06/16/16

Southern Poverty Law Center in Bed With Extremists

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Why is the FBI missing the extremists in our midst? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the organization consulted by the Department of Justice for information on extremists is in bed with them.

Evelyn Schlatter, the deputy director of research of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), was listed as a participant in the recent Left Forum conference, which featured an assortment of communists, 9/11 truthers, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activists, and other extremists. Schlatter was described as an expert on “right-wing political and social movements, gender, and sexuality.”

Schlatter should have some knowledge of left-wing political movements, especially since she rubbed elbows with some of their followers at the conference. Indeed, these far-left extremists are allies of the SPLC, which works directly with and advises the Obama Justice Department on hate groups and extremism. The FBI is under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department.

In the case of the Orlando terrorist attack on a gay nightclub, the SPLC has been careful to avoid discussing in any significant detail the killer’s devotion to radical Islam, including his regular attendance at a Mosque and the presence of a Koran, a Palestinian book, and other Islamic paraphernalia in his apartment. Instead, an article on the SPLC website described Omar Mateen as simply “a 29-year-old American citizen who worked as a security guard and had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before the attack.” The article focused on the reactions of a few members of the “racist right” to homosexuals being targeted in the attack.

Fred Fleitz, senior vice president for policy and programs with the Center for Security Policy, says his organization was named by the SPLC as a “hate group” precisely because of “our work highlighting the threat from radical Islam.”

Denouncing the SPLC’s use of despicable tactics against leading conservatives, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (ret.) has said that the SPLC is “probably next to the Muslim Brotherhood the most evil group in America.” The Muslim Brotherhood functions as a front for terrorist organizations but is treated as a friendly Muslim group by the Obama administration. Indeed, national security reporter Bill Gertz reports that Obama has issued Presidential Study Directive-11, backing the Muslim Brotherhood.

As if the Justice Department needed more evidence of how the SPLC can’t be trusted to report on “extremists” in America, the SPLC’s Schlatter was joined at the Left Forum by pro-terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart. Stewart participated in a panel titled, “Free Our Political Prisoners,” a reference to terrorists in prison. Stewart knows something about terrorism. As noted by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, she was convicted for helping the Blind Sheikh run his Egyptian terrorist organization, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya or “the Islamic Group,” from his high-security U.S. prison confinement. However, Stewart was freed from prison by the Obama administration on medical grounds.

The chairman of the panel featuring Stewart was Jennifer Meeropol of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, an organization named for the Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

An advertisement in the conference program guide proclaimed, “Time to Take Down the Wall between the Left and the Truth Movement. No Justice or Peace without Truth.” This was an attempt to get more left-wingers on board the 9/11 truth movement, which claims U.S. government agents—not Muslim terrorists—were behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A panel associated with this view argued that Islamophobia was responsible for blaming Muslims for the terrorist attacks.

Among the organizations joining with the Southern Poverty Law Center at the recent Left Forum in New York City were:

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a self-declared Marxist-Leninist organization raided by the FBI in 2010 because of its links to the terrorist FARC in Colombia and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist terrorist group.
The Progressive Labor Party, whose motto is “Fight For Communism.”
Red Star Publishers, described as “a small publishing company dedicated to making Marxist-Leninist literature available in print format at low cost.” It isassociated with the Party of Communists USA and US Friends of The Soviet People.
Revolution Books, “A bookstore for a radically different world,” is associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, headed by former SDS leader Bob Avakian.
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist organization in the United States, and principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.

The opening plenary was titled, “Capitalism and Militarism—at Humanity’s Peril,” and was predictably covered by Russia Today (RT) in a story headlined, “‘Democracy in the US is a fraud’ Left Forum debates next steps for Sanders movement.” Speakers were:

Medea Benjamin, an anti-Israel activist who co-founded Code Pink.
Tariq Ali, a British Pakistani associated with the Marxist Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, who co-wrote the screenplay for the Oliver Stone film glorifying Venezuelan Marxist ruler Hugo Chavez.
Chris Hedges, a former New York Times reporter who holds the distinction of being so far left that he was booed and greeted with chants of “USA” when he delivered a graduation speech on “War and Empire” at Rockford College in Illinois.

