Thread: NEW YORK TIMES EXPOSES MARXIST MAYORAL CANDIDATE - Bill de Blasio

NEW YORK TIMES EXPOSES MARXIST MAYORAL CANDIDATE

By Cliff Kincaid
September 25, 2013
NewsWithViews.com

A new kind of investigative reporting was unveiled at The New York Times on Monday. A story about the communist connections of a major politician was plastered across page 19 of the paper.

Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, just endorsed by President Obama, was the subject of a long story about his support for the Communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Whatever the reason for the scrutiny, the paper has opened the door to additional investigations of Democratic Party politicians, including Obama himself.

The story represents vindication for the late Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), who gave rise to the term, “McCarthyism,” a search for Communist connections and anti-Americanism that was considered objectionable by progressives collaborating with enemies of the U.S. McCarthyism, it seems, is now in vogue at The New York Times.

There’s no reason to stop with de Blasio. Trevor Loudon’s new book The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress, looks at dozens of other Democratic Party politicians who call themselves progressives and have Communist connections that go even deeper than that of de Blasio.
Salon, whose editor has endorsed de Blasio as a “real progressive,”calls the Times article on de Blasio an “anti-lefty hit piece.” By the liberal Times? What is going on here?

“References to his early activism have been omitted from his campaign Web site,” the Times said about de Blasio, in a revelation that could have also applied to Barack Obama’s relationship with Communist Frank Marshall Davis, and his run for the presidency.

So what we have here is a cover-up of the first order.

In de Blasio’s case, the paper undertook investigations that would have made Senator Joe McCarthy proud. It said, “…a review of hundreds of pages of records and more than two dozen interviews suggest his time as a young activist was more influential in shaping his ideology than previously known, and far more political than typical humanitarian work.”

This is simply incredible, as well as admirable, on the part of the Times and its reporter, Javier C. Hernandez. The Communist background of a major political figure has suddenly become newsworthy. The paper even noted that de Blasio went on an illegal honeymoon to Communist Cuba.

It appears that his real “honey” was Fidel Castro. No wonder he is engaged in a cover-up.

Despite the Times’ investigative work, it is clear that more scrutiny is needed, even of his family connections. The Times says de Blasio’s mother, “then working at the Office of War Information in New York, was accused of being a Communist for attending a concert featuring a Soviet band.” It’s doubtful that attending a Soviet concert is all there is to this particular subversive connection.

Bringing the story back to de Blasio, the paper added that he “studied Latin American politics at Columbia and was conversational in Spanish, grew to be an admirer of Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista party, thrusting himself into one of the most polarizing issues in American politics at the time.”

Trying to explain the situation at the time, the paper said, “The Reagan administration denounced the Sandinistas as tyrannical and Communist, while their liberal backers argued that after years of dictatorship, they were building a free society with broad access to education, land and health care.”

Of course, the Sandinistas were indeed puppets of the Soviets and the Cubans, and remain so to this day, except that the Soviets have become the Russians and the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela emerged as one of their modern-day mentors, in addition to the Castro brothers.

This is not completely an old news story, since the Sandinistas have returned to power in Nicaragua. Indeed, the Communists are on the rise throughout Latin America.

The Times added that “de Blasio became an ardent supporter of the Nicaraguan revolutionaries. He helped raise funds for the Sandinistas in New York and subscribed to the party’s newspaper, Barricada, or Barricade. When he was asked at a meeting in 1990 about his goals for society, he said he was an advocate of ‘democratic socialism.’”

The Times said de Blasio did most of his work on behalf of the Sandinistas through the Quixote Center in Maryland, a group I came across while writing about the wars in Central America for Human Events in the 1980s. A spin-off, the Christic Institute, filed a frivolous lawsuit against supporters of the Nicaragua freedom fighters. You can still see my 1987 debate with Daniel Sheehan of the Christic Institute on C-SPAN.

When I noted the Communist links of the Christic Institute during the debate, Sheehan’s predictable response was: “Joe McCarthy.” His frivolous lawsuit was thrown out of court in a case that I described as “legal terrorism” against anti-communists.

