This chart was created (click on the thumbnail to see the entire thing) to me follow Barack Obama’s connections to a wide range of Socialist, Marxist, Communist and Progressive causes, as reported in Jerome Corsi’s Obama Nation and other sources. Depending upon your politics, it’s either going to appear as an endorsement, or a condemnation. But it is what it is; the connections are well documented and undeniable, often coming from the writings of the players themselves. Sources for this work include Obama’s autobiography (which I have indeed read), Jerome Corsi’s Obama Nation, various news sources (Reuters, AP, CNN and the New York Times, among others) as well as a variety of web sites, including Wikipeida. In my work for my Masters degree in Political Science, I have read works by Saul Alinsky, Noam Chomsky, among others mentioned here. Where I was unsure of my facts, I used several sources to corroborate. I have also elected to leave out several connections which critics have brought up, including Obama’s Nigerian connections through his family there, the politics of his father (whom he barely knew) and his exposure to Islam at schools in Indonesia.

Each of the names in the chart has a key description below.

Keys By Name

Alinsky, Saul: A committed Marxist, Alinsky was the father of community organizing. In his key work, Rules for Radicals, he argued that the most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired ends, and that an intermediate end for radicals should be democracy because of its relative ease to work within to achieve other ends of social justice. Alinsky wrote that “the purpose of a community organizer is to rub raw the resentments of the people of a community.”

He has several connections, both direct and indirect, to Barack Obama. First, Obama’s years of “community organizing” were based on Alinsky’s theories. Second, he trained at the feet of Alinsky lieutenant Jerry Kellman. And finally, he has directly adapted Alinsky’s language into his 2008 Presidential Campaign. Alinsky taught that his followers should deceive the public by using the key word “change” to represent the total socialist overturning of society that he advocated. Obama has learned the lesson well, using the innocuous sounding word “Change” in all of his campaign slogans. It confuses the masses, but insiders know what he means.

Assad and Syria: The Assads are the family that has held power in Syria since the early 1970s. Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism, especially of Hamas and the PLO. Tony Rezko, Obama’s financier, is Syrian. Syria aligned itself with the Soviet Union and the Marxist movement starting in 1955.

Auchi, Nadhmi: A cousin of Saddam Hussein, Auchi apparently is an international arms dealer and former money launderer for Hussein. Just before Obama got his sweetheart real estate deal from Rezko, Auchi gave Rezko $3.5 million. Obama claims he has never met Auchi, but witnesses at the Rezko trial say the two were together at a Rezko reception.

Axelrod, David: Barack Obama’s campaign manager. He was raised on Marxist politics. His mother was a writer for the socialist PM tabloid, where she worked alongside avowed Communist I.E. Stone, who later was outed as a paid Soviet agent. She also worked with Frank Marshall Davis.

Ayers, Bill: Founder of the Weathermen, the 1960s era terrorist group that was responsible for more than 30 bombings, including at police headquarters in New York and at the Pentagon. Ayers explained his goals: “Kill all rich people. Break their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.” Ayers escaped prosecution due to FBI mishandling of the investigation. He served with Obama on the Woods Foundation, a charitable group that has donated money to suspect organizations like the Arab American Action Network, which has connections to Hamas and the PLO. It was at Bill Ayers house that Obama was introduced as the Democratic Candidate for the Illinois Senate in his first run. Obama claims only to know him because their kids went to the same school, but in fact Ayers and Obama’s children are many years apart.

