Executive Branch Corruption Prevention vs. Foreign Contributions of Value

The President of the United States of America is constitutionally tasked with enforcing the laws of the nation within its constitutionally delimited powers.  That enforcement function implies that he must not allow corruption within the Executive Branch.  It is his duty to root it out, reveal it, and prosecute it.

During the Obama presidency, his administration had numerous incidences that appeared to be examples of severe corruption and which he ought to have seriously investigated.  However, it is highly plausible that Obama was actually involved in some or all of these instances of very plausible corruption.  None of these corruption instances were properly investigated.  It is not unusual for an administration to fail to investigate instances of corruption for fear of embarrassment or for fear that they will lose votes in the next election because they were caught in their planned corruption.  This is especially true of the Democrat Party, whose corruption is commonly so pervasive that they cannot even be embarrassed by the fact of it and are only ever embarrassed by the ineptness that caused them to be overtly caught engaging in it.

Now let me give you a few of the very plausibly corrupt actions that occurred by politicians under the Obama administration:

• Lois Lerner and the IRS holding up more than a hundred Tea Party, Constitutional Government, and Patriot tax-exempt status requests which kept many of them from expounding policy arguments that the Democrat Socialist Party did not want Americans to hear before the 2012 election.
• The Uranium One, whose controlling ownership was Russian, but also partly Canadian, deal to buy American uranium which required the approval of several Obama agencies, including the State Department, then headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Prior to these approvals and during the approval process, huge donations were made to the Clinton Foundation by Uranium One officers and Bill Clinton was offered $500,000 to give a speech in Moscow at a meeting that recommended investments in Uranium One.
• Hillary Clinton stole more than 60,000 e-mails from the U.S. government while Secretary of State, routing them through an insecure server in the basement of one of her homes.  When these were demanded back, she destroyed about half of them, claiming they were only personal notes.  Even among those that were returned, numerous instances of information requiring secure handling were found.  The hard drive and other storage media for the e-mails had been destroyed, in violation of the legal requirement that the e-mails be returned to the government and for a proper investigation into security violations.  After Clinton had the e-mails destroyed she and the media pretended that Trump had called upon the Russians to steal these already destroyed e-mails.  This is the Democrat Socialist Party way to turn a violation of the law to advantage.  This invitation to steal narrative became part of the myth of Russian collusion by Trump.
• A deal was made by the Obama Attorney General Lynch with Bill Clinton on the tarmac of an airport not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her theft of the State Department e-mails and for any security violations.
• Violations of the FISA court requirements occurred at least four times in requests made by the Obama FBI and intelligence agencies for FISA warrants to spy upon the Trump presidential campaign.  This violation of law is at least as serious as the Watergate burglary that ended the Nixon presidency.  Numerous high-level Obama officials were involved in the Spygate scandal and were collaborating with the intelligence agencies and other persons in the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, Ukraine and Italy.
• Vice President Joe Biden using his special envoy assignments with Ukraine and Red China to win sweetheart deals for relatives who had nothing to offer in exchange for large sums of money except the fact that they were related to Joe Biden.

Since Obama did not root out, reveal, and prosecute these likely cases of corruption under his administration, it is the very proper job that the following President do so.  Indeed, the following President would be slacking his responsibilities if he did not do so.

Ah, but note that in several of these cases there are actors from other countries.  During the 2016 election, had Trump actually received any useful information from the Russians on e-mails they may very well have stolen from Clinton's insecure home server, the Democrats would have said he had received something of value from a foreign country in violation of campaign finance laws!  This is a Get out of jail free card for a corrupt politician.  The same would have been true if Trump had received damning evidence against Clinton from a Canadian or a Russian source connected with Uranium One.

Now, the claim is being made that because Joe Biden is running for President, any evidence of his corrupt activities in Ukraine and China obtained by the Trump administration is something of value received from a foreign country in violation of campaign finance law.  So all a corrupt politician needs to do to be forever protected from investigations of his crimes is to be sure that the witnesses of his crimes are all foreigners and that he continue his political career without end so he can never be investigated and prosecuted.  What an incredible trick and the Democrat Socialist Party appears to have discovered its utility.  Corruption safe and forever.  Rather like Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton staying married forever, so neither can ever be forced to testify to the crimes of the other.  The abuse of power through foreign corruption and a political career are a marriage made in heaven, apparently.