Titles of panels at the conference included:

The Proletariat is Still the Revolutionary Class.
Tear Down the Prison Walls!
Intifada in America: The History of the Palestine Left in the United States.
A Dialogue on Israel and Palestine With Tariq Ali and Norman Finkelstein.
Animal Liberation Strategies in the Face of Indifference and Repression.
Bully Nation: How Militaristic Capitalism Creates A Bullying Society.
One Year of the SYRIZA-ANEL Government in Greece: The Perspective of the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
Silencing Dissent: False Accusations of Anti-Semitism Against Palestine Solidarity.
Cuba—Political and Economic Reforms for 21st Century Socialism.
Prison Abolition: A Movement Towards New Directions.
Deconstructing Gender Identity Under Male Supremacy.
Some Reflections on the Russian Revolution.
A Call for Leninist Unity.
Queer Immigrant Organizing for Liberation.

Fleitz notes that the SPLC has become “a far left group with one purpose: manufacturing material to slander conservatives for use by the news media and on the Internet.” This is indeed why The Washington Post and other news organizations use the group in the first place. But the media carefully avoid any discussion of the extremists in bed with the SPLC, proving the essential dishonesty of what passes for coverage of extremism in American society.

Until this approach changes, on the part of the government and the press, Islamists will continue to escape scrutiny and kill Americans.

09/25/15

Pope Lays Out Global Marxist Agenda

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is ecstatic over the pope’s address to Congress. In a message to his supporters, titled, “Why we must listen to Pope Francis,” he was particularly pleased with the fact that in his address to Congress, “Pope Francis spoke of Dorothy Day, who was a tireless advocate for the impoverished and working people in America. I think it was extraordinary that he cited her as one of the most important people in recent American history.” Day was a Marxist apologist for socialism and communist regimes. We covered this territory in my column, “With Pope’s Help, U.N. Bypasses Congress on Global Socialism.”

With Republican congressional leaders under fire from conservatives for cowering in the face of a Democratic Party onslaught, all that they needed was to roll out the welcome mat for a Marxist pope who would put them further on the defensive. But that’s exactly what happened.

Phyllis Bennis of the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies was right: “Pope Francis’ address to Congress was almost certainly not what John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and other congressional leaders had in mind when they invited the pope to speak.” Speaking for many on the left, including the pro-abortion lobby,she said, “His clear call to end the death penalty was the only example he gave of protecting the sanctity of life: Even amid a raging congressional debate over Planned Parenthood, he never mentioned abortion.”

The list of left-wing causes in the pope’s address was extensive. Bennis noted “his calls to protect the rights of immigrants and refugees, end the death penalty, preserve the planet from the ravages of climate change, and defend the poor and dispossessed.” And then there was the attack on the policies of peace through strength, which keep us free. “Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world,” the pope said. He then asked, “Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?”

He should ask that of Vladimir Putin.

Most Americans understand the rationale for legal immigrants. But illegal aliens who commit crimes are something else. The pope seems not to recognize a difference.

The death penalty is a punishment reserved for heinous killers. But he doesn’t mention abortion, which has taken tens of millions of innocent lives. This seemed strange to conservative Catholics, who are starting to come to grips with the fact that this is a “progressive” pope, who is not hostile toward what anti-communist Pope John Paul II called the “culture of death” through population control and reduction.

Francis’s answer on the arms control issue was to challenge the United States alone and blame its spending on national defense on monetary motives. “Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood,” said the pope. “In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.”

That’s a slander of our brave fighting men and women, many of whom have given their lives or sacrificed their limbs to bring freedom to people around the word, especially Muslims in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Against the global Jihad, what does the pope expect the U.S. to do? Disarm?

Praising “his uniquely progressive papal perspective,” far-left radio host Amy Goodman noted that “The pope has been frank in his criticism of much of the core of U.S. society: capitalism, consumerism, war and the failure to confront climate change.” This is a fraud, of course. They used to warn us against global cooling. It then became global warming and now climate change. The cause always changes until they find something to lure people into schemes for bigger government and higher taxes.

