Obama’s International Socialist Connections

Accuracy in Media

Campaign workers for Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama are under fire for displaying a flag featuring communist hero Che Guevara. But Obama has his own controversial socialist connections. He is, in fact, an associate of a Chicago-based Marxist group with access to millions of labor union dollars and connections to expert political consultants, including a convicted swindler.

Obama’s socialist backing goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois state senate seat.  Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul Mendelson, one of the “champions” of “Chicago’s democratic left” and a long-time socialist activist. Obama’s stint as a “community organizer” in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally ignored.

Blogger Steve Bartin, who has been following Obama’s career and involvement with the Chicago socialists, has uncovered a fascinating video showing Obama campaigning for openly socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Interestingly, Sanders, who won his seat in 2006, called Obama “one of the great leaders of the United States Senate,” even though Obama had only been in the body for about two years. In 2007, the National Journal said that Obama had established himself as “the most liberal Senator.” More liberal than Sanders? That is quite a feat. Does this make Obama a socialist, too?

DSA describes itself as the largest socialist organization in the United States and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. The Socialist International (SI) has what is called “consultative status” with the United Nations. In other words, it works hand-in-glove with the world body.

The international connection is important and significant because an Obama bill, “The Global Poverty Act,” has just been rushed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with the assistance of Democratic Senator Joe Biden, the chairman, and Republican Senator Richard Lugar. The legislation (S.2433) commits the U.S. to spending hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign aid on the rest of the world, in order to comply with the “Millennium Goals” established by the United Nations. Conservative members of the committee were largely caught off-guard by the move to pass the Obama bill but are putting a  “hold” on it, in order to try to prevent the legislation, which also quickly passed the House, from being quickly brought up for a full Senate vote. But observers think that Senate Democrats may try to pass it quickly anyway, in order to give Obama a precious legislative “victory” that he could run on.

Another group associated with the SI is the Party of European Socialists (PES), which heard from Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, back in 2006. Dean’s speech is posted on the official Democratic Party website, although the European socialist parties are referred to as “progressive.” Democrats, Dean said, want to be “good citizens of the world community.” He spoke at a session on “Global Challenges for Progressive Politics.”

Following up, in April 2007, PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen reported that European socialists held a meeting “in the Democrats HQ in Washington,” met with officials of the party and Democratic members of Congress, and agreed that “PES activist groups” in various U.S. cities would start working together. The photos of the trip show Rasmussen meeting with such figures as Senator Ben Cardin, Senator Bernie Sanders, officials of the Brookings Institution, Howard Dean, and AFL-CIO President John W. Sweeney, a member of the DSA. The Brookings Institution is headed by former Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott, a proponent of world government who was recently identified in the book Comrade J as having been a pawn of the Russian intelligence service.

The socialist connections of Obama and the Democratic Party have certainly not been featured in the Washington Post columns of Harold Meyerson, who happens not only to be a member but a vice-chair of the DSA. Meyerson, the subject of our 2005 column, “A Socialist at the Washington Post,” has praised convicted inside-trader George Soros for manipulating campaign finance laws to benefit the far-left elements of the Democratic Party. Obama’s success in the Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses is further evidence of Soros’s success. Indeed, Soros has financially contributed to the Obama campaign.

It is not surprising that the Chicago Democrat, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, has endorsed Obama. Schakowsky, who endorsed Howard Dean for president in 2004, was honored in 2000 at a dinner sponsored by the Chicago chapter of the DSA. Her husband, Robert Creamer, emerged from federal prison in November 2006 after serving five months for financial crimes. He pleaded guilty to ripping off financial institutions while running a non-profit group.  Before he was convicted but under indictment, Creamer was hired by the Soros-funded Open Society Policy Center to sabotage John Bolton’s nomination as Ambassador to the U.N.

After his release from prison, Creamer released a book, Listen to Your Mother: Stand up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, described by one blogger as the book that was “penned in the pen.” A blurb for the book declares, “Some people think that in order to win, Democrats need to move to the political center by adopting conservative values and splitting the difference between progressive and conservative positions. History shows they are wrong. To win the next election and to win in the long term, we need to redefine the political center.”