Black Liberation Theology / Black Nationalism: These two philosophies are actually quite similar, even if they arrive from somewhat different directions. Both advocate a racial, rather than national identity and can trace their origins back to Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association. Black Liberation Theology is based on the notion that Jesus of Nazareth was black, and that he lead a revolution against his white colonial oppressors – the Romans. This leads to the conclusion that it is a religious imperative for African Americans to overthrow their current white oppressors. The theology was developed by primarily by James H. Cone, but also is contributed to by Dwight Hopkins, Malcolm X, Stokley Carmichael and Frantz Fannon, among others. It is the thinking that informs the preaching of Barack Obama’s friend and spiritual advisor Jeremiah Wright. Cone himself described Wright’s Trinity United Church as the best example of a church based on its theology. Adherents of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam support Black Nationalism, also arguing that Jesus was black. Both theologies preach reparations for slavery, separate black economies and education systems, and socialist-Marxist style collectives. Cone completes the Black Liberation Theology – Nation of Islam connection when he said that Malcolm X was “not far wrong” in: Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love

Carmichael, Stokeley: Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panthers, he began as an integrationist, but later became a proponent of Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism. He was a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Malcolm X is listed as one of his major influences. Later in life, he entered self-imposed exile in Africa, and preached socialist revolution. He died of a cancer, which he claimed the FBI had given to him.

Chaib, Abdelhamid: Ran Crucial Concessions, the business founded by Jabir Muhammad, son of the founder of the Nation of Islam. He gave Tony Rezko his start, and has donated to Obama’s Senate Campaigns, as have several other Chaib associates.

Chavez, Cesar: Community Organizer (see Saul Alinsky) and founder of the United Farm Workers. His slogan “si, se puede” has been appropriated by Barack Obama – Yes, We Can.

Chomsky, Noam: Anarchist and socialist philosopher. He is a seminal figure in American socialist-Marxist politics. He has been a vocal critic of the United States and its policies during every administration since Harry Truman.

Cone, James: An intellectual founder of Black Nationalism and Black Liberation Theology. Cone wrote that black Power “means complete emancipation of black people from white oppression by whatever means black people deem necessary.

Davis, Frank Marshall: Poet and journalist Davis is identified by Obama in his autobiography as the mentor from whom he sought wisdom and advice during his teen years in Hawaii. Davis was a member of the Communist Party, and associate of leftists such as Richard Wright and other Black Nationalists. Obama says that it was Davis who turned him against his white grandparents.

Fanton, Frantz: An Algerian revolutionary whose writings are cited as being central to Black Liberation Theology and Black Nationalism.

Farrakhan, Louis: Current leader of the Nation of Islam, the Black Nationalist religious group. Farrakhan has been a political lightening rod, accused of making many anti-semitic, homophobic and anti-American remarks. He has endorsed Obama for President. Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright are allies, visiting Kadhafi together, and working together on the Million Man March. Wright’s church gave Farrakhan an award for “empowerment.”

Graham-Felsen, Sam: An “official blogger” of the Obama campaign. He’s a Norm Chomsky disciple and a contributor to The Socialist Viewpoint magazine. The Socialist Viewpoint is the magazine of The Socialist Workers Organization, “formed to advance the revolutionary Marxist political program on the United States.”

Hamas/PLO: Obama and Bill Ayers served together on the board of the Wood Foundation, which donated funds to suspect groups such as the Arab American Action Network, which has ties to Hamas and the PLO. Barack Obama advisor Robert Malley was fired from the campaign once it was discovered he was having talks with Hamas. Hamas has endorsed (but has since withdrawn) Obama. Hamas and the PLO also receive financial support from the governments of Syria and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Syria is linked to native son Tony Rezko. Money from Saddam Hussein cronies are suspected to have funded Obama’s sweetheart real estate deal; others apparently have contributed to his campaigns. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Mousa Abu Marzook published an official statement on Hamas’ goals. The statement apparently was later reproduced by Jeremiah Wright in a church newsletter. Marzook has since been indicted in federal court for support of terrorism.

