columnist Eugene Robinson, a follower of the Democratic Party line, declared that he wasn’t sure that she was “in such terrible political danger” and that “People underestimate Nancy Pelosi sometimes as a politician.” 

Pelosi the politician is clearly depending on the press to stop asking questions.

However, since Pelosi and other elected officials don’t have to go through background investigations, it is the job of the media to perform this function. In the case of Pelosi, it is long overdue.

San Francisco Democrat

Pelosi has represented the city of San Francisco, perhaps the most liberal in the nation, since 1987, and is a very close friend of Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents neighboring Oakland and Berkeley, California, and is the most vocal apologist for Communist Cuba in Congress today. Lee, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently led a delegation to Cuba to meet with the Castro brothers to discuss normalization of relations. But she paid no attention to political dissidents or political prisoners being held on the communist island.

Lee, who calls Pelosi “a magnificent woman” and “one of California’s greatest representatives,” began her career in the California state legislature as a secret member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a spin-off from the Communist Party. As a member of the staff of Rep. Ron Dellums, Lee was shown to have been collaborating with communist officials on the island of Grenada, according to documents captured after the liberation of that island nation. These revelations have not hurt Lee’s standing with Pelosi and other “progressives.” Indeed, Lee also served as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. 

But even more interesting than the Barbara Lee connection is Pelosi’s long-time friendship and association with Vincent and Vivian Hallinan, one of the most radical left-wing families in San Francisco over the course of five decades.

Pelosi hailed them as “one of San Francisco’s great Irish families” in a March 17, 1999, statement, after the passing of Vivian Hallinan. “Vivian was a pioneer, a mentor and a leader,” Pelosi said. “Our community was blessed by her presence and will long remember her many significant contributions to improving society. I will miss my friend, Vivian.”

Pelosi called Vivian Hallinan, who openly held “socialist” views, a “pioneer” in “a wide range of progressive causes.”

But these causes included support for communists in Central America during the 1980s, when Soviet- and Cuban-backed forces were subverting Central America through violence and terrorism and fighting for control of the region.

Indeed, Pelosi paid tribute to Vivian Hallinan by inserting into the Congressional Record an article saying that she had “opposed U.S. policy in Central America” under President Reagan, had “befriended Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s [Communist] Sandinista leader,” and had met with Cuban dictator Castro.

“She was a role model for many of us,” Pelosi said. “If Vincent was the lion, Vivian was the lioness.”

“My mother and Nancy were pretty close,” acknowledges Conn Hallinan, one of their sons.

Official Scrutiny

The names of the Hallinans, including some of their sons, are included in the annual volumes of the California State Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities. The subcommittee was a well-regarded investigative body which examined not only communist activities in California but right-wing groups such as the John Birch Society and the Minutemen.

In the case of the Hallinans, there was a lot to examine. Vincent Hallinan, a lawyer who died in 1992, was a founding member of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, officially designated a front of the Communist Party, and defended secret Communist Party member and labor leader Harry Bridges.

In addition, he was a self-described “roaring atheist” who specialized in attacks on the Catholic Church. In one case, according to the New York Times, he “sued the Roman Catholic Church for fraud, demanding that it prove the existence of heaven and hell.” 

Vincent Hallinan also ran for president on the ticket of the Progressive Party, “a creature of the Communist apparatus, and completely dominated by the Communist Party from start to finish,” the subcommittee said.

A 1961 subcommittee report says that Vincent Hallinan traveled to the Soviet Union with his wife to vouch for the legitimacy of the communist show trial of Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union. Powers’ mission had been to document the Soviet missile build-up. It adds, “[Vincent] Hallinan’s glowing accounts of the Soviet Union and favorable comments concerning the fairness accorded Powers at his trial were sold in great quantity by the Communist Book Stores both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles.” 

A 1953 edition of the report states that Vincent Hallinan was a participant in a meeting of the Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, a “Communist front organization.” The Rosenbergs were communists executed for committing atomic espionage against the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union.

A wealthy woman, Vivian Hallinan had contributed financially to one of Pelosi’s campaigns. Her only other political contributions on the federal level, as recorded by the Federal Election Commission, went to Senator Barbara Boxer and Reps. Barbara Lee and Ron Dellums.

The “Progressive Champion”

Despite her pro-communist record, Lee was honored as a “progressive champion” at the June 2 “awards gala” sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, perhaps the largest “progressive” group in the U.S. The gala, held in conjunction with a conference, is being chaired by the AFL-CIO, whose president, John Sweeney, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is also being honored; the Service Employees International Union; the National Education Association; and Hollywood producer Norman Lear, among others.

Fenton Communications, the public relations firm which represented George Soros during his attempt to buy the White House in 2004, is one of several groups and individuals on the Gala Awards host committee. 

At the group’s 2006 conference, Pelosi was a featured attraction, telling the assembled “progressives” that if Democrats took control of Congress and made her speaker that Democrats would “make the most corrupt, closed Congress in history the most open and honest Congress in history.”

But Pelosi tried desperately to avoid being open and honest about her charges against the CIA.  

Time To Drop the Matter

One reporter did note that after Pelosi charged that she had been misled by the CIA, Republican House Leader John Boehner had said that she needed to produce the evidence or apologize, and that CIA director Leon Panetta has said the CIA was not in the practice of misleading Congress.

Pelosi replied, “I have made the statement that I’m going to make on this. I don’t have anything more to say about it. I stand by my comments…” 

Pressed for further explanation, she reiterated, “I won’t have anything more to say about it.”

The New York Times thought the performance was impressive, declaring that Pelosi had stuck to the “script” and had not succumbed to “the impatient media horde.”

This was a signal to the rest of the press that they should drop the matter.

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