Recognizing the socialism of the pope, Al Jazeera posted an article, “Bernie Sanders, the pope and the moral imperative of systemic change,” by Gar Alperovitz, the co-chair with James Gustave Speth of The Next System Project. Speth, former administrator of the United Nations Development Program, put his name on its 1994 “Human Development Report,” which openly promoted global taxes for world government.

The “Next System” is another name for the replacement of global capitalism by global socialism.

Those endorsing this project, in addition to Alperovitz and Speth, include:

Jane Mansbridge, Harvard University
Gerald Hudson, Service Employees International Union
Annie Leonard, Greenpeace USA
Robert B. Reich, University of California at Berkeley
Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Barbara Ehrenreich, Author
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University
Gerald Torres, Cornell University Law School
Larry Cohen, Communications Workers of America
Julie Matthaei, Cornerstone Cohousing
Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers
John James Conyers, Jr., 13th District, Michigan
Bill McKibben, 350.org
Saskia Sassen, Columbia University
Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York
Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California
Phillip Thompson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Oliver Stone, Academy Award-winning Filmmaker
Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK
Timothy E. Wirth, United Nations Foundation and Better World Fund
Sarita Gupta, Jobs With Justice
Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Van Jones, The Dream Corps & Rebuild The Dream
Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, California State University
Daniel Ellsberg, Author
Herman E. Daly, University of Maryland
Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate, Author, Former Presidential Candidate
Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Anna Galland, MoveOn.org Civic Action
Danny Glover, Actor, Social Activist
Tom Morello, Musician, Activist
Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party Presidential Nominee
Nancy Fraser, New School for Social Research

“We have fundamental problems because of fundamental flaws in our economic and political system,” the New Project proclaims. “The crisis now unfolding in so many ways across our country amounts to a systemic crisis. Today’s political economic system is not programmed to secure the wellbeing of people, place and planet. Instead, its priorities are corporate profits, the growth of GDP, and the projection of national power.”

The group goes on, “Large-scale system change is needed but has until recently been constrained by a continuing lack of imagination concerning social, economic and political alternatives. There are alternatives that can lead to the systemic change we need.”

Yes there are. They are called socialism and communism. But they would rather call it “sustainable development,” in order to confuse people about how the American way of life is being targeted for extinction.

07/17/15

How the Republicans Plan to Lose to Hillary

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

A new survey from Univision, the pro-Mexico television network, demonstrates the utter folly of Republicans appealing to Hispanic voters. It finds that 68 percent have a favorable view of Hillary Clinton despite the scandals swirling around her. By contrast, only 36 percent have a favorable view of former Republican Governor Jeb Bush, who is married to a Mexican and speaks Spanish.

Bush “was the highest-rated of all the Republican candidates,” Univision reports, with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a one-time proponent of amnesty for illegals, coming in second with only a 35 percent approval rate.

What the poll demonstrates is that Hispanics are basically owned by the Democratic Party. The Democrats’ power grab for the Latino vote has been successful. However, ultimately the Democratic Party’s success in the presidential election depends on convincing Republicans to fruitlessly continue to appeal to Hispanics, while abandoning the GOP voter base of whites, conservatives and Christians.

Overall, in terms of political party affiliation, 57 percent of Hispanics identified themselves as Democrats and only 18 percent said they are Republicans. A total of 25 percent called themselves independent.

In another finding, 59 percent of Hispanic voters said they were satisfied with Barack Obama’s presidency after his six years in office. Clearly, most Hispanics have drunk the Kool-Aid. For them, it appears that federal benefits and legalization of border crossers are what matters. Most of them don’t bat an eye in regard to Obama’s lawless and traitorous conduct of domestic and foreign policy.

What the Republicans have left is to try to appeal to white, conservative and Christian voters. But that strategy, of course, runs the obvious risk of being depicted by the liberal media as racist. After all, whites are not supposed to have a “white identity,” as Jared Taylor’s book by that name describes.

Whites cannot have a racial identity, but Hispanics and blacks can. This is one aspect of political correctness. As communists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who are themselves white, put it in their book, it is a “race course against white supremacy.”