In addition to writing the book, Creamer is back in business, running his firm, Strategic Consulting Group, and advertising himself as “a consultant to the campaigns to end the war in Iraq, pass universal health care, change America’s budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform.” His clients have included the AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org. In fact, his client list is a virtual who’s who of the Democratic Party, organized labor, and Democratic Party constituency groups.

Creamer’s list of testimonials comes from such figures as Democratic Senators Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Harold Meyerson, MoveOn.org founder Wes Boyd, and David Axelrod, a “Democratic political consultant.”

Axelrod, of course, is much more than just a “Democratic political consultant.” He helped State Senator Barack Obama win his U.S. Senate seat in 2004 and currently serves as strategist and media advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.

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Terror reviews avoid word ‘Islamist’

By Shaun Waterman THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Two new documents laying out the Obama administration’s defense and homeland security strategy over the next four years describe the nation’s terrorist enemies in a number of ways but fail to mention the words Islam, Islamic or Islamist.

The 108-page Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, made public last week by the Department of Homeland Security, uses the term “terrorist” a total of 66 times, “al Qaeda” five times and “violent extremism” or “extremist” 14 times. It calls on the U.S. government to “actively engage communities across the United States” to “stop the spread of violent extremism.”

Yet in describing terrorist threats against the United States and the ideology that motivates terrorists, the review – like its sister document from the Pentagon, the Quadrennial Defense Review – does not use the words “Islam,” “Islamic” or “Islamist” a single time.

Although the homeland security official in charge of developing the review insists it was a not a deliberate decision, the document is likely to reignite a debate over terminology in the U.S.-led war against al Qaeda that has been simmering through two administrations.

“There was not an active choice” to avoid using terms derivative of Islam, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman told reporters on a conference call. President Obama had “made it clear as we are looking at counterterrorism that our principal focus is al Qaeda and global violent extremism, and that is the terminology and language that has been articulated” by Mr. Obama and his advisers, Mr. Heyman added. He declined to use the I-word.

The sensitivity to terminology is not new. In April 2008, during the George W. Bush administration, an official guide produced by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the multiagency center charged with strategic coordination of the U.S. war on terrorism, urged officials not to use the words “Muslim” or “Islamic” in conjunction with the word “terrorism.”

Such usage “reinforces the ‘U.S. vs. Islam’ framework that al-Qaeda promotes,” read the NCTC’s “Words That Work and Words That Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication.”

Instead, the guide urges policymakers to use terms such as “violent extremists,” “totalitarian,” and “death cult” to characterize al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

The Obama administration has adopted “violent extremism” as its catchall phrase for terrorism.

It is advice that officials at the Defense Department also appear to have taken to heart. The 128-page Quadrennial Defense Review – which like the homeland-security review is a congressionally mandated effort to ensure budgeting and other planning efforts are properly aligned against threats to the nation – also eschews words associated with Islam, employing instead the constructions “radicalism,” “extremism” or “violent extremism.”

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The President Must Stop Voting “Present” on Iran

The Heritage Foundation

Yesterday in Tehran’s Azadi Square, hundreds of thousands of Iranians turned out to listen to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech marking the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad did not disappoint the adoring crowd, defiantly announcing that Iran had become a “nuclear state,” adding: “The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to create an atomic bomb, we would announce it publicly and would create it.”

But the Iranian nation is not nearly as unified behind the current regime as yesterday’s production was meant to show. The supporters in Azadi Square had actually been bussed in by the regime from around the country. For weeks before the anniversary, the government had arrested students, photographers and journalists in an effort to disrupt the Green Movement which had successfully organized mass opposition demonstrations last year following Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection. The government also slowed Internet service and shut down some social networking services to disrupt opposition communications. But even that wasn’t enough. When the Green Movement did manage to stage smaller counter-demonstrations, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia fired tear gas and beat them with clubs until the crowds dispersed.

And Ahmadinejad’s nuclear claims also might not be all they are cracked up to be. Former U.S. officials and independent nuclear experts tell The Washington Post that Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz has experienced declining output levels due to possible technical problems and possibly sabotage. Ahmadinejad’s “nuclear state” shows that the regime is determined to push ahead with its nuclear program despite international opposition. And it is clear that Iran continues to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium, which it could use to build a nuclear weapon.