The FBI file on the Christic Institute is helpful in analyzing its political contacts, such as then-Senator John Kerry, used in order to make support for the anti-Sandinista, pro-freedom cause into a “scandal.”

The Quixote Center was “founded by Catholic leaders,” as the Times points out, but these “leaders” were on the far left and dedicated to the belief that communism and Christianity could mix. It is also known as liberation theology.

De Blasio also raised money for the Nicaragua Solidarity Network, the Times said.“ In 1991, at one of his final meetings with the Nicaragua Solidarity Network, he argued that the liberal values the group had defended were ‘far from dead’ around the world, with blossoming movements in places like Mexico, the Philippines, El Salvador and Brazil, according to minutes of the meeting,” the Times reported. “He spoke of a need to understand and build alliances with Islam, predicting it would soon be a dominant force in politics.”

This alliance with Islam is, of course, typical of many leftists, such as Carlos the Jackal, the terrorist trained by the KGB who converted to Islam and became devoted to Osama bin Laden.

Promoting a Marxist alliance with Islam, in view of 9/11 and the anti-American terrorism around the world, is something that takes on ominous and frightening implications.

Such talk is highly relevant today because, as mayor, de Blasio could dismantle the New York Police Department’s aggressive campaign to uncover jihad plots targeting the citizens of that city and the nation.

But Joan Walsh of Salon hails his “bold stands on police controversies.”

He is the frontrunner for mayor and has the endorsement of Barrack Obama, who says, “Progressive change is the centerpiece of Bill de Blasio’s vision for New York City, and it’s why he will be a great mayor of America's largest city.”

As for de Blasio himself, today he, too, “describes himself as a progressive,” the Times reports.

His endorsements include not only Obama and the Clintons, but also such figures as Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), George Soros, editor of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel, Alec Baldwin, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, and former ACORN head Bertha Lewis.

Following up on the Times investigation, the CBS affiliate in New York confirmed, “De Blasio’s official biography on his campaign website makes no mention of his activism.”

Activism? Is that what organizing for communist revolution has become?

In any case, why would he want to hide his “progressive activism” on behalf of the Communists? Perhaps the connections go far beyond what the paper itself calls items on the “social justice” agenda.

In fact, the paper said he gave them a recent interview and that de Blasio said his views then—and now—“represented a mix of admiration for European social democratic movements, Mr. Roosevelt’s New Deal and liberation theology.”

So a mix of communism and Christianity is still appealing to him.

At the bottom of his campaign website, one finds the category of “transparency,” where we find “hosts of campaign-sponsored events,” but nothing about his Marxist background.

It would appear that the Times has uncovered a Pandora’s box of connections that the candidate never wanted to be discovered.

What else is he hiding? And after de Blasio is completely exposed, can we turn our attention to President Obama?

© 2013 Cliff Kincaid - All Rights Reserved

Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Cliff has written or co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign policy issues. One of Cliff's books, "Global Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule the World" is still awailable.

Cliff has appeared on Hannity & Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire and has been published in the Washington Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events and Insight.

Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc.

E-Mail: cliff.kincaid@aim.org

http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff761.htm

Will New Yorkers Elect a "Democratic Socialist" Mayor?

Diana West | Sep 27, 2013



Will New Yorkers elect a new mayor who dedicated himself to the Sandinistas in the 1980s, honeymooned in Cuba in the 1990s (in violation of a U.S. travel ban), and participated in a New York City Council event honoring Zimbabwe's tyrannous Robert Mugabe in 2002?

Right now, it looks that way. In 1988, Bill de Blasio went to Nicaragua to aid the Marxist, Soviet-supported Sandinistas. He came home, as The New York Times put it, with "a vision of the possibilities of unfettered leftist government." Today, 25 years later, New York City Public Advocate de Blasio, who remains "very proud" of his radical activities (he has since regretted his Mugabe "mistake"), is the front-runner in New York's mayoral race. Recent polls show the Democrat nominee with a whopping 40-point margin over Republican candidate Joe Lohta.