Hussein, Saddam: Former dictator of Iraq, Hussein has several connections to Obama through members of his administration. Alham Alsammarae was his Minister of Electricity, who was convicted in Iraqi Court of Fraud. He escaped to Chicago. He is an old friend of Rezko and has donated to Obama. Obama sought information form the US State Department about Alsammarae on behalf of his daughter. Nadhmi Auchi is a Hussein cousin who supplied money to Rezko which likely was used to finance Obama’s sweetheart deal. Hussein’s Baathist party aligned itself with the Soviet Union and the Marxist movement, supporting Arab Socialism, nationalism and Pan-Arabism

Kadhafi: Dictator of Libya and a sometime-sponsor of international terror, including Hamas and the PLO. Together, Jeremiah Wright and Farrakhan visited Kadhafi in 1984. Kadhafi has been a strong supporter of the Nation of Islam, as it coincides with his own brand of revolutionary socialist Islam.

Kellman, Jerry: A Saul Alinsky lieutenant who recruited Obama to work as a “community organizer” in Chicago.
Khalidi, Rasheed: The director of the Palestinian press agency, he received a $70,000 grant from the Woods Foundation on behalf of the Arab American Action Network, which has ties to the PLO. Khalidi, William Ayers and Obama taught at the University of Chicago. He is a followers of the Palestinian-Terrorist apologist Edward Said.
Malcolm X: Obama has written that of all the Civil Rights leaders of the 1960s, the one that had the most impact on his development was Malcolm X. In Dreams of My Father, Obama writes: “and yet, even as I imagined myself following Malcolm’s call, one line in the book stayed with me. He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.

Muhammad, Elijah: Black Nationalist widely considered the founder of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad actually was the second leader of the movement, having taken over from W.D. Fard of Detroit, who disappeared. Muhammad’s theology has been identified by scholars as a mix of Sufism, the teachings of Noble Drew Ali of the Moorish Science Temple, Egyptology, Numerology, Eastern Mysticism, Black Nationalism and the economic ideas of Marcus Garvey and others.

Muhammad, Jabir: Son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad, Jabir started Crucial Concessions, the firm which gave Tony Rezko his first big break. He also served as Muhammad Ali’s business manager, and later worked with Rezko to put together business deals.

Obama, Michelle Wife of Barack Obama. In her Princeton Thesis, she claimed Stokley Carmichael as part of her intellectual foundations. Carmichael is one of the godfathers of Black Liberation Theology, the foundation of Jeremiah Wright’s preachings.

Rezko, Tony: A Syrian immigrant, who helped to bankroll Obama’s first five campaigns. Obama has described him as an “active member” of his organization. Rezko, a developer, got his first big job working for Crucial Concessions, a food service company owned by Jabir Muhammad, son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad. Rezko attempted to recruit Obama out of college to work for his organization. Later, Rezko was to give Obama a sweetheart real estate deal on his house. It’s suspected that the money for Obama came from a cash infusion from Nadhmi Auchi, a global arms dealer, and former money launderer for Saddam Hussein. Rezko has recently been convicted in federal court of corruption for trading political fundraising for favors from the Illinois Governor.

Wright, Jeremiah: Obama’s minister of twenty years, Wright preaches Black Liberation Theology, and has become famous for his anti-American rants from the pulpit. Wright is emphatic in several interviews, as in his infamous appearance on Hannity and Combs that radical Black Liberation thinkers such as Frantz Fanton, Stokely Carmichael and James Cone are at the heart of belief system. Wright has very close connections to the Nation of Islam and to Louis Farrakhan’s Black Nationalism program. Wright admits to being a former Black Muslim, and Obama has written: “Wright had dabbled with liquor, Islam and black nationalism in the 1960s” Wright was a principal in Farrakhan’s Million Man March, as was Al Sharpton and Barack Obama. Obama took recordings of Wright’s preachings with him to Harvard Law and later referred to him as friend and mentor.

Woods Foundation: The Woods Foundation (sometimes referred to as the Woods Fund) is a philanthropic organization that distributes money to community groups in Chicago. Barack Obama and William Ayers apparently met while sitting on the board together (although there is some thought that they knew each other earlier).

Obama has been making hay over McCain’s inability to count them.