That is a nuclear weapon which, coupled with Iran’s growing ballistic missile capability, could annihilate Israel. And Ahmadinejad did not ignore Israel on Tehran’s 31st anniversary. In a call to Syrian leader Bashar Assad, he warned Israel against attacking Syria, Lebanon or elsewhere in the region. Ahmadinejad’s phone call is a pointed signal to Israel that if it launches a preventive strike at Iran’s nuclear program, then Tehran will order Hezbollah to launch terrorist and rocket attacks against Israel. As Heritage scholar James Phillips has detailed, an Israeli strike on Iran would have serious implications for U.S. national security.

It is far past time for the Obama administration to admit its “don’t rock the boat” approach to the Iranian regime has failed. The Obama administration’s efforts to seek sanctions through the United Nations are a nice thought, but considering guaranteed opposition from China and Russia, any realistic strategy must also look outside the United Nations. Washington therefore must think outside the U.N. box and press its allies and other countries to impose stronger sanctions outside the U.N. framework. Iran would be hard hit by bans on foreign investment, gasoline exports, trade with firms affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and other measures undertaken by the European Union, Japan, India, the Gulf Cooperation Council or other countries.

The Obama administration should also take a lesson from Ronald Reagan and step-up its public diplomacy efforts to support the Green Movement. The U.S. government should announce that regime change is official U.S. policy, step-up support for Radio Free Iran, and continue to work with Iranians abroad setting up pro-democracy Web sites. The administration’s current course is heading to a dangerous place. The President cannot keep doing the bare minimum and hope the Iranian regime plays nice.

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Sorry About Our President, Neda

Canada Free Press

By Joy Tiz  Thursday, February 11, 2010

Americans know far more about Michael Jackson than they do the history of Iran and its relationship to the United States.  Most of what America knows is wrong, having been subjected to pertinacious propaganda in Ayers’ based public education.

Neda was the beautiful young Iranian woman who was gunned down in the streets of Tehran for the crime of showing up.  She showed up to take a stand for freedom and took a bullet in the neck for her aspirations.  A relative in the United States had cautioned Neda not to attend any demonstrations, telling her “They’re killing people.”  To which the lionhearted and prescient Neda replied:  “Don’t worry, it’s just one bullet and it’s over.”

For just a flicker in time, Neda became an icon, a symbol of the young Iranians’ longing for the most elemental liberties.  It was easy for Americans to be incensed at the barbarous slaughter of a young woman so lovely and earnest.  Young Iran has caught a glimpse of freedom, the inescapable byproduct of advancing technology.  The noteworthiness of Neda is in no small measure due to the ease with which young Americans can appreciate her as not so unlike themselves.

Part of the delusive indoctrination that goes on in public schools includes the rewriting of Iranian history in a way that abets the left.  Particularly pernicious is the persistent misrepresentation of the former Shah’s regime, which was supported by the CIA to oust another crackpot, Mohammed Mossadegh.

Mossadegh’s platform was his fierce opposition to British influence, an ideology adopted by Barack Obama.  Paving the way for future deranged dictators, Mossadegh eventually fired the parliament, called for a special election and declared himself the winner of 99.9% of the vote.

Mossadegh nationalized the oil wells. That was ruinous enough, but batty Mohammad ostensibly didn’t realize that once the Brits pulled out of Iran, there was nobody who actually knew how to run them.  Thus, he drove his people into abject destitution.  The West had well founded jitters about Iran’s economic plight making the country easy prey for the Soviet Union.

After the CIA orchestrated coup, the former Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, returned from exile and modernized the country, including granting women the right to vote, raising the hackles of Muslim extremists.  The gains made for women were systematically reversed when Khomeini seized power.