If Republicans pander to Hispanics, they will alienate their voter base, which has shown in their reaction to the Donald Trump candidacy that they want more—not less—action taken to control the border with Mexico. Republican Senator John McCain (AZ) calls the Trump supporters “crazies,” an indication that the GOP establishment would rather jettison these people than bring them into the Republican camp. Like McCain, former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has also attacked Trump, saying his remarks about criminal aliens are hurting the GOP. It’s amazing how a loser like Romney, who also threw in the towel on gay marriage when he was governor of Massachusetts, continues to generate press. What he is saying is what the liberal media want to hear.

Of course, the political correctness which dominates the national dialogue and debate also means that Republicans like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are likely to continue to demonize Trump, thereby alienating many whites. As a result, the Republicans will get less of the conservative and Christian vote, further diminishing their chances of winning the White House. It will be a replay of the losing campaigns of John McCain and Mitt Romney. Republicans have already alienated many Christian voters by giving up the fight for traditional marriage. They had planned to abandon border control as an issue until Trump and “El Chapo” got in the way.

Meanwhile, in another amazing turnaround, Republicans on Capitol Hill are backing Obama’s call for “sentencing reform,” a strategy that will empty the prisons and increase the crime rate, thereby alienating GOP voters in favor of law and order.

As this scenario plays out, Mrs. Clinton is coming across on the Democratic side looking like a moderate, by virtue of the fact that an open socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is running “to her left” for the Democratic nomination.

The Clinton-Sanders show has all the earmarks of a carefully staged demonstration of the Marxist dialectic, an exercise designed to create the appearance of conflict in order to force even more radical change on the American people through Democratic Party rule.

Anybody who knows anything about Hillary, a student of Saul Alinsky, understands that her “moderation” is only a façade. Her thesis on Alinsky for Wellesley College was titled “There Is Only the Fight…” That is the Marxist strategy. It is the Alinsky version of the Marxist dialectic. It was also adopted by Obama, who was trained by Alinsky disciples working with the Catholic Church in Chicago.

In my column, “Study Marxism to Understand Hillary,” I noted that Barbara Olson had come to the conclusion while researching her book on Hillary that “she has a political ideology that has its roots in Marxism.” Olson noted, “In her formative years, Marxism was a very important part of her ideology…”

This means that Mrs. Clinton understands that the Sanders candidacy actually supports and does not undermine her own candidacy. It makes Hillary look like a moderate while she moves further to the left, a place she wants to be, in response to the left-wing Democratic base. Only the Marxist insiders seem to understand what is happening.

Some uninformed commentators refer to something called “Clintonism,” a supposed moderate brand of Democratic Party politics. If that ever existed, it applied to Bill Clinton and not Hillary.

The fact is that Sanders and Mrs. Clinton have associated with the same gang of communists and fellow travelers for many years. Sanders was an active collaborator with the Communist Party-sponsored U.S. Peace Council.

As for Hillary, Barbara Olson reported in her book Hell to Pay that Robert Borosage, who served as director of the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), was “a colleague and close acquaintance” of Clinton. Olson wrote that Mrs. Clinton operated in the “reaches of the left including Robert Treuhaft and Jessica Mitford,” who had been “committed Communists” and “Stalinists.” Olson said that Hillary worked for Treuhaft and paved the way for Mitford to lobby then-Governor Bill Clinton on the death penalty issue.

Olson described Hillary as a “budding Leninist” who understood the Leninist concept of acquiring, accumulating and maintaining political power at any cost. She wrote that “Hillary has never repudiated her connection with the Communist movement in America or explained her relationship with two of its leading adherents. Of course, no one has pursued these questions with Hillary. She has shown that she will not answer hard questions about her past, and she has learned that she does not need to—remarkable in an age when political figures are allowed such little privacy.”

Researcher Carl Teichrib has provided me with a photo of a Hillary meeting with Cora Weiss from the May 2000 edition of “Peace Matters,” the newsletter of the Hague Appeal for Peace. Weiss, a major figure in the Institute for Policy Studies, gained notoriety for organizing anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and traveling to Hanoi to meet with communist leaders. In the photo, Hillary is shown fawning over a Hague Appeal for Peace gold logo pin that Weiss is wearing.

