02/23/15

The Mysterious “Frank” Returns

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Yesterday’s news became big news on the Fox News Channel on Thursday when former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani brought up the name of President Barack Obama’s childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. It was almost seven years to the day when we published our seminal piece about Davis, “Obama’s Communist Mentor.”

Davis was a member of the Communist Party and a suspected Soviet espionage agent. He was included in the FBI’s security index, meaning that Davis could be arrested or detained in the event of a national emergency. The FBI file on Davis documents his anti-white and pro-Soviet views, infiltration of the Hawaii Democratic Party, and other activities.

Davis also wrote an autobiographical and pornographic sex novel, Sex Rebel, disclosing that he had sex with a young girl and engaged in shocking and bizarre sexual activities.

Giuliani’s public identification of Davis and discussion of his role in grooming a young Barack Obama marks the first time, in my memory, that a top Republican has ever mentioned the Davis-Obama relationship. It was done in the context of Fox News’ Megyn Kelly of questioning how Giuliani could dare ask whether Obama loves America.

If the Republicans had brought this up during the 2008 campaign, Obama might have been defeated and the country could have been spared the last six years of “progressive” hope and change. The Davis-Obama relationship is something so damaging and corrupt that its public airing would have raised questions about the Democratic Party’s vetting of Obama and the direction of the Democratic Party itself.

However, Republican operative Karl Rove was warning Republicans not to accuse Obama of being a socialist. He said such a charge would generate a negative backlash. The result in 2012 was another Obama victory.

Now that it has become apparent to more and more people that Obama is not a traditional liberal Democrat and is, in fact, a Marxist with Muslim sympathies, a figure such as Giuliani feels compelled to speak out. So let’s take a look at what Giuliani said.

“I don’t feel it. I don’t feel this love of America,” Giuliani said, talking about Obama. “I’m talking about a man who grew up under the influence of Frank Marshall Davis who was a member of the Communist Party, who he refers to over and over in his book, who was a tremendous critic of the United States.”

Kelly countered that Obama “was raised in part by his grandparents. His grandfather served in World War II, his grandmother worked in a munitions plant to help the nation during World War II. I mean, to suggest he was raised by people who don’t love America or didn’t help him learn to love America.”

Giuliani argued that “his grandfather introduced him to Frank Marshall Davis, who was a communist.” He added, “You can fight in World War II, and then you introduce someone to a Communist and the young boy gets…”

After Kelly interjected that “it’s a political world view. It’s not a hatred for the country,” Giuliani responded, “Communism wasn’t hatred for America?”

Giuliani is correct about the Davis influence over Obama and the role that the grandfather played in picking Davis as a mentor.

But when Giuliani notes that Obama refers to Davis “over and over in his book,” Dreams from My Father, it’s important to point out that Davis was not identified as Frank Marshall Davis in that book. Instead, Obama identified him merely as “Frank.” The rest of the story was put together by anti-communist researcher Trevor Loudon, and we confirmed the identification with another source in Hawaii who was a close friend of Davis.

Even more of the story was put together by Paul Kengor in his authoritative book on Davis, The Communist. It appears that Davis was an influence over Obama for about nine full years, until Obama was 18 and went off to college. Obama went off to college and, by his own admission, would attend socialist conferences and pick Marxist professors as his friends.

This relationship alone would have disqualified Obama from getting low-level federal employment. The loophole in our system is that background checks are not required for federal elected officials. Our founders counted on a free press to review the fitness of those running for office.

When former Obama adviser David Axelrod talks about Obama being free from major scandals, he is ignoring the biggest scandal of all—how Obama concealed his Marxist upbringing and relationship with Davis. Axelrod of course was part of the cover-up. When “Frank” was identified as Davis, the Obama campaign insisted he was just a civil rights activist.

As we reported at the time, news organizations such as the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Newsweek and even Fox News ignored or downplayed Davis’s communist sympathies.