The Shah was a friend of the United States.  Indeed, he was a flawed leader, prone to despotism but a real pussycat compared to the current Iranian thugocracy.  Until former president Jimmy Carter took office, the United States and Iran maintained a stable relationship.  Carter couldn’t abandon the Shah fast enough.  The daffy left always gets hysterical about minor despots and glorifies the really barbaric ones.  Fidel Castro is a demigod to a libtard.  Carter’s refusal to support the Shah and his delusions about the Ayatollah Khomeini enabled the savage fanatical regime to grab control of Iran.  Khomeini’s government slaughtered more citizens in its first few weeks than the Shah’s regime killed during its entire thirty- eight year reign.  The incendiary ayatollah’s take over was a catalyst for the worldwide expansion of Islamic terrorism.

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Perspectives Of A Soviet Immigrant

Investors.com

There was an old Soviet saying: If you need to find food to fill your refrigerator, plug it into the microphone of a party leader giving a speech.

Today in America, if we plug a refrigerator into our leader’s teleprompter, I suspect the refrigerator will stop working.

Democratic party leaders speak incessantly of limiting profits and regulating salaries.

It brings back to memory another Soviet line: You pretend you are paying us salaries, and we pretend we are working. If bureaucrats predetermine the value of your work, there is no incentive to be productive. This is the quickest way to kill a dynamic economy.

I never expected to hear this kind of rhetoric in the USA. Today, the American educational machine teaches exactly the same points the Soviets taught.

It idealizes Socialist societies and denigrates America, especially its economic system.

American students are brainwashed to despise economic freedom and to yearn for a big government state.

Freed from their parents’ control, but intimidated by the relentlessly negative portrayal of America, young Americans look for politicians to show them the way.

As someone who experienced real government-approved anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, I am amazed by the obliviousness of American Jews, the most fervent supporters of left-wing politics.

They support a party that is obsessed with pitting one group against another, and that incessantly plays on envy and hatred for bankers, rich people, big business and doctors.

They fail to notice that the success of Jews, as well as other minorities, in the sciences, business and arts is directly correlated to their freedom from oppressive, centralized control. American Jews who support big government do not understand what their ancestors escaped from.

Persecutions of Jews throughout history all have one thing in common: a centralized power that manipulates and directs people’s anger away from themselves onto an easy target.

No matter how much Jews align themselves with the power structure and work for noble causes, they will remain an easy target.

As they said in the Soviet Union pertaining to Soviet Jews: They don’t beat your record; they beat your face — meaning that no matter how much you try to assimilate, no matter how many good deeds you do, the centralized power can direct populist anger toward you and crush you when it suits them.

When the Bolsheviks took power after the 1917 proletarian revolution, their first steps were to take control of the banks and the media.

Of course, it is not fair to compare our current American democratic leaders with the Bolsheviks.

Yes, they both use the same slogans in their speeches.

Yes, they both stir up envy and class warfare to distract from their failures.

Yes, both political movements sought control of the banks as the foundation for their new egalitarian vision.

And yes, they are both opposed to free speech, as was made clear by the reaction of American leftists to the recent Supreme Court decision.

But you would never find a Czar anywhere in the Soviet government.

• Kunin lived in the Soviet Union until 1980, working as a civil engineer. She is now a retired software developer living in Connecticut.

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Muslim Scholars Say Airport Body Scanners Violate Teachings of Islam

Family Security Matters

Pam Meister

A group of Muslim scholars says it supports airline

safety, but it is “deeply concerned” about the use of airport scanners that show nude images of the human body.

“The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) emphasizes that a general and public use of such scanners is against the teachings of Islam, natural law and all religions and cultures that stand for decency and modesty,” the group said in a Feb. 10 statement posted at Islam Online.

“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” FCNA explained. The group noted that Islam emphasizes modesty, considering it part of the faith. “The Qur’an has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts” and to be modest in their dress.

While exceptions can be made in cases of “extreme necessity,” FCNA indicated that passenger body scans do not rise to that level.

Airport scanners that show nude images go against my sense of dignity. Does that count for something? They also go against my sense of … well, sense. And I’m not alone. Americans support “subjecting airline passengers to more intensive security checks if they fit a profile of terrorists based on age, ethnicity and gender” by a margin of 3 to 1. What point is there in subjecting Granny from Miami to the indignity of a having what’s under her bloomers exposed to the world when it’s more likely going to be Abdullah from Yemen with the explosives in his nether regions?