But Barak Hussein Obama really doesn’t want to bring up housing issues, as this McCain ad shows below:

What started as a revolutionary plan back in the 1990s has become a poster child for disaster. Depending on sales and income taxes to pay for obligations such as schools results in a system that is unstable and unsustainable. And anyone with a brain should have seen it coming. I did, and warned my colleagues about it fifteen years ago. It works as long as the economy is expanding at a rate that’s faster than inflation. That ensures that revenues keep pace with, or outpace, inflation. But when the economy goes south, so does school funding. That forces schools to cut back. And in a collapsing and changing economy, education is the one thing that offers hope for the future.

The solution to the budget problem, according to school critics, is to cut teacher salaries and benefits. Fair enough. But anyone with an understanding of economics knows where this will lead: to less competent teachers, higher teacher turnover and less effort from those teachers who stay.

With cuts in salary and benefits, why would any competent person go into teaching, especially in fields like math, science and economics, where they can work in private industry for far more money? If you remove the economic incentives for becoming a teacher, anyone with half a brain will go into another field. That leaves behind only those who have no other option.

And do you want your child being taught by someone who is in the classroom only because there is no other option?

I don’t.

In response to a recent question posed by a seven year old, Barak Hussein Obama said that he’s running for President because America is not what it once was. What America, exactly, is he talking about?

The America that held millions of African Americans in slavery (until 1865)?

The America that ignored a Supreme Court injunction and forced the Cherokee from their homes on a Trail of Tears?

The America that denied half its population the right to vote (women, until 1920)?

The America where people were denied the right to free speech, jailed without habeas corpus, and removed from their jobs for being part of an ethnic majority (Wilson’s WWI, where German Americans—the largest single ethnic group were persecuted without reason)

The America of massive economic depression, dustbowl, population dislocation and a flirtation with fascism? (The Great Depression)

The America where large numbers of an ethnic minority were herded into concentration camps for looking different (Roosevelt’s World War II).?

The America of Jim Crow (until the 1960s)?

The America of JFK’s aborted invasion of Cuba and of numerous attempts on Fidel’s life?

The America of JFK and LBJ’s senseless persecution and escalation of the war in Vietnam (until 1975)?

The America of rampant drug use, where millions turned on, tuned in and dropped out, resulting in an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, including the Aids epidemic.

The America of gas shortages, double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, and massive unemployment (the 1970s)

The America of the Watergate Era?

The America where we lived in fear of instant incineration at the hands of Russian missiles (the 1970s and 1980s).

The America where the nation was held hostage by a two bit middle eastern nation, and where the well meaning, but incompetent President created the Middle Eastern disaster as we know it today (Jimmy Carter).

If Obama wants to find fault, he doesn’t have to look very hard.

Or perhaps I have it all wrong. Maybe the America as it once was was the Reagan Era. Things were very good for most of us then. But I don’t think that’s what he’s thinking of.

Barry is an idiot. The truth is that beneath that veneer, he’s an angry man who hates the country and believes he can remake it in his image.

Michigan may have to cough up millions of dollars in additional funding to local school districts because of a state Court of Appeals ruling that says they should have been reimbursed for the cost of keeping and reporting more data required under education reforms enacted in the last decade.
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In an opinion released Monday, a unanimous three-judge panel in Lansing said state officials—essentially the Legislature and governor—violated the 1978 Headlee Amendment by ordering schools to turn over data about students and student performance without providing additional resources. The judges said that the state Supreme Court previously ruled that if the state mandates any new activities by school districts, Headlee requires the state to provide funding for it.

As a school teacher, I can tell you that not only do these testing mandates cost money, they also cost enormous amounts of time—both in the classroom and among administrators and teachers. Time that might otherwise be used for teaching is spent teaching how to take a test, preparing the paperwork for testing (each kid has to fill out forms—or someone has to do it for him), test taking, retesting, and so on. Administrators spend time filling out forms, planning ways to meet the ridiculously stringent rules (for example, desks must be 18 inches apart), and gathering and analyzing data. And instead of inservices that might actually benefit the students, teachers are forced to sit through meeting after meeting on how to properly administer tests, teach students the “proper” way to take tests, and so on.