As Giuliani indicated, there are other influences on Obama that help explain his anti-Americanism. These include the “community organizing” philosophy of Saul Alinsky, his pastor Jeremiah Wright and the communist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Giuliani clearly feels, at this stage in Obama’s presidency, that some things have to be said openly for the sake of the country. A former crime-busting U.S. Attorney who was mayor of New York City at the time of 9/11, Giuliani fears for the future of our country. But it’s not just the fate of America that is at stake. It is clear that Obama has no love for America’s traditional allies, such as Israel. Hence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to America to plead his case personally. He is afraid that Obama wants to make a deal that will allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Now that Giuliani has publicly raised some inconvenient truths about Obama, the “progressives” and their media allies will naturally scream and cry “McCarthyism.”  Strangely taking this tack, Fox News’ Kelly wondered if Giuliani’s comments about Obama had damaged “the Republican brand.” The Republican brand will only be damaged by an inability to face facts and confront and expose anti-Americanism at the highest levels of the United States government. It is shocking that it has taken this long for the evidence to emerge publicly on a national basis on Fox News and other channels.

This controversy will help determine what direction the Republicans will take. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who has made it his job to protect Obama from the fallout from major scandals, was quick to label Giuliani’s remarks about Obama as “stupid.” He also attacked Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker as “spineless” for saying Giuliani “can speak for himself,” and not directly challenging what the former mayor had said

“What Scott Walker did ought to disqualify him as a serious presidential contender,” wrote Milbank.

This is a signal from one of Obama’s best friends in the media that the information unearthed by Giuliani is of the blockbuster variety. Giuliani went for the jugular and hit a gusher.

The first thing Republicans can do is simply challenge the media to report on the Davis FBI file. They have been avoiding it for over six years.

Congress could also investigate Obama’s communist connections, which stretch from Hawaii to Chicago, and question the FBI about what they knew, if anything, about the Obama-Davis relationship. The reestablishment of House and Senate internal security committees, including a loyalty program for U.S. officials to eliminate security risks, should be considered.

Republicans could remind people that it was anti-communist Democratic President Harry Truman who started the first loyalty program. He issued executive order 9835 establishing the program in 1947.

The executive order said that “each employee of the Government of the United States is endowed with a measure of trusteeship over the democratic processes which are at the heart and sinew of the United States,” and declared that “the presence within the Government service of any disloyal or subversive person constitutes a threat to our democratic processes…”

It is time for a background check on the President of the United States. Does he pass the loyalty test?

01/5/15

Republicans Must Investigate Where the Media Fear to Tread

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

On Saturday and Sunday, The Washington Post’s liberal reporters warned that Republican victories in November on the national and state levels have given the GOP the opportunity this year to become “aggressive” and pass their own legislation and initiatives. “GOP will flex muscles in the states” ran on Saturday, with an article, “Eager GOP sets its goals,” about their national effort running on Sunday. But there is something else the Republicans could do to really strike fear into the hearts of liberals—restore internal security panels that once examined “un-American” activities.

The liberal media are terrified that Republicans will actually do something with their power. On foreign policy, the Post feared that Republicans could put in jeopardy President Obama’s “outreach to Cuba and Iran.” The term “outreach” implies that Obama is pursuing a wise and correct approach to our enemies in the communist and Muslim worlds. This is how a major liberal paper attempts to intimidate Republicans into letting Obama and the far-left have their way. Let’s hope the Republicans are smart enough to see through this propaganda disguised as “news.”

The liberals are worried indeed, because, as the Post notes, there are 246 Republicans in the House, the party’s largest majority since just after World War II, and the GOP now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers.

On the national level, there is no formal process underway to re-establish a House or Senate internal security panel, but the need is clearly there. The proceedings of old House and Senate panels on un-American Activities or internal security have proven to be absolutely essential in understanding the rise of Barack Obama and the modern “progressive” movement. Hearings into communist activities in America were cited by such books such as Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation and David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate. That’s because Obama’s Marxist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, and his lawyer, Harriet Bouslog, had figured so prominently in the investigations of Soviet-sponsored networks on American soil. Bouslog defended Davis against charges that not only was he a member of the Communist Party, but a suspected Soviet espionage agent.