As always, context is extremely critical in rational thinking.  One can understand how the campaign finance laws came to be and their intent.  One can understand how those who wrote the laws may not have anticipated the way the Democrats are currently trying to use these laws to prevent the proof of corruption of some of their leading politicians.  The rational man must understand that any valid intent of the campaign finance laws was to prevent corruption, not to enable it.  

The rational man understands that no campaign finance law can stand in the way of a President's core constitutional functions to execute the laws with proper respect for the individual rights of every citizen and that must mean to do so without corruption.  A President must be free to root out, reveal, and prosecute corruption in the Executive Branch of the government.  And we must note that both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden may have been guilty of corruption as officials of the Obama administration.  That very plausible possibility needs to be seriously investigated and to do so requires that foreign actors be able to deliver information about their deeds to the present administration headed by President Trump.

Donald Trump Again Proves He is Not Trustworthy

Donald Trump has stated that it is right for a businessman to do anything to make money that is not illegal.  Such an attitude is the basis for many claims that big government is justified to control unethical big businesses.  He has tried to steal the property of others by using eminent domain for his benefit.  He has long made most of his campaign contributions to Democrats to buy a position as one of their favored special interests.

Within two days of Senator Ted Cruz suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination for the presidential race in 2016, Trump has now

• Stated that he will not follow through on his tax-cut plan.
• Said that he would not oppose an increase in the minimum wage.
• Will seek campaign contributions.
• Appointed a former Goldman Sachs partner, George Soros hireling, and major Hillary Clinton donor to head up his campaign fund. 

Many more betrayals will be forthcoming from this most unethical man.  This is a man who holds the viewpoint that most people are incapable, readily hoodwinked, and like him are ethically challenged.  This is the viewpoint of the convinced Progressive Elitist.  But, Donald Trump is an actor and he has fooled many supporters, proving many people are indeed easily hoodwinked.  The Progressive Elitist and special interest control of the federal government will continue for another four years.

When Americans persist in not understanding the principles of legitimate and limited government, they will be ruled badly and arrogantly by special interests.

Representative John Sarbanes Would Restrict Freedom of Speech

Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat, Maryland, is polling his constituents on their desires to limit the influence of Big Business on Big Government.  I am in his most incredibly gerrymandered district.  Here is his letter to me:

Dear Friend,

Many Americans feel their priorities get left behind in Washington and the priorities of billionaires and big corporations receive undue attention. Many tell me their voices are being drowned out by the special interests. I'd like to know how you feel about the role of big money in politics. Please share your thoughts with me in the survey below.

Do you believe big money politics is corrupting our government?

Yes No

Do you think everyday Americans deserve a way to fight back against special interest spending?

Yes No

Would you support a proposal to amplify the voices of everyday Americans in our elections

Yes No

Earlier this year, I introduced the Government by the People Act (HR 20) - a bipartisan bill with more than 140 cosponsors that would empower millions of everyday Americans to take back their government from big money special interests. To read more about the proposal and become a citizen cosponsor, pleas visit http://ofby.us
Sincerely,

John P. Sarbanes

I listened to John Sarbanes address the House on the bill he is sponsoring, along with many another Democrat in the House, and he only railed against Big Business.  He never mentioned any other type of special interest.  His bias is anti-business.  Of course he especially hit oil companies and made the many times debunked claim that they are heavily subsidized by government simply because they take the tax deductions provided to most businesses.  He had no complaints directed at the big political campaign donations of labor unions, trial lawyers, government employees, so-called green energy companies, teachers, and accountants who love complex tax codes.

The Sarbanes bill would provide everyone a tax credit for making a political donation, provide taxpayer's money to candidates based on how many people made donations to them, and provide additional money in the last 60 days of a campaign if some bureaucrat decides that a super PAC is slamming a candidate too hard in that time period.  So, let us see what this means:

• It now will cost a person nothing to aid the campaign of a candidate.  If it costs him nothing, he has even less reason to understand the candidate's purpose and the consequences of his political viewpoint.
• Hard-working, more productive people and corporations will have to provide funding for candidates who wish to use government force to redistribute their money to the many who pay little or no taxes through the taxpayer campaign financing requirement.  This enables such politicians to better buy the votes of those who pay little in taxes.
• Some bureaucrat, perhaps in the thrall of the President and his political party, will decide which candidates are being unfairly attacked by a big PAC and provide that candidate with taxpayer money.  I wonder if that will work any better than having the IRS decide who can set up a non-profit organization based on whether the organizational name has Patriot or Tea Party in the name or its purpose includes teaching the provisions of the Constitution?