Teichrib, editor of Forcing Change, recalls being an observer at the 1999 World Federalist Association (WFA) conference, held in association with the Hague Appeal for Peace, during which everyone in attendance was given an honorary membership into the WFA. In addition to collaborating with the pro-Hanoi Hague Appeal for Peace, the WFA staged a “Mission to Moscow” and held several meetings with the Soviet Peace Committee for the purpose of “discussing the goal of general and complete disarmament” and “the strengthening of the United Nations.” Mrs. Clinton spoke to a WFA conference in a tribute to veteran newsman Walter Cronkite, a supporter of world government

In the WFA booklet, “The Genius of Federation: Why World Federation is the Answer to Global Problems,” the group described how a “world federation,” a euphemism for world government, could be achieved by advancing “step by step toward global governance,” mostly by enhancing the power and authority of U.N. agencies.

Obama’s Iran deal continues this strategy by placing enormous power in the hands of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

At this stage in the campaign, even before the first Republican presidential debate, we can already see how the race is playing out. Hillary is counting on the Republicans nominating another loser with a losing strategy while she moves to the left and looks like a moderate.

Alinsky would be proud.

01/12/15

Rep. Kathy Castor: The Castro Brothers’ Best Friend in Florida

By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal

No Florida Congress member can take more credit in laying the groundwork for President Barack Obama’s “normalizing” of diplomatic relations with Communist Cuba than Tampa area Democratic Party Representative, Kathy Castor.

Despite a very strong Cuban-exile, anti-Castro lobby in her home state, Rep. Castor has been relentless in her quest to make life easier for the terrorist-sponsoring, revolution exporting Castro brothers.

Using commercial opportunities and trade as bait, Rep. Castor has helped build a powerful lobby in her own state, which has set the stage for President Obama’s unilateral decision.

Rep. Castor is not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus or similar pro-communist alliances.
She emphasizes commercial advantage over ideology in her campaign. Castor will also criticize Cuba’s abominable human rights record when convenient.

However, I believe she is just as ideologically committed to the Castro cause as is President Obama himself.

Interestingly, a report to the Communist Party USA was supportive of several Democratic candidates in the 2004 election cycle, including “Barak” Obama and Kathy Castor’s mother, Betty Castor, in her race for the US Senate from Florida:

It would be helpful for each district to single out House seats that can be swung from Republican to Democrat to develop our list of key races, which includes progressive Frank Barbaro in New York and Cynthia McKinney in Georgia.

A number of exciting candidates are emerging in the Senate, in the first place Barak Obama in Illinois, and also several progressive women including Betty Castor seeking to retain retiring Bob Graham’s seat as Democrat…

Incidentally, Betty Castor was appointed by President Obama in September of 2011, to the J. William Fulbright Scholarship Board, which oversees the worldwide Fulbright Program. On November 13, 2014, the Board elected her as Chair to begin a one-year term on January 1, 2015.

If the Communist Party liked Betty Castor, they should just love her daughter.

Much of Kathy Castor’s pro-Cuba activism has been in conjunction with the Washington, DC based Center for Democracy in the Americas, a spinoff of the far left Center for International Policy, and the notoriously pro-Castro Institute for Policy Studies.

In April 2013, the Center for International Policy partnered with the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation to host “Rapprochement With Cuba: Good for Tampa, Good for Florida, Good for America.” Rep. Castor provided the opening remarks at the Friday evening cocktail event in Tampa, FL and welcomed the panelists. The following day, the panelists discussed the Obama Administration’s Cuba policy, the State Department’s list of terrorist states, the Cuban-American vote, the US Congress’ Cuba policy, doing business in Cuba, deep water oil drilling in Cuba’s territorial waters and travel to Cuba at the Historic Cuban Club.

The highlight of the evening was hearing Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL) express her specific interest in normalizing relations with Cuba. According to Representative Castor, “Congress needs to change its policy towards Cuba, but Congress doesn’t have to act for the U.S. to begin to engage.”

“I am confident that change is on the horizon,”Castor began. “Think about what can happen at the Port of Tampa, ports all across the Southeast. All across America. These are values that we share as Americans — trade, travel and the ability to have a productive dialogue. There’s no reason any longer that it should not move forward.”