Plus, as Steve Chapman points out at Reason.com:

The more intractable problem is that terrorists are fiendishly capable of adaptation. If the scanners can find plastic explosives hidden in underwear – which is not guaranteed – the evildoers have another option that would foil these gadgets: hiding the bomb in a body cavity.

Exactly. Jihadists are constantly trying to improve upon their craft. If at first you don’t succeed, etc.

But if we cannot “discriminate” by “profiling” at the airport due to the ridiculous strictures of PC, then the indignity must be suffered by all. And, if the U.S. goes the same route as the UK, if you are chosen for a scan and refuse, you can’t board your flight.

More:

FCNA is asking for changes in scanner software so the machines will produce only body outlines. In the meantime, the group says Muslim travelers should choose pat-down searches over scanner images – in cases where searches are necessary.

In other words, Muslims are asking for more special privileges in the name of religion. Footbaths at the airport were not enough, it seems. Now, they expect to be exempted from a security measure that was implemented because we aren’t allowed to profile …well, Muslims.

Are there any other religions that are asking for exemptions from this security policy because being seen nude goes against their teachings? If so, I haven’t heard about it. Anyone? Bueller?

An interesting note about the Fiqh Council of North America from Jihad Watch:

The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) is affiliated with ISNA, which is a Muslim Brotherhood group. The Brotherhood is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”

The Investigative Project also notes that a number of FCNA members have terrorism and extremism ties.

Will this become yet another “civil rights” issue for Muslims? As far as I can tell, air travel itself is not a right for anyone, unless that’s somehow been added to the Constitution while I wasn’t looking. And until our government gets a modicum of a clue when it comes to jihad and how to effectively combat it, then anyone choosing to travel by plane must be willing to sacrifice dignity for whatever safety it affords.

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ACORN slated to get nearly $4 billion in Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget

The Washington Times

To add to the list of outrageous earmarks in Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget, ACORN, the embezzlement-prone, voter-registration-fraud-plagued, leftist community organizing group, is slated to receive nearly $4 billion from a taxpayer-funded slush fund.

The money will come from the Community Development Block Grant, one of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s longest-running programs. The HUD Web site cryptically defines the grant’s purpose as providing “communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs,” not a reassuring description given the group’s recent past history of aiding the community through gratuitous missappropriation of funds.

Has Congress already forgotten the Sept. 2009 ban it passed on ACORN and ACORN-afiliate funding? Or the video that led to the ban, footage showing ACORN employees urging individuals they thought were a prostitute and her pimp to set up a brothel and advising the pair on evading taxpaying? It would have had a hard time doing so, cosidering that ACORN is currently suing the federal government for the attempted ban.

Though the largely Democratic House Appropriations Committee voted against the block last December, it is a Bill Clinton-appointee, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon, who has truly aided the corrupt ACORN cause. Also in December, Gershon issued a federal injunction against the Congressional funding ban, crying that it ran afoul of the Constitution because under the ban, ACORN was “singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative, process adjudicating guilt.”

In essence, Gershon has said ACORN can’t be punished now because the Obama administration failed to punish it earlier–through a long-overdue, much-needed criminal investigation into the group. But this is absurd, because ACORN’s not receiving such funding does not constitute its being deprived of a right. The funding is a gift, and Congress has the right to cancel contracts whenever it feels like it.

Just ask Blackwater, a company we are wondering whether Gershon would so heroically rush to defend were it to make the same move ACORN is now making.

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1961 Hawaii Births

The Obama File

According to the U. S. Public Health Service, births in the United States in 1961 were classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and “other nonwhite.”

The category “white” includes, in addition to persons reported as “white,” those reported as Mexican or Puerto Rican.  With one exception, a reported mixture of Negro with any other race is included in the Negro group; other mixed parentage is classified according to the race of the nonwhite parent and mixtures of nonwhite races to the race of the father.  The exception refers to a mixture of Hawaiian and any other race, which is classified as Part-Hawaiian.

In most tables a less detailed classification of “white” and “nonwhite” is used.

Now we know the government is a stickler for codes so that big brother can keep track of all our statistics.  Well, according the the US CDC website there have been some revisions as of late to the types of codes for ‘race’ on vital records certificates.