 My response to him:

John,

As usual, your questions belie a bias based on a naive view of the role of government.

When government becomes big and dictates values to the People and starts micromanaging their lives, we all suffer for these quite obvious reasons:

• Government is too big for the elected officials to manage it well.
• The People cannot understand what the government is doing and all of the consequences of its actions.
• The People can no longer choose their representatives adequately.
• As the People lose control and understanding, they lose confidence in their government.
• Special interests step in to fill the power vacuum, manipulating just those policies that benefit themselves with no regard for the individual rights and welfare of most of the People.

The special interests include:

• Labor Unions
• Some Big Businesses
• Welfare Recipients
• Environmental Extremists and Global Warming Alarmists
• Trial Lawyers
• Government Employees including Teachers
  
• University Employees deriving income from Government Grants
• Exporters using Government Loans
• Banks using money printed by the Federal Reserve
• Ethanol Manufacturers and corn growers
• Some Farmers
• Shipping Line Operators
• PPACA Website Programmers
• Health Care Insurance Providers
• Really Bad American Car Manufacturers
• Power-Hungry Politicians
• Campaign Contributors to Power-Hungry Politicians
• Accountants due to Unintelligible Tax Laws Forcing Americans to Buy their Services
• Regulatory Consultants due to Unintelligible Regulations

No, John, you are not addressing the real problem.  The real problem is the Size of Government.  The one and only way to end the control of government by special interests is to reduce it to its very limited constitutional role of providing for the national defense, the post roads, and handing foreign affairs issues.  Then the national government will do much, much less harm to the People, be much better understood by them, and be much more capably managed by our Representatives.

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.
Lab: (410) 740-8562
Mobile: (301) 830-1886
http://www.AndersonMaterials.com
http://AndersonMaterials.blogspot.com
http://ObjectivistIndividualist.blogspot.com/

I do not suppose I will get any special interest favors from John Sarbanes!  I am surprised he is up to so much mischief in Congress.  One would think he would be spending all of his time traveling between the far-flung isthmuses of his kingly domain, the 3rd Congressional District of Maryland, shown here in brown:

Only Big Government could create and love such a creature.

Representative John Sarbanes Proposes Law to Control Free Speech

The Representative of my incredibly gerrymandered Congressional District in Maryland is the socialist John Sarbanes, son of the former Maryland Senator.  He has just sent out a letter to his constituents in which he complains that:

In the 2012 election cycle alone, big interests such as the oil and gas industry and Wall Street contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to Congressional campaigns and equally vast sums to lobbying groups. Meanwhile, upwards of $1.3 billion poured in from Super PACs and “dark money” groups that float outside the reaches of our campaign finance laws.

 He has just proposed the following new law:

That’s why I am introducing the Government By the People Act.  This sensible and straightforward piece of legislation will do the following.

First, it will encourage the participation of everyday Americans in the funding of campaigns by providing a refundable $25 My Voice Tax Credit.  This will bring the voices of the broad public into the funding side of campaigns and democratize the relationship between money and speech.

Second, the bill will establish a Freedom From Influence Matching Fund to boost the power of small-dollar contributions.  To be eligible for these matching funds, a candidate must agree to a limit on large donations and must demonstrate broad-based support from a network of small-dollar contributors.  Amplified by the Freedom From Influence matching fund, the voices of everyday Americans would be just as powerful as the voices of the big donors.

Third, the Government By the People Act will provide candidates with an opportunity to earn additional resources in the home stretch of a campaign so that the voices of the people are not completely drowned out by Super PACs and other dark money interests.  In the wake of the Citizens United decision, this kind of support is critical to ensuring that citizen-backed candidates have staying power.

We can pay for these changes just by closing a few of the tax and regulatory loopholes that are the decades-old legacy of special interest influence in Congress.  It’s only fair that those who are responsible for breaking the policy-making machinery in Washington should bear the cost of fixing it.

It is very strange that he did not mention such special interest groups as trial lawyers, teachers, labor unions, environmental groups, feminist groups, Black American groups, and Hispanic groups.  Will his legislation equally suppress their freedom of speech as will his attempt to make taxes more unfavorable for groups who do not always reliably support Democrats?  It is clear that the only way to get the taxes to pay for this is to attack businesses and milk them.  His legislation can hardly acquire the funding it needs from labor unions, non-profit environmental, feminist, Black, and Hispanic groups.  This proposal is a very clearly anti-business proposal and makes no attempt at all to control many special interest groups.  What it does is force businesses to fund anti-business special interests.

The reason government is controlled by special interests is because government is too large for the People to understand what it is doing and how to control it.  Special interests step into the power vacuum and take over.  The People are frustrated with this situation, yet many do not understand that inherent in excessive government is control by special interests.  Good government limits itself to protecting the rights of the individual and is much, much smaller and much, much easier for the People to understand and control.

Big Government cannot be for the people or by the people.  Many will reject it with disgust because it tries to dictate what values the individual may pursue and will micromanage their lives.  Many others will actually want it to do more for them, but will be frustrated by what it does and unable to figure out how to make it do what they think is right.  Big Government can never be loved or even tolerated by the People.  Their present disgust is entirely understandable.  John Sarbanes proposed law is nothing but a veil to hide the real problem: the excessive size and scope of governmental power.

Arizona Encourages Government-Dependent Politicians

29 November Update:  The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the free speech case argued by the Institute for Justice discussed in this earlier post.  Congratulations to the Institute for Justice in its efforts to protect our individual rights!

Arizona has an interesting way of promoting the political career of government-dependent politicians.  Arizona law puts politicians on the dole even before they are elected.  Now, I ask you, how can We the People expect politicians on the dole to government to look out for our interests in keeping the power-lusting governments off our backs?  The answer, of course, is that such politicians are guaranteed to be bought and paid for big government supporters.  The Arizona "Clean Elections" Act is the mechanism for buying big government politicians and putting them in office.  The bias in favor of government doing what it most wants to do, which is to gain more and more control of the People's lives, is huge.

The Institute for Justice has challenged this Arizona interference in elections on the basis of its interference with our freedom of speech in a case called Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett.  The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to hear the Institute for Justice's challenge of this law on Tuesday, 23 November.  The Institute for Justice is also representing the Arizona Taxpayers Action Committee, Arizona State Treasurer Dean Martin, and State Representative Rick Murphy.

The Arizona government subsidizes those candidates for office who elect to take a subsidy.  For every dollar an independent candidate brings in, the subsidized candidate is given an equal amount of money.  The candidate on the dole does not have to do any work to acquire donations from those who believe so strongly in his principles that they will donate their own money to the candidate.  The candidate on the dole is then free to be a perfect demagogue and has no need to be persuasive enough to get people who will carefully consider his viewpoints before giving him campaign donations to actually do so.  Those who part with their money often think about why they are doing so before acting.  Those same Arizonans who favor an independent candidate are then forced to subsidize the candidate whose views they may abhor.  This is not just an abridgment of the freedom of speech, but it is an inversion of speech.  If you believe one thing, you are actually forced to say you believe the opposite!

Fortunately, in January 2010, a federal district court ruling struck down the matching funds in elections as a violation of freedom of speech.  But, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the order of the initial federal district court ruling.  In June, the U.S. Supreme Court took the unusual action of reinstating the initial court ruling which had prevented Arizona from matching funds.  As a result, the 2010 elections in Arizona were not sullied by this big government attempt to bias the selection of politicians in its favor by effectively limiting the freedom of speech of the People of Arizona.

Bill Mauer, an Institute for Justice attorney, said

Matching funds violate the First Amendment rights of candidates, citizens and independent groups.  The government may not give an electoral advantage to one candidate by ‘leveling’ the speech of his opponents.  The system is set up to punish those the government believes are speaking too much, while subsidizing those it believes are speaking too little.  In a free society, the government has no business micromanaging how citizens debate, of all things, who should run the government.