Among those cheering Castor that evening was panelist and The Nation magazine contributor, Peter Kornbluh, of the DC-based National Security Archive (another Institute for Policy Studies spin-off). He called Castor a “trailblazer for a new, modern, post-Cold War policy towards Cuba,” and said that the four-term congresswoman can be the catalyst to redefine the Florida-Cuba relationship, which until now has generally been controlled “by Castro-hating exiles who live in Miami.”

Kornbluh has a history of cheerleading for communism.

When a $14 million aid package for the anti-communist Nicaraguan “Contras” came up in the spring of 1985, Congress initially voted it down. Just forty-eight hours before the vote, Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) traveled to Nicaragua. Their “celebrated meetings with the Marxist-Leninist Sandinista junta leaders, which captured the headlines and helped sway Congress, were arranged by Peter Kornbluh, then a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Within a week, the Sandinista president, Daniel Ortega, flew to Moscow and secured $200 million in Soviet aid.” “Shocked and embarrassed, Congress reversed gears” and granted $27 million in aid to the “Contras.”

The Institute for Policy Studies’ 33rd Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards were granted, Thursday, October 15, 2009. One of those the Award was named for was Cuban intelligence officer and Institute for Policy Studies staffer Orlando Letelier, killed by a Chilean government ordered car bomb in Washington, DC, September 21, 1976. Kornbluh was on the Award selection panel.

Rep. Kathy Castor also attended the Center for Democracy in the Americas’ 7th Anniversary Event, July 11, 2013.

Kathy Castor, left

Kathy Castor traveled to Cuba in early April of 2013, with members of her staff and representatives of the Center for Democracy in the Americas.

As she told the May 19, Tampa Bay Times on her return:

Cuba is changing, however, as I learned on my recent fact-finding visit. Cuba has embarked on meaningful economic reforms, which deserve encouragement by the United States, not continued isolation. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have a window of opportunity to engage and encourage reform in Cuba and should act now…

Reforming Cuba policy will improve our diplomatic standing in the region and, at a critical moment, strengthen the credibility of our policy against terrorism. The Summit of the Americas concluded in 2012 with a warning from our allies that if Cuba is not allowed to attend the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama, they will boycott this important regional conference. The Obama administration should use the next two years to put U.S.-Cuban relations on a constructive path.

Castor said Fidel Castro is no longer in power and described his brother, President Raul Castro, as “a much more practical ruler.”

“They are still a hard-core communist nation, but they are embarking on market reforms in their economy that deserve encouragement,” said Castor.

Castor said she plans to ask President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry “to open talks to lead to greater trade and travel opportunities.”

In December of 2013, the Center for Democracy in the Americas convened “Cubans in the New Economy: Their Reflections and the U.S. Response,” C.D.A. co-hosted at George Washington University and featured Cuban guests, plus Alex Lee, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Rep. Kathy Castor and several other mainly leftist “experts.”

The Center for Democracy in the Americas connection is problematic from another angle.

Until recent times, the Center listed as one of its key Advisory Board members as the infamous Julia Sweig.

Also listed among “former fellows, project co-ordinators and staff” of the Institute for Policy Studies, Julia E. Sweig is the Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In October of 2008, in Miami, Christopher S. Simmons, one of America’s foremost authorities on Cuban Intelligence, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army and a career counterintelligence officer, identified several Cuban spies and their operations in the US. He later added several other names.

Speaking of Sweig, Simmons noted:

She may be one of two very unique categories of agents – an Agent of Influence or a “Persona de Confianza,” – another DI intelligence category. She has directed numerous Council-sponsored Task Forces on Latin America, currently serves on the Board of Directors for Foreign Affairs en Español; consultant on Latin American affairs, Congressional Program, The Aspen Institute (1999-present); Project Director, Center for Preventive Action Commission, Andes 2020: A New Strategy for the Challenges of Colombia and the Region (2004); Director, Independent Task Force, U.S.-Cuban Relations in the 21st Century, A Follow-On Chairman’s Report (2001). Wrote OPED pieces re Elian scenario and “Cuban terrorists” in the U.S.