Because of the money linked to the tests, and the dire consequences for a district whose students don’t pass, the standardized tests have become the masters and not the servants of education. They were supposed to help districts figure out where they needed to focus their attention. Instead, they have become the reason for education itself.

Who cares if the students actually learn anything useful. All that matters is that they pass the tests.

By that measure, Michigan’s Congressional delegation is one of the worst imaginable. While Michigan for a decade has been in a one-state recession, it ranks 46th in earmarks per capita.  Michigan is a donor state—giving up far more in Federal Taxes than it receives in return. For every dollar the citizens of Michigan pay in taxes, they receive just 85 cents back.

How can that happen in a state that has been so badly hit economically?

The answer is simple: Michigan’s Congressional delegation is incompetent. This, in spite of the fact that it’s one of the most senior. Consider these names, and their years of “service.”

John Dingle: 53 years in Congress. John Conyers: 43 years. Carl Levin: 30 years. Sander Levin: 25 years. Dale Kildee: 21 years. Fred Upton: 21 years. Dave Camp: 16 years. Bart Stupak: 15 years. Pete Hoekstra: 15 years. Vern Ehlers: 15 years. Joe Knollenberg: 15 years. Carolyn Kilpatrick: 10 years.

You would think that all that experience would get us something. It’s especially appalling when you consider that both our Senators and our senior representatives all are with the majority Democrats.

That’s hard to do with a Republican president, they’ll argue. Then what about during the Clinton years? In the first half of his first term, Democrats controlled the entire apparatus of the Federal government. And Michigan was still a donor state.

Michigan deserves better. This fall, we need to get rid of some of these bums and elect Congressmen who know how to play Washington’s game.

An Obama victory in November would deep six Hillary’s dream of cementing her place in history as the first woman president.

Hillary now is 61. If Obama wins, he’ll serve out his four years, and then presumably run again for four more.  Either way, it’ll be 2016 before she gets another shot. At that point, she’ll be 69—and John McCain and Ronald Reagan not withstanding—too old to give it another shot. Worse, win or lose in 2012, Obama’s vice president will be the presumptive Democratic front runner.

Hillary will be old news; an old Senator from New York.

On the other hand, an Obama loss in 2008 puts her right back in the driver’s seat for the 2012 nomination. Hillary will be able to argue that Obama was a mistake, and that it was a mistake to pass her by for a shot at the White House.

Given that, it doesn’t make sense to be on the ticket for either Hillary or Obama. On the ticket, or off, she needs to do her best to sabotage Obama. Hillary’s best bet is to continue her quixotic campaign, and to allow her supporters to continue to fester. Four years from now, she’ll be able to tell the voters that “I never gave up on you, even when everyone was against me.”

Some have suggested that Obama offer HIllary a spot in the Cabinet. She’d be crazy to take it, though. There’s much more for her as the Senator from New York. And if she wants to be president, taking a cabinet position would be selling that dream cheaply.

I think there’s a strategy for Obama though, that would get Hillary out of the picture, and on his side at the same time: offer Hillary the first vacant Supreme Court position. After cutting the deal secretly, he could suggest publicly that he thinks Hillary would make a fine Supreme Court Justice.

That’s a deal I don’t think she could turn down. And it would be one that would ensure she works to get her supporters behind his candidacy.

Here, HIllary lays out the argument for why you should choose John McCain over Hussain Obama.

But its telling that—even as he was removing himself from the membership rolls—Obama said that Trinity was “not worthy of condemnation.” In other words, even though he has resigned from the physical church, Obama has not divorced himself from ‘Trinity’s radical beliefs.

