Despite Denials, Obama Likely
Was Member Of Far-Leftist Party
Has Barack Obama been caught in a lie that could become a major issue in the upcoming election?
During the 2008 presidential election cycle, Obama’s campaign categorically denied that the politician was ever a member of the New Party, which sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.
The denial came in the wake of reports of Obama’s participation with the party, including one by this reporter on evidence that Obama was listed as a member of the socialist New Party in the group’s own literature. This reporter also conducted an exclusive interview with Marxist activist Carl Davidson, a founder of the New Party, who recounted Obama’s participation with the party.
Now researcher and author Stanley Kurtz, writing at the National Review Online, reports on documentation from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society that “definitively establishes” that Obama was a member of the New Party. Kurtz reports that Obama also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party and its politics while in office.
In 2008, Obama’s Fight the Smears campaign website conceded the New Party did support Obama in 1996 but denied that Obama ever joined it.
The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known as electoral “fusion,” which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the Supreme Court.
Obama’s 2008 political campaign may not be alone in making possibly misleading statements about the politician’s alleged membership in the New Party. The now defunct New Party’s founder, University of Wisconsin professor Joel Rogers, is currently denying that his organization ever had any members, thus making it impossible for Obama to have been an official member.
However, this reporter found scores of reports from the 1990s describing thousands of members of the New Party. Also, the New Party’s own newsletters lists members.
Al Qaeda-Affiliated Fighters Caught En Route To Syria
Jordan for the first time publicly stated that its security officials arrested two jihadists affiliated with al Qaeda on their way to Syria to fight against President Bashar Assad.
Last month, this column reported that there is a growing collaboration between the U.S.-supported Syrian opposition and al Qaeda as well as evidence that the opposition is sending weapons to jihadists in Iraq, according to an Egyptian security official.
Syria recently told the United Nations and the U.S. that it was a group affiliated with al Qaeda, armed by Turkey, that slaughtered more than 100 civilians in their homes in Houla two weeks ago, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials. The international community has been pinning the blame for the Houla massacre on forces acting under the direction of Assad’s regime.
The information that al Qaeda is aiding the opposition is significant. Multiple reports have claimed the U.S. is helping to coordinate massive weapons shipments to the opposition. The Obama administration has denied these reports, stating that the U.S. is only sending non-lethal aid to the opposition.
In the latest development, Jordan this week confirmed that its police arrested two jihadists attempting to infiltrate the Syrian border to fight alongside the Syrian opposition. A security official from the Jordanian government told the Associated Press that the two Jordanians belong to a small extremist militant organization called the Salafi Movement. Authorities say the group numbers 800 activists, including many who fought alongside al Qaeda in Iraq.
Thirty Years Since Zachary Baumel’s Disappearance
As Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime faces a well-armed insurgency, this past Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the purported capture by Assad’s forces of a Brooklyn-born Israeli soldier.
Zachary Baumel was seized in Lebanon in 1982; in the past few years, information has surfaced that Baumel may still be alive and in Syria.
Baumel, a dual American-Israeli citizen, was taken along with two Israeli members of his tank crew, Yehuda Katz and Tzvi Feldman, during the Lebanon War. All three were photographed in Damascus on the day of their capture, and several eyewitnesses, including a Time magazine reporter, said they watched a parade in which the tank and crew were led through a major street in Damascus and flaunted to cheering crowds. The ceremony was the last occasion the soldiers were seen publicly.