In 2002, Sweig published her book, Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground. Among those she thanks in her acknowledgements are six Cuban Intelligence Officers: Jose Antonmio Arbesu, Ramon Sanchez Parodi, Fernando Garcia Bielsa, Hugo Yedra, Jose Gomez Abad and Josefina Vidal. Not surprisingly, Sweig does not acknowledge that the six are career Intelligence Officers. The six Cuban spies she thanks are:

Ramon Sanchez Parodi Montoto: Became the first Chief of the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, DC on September 1, 1977, when the US and Cuba re-established diplomatic missions. This career spy served in Washington until 1989… Experts remain undecided as to whether he is DGI or from the infamous America Department (DA). In testimony before the US Senate, Dr. Daniel James charged Sanchez-Parodi with targeting the Congressional Black Caucus to foment opposition to existing US policies toward Cuba.
Jose Antonio Arbesu Fraga: Director of the America Area (formerly the DA) of the International Department of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC/ID). Following the 1992 resignation of legendary Cuban Intelligence officer Manuel Pineiro, Jose Antonio Arbesu Fraga, one of the DA’s Vice Directors, was selected as his replacement. In May 2004, Mexico forbade future visits by Cuban officials Arbesú and Pedro Miguel Lobaina-Jimenez de Castro.
Fernando Miguel Garcia Bielsa: As a 1st Secretary at the Cuban Interests Section, he was one 14 spy-diplomats expelled in May 2003. Earlier this year, Garcia Bielsa served as the Political Counselor in Santiago. Normally, Garcia’s extensive DA service, long-term ties to US terrorist groups (i.e., Puerto Rican extremists) and past service in the US would make his Santiago posting an anomaly. However, Santiago is likely a relatively benign operational area for a “burned” spy to continue to work with leftists groups and American agents.
Josefina de la C. Vidal Ferreiro: First Secretary at the Cuban Interests Section. One of 14 expelled in May 2003.
Hugo Ernesto Yedra Diaz: Yedra attracted considerable attention on November 22, 1977 when his briefcase exploded in the lobby of an Upper East Side apartment building. Yedra had set the case down to call for an elevator and apparently failed to activate the safety device on the case’s self-destruct device. Yedra lived in the building, but gathered his documents and fled the scene before police could arrive to investigate.
Jose Gomez Abad: A central figure in an attempted terrorist effort known as the “Black Friday Attack” on November 17, 1962, just weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The FBI detained three Cuban Diplomats from its UN Mission and seized a cache of explosive and incendiary devices. Washington detained the Cubans on espionage-related charges and stockpiling munitions for use against US installations. Cuba’s targets included the Statue of Liberty; retail giants Macy’s, Gimbels and Bloomingdale’s; the main bus terminal on 42nd Street; Manhattan’s busiest subway stations – including Grand Central Station and several oil refineries along the New Jersey riverbank. Twelve detonators, several incendiary devices, grenades and 500 kilos of TNT were to be used on Black Friday – the busiest shopping day in the US.

Many of us forget the murderous intent shown by Castro’s agents in the United States.

Rep. Castor is knowingly, or unknowingly, serving the interests of an enemy nation with a long history of spying, subversion and aiding and planning terrorist attacks on US soil.

She has also allied herself with some of America’s worst homegrown subversives.

Should Kathy Castor and her associates be investigated by the incoming Republican controlled Congress?

For more information on Rep. Castor and more than 70 other US representatives and Senators, read Trevor Loudon’s 2015-2017 Edition of “The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the US Congress.”

The book is timed for release on April 11, 2015, but you may order your personally signed copy, or copies here:

“Trevor Loudon does the job that few in the media ever attempt” – Glenn Beck

New Zealander Trevor Loudon has addressed more than 400 events, in the United States of America.

He is an internationally known blogger and researcher, noted among other things for exposing the communist background of Obama “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones, which led to his eventual resignation from his White House position. Loudon was also the first to publicize Barack Obama’s ties to Hawaiian Communist Party member, Frank Marshall Davis.

Loudon’s research has been cited by Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, in many articles, blog posts and in books by well known authors Paul Kengor, Aaron Klein and Jerome Corsi. He has given hundreds of radio interviews and addressed audiences in more than 40 states in several tours of the United States.