Having been so serious for so long, you deserve a break.  The Institute for Justice has a fun cartoon video summarizing their viewpoint on the effects of the Arizona "Clean Elections" Act.



The Institute for Justice has been very effective in protecting our freedom of speech in other cases involving election laws in a number of states.  Most recently, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a Colorado law that forced six neighbors opposing a ballot issue to register with the state government and comply with very complex campaign election finance laws.  In this case, Sampson v. Buescher, Judge Harris Hartz wrote for the unanimous court that the campaign finance disclosure requirements were too complex for most citizens and simply prevented them from speaking out on political issues.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the federal government could not restrict how much individuals gave to SpeechNow.org or other similar groups in another Institute for Justice case.  That victory was marred by the ruling that the group did have to abide by the difficult rules of operating a political committee, despite the Supreme Court having ruled in Citizens United that corporations did not have to do so.  Go figure.  The Institute for Justice has also won victories in Florida where its very broad "electioneering communications" law was ruled unconstitutional and in Washington where the state tried to regulate talk radio commentary on a ballot issue.

Not only is the Institute for Justice very effective in winning vital cases to protect our freedoms, but it does it very cost efficiently.  It has won the highest 4-star rating from Charity Navigator for the 9th year in a row.  Please consider fighting for your freedoms by making a donation to the Institute for Justice.

Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac Steal Again

The gang that cannot shoot straight, has come galloping into Washington, D.C., and robbed the Treasury, the People's Bank once again.  Sheriff Obama and his hooligan crew of law enforcers carried the loot out to their horses for them and invited them to a good dinner.  They are still in town, living it up!  Why not?  In the past, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac always provided the Democrats and Obama in particular with great campaign contributions.  The more money the sheriff lets them steal, the more money they give him to remain sheriff.

Fanny Mae has just asked for another $8.4 billion from the Treasury after First Quarter losses this year of $13.1 billion, including $1.5 billion in dividends paid to the government on its preferred stock.  The government took control of Fanny Mae, a government-sponsored corporation, in September 2008.  Fannie Mae ended the First Quarter with a net worth of -$8.4 billion dollars.  This government-run business lost $15.2 billion in the Fourth Quarter of 2009 and $23.2 billion in the First Quarter of 2009.

Just four days earlier, Freddie Mac asked for a $10.6 billion handout.  Its First Quarter loss was $8 billion.  Freddy Mac had previously received $50.7 billion in bailouts, while Fanny Mae had previously received $76.2 billion.  Fanny Mae had already been given $15.3 billion of taxpayer's money as recently as 31 March 2010.  In December 2009, the Obama administration removed a $400 billion cap on gifts to Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and promised unlimited support in 2010.  The total taxpayer money given them since they were taken over by the government, including the current requests, is $145.6 billion.

In the First Quarter, Fanny Mae purchased or guaranteed about $191.4 billion in loans.  Its credit losses were $5.1 billion, which was up from $4.1 billion the previous quarter.  The number of loan defaults was up in the first quarter.  5.47% of Fanny Mae mortgages were delinquent in the First Quarter, which is up from 5.38% in the Fourth Quarter of 2009.  The single-family foreclosure rate was up from 1.03% in the previous quarter to 1.36%.

Obama and the Democrats have refused to include Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac in any financial industry reform bill effort, since they are using them to reduce home foreclosures with loan modifications and will not admit their guilt in weakening the entire financial system of the U.S.  In the First Quarter, Fanny Mae made 94,000 mortgage modifications, after making 42,000 in the Fourth Quarter of 2009.  Together, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac own or guarantee almost 31 million home mortgages worth about $5.5 trillion.  This is more than 40% and close to half of all home mortgages.

It is common to say that the recession began in the United States and was caused by too much easy credit.  Republicans go on to say government-sponsored Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac caused the recession and Democrats say an unregulated Wall Street caused it.  In fact, it was triggered by the sharp increase in oil prices.  After May of 2004, the price of oil went up in real terms, dropped briefly in late 2006, and then spiked upward beginning in early 2007.  By July of 2007, production in Canada had dropped.   It dropped  in Italy in August 2007, in France in October 2007, and the Euro area as a whole in November 2007. Japan's production reached a peak in October 2007, though it had a one-month uptick in February 2008. The decline in the U.S. was in February 2008.  In January 2008, the OECD leading indicators were down from a year before by 4.1 points in Ireland, 2.8 points in Japan, 2.6 points in Korea, 2.3 points in Sweden, but only 0.8 point in the U.S. Stock prices are another leading indicator. Stock prices peaked in Japan and in the Euro area four months before they peaked in the U.S. and the U.K. in October 2007!  In the 4th quarter of 2008, real GDP was lower around the world than it had been 1 year before, but it had dropped by much less in the U.S. than almost anywhere else. The dollar value of imports into the U.S. did not fall until August 2008 and the consumer purchases did not fall in the U.S. until September 2008.  The U.S. was the last economic engine to sputter to a stop and it took the combination of the oil price spike, the recession already underway in the rest of the world, Fanny Mae's and Freddy Mac's vulnerability, and the Wall Street over-extension combined to put us into this severe recession.

While we cannot blame the entire recession on Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, they were the most egregious weaknesses and the most easily avoided ones in the U.S. economy.  They were following a foolish policy of easy credit for people who could not make their loan payments under almost any condition of strain and they with the easy credit Federal Reserve were the starting point for much of what went wrong in the private sector.  Government regulation of Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae did not keep them out of trouble and there is no reason to believe more federal regulation would have helped on Wall Street.  In fact, some of the problems on Wall Street turned out to be due to too much regulation and too cozy a relationship with the federal government.  The biggest backers of the unwise lending practices through the years were the Democrats.  Obama had contributed once he was in the Senate and he had worked on a lawsuit against Citibank himself to force them to lower their lending standards before that.  Meanwhile, President Bush had warned a number of times that the easy credit policies of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac were a major risk for the economy.  McCain also joined in with warnings.  These were all ignored by Congress, which in 2007 and 2008 was controlled by the Democrats.

Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac could not be more controlled by the federal government.  We have only to examine how badly run they are to see the looming disaster as the Democrats try to gain more regulatory control over the major financial institutions of America.  We will be turning investment company after bank after insurance company into the next Fanny Maes and Freddy Macs.  This is exactly what the Democrats want to do.  Imagine how easy it will be to extort money from these more regulated companies and how easy it will be to command many of them to self-destruct.  Even as Fannie Mae had collapsed, Obama and the Democrats had been able to milk it mightily for campaign contributions.  This is the fate of the entire financial industry, if they get their way.

The Economist on Obama

In the closing weeks of the presidential campaign, The Economist had Barack Obama's picture on the cover twice and they endorsed him for President. It is interesting that in an article in the 7 - 13 March issue called Anger Management they say:

Anger seethes about the fact that so many big-government Democrats mysteriously lose their appetite for taxes when it comes to paying them themselves. This week saw the revelation that yet another of Mr Obama's nominees, Ron Kirk, the would-be trade representative, underpaid his taxes in 2005-2007. But above all, people are angry that Mr Obama led them down the garden path. Bipartisanship? He is proposing one of the most liberal budgets in decades. Abolishing earmarks? The budget contains 8,570 of them. Honesty? The finance, property and insurance industries (all getting huge bail-outs) were the largest source of campaign contributions to Mr Obama after lawyers. Transcending racism? Eric Holder, the attorney-general, has accused Americans of being cowards when it comes to discussing race.

Perhaps not being George Bush is not enough, though it seemed that way to too many people during the election!

It is noted that almost 60% of Americans are opposed to giving money to banks and auto makers who are in danger of failing. They also mention the Tea Parties springing up around the country. Overall, this is just one more case of a somewhat left of center group or publication having second thoughts about a man who they were clearly determined to fool themselves about during the election. There was no rational reason whatever to expect that Obama was anything but a highly committed socialist. He had grown up with a radically socialist mother, taken his first jobs with radically socialist community disorganizers, associated with ex-Weathermen, associated with a church that insisted that Christ was black and upon a kind of superior black segregation out of the general American society, had long been associated with ACORN, had the most socialist voting record in the Senate, had many very dubious ties with shady real estate owners in Chicago, and had used some very dirty campaign tactics in the caucases in which he had done so well. Yet many people were determined to think that he would not act like a socialist and he would be clean when he achieved the power of the Presidency, which he and the Democrats lusted after so greatly. Duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!