That could change if two things happen: 1) If New Yorkers actually figure out that they are about to elect the most Marxist mayor in Big Apple history; 2) If the concept appalls them. Both are Big Ifs.
Six weeks before Election Day, De Blasio's radicalism has emerged as a significant issue after The New York Times, of all papers, introduced the topic on Sept. 22 under the headline, "A Mayoral Hopeful Now, de Blasio Was Once a Young Leftist." Republican Lhota, a former investment banker, veteran of the Rudy Giuliani administration and, most recently, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, immediately targeted de Blasio's radical roots. Lhota says they explain what he calls de Blasio's "class warfare strategy in New York City."

In a statement, Lhota said: "Bill de Blasio needs to explain himself -- and explain himself now -- to the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who escaped Marxist tyranny in Asia, Central America, and from behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe."

Lhota continued: "Mr. de Blasio's involvement with the Sandinistas didn't happen in 1917; it happened 70 years later when the cruelty and intrinsic failure of communism had become crystal clear to anyone with a modicum of reason. Mr. de Blasio's class warfare strategy in New York City is directly out of the Marxist playbook. Now we know why."

What was superb about the salvo was its unusual clarity. One thing the left hates and fears -- and by "left," I mean a spectrum of socialists, Marxists, communists, progressives, Alinskyites, liberal collectivists and "card-carrying ACLU members" -- is being defined. Explained. Exposed.

Think back to President Obama's 2008 campaign when "Joe the Plumber" ever so briefly pulled down Candidate Obama's "post-partisan" mask to reveal the spread-the-wealth, socialist beliefs beneath. The Obama campaign, with media cooperation, quickly covered up this political wardrobe malfunction with more warm and fuzzy "hope and change." Also covered up was President Obama's past membership in the socialist New Party, for which, as National Review's Stanley Kurtz recently reported, de Blasio once served as executive director in New York. Similarly, the Obama and de Blasio share close ACORN ties.

Meanwhile, as Americans brace for the federal takeover of one-sixth of the economy with Obamacare, do we know what's hitting us yet? It's called socialism, and it has increasingly transformed the American political landscape since FDR, whom de Blasio, not incidentally in this context, claims as his political hero. Quite unexpectedly, socialism -- or its variant, "democratic socialism" -- has emerged as a key issue in New York City. This past week, Lhota discussed de Blasio's Times-unearthed worldview, which, as Politicker.com reported, "included telling his fellow Sandinista activists that he supported a 'democratic socialism' vision for society."

"His policies haven't indicated any change whatsoever," Lhota said, as quoted in Newsday. "Anybody who loves the Sandinistas as much as he does, anybody who wants to support the Sandinistas, who are a pro-Marxist -- it speaks for itself."

Yes and no. Americans are so grievously under-educated about the tenets of Marxism-Leninism and the horrors they inflicted, including 100 million killed, that Lhota must do even more to explain what he means. He needs to keep talking about how the provenance of de Blasio's policies have less to do with the principles of free people under the U.S. Constitution than with government controls in the old Eastern bloc -- from de Blasio's plans to expand government's role in the economy by controlling prices in the housing market and imposing a higher minimum wage, to degrading the concept of national citizenship by introducing a "Universal City ID card" and allowing driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Lhota needs to explain that "democratic socialism" is never "democratic," and that "socialism" destroys free markets.

It's a heavy load for a mayoral candidate to take on, but, given the polls, Lhota has nothing to lose and everything to gain by arguing that such ideas, which have entered the Democratic Party mainstream (and now lap at the Republican establishment), flow from anti-liberty, collectivist roots.

It is these same roots that the left always tries to obscure, and de Blasio is no different. Initially, he denied having once claimed for himself the "democratic socialist" label. "I am a progressive who believes in an activist approach to government. You can call it whatever the heck you want," the front-runner said, sounding more than a tad defensive.

I call it collectivist code for the expanding intrusion of government control into every facet of private life. If Joe Lhota can clearly explain this to New Yorkers, he just might win.

http://townhall.com/columnists/diana...0843/page/full