Using Pfleger was an act of political genius—even while lacking in moral courage. As an insane white Catholic Priest, Pfleger offered Obama the perfect cover. Obama gets to separate himself without making specific commentary on his core black liberation theology beliefs. In the end, the Obama camp hopes that it will be remembered that it was a white man that drove Obama out of the black church.

But make no mistake. Obama still believes—and supports—the core beliefs of the radical, racist Trinity church. No one could listen to twenty years of that depravity without subscribing to the beliefs. Any rational, moral human being would have left long before he did.

Obama still believes what pastor Wright, Pfleger and others at Trinity represent. It’s just that it’s not now politically expedient to say so publicly.

Before Bush, there were five Islamic state sponsors of terrorism. Today, there are just two: Iran and Syria. Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq are now out of the terrorism export business.

That’s success.

If you really want to save the lives and health of teens, stop worrying about madmen with guns and start worrying about cars.

According to Allstate, more than 5,000 to 6,000 teens die each year in auto accidents; three hundred thousand are injured. More than half of those are single car accidents—meaning that the accident was the result of a misjudgment on the part of the driver, not the fault of another. Of the total, 77 percent are due to an error on the part of the teen driver.

Five thousand plus deaths a year averages to twelve- to fifteen teen deaths a day. Put in another, more brutal way, every three days, more teens die in auto accidents than died in the Virginia Tech shootings. And yet there is no public hue and cry against teen driving.

The student parking lot of the high school where I work is jammed with cars. Each of those cars belongs to a teen whose parents allow him to drive. Many of those parents have purchased the car and pay the insurance.

Would those same parents buy their kids guns? Of course not; guns are dangerous and scary.

So are cars. And far more so. If 5,000 teens annually were killed by guns and another 300,000 injured, a Constitutional amendment would be passed to revoke the second amendment.

I wonder as I watch the anti-gun and teen safety advocates rant and rave on television how many let their teens drive. If they have teens, I’d guess that the answer is “most.”

That makes them ignorant at best; perhaps even hypocrites.

Allstate bluntly points out the root causes of the teen death and injury rate:

• The first of these root causes is social: simple peer pressure nudges teens towards risky driving habits. Research shows that the presence of other teens in a car being driven by a teen significantly increases the chances of a crash – whether or not the passengers are explicitly urging the driver to make unsafe traffic maneuvers.

• The second cause is biological, an issue of brain development. Recent advances in neuroscience tell us that key parts of the brain’s decision-making circuitry do not fully develop until the mid-20s. So, in actual driving situations, teens may weigh the consequences of unsafe driving quite differently than adults do. This, combined with the increased appetite for novelty and sensation that most teens experience at the onset of puberty, makes teens more disposed to risk-taking behind the wheel – often with deadly results.

Allstate makes it pretty clear. The problem is not training. It’s that they’re teens. They simply are biologically incapable of making the sound judgments required for good driving.

That also makes the solution clear. Raise the driving age to 21.

So let’s put the Virginia Tech shootings in perspective. Gun deaths are sensational, but a silent epidemic is killing out kids – and no one is doing anything about it. No one is even talking about it.

Kind of takes the shine off the big game.

I think that Bo decided to check out so that he and Woody could watch the game together.

“We want every single consumer in America, every person in America, to know that if they walk into a Wal-Mart, that first of all their tax dollars are subsidizing Wal-Mart employees. Their tax dollars are helping provide health care for Wal-Mart employees, because Wal-Mart’s not doing it. Their tax dollars are going to provide housing and food stamps for Wal-Mart employees,” Mr. Edwards told a crowd of 400…

But he apparently LOVES Wal Mart prices

Yesterday, a staff person for former Sen. Edwards contacted a Wal-Mart electronics manager in Raleigh, North Carolina to obtain a Sony PlayStation3 on behalf of the Senator’s family. Later that night, Sen. Edwards reportedly re-told a homespun story to participants of a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union-sponsored call about how his son had chided a fellow student for purchasing shoes at Wal-Mart.

I nominate Edwards for hypocrite of the year.