Prior to 2009, the latest revision to the actual long form took place in 2004.  In 1961, a black person was listed as either ‘black’ or ‘negro’.  In 2004, the one showing on the CDC site shows he could have been listed as either ‘black’ or ‘African American’ as ethnicity then came into play.  Now in 2009 (revised 1/09), codes for those of the Negro race are listed and one can now be listed as just ‘African’ as is shown on Obama’s COLB.

US vital statistic birth records for 1961 in Hawaii (By place Of residence. Data refer only to births occurring within the United States. Based on a 50-percent sample. “Metropolitan counties” include all counties that are standard metropolitan statistical areas (metropolitan State economic areas for New England). “Nonmetropolitan counties” include all other counties):
On page 205 are the statistics for Live Births, non-White Hawaiian births:

•  12,198 — non-white births

•  12,110 — attended in a hospital by physician
•  50 — attended out of a hospital by physician or midwife

•  38 — unattended

So, that’s around 76 unattended births in the year Obama was born.  Was Barack Obama one of those 76?    Information regarding these birth came from the word or statement of a relative.  It might account for the Obama/Nordyke birth certificate numbers anomaly.

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Obama’s Little-Known Kenyan Political Connection

VIOLENCE FUELED BY OBAMA COUSIN’S DEFEAT

by Sharon Rondeau

The Post & E-Mail

— On January 1, 2008, CNN ran a story which began, “Gangs of young men armed with machetes are roaming the streets in Kenya as post-election violence threatens to engulf the country. Horrific attacks are being reported, including the torching of a church where people who had sought refuge were burned alive.” The Mail & Guardian reported that at least 300 people were killed and 70,000 displaced from that one incident alone.

The article went on to report that the violence erupted over the December 27, 2007 election results between the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, and rival Raila Odinga, with Kibaki being declared the winner by a slim margin. What the story did not report was that Odinga had claimed to be the cousin of Barack Obama, who was running for the U.S. presidency.

Also not reported was that Obama had campaigned for Odinga in a visit to Kenya in 2006. Having traveled to several African countries on a “fact-finding mission,” according to the Canada Free Press, “Obama consistently appeared at the side of fellow Luo Raila Odinga (“your agent for change’), who was running for President” at that time. In fact, Obama was so outspoken against the Kibaki administration that he became considered an unwelcome meddler in Kenyan political affairs. His visit there ended with a public rebuke in which a government spokesman stated, “It is now clear that he was speaking out of ignorance and does not understand Kenyan politics; we earlier thought he was mature in his assessment of Kenyan and African politics.”

After the election, the torching and burning of civilians inside Christian churches escalated to some 1500 deaths and over 500,000 Kenyans displaced. Moreover, reports surfaced shortly after the violence broke out that it was planned in advance. The acting Africa director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) went on the record as saying, “We have evidence that (opposition) ODM politicians and local leaders actively fomented some post-election violence.”

Odinga was the ODM, or Orange Democratic Movement, candidate for President. Educated in communist East Germany, his history includes subsidized Saudi Arabian oil deals when he was Energy Minister as well as ties to Muammar Qaddafi’s regime, which gave him political support. As part of his campaign platform, Odinga opposed the arrest of those suspected of being Al Qaeda sympathizers. His position struck a chord with Kenyan Islamics who opposed the policies of the U.S. and Israel.  According to The Christian Post, Odinga had promised to institute Sharia law in “total disregard of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of worship and equal protection of the law for all Kenyans.”

While Obama has reportedly denied that he and Odinga are cousins, Obama lent strong support to Odinga during his campaign against Kibaki. According to WorldNetDaily, Obama had “designated a personal aide as his direct contact for the 2007 Kenyan presidential campaign of Raila Odinga, who later was appointed prime minister after his election loss was followed by widespread, deadly violence…” Reportedly, emails between Obama and Odinga were obtained by WorldNetDaily’s Jerome Corsi “by an insider in Kenya who fled Odinga’s Orange Democratic political party and requested anonymity because of the danger of retaliation.”

Currently, as Prime Minister of Kenya, Odinga is being pressured to fight corruption within his own office by firing those individuals “who have been implicated in a multi-billion shilling maize scandal.”

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