The Republicans have controlled the House and conducted some worthwhile investigations. The Post refers to these as probes into “alleged” wrongdoing at the IRS, the Department of Justice, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Such hearings were necessary because of the media’s failure to aggressively investigate the Obama administration. Congress has failed, however, to investigate such topics as Muslim Brotherhood penetration of the executive branch. That’s why panels looking at internal security are so desperately needed.

The failure of the House to investigate the Muslim Brotherhood lies at the feet of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who denounced his fellow Republicans when they sought a probe of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s controversial foreign Muslim connections. Boehner was also slow to embrace a special committee to investigate Benghazi.

Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy notes that the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence is so pervasive within the U.S. government and civil institutions “that a serious, sustained and rigorous investigation of the phenomenon” is in order. He adds, “To that end, we need to establish a new and improved counterpart to the Cold War-era’s HUAC [House committee on Un-American Activities] and charge it with examining and rooting out anti-American—and anti-constitutional—activities that constitute an even more insidious peril than those pursued by communist Fifth Columnists fifty years ago.”

The House Homeland Security Committee, under the chairmanship of Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) has proven to be a major disappointment. He even refused to investigate the expansion of the Muslim Brotherhood channel, Al Jazeera, into the U.S. through the purchase of Al Gore’s Current TV.

The Senate once had a Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism that held hearings in 1982 on such topics as “The role of Cuba in international terrorism and subversion.” Such a subcommittee is badly needed today, as the Obama administration wants to drop Cuba from the official list of state sponsors of terrorism. Cuban dictator Raul Castro said of Obama’s announcement: “His decision to review the unjustifiable inclusion of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of international terrorism is encouraging.” It is time for Congress to once again document how Cuba sponsored such groups as the Weather Underground and the Puerto Rican FALN, and their bombing campaigns on American soil. The role of the Weather Underground in facilitating the prison escape of cop-killer Joanne Chesimard and her arrival in Cuba, where she remains, should be a prime topic of inquiry. She is living in Cuba with such fugitives as William Morales, the notorious FALN bomb-maker who also escaped from prison and fled.

In the same speech, Castro referred to the release from U.S. prison of the “Cuban Five” spies, saying, “I must reiterate our profound, sincere gratitude to all the solidarity movements and committees which struggled to obtain their freedom, and innumerable governments, parliaments, organizations, institutions and figures who made a valuable contribution.”

These “solidarity movements and committees” have been active on American soil for many years. I covered one of their conferences last year at a Baptist church just a few blocks from the White House. It was orchestrated by the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C. and the Workers World Party, a Marxist-Leninist group. It is time for hearings into these activities and their role in the change in Obama’s Cuba policy. If Cuba is given a full-fledged embassy in Washington, D.C., we can anticipate more spying and subversion on American soil. Is that in America’s national interest?

The Post notes that, in the Senate, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), plans a “rigorous hearing process” on Obama’s recognition of the communist regime in Cuba. But the hearings will prove to be inadequate unless the pro-Castro network in the U.S. is identified and examined—and we find out what the FBI knows about these “solidarity movements and committees.”

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) can do some good work as the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. But a subcommittee on internal security could be revived and do a lot of specialized work into the activities of the pro-Castro lobby.

In addition to re-establishing a congressional panel on internal security, Republican-controlled states can work in the same area. Some of the best hearings into internal subversion were conducted years ago by the state legislature in California through the California Un-American Activities Committee. The Golden state is no longer in the Republican camp, but a number of states now under Republican control could decide to form legislative committees or panels and open hearings in this area.

The creation of these committees would lead to cries of “McCarthyism.” Papers like the Post would say that Republicans are being too “aggressive” and “partisan.” But the conservative base is clearly demanding action to stem the tide of Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America. They know they can’t count on the major media to investigate the Obama administration. Another opportunity like